Authors: Tessa Hainsworth
I explained the problem. Tony, knowing me well, somehow
wasn't surprised. 'How can I help, though? You want to borrow
a pair of my boxers? They'll be a bit big.' Tony is huge, broad
and muscular.
'Not yours. I was thinking of Caro's.' She was his girlfriend
and though they didn't live together, I knew she was at his
place often.
At last Tony got back to me. 'I found a good stash. You're
in luck.' I ran most of the way. Tony was waiting at the door,
a pair of white bikini briefs edged with pale blue lace dangling
from his little finger.
I got back just as the group was beginning the practice
session. Half the class was lying on the special treatment beds,
clad in panties and bra, and the other half were being given
oils to work with and directions by the tutor.
Ben was waiting for me. I mumbled an apology for being
late. 'Should you go first or should I?' he asked.
I didn't mind. I was now chastely covered where it mattered,
and would not be disgraced in front of the whole class.
We smiled at each other. I knew that it wouldn't be long
before we'd be getting to know each other much, much better, and that I'd
be telling him the whole story of my ex-boyfriend's girlfriend's knickers.
Firmly back in the present, I stop at the hamlet down from
Eleanor Gibland's cottage. It is a cluster of six granite and
slate houses on a slope overlooking the sea and I park the van
where Susie had parked when she was showing me the route,
in a rough lay-by at the edge of the narrow track up to the
houses. Then I grab my satchel ready to set out, but first I
have to sort out the dog biscuits, as this is deep canine country.
Susie had given me a list of each dog's requirements. The first
two houses have either sheepdogs or mutts that will eat
anything, the third one with a yellow door has a cat and no
dog, but the last three are tricky. There is the border terrier
that will only eat the green biscuits and an odd poodle/ bearded
collie cross that likes only the bone-shaped yellow ones. As
for that last house at the edge of the cluster, there is a black
German shepherd dog that will eat anything you throw into
the enclosed garden, including posties if you're not careful.
'But not to worry, m'bird,' Susie had said, nodding her sage
head. 'He's locked in the garden and the postbox be outside
so he can't get to you.'
It starts well enough. The first two houses are silent and
closed, the owners either still in bed or not at home. The dogs
inside bark but no one comes to look so I put the post inside
the front porch of one as I'd been shown and drop the letters
for the other into a plastic box with a lid and a rock on top,
just outside the door. I put a dog biscuit inside each one, too,
so as not to disappoint the dogs. The house with the yellow
door and the cat looks empty but there is a proper letterbox
in the door and I slot the post in there.
The owner of the border terrier is a sweet, simple sort of
woman who wishes me the luck of the Irish in my new job.
She doesn't sound at all Irish, and I'm sure I don't either, but
I'll accept any luck thrust on me and thank her profusely.
We grin happily at each other. Her dog Lily is happy too,
sitting down without being told for her green biscuit. I am so
impressed I give her two.
'Now that 'twas kind of you, maid, but we mustn't do that.
Only one. Lily would get fat, now wouldn't you, me darling,'
she chuckles over the dog who is eyeing me hopefully, knowing
a sucker when she sees one.
The bearded collie/poodle cross is a bouncy dog that comes
bounding out when its owners come to the door: a roly-poly
man with his roly-poly wife peering over his shoulder. I'd met
them before, with Susie, so we greet each other like old friends
and I give their dog his yellow bone-shaped biscuit. Only one
this time, though. I've learned my lesson.
The man says, 'Oh poor Blackie.'
His wife tuts behind him, 'Susie always gives him at least
two.' Their initial friendliness is turning to disapproval.
'Oh, right. Of course. Here, Blackie, here's another one.
Good dog – hey, gentle! OK, good boy.'
'Girl,' comes the chorus from Tweedledee and Tweedledum.
The last house is the one with the German shepherd. By now
the fog and rain have cleared and the sky is black and blue with
racing storm clouds over the sea. The light is exquisite, one
minute a mustard yellow dawn colour, the next dark and shadowy
as the clouds clump together. I am feeling jaunty and pleased
with myself. Maybe I can do this job after all.
The dog must be inside the house as there is no sign of him
in the garden. I don't hear him either and assume he is out with
his owner whom I haven't met yet. I put the post in the letterbox
outside the gate and am turning to go when there is an almighty
racket, barking and howls like a wild beastie, along with more
human but petrified shouts and screams.
'Batman, stop! Come back, stop! Here boy, here!'
Batman?
I think wildly as I stand frozen to the garden wall.
Then there is a roar and a growl as a huge monster of a
dog jumps onto my chest and pins me back against the wall,
his massive jaw at my throat. I nearly faint with terror.
'Batman, get off ! Leave, stop!' The woman, who is as tiny
as her dog is huge, is pulling on the beast which refuses to
budge. I can smell his rancid breath in my face. I am scared
witless.
'Batman!' she screams one last time as he's about to devour
me. 'Ham!!'
The dog wilts. Like a pussycat, he daintily disengages his
huge paws from my shoulders and meekly sits down at his
owner's feet. 'Sorry, be right back, don't go away,' she murmurs
as I try to stop hyperventilating. 'I must be givin' 'im his ham
now or he won't believe me next time.'
To my horror she scuttles away into the house, leaving me
alone with the beast. But he doesn't even glance at me, he's
too busy salivating in the direction the woman disappeared.
She comes back with a thick slice of ham as round as a
dinner plate. I've collapsed on a large stone in her garden,
trying to recover the movement and strength in my limbs that
fear has drained away. We both eye the dog as he gulps down
the food. When he finishes he lies at her feet and goes to sleep,
meek as a lamb.
I'm still in a state so I say, testily, 'I could have had a heart
attack there, the way he leapt up at me ready to tear my
tongue out.'
'I don't understand,' she says. 'He's never done that before.'
It is the first time I have heard those words but I seem to
intuit that it won't be the last. Not just from this woman and
this particular dog, but from the owners of countless other
yappy, tiny creatures and huge, hulking hounds who think
baiting – or eating – the post man or woman is the greatest
thrill life has to offer.
Now the woman begins to apologize as I take deep breaths
with one eye still on the dog. Then I take a good look at her.
She's not young and she's the tiniest woman I've ever seen.
She looks as if a gentle sea breeze would knock her over. What
is a woman like this doing with a dog like that? The dog opens
an eye and growls, as if he knows what I'm thinking.
The woman knows too, for she says, 'He be my great-grandson's.
Eee 'ad him since a pup. Batman stays down-along
with me most times, when the lad's over t'Newquay surfing. A
great one for the surf, that boy.'
Great-grandson?
She might be frail, but she only looks late
middle-aged. Maybe they breed young in this rural doggie
hamlet, or else there's a fountain of youth tucked somewhere
behind one of the creeks.
I give her the biscuit that I'd been clutching in my hand
before the attack. 'Here, you can give it to – did you say his
name is Batman?'
She looks up at me. Her smile is bigger than the rest of her
put together. 'Our lad 'twas only a young sprog when he got
the pup. He named it. Sounds a bit daft, I know.'
I'm not so sure. Isn't the original Batman a bit of a tear-away,
leaping about giving criminals their due? Maybe this one
can't distinguish between criminals and the Royal Mail. He
knows his food, though. The biscuit is snapped up and she's
lucky a finger didn't go with it.
We say goodbye amicably after she apologizes again for not
having Batman locked up in the garden, for she knows he can
be 'a bit of a handful'.
'Oh, that's fine, no problem,' I wave merrily as I run back
to the van, listening to Batman's renewed barks and howls as
he wakes from his slumber and realizes I've dashed away before
he can dismember me.
The day continues to be traumatic. As well as the dog, there's
a feral cat hiding behind a monstrous spider plant in the front
porch of one of the houses I deliver to. 'Just stick any letters
under one of the plants; the porch door is never locked,' Susie
had told me. She must have forgotten about the cat, or maybe
the creature only likes Susie – like Eleanor Gibland, I think
ruefully. Maybe cats, dogs and humans all know instinctively
I'm just not a proper post person, I muse as I scrabble for a
tissue to wipe the blood from my hand. The overfed tabby
leapt on me as I lay the post under the plant, scratching my
hand badly.
After the cat, I start to relax. I've been attacked by both
domestic animals and the chances are low that lightning will
strike twice. Besides, I hear no barking as I park the van at the
next farmhouse and walk up a gravelly path to the front door.
Some sparrows are hopping about at the edge of a puddle but
there's no other sign of life.
And then I hear it. It's the weirdest noise, like the gargling
of a strange beast. Gurgle, gurgle . . . gobble, gobble . . .
'Help!' I yelp as a mass of feathers, flapping wings and
strange gurgling noises flies towards me.
There are more shouts, human ones this time, and the
feathered
thing
gets driven back. I've been driven back too,
against my van where I'm panting heavily, trying to get my
heart beating normally again.
'Yo, m'lover, you be alright, maid? 'Tis only Reginald. Ee
be gettin' a bit frisky now and agin, gettin' out'a his pen
and all.'
It turns out Reginald is a turkey, being fattened up for the
family for Christmas. 'You're . . . you're going to eat Reginald?'
I ask, a bit nonplussed that they're going to eat a creature
they've named.
'Aye, maid. That un's Reginald the Seventh. Been keepin'
our own turkeys fer seven years now. Tastier than any old joblot
bought at the butchers.'
There is only one more trauma, a minor one compared to
the others, when the van stalls as I'm driving up a steep incline
on a concrete road to a farmhouse and starts to roll backwards.
I manage to get it going again and chug slowly up the
hill, getting halfway before it stalls again and back down I go.
I try a third time, revving the accelerator and trying to ignore
the smell of burnt clutch. Finally at the top, the sight of a tall,
skinny man standing at the farm gate staring at me like some
raggedy scarecrow causes me to forget to put the handbrake
on and as soon as I jump out to give him his post, the van
starts to roll backwards again.
'Goin' agin,' he observes.
'I can see that,' I say tightly as I jump back in to put on the
brake.
I hand him what look like a couple of bills and a sheaf of
adverts. He takes them and grunts. I wave goodbye, striving
for a cheery expression. After all, Christmas is next month.
His farewell words follow me down the hill, 'You best get
a vehicle that goes forward d'reckly and not back where it came
from.' I hear him guffawing at his little joke all the way down
to the main road.
The van coughs and splutters on a few more hills but
manages to get back to the post office in St Geraint where I
leave it at the Royal Mail parking space behind the boat yard.
Then I take my bag and anything I couldn't deliver such as
registered post where no one was in to sign for it or parcels
that didn't fit through a letterbox and there was no dry place
to put them, back to the post office.
St Geraint is quite a bit larger than Morranport with its one
post office, two pubs and one shop. This is a large village, with
several pubs, a couple of hotels and a decent size grocery store.
It has at least a half dozen boutique speciality shops selling
anything from local crafts to designer clothes, as well as a bank,
a chemist and an excellent butcher. There's a Spar shop like
none I've ever seen before, selling a vast selection of speciality
teas, pasta, different kinds of imported rice as well as a deli
section with no less than eight types of olives. All the stores
face the seafront and in the centre is an exquisitely beautiful
harbour with more million pound yachts per square inch than
anywhere else in England.
The post office, though, has nothing luxurious about it.
It's tiny and cramped. There are four people in it now and it
feels crowded. The shop sells cold drinks, sweets, newspapers,
a bit of stationery, and not much else. At the back is the post
office counter, where I squeeze in behind the woman already
there.
'So, how was your first day?' asks Margaret after she finishes
selling stamps to a customer and listening to tales of his
lumbago. She's being friendly but I can still hear the smirk in
her voice. Is it obvious to everyone what a townie and how
unsuitable I am for this job?
I'm a bit wary of Margaret as she seems so frighteningly
competent in a pleasant but no-nonsense way.
'Not too bad a day,' I say, fingers crossed behind my back.
'A few cat scratches and Batman, of course.'
She nods, 'Susie warn you about him?'
'Yes, but never mentioned his name. Or the fact that he
sometimes escapes from the garden and lies in wait, eager to
maim and destroy any postwoman who happens by.'
Margaret shrugs, not even bothering to look up. 'You never
know,' she says cryptically. 'You just never ever know.'