Monday 21 December
Chiswick
FOR XMAS MORNING!
Just to say, “Merry Xmas” Mummy, among other things!
Dearest,
So I’ve got a funny face, have I? That’s what I get after no letter since Friday. Me all agog waiting for a letter – which I’d fondly hoped would contain our spectral friend! – so eager in fact that I almost caught it before it reached the bottom of the letter box. And what do I find? That my face is funny. Now I know the real reason you wanted me home at Xmas – just as a permanent laugh about the place. Young woman, you’ve got a cheek – in fact you have two, and come to think of it they fit in the hollows of my hands just perfectly, don’t they? I can feel them there now as you stand with all your body pressed close to mine and my hands go instinctively to those dear delightful “cheeks”, which I haven’t kissed, while you lay face downwards, for such a long long time. And darling, I do want to kiss you so much. It is because I do want you that my last letter was a bit testy – I’m sorry, love, but even little Arfa Parf has his testy moments these days. But, angel, I love you more than you ever will know and I wish more and more that this damned war was over. Sometimes I feel like stopping a taxi in some rather unorthodox manner – say, with this funny face of mine – so as to be invalided out of the senior service. And, Madonna, I must remember to deal with you for that crack – no, not your Mary, stop quivering – when I come home.
Just that mention of Mary quivering sent me into a coma which lasted about 20 minutes in which time John yearned and yearned and enjoyed himself immensely! And when I at long last bullied myself into consciousness again I had to go and get my diary to try to work out when my leave will begin, but I have got into a most dreadful muddle with it and at the moment all I can say is that I should begin my leave somewhere between January 25 and January 30, providing that no one goes sick or puts in for compassionate leave. And that is the best comfort I can offer you this bright Xmas morn, my sweet. When vapours put in an appearance this time, will you let me know how that date is likely to work in relation to vapours? If there is a likelihood of vapours and leave clashing, would you like me to put leave back a week? I could do that, although I couldn’t bring it forward at all unless one of the fellows had a special reason for putting his own leave back.
You know I began this as your Xmas letter but, as is usual with us on high days and holy days, it is developing into a sexual monologue, which I hope is not an affront to your deeply rooted religious convictions.
Sweetheart, I don’t know when you will read this letter (and no cheating by staying up until one minute after midnight and then saying brightly “Oh, it’s Xmas Day now!”), but whenever you read it I shall be thinking of you. I will be called from my bunk, perhaps in a semi-drunken stupor if I’m lucky, at 2.45am and I will be close to you all the time from then until about dinner time, but after that I’ll lose you all for you will be on your way to, or actually at, Limedale and I can never get a real mental picture of you in anyone else’s home – probably because I don’t know the timetable like I know our own. The main thing is that you should have as pleasant a day as possible and I hope that the day will go well for you and that you will not be haunted by the blues. Whatever else happens I will be going for a drink fairly prompt midday and as I walk out of the house I’ll say to you, as I always do say, “Shan’t be long, love” and you will know damn well there’s little chance of me coming back before 2 o’clock – unless Jack has got to be back much earlier for lunch on the argument “It’s Xmas Day for me as well.” Sorry if that sounds catty, but I can see something like that happening, which is one reason why I’m almost tempted to stay in town when I finish work on Xmas morning. Anyway, whatever happens, I’m going to get a skinful today!
With all the narks we have had about there being no letters in parcels, I had to send your parcels off minus notes! Sorry, angel, but I simply couldn’t have sorted out what I had to say when those parcels were being packed on Saturday at about midnight as, for one thing, I’d had no sleep from 3am and by that time was feeling a trifle sleepy. I think the roll-ons tell their own story of my ambitions, jut as the sight of the pyjamas did. The jumper will, I hope, help to keep you from catching a fresh cold and I know you won’t knit yourself one this winter. You never do. The chocolates I only discovered in the last shop I went into and by that time I had only one quarter-pound worth of coupons left! I was jumping wild, but I hope you will like the few there are and the toffees. Let me know if these are the right sort of sweets for the children and I’ll get some similar ones. And do they like the peanuts?
Well, my angel, it’s nearly post time and I must leave you. “A merry Xmas,” love. No, I’m not being cynical, just a bit old-fashioned for I have a nostalgia to lie propped up against your breast while the children open their own parcels, and ours, and watch for our reactions to their own little “surprises”. Oh, sweet, it isn’t just that I’m making a lot of something simply because I can’t have it, is it? I always have enjoyed that part of Xmas Day, as you know, just as I have always loved decorating the place – perhaps not very artily, but in my own tinpot fashion. And I do miss all the fun and joy of anticipation this year. Perhaps it will be easier if I am away another year, but this year it does hurt.
Aren’t I good at cheering people up? Angel, I really must go. Do make the best of things. The children should help enormously. Precious, I do love you and I only wish I could get a bit bottled in true Crosby Christmas Eve fashion!
Bye, my angel, for now and don’t forget you have only about a month to get fighting fit so please don’t overdo things, will you?
All my love, precious girl, and let’s hope that this poppycock will be decided, if not over, in the next twelve months.
Al my love, sweet.
Ever your own,
Arthur X
Dec 251942