Thursday
Glasgow
My darling,
So you had a sentimental orgy, eh? If only I could have been there, to what advantage we could have turned that mood! But, as you say, we will do. Don’t worry, pet, we’ll keep that a treat for a winter evening, as you suggest. Perhaps we might manage it one night when I’m on leave? Would you like that? You say I’m an angel of a husband. Well, if seducing, and being seduced by, an innocent little girl straight from the convent, putting her in the family way while I was out of a job and then marrying her in a registry office without all the palaver so dear to a woman’s heart, then OK. I’m sprouting wings! After all that, with the worry you had at Reading and at Shrewsbury and the state your nerves got into during that time, you still call me an angel! I wonder how many other women after all that would think the same? You know, angel, I can still see you now as you were when you came home from Shrewsbury and the way you shook and cried when I came out of the ‘D.P.’ to meet you in Victoria St. The light was beginning to fail and I put you in a taxi and sent you to Limedale. Poor little Stelly-well! She did look lonely and my heart ached for you that night, although if I remember rightly I had to speak a bit sharply to you that night to make you pull yourself together! One night which stands out in my mind in that period is the night we went to Southport, a couple of earnest young people talking over and planning the crisis of their lives. And another day I shall never forget was the 12th September and the hurry we had to get to Shrewsbury by noon. And I think I have never seen you looking so forlorn as you did when we drove up that morning. Poor old girl. Never mind, it is all over now and that was only the beginning of a courtship which I hope has lost nothing with the passing of time. It’s funny how we are so sure of each other and yet that assurance has not dimmed but developed our interest in each other. And what’s more, I don’t think we ever will do.
Did you have your little weep over the Limedale, West Kirkby and Reading letters? I’d like to read them myself to recapture something of the spirit of those early days. Do you know, I always remember those days as a period of sunshine and the atmosphere inseparable from West Kirby and Hoylake and Freshfield. No matter what you say, it would be nice to recapture something of those days again and to try all over again to persuade you to come and spend a weekend with me at some hotel! Remember? And we never did – thank goodness. In that way I’ll admit I feel all smug and suburban, despite all the things which happened outside hotels – Freshfield sandhills, for instance. Happy spot. When I make a fortune I’ll buy that sandhill and erect – not you, John, lie down – a monument with a plaque setting out the achievements of that afternoon. What was it, six insertions and seven swims? What a man! And that was the first time I ever saw you lying naked before me. It is from that day, I think, that my overwhelming love of your breasts really dates. I have only to close my eyes now and I can see you lying there in the faint half light of the tent, looking so delightfully shy while my eyes devoured every inch of you. Oh, precious, even now when I stoop over you in bed I can see that same sweet shyness in your eyes. Darling, I must have loved you then and I certainly do now. Sometimes I wonder if I really do love you MORE or whether it isn’t more that we love in a different way now. Some day we will go back in spirit to those days and wander through the lanes of memory for a few hours before coming home to the boon we always craved – a bed! And, perhaps as in the old days, we might have a few drinks. Before I go back after finishing this course I’d love a night like that. Something just you and I could do.
Well, sweet, it’s delightful to browse over the past but this is not the ideal place for it. We’ll do it together some time. But now, about the present! You seem to doubt what I would do if you lost the evidence. First of all, in view of that possibility I’ll take the precaution of getting at least one before I come home. Failing that I will just refuse to have anything to do with you! So there!
Thanks for all the news of home and of Wendy’s doings at school. I really will have to sit down and see if I can think of something about the religious instruction. I DO wish I was home because I don’t want her to get her head full of ideas which she will have to forget.
I do wish you would do your own jumper first. You need one, you know, because you are never warm on your arms in the winter. PLEASE, sweet, do this first. You could have done it while you were doing Jack’s pullover. Have you sent that off, by the way? I wrote Dot and Eric some time ago giving them this address but I haven’t heard from either of them. In fact I have not heard from Dot since some time before I left Aberdeen. By the way, if you are thinking of writing Jane and Jack for Xmas, now is the time to do it. Airmail letters will take just about three months to get there. I really must settle down to some serious writing one day. I owe letters to lots of people.
It’s raining cats and dogs again today. Since we came here I think there have only been two or three days at the most that it has not rained. People say it is the worst summer they ever remember, so you are not alone in your troubles. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if you had had much better weather than we have had. Just to think of the glorious weather we had in Devonport!
By the way, did you look for my service glasses? Let me know if you can find them. They should be in a brown case somewhere, although I had the idea that I brought them away. Have a really good look, will you, because I’ll have to pay for the next pair.
Many thanks for your letter received at dinner time. Don’t worry about the effects of the porcelain, it would take more than that to put us off. I’d like to see the faces of the lads if I suddenly produced a woollen muffler for the lav! Don’t worry, either, about the lack of dreams. There’s no doubt at all that you are healthier without them, or for that matter without any dreams.
Now, about Michael. I’m glad you are dealing firmly with him because, after all, the bike is really Wendy’s. As to his birthday, I can’t say I have any really bright ideas. Has he got enough aeroplanes to make it worthwhile getting an aeroplane hangar for him? I wasn’t thinking of him making real use of a tool set yet, as gratifying every boy’s desire to hammer nails into things. Wendy seems to be getting into the swing of school properly now, doesn’t she? Does she get to bed fairly early these days? If anything, she should get even more rest now that she has started using both her mind and her body or she will feel the strain.
Talking about leave and the excitement thereof, I nearly touched out for a single ticket from here to London, which I would have used this weekend to get home and paid my own fare back here on Sunday. Anyway, I didn’t get it so that’s all that matters. What would you have done if I’d come walking in on you on Saturday night? That would have given you a thrill, unless, of course, vapours are due? Do you know it’s only recently that you wrote about vapours, but for the life of me I cannot remember when they are due.
When I do come home I’ll show you that not all the porcelain lavatory bowls in the world can have any real effect on me!
Now, darling, I must be off. Bye until tomorrow, sweet. I do love you. All my love, angel girl.
Ever your own,
Arthur X
Aug 271942