The Letter
- Robyn Weightman
- Oct 30, 2019
- 9 min read
Another of the track and the old station came into view, its rickety wooden beams and rusted seats matching the wild branches of the trees behind it. Grandmother stood in her usual position, leaning against one of the old wooden beams, a box of humbugs in her hands tied neatly with a bow. Every month she changed the package, but it was always the same humbugs, the same coloured ribbon.
Rowan waved. “Hi, Grandma.”
Grandmother shook her head as though she were in a daze and turned towards her. A smile lifted her wrinkled face as she returned the wave. “Hello, Rowan, dear. Finished school?”
“Yep.”
Rowan climbed onto the station platform, the steps having disintegrated long ago and stood next to her grandmother, looking up the forgotten track of the once busy train stop.
“Why do you come here, Grandma? The trains don’t come anymore.”
Grandmother smiled and patted the top of the sweet box.
“Because, my dear, some things never die even if the world forgets them. I haven’t forgotten. So I wait here, every day. Oh, it’s just for an hour and I’m not in anyone’s way.”
“I know, Grandma. It’s just that…”
“Your friends think I’m crazy, huh?”
Heat rose in Rowan’s cheeks. “Sometimes people can be mean.”
“And sometimes they can be kind.”
Rowan looked up at her Grandmother. The old woman was always smiling. Her hair was done up with a pin and her clothes were all ironed. She didn’t look mad and nothing else pointed to her being strange except her insistence on coming here every day. Grandfather didn’t seem to mind. He never even spoke of it.
“I didn’t fully answer your question before, did I?” Grandmother said.
“No.”
Grandmother patted her on the shoulder.
“Well, my dear. Your Grandfather is my love and my rock. But I had a best friend once and he will always be my best friend. We said goodbye at this station when that nasty war broke out. And we’ll say hello again here too.”
“But Grandmother, I don’t think he’s coming back. It’s been so long.”
Grandmother chuckled and twiddled the bow on her gift. “I didn’t say when or how we’d say hello.”
Rowan shivered and wrapped her coat more tightly around herself. Her brown hair whipped around her face in a sudden breeze.
“Are you getting cold, my dear? Let’s head home and have a nice hot chocolate.”
She reached her hand to Rowan’s who took it gladly. Grandmother needed help to get off the platform now as her knees were getting rickety she’d say. But Rowan knew more was wrong. They ambled home, with no hills or rocks, yet Grandmother huffed and puffed like the billows of an old train. They stopped more than once for her to catch her breath but Rowan always waited. She loved her Grandmother and would never leave her behind.
Not like that best friend apparently did.
The next day Rowan followed the tracks once more. The first chill of winter was setting in and she’d wrapped her favourite woollen scarf tight around her neck. She turned the first corner and then the second, reaching her hand up to wave.
“Grandmother…”
Rowan’s heart stopped. Her grandmother was at the station, as always. The sweets clutched against her chest as she lay on the ground curled around the wooden pillar.
Rowan ran and leapt upon the platform. Her knees thumbed against the hard concrete floor as she knelt at Grandmother’s side, desperately checking for a pulse. Tears streamed down her face and her fingers brushed against cold and clotty skin.
“Grandmother… Grandmother!”
Rowan cried a lot that week. She cried before she slept and cried at every meal. Her Grandmother was gone, and that was it. But the sweets were still there. Resting upon the shelf. Five years she’d been going to that station. Rowan was only eight when it started. And now it had stopped. Leaving only the sweets behind. Rowan stared at them bleakly.
“I will find Grandmother’s best friend,” she said to the empty room.
She grabbed the sweets and bolted from the room towards the library; the sweets clutched beneath her arm.
“Good day, young Rowan. How are you doing? Is your family all right?”
The Librarian leant over her desk to look down at Rowan, her kindly eyes turning her stomach.
“Yes, thank you. Do you have a list of all the men sent to war from this town? I want to find an old friend of my Grandmothers.”
The Librarian nodded gently and led Rowan to one of the library computers, an old cream coloured thing with a very large keyboard.
“All the names should be on this database. But they sent a lot of men. Do you know the gentleman’s name or age?” The Librarian asked.
Rowan shook her head. “I know that he was friends with my Grandmother and that he left from the old station. So he must have been around my Grandmother’s age.”
The Librarian nodded and opened the database. A huge list of names appeared on the screen, too many to count.
Rowan gasped. “I didn’t know we had that many men in town.”
“You’d be surprised how many neighbours you don’t know. Look, why don’t you ask your Grandfather? Maybe he can help?”
Rowan shook her head. “I just need to find the man who liked Humbugs.”
The Librarian shrugged and left Rowan be.
Rowan typed in humbugs, but the screen emptied of all names.
Her head hurt from the glare of the screen and her finger ached from the scrolling as she looked at the names of the men who went to war. The list was never-ending, and she had no idea how to tell who was who. She bawled her hands into fists and laid her head on the table.
Grandmother… What would you do?
The clock ticked away the time as Rowan sat motionless at the computer desk. It might have been minutes or even hours, Rowan didn’t know and didn’t care. She would find out what happened to her Grandmother’s best friend.
Grandmother…
A tear fell from Rowan’s eye and she sat back up at the table. She slowly keyed in her Grandmother’s name and watched as entries appeared on the screen. Lots of newspaper clippings of charitable work in the town, of her helping the local school, of her wedding day with Grandfather. Rowan continued to scroll, her heart sighed with each picture of her Grandmother’s smile. She felt older as her Grandmother’s face got younger and younger. Until her grandfather was no longer in the pictures. But another man…
Rowan stopped scrolling. An engagement announcement in the paper. Her grandmother’s name on it but not her Grandfather’s. Tom Finley… Rowan had never heard that name before. But below the announcement was a picture of her smiling Grandmother, her arms wrapped around this Tom Finley. His face was friendly and strong and he wore smart clothes. The article said he was a teacher, a graduate from Cambridge who moved to the town a few years ago.
She keyed in his name and other articles came up.They sent him to war, not enlisted but forced. And he’d died at war. Rowan’s lip quivered.
That’s not fair. He was a teacher. He shouldn’t have had to fight. He didn’t want to fight.
A YouTube clip was attached below the article of his death and Rowan clicked it automatically, not bothering to read the title.
It was a clip from one of those war documentaries that the BBC showed every year. But instead of talking to veterans they were talking to people who had been children during the war.
“Tom saved me when I’d lost all hope,” the man on-screen said. His voice was choppy and his eyes looked sad. He had a foreign accent but Rowan couldn’t place it. “We were in a village but the soldiers were getting bored waiting for orders. They started playing games on the villagers, including us children. Many people either died or took their own lives. Tom was a soldier in the town but he wasn’t like the others. He didn’t take part in these games and often got beat up trying to stop them. One night, we were huddled together trying to sleep in a straw pile when Tom appeared at the door.
“Come with me,” he whispered and beckoned us outside.
“I was so frightened. But I trusted Tom, he was always so nice to us. He led us to the village edge, gave us each a small parcel of food and water and told us to run.
“Run to the beach or the city, stay away from any soldiers and stick together. When the war is over people will come to help. I’ll try to find you.”
“The others turned and ran but Tom pulled me back just for a moment.
“Benjamin, I need to ask a favour,” Tom said. He pulled out a letter and tucked it away in my shirt pocket. “When this is all over, can you please post this letter to England for me?”
“I nodded, and he smiled at me.
“Thank you, now go. Get out of here.”
“I left the village then. Me and the other children, we hid in fields and went to the sea as Tom told us. Everything went as he said. When the war was over people came looking for orphans and helped us. I posted his letter but saved the address. When I was older, I wanted to find Tom but when I looked in the records…”
A tear fell from the man’s eyes.
“Tom was a true hero. They said he was killed in an accident in that village but I know it wasn’t. Other soldiers killed him for freeing us children. He knew they would kill him for it. That’s why he gave me the letter. He was a hero.”
Rowan’s eyes watered and her cheeks were warm and clammy. She looked at the date of the YouTube video.
That was roughly when Grandmother started going to the station every day.
She shut the computer down and left the library. Her feet were stiff beneath her but she stumbled along regardless.
I wonder where the letter is? Did it reach Grandmother?
Instead of going home, Rowan went to her grandparents' house. She didn’t knock, she never had to knock at this house.
“Grandfather?” Rowan called as she entered the old smelling house. The patterned wallpaper was faded, and the carpets worn with use.
“In here, Rowan,” Grandfather said.
Rowan followed his voice into the living room. He was sat in his usual chair reading a newspaper. His hands were old and grizzled, his face half covered by the oxygen mask he had to wear most of the time. His lungs were never good, but they kept getting worse with age.
“Grandfather, I need to ask you something.”
He removed the mask and smiled at her.
“Anything for my granddaughter.”
Rowan held out the humbugs package and her Grandfather sighed.
“I wanted to find Grandmother’s friend, to see why he didn’t come back. But he wasn’t just a friend. They were engaged. He died. But a documentary said he sent a letter. I was wondering if I could read it?”
Grandfather slumped in his, his eyes half closed. Rowan thought he was ignoring her until he sat forward in his seat and leaned down. He reached under the sofa and Rowan heard a ripping sound before he produced a yellowed envelope.
“I’d hoped…” He began, but his words fell short. He handed the letter to Rowan who took it gingerly.
The corners were bent, and it looked like mud encrusted parts of it. It was unopened.
Rowan looked at her Grandfather quizzically.
He sighed and patted his knee for Rowan to have a seat. She climbed up and waited patiently.
“I was the postman. I couldn’t go to war because of my chest so… I stayed here. I knew your Grandmother was engaged, but I still liked her. I did nothing. But I was always there. When this letter came, it was after the soldiers had all returned and the names of those dead were being listed. Tom was among them. But when I saw this letter, I knew it could only be from him.” Grandfather touched the edges of the envelope gently. “She was so upset already. I didn’t want the grief to be reawakened in her. So… I hid it. Even after we started courting, and then we got married… I never showed it to her. I feared what it might do. But at the same time, I knew it was important so I couldn’t destroy it.
“When that documentary came on TV, and Benjamin mentioned the letter… I was petrified. Your grandmother just presumed it had been lost in the post. It reawakened her memories of him and so… I think she felt guilty. She started going to that old station as if waiting for him like she did for many weeks after the men stopped coming back.
“I loved your Grandmother more than anything.”
A tear slid down Grandfather’s face. Rowan wiped it away softly.
“Grandmother loved you too. But that doesn't mean she couldn’t miss an old friend too.”
Grandfather nodded and pushed the letter towards Rowan.
“Did you want to read it?” He asked.
Rowan studied the letter for a long time. She wanted to read it. But also, it wasn’t for her. It was for her grandmother. Tom had written things for her to see, not someone else.
Rowan shook her head.
“No, if it’s all right with you, Grandfather, I’d like to put it on Grandmother’s grave? Perhaps she can read it wherever she is now?”
Grandfather smiled. “I think your Grandmother would like that. Make sure you put it in a waterproof bag. Don’t want it getting wet before she has time to read it.”
Rowan smiled and kissed her Grandfather’s cheek.
“I love you, Grandfather.”
“I love you too.”
Rowan jumped off her Grandfather’s lap and ran.
She zigzagged through the graves until she reached her Grandmother’s stone. It was all shiny and new, unlike the moss-eaten graves around her. They had placed fresh flowers at the base and a few of her grandmother’s favourite things.
Rowan knelt down and placed the letter and the box of sweets amongst the other items.
“I hope you finally get to read it, Grandmother. Say hi to Tom from me.”
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