I had been on her table for over a week. She’d tried to write on me but never got beyond Dear Tom.
She was back now, leaning over me and reflected in the mirror. Yawning, she put on her makeup, brushed her hair and tied it back. She slipped her earrings in and glanced down at me and then out of the window at the rusted blue gas-storage tower by the park beyond the flats. A train cut through the rooflines and the bin truck’s lights flashed as it crawled up the wet street.
She felt excited whenever she thought of him and how she’d smiled at him when they met. They had talked but other friends were there too and he wasn’t interested, so they’d circled around the party at a distance—she couldn’t stop looking at him. He won’t want to hear from me, she thought. He was abroad and wouldn’t be back for months. But he had smiled back and lingered near her before leaving with his mates.
And then she picked up the biro and started to write. She wrote fast and the pen looped across me. She smiled once and put the end of the pen to her mouth before turning me over and continuing down my other side. When she had nearly covered me, she paused and then wrote: With love from Anna. x
She looked at her watch and rushed to fold me in three. Her tongue licked my tabs, wetting my glue, and she pressed down my edges. Then she wrote his rank, name and address on the front of me. It occurred to her how strange it was that the four-digit number could deliver me all the way to where he was.
At the postbox she looked at me again and paused, suddenly nervous at the thought of him reading me, and then she said what the hell under her breath and I dropped through the dark slot.
I was taken to a sorting office and fed through a machine that recognised the letters and numbers she’d written on my front, and I was pulled down a track of belts and wheels and fell into a bucket. Next a man picked me up and put me in a sack.
I was projected across the world by trucks and planes and sorted again, then I went on a helicopter and was thrown off the back through a cloud of dust. The bag was opened outside a small mud building under camouflage netting and I was put in a pile with a parcel and three others the same as me.
A man was handed all of it and he smiled and walked over to a camp bed, where he sat down and sifted through us. He opened the parcel first, ripping through the cardboard and examining the bottle of chilli sauce, nuts, oatcakes, the tin of pate and the chocolate bars. He had a bite of chocolate as he read a card and smiled.
He picked me up and frowned at the handwriting. Then a friend called to him, so he tossed me aside and jogged out of the courtyard.
There were shouts and laughter. A ball arced into the courtyard and bounced around, and he ran back to pick it up from between jerry cans. He threw it over the wall and disappeared again.
He returned with another man and their T-shirts were dark with ovals of sweat. They sat opposite each other on their beds and talked. He offered him something from the parcel and then started to read me.
Dear Tom,
I read an article in the paper about where you are. It sounds really awful and, well, I thought I’d write. I know we’ve only met a few times but I asked Jess for your address. I hope you don’t mind!?
The last time was at her party—do you remember, we talked for a while? I’m not sure what about but I enjoyed meeting you. I think it was a few weeks before you went. It must be so difficult leaving it all and heading out there. No one really talks about it; we just carry on at work or in the pub. Just so you know, I have thought about you.
It seems odd. I’m about to walk to the bus and go to work. It looks like it’s going to rain again and I will probably be late (I’m always late!) and the biggest decision of my day is what sandwich I have for lunch. I can’t imagine what you’re doing except that the sun is probably out and it’s hot and you probably wish it wasn’t. The article made it sound like it is getting harder and we don’t know what we’ve let ourselves in for being there, and more people than we realise get hurt—I had no idea really.
Don’t write back if you don’t want, but it would be nice to see you when you’re home. Jess says it won’t be for a few months—maybe not until Christmastime. Could we have a Christmas drink? I love that time of year.
I best get to the bus stop before it’s so crammed I have to spend my journey in someone’s armpit. Stay safe, Tom.
With love from
Anna. x
P.S. Long blonde hair, quite short and stared at you a lot during Jess’s party—if you can’t remember!
He put me down on the bed under the mosquito net and continued to eat from the parcel and thought about the girl.
Over the next few weeks he tried to write back. And he read me over and over, but all he could manage was Dear Anna, thank you for your letter before he had to head out again or fell asleep or didn’t know what else to write. And then he didn’t come back and I was packed away into a cardboard box.