Thursday
Chiswick
Hello Sweetheart,
Here we are again and it’s good to be chatting to you again. Next to getting letters from you, especially such nice letters as they have been lately reflecting a more cheerful outlook on things, I like writing to you because on both occasions I can feel you so close to me. I knew you would be able to catch the atmosphere of my moods in The Mall at once and when you sat down to re-read it you only did what I often do with yours. Sweetheart, you do walk beside me here, and wherever this war may send me, there you will be. Unless things are purely masculine I always see them in relationship to the extent to which you would enjoy them and many’s the time I have pointed things out to you, including a shooting star which fell, one night, in a great silver arc over Buckingham Palace but you were quite peeved because you looked up just too late!
If we can manage it at all I would love you to come to London, if only for a long weekend. I doubt whether the money would run to much more than that for you hold my entire fortune in reserve! I’m so glad, and often wonder at our good fortune, that you do like being married to me. God knows, my love, there are millions of young couples with far more advantages materially than we have, but how few have that deeper treasure! Oh, my sweet, never let me cease to be your lover. It is because I am your lover, as well as your husband, that other women mean so little to me, a fact which constantly intrigues the other lads here – even the decent fellows.
I still want to make love to you out in the open air. Ever since we have been married I have loved doing that, as you know by the way I have taken you out into the garden or on to the concrete to kiss you sometimes. Some time we will sit on a bench in the dark. It may be a London bench, it may be a Crosby bench, but wherever it is will be all the same to us. But I should like it to be in London because then London would join the hallowed places – Formby (in some ways the nicest of them all), Shrewsbury, Wrexham, Aberdeen! All lovely places, aren’t they, my sweet? Oh, angel, I’ve tried to make up to you for all the little things so many suburban wives have which you have not got – a little car, a big vacuum cleaner, big heavy rugs on the floor, lots of lovely china and glass, lashings of clothes and, oh so many things I’m conscious of you being without. I’m afraid I’m a thriftless devil, Stella. Always I have been, and I’m afraid I won’t be young enough to alter radically when at long last I do come home for good. But one thing I have spent wholly on you is my love, which has grown for you bigger and stronger and deeper since its first tentative moves towards you in the ‘Bootle Times’ days, when its stirrings were so weak that I didn’t recognise them for what they were. Sweet, if I ever develop into a praying man, my chief prayer will be that both Michael and Wendy shall know a love as deep and lasting and precious as ours. You must carefully instruct Wendy in the art of waking three times on her wedding night to prod her long-suffering and newly acquired husband in the back! I, on my part, will have to teach Michael to achieve better results than I did, apparently, so that he won’t need wakening three times! You were an insatiable hussy – bless you! I suppose there’ll be a repeat of that performance about a month from now! Glory be!
Had we known about the leave earlier I would have suggested you coming from about now until the 12th. It’s too late now, of course, and there is no point in coming after that because we will be on duty 4–8 hours at a stretch and I’m bound to feel pretty well all-in by the time we get a day off.
Now, sweet, it’s almost post-time. So you have had snow? The weather has broken here, too, and for the first time since we came here there has been rain on two consecutive days. Still, I’m glad the children got some fun out of the sledge. They are more of an age to appreciate that now. I liked your fancy of the Jerry propaganda film, which was ruined by the British Restaurant, of course. A meal like that does you all good and is, of course, useful in keeping the children’s social education up to date. God knows how old I was before I ever had a meal outside the house.
Sweetheart, I must away to the post then get back for a bath and an hour’s sleep before I go back to work. Take care of yourself, love, and keep your chin up for a little time longer. Can you get to regarding this postponement as an extension of your time to get fighting fit? If you can it might help a little. I’m so sorry to have added to your wartime disappointments and I should be kicked for it.
Goodbye until tomorrow, love. I am still your lover and your husband, remember. You said so yourself, and you should know! All my love, precious. Take good care of yourself and give my love to the children. Did they like their letters?
Ever your own,
Arthur X
P.S. Dot’s off work for a week with respiratory catarrh but she’s not too bad, really.
Jan 071943