Home to Roost (12 page)

‘Yes, I’m sure we don’t have one. I don’t like the things.’

She looks up at me as if I’d said I don’t like daffodils or little lambs frolicking in the meadows. ‘Really? I couldn’t live without my microwave.’ She checks her list. ‘Washing machine?’

‘That’s all right. We’ve had it for years and it’s never given us an ounce of trouble. Works a treat. The clothes come out whiter than white,’ I babble, sounding like a TV advert.

‘Can I see it?’

She actually laughs out loud when she does. ‘Far too old. And look at that bit of rust at the bottom. It’ll never do. You’ll have to get a new one.’

Seeing my face she adds kindly, ‘Have a look later at the information I gave you. It tells you the high standards we require for our holiday cottages.’ She’s looking at all my mismatched cutlery, crockery, and glassware. ‘I’m afraid none of this will do,’ she informs me. ‘Everything has to be matching.’

‘Even eggcups?’

‘Yes, even those.’

Goodness, whoever notices mismatched eggcups when they rent a cottage? We never did, when we lived in London and rented our holiday homes in Cornwall. Were the eggcups matching? Were the washing machines brand new? They worked, which was all we cared about with two young children, but we never noticed the age.

Still, the amount of money we can get for a week’s rental is staggering, so we’ll have to go along with it. We’ll need to take out a bank loan to get the place up to scratch, but if need be, we’ll do it.

However, there is more to come. As I walk Ms Channing to the car, she says, ‘Oh, and you’ll have to repoint this front path. I noticed on the way in that it’s quite uneven.’

That’s the understatement of the year. It’s made up of large flat stones of various sizes. She doesn’t say it, but I can tell by the amount of writing she’s doing on her clipboard that the whole path will have to be redone. There is the less able, or the elderly holiday maker to consider.

When she goes, I sit down to look at the information she’s given me. All the extra things we’ll have to supply! A barbecue, a dryer. Cots and high chairs for babies, toys, games and books for older children. All the paraphernalia needed for a fire inside, for even in August the weather can be rainy or chilly, and besides, visitors like a cosy fire to settle in front of, even in summer. So that means supplying bags of coal, wood, tongs, brush, shovel, poker, fireguard, the whole works. The thought of strangers lighting fires in our house gives me the shivers. Will they be as careful with sparks and roaring fires as we are, especially if they haven’t one in their own home? And, of course, the chimney will have to be swept professionally, and certified. The certificate has to be placed in a folder where the guest can see it. A fire blanket and extinguisher have to be provided. I’m getting more and more anxious about all this – good God, what kind of fires do holiday makers start, to warrant all this equipment?

By the time I’ve read all the information, I’ve gone right off the idea. When Ben gets home later, I tell him all about it.

‘It’ll cost a fortune,’ he says.

‘I know. We’d need a huge bank loan.’

‘All the things we need to do! Not only will it take money we don’t have, it’ll take ages. We even need to get our LPG gas bottles checked and certified, even though they’re outside. Our boiler has to be fully serviced and certified. There’s so much more, as well.’

We talk it all through carefully. Finally we decide that, yes, we’ll do it – in the end, it will earn us money. But we’ll take it slowly. Getting all the things done will take time as well as money, and we want to do it properly, don’t want to rush things. If we can’t get our home rented before this summer, we’ll go for the Easter trade next year to begin with.

We’re both happy about this decision. ‘As long as it doesn’t change our place too much,’ I say as we go into the kitchen, start to prepare the evening meal together. Will and Amy, home now and outside with their friends in the village, will be disappointed that we won’t be camping out for a couple of months this year, but I’m secretly pleased. And who knows, maybe our cottage will be ready by the end of summer. But if not, there is always next year. As everything in Cornwall, there’s no need to hurry.

Annie has booked the crystal therapy session for one of my days off. We set out together on a drizzly morning which doesn’t damp our spirits in the slightest. We plan on a proper day out – an inexpensive lunch in a tiny café after our session, then a browse around the better charity shops.

There is a lurid purple sign outside the door of the crystal therapist’s office which is tucked down a back street past the bus station. In bold black letters are the words CHAKRA READINGS and CRYSTAL HEALING. ‘What are chakras?’ Annie says as we knock on the door.

It opens so quickly that we both involuntary step back, nearly falling down the concrete step. An extremely tall, extremely skinny man with a wispy salt-and-pepper beard and long straggly hair dyed ebony black says, ‘Chakras are the energy centres in the body. Come in, please.’

He ushers us into a long narrow room cut in two by a brown velvet curtain. The room has high ceilings which is just as well, for the man must be six foot six inches tall at least. He’s dressed entirely in black which emphasises his skeletal frame, the pallor above his beard. ‘My name is Gawain,’ he says grandly, in what sounds vaguely like a French accent. ‘Please sit.’ He indicates two scruffy wing armchairs. ‘You will excuse me,
s’il vous plaît
, while I prepare myself.’

He disappears down the corridor somewhere, shutting the door as he goes. Annie and I look at each other. ‘Gawain?’ she whispers. ‘More like Gary, I bet. There’s definitely an Essex twang there underneath that phoney French stuff.’

‘Shall we make a run for it?’

‘Too late, he’s coming.’

Gawain enters the room, looking exactly as he did before except now he has a huge pendant around his neck. It’s round and ivory-coloured with a black stone in the centre which stares out from the middle of his chest like a third eye. ‘Creepy,’ Annie mouths at me when his back is turned.

He takes a seat facing us and asks where we found out about him. Annie tells him about the two free tokens she found in the local newspaper and he can’t hide the disappointed look on his face. Then he brightens as he says, ‘But of course you must understand that one session might not be enough, especially if any of your chakras are blocked. Now, who would like to be first?’

Stifling a smile, Annie gives me a little shove. I shove her back. We engage in a silent tussle while Gawain pulls back the velvet curtain, revealing some kind of tall bed or massage table. Shelves on the walls contain crystals of various sizes, shapes, and colours. More velvet curtains cover the windows, blocking out any natural light there might be. A coloured lamp with a red bulb shines malignly in the corner, providing the only light. I wonder if the room doubles as a brothel after dark.

Gawain lights several tall candles. Now it looks as if he’s preparing for a Black Mass. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry, and obviously Annie doesn’t either, for she’s clutching my arm and giving me odd pokes. I’m not sure if they mean ‘let’s get out of here’ or ‘what a hoot this is’. My poke back at her means ‘how in hell did you get me into this?’

The next minute I’m lying on my back on the table, or bed, or whatever it is while Annie disappears behind the velvet curtain, though I’m sure she’ll find a way to peek inside to see what’s going on. Gawain plays some music on a small CD player and seems to have trouble adjusting it to the right sound, for a blare of noise nearly blasts me off the table before it quietens to a background hum of New Age sounds, high-pitched and eerie, with birds twittering in the background along with the rush of gentle waves. I guess it’s supposed to put me in the mood but it only makes me wish I were walking on the beach with Annie instead of stuck here in this weird room.

Gawain takes a pink quartz the size of a fist and lays it on my forehead, letting it rest there while muttering something incomprehensible with a few French words thrown in. Then he does the same to my throat, my chest and my belly, changing the quartz for an amethyst somewhere down the line and shaking his head mournfully from time to time as if distressed by what my chakras are up to. He’s obviously new at this sort of thing for his pendant with the Evil Eye hits me twice in the face while he’s moving the crystal. Finally he takes it off with a very un-French swear word that he doesn’t think I hear, for he turns back to me full of smiling charm once more.

As the quartz rests on my chest, Gawain tells me my heart chakra is ailing. But then it seems they all are, which naturally will entail more sessions, but, he assures me, he has a special offer of three for the price of two.

When my turn is over, Gawain once again leaves us ‘to prepare for the next healing session’.

‘He’s gone out for a smoke,’ I whisper to Annie. ‘I could smell it on him last time. You have a sniff when you go in there.’

‘Me, go in there? Not in a million years.’

Gawain, back again, says to Annie, ‘
Entrez vous
, madam.’ Then, more prosaically, ‘Your turn.’

Annie shakes her head. ‘Oh Gawain, I’m so sorry but my friend here is exhausted after her treatment and I’m taking her home. Another time, perhaps.’

He frowns. ‘The free offer only lasts until the end of the month.’ Turning to me, he asks when I’d like my next appointment. When I say vaguely that I’ll ring him when I’m ready, he knows he’s lost us. He’s barely civil to us as he sees us to the door, practically shoves us out. His French accent is totally gone. Annie was right, he’s definitely an Essex man.

‘Well, that was an experience,’ I say, as Annie and I head for a café and a much needed coffee. ‘Do you think we were his first ever customers?’

‘His last, too, if he doesn’t get his act together. He’s been reading too many wizard books.’

‘It’s a shame, really. A man like that gives all alternative therapies a bad name, and some of them are quite good.’

‘I’m sure crystal therapy is good, too, in the right hands,’ Annie has found a café and is pulling me towards it as she keeps talking. ‘I looked it up on the net before we came out and it’s quite an ancient therapy. The Hopi Native Americans used it in Arizona, and the Hawaiian Islanders still do apparently.’

‘Well, Gawain’s hands were definitely the wrong ones.’

‘Too skinny.’

‘Chalky.’

‘Bony. And did you see his fingernails? Far too long!’

We start to laugh. Inside the café I say, ‘The poor man. Just trying to make a living, like the rest of us.’

Annie will have none of that. ‘Fleecing us, you mean. I’m all for people making ends meet any way they can, even Gary from Essex, but not if they’re fleecing others.’

She’s getting so indignant that I remind her he didn’t get a penny from us. ‘He must think he’s good,’ I muse, ‘giving away free sessions. He must really think people will come back for more.’

‘Poor Gawain.’

‘Poor Gary.’

Later after lunch, some retail therapy at the vintage second-hand shop, and a great many laughs, Annie puts something in my hand. It’s a tiny pink quartz stone, no bigger than a fingernail. ‘A souvenir,’ she says. ‘I picked it up in that tiny gift shop opposite the store where you had gone to buy some socks for Ben. A memento of another successful girlie day together. I feel my chakras are positively glowing.’

‘Mine, too. Positively radiating,’ I say, as arm in arm we head back to the car and our respective homes.

CHAPTER SIX

Roosting Rooks and Piercing Peacocks

I CAN HEAR
the screeching as I walk down through the village towards the Humphreys’ house. ‘Goodness, Tessa, what’s that?’ Kate Winterson has come rushing down the road after me, looking a bit panicky.

Another raucous noise, even louder than the first screech, nearly drowns out my reply. Kate cries, ‘What did you say?’ She’s stopped walking towards the sound, clearly terrified.

‘It’s only the peacock,’ I shout. ‘Emmanuel, remember? I told you about him a week or so ago, belongs to Edna and Hector at Poet’s Tenement. You’ve heard him before.’

‘Oh, God! The peacock? Are you sure? The nasty creature is sounding louder every day. I thought it was human. Someone being attacked.’

‘This is rural Cornwall, not London,’ I say cheerily, trying to get that anxious look off her pale face.

She looks doubtful. ‘Isn’t some kind of panther supposed to be stalking the countryside?’

‘That’s Dartmoor. Or Exmoor. Take your pick. Maybe even Bodmin has rumours of those things, I’m not sure. But even if they exist, Kate, we’re nowhere near any of those places. And if they do exist, they certainly do not attack humans.’

She still looks uneasy, but she’s now walking down the road with me instead of stopping in the middle and refusing to go on.

‘You still haven’t met the Humphreys, have you?’ I ask. ‘Lovely couple. C’mon, I’m going there now. I’ll introduce you to them.’ I smile. ‘And to Emmanuel.’

‘That’s the last thing I want to meet. Sounds like a dozen peacocks over there.’

‘Only two. Emmanuel and the peahen. The Duchess, she’s called. But it’s only Emmanuel who makes that noise.’