Letters from Skye (19 page)

“Finlay wrote that you were asking about Elspeth when she
was younger,” Gran said. “That you wanted to know your mother before you were born.”

I nodded. “He wouldn’t tell me much.”

“Finlay’s as stubborn as Elspeth, to be sure. All these years, both of them waiting for the other to apologise.” She scraped the last of the brose from the pot into my bowl. “Both were more alike than they’d ever admit, even as children. They were our dreamers, the two never content with a crofting life. Both were starving for knowledge. They read and reread everything they could reach. Both kept their eyes on the horizon, as though looking for a way to touch it. Both, when they gave their hearts away, lost them for good.”

I remember exactly what she said, because I made her repeat it and then scribbled it down the moment I could.

“The difference, though, was that the poetry was only in Finlay’s soul. It was in Elspeth’s very fingertips.” She gathered in the bowls and stacked them with a clatter. “To bed with you, Margaret Dunn. In the morning I will give you that ‘first volume.’ ”

Those black eyes didn’t brook any argument, and I knew where Mother had got her stubbornness.

When I woke in the morning, the cottage was quiet, everyone having gone off to their chores around the croft. On the kitchen table rested a plate of fresh bannocks, a pot of jam, and a tall stack of gilt-edged poetry books. All written by my mother.

Paul, I had no idea. I knew poetry rode in her soul but not that it had once flowed straight onto the page. My mother, a poet!

All week I’ve been reading and rereading the stack, building a picture of her through bits and pieces of verse. Joy, sunshine, the sea. Love soaring, love vanishing. Love tearing her in two. And I’m starting to understand what she’s feeling as she wanders London. For, in her poetry, I see some of those ghosts.

   Love,

   Margaret

London, England

24 August 1940

Dear Sir or Madam,

Many years ago, a young man named David Graham roomed at this address while a student at the University of Illinois. I know that it has been quite a long time, but I would appreciate any information you could supply.

If you have any information about his whereabouts after leaving Urbana, Illinois, can you please contact me? You can write to me at the Langham Hotel, London. I thank you in advance.

   Sincerely,

   Mrs. Elspeth Dunn

Chapter Nineteen
 
Elspeth

Place Five

June 30, 1916

Dear Sue,

Sue, YOU’VE DONE NOTHING WRONG. There isn’t anything inappropriate in how you’re reacting to Iain’s death. And how dare anyone try to make you feel otherwise! Cry if you want to. Or sing if you’d rather. Wear the black dress to church, but then change into a bright-yellow one when you’re at home. If you want to sit sweating in front of the fire, by all means do so. But then, the next morning, go for a walk barefoot in the coolness of the dew.

Don’t for a moment collapse in on yourself. You don’t realize what a vibrant force you are on this earth. You are not one meant for mourning. You’re meant for living and for loving. As long as you live, you are paying him tribute. As long as
you still love him, you are paying him tribute. Keep hold of that, Sue.

And remember, “Here I am.” I am just an envelope away.

   David

Isle of Skye

7 July 1916

My chevalier,

Even when you don’t think you have anything to say, you come up with the perfect words. Of course, I would’ve been cheered just seeing a grubby envelope addressed in your scrawl, but your words inside act as a balm to my raw heart.

I don’t have a yellow dress, but on the way home from the post office I couldn’t help but take off my hat and tuck a bunch of blue forget-me-nots in my hair. It was such a beautiful day, warm and drowsy, that it reminded me of my wedding day. Did you know, I would’ve been married eight years last week? I gathered up some more forget-me-nots, some bright-yellow saxifrage, pansy, red campion, and tied them into a wee posy with the ribbon from my hat. Then I took it to the spot where Iain and I used to play as children and laid it on top of the fairy mound where he gave me my first kiss. I couldn’t think of a better place for a memorial to him.

As I stood up there, trying to remember this man I hadn’t seen for nearly two years, this husband who suddenly became such a stranger to me, the question of whether or not I still loved him flitted unbidden across my mind.

I think I’ve always loved Iain in one way or another. I told you I’d known him for years. From childish affection to the “crush” of adolescence. From the blushing love that comes with adulthood to the comfortable love of marriage. So, yes, I still do love him. I suppose I can’t imagine
not
loving him, so long have I been doing it.

It’s funny you should ask about my poetry. I hadn’t written anything for a long time, not since Christmas. I tried to write something last night, as a way to sort out my feelings, but it all sounded so artificial. It didn’t flow the way my words did when I was with you. Remember that poem that I wrote in London about you sprawled across the bed with your arm flung over your face? That very movement was a poem in itself. The words were there—I only had to pluck them out of the air and pin them down onto the page. But last night … I just couldn’t do it. Is my muse gone? Will I not be able to write again?

As strange as this might sound, given the circumstances, I feel better having talked of Iain, almost as if my words here were a eulogy. By talking of him, laying that posy down, I feel as if I’m (gently) closing a door. But when one closes a door, all that remains is to open another one.

   Sue

Place Six

July 15, 1916

Sue,

It sounds as if you are doing well. I knew you would figure out what it was that you needed to do.

We’ve moved again. I feel like a gypsy, living out of the back of my flivver, never bedding down in one spot long enough to wear an indentation into the floor. We’re officially
en repos
again, so we’re a good distance behind the lines but still running the occasional evacuation, usually of the sick (
malades
) rather than the wounded (
blessés
).

Place Six is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in France, made even more so by the peacefulness and respite it offers us. I wish I could take your hand and show it to you. We’re staying in a little valley just beyond the town, verdant and dotted with flowers. After smelling powder and blood and the sickly sweet smell of infection for so long, we can’t get enough of the scent of fresh grass and wildflowers. Here’s a poppy for you, Sue. Press it in your
Huck Finn
and keep it for me.

I remember when you wrote that poem in London. Sue, could you send that to me? Yeats and Shakespeare are all fine and good, but I hunger for a bit of original Elspeth Dunn.

Do you notice I’m not worried when you say you’ll never write again? You thought the same right after the war broke out, and you kept on writing. Darker, more thoughtful stuff, but stuff all the same. I know you wrote a lot while we were in London. Your muse hasn’t left you, Sue. Be patient.

And you haven’t stopped writing, no matter what you say. Your words haven’t become artificial. You still write to me, and I don’t know that you’ve ever written more-natural, more-honest thoughts than you write in these letters.

Oh! There’s the call for mess. Have to end it for now but wanted to remind you that someone in France is thinking of you.

   David

Isle of Skye

22 July 1916

Davey,

Yesterday, I felt rather pensive. As I went about my chores, I couldn’t stop thinking about what it means to be married. The expectations the community has of you, the expectations you have of yourself. I’m still not sure what it means to be a widow. I don’t know what it is I’m allowed to feel or do.

I’m sure Iain’s mother thinks I should spend the rest of my days in mourning, saying a prayer for him each morning, lighting a candle for him each night. As I knelt in the garden, pondering this, I began to think that’s what I should be doing.

Then your letter arrived and I was reminded that, of the men in my life who have loved me from far away, here was one who was safe and whole and sound.

I went and dug up that poem to copy over for you. In a rush, those words brought back that lazy afternoon to me. I remember watching you there on the bed, looking so at ease, so happy.
We hadn’t eaten, had hardly slept in days, yet you were so perfectly content. Do you remember how you fed me oranges from the fruit bowl with your fingers? I don’t know what tasted sweeter—the oranges or you.

The poem reminded me not only of that afternoon but that I’ve been in love with you for a long time. Rather than spending my time pining away for someone who is never coming back, I could be pining for someone who will. If I say a prayer every morning, Davey, it will be a prayer for you, a prayer that this war ends soon and I have you by my side.

   E

Place Eight

July 31, 1916

Sue,

We’ve been jumping around but still
en repos
. We are camped on the grounds of a marvelous villa, with our tents set up right in the tree-lined park. There is nothing much to do, except for the occasional
malade
run, so we’ve been relaxing, reading, walking, touring the nearby town. Some days we almost forget there’s a war on.

Your poem brought back memories for me as well. Yes, I remember feeding you those oranges. The juice dribbled out of the corners of your mouth and I kissed it clean. We took so many baths! I know, you wished you could’ve taken that bathtub home with you as a souvenir. Me, I would’ve brought those oranges. Or maybe those flowers that you liked so well in Piccadilly, the ones you said smelled of the Highlands.

Don’t go buying any train tickets yet, but I think that I am due to go
en permission
at the beginning of September. We’re entitled to
perm
every three months for just a week but can take a leave of two weeks after nine months. A week isn’t nearly long enough to get from here to Scotland and then back again (which is why I haven’t gone any farther than Paris before now), but
two weeks will give us plenty of time. So be
en garde
, my dear, that if all goes well, I’ll be coming to see you in September. Maybe we could meet in Edinburgh?

   David

Isle of Skye

7 August 1916

Davey, my Davey!

Dare I even hope that I will see you in September? I know how fickle armies can be when it comes to leave. That’s only a month from now—I’ll start to dust off my suitcase! Yes, yes, I’ll remember to
bring
a suitcase this time. Edinburgh would be lovely. I was quite enamoured of the city. Or we can meet in London again, if that’s an easier trip. I don’t want to squander a moment of your leave. Someday I will get you up to Skye, but there is time. There is time.

My mother appeared on my doorstep last week with Chrissie and the bairns in tow. With the food shortages in Edinburgh and the Zeppelin attack in the spring, Chrissie thought the children would be much better off up with us on Skye. She and Màthair exchanged a look and Màthair said, “With all your extra space …” So here I am, playing “little mother.”

Chrissie went back to Edinburgh the very next morning—nurses are in too great a need these days for her to take more than a few days off—but the children settled in quite well. I have only the one bed, and Emily sleeps in here with me. Màthair brought over some tickings, which we stuffed with hay
and dried bedstraw. They all seemed to think it a jolly adventure to hike out in search of bedstraw. Emily is the only one who might have a memory of living on Skye. Allie was barely in breeches yet when they left and Robbie was just a wee yin. The boys have really known only city life and view the whole journey to stay with Aunt Elspeth in the Highlands as something akin to Marco Polo’s exploration of China.

I know that Màthair and Chrissie mean to distract me, to fill my days and nights so that they aren’t so lonely. I can’t fault them their thoughtfulness. But they don’t know that, ever since the postman brought me a letter from a cheeky American one rainy spring day four and a half years ago, I haven’t been lonely anymore. I love you.

   E