Free Up With the Larks by Tessa Hainsworth Page A

that job.'
    'Too right. Lost tons of weight. He was getting right fat,
sorry to say, but never would diet,' the redhead snorted disapprovingly
for this lack of self discipline. 'All that weight'll
go right back on now, you wait and see.'
    They both looked grim, thinking no doubt of poor Ryan
getting right fat again since quitting his job.
    The redhead said, 'Means another postman coming again.
Have to lock up Harriet. She eats postmen.'
    I hoped Harriet was a dog and not some kind of Cornish
carnivore I'd not read about yet. By now I was listening
unashamedly.
    The young mother tucked the baby's blanket tighter around
her legs. 'Harriet's a right troublesome thing. Oh look, there
she be now, the naughty beast.'
    I looked down the path in the direction they were pointing
expecting to see the Hound of the Baskervilles. Instead, a tiny
Jack Russell terrier trotted into view. The redhead said, 'Harriet,
you wicked dog, got out'a the shed again.' She held her affectionately
by the scruff of her neck as the young mother went
on talking.
    'But not to worry, Ryan be around for a fortnight. New
postie not hired yet. Margaret at the post office told me
applications out now.'
    I couldn't sleep that night. A postwoman, me? It was the
most ludicrous idea I'd ever had in my overworked head and
I've had some humdingers. Yet something had clicked when I
heard that conversation. The pros and cons darted in and out
of my brain like tiny arrows.
    I was not a morning person. I could hardly bear to look
at my beloved family first thing in the morning so how
would I face strangers? I was not a physical person, not jobwise.
I wasn't that fit and I knew post people did loads
of walking, up and down hills. I'd never be able to do a job
like that. But it was a job. A vacancy at any rate. A steady
income, which could mean the difference between staying
in Cornwall or whimpering back to London, broke, shamefaced
and disillusioned.
    I started to get excited. The timing was right too. I knew
post people started early and usually finished around midday
or shortly afterwards. We'd already had our first stroke of luck
employment-wise – Ben had just got the role of Captain Hook
in Peter Pan , the forthcoming pantomime at the theatre in Truro.
He could get the kids up, breakfasted and to school before he
had to go off for rehearsals and I could be home in time to
pick them up.
    In the midst of my excitement I started to despair. There
had been so many jobs I'd applied for and none of them had
materialized. Why should this be different? But maybe our luck
was changing, first with Ben's acting job, now with this. Though
the pantomime would get us through the next few months,
the future was still bleak unless one of us, preferably both,
found full-time employment.
    The next morning I was at the St Geraint post office at nine
o'clock. Margaret was at her usual place behind the counter. I
knew her vaguely from buying stamps and other sundry post
office business. I told her I'd heard there was a vacancy for a
post deliverer and asked if she had application forms.
    'You?' she stared at me incredulously and with more than a
hint of suspicion.
    'Yes, me,' I retorted. I hardly knew the woman; we'd barely
exchanged any words except about the weather and here she
was looking at me as if I'd said I wanted a job as a lap dancer.
    'You want to deliver post?'
    'Is there a problem?'
    'Uh, no, no,' she slid an application form through the counter
window. 'You'll need to take a written exam first. In Truro.'
She said it triumphantly, as if the whole exam would be in the
Cornish language and that would show me for being so pushy
and presumptuous.
    An exam? Written? The last test I'd taken had been for a
driving licence when I was seventeen. What if I failed even
before the interview stage? I'm sure she smirked as I took the
application, folded it carefully and slipped it into my bag.
I didn't tell anyone, even Ben. I couldn't. For a start, we had
been so positive when we'd