Letters from Skye

by Jessica Brockmole

  We officially sign on for a six-month term of service and can reenlist for three months at a time after that. Both Harry and I told them to count us in for at least a year. We’re not the kind of guys who do anything halfway.

  I finally feel as if I’ve found my purpose in life, Sue, and I can hardly wait to get there!

  Exuberant,

  Davey

  Isle of Skye

  15 October 1915

  You stupid, stupid boy! Did you expect me to be happy about this plan of yours? With a husband at the front and a brother crippled from this blasted war, what on earth did you think I’d really say?

  I don’t even understand why you’re doing this. What do you owe France? Or any other nation, for that matter? Why do you feel duty-bound to get involved in the foolishness on this side of the ocean? What makes you think this war has anything to do with you?

  Did you stop to think for a moment about me in all this? How, only recently, I offered my heart up to you, tentatively, hesitantly, not trusting my own feelings but trusting you implicitly? And now you’ve trampled all over it in your haste to run off.

  All I wanted was for you to be there. Why are you leaving?

  Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

  October 31, 1915

  Dear Sue,

  I know you’re angry; please don’t be. Talk of “duty” and “patriotism” aside, how could you really expect me to pass up on this, the ultimate adventure?

  My mother’s been floating around the house, red-eyed and sniffling. My father still isn’t speaking to me. And yet I feel like I’m doing something right. I messed up in college. I messed up at work. Hell, I even messed up with Lara. I was beginning to think there was no place in the world for a guy whose highest achievement included a sack full of squirrels. Nobody seemed to want my bravado and impulsivity before. You know this is right for me, Sue. You of all people, who seem to know things about me before I myself do. You know this is right.

  I’m leaving tomorrow for New York and have to trust my mother to mail this letter. When you read it, I’ll be on a ship somewhere in the Atlantic. Even though we get a reduction on our fares if we sail the French Line, Harry and I are bound for England. He has Minna over there waiting for him. And I… I have you. Like knights of old, neither of us can head off to fight without a token from our love to tuck into our sleeve.

  I’ll be landing in Southampton sometime in the middle of November and will be going up to London. Sue, say that you’ll meet me this time. I know it’s easy for me to ask, far easier than it is for you to leave your sanctuary there on Skye. Don’t let me go off to the front without having touched you for the first time, without having heard your voice say my name. Don’t let me go off to the front without a memory of you in my heart.

  Yours… always and forever,

  Davey

  POST OFFICE TELEGRAPHS

  S 8.25 SOUTHAMPTON

  15 NOV 15

  E. DUNN ISLE OF SKYE=

  HEADING TO LONDON WILL BE AT THE LANGHAM AGAIN

  WILL WIRE WHEN WE ARRIVE=

  D+

  POST OFFICE TELEGRAPHS

  S 15.07 PORTREE

  15 NOV 15

  D GRAHAM THE LANGHAM HOTEL=

  THURSDAY AT HALF PAST SIX KINGS CROSS STATION SPECIAL SCOTCH EXPRESS=

  WAIT FOR ME MY LOVE=

  SUE+

  Chapter Ten

  Margaret

  Edinburgh

  Wednesday, 7 August 1940

  Dear Uncle Finlay,

  My mother is a contained person. I’m not sure what she was like before I was born, but as I know her, she keeps everything held tightly to her chest. She never talks about the past, apart from her childhood. Nothing about friendship, nothing about yearning, nothing about love or loss. She simply moves through the present.

  She has her routines, the things she does every day. In the morning, she walks. Along the Water of Leith. Around Holyrood Park. Along the beaches and docks, before they were fortified. To the farthest edges of the city and then back again. No matter the weather, no matter the season, she’s out walking. She’ll bring back a sprig of gorse just to put it on her pillow and smell it; she’ll bring back the first snowdrop of winter to remember the promise of spring.

  When she’s finished walking, she goes to St. Mary’s Cathedral and sits. Not for the Mass; she goes when the church is quiet, empty, still. The priests, they all know her by name. She’s the one who comes only to sit and bask in the peace of the cathedral.

  But this war here suddenly unsettled my mother beyond what I’ve ever seen before. Before disappearing, she started to carry her brown Bible in her handbag. She didn’t walk as far or as long. She began to crumble.

  I know that war is frightening, especially when you’ve already lived through one. But why Mother? Why now?

  Margaret Dunn

  Glasgow

  8 August

  Margaret,

  Maybe the better question is, “Why not everyone else?” Why doesn’t everyone over the age of twenty-five freeze up at the very mention of war?

  Elspeth was never one caught up in the past. Even as a lass, her face was always turned towards the sun. But she never could keep hold of her feelings. Our brother Alasdair always said she wanted too badly for everyone to love her. Back then, we did.

  That was Elspeth’s problem. She cared too much. When the war started to threaten everyone around her, she reached out and grabbed for whatever she could hold on to, trying to catch any bit of happiness she could. As if life really works that way. She set herself up to be shattered, and she was. None of us could stop the choices she made. It’s little surprise to me that this war reminds her of the other. Of the time when she broke our family in pieces.

  Finlay Macdonald

  Edinburgh

  Friday, 9 August 1940

  Dear Uncle Finlay,

  Is that it? Is that why Mother has never spoken of her life on Skye beyond girlhood? Why she’s never mentioned that I have an uncle staying just a short train ride away in Glasgow? What did my churchgoing, nature-loving mother do to break a family to pieces?

  Was it because of Sue?

  Margaret

  Glasgow

  10 August

  Margaret,

  You should be asking her these questions. I cannot help you. I don’t know anyone named Sue.

  Finlay Macdonald

  Edinburgh

  Monday, 12 August 1940

  Dear Uncle Finlay,

  I can’t ask her. She’s gone. She left.

  Last month, a bomb fell on our street. We didn’t have much damage apart from broken windows, but, in the wreck, I found letters I’d never seen before. Piles and piles of letters. The one I picked up was addressed to “Sue” from an American called Davey. I don’t know who they are or what was in the rest, because, the next morning, both my mother and the letters were gone.

  So I can’t ask her. I can’t even find her. If I weren’t desperate, why would I be looking up mysterious uncles?

  Margaret

  Glasgow

  13 August

  The American? That is what this is about? After all these years, still the American?

  I couldn’t stop the choices she made then and I certainly can’t now. Please don’t write to me again.

  Finlay Macdonald

  Edinburgh

  Wednesday, 14 August 1940

  Dear Paul,

  It was working. Uncle Finlay was telling me about my mother in dribs and drabs. There was something that he said “broke our family in pieces.” And then I mentioned the letter and the American and he’s stopped writing. I don’t know what I said! How does this American fit into my mother’s story? What happened all those years ago?

  Margaret

  London

  10 August 1940

  My Margaret,

  I must have written dozens of letters explaining to you where I went. But then I looked through the letters I’d brought with me and wondered if you’d
even still be in Edinburgh. Maybe you’ve already set off in search of secrets.

  One of my letters is missing: the letter you picked up off the floor that night. I know exactly which one it is. A letter where a silly, wonderful boy joins a war to prove himself a man. Where he begs the woman he loves to set off into the Great Unknown. London, his arms—both equally intimidating. Where he dares her to trust him. Ridiculous that such a boy could have not a fear in the world, while the woman waiting at the other end of the letters is terrified of going beyond the water’s edge. Terrified of meeting the wielder of that pen. Terrified to open up her heart again.

  And so, when the war tore through my walls and let memories come tumbling out, where to go but London? I had to see if ghosts still drifted here the way they always drift around Edinburgh.

  Once, too long ago, I fell in love. Unexpected, heady love. I didn’t want to let it go. His name was David, and his soul bloomed with beauty. He called me “Sue” and wrote me letters, emotion pinned to the page with each stroke of the pencil. When he wrote, I didn’t feel so alone up on my little island.

  But the war seethed then, and it wasn’t the time or place for new love. In a war, emotions can be confused, people can disappear, minds can change. Perhaps I was wrong to fall in love so suddenly. What happened all those years ago, what happened with David: It cost me my brother. It cost me a lot.

  If I could do it differently, would I? Make different choices that would keep my family together? Make different choices that would keep me from spending the rest of my life alone?

  I’ve spent the past twenty years wondering that. But on the train to London, surrounded by Davey’s letters, I realised that I wouldn’t have done a thing differently. Of course, I wish that Finlay never left. But those few bright years of beauty, despite the rest of fumbling loneliness, I wouldn’t have traded for the world. All of the choices I made then brought me you. And that makes everything that came before worth it.

  I hope you forgive me for not telling you everything. But the past is past. I love the present, with you. I never wanted anything to rattle that.

  Happy birthday, my Margaret. When I find the answers I need, I’ll come home to you.

  Love,

  Mother

  Chapter Eleven

  Elspeth

  The Langham, London

  27 November 1915

  Davey,

  You’ve only just left, are probably now settling down in your seat, listening to the train rumble out of London. I’m sorry I didn’t see you to the station. Truly I am. I had no faith in myself. I knew if I had gone to the station with you, I would’ve clung on to your arm and not let go. Now, though, I do regret not going, not getting one more chance to see your dear face.

  I have to admit that, once the tears dried, I was quite angry with you. I suppose I thought I could somehow convince you to stay. If I gave it all to you, you wouldn’t be able to leave. Not that I would’ve given you any less of myself. How could I? Everything about these past nine days was perfect.

  On the train down, though, I was terrified, more terrified than I’d been to climb onto that ferry, and that I had to walk onto with eyes closed and breath held. With every pitch of the boat, I wished myself back at home, where the ground didn’t move. But the train was even worse. It wasn’t only taking me away from home, into the unknown. It was taking me towards you.

  I know you’re in love with me. Never doubt that, my boy. Three years of deliberate word choices, neat turns of phrase, the “Sue” on the envelope written with extra care. I know I had no reason to worry about our meeting. Yet I did. All that, you did for a pen-and-paper Elspeth, a witty and worldly woman who offhandedly sends letters to Americans, who argues about books and writes poetry at the drop of a hat.

  But those poems I write by dim candlelight, as birds roost in the thatch above. I wipe stinging eyes to read your letters, crouched by the smoky swirl of the peat fire. None of my neighbours thinks of me beyond That Odd Bird, Elspeth, the one who walks into town with a book in hand rather than a spindle. As the train chugged closer to London, I couldn’t help but wonder whether you’d think the same.

  But then I stepped into King’s Cross Station, met your eyes across the crowd, and all my fears melted. You saw past the elegant pink dress, past the hair I’d spent the past hour straightening, past my attempts to look like the kind of woman who travels across the country to meet fascinating Americans. You saw the real Elspeth. You saw me.

  Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize you without that silly red carnation in your lapel? Did you think I wouldn’t see you for the romantic I know you to be? I’ve pulled out and stared at your picture enough that I think it may be burned onto the inside of my eyelids. Now I know my dreams are the stuff of more than imagination.

  But to see you in the flesh, in colour, is more than I could ever hope for. Did you know your eyes are the exact brown-green of the Scottish hills in wintertime? And you are so much taller than I would’ve guessed from your photos. You lost that mustache you’d taken such pains to grow, and your hair is shorter yet still invites fingers through all those sandy curls.

  You seemed so shy when you met me at the station, almost as if you didn’t know me at all. And I couldn’t believe that my Davey, the boy who can blether on for pages about books and tree wars and his niece, couldn’t think of more than ten words over supper! I think I prattled on enough for the both of us. I was nervous, though, dining at my very first restaurant. So many people, so many forks, and not an oatcake in sight. But when we walked back to the Langham, when you stopped my words with a kiss that left me breathless, that’s when I saw the Davey I love. That’s when I saw the fearless boy who stole my heart.

  Ah, the Langham! I felt like a princess just walking through the front door. All marble and glass and electric lights, like a palace. Did you not expect me to come back to your room? It certainly seemed so, the way your eyes grew huge and your hands trembly when I suggested it. You dropped the key to the room five times; I counted. And there was nothing to be nervous about in the end.

  I wish we could’ve stayed up there the whole time. Nine perfect days. Waking up and seeing that funny startled look in your eyes each morning to find me still there. Falling asleep in your arms with our drowsy conversation in the dark. I collected each word like a bead, to string together on my lonely nights back on Skye. Yours is the very first American accent I’ve ever heard. I like it best when it’s saying, “I love you.”

  I know you had to leave. Even after all that, even after me, you had to leave. And I hate myself for hating it. I hate myself for wasting a single second of our precious time wishing things could be different.

  Of course, I couldn’t tell you any of this in person. I couldn’t say much at all. The very sound of our voices was so… odd. So banal. I confess I couldn’t wait to get back to my notepaper and pen to tell you how I felt. And to tell you how my mind is collaborating with my heart and my body to make me miss you unbelievably, more than I thought I could.

  I love you. Stay safe. Stay safe for me.

  Sue

  The Langham, London

  29 November 1915

  My own boy,

  You probably don’t yet have my earlier letter, but I thought it could never be too soon to tell you again how much I miss you. The hotel seems so big and lonely without you (does the room echo or it just my imagination?). The scent of oranges linger in the air and I swear I can still see the shape of you in the mattress. As lovely as the Langham is, I shan’t be too sad to leave. It isn’t as lovely when you aren’t here.

  I went out shopping today. Davey, why didn’t you tell me about all of the books? While out walking, I turned a corner and was confronted with a street packed full of bookshops. You may laugh, but even if I were to have let my imagination run loose, I never would’ve conjured up an image of an entire store filled with nothing but books. I’m afraid I looked quite the “country yokel,” standing in the doorway of the first establishment
I entered, staring around me goggle-eyed at the shelves upon shelves. It was Foyles, so of course it was some time before I reemerged, blinking, into the sunlight. I swear I became lost a dozen times. The rest of the day I traipsed from one end of Charing Cross Road to the other, ducking into every single bookshop I passed, and not leaving without buying at least one thing. I became quite adept at saying, in an offhand sort of way, “Send this to the Langham,” and then was flabbergasted at the stacks of parcels awaiting me at the hotel that evening.

  I puzzled over what to get for you, Davey, my dear, as I know that you have only a limited amount of room in your kit bag. All a person really needs to get them through the vagaries of life are the Bible and W. S. (both of them). I guessed you already had a Bible, so I’m sending you Scott’s Lady of the Lake and the most compact edition of Shakespeare’s works I could find. And a little sliver of room left in the package which I’ve filled with Dryden. After all, “words are but pictures of our thoughts.”

  The funniest thing—I was greeted in one bookstore by a display of my own books. I must’ve looked amused as I picked up a copy of Waves to Peinchorran, as a salesclerk hurried up to me. “Twee little verse,” she said, quite seriously. “The author lives up in the Highlands of Scotland. You get a lovely sense of their superstitions and almost primitive lifestyle.” I nodded sagely, then took the book to the counter and signed the flyleaf with a very distinct “Elspeth Dunn.” I handed the book back to the astonished salesclerk and said, with what I hope was an airy tone, “We’re regular savages but don’t always eat our own young.”