Letters from Skye (20 page)

Place Nine

August 14, 1916

Dear Sue,

When we are all lying about without much to do, we always get into one of two conversations. Well, one of three, I should say. It is unavoidable that the subject of girls comes up at least once in any given conversation. Those who have them will always bring out the creased, folded photos of their girls back home. Pliny, ever the wise guy, brings out a risqué French postcard he bought somewhere and swears quite solemnly that she is his “best gal.” The best part? It’s a different postcard each time.

The other favorite topic of conversation, unsurprisingly, is
when the war will end. We are always optimistic and usually pin a vague ending date somewhere around the next major holiday. At this time of year, we’re all cheerfully saying the war will end by Christmas. Once January rolls around, we’ll all be crossing our fingers for an Easter finale.

The third conversation that always crops up is what we will be doing after the war. No matter what, this future vision inevitably starts with a feast to rival anything you might find at Delmonico’s. Bread with real butter, rich chowders, steaks as thick as a man’s arm, cakes and pies and doughnuts, coffee with fresh cream, good bourbon. Please excuse the droplets on this paper; I seem to be drooling.

After our future selves gorge on this much-anticipated feast (and perhaps work off the meal in a bit of exercise with aforementioned “best gals”), they have to choose a career or path of life. Good ol’ Wart wants nothing more than to settle down with his girl and start production of Wart Junior. Pliny has grand plans of running for the U.S. Legislature. He fancies himself a bigwig, with an endless supply of cigars and women. Gadget—who is the best of all of us at repairing and generally tinkering with the flivvers—wants to go work for Henry Ford, designing cars. Riggles wants to open a showroom and sell them. Harry will return to his Minna in England and perhaps become a professor. He said he’s seen enough maiming and injury here to turn him off wanting to practice medicine.

Really, though, it’s all balloon juice. None of it means anything. It’s fine and good to talk up what you will do when you get out of this, but the talk is just hot air until you
do
get out of this. We could talk about our futures today and then lose those futures tomorrow.

Well, except for your Davey. You
do
know I’m coming home to you, don’t you, Sue? Made a Faustian bargain to guarantee I would get to see my Sue again. Ah, it’s perhaps unpatriotic to talk about
Faust
these days. If any of my buddies were to read this, I’d be tarred and feathered for sure. DAMNED BOCHE RUBBISH! There, maybe they’ll focus on the capitalized bit and ignore the rest.

Oh, we’re being called to start cranking the Lizzies up. Have to address this and go drop it to be sent.

   Kisses!

   D

Isle of Skye

22 August 1916

Dear Davey,

What do you tell them about
your
“best girl”? Did you tell them I’m breathtakingly beautiful? Amazingly clever? The most mouthwatering cook this side of Hadrian’s Wall?

Oh, Davey! I’ve just realised that, if all goes well, you’ll be eating my world-famous Christmas pudding
in person
this year! You’ll be finished with the year you signed on for. See, it doesn’t really matter to me if the war ends by Christmas or not, because I, not the Field Service, will have you.

You talked of everyone else and what they hoped for the future, but not a word about yourself. Keeping secrets? “Balloon juice” it may be, but I know you’ve been thinking of it. You are too much of an optimist, Davey dear, to
not
dream about the future.
Will you take me to Delmonico’s? Teach me to drive? Whisk me away on ski trips to Michigan? Will we kiss everyone goodbye and sail around the world? Since meeting you, I’ve done more than I ever thought I would. In the past year alone I’ve been to London, Paris, and Edinburgh. I’ve dined at the Carlton, slept at the Langham, and shopped on Charing Cross Road. I feel I could learn to ski or drive a car. With you by my side, I can face any adventure.

   Loving you,

   Sue

Place Ten

August 31, 1916

Sue,

Things are so busy here. I’ve hardly had a break long enough to change my socks. We serve only a single
poste
here, but so many men move through that
poste
that we have all twenty cars going at any given time. I’ve just worked nearly forty-eight hours without so much as a catnap. I’m soaking up a heel of bread in lukewarm soup and trying to keep my eyes open long enough to write you back.

God, I’m tired!

No secrets about the future, Sue. I hope to start the very first Highland ballet troupe. And you can be in the barrel of in the and a

Sorry there, dozing …

   Kiss you—

Place Ten

September 1, 1916

Sue,

I’m sorry my last letter was so short and so garbled at the end. I was literally falling asleep over the letter. As my head bobbed, I swear I saw a prairie dog dash past. I’m sitting in the ambulance, trying to write this note on my knee while drinking down a mug (or ten) of coffee.

Still here at———————and things are as crazy as can be. No word about the
perm
, but you know I’ll let you know as soon as I hear something.

We’ve been here—what?—two weeks now, so I don’t imagine we can be here too much longer without going
en repos
or being let
en permission
. If they keep working us at this pace, we’re going to drop. Gadget has come down with something and is back at the field hospital, so we are short a man.

Let’s wait and see about Christmas. You’re right, my year is almost up, but I can reenlist on three-month contracts. Maybe? The future isn’t going anywhere. We’ll talk about it when I see you. Crossing my fingers for that
perm
!

Riggle’s cranking her up, so I’ve got to end for now. Last swallow of coffee!

   D

Isle of Skye

11 September 1916

Dear Davey,

I hope you’ve managed a rest. Any word about your leave? Will you be able to travel up all this way? I can come down and meet you in London again. I have Màthair on alert—she’ll come over to stay with the children the moment your telegram arrives.

Lord, but that does sound strange: Màthair will stay with “the children.” They’re not mine, but I can’t help but feel some responsibility. After all, I
am
taking part in the shaping of their young minds!

Chrissie won’t recognise her children when she comes back to pick them up. All are quite brown and freckled from the sun. The boys have become positively plump on all the crowdie and cream I’ve been putting in front of them. Emily still looks thin to me, but at least she has a bit more energy now that I’ve prodded her out into the sunshine.

Please write, no matter how tired you are. Even “I love you” scrawled on the back of a postcard makes my heart skip.

And I love
you
.

   E

Place Eleven

September 11, 1916

My dear, dear girl,

I’m sorry I haven’t written much lately. We were in a really hot zone and were running nearly nonstop. Didn’t have time to do much else but drive and keep out of trouble. Even though I didn’t have the time or the energy to write to you, Sue, you are never out of my mind.

We’re finally
en repos
. I think they could have moved us to the middle of a swamp and we wouldn’t have cared, so tired are we. I don’t care one way or another where I am, as long as I get to sleep and write to my Sue.

We were quite close to the action and had our fair share of scares in the section. Harry had a shell explode right in front of him while he was driving. He came through with nothing more than a few scratches and ringing ears, but the ambulance was a bit worse for wear in the nose. All of us have found ourselves drowsing at the wheel, but Bucky ended up drifting off the road and smashing into a wall. He’s a bit banged up, as you can imagine, and has earned himself a trip out of here.

Not sure how long we’ll be
en repos
, but no matter how long it is, it won’t seem long enough. I’ve put a bug in my CO’s ear about my
perm
, so we’ll wait to see what he says. We’ve only just gotten to Place Eleven, and I’m sure there are things to get in order before he can sign off on
perms
.

I think I’m going to try to get a nap in before the call for chow. Oh, but it feels so good to stretch out!

   Miss you,

   D

POSTES ET TÉLÉGRAPHES

PARIS

13 SEP 16

E. DUNN ISLE OF SKYE=

HAVE LEAVE FOURTEEN DAYS WILL WIRE WHEN ARRIVE

IN ENGLAND WILL BE LEAVING IN THE MORNING=

   D+

21 Rue Raynouard, Paris, France

September 13, 1916

Sending a postcard in addition to the wire on the chance that you don’t get the telegram or that the postcard will beat it there.

I’ve gotten leave! Fourteen days, if you can believe it. I got my pass to travel to Paris within hours of sending the last letter to you and had my stuff in my bag half a minute after that. Perk of having done so much moving around!

No need for you to come all the way down to London. I’ll start heading north, you start heading south, we’ll meet somewhere in the middle.…

   D

POST OFFICE TELEGRAPHS

S 16.04 PORTREE

13 SEP 16

D GRAHAM=

EDINBURGH=

WE WILL MEET IN EDINBURGH=

ST MARYS CATHEDRAL AND THIS TIME I WILL BE THERE=

MY HEART SINGS AGAIN WITH POETRY=

   SUE+

Chapter Twenty
 
Margaret

3 September 1940

Dear Maisie,

I never would’ve guessed that the key to your mother lay in poetry. After meeting her that very first time in the neighbourhood allotment, I would’ve been tempted to call her one of the earthiest people I know. My gran is a tough old bird, but there was your mother, kicking her shovel and swearing up and down in Gaelic. But, to think, if I didn’t take pity on your mother and her poor shovel
and
help her cart those baskets of cabbage home, I might never have met you.

When she pushed open the door to the house and I saw you kicking a jig in the middle of the kitchen in that old sweater and plus fours, I knew that I wanted you for my girl. And, if you wouldn’t have me, I’d be your best mate forever and ever if it meant I could be close to you.

Your mam, though, she saw straight to my game. When she was escorting me down the stairs and thanking me, she leaned in and said, “She thinks with her heart. Don’t shatter it.” That’s why it took me two weeks to come calling again.

But to think she wrote love poetry! I suppose that’s why she saw right through me the moment I clapped eyes on you.

Really, you’ve never seen her write a word of poetry? After your letter, I looked into her, and she has seven books to her name. Seven! My gran has been around for twice as long, and she couldn’t put together a decent stanza if the fate of the world depended on it.

What have you discovered? I don’t suppose you’ve come across a poem with the name and address of “Davey”?

   Love,

   Paul

Beagan Mhìltean, Skye

6 September 1940 (What day is it, even?)

Dear Paul,

No, no addresses between the pages, but I did find flowers, blades of grass, curls of wool, sprinkles of sand. It looked as though she carried the books across the island, catching whatever she came across within the pages.

Out of Chaos
, her last book, with the red cover barely creased, had pictures tucked throughout. A cheerful young man in a checked jacket grins from one. In another, a dark-haired
woman in a pale flimsy dress sits in a garden of flowers, gazing wistfully at the camera. The same man, now in a robe and mortarboard, stands next to a tiny sapling in yet another, his chin jutting out proudly.

The last picture, hidden all the way in the back, shows a couple on a street, the pedestrians and vehicles a blur behind them. The man has both hands wrapped around the woman’s waist and leans in to whisper something in her ear. The woman holds one hand to the side of her face, as though trying to hide from the camera, but instead laughs with head thrown back. In pen, across the corner of the photograph, someone wrote “1915. Us.” Although the picture is grainy, the man is as in the other two photos. He’s the same as the ambulance driver painted across the back of Seo a-nis. The woman is my mother.

The photo is so nonchalant, so un-self-conscious. Just the two of them, caught in an unlikely photograph, a moment of transition in a secret affair. Cautiousness in the fingers curved against her cheek giving way to utter abandon in that laugh. In that instant, the blur of the city behind them doesn’t matter. This must be the London my mother is looking to find, the London she wishes she could capture again. An instant of aloneness while the war rushes on around them.

He’s her muse, I know it. Although the name “David” never appears in any of her books, I know the poems are for him. The person she writes to, she calls “my magnet,” “my warm summer night,” and the one “my heart flies towards.” Gran won’t say a word. She just nods and taps the stack of poetry books, as though they hold all the secrets of the universe.