Postcards from the Past (7 page)

‘Yes, but I mean it in a good way,’ protests Tilly. ‘I like nutters.’

*   *   *

When she gets back, she parks the car and, on an impulse, walks up to the old butter factory, looking for Billa. She’s very fond of Billa. The older woman’s toughness, her dry sense of humour, her deep attachment to Ed and Dom; all these qualities make her very attractive. She talks to Tilly with a directness that the younger woman appreciates.

The late afternoon glimmers with primrose light, green and palest gold, and she can hear a strange chorus: hoarse, rasping, resonant. On an impulse she walks round the end of the house and along the path beside the stream. The lake is full of clouds and, at the water’s edge, all among the clouds, are the frogs. Scrambling, crawling, brown-blue bodies in shiny mounds and oily heaps, they clasp each other, singing. The cloud reflections break and reform as the ripples disturb them, spreading across the lake, drifting away into the shadows beneath the willows.

In the new woodland along the stream, where Ed has planted beech and spindle trees, bluebells and daffodils, Tilly sees Billa wandering slowly towards her with Bear following at her heels. Billa’s head is bowed, her arms are folded beneath her breast as if she is holding herself together, and – even at this distance – Tilly can see that she is deep in thought. Bear pauses to examine an interesting scent and follows it away from the stream, jogging quietly on its track, nose to ground. Suddenly a hen pheasant breaks cover from a patch of dead, brittle bracken; she runs squawking ahead of him and then rockets upwards, wings threshing, soaring to safety in the fields beyond.

Billa turns to watch, disturbed by the sudden commotion, and sees Tilly who waves and hurries to join her. Billa raises her hand in response and then puts both hands in the pockets of her sheepskin duffel coat, straightening her shoulders as though she is trying to relax.

‘I heard the frogs,’ Tilly says, hoping she isn’t intruding on some important train of thought, ‘and couldn’t resist coming to see them. There are going to be millions of jelly babies. I used to love coming here when I was little and taking them off in jam jars.’

‘Ed still does,’ says Billa wryly. ‘He’s doing his bit to save the planet. Last year, when we had all that freezing weather, he put lots of them into his tadpolarium, those big plastic containers, and then released them when they’d grown legs and were big enough to withstand the cold or the likelihood of being eaten by birds. You’ll be able to help him.’

Tilly bursts out laughing. ‘I think that’s brilliant. Does it really work?’

Billa shrugs. ‘Who can tell? There seems to be even more than usual this year, so I assume it did.’

Bear comes up behind and overtakes them, disturbing the frogs who dive into the clouded depths in a gelatinous swirl of mud. He pauses to watch them and Billa calls to him.

‘No swimming today, Bear. Too cold, and you’ll frighten the frogs. Come on.’

He turns rather reluctantly and pads on huge paws towards the house; with his lazy, sinuous swagger he looks just like the brown bear for which he was named.

‘I’ve had an email from this friend in London,’ Tilly says, ‘saying that she can recommend me to her boss for a job and I can’t decide whether to go for it.’

‘What’s the job?’

Tilly makes a face. ‘IT. Corporate. All among the suits. I’ve done it and I know it’s not really what I want but I can’t decide if I ought to try it.’

‘Why “ought”?’

‘Well, it’s very nice of Dom to let me use Mr Potts’ bedroom but I feel I’m kind of sponging.’

‘Do you pay anything?’ asks Billa in her direct way.

Tilly shakes her head. ‘He won’t let me, but I buy food and wine and stuff. Of course, Dad’s asked him to look out for me.’

‘Does that bother you?’

‘Not really. Dom doesn’t patronize me. He sees what I’m trying to do and he respects it. He says he likes having company and someone doing his ironing. Actually, I’m loving it. The thing is, Dom treats me like I’m a friend who’s got a problem and he’s just helping out. He isn’t fatherly.’

‘And how is it going with Sarah?’

‘Pretty good. The advertisement is getting a really positive response, but it’s difficult to foretell the future and I suppose that now jobs are so thin on the ground I ought to go for the one in London.’

‘Even though you don’t want to do it and it’s not where you want to be?’

‘You don’t think, then, that it would be a responsible thing to do?’

Billa smiles at the expression on Tilly’s anxious face. ‘If you had a family to support I might give you a different answer. Right now I think you can afford to give U-Connect a chance so as to help Sarah out while you’re waiting for what you really want to come up. You’re lucky to have Dom but he’s lucky to have you, too, so it cuts both ways. And you’re still working at the pub?’

Tilly nods. ‘I’ve been offered a few extra hours a week on Saturday mornings and I’ve got some money saved, which helps keep the car on the road, but I really just want to be certain that Dom isn’t feeling … you know … pressured.’

‘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.’