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When Kate compliments me on the unusual velvety scarf I’m wearing over my old jumper, I tell her about the parties, for that’s where I got it. ‘It’s from Monsoon, never worn – the scarf still had the label on. The woman who brought it to the swap was given it as a birthday present but it wasn’t her thing. Our swap parties are a terrific way to get new clothes, and all for free.’

Kate looks totally unenthusiastic but says, politely, ‘I’m sure it’s a wonderful idea, for those who can’t afford to shop properly.’

Oh dear. I don’t think Kate has realised yet that’s me. She seems a very nice person, but I don’t think the realities of Cornish life have sunk in yet.

The ‘light supper’, which at our house would probably be a Spanish omelette with our own fresh eggs, turns out to be a whole array of delicious titbits from Marks and Spencer that Kate picked up in Truro earlier that day. There are exotic salads, a huge variety of cold meats and cheeses, various sauces, and both hot and cold potato and pasta dishes. I’m sure she spent more on this supper than I do on a week’s meals at home.

It’s beginning to dawn on me that the Wintersons are not short of money. Kate’s certainly not looking for a job; she’s told me she’s going to enjoy the next months doing up the house, getting used to country life. As for Leon, apparently he did something ‘in the City’, but he’s now retired. How he can be retired when he’s not yet forty, goodness knows, but I heard him tell Ben that he won’t be looking for work just yet, except for some consulting work in the City. He wants to devote his time to hunting, apparently. ‘I’ve just bought a new gun,’ he says, eyes lighting up like a child’s with excitement and pleasure. ‘It’s a Purdy. Haven’t even used it yet. Let me show you.’ He rushes out of the room and comes back with the shotgun. It looks new and shiny, expensive.

He doesn’t notice that we don’t say much apart from admiring the craftsmanship, which even I can tell is top notch. Leon strokes the gun lovingly. ‘I’ve got a syndicate I shoot with,’ he says. ‘Pheasants, that sort of thing. I suppose you’re quite good at it now.’ He smiles eagerly at Ben. ‘Let’s have a shot at it together, when the season starts.’

Ben looks startled. ‘Actually, I don’t do any shooting.’

‘Really? I thought everyone in the country did. But then you’re not really country, are you. You’re from the Big Smoke, like us.’

‘Well, I’m country now. But actually none of the people we know around here shoot for fun. Joe, our farmer friend, has a gun but he only uses it for predators after his sheep. Cornwall isn’t exactly hunting and fishing country.’

Leon looks rather doubtful but doesn’t say any more, and the conversation turns to other things, including London, as it would naturally. All four of us had former lives there, and we have a fine old time reminiscing about it. We all agree, though, that we’d never go back again. ‘I’m ever so happy here, even though it’s only been a few weeks,’ Kate says as we get ready to leave. I’m feeling a bit tipsy from all that superb red wine we drank with our ‘nibbles’, as Kate called them, but I’m quite sincere when I tell her that we’re so pleased to have them for new neighbours.

‘You’re our role models,’ Leon says, as we part at their doorstep. ‘We want to become as much a part of this village as you have.’

‘I’m sure they will,’ I say to Ben as we walk down our quiet road towards home. There’s a sliver of moonlight, just enough to see by, although we’ve brought a torch. The dark trees, bushes, and ground have changed dramatically since the snow and frost have gone. Our usual early spring has arrived with a riot of colour and bloom, the fields yellow with daffodils, the gardens dazzling with camellias. It smells like spring, too, rich and fertile.

Ben is thoughtful, and doesn’t say anything. ‘Don’t you think Kate and Leon will settle soon?’ I ask.

‘Maybe. I hope so. But they’re not like us, not like the other permanent house owners. They don’t have to work, don’t have to try to make do, like most of us.’ We walk on in silence for a few moments, past the dark church, the leafless trees getting ready to come to life. Then Ben goes on, ‘It can be divisive, being rich in our community. Unless you’re a second homer. Everyone expects them to be loaded, and they’ve got to be to own a house in Cornwall and another somewhere else. But if you actually live here …’

I see what he means, and agree it might be harder for the Wintersons to fit in. But they will, I’m sure of it. And in the meantime, we’ve found some new friends. I’m already looking forward to introducing them to Annie and Pete.

CHAPTER FIVE

A Home is Not a Rental House

THE MAGNOLIAS ARE
out in full now as spring gets under way, and I keep the van windows open so that I can catch whiffs of their scent, mingled with the sea air, as I drive around with the post. Signs of the season are everywhere with the greening of the earth, trees and plants. There’s bird activity, too. Robins and various members of the tit family are scurrying about busily picking up twigs and grass to make their new homes. Stone curlews are getting ready to nest on farmlands and open fields. Daphne told me that one curlew nests every year in one of their arable fields. She swears they pick that particular field because Joe grows a wheat crop there, and the nest with the eggs and growing chicks will have shelter in the tall crops.

There’s a wonderful human sign, too, that makes me feel that the long winter is over at last. As I drive around the lanes, walk around villages and towns on my postal route, I see, waving in the spring breeze, laundry pegged out on the clothes lines of Cornwall. What a sight! Now, this doesn’t just happen in spring and summer. Usually all through the winter months, there are decent ‘drying’ days in every week. This winter, though, has been different. Because of the harshness of the past few months, clothes that were pegged outside froze on the line, so most were dried inside in front of wood burners or electric heaters, or tumble dried for those lucky enough to have them.

Not only do I love the smell of the clothes when they come off the line, but I feel great that I’m doing something for the environment. I read somewhere that if all households with a tumble dryer dried one laundry load a week on a washing line instead of using the dryer, they would save over 750,000 tonnes of CO2 in a year. And so I’m pleased to see all the washing out today as I deliver the post. It’s a perfect day – a bit of sun, but also plenty of wind. Over the last year I’ve become a kind of town crier of pegging. I get asked more and more often about the weather. ‘Tessa, d’you think it’ll rain this morning? Should I wait till afternoon to peg out my clothes, or do you think it’ll get worse?’

I’ve taken to checking the local weather reports diligently to help with my advice, but more and more I notice I seem to tell instinctively what the weather will be. Somehow, I am able to read the signs, noticing things such as the way the sea swells, knowing that it means the rain is going to go a certain way; or when the seagulls fly inland, knowing there’s a storm brewing. The way the birds are singing, the way the wind is blowing – all these things have seeped into my consciousness, and I seem to be more right than wrong these days when I try to predict the weather. Maybe this sixth sense makes up for my lack of green fingers!

One of my customers is actually pegging out her washing as I drive up and head around to the back of her house where I usually leave the post. Her back garden faces the estuary with a breathtaking view of water, sky, woodland on the further shores, rocks and seabirds. The tide is out today and the few boats lie dotted on the sand, as if placed carefully by the Cornish Tourist Information Board to be as picturesque as possible. Even the sea debris – driftwood, clumps of watery turf from the river’s edge, a dollop of seaweed – looks artistically placed on the damp sand, as if to show each to its best advantage. The heron, perched on one leg in the shallows, could have been posing there all morning, waiting for the first day-tripper to come and take its photo.

‘Perfect drying day,’ my customer calls out to me.

We both look up at the cloudless sky, feel the light but brisk breeze on our faces. ‘Yep, perfect! I can’t wait to get home and get my clothes out.’

She nods, a wooden peg clutched between her lips as she hangs out another garment. I approve of wooden pegs. There’s something so satisfyingly old-fashioned about them that adds to the pleasure.

I tell her this and she agrees, removing the peg from her mouth and giving me a big smile. She says, ‘You’ve got to have a proper washing line, too. No whirly things or plastic contraptions.’

We’re really into this now. ‘Oh, I agree,’ I cry. ‘And you should have a peg bag. Preferably something with sentimental value.’

‘I made this one myself,’ she says proudly.

‘That’s very suitable,’ I admire her bag. ‘Mine belonged to my grandmother.’

The next five minutes are spent very happily discussing the advantages of wooden clothes hangers as opposed to plastic, and other such domestic things of fascinating importance, especially when standing in a delightful garden, filled with sea scents and birdsong, on a sunny Cornish spring day. Before I know it, I’ve grabbed a few pegs and together we’re hanging out the rest of her washing, a few more towels, and some large items of bedding. ‘Thanks, Tessa,’ she says as we finish and I start to go. ‘Those sheets and duvet covers are much easier with two.’

I’m humming and singing to myself as I drive along to my next village. Everywhere I look there is washing out on lines; most of my customers seem to be hanging out clothes. I chuckle as I realise that some of these items are familiar to me – I know the owner’s clothes as well as I do them. Dodging the lines as I deliver their post, I know that the baker in one of the villages wears pristine white boxer shorts and has a pair for every day of the week. Today there are six pairs on the line that his wife has hung out – I assume he’s wearing the seventh pair. The female doctor in the same village has extremely sexy lingerie in both black and red. What’s great to see today is how many winter woollens are hanging out on the clothes lines. It’s a sure sign that winter is gone for good – everyone is washing their heavy pullovers and cardigans, putting them away until next year.

When I finish work and arrive home, my new neighbour Kate is outside in her front garden talking to a tall man with wild-looking hair. As I get nearer, I see that it’s Guy. He and Kate are talking earnestly and while they talk, Guy nods and sometimes takes notes in a scrappy little notebook I’ve seen him carry around. Alongside his voluntary work for the Cat Protection Service, Guy, though a skilled carpenter, earns his rather precarious living doing odd jobs in many of the villages, as commissions for carpentry work are hard to come by. I guess that Kate has some employment for him, which he’ll be glad of.

Kate calls me over to them, asks if I know Guy. After a few minutes chatting, she asks me in for a coffee. I accept happily and we start to walk towards the house. I’m assuming Guy is coming in, too, as the three of us have been talking about the work the Wintersons want done on their property, and it seemed as if the coffee invite extended to all. Guy must have assumed the same thing, for he’s taken a few steps with us until he stops uncertainly. Kate says brightly, ‘Thanks, Guy. I really appreciate you coming out today. And the job is yours, if you can start next week like you said.’

She says this warmly, but it’s clearly a dismissal. Guy takes the hint, says he’ll be back next week for sure, and says goodbye to us both. As we go inside Kate is chatty and happy, and I see that it never even occurred to her that Guy might be glad of coffee or tea before he set out on his next job. She obviously assumed he was in a hurry, I suppose, on to his next work place. It’ll take her a while to learn that few people are in a hurry down here, even if they do have several jobs, a family, and a full life to live. I wonder if I should say something; maybe it’s not too late and she can stop Guy from driving away. He did look dismayed when he realised he’d not been invited inside. But I decide it’s not my place to say anything. Kate is a good person, and seems a sensitive one in many ways. She’ll soon find out for herself.

‘Tessa, good to see you,’ she says as we go into the house. ‘It’s been hectic, trying to get the house right. Especially with Leon up in town.’

By town, she means London, where Leon goes at least once a month for the consultancy work he mentioned. As we settle into her spacious kitchen, Kate enthuses about the work Guy is going to do on their house. Already a brand-new Aga has been installed in the kitchen, a huge gorgeous red one. It fills up the width of the room and is pumping out heat despite the warmth of the day. Kate makes me a delicious cappuccino from the machine glistening on the new marble surface and I drink it blissfully while she tells me about the insulation they’re putting in, the Florentine tiles on the kitchen floor with the underfloor heating, and the wall-to-wall shelves for their collection of books, CDs, and DVDs in the sitting room. ‘Guy says he can do carpentry, so he might be making our bookshelves. Leon collects old books so we want something suitable to display them. I’ve heard from some of the villagers that he’s really good. What do you think?’