The Postcard (42 page)

One morning, she was wrapping up some apples for storage in old newspaper when a headline caught her eye. She unwrapped the apple and straightened out the paper, squinting to focus, unused to
reading and still without glasses. A politician called Airey Neave had lobbied Parliament for full compensation for concentration-camp victims. A million pounds had been set aside for survivors by
Germany and the MP was making sure people got what was their due. Surely, she would qualify? She folded the newspaper into her pocket to reread later. Maybe she’d ask Petal and the others
what they thought.

It was too late for the Celines of this world, but not for her to claim her due, Callie decided. A lump sum would help get her on her feet. But to make her claim she would have to leave the
community, the tranquillity of Sunset Camp, and go back into the world of suits and form filling, and register herself in London. She still collected her war pension, but over the years she had
drifted away from where she was supposed to collect it. She had her book, however, and that was proof of who she was. Everything else was mislaid or left somewhere. She no longer had a passport. It
was as if she hardly existed any more.

Callie didn’t need a mirror to know she looked like a tramp, with straggling hair, and wearing makeshift dungarees and headscarf. Her formal clothes were creased and crumpled in a bag, but
a good wash might smarten them up enough to pass muster.

How would Dolly feel about being hoicked onto pavements, tied up all day while her mistress found work and a room? Dolly had rescued her from the booze and the bars and given her a new life.
Perhaps she’d be better off staying here where the children fussed over her. She was plumper and her coat was glossy. How could Callie take her back into a world where dogs were
unwelcome?

Callie sat stroking the old girl, knowing what Dolly had given was precious: her utter loyalty and affection without question, and in return all she needed was respect and sustenance. Dolly had
brought her back to life, helped her feel responsible for someone other than herself. This old sheepdog was the nearest thing Callie had to a child, a furry substitute for Desmond. The dog deserved
a decent old age, settled, peaceful. She was sleeping a lot lately as if she was slowing down towards her final rest. Tramping streets would be cruel. Years of neglect and cold stone floors had
made her arthritic. ‘I can’t take you away from this, no matter how much I’ll miss you,’ Callie sobbed. ‘If I go, I go alone.’

It was an agonizing choice to make. Part of her knew that it was time to go back into the world again. Perhaps there was still the chance to be useful. Now she was sober she could see things
much more clearly. Here, she was just hiding away, licking her wounds as Dolly licked hers. They were two of a kind, but she was still young enough to find some purpose. There was a bit of St
Maggie’s school discipline inside her heart that would never go away. ‘Onwards and Upwards’ was their motto. She had life when others she had known now had none. She owed it to
them to move on. It was never too late for a second chance, but where and when would depend on this next bit of the journey.

Why do I have to leave behind everything I love? she cried. Why must I always travel alone?

She scrubbed up for the London trip, digging out her black skirt and jacket, old-fashioned now, in the 1950s style, but serviceable enough. Petal dyed her greys into an ash blond tone and then
Callie put her hair up into a French pleat. She’d drawn her pension to buy a train ticket and room for the night. She knew she would go to the old War Ministry offices and fill in forms, but
as to her return, she wasn’t sure.

Taking Dolly for one last walk along the river bank, she tried to explain why she was going away and until she was settled she must live here in the camp. ‘I’m coming back for you as
soon as I’m settled, I promise,’ she whispered. Even as she was speaking, however, she had this feeling that perhaps this was goodbye for good.

Her confidence and resolve lasted all through the journey down from Gloucester, but when she arrived at Paddington, her legs were trembling at the noise and bustle of passengers striding out in
front of her. She was sweating, wanting to flee the busy street, the hoot of car horns and roar of engines revving. How could she have forgotten how fast and busy it was here? She felt like a
stranger in a foreign land, unnerved by faces all around her. Memories of Leipzig flooded back, disorientating her, making her want to flee.

There was no hurry to make her way to Whitehall. She felt no energy in her limbs to navigate the once familiar streets. What she needed was a little booster. Once she’d sampled a snifter,
she’d soon be able to face the world again. Didn’t she deserve a reward for all her restraint in the past months? Here, conveniently, was a public house. Callie opened the door and
sleepwalked inside.

What are you doing here?
Melissa was staring over the waters of Dalradnor loch, drinking in the fresh spring air, watching ripples shimmering silver and gold in the
sunlight.
What has this place got to do with me? Why have I given up my Easter vacation to come so far north on a whim?
This was the place Libby Steward said might hold the key to
Lew’s heritage. What a crazy undertaking when she should be studying for her oral examinations.

It was a fee from her last solo performance in
The Creation
that had allowed this extravagance.

Yes, it was a beautiful country, the air was crisp and cool, the scenery stunning, but that was not the point of the visit. She was here to ask questions, but where to start?

She’d been reluctant to set out on this quest. Perhaps it was a mistake to refuse Mark’s offer of help yet again, but now she was here she’d better make the expense
worthwhile.

One of these days, he’d take the hint and lose interest in her mission, but his persistence was confusing. She wasn’t used to having a guy offering to help her out. Cilla and Angie,
her friends in college, thought he was cute and had offered to take him off her hands. He was definitely single, Mel had discovered early on. The Sarah he’d mentioned was his big sister, with
whom he shared a flat so they could split the bills. How could her friends understand that as much as she liked him, he didn’t fit in with her future plans?

‘Our courses are so demanding,’ she tried to explain to them. ‘Then there’s rehearsals and performances. I need to have extra tuition.’

‘Excuses, excuses . . . He’s got under your skin and you’re running scared.’ Cilla laughed, hitting the nail bang on the head as usual. Why was she compelled to spurn
Mark’s offer and head up here with only the knowledge that she would find Phoebe Faye’s grave, take a look at a house and do a quick tour of the Trossachs with time for little else?

Mark had found her Caroline’s shortened form of a birth certificate. What shocked her most was that she’d been born in the next street to her own flat in Marylebone. What a strange
coincidence. So how did Phoebe come to be living in the wilds of Scotland?

There was just one post office and general store on the village Main Street. The woman in the shop was not local and knew nothing about Miss Faye but pointed Mel to the Radnor Inn, which nestled
among the white painted cottages. There, she ordered a round of sandwiches and a drink.

‘And what brings an Aussie lass to these parts?’ the landlord said with a wink as he pulled half a pint of cider.

I’m looking up an old actress called Phoebe Faye and her family for some research. I wondered if anyone might remember them,’ Melissa replied.

‘Cannae help you with that but I know a man who might . . . Wullie Mackay over there, he’s our history man. Hey, Wullie, come and tell the young lassie about yon history books you
write.’

From the snug an old man sauntered towards her with a stick and wispy white hair. ‘Oh, aye. Now who may you be?’ He held out his hand.

‘What can you tell me about Dalradnor Lodge and Phoebe Faye?’ She might as well be direct.

‘It’s just a holiday let now. It once belonged to the Seton-Ross estate, used for the shooting season, and then to Miss Faye, after her fiancé was killed in the war. There was
a niece but we’ve not seen sight nor sound of her for years.’

‘Would that be Caroline Boardman?’

‘The one to be asking about her would be Netta at the farm, the Dixons’ old place. They’ll be knowing all about her. Have you got a car? I can show you the way.’

Mel swallowed her lunch, offered him a beer and then found herself driving the old man up a farm track, trying to explain to him her tenuous connections to Miss Faye.

‘One of the Dixon girls went to Australia to join her husband after the war. She never came home, but few could in those days. Married an airman from there but I dinna ken his name. Netta
was the youngest sister, left to see to the farm with her parents and brothers. She’ll be the one to ask.’

The farmhouse was a long white building with a milking parlour attached. Dogs barked at their arrival and a woman in an apron came out to greet them.

‘Now, Isabel, I’ve brought Miss Boyd, all the way from Australia. She’s trying to find oot about the folks frae Dalradnor Lodge before the war. I think your aunty might be able
to fill her in a wee bitty.’

‘Netta’s full of tales from the past. I never know what’s true and what’s her romancing,’ Isabel replied. ‘But come away in and see for yourself, Miss . .
.?’

‘Melissa Boyd, and thank you’

‘You’re no’ a relation of Jessie, are you?’

‘Jess Boyd was my grandmother,’ she nodded and smiled. ‘But I never knew her.’

‘My goodness, wait till I tell Aunt Netta. You’ll have to shout, her ears are not what they were, but they can always catch a good crack o’ gossip.’ They were ushered
down a passage to a sitting room-cum-bedroom with a fire in the grate.

‘Netta. This lady’s from Australia. She knew your sister, Jessie.’

The old lady with white hair fluffed out like a meringue was sitting in a chair crocheting a blanket at great speed. She examined Mel from top to toe. ‘She’s no’ a Dixon, by
the look of her. Sit down, you’ve come a long way, hen.’

Mel tried to explain who she was and how her father died, leaving her a note. She pulled out the famous postcard. ‘All I know is Jess kept this hidden and Dad had a notion it was something
to do with him, but I don’t know who Desmond was.’

Netta stared at the letters on the back. ‘Desmond? He was the wee boy Jessie took out with her on the ship. He was an orphan, or so we thought. Jessie was his nurse and when his
grandmother fell ill she took it into her head to take him with her. Things didna go well with her marriage and there was a divorce. I think the man took against the boy. Then she settled and
married again but she never darkened our door again.’

‘And this Desmond came from the village?’

‘Oh, my, there was a right mix-up. His mother returned late from the war to find him gone and Miss Faye fair took it bad. They had a falling-out. Folks say the shock killed her.’

‘It’s Desmond she’s asking after, Netta,’ Isabel butted in, raising her eyebrows in impatience.

‘He belonged at the big house, Miss Callie’s wee boy. There was no husband on the scene, as far as we could tell. She’d lived in Egypt for a long time. She went to the war. No
one saw her after. Jess didn’t write home, just a card at Christmas. I think she was ashamed of being divorced . . . I cannae help you any more. We all felt terrible for Miss Faye. She was a
kind soul, right enough. Her niece never showed up at the funeral . . .’

‘Have you got any photographs of any of them?’ Melissa knew she must seize the moment while Netta was linked to those past times.

Isabel began rummaging in a cupboard fixed into the wall. ‘There may be some in the old document box. We keep meaning to sort out her old photos and put names to people on the back before
they get forgotten.’

Netta put down her crochet hook and sifted through them with her bony fingers. ‘There’s Jessie’s wedding.’

Mel stared at a bride in a pretty frock and a young man in RAF uniform outside a church porch. There was another of an older woman with hair scraped back standing next to an unmistakable boy in
short trousers. Mel blurted out with excitement, ‘That must be my Dad!’

On the back was written: Louie. Ruby Creek. Christmas 1946.

‘I’d love to take a copy of this. I’ve no photos of him as a boy. It’s definitely him.’ It was the weirdest feeling to be staring at such an innocent roguish grin.
She’d known that grin even in his last days. There was a charming innocence in this face, but a toughness too.

‘You keep it, Melissa. Fancy you being Louie’s daughter. I dinna ken what happened to the Desmond boy,’ she sighed, and continued with her knitting.

‘Could they be one and the same you were searching for? Sounds mighty fishy to me, but there’s one more place you might find out more,’ Wullie offered. ‘We could always
look at the parish records.’

They stayed on for tea, Melissa filling the family in about the Boyds’ successful building supplies business in Adelaide. Netta told her what they knew about Miss Faye and the Seton-Ross
family.

Then it was back to the village and the manse. Wullie introduced her to the minister, who found the register for them to browse through, pages and pages of old names she didn’t know until
she came to 1939 and a baptismal entry, a name she’d known the minute Netta Dixon had told her story. Here was the proof in black and white: ‘Desmond Louis Lionel Lloyd-Jones. Baptized
Easter Sunday 1939. The mother was Caroline Rosslyn Lloyd-Jones. Father Tobias Lloyd-Jones (deceased).’

‘I think you’ve got your answer now,’ Wullie smiled.

‘I think this deserves a celebration,’ Mel replied. ‘And a big thank you all round.’

Now she could go back knowing she’d found Lew’s real identity, solving the mystery of his rightful family. Now she could get on with her own life. That was as far as she needed to
go, surely? But questions kept tumbling around in her mind. What was Caroline doing that made Jess take her son so far away, and why if she was coming to Australia in 1947 did she return home
empty-handed? How could she leave her little boy in Australia knowing he belonged with her? Why did no one tell her father who he really was? All these strange questions still needed answering.