indeterminate
colour and a plain wooden table and chair are the
only furniture. A box of corn flakes and a half pint of milk
sit forgotten on the table.
I see a massive spider's web in the corner over the ancient
wood-burning cooker.
We talk for a few minutes about the weather and then there
is a silence as we stand awkwardly facing each other. I'm not
sure how to leave. How can I wish this lonely man a Merry
Christmas? He'll be here at home, as usual, eating something
out of a tin. In the past a few of the kindly folk in the nearby
village have invited him to Christmas dinner but he's always
refused, with such a mixture of longing and terror in his eyes
that people stopped asking. 'Much to his relief,' both Susie and
Reg have told me. Emma and Martin too have tried to do more
for him, have tried to invite him over to the farmhouse, but
it's no use. He won't accept either help or hospitality, fearful
of losing his fragile independence.
The stench in the room is so stifling I'm having trouble
breathing. The air in the place is odd, at once that horrid damp
cold that goes straight to the bones, yet stuffy, with the wood
stove pumping out heat and an acrid smoke that is making my
eyes water.
'Goodbye, Mr Hawker, must be back on my rounds.'
Before I can go he shoves his hand in his trouser pocket
and takes out a piece of lined paper wrapped around a small
hard object. He shoves it awkwardly into my hand and says,
'For the post. Christmas and all. I be thanking 'ee.'
It feels like a coin. I don't want to accept – I know how
small his pension is but I can't refuse. I feel tears welling up
and blink to stop them. This is my first and only tip this
Christmas.
Mr Hawker's fifty pence piece wrapped in a piece of lined
writing paper is one of the loveliest Christmas gifts I could
ask for. I thank him profusely and say goodbye.
Poor man. As I get into the van I see he's still standing at
the door, waving at me as I start up. I nearly weep, he looks
so forlorn. He's wearing a long grey cardigan over several
pullovers; I can see the sleeves of different colours poking out
of holes in the dingy cardigan. The hand he raises to wave me
off is swollen and knotted with arthritis.
I wave back. 'Merry Christmas,' I whisper. I watch him
through the rear view mirror as he stands waving until I am
out of sight.
And now I'm finished, for today at any rate. And then there
is the holiday. I'm wet and cold and ill and starting to feel feverish. But
I've got this far. I've lasted till Christmas. As I drive I take one hand
off the wheel to pick up the crumpled paper and coin that Mr Hawker gave me
and squeeze it like a talisman before putting it down again on the seat next
to me.
Back at St Geraint I park the van behind the boat yard in its
usual place but I don't get out, not yet. The van is facing the
sea and I sit and watch the foamy waves, the squally spray, the
grey and purple sky ripe with storms. There are massive rocks
on the edge of the shore, half covered by the surging water.
There's a legend here that a holy man, a saint, sat daily on one
of those rocks round about AD 550, giving lessons to the fishermen
after their day's toil. The story goes that a seal used to
clamber on a rock nearby, not to imbibe Christianity but to
bark at students and teacher. Perhaps the seal was a dissenter,
well ahead of Wesley and the other Methodists who would
one day inhabit Cornwall, or perhaps he was doing no more
than barking his approval of the saintly man and his lectures.
Whatever it was, the preacher could no more tolerate this seal
than he could a recalcitrant student. He smacked the seal's
nose as he would have smacked the hand of a disruptive
child and the seal slunk back chastised into the sea.
I look for seals now as they are not uncommon in this
estuary, sunning themselves on the rocks when the weather's
warm. But it's crazy to think I'll spot one now as they'll all be
hiding from another storm that's fast approaching from
colour and a plain wooden table and chair are the
only furniture. A box of corn flakes and a half pint of milk
sit forgotten on the table.
I see a massive spider's web in the corner over the ancient
wood-burning cooker.
We talk for a few minutes about the weather and then there
is a silence as we stand awkwardly facing each other. I'm not
sure how to leave. How can I wish this lonely man a Merry
Christmas? He'll be here at home, as usual, eating something
out of a tin. In the past a few of the kindly folk in the nearby
village have invited him to Christmas dinner but he's always
refused, with such a mixture of longing and terror in his eyes
that people stopped asking. 'Much to his relief,' both Susie and
Reg have told me. Emma and Martin too have tried to do more
for him, have tried to invite him over to the farmhouse, but
it's no use. He won't accept either help or hospitality, fearful
of losing his fragile independence.
The stench in the room is so stifling I'm having trouble
breathing. The air in the place is odd, at once that horrid damp
cold that goes straight to the bones, yet stuffy, with the wood
stove pumping out heat and an acrid smoke that is making my
eyes water.
'Goodbye, Mr Hawker, must be back on my rounds.'
Before I can go he shoves his hand in his trouser pocket
and takes out a piece of lined paper wrapped around a small
hard object. He shoves it awkwardly into my hand and says,
'For the post. Christmas and all. I be thanking 'ee.'
It feels like a coin. I don't want to accept – I know how
small his pension is but I can't refuse. I feel tears welling up
and blink to stop them. This is my first and only tip this
Christmas.
Mr Hawker's fifty pence piece wrapped in a piece of lined
writing paper is one of the loveliest Christmas gifts I could
ask for. I thank him profusely and say goodbye.
Poor man. As I get into the van I see he's still standing at
the door, waving at me as I start up. I nearly weep, he looks
so forlorn. He's wearing a long grey cardigan over several
pullovers; I can see the sleeves of different colours poking out
of holes in the dingy cardigan. The hand he raises to wave me
off is swollen and knotted with arthritis.
I wave back. 'Merry Christmas,' I whisper. I watch him
through the rear view mirror as he stands waving until I am
out of sight.
And now I'm finished, for today at any rate. And then there
is the holiday. I'm wet and cold and ill and starting to feel feverish. But
I've got this far. I've lasted till Christmas. As I drive I take one hand
off the wheel to pick up the crumpled paper and coin that Mr Hawker gave me
and squeeze it like a talisman before putting it down again on the seat next
to me.
Back at St Geraint I park the van behind the boat yard in its
usual place but I don't get out, not yet. The van is facing the
sea and I sit and watch the foamy waves, the squally spray, the
grey and purple sky ripe with storms. There are massive rocks
on the edge of the shore, half covered by the surging water.
There's a legend here that a holy man, a saint, sat daily on one
of those rocks round about AD 550, giving lessons to the fishermen
after their day's toil. The story goes that a seal used to
clamber on a rock nearby, not to imbibe Christianity but to
bark at students and teacher. Perhaps the seal was a dissenter,
well ahead of Wesley and the other Methodists who would
one day inhabit Cornwall, or perhaps he was doing no more
than barking his approval of the saintly man and his lectures.
Whatever it was, the preacher could no more tolerate this seal
than he could a recalcitrant student. He smacked the seal's
nose as he would have smacked the hand of a disruptive
child and the seal slunk back chastised into the sea.
I look for seals now as they are not uncommon in this
estuary, sunning themselves on the rocks when the weather's
warm. But it's crazy to think I'll spot one now as they'll all be
hiding from another storm that's fast approaching from
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