My Dear Bessie by Chris Barker

Author:Chris Barker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books

16 April 1945

My dear private and family matter,

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. – Don’t just read and pass on. Please read this reiteration carefully and hear me saying it. Blow me, I am mournful at the thought of our distance. It seems so absurd, so wrong, so impossible that only a little while ago we were together and now we are apart. We were settled down to writing to each other, before, but now – what can I write? I can’t help having a cheated feeling, and not much interest in anything else but you. Before, I loved you, my idea of you. But now, I have seen, heard, touched, smelt the living warmth and flesh of you. I was moved by you, and inside me still there’s the new kind of knowing whirr which newly and more strongly unites us.

Guards and parades cause me to worry very greatly. If they occur (Guards) once every ten days, I shall spend five apprehensive days preparing and five days recovering. We had our first real parade today, up at 6, frantic preparations, and passed off OK as far as I was concerned. The inspecting officer checked each of us for some error we were supposed to have – collars undone, medals awry, belts too high or too low, and so on. But although I am terrorised and find it an ordeal, he was not ungentlemanly, and that was most welcome. We had about a half-hour’s drill afterwards, not with our rifles, which we simply carried (and nearly broke our arms), and although I was always on the wrong foot, my misdemeanours went undetected, and my life of crime continues.

On Saturday, I saw Thank Your Lucky Stars (Eddie Cantor, E.E. Horton, Bette Davis), a lot of nonsense, badly projected. The religious influence in this country is sickeningly real and obvious; it is maddening to see the priests walking along the streets. Yesterday we went for a walk, down the road which leads to the nearest town. We said ‘Bonner Sarah’ (that is the pronunciation) to four women sitting on a wayside seat. They were chanting hymns, replied similarly, and then continued chanting as we walked on.

I think of you getting up, going to the station, getting to Charing Cross, walking back from Park Lane in the evening. I try hard to imagine the grandness of you, at long distance. I hope you are not feeling too bad, my darling, my love, my dearest. I’m not so good, myself.

I love you.

Chris

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