Up With the Larks

by Tessa Hainsworth

  'You're kidding. Here? In Cornwall?' She says it as if it is in outer space.

  'We've got everything here, Annie. Everything we need, anyway.'

  Later, Annie and I drive down to Penwarren Beach. It's dark and quite chilly but the stars are out. Annie's swelling has gone down and her face is only partially lumpy. Her once immaculate hair has been messed up by the trauma of allergies, of coping with Cornwall and is poking up in odd places around her head, falling now and then into her eyes. She shakes it back nonchalantly, barely noticing. She looks good, I think, despite the lumps: relaxed and at ease.

  We sit on the damp sand, watching waves breaking on the shore, catching the flickering lights of a boat out at sea. I've brought a blanket from home that we wrap around us, hoping there's no dog or rabbit hairs, or chicken feathers on it.

  'Maybe you've got something here,' Annie murmurs, her soft voice blending with the sound of the waves.

  'Something more than lobsters?' I tease.

  'Hmm, maybe. Maybe you're not so crazy after all, moving here.'

  At the post office in Morranport, Nell is threatening to retire again. 'Let the rightful owners come back and take over this place, it's theirs, in't? Travelling the world like they do, not at all fussed about us poor old folk having to face all this.'

  'All what, Nell?'

  She gives me a look that tells me how pathetic she thinks I am, then hands me a newspaper clipping from one of the daily South West newspapers: '40,000 fear axe as Royal Mail goes high-tech,' shouts the headline.

  I read it while Nell watches, making sure I don't skip a word or two. She's looking magnificent today, her bosom clothed in a purple, cotton, long-sleeved tee-shirt, a shell pendant nestling cosily in the middle. Her short hair is standing on end as usual, seemingly without any artificial aid.

  The article is about some revolutionary sorting machine that will make all postal workers either redundant or reduced to part-time work when it is in place. I hand it back to Nell. 'We've heard all this before,' I say. 'There's always something threatening but it never comes to anything. I bet this won't either.'

  She sniffs, 'You be thinking I'm getting all in a twitter about nothing, are ye?'

  'No, Nell, not at all. Of course you worry, we all do. It's just pointless, isn't it, to worry about it, when there's nothing to be done.'

  She sighs, ignoring the customer who is gently knocking at the door of the post office, pointing at his watch to politely suggest it's past opening time. 'Like the closures. You be telling me I should forget about them too.'

  'Rumours of this place being shut have been going on for years, since Ben and I used to holiday here. You're still here, Nell, and so is the post office. It'll be here for ever.'

  She grunts, disbelieving, turning her back on me and letting in the customer, saying breezily, 'What's your hurry, me handsome?'

  The burly white-haired man that comes in apologizes for rushing her, even though it's ten minutes after opening time. He buys some stamps and some Polo mints and stays for at least fifteen minutes chatting to Nell while I sort in the back room.

  When he goes, Nell says, 'D'ya know who that was?'

  I tell her no. 'I've seen him around, though. Isn't he a fisherman?'

  'Yep, one of the last around here actually working. Soon won't be any fishing boats about, what with the sea all fished out.'

  'It's not too good for them, I know.'

  'And what fish there be left in the ocean, those monster trawlers – now't but factories on the sea, they be – are swallowing the lot. No room at all for the small fisher folk.'

  'Like the small farmers,' I say.

  She nods. 'No room for the little blokes, not no more. Not in anything, even post offices.'

  I say, to steer her away from her favourite topic of the injustices done to rural post offices, 'So who is he? That man? Other than a fisherman?'

  'He's Charlie's dad. Arnie, name is.'

  For a moment I'm not sure who she means. She sees my bewilderment and says, 'You know, Charlie, the hairdresser, works in Truro. The gay one.'

  'Oh, Harry's partner. So that's Charlie's dad. I heard he was a fisherman.'

  'Poor man. Poor dear man. The kindest soul you ever be wanting to meet, and his heart broken like that.'

  I look up sceptically from a pile of parcels I'm trying to sort, trying not to get drawn in. 'He seemed quite cheery to me. He obviously is very fond of you, Nell.'

  She brushes that aside with a sniff, 'You be telling me next I don't know what I'm talking about, eh?'

  'No, Nell, I wouldn't dream of it,' I sigh loudly and succumb. 'OK. So what broke the poor dear man's heart?'

  She pauses so that I can fully comprehend the tragedy of her words. 'His son. That young lad, Charlie.'

  'He's nearly forty, Nell. Well, late thirties, anyway. Old enough to lead his own life.' I'm remembering Harry's hesitation when I asked how Charlie's family coped when he came out of the closet.

  'Mebbe so.' Nell's voice is dark, her face stern. 'But however old, a lad can still break a parent's heart, believe you me.'

  She stares at me again, daring me to disbelieve her.

  'Nell, for goodness sake, Charlie can't help being gay, it's what he is. He didn't choose the life simply to break his father's heart.' I slap a package into the sorting box.

  Nell pulls herself up from behind the counter to peer at me. 'Gay? Who said anything about being gay? His dad don't be caring about that. It be because Charlie isn't a fisherman that's breaking his heart.'

  Harry and I talk about Charlie's family a few days later.We're sitting on a rickety wooden table outside Millie and Geoff 's tiny bakery on the harbour, which the couple have set up so that they can serve tea and coffee with their simple but delicious cakes and biscuits. It's not quite warm enough to be outside but the sun is shining, there's no wind and we can't bear to be indoors.

  There's not much activity on the harbour today. The long Easter break is over for the schools and most of the second homers have gone home. It's a weekday, so there are no day trippers about. The sea is still and unruffled. A shearwater is skimming stiff-winged above the slight swell. As it alternates its flight between showing its dark upper and white under side, I'm thrilled to be able to recognize it. After years of only the depressed pigeons and scrawny sparrows on the dirty pavements of London, I'm still awed when I see birds living in their natural environment.

  A few seagulls sit on a post eyeing us hungrily and we're careful not to spill a crumb of our blueberry muffin to encourage them to come closer. That's the one bird I cannot bring myself to love. I've seen one draw blood, claws catching a bald man's head as the bird swooped over him to grab his crisps.

  Harry brings up the subject of Charlie and his father. I'd asked him why he seemed out of kilter that morning, a bit distracted, even glum. 'Oh, it's Arnie again. He and his mum came over for Sunday lunch. It was all going really well – Charlie's a great cook, does a mean roast dinner – when I made the mistake of asking Arnie how the fishing was going.'

  'Ah,' I say knowingly.

  For a moment we're distracted by a pushy seagull that flies perilously close to our table, trying to grab the remainder of my muffin. We shout and shoo it away then Harry goes on. 'Yeah, I should have kept quiet. Kept off the subject.' He lapses into a morose silence.

  I say, finally, 'So are you going to tell me about it?'

  He looks at me with his stunning green eyes and thick black eyelashes. I could sit and admire him all day, he's so gorgeous. Sometimes, when I make a delivery to their cottage, I stop and have a cold drink with Charlie as their place is the last in a row of cottages on a steep hill.

  Since moving back to Cornwall, Charlie has discovered a talent in himself for creating wonderful and original works of art, all based on the sea. During the Easter holidays, one of the craft shops in St Geraint sold some of his tiny boxes decorated with seaweed and shells, painted an exquisite pearly blue. The shop wants more and so does an outlet i
n Truro, so Charlie now works only part time at the hairdresser's to concentrate on his artwork.

  When I stop at Charlie's on my round, we always have the same routine. First I admire his latest creation – last time it was a rainbow of multi-coloured pebbles, each one carefully picked for its unusual colour, nesting in a tiny octagon of thinly carved driftwood – and then we sit in his workshop, their mad terrier hopping about between us, talking about Harry.

  'I can't believe my luck,' Charlie says again and again. 'He's not only the most beautiful man I've ever laid eyes on, he's also a sweetie.'

  I don't know about the sweetie bit – I haven't known Harry that long – but I agree about his beauty.

  'Don't know what he sees in me,' is Charlie's next refrain.

  I smile, knowing it's useless to try to tell Charlie how necessary he is to Harry. Hopefully when they've been together for longer than the two years they've had so far, he'll realize how much Harry needs him.

  Charlie, with his rugged, chunky body, his wayward hair, his open and honest face, is as different from Harry as a mackerel to a dolphin, but he is beautiful in his own innocent way. Though Charlie is the artist and Harry the accountant, Charlie is the practical one, Harry the dreamer. They complement each other better than most heterosexual couples I know.

  Harry tells me now about the disastrous Sunday lunch. 'So there we were, our bellies full of this succulent spring lamb, cooked with rosemary and garlic, and lemon potatoes like we learned to cook in Greece – oh man, did I ever tell you about the chef we met in Rhodes, what a cool guy . . .'

  I interrupt hastily, 'Not now, Harry, later. What happened after the lamb and lemon potatoes? Other than the pudding, that is.'

  Before he can go on, Millie comes out with a huge, brown, ceramic teapot, refilling our cups without being asked. Right behind her is Geoff, carrying a plate covered with a paper napkin. 'I've brought you another muffin, Tessa, on the house. I be knowin' when you've skipped lunch, me luvver.' He sets the second mouth-watering muffin on my plate while Millie urges Harry to finish his and she'll bring him another too.

  When she's gone, Harry says, 'Arnie went ape-shit when I asked about the fishing. Went on and on about the plight of the small fisherman, how none of the youngsters want to do it any more because it's so hard now, with the big trawlers taking all the business and quotas getting difficult and the price of diesel – you know the kind of stuff, we hear it all the time, living here.'

  'But Harry, it's all true. Every year there are fewer and fewer fishermen. The small boat owners are being squeezed right out.'

  'Listen, rationality went out the window with Arnie. Started going on about how some of his fishermen mates have sons – daughters too – who'd love to take over the boats despite the difficulties but can't because the cost of living is so high now in Cornwall. They can't afford to buy a house anywhere near the sea, or even rent one that isn't a holiday cottage, so they just say sod it and move Up Country.'

  I shake my head, 'Harry, you can't blame him for going on about all that. It's so terribly true. He's worried sick about the future.'

  Harry, who has been glaring absentmindedly at another encroaching seagull, turns his mesmerizing green eyes on me again. 'I know, I know. Deep down I feel sorry for the man, but then he went on about his son being lucky enough to have a cottage not far from the sea and yet he turns his back on it.'

  'But Charlie hasn't turned his back on it. He loves the sea. All his art work is about the Cornish coast, the water.'

  Harry sighs, 'Tell me about it. I know, you know, Charlie knows. Even his mum does. She tried to calm everyone down, when things got out of hand. Charlie finally lost his temper, after holding it in for nearly a full half hour while Arnie ranted.' He throws a small pebble at the persistent seagull, now only a few centimetres from our feet, but the bird doesn't move a feather, just cocks its head aggressively.

  I don't know what to say, wondering how often this same scene is repeated throughout Cornwall. I feel sorry for Arnie but sorry for Charlie too. I say, 'Did Charlie ever consider following his dad's profession?'

  'Yeah, he tried it way back, but it didn't work.'

  'Why? Does he get seasick?'

  'Actually he does but that's no big deal. Charlie says lots of fishermen do. They live with it.'

  You learn something new every day, I think, and say out loud, 'So what made him give it up, in the end?'

  Harry stretches out his long, lean legs clad in faded jeans, nearly toppling the tenacious seagull still waiting for a handout, or the chance to steal our crumbs. It squawks indignantly but still refuses to give up its watch at our feet, head cocked up towards us and eyes glowing malevolently.

  'Hissss,' Harry snarls at the seagull. 'Go away you well-fed scavenger monster. Go back to the cliff tops where you belong.' He hisses again. The seagull refuses to move. Its tiny marble eyes glitter in the sunlight.

  Harry gives up and turns back to me. 'The simple, and I suppose the only, reason that Charlie isn't a fisherman is because he hated it. Doesn't like boats, doesn't like being out on the water even in good conditions and especially doesn't like the job of catching fish in any way shape or form. So he trained to be a hair stylist, which he liked loads better and now is as happy as can be doing it part time and his art work the rest of the time.'

  I never get a chance to answer this because another seagull has landed near the first one and the two begin squabbling. There is such a raucous flapping of wings and squawks that even Millie and Geoff come out to see what's up, though they're used to seagull battles outside their shop.

  Then, while the two birds shriek at each other at our feet, a third one swoops from the sky, seemingly from nowhere, and scoops up the second muffin Geoff had put on my plate before I have a chance to take even one bite.

  'Bloody gulls,' Harry says darkly as we settle down again. 'Makes one almost want to go back to London.'

  'Except for the pigeons.'

  'Yeah. Bloody pigeons. Can't win, can you.'

  'Nope. I think I'll take the gulls, when all is said and done.'

  We get more muffins only this time Harry stands guard, swatting the Guardian he bought at the newsagents at every encroaching seagull, looking so fierce and Viking-like with those green eyes and tall body that I have to stop between each bite to admire, the way I'd admire a beautiful painting or an exquisite sculpture.

  South Cornwall, I've discovered, is like a lush tropical jungle. Plants and blooms and flowering bushes seem to double in size overnight, overwhelming me every morning as I set out on my rounds. The magnolias are still flowering and the colours of the rhododendrons and azaleas dazzle me every day; I never get tired of filling my eyes with the spectacle. I remember how in London I used to primp over my tiny, pitiful plants, worrying about every cold wind and excessive rainfall, coaxing and cajoling them into growing. Here, I feel like I'm in the Amazon, as blooms and foliage spring riotously into life after the winter months.

  It's a drizzly day today and has been for nearly a week, the early spring balminess long gone. As I drive along the coastal road I can't even see the sea, it's so shrouded in mist. Instead, I look out over the damp green fields where a few sheep are idly grazing. I'm not thinking of anything, which happens increasingly since we've moved here. In London, my mind was always racing, always one step ahead of the present, thinking of things that needed doing or planning, figuring out how to order the future instead of concentrating on now.

  Here, I'm beginning to live in the moment and it's bringing me a peace and happiness far beyond anything I've known before. Though I've always been happy in my marriage, with Ben and then the children, it was a joy tinged with worry about our future, worrying about not having enough time together – worrying about life, basically. Now I feel as if I'm living life instead of hassling about it.

  As I slow down around a bend I see a magpie at the side of the road, then a second and finally a third. The old rhyme about the birds goes through my head: One for sorro
w, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy . . . and so on up to ten. But after ten I pause; what comes then? Was there ever a verse that tells us what seeing eleven magpies means? I start to make one up. Eleven for coffee, twelve for tea, thirteen for you, and fourteen for me! Not exactly Shakespeare, but what the hell. I amuse myself by carrying on like this until I reach twenty-three and I'm at my next drop.

  So much for clearing the mind of thoughts, I think ruefully. Mine just flew away with the magpies. But I don't care. At least it wasn't fretting and stressing about work, or the family, or the state of the world. It was merely idling, enjoying life, as I'm starting to do more and more.

  Getting out of the van, I pick up a wad of thick envelopes, some padded. One or two of the flimsier envelopes have long, tough strands of dark hair poking through. When I first saw these arriving, for there were several every week, I wondered if some kind of witchcraft was going on. Archie had been telling me bizarre stories about ancient times in Cornwall – old curses, spirits, hauntings, and I'd let it get to me.

  My imaginings were made worse by the house the envelopes were going to. It's a converted grey stone chapel, set on its own in an isolated spot in a creepy, wooded valley. At least it seemed creepy the first time I saw it, on a dreary winter's day, when I first began this job. It was drizzling that day, like it is today, but then it was still pitch dark in the early mornings when I delivered. The woodland surrounding the house was gloomy and dripping, the water running off the deep green needles of the conifer trees into a muddy mass below.

  I parked outside an old wooden gate leading into a soggy garden and then on to the house. The granite stone of the old chapel gleamed like a malignant talisman in the soft rain and the ivy covering much of the walls seemed to me to be suffocating not just the house but whoever was brave enough to go inside.

  I hesitated, not wanting to get out of the van. It hadn't been long since my meeting with the man I still think of as the werewolf, in my Brigadoon village of Trescatho. I was still a little shaken by it, despite knowing my imagination was running amok and had to be brought under control.