Cornwall shimmers beneath a pale yellow sun.
St Michael’s Mount rears up, ancient, arcane, unknowing and unknowable from the centre of the bay.
The granite hedges are verdant with fern and pink campion.
Hawks soar over sheep studded fields.
The silence is sublime.
My chest pain vanishes and whilst Maisie and my mother shop in Penzance I walk to Mousehole with Evil slinking, a blue black shadow, at my heels. On Raginnis Hill, Evil crouches, stands still in the road and lifts her lip in long low snarl. A badger has died in the hedge. A river of maggots errupts from it’s pelt and pours in a stream into our path. we step carefully by and the smell follows us long afterwards. Two walkers come by. They wear rucksacks. They have special boots with velcro straps. They carry ski ploes. They have purpose. Suddenly I feel that perhaps Deisel Jeans, a French Connection vest and a pair of Topshop sandals are somehow inadeqate.
‘Can you tell us, where is Lamorna?’ asks one.
‘Can you tell us, is it possible to walk in two hours to Cape Cornwall ?’ says the other.
Perhaps the ski poles are justified.
I point behind me.
‘Lamorna is away down over there, but you’ll not make Cape Cornwall before dark.’ I say.
I am going native, I almost add, ‘And beware the woods as ‘ee go.’ but forebear.
In Mousehole boats bob in the harbour. I walk past Squire Keigwin’s house and pay homage to his bravery as the soldiers of the Armada struck him down on his very doorstones. I pause by the bus-stop and listen in on a teenage conversation.
‘Hey Tamsin.’ says a girl wearing a hoodie and giant flares (they are very behind in the fashion stakes down here.) ‘Here come Wesley.’
“Hey, Wesley !’ says her friend, pulling a string of gum from her muoth and winding it slowly back in, twirling her tongue suggestively.
‘Wes?’ she says
A boy lopes over, golden haired, golden skinned, furnished and burnished by West Country sun. He is honed to his physical peak by the surf.
‘That’s my name girl, don’t wear it out.’ says Wes lazily.
I love teenagers.
I walk up Duck Street. Deedee Duke has an Open Studio today and I hope to buy a pot or a jug.
Deedee is a very good potter.
‘Hi.’ says Deedee as I poke my head round the door of her little Duck Street cottage. I have known Deedee all my life.
‘How are you?’ says Deedee. ‘How are your children? They must be incredibly old by now. Are they down with you? What are they up to?’
Deedee has a dazzling smile. She wears a faded fisherman’s smock and espadrilles.
‘Oh,’ I say airily ‘They are all much older than me now. And I have no idea what they are up to. Infact,’ I add, ‘I can hardly remember their names.’ I am nothng at all, if not affected.
‘Now, Deedee’. I say ‘Where are your pots? I have come to buy a pot.’ I glance round the patently pot-free room.
‘Oh’ says Deedee ‘I am painting at the moment. There are no pots, just my paintings and the sculptures belong to Becky. Becky’s my partner.’ she adds.
Deedee calls upstairs,
‘Becky! Come and meet an old friend.’
Suddenly a beautiful girl stands in the room. She has short, fair hair and slanting green eyes. She wears short shorts and has long brown legs.
Her sculptures are of sandstone horses.
‘And you,’ says Deedee to fill the gaping silence, ‘What are you doing, when not mooching around Mousehole looking incredibly cool and ignoring your grown-up childen?’
‘Oh nothing at all.’ I say ‘What a wonderful painting.’ I say. ‘I’ll have that.’ I say.
‘Grown-up children?’ says Becky in the softest Scottish accent. ‘Surely not.’ she says ‘How old were you when you had them? Why do you look so young?’
‘Oh you know,’ I say ‘Filler, injections, a bit of laser resurfacing, that sort of thing.’ I say.
How they roared !
I think I might be a lesbian.
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