Jessica Brockmole - Letters from Skye

Tucked in the back of the kist was a broken wooden comb. He always wore his hair too long. He said he liked to feel it blowing against his forehead when he was out on the water. The night before he left, he sat in front of the fire in just his trousers and cut his hair short. I thought to catch it all up and tuck the locks between the pages of Byron, but he tossed it all into the fire. I wasn’t that sentimental, anyhow.

At the bottom of the kist, I found a dented biscuit tin, crusted with salt and rusted shut. It must’ve lived in his seabag, before he emptied it and packed for the army. I had to lever it open with the meat knife. And, oh, Davey! Inside, a copy of my first book, Waves to Peinchorran. We hadn’t been married yet when I gave it to him, not knowing if he’d ever read it. The pages were water-stained and, right in the middle, at a poem about summer nights, was a twisted lock of my hair. In pencil he’d underlined the phrase “warm as a breath on my face.” Next to the book was a carved wooden baby rattle.

Since then I’ve been sitting here, wrapped in a sweater of his, staring into the fire. Màthair came over yesterday and clucked her tongue to see me sweltering in front of a fire with a wool sweater. She brought in water for a bath and set to work making a fish pie. While the pie cooked, she helped me wash my hair and asked, “Is it guilt you’re feeling?”

How could I explain to her that it wasn’t guilt over loving you, that it was guilt over not loving Iain enough? That all this time I spent thinking he was turning from me, he wasn’t. He went away, chasing herring up the Minch, but he carried a piece of me with him. He always kept me close.

I feel so hollow, Davey. Back when I got the other letter, when I found out he’d gone missing, I told myself he was dead. I cried my allotment of tears then. Why would I tell myself anything different? Hope is useless at a time like that. Hope only sets you up for disappointment.

Davey, I don’t know how to do this. Mourn. I didn’t shed a tear when the letter arrived, and I still haven’t. I can’t leave the house, because who would understand? There goes his widow, who refuses to cry. There goes his widow, who doesn’t care.

But I do. He was my husband. How could I not care?

I don’t know what it is I expect you to say. I’m not entirely sure why I’m writing, except that’s what I do. Màthair told me not to stop. She told me to keep writing “my American,” that there was no better way to keep me going.

Please don’t leave me, Davey.

Sue

Beagan Mhìltean, Skye

Saturday, 31 August 1940

Dear Paul,

After Gran found me at Seo a-nis and brought me back to her house, she could see the questions in my eyes. But she put me off. Told me we could talk tomorrow. She had a big pot of brose cooking over a fire and set me down at the table across from my grandfather and my uncle Willie, two men as weathered as the Crags. Gran kept those sharp crow’s eyes fixed on me, but Grandfather didn’t look at much but the inside of his eyelids the whole meal.

With no sounds but the crackling of the fire and the scraping of spoons in bowls, I waited for Gran to say something. Such a wee woman, yet so intimidating. She’d dried me off and given me an ancient sweater and a pair of Grandfather’s trousers to put on. My own clothes steamed quietly in front of the fire. Uncomfortable in strange clothes in a strange place, I waited for Gran to go first.

Uncle Willie blethered the whole meal, with anecdotes about Skye, questions about Edinburgh, and a whole string of awful jokes. About himself or my mother, he said nothing. From Gran’s tight mouth and narrowed eyes, I gathered that Willie was the family disappointment. Unmarried, uncouth, still taking up space in her house.

Through all Willie’s talk, Gran sat silently, watching me. A battle of wills, and the old woman was the more stubborn of us. I finally broke and asked her how she knew I’d be coming. On a place such as Skye, I could full well believe in second sight.

“Finlay wrote to me.”

Willie’s spoon clattered into his bowl. “Finlay wrote?”

“First time in twenty or so years.” She had a glint of satisfaction in her eyes. “He said Elspeth’s daughter had tracked him down and, if she stayed as persistent, would be up on my doorstep in no time.”

“Why didn’t you tell me he wrote?”

Gran glared. “Just because you live in my house and eat my bread does not mean I tell you everything, Willie Macdonald.”

Willie didn’t even look chagrined. “He’s my brother.”

“And yet he didn’t write to you.”

Willie thumped back his chair and, with no apology, left the kitchen.

Disappointment indeed. My first night there, and already in the middle of a family squabble.

“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

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.