Yes, Gethyn is a little quiet lately. We’ve not danced to the Bee Gees for a while. He’s finding great difficulty in being here. But anyway, whatever you put in your letter to him, I wouldn’t worry. He’s a strapping Welsh bloke, so I can’t imagine you could have upset him too much.
By the way, I can’t believe I haven’t said this before, but thanks a million for the MP3 player. It was really good of you to find the time to buy it and download all the music – even though you must have been busy packing to go away. The music selection is fab and I’m loving the flash back to your mother’s record player collection. It was always ABBA, David Cassidy, Joni Mitchell or the Carpenters, depending on what mood she was in, wasn’t it?
Oh, speaking of mothers, can you get a Mother’s Day card for me next month, please? I know this is really insensitive of me bearing in mind the situation with your mum. Maybe you could send one to your own mum, too? I know, I know. She’s still a cow-bag, but sometimes, isn’t it just easier to keep playing the game?
And finally, why don’t you ask Isabella Gambini to design a menu for the café?
Love, Pol
P.S. Quick question, just throwing it out there … do you think I’d be nuts if I asked Josh to give our marriage another go?
‘E’ Bluey
From Mr Day
To: Polly
Date: 27 February
Dear Babe
Sand bags? Why do you need sandbags if you’re working in a bunker in Kuwait?
Well, today is the first day it’s felt like spring might be on its way. There was something in the way the birds were singing and the sunlight caught on the kitchen window that gave me the definite feeling that we’ve turned the corner. Mammy say’s it’s a good day for metal detecting (in other words, she wants me out from under her feet). There’s one particular field just past Holmfirth that’s been laid to pasture for years. The farmer has ploughed it so I’m off to speak to him this afternoon and see if he’s happy for me to go on before he sows it. Oh, I know I’ve been looking for the elusive pot of gold for years, but this time I really do get a definite feeling that there’s something big to be found in this one.
Mammy thinks I’m daft, obviously, but she won’t be thinking I’m such a crackpot when I dig up a Roman hoard and we’re gallivanting off in our new caravan!
With regards to the school, the council will vote in May, but it’s not looking promising. I’ve been doing all I can to push to keep the old girl open, but I’ve a feeling that those holding the purse strings at the town hall are going through to motions. One group of mothers have turned to vigilante tactics and are threatening to picket the school bus, but another set of mums agree that the school is too small and under-funded and are happy to pack their kids onto the bus at eight o clock in the morning and forget about them until tea-time. Whatever they believe, once the school is gone, it’s gone and most of us reckon the village will lose its soul if it goes. Time will tell, I suppose.
Love ya babe,
MumnDad x
Bluey
From: Polly
To: Mrs Day
Date: 27 February
Hi, Mum
Thanks for your advice about Josh and letting go of Angelica. And thanks for being honest about your illness.
The other day, I cut off my hair and had a long chat with a doctor friend of mine. What I realised during that chat is that I’ve always felt that I live in my dead sister’s shadow. Dad won’t let me open up to you, but it’s hit me since I’ve been away that I’ve been buttoned up within your grief as well as my own. But because we never talk about Anna, I felt you never let your heart open to me in the way you would have opened up to her. There are times when I have resented my dead sister, because I thought you held a part of you back, for her. I thought I could see it in your eyes. I told Dad all this years ago, but he said I was being daft and not to bother you with it. I also told him I’ve never liked my name because I didn’t think it was entirely mine. I thought you only called me
Pollyanna so that Anna would live on – in me. If Anna hadn’t died I would have been called something else entirely, or maybe I wouldn’t even be here. In the past I thought, maybe, just maybe, if I had my own name, I might have a greater understanding of who I am.
But since reading your letter I realise I have created all this trauma within my own mind. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why didn’t I just talk to you? Dad was right, the whole thing was daft. When I accepted my posting to Iraq, I didn’t care if I lived or died. But with the war almost on me and the scuds about to fly, I realise that, if I’m going to fight for this life, I have to have let everything else go. I need to let Angelica die, so that I might live. Why, why, why have I clung on to all this for so long?
Please forgive me for blaming you for my own shortcomings, Mum, and when I get home, let’s find a way to allow our eyes to dance when we’re together – and always.
With all the love in the world, Polly x
Bluey
From: Gethyn
To: Aggie
Date: 27 February
Dear, Agatha
Don’t worry. You’re right. I’m a hypocrite. Disregard my ridiculous ramblings about fiction, I was probably quite irritating in my opinion.
Kind regards,
Gethyn
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Running Away
Date: 27 February
Dear, Aggie,
Oh Lord, I know this must sound quite random, but do you have a room to spare? If so, may I come and stay with you for a little while? I’ve reached an absolute block with my latest cook book and can’t think of anything new or inspirational to add and I’m not sure I even care. I’m completely lost. Can I run away to Appledart to be with you? Maybe I might find inspiration in the café?
Please do say if this request is taking our friendship too far. I was talking to a close friend about you and she says there’s some kind of infamous fortune teller who lives near you. Maybe I’ll pay her a visit while I’m there?
With love,
Isabella
Bluey
From: Polly
To: Aggie
Date: 28 February
Dear, Aggie
This has been such a great day! Gethyn nicked a Land Rover and, out of the blue, we escaped to a US Army base. It was worth getting a bollocking afterwards, because: I washed my hair; I used a clean toilet; I had ice cream AND a Coke. I probably won’t have a shower or see civilisation again until after the war, but it’s the little moments that are the best!
Ta ta for now.
Love, Polly
‘E’ Bluey
From: Agatha
To: Polly
Date: 2 March
Hi, Pol
Gethyn has written back. It was short and polite. I’m such a cock sometimes. Did he tell you what I wrote? I’m so ashamed. I’ll have to think up an excuse to write back to him show that I’m not a bitch. I’ll throw a few funnies in and send him a cake or something, that’ll draw his friendship back.
Regarding asking Josh to try again, you haven’t really said what happened and so I’m worried about offering an opinion. This is the sort of question that requires a whole day (if not two) on the subject. You know the sort of thing … tea, cake and two women walking arm in arm on the beach, The Wind Beneath My Wings playing in the background etc.
Alternatively, and without my guiding arm and scrumptious bakes to fall back on, you could
just flip a coin on it. Heads you get back together, tails you don’t. If you are disappointed when it lands on tails, you’ll know what to do. Simple.
Love, Ag
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Running Away
Date: 2 March
Hi, Isabella
Of course you can come! I would love it. In fact, I feel divine providence at work because you may just be able to help in a way
you would never have imagined, but more of that when you get here.
Come as soon as you can.
Love, Ag
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Running Away
Date: 2 March
Hi Aggie
Fantastic. Thank you so much. I’ll come this week. How do I get there? What should I bring?
With love,
Isabella
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Running Away
Date: 2 March
Wow! This week? Well, why the hell not?
Bring walking boots, wellies, warm clothes, gloves and the best coat you can find – nothing fashionable; something that required the sacrifice of a thousand geese should suffice. Take the train to Fort William, then change for Mallaig. Let me know what time your train gets in and I’ll arrange for Hector to pick you up in his little boat. Must dash, got to bake.
Bluey
From: Polly
To: Aggie
Date: 4 March
Hi, Ag
I flipped a coin like you suggested (actually, I didn’t have a coin so I threw a dollar note into the air) and it landed on the front, which meant ‘no’ I shouldn’t get back with Josh. And you were right, I was disappointed. So I threw it in the air again and it bloody-well landed on ‘no’, again. So I just kept throwing the thing in the air until it landed the right side up. So it seems I genuinely do want to give it another go with Josh, but does he want to get back with me? That’s the question.
Love, Pol
‘E’ Bluey
From: Aggie
To: Gethyn
Date: 4 March
Dear, Gethyn
You’re not a hypocrite. You’re on the brink of war and I should be a grateful citizen and not a ranting old cow. I got carried away and self-obsessed.
As an apology, I have sent you a signed copy of Isabella Gambini’s latest cook book entitled, ‘Just Desserts’. I persuaded Isabella to create recipes that use only ethical, organic foodstuffs. The reason for sending the book is because the forward was researched and written by me. Maybe we should discuss other things and steer clear of romance, as perhaps this is a subject upon we are unlikely ever to agree. If you do wish to correspond – and I hope you do – then I have a new address as I have run away to Scotland. Polly has it.
Regarding the writing, I’m super-sensitive at the moment because I’m suffering from a spot of writer’s block (or maybe I’m just exhausted with it all) so when a friend asked me to run her café in Scotland, I jumped at the chance. Again, Polly will explain, but in a nutshell, I’m writing to you from an oasis of calm in a world of conflict. I’m living in my friend’s cottage which is one of a handful of fisherman’s cottages positioned around a cute and ancient little pier. Beyond the harbour is a golden beach which is just idyllic, whatever the weather. The Isle of Skye sits five miles out to sea and on a clear day like today, I can reach out and touch it. My neighbours include a psychic and a poet and I run a café in a converted byre which, like the peninsula, is perfect. The byre has a red tin roof, whitewashed walls and the windows overlook the pier and beach. It’s called, The Café at Road’s End, and I love it.
Basically, I’ve found a timeless paradise of pure escapism. But although the scenery is straight off a tin of Highland shortbread, I am yet to hear a Scottish accent, and I wonder if Appledart is actually my very own Brigadoon - a place that appears through the mist once in a while - where the inhabitants are not real at all, but guardian angels. It’s like I’ve been able to step out of the real world and into a fictional abyss for a little while. Isn’t it strange how you allow your life to carry along on the treadmill for an absolute age, and then suddenly, boom! An amazing adventure calls out to you and it’s simply impossible not to go.
Yours, Agatha
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Running Away
Date: 4 March
Hi, Aggie
I’m all booked! I’m flying to Inverness tomorrow, staying there overnight and I arrive at Mallaig at one pm the following day. One question. What do you mean, boat? Should I be nervous? I can’t swim.
With love,
Isabella
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Running Away
Date: 4 March
Hi, Isabella.
The boat is a must. I never said the journey to the Café at Road’s End was easy, but it’s worth it - honest.
Love, Ag
P.S. You can ride a horse, right …?
Bluey
From: Polly
To: Aggie
Date: 6 March
Hi, Aggie
My day today …
- Got out of dusty camp bed and dressed in front of twenty hairy-arsed soldiers.
- Washed with baby wipes as men had taken all hot water from boiler to shave (fair enough, I should have got there earlier).
- Had breakfast – I’ve succumbed to a wrinkly sausage in the morning.
- Went to work, sneered at the army.
- Met up with Gethyn now and again for a cuppa.
- Gave inconsequential periodic met briefs.
- Ate lunch (US Marine Corps bag meal – nice).
- Ate dinner (stew – camel?).
- Brushed teeth.
But oh, Aggie. Do you realise you sent a cook book to a fifteen stone food addict who’s living off war rations? Hilarious, but so cruel, especially as he is always hungry. I’ve been watching him flick through the recipes and it’s like watching a well-behaved Labrador drooling at a cooked chicken sitting on the kitchen table.
Love, Pol x
Bluey
From: Polly
To: Mrs Day
Date: 6 March
Hi Mum
It’s ten pm and I’m sitting in the back of a truck writing this from the light of my head torch. We’re moving to another location in the desert at about 1230am. I’m so tired. I think it’s Thursday but if someone told me it was Friday I wouldn’t argue. I wish I was out walking on Dartmoor on a rainy day, with my walking boots on and experiencing that tight, fresh feeling on my face. I feel like a prisoner. I am a prisoner.
When we’re on the move I have to sleep in a designated billet alongside the truck and there is this one man who watches me. He watches me wash, change out of my uniform, even brush my teeth. Perhaps my discomfort is not about a lecherous man who gets under my skin, but about my relationship with myself. Maybe that’s what I have to discover, but how can I learn to be a woman if, in this particular world, I need to be a man?
I’m over-thinking it again.
Love you. Polly x
‘E’ Bluey
From: Aggie
To: Polly
Date: 10 March
Hi, Pol
Oh, fuck, re the cook book! I’ll send rations, too. How about a hamper? I’ve been listening to the news. Nightmare for you!
In other, less significant, news you will never in a million years believe it, but Isabella Gambini is coming to stay with me - and to think you said I should ask her for help. Crazy! I’m beginning to think Summer Santiago (Be Careful What You Wish For) might be right. Things seem to be coming together at last (except for Mum, of course, but it would take more than a miracle to sort that woman’s head out).
Oh God, Pol. Keep safe!
Love, Ag
Bluey
From: Polly
To: Mrs Day
Date: 10 March
Hi, Mum
I need your help pretty quickly. I have no idea why, but every time I go to the toilet, as soon as I release my belt my bladder empties of its own free will. I just about get my trousers down but I pee all over my pants. Maybe it’s stress, or maybe my dreadful caesarean scar is playing havoc with my bladder? Please can
you go to a cheap shop (Matalan?) and buy me loads of pants and send them straight away? I haven’t the time to keep washing out and it would be unthinkable to stink of pee.
Love, Polly x
Bluey
From: Gethyn
To: Aggie
Date: 16 March
Dear, Agatha
I bloody love you!
Thanks a million for the hamper. I’ve tried my hardest to share everything, but I’ve been a bit of a glutton, especially with the cake. I hope you don’t mind, but I traded the quails eggs for a packet of Chocolate Digestives with a Royal Artillery Major (I think he had a more select upbringing than mine). The wicker basket has also found a use. We fashioned it into a highly productive rodent trap and are catching one or two rats per day! You’re one in a million.
Between Friends Page 10