Seagulls in the Attic (21 page)

He’s going on, ‘But the great thing is that we’re changing too, Tessa, shedding our London skin bit by bit and becoming more Cornish.’

‘Like Elvis, right?’

‘Exactly. Now tell me how that snake is, and that seagull of yours, and your chickens, and allotment, and that magical old house and garden with that intriguing old couple . . .’

And so I do. I’m slowly learning to let go and let things be.

Of course there are some things I learned in my London job that are valuable in my new life in Cornwall, and one of these is something I learned from Anita Roddick who founded The Body Shop where I worked for so long. She instilled in all her employees and colleagues the importance of putting something back into the community. On all her printed material was her personal mantra: ‘Do something, do anything. Just do
something.
’

The something I’ve been doing in Cornwall is volunteering for ShelterBox, and today on my day off I drop the kids at school and go straight to the headquarters in Helston. ShelterBox is the international disaster relief charity which specialises in emergency shelter provision all over the world for people struck by earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis and other disasters. Founded in Cornwall, ShelterBox has helped people in more than fifty countries, providing them with food, warmth, shelter and dignity. Tom Henderson, the Cornish man who founded the scheme in 2000, said he was
moved to start ShelterBox when he watched a TV report in which loaves of bread were being thrown on the ground from a relief truck for refugees to pick up. ‘That image of people having all their dignity stripped away really upset me,’ Tom said. ‘I couldn’t understand why they were throwing the bread on the floor and why they didn’t just hand it to them.’

The warehouse where the boxes are packed is bustling, with perhaps twenty to thirty volunteers at work filling the boxes. Each box is filled with enough survival equipment, including a tent, for an extended family of up to ten people. Volunteers turn up for as many or as few hours as they can manage and the only qualification for volunteering is that you have to be sixteen or over for insurance purposes.

The first time I came I expected I’d have to undergo some kind of training programme, but the warehouse manager told me briskly what to do and expected me to get on and do it; I had a feeling he wouldn’t repeat it twice. I knew we had to wear warm clothing in the winter under our yellow protective jackets, for health and safety, as the warehouse wasn’t heated. Sturdy boots and shoes were, I was told, also a necessity.

It didn’t take long to get the hang of it, once I got used to the activity in the warehouse, especially the great fork lifts whizzing around getting in the new stock. Normally we don’t know where the boxes are going but when there is a major disaster, like the earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia, there is a frenzy of activity. Two days after that quake we filled two hundred boxes, as ShelterBox was sending out a thousand boxes by the end of the week. My job was to put in the blankets before the ten-man tent went in.

The boxes themselves are amazing. As well as the tent there is survival equipment such as water purifiers, an insulated ground sheet, tools to help survivors cope with the environment – basically everything needed to enable people
to start coping after a trauma. A key piece in every box is either a wood burning or multi-fuel stove, so that each family or extended family can have something to cook on, keep warm and gather around for safety and consolation. The boxes themselves are strong and durable, and can be used over and over for storage or as tables. ShelterBox keeps a mass of equipment on hand so that the boxes can be varied if necessary.

Today as I begin to work I recognise a soft-spoken older woman who doesn’t say much but from the fine clothes she wears under her protective jacket, her well-coiffed hair, and the discreet but expensive-looking jewellery she wears, you can tell she’s not on the poverty line. I’ve noticed she’s here often and we’ve exchanged a few words despite her reticence. She’s an extremely hard worker and never seems to tire or require a break. Her name is Sandra and she lives alone in Helston. Someone told me that her husband died many years ago, when they were both still in their twenties, and she’s never remarried.

As a contrast to Sandra there’s Ralph, whose physical appearance reflects the homeless state he lives in. Ralph appeared for the first time during the tsunami disaster, unshaven, dressed in tattered clothes and looking rough, the usual condition for someone forced to sleep on the streets. Ralph told reception that he had no money to give to any charity but that he wanted to help somehow.

‘I don’t got much,’ he said, ‘but I got sheds more than the poor sods in other places. At least I get a bed in the hostel some nights, and a hot meal now and again. Them poor souls are fighting for their lives and I got to do something.’

That day Ralph worked all day filling boxes, and every so often he appears again, working the odd half day. He’s still homeless, still lives rough, but he’s stubbornly determined to help others worse off than he is.

I felt quite emotional, my first day at ShelterBox, putting in the purifying tablets and the flat plastic water container amongst other things. As the lids closed down over the completed boxes I was imagining them being opened, probably somewhere on the other side of the world, the family taking out the things we packed, items that would hopefully enable them to survive.

Next time I went I found they had changed the contents of the boxes. Instead of sleeping bags, they were packing blankets.

‘Why is that?’ I asked the manager.

The reply stunned me. ‘We’ve just had some feedback about the sleeping bags. Apparently they’re being used as body bags as there’s nothing else, so people are afraid to sleep in them, in case they’re taken for dead and carted away.’

As I placed the blankets in the boxes I thought of all those tragic, suffering people, too frightened to even curl up in a sleeping bag because so many were dead or dying around them.

Today I have a less sombre job. I’m filling the children’s bags which go in each box. These are bright yellow, drawstring bags with a blackboard, chalk, maths set, ruler, shorthand pad, pens, rubber, sharpener, colouring book and crayons. For children who have lost all their possessions this can be a real treat. I can imagine their beaming faces as they open the bags and it makes me smile as I work.

When I finish my stint I get up, stretch, and prepare to leave, but out of the corner of my eye I see Sandra, hunched up unnaturally over one of the children’s bags. I wonder if she’s ill and go over to her, tap her on the shoulder. She doesn’t reply but shakes her head slightly and I see tears on her face. This is so unlike the composed woman I’ve seen here for several months that I sit down next to her and say, ‘Sandra, has something happened? Can I help?’

She shakes her head again groping for a handkerchief. I say, ‘Can I get you a drink of water? Or do you want to be alone?’

‘No, it’s all right. I’m sorry. I was just so . . . overwhelmed. By these,’ she points to the children’s bag she’d been holding.

‘Oh, I know what you mean. I felt the same, worrying about those poor mites who will get them, wondering what conditions they’ll be living in.’

Sandra’s pale face is drawn, her large eyes still full of tears. ‘It’s not just that. It reminds me of other things. Other . . . more personal disasters.’

She starts to talk, slowly, haltingly. She tells me of a time over thirty years ago when she and her young husband, both fresh from university, got teaching jobs in the Argentine for a year. ‘Many of our friends were also going abroad, but most to India. Following the hippies, the Beatles.’ She smiles slightly which makes her look years younger. ‘Damien and I wanted to be different. We’d both got our degrees in Spanish so the Argentine was perfect. It was even better when I got pregnant. We were both absolutely delighted.’

She stops, doesn’t say anything for so long that I wonder if she’s going to start again, but she’s somewhere else, in another time, another place. It takes ages for her story to come out. It’s a sad and tragic one. Shortly before the baby was born a civil war broke out and they tried desperately to get home to England. However, they lived in a remote area and travelling was dangerous, with warring factions everywhere and guerrillas of both sides behind every rock and hillock. Sandra went into labour and was taken to a makeshift hospital with untrained staff; their son was stillborn. A few weeks later, heading for Buenos Aires and the airport, they were caught in a local skirmish in which Damien was shot and killed. ‘An accident,’ she tells me now. ‘So they kept telling me. This man who killed him, a young man the same age as Damien. “We thought you were the enemy,” he kept saying over and over. As if it mattered. As if anything mattered, with my baby and husband dead.’

We’re both silent when she finishes her story. All I can do is commiserate with her in my heart, and I hope she knows I am doing this. There are times when words are totally inadequate.

‘Thank you for listening,’ she says as we say goodbye. ‘I’ve not talked about it for a long time. It’s just that today is the anniversary of my son’s birth and death, and seeing those little bags, thinking of the grandchildren I might have had . . .’ she breaks off, determined not to cry again. ‘It was just too much,’ she finishes.

As I drive away I think about how disaster and tragedy are not only in those remote places where the boxes are sent.

When I get home I call to Jake and set off for a quick walk. Google decides to come part of the way with us, half flying, half hopping alongside me. By now Jake totally ignores him. He’s got so used to Google that now he pretends the gull isn’t there, as if by doing that the bird will go away. When Old Yeller joins us he greets the Labrador with enthusiasm, obviously relieved that he can walk with another canine instead of a pesky bird.

As we trot along, who should turn up but Doug who no doubt was lurking somewhere, hoping for another laugh. The jowls on his face are dancing with curiosity. Looking at Google who is perched next to me on a low wall at the edge of the road, he says, ‘Well, well, what have we here, my lover?’

‘As you can see, Doug, we have a seagull,’ I say brightly.

‘So what be the matter with it? Why ain’t he flying off ?’

‘He’s perfectly OK. Just friendly, that’s all.’

‘Friendly? I ain’t met a friendly seagull yet.’ He makes a sudden aggressive swooping movement, trying to shoo Google off his perch. The seagull is so stunned that instead of flying off, as Doug had thought, Google starts flapping his wings and making the most horrendous noises. ‘Yikes,’ Doug shouts, flapping his own arms at Google. ‘The bloody thing’s attacking me.’

‘He’s only trying to hold onto his perch. You’re scaring him.’ I try to pull Doug away as now he’s really lashing out at poor Google and shouting at the top of his lungs while the seagull screeches back at him. Jake is barking his head off at both of them and even placid Old Yeller decides to join in the fun with his deep, mournful howling. They’re all making such a racket that people have come out of their houses to see what’s going on.

Finally Google has enough of the whole scene and flies off, much to my relief. Doug is swearing and saying nasty things about seagulls in general and Google in particular, while I try to calm him down. ‘You’ve got to admit, Doug, there’s never a dull moment in Treverny,’ I say in my jolliest voice.

‘Too right,’ he mutters as he brushes some seagull feathers from his shirt. ‘Not since you moved here anyway.’

Google is home on his perch when I return from our walk. He looks at me expectantly, waiting for a treat. ‘Oh Google, you don’t have a good reputation around here anyway,’ I mutter. ‘Now it’s completely shot.’

I know it’s not Google’s fault – Doug shoved him quite hard, trying to get him off his perch, but flapping those great wings furiously in his face is not a way to win friends and influence people, especially in a seaside area where gulls do not have a good reputation. I give him a treat anyway. For better or for worse, this bird is part of our family.

These bright, sunny, early summer days have changed the landscape again. In the city so much remained the same for me, whatever month of the year. Though the changes were there, of course, they were peripheral to the main thread of my life, that incessant juggling of family and career. Here, it’s like moving around on different planets, the landscape alters so dramatically as the light shifts. On days when the fog and mist swirl over sea and land, the little villages with the old stone churches, the patchwork fields, the cliffs and rocks, look not only mysterious but out of time, out of place. There’s a sense of wonder on those days, as if everything is an illusion and reality is not really what we see at all.

Today, though, the sun is out again, and many of my customers are up early, either pottering in their gardens, walking dogs or just enjoying the perfect morning. I spend time admiring Mr Yelland’s roses which are in full and glorious bloom, his front garden a mass of crimson reds, misty pinks and blazing
oranges. Some are scented and it would be idyllic except that he’s lit his pipe today and I’m getting a nose full of the smoke instead of the heady aroma of roses. Never mind, he doesn’t seem to notice and neither does his wife. They beam and fuss over their flowers like proud parents in love with their newborn.