She stroked them reverently. Twenty minutes ago she hadn’t known Iris had had a brother. Now she’d seen a picture of him. And she had letters he’d written in her hand. It was a lot to take in.
The first letters, the ones written in the early years of the war, she read with fascination. They told of Tom’s conscription, late in 1940, of his basic training on Salisbury Plain, and then of his deployment. Details got sketchier after he left England, and his writing more lyrical. He obviously shared a lot with his sister that he didn’t want his parents to know. He asked questions about the farm, and their mother and father, but often said he wasn’t going to tell them things in his letters home, that he thought it was better, especially for their mother, to protect them.
The letters from Iris’s mother started from when she left the farm and went to London. They had obviously not wanted her to go. At first her mother entreated her to come home, her tone hurt and anxious. Then she must have given up. None of Iris’s own letters were there. But Tess could deduce details of what must have been in them from her mother’s responses – she must have been writing about some of the men she nursed, about what had happened to them. The writing was old-fashioned. There was just one letter from Iris’s father, stiff and formal, containing only farm news. Tess read them quickly, riveted.
It was the later letters that twisted her heart. She read those twice over, more slowly the second time, struggling to take in what they contained, her heart beating fast, her sternum aching.
Donna read the letters in one sitting, on her return a few days later, curled up in the corner of the sofa. She’d lit a fire in the log burner before supper, and it burned brightly. Tess had been living with the characters and their story every hour since she’d discovered them. But she didn’t want to paraphrase. Tess had handed them to her with a brief explanation, and then stayed quiet while her mother read, adding another log to the fire from the wicker basket in the corner. She silently opened a bottle of wine and poured Donna a glass, which she accepted with a small smile and sipped while she read. Tess sat opposite her, and watched her mother read, watched a few silent tears escape and slip down her cheeks on to her sweatshirt. For ages, just her sniffs punctuated the serenity.
When she’d finished, Donna spent ages smoothing down the paper of the letters as reverently as Tess had done, ordering them and neatening the pile, the way Iris must have done so many times, before she put it down gently beside her and looked at Tess.
‘Wow.’ She rubbed at her nose with the sleeve of her sweater, pulled down over her hand, and Tess thought that her mother looked like a girl. ‘I didn’t know any of that.’
‘Nor did I.’
‘You can’t conceive of it, can you, keeping something like that to yourself for so many, many years.’
‘Do you think she did?’
Donna looked at her quizzically. ‘I mean, she didn’t tell you and she didn’t tell me. Do you think my granddad knew?’
‘I don’t know that either.’
‘I hope she did. It’s too much for a person to keep to themselves.’
For a while, they both looked into the fire.
‘What was he like?’
‘Wilfred?’
Tess nodded.
‘He was … dignified. You know. Old school. A gentleman. Upright. Proper. He never came downstairs in his PJs, that kind of a man. A sports jacket and an open-necked shirt were his idea of slobbing out.’ She laughed. ‘We had a few words about that stuff, when I was younger. He pretty much hated the way I dressed. He always shaved … don’t think I can remember seeing him with stubble or even a five-o’clock shadow. But he had one, in the hospital, the last time I saw him – a day or two’s growth. It was grey. It made him look … uncared for. I hated that. He’d have hated that.’
‘But was he … affectionate?’
‘Oh God, yes. He absolutely worshipped the ground she walked on. Iris. Me too. He wasn’t necessarily the most physically demonstrative, you know. There wasn’t all that much hugging and kissing. He didn’t say it all the time, not like we do now. “I love you.” It wasn’t like that. He was older than most of the dads. A bit out of his time … But I knew.’
‘How?’
Donna shrugged. ‘The look on his face. The way he held her when they danced. Which they did, in the kitchen, all through my childhood. The way he spoke to her. About her.’
Tess nodded.
‘It was like … this might sound weird … but there was this gratefulness about him. You always had the feeling he couldn’t believe his luck that he had us, you know? Maybe it was because he was that bit older. Maybe it was just how he was.’
Donna hadn’t looked at her much while she spoke, but she did now, her eyes still full of tears.
‘What was it like when he died? How did Iris react?’ Tess had never asked. It seemed important, now, to know things.
Donna took a deep breath. ‘Well, it was quick. Unexpected, at least as far as I knew. Heart attack. He never really woke up. We weren’t with him when it happened – Iris got the call, went to the hospital. I hadn’t lived with them for quite a long time, but I came, quick as I could. I think she knew, when she called me, that he was going. She wanted me to have the chance to see him, before it happened. But it was too late to talk to him. At least, for him to talk to us. Iris talked. She was sat by his bed, holding his hand and talking to him when I got there.’
‘What about? Do you remember?’
She knitted her brow together, thinking. ‘Stuff about their life together. About how happy he’d made her, how grateful she was to have had him. Things like that.’
Donna’s tears were falling fast now, her voice full of sobs at the memory, dredged up from long ago and far away.
‘I remember that she didn’t cry until afterwards. She held it all together at the hospital. She did at his funeral, though. She said that was what he’d want her to do.’
Tess smiled. ‘Dignified, right?’
Donna nodded. ‘That’s it. But that first night, after we had to leave him at the hospital, you know, for the undertakers to come and get the body … I went back with her. Insisted. Stayed in my old room. And I could hear her. She cried all night …’
Tess got up and went to her mother, who let herself be held. The two of them sat staring into the fire, each lost in their own memories of Iris, tessellated now by the fragmented story told by the letters.
‘I want to ask her about her brother.’
‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’
Tess shrugged. ‘I’d go careful. This must have hurt her so much. There’s a reason she didn’t talk about it all these years.’
‘She might not remember it at all.’
‘And she might not want to.’
5 July 1944
Dear Iris,
I am well. Please tell Mum and Dad that I am all right. You know I can’t talk about where I am or what I’m doing. Normally it’s hard to write these letters. Short of saying you’re alive and you’re well, what else can you put? But today I can write about the existence of angels because today I know that they are real. I’ve just read that back and it sounds like I’m drunk and perhaps I am, Iris eyes, but trust me when I say there is precious little booze around here.
I’m in love. Iris, I know, I know, I’ve said it before. You’ve probably got a list. But you know, like Romeo at the beginning of that play, I thought it was true before but now I know it never was. Because this is real and absolute. And I feel happy for the first time since I left you all. I feel bloody ecstatic.
I have to tell you, because my mates would rib me something rotten.
I haven’t long to write, and I know how you and Mum long for news of me, so that is the news. I’ll write more later …
I hope all is well with all of you. When I close my eyes, I can smell the farm at this time of year, and I can picture everyone there. Mum, Dad, you and me. As we were.
I wish you had stayed. They’ll be missing you. It wo
uld be easier for me to think of you there with them. I know you want to make a difference, be a part of the war effort, but you could do that there with them, and be safe, and I worry for you in London.
I just want all of this to be over. They think it will be, soon enough. We’re definitely on top – got them on the run, everyone says. Perhaps we’ll be home for Christmas.
Stay safe, Iris. Stay safe.
Tom
18 July 1944
Dear Iris,
You can tell Mum and Dad that I am well and that things are not too bad where I am. I got two letters from you at once this week and I am glad to hear all the news from home and from London.
I confirm that I’m still in love. With the same girl. I told you this was the real thing. Now I have a bit more time I can tell you more about her. Her name is Manon. So, yes, she’s French. But she speaks excellent English. Just as well. I have just about mastered Bonjour, s’il vous plaît and Merci beaucoup. You were always the brains in our family. So we speak English.
We were billeted near her farm, a while back. Can’t say where, but one day I’ll be able to show you on the map. See, she’s a farmer’s daughter like you. She and her brother brought us eggs. I hadn’t had an egg for so long. Just the powdered stuff we get here. I thought I might cry, from the taste of it. The yellow yolk.
She’s short and slim, blonde, with freckles which she hates, of course, because no one with freckles ever understands how lovely they are, and the bluest, bluest eyes. She looks much younger than she is, because she’s small. I don’t see her often but, when I do, it’s always like clouds have parted and I swear sometimes I hear celestial choirs. I sound mad, I know. I don’t care. Maybe I’ve been here too long, surrounded by the sounds of war. Guns. Screams. Bombs. Men who cry for their mothers. Her voice is like a salve.
One day you’ll meet her, Iris. I know you will. I want to bring her back, and she says she’ll come. We’ve made a bloody awful mess of this place. There’s almost nothing left. I thank God, whatever else, for an England that no German army ever set foot on. I thank God for an England where there is still green grass, and fields of wheat, and buildings that stand, with their glass windows unsmashed.
Love to everyone at home. Stay safe.
Tom
15 August 1944
Dear Iris,
Thank you for your letter. Your stories about the porters at the hospital getting things on the black market are good to hear. It’s like a bit of normality. I read some of them out to the boys, and we all have a laugh. It makes us feel normal. I’m sure there are very grim times too, and I’m grateful you only share the funny silly details of your life with me, although I hope we will talk, properly talk, when I am home. When I am home. I love to write that. It makes it real. I hope you are well. I hope you are happy.
I wanted you to be the first to know. I have asked Manon to marry me, and she has said yes, so we are engaged. Her father has given us his blessing. I rather think her mother had to convince him that I was all right, being an Englishman. Once this is all over, I will marry her. I want to bring her home and live with her on the farm, with Mum and Dad, while they are still alive. And you, Iris. It will always be your home too. This place is such a mess, and we want to be somewhere peaceful, where the landscape isn’t scarred and the people aren’t haunted. We dream of it. I don’t describe things as well as you do but I do try. I have told her about the animals, and the village, and my mates from school. I wonder how many of us are left. How many more might die before this is finished, even though we feel we are closer to the end than we have been?
Maybe to you it seems fast, reckless. You might think I am a fool. War makes me hurry. Life is precious. The future still seems far away but it got a little closer when I asked her and she agreed. It seems like an idea, the life we can have, but it became more real when she said she would marry me. I know you’ll love her. And when Mum and Dad get to know her they will too. I say that but I’m not sure, of course. She is different. But she is good, I know that for sure. You’ll help, I know.
I never thought I would be so happy in the middle of all this. I’m the luckiest bloke in France. It’s been so hot here, and the sun is so strong. When it’s quiet, and you lie back and close your eyes and feel it on your face, you can almost forget it all.
My love to everyone,
Tom
23 September 1945
Dear Iris,
So I am home. They tell me I am one of the lucky ones – the war in Europe ended only a few months ago, and here I am, back on the farm. There are just so many people to move. An enormous puzzle of humanity. It makes your head spin just to think of it. But I am home for the harvest.
I was gone for nearly three years. 1,032 days. I counted every one of them, and I dreamt of it for 1,032 nights. Everything looks more or less the same as it did before I left, except that you are not here, and I am sorry for that. I have missed you, my Iris. Mum and Dad are older. They temper their joy and their relief at my return when we are in the village. It seems so many of their friends have not had their sons come home to them. Or not whole, at least.
I’ve been gone a long time, Iris. You’re all grown up. Have you fallen in love? I don’t think so – I flatter myself that you’d have told me about him, whoever he was. I hope I am in time to save you from it.
Mum says twenty-nine men from the villages around here have died. Dozens more are not back yet. Some of the boys have been fighting the Japanese and Dad says they are in a far worse way. I am one of the lucky ones. I keep hearing it.
I try to believe it. But I can’t. Dad’s told Mum not to ask me anything. He understands, he says. And maybe he does, some of it. Maybe you would, if you were here. But I don’t want you to think it’s your fault – because you’re not here. I want to try to explain.
Manon is dead. She died with her mother and her aunt in Royan. They were killed in the bombing there, in January, but I didn’t know. I hadn’t had a letter for so long, but that didn’t mean anything. There was so much chaos. I didn’t hear until May, from her cousin. She’d already been gone for five months. It’s strange – you’d think you’d know. She wasn’t supposed to be in Royan. But she was, and I’ll never know why, and she died there.
And the thing is, Iris, the awful thing is, that her love is what kept me alive. Loving her kept me alive. Sometimes I think it was the only thing that did. People say we instinctively fight for life, but, in war, there are moments – at least for me there were – when I didn’t think I wanted to. That it seemed easier to let death win. That the world seemed so wicked that it didn’t seem worth fighting to stay in it. That it might be a relief for it to be over. There’s a lot said about duty and about courage and comradeship. I knew men – I served alongside some – who fought with those principles, lived by them and sometimes died by them, but I wasn’t one of them, Iris. I’m sorry. I wasn’t. I wish I could have been. I never felt brave. And sometimes I didn’t want to live. But not after her. Never once after her.
I never believed in God. Did you know that? Every Sunday we sat there, you and me, squashed between Mum and Dad, and sang and prayed and listened to the vicar. And I never believed, because He never showed me a reason to. Until her. I started to believe He’d sent her to keep me alive. To show me that the world wasn’t hopeless. To make me fight to stay in it. Every night, no matter how scared, or how uncomfortable or how wretched I was, I closed my eyes when I lay down and pictured her face. Told myself a dream of us – of a future, and a life once the war was over. So when I woke up the next day, she was the reason to keep going. And it was selfish, perhaps, but it was better than duty and fear and courage, because it wasn’t just an ideal. It was real. We’d had so little time together. Moments, really. But I knew. And when we were apart, I know that her love kept me alive.
But mine couldn’t do that for her. It wasn’t enough.
And now I can’t live without her, you see. I won’t. I feel like I died when she did. This is just
my body and I have no use for it.
I know what you’d say. What Mum and Dad would say, if they knew. Give it time. You’ll heal. I won’t.
Don’t let yourself love someone as I did. It’s too dangerous. Promise me that, sister.
I’m sorry for the hurt this will cause you, and our mother and father. Explain to them, or don’t – whichever you think will help them more. You are the only one who knows about Manon. I never told them. I wanted to bring her home.
Your brother Tom
28 September 1945
Dear Iris,
This is the hardest letter I have ever had to write, my darling daughter. I’m a coward. I cannot bear to telephone you, and I cannot come to where you are, and so I am sending you news I know you will hear alone, and that thought would break my heart if it wasn’t already broken.
Tom is dead. I won’t try to find a gentler way to give you the news. It wouldn’t help. Your brother has died.
For so, so long, during the war, we waited for this news. I know you worried as much as me and your father: I know how close you were. You used to be such a gang of two. But I was his mother. His survival and his comfort were my first and last thought every day he was gone. When we crowded around the radio to hear the news, it was always him I was thinking of. We tried not to mind the censored letters so long out of date. We kept the faith. In the villages and towns, people we knew lost their sons and their brothers and their husbands, and each time we held our breath, and our sorrow was tinged with a relief that felt shameful. And we bargained with God. Let it not be Tom. Let it never be Tom. My only boy.
Do you remember VE Day? The single most glorious day. When I think of it I remember church bells, a thousand of them, ringing. It was over, and our boy had survived.
It wasn’t until he came home that I realized not all of him had. I fed him as much as he would let me. We cleaned him up, and he dressed in his old clothes. He was thinner and paler, but he looked like Tom again. Each day I told myself he was coming back to us.
Love, Iris Page 22