Seagulls in the Attic

by Tessa Hainsworth

  She’s peering into the compost bin where I threw the lettuce. ‘It’s a bit full. Where do you dump it?’

  ‘I’ll take it outside. I need a breath of fresh air anyway, the kitchen’s stuffy with all this cooking. Are you coming out? It’s a balmy evening, just perfect.’

  Annie follows me out of the kitchen door. As I’m putting the compost into the big bin at the end of the garden, I hear a tremendous screeching and another shriek from Annie. Oh hell, I think, I’ve forgotten about Google. He’s fluttering his wings in an angry manner and making the most horrendous gull noises at Annie while she stands there with her hands in front of her face. I extricate her as quickly as I can and bring her back into the safety of the kitchen and set her down at the table with a glass of white wine.

  ‘So sorry, Annie,’ I say. ‘Google must have been asleep and you must have frightened him when you sat down on the picnic table bench.’

  ‘Me frighten that thing? All I wanted was to sit outside for a few minutes and admire the sunset and that bird attacked me.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, I wanted you and Google to meet properly. He’s the baby seagull we rescued from the attic. Annie hasn’t been to our house for the last couple of months as we’ve mostly met at Pete’s or on the beach when she’s been down, so she hasn’t seen our baby bird.

  ‘Baby? That thing is huge.’

  ‘They grow quickly. He’s flying already.’

  ‘So why doesn’t he fly away home with his mates? Or annoy the tourists at St Geraint with the rest of the seagulls?’

  I shake my head at her. ‘Goodness, you’re as bad as everyone else. I know they’re a nuisance, and I know they do damage, but really you can’t blame them. The way we humans throw rubbish out and leave so much waste lying about, no wonder the gulls see it as easy pickings. And they’re beautiful birds too, if you stop and look closely.’

  ‘And that one I suppose is exceptionally beautiful?’.

  ‘Well, he’s still in that awkward, grey, adolescent stage, but he has wonderful feathers, and . . .’ I break off as I see her giggling and realising that I’m acting like a proud boastful mother.

  We both end up forgetting dinner for the moment, drinking wine and laughing as we so often do when we’re together. Finally Annie says, ‘What next? You’re going to tell me that you’ve adopted a couple of orphan slugs?’ This sets us off on another bout of giggles until finally she starts to sneeze, then says her eyes are itching again, so I hand her a glass of water and some tissues while she tries to figure out when she took her last antihistamine.

  When the sneezing and itching are under control I say, ‘Not slugs, but there’s Will’s snake. Would you like to be introduced to Elvis?’

  She declines, saying that she’s had enough of the animal kingdom for one day and she’d be happy to meet Elvis another time. Just as she says this, Will joins us with Elvis draped on his arm. The snake seems to be growing out of all proportion and he’s well over two feet long already.

  Will says to Annie, ‘You can hold Elvis if you like.’

  Annie declines with a grimace which she tries to hide from Will. She’s not phobic like I am about them but that doesn’t mean she’d like to touch one. When Will is gone she says, ‘All of a sudden I’m very glad I’m not sleeping here tonight, what with wild predatory birds pecking at the window, slugs crawling between the sheets and only some thin glass or plastic separating me from a monster snake.’

  ‘You’re exaggerating as usual,’ I say, smiling at her. But part of me wonders if she has a point. Only the other night Google perched on the windowsill outside our bedroom window and pecked it as if he wanted to get in. The window was slightly open and I wonder if he’d have come hopping in if it had been open wider. I still keep expecting him to fly away for ever, but though he sometimes goes off to unknown places, he always comes back to sleep on the table in the lean-to, no doubt dreaming of the big breakfast I will give him in the morning. I’ve become quite attached to Google, if not to Elvis.

  A few days later I find Edna and Hector walking up and down the garden path in their slow silent meditative manner. For the summer, they have both donned their Gandhi-type robes but now they seem to have dug out some thin floppy trousers of various bright colours that they wear under the white tunics. When I commented on these outfits once, saying how cool they must be, Hector replied, ‘Perfect for the heat. We picked them up in Goa. That was way before the hippies got there, of course.’

  When I reach them now they stop their walking and thank me for the lettuce I left for them the other day. ‘I’m sorry it was so full of slug holes,’ I say.

  ‘Why? It was a fine lettuce, my dear, very tasty.’

  Hector agrees, ‘Edna made an exquisite supper, salad from your lettuce and a hard-boiled egg from your hens. What could be tastier?’

  I say, ‘But the lettuce was practically inedible. Holey. Full of slugs. We had to throw ours away in the end, it was so riddled there were hardly any leaves left.’

  Hector says, ‘Slugs, my dear maid, are part of life. Where there are lettuces, there are slugs.’

  ‘Quite easy to pluck them off if you soak them in a sink of water. Sometimes merely shaking the lettuce dislodges them.’

  A vision of my kitchen sink swimming with dead or dying slugs does not exactly fill me with delight. ‘Uh, isn’t there any way to stop them from getting onto the lettuces in the first place? I know there are slug pellets but I’ve heard birds eat them and I don’t want to use them.’ I think of Google keeling over after scoffing poisoned pellets; I’d be devastated. ‘And I’ve also heard that if you put saucers of beer around, they’ll crawl in and drown, but I tried it and it doesn’t work.’

  Edna draws herself up to her full four foot nine inches. ‘My dear, you must just learn to live with slugs.’

  There’s no answering her back.

  Later, as I walk home, I think of Edna patiently ridding the lettuce of all the slugs, trying to find edible leaves in between the slug holes. I remember what Hector said, that their supper last night was that lettuce, which probably amounted to no more than a full leaf each, and one hard-boiled egg. Tiny as they are, how can anyone live on that? Perhaps I could make them a healthy quiche with all the eggs I’m getting now? Or even give them a pot of Ben’s special lamb casserole?

  Whoa, Tessa! I stop myself before I go further down that road, remembering the incident with the rug fasteners. The Humphreys have lived their lives their own way for nearly ninety years, and the best thing I or anyone can do for them is to let them live it the way they please for as long a time as they have left.

  Ben is home from work when I return from the allotment and he’s got news. He’s been offered a job acting with a small but excellent rep company, with the chance to do a number of roles, one of them a main role he’s always dreamed of performing, that of Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew.

  His old agent had phoned him to tell him about the audition a few days ago. An actor in the company had suddenly become ill and they needed someone to take his place quickly. Ben had gone up at once, mostly just to keep his hand in, rather than thinking he would seriously either be offered the job, or if he were, that he’d accept it. But the offer has come through and it’s a good one. The pay is not great but at least it will be better than the odd jobs he’s doing now. The best thing, the most important part, is that he’ll be back doing the work he loves, the work he was trained for. And getting a crack at his dream role.

  Before he can accept, though, we need to talk it through. ‘You realise I’ll be away for several weeks, touring,’ he says now as we sit down with a cold glass of homemade lemonade and try to get our heads together. ‘It’ll be hard on you.’

  ‘Will and Amy will miss you and so will I,’ I don’t even like to think about how much I’ll miss him but he’s got to take the opportunity. Giving up acting to move to Cornwall was a hard thing for Ben, but he’s done it wholeheartedly and unselfishly, never once moaning about his lost care
er. I can feel his exhilaration over this chance to get back into the theatrical world, even as I can see his apprehension at the separation it will entail.

  ‘I’ll miss all of you. It’s a huge thing to do, Tessa.’

  ‘I know. But a chance like this might not come up again. You’ve got to take it.’

  His face lights up as if he’s been given the biggest birthday present ever. ‘I’ll come home whenever I can. We’ll have days off and we’ll manage somehow to see each other in between bookings.’

  I know how strenuous reparatory theatre can be with all that travelling from place to place, often with two or even three plays to perform. Staying in spartan B&Bs and guest houses, trying to make a home away from home, tough enough when you have no family but dreary when you’ve got roots elsewhere. But it’s Ben’s life, or his working life, and he’s got to go for it.

  He leaves a week later. It’s all a rush, but he needs to get to London to rehearsals before the tour starts a couple of weeks after that. The night before he leaves we go to the Roswinnick Hotel in St Geraint, to have the free meal we were given by the manager when Ben attended to the chef’s wife.

  It’s a lovely evening, though poignant because we’re not sure when Ben will get his first few days off to come home. The sun is only just beginning to sink in a deep blue sky as we arrive. The hotel entrance is modest for such a posh place and you could miss it entirely if you didn’t know where it was. It’s a simple stone arch that leads to a winding stone stairway to the terrace. This exquisite simplicity extends to the inside, all white, pale greens and blues, with a tessellated floor and beautiful low lighting. It’s got a kind of New England feel to it. What it does so tastefully is to make sure nothing interferes with what it’s there for – to give you a place to sit and eat while looking at the most stunning view of any restaurant in Britain. You face the western shore of the peninsula with the lighthouse, the harbour in front and the open sea beyond. It’s magnificent, with the ancient woods coming right down to the water’s edge and the lighthouse beam flicking on and off.

  Our meal is discreet and delicious, as the food always is. To the chef’s amusement, when it comes time for pudding I order another starter, this time a kind of salad with fresh crab and avocado. I haven’t much of a sweet tooth and I love savouries, so why not?

  I look around at the clientele, wondering if I’ll see someone famous enough to be recognised. There’s no one familiar, but there are faces I feel I should know, as if I’ve seen them on telly or met them in my other life when I got to know many celebrities through my work with Anita and Gordon Roddick at The Body Shop. Because it’s nearly summer, the place is buzzing with the usual chatter of people who are rich and confident and want everyone to know it. I once peeked into the restaurant in winter, though, and it was completely different, not as crowded and almost subdued, the people there having come for a special occasion and feeling slightly awed by it.

  I smile as I think of that time and say to Ben, ‘Remember when Jake came with me in the postal van that time and jumped out in St Geraint?’

  ‘The time he found a gorgeous, fluffy auburn chow on heat and got her pregnant? I remember it well,’ he grins back at me.

  The chow’s owner, Mrs Cunningham, a stout woman with steel grey hair and a steel grey voice, was livid; she was hoping to mate her with another pedigree dog in Surrey and now Jake had spoiled it all. I offered to try to find homes for the puppies when they came but the woman wanted nothing more to do with me, Jake or our entire delinquent family, until the day the pups were about seven or eight weeks old and I had a hysterical phone call from Mrs Cunningham.

  ‘My puppies have disappeared,’ she announced without any preliminaries. ‘I have finally managed to find a good home for all of them and they’ve gone. Scarpered, scuttled away no doubt by a doggie thief. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about them, would you?’ The inference was that the kidnapper could only be me.

  I assured her I had nothing to do with it and that the puppies must have wandered away again as they had done in the past. There were three of them, a lively inquisitive bunch, and had been seen several times frolicking around St Geraint, having escaped from their kennel in Mrs Cunningham’s garden. I was sure they’d be found again. But as soon as I put the phone down it rang a second time. It was the manager of the Roswinnick Hotel saying the puppies were there in the courtyard, having been entertaining the guests with their winsome ways for over an hour.

  ‘They belong to Mrs Cunningham,’ I told him as we giggled about it.

  ‘I know, I know. I’ve just phoned her but she’s out.’

  ‘Looking for the little rascals no doubt. She just phoned here.’

  ‘Look, they’ve been adorable, but they’re starting to be a nuisance, messing everywhere, chewing things. Could you do something about them?’

  Of course he knew I was family, knew Jake had sired those pups – everyone in St Geraint knew. Being a responsible person, I drove down, gathered the puppies and returned them to their rightful owner.

  ‘You can tell these animals have exquisite taste,’ I said to Mrs Cunningham as I deposited them back in her garden. ‘Nothing but the most exclusive hotel in the county for them.’

  She didn’t think it was amusing. Her look let me know that anything Jake sired could not possibly have taste.

  Ben and I have a quiet laugh remembering the incident. I had wanted one of the puppies but two dogs would have been a bit much in our house. ‘They were gorgeous, though,’ I say now. ‘So cuddly and cute.’

  Before we go I give Ben a small, heart-shaped box tied with a bright red ribbon. ‘This is your home away from home. Your second home, until you come back to us.’

  Ben undoes the ribbon and opens the box. Inside I’ve put photos of Will and Amy and one of Ben and me laughing together in front of our house. There are also snaps of Jake, Elvis and Patch the lamb, and of course Google.

  ‘I’ll look at it every night,’ Ben says, as we get up to leave. ‘My second home away from home.’ He picks up the box carefully, puts his arm around my shoulder and we take a last look at the sea, the lighthouse and the old harbour sparkling in the moonlight. Though sad at the prospect of parting, we know that it will only be temporary, and that before long we’ll be reunited in this magical place where we now belong.

  Chapter 8

  Billy Goat Gruff

  Adjusting to Ben’s absence is not easy. Apart from missing him, it’s more of a struggle than ever coping with children, a full-time job, the hens and the allotment. We’d never be able to do it without Daphne and Joe. Since the children are at their farm so much of the time these days as there’s so much more room to play than at our place, Daphne suggested that Amy and Will bed down there for the nights when I have to get to work early.

  ‘It’s just as easy to get four of them off to school as it is two,’ Daphne said.

  When I started to protest she shushed me with a smile. ‘I have an ulterior motive as well. Joe and I have a chance to meet some old dear friends in Scotland in November; a kind of reunion someone has organised. If we had someone to look after our kids for a few days we could do it.’

  And so it’s arranged and working out fine. Will and Amy love it, playing with the three sock lambs on the farm along with our lamb Patch, who like the others should have been off the bottle ages ago. But the children can’t resist giving him an extra treat now and again, even though he’s mingling with Joe’s sheep, eating grass and growing bigger every day. In fact most of Joe’s lambs have grown so much that we always feel sorry for the poor ewes, standing patiently while their babies, some as big as they are, head butt their bellies to get another drop of milk.

  It was quite a lot of work at first, those early bottle-feeds, but everyone helped, and it was great fun watching Patch race towards us, his little bottom wagging furiously as he sucked on the bottle. Every time we check on him now, Patch leaves the flock and runs towards us, pushing up against us as if still hoping there�
��s something for him. We always bring titbits of food, scraps of lettuce or cabbage leaves, and Patch nibbles them politely, though I’m sure he prefers the fresh green grass of the lush pasture he’s kept in.

  It’s hard too trying to get to the allotment after being up at dawn for work. The exhilaration at the beginning has turned into anguish as my back aches from the endless hoeing and weeding, my knees have crumbled and my hands feel gnarled and ugly despite wearing gloves. And even with all the hard work, the vegetables aren’t doing that great. Slugs, cabbage butterflies and rabbits again – sometimes it seems a losing battle with all the little creatures determined to eat everything I produce. Still, the feeling of euphoria that envelops me after a good day’s digging and planting makes up for every ache and pain.

  I pick up the postal van behind the boatyard at St Geraint. It’s June and there’s a drizzling chill rain. At least it is better than the storms we had during part of half-term, though that didn’t stop the holidaymakers from coming down, much to the relief of everyone involved in all the businesses that rely on tourists. The seafront was filled with bedraggled visitors filling the cafés, trying to soothe irritable children and spouses. Today is still grey but at least the gales and torrential rain have stopped, but we’re all longing for some sun.

  I usually take a few moments before starting the van to look over at the sea, watch the gulls and terns, the changing blues of the sky. Today the horizon is a solid grey, impossible to tell where the sea ends and the sky begins. I’m missing Ben, fretting about my vegetables, fed up with the long spell of bad weather and worrying about the increasingly noisy and demanding adolescent seagull we’ve adopted, and the snake living in our house. Elvis seems to shed his skin and grow inches every day, although of course I know that this happens only once a month. Still, it’s incredible how he’s grown. I can’t get over my nervousness of him. Will walks around with Elvis draped all over him and my insides shrivel. Try as I may, I just can’t learn to love a snake.