Your Blue-Eyed Boy by Helen Dunmore

Author:Helen Dunmore [Dunmore, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141917320
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2013-04-13T04:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

There’s a red post van at our gate, its engine running. The postman’s sorting through a handful of letters. He sees me, picks out three envelopes, gives me a long stare. He’s new. I hold the letters in my hand, not looking at them.

‘Where’s Pete?’

‘Taken a sickie.’

‘What?’

‘That’s why I’m here.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry –’

‘That’s how it goes,’ says the boy who can’t be more than twenty-five, with his yellow hair pulled back in a ponytail and his look of doing the job as long as it suits him and not a second longer. He wouldn’t dream of bumping a bike down here, over the ruts, the way Pete Titheradge’s had to do. Fifteen years, he’s been the postman down here. But the yellow-haired boy has got his smart scarlet van and his bad news and he’s happy. He gets back in the van, reverses sharply so his rear wheels spin into the turf, then shoots forward.

The top letter is airmail. The stamps are US stamps. I don’t have to open it to know that it’s a letter from Michael. I don’t have to open it, either, to tell by its weight that there is more than a letter inside the envelope. I stuff the other two letters into my jeans pocket, and rip Michael’s open. For a moment it frightened me, his trick of being in two places at once. Michael is here, a few fields away, down by the sea. Michael is between my hands, in this letter. But I know he meant me to feel this way, and the thought makes me recover. He might have posted this letter himself, just before leaving. Letters from America can take five days to arrive. Or he might have left it behind for someone else.

‘Mail this for me Saturday, would you? I don’t want it to get there too quick.’

I can almost see the hand taking the letter. I could put my own hand out and push it down, gently. No, don’t do that. You don’t know what he’s asking you to do.

He’s got me jumping at shadows. I open the letter, see the slick backs of photos. I don’t turn them over. I unfold the letter first.

Dear Simone

Do you like getting mail ? I like it because it’s been touched. Faxes and e-mails don’t give you the same buzz, do they? Mail smells of people. Don’t you believe that? Did you just lift up this letter and smell it? I knew it. I know you so well.

I’m here now, here with you. You know that already. Do you remember that time we barbecued chicken and shrimp, down by the water? Then we went back up to the cabin and Calvin came with us and took some pictures. We had to hold you up. You were out of it, Simone. You won’t remember a thing. But it was a beautiful night.

Remember I love you. You can’t get away from that.

He hasn’t signed the letter. I turn the photographs over. They are close-ups of me and Michael.

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