by John Harwood
Outside of his workshop, my father's only apparent aim was to get through life as quietly and inconspicuously as possible. As far back as I could recall, my parents had slept apart, though they must, presumably, have shared a bed at least once. His room was as bare as a monk's cell. Board floor, single bed, bedside locker, wardrobe, chest of drawers. And one upright chair. No secrets there. On top of the chest of drawers he kept a framed photograph of my mother, one of the few we had, standing on the front porch in her twinset and sensible shoes, doing her best to smile. As if she were on the other side of the world instead of across the hall. They called each other dear, and never quarrelled within my hearing. Every morning he would collect the lunch she had packed for him and set off for the Land Surveys Department. He dug the vegetable garden, serviced the car, and did the household repairs. The rest of his time he spent with his trains.
They were nominally mine at first: 00 gauge electric, on a six by four baseboard in a corner of the garage. An oval track with an inside loop, a siding, two stations, and a tunnel through a papier mâché mountain. I was bored within hours; he doubled the outside track; after a few more hours I lost interest again. We all went on speaking of 'Gerard's trains' for years as the baseboard expanded and the tracks tripled and quadrupled below the signals and gantries and water towers, and the engines and rolling stock multiplied until our car was eased out into the carport, never to return despite the threat of rust. He bought an old kerosene heater for the winters, then a second-hand air conditioner for the ferocious summer heat. The baseboard grew until there was only a narrow walkway down each side to his stationmaster's quarters at the far end, where he had his workbench and his electric jug, an old brown leather swivel chair, and row after row of switches and levers and dials, all labelled according to a code that he carried around in his head. Everything on the board was electrified: not just the trains, but lights, points, signals, level crossings, even miniature bells. He bought his components-boxes of relays and solenoids and rheostats and endless coils of coloured wire-at army surplus sales and government auctions, swap meets with other train men. When the air conditioner wasn't running you could hear the hum of the transformers.
Every line had its own timetable, and all of the stations had English village names like East Woking or Little Barnstaple, but the network wasn't a map or a model; it was a self-contained, perfectly ordered world, every tiny detail meticulously crafted to scale, except that it contained no human figures. Some train men have crowds of miniature people waiting on platforms, fields full of minutely hand-painted porcelain cows: my father's universe was populated only by trains. If it hadn't been for your mother's nerves', I think he might have moved into the shed altogether; as it was, he brought the last train into the depot at 10.27 each night and retired dutifully to his bedroom. He and I were always going to have a bit of a talk about things' but we still hadn't quite got around to it on the night, just before my eighteenth birthday, when he didn't come in at 10.30, or eleven, and she found him dead in his stationmaster's chair, with a single train running at full speed, round and round the outermost track.
IF I HAD SEEN PICTURES OF STAPLEFIELD, THEY MIGHT HAVE cramped my imagination of it, suffused with depths and subtleties of colour unknown in Mawson. Memories of Staplefield-my memories, as they truly seemed, for my mother's stories had left me with such an acute visual sense of the place that I could walk around it in my head, fix my attention anywhere I pleased, the forge in the village street, or Viola, upright, elegant and silver-haired, seated at her walnut writing-desk, the two attic bedrooms with their gabled windows and dark wooden floorboards and Persian rugs, the view southwards over the fields from the pavilion on the hillside, and see every detail plain-these memories became my principal refuge as the miseries of Mawson Junior High crowded in. Until I met (for want of a better word) my invisible friend, Alice Jessell.
The letter arrived on a hot, airless, overcast morning towards the end of the summer holidays. I was thirteen and a half. My last days of freedom were slipping by. For weeks it had been too hot to do anything except lie on my bed reading or just listening to the rattle and creak of the fan as it swung to and fro, alternately wishing the time away and willing it to slow down. Nothing to look forward to but another year trailing after the legion of the lost: the swots, the cowards, the hopeless at sport. I heard the tinny put-putting of the postman's motorbike through my window and slouched out to the letter-box, just for something to do.
Apart from the usual bills and circulars, my parents received very little mail, and nothing at all from overseas except the occasional invitation to join a book or record club. Until that day, I don't think I'd ever seen a letter addressed to me. This one had my full name on it: Master Gerard Hugh Freeman. I slid the letter into the pocket of my shorts just before my mother followed me out the front door, and handed her whatever else the postman had brought.
Penfriends International, it said in typewriting at the top. PO Box 294, Mount Pleasant, London WC1. By Airmail. Inside was a letter, also typewritten beginning Dear Gerard, asking me if I would like a penfriend, and if so, whether a girl or a boy. All I had to do was write to the Secretary, Miss Juliet Summers, telling her something about myself to help her find me my ideal penfriend, and return my answer in the enclosed airmail envelope.
I knew exactly what my mother would say. But Miss Juliet Summers sounded warm and friendly, and I ended up writing her several pages-I even talked about Staplefield-asking her to find me a girl penfriend. I did the whole thing in a rush, knowing I mustn't give myself time to think, so that it was only on my way back from the post office that I realised my mother would almost certainly see the reply before I did.
Sure enough, when I got home on the Friday of the first dismal week of school, she was hovering in the hall, clutching an envelope. The skin around her nostrils looked taut and shiny.
'There's a letter for you, Gerard,' she said accusingly. 'Shall I open it for you?'
'No. Can I have it please, Mother?'
This would normally have been met with 'No thank you, Mother-she hated 'Mum' and would not have the word in the house-and 'May I have it please, Mother?' But today she just stood there, glancing from me to the envelope, which she was holding so that I could not see the writing on it.
Suddenly I understood that, for the first time in my life, the high moral ground was mine.
'Please may I have my letter now; Mother?' I repeated.
Slowly, reluctantly, she held it out to me. 'Penfriends International'. The envelope was crumpled where her finger and thumb had gripped it.
'Thank you, Mother,' I said, retreating towards my room. But she was not finished with me.
'Gerard, have you been giving anyone our address?'
'No, Mother.'
'Then how did they know where to send it?'
I was about to say, I don't know, when I saw where this was leading. Taking a letter from the box and answering it without telling her, even a letter addressed to me, would count as being sneaky and dishonest. I could feel the high moral ground subsiding beneath me.
'I-I saw it on a noticeboard at school,' I improvised. 'About the penfriends.'
'Did Mrs Broughton give you permission to write to them?'
'No, Mother, I just… wanted a penfriend.'
'So you did give them our address.'
'I s'pose so-yes,' I muttered, choosing what seemed the lesser evil.
'You had no right to do that. Without asking me first. And where did you get the stamp?'
'I bought it with my pocket money.'
'I see… Gerard'-in her take-no-prisoners voice of command-'I want you to show me that letter.'
I was afraid that if I did, I would never see it again.
'Mother, you've always said that letters are private… why aren't I allowed to read my own letter?' My voice broke upwards into a squeak on the last word.
Her colour rose; she glared, turned on her heel and walked away.
THE LETTER WAS TY
PED, BUT IT WAS NOT FROM MISS Summers.
Dear Gerard,
I hope you don't mind, but Miss Summers sent me your letter to read (she sent lots of others too, but yours was the only one I really liked), and you sounded so much like the penfriend I've been hoping for that I asked her if I could write straight back to you myself. Of course you don't have to answer if you don't like the sound of me!
My name is Alice Jessell, I'll be fourteen this March and like you I'm an only child, except that both my parents are dead, we were in a car crash together. I know maybe I shouldn't write this bit straight away but I want to get it over with. Anyway you might not want to read any more, so it's only fair, as long as you know that I'm definitely not looking for sympathy and I don't ever, ever want you to feel sorry for me, just to be my penfriend if you'd like to. So as I was saying my parents were both killed in the accident, which happened about three years ago. I survived because I was in the back seat, but my spinal cord was damaged so I can't walk. My arms are OK though-I only type because my writing's really hard to read, and already I can type much faster than I could ever write. And because we didn't have any relatives or anything I had to go into a home-I know how awful this must sound and of course it was unbelievably unbearably awful at first. But it's a really lovely place, in the countryside, in Sussex. The insurance money pays for me to be here, I even have my own lessons so I don't have to go to school, and a beautiful upstairs room all to myself, looking out over fields and trees and things.
So now I've said it. I really do mean it, about not wanting sympathy, I want you to think of me if you can-only if you want to be my friend of course-as a normal person who just wants to share normal things. I don't watch TV or listen to pop music I'm afraid but I love reading-it sounds as if you do too and I'd love to have someone my own age to talk about books with. (Most of the other people here are very nice, but much older than me.) And to sort of be part of someone else's life, and be their friend. Anyway that's enough about that.
There's snow on the fields right now, but it's a bright sunny day, there are squirrels running up and down the big oak tree outside my window, and three plump little birds on the windowsill, they're singing so loudly I can hear them over the clatter of the keys! Actually where I am sounds a little bit like the place where your mother grew up-a big red brick house in the countryside with woods and fields around it. Mawson sounds awfully dry and hot! Sorry, that sounds a bit rude, I mean I'm sure its lovely, just so different from here.
Anyway I'd better stop and give this to Matron (she's more like an aunt, really) to send on to Miss Summers, that's because Penfriends International are a sort of charity, they pay the airmail postage. So if you want to, write to me care of Miss Summers, and then every time she sends on one of your letters to me, she'll enclose some reply coupons to post back to you-that way you won't have to buy stamps. Our letters will be completely private.
I really must stop right now. Before I panic and crumple this up for maybe making a complete idiot of myself.
Sincerely,
Alice
P.S. I think Gerard is a really nice name.
I lay on my bed and read Alice's letter over and over again. She sounded incredibly, unbelievably brave, and yet I realised I truly didn't feel sorry for her. Sympathy, yes; but even though being an orphan in a wheelchair did sound unbearably awful, her letter made me feel as if I'd come in out of the dark on a freezing night, not knowing how cold I'd been until I felt the heat of the fire.
Reading other people's letters is a terrible sin. But it hadn't stopped me from trying to open that drawer again. I looked around my room for a hiding-place. Under my mattress? On top of my wardrobe? Behind the books in my bookcase? Nowhere was safe. I thought again about how brave Alice must be, and felt suddenly ashamed of being thirteen and a half, starting second year high school and still too scared to tell my mother that yes, I did have a penfriend, and no, I wasn't going to show her my letter.
But facing the full blast of my mother's disapproval at dinner that night, I also had to face, for the thousandth time, the fact that I really was a coward.
'Mother I want to, I mean please may I-write to my um…'
'You will not be writing to anyone, Gerard. I'm still waiting for you to give me that letter.'
'Mother, you've always told me it's wrong to read other people's…' Again my voice betrayed me. My mother was visibly swelling. Sensing imminent meltdown, my father concentrated on his chop-bone.
'I am going to read that letter, because you are going to give it to me. Who is this penfriend, anyway?'
'She's-she's a-'
'A girl? You won't be writing to any girl, Gerard, not until I've seen that letter and written to her mother myself.'
'She doesn't have a mother,' I blurted. 'She's an orphan-in a home.' It felt like betraying Alice, but I saw where my only chance lay.
'And where is this home?'
'In-in the countryside.'
'That letter came from London,' she snapped.
'They send them on-Penfriends International-and pay the postage-for children who-children like Alice who don't have parents.'
'You mean it's a charity?'
I nodded eagerly. My mother was silent for a moment. She looked faintly uncomfortable.
'Oh. Well of course I'll have to write to them first… but I suppose… yes, go and get that letter please. And then we'll see.'
Just when I thought I'd wriggled off the hook.
'Mother-' I began hopelessly.
'It's his letter, Phyllis.'
My mother could not have looked more astonished if the fruit bowl had spoken on my behalf. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. My father looked equally startled.
'I'll go and get the address,' I said in an inspired moment, knowing she would never let up until she had at least written to Juliet Summers.
My mother nodded dumbly, and I left them staring at each other in utter bewilderment.
After I'd dried the dishes I went out to the garage and asked my father if I could have a box with a lock 'to keep some of my stuff in'. He seemed determined to behave as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, but he gave me a stout metal toolbox and a shiny new padlock and key, and we spent the rest of the evening playing trains. I felt sure he knew what I was really thanking him for.
I STARTED MY FIRST LETTER TO ALICE THAT SAME NIGHT AND continued most of the weekend, pages and pages written straight down as if I were talking to her, everything about my confrontation with my mother, about school and its miseries, all of my likes and dislikes, and much more about Staplefield, how much it meant to me and how my mother had refused to talk about it after I found the photograph in her room. I wrote compulsively, as if from dictation, knowing I mustn't re-read what I'd said, or let myself think about what I was doing. And spent the next fortnight in a torment of hope and fear, until her answer arrived and I knew for certain it would be all right.
MY MOTHER NEVER TOLD ME WHETHER SHE'D WRITTEN TO Juliet Summers. She acted as if the letters I would find waiting on my desk when I got home from school had materialised without her knowledge. Part of me longed to win back her approval, but I also knew that if I once spoke of Alice, I would never be able to stop until every last detail had been dragged out for inspection on the kitchen table.
So our silence over Staplefield came to include Alice. But now I had Alice to write to, and she never tired of hearing about Staplefield. Or, it seemed, anything to do with my life. It was almost as if she was writing from Staplefield, for the view from her window reminded me constantly of the landscape my mother used to describe: the formal garden below, with tall trees rising up to her window, then the patchwork of green fields, leading to steep wooded hills in the near distance.
Of course I wanted to know exactly where she was, so I could look it up in the atlas. But from the beginning Alice laid down certain rules.
Gerard I need you to understand why I don't want to talk about my life before the accident. I love my par
ents, I think about them all the time. Often I feel they're very close, watching over me, corny though that sounds. But to survive I had to let go of everything before the accident. My friends, all my stuff, everything. The only thing I brought with me was my favourite photo of my parents, it's here on my desk as I'm writing this. As if-this is going to sound awfully weird I know-as if I died with them and went on to a sort of after-life, only still here on earth, like a reincarnation only different. I knew if I tried to hide under a blanket of pity I'd smother. And to throw off the blanket I had to throw off everything.
Of course if I had brothers and sisters and relatives I'd have no choice. But then I'd be the family cripple, and I don't think I'd want to go on living. This way I'm just a girl who happens to need a wheelchair to get around. Not a cripple or a paraplegic or a disabled person, just me. I'm really mobile, I do everything for myself. And the people here are wonderful, apart from physiotherapy and stuff like that they treat you as completely normal.
But I have been very lonely and your letters make all the difference. They light up my life.
Now for the difficult part. I don't want to tell you exactly where I am, because…(there's been a really long pause here, I've watched a girl and boy, they look about our age, walking across the fields with their arms round each other, all the way from the footpath outside our garden wall to the edge of the forest, wondering how to say this the way I mean it) well for the same reason I don't want to send you a photo of me. (For a start I don't have any, but that's not why of course.) And it's not because I'm hideously disfigured or anything, I don't actually have any scars at all.