With all the love in the world, Rosie x
Bluey
From: Gethyn
To: Aggie
Date: 27 February
Dear, Agatha
Don’t worry. You’re right. I’m a hypocrite. Disregard my ridiculous ramblings about fiction, I was probably quite irritating in my opinions.
Kind regards,
Gethyn
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Running Away
Date: 27 February
Dear, Aggie,
Oh Lord, I know this must sound quite random, but do you have a room to spare? If so, may I come and stay with you for a little while? I’ve reached an absolute block with my latest cook book and can’t think of anything new or inspirational to add and I’m not sure I even care. Can I run away to Appledart to be with you? Maybe I might find inspiration in the café?
Please do say if this request is taking our friendship too far. I was talking to a close friend about you and she says there’s some kind of infamous fortune teller who lives near you. Maybe I’ll pay her a visit while I’m there?
With love,
Isabella
Bluey
From: Rosie
To: Aggie
Date: 28 February
Dear, Aggie
This has been such a great day! Gethyn nicked a Land Rover and, out of the blue, we escaped to a US Army base and guess what? There was a trampoline for sale in the BX – a bloody trampoline! We spent two hours trying to do somersaults in the shop and nobody stopped us. We managed it, too!! It was worth getting a bollocking afterwards because it was such an amazing day – I washed my hair; I used a clean toilet; I had ice cream AND a Coke. It’s the little moments that are the best!
Ta ta for now.
Love, Rosie
‘E’ Bluey
From: Agatha
To: Rosie
Date: 2 March
Hi, Rosie
Gethyn has written back. It was short and polite. I’m such a cock sometimes. Did he tell you what I wrote? I’m so ashamed. I’ll have to think up an excuse to write back to him show that I’m not a bitch. I’ll throw a few funnies in and send him a cake or something, that’ll draw his friendship back.
Regarding asking Josh to try again, you haven’t really said what happened and so I’m worried about offering an opinion. This is the sort of question that requires a whole day (if not two) on the subject. You know the sort of thing; tea, cake and two women walking arm in arm on the beach, The Wind Beneath My Wings playing in the background.
Alternatively, and without my guiding arm and scrumptious bakes to fall back on, you could just flip a coin on it. Heads you get back together, tails you don’t. If you are disappointed when it lands on tails, you’ll know what to do. Simple.
How’s the bucket list going? My piano playing is coming on well, but I think I’ll head up a mountain next!
Love, Ag
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Running Away
Date: 2 March
Hi, Isabella
Of course you can come! I would love it. In fact, I feel divine providence at work because you may just be able to help in a way you would never have imagined, but more of that when you get here.
Come as soon as you can.
Love, Ag
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Running Away
Date: 2 March
Hi, Aggie
That’s fantastic. Thank you so much. I’ll come this week. How do I get there? What should I bring?
With love,
Isabella
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Running Away
Date: 2 March
Wow! This week? Well, why the hell not?
Bring walking boots, wellies, warm clothes, gloves and the best coat you can find – nothing fashionable but something that required the sacrifice of a thousand geese should suffice. Take the train to Fort William, then change for Mallaig. Let me know what time your train gets in and I’ll arrange for Hector to pick you up in his little boat. Must dash, got to bake.
Aggie
Bluey
From: Rosie
To: Aggie
Date: 4 March
Hi, Ag
I flipped a coin like you suggested (actually, I didn’t have a coin, so I threw a dollar note into the air) and it landed on the front, which meant ‘no’ I shouldn’t get back with Josh. And you were right, I was disappointed. So, I threw it in the air again and it bloody-well landed on ‘no’, again. I just kept throwing the thing in the air until it landed the right side up. So it seems I genuinely do want to give it another go with Josh, but does he want to get back with me? That’s the question. What to do, what to do?
Love, Rosie
P.S. Thanks for the books. I started on Emma (I take it that it was a ‘not-so-subtle’ hint at the pitfalls associated with meddling in a friend’s love life?)
‘E’ Bluey
From: Aggie
To: Gethyn
Date: 4 March
Dear, Gethyn
You’re not a hypocrite. You’re on the brink of war and I should be a grateful citizen and not a ranting old cow.
As an apology, I have sent you a signed copy of Isabella Gambini’s latest cook book entitled, ‘Just Desserts’. I persuaded Isabella to create recipes that use only ethical, organic foodstuffs. The reason for sending the book is because the forward was researched and written by me. Maybe we should discuss other things and steer clear of romance, as perhaps this is a subject upon we are unlikely ever to agree.
Regarding the writing, I’m super-sensitive at the moment because I’m suffering from a spot of writer’s block (or maybe I’m just exhausted with it all) so when a friend asked me to run her café in Scotland, I jumped at the chance. Again, Rosie will explain, but in a nutshell, I’m writing to you from an oasis of calm in a world of conflict. I’m living in my friend’s cottage which is one of a handful of fisherman’s cottages positioned around a cute and ancient little pier. Beyond the harbour is a golden beach which is just idyllic, whatever the weather. The Isle of Skye sits five miles out to sea and on a clear day like today, I can almost reach out and touch it. My neighbours include a psychic and a poet and the café is in a converted byre which, like the peninsula, is perfect. The byre has a red tin roof, whitewashed walls and the windows overlook the pier and beach. It’s called, The Café at Road’s End, and I love it.
Basically, I’ve found a timeless paradise of pure escapism. But although the scenery is straight off a tin of Highland shortbread, I am yet to hear a Scottish accent, and I wonder if Appledart is actually my very own Brigadoon – a place that appears through the mist once in a while - where the inhabitants are not real at all, but guardian angels. It’s like I’ve been able to step out of the real world and into a fictional abyss for a little while. Isn’t it strange how you allow your life to carry along on the treadmill for an absolute age, and then suddenly, boom! An amazing adventure calls out to you and it’s simply impossible not to go.
Yours, Agatha
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Running Away
Date: 4 March
Hi, Aggie
I’m all booked! I’m flying to Inverness tomorrow, staying there overnight and I arrive at Mallaig at 1p.m. the following day. One question. What do you mean, boat? Should I be nervous? I can’t swim.
With love,
Isabella
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Running Away
Date: 4 March
Hi, Isabella.
The boat is a must. I never said the journey to The Café at Road’s End was easy, but it’s worth it -
honest.
Love, Ag
P.S. You can ride a horse, right?
Bluey
From: Rosie
To: Aggie
Date: 6 March
Hi, Aggie
My day today:
• Got out of dusty camp bed and dressed in front of twenty hairy-arsed soldiers.
• Washed with baby wipes as men had taken all hot water from boiler to shave (fair enough, I should have got there earlier).
• Had breakfast – I’ve succumbed to a wrinkly sausage in the morning.
• Went to work, sneered at the Army.
• Met up with Gethyn now and again for a cuppa.
• Gave inconsequential periodic met briefs.
• Ate lunch (US Marine Corps bag meal – nice).
• Ate dinner (stew – camel?).
• Brushed teeth.
But oh, all the books have arrived (not sure how we’re going to cart them around but we’ll find a way). Do you realise you sent a cook book to a fifteen-stone food addict who’s living off war rations? Hilarious, but so cruel, especially as he is always hungry. I’ve been watching him flick through the recipes and it’s like watching a well-behaved Labrador drooling at a cooked chicken sitting on the kitchen table.
Thanks a million, though.
Love, Rosie x
Bluey
From: Rosie
To: Mrs Hughes (via the Post Office)
Date: 6 March
Hi, Mum
It’s 10p.m. and I’m sitting in the back of a truck writing this from the light of my head torch. We’re moving to another location in the desert at about 12.30a.m. I’m so tired. I think it’s Thursday but if someone told me it was Friday I wouldn’t argue. I wish I was out walking on Dartmoor on a rainy day, with my walking boots on and experiencing that tight, fresh feeling on my face. I feel like a prisoner. I am a prisoner.
When we’re on the move I have to sleep in a designated billet alongside the truck and there is this one man who watches me. He watches me wash, change out of my uniform, even brush my teeth. Perhaps my discomfort is not about a lecherous man who gets under my skin, but about my relationship with myself. Maybe that’s what I have to discover, but how can I learn to be a woman if, in this particular world, I need to be a man?
I’m over-thinking it again.
Love you. Rosie x
‘E’ Bluey
From: Aggie
To: Rosie
Date: 10 March
Hi, Rosie
Oh, fuck, re the cook book! I’ll send rations, too. How about a hamper?
I’ve been listening to the news. Nightmare for you!
In other, less significant, news you will never in a million years believe it, but Isabella Gambini is coming to stay with me - and to think you said I should ask her for help. Crazy! I’m beginning to think Summer Santiago (Be Careful What You Wish For) might be right. Things seem to be coming together at last (except for Mum, of course, but it would take more than a miracle to sort that woman’s head out).
Oh God, Rosie. Keep safe!
Love, Ag
P.S. And as for Emma – am I really that transparent?
Bluey
From: Rosie
To: Mrs Hughes (via the Post Office)
Date: 10 March
Hi, Mum
I need your help pretty quickly. I have no idea why, but every time I go to the toilet, as soon as I release my belt my bladder empties of its own free will. I just about get my trousers down, but I pee all over my pants. Maybe it’s stress, or maybe my dreadful caesarean scar is playing havoc with my bladder? Please can you go to a cheap shop (Matalan?) and buy me loads of pants and send them straight away? I haven’t the time to keep washing out and it would be unthinkable to stink of pee.
Love, Rosie x
Bluey
From: Gethyn
To: Aggie
Date: 16 March
Dear, Agatha
I bloody love you!
Thanks a million for the hamper. I’ve tried my hardest to share everything, but I’ve been a bit of a glutton, especially with the cake. I hope you don’t mind, but I traded the quails eggs for a packet of Chocolate Digestives with a Royal Artillery Major (I think he had a more select upbringing than mine). The wicker basket has also found a use. We fashioned it into a highly productive rodent trap and are catching one or two rats per day! You’re one in a million.
Not much time today, but I’ll respond soon with some thoughts on Isabella’s cook book. I’ll try to be less obtuse than last time, promise.
G.
Bluey
From: Rosie
To: Aggie
Date: 16 March
Hi, Aggie
A Harrod’s hamper? How absolutely awesome. Thank you. Gethyn has really cheered up.
Opening the hamper was such a surreal experience and a fabulous taste of home (even if it was, as Gethyn reminded me, a taste of stereotypical England sold from a shop owned by an Arab). There was even a tiny ornament of Big Ben. I keep it with me tucked into the bottom of my respirator sack and smile every time I see it. We’ve hidden the booze. We’re going to drink it when the war is over, whenever that is.
Life is still plodding on – same old, same old. Maybe by the time this letter reaches you I would imagine it will have begun. Shit, Ag, this is really happening. What has life come to when you’ve scaled your life down to such a bare minimum that the most important possessions you own are a gun and an atropine pen? I’ve discovered the secret to sound mental health out here is to find absolutely anything to do to keep busy. Spending time with my own thoughts is the enemy. Oh, and I don’t despise the Army anymore. Overnight I morphed into becoming one of them (it’s easier than resisting). We (HQ staff) handed over our body armour today. Not all the guys on the frontline have it and they need it more than we do, but I hope we’re not attacked, because ten bullets and no body armour is unlikely to keep death from my door. Sorry if this sounds a little glib, but I’ve reached a level of acceptance that my fate is no longer in my hands. Having said that, we were ordered to start taking NAPs (nerve agent poisoning) tablets today in case of chemical attack, but Gethyn and I have had a chat about it and we’re not going to take them. We’re playing the odds game.
We’ve been told that if anything happens to our loved ones at home during the early stages of the war we will not be informed, which leads me on to one last favour. Can you promise me something? If I don’t make it back, can you please watch over Mum and Dad for me? Bake Dad lots of cakes, buy him a drop of whiskey now and again and take Mum for trips out to the garden centre, especially at Christmas – she loves that. She suffers from depression (you probably guessed) and what with Simon in Australia, they’re pretty much alone and Dad doesn’t have the happiest of lives when she’s on a downer. When the fighting starts, we may not be able to correspond for a while, but whatever you do, keep writing to me and I’ll write back when I can. Speaking of Simon, you’ll not be surprised that I haven’t had one single letter from him. But that’s my brother for you.
Much love and the best of luck with the café. Maybe I’ll find my way back there one day, once this lot is over.
With a tsunami of love.
Rosie
Bluey
From: Rosie
To: Andrea Jones
Date: 16 March
Hi, Andrea
Thanks so much for your letter. It meant a great deal to me to receive it. The best thing I can say about life at the moment is that I have food to eat and water to drink and as one of my colleagues said, some people on the planet don’t even have that. It’s true, no matter what your situation, there will always be someone who can be in a shittier pickle than you. Right now though, there won’t be many, and those without food and water probably won’t be wondering if they are about to get bombed or gassed, but then again maybe they are – when you’re in a shitty situation, the crap tends to gather momentum.
It was lovely of you to say that I
’m an inspiration, but in all honesty, if I could choose between my life and yours, I would choose yours. You’re a mother and that surely is the most important job of all. Having said that, maybe the time for you to follow your own personal dreams is coming to the fore. Perhaps you could look at ways in which you could follow your dream to train as a nurse – you were always the one to take the mice and hamsters home from the classroom in the holidays. I bet you would be fab.
Follow your heart, Andrea. You never know where it might lead (perhaps best not to listen to me, though. Look where I ended up!).
Take care and thanks again for writing.
All the best, Rosie.
Bluey
From: Rosie
To: Aggie
Date: 17 March
Dear, Aggie
We’ve moved again. Can’t remember when I last slept. My day today:
1600 - Took down 12 X 12 tent with Gethyn.
1710 - Realised tent would not fit in bag. Refolded tent.
1725 - Couldn’t find tent pegs. Felt like civilian. Realised had left two poles out. Repacked tent with poles.
1800 - Finally finished with bloody tent.
1805 - Found friendly army bloke to help carry tent to truck.
1805 - Stood in desert waiting for Army to pack up all of HQ. Mammoth task they don’t want help with from amateurs.
2130 - Got thrown into truck without Gethyn by a Warrant Officer and landed on food supplies (tins).
2135 - Set off through desert in very long, lights-out convoy to destination unknown (very slow and very bumpy).
0100 - All vehicles stopped. Told we must wait in present location for five hours (amazed to have been given any info).
0110 - Pitying US Marine gave me a camp bed as I had bedded down directly on the desert floor.
0111 - Fell asleep.
0300 - Woke up with hyperthermia. Couldn’t be arsed to do anything about it as even small functions seemed beyond possible. Remembered that I’m not a baby and need to stay warm. Put on extra clothes. Fell back to sleep.
0600 - Got woken up by army bloke. Looked up to see lines of men peeing against trucks (realised it’s not just dogs that need something to pee against). Wondered where on earth I was going to pee? Pee’d round back of truck. Couple of blokes saw me. None of us cared.
0700 - Got to new location, re-built HQ. Much respect to Royal Signals guys and gals for doing majority of work.
Dear Rosie Hughes Page 11
