The Last Letter He Sent Her

The Last Letter He Sent Her

W E’VE COME DOWN

to the water.

I’m a little tingly from the champagne. Emmeline has brought the bottle with us.

The waves are coming in, sparkling in the last of the light.

We arrange ourselves on the sand. I have none too much of an idea of how Emmeline would like the handover to take place, save that she said she wanted to do it with a little ceremony.

Bella is watching us both with a mixture of curiosity and amusement.

‘Right,’ Emmeline says.

‘Are you ready?’ I ask her.

She nods. ‘I’m ready.’

I take Mr McGlew’s letters from my pocket.

I pass them over to Emmeline.

Everybody is quiet, except for the ocean: she continues to whisper.

Emmeline opens the first envelope and pulls out the very first letter he didn’t send.

She stares at it for a moment and, when she blinks, two tears tumble from her eyes.

‘Em?’ Bella asks. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Would you read them, dear?’ Emmeline hands the envelopes to Bella, who looks alarmed at being given such a significant responsibility. ‘Please?’ Emmeline adds, and so Bella clears her throat, opens the first letter and reads. She has a beautiful reading voice. Clear and kind, as she reads the words William meant for Elsie. When she reaches the last letter he sent her, I advise Bella to look again inside the envelope, and she finds the poem.

Bella reads, quietly now,

I would return to the forest

again and again with my axe,

never resting,

so that you might live for ever

A wave sweeps towards us and, for a moment, the whirl of the water is the only sound.

Emmeline is crying, wiping tears on the sleeve of her blouse. Bella replaces the letters into the envelopes and hands them back to her.

‘I didn’t love my sister well,’ Emmeline says, and she holds up a hand as though I am about to say something unfounded and conciliatory to her. ‘No,’ she says, ‘it’s true, I didn’t. But it is nice to know that she was loved like that by William. Even if she didn’t know. There is no limit on love. I am glad to know she had more than even she knew.’

‘He really loved her,’ Bella agrees.

‘These will be precious to me for ever,’ Emmeline says, holding the crumpled envelopes to her chest. ‘Thank you, Eddie. Thank you, both. Sincerely.’ Then she breathes in. ‘Right. Shall we get home and pop some fizz?’ She gestures to the road, where her yellow Beetle awaits us, and we ascend back into the heights, to raise a glass to William and Elsie, wherever they are now.