Brighter Days for the Cornish Girls (The Cornish Girls #8)

Chapter One

Sheila was working up a sweat in the warm sunshine, vigorously cleaning the windows of her shop, when the bus from Penzance lumbered into view and stopped just opposite.

A young woman jumped down and stood blinking about herself at the tiny Cornish village of Porthcurno as the bus trundled on noisily without her, soon disappearing up the other side of the valley.

Dropping the dirty washcloth back into her bucket of suds, Sheila looked this stranger up and down, and then grinned. She couldn’t recall seeing someone from the Caribbean since she’d left Dagenham, where some of her regulars at the caff had come from big, lively Jamaican families.

As the young woman turned towards her, Sheila gave her a friendly nod.

‘Hello, Miss, you here on your holidays? Bit late in the season for dipping your toes, but the beach is that way.’ Helpfully, she pointed down the track that ran past Eastern House towards the beach.

Most of the ugly great sea defences had been dismantled since the war, so it was no longer impossible to get onto the white sands for a bathe.

But the path was still cluttered with posts and barbed wire from the soldiers’ encampment, making it hazardous. ‘Best watch your step, though.’

The young woman wore her shoulder-length hair tied back tightly, a huge smile dominating her striking face.

Under her coat, a smart cream and beige dress fell to her knees, and she wore sturdy boots on her feet that looked clean and never worn before.

She was carrying a small, battered suitcase and a handbag that bulged.

As she stopped in front of Sheila, she replied without any sign of shyness, ‘Good morning. I wish I was here for the beach. Sounds lovely. But I’m looking for Postbridge Farm.

Do you know it?’ Her accent was unusual, a mixture of a faint Caribbean lilt with a distinctly northern twang. Liverpudlian?

‘Do I know it? I live there, love.’ Sheila studied her closely and then laughed in surprise. ‘Gawd, I know who you are. You’ll be the new girl they’ve sent from the Women’s Land Army to replace Joan.’

‘That’s right.’ The young woman put down her case. ‘Are you Mrs Postbridge, then?’

‘No, she’s my daughter. The farmer – Joe Postbridge – is my son-in-law. But what’s your name?’

The young woman smiled, putting out a hand. ‘Grace Morgan.’

‘Grace? What a lovely name. Welcome to Porthcurno, Miss Morgan.’ Sheila wiped wet palms on her pinny before shaking the girl’s hand. ‘Sorry, I’ve been washing the windows … I’m Mrs Newton. I run the village shop.’

‘So this is your place? Yours and Mr Newton’s?’

‘Lord bless you, my Arnie’s been dead and buried this past year.

It’s my name above the door now.’ Sheila nodded to the sign above the village shop which read, Mrs S.

Newton, Proprietor. ‘Though you’re right, this was his shop.

But I felt Arnie would have wanted me to carry on running it for the sake of the village.

’ She grinned. ‘So here I am, doling out veg and Cornish pasties to all comers. Plus a pinch of baccy for those partial to it.’

‘Well, I’m glad Porthcurno has a little shop.

’ The new Land Girl looked surprised but pleased by this information, peering past her through the soapy windows.

‘I was worried I’d need to take the bus to Penzance to go shopping.

And that rickety old bus nearly shook all me bones to pieces on the way here, so I wasn’t keen to repeat the experience. ’

The girl had an odd turn of phrase, which suited the striking accent, and Sheila liked it. ‘If there’s anything we don’t have in stock, I can put in a special order,’ she told her proudly. ‘You might have to wait a few days, but I can get most things. Even nylons, now the war’s over.’

‘I don’t bother much with nylons, to be honest,’ Grace said conspiratorially, lowering her voice, even though there was hardly anybody around on the main village street.

‘Not much call for them on a farm, is there? I’ve three pairs of socks in my suitcase.

That’ll do me just fine.’ She paused. ‘Do you sell yarn for darning, though? Between you and me, one of them socks is on its way out. Got a ruddy big hole in the toe, if you’ll pardon me French.

I keep getting my toe stuck in it, and that’s not funny when you’re digging a ditch and there’s still five hours of daylight before you can go home and change your socks. ’

‘Yes, love,’ Sheila said, chuckling at this comical rush of words, ‘I can sell you a card of yarn right now, if you like.’

‘Maybe next time.’ Grace pulled a face, glancing at her luggage. ‘I’m already laden down as it is. If I was to add any more to this lot, it’d likely prove the yarn that broke the camel’s back. How far a walk is this farm, then?’

‘Ten to fifteen minutes, depending how often you need to stop for a breather. It’s quite a steep hill, you see.’

Grace followed her pointing arm out of the village, her eyes widening. ‘All the way up there? Saints alive … I’ll be lucky if I reach the farm by next week, let alone fifteen minutes.’

Old Mr Faragher, who usually popped into the shop about that time, came ambling down from his cottage during this lively conversation and stopped dead in astonishment, staring at the young black woman standing in the middle of Porthcurno village.

His eyes bulged as though he’d never seen such a sight in his life, which perhaps he hadn’t, and then he whipped off his cap in hurried respect.

‘Well, I never,’ he croaked in his rusty old voice, looking Grace up and down, ‘you’re not from hereabouts.’ He glanced slyly at Sheila. ‘Morning, Mrs Newton. Lovely day, isn’t it?’ He paused. ‘Friend of yours?’

‘She’s from the Land Army, Mr Faragher,’ Sheila said, raising her voice as she knew he had trouble with his hearing. ‘She’s come to work at the farm with Joe and the other girls.’

‘Ah … Replacing that Joan girl who up and married Arthur Green out of the blue? Bit of a rush job, that wedding.’ He waited with interest, but Sheila didn’t rise to the bait. ‘I hope she can sort out that young man’s problems.’

‘I’m sure Joan can.’

He turned his cap in his hands, still staring at Grace. ‘Well, this is a turn-up.’ But he nodded to her in a cheerful enough manner. ‘Welcome to Porthcurno, Miss. Where are you from, then?’

‘Liverpool.’

This silenced him.

Picking up her suitcase again, Grace turned to Sheila with a wink and another of her beaming smiles. ‘I’d best be on my way or my arms are going to drop off. You say you live up there at Postbridge Farm? And your daughter’s the farmer’s wife? I’ll see you later, then?’

‘For supper, yes. Though you can remind my daughter not to wait for me but to leave my supper on the range if I’m late. I’ve a council meeting first, you see.’

Sheila gave her clear directions to the farm, and she and Mr Faragher watched as Grace trudged off up the sunny hill in her sturdy, new-looking boots. She’ll be getting blisters in those, Sheila thought wisely.

The old man cleared his throat, catching her eye. ‘Did you happen to get that new delivery of baccy in yet, Mrs Newton? That nice leaf I like?’

‘I did, Mr Faragher,’ Sheila agreed, and led him into the shop.

As Sheila was closing up, half an hour earlier than usual, she turned to her sister Margaret, who now lived above the shop and helped her run the place.

‘I hope that new Land Girl will fit in all right.’ She had already told Margaret about the young woman with the strong Liverpudlian accent.

‘You should have seen old Mr Faragher’s face …

He won’t keep it to himself, of course. The whole village will be talking about her by tomorrow, you mark my words.

’ She flipped the hanging shop sign from OPEN to CLOSED.

‘Thing is, he didn’t mean any harm by staring.

We don’t see much excitement down here, do we?

And Porthcurno’s been bloomin’ quiet this year.

’ She grinned, remembering the chaos of her first few months in Cornwall, keeping house for her daughter Violet and her orphaned nieces Lily and Alice, the three of them somehow always getting into trouble.

‘Though we had our hands full during the war, didn’t we? ’

‘It must be a year at least since the soldiers left who were guarding Eastern House.’ Margaret put away her broom.

Her face was wistful. ‘I don’t miss the war.

Who could? A government listening post on our doorstep, Germans bombing us nightly, and never knowing if we were about to be invaded and rounded up by men in jackboots …

But it was exciting, I’ll say that for it.

These days,’ she added defiantly, ‘the most excitement I get is when that nice Mr Lister comes in for a few rashers of streaky bacon.’

Sheila flashed her a look but didn’t pass comment. Her sister was in the middle of seeking a divorce from an abusive husband, but she wouldn’t be free to look elsewhere for some years if Stanley Chellew continued to ignore her solicitor’s letters.

‘When I was running that caff in Dagenham,’ she recalled, ‘we had a Jamaican family just down the street from us. They were always coming in for a nice cuppa and a slice of my home-made ginger cake. Oh, they were lovely people. In fact, the grandma, Judith, used to share family recipes with me. I’ve still got ’em somewhere.

Spicy, mind you. But tasty with it.’ She smacked her lips with nostalgia.

‘Gawd, it must be years since I made a proper Jamaican dish.’

‘You said she was from Liverpool.’ Maggie looked mystified.

‘Yes,’ Sheila said patiently, ‘but her looks are Caribbean, by my reckoning. I could be wrong. But I’m sure Grace will tell us all about herself and her family once she’s settled in at the farm.’

Unfastening her work apron, her sister nudged her. ‘Hullo, look at that.’ A car had just pulled up outside the shop. ‘That’ll be your fancy man, come to whisk you away for another evening of pleasure.’