So, what can I write? What can I write that I have not written already? I do not understand. I live in fear. I am wretched and ignorant and you are my only hope of coming out of this fog. But you cannot or will not help me, nor break your silence. What can I do? I am but a woman. Such a feeble statement but, alone, I have neither the strength nor the courage to effect a change of any kind. I am quite trapped. How pathetic I must sound, to you who have been through so much since we parted, and who has had to endure things I can’t imagine.
My son thrives. This, then, is some good news I can impart. He thrives. He will soon be three years old – where has the time gone? Close to four dark years have passed, and Thomas the only ray of light in all of it. He runs around the house and garden like a little dervish. He is not tall for his age, I am told, but his legs and body are sturdy, and his constitution good. He has yet to suffer seriously from any infection or childhood affliction. He has brown hair that curls a little, and brown eyes. Light brown eyes. I let his hair grow too long because I love brushing it so! My sister says he is too old for the style, and people will take him for a little girl, but I intend to leave it a while yet. He has started counting, and can memorise songs and rhymes in an instant – his mind is quick, quicker than mine, I dare say. I hope it gladdens you, to hear about Thomas.
I can’t think what else to write. Everything has been so strange and dark since that summer. I wish I could make better sense of it, but then I think I would be too afraid to do anything if my suspicions were confirmed to be true. Too afraid to stay in my home another second, and where would that leave me? My sister might have me for a while, I know. But she could not have me for ever – she and her husband have four children now, and there simply isn’t the room for Thomas and I. Will you please write to me? Tell me what you know about what happened that summer – I beg of you! Even if you think your answers will not bring me ease, I must know. To live in fear and suspicion is intolerable, though I have borne it these four years. I have written to you before of what I found, in the library that morning. The things I found. I am sure I wrote of them to you, although my mind was badly shaken at the time. It was all like the worst kind of dream. I would wake, in the days afterwards, and be happy for two heartbeats, but then I would remember it all, and it seemed as though the very sun grew dimmer. Does hiding what I found make me complicit in the crime? I fear it does, but I’m sure there are few who would have done differently. Perhaps this is not true. Perhaps I am weak and fearful and lacking in moral courage. What then of you, and your silence? Write to me, I beg you. Do not leave me here with only guesses and secrets, dogging my very steps each day.
With warm regards,
H. Canning
They were sitting in a restaurant in the village of Watou, a fair drive from Poperinge where Leah was staying, and Ryan was based. It’s worth the trip, he’d said, to her questioning glance as they drove out of town. He was right. The food was delicious, the ambience quiet but with a low buzz of chatter from a steady stream of locals turning up for their evening meal. Outside, rain pounded the deserted road, fizzing in the flooded gutters, scattering the street light across the window pane.
‘Don’t you just long for summer?’ Leah sighed, staring out at it.
‘I like it like this, remember? I like the dark months,’ Ryan replied, pouring more red wine into her glass.
‘That’s right. I’d forgotten.’
‘Forgetting me already.’ Ryan shook his head. Leah said nothing. They both knew that would be impossible. To forget. She looked up at him, face lit by the candle on the table between them. What was it inside her that pulled her towards him? Something inexorable, like gravity. It would be so much easier to give in to it, in much the same way, she told herself firmly, as it would be easier to let go and fall off a cliff than it would be to haul oneself back onto solid ground. So much easier. The wine was warming her blood, she felt it colour her cheeks. ‘You look half cut,’ Ryan said. His smile mocked her gently, familiarity and tenderness softening his expression, blurring away the bad memories.
‘Wasn’t that your intention?’ Leah asked. Ryan shook his head.
‘You’ve always known your own mind. I’ve never relied on alcohol to change it for me.’
‘Liar.’ She smiled; and Ryan grinned.
‘It’s really good to see you, Leah. I don’t think I got around to telling you that yet.’ He put out a hand, fiddled with the wax drips on the candle shaft, frowning slightly as if gripped by deep and troubling thoughts. Oh, you were always good at this game, Leah thought. Always good at making her come forward, making her take a closer look.
‘I’m not going to sleep with you,’ she said, flatly; more abruptly than she’d intended.
Ryan snatched his hand back from the candle as if he’d been burnt. ‘I don’t remember asking you to,’ he countered, seemingly unruffled.
They talked as their plates were cleared and they ordered dessert; but the more they spoke, the more obvious it became that there were things they could not speak about, and they drifted into silence, odd and uncomfortable.
‘I wonder why he kept that letter? She says she wrote him lots, before he came over to the continent. Why that one in particular? It’s not much of a love letter after all,’ Leah said at last. The waiter brought their desserts – profiteroles, drenched in a slick of glossy Suchard sauce. He put the bowls down with a flourish, turning each one just so with the tips of his fingers, as if the exact position of them was of the utmost importance. Leah caught his eye and smiled fleetingly.
‘I think our garçon fancies you,’ Ryan said.
‘I think you’re imagining it. You always did.’
‘Except in Turkey.’
‘OK, I’ll give you Turkey. But it wasn’t me that got to them – it was the blue eyes and the yellow hair.’
‘I could have been rich. One of them offered me his house for you,’ Ryan grinned.
‘I wasn’t yours to sell,’ she retorted. ‘Besides, he was about sixteen. Probably still lived at home with his mama.’
‘That wasn’t the only one,’ Ryan said, putting a whole profiterole into his mouth, which would barely close. Leah couldn’t help but laugh.
‘You pig! You’ve got chocolate on your chin. What wasn’t the only one?’
Ryan chewed for a long time before answering. ‘That wasn’t the only letter, in our soldier’s tin. There was another one.’
‘Really? Why didn’t you bring it? What does it say?’
‘It’s a lot shorter than the one I’ve shown you. And obviously written earlier – fairly soon after whatever it was happened, would be my guess. It’s a bit confused,’ he explained.
‘Well, where is it?’ Leah asked, dipping her little finger in the hot sauce and sucking it clean. Only with Ryan would she have done something so childish. It was treacherously easy to fall back into old habits of being, old habits of feeling.
‘It’s in my room,’ Ryan said, quietly.
The Rectory,