The Lost Letters of William Woolf

by Helen Cullen

Yours truly,

  Penelope Bernardine Foxcroft

  William found the photograph of Penelope in the shoe box. He smiled at her earnest expression as she stood in front of shelves weighed down by Kilner jars and rocks on little mounts. She was wearing a grass-green-coloured T-shirt with GEOLOGY ROCKS emblazoned across the front. He toyed with the idea of unwrapping the offering but wasn’t sure he really wanted to get further acquainted with whale vomit. Instead, he called the Royal Geological Society and made an appointment to meet Dr Rosamund O’Reilly, who was very excited indeed to hear about Penelope and her discovery – it could be worth thousands of pounds, it seemed, and Dr O’Reilly was shocked that someone had just popped it in the post. He called over Sally, their disinterested but charming work-experience student, and showed her what he had discovered.

  ‘That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard,’ she said, and poked the parcel with one pointy scarlet fingernail.

  ‘Well, be that as it may, it’s a victory for us!’ he replied. ‘Would you like to bring it over to the Society with me? Get away from here for an hour or two this afternoon?’

  Sally tried to perch nonchalantly on the edge of his desk but couldn’t find a comfortable resting position; she tossed her head and swung her ebony ponytail over her shoulder as she slinked up to standing.

  ‘Absolutely. Shall we go out for lunch and carry on from there? I’ll swing by your desk again at one, but this time it’s definitely on me.’

  William felt the judgemental eyes of Morgana and Trevor boring into him. Sally’s father was Chairman of the Board at the depot, and they never missed an opportunity to accuse him of designs of advancement by charming her. That was never his intention, however. If anything, he revelled in the newness of her, her lack of cynicism and her spirit.

  William felt the familiar sense of satisfaction on completing a successful mission, but it didn’t excite him now as much as it would have once. Lately, his interests had evolved from a general fascination with other-world idolatry to a very specific one. He groped about in the mail sacks, imagining little eyes in his fingertips, searching for a familiar groove, hoping for an instinctive path to another letter from Winter. He tried to accept that there would probably not be any others, just that one message in a bottle tossed into the sea by a lonely woman, but still he searched. Instinct powered him forward; his heart needed this, despite the inability of his head to rationalize why. Every time he reached inside a postbag, hope poured from his shoulder blades down his arms, a waterfall flowing over every bone, nerve and sinew to become streams in his fingers, pulsing and pushing.

  Winter’s letter lay flattened in the L section of the Oxford English Dictionary on his desk, between a page that began with ‘lady’ and one that ended with ‘lamb’. For days, he had agonized over whether or not it might be safer to hide it at home after all, but everywhere he considered, he imagined a beacon of light suddenly calling Clare to it: the manila folder of old bills, a hat box filled with their collection of super-8 films, under the tower of her university texts, which never budged. He couldn’t risk Clare ever finding it. The thread of trust between them, already so frayed, would surely snap with any further strain. How could he explain why he wanted to keep that letter? Especially when, for so many years, he had refused to bring any letters home, despite her consistent pestering of him to do so. In the beginning, she had been so curious about his working world and wanted to be complicit in his detective work but, over time, as her resentment about his salary and his preoccupation with the job grew, her interest in discussing these mysteries had waned in direct proportion. He couldn’t even begin to explain why Winter’s letter had stayed with him without unravelling miles of words unspoken between them about where the romance in their own marriage had disappeared to. He didn’t know what the simple explanation was for his attraction to Winter’s words, or if one even existed. If they walked even two steps down that road of exploration, he worried they would never come back.

  The letter had completely unsettled him. Winter’s words swam around in his head, exotic fish in an aquarium: Are you hiding somewhere?, Are you lost?, your forgotten umbrella, wordy pictures; bobbing around the everyday, goldfish lexicon he shared with his wife: What’s for dinner?, The electricity bill came, I’ll go and put the bins out. He thought again of the letters that he and Clare used to write to each other, even though they saw each other almost every day, letters full of yearning and dreaming, a way of sharing their inner selves that found expression on paper but which they sometimes struggled with in person. What would he say if he wrote to Clare now? Had those letters been more honest for the element of anonymity paper brings, or less? Had they allowed them to present an idealistic image of themselves they both wanted to believe in or helped them to become even more real to each other? He wasn’t sure any more.

  He slipped away to his fourth-floor domain and visualized a midnight-blue envelope waiting for him. He ached for it, calling it into being, beseeching the universe, foolish though it felt, that a good wind would blow through and offer him this reprieve. There were two new trolleys awaiting him, and he spilled the contents of the first on to the floor, a tide of white, browns and greys across the mustard tiles. An occasional splash of colour mingled amid the monotony of everyday stationery: an indigo envelope, a polka-dot parcel, a brown-paper package covered in drawings of Christmas trees. And there! There it was! Brazen and bold, buried two letters deep; a midnight-blue envelope with curling silver writing. William pressed his hot forehead to the cold tiles and offered up a prayer of thanks. Why did he care so much that the first letter had not been the only one? How could he dare hope for more? He knelt among the lost letters, his feet tucked beneath him, and opened the envelope.

  My Great Love,

  How are you? I just saw a very fetching man walking across the courtyard under my window. He was crunching an apple with admirable enthusiasm and a great sense of purpose while a very excited electric-blue scarf struggled to be released into the skies. Maybe it wanted to be sky blue instead. Oh, that it was you arriving home from work with a Tunnocks tea cake hidden in your satchel for me! I will toast the day.

  I’m writing to you from the kitchen table as I spy on my neighbours coming and going below. How I envy the couples as they struggle to carry in their shopping and bicker about much of nothing – they are oblivious to the extraordinary beauty of the ordinariness of their lives. If one or the other were suddenly gone, I wonder how much they would mourn these unexceptional days they take for granted? Or would any of them be relieved? Are any of them trapped in a marriage they haven’t the heart or nerve to try to escape from? It must be even worse to feel lonely inside a couple than when you’re alone. At least my loneliness offers the hope of someone coming along – and I am free to run into their arms if they do.

  My window is a glass door that opens out on to a tiny balcony where regular successions of plants arrive, blossom, then die under my neglectful eye. There is a lovely occasional waft of jasmine on the breeze from the vase on the windowsill. I walked down to Columbia Road Flower Market this morning and staggered home under the weight of my finds. My favourite stall is at the very end of the street and run by a man who is blind in one eye; he wears a patch and a pirate hat! As you bob along the avenue, brushing against the human traffic, traders heckle on every side. I listen and look, greedily drinking in the cacophony of colour, but push through to the very end to my pirate. He hates to see any flower left behind at the end of the day so, as time draws closer to Sunday lunch, he paces beside his stall and combines bunches together, bouquets of wild combinations of everything from chrysanthemums to orchids and wisteria to lily of the valley. It’s almost impossible to resist reaching out your arms for them to be filled. Ladies line his parade, waving five-pound notes at him, desperate to catch the flowers of the day. He wrapped up twenty white roses with a clutch of yellow tulips and a woman beside me squealed out, ‘Ooh la la!’ as if she had seen a living miracle. He plucked five pounds f
rom her creamy, perfectly manicured hand and placed the prize in her arms as if it were a baby. She dashed off, jealously guarding her flora, lest someone bump them from her hands or crush them against her chest.

  On impulse, I brought him a coffee today, from the cart that also sells helium balloons; I always think it will float away one day, and secretly hope it will. When my turn came to be given my flowers, the bouquet was a triumph. White paper hugged pink roses, white lilies, my jasmine and the sweetest bunch of daffodils. I have such a weakness for those noble stems. If ever we have a garden, will you plant a whole bed of daffodils where I can see them from the kitchen window? My mother grew them in the garden, and they’re the first flowers I ever remember picking. Today on the market, a dilapidated yellow Volkswagen Beetle had been converted into a giant flowerpot filled with those very beauties and dozens of daisies and sunflowers. I used half of my camera film taking photographs of it – I hope when I develop them there is something special to send to my mam. You’ll meet her one day, I’m sure.

  I keep fantasizing about bringing you home to Ireland with me. I sense that my friends and family are anticipating your arrival also. First, we can visit the little village where I grew up and then we’ll abscond to the city when it starts to feel too claustrophobic. We might even take the Dart out to Bray and walk along the promenade. I want to take you on a historical tour of the places that mean the most to me in Dublin: the Italian restaurant where I waitressed for years when I was a poor student; the hat shop where I hosted a student radio show in the attic for a few years, until the Gardaí shut us down. Maybe I can finally buy myself a hat there, after so many years gazing at them in the window. We can go dancing in Whelan’s, where all the best bands play – I even saw The Cure there once! It was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. When Robert Smith sang ‘Pictures of You’, I was shattered into smithereens. When he sings about gazing at pictures of someone for so long he begins to believe that they are real, I understand.

  I want to huddle in the window of the Long Hall pub and drink hot whiskies as we watch the Dubliners dash by. I spent every Friday evening there, and sometimes Saturdays, too, before I moved. It’s always overflowing with writers and journalists fishing for stories and drowning their writer’s block with potions that are either the cause or the cure of their ailments. When you are squashed into that old Victorian magic spot, it could be any decade in Dublin; the characters there feel timeless, too. Shall we meet there? I can think of no better place to find you. I’ll be the girl with the long red hair wrapped in a white rabbit-fur coat. Green eyes, Granny-Smith-apple green. Keep a look out for the most Irish-looking girl you can imagine, and that will be me. I always loved to quietly photograph the patrons in their oblivion, and some of those black-and-white portraits hang on the wall there now. I can point out which ones in the gallery are mine when we finally find ourselves there.

  Some of my best work was born in those smoke-filled rooms. Those pictures gave me my first tentative inklings that I wanted to make photography my life’s work. It’s why I ultimately ended up here in this city, chasing that dream. One thing is for certain, however, this city is an endless runway of incredible portraits to capture; I love to walk the streets at night and spy creatures who come out only under the cover of darkness; to walk with protestors and paint their pain on film; to make invisible people visible. Have I photographed you in my travels? Would I know you if I saw you? I have so many happy memories of Dublin, and I hope I’ll feel the same about this city one day. My camera allows me to participate in the life of the town, even though I’m alone; I can hide in broad daylight. No one notices you when your face is hiding behind a lens. Could we turn London into a home together? Write a new history here?

  I think I can face the day now. I’m going for a walk along the South Bank to fill my wicker basket with paperbacks from the book stall. What are you doing today? Are you reading the Sunday papers? Cooking a roast? Driving in the country? Maybe you have something more adventurous planned. I’m jealous of whoever gets to spend the day with you.

  I hope this letter finds you, and finds you well.

  The small of my back misses your hand.

  Yours,

  Winter

  William read the letter a second time, savouring now the words he had first raced through. London was his geographical time machine, as Dublin was for Winter; the ghosts of he and Clare lingered throughout the town, their entire adult lives so far played out on those streets. Were they a couple who didn’t appreciate the wonder in their ordinary lives, like the couples Winter watched? Or was he one of the men who did not have the backbone to set them free? Maybe courage was what was needed to save them, too. He conjured up an image of Winter in his mind’s eye: apple-green eyes, long, red hair vibrant against white rabbit fur. How he would love to walk with her down Columbia Road and choose a flower to tuck behind her ear. He remembered the excitement of those early dates with Clare, when she answered the door with only hope in her eyes. No doubts. To see that look in her eyes again would take a miracle. Had he any left inside him? How the idea of experiencing that feeling again seduced him; an open heart, a hopeful one. A heart like Winter’s.

  When he came home that evening, he found himself alone once again. Forgoing foraging in the fridge for fortification, he instead walked straight to the record player and placed The Cure’s Disintegration album on the turntable. He lay on their cream corduroy sofa, the music swimming among his senses for 71 minutes and 47 seconds, and allowed himself to dream until the fatal click and whirr of the vinyl ending. Instead of waiting up for Clare, he went upstairs to bed, but not to sleep. By the light on his bedside locker, he scribbled pages of his chicken-scratching handwriting along lines and lines of an old refill pad that had hitherto lain dormant beneath a stack of patient books. He had been released.

  V

  Clare tried her utmost not to think about what had happened, but the knowledge stalked her like a hungry animal; the memory lingered like the smell of spilt milk on carpet. She knew now that moments of great reckoning happen on days that appear to be as ordinary as any other. They don’t involve thunderstorms, premonitions or shivers down your spine.

  They feel exactly the same as any other day, until the something happens. The sound of the telephone ringing had penetrated Clare’s ears, past the defence of her shampoo. She was luxuriating in the feeling of frothy foam bubbling down her arched back, breathing in the aroma of coconut as she tangled and untangled her tresses. It was probably her mother, or a sales call – no one worth clambering from the shower for with sudsy hair and slippery feet. Blistering-hot water cascaded over her, the strain of a sleepless night swirling down the drain. Last night’s annual Dead Letters Depot Fancy Dress Fundraiser had presented a more intense blend of discomfort than usual. Normally, the extent of her suffering was enduring the nonversation of William’s colleagues as she feigned interest in their politics, hobbies, careers, and their children, whose names she had forgotten.

  ‘So, when are you and Billy going to grace us with a little Woolf? I’m sure he’d love a son to kick an encyclopaedia around with.’

  ‘We didn’t see you at the sports day. I suppose it’s just for those of us with kiddies, really, but you’re still very welcome, you know. We had karaoke for the grown-ups. Would that appeal to you at all?’

  ‘I was reading an article the other day about how the number of youths going through the courts every year keeps rising. What’s the answer, Clare? Where did it all go wrong?’

  This year’s event had presented a further layer of stress. Clare’s case had been adjourned to the evening session and so she knew she was going to be late even before the event began. A man was on trial for battery; he had defended his sister when her husband attacked her, and his brother-in-law pressed charges. The sister and brother were depending on Clare to win him his freedom. It was one of only three cases she had ever lost. Afterwards, there wasn’t a moment to wipe the prosecutor’s clammy handshake fro
m her skin, to drown out the woman’s quiet keening as her brother was led away. She couldn’t flood her mind with Nina Simone songs or distract herself with a recording of Desert Island Discs as she lay in the tub. Instead of indulging in a little cry before washing her face and painting a new one back on, she was forced to go straight to the party so as not to risk missing it entirely. There certainly wasn’t time to don the Georgian-lady ensemble William had collected from the costume-hire emporium for her.

  Her heels click-clacked down the marble hall towards the function room, an echo of her courtroom walk. There, she was respected, powerful, in control. In the Prince Regent ballroom of the Highbury Hotel, she was a misfit among the fairy-tale characters, movie icons and monsters. Mr Flanagan appeared before her in a monk’s habit. He looked far too convincing.

  ‘Clare, you made it! Wonderful!’ He leaned in with a kiss for her cheek, but it landed awkwardly on her ear instead. ‘We called you up during the speeches to acknowledge the most generous donation made by your firm but, alas, you missed it. Your husband was very gracious about it, said you wouldn’t want a fuss. Not to worry.’

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here, Ned,’ she answered, surreptitiously wiping her ear. ‘I did hope to arrive earlier, but I was held up in court, unfortunately.’

  He gestured her to walk with him and linked her arm in his. ‘Don’t concern yourself. We all know how busy you career girls are. Shame you couldn’t dress up, though. Your Billy looks quite the picture in his tights.’

  Clare smarted at being called a ‘career girl’ and turned away from him to face the dance floor. Mr Flanagan looked confused by her giving him the cold shoulder and, embarrassed by his confusion, scanned the room for William, who could relieve him. Clare’s eyes found him first, although it took her a second to register that the bundle of energy spinning a Juliet figure swaddled in lemon chiffon was actually her husband.