The Postcard (44 page)

‘I think,’ said Tom, reading through her first such piece, ‘that you’re drawing some interesting parallels here. Who knows where this could lead in the development of
therapies for both humans and animals?’

Callie’s subject was taken up by the national press and she was asked to write a feature about the sanctuary.

All this gave her the courage to write one more time to the Boyds, demanding to see Desmond and enclosing some of the articles, hoping this would make him proud of his mother. She had heard
nothing for years but had never given up hope.

The only positive that came out of the silence that greeted her letter was that she recognized she no longer needed to drown her sorrows in gin. Instead, she wrote out all her frustrations into
a strong article in the press, which garnered a wealthy sponsor from Birmingham.

How could it be a year since her father died, and nearly the end of her course already, Melissa sighed. The months seemed to have sped up until they became a blur of written
exams, orals and end-of-term recitals.

Now there was the burning issue of which of her concert dresses to wear for the end-of-year ball. She’d asked Mark to be her partner, owing him for all the research he’d done on the
medal, something she’d almost forgotten about until he reminded her over dinner one night.

‘I showed it to a medal expert. He’s a military historian and appears on the
Antiques Roadshow.
He said it’s Belgian and not French, given for bravery, and it could be
traced. In fact, he phoned me later to tell me he’d found out it belonged to a Louis-Ferrand van Grooten, a professor executed for being in the Belgian Resistance. He was from a distinguished
family near Grooten. So what do you make of that?’

‘And the baptism certificate called Lew “Desmond Louis”. Could there possibly be a connection here? Libby did mention Caroline went to a finishing school in Belgium.
Where’s this going to end, Mark?’

‘You really ought to find this Caroline while she’s still alive. She’s well over eighty now. I don’t understand your delay.’

‘I did what Dad asked. If that woman left him in Adelaide and no one ever mentioned her to him, then there must have been a good reason. I don’t think she was a very good
person.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Mark argued.

‘She was an alcoholic. I’ve told you Libby’s story. If Louis-Ferrand is another link, I’d rather find out about him rather than her. But at this moment I have big
decisions to make. Do I audition for an opera company or carry on performing and do some teaching as a back-up to pay for more lessons? One thing’s for sure, I’m not ready to go back to
Adelaide yet.’

She felt she’d only just got the hang of how England ticked and there was so much of London life she’d not seen yet.

‘Perhaps a break would help. Time you saw a bit of Europe. We could have a look at Grooten, ask around, do a few bric-a-brac fairs,’ Mark offered. ‘We can take the
Golf.’

For once, Mel didn’t reject this out of hand. Mark would be good company and perhaps it was time she let down her guard a little. They’d drawn closer over the summer and she was
finding it hard to resist his advances.

‘So this is your excuse to buy in more postcards. Haven’t you got enough?’ she teased.

‘You can never have enough.’ He kissed her gently. ‘Let’s go away, just the two of us, and you can make your decisions when you come back.’

Why not, she thought. It was high summer, about as hot as it ever got in this part of the world, and very pleasant. Perhaps it was time to play for a while, celebrate her exam success; forget
all the doubts about Dad’s birth mother clouding the horizon. She’d walked out of his life so why waste precious time searching for her now?

1986

‘How do you live with all you went through in Changi Prison in the war?’ Callie asked Tom one evening as they drove back from one of their fundraising talks. The
previous evening they’d both seen some television documentary on Japan since the conflict.

Tom had a key to living she, haunted by guilt and bad dreams, hadn’t. She was still bitter at her loss and she longed to know what his secret was.

‘How do you forgive your enemies? I don’t understand.’ Callie sighed. ‘I can’t forget what was done in the camps to innocent women and children. I will never forget
or forgive.’

Tom took a moment to clear the cough that he seemed to have had for weeks. Alfie and Madge had been ill off and on for some time, too. ‘Something going round,’ Alfie insisted,
battling on as only she could.

‘Nor will I forget,’ Tom answered. ‘I’m no saint, but I think all of us are capable of terrible cruelty. We all have hatred inside and we will kill given the right
circumstances . . . Look at what we see in the sanctuary, what ordinary people do to animals, the cruelty inflicted on helpless beasts. But I think to live with hatred is to burn ourselves out from
the inside, destroy the good in us. We can’t live without love and dreams.’

‘I wish I knew how to find your peace,’ Callie said.

‘When I’ve had a bad night I go out into the garden next morning and look around me,’ he smiled. ‘I just sit and look and listen and enjoy the moment. Very Zen,
don’t you think?’ He laughed. ‘I find it’s the little things that surprise: the skylark bubbling in the air, the laughter of children in the park on a swing. Call me a
romantic old fool, if you like . . .’

‘No, I feel it when Jumpy comes rushing to greet me,’ Callie replied. She’d noticed the influence of Tom’s acceptance on her in small ways. Sometimes at the end of a
shift, she walked through the fields for the joy of naming the wildflowers, as she had done with Marthe all those years ago, and she bought tapes of the swing band music she’d loved, which
reminded her of happier days.

‘You should make contact with your son, you know, go and seek him out.’

‘I can’t. It’s too late.’

‘It’s never too late to build bridges.’

‘He’s never bothered to find me.’

‘That’s no excuse.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ she replied, knowing he was right, but that was as far as it got . . .

The cough that plagued Tom wouldn’t go away. All those years in Changi had weakened his health and suddenly he was really ill. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Alfie began to falter
– little falls, forgetfulness – and any thought Callie had of leaving England to find Desmond was cast aside with all the extra work she and Madge now had.

‘Let the old SOE spirit prevail,’ said Madge, as the two of them tackled the mucking out on cold dark mornings.

‘Onwards and upwards,’ Callie always replied, but her heart sank to see that Madge, too, was getting frail and forgetful. After Alfie and Tom died, Madge limped along bereft, but
then her forgetfulness turned into frustration and dementia, and Callie had to find a nursing home to care for her until her death.

It was a terrible blow having to struggle on alone. Callie kept the place going with voluntary help but she was coming to the end of her tether. There was so much red tape and form filling, and
human beings got on her nerves with their constant harping on about ‘the bottom line’. She knew the shelter was in debt and the house was falling down around her ears. By now, the
sanctuary had been her life for over thirty years. Here she was her own boss and slave driver, but it was hard to keep soldiering on.

Yet the beauty of Little Brierley never failed to lift her spirits and the joy of watching those poor creatures come back to life was the biggest reward. The committee who had overseen the
charity under which the sanctuary was financed founded the Madge Cottesloe Trust to protect the rescue centre, its house and the fields around, and it was volunteers who saved the day. A
forward-thinking probation officer suggested some of those in his charge might benefit from working with animals to help their rehabilitation.

Over the years, Madge had worked miracles with some of those lazy louts, turning them into reliable young men ready to face the world. Look what she’d done for Callie herself all those
years ago.

This morning it would be Jodie’s turn to muck out and groom her charge. She’d come with a sullen pout and surly lip curl, expecting to ride round the field like the celebrity star
Jordan. She had needed a kick up the backside and had felt the lash of Callie’s tongue the day she had sneaked off for a fag at the back of the stable, dropping a fag end in the straw.

‘Put that out!’ Callie yelled. ‘If you walk away and the straw burns, what do you think will happen to the little donkey in there? Who will hear his screams as he burns to
death? How could you be so stupid? Think of others for a change!’ She’d seen the look of horror on Jodie’s face as cause and effect clicked into her dozy brain. The result was
electric. Now Jodie was turning out to be a star pupil and talked of trying to get work as a groom at a racing stable when she was out of probation.

The sanctuary also had disabled school pupils who came to work with their own assigned horse, and it was wonderful to watch them form a relationship with a living creature that didn’t
answer back or notice their handicaps but accepted their care and responses. Not all of them coped with a lively horse, but it was only fear that made them back away, causing the ponies to tense
up. Callie saw with delight how the fears of the children and the fears of the animals could be overcome by working on both together.

She’d learned so much from this place. It had given her confidence to deal with her own fear, kept her sober, helped with the pain of the past failures and given a rich and full new life,
more than she dreamed possible. Now she was on borrowed time. Each morning she woke was a bonus and she wanted to keep on going to the last and secure a future for the Trust.

Callie stood outside the kitchen door with a mug of coffee in her hand listening to the rooks in the high trees, the stillness of the air, drawing strength from the beauty of the green fields
and meadow flowers, forcing her limbs into action. It was midsummer and she could smell the roses.

Come on, old girl, shift yourself. Nobody left to do the job but you
. . .

‘This is the life,’ Mel murmured smiling across at Mark as she lay back in the massive bedroom of Château Grooten Hotel, looking up at the ornate plasterwork
on the ceiling. ‘I could get used to this.’

‘Dream on, sport. Better start singing for you supper like Katherine Jenkins,’ he mocked, aware that one of her contemporaries had signed a mega contract with a record company. He
kissed her and she folded into his arms.

Coming away with Mark was proving to be fun. They’d driven into Paris, mooching around the antique stalls so Mark could bargain for French postcards of Josephine Baker and Edith Piaf,
ferreting out boxes under tables in search of hidden treasure.

Paris in late summer was everything the guide books said: warm pavement cafés in Montmartre, art galleries, buskers outside l’Opéra. It was here in the Hôtel de Crillon
they caught the passion of the city and discovered each other as lovers rather than friends.

They toured Versailles and drove through history into the battlefields of the First War, looking for Phoebe Faye’s fiancé, Arthur Seton-Ross, and one of Mark’s great-uncles.
Then they crossed into Belgium, where they sought out Grooten and found the château restored to glory. It seemed a good idea to splash out on a few four-star nights there so they’d be
able to explore the district further.

If this was Louis-Ferrand’s former home, there was little of the original left. The hotel stood in front of a beautiful lake. It was now a conference centre and wedding venue, with a
gracious dining room. Melissa sent a postcard to Patty to put her in the picture. They visited Bruges, sampled the chocolates, and toured the museum in Brussels where they asked about war heroes of
the Resistance and showed the medal to the curator. What they heard about that time shocked them both: escape lines betrayed, agents arrested, torture and then executions. It was a sobering visit,
which sent them back to Grooten in silence, wondering how this could possibly be connected to Lew.

‘If we find the cemetery perhaps we’ll discover more about the van Grooten family,’ Mel decided.

One of the hotel maids suggested they talk to an old priest rather than the young one now presiding. ‘Father Karel’s in a home now. This was once his home too. He can tell you its
history. He lost all his family in the war.’

Mel grabbed Mark’s hand. ‘We have to speak to him, but I don’t know any French.’

‘Don’t look at me, I flunked GCSE four times.’

As always in small places, someone knew someone who could help, and soon they were shown to the
maison de retraite –
the care home – where they were told Father Karel now
lived. It was a complex of bungalows around a courtyard and, at its centre, a communal building where they asked to see the priest. The manager spoke good English and offered to translate should it
be necessary.

‘Father Karel has good days and not so good. His mind wanders into the past now but he loves having visitors.’ She led them through a corridor and Mel was reminded of her
father’s last days in the hospital, with that sick bed smell no air freshener can conceal.

The old man was resting by his bed staring out of the window across the manicured lawn, his fingers playing some music on an imaginary keyboard. The manager explained to him a little about why
they had called and their interest in Louis-Ferrand, his brother.

‘My poor brother,’ he said in good English. ‘What is there to say? No finer man ever lived.’

Mark nudged Mel. ‘Show him the medal,’ he whispered.

She pulled it out of the little wallet. ‘I have this.’

Karel’s face changed at the sight of it, alert and wary. ‘Where did you find this? That doesn’t belong to you.’ His eyes searched hers, puzzled and fearful.

‘It belonged to my father, Lew . . . Louie, in Australia. When he died he gave it to me for safekeeping. He didn’t know why it belonged to him.’

‘But I gave it to Caroline to give to Louis-Ferrand’s son all those years ago when she came to find him . . . And you say it was your father’s. Do you have a picture of this
Louis?’