Monday
Chiswick
My darling,
Thank you for the nearest approach to a normal letter that you have written since I left home. And the gratitude is not merely because it is obviously nice to receive “normal” letters, so much as the fact that it is a cheering sign when you can write a longer, more everyday letter. It is just one of those little steps on the road to getting really well. Funnily enough I’m not seriously worried about your night cough. I don’t think that bears on the major problem at all, although I agree with you that it is probably a big factor in holding you back by robbing you of your sleep. I know you are far from being your old self just now, but ever since that first few hours of worry after I got your letter on Saturday – and I was worried soft for a time – I have ceased to have any doubts as to the final issue. Quite honestly I think you will have a few weeks of ups and downs yet, but that all the time, whether you appreciate it or not, you will gradually be getting stronger and stronger and able to do little things which you can’t do at the moment and then, one day, you will feel spring in the air. From that point you will never look back. I know I’m right. How, I can’t tell. All I know is that in Glasgow, while struggling to get home to you, I had a most wretched time for several hours and then, just before I went to bed, I knew things were going to be all right. And, although I hated to see you ill, I had no fears as to the ultimate outcome.
With Xmas not yet here, you may think talk of spring a far cry. But, before you know where you are, the crocus will be pushing their spikes through and little things in the garden will be taking a new lease of life. And then you will be doing all those things which, as I have said, you don’t feel up to at the moment. You will, angel mine, I know!
Now, in my letter on Saturday I meant to lay down an “order of the day”. I want you to write me, as often as you can find the time, long newsy letters like you used to do. Keep your eyes and ears open in the house for little incidents like Wendy and Michael getting married and the couple next door having a row. Those were flashes of your old self and just the effort of taking notice of all those little things will pull you out of yourself a bit. Angel, you know that it is not just selfishness on my part which demands this from you. It is a desire to help you force yourself to keep a firm hold on ordinary interesting little things in life. And I think that if you talk to me in this way often it may help a little.
Now I’ll tell you what I do at work, quite quickly and simply. I sit at a perforator, punch tape and, according to their importance, they are on the air to places all over the world in varying degrees of time, without ever being examined by anyone. So there you are. It’s still an unusual kind of life, for you never seem to have a full day off because of the anxiety to get a full night’s sleep in preparation for the following 24 hours. Still, we are gradually getting used to it.
On Saturday night – with a brilliant full moon – we all three went to town and wandered round the West End, calling in for an odd drink here and there. We finished up by going to the Haymarket to see Coward’s film ‘In Which We Serve’, the best war picture I have seen and just one more example of Coward’s genius for doing the job right, even to small details like a sailor home on leave pulling a piece of string, with key attached, through the letterbox. A great film, but very sob-making. It’s all about various members of a destroyer crew. One fellow’s home is bombed and the scene where the bomb hits the house is devastatingly real to anyone who has been through real raids. Not a cheerful film, although it has its humour too, but a great piece of work.
Last night I went up to the ‘Daily Herald’ and Bill came out for half an hour. He sends his salaams to you and hopes you will soon be fit. I’m going to have tea and spend the evening with them on Wednesday, which is my next day off. And that fills in the whole of the weekend, I think. Yesterday was fairly quiet at work and to all intents and purposes we could have finished by five or six this morning, only you can never tell what will break, of course. People here are thrilled by the Russian news, probably more than by our activities just at the moment.
We have decided, by the way, that the cheapest meals in London are those at St Martin-in-the-Fields, where we go almost every day.
Well, my sweet, the light is fading and if I am to catch the evening post I must go now. Sweetheart, I’m fighting very hard against a coma for love of you. Thank goodness that right from the beginning of our married life our troubles as they have come along have only driven us closer and closer to each other. Just now I ask nothing more of life than to be at home, to hold you tight, feel you quiver in my arms in that first delicious minute when it seems impossible to look at all of you at once because your eyes bewitch me; and then to settle down to making you well again. And having got you well, to put you in bed to deliver unto me another son. Angel, angel! What a prospect.
Chins up, angel, all of them! Get well soon for I want unfettered freedom of your body, seeing you have talked me into it! Sweetheart, I adore you and I could talk to you like this all night but I’d miss the post so bye until tomorrow. My love to the children.
And all my love to you, angel mine.
Ever your own,
Arthur X
Nov 231942