CHAPTER 8
Cornwall
William arrived the next morning, by which time Annabel had gone over the letters from the secret drawer so many times that she almost knew the words by heart.
‘Woah, sis, slow down!’ he said with a grin as she bombarded him with snippets of information while he got out of the car. He gave her one of the big bear hugs that she loved and said, ‘Let me get my things in, then you can start from the beginning.’
A short while later, they sat on the patio enjoying the morning sun.
A plate of scones lay on the table between them, together with a jar of home-made strawberry jam and a pot of clotted cream, all courtesy of Pam.
Monty sat obediently next to the table, eyes focusing on their every move, hoping a bit of scone might come his way.
Annabel poured tea from Dotty’s spotty red teapot and, after adding a splash of milk, raised her teacup in a toast.
‘To Dotty,’ Annabel said, mustering a sad smile.
William clinked his cup against hers and smiled back. ‘Dear old Dotty. I still can’t believe she’s gone.’
Annabel’s eyes shone with tears and William reached across the table to cover her hand with his. ‘So come on then, what’s all this stuff you’ve found out about Singapore?’
Annabel told her brother about the letter from Julia Chan, telling Dotty that her grandmother, Ah Ling, had passed away. She told him about the photographs of Dotty with Ah Ling and the friendship the young women had shared.
‘But I don’t get it.’ William’s brow furrowed. ‘Dotty spent time in Singapore? How did we know nothing about this?’
‘Well, brace yourself because there’s more.
’ Annabel raised an eyebrow mysteriously.
‘In one of the other envelopes, there was a whole batch of letters from Ah Ling to Dotty; they’d been writing to each other on and off for years!
The first letter was from 1946, can you believe it?
The letters stopped coming in 2010, which makes sense because that was the year Julia wrote to say that Ah Ling had died. ’
Annabel paused in her narration and sliced open two scones, then put one on each of their plates.
She pulled a face as her brother reached straight for the cream and barked with mock severity, ‘William Penrose, don’t you dare!
I don’t care how your wife does it, she’s from Devon.
You know full well that here in Cornwall it’s jam first!
Honestly, Dotty would give you what for if she saw you doing that! ’
Her laugh turned into a sob and tears sprang unbidden as it dawned on her that Dotty wasn’t here to give William her oft-threatened ‘what for’. And never again would they hear her famous ‘jam first’ rant.
William smiled fondly and put up his hands in a placatory manner. ‘Alright, alright, I promise I’ll do it properly.’ He reached across and squeezed her hand. ‘You OK, Annie?’
She tried to smile through damp eyes and looked down when she felt a warm weight on her thigh. Monty was resting his muzzle there, gazing up at her with such concern and devotion. She rubbed the old dog’s head affectionately with her free hand.
‘I’m better now you’re here, thanks for coming, Will.
’ She squeezed his hand back. ‘It just doesn’t seem real.
It’s so weird being here without her, I miss her so much.
I keep thinking of things to tell her that would make her smile.
And I keep expecting her to walk in and ask who fancies a cup of tea? ’
‘I know.’ William nodded as he spread jam on his scone, followed by a generous dollop of clotted cream.
‘It’s going to take some time to get used to.
She was such a constant in our lives. I knew she wouldn’t last forever, but I suppose I just wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet.
To be honest, I’m not sure I ever would have been. ’
There was a pause as Annabel sipped her tea and William started on his scone. The sombre mood was suddenly broken as, eyes closed, he moaned with dramatic pleasure then mumbled through a mouthful of jam and cream, ‘God, this is good! That Pam sure can bake!’
Annabel burst out laughing and reached into her pocket for a tissue to dab her streaming eyes and running nose. Her brother always knew how to cheer her up and his larking about and general sense of impropriety never failed to make her giggle.
Once he’d finished eating, William got back to the business at hand. ‘So, back to the Chinese woman: who was she and how did Dotty meet her? I never heard her mention travelling anywhere, never mind to the Far East! She was such a stay-at-home old thing, the idea just seems so ludicrous!’
Annabel nodded as she topped up her teacup. ‘Well, incredible as it seems, it turns out that Dotty and her parents lived in Singapore for a while, in the late thirties. The letters don’t go into much detail about how or why, but Ah Ling did refer to Dotty’s father working for a company out there.’
William frowned, shaking his head. ‘I knew her father worked for a rubber company, but Dotty only ever mentioned him working in London. How strange.’
‘Maybe he was posted overseas?’ Annabel shrugged, having had more time than William to process the information.
‘Think about it, it was just before the Second World War and rubber was becoming a valuable commodity. Ah Ling was a housemaid in Singapore, she worked for Dotty’s family and they became close.
I think they were of a similar age. Here, have a look at these, they’re amazing. ’
Annabel opened the envelope and started laying out the photographs on the table.
‘Wow, you’re not wrong!’ William studied the collection of old sepia photos, taking in every detail and turning each one over to read the descriptions on the back. ‘It’s like another world! The splendour of the old colonial days, hey? It all looks so tropical and luxurious. Look at the gardens!’
‘I know, it’s amazing,’ Annabel agreed, picking up the Templeton family photo in front of the beautiful black and white villa. Even though the old photo lacked any colour, the lushness of the garden was clear to see.
William read the back of another photo, a picture of Dotty’s parents dressed in their evening finery, standing in front of a Christmas tree.
‘“Raffles Hotel, 1938”, it says. It’s crazy to think that war was just around the corner, but they look like they didn’t have a care in the world!
’ He shook his head, marvelling at the pictures.
‘How blissfully unaware they were of what was to come.’ Annabel mused. ‘Everyone thought Singapore was undefeatable, but how wrong they were!’
William arched a quizzical eyebrow. ‘You’re going to have to remind me what happened, Dr Penrose. We mere mortals don’t have quite the same capacity for nerdy military trivia as you history buffs!’
She scoffed at her brother’s teasing, knowing he meant no harm by it.
‘Well, Churchill and co. knew that the Japanese had their eye on Singapore; its position made it too useful an opportunity to miss. But they were expecting a naval attack. They pointed their cannons out to sea and were surprised to find out that the Japanese were actually advancing down the Malayan Peninsula instead. It was rough terrain, but the enemy had been trained in jungle warfare so were ready for it. It was a swift, surprise attack and it completely overwhelmed the Allies. They outnumbered the invaders by about three to one, but in just a couple of months the Brits were forced to surrender.’
William nodded slowly. ‘But Dotty and her family must have moved back home again when the war started?’ he asked. ‘I remember her telling us about wartime London.’
‘Yes, I remember those stories, too,’ Annabel agreed.
‘Are these all the photos?’ William looked up and caught her eye.
‘Yes, the other envelopes just had letters in them.’ Annabel busied herself with putting the photos away again, feeling a pang of guilt at the white lie she had just told.
Safely tucked in her pocket was the one photograph that she wanted to keep secret for now, until she could figure out what it would mean to her family.
It was Mrs Llewellyn on her wedding day.
As an historian, Annabel knew all too well the importance of careful research and detailed fact-finding, and until she was sure of the story behind the photo, she was not going to share it with her family.
She didn’t like keeping secrets from her brother, but for the time being she felt an overwhelming need to keep the wedding photo and Ah Ling’s very first letter to herself.
The letter, hidden in her suitcase upstairs, was dated 1946 and seemed to be Ah Ling’s first contact since they had last seen each other several years earlier.
How frustrating it was to only have one side of the conversation; she would have given anything to be able to read Dotty’s letters as well.
Goodness only knew what her grandmother had written in her first letter, but Ah Ling’s reply referenced ‘the horrors of war’ and, several times, told Dotty how brave she had been.
A spark of connection flickered here as Annabel remembered that somebody else had recently called Dotty brave.
Who was it? She racked her tired brain but couldn’t remember.
‘Have you told Dad any of this?’ William’s question brought her back to the present.
‘No.’ Annabel shook her head. ‘Much as I would love to ask him about all this, he’s got enough to be getting on with, recovering from his operation, not to mention losing Dotty.’
William nodded. ‘Yes, that’s true. Probably best to see what else we can find out before telling him about it. Anyway, how are things with Luke? Has he been in touch?’