I also brought along my battered copy of Huck Finn, more for comfort than for reading, as I could probably recite the whole book verbatim. But that dog-eared book has been the first thing in my suitcase when packing for anything stressful or upheaving—hospital visits (of which, as you know, there have been more than a few), first ocean voyage, going away to college, moving to the apartment. I take it out, read it straightaway, and it immediately makes me feel that I’m back curled in the green armchair in my parents’ library. It only stands to reason that I’d bring it along here.
Perhaps it’s superstitious, but I also view the book somewhat as a lucky charm. My mother bought it to read aloud to Evie and me when we had the measles. We finished reading the book and then, the next day, Evie’s fever broke. I’ve always somehow associated that collective sigh of relief with Huck Finn.
You may rightly wonder, why does the invincible Mort need a lucky charm? Well, Sue, I’m afraid. For the first time in my life I’m really afraid of something tangible. I was fine on the boat ride over, even eager for what awaited me in France. What I overlooked, though, was what I would find in London. I found something worth coming back for. I found you, Sue.
The boy who never shied away from any form of daredevilry, brought to his knees by a woman he only just met. But what a woman she is! When you stepped off the train and that shaft of sunlight found its way through the glass in the roof to set you aglow, even an atheist would’ve seen the finger of God in that.
Even after you stepped into the shadows, you glowed like a candle the rest of the day. You spoke, and I heard a chorus of seraphim. You laid your hand on my arm when we were leaving, but I felt the touch of wings. A bit flowery, I’ll give you, but such was my state of mind. I laid eyes on you, there was that shaft of sunlight, and I was suddenly terrified. Terrified you would disappear in a cloud of bubbles, terrified I might be hit by a bus in the next instant, terrified the world would end before our world had even begun.
Not until we were in the taxicab and you tumbled nearly onto my lap as we edged that corner was I truly aware you were flesh and blood. My skin memorized every place you touched, and that feeling didn’t diminish for the rest of the afternoon. I don’t know if that one little incident made as much of an impression on you as it did me, but it reminded me whom I was with. Not an unreachable angel but a woman I know better than I know the lines in my own palm.
I was still terrified, though. I didn’t want to make a wrong move. That first evening was perfect. Dinner, dancing, strolling through Regent’s Park. I didn’t want to ruin it by suggesting anything improper. I wanted to—oh, God, did I want to!—but I could never have brought myself to ask.
I have a small confession to make. Or maybe you’ve guessed it already. That was the first time I was with a woman. With a woman in that way, I mean. Remember when you pulled the sheet over my shoulders? I wasn’t shivering because of the cold; I was scared to death. Of course I had an idea of what to do—all guys talk about that—but no concrete list of instructions. I didn’t want to go about it the wrong way. And then you laughed and you kissed me again, and I realized in that laugh that you were every bit as nervous as I was. How was I to know that there really was no list of instructions? How was I to know that that could be … that?
You’re right, though, it was a shame we had to leave that room at all during those blessed nine days, but I suppose it had to be done. I wouldn’t have missed being best man, and I think Minna was happy to have another woman as witness aside from her mother. Harry had to peel Minna off him at the station. She tossed her hair and blew him a saucy kiss as he climbed on board. I happened to glance back and see her resolve crumble, and, for an instant, she looked like a little girl. With all of her carrying on, I sometimes forget how young she really is.
As we sat in the register building, waiting with Minna and Harry, I couldn’t help but think of our future, Sue. When I come back from the front, when I’ve served my year, what do we do then? What options do we have?
Harry is grumbling at me to turn off the light and go to bed. Now he’s just thrown a boot at me, the cantankerous bastard. We have just a few more hours before we have to be up, so perhaps I will oblige him, as long as he doesn’t use me as a target any longer.
You know, writing this all to you has helped calm my fears somewhat. As long as I still have your letters, a lifeline running to me all the way from Scotland, I will be okay. I told you I brought the book along with me as a lucky charm, but you, Sue, you are my lucky charm.
Loving you,
David
Edinburgh
12 December 1915
My love,
Your letter preceded me to Edinburgh, and it was a very bewildered Chrissie who greeted me at the door to her flat. I had taken my time working my way back up to Scotland, spending a few days in York and a few days touring the abbeys in the Scottish Borders. Off my island, I resolved to see as much as I could. I thought it would be a bit of a lark to appear on Chrissie’s doorstep. To say she was shocked to see me would be an understatement.
It’s quite overwhelming to go from living by myself in an isolated cottage to living on a busy block in a wee flat full of children and noise. At least Chrissie has given me a room of my own, putting me up on the sofa in the little sitting room. I am quite dizzy most of the time and seem to have had a constant headache from their chatter, but it’s been lovely. Chrissie and Alasdair’s children have grown so! I suppose it has probably been six or seven years since they moved from Skye, so it’s not at all surprising. I wouldn’t have expected them to shrink. My niece, Emily, is turning eleven now and is quite the lady. The boys, Allie and Robbie, are eight and six and are quite a handful. When I last saw Robbie, he wasn’t even walking yet, and here he is, running and telling jokes and doing sums in his head. All of them are so full of life that it seems almost indecent in this time of war.
Incidentally, you will tell me if there is anything you need, Davey? Prices may be sky-high here in Edinburgh, but I imagine they are still lower than what you are finding in France. I bought enough books in London that I can certainly spare some to send on, once you’ve found room in your kit bag. Toss away a mug or a few bits of weaponry. Make room for the really important things, dear!
I know exactly what you mean about your much-loved copy of Huck Finn being a source of comfort and even of luck. Because I rarely leave my cottage, I don’t think I have as many of those anxious moments as you do, but I most definitely did when I bribed Willie to blindfold me and toss me on the bottom of that ferry. My lucky charm is a piece of amber, the clear colour of honey. Finlay brought it back for me the first time he sailed off with Da. That stone led to my fascination with geology. I carried it in my pocket for the longest time and, when I was feeling blue, would take it out to examine, hoping to discover the magic it held. When reading aloud in school or sitting for exams, I would feel for its reassuring shape in my pocket. The amber is worn quite smooth now and has an appealing little groove where my thumb fits. It only stands to reason that it would be the first thing in my suitcase when I left Skye.
It’s funny to hear you go on about that shaft of sunlight falling as I stepped off the train. I know just what you were talking about, but I’m afraid I didn’t view it quite as poetically as you did. I was trying to scan the station to find you when that ridiculous sunlight broke right through the window and shone into my eyes. And that accidental tumble in the taxicab? Perhaps I would’ve felt the same current of electricity if I hadn’t been so utterly embarrassed at landing in an undignified heap on your lap.
Not to make light of your romantic impressions, my darling. I am a poet, after all, and capable of being every bit as sentimental.
I was certainly nervous to meet you but, truly, I didn’t dream you’d be nervous as well. And terrified? I didn’t think you had ever heard of the word. I might have ventured to say that you’d done this before—declared your undying adoration to a woman you’d never laid eyes on, joined the Fre
nch Army for an excuse to cross the Atlantic, and then lured her to an extravagant London hotel.
I did see a slight slip in your confidence when we got up to your room. I didn’t know for sure that it was your first time, but I wondered. You are right, though: I was scared too. I think all of the experience in the world couldn’t prepare someone for the very first time they are with a person they love. Was there really anything to be worried about? It obviously all worked out quite well—or we wouldn’t have repeated it so many times!
I don’t know what options are open to us in the future. But do we need to worry about it now? The world has enough worry without adding another skein to the tangle. You just concentrate on staying out of the way of the shells and bullets, and I’ll concentrate on writing to you and loving you more every day that passes.
Yours,
Sue
Chapter Twelve
Margaret
Edinburgh
Wednesday, 14 August 1940
Dear Uncle Finlay,
I know you’ve asked me not to write again, but I’m old enough to not always do what I’m asked.
My mother wrote. She’s in London. If you’d told me that a month ago, I wouldn’t have believed it. In my lifetime, she’s never been out of Edinburgh. But since learning about her life on Skye, I’m ready to believe anything.
She told me about David, “the American,” that she’d been in love with him for years. She hadn’t expected it, yet she couldn’t do without it. And, seeing her face as she gathered up those letters from the floor, I think she still can’t. But, you may be happy to know, she did. She has. Apart from me, my mother has been alone for the past two decades. Until I saw her the night the bomb fell, the night the war tore through her heart, I never would’ve known. I never would’ve seen in that instant how lonely she was. I never would’ve learned what she’d lost.
She’s never talked about being loved or being left behind. She’s never talked about my father. What happened to David? All of those years ago, what happened to them?
Margaret
Edinburgh
Wednesday, 14 August 1940
Dear Paul,
If you can believe it, my mother is in London. Chasing after memories. And I’m here, trying to ask the right questions of my disagreeable uncle, chasing after the same.
She wrote to me, finally, and offered something in the way of explanation. Paul, my mother was “Sue.” Those letters, they were all for her. Some grand romance, in the middle of the last war. With an American! I don’t know how my mother ever met an American up on the Isle of Skye. And, whatever happened with him, it led to her brother leaving.
As I picked up pen to write her back and ask all the questions still swirling around in my head, I realized she gave no address. Only “London.” I could send a letter to every hotel in London and never find her. I can’t help but think that, if I discover where she has been, it will lead me to where she is now.
Paul, am I doing wrong to be digging into her life? Should I just leave the past alone, the way she wants? The way my uncle wants? The way everyone seems to want me to do?
Margaret
16 August 1940
Dear Maisie,
All of these night sorties make me realise how the past doesn’t help when we’re put in a tight spot. Memories are all well and good to hold on to, but it’s the promise of making new memories that helps me to push through.
I never told you, but I was shot down over France, right before the evacuations. I knew if I admitted it to you in Plymouth, you’d be so worried, you’d never let me get back on that train. It wasn’t bad—I jumped before I hit the ground—and, as you saw, I wasn’t worse for wear. I joined in with everyone fleeing for the beaches at Dunkirk. And there I saw none of our planes. Just the damned Luftwaffe, trying to keep our lads from making it onto the ships.
Despite what everyone said, we were over there in France—the R.A.F.—just not at the beaches. We were inland, trying to keep the Jerrys from ever getting as far as the coast. But all the men waiting to be evacuated, all the men being strafed on the sand, they didn’t know that. I waited there on that beach with them, in my uniform, trying to ignore the glares and the grumblings of “Where’s the R.A.F.?”
If I stopped to remember how it feels to duck down in a strafing, with nothing between me and the bullets but my helmet and laced hands over my neck, if I stopped to remember the miles of slogging, only to see the lads in front of me stumble upon a mine, if I stopped to remember crouching in the dark, not knowing whether the whine of the next shell had my name on it, if I stopped to remember the muttered comments around me of lads who didn’t know that I’d been up there, doing my job, I’d never move forward. I have to just keep telling myself that I’ll be back with you in no time. Nothing else I can do.
But, as much as I try to push the past aside so that I keep moving forward, nothing is holding you back that way. You have more questions than memories, more mystery than enlightenment. You have to look behind you. The present and the future are built on the past. I know that you want to find where you came from before you’ll know where to go.
My lass, don’t give up. Disagreeable uncles? They are no match for you.
Love,
Paul
Edinburgh
Monday, 19 August 1940
Dear Uncle Finlay,
She mentioned you in the letter she sent from London.
She told me how she was so happy with David, so deliriously in love, but that it had cost her her brother. That you’d left Skye and she wished you never did.
She didn’t explain the reasons why, and I won’t ask. Of course I’m curious—who wouldn’t be about a family schism spoken about only in whispers?—but I know it’s not my business. You didn’t approve of Americans? Wartime romance? I only hope the reason was big enough, threatening enough, lasting enough, to make decades away from your family worthwhile.
But know this: Whether or not she regrets the choices she made, she does regret losing you. If she’d known in the past twenty years where you were, she would have told you that herself. She’d already lost one brother; what made you think she could bear to lose another?
Margaret
Glasgow
20 August
Margaret,
She’s telling you the truth. She was in love with the American. More than that—she made it sound like a fairy tale. A chance letter that sparked years of correspondence, finding blots of love between each word on the page. Depending on the post more than the tides and the moon. Even war couldn’t stop what blossomed between them.
She didn’t lie about either the American or how she felt. But it wasn’t the time for all that. It wasn’t the time to fall in love.
When Elspeth began writing to the American, she was already married.
Finlay Macdonald
Edinburgh
Wednesday, 21 August 1940
Dear Uncle Finlay,
There are so many women around here with a “Mrs.” before their name but no man at home. A black-edged photograph on the mantel of a man in uniform hints at a story better forgotten. Because my mother has always refused to answer my questions, I’ve assumed her story was the same—some sad youthful marriage that ended on a battlefield somewhere. Lately I’d started to wonder if it could’ve been David. But now … She was already married?
Who is my father? Please, Uncle Finlay, I have to know! What is my story?
Margaret
London, England
6 August 1940
Dear Sir or Madam,
Many years ago, a family named Graham lived at this address. I do not know if they still stay there or if they have moved from Chicago, but I would appreciate any information you could supply. I have been out of touch with the family and would like to find them.
If you have any information about their whereabouts or, indeed, if you are a member of the Graham family, can you please contact me? You can write to me at the Langham Hotel, London.
I thank you in advance.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Elspeth Dunn
Chapter Thirteen
Elspeth
Paris, France
December 17, 1915
My Sue,
It looks more and more like we’ll be spending Christmas beneath the Eiffel Tower. It goes without saying that I would rather be spending Christmas in Edinburgh, on Skye, or wherever you are. Harry is all fine and good as a companion but not exactly the person I hope to catch unawares beneath the mistletoe.
We’re living in the dormitory above the hospital with the other American volunteers. After the first few days of trying to muddle our way through brisk French, it was so comforting to hear a good ol’ American twang. We sleep in one huge room with beds lining all of the sides. Only one shower for all of us guys, and a cold one at that. No lights at night, save for a single lamp in the center of the room, so I’m working on this letter in snatched moments during the day. It’s not much, but, at least for now, it’s home!
I think both Harry and I had this vision of driving the ambulances directly off the boat and into the front line of danger. Even though we’ve not been sent to the front, we haven’t been idle. I’ve been assigned a little ambulance with another chap, name of McGee. When the hospital trains come in from the front, we have to zip to the freight yards at the end of Rue de la Chapelle to collect their ragged passengers. Some are quite serious, but they are the ones deemed fit enough to make the train journey. I suppose the worst cases don’t even make it onto the train. We load them up and then hurtle through the dark streets to the makeshift hospitals scattered around the city. I like to pretend the Grim Reaper drives next to me, racing me to the hospital to see who gets the men in the back of my ambulance. My little truck is light and fast and so the Grim Reaper always ends up a street behind me, with a mouthful of dust.
Letters From Skye: A Novel Page 9