Postcards from the Past

by Marcia Willett

  ‘My God,’ he says very quietly. ‘OK. OK. Good fellow. Sit. Stay,’ and he backs out again, closing the door before Bear can approach him. He can hear the stranger moving about in the kitchen again, then the back door closes and there is the sound of footsteps moving away down the drive. Bear goes to the kitchen door, tries to push it open, but it is firmly closed. His water bowl is in the kitchen and now he can’t get to it. Bear sits down again, leaning heavily against the door; he slides down and stretches out. Soon he is asleep.

  * * *

  ‘You forgot to lock the back door and you closed the kitchen door,’ Billa says to Ed. ‘Poor old Bear’s been stuck in the hall with no water.’

  ‘I might have forgotten to lock the back door,’ says Ed, ‘but I didn’t close the kitchen door. I never close it if we’re leaving him here.’

  ‘Well, I certainly didn’t,’ says Billa. ‘Poor old fellow. He hasn’t stopped drinking since I let him out. Perhaps Tilly closed it. Or Alec.’

  ‘I like him, don’t you?’ says Ed. ‘He made me feel very insular. Bit like Dom, living all over the world.’

  ‘I like it that he didn’t brag about it, though. It wasn’t a travelogue or an endless recital of anecdotes.’ She takes a deep happy breath. ‘It was just such fun. He’s like one of us. Tilly was right when she said that we ought to get together. Have you seen my mobile? I’m sure I left it here on the table.’

  Ed shakes his head. ‘You usually take it with you.’

  ‘I know but I remember thinking I wouldn’t bother. We all went out in such a muddle that I just left it on the table. Damn. I can’t bear it when I lose it.’

  ‘Check your study,’ he says. ‘I know you think you left it here but clearly you didn’t.’

  He picks up the letters from the kitchen table. Billa must have opened the end-of-year statement from their accountant before they went out, though she doesn’t usually put it back into its envelope, and he glances down the column of figures of the company’s accounts.

  ‘If you’ve seen this I’ll file it,’ he says as she comes back from her study, looking irritated.

  ‘I haven’t looked at the post today,’ she says crossly, ‘and my mobile’s not there.’

  ‘Phone the pub,’ he advises. ‘Just check. It’s worth a try.’

  She sighs impatiently but takes the directory from the shelf and turns the pages. As he wanders away into the hall she can hear her voice, explaining, asking the question.

  ‘Any luck?’ he calls, and she comes into the hall looking puzzled.

  ‘He says that a man handed it in just now. Says it was down the side of the chair I was sitting in. That’s really weird. I was absolutely sure I left it here.’

  Ed shrugs, raising his eyebrows, making a face calculated to tease her out of her irritation.

  ‘Oh, stop it,’ she says. ‘I am not losing my marbles. Damn. Now I’ll have to go and get it. Oh, wait. It’s Tilly pub night, isn’t it? She can pick it up for me.’

  Ed sighs with relief. The panic is over and he wants to restore some of their earlier good spirits.

  ‘I’ll light the fire,’ he says. ‘Looks like we’ve got a card from young Harry. Or have you read it already?’

  ‘I told you I haven’t looked at the post.’ For some strange reason she feels scratchy, unsettled, all her happiness sliding away.

  ‘Well,’ Ed says pacifically, looking at the slit envelope, clearly not believing her, ‘read it now. Maybe he’s coming home.’

  Dear Ed and Billa,

  How’s everything with you? I’ve been staying with friends in Canada for a few weeks but Dom will have told you that I’m on my way home to see you all. I had to send this card because the chap on the front looks just like Bear. Don’t quite know yet when I shall be in Cornwall – probably in the next week or so – but I’ll stay in touch as I move on.

  Lots of love,

  Harry

  Billa’s spirits lift again; the card restores her happiness.

  ‘Look at this,’ she says to Ed, who is breathing life into the fire with the bellows. ‘Harry says he might be home next week. Dom said he was working his way here by degrees. It’ll be so good to see him.’ She holds the card so that Ed can see the picture of the big brown bear. ‘He says it reminded him of Bear.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to hug that chap,’ says Ed. He is relieved that Billa sounds happy again and he experiences a moment of very real pleasure at the thought of seeing Harry. He’s particularly fond of Dom’s grandson. ‘Have you thought any more about us leaving Mellinpons to Harry?’

  Billa lets the card fall on to her lap. ‘I think about it quite a lot,’ she admits. ‘After all, there’s nobody else to leave it to, except Dom. It’s quite right that we made him the beneficiary in our wills, after all, he is our father’s eldest son. At the same time, Dom’s older than both of us and he’ll never need Mellinpons. I think it would be really good for it to go to his grandson. Dom’s cottage will go to his two girls and, let’s face it, they’ll simply sell up. Of all of them, Harry’s the only member of the family who’s ever likely to come back to Cornwall. I just worry about whether it might cause trouble in the family. That Harry’s been singled out, I mean.’

  ‘But we hardly ever hear from the others, do we? Only through Dom. Harry’s spent holidays and weekends here when he was at Oxford. He Skypes us and sends emails. He’s the only one of Dom’s grandchildren who has any real interest in us. Clearly Dom must leave his property between his daughters but we can do as we like.’

  Billa nods. Secretly she’s rather surprised that Ed feels so strongly; usually he’s very aware of people’s feelings and how they might be upset. In this case it is clear that his love for Harry is stronger than his inhibitions.

  ‘I wish Dom had changed his name to St Enedoc,’ she says. ‘After all, his mother simply picked a name out of a hat to go on the birth certificate as his father. James Blake didn’t exist. I don’t blame her – back then it was a very difficult situation to be in – but once the truth came out Dom could have simply changed it.’

  ‘I think that it’s because our father never acknowledged him. He refused to see him. I think that Dom’s found that very hard and that’s the reason he wouldn’t take his name.’

  ‘He made it clear, though, in his will, didn’t he?’ says Billa. ‘The cottages were left for Dom and funds to make certain he could continue with his education. Of course, Mother couldn’t bear the sight of him, which didn’t help. And ghastly Tris calling him a bastard and his mother a whore. God, Dom was so angry. That’s why I’d like to leave Mellinpons to Harry. To kind of make up for things. I know it’s silly but he looks so like Dom. Well, like you, too. When I see Harry it’s like time has swung backwards and we’re all young again. And he is our great-nephew.’

  ‘And the girls are our nieces,’ Ed reminds her. ‘It’s a bit of a problem, but, in the end, it’s our decision.’

  ‘Maybe seeing Harry again will push us into taking the final step,’ suggests Billa.

  Ed nods, smiles at her and goes upstairs, taking his letters with him.

  She stands the card on the top of the chest and stares at the picture of the brown bear. Since they’ve come back from the pub she’s been feeling unsettled, like a cat with its fur rubbed the wrong way, and it’s not just to do with losing her mobile. Clearly, she must have snatched it up and dropped it into her pocket on the way out while everyone was discussing who would travel with whom, and which cars to use, and whether Bear and Bessie ought to go. Even so, she can’t remember doing it and she still has that odd feeling – as if she’s being watched: spied on.

  Bear comes to sit beside her, leaning against her legs, and she strokes his head, pulls his soft ears. He pants a little, and gazes at her intently. She smiles at his expression and puts her arm around his neck.

  ‘Look,’ she says, picking up the card. ‘It’s one of your relatives,’ but Bear isn’t interested in the card. He, too, seems ill at ease, restless.
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  ‘Come on,’ she says at last. ‘I thought you’d still be exhausted after all that dashing around earlier but I think you need a walk.’ She shouts up the stairs to Ed. ‘Bear and I are going down to the lake,’ and they go through the kitchen and out into the sunshine together.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The weather changes slowly, gently. As the east wind swings round to the west a silver curtain of rain is drawn across the peninsular, drifting, swinging, obscuring the hills and the sea. Trees, half-hidden by mist, appear as ghostly twisted semi-human shapes; old woodland gods with untidy tresses of ivy trailing from their outflung arms. Silver drops of moisture hang in the hedgerows where thorn and ash and oak have grown for a thousand years.

  Coming in from the greenhouse Dom hears a woodpecker drumming in the woods and stands still to listen, his heart quickening with pleasure at this forerunner of spring. He kicks off his boots, pauses to give Bessie a rub with the old towel he keeps inside the door for this purpose. She stands obediently and then bounds away from him into the kitchen, tossing the leather bone she’s holding in her mouth, daring him to reach for it. He does, just to please her, and immediately she jerks her head away, keeping the bone out of his grasp, bowing down on her front legs with her tail waving happily. He seizes the bone suddenly, catching her off balance, and tosses it through the open door, down the hall, where it lands all amongst the post on the doormat.

  She bounds after it, scattering the envelopes, and he goes to rescue them, picking them up and taking them back to the kitchen. He drops them on the table and then turns to look again, his attention caught by the picture lying half-covered by an envelope. He picks up the postcard and stares at it in disbelief. It is a reproduction of Toulouse-Lautrec’s Rue des Moulins Brothel. The model stands with her back to the artist, her chemise hitched up, half-exposing her right buttock, her dark stocking rolled down to her knees. It is almost touching in its ugliness, its humanness, but Dom stares at it with the sense of having received a blow to the heart. He knows what he will see when he turns it over.

  It is addressed to Dominic Blake. Opposite the address, Tris has scrawled: ‘Staying with friends in Roscoff for a few days. See you soon. Tris. PS I thought she’d be just your type.’

  Dom turns the card over again and stares at the picture of the prostitute. He is so shocked, so angry, that he feels that he might explode. His hands begin to shake and with an enormous effort he takes control of himself. He sits down at the table, willing himself to be calm, telling himself grimly that this is exactly what would please Tristan most. If he were to have a stroke or a heart attack, how pleased Tris would be – especially if he were to be found dead clutching a postcard of a prostitute.

  Dom almost laughs out loud at the thought. It is madness to allow this foolishness to drive him to the edge of an almost killing rage. He sits at the table and stares at the card, analysing his anger. Tris hits where it hurts most: at Dom’s deep-down insecurity. Despite the fact that he has been loved, successful in his field, has a thriving family, despite all these things, there is still a part of him that is unresolved, unhealed. He cannot come to terms with his father’s refusal to see him; he never spoke to him, never touched him. He supported him financially, provided generously for his future, but he rejected Dom as a person, as his son.

  Silently he pieces the familiar jigsaw together. He knows now why it was only after his father died that he was allowed to visit his grandmother in Cornwall. Back then no particular reason was given for his mother refusing to accompany him on that first momentous journey; in 1952 children had much more freedom and independence, and it was seen as an adventure. Anyway, his mother had to work and there was cousin Susan to keep an eye on. Dom, just having celebrated his twelfth birthday, was old enough now to go to see Granny. He remembered how his mother hugged him on the platform at Temple Meads, giving him a kiss, telling him to be a good boy. He’d glanced round quickly to see if there might be any boys from his school, embarrassed by her emotion, and then he’d suddenly felt an uprush of love for her, a momentary pang at the prospect of being so far from home, and had hugged her too. Then the London train came roaring in, and they were enveloped in billowing clouds of steam, the sour stench of soot and the noise of screeching brakes, and his mother ran to speak to the guard to ask him to make sure that Dom got off at Bodmin.

  Dom sits at the table, staring back across the decades at that boy in grey flannel shorts and a faded blue Aertex shirt, all set for adventure. He remembers he had a book specially for the journey, an Arthur Ransome – Swallows and Amazons? Pigeon Post? – and a bottle of ginger beer and a packed lunch: cheese sandwiches, an orange and a bar of chocolate.

  ‘Don’t,’ his mother cautioned, ‘eat the chocolate all at once. And try not to be messy with the orange. Got a handkerchief? Good, then. Don’t forget to use it.’

  He’d stood at the window in the corridor, waving until he could see her no more, and then entered the compartment the guard had shown them. He was slightly overawed by the other passengers: two matronly, middle-aged ladies in smart tweeds on their way back from a few days in London, a young, sharp-faced man in a cheap suit who looked like a travelling salesman, and an older, military-looking man with a bushy moustache, who was half-hidden behind The Times. Tentatively Dom stepped amongst their feet – two smart pairs of court shoes, a scuffed pair of black lace-ups, and one pair of highly polished brogues – and hefted his shabby bag on to the shelf above his head. The two women stopped talking to watch him, their expressions kind, motherly.

  ‘Travelling alone?’ one of them asked brightly. ‘I expect you’d like a window seat. Move up, Phyllis. He can have mine.’

  They moved along, ignoring his protests, whilst the young salesman winked at him and the older man frowned slightly, rattling his paper, as if implying that Dom was too old for such childish favours. The young man grinned, tipping his head towards the old soldier as if inviting Dom to join in the joke, and Dom cautiously smiled back. He sat down and stared out of the window, not wanting to be engaged in conversation, wishing he’d thought to get his book out of his bag. This journey was life-changing: his first step into an adult world. He’d begun to realize that there were other influences beyond the small world of home and school. At school he elaborated the story of his father’s death in the war so as to fend off questions about his family, but he asked his mother why he had no relations on his father’s side: no aunts or uncles, or grandparents or cousins. She was always vague: his father came from the north, he’d been an orphan. There was Granny, of course, and some distant relatives down in Cornwall.

  Granny occasionally came to visit in the school holidays but never during term-time. She never came to hear him singing in the cathedral choir or to cheer him on athletics day, so that watching his school friends’ groups of family he’d feel oddly lonely, though there were several other boys whose fathers had died in the war. Often his mother was working and cousin Susan was deemed to be too old to attend school functions so he was used to being alone. But he had friends, good friends, who invited him to their homes – though very few were invited to the little house in St Michael’s Hill – but still he’d felt lonely until he’d met Billa and Ed in Granny’s cottage, and for the first time in his life he’d experienced an overwhelming sense of homecoming.

  Dom stands up, fills the kettle and sits down again. Bessie settles on her rug, stretching out and sighing. He remembers now that the book had been The Picts and the Martyrs – his favourite of all Arthur Ransome’s books – and as he sits, remembering, the scene slips again into his mind.

  The tweedy women were predisposed for conversation: where was he going? Who would be meeting him? How old was he? He answered politely but wondered how they would respond if he asked them the same questions. All the while he was aware of the unspoken partisanship from the young man sitting across from him. He was now studying a racing paper but Dom saw his mouth twitch into a smile, his eyelid drop in a brief conspiratorial wink. Dom was
warmed by the sensation of friendship. It made him feel grown up. The military-looking man, on the other hand, reminded him of Major Banks who taught geography. Dom surreptitiously smoothed his hand over his newly cut hair and kept his feet in their rubbed leather sandals under the seat. He was confused by these tensions. He knew that if the young man and he were alone a conversation would start up, they’d joke together, and perhaps get out their sandwiches. Alone with the older man, he’d call him ‘Sir’.

  Instead, he smiled at the two women and stood up to retrieve his book. The Picts and the Martyrs: or Not Welcome at All. He stared at the paper cover. He’d never noticed the second part of the title: Not Welcome at All. He thought of his arrival in Cornwall and how it would work being alone with Granny. They’d never been alone together before: how would it be? He felt anxious, and he studied the cover of the book to distract himself. It was a familiar, well-loved book and he tested himself by looking at the small printed photographs scattered over the pink paper cover and identifying them with those same pictures inside the book: here were Dick and Dot in the stone hut in the woods, and here was their little boat, the Scarab. And this one was the skull and crossbones over Dick’s bed. Dick was his favourite character, especially in this book about mining; Dom, like Dick, was good at chemistry and physics and fascinated by geology. Dom opened the book and began to read. The first chapter began with Dick and Dot on a train journey and its heading was ‘Visitors Expected’. Dom experienced another twinge of apprehension. He was the expected visitor and, just for a moment, he wished that he too was on his way to see Nancy and Peggy, and that Timothy would be meeting him at Bodmin station in a squashy hat, with lots of plans for his mining project up in the hills.