Читать книгу It Started With A Note - Victoria Cooke - Страница 17

On board the ferry from Portsmouth, I take a solitary seat at the bar under strict instructions from Kaitlynn to have a glass of fizz to kick-start my holiday. I think ‘calm my nerves’ is more appropriate. I still can’t believe I’m doing this, going to France on my own. Well, bonjour madame indeed. I order a glass of champagne, my newly highlighted chunky lob bouncing around my shoulders as I speak. Some music starts to play and children gather around a small stage as some interestingly dressed entertainer comes out waving his arms around much to their glee.

Despite eventually showing Gary the letters, I’d not managed to change Gary’s opinions about me going to France. I’d explained why I was making the trip and how it was the Darlington family destiny, hoping to generate a spark of emotion, but he just didn’t get it. Under different circumstances, it could have been a family pilgrimage of sorts: me, Kieran and Gary tracing the rich history of our ancestor. Instead, he’d just quizzed me about what I was hoping to see or achieve since everyone involved is dead and would be unlikely to care. That stung because our mum would have cared. I don’t know why she never showed me the letters but I do know she would have cared.

I wipe the moist corner of my eye with the sleeve of my ill-fitting blazer that I’d got for eight pounds in the sale at H&M because I thought it looked smart.

In the end, I booked four weeks off work, because my manager asked me if I wouldn’t mind taking all my annual holiday in one go. It was very unusual to be granted so much leave all at once, but he said it was a quiet time of year and it was better from a staff planning point of view if I did. I think he was worried about union action if word got out that the ‘employee of the year’ didn’t take holidays. It probably sets a bad example. Plus, as Jamie said, I’d never get around to taking the remaining two weeks if I didn’t do it now. He was right, of course, and it gave Gary a decent length of time to pull his finger out.

And now here I am, sitting drinking champagne at breakfast time. I giggle and immediately look around self-consciously, but nobody seems to have noticed.

I’d briefly studied WWI poetry for my A levels, and I’d left a library copy of Wilfred Owen’s The War Poems for Gary to read, along with instructions for returning the book. He may not have any sympathy for our grandmother and the loss of her father, but he could blooming well educate himself on the horrors of the Great War and learn a little about our great-grandfather’s sacrifice.

Suddenly overwhelmed at the thought of losing my treasured letters, I check my tote bag in a panic. It’s there, exactly where I’d left it. I pull it out, handling it like a lottery ticket with all the right numbers on.

A sleek leather wallet filled with my fragile pieces of history.

I’d sorted the letters chronologically and placed each one in a plastic wallet for safekeeping. I’m not sure what I’ll do with them after the trip but I know I want them with me as I retrace my great-grandfather’s Great War journey.

Another Kaitlynn idea – to treat myself. It seemed fitting to have something special to transport them in, and I’d got a pretty good deal, otherwise I wouldn’t have splashed out, but all that excitement is now wavering because the financial implications of four weeks abroad isn’t to be sniffed at. I’d be needing my entire prize money, my annual bonus, and there is a good chance I’ll need to dip into my modest savings too.

As if on cue, the waiter slips the bill in front of me, and when I spy the charge I baulk. Surely he’s charged me wrong? I pick up the wine list and double-check the price – something I should have done before I’d ordered ‘a nice glass of champers’, but I got caught in the moment. Sure enough, it is fifteen euros a glass. I leave the cash on the plate, mentally calculating how many tins of corned beef I could’ve bought with that, before I decide to head up to the sundeck.

Fighting the wind, I make my way to the railing and take out the first plastic wallet, clutching it tightly.

The letters don’t cover his whole story and he never discloses his location so I had to use the internet to research the journey of his regiment and match up the dates. He’d been an early enlistee, one of the so-called ‘Kitchener’s Mob’ and he’d sailed from Southampton to Le Havre in December 1915 after almost thirteen months of training, prolonged partly by a lack of training equipment and uniforms. Most soldiers arriving after him had nowhere near that length of training.

The first letter my great-grandfather sent was just after he’d landed in France during the winter of 1915.