Postcards from the Past

by Marcia Willett

  ‘Dom’s loving it. My advice is stick with it, stay positive about U-Connect, but don’t be distracted from what you really want to do. In a way, the hotel job was ideal for you. You relish a challenge, the opportunity to work with people. Don’t go for second best because it didn’t work out. Keep watching for the right opening and, meanwhile, I think it’s great that you and Sarah are making a success of U-Connect. It’s always good to strive for something.’

  ‘“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp”?’

  Billa raises her eyebrows and draws down the corners of her mouth. ‘Browning? I’m impressed.’

  Tilly laughs. ‘There was another bit but I’ve forgotten it. Sir Alec said it. You’d really like Sir Alec, Billa. Ex-diplomat. He’s lovely. Shall I introduce you?’

  ‘I’m not above meeting lovely men. I imagine this is one of your clients?’

  ‘I’m doing a database for him. He’s a bit up the creek now that his wife has died and he needs some organizing. He lives in Peneglos. You know? Where Sarah is.’

  ‘I don’t know the village. It’s a bit off our radar over on the coast there. But yes, bring him to tea. We can show him the tadpoles. Ed’ll love it.’

  ‘I might just do that. He and Ed would get on brilliantly. Piles of books everywhere.’

  ‘How old is he?’ asks Billa, suddenly suspicious.

  ‘About the same age as Dom,’ says Tilly evasively. ‘Probably a bit older, but you don’t think about his age when you’re with him. He’s really fun. A wonderful voice and nice twinkly eyes.’

  ‘Hmm,’ says Billa. ‘A lovely man with a wonderful voice and twinkly eyes. Can’t wait. Got his phone number?’

  ‘Customer confidentiality,’ says Tilly primly. ‘You’ll have to contain your excitement.’

  They part at the door and Tilly walks down the lane to Dom. She feels confident again; certain that she’s doing the right thing in giving U-Connect the chance to grow, for Sarah’s sake if not her own. She opens the door, shouts a greeting and drops her bag on the chair in the hall. All is well.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The second postcard arrives the next morning. Billa takes the post into Ed’s study but he isn’t there, though his laptop is switched on and a CD is playing Jacques Loussier’s interpretation of the Allegro from Bach’s ‘Italian’ Concerto. She drops the other letters on to his desk and turns the postcard over, barely glancing at the picture.

  ‘On my way. Tris.’

  The postmark and the stamp are French; the date is smudged but she makes it out to be three days earlier. He could be here at any moment; driving up the lane, knocking at the door. She turns the card to look at the picture, a reproduction of a Victorian artist, and a strange, complicated emotion pierces her heart. A dog – a terrier – sits gazing out, head on one side, ears pricked. Its pointed, foxy face has an enquiring, intelligent expression; one paw is raised as if it is poised for action.

  ‘Bitser,’ murmurs Billa.

  The past is crowding upon her so strongly and unexpectedly that her heart beats fast, her eyes burn with tears and she swallows several times. She feels the rough rasp of Bitser’s wet tongue on her hand, the warm weight of his body in her arms. Bitser, that adorable, impossible puppy, was given to her as a birthday present from her father less than two years before he died.

  * * *

  There had always been dogs, well-behaved, good-natured gun dogs, but this was the first time either she or Ed were allowed a puppy of their own. He was brought in to birthday tea in a hatbox immediately after Billa had blown out her eight candles whilst everyone sang ‘Happy Birthday to You’ and clapped. The box was set down on a chair and Billa stared at it, hearing strange rustlings and small whimpering noises. Her father was smiling at her, indicating that she should remove the lid. She did so very warily, and there was a puppy of indeterminate parentage scrambling around in a nest of tissue paper. Billa gave a cry of joyful disbelief and lifted the warm wriggling body out of the box. Ed was beaming with pleasure and pride that he’d managed to keep such a secret; her mother clapping and laughing; her friends crowding round with cries of envious delight.

  ‘He’s a very nice first-cross,’ her father was saying. ‘Bits of cairn and bits of Jack Russell…’ and so he became Bitser.

  * * *

  ‘What a funny-looking dog,’ said Tris. ‘He’s a mongrel, isn’t he?’

  Bitser didn’t like Tris. He growled when Tris slipped out a quick foot to kick him or teased him with a biscuit, offered and then snatched away. Tris never did this when a grown-up was looking but managed to time the reaction so that what they actually saw was Tris pretending to stroke Bitser, who was growling by now, or even snapping. Tris would look at his father, mouth turned down, pretending sadness and Andrew would say: ‘Bad-tempered brute, isn’t he?’ which made Billa rise in hot defence of Bitser.

  ‘Tris is teasing him again,’ but Tris shrugged wide-eyed innocent surprise at such an accusation, and their mother said, ‘Take Bitser outside, Billa.’

  Their mother and Andrew decided that Bitser was jealous of Tris and needed to be taught that Tris was now part of the family. Gradually small privileges were withdrawn. Bitser was no longer allowed to sit on the sofa in the drawing-room, he was banished to the laundry room at mealtimes and was banned from Andrew’s car. Nobody could stop Billa from taking him upstairs to her room at night, however. Bitser would curl up at the foot of the bed and Billa sat beside him, stroking him, trying to make up for these new puzzling exclusions.

  ‘But what shall I do,’ Billa asked Dom as the long summer holiday drew to an end, ‘when I go back to school? Mother has always been glad to have Bitser around when we’re away. He used to sleep in her room. But she won’t need him now she’s got Andrew.’

  She sounded bitter. It was still a shock to see Andrew going into her mother’s room at night; to see him in the morning through the half-open bedroom door, half-naked and unshaven in the rumpled bed, drinking coffee whilst her mother perched beside him, laughing at some remark. He’d see Billa passing and raise his cup almost challengingly to her whilst his other hand held her mother’s wrist, and Billa blushed scarlet and scuttled away, confused and embarrassed by her own reactions.

  Just as Ed withdrew to the study so Billa clung more to Bitser; their father’s gift to her. She began to wage her own war, which was, of necessity, directed more against their mother than their chief tormentor, Tris.

  ‘Do you remember…’ she’d begin – and then it might be anything that involved Bitser and their father. Her mother grew to dread this casual, conversational opening – but it was the only weapon Billa had in her armoury of self-protection against the dismantling of her past.

  So she went to Dom, Bitser rushing ahead, and ‘What shall I do?’ she asked him. ‘Could you have Bitser with you?’

  The potager had an autumnal feel about it now. The sunflowers’ heavy heads drooped, though the sweet peas still carried their blooms amongst the pea-sticks. Pumpkins and gourds were fattening, and the bright flowers of the nasturtiums trailed across slate paths and beneath the hedge.

  They sat together in the soft September sunshine and Billa longed to lean nearer to Dom, to feel the comfort of his arm round her.

  ‘I can’t have him,’ Dom was saying wretchedly. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t, Billa. I’m going to be in lodgings in Camborne and, anyway, what would happen to him all day while I’m at college? Your mother will look after him, surely? She always has in the past.’

  ‘Andrew wasn’t there then,’ said Billa bitterly. ‘And nor was Tris.’

  Dom looked at her and she saw that he, too, felt a longing to hold out his arms to her and share her misery. She managed a crooked smile.

  ‘Well, I’ll just have to trust her,’ she said.

  Ed brought Bitser with him to the station to see her off to school and she stood at the train window for the last glimpse of Ed standing with Bitser in his arms. Ed held up Bitser’s paw and pretended to wave it. It was
the last time she saw Bitser. The letter arrived nearly three weeks later.

  ‘I don’t know how to write this to you, darling Billa, but I think you would want to be told that we’ve had to put Bitser down. He bit Tris quite badly and the vet agreed that he was getting untrustworthy. I am so sorry…’

  * * *

  Now, Billa stares at the postcard: Bitser stares back at her, ears cocked, paw raised. She wonders how long it has taken Tris to find a card that would so surely pierce her heart with pain.

  ‘On my way. Tris.’

  ‘What is it?’ asks Ed, coming in behind her with Bear at his heels. ‘Are you OK?’

  She passes him the card and he studies it, frowning. Then he gives a little laugh, affectionate and sad.

  ‘It’s Bitser to the life,’ he says. ‘Gosh, that takes me back,’ and he turns the card to see who has sent it and the smile drops from his face in an instant. He stares at Billa, shocked and angry. ‘It’s like a declaration of war,’ he says at last.

  She nods. ‘They didn’t even bother to bring his body back to be buried with the other dogs,’ she says. ‘They left him with the vet. The last time I saw him was with you at the station.’

  She remembers Bitser, wriggling in her arms; she remembers pressing her cheek against his smooth head before passing him to Ed. And with this memory comes the painful reminder of those children that she couldn’t bring to birth, who wriggled, fish-like, swimming away in their amniotic liquid to disappear for ever.

  ‘I can begin babies,’ she had said to Dom, ‘but I can’t finish them.’ And this time he did hold out his arms to her and hugged her. Billa wept as she had never wept: for her father, for Bitser, and for her babies. Dom held her, his cheek against her hair, thinking of their father; the man he never knew.

  ‘What shall we do?’ Ed asks now. ‘First the bike and now Bitser. Don’t tell me these are friendly notes suggesting that we meet up to reminisce happily about the past.’

  Billa shakes her head. ‘But what can we do? We don’t know where he is or what he plans. As usual he has us over a barrel.’

  ‘They got everything they wanted.’ Ed drops the postcard on the desk. ‘And then they just packed up and left.’

  ‘Not everything.’ Billa glances around the study; at the paintings, the little cabinet of netsukes, the miniatures, the shelves of books. ‘How he hated you having this.’

  ‘But he couldn’t touch it,’ says Ed with satisfaction. ‘He was far too clever to go in for straight destruction but he tried everything else. It was as if the room defied him and won.’

  ‘Has it occurred to you,’ says Billa carefully, ‘that there might have been another will?’

  Ed frowns at her. ‘What?’

  ‘Supposing Mother left something to Andrew in a will that we never found because Andrew had it?’

  ‘What kind of thing?’

  ‘That’s the point. Supposing she was besotted enough at the beginning to leave him Mellinpons, thinking that he’d look after us.’

  ‘She’d never have done that.’ Ed is ashen-faced.

  Billa shrugs. ‘We have to think of everything. Why is Tris coming back? Has he discovered something that might be to his advantage? If Andrew persuaded her to make a will with his own solicitor we’d never have known anything about it. Perhaps Andrew has died recently. He’d be well into his nineties but it’s quite possible that he’s lived this long. And suppose Tris has found some document…’

  ‘But then he or Andrew would have come back when Mother died. Why wait until now?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I think we need to be ready for anything.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Can you think of any reason why Tris should want to see us again? After fifty years?’

  Ed shakes his head. ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘We try to think like he does and be prepared.’

  ‘But what if he has some … some real claim? Is it possible after all this time?’

  ‘I don’t know. I might talk to Dom to see if he knows anything about the legal situation. I don’t want to do anything until we know a bit more. Do you agree?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Ed looks uncertain. ‘It’s just awful to think that he might have some hold over us.’

  Bear sits heavily on Billa’s feet, leaning against her, and she bends to hug the huge dog, comforted by his weight and presence.

  ‘I’ll phone Dom,’ says Ed. ‘And then we’ll make a plan.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tilly drives between the tall pillars at the convent gates and stops beside the Lodge, wondering if someone might come out to question her. She feels oddly nervous; still trying to think of ways that she might promote a retreat house and wondering how to behave, should she meet any members of the religious community. The front door of the Lodge remains closed, nobody comes to challenge her, so she sets off very slowly along the drive, towards the ancient granite manor house set amongst its gardens and orchards at the head of a steep valley that looks west to the sea. There are a few people wandering along the path amongst the trees, a woman sitting on a bench, her stretched-out feet almost in a golden pool of crocuses that washes over the grass. These, Tilly guesses, must be the retreatants.

  The drive passes in front of the house, curving round towards some outbuildings, but Tilly stops to look at the mullioned windows and the heavy oaken door. Already she is imagining the photographs she will want for the website. The nervousness is receding and she is beginning to feel excited. As she dawdles there, words forming in her mind, a small, slight figure appears from the direction of the outbuildings. She wears a long blue habit, a green cotton scarf tied at the back of her neck, gumboots and a black fleece.

  Tilly’s anxiety returns but she lowers the car window and smiles at the enquiring face with its bright, intelligent eyes.

  ‘Hello,’ she says uncertainly. ‘I’m Tilly from U-Connect. I’m looking for Elizabeth.’

  The nun beams at her. ‘Have you come to help us?’ she asks. ‘Oh, how wonderful. Put the car round there,’ she gestures at the corner of the house, ‘and we’ll go to find her.’

  Tilly obeys. In the stable yard the Coach House has been converted, but there is room for the car in one of the open-fronted barns and she pulls in, switches off the engine and climbs out.

  ‘I am Sister Emily,’ says the small figure at her elbow. ‘What have you got there?’

  She looks with keen interest at Tilly’s laptop case and Tilly can’t help but smile at her eager curiosity.

  ‘It’s my laptop and stuff,’ she says. ‘I’m supposed to be helping you to create a new website for the retreat house. I’m rather nervous, I can tell you. We’ve never done anything like this before.’

  Briefly she wonders if Sister Emily, too, might quote Browning at her, or some encouraging religious text. But Sister Emily simply laughs with delight.

  ‘Neither have we,’ she says. ‘Isn’t it exciting?’

  Tilly laughs too. ‘Yes,’ she agrees, and suddenly all her fears vanish and she sees that it is exciting. ‘It’s utterly gorgeous here,’ she says. ‘We’ll need lots of lovely photographs for the website.’

  She follows Sister Emily in through a door that leads to the kitchen and looks around with delight at the low beamed room, the big, ancient inglenook with its Aga, the pots of flowers on the deep-set stone windowsills.

  ‘The community has moved into the Coach House,’ Sister Emily is saying, ‘but we are still very much a part of all that is happening here. Would you like some coffee while I look for Elizabeth? It’s Fairtrade coffee,’ she adds, as if this is in some way reassuring.

  ‘I’d love some,’ says Tilly, relishing the warmth of the kitchen and the quiet atmosphere, though there is clear evidence of industry. A saucepan of soup simmers at the back of the hotplate and a batch of bread stands on a grid. The smells are delicious.

  She sits at the big table, whilst Sister Emily makes coffee, and feels no requirement to make conversation. The s
ilence is companionable, and somehow natural. She takes the mug of coffee with a smile of gratitude and Sister Emily disappears through a door that leads into the house. Tilly sits quietly; her terrors are quite gone as she waits for Elizabeth. Her mind has cleared, ideas begin to form, and she is filled with confidence.

  * * *

  ‘So what was it like?’ asks Sarah, making tea. ‘Lots more lovable nutters?’

  ‘Totally fantastic,’ says Tilly, ignoring the sarcasm and picking George up to give him a cuddle. ‘I’ve met Sister Emily and someone who does the cooking called Penny. And Elizabeth, who is helping them out with their administration. She’s quite computer literate but not into websites. I’ve got some ideas but I need to think about it. It’s such an amazing setting, isn’t it, looking west to the sea?’

  ‘It’s breathtaking,’ agrees Sarah. ‘A perfect spot for a retreat, I should think.’

  ‘Elizabeth gave me a list of the kind of courses they offer. They want to encourage what they call “led retreats”, which are organized by independent groups looking for a venue. And then there are people who simply want to come and be quiet on their own, just to walk and read but maybe join in the Daily Offices, which the sisters have in the chapel. Sister Emily calls them Holy Holidays. I need to go back again with a camera. Dom’s got a really good one so I shall ask to borrow it.’

  ‘Great,’ says Sarah. She is pleased with Tilly’s enthusiasm, glad that she’s overcome her nervousness of the convent and is being positive. ‘Have you made an appointment to go back?’

  ‘No, I thought I’d check with you first. I’m with Sir Alec tomorrow morning for a session. I could go on after that since it’s so close.’

  Tilly swings George round so that he chuckles and tries to grab her hair.

  ‘Come and have lunch after Sir Alec,’ says Sarah, putting mugs of tea on the table. ‘I’ll phone and see if you can go along afterwards.’