by Clare Revell
The last time he’d seen Connie he’d been sixteen and she’d been his best friend’s kid sister. The proverbial girl next door who at thirteen had sometimes been irritating, sometimes downright infuriating, but through it all, had been the one friend who’d stuck by him over so very many years.
Ever since that first letter way back in 1971.
Chapter Two
Southampton. 30th July 1971.
Dear Oliver,
You don’t want to know how many times I crossed out and started over writing you this letter. Technically you’re not my dear anything cos you’re Matty’s friend and not mine. I’m just the little kid who tagged along with the big boys and drove you nuts. You probably won’t even reply, never mind read this, but I’m keeping my promise and writing to you. Once a month or thereabouts.
Oh, and I apologise now for my spellings. Never was any good at it and you probably can’t read my handwriting either. But oh well. This is a special air letter that comes already franked and I just have to seal the edges and shove it in a post box. Mum got me a pack of six from the post office when she got the family allowance on Tuesday.
Oh, and the reason there aren’t any crossings out on here is cos I already wrote it out once and I’m copying it out.
We played Battleships yesterday. Matty insisted on doing a sheet for you, although I reckoned that wasn’t fair as he knew where both yours and his ships were at the same time. I still managed to win. Not sure how. And he also insisted on using your call sign when you made your shots. Oscar Sierra Victor. Still not sure what the S stands for as you never did tell me.
Can I guess? Simon. Shaun. Shane. Simone (yes I know that’s a girls name )
We’re going to Scotland tomorrow on holiday. The weather looks colder there than here. We’re staying with my aunt and her foster kids. Think she has five right now, so that will be a laugh. Bit of a crowded house though.
The new people in your old house aren’t very friendly. The kids are posh and stuck up. There are four of them—all boys, mind you. Ezra is 16 like Matty (and you), Malachi is 13 like me, Joel is 11 like Sandy, and the other one, Amos, is 9. Their parents have Biblical names too. And we’re guessing very religious as all the kids are all named after Old Testament prophets. They’re Solomon and Esther. They must be rich as they have a bike each! And a new car. A brand new car, not an old one like ours.
Better go as out of space and Mum wants to go to Nanna’s. I can post this one the way.
From Connie Annabelle Falcon.
New York. 30th August 1971.
Dear Connie,
I promised to write didn’t I? And as Dear Whoever is the correct way to start a letter, unless you’re really mad at the person you’re writing to, Dear Oliver is fine.
You know something? School has already started over here! It’s so weird, and so unfair. I hardly got a summer break at all. Sometimes it’s September and sometimes not. Apparently it depends when Labour Day is. Or rather Labor Day—if I have to spell it correctly. And it’s nothing like in England. Here you need a hall pass simply to leave the classroom during a lesson and everyone is sport crazy. Oh and they call proper football ‘soccer’. What they call football is actually rugby but played in armour. They have rests or time outs, every few minutes and what should be a ninety minute game takes several hours. Seriously, it’s ridiculous. The entire country’s obsessed with it. That and baseball.
No one plays cricket. Which is a shame, as I love cricket.
Mind you, I did get to play basketball the other day. The teacher reckons I’m good at it. So I guess my long legs are good for something. Haven’t made any friends yet.
Dad’s new job is going okay. He’s working really long hours. The house is huge. Way too big for just the three of us, but then everything is big here. The roads, the cars—oh and I get to go to school on a yellow bus. No one walks anywhere.
I ought to go. I have an essay to write. Or an assignment as they call it. Either way, it’s simply homework under another name.
Your friend, Oliver S Voight.
PS. No it’s not Shane or Shaun or Simon (or Simone.) I would say keep guessing, but you’ll never guess. It’s an old family name. First male of every generation gets it somewhere (that’s Mum’s side, not Dad’s).
Southampton. 29th September 1971.
Dear Oliver,
Yeah, okay, that’s two months since I last wrote, not one, but I waited until you’d replied before writing again. We learned about pen pals in English at the start of term and Miss Ede said that’s the proper way to do it. You write, wait for the response, then write back. But not immediately, else you come over as too eager and they won’t reply back again.
Or something like that.
So, is your name Sausage? Semolina. Syrup Sponge? No, actually, your name won’t be any of those. You’ll just have to tell me. Unless it’s Susan.
Honestly, just now, I tuned out and was mentally writing to you in my head. Not that I can remember any of it now.
So, New York, huh? Is it as big as they say it is on the telly? And can you really see that tower King Kong climbed up from everywhere?
The audition sheet for the school play is up. It’s in March, as always, and this year they’re doing The Wizard of Oz. Matt reckons I should go for it. He says I’d make the perfect munchkin cos I’m so short. He’s lucky the book I threw at him missed. But that got me in heaps of trouble, so I’m stuck inside and can’t go out and play.
No that’s not why I’m writing to you.
Matt’s being super annoying. He keeps running up to the window and waving at me, telling me how lovely it is outside. Still I don’t care. I have a great book to read, about these kids who get sent away during the war and find a magical country inside a wardrobe.
Maybe I should go check out the wardrobe in our spare room just in case.
Why can’t exciting things ever happen to me?
Love Connie. (Not love love. Just love as in signing a letter.)
PS. Nope, no magical anything in my wardrobe. Sad times.
New York. 31st October 1971.
Dear Connie,
Trust me when I say that being out of England isn’t as exciting as it’s made out to be. I hate it. I’d give anything to be back home. There’s this massive war going on right now. One of the kids in my maths class (only now I have to call it math) got sent home in the middle of the day yesterday. His brother got killed in a battle in some country halfway around the world, 8600 miles to be precise. I don’t even know why the US is fighting someone else’s civil war, but there you go. And I daren’t ask, cos they’ll think I’m more stupid than they already do.
It’s tough being the outsider. The blokes think I’m an idiot cos I’m British. The girls, however, swoon over my accent. Can you imagine anything worse?
We discovered I can’t play what passes for football here. And I managed to get myself not picked for the basketball team. Clever move on my part.
Dad thinks that might make getting into a college hard as everyone has to play a sport. Well, if you’re a boy you do. Girls seem to get away with being intelligent. I don’t see why it’s such a big issue. I mean, surely you go to college to study and get a qualification, not play some stupid ball game.
Halloween is a really big thing here. The houses get decorated, kids dress up and go trick or treating. Basically go door to door and beg for sweets. I’m not going. I’m not a kid.
Sides, Dad has a bunch of people from work over for dinner and I have to go make nice and sit downstairs with them. I’d rather not, but it’s not a choice apparently.
Love, Oliver. (Again not love love cos you know you’re Matt’s kid sister and everything.)
PS. Not saying—cept it’s not Susan. Or Sue. You get one guess with each letter you send. Could take years.
PPS. Really craving sausages now. Thanks for that.
New York. 1st December 1971.
[Christmas card.]
Dear Connie,
&
nbsp; Happy Christmas. We have snow!
Love, Oliver.
Southampton. 15th December 1971.
[Christmas card.]
Dear Oliver,
Hope you have a good Christmas.
Love, Connie.
PS. We don’t have snow. Well not yet anyway.
Southampton. 10TH January 1972.
Dear Oliver,
Long time, no real letter, as a Christmas card doesn’t count as one in my book. Not sure why, but I’m here now. Happy New Year. We had the usual Christmas. Church. Dinner. Queen’s Speech. Presents.
Oh and I had to write lots of thank you letters for those presents. Mum makes us do them like two days after Christmas.
Umm there you go. My really good reason for not writing sooner. Let’s start over.
(Clears throat and picks up pen. Pretends the precious paragraph didn’t happen and therefore starts this letter all over again. ’Cept it’s not on a new air letter cos I only have one left after this one.)
Dear Oliver,
Sorry I didn’t write, but I was all lettered out after writing millions of thank you letters over Christmas for all the presents I got that I didn’t like. No one gets me anything I actually want. It’s all socks and jigsaw puzzles. Dad says I should be grateful to get anything at all, and that there are thousands of children in Africa who don’t even get socks.
Hmmm…they don’t wear socks cos it’s too hot. And do you suppose they are the same ones that are starving?
Another excuse. Post takes so long to arrive. Even by air. Especially at Christmas. It’d take longer by boat. And they sink.
Anyway, a massive thing kicked off in physics today. Well, actually it started last week, with the Maltese cross experiment. Miss Hahn kind of broke it. The vacuum globe thing fell out of the stand and hit the floor and imploded!
There was glass everywhere. And I mean everywhere—even though it imploded rather than exploded. Weird huh? Mr Craven wasn’t impressed at all when he came in to see why we were screaming.
But I digress—that’s the word of the week in English by the way. Miss Hahn isn’t easy at the best of times, and it is somewhat rubbish having your form tutor actually teaching you. Anyway, Dion started winding her up in registration, like he does sometimes, but this time he carried on in the lesson. It turned into a right slanging match. Not even making him stand in the corner made him stop. Miss Hahn proper lost it and threw the blackboard rubber/duster/eraser/whatever you want to call it as everyone calls it something different, at him. Her aim is well good or spot on if we’re being posh.
She didn’t hit him of course. She hit the wall behind his head. He went right pale and the whole room went silent. No one dared move in case she lobbed something else across the room.
Bah. Out of room. I’ll continue in another letter. Good job I didn’t use it. Connie.
PS. Seth?
Still Southampton. Still 10th January 1972.
Letter 2/2. Read other one first. The one with read me first on the cover of it. Ha ha
So where was I? Oh, yeah, Miss Hahn had a proper go at him then. Shouting at the top of her voice. Of course, Mr Craven comes running in from the classroom next door.
Dion promptly holds his arm, insisting she’d broken it, when we all know she’d not laid a finger on him. At that point all hell broke loose. (Don’t tell Mum I said hell, cos she’ll put soap on my toothbrush again.) Dion gets sent to the nurse’s room. Miss Hahn gets sent to the headmistress’s office. And we get sent to the form room to wait for someone to come sit with us because we can’t be left unattended. Anyone would think we were a bunch of ten year olds.
Next thing we see, cos our form room overlooks the front of the school, is an ambulance and a police car arrive!
We decide we can’t let Dion ruin Miss Hahn’s career so we sent Nigel, as he’s head of the form, to the head’s office to put the record straight.
Upshot is, Miss Hahn is staying and Dion got a week’s suspension. He’s also being transferred to Mr Craven’s form! Hah. He won’t get away with anything there.
Matt says hi———————
I stole Connie’s pen. How you doing, mate? Don’t know if she told you about the kids next door. We play football together on a Saturday morning. It’s fun. Don’t let Connie come cos she’s a girl and girls don’t play football. M.
I would rip this up cos Matt spoilt it, but that’s childish and I’m trying to be a grownup today. Is it grownup or grown up? Oh, and I can play football as well as any boy. He just won’t admit it. Wish they’d let us at school. I hate netball and hockey. And tennis. If we have to play anything I’d rather it was badminton or football.
Least they wouldn’t make us wear these ridiculous short shirts for PE and games if we played football. We even have special PE knickers we have to wear under them! Give us shorts like the boys wear. Problem solved.
Okay. Out of room again. Write soon.
Love Connie.
PS. So as this is a new letter I get a new guess. Sebastian.
New York. 24th March 1972.
Dear Connie,
No. Not Sebastian. Or Seth. Keep guessing. Maybe go out and buy a baby naming book. Although that’s probably not a good idea. Better go to the library instead, and look up some names. And you should probably keep a record of which ones you’ve guessed so far as repetition results in disqualification. And like I said, could take years.
Not much happening here. Mum’s been under the weather the past couple weeks. She’s been getting tired a lot and doesn’t eat much. Dad says it’s nothing to worry about, and he’s probably right. He’s right about most things. Apart from moving here. Maybe I’ll look at universities in the UK.
A few of the kids my age are driving already. Some of the richer ones own cars. Dad says I can learn if I want. He’s got to be kidding—they drive on the wrong side of the road!
Love Oliver.
PS. How did the school play go?
Southampton. 10th July 1972.
[Birthday card.]
Dear Oliver,
Happy birthday.
Love, Connie.
PS. The play was a lot of fun. Might even try out for next years. Then again, might not.
PPS. Question. Why, when writing letters, do you have to put a comma between love and your name, but not between dear and the name of the person you’re writing to? I don’t expect you to know, but it’s just weird. Don’t think I shall always bother again. It . So don’t pull me up on it if I forget.
PPS. It’s raining.
New York. 12th July 1972.
[Birthday card.]
Dear Connie,
Hope you have a great birthday.
Love Oliver.
PS. That’s almost a whole year over here now.
Southampton. 3rd December 1972.
[Christmas card.]
Dear Oliver,
Sorry I haven’t written much, but at least you got a couple of cards. We didn’t have a holiday this year, just went out for days instead. We went to a safari park, in the new car, and the monkeys pulled out the windscreen washer tube. Dad wasn’t happy. No one dared say a thing for hours after that.
Love Connie.
New York. 4th December 1972.
[Christmas card.]
Dear Connie,
I kept meaning to write, but school work gets in the way. Along with church. There’s a lot happening there and it’s fun. Oh, and I’ve learnt to play the guitar. Dad reckons I’m pretty good at it too.
Love Oliver.
Southampton. 2nd July 1973.
[Birthday card.]
Dear Oliver,
Happy 18th birthday. Yes, I know the big one is meant to be twenty-one, but eighteen is apparently the new twenty-one.
Love Connie.
New York. 4th July 1973.
[Birthday card.]
Dear Connie,
Happy Independence Day!
Ha ha ha. Actually it’s really happy birthday!
/> Love Oliver.
Southampton. 7th December 1973.
[Christmas card.]
Dear Oliver,
You officially get the first card of the season. Happy Christmas.
Love Connie.
New York. 10th December 1973.
[Christmas card.]
Dear Connie,
Hope this finds you well and having a good Christmas. Maybe next year we’ll send proper letters again. I actually miss the chatty ones you sent the first year we moved out here. It’s a bit quiet here as Mum is sick again.
Love Oliver.
Southampton. 15th March 1974.
Dear Oliver,
Ezra asked me out! I said yes, of course. But as I’m only 15 (well 15¾) and about to start my exams, I can’t tell anyone it’s a “date.”
’Cept you of course, cos you won’t tell anyone. Actually you can’t until it’s over as you won’t get the letter in time. I know he’s older than me, by two whole years, but I don’t care. He’s cute. Age is a number anyway. It’s not like he’s 24 or something. I mean, the new music teacher is only 25. So totally different.
We’re going to the football game—watch the team he and Matt play for and then to a film afterwards.
How’s your mum? You said in your card at Christmas that she was sick. Have you gone to college? Or whatever it’s called over there? Have you tired of me and don’t want to write anymore?
Sigh. Mum’s yelling up the stairs. She says I have to turn off my music and study for my ‘O’ levels. That without them I’ll amount to nothing. That I have no time for letters or boys or a life of my own. That’s another reason she can’t know about Ezra.
Love Connie.
PS. Steve.
PPS. No I hadn’t forgotten, but I have a book of names now. Mwhahahahahahaha.
New York. 25th April 1974.
Dear Connie,
I’ve dropped out of college to help look after Mum. The doctors have no idea what’s wrong and Dad has to work to pay the medical bills. Never thought I’d miss the National Health Service. Here if you can’t pay you can’t see a doctor.
