Due to everyone else having boarded, and the next flight not being due for another three hours, we had a clear run to the gate. Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t have been allowed with them, but Kamal and Kaleb worked enough early-morning shifts to simply wink as they waved the best source of caffeine in the airport on through.
‘Nah-ah.’ Leandra, who was about to head onto the plane, looked at the bedraggled, half-dressed, tear-smeared family and folded her arms. ‘Boarding closed five minutes ago.’
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘You’re not on the plane yet. It’ll hold things up by only another couple of minutes.’
She waved a hand at the bags. ‘That pushchair needs to go in outsized baggage.’
The woman grabbed her baby out of the seat, wrenched the bags off the handles and kicked the pushchair so hard, it crashed into the nearest bin.
‘Please, I can’t tell you what it’s taken to get us here. We’re going to see their grandparents for the first time since Lola was born. I can’t afford to book another flight, and I really, really need this break.’
‘Five minutes late, Leandra.’
Leandra pointed to the clock. ‘Six.’
‘And yet, you’re still not on the plane.’
‘I want Daddy,’ Oscar whimpered.
‘You know Daddy can’t come because he’s shooting bad guys in his big army tank,’ Isobel said.
That caught Leandra’s attention. Her son had completed his basic army training a few weeks ago, and she was terrified about him getting deployed.
‘He’s in Somalia,’ Isobel’s mum said. ‘It’s not the easiest, managing all this while he’s away.’
Leandra sighed at how quickly she’d caved, then waved them on through, grabbing two bags as they passed. ‘That child needs a nappy on before he sits down, though.’
I was turning back the way we came when someone pressed something into my hand.
‘It’s probably nothing, but I don’t have anything else. If you get lucky, promise me you’ll take a holiday of your own.’
I spun around to see the mum beaming at me.
Before I could respond, she’d sprinted back through the door that led to the aeroplane.
I opened my hand, finding a creased lottery ticket.
‘Okay,’ I mumbled, ‘I promise.’
An easy promise to make, when sure I wouldn’t have to keep it. I stuffed the ticket into my trouser pocket and hurried home.
That evening, as I chopped, stirred and seasoned in the kitchen, my thoughts kept drifting upstairs to the box. Taking this as a sign that I was ready for the next letter, once everything was ready, I procrastinated a bit longer by changing into pyjamas, sticking on the load of washing that I should have done the day before and vacuuming the living room, then retrieved the box. This time, thinking it might help me feel less as if Mum’s ghost was judging me, I took the stash of letters downstairs.
Settling into my spot on the sofa with a mug of decaf tea and a plate of cheese and crackers left over from Blessing’s visit, I carefully opened the second envelope. This one had been posted to Nell Brown, at a Nottingham suburb.
6 August 1985
Dearest Nellie,
Is it too soon to write? I know we agreed I would call, but there’s always a queue at the telephone box, and I prefer to speak without whoever’s next in line spreading my words across the island quicker than a blaze through the barley fields. I tell you, I’m feeling that frustrated at Da’s resistance to anything modern. Nothing gets me accused of mainlandering like my request to install a phone. You’d have thought I’d dumped a pile of pig manure in the living room when I bought a television for the farm. Da reckons they’re for ‘people with nothing better to do than sit about watching people with nothing better to do than act like utter clowns.’ Imoved it into my bedroom so I could watch the test match in peace.
Besides, I wanted to try writing something down. Words spoken can blow off on the wind and be forgotten.
If this is the start of forever, whatever I say deserves to last.
And after that rambling introduction – what can I say? Except that yesterday was almost perfect. I say almost, because at the end of it, we had to say goodbye, which was harder than I could have imagined a week ago.
With every passing minute, I grow more convinced that this is that indescribable, mysterious force which others name ‘true love’. You’ll have noticed I’m not one for grand words, but I understand now why good men will abandon their duty, cast off all common sense and attempt the foolhardiest of feats for a mere woman. Because to them, there is nothing mere about her. She is everything. You, Nellie, are everything, now. I find myself aching for some daring quest to not only prove my love, but that I might earn your love in return.
