Up With the Larks (19 page)

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 about it later.' Turning to me
she says, 'Let's go sit on the sea wall, get some fresh air.'