The Lost Letters of William Woolf

by Helen Cullen

  When he arrived at his desk, a note from Mr Flanagan awaited him; a summons to see him that morning. William was sure he was in trouble. The haphazard mound of post that now sat a foot high on his desk offered him little opportunity to convince Ned that all was well. He tore the sticky note impatiently from the cover of his diary, tossed it in the wastepaper basket and rubbed away with a resentful finger the faint trace of residue that remained. Had he come to the end of the road at the depot? Forced Ned’s hand to let him go? Even if the time was close, he needed to be smart now. The last thing he needed was to have to tell Clare he had lost his job, even if it was a job she had come to loathe as a symbol of his great failure. If he was going to leave, it would have to be on his terms and not before he finished his Volume of Lost Letters.

  He shuffled through the precarious pile of letters spread across his desk and tried to conjure up the old enthusiasm he once felt for his work. His life was in such a state of flux, restoring equilibrium to someone else’s held little appeal, despite how much his recent successes with Harry and Little Miss Geology Rocks had buoyed him. He had no one to go home to and share the anecdotes with; no one to care if he succeeded in a particular mission or solved one of these puzzles. It reminded him of Stevie once saying that he didn’t make as much effort at gigs if there wasn’t a girl in the audience he was trying to impress. Maybe William’s karmic balance was out of kilter and he could earn some redemption by engaging in professional good deeds. Would karma work in your favour if you deliberately chased it, though? Or was that in fact counterproductive? He decided it was best to do his job because it was his duty and not in the hope of heavenly reward.

  He shook himself and decided that today he would seize control of the situation; make a serious dent in his backlog and show Ned that he had nothing to worry about. The great success he had achieved with Prummel and Penelope had to count for something, didn’t it? He swept the pile of letters and parcels that had accumulated on his desk into an empty mail sack so that he could clear some space and tackle them one by one. Just tidying everything gave him some peace, and he felt confident as he started to work. He couldn’t control what Clare was doing, he couldn’t control whether any of Winter’s letters came, but he could control what he did at his desk, and that is what he would do.

  First, he withdrew a black-and-white postcard of a man walking on a tightrope across the Manhattan skyline. On the back, in a blue marker, the address offered only ‘London-Irish Maria with the blue poodle perm, Clapham, England’. The note read:

  Maria, my mystery woman with the bag of knitting and home-made cheese-and-pickle sandwiches. Why did you leave without saying goodbye? I looked for you everywhere, but you couldn’t be found. Who knows if this will find you, but, if it’s meant to be, it will! I’m playing the Astoria on 15 May. Come – I’ll leave word at the stage door. Jimi. x

  William thought of Jimi waiting on the night for a blue poodle perm to peep around the green room door. He felt for him but wondered why Maria had left him so unceremoniously. Maybe this was an unanswered prayer for the best. He pondered at the choice of postcard: what was Jimi trying to say? Have faith? The William of his younger years, when his faith in the idea of the one was so unshakeable, would have celebrated Jimi’s perseverance. Nowadays, it was harder to hold on to that idealism. What happens when the one becomes a heartbreaking amount of work? As we change and grow older, does the one we need have to change also? Or was it possible he hadn’t even met the one yet? Was the real one still out there, searching for him? Maybe even writing him letters? He stuck the postcard on the wall beside his desk with a red drawing pin.

  The next, pale green, envelope was barely intact; it was water damaged and crumbling at the edges. A grey blur dragged across the page where the address had been and the stamp curled away at three corners. He pressed the stamp flat and smiled with surprise to see it was a half-cent one from New Zealand. Trevor had been hunting one for as long as William could remember; the orange-and-black butterfly against the powder-blue background was so distinctive. He carried the envelope over to Trevor’s desk and placed it there for him to find. His denim jacket, the lapels covered in badges from metal bands, was hanging on the back of his chair and emitting a strong stench of smoke. William hoped he would be there to see his face when he noticed it and felt a thrill of excitement for him.

  He was still enjoying thoughts of Trevor’s discovery when, reaching into the postbag, his fingers felt the familiar groove of heavy parchment. He scanned the room for inquisitive eyes before allowing himself to pull out into the light what he knew would be a letter from Winter. He glanced down to confirm that it was really from her then quickly hid it inside his satchel under the desk. He knew he should be patient and wait until later, but he needed this today. Before Marjorie could ask him where he was going, he hastened for the corridor that led to the fire escape, where he could sit in peace. The steel steps were damp but he sat down regardless and leaned uncomfortably against the railing as he read. Marjorie’s Auntie of the Year mug lay on its side in a puddle by his feet.

  My Great Love,

  I only have a few moments before I head out into the night, but I have to tell you something. I might be meeting you soon. In two hours, to be precise. At the Everyman Theatre in Notting Hill. There is a special showing tonight of the forties film Hellzapoppin’ with a swing-dancing lesson on beforehand – it feels like just the sort of place I might meet you. There are few things I love more than swing dancing; that music fills me with joy. In some ways, I feel a bit strange telling you that I may meet another man tonight, but you really have nothing to worry about. You see, the thing is, either it’s you, in which case, tonight, a tuning fork will be struck upon the roof of the cinema and all the choirs of heaven will sing in tune, or else it won’t be you, and the evening will fade into insignificance and whoever he is will slip away into the night with no damage done.

  I’m wearing an emerald-green dress with an underskirt that makes it swish-swish as I walk. It was made for spinning about in. I bought it just before I left Dublin, in my favourite vintage clothes shop, on Dame Street. The owner of the shop told me the frock brings out the green in my eyes. I hope so. What colour are yours? I hope they are brown. Brown eyes are always warm. Blues can be so cold. I felt that the dress symbolized what I wanted my new life to embrace: adventure, colour and opportunities for dancing.

  When you walk inside that store, it is like falling down a rabbit-hole to a Wonderland of possibility. You could not fill your wardrobe with such costumes and live a life of mediocrity. So often I have visited there and shyly tried things on but lost my nerve at the crucial moment. Not that time. I was dressing for London. I was dressing for the me I wanted to become. I had no idea then just how far those feathers and bows would take me. Here is a picture of my most extravagant purchase; see how they catch the light of the city and shimmer like a silvery moon? I wore them for the first time today. I’m getting braver. But I think I should save them up for a truly special occasion, don’t you?

  William peered into the envelope and found a Polaroid picture still waiting inside. It curved in his palm; a photograph of her two feet dressed in luminescent white cowboy boots. Were they covered in glitter? What made them sparkle so? Red woollen stockings peeked out from the tops. How bizarre to see even just this part of Winter’s physical self. He returned to the letter.

  I am slowly breathing in this city and breathing out a new me. I thought about changing my name permanently when I came here, but I’m not sure a girl by another name would feel as true. Sometimes, though, an adopted persona makes it easier to activate a new life plan. It’s like buying a new coat that you can return if you change your mind. Whatever you call yourself, though, wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you could start all over again tomorrow in a new city, what would you do? Would you choose the same life for yourself or try something new? What would you cast aside? I am grateful for this gift of a new beginning, and I won’t waste it.
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  Oh, please, let it be you standing waiting for me tonight. Let the night take us dancing.

  If all else fails, maybe I will at least meet some new people of my ilk. Do you find, as you get older, it becomes harder to make new friends? New people are exhausting: the flirtations with friendships and testing of old stories on new ears. One thing I do find very liberating, though, is the opportunity to reposition the past. Former protagonists are important to new people only if I present them that way. Perhaps this is why I like writing to you so much; on paper, I can be the version of myself I’ve always wanted to be. I am more truthful here, in a way that it takes such a long time to reach in person. I am determined that the me of my letters and the London me should become one and the same, and soon.

  I feel quite nervous about maybe seeing you later. It’s so much easier to talk to you like this. No pressure. No expectations. You can’t let me down.

  I must dash – I don’t want to leave you waiting. Him waiting. You. Him. The night.

  Yours, as always,

  Winter

  William picked up Marjorie’s mug and walked back into the office. In the kitchen, he stood at the window overlooking Shoreditch High Street. He scanned the river of people flowing past on the pavement. Was Winter one of them? Would he start again, if he could? What did he most want? In truth, an end to the struggle and to be in the right frame of mind to write again. He wondered how Winter’s evening had gone, if she was smitten now with some undeserving buffoon she had met. Surely she wouldn’t have spoken to another man of the inner, secret life she wrote to William about, if that inner, secret person even really existed. It could just be a fantasy she spilled across those pages. Was he the one being fooled? He caught himself in that moment of realization; he really had come to believe that the letters were written for him, but why else would they keep appearing in his life, and at times when he was so open to receiving them? He flip-flopped back and forth as the traffic lights before him switched from green, to amber, to red and back again, but he could not convince himself otherwise: these letters were meant for him and he was meant to respond.

  As he tidied up his desk before going home that evening, Marjorie sidled up to him, looking very self-satisfied.

  ‘You had a visit from Mr Flanagan just now,’ she said. ‘He seemed very disappointed not to find you at your desk. Best go see him first thing in the morning, I should think.’

  William sighed. He couldn’t avoid Ned much longer.

  When William returned to the flat, the bulb in the hallway blew as he turned on the light and made him jump. He fumbled his way upstairs in the dark and dragged the stool from Clare’s dressing table to the wardrobe. Too tired to be dealing with this, he reluctantly climbed up to rustle about for a replacement bulb. As he tugged at a sleeping bag to wriggle the box they called ‘Miscellaneous Madness’ free, Clare’s old briefcase tumbled down. Papers spilled out all across the floorboards. He cursed his clumsiness and knelt down to gather them together. His eyes traced over Clare’s handwriting, so familiar to him, and he wished he could go back in time to whenever she had written this and start again from there. He tried to assemble the pages correctly but couldn’t fathom an order.

  An A4 envelope had slid under the bed and now peeked out at him. He stretched to reach it and dragged it across the wooden floor towards him. When he turned it over, he froze. His name was written on the front, in Clare’s hand. What was this? Hardly a letter, when it was so official looking. Divorce papers? No! Seriously? Dear God. When would she have organized them? Why hadn’t she given them to him? Maybe she hadn’t decided yet for sure. If that’s what was inside, should he open it? Oh, but then he would have to say he saw the papers and it might force things to a conclusion he wasn’t ready for. And yet, he couldn’t just ignore the envelope now; couldn’t unknow that it was there, waiting for him, radiating a heat from inside the cupboard, burning through Clare’s old brown leather briefcase, taunting him. The seal was weak and he reckoned he could open it without causing a tear. He understood that he should put it back but he also knew that he could not.

  William tidied the rest of the papers into the case and perched upon Clare’s little stool. He had watched her sit upon it so many mornings to put her make-up on, and again, every evening, to cleanse it back off. The strangeness of the things he missed hit him again. He closed his eyes as he slipped the pages from the crisp, white envelope; it was her firm’s office stationery. When William looked down, he was surprised to see not a legal document but pages of yellow refill pad covered in Clare’s handwriting. It was a letter, after all. He paused. No matter what this letter said, he would never be able to ask Clare about it. He could never pretend that he thought she meant for him to find it, not among her work things. He knew that he had to read it, nonetheless. It was too late to stop now.

  William,

  I couldn’t decide whether to write ‘dear’, ‘hello’ or something else, so used no salutation at all. That seems to sum up what these last few months have been like. I don’t know how to speak to you, how to address you, who you are to me, so I say nothing at all, or something mean.

  When I was little, my mother used to say that emotional talks were always regretted; far better to write it all down and get it out of your system then throw it in the fire. I suppose she learned that the hard way. I don’t know where this letter is destined – your hand or the flames – but I’m hoping talking to you like this will help me at least understand what I’m trying to say.

  The truth is, I’m afraid to talk to you; afraid to tell you how I’m really feeling in case I push us down a road we can’t travel back from. I’m afraid to tell you that I understand why you didn’t tell me you weren’t writing but that I still can’t bring myself to give you absolution. I can’t admit that I could feel how lonely you were sometimes and that I know I ignored it. I can’t tell you that because I want you to take responsibility and seize control of your life. I’ve always felt, if I told you everything was okay, that would give you licence to just surrender completely, but I’m beginning to understand now that maybe I was partly responsible for your state of arrested development. We have both felt dissatisfied for so long, but I have held out for the answers inside us which I know could be there. I have never looked outside us for someone or something else, but I’m worried that I will.

  In some ways, I feel like I have been teaching myself not to love you so that, when we finally break, I will already have moved on. But it has been hard. Harder than I thought. My stubborn heart won’t let go of you. Even as I see you fading away, and moving further from me every day.

  You were my best friend. Whenever anyone hurt me, you made me better. Whenever I was scared, it was into your arms I ran. Whenever I was lost, you found me. So what do you do when the person you count on most in the world is the person that’s hurting you? Where do you go? To whom do you turn?

  I know you think I’m angry all the time. Anger is the easiest place to go to. But mostly, I’m so disappointed at what we’ve become. I know you want to try and fix things; to go back to how things were. I believe you when you say you’re sorry, but I don’t know if we can find each other again. I just can’t bear the idea that we held on for this long and didn’t make it out the other side. Where is the return for all that emotional investment? I dread the thoughts of dividing up our stuff, of people feeling sorry for us, our friends choosing sides. But every day, I’m building my strength to do it.

  Do I miss you? Every second.

  Do I want to go? No.

  Do I want you to stop me? Yes.

  Do I think you can? I’m not sure any more.

  This is an impossible letter to send. These are impossible words to say. Do you need to hear them? Probably. Will I ever have the courage? I don’t know.

  And I don’t know how to sign off now, either.

  Love/Yours – neither is a given any more,

  Clare

  William carefully eased the letter back into its envelope be
fore shoving it inside Clare’s briefcase as if it were the case’s fault he had read those things. As if, by making the letter disappear, he could shake the words from his head, too. If only she had given this to him instead of running away, maybe everything would be different now, but he couldn’t help but feel that her time away would pull them even further apart. He found the light bulb that had brought him to the wardrobe but, even so, he continued ransacking the deep shelves, without knowing what he was looking for. His fingers touched something warm and furry: the head from the wolf costume he wore on Halloween two years before.

  He pulled it on and squinted through the eye slits to catch his reflection in the black wooden full-length mirror that stood propped in their landing. Six years on, and he had never attached it to the wall, as he had promised. He twisted his neck back and forth, up and down, straining for an angle, but he couldn’t get a clear line through the shaggy brown wool. The headpiece felt tighter than he remembered. Hotter. Itchier. Disorientating. More ticklish. Less liberating. He remembered his grandfather telling him the ancient Native American proverb of the two wolves who lived inside each person, one representing evil and the darkness of the world and the other the light. ‘They battle every day to control you, these two wolves, and you know which one will win?’ he had asked William, as the boy sat on his knee. William shook his head. ‘The one that you feed more,’ his grandad answered. He hadn’t thought about it in years but, today, he felt acutely aware of the battle raging inside him.