Postcards from the Past (16 page)

‘We’ll send it to your mum,’ she says to Harry, and he grins at her, delighted that she is here too, sharing the homecoming.

He likes Tilly, approves of her gorgeousness and slightly wishes he were older. At the same time he knows her so well, and their companionship is so easy and comfortable, that he is content simply to add her to his Cornish family. She is an older sister, without the sibling tensions and rivalry, and he loves to be seen with her at the pub, at the beach; she adds to his street cred.

Ed has finished filling the glasses and says: ‘Let’s drink to Harry. Great to see you.’ They all raise their glasses to toast him and Tilly takes another photograph.

Harry raises his own glass in return. ‘So come on,’ he says. ‘I’ve heard some of the news. What else has been going on?’

‘Tilly and the curate have fallen in love,’ Dom says teasingly, and Tilly gives a cry of protest.

‘We have not,’ she says, turning pink. ‘That is absolutely not true. And don’t do that,’ she adds as Dom winks at Harry. ‘Just stop it.’

‘And jolly good luck if they have,’ says Billa, putting plates to warm in the bottom oven and taking a quick drink from her glass. ‘Clem is very dishy. He is the Anglican Church’s new weapon. His services are packed with women, so Alec Bancroft tells me. Lucky old Tilly, that’s all.’

Tilly looks slightly mollified and Harry bursts out laughing.

‘Who’s Alec Bancroft?’ he asks, pulling Bear’s ears and blowing on his nose so that he shifts and grunts in his sleep.

‘
Sir
Alec Bancroft, please,’ says Dom. ‘And he is Billa’s new best friend. That’s where she met the curate. Canoodling with Sir Alec over at Peneglos.’

Billa remains undisturbed by these revelations; she simply takes another sip of wine, aware that Harry knows that Dom is being silly because he is happy. They are all happy because he has come home.

Harry sighs with pleasure. ‘Come on then,’ he says. ‘Tell me all. I’ve got six months’ worth of news to catch up on, remember. Let’s start with Tilly’s curate.’

*   *   *

Later, unpacking in his bedroom at Dom’s cottage, he has another sense of homecoming. During their childhood holidays, his sisters shared one of the bedrooms in Mr Potts’ half of the cottage but he has always had this room to himself; the one boy amongst all the girls. He looks at the familiar books on the white painted bookcase: Arthur Ransome, Rudyard Kipling, John Buchan. These are Dom’s books but Harry feels that they are his, too. An elderly teddy bear – also Dom’s – shares a small wicker chair with a more modern bear – Harry’s – and a whole series of small model cars are arranged in an old tray on a table in the alcove. Harry looks at these treasures whilst Tilly leans in the open doorway, watching him.

‘I suppose it all seems a bit childish,’ he says defensively, ‘but I like it.’

‘My room’s the same when I go home,’ says Tilly. ‘It’s the sense of continuity, isn’t it? This was Dom’s room when he was a boy, now it’s yours and one day it’ll be your son’s.’

Harry blinks a little at this concept and then shakes his head. ‘The cottage will be sold up by then,’ he says. He can’t bring himself to say ‘when Dom dies’ but it is implied.

Tilly watches him sympathetically, biting her lip, wondering what to say. ‘But you’ll still keep all these things,’ she suggests. ‘Wherever you are.’

‘Of course I will,’ he agrees at once, but he is unsettled by the prospect of not having this space, this special corner in the world to return to whenever he has the need.

Tilly, who feels rather the same about Mr Potts’ bedroom, hastens to change the subject.

‘And I am not,’ she says emphatically, ‘in love with the curate.’

He is distracted, just as she hopes he will be. ‘“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,”’ he says, opening one of his bags. ‘Anyway, why not? Billa obviously approves.’

‘I know, but come on. I’ve only just met him.’

‘But you like him?’

‘Sure, I like him. Clem’s got a little boy of seven,’ she adds casually, glancing away from him, as he turns to stare at her, his hands full of shirts.

‘A little boy? Is he … divorced?’

‘No, no.’ She shakes her head. ‘His wife died when Jakey was born.’

‘God, how awful.’ Harry looks shocked.

‘Mmm. Anyway, you see the problems to the relationship developing? A curate, a widower, and a father. That’s just Clem. Then there’s Jakey. I like Clem a lot, though.’

He stands holding the shirts, wondering what to say. It does, indeed, seem a pretty big undertaking. His twenty-one years haven’t provided him with the experience to help her with this. He looks away from her, stowing the shirts in the chest of drawers.

‘The trouble is,’ she says, ‘that Clem and I can’t really make a move without all his parishioners looking on. It’s just not the usual scenario. He lives in the vicarage in a very small village. I don’t see how we’d ever get started, to be honest. What about Jakey, for instance? How do you make that first move with a small boy around?’

He thinks about it and then looks up at her. ‘Got an idea. Why don’t we make a plan to see both of them? You and me. Clem and Jakey. Just a casual meeting somewhere. The Chough? Can you take kids there?’

Tilly makes a face. ‘You can, but I work there, remember. That’s what I mean. Everybody would know. I’m not ready for that. I’ve only met him a couple of times.’

‘No, OK. What about inviting them for fish and chips at Rick Stein’s? You know? You say something like, “Harry and I are going over to Padstow for fish and chips. Do you and Jakey want to come?” Keep it casual. And we go anyway and see what happens.’

She stares at him. ‘I don’t know,’ she says uncertainly.

‘Oh, come on, Tills,’ he says impatiently. ‘Don’t ask, don’t get. It’s worth a try, isn’t it? If we all go it won’t be so scary.’

She nods, still cautious. ‘OK then.’

‘Fab.’ He grins at her. ‘Phone him. Make a date.’

‘It would have to be a Saturday. Not weekdays because of school, and obviously not Sunday. Only Saturdays are changeover day at the pub and I don’t finish till half past twelve.’

‘So I come with you to the Chough and drink coffee in the bar and read the papers until you finish and then we scat on to Padstow. We can be there for one o’clock. Make the date, Tills. Do it.’

‘OK, I will.’ She beams at him, suddenly confident. ‘Thanks, Hal.’

‘Cool,’ he says nonchalantly.

The door from the sitting-room opens and Dom comes up the stairs. Tilly waves to Harry and slips away through the connecting door on the landing to Mr Potts’ bedroom. Harry gets up and continues to unpack. Dom pauses at the open door.

‘Got everything you want?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

‘Sleep well, then.’

He disappears towards his own room and Harry closes the door. He sits down on the bottom of the bed, leans forward and takes a book at random from the bookshelf.
The Picts and the Martyrs.
He opens it at the first chapter, ‘Visitors Expected’, and begins to read.

*   *   *

Billa and Ed are clearing up. The rack of lamb was a great success: tender and pink inside, charred and caramelized outside. The candles have been extinguished, the dishwasher is rumbling, and Billa and Ed take their coffee and go to sit beside the remains of the fire in the hall.

‘Great fun,’ Ed says contentedly. ‘He’s looking well, isn’t he?’

‘Very well,’ says Billa. Suddenly she feels melancholy. The evening with Harry and Tilly, full of laughter and fun and silly jokes, has called up the shades of her babies; those might-have-beens whom she will never know. The keen, familiar sense of loss twists her heart, and she puts an arm around Bear’s neck as he leans companionably against her knees. Would they have been pretty girls like Tilly? Good-looking boys like Harry? Would they now be bringing their own children to stay? Well-meaning friends sometimes tell her that she’s well out of it; that children cause heartbreak and disappointment. She’s trained herself to nod, to agree, battling with the longing to scream at them; to try to make them understand what it feels like to have carried her babies, even for such a short time, only for them to disappear for ever.

Ed is watching her with compassion; he recognizes these black moments when they come.

She manages a smile. ‘It’s such luck that he’s got a place at Camborne,’ she says, making an effort to recapture the earlier mood. ‘We shall see him often, like we did when he was at Oxford, and it’s great for Dom. We need young people to jolly us up.’ She yawns suddenly, hugely. ‘Gosh, I’m tired. You deal with Bear, Ed, will you? I’m going to bed.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The next morning Ed sits in his car at the edge of Colliford Lake, hoping to find inspiration for the next chapter of his book. He raises his binoculars to scan the choppy water for the sight of a bird, looking across to the opposite shores of the lake in search of movement, for some sign of life. Above the marshy banks, where stunted willow and furze shiver in the chill north-westerly wind, one white horse stands in a small field. It looks towards Ed, still as a statue in the sunshine, its mane flickering and blowing.

Ed wonders whether to get out and take a photograph of the lake and the horse – he likes to take as many photographs as he can whilst each book is in progress – but he knows that the tripod will be at risk in this strong wind and, after all, there are no birds. Yet the horse appeals to him. He knows that technically the horse is called a grey, though its coat is white as milk, and he wonders why it is all alone in its scrubby little field.

Even as he watches, a boy appears out of the sharp black shadows of the thorn hedge. He is carrying a head collar looped over his arm and he keeps one hand in his pocket. He approaches the horse confidently and it raises its head in welcome and trots to meet him. Ed sees it nuzzle the boy’s shoulder – he can imagine the whicker of warm breath – and the boy takes his hand from his pocket and offers the horse a treat. As it drops its heavy head to the boy’s palm he slips the collar on quickly and then turns away, leading the horse across the field. At the gate they pause; both boy and horse turn as if to look back at him. Watching them through his powerful binoculars, Ed catches his breath. They seem to be staring directly at him, challenging him. The boy’s face is friendly, open, as if he is encouraging Ed in some endeavour; the horse’s eye is intelligent, his ears pricked forward. Then they turn, the boy unfastens the gate, pushes it open, and they go through it and disappear from sight behind the hedgeline.

Ed continues to stare after them for a moment and then lowers the binoculars. He thinks about the horse and the boy, and a story begins to form about them; a magical story that children might love. Almost immediately he shies away from it. What does he know of children? So many times he’s had this odd longing to write and illustrate a book for children but each time he’s rejected it. He’s had no children of his own – Gillian’s two were teenagers when he first knew them – and he has no experience of what they like.

‘But you were a child once,’ a colleague said, years ago, when he’d confided his thoughts to her. ‘You read books and loved them. Why shouldn’t your own experience be enough?’

He thinks about it, sitting there by the lake, staring at the field where the horse and the boy had been.

‘I’ve never been a one for taking chances,’ he said to Billa last night. Might the time have come to take a chance; to write the book he’s dreamed about, to illustrate it, and risk the humiliation of it being a complete failure?

Suddenly he sees the horse galloping along the skyline, the boy perched on his back. Ed raises his binoculars again. Though they are at some distance he can see the free movement of the horse, the ripple of muscle, the rhythmic pounding of its hoofs. Its mane is flying, and the boy clings to its neck, laughing. He raises an arm, as if he is saluting, and Ed takes one hand from his binoculars and waves back, smiling in return, though he knows they cannot see him. He watches them out of sight and then puts the binoculars on the seat beside him, still smiling, feeling a fool.

He wishes now that he’d taken the photograph of the horse and the boy, but he knows that he will remember them. A different kind of inspiration has been vouchsafed him, one that he feels he must commit to, and he is filled with exhilaration and terror. It is as if he has – with a smile and a wave – made a promise.

He starts the engine and drives slowly back, past the dark waters of Dozmary Pool towards Bolventor and the road home.

*   *   *

At Peneglos, a solitary surfer rides switchback on the muscular shoulders of tall glass-green waves which tower up to crash and race along the beach. The screeching gulls run before the tide, sometimes ankle-deep in swirling water, taking off to fly and float in the wild salty air. Once Hercules would have chased them, barking excitedly, dashing into the sea; now he is content to plod at Alec’s heels, but occasionally his ears twitch and his gait quickens as he remembers days long past when he was young.

Alec strides out, hunched against the wind, heading back towards the sea wall and the village. He tries to remember the things he needs from the shop and takes off his glove to scrabble in his pocket for the list. No list. He’s left it on the table or on his desk, but never mind. He’s not going to take himself to task for that, though he can imagine Rose’s reaction; hear her voice in his ear. ‘Silly old buffer,’ she says – but her words are whirled away in a gust of wind. He attaches Hercules’ lead to the hook provided on the wall and steps gratefully into the shelter of the small shop.

Old Mrs Sawle greets him. Her son and his wife run the shop now, but Mrs Sawle was there first and she doesn’t ever let them forget it. She despises modern trends, mocks faddy holiday-makers who demand organic milk, bottled water, and reject good Cornish butter in favour of tasteless spreads.

‘Tedn’t nat’ral,’ she mutters, withered old lips curled in disdain, and Billy Sawle nudges her and says, ‘Times’ve changed, Mother. Don’t ’ee be so rude now.’

Rose loved Mrs Sawle. ‘She’s Prudie Paynter to the life,’ she’d say after a session at the shop. ‘“Tedn’t right, tedn’t fair, tedn’t hooman, tedn’t nat’ral.” What a dear old Sawle she is.’