The Arrival of Missives

by Aliya Whiteley

  *

  I see a man standing alone at the outskirts of the village. My stomach gives a jolt – but no, it is not Mr Tiller. It is not a man at all, in point of fact, but a boy. Daniel Redmore. How he has grown in form, with broad shoulders filling out his shirt. Why does he stand there? Where are his thoughts taking him this time?

  I realise, as I get closer, that he is watching me. He is waiting for me. And then I remember spying his tears last night, and I have an inkling of what he wants to say.

  I am not in the right humour for this conversation. My father was far from pleased with me last evening, even with the excuse of the May Day celebrations and the imaginative addition of a runaway sheep that needed returning to the fold. His face did not lose its suspicious cast, and so I rambled and made a strong lie weak. He asked me, when I finally stopped talking, if I was telling him an untruth, and I felt my cheeks blush. I pretended to be offended, but I am certain he saw through this tactic.

  How I hate to lie, in any circumstance, and particularly to my parents. My father's doubts were bad enough, but my mother – my mother simply shook her head at me, and I saw in the gesture not disapproval so much as sad recognition. It put me in mind of something she once told me, when I asked why we saw so little of my remaining grandparents, her parents. She said they had not approved of my father, and so she had met him in secret, thinking she knew what was best for her. I cannot imagine them as sweethearts, sneaking clandestine moments together, and why on earth her parents would not approve of him. It's a strange tangle of a story, and it also makes me wonder if forms of love are hereditary. Her passion was conceived in secrecy, perhaps made all the stronger for it. I feel mine will be too.

  But I can't dwell on my thoughts thanks to the presence of Daniel Redmore, who once poured ink on the back of my dress, and when I informed the teacher (the mummified Mr Fisk, who looked far too old to fight but went ahead anyway, and met his end at Verdun) followed me home and pushed me into a nettle patch as punishment.

  'Good morning,' he says, like a gentleman greeting a lady, so he is either teasing me or he wants something.

  'Good morning, Master Redmore,' I reply. Two can play this game. I do not alter my pace, but he puts out his arm and I must stop or walk into him.

  'Where were you going, yesterday?'

  His tears in the graveyard are the least of my concern, but they seem to be of the utmost importance to him. I find I do not want him to suffer, or consider me the kind of girl who would call him crybaby to his friends. His anxious eyes touch my heart.

  'Listen,' I say. 'If you don't speak of seeing me, I won't speak of seeing you. How will that be?'

  'I don't care much for you seeing me one way or the other, but I saw you.' He steps closer to me, and something about this proximity disturbs me in a way I cannot bear for long.

  'Let me pass,' I tell him, attempting to find a haughty tone, but all I manage is a conspiratorial whisper. How I hate myself when I cannot control my feelings in the same way I can control my thoughts.

  'Were you going to meet with him?' Daniel says.

  I can hear my own breathing, and his, and I feel very afraid. I have never felt this way before; it is the devouring fear of being exposed, of having my intentions towards Mr Tiller revealed, and being made a laughing stock.

  'I was thinking my own thoughts,' I say. 'Down by the river. I find the bridge is a good place for quiet contemplation. I'd imagine you find the same kind of serenity in the graveyard.'

  'Under the bridge, where the children hide?'

  'On top of it,' I snap. 'In plain daylight. I have nothing to hide.'

  'You can claim that, but I see you watch him and I see you hope for him,' says Daniel, 'and it's embarrassing to look upon.'

  I have had enough. 'There is no mooning on my part, Master Redmore! Not after anyone. Not even you.' Now where did those words come from? He looks oddly pleased with himself, all of a sudden.

  'It bothers me, is all,' he says. He drops his arm.

  'I have my own plans,' I tell him.

  'The whole village knows. A letter to Taunton. Well, good, I say. Good for you. I would wish you far away, all the way to China, as long as you don't waste yourself on that cripple.'

  He has gone too far and he knows it. I draw myself up tall. 'I am sorely disappointed in you, to hear you talk of our teacher that way. You escaped the war only by a year or so, that is all. Just by the sheerest luck of your birthdate. That's the only reason you are here now, and whole, and your advantages must make you a better man than the generation before, can't you see that? Instead of sowing discord you must promote peace. It's your solemn duty.'

  His lips pucker, his eyebrows crease, and he is a small boy in my eyes again, being reprimanded for his inkwell antics. It makes me feel both victorious and sad. I have banished the man who, after all, was engaged with my personal welfare.

  I stomp off towards the village, and do not turn to see if he follows along behind me.

  He said that it bothered him to think of me caring for Mr Tiller. Does he view me as one of his sisters, then? We have grown up together, and such ties promote close feelings.

  But I find, in my disquiet, that I do not exactly view him as a brother. No, that does not describe how I feel at all.

  *

  Westerbridge is 12 miles from Taunton and 20 miles from the coast, as the crow flies. It appears in the Domesday Book, where it was valued at four pounds.

  Apart from that written record of existence it is a singularly uninteresting village. Nobody of note has emerged from it, or even visited it. It does not lie on the road to anywhere in particular, and is in itself no person's willing destination. Exmoor lies to the west, but not close enough to encourage the presence of those walkers and painters who seek wild natural beauty there.

  Because of this the same families have inhabited this patch of unremarkable land for so many years, occasionally marrying outside by a few miles or so (such as in the case of my own father and mother, who met through his presence in Bickbrook at a travelling fayre) but generally keeping to themselves, producing unremarkable children to suit the unremarkable nature of the village.

  You can trace these families through the graveyard. Take the Redmores, as a fine example of this; Daniel's mother is far from the only Redmore to lie in the soil there. His grandparents, and their parents, and their parents before, backwards, backwards, are marked with stones. And Daniel's mother was a Barbery, and Barberys have been in this village even longer than the Redmores. They are intertwined in their histories. They do not wish to leave, or to have others find their way here to interfere with their sense of self-importance.

  The Fearns are just as grounded as these others, and I am considered to be one of their number. Westerbridge, born and bred. This explains why a Redmore would think me interested in his opinion of where I go and what I do.

  But the times are changing. The farm keeps getting richer as my father finds new ways to make the land profitable, and he employs more men and the ingenuity of more mechanisations to take his goods further and faster than ever before. He brings city money to this village, even if electricity has not yet arrived in our village. He may have been too old to fight, but he yet retains a young man's attitude when it comes to business dealings.

  I do not think this village will be small and self-important forever, what with the changes taking place. The arrival of Mr Tiller proves that. In the months after the end of the war he came and was accepted on the grounds that a teacher was sorely needed. He was happy to take up the empty cottage of the Wayly sisters even though they had died within its walls only a month before. How neatly he fitted, so that nobody thought to question why he would choose this place above others, having no family ties here. There was also the fact that his arrival, and his injury, gave everyone a fresh topic of conversation. There is little of interest to discuss in these parts; the weather and your health can only provide so much to say that another person would willingly want to hear. So they
talked about him often, and the nature of his injuries that kept him apart from those who would have been friendly, but I do not believe they did so with deliberate malice. Everyone was in agreement that a man who had been through such experiences was entitled to find his own little corner of peace.

  But I have watched Mr Tiller teach the class all day and I no longer see a man at peace.

  Everyone has gone home for the day, even Daniel Redmore after much shuffling of his feet and glaring at me. We are alone.

  Will Mr Tiller finally look at me? All these long hours he has not looked at me. His eyes have been to every corner of the room, but not to mine. His questions about Marco Polo have been aimed at every target but me. He has sweated and stammered. Others may blame it on the surprising heat for this time of year, beating through the long arched windows of the classroom, but I do not.

  'May Day, then,' says Mr Tiller, and begins to lecture me on his plans, keeping the entire length of the classroom between us. I let him speak on and on, until it finally becomes too much, even for him, and he grinds to a halt. He gets up from his desk to cross to mine and lowers himself carefully onto Mary Clissold's stool, within touching distance.

  'I am truly sorry for last night,' he says.

  'I wish you wouldn't be, sir.'

  'Well, here is the thing. It's unfortunate that you are now involved, but maybe it is for the best. I am loath to admit it, but I am in need of assistance.'

  This change of heart surprises me. 'I am certain I'll make an able teacher in the future,' I say, slowly.

  'No, no. That's not what I mean. You said to me last night that I was not a real man.'

  'No, I—'

  He holds up a hand. 'You are right. I am only half a man. Half of me lives, still made of the flesh in which I was born, and filled with the normal thoughts and emotions of any man. You think I would not like to be married, but I must reassure you that I would like nothing more. If it was within my power to be a husband. But it would not be right, and it never could be made right, because the other half of me is not a man at all. It is a visitation from a different time, and it commands me to certain courses of action. It is with these commands that I seek out your help, if you are brave enough to give it.'

  This is not at all how I imagined this conversation. I open my mouth and shut it again when no words come out.

  'You don't understand, I know, I know. I don't understand myself. I try to change things for the better because of what the rock tells me, and I – I am getting ahead of myself. Why don't you ask me a question, and I will attempt to answer it? That might suit us both better, knowing the penetrative nature of your mind as I do.'

  I try to collect my thoughts. There is only one question that comes to mind, and it must be asked: 'You said you would like to have been a husband if that was a possibility. Would you have liked to have been a husband… to me?'

  He stares at me, and then smiles. 'Yes,' he says. 'Yes, I really would, my dear Shirley. At this moment in particular you remind me of why I would, and why I never can.'

  It is enough. It will have to be enough.

  'Shirley,' says Mr Tiller. 'Concentrate.'

  'So how can I be of assistance?' I say. With his words he has owned me. I will be his forever more, even if he is mad and this is the form of his insanity.

  He pinches his lips together, and then says, 'I receive visions, instructions from the rock, and much is at stake. I was guided to this village to shape the destiny of those within it, but I find the actions I must undertake are too difficult for me.'

  'What kind of actions?'

  He shakes his head. 'I cannot keep you here for the length of time it would take to explain. You must get home on time tonight to keep suspicion at bay. I have written it all down for you. It will be a terrible thing to read, but I must ask it of you, and that you will keep it safe from discovery. I rely upon you in this matter.' He reaches into his jacket pocket and brings out an envelope, which he hands to me. I read my name upon it. 'I do not know if this is the correct course, but I have wrestled with my conscience and I find I must look to the greater good, and to that end I must provide you with some explanation. I am, first and foremost, still your teacher, and it is my goal to elucidate, and not simply to instruct.'

  'I understand perfectly, sir,' I say, and it is true. How could a teacher respond differently? Once more I am reminded that we share the same goals, and the thought is reassuring.

  'Yes,' he says. 'Thank you. Thank you, my dear.'

  Then we briefly lay out plans for the May Day celebrations, and I am tasked with fetching the horseshoes for the game. I cannot see that this would qualify as an important occupation, but I feel that delicate partnerships such as these must begin with the reinforcement of positivity, just as one would praise a pupil for an error-ridden piece of work in order to establish that any future criticism builds upon a solid base of mutual understanding.

  See, I am the teacher and he is the pupil at this moment! I cannot help but smile as we conclude our meeting, and I head homewards. I slide the letter into my pinafore, where it presses against my breast. The sharp corners stick me each time I breathe, but I don't mind. I am about to make myself indispensable, and I have his private words as proof.

  *

  It was a long supper, and my mother cast many glances my way. I think she wanted to speak of something privately, but I am glad to say the opportunity did not come. Now I am alone, in my bed, after complaining of a headache.

  'Headaches, now, is it?' said my father. 'She's a real lady. Pass the smelling salts.' He said it in a joking tone, but my mother frowned at him severely. I sense some disagreement between them, thickening the air. I was surprised that when she served the bread pudding it did not curdle the cream in its jug.

  Still, I have other things with which to be concerned, such as the contents of the letter.

  He has written my name with such stylish ease, the ink flowing freely at the commencement to make a strong 's' that tapers into the fine loops and lines that follow. He did not refresh the ink halfway through, and the rest of my name fades until the 'y' is barely visible. Never has my name looked so beautiful.

  I open the envelope, taking great care not to tear it, and feel the fine quality of the paper as I slide it free. It is a thick, long letter. The writing is small and slanting; it has a sense of urgency. If he were my pupil I would reprimand him for rushing at his work. I picture him in a fever at his kitchen table, hunched over the page by lamplight. These are the words he desperately wants me to read.

  I settle back on my pillow and give myself to them. I find that I am abruptly thrust into the heart of a story. No preamble is given, no address. It is as if he has simply committed his thoughts to these pages, and I can feel his presence with me as I read. It is as if he sits behind me, his breath stirring the fine hairs on the back of my neck.

  Other men, those returning to the front line, told me they did not remember receiving their injuries. Everything was a blur, one told me, and I believed him. But now I know that he lied. He lied because to admit that you remember that moment of pain and fear beyond anything you have ever known is to invite further questions. And to talk in detail of such emotions brings them back to mind with a clarity I would not have thought possible for a mere memory. When I cast my mind back to my childhood in Kent I find even the most beloved memories are not clearly defined. There is a hazy glow to my mother's face as she bends over me. I am freshly fallen from an ill-advised attempt to climb the apple tree on the common land. Keen eyes and the warmth of love, like a blanket: that is my main impression of the event.

  But the German who ran to me as I struggled against the tangled nest of wire that had ensnared me – the man who picked up my own fallen gun and thrust the bayonet into my stomach, pushing down, determinedly down on the blade as if sawing wood – I see his keen face afresh every time he comes to mind. Which is so very often. I do not know why he did not simply shoot me, but I do not think he found enjoyment in the
act of carving my stomach into fibrous strands that fell outwards to entangle me further with the wire. He frowned, and I saw lines appear around his mouth, so he was not a young man. A hard-working man in his middle years, I would have said; perhaps even a carpenter, which would explain his determined approach to disassembling me. He bore a fine moustache. To this day I cannot see a moustache without remembering his look of dutiful concentration as he worked upon me.

  I am sorry to make this so plain. It is not, I promise you, to elicit your sympathy (which you seem happy to bestow upon me whether I am deserving of it or not, and is one of the saving graces of my current existence). I spell out in detail the nature of my injury because I wish to make it clear to you that I should not have survived. These were wounds beyond medical intervention, and I should be dead. Perhaps I was dead, because I do not remember much beyond the moustache other than a deep blue sea, warm and still and serene, into which I could have floated for an eternity.

  And then I woke. Or rather, something woke me. My eyelids cracked open to behold the morass of mud and bodies that made an abandoned battlefield, alit by bright morning sunshine, with no detail spared to me. Even if my organs decorated the fence, my eyes still worked. And I knew, as I raised them up to the sky, that something was coming for me. Something beyond my comprehension.

  I would swear I saw the clouds part, and those still clinging to life around me moaned as one as the object appeared in the parting. It was a black circle in that perfect sky at first, and then it grew in size as it fell down, down, down, silent in itself but accompanied by the chorus of suffering around me. I cannot tell you how I knew it was coming for me, and me alone, but I knew it. I could see the glint of the sun upon the silvery threads shot through it. I could make out the rough, uneven surface, the jagged bumps, and still it fell, until it filled my vision and the voices around me crescendoed in their fear and pain – and then it landed upon me.

  I would say it did not hurt, but then, physical suffering is hard to recall, I find. I must have felt agony throughout this ordeal, surely? And yet I would swear I felt nothing, and I did not even experience a sensation of collision. Time did seem to stop. There was no time, not in that moment of merging: no time, no gravity, no laws of the natural world that applied. The object fell into the hole that had been made inside of me by that diligent German carpenter, and it filled me. I cried out as the tattered remains of skin and flesh that tied me to the wire were severed. The weight of the rock was immediate; I felt its coldness and heaviness, but I realised instantaneously that I was free, that I could move once more. So I did.