Up With the Larks

by Tessa Hainsworth

  So I tried to control it then and there. 'Right,' I said aloud, scrambling out of the van, clutching the sheaf of letters for the house.

  I jumped a foot when a loud caw pierced the air. Looking around wildly, I saw a raven perched on a fallen tree trunk at the edge of the woodland next to the chapel. Well, I think it was a raven.

  Annie, when I told her this story on the phone that night, said, 'You're making this up. You wouldn't know a raven from a rave. Or a pigeon for that matter.'

  'Annie, it's the truth. That is . . . maybe it was a crow?'

  'What's the difference?'

  'Uh, not sure. I know a raven's a big crow but since there was only one, I had nothing to compare it with. Like, if there were crows about, or rooks, I could have compared the sizes . . .'

  'Tessa, you're raving,' she started to giggle. 'Get it? Raveing? Raven-ing?'

  'That's not the remotest bit funny.'

  When she finished laughing over her pathetic joke she said, 'So go on. There was this deserted chapel . . .'

  'Converted, not deserted.'

  'And a raven or a crow or a rook.'

  'Not a rook. Rooks are more gregarious. This one was on its own. Besides, they have baggy trousers.'

  'What? Who has?'

  'Rooks. Long feathers on their thighs. They look like funny pixies in baggy trousers.'

  There was a long pause in London. Then Annie said, 'Tessa, I think you should come back to the city for a while. You're really losing it.'

  'Look, forget the raven. Let me tell you what happened next . . .'

  So I did. I told her how, at the same time as I heard the raven, or whatever it was, I noticed that the top envelope in the stack I was holding, a long white one that looked a bit crumpled and smudged, had several long heavy, black hairs sticking out of the hastily sealed edges. I stared at it then leafed through the other post. One other had the tips of some brown hairs poking out of the envelope and two others, when I felt them, definitely had something that felt like the same thing.

  As goose bumps began creeping up my arms and neck, I looked at the address. All the envelopes were addressed to Cassandra France, The Old Chapel, Morranport, Cornwall.

  Cassandra. My thoughts spun wildly out of control as I tried to remember the smattering of Greek myths I'd learned in school. Wasn't she some sort of witch? A fortune-teller or something? Was this human hair in the envelope and was it sent to this person living in this deconsecrated chapel so that she could cast wicked spells on the poor unsuspecting victim?

  I told myself not to be such an idiot but I slumped back into the van, unwilling to open the bleached wooden gate, soggy with rain and go to the door of the chapel. How fitting, I thought, that the witch works in an unconsecrated church; did she choose it deliberately? And those heavy pines, dripdripping with the rain . . .

  I stopped my lunatic mind, told myself to stop imagining gothic horrors in an innocent converted chapel and stomped through the mud to the house to deliver the post. The first obstacle was the lack of a postbox.

  I started grovelling around looking for a plastic container, bucket, something to put the post in, but there was nothing. I hadn't been to this place yet, though Susie had pointed to it when she was showing me the route that first week. 'No post for the old chapel for a while, Tessa, the owner is away visiting family for a month. But the house is right up through the woods,' she'd explained.

  There hadn't been post until now, so this was my first delivery here. I wished fervently the owner had stayed away, at least till spring. The misty rain was smearing my face and I was getting impatient. By now I was used to all the strange containers people used for their post but there was nothing at all suitable here. I looked for the doorbell but there was only a heavy brass knocker. Although it was barely seven in the morning, I had no choice but to knock.

  After what seemed a very long time, but was probably only a few minutes, the leaded window next to the door opened and a hand with blood-red painted fingernails thrust itself out at me. A deep guttural voice croaked, 'I'll take that.'

  I never saw the face, never had time to do anything more than put the hairy envelopes into that scary hand because even as the witch – or rather the woman – spoke, a jet black cat jumped out of the window and landed on my shoulder with a yowl loud enough to raise the devil himself.

  I screamed, the cat hissed, the witch-woman shouted something and somehow I managed to get back to my van unscathed. I risked a backward glance as I drove away but the window was closed, the cat vanished. All I could see was the ancient chapel glowering in the mist, the branches of the thick pines brushing against its slate roof.

  Against her better judgement, Annie was intrigued once I'd got this far. 'How bizarre, Tessa. You're a braver woman than I am. I wonder if she really is a witch? I don't believe in them of course, but Cornwall is so weird anyway, I wouldn't be surprised to find anything that goes bump in the night appear there.'

  'Annie, hold on until you hear the rest of the story . . .'

  When I got back to the post office at St Geraint I found Susie in the sorting room and bombarded her with questions. 'Who lives in that scary chapel? Who's this Cassandra France? Some French throwback to the Inquisition? What's with these human hairs sticking out of the envelopes that I had to deliver to her?'

  Susie looked up from the letters she was sorting. Margaret, who had just finished serving a customer, began to laugh. I said, 'What's so funny? D'you know who I mean, Margaret?

  You wouldn't be laughing if you'd been delivering there today.' Now Susie too began to grin as I described what had happened. 'All right, what's the joke, you two?'

  Susie said, 'Cass is a homeopath. She works from home but most of her customers are from Up Country and can't get to her.'

  I snorted, 'What, so they send her a lock of their hair?'

  Margaret said, 'No, idiot, they send her their horses' hair.'

  Susie tried to explain, 'Cass has been a homeopath for years but she's always said she feels more at home with animals than people so that's what she began treating. Horses are her speciality. She says she can prescribe remedies just by analyzing the horse hair, so that's what she does. She's quite famous in the world of animals and alternative therapies.'

  I mulled over these facts while Margaret sold a book of stamps to a customer. 'I hope you didn't say something daft to Cass,' Margaret said to me when the customer had gone.

  'How could I? I never even saw her, only her hand reaching out of the window. She hardly spoke, just croaked something at me, like a frog.' I stopped, then added, 'A French one at that.'

  Susie and Margaret were laughing so hard by the time I finished the last few words that I could hardly understand Susie when she began to speak. 'For a start, m'bird, she sure as hell's not French. You be jumpin' to conclusions again. Just because her last name is France don't mean a thing. She be English, West Country born, though I don't recall exactly where. Dorset, I think.'

  'With a name like Cassandra?'

  'It's Cassie, actually, but the other sounds better for the customers.'

  'Oh. All right then. So she's not a witch.' I found myself feeling a tad disappointed. 'But she's not exactly friendly. Stuck her hand out for the post and hardly said a word.'

  Susie and Margaret exchanged long-suffering looks for the stupidity of posh posties from Up Country. Susie said, 'She be ill, Cassie is. I just got a prescription from the chemist's to take to her on me way home. She's got laryngitis, can hardly talk, and a chest infection too. Can you blame her for not wanting a conversation?'

  A couple of months have passed and I'm at the old chapel again. Although it's drizzling this early morning just as it was on that day last winter, a weak sun is breaking through the clouds and shining fitfully on the conifers which look a shiny bright green today. I take the bunch of envelopes with the horse hairs poking out of some as they did on that first day I delivered here. I open the door of the chapel and leave the post on a ledge inside the front door as
I've learned to do. Tobias, the black cat, sits behind a jasmine bush in a big terracotta pot and purrs at me when I stroke him.

  As I turn to go, Cass comes out wearing a red dressing gown that matches the red of her fingernails, to exchange a few pleasantries before I go off again. She's a woman in her late forties, with a cherubic face, a pleasant, rotund body and curly, light brown hair speckled with grey. She's got freckles on her small snub nose and is about as witch-like as Winnie-the-Pooh. My face reddens every time I see her, for she is not only down-to-earth but as nice as a homemade scone and Cornish clotted cream. I hope no one has told her about my off the wall imagination and the story I concocted about her before I knew her but the way she sometimes smiles at me, in a kind of knowing manner, makes me wonder.

  Now that the busy summer season is approaching, there are more jobs about so Ben has got a Saturday one doing changeovers. Holiday cottages are let from Saturday to Saturday, so when one group goes, there has to be a quick clean-up job to get the places spick and span for the next lot. Ben is in charge of doing this for a couple of cottages in St Geraint, so when I'm working on that day we try to meet for a quick lunch. Luckily the children have a swimming club they go to on Saturdays and Ben takes them to the local pool, drops them off with the instructor then goes off to work, while I collect them later.

  When we have some free time together Ben and I tend to go back to the tiny café and snack shop we found on the outskirts of St Geraint as it's well away from the sea front and not filled with people who know us. Ben's doing several jobs to keep the cash flow going. He still does an occasional aromatherapy massage at the Roswinnick, the part-time work at the Sunshine Café and now the change-over job on Saturdays.

  As for his acting, he's now got an agent in Cornwall, though there's not much work down here. It's been frustrating but we knew when we moved, and his London agent dropped him, that this was what it's like in the world of acting. If you're not based in London, it's tough to get good acting jobs. I know Ben misses it.

  The new agent got him some voice-over work after the pantomime stint ended, and has promised more in the summer. There's talk of a new television series in the pipeline set in Cornwall and there might be a small role in it for Ben. We're not counting on anything, though, just enjoying living from day to day with what we've got. So far we are cogging along, making ends meet and slowly putting down our roots.

  Ben arrives at the café first, sitting at our favourite corner table. It's an ordinary place, basic, untrendy, unlike the Sunflower Café which has geared itself to the demands of the second homers for basil and mozzarella salads, a dozen varieties of green or herbal teas, and perfect lattes. This one, called simply Bill's Place, serves Cornish pasties or a savoury no-nonsense steak and kidney pie if you want food, and PG Tips tea or plain filtered coffee if you need a shot of caffeine. I wonder how long it will last in a place like St Geraint.

  We talk about the children, about our morning, and then stop talking to dig into our pasties. Bill's Place must get them from a local bakery, for they're spicy and tasty. You can't beat a good Cornish pasty every now and again, especially after a hard morning's work delivering the post or mucking out a holiday cottage.

  As we drink the remains of our tea, I see one of my customers come in. We nod and say hello, but for some reason he looks startled, probably because he's seeing me out of context. This has happened before. Customers see me in ordinary clothes at a village fête or in a café and can't quite place me. But I'm wearing my uniform now, so I can't make out why he's looking so surprised. I find out the following week.

  Susie corners me on a thundery Friday morning to say she needs to talk to me, 'In private.'

  This sounds odd, but I say, 'Let's have a quick coffee at the Sunflower before we do the second half of our rounds.'

  'Don't know, bird,' she tries to sound casual. 'Ben be working there today?'

  'No, not till this evening.'

  'That's OK then. As long as it's not too crowded and we can talk private like.'

  That's the second time she's used that word and I'm starting to get nervous.

  It's nearly empty in the café and Susie looks relieved. She still leads me to a table on the opposite side of the room away from the only family in there, even though they are out-of-towners, that neither of us knows.

  We order coffee but don't speak until it comes and the waitress has gone. I can't bear the suspense any longer. 'Susie, what's wrong? Is it one of the customers? Have I made some great glaring boob of a mistake that I'm not even aware of ?'

  Susie can't look me in the eye. She stares at her untouched black coffee. 'Don't know how to say this, bird. Without being blunt.'

  'So be blunt. Just say it.'

  'Just a warning, like, OK? Cause I like you, y'see?'

  'A warning about what?'

  She still won't look at me and starts, maddeningly, to stir another sugar lump into her coffee. I say, 'Susie, if you don't spit it out I'll scream.'

  'Right. Fine. Sure, me bird, blunt's the word. OK.'

  She looks around fearfully. Then whispers, 'You've got to stop meeting your lover in St Geraint.'

  I'm so speechless she takes this to mean I know what she's talking about. Hurriedly she goes on. 'Look, what you do is your concern. Not for me to say what married folk do in private, not being married meself, see? Two sides to every story, is what I tell folk when they say things, but you been seen, bird, and the talk is flying. Ben'll find out if you don't be careful like.'

  It takes some time, and two coffees, to unravel this mystery. It turns out that I have been seen at Bill's Place not once but several weeks running, holding hands with a man. The last spotting was on Saturday.

  I say, 'Susie, the man I'm meeting is Ben. My husband.'

  She looks more shocked than if I'd admitted to a lover, 'Ben? But why?'

  'Why? Because we like each other, why do you think?'

  'But you can see him at home.'

  'Not always, with all his jobs, and the kids, and my odd hours. With this change-over job it's great to snatch a lunch hour together on Saturdays.'

  She's still not convinced. 'But why such an out of the way place? Why not the Sunflower?'

  'Because we know too many people who go in there and we want time on our own now and again.'

  'Oh.' She looks crestfallen. 'Oh my, I do believe I've dropped meself in the shit. Sorry, Tessa, shoulda' kept me big mouth shut. Thought I was doing you a favour.'

  I reach over and squeeze her arm in a reassuring manner. 'Susie, you have, you've done me a huge favour, believe me.'

  I mean what I said. I've just learned in a big way how small communities work, how people talk, how rumours spread, how even the slightest oddity is discussed, analyzed and magnified out of all proportion. It's good to know this. Still, it's hard to believe that of all the customers who spotted me having my clandestine lunches with Ben – and according to Susie, there were several, though I only noticed the last one – no one seemed to entertain the thought that he might be my husband.

  I suppose that would be far too mundane. No doubt I'll be a great disappointment to them, when Susie starts putting the truth around about my so-called 'affair'.

  I'm learning more about small town life every day, and a great deal of it is through Susie, who watches everyone and everything with wise benevolent eyes that don't miss a trick.

  But one day at the end of the month she comes into the St Geraint post office looking both angry and hurt. Margaret and I stop what we're doing and ask her what's up.

  'It's Eleanor. We had a row. A big 'un.'

  I'm shocked and so is Margaret. Eleanor has been on Susie's round for years and they've become friends. I found this out when I took it over the first time. I remembered Eleanor had made it pretty clear that she couldn't wait for Susie to come back.

  It's hot in the post office and there is hardly room for the three of us in the sorting room. Susie says, 'Look, Margaret, you've got customers, I'll tell you ab
out it later.' Turning to me she says, 'Let's go sit on the sea wall, get some fresh air.'

  We walk down past the harbour to find a quiet stretch of stone wall to perch on. The tide's out and there's a mass of seaweed on the wet rocks being pecked over by oyster catchers. The last two days have suddenly turned hot, way too hot for April. I mention this obvious fact to Susie as we settle down on the wall.

  Susie says, 'That's what be doing it. It all be too soon, making people do daft things.'

  'What? I don't understand.'

  'It be this heat. Near 80. Unnatural.'

  'Hmm. Nice though.' I turn my face to the welcoming sun, close my eyes before saying, 'What daft things exactly?'

  'That Eleanor. I get up to her place, all set to stop for a cuppa and a good natter. She be out in the garden, fussin' away with her azaleas. I be admiring 'em when all of a sudden she whispers in my ear, in that bossy headmistress-y voice she uses, "Susie, I have found the solution to my problem with that tree."'

  She mimics Eleanor's voice so perfectly that I have to giggle. Susie doesn't join me, though. She goes on, 'The tree she was talking about ain't just any ole tree, y'know. It be a handsome forty-year-old copper beech and that Eleanor be killing it dead. And it don't belong to her either.'

  I turn to her, intrigued. 'Why? I can't imagine Eleanor doing something like that.'

  'HAH.' Susie says this in such a thunderous voice that the near-by oyster catchers fly off warily. 'Well she is. Killing it dead.'

  The last three words are spoken so loudly that some daytrippers sitting near-by turn to look at us.

  'Start at the beginning, Susie. I haven't followed any of it yet.'

  She does. Apparently the copper beech is in Eleanor's back garden; that is, many of its branches are and now some of its roots are beginning to creep under her greenhouse. But the tree itself is firmly planted on her neighbour's side of the fence.

  'He be that ole boy Perkins, the one always in overalls. Widower fer years, he be, decent enough bloke but stubborn as Eleanor be herself. They two been fighting over that tree for years. Eleanor says the shade be blocking the sun and her greenhouse is practically useless. Perkins says she be exaggerating. Been going on for years, their bickering.'