AT THE EDGE OF A LONG LONE LAND

A Story

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

  AT THE EDGE OF A LONG LONE LAND

I used to watch her walk the Coast Path every morning through my grandad’s old spyglass. Sometimes, she’d stand rooted to one place, looking out past Pordenack Point at one of the small fishing boats, or a merchant ship, and I could picture her in my imagination as a young Penelope searching for her Ulysses. It struck me at times that perhaps she was looking for a piece of herself out there—that maybe she’d given away a piece of her heart, or perhaps misplaced it. I didn’t know her name at the time—I didn’t know anything about her—and so was quite content to sit at the table with grandad’s spyglass, watching her walk the jagged outcrops like an acrobat dancing a tightrope.

It’s a cold, wet, wind, with a fine mist of sea spray that slaps at you as if it were a bitter pronouncement of what’s to come; where winter’s waves come crashing down as loud as thunder, sounding for all the world as if it were the wrath of a thousand angels. She’d stand as still as a stone statue—transfixed—her shawl wrapped around her shoulders as she struggled with the wind as if it were a living thing. With her long, dark, hair flowing behind her like a gutted candle, she’d stretch her arms out like a bird—maybe thinking she could fly—while her shawl spread out behind her as though she were the winged portrait of a Greek goddess, or maybe a Siren luring small boats to the rocks below?

I lived with Mum and my two younger brothers at The Dog’s Ear, a small, five room hotel and public house, on the outskirts of Trevilley Station, near Land’s End. Each morning at five, I’d hear Mum walking down the dark, narrow, staircase leading into the kitchen—the same walk she’d made every morning for as long as I could remember—where she resurrected the embers in the stove, and put the first batch of fresh Cornish pasties in, which I’d later sell to fishermen working on the beaches.

Da’ left for the Great War during the first months of 1914. He was among the first wave to be sent over there. Being a bonafide professional soldier in his youth, he’d said it was everyman’s duty to serve both King and country. He left little for us to remember him by, except a youthful portrait of himself staring down at us from above the hotel desk, hanging next to a portrait of the King. We’d had no word from him in over a year, although we knew he was still alive—they were quick to let us know he was still alive—and that it was only a matter of time before Da’ returned home. That was late in October 1916; it was now fast approaching the winter of 1917.

I had to give up school to deliver pasties now that Da’ was gone, as well as delivering the post since poor Charlie Smythe had proven unable. I’d spend my mornings delivering ale and Mum’s fresh pasties to the fishermen on the beach, and my afternoons delivering the mail—as well as Mum’s left over pasties—to the farmers of St. Just-in-Penwith, and finish my rounds at Penzance, three miles to the West. I rode Da’s big-wheeled bicycle along coastal trails and through the outlying villages, only to find myself stopping when I neared the house where Charlie Smythe lived. That’s where I’d pause for a bite to eat and a jug of beer I’d pilfered from home, before finding a spot in the tall, cool, grass where I could lay my coat under the trees and scan the open ocean with grandad’s spyglass. I suppose I was thinking I might spot the ship that was bringing Da’ back home; but all I ever saw was the endless expanse of the great, silent sea.

I’d follow the coastline with my spyglass, moving from left to right, from crag to shore, watching the old men stitch up fishing nets as if they were spiders weaving silken webs; their overturned dories looking like beached whales in the distance.

I was reluctant to turn my spyglass toward Charlie Smythe’s house. The windows still looked to be closed up tight—just the same as they’d been for the last two years—the house looking as deserted as it was haunted. There seemed little sense in me staring at it, and yet, something compelled me—just as much as people often pause to view a tragedy on the roadside. When everyone had run off to sign up and fight for the Empire—for King and Country as me Da’ cried out that night—Charlie Smythe had been quick to follow.

There was a mistaken belief that it would all be over within six weeks; but Charlie and Da’ were the only ones to come back. It had been Charlie’s job to deliver the post before the Great War, and I remember how I’d watch him ride his sputtering Ariel motorcycle along the dusty trails. But Charlie came back from the Front missing his left arm and leg, and now he lived a sheltered life. I think people preferred it that way, because no one knew what to say whenever they saw him stumping about the village lanes on his single crutch. Is it any wonder he rode his sputtering Ariel motorcycle over the cliffs, late in the spring of 1924?

At last I’d turn me spyglass toward McCreary’s Place—out toward Pordenack Point where she lived. Sometimes, I’d see her standing in the yard hanging her laundry on the line, just as I’d sometimes pass her riding her bicycle down the hill on a Wednesday afternoon. I’d quite often pause and watch her follow the small, dusty path down to the village. She’d always wave at me, afraid of letting go of the handlebars for even the briefest moment, a look of fear and concentration etched clearly on her face. Once in the village, she’d give her order to the grocer, meaning to pick it up the following Saturday. I’d lay under the trees with my spyglass and look for her walking the village streets. She’d always pause to watch the fishermen stitching their nets before then she rode out to the Hotel where she insisted on picking up the mail herself.

  Mum told me how she seemed surprised when she realized for the first time there were only old men and boys living in the village. I could almost picture Mum looking at her from under those close-knit brows of hers, before explaining to the woman that wars wreak havoc on small villages like ours. I was willing to forgive her the question though, because I was young and she was beautiful. I’ve long since learned a man can forgive a woman anything if she’s beautiful.

She’d tousled Robbie’s hair the first time she met him, grinning at him and saying he had Mum’s smile and dimples, as well as her blue eyes. Mum laughed and said that was the moment Robbie fell in love with her. I told Mum she should’ve told her Robbie had Da’s flaming red hair and temper to match. Instead, Mum told her Robbie was her youngest, David four years older, and I was the man of the house at seventeen.

Mum said it with something of a sigh though, and it seemed to slip out from deep inside of her, the mournful recognition of her self-abnegation. And then she looked at me and tried to force a smile, as if she were suddenly aware that she’d let her guard down. I think it embarrassed her to realize that I knew when she was thinking about Da’—but she was always thinking of Da’. I’d sometimes hear her cry out in the middle of the night, her moans low and soft—almost muted—sounding as if she’d buried her face into her pillow before calling out his name and falling back into silence.

Mum told me her name was Felicity. Such a beautiful name that, she smiled; the name she’d chosen herself for the daughter she never bore. Mum told Felicity Da’ had fought in the Boer War, and was well past forty—he was closer to forty-five—and that they’d put him in with the Sappers. Working in the mines here about, it seemed like the natural choice, she’d said. She thought he’d be safer there, but in the end, she knew she was only fooling herself. There’s no safe place to be in a war, she said with a sigh, and I looked up at Da’s portrait next to the King’s, staring down at us from above the desk.

I wanted to ask Mum about Da’s wound, but I knew she was not about to discuss it with me. I wanted to know when he was coming home, or if her expectations were any greater than my own, but she’d already turned away from the picture, looking right at me when she told me Da couldn’t wait to be part of the Great War. She said with a note of resignation. “Just like yerself,” she said, and I felt the blood rushing to my face. She said Felicity simply nodded when she’d said the same thing to her; her husband had felt the same way.

“And then there’s yerself,” Mum said into the silence of the room, and I could see my only chance of leaving off, would be without her permission.

  Mum seemed to come back to herself after that, saying Felicity’s smile was the kind that put you at your ease as soon as you met her, and I wondered if I’d ever be at my ease with her. Robbie said he thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and David, not to be outdone, said she smelled of soap and talcum powder, even after the long ride down from the Point.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her dark hair, with those long ringlets cascading down the middle of her back, even when she gathered it all on top of her head in a mass of shimmering curls. Her hair glinted like the ocean at midnight under a full moon, and I tried imagining what it would be like to run my hands through it. She had large brown eyes with thick lashes, full pouty lips and high cheekbones; she was a portrait of youth and beauty, as the poet’s say. Mum said she was no more than twenty—five—if that—and then looked at me and smiled, saying how she’d bore me when she was that age.

She told me Felicity wrote letters while she waited for a lunch of cold pasties as well as a beer. She told Mum it seemed a bit ironic how her husband had so desperately wanted to go to the Front, and now that he was there, wanted nothing more than to come home.

“She told me going over the top was unbearable for him, an’ him an English gentleman an’ all.” That’s what had prompted Felicity to move out here in the first place, Mum said. But by the time she’d arranged everything, his letters stopped. She still came in with her own to post, but the answers were slow in coming—if they came at all.

When she finally did get an answer, they said her husband had been executed for cowardice.