Darling,
I don’t know if you’ll ever get this letter but I had to write it anyway.
Sorry for any spelling mistakes. You know I’m writing this quick and urgent as I need to catch the post-man, and you know spelling was never my strongest was it, not never in school. But Roddy. I have to tell you, in case – well I can’t write it here – but you know what I’m thinking. I have to write so that I can think of you over there, with my words tucked up in your pocket next to your heart.
Of course your wife will write you too, going on about the boys and the socks she’s knitting and stuff like that. Everyone else is allowed to write you. Your mum. Jenny, Nanna. Everyone except me. But you know, don’t you, things I can’t never say? I have to say them. Otherwise my heart is going to crack right open like a walnut shell.
That day you left. The line you was in with the others – you remember me running alongside, and then stopping when I saw Alice. I was trying to tell you. Something I think you’ve guessed. And whatever happens, whatever - I won’t never get over you and I won’t never find another man if you don’t come back and I don’t care what anyone says about war and fighting but what we did was real too wasn’t it, what we did matters? It was true and ours, and it’s the only thing that matters in this world really isn’t it? It’s the only thing that lasts, that can save us - Roddy, darling, I have to tell you!
You’re a good man Roddy. I know you was scared that night and lonely and you wasn’t thinking about Alice and you didn’t mean to hurt no one it was just a long time we’d loved each other and not given in to it, wasn’t it, all those years in school and that, but for me it wasn’t like that at all. It wasn’t a mistake no, and it wasn’t the war neither. It was the most special thing I’ve ever done. It will always be that to me. So Roddy, I won’t tell soul, all right, I promise. I just wanted to write you this letter. I’ll raise her or him by myself to be a good person I won’t let him go to war neither if he’s a boy or maybe I will if it’s a good cause, right, like what you’re doing. I’ll do a good job I know I will -I always wanted to be a mother.
I can bear anything, I’ll go away to a home to have my baby, I won’t bring a scandal, I’ll raise him right - I hope it’s a son Roddy, I hope he grows up into a good man like you - I’ll bear whatever people want to throw at me.
If only you’ll keep safe Roddy. Please, Roddy. Just keep yourself safe and come back.
Your loving Ruby
xx
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