Friendships
On
Wednesday I drove across the moor to meet friends in Tavistock.
It
was a quiet, grey west-country day: drifting mist obscuring the
distant tors, ponies grazing with their foals, the rhododendrons at
Venford Reservoir a dim, fading pink. As I reached North Hessary Tor
the cloud thinned and a watery sun gleamed through and, by the time I
arrived at The Bedford Hotel, the sky was clear and blue and it was
promising to be another hot morning.
For
more than forty years I’ve been meeting friends in the Bedford
Hotel. When Charles was at Mount House School I’d take him there
for exeats - when it was too far to drive back to whichever naval
port we might be stationed at - and always with our golden retriever,
Cassie, who was made very welcome at the Bedford. All our dogs have
loved going to the Bedford; hurrying up the front steps in the
expectation of seeing an old friend, settling under the table in the
corner by the window, pricking ears or giving an appreciative thump
of the tail when one of the staff appeared with a bowl of cold water.
This
morning I was meeting Jean for coffee. Some people say that it’s
not possible to make close friends when you’re old. It’s not
true. I’ve known Jean for six or seven years; she came to help muck
us out at The Hermitage but after a very short while she became a
very close and special friend. What is that rare dynamic, that odd,
instant recognition, that makes someone a ‘kindred spirit’? She’s
much younger than I am, our life experiences have been quite
different, but it isn’t relevant: we are on that same wavelength
that surmounts those barriers.
We
shared our news, we laughed a lot, we enjoyed the coffee – then we
parted and I went to meet Carrye at ‘Café Liaison’ on Church
Path.
I’ve
known Carrye for forty-two years; we were young naval wives together.
At Carrye’s wedding (our husbands were on the same submarine but
I’d known her for only a few short months) Charles, who was then
two and half, disappeared during the reception. When I found him he
was sitting amongst a pile of her half-opened wedding presents
thinking, no doubt, that Christmas had come again. Carrye was
amazingly gracious about it! I am godmother to her daughter. We have
a shared past embracing married quarters, Summer Balls, loneliness,
silly in-jokes, divorce, bereavement . . . Lunch lasted for over two
hours.
The
journey home was through a very different landscape: a brilliant sky,
the high rocks clear and sharp. I stopped below Cox Tor, reluctant to
leave one of my favourite places and an inspiration for so many of
the books, and bought an ice-cream. In the far distance I could see
the gleam of the Tamar and, beyond that, the sea. How often I’d
walked here with Charles and Cassie all those years ago.
I
finished my ice-cream and as I glanced again towards the west I
though I saw a small boy playing with a golden retriever, chasing a
ball and running in the sunshine, but the sun was dazzling in my eyes
and, when I looked again, they’d gone.
My best to you all and thank you for being such loyal readers.
Marcia
Last week I had to pop into our local garden machinery place and one of the chap's there has with him a young puppy. Neither of us could resist him so here he is chewing Marcia's scarf.
