Postcards from the Past

by Marcia Willett

  ‘But you’ll come back,’ Ed said. ‘You’re a St Enedoc, like us. You’ll come home one day.’

  Billa said nothing, but her expression struck at Dom’s heart. The closeness between them all had deepened during these last ten years. He’d witnessed the rare cracks in Billa’s stoicism after she lost her babies, and he recognized the emptiness that existed within her own marriage to Philip, but he suspected that these two – his brother and sister – had the same inner reserves he’d discovered in himself. Their understanding of solitude, the real peace it offered, sustained them during the bad times.

  Yet Dom retained that childhood sense of responsibility towards them; he had a strength from which they drew courage. He reminded himself that, genetically, he came from a very strong line in the courage stakes. After all, his grandfather had been a Cornish tinner, his grandmother was tough and durable, their daughter – his mother – brave and loving. And everything Billa and Ed had told him about his father indicated that he’d been fun to be with; such a happy, positive man that his death nearly destroyed them.

  Dom guessed that when he arrived, so soon after their father’s death, Billa and Ed subconsciously adopted him as part elder brother, part father, and this relationship – so crucial during those months of mourning and the years that followed – had never changed. He’d seen the photographs, he knew how like their father he was, and he could imagine how much older and more confident he must have seemed to the seven-year-old Ed and nine-year-old Billa. He gladly inhabited the role they cast him in and, in return, their love was a balm to his own wounds; their instant acceptance and need of him went a long way to healing him. Yet, at some deep, unresolved level, he’d still hated the man who had begotten him and then denied him – ‘So you’re the bastard!’ – and when Ed pleaded with him to change his name by deed poll, to become a St Enedoc, he rejected it out of hand.

  ‘You’re as much a St Enedoc as we are,’ Ed cried passionately. ‘Don’t be stubborn, Dom.’

  But he refused, laughing at Ed’s disappointment, pretending that he was very happy with the situation as it was. Later, when he was a father himself, Dom began to see why his father behaved as he had: loyalty to Elinor and Ed and Billa, perhaps? Embarrassment? Horror at the confusion and shame the truth would cause?

  Slowly the hatred dissolved. It was a comfort to Dom to know that his father hadn’t known the truth until he was already married with a daughter and another child on the way. He hadn’t deliberately abandoned Dom’s mother. Now he could feel a twinge of pity for the young man who was caught out for his act of passion, spent seven years at war and died when he was thirty-five. Yet the pain remained.

  Dom saw, too, how Ed’s natural detachment, his reluctance to total commitment, was affecting his marriage.

  ‘He shouldn’t have married,’ he said ruefully to Billa. ‘He hasn’t got the temperament for it.’

  ‘Has anyone?’ she retorted.

  ‘We’re all damaged,’ he answered sadly. ‘Everyone has baggage, inadequacies, private dreams waiting to be smashed. Survival is a miracle.’

  She nodded, and he knew she was longing to ask about him and Griet. ‘What’s it like for you?’ she wanted to ask. ‘How do you manage?’ But she remained silent. On their weekends at the old butter factory, Billa and Ed saw a great deal of Griet but Dom knew they’d never become real friends. She was too strongly defined to become part of their small group; just as he could never completely mesh with her enormous family.

  In Jo’burg he pined for the fresh blast of cold salty air blowing across the north Cornish coast, or the soft touch of warm mizzling rain; he longed for the sight of early primroses, gleaming in a wet hedgerow, or a new moon rising, thin as a blade, above the sharp granite tors. And so, after Griet died and with his daughters married and settled happily within their extended family, he gave notice to his tenant and came home.

  Now, as he passes through the garden, he thinks of his children and longs to see them, to put his arms around them. And as he thinks it he sees Harry, crouching by Bessie, who is stretched out by the back door in the sunshine. Dom’s eyes fill with unexpected tears and he bends to kick off his boots lest Harry should see his emotion.

  ‘So there you are,’ says Harry, getting to his feet. ‘I was wondering where you’d got to. I hope you’ve remembered that we’re all going to a tea party and that Bessie is one of the guests of honour.’

  ‘How could I forget?’ asks Dom. ‘I’m going to meet Tilly’s curate at last.’

  ‘Well, no funny remarks,’ says Harry severely. ‘Our Tills is in a real old dither. She’s gone on ahead.’ A pause. ‘You’re not going in those filthy jeans, are you?’

  Dom pulls a face that indicates he has been suitably reprimanded. ‘Clearly not,’ he says. ‘I’ll go and change while you brush Bessie. If she’s a guest of honour you’d better get rid of some of those tangles. How long have I got?’

  Harry consults his watch. ‘Twenty minutes max. I said we’ll be there before the others arrive.’

  ‘Poor Clem,’ says Dom. ‘I should think he’ll feel like Daniel in the lions’ den.’

  ‘You’re not a lion, are you, Bessie?’ says Harry, encouraging her to her feet. ‘Tilly says she’s going to let the dogs decide. If they approve of Clem then she might consider him in a more serious light. It’s up to Bessie and Bear now.’

  ‘Pretty sound thinking,’ says Dom. ‘She could do a lot worse. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Clem sits in silence beside Alec, unaware of the beauty of the unfolding springtime beyond the car window, thinking of the ordeal ahead. He’d accepted gladly when Alec offered him and Jakey a lift.

  ‘Not much point taking two cars,’ Alec said. ‘Can’t get Hercules into your little bug so how about coming with me?’

  Clem suspects that the older man knows just how nervous he’s feeling and is trying to remove some of the pressure. It will be much easier to arrive with Alec and Hercules; dogs always relieve tension and encourage friendliness. Even so, he is still very nervous.

  ‘Charming people, the St Enedocs,’ Alec is saying now. ‘Interesting fellow, Dom. Worked all over the world…’

  He talks gently on about Dom, allowing Clem to remain silent. In the back, perched on his seat, Jakey is tense with excitement and high expectation. By twisting in his seat he can just touch Hercules’ head where it rests on the back of the seat behind him. Jakey twiddles the satiny soft yellow ear and tries to imagine how big Bear is and wonders whether he will be frightened of such an enormous animal.

  ‘He’s huge, mate,’ Harry said. ‘Really huge. And his paws are this big.’

  He demonstrated, with his hands stretched wide, just how big Bear’s paws were and Jakey’s eyes grew round with awe. He loves it that Harry calls him ‘mate’ and he’s tried it once or twice, just casually, on his friends at school.

  ‘Just you wait ’til you see him, mate,’ he murmurs to Stripey Bunny.

  Stripey Bunny isn’t going to the tea party, just in case Bear eats him in mistake for a real rabbit, but he is allowed to come along in the car and see Bear from the window. Jakey holds Stripey Bunny up to look at Hercules, who sniffs at him but isn’t much interested.

  Clem glances round at Jakey and winks at him. The important thing is that nothing rocks the boat for Jakey. Another spasm of fear twists Clem’s gut. It seems impossible to imagine a different way of life: a life in which Tilly could be included. He and Jakey have been a little unit for so long now that Clem wonders how another person might be absorbed into it. He gives a deep, despairing sigh and Alec glances sideways at him.

  ‘Things have a habit of working out,’ he says encouragingly. ‘Given time, most problems can be overcome.’

  Clem doesn’t pretend not to understand him. They’ve already touched on the matter once or twice and Clem knows that Alec approves of Tilly, whilst acknowledging the difficulties. He doesn’t want to talk about it now, though, in fr
ont of Jakey, so he just nods, smiles, accepting Alec’s encouragement.

  ‘That’s Dom’s cottage,’ says Alec, as they pass a stone and slate cottage that was clearly once two cottages, ‘and here we are.’

  He drives over the little bridge whilst Clem looks appreciatively at the old mill house and Jakey sits up straighter, peering from the window for his first sight of Bear. Harry emerges first, and Jakey beams at him, and behind him is the largest dog Jakey has ever seen. It does indeed look like a brown bear. His smile fades into a gaze of fascinated awe and for once he doesn’t struggle to undo the seat belt and try to be first out of the car. He sits staring whilst his father gets out, shakes hands with Harry, makes introductions, and then bends down – not very far down – to stroke Bear.

  Bear’s tail is wagging, his tongue lolls out, and still Jakey sits watching until his father opens the car door and says, ‘Come on, Jakes. Come and say hello,’ and the little boy scrambles down and approaches warily. Bear is almost as tall as he is. He stretches out a cautious hand and Bear suddenly swipes a tongue round Jakey’s face so that he ducks and then laughs, and suddenly everything is fine.

  ‘Hi, mate,’ Harry says, and Jakey says, ‘Hi, mate,’ back to him and it’s cool, and he touches Bear again, less tentatively, and strokes the soft coat and feels brave and really happy.

  Billa and Tilly, watching from the doorway, smile at the scene.

  ‘He’s a sweetie, isn’t he?’ says Tilly, anxious that Billa should like Jakey. Sometimes Billa is a bit odd around children, rather cautious and diffident, and Tilly wants this to be a happy moment.

  Billa’s heart has already gone out to Jakey. She’s seen that initial fear, the sudden startle back when Bear’s tongue swipes Jakey’s cheek, then his relief and delight that sweeps the fear clean out of him and leaves a rush of high spirits. She sees the way he’s responding to Harry with an attempt at a grown-up swagger whilst instinctively, childishly, he reaches for Harry’s hand and begins to talk earnestly to him.

  ‘He is,’ she answers. ‘And he obviously adores Harry. Ah, here comes Clem.’

  Clem comes to meet them just as Ed and Dom come out of the kitchen, and more introductions are made. Bessie now makes her entrance and soon Jakey is in the centre of the three dogs, jumping and clowning and showing off for Harry’s benefit.

  ‘Dogs’ tea party,’ says Dom, shaking Clem’s hand, liking the look of him. ‘I hope you like dog biscuits.’

  ‘As long as I don’t have to eat them in the doghouse,’ responds Clem valiantly, trying not to look overwhelmed, and they all laugh appreciatively at his little joke.

  Tilly beams at him, approving of him. She’s been wondering if she’ll be embarrassed in front of all of them and find that she’s being offhand with Clem because of it. Luckily this doesn’t seem to be the case. It’s as if there’s no focal point here; it’s not about her and Clem. Everyone is talking, moving about the kitchen, quite at ease. The dogs come rushing in and Jakey is allowed to give each of them a biscuit, snatching his hand away rather quickly when Bear takes his and then laughing with relief again.

  Ed suggests that Jakey might like to see the tadpolarium while tea is being prepared and the two of them, with Harry and the dogs, all disappear outside.

  ‘I don’t know about a dogs’ tea party,’ says Billa. ‘More like a circus.’

  Dom is telling Clem the history of the butter factory, taking him up to the galleried landing to show him where the churns were brought in from the back of the house to be emptied into the vats below, and Alec sits down at the slate table. Billa has made egg and cress sandwiches, sausage rolls, and two kinds of cake.

  He looks at them appreciatively. Tilly grins at him.

  ‘None of your shop cake and chemicals in a cup here,’ she says.

  He grins back at her, longing to ask how she got on at the retreat house yesterday but resisting the temptation. He wonders if Clem knows anything about it. He hasn’t mentioned it to him – he’s not been a diplomat for nothing – but his curiosity is almost overwhelming.

  ‘There will be eight of us,’ says Billa. ‘I think it’s only fair that if Jakey has to sit up for tea then we all join him, don’t you? We need two more chairs, Tilly. There’s one in my study and one in the hall. No, don’t get up, Alec. Tilly can manage.’

  Tilly is almost relieved to have a few moments alone. She feels nervous about being on her own with Clem, of telling him about yesterday when she went to Chi-Meur, and how Mother Magda came to her in the office and said that she was so thrilled to hear that Tilly might be joining the team.

  ‘We need someone to manage us. To make a coherent whole out of all the individual tasks that we are undertaking. There is a sum of money, fifteen thousand pounds each year, set aside for this position and Sister Emily tells me that you might require accommodation and full board, which would make the offer more attractive. That would be splendid. Perhaps, when you’ve finished, I could show you the Priest’s Flat?’

  Later, almost in a dream, she’d climbed the beautiful wooden staircase behind Mother Magda, turned down a corridor and followed her through a door into a kind of hall or passageway from which stairs twisted down again. At the bottom of the stairs was another door, which opened into a small vestibule with its own door to the outside.

  ‘You see, you are quite private here,’ said Mother Magda, opening the door to the left and motioning Tilly forward.

  The room was big; a corner room with two windows looking south and another looking west. An armchair and small table were placed at one of the windows beside a bookcase, and a square table with two chairs stood beneath another. The bed was in a corner against the wall with a cabinet next to it. There was an old-fashioned wardrobe, a white-painted chest of drawers and a small washbasin. It was at least three times the size of Mr Potts’ bedroom and, with its mullioned windows and uneven floor, was full of charm.

  She thought: I love it.

  ‘And here,’ announced Mother Magda proudly, ‘is your own bathroom.’

  Tilly followed her across the narrow passage and into another big room. It had a huge bath with a shower fixed above it, a lavatory, and a basin. A built-in airing cupboard took up one wall and the sash window looked over the uneven roofscape of the old manor house. Mother Magda was watching her with hopeful eyes.

  Tilly smiled at her. ‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘that I still don’t quite know what the exact job description is and if I could manage it.’

  ‘Oh, my dear, neither does any of us,’ said Mother Magda ruefully. ‘That’s rather the point, isn’t it? We are led forward and we hope and pray that we’re travelling in the right direction.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Tilly rather doubtfully. ‘I can see that it would be like that for you. It rather does go with your job, I imagine. Trust and faith are part of the spec.’

  ‘Exactly. And with yours, too, if you join us.’

  Mother Magda looked anxious and Tilly could see that she was a worrier; her brow creased, her thin frame tensed as if ready for disaster, but her dark blue eyes were beautiful.

  ‘Sister Emily wanted to show you the flat,’ she said, ‘but I was rather worried that she would be over-keen and that you might feel we were pressuring you. She feels very strongly that you are exactly the right person for us. She is a very … enthusiastic person.’

  ‘I know. I think she’s brilliant,’ said Tilly.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Mother Magda. ‘Yes, indeed. She is a very special person…’

  She hesitated. She’d spoken very affectionately but with a certain weariness; as a parent might speak about a wayward, self-willed but beloved child. Tilly could imagine the unspoken end to the sentence ‘… but sometimes I would like to smack her very hard,’ and she grinned with such sudden sympathy and understanding that Mother Magda smiled back at her. All the anxiety lines and tension vanished into that wide, delighted smile, the blue eyes shone, and for that moment they were in complete accord.

  ‘If you are hap
py, then, I should like your permission to bring the subject up at Chapter on Friday morning,’ she said hopefully.

  ‘I would be very happy,’ Tilly said. ‘And then, perhaps, we could talk again.’

  Now, remembering, Tilly picks up the chair, wondering if she is quite crazy. She hasn’t mentioned the interview to anyone yet but she wonders if Clem might already know. Surely, though, if he’d known he would have said something, given some hint? She wonders how to start the conversation and how he will react. At this moment Jakey, Harry and the dogs surge back into the kitchen, followed by Ed. Clem and Dom reappear, still talking about the history of the house, and Harry is dispatched to fetch the chair from the hall.

  As they sit down around the table, Jakey watches in amazement as first Bear and then Bessie climb on to the old sagging sofa and settle down. Hercules stands beside them, sniffing at them, before settling down on the floor beside them. Jakey crouches down, he strokes Bear’s head but Bear is too exhausted by his afternoon’s activities to acknowledge him. He stretches out comfortably and begins to snore gently. Jakey pats Bessie, who gives him a brief lick, whilst Hercules thumps his tail on the floor.

  Jakey remains crouched beside them. ‘I wish we had a dog,’ he says in the aggrieved tone of someone whose request has been denied many times.

  ‘So do I,’ says Tilly, much in the same tone, and Jakey looks at her quickly. For the first time he really sees Tilly as a person, rather than just another grown-up, and his interest quickens.

  ‘Won’t they let you have one either?’ he asks sympathetically, as one martyr to another.

  Tilly shakes her head, making a little face of commiseration at him.

  ‘Certainly not while you’re staying in Mr Potts’ bedroom,’ says Dom firmly, and Tilly nods at Jakey, as if to say, ‘You see what I mean?’

  ‘When you find your own place,’ Dom goes on, selecting a sandwich, ‘then you can get your own dog.’

  ‘Well, as it happens,’ Tilly says indignantly, ‘I might have found my own place. I applied for a job yesterday at the retreat house and it’s got accommodation to go with it.’