A Gull on the Roof (2 page)

Outside we stood by the corner of the cottage, the battered door facing climbing ground behind us, and looked down upon a shadow of a valley, gentle slopes, heading for the sea. Beyond was the Carn where we had stood, cascading below it a formation of rocks resembling an ancient castle, and in the distance across the blue carpet of sea the thin white line of breakers dashing against the shores of Prah Sands, Porthleven and Mullion. A lane drifted away from the cottage. On its right was a barn with feet-thick walls in which were open slits instead of windows and on its left was a tumbled-down stone hedge, holding back the woods we had seen and the jungle-like undergrowth, as policemen try to hold back a bursting throng. The lane led down to a stream, dammed into a pool by the density of the weeds which blocked its outflow, and then, a few yards on, petered out in a tangle of brushwood and gorse bushes. We could see that the cottage was only connected with civilisation by a track through a field.

There was another track which led towards the sea and, as it broke away from the environment of the cottage, we found roofless outbuildings, bramble-covered stone walls, with blackthorn growing where once stood men and cattle sheltering from the weather. The track broke into a huge field, or what we could see by the hedges was once a field but now had grown into part of the desolate moorland, then fell downwards to the top of the cliff. It was no ordinary cliff. It did not fall fearsomely sheer to the sea below but dropped, a jungle of thorns, gorse, elderberry trees and waist-high cooch grass, in a series of leaps to a rugged teaspoon of a bay; and as we stood there, somnolent gulls sitting on the rocks far below, we saw in our minds a giant knife slicing pocket meadows out of the rampaging vegetation, refashioning the cliff so that it resembled the neat pattern of daffodil and potato gardens that were grouped like hillside Italian vineyards at intervals along the coast. We saw in our minds not only a way of life, but also the means by which to earn a living. It was the sweet moment when the wings of enthusiasm take flight, when victory is untarnished by endeavour, the intoxicating instant when the urge for conquest obliterates the reality of obstacles, dissolving common sense, blanketing the possibilities of failure. We had found our imaginary home. If we were able to possess it the way stretched clear to our contentment.

Details about the cottage were told to us back at the inn. Mrs Emily Bailey, who was then the innkeeper, and Tom her son, who nursed the adjoining market garden but who now has taken her place – these two listened patiently to our excitement. It was the habit of holidaymakers to lean over the bar expounding their hopes of packing up jobs, seeking an answer as to where they could escape; and these words of good intentions were as familiar to Tom and Mrs Bailey as the goodbyes at the end of holidays, as much a part of the holiday as splits and Cornish cream, a game of make-believe that was played for a fortnight, then forgotten for another year.

The cottage was on the land of a farm which belonged to one of the great Cornish estates. This Estate rented the farm to a large farmer who lived a few miles from Land’s End who, in turn, sublet it out on a dairyman’s lease. This lease was a relic of those days when Estates had difficulty in finding tenants for their farms. An established farmer would rent an unwanted farm, stock it with cattle and hire out each cow to a man of his own choosing who would occupy the farmhouse and farm the land. Hence this man, or dairyman as he was called, had no responsibility to the Estate, for he was only a cowman. The responsibility of upkeep lay in the hands of the absentee farmer who, in this case, was a man called Harry Laity. As I lay awake that night he loomed like an ogre and, determined to call on him on the morrow, I experienced the same queasiness as I had felt before the interview for my first job.

We took the bus to a hamlet called Poljigga and found ourselves deposited at the end of a drive a mile long; a dusty, pot-ridden drive with the farmhouse eyeing us in the distance. We were absurdly nervous. Jeannie whose success was born from her ease with spangled names, and I whose duty it had been to have a weekly solitary interview with the Secretary of the Cabinet, walked along that drive, nervous as children visiting the headmaster. An over-sophisticated approach, a crude remark, sincerity sounding shallow because of lack of confidence, could batter our hopes for ever.

‘What on earth do I say?’ I said to Jeannie.

My passport, I thought, could be that I was a Cornishman. My ancestors had come from Brittany at the beginning of the fifteenth century, being descended from the Breton family of Tannegui du Chatel whose ruined castle still exists in the north-west corner of Finisterre. The Tangyes lived in obscurity in various parishes of West Cornwall until my grandfather, Richard, was born at Illogan near Redruth. His parents kept the village shop, and farmed a few acres near by where my great-grandfather followed the plough in Quaker dress and broad-brimmed hat. Richard and his brothers became engineers, and breasting the waves of the industrial revolution their inventiveness quickly brought them fame and fortune. Their success, they used to say, dated from the occasion when Isambard Brunel’s huge vessel the
Great Eastern
obstinately refused to be launched from the dock at Millwall where it was built. Its length was nearly seven hundred feet, its breadth more than eighty, the height of the hull sixty, whilst its five funnels were a hundred feet high and six feet in diameter. It was intended to carry four thousand passengers, a crew of four hundred besides a mighty cargo – but there it was wedged high and dry on the stocks. It was then that the Tangye brothers produced their new invention, the hydraulic jack, and to the excitement of the watching crowd, the vessel slid into the water. ‘We launched the
Great Eastern,’
said Richard, ‘and the
Great Eastern
launched us.’

My father was trained as a lawyer and he belonged to that group of men and women who, though without personal ambition, perpetually give their services to the community in unpaid but responsible jobs. He was, among other appointments, Joint Chairman of the Cornwall Quarter Sessions, a Deputy Lieutenant of the County, and organiser of the Cornwall Special Constabulary until he died in 1944. He was easy among people and they could always endear themselves to him by enthusing over the loveliness of Glendorgal. Glendorgal, now a hotel kept by my brother Nigel, was our home on the north coast of Cornwall near Newquay and it has the most beautiful position imaginable; the house is low and rambling and stares up the wild north coast past Watergate Bay and Bedruthan Steps to Trevose Head in the far distance. Below the house, so close that you can throw a stone into it from the dining room, is a sandy cove which is itself a dent in Porth Beach. Across this beach is Trevelgue Island, historic for its ancient burial grounds, though it is an island only by the length of the footbridge which connects it to the mainland. My father had a great love for this island but just before the war circumstances forced him to sell it. The buyers were the local Town Council and I remember the wrangling which went on during the negotiations. It centred round a public convenience. My father was aware of the Cornish habit of erecting ugly cement blockhouses in the most prominent situations without any regard to the visual effect on the beauty spot concerned. The island had always been open to the public but the Town Council, now that they were buying it, believed they could improve its amenities. They intended to erect a blockhouse on the island which would remain for ever a silhouetted sore against the view beyond. My father was adamant that this should not be done, and though in the end he won his point, it was only by sacrificing a large amount from the sum the Council had been prepared to pay.

My father delighted in affectionate surprises. When I was returning to London by train he would see me off at Newquay station, then race in his old Wolseley car the three miles to Quintrell Downs where he would stand at the railway crossing waving his pipe as the train rushed by. I remember another time, after my twenty-first birthday weekend, I and my friends had said goodbye to him at Glendorgal before returning to London by car and then found him, one hour and a half later, nonchalantly strolling on the Tamar Bridge at Launceston accompanied by Lance, his old English sheepdog; by a roundabout route he had raced to the bridge to say goodbye again.

We walked apprehensively along the Laity drive, happily unaware that this was the first of our many visits on the same errand. We were nervous, as actors are before a performance, but in our hearts we did not think we could fail. Our zest would smother the awkwardness of the introduction and, because we were accustomed to meeting strange people, we would soon be at our ease. We were wrong.

Harry Laity, whose robust enjoyment of life we were later to appreciate, eyed us as if we had escaped out of Broadmoor. We saw him first in the yard outside the farmhouse watching the cows being brought in to milk; and I began to explain our mission while he stared at the cattle as they passed. I soon became aware that our presence was a nuisance and my confidence ebbed. This was not a situation that either of us had foreseen, and was not one that smooth manners could dissolve. We were out of our depth. The gambits on which we were accustomed to rely were as ineffective as a saddle on a wild pony; and as I stood there awkwardly beside him our plans, which to us seemed so important, became deformed, diminished by their reception into a scatterbrained foolishness.

The cattle disappeared to their milking, and he led us into the house and to the dining room. Jeannie and I sat down with Harry Laity opposite, the bare dining table like a frozen lake between us. I sat there and began to describe – defensively, falsely jovial – my Cornish background, our longing for a Cornish home, our plans for Minack. He stared at us, his eyes giving no clue to his thoughts, puffing a cigarette, replying to my leading questions with grunts and monosyllables. His attitude was unnerving. I began to overstress our case. The more unresponsive he was, the more talkative I became. I slithered into sounding like Uriah Heep. I felt myself acting like a gold prospector who, having found gold, was cunningly pretending he needed the land for another purpose. Handsome Harry as he was known in the neighbourhood was suspicious. He could not be expected to understand why I pleaded as if our lives depended upon his decision. It was beyond his comprehension why two people should wish to leave London for such a derelict, isolated, unwanted place as Minack.

We went away and waited, and visited him again. We wrote carefully worded letters. We enlisted the help of mutual friends to put our case. We sat in our Mortlake home endlessly discussing the tactics which might penetrate the obstinacy of this man who held our future in his hands. We were at the door as soon as the postman knocked. Nothing. The weeks dragged into months. Silence.

And then, one November morning, we had a message to call on Harry Laity the next time we were in Cornwall.Jeannie was in bed with flu, but it was she who proposed we should take the night train to Penzance.

The blessing of enthusiasm is its ability to deceive pleasantly. When Harry Laity told us we could live at Minack, it seemed that now the major obstacle had been overcome, our other problems would be solved without effort. And yet, the victory achieved, doubts soon began to enter my mind.

‘We’re intending to live in a wilderness,’ I said to Jeannie, ‘we have little in the bank and we haven’t a clue as to how to grow anything. The world is littered with people who would
like
to do what we are wanting to do. Common sense stops them.’

We were, for instance, brushing aside the fact that we would have no legal security at Minack. The cottage, and a vaguely defined area of land, had been offered us at a low rent by the tenant of the farm but not by the Estate which owned it; hence we had no lease, yet in our zest to secure occupancy we had promised that all improvements would be at our expense. We convinced ourselves that once we had moved in, no one was likely to turn us out; and that conventional legal niceties, if pursued, might scare Harry Laity away from having anything to do with us. Long afterwards he told us we were right in our guesswork. He let us have Minack because he expected we would stay six months, then creep back to London, leaving a redecorated cottage behind.

The cottage, then, was now nominally ours though it was eighteen months before we were able to set off along the Great West Road to live there; but during this interval, as we continued our rackety life in London, there remained in our minds the picture of Minack, snug, untamed, remote, giving us the same sense of protection as a deep shelter in an air raid. Whenever we had the time we dashed to its safety.

Our first visit was a weekend in November when we introduced Monty to his new home. When I first met Monty I was allergic to cats, or rather, as we had never kept cats in our family and knew nothing about them, I pretended to be. He had been found, the last of a litter from a tortoiseshell, by Jeannie’s mother in a hairdresser’s in St Albans, and brought to Jeannie at the Savoy not long after we had been married. One day I walked unsuspectingly into her office and there on the floor, like a miniature foal trying to control its legs, was Monty. It was a few months after the battle of El Alamein.