Postcards from the Past

by Marcia Willett

  She beamed at him then, full of excitement at the prospect opening up before her, and he wanted to seize her in his arms and kiss her.

  ‘I will,’ she promised. ‘Elizabeth is great. She’s been designated my assistant and our first job is to sort out the office. She’s been doing a terrific job but I think she’s very relieved that I’m taking over. Everyone’s really kind.’

  ‘Good,’ he said lightly, sticking his hands into his pockets lest he should reach out for her. ‘I thought Sister Emily was going to break into a jig.’

  ‘I utterly love her,’ Tilly said fervently, and then they’d looked at each other for a long, telling moment until she blushed again and said that she and Sister Emily were having coffee with Janna and she must go.

  Remembering, Clem smiles, then thinks of the rector and puts his foot down on the accelerator.

  * * *

  Alec takes his shopping into the kitchen and begins to unload it. The walk to the beach and back has caused his ankle to throb and he sits down gratefully, bending to touch it gingerly, feeling it ache beneath the elastic bandage.

  ‘Shouldn’t slop around in slippers,’ he can hear Rose saying. ‘Silly old fool. That’s the way to get carted off to hospital, and then what?’

  He sighs, acknowledging this to be his greatest nightmare, and stands up again to unpack the groceries.

  ‘We’ll have some coffee, old chap,’ he murmurs to Hercules, ‘and a choc bic. Well, I shall. Not good for you, I’m afraid. Got to keep your weight down. You could hardly get up the hill today, poor fellow.’

  Something happening to Hercules is Alec’s second biggest nightmare. He cannot imagine life without Hercules.

  At the word ‘bic’, Hercules’ tail bangs to and fro against the cupboard doors and he pants hopefully.

  ‘Hang on,’ his master says. ‘Give me a chance. Got to put this stuff in the fridge.’

  He unloads the bag, folds it and puts it back in his pocket.

  ‘If I hadn’t got a dog to talk to, what would I do?’ he asks Hercules. ‘Tell me that. Talk to myself, I suppose. Not the same thing at all.’

  He takes down a box of dog biscuits, gives one to Hercules, fills the kettle and then sits down again. He longs for Rose to come in, bustling around getting things sorted, making the coffee; or for Tilly to be across the hall in his study working on his database. The kettle boils and switches itself off but he doesn’t move. When the telephone rings, however, he gets up quickly, curses the stab of pain in his ankle and hobbles to the phone.

  ‘Bancroft.’

  It’s Dom asking how he is, suggesting they meet up.

  ‘I’d like that,’ says Alec. ‘The trouble is I’m a bit crocked at the moment. Ankle’s a bit iffy. Not sure driving is a good idea.’

  But Dom doesn’t mind that. He’s ready to drive over to Peneglos whenever it suits.

  ‘Come to lunch,’ says Alec eagerly. ‘I’ve just bought fresh rolls from the shop and there’s some nice cheese. Won’t be much of a feast but I’ll rustle something up. Can you manage it?’

  Dom is very happy with the idea, says he’ll bring some home-made soup, and Alec replaces the receiver with a sigh of relief and pleasure. Now he has something to look forward to and his spirits rise.

  * * *

  A little later, at the old butter factory, Billa paces the kitchen, watching the clock. She’s invited Tris for half past three and it’s nearly a quarter past. She and Ed have had a very simple lunch; neither of them felt very hungry.

  ‘Funny, isn’t it?’ Ed says. ‘I don’t feel quite the same about him now. The trouble is that I’ve disliked him for so long that it feels a bit odd.’

  ‘To be honest, I hadn’t thought about him for years,’ Billa says. ‘And then it all came rushing back as fresh as ever when we got the postcard. Awful, really, that you can hang on to such a destructive emotion for such a long time. When I think about him seeing his mother dead it’s gut-wrenching. No wonder he was so appalling.’

  ‘And it must be terrible to know you haven’t long to live,’ says Ed. ‘Poor fellow.’

  Now Billa paces again. She’s disappointed that Dom won’t be coming to tea but he’s explained why.

  ‘It gave me a shock to see him like that on the doorstep,’ he said on the phone earlier. ‘I know you warned me but it’s quite different when it actually happens, isn’t it? I just want time to think about things. I’m sure I’ll see him again before he goes.’

  Billa can understand that Dom needs time to take stock. They’ve all suffered at Tris’s hands, and welcoming the prodigal son home isn’t as easy as it seems. Bear slumbers on the sofa, stretched full length, totally at ease, and Billa envies him his relaxed detachment. She pauses beside him and strokes his soft coat. His eye half-opens and his tail gives a feeble thump before he settles again to sleep.

  But now she hears the sound of an engine and she hurries to the window to see Tris’s car drive over the little bridge and park beside the garage. He gets out, looking as relaxed and at ease as Bear, and Billa studies him safe in the knowledge that he can’t see her. As he leans in to get the satchel he had with him last time she sees in his quick movements, the lean energy, what must have attracted her mother to Andrew. Just for a moment she remembers Andrew lounging in her mother’s bed, his strong hand grasping her delicate wrist like a handcuff, his eyes lazily smiling at Billa, stiff and tense in the doorway. She remembers her mother’s besottedness and, as Tris swings the satchel over his shoulder and turns to look at the house, she is attracted by his magnetism, that same sexy edginess that once made a fool of Elinor St Enedoc.

  Billa goes quickly to the door and opens it.

  ‘Hi,’ she says. ‘Come on in.’ And then she turns and hurries into the hall, calling to Ed. ‘Come on down, Ed. Tris is here.’

  For some reason she doesn’t want to be alone with him and she is shocked and confused by her reaction. She goes back into the kitchen to find Tris standing in the doorway, looking rather puzzled at finding the kitchen empty.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘Just giving Ed a shout. He’s in his study.’

  Tris smiles reminiscently. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘The study. The inner sanctum. I wasn’t allowed in there, was I?’

  ‘Well, it was our father’s room,’ she says, almost apologetically, still thrown off balance by her attraction to him. ‘Ed felt very strongly about it. He still does.’

  ‘So I still don’t get to see it, then,’ says Tris teasingly. ‘Oh, well, I guess I can live with that.’

  ‘Of course you can see it,’ says Billa almost indignantly, as if Ed has already denied it. ‘Things were a bit different back then. Ed and I were gutted when our father died.’

  Even to her own ears she sounds as if she is offering an explanation for their behaviour and, in an attempt to reignite her animosity, she has to remind herself that it was Tris who was the first to strike a blow. Immediately she imagines the defenceless four-year-old, crouched beside his mother’s body, and she is seized with pity for him. She glances at him and sees those frosty, clear grey eyes fixed on her as though he is seeing right into her mind, and when he smiles at her she feels very uncomfortable and oddly shaky.

  ‘Tea,’ she says, pushing the kettle on to the hotplate, and her voice is false with a determined jollity like some school mistress caricature from a 1930s film.

  ‘I’d love some,’ he says quite naturally. ‘Thanks, I really appreciate this, Billa. I’m glad to be able to come back.’

  ‘Would you like to look around?’ she asks, and her voice sounds normal again. ‘Just to see if you remember anything?’

  ‘I’d love it,’ he says. ‘I remember this kitchen very well. This big slate table is amazing. And I remember some kind of strange fireplace in the hall and the ceiling way up high. Is that right?’

  ‘Absolutely right. Come and see.’

  She leads the way into the hall, passing Bear, who remains comatose and makes no attempt to greet Tris.

 
‘Hi, old fellow,’ Tris says to him, but doesn’t touch him. He follows Billa into the hall and looks around and up into the high vaulting of the ceiling. ‘Wow,’ he says softly. ‘This really is something, isn’t it?’

  Just then Ed comes out of his study and stands looking down at them from the gallery.

  ‘Tris was just saying that he was never allowed in your study,’ Billa says to him. ‘Could you show him around while I make the tea?’

  ‘Sure,’ says Ed, very comfortable, quite at ease. ‘Come on up, Tris. How much of this do you remember?’

  This is just so weird, Billa thinks as she goes back into the kitchen. He’s gone from monster to welcomed guest overnight. How does that work?

  She hums as she makes the tea and puts some small cakes on to a plate. Billa never hums and she knows that she’s doing it to distract her mind away from the fact that she finds Tris attractive and that this is making her think of her mother in a different light. She feels as if the past is in some way repeating itself, she sees her mother and Andrew together, and she is both drawn to and repulsed by these images at the same time.

  Ed and Tris come in together talking animatedly and she turns, determined to be cool.

  ‘I like the man-bag,’ she says lightly. ‘Very pretty. I wouldn’t mind one like that.’

  ‘Oh, this.’ Tris smiles, slipping it from his shoulder and hanging it on the chair. ‘I carry my medication in it. I rarely wear a jacket and the bottles are uncomfortable in a trouser pocket. I’ve got my prescription in there too, in a wallet, and instructions in case I get taken ill. I collapsed recently and that’s when I learned that it was very sensible to have it at hand. Everything I need is in there, just in case.’

  Billa is wrong-footed by this reply, embarrassed by her flippancy, but Tris reaches out quickly and touches her wrist. He encircles it, making a handcuff with his fingers, and then lets it go just as quickly so that Ed doesn’t even notice.

  But Bear, roused from slumber, notices, and he growls quietly as he climbs down from his sofa and pads across the kitchen to stand beside Billa. She strokes his head absentmindedly while the kettle boils, her back to Tris and Ed, who are now discussing the work Ed has been doing in the woods along the river.

  ‘You’ll see a real change down there,’ Ed is saying. ‘We’ll take a stroll after tea.’

  ‘Great,’ Tris says. ‘I’d really like that. I was very happy there in the woods just up on the edge of the moor. Sometimes when I was here for an exeat and you were both at school I’d go up there with Bitser. I felt free. You know? Felt it just might work out after all. I got caught in a storm up there once and Bitser wouldn’t come back with me. He was digging after a rabbit, I guess, and I grabbed him and he bit me. Took a chunk out of my hand.’ He looks at Billa. ‘At least now I can say sorry.’

  She stares at him, shocked, and he lifts his shoulders and his hands in a Gallic shrug.

  ‘I know. Much too late. But I wanted you to know.’

  Then the kettle boils, Billa makes the tea and they sit down together at the table.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  At seven o’clock, with the sun just rising, the woodland along the river is a mysterious place. Walking with Bessie in the early light, Dom is distracted from his thoughts of Tris by the clamour of birds: the clarion ring of their voices echoing amongst the bare, empty branches, the flutter and clap of their wings, and the continuum of rushing water. The pale gleam of a rabbit’s scut bobs on the path ahead and Bessie chases after it, dry dead leaves and clods of earth thrown up behind her scudding paws. Beneath the trees, where the land rises towards the moors, daffodils glimmer between rocky boulders. Later there will be bluebells, and in April the azaleas will blossom; purple and white and red, and the wild yellow luteum with its heavenly scent.

  Dom surveys the work he and Ed have put in over the years with satisfaction. They must have planted thousands of bulbs. The snowdrops are fading now but there are hellebores growing beside the path and tiny cyclamen. He walks on, his mind focused again on his conversation yesterday with Sir Alec. At last he told him about Andrew and Elinor, about how Tris had returned with the will, and Ed and Billa’s reactions.

  Alec asked a few very pertinent questions and then remained silent for a while.

  ‘Would you,’ Dom asked at last, ‘if you were in our shoes, part with the money? I know that Billa and Ed will be influenced by Tris’s history, you see. They are already sorry for him and regretting their own reactions to him all those years ago. Ed is moved by the fact that Tris is dying, and Billa by the fact that he saw his mother dead when he was four. And I believed him when he told me about his half-brother and his nephew. When Billa and Ed find out about the will they will feel, rightly or wrongly, that some reparation is required.’

  ‘And they are facts?’

  Dom hesitated. ‘It’s odd,’ he said slowly, ‘but I believe him and so do they. He’s a chancer, he has a drug habit, I should say he’s completely untrustworthy but yes, I believe him. Is that crazy?’

  ‘No, not all,’ answered Alec at once. ‘It is possible to detect that someone is telling the truth just as it is possible to know without doubt that someone is lying.’

  ‘But would you part with the money? Billa and Ed have always regarded me as an elder brother and, even at this late stage in all our lives, I might be able to influence them.’

  ‘What is your real anxiety?’

  ‘Tris says that he’s dying and that the money is for his nephew, Léon. I suppose you could say that, if we feel that the will stands, then we have no right to decide what Tris should do with his legacy, but part of me feels very strongly about ten thousand pounds disappearing into a drug dealer’s pocket. I’d like to know if there is someone called Léon living with his mother in the Rue Félix Pyat in Toulon.’

  ‘But you said that you believe in the existence of the boy?’

  ‘Yes, I do, and I’m wondering if Léon should get the money direct.’

  Alec raised his brows, gave a little whistle. ‘Bypass Tris? Cut him out?’

  ‘He says he wants the money for Léon. That he’s dying and he has no use for it. So let’s put him to the test.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Ah, well, that’s where you come in. Is it possible that you still have some connections who could make a few enquiries?’

  ‘Oh-o, I see how your mind is working. Check the boy out and if he’s this hard-working fellow who looks after his mother then you can tell Tris that you’ll pass the money straight to him?’

  ‘That’s the idea. And if Tris balks, then we can all think again. The will won’t stand up in a court of law. Clearly Andrew persuaded Elinor to use his own lawyer rather than the family firm, which is why Billa and Ed didn’t know about it. It all happened so long ago and it could be proved, I imagine, that Andrew was an adventurer. I’d also want to be very sure when Andrew died. We only have Tris’s word that it was after Elinor’s death. I feel that one should respect the wishes of the dead but Elinor might have changed that will once she knew Andrew was never coming back, and if she hadn’t begun to suffer from those bouts of terrible depression. Perhaps she thought that ten thousand pounds was neither here nor there; perhaps she just forgot about it. The point is that I think we might consider coughing up if there’s a worthy cause on the end of it. Then honour will be satisfied.’

  ‘That sounds very fair,’ said Alec, ‘and very generous. I can still pull strings. Give me twenty-four hours.’

  Dom walks on, wondering what Sir Alec’s sources will discover. The sun rises behind the trees, casting sharp black shadows like bars across the path. With a flash of blue, a jay dashes between the bare branches above Dom’s head and his raucous cry is mocking, derisory. Dom watches him, feeling a sudden sense of disquiet, wondering if there is something he’s missed and whether he should warn Billa and Ed about the will. He’d rather tell them face to face and he wants, now, to wait for Sir Alec so as to have all the facts. Twenty-four hours, he’d
said. Nothing could happen in twenty-four hours. Clearly Tris kept his word and hasn’t mentioned the will to Billa and Ed but Dom still feels uneasy. Perhaps, after all, it was foolish to take time to think about it. He’ll phone Billa and suggest he goes in for a drink this evening. By then he might have heard something from Sir Alec. Bessie comes wagging up to him, pleased with herself, wanting her breakfast, and they go on together.

  * * *

  Ed finishes his breakfast and pushes his plate aside. He knows that Billa wants to talk about Tris, to go over yesterday’s visit again, but he simply can’t concentrate. His mind is full of images, of scenes that flash upon his mind’s eye, of the legends of the Cornish Knockers deep in the tin mines, and the giant that wades out into the mountainous seas to grab passing sailing ships and tow helpless sailors to their deaths. He sees the boy and the white horse, the princeling with his flashing sword, and another boy, smaller and more vulnerable, who travels with three large dogs that protect him. The story is beginning to weave and flow in his mind and from time to time he makes lightning sketches on the pad beside him on the table.

  ‘Dom suggests we invite Tris to coffee tomorrow,’ Billa says to him. ‘He promises he’ll come, too. I think that’s a good idea, don’t you? All of us together. But Dom says he’d like to pop round this evening for a drink. I’ve said that’s fine. I’ll be back from Wadebridge about six.’

  Ed nods obligingly. He’ll agree with anything as long as he can get up to his study and do some work. Billa recognizes the signs and shrugs resignedly. Ed sees the shrug and is seized with guilt.

  ‘That’ll be good,’ he says. ‘To see Dom, I mean. And Tris. It’s good that we all have some kind of closure.’

  Billa nods. ‘I keep feeling a bit guilty. We weren’t terribly nice to Mother, were we? We made no allowances for her being lonely after Daddy died.’

  ‘We weren’t old enough to understand that,’ points out Ed reasonably. ‘We couldn’t imagine that she’d need a substitute. We thought she should be content with us. After all, it never occurred to us to need another father.’