Postcards from the Past

by Marcia Willett

  ‘OK,’ says Tilly. She holds up one of George’s chubby fists and dances with him, swaying and twirling. ‘George and I are going in for Strictly next year, aren’t we, George?’

  ‘You are completely crackers,’ Sarah says, resigned. ‘Drink your tea and put George down before you make him sick.’

  ‘He won’t be sick,’ says Tilly, but she puts George in his bouncy chair and sits down at the kitchen table. She feels light-hearted, as if she’s passed some kind of test and is on the brink of something exciting, and it’s good.

  Sarah watches her rather enviously. Tilly has always been a free spirit and, just at the moment, Sarah has a sudden and uncomplicated longing to be free of her own responsibilities and duties. This is quite out of character and confuses her: she likes to be in control, hands on. She was teased at school: ‘Our Natural Leader,’ the girls would cry when Sarah had been commended yet again for her initiative. She didn’t care; she was popular enough to withstand such teasing with confidence.

  Just now, though, when Tilly was dancing with George, she’d wished that she, too, could simply put George back into his chair, drink some tea and walk out of the door, as Tilly would presently. These emotions confuse her and make her feel guilty. She adores George, she would die for him, but sometimes she absolutely longs to close the door on him and walk away from all the other duties that pile toweringly behind him: getting Ben – with all the right belongings – off to school and home again, buying food, preparing food, washing, ironing, keeping the garden tidy. The list is endless. She misses Dave; misses his quick humour, his practicality, his arms round her.

  Her mother has little patience with these moments of despair.

  ‘If you can’t manage, darling,’ she says briskly, ‘you shouldn’t have taken on this new job.’

  Her mother, a naval wife – widowed now – is a tireless committee woman who has brought up three children. She is proud of Sarah but doesn’t allow whingeing. She quotes the old naval maxim: ‘If you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t have joined.’ And most of the time Sarah manages very well indeed; it’s just that sometimes she has those moments, when George has a fever and doesn’t sleep and then disturbs Ben so that she’s awake most of the night, when she’d love to hear Dave saying: ‘Don’t worry. He’ll be fine. Just try to relax and I’ll bring you a cup of tea…’

  But even when he does, she can’t quite relax. He’s good with the boys but she likes to keep an eye, to check that he’s doing things the way she likes them to be done. Sometimes he gets cross with her.

  ‘It might not be your way,’ he’ll say, ‘but that doesn’t mean to say it’s wrong. It won’t be the end of the world if their routine is different now and again. Lighten up.’

  He doesn’t understand that it’s necessary for her to remain in control; this way she can feel secure, knowing that everything is mapped out so that she can manage properly. At the same time, she sometimes feels aggrieved that Dave doesn’t pull his weight or appreciate what it takes to keep the household running smoothly. She accuses him of taking her for granted – oh, not directly but by meaningful sighs, irritated glances, impatient gestures – but when he suggests that he should take the boys out, cook the lunch, do the bedtime routine, she can’t quite allow herself to sit back and let him. She needs to check that he’s doing it properly, and so the old arguments start up again.

  She’d like to unburden herself to Tilly but can’t allow herself the luxury. Tilly is like a younger sister; she admires and respects Sarah. She’d lose face if she admitted these feelings to Tilly, who would never begin to understand anyway. How could she? She has no responsibilities. Everyone loves Tilly; everyone wants to help her, to be her friend. Just sometimes Sarah feels a real irritation that Tilly gets it all so easy and wonders why she offered Tilly the job with U-Connect. If she’s honest, it wasn’t just because Tilly had walked out of the job in Newquay. The truth is, it was because Tilly is good at this kind of work; people take to her, they trust her, and she’s good for the business. Sarah gets very slightly tired of clients phoning to say how brilliant Tilly is but she bites her tongue and agrees that Tilly is sweet, clever, funny or whatever it is that has impressed them. And she’s very fond of Tilly, of course she is. It’s just today, after a really bad night with George and then not being able to find Ben’s latest nursery school project …

  ‘Are you OK?’ Tilly asks, and her look is so anxious, so loving, that for a brief moment Sarah considers breaking down and howling loudly, just like George did all night.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she says brightly, eyebrows raised a little as if she’s wondering why Tilly should be so misguided as to ask. ‘Just planning ahead, getting things sorted in my head. Lunch tomorrow, then, after Sir Alec?’

  * * *

  Poor old Sarah, thinks Tilly as she drives away. So uptight and serious. All those baby books when Ben was born.

  ‘I wonder how our cave ancestors managed without Gina Ford?’ she’d said to Sarah, trying to lighten her up, and Dave roared with laughter but Sarah didn’t see the joke.

  ‘A routine is absolutely essential,’ she said tightly, and Tilly didn’t dare to look at Dave lest they should laugh again and upset Sarah. Dave was very good with her, trying to defuse tension when Ben refused to eat or sleep at the prescribed times, but Sarah was not to be deterred from her chosen path.

  ‘It’s best,’ he said privately to Tilly, ‘to let her do it her own way. After all, I’m away a lot of the time. She needs to do what’s right for her and Ben.’

  This was very sensible of Dave, but Tilly detected a less tolerant view once George was born. Dave hoped that by now Sarah would be more laid-back but this hadn’t yet proved to be the case. When his last leave was over and it was time to go back to sea, Tilly suspected a note of relief in Dave’s voice when she dashed over to say goodbye to him.

  ‘Keep an eye on her for me,’ he said jokingly to Tilly, and Sarah made a face to show how ludicrous such an idea was.

  Tilly drives on through the dusk, brooding about Sarah, wishing she could think of a way of de-stressing her.

  When she arrives at the cottage Dom is peeling vegetables for supper.

  ‘I’ve just had an idea,’ she says, stooping to hug Bessie. ‘I could take Bessie to see some of the older clients. A kind of Pet as Therapy. What d’you think? Not Mrs Probus because of the cats, and Mrs Anderson would worry about dog hairs, but I can think of a few old dears who would love her. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, old doggle? And I could take her to meet Hercules.’

  ‘Hercules?’ asks Dom, peeling on peacefully. ‘Does he want you to help him with his twelve labours? Does he need to use Google to get advice on cleaning out the Augean stables? Or does he want to Skype the Stymphalian birds?’

  ‘Very funny,’ Tilly says. ‘He’s Sir Alec’s dog. A yellow Lab with perfect manners. Bessie would love him and she’d be company for me in the car.’

  ‘Get your own dog,’ says Dom. ‘I need her here to be company for me.’

  ‘I’d love a puppy,’ says Tilly wistfully. ‘But it would be a bit tricky while I’m here, wouldn’t it? Training it and stuff.’

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ says Dom. ‘I’m too old to cope with a puppy. So how were the nuns?’

  ‘Utter bliss,’ says Tilly. ‘I’ve got some really good ideas. Dom?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Do you think I could borrow your camera tomorrow?’

  ‘First my dog and now my camera. Anything else you’d like?’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll think of something. Supper smells good.’

  ‘Pheasant stew,’ he says. ‘I found one in the freezer yesterday. So pour me a drink and tell me about the blissful nuns.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Dom walks in the stony, narrow lanes at the edge of the moor above the cottage, and all around him he can hear the rushing of water; pouring off the fields, flooding the ditches, streaming from muddy gateways, disappearing down drains that are half-blocked wi
th twigs and leaves. The sky is a jigsaw of cloud-shapes and colours: stormy indigo, curded cream, lustrous gold, a tiny patch of rainbow. Blown by the south-westerly winds, they lock together and drift apart again. Hail clatters suddenly and then – just as unexpectedly – sunshine washes the drenched landscape with brilliant light.

  As the lane climbs steeply towards the bleak moorland, the thorn hedges give way to walls; uneven, rough-shaped chunks of granite piled together, stretching for miles in a network of rocky boundaries squaring the small, untidy fields.

  Bessie carries an old, broken branch, which she refuses to drop. At intervals Dom attempts to take it from her so that he can throw it for her to fetch. Each time she dodges away from him, turning her head so that the twigs catch scratchily against his sleeve or his hand, dropping down on her front paws whilst her tail waves with excitement, encouraging him to play.

  ‘Daft bitch,’ he mutters, grabbing for the wet, decaying wood, but she bounds away from him, running up the lane towards the open moorland. He follows more slowly, thinking of Tris’s postcard, remembering Bitser, and Billa’s distress when she knew he was dead.

  ‘I don’t want to go home,’ she’d written to him from school. ‘It isn’t home any more. If it weren’t for Ed I’d ask one of my friends to invite me for the holidays. But I can’t leave Ed…’

  He can recall his own sense of frustration at his inability to help them. He’d written regularly to them both, gone back to the cottage as often as he could during their holidays, but the small family unit had been broken up and only their friendship remained untouched: their friendship and the study.

  Because the contents were precious to him, Harry St Enedoc had a lock made for the study door and always kept the key with him. Ed and Billa were only allowed in when he was there and they learned to respect his treasures. Ed copied his father’s example. He kept the study locked, and the key with him, and his mother – still impressed by Ed’s defence of his father’s memory – allowed this rather eccentric behaviour. After all, the study was a small room, it wasn’t needed; thus she explained it away to Andrew, who having seen Ed’s models and collections as well as the treasures, agreed that a boy of his age needed a bit of private space of his own. To compensate, Tris was given the cheese-house: a small stone and slate building where he could keep his own personal belongings. He complained, of course – that it was outside, cold in winter, damp – but in this instance his protests were ignored.

  He retaliated by slowly taking over most of the bedroom he shared with Ed so that, on his return from school, there wasn’t much more than the bed left to him.

  ‘I don’t care,’ he told Dom. ‘It’s the study that’s important. I only sleep in the bedroom. I hate him, though.’

  This remark, coming so matter-of-factly from the gentle, peaceable Ed, shocked Dom more than he liked to admit. He wanted to agree with Ed, to say, ‘So do I,’ but he restrained himself, hiding his own hurts. Dom could understand why Elinor St Enedoc had never liked him, but soon it was clear that she’d told Andrew the whole story and he took care to snub Dom whenever he saw him. Tris went a step further.

  * * *

  One cold day in late autumn he met Dom bringing a load of logs back from the woods. There was a long-standing agreement between Granny and the St Enedocs that she should have logs for her fire and Dom pulled them along, piled and strapped on an old sledge, as he always did. When Tris stepped into his path he was obliged to swerve to avoid him but Tris stopped him with a question.

  ‘Are you allowed on our land?’

  Dom stared at him; pulled up short by a gut-churning mix of disbelief, anger and humiliation.

  ‘Your land?’ he asked witheringly, weighting his voice with contempt.

  But Tris was a match for him. ‘Well, it’s not your land, is it? Your grandmother only owns the cottage because your mother was a whore.’

  Instinctively Dom reached for him but, even as Tris feinted a dodge, Dom knew that this was what he wanted; he wanted a violent physical reaction so that he could run home shouting, ‘Dom hit me.’ Just in time Dom drew back and, as he stepped away, he saw the disappointment in Tris’s face. Seething with fury, he picked up the sledge’s rope and walked on.

  * * *

  A scatter of hail jolts Dom back to the present. Bessie has dropped her stick in favour of a scent that leads her along the base of the wall. He wanders behind her, thinking of the postcards, trying to see behind them to Tris’s real purpose – and beyond that to the old question: why did Andrew leave so suddenly?

  Dom never quite believes the story of the quarrel: a quarrel apparently so violent that Andrew packed his and Tris’s belongings and walked out, collecting Tris from his school on the way upcountry. A few days afterwards a letter arrived simply stating that it hadn’t worked out as he hoped and that it was better for everyone to make the break now. Billa reported this to Dom, overjoyed at this sudden release, but anxious for her mother.

  ‘She’s off her head,’ she said. ‘Completely distraught. She can’t seem to understand it at all. It’s come right out of the blue. She simply won’t take the letter seriously, of course. She thinks he’s coming back.’

  What, thinks Dom, did Andrew want that he didn’t get?

  It’s reasonable to believe that he married Elinor simply because she was a rich widow, but why leave her? He was comfortable, well provided for, his child cosseted – and certainly Elinor was in love with him. His inexplicable departure is still as suspicious as Tris’s postcards.

  Dom calls for Bessie and turns for home, but he takes the path through the woods that leads into the grounds of the old butter factory and skirts around the edge of the lake. Bear appears from behind the stand of dogwood and comes to greet Bessie, tail waving. The two of them were brought up as puppies together and they are good friends. An old wheelbarrow stands nearby, a collection of tools in its rusty lap, and Dom looks around for Ed. He is working at the lake’s edge but he straightens up when Dom hails him. Dom gestures towards the house and Ed waves back in acknowledgement.

  ‘Shan’t be long,’ he shouts, and Dom walks on and goes in through the back door, calling as he does so.

  ‘In here,’ answers Billa, and he opens the door of her study where she sits, elbows on desk, her laptop open in front of her. ‘Oh, good. An excuse to stop. Coffee?’ She looks at her watch. ‘Oh, gosh, nearly lunchtime. I didn’t realize it was so late. Have you seen Ed anywhere?’

  ‘He’s down by the lake,’ Dom says, ‘but he’s on his way.’

  Billa gets up and leads Dom into the kitchen.

  ‘Scrambled eggs? Bacon sandwich?’

  ‘Scrambled eggs,’ he says. ‘And bacon. No sandwich.’

  ‘I can manage that,’ she says. ‘Where’s Bessie?’

  ‘She stayed behind to play with Bear. How’s it going?’

  She shrugs; makes a face. ‘Oh, you know how it is. This Tris thing’s like a cloud hanging over us. We’re going along and then suddenly we remember the postcards and think: oh my God, what’s he up to? If he’s going to turn up I just wish he would so we can get it over with.’

  Dom sits down at the big slate table, watching Billa cracking the eggs into a blue and white striped jug, fetching bacon from the fridge.

  ‘I was thinking up there on the moor,’ he says. ‘Trying to remember what happened when Andrew left your mother. Can you remember anything about it?’

  Billa snorts derisively. ‘Are you kidding? I certainly can. It was up there with one of the best days of my life.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking so much of the relief of being without him and Tris. I mean the actual leaving, and how your mother reacted. I mean, it was so sudden, wasn’t it? Was it term-time? I can’t remember the details now.’

  Billa pauses in her beating and seasoning of the eggs to look at him.

  ‘It was term-time,’ she answers slowly, thinking back. ‘I’d been home on an exeat. Just me, not Ed or Tris, and I hadn’t been very well … a sore throat,
I think it was.’ She hesitates again, remembering. ‘It was Andrew who said I ought not to go back. He said I looked as if I might be sickening for something. They had a row about it. Yes. That’s it, of course. That’s what the row was all about.’ And now it comes back to her, fresh and raw: her mother beating eggs for breakfast, as she, Billa, is doing now, and Andrew sitting at the table just where Dom is.

  ‘And I,’ Billa says, ‘was still in my dressing gown and whining about going back to school…’

  * * *

  ‘Of course she must go back,’ her mother said irritably. ‘It’s probably just a little cold.’

  It hadn’t been a successful weekend. On Saturday Andrew had received several phone calls that made him distracted and rather short with her and her mother. He wouldn’t say what they were about, just something to do with business, and Billa could see that her mother was getting more and more concerned about them. Each time the telephone rang, Andrew hurried to take the call, mumbling into the receiver lest he should be overheard.

  ‘Whatever is it, darling?’ she asked at last. ‘It’s clear that something’s worrying you.’

  Billa, pretending to read a book, watched them from the corners of her eyes. It was a chilly November day with a dull, grey canopy of cloud that leaked rain. The fire had been lit in the hall and Billa sat in one of the armchairs, her feet tucked beneath her, huddling over her book. Her mother sat on the sofa watching Andrew, her eyes suspicious.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said shortly. ‘It’s my broker talking about some of my investments.’

  ‘On a Saturday afternoon?’ Her mother raised her eyebrows disbelievingly. ‘How devoted of him.’

  Perhaps, thought Billa, she thinks it’s another woman. There had been other moments like this one. The honeymoon year was over and Andrew was increasingly restless; going off at short notice, remembering engagements at the last moment.

  ‘It’s that crisis that’s blown up in Argentina,’ he answered. ‘I’ve got a lot of shares in the livestock markets.’