Chapter Forty-Nine
Forty-Nine
Lore
I walk with Betty and she tells me about Loor, about the highest part of the island, where there’s a tiny chapel and a graveyard. The walk up there is steep and passes standing stones from the ancient Celts who lived here thousands of years ago and worshipped in their own way.
There is still a service on a Sunday, she tells me, and it’s well-attended by a select group of six parishioners, who mostly constitute the ‘Knit and Natt’ group that happens afterwards in the community centre at the foot of the hill.
I haven’t gone to church for a long time but as Betty talks, something about this chapel draws me, and I want to sit up there in the shadow of this ancient place, and feel its power.
‘I can only imagine how cold it must be in winter.’
‘The congregation trudges up that hill in gales and thunderstorms. Whatever the weather, they come to chapel. It’s part of the ritual.’
I nod as if I understand, but I don’t, not really.
Betty points out a few Grand Designs style houses, like my neighbour’s, which stand extravagantly on the cliffs above the beach, where people have bought up the old cottages, knocked them down and replaced them with houses that take up the whole footprint of land, swallowing the gardens and leaving nothing except space for a tiny terrace, just about big enough to fit two deckchairs. These are all ‘DFLs’, Betty tells me, the ‘Down From Londons’ who are trying to create their own piece of paradise away from the hectic pace of the cities.
‘They have the money and the inclination, so what’s to stop them? Certainly not Cornwall Council. They positively encourage them,’ she says, sighing. ‘Most of the colourful cottages of my childhood are all gone now. Maybe some would say good riddance, because they were chilly as the devil’s nips, but I remember looking over to a little pink cottage where that concrete and glass monstrosity stands now, where two elderly sisters lived, and I can’t help feeling sad. Those sisters were German, and they had a German Shepherd dog who barked every time I walked past.’
Her face has taken on a softness, as if she’s left me, as if she’s not here at all.
‘My old border collie Ben would bark back, loud enough to raise the dead, but I always had the impression the two dogs liked each other and wanted nothing more than to play. That cottage is gone now. So, too, the sisters, and both of the dogs long gone, of course, but I feel them every time I pass.’
I don’t know how to answer this.
‘Oh, that’s sad,’ I say, for want of anything else.
‘It’s not,’ she corrects me. ‘I was a child then and now I’m an old lady – older even than the German sisters were – but these are the things we take on our backs with us: the how-it-was, even though the how-it-is-now is all different.’
The soft Loor lilt of her accent calms me down. I can almost feel the cortisol beginning to leave my body. Somehow, Betty or the island is soothing me.
‘That white cottage used to be the post office,’ she says, smiling at me with a far-off look in her eyes. ‘My girls went in there with their pennies to buy sweets. At Easter, they sent postcards of the bunnies and daffs to their aunts and uncles on the mainland. A penny those postcards cost, and another five to send them using a Loor stamp, because we had our own postal service then – did you know?’
I shake my head no, which seems to please her.
‘Oh yes. That stamp and the postmark was the thing people liked most. A little taste of somewhere special landing on their doormat. It was precious.’
‘I bet,’ I say, trying to imagine the island as it was then.
She falls silent and my stomach gives an unmistakeable gurgle of hunger. What with the fresh air and exercise, I suddenly feel ravenous.
‘I’m glad you’re hungry,’ Betty says. ‘You can try my Loor pudding. Goes lovely with a morning cup of tea.’
Seeing my look of bafflement, she explains. ‘Suet pudding with a whole Loor-grown lemon inside, in its entirety, skin included. It’s like nothing you’ve ever tasted. I got the recipe from Edie.’
The nice psychopath who runs the shop.
‘You know, she said she recognised me from my picture on LinkedIn…’
‘Oh, did she?’
There is definitely something odd happening here, but I can’t put my finger on it.
We pass another bungalow, with two extremely elderly women sitting on rocking chairs on a wraparound porch.
‘That’s Radigon and Goodithea,’ Betty says, giving them a wave. ‘Goodithea is the most ancient person on the island. Turning one-hundred-and-ten this year, but looks one-hundred-and-twenty. Radigon is the younger sister – she’s the sexy one.’
Radigon raises her hand in greeting, but Goodithea appears to be giving us a dirty look.
‘Is she angry with us?’ I say. ‘She’s sort of glaring.’
‘No, she’s just sleeping with her eyes open. She’s always done it. She had to have her eyes open with ten younger brothers prowling around, and her responsible for the lot of them. It’s just her and Radigon left now.’
We pass the bungalow and come to another one that has been painted electric blue.
‘This is mine,’ Betty says. ‘The Blue Bung. Bit of a famous landmark on the island. Come in.’
Suddenly, the vague feeling that I’ve forgotten something rises up and flicks me on the nose.
‘I forgot Ted! I should have brought him along for his morning walk. He’s probably barking the house down and giving himself heart failure. I need to get back.’
‘Oh, Ted’s fine. He never gets up until ten. He’ll still be asleep on your bed.’
‘Even so, I really should get back. I have eighty-seven snakes to check on.’
‘If you’re sure you don’t want a bit of lemon pudding for breakfast,’ Betty says. ‘I’ll walk you home.’
I tell her there’s no need, but she insists, and I am 100 per cent certain now that there is a very definite twinkle in her eye.
When we’re approaching my place, she hooks her arm in mine and says, ‘Come on, let’s try your neighbour again.’
I’d really rather not be introduced to my new neighbour when I’m still in my pyjamas, but she leads me down the path to the fabulous house and I feel myself swept along, caught by her current.
She buzzes the Ring doorbell, waits a few moments and then knocks on the door continuously.
Through the frosted glass, we see the outline of a tall, broad-shouldered person approaching and Betty beams with happiness.
When the door opens halfway, I catch a glimpse of a semi-naked man with just a tiny towel at his waist covering his modesty.
My eyes travel from the man’s navel to his eyes, and to his slate-coloured hair.
He is, indisputably, Cally Grey Pubes. Formerly known as Bandanna Man.