March 21st, 1991
Dear Elizabeth,
If you are reading this, then it means you have come looking for me and for that I am truly grateful.
She set her pen down. Truthfully, she did not believe this letter would ever be read and writing it was going to be painful. With so little time left, did she really want to be dredging up the most difficult decision she had ever had to face and one she had always regretted? She felt her mother’s eyes on her, intense, determined, and, with a sigh, she picked up the pen once more.
When she was young and people had said, in that blithe, careless manner they often use with children, that it must be hard for her not having a mummy, she'd always wondered what they were talking about. In those early years, her mother was an intangible presence, her very own magic trick, watching over her, helping her face the things that made her heart beat faster. Her father knew, of course. It was a constant sadness to him that he could not see her.
‘I can feel her though,’ he had said. ‘I feel her touch in the warmth of the summer wind, her voice in the lark’s song.’
He was such a romantic, her dad. When he had died all those years ago, she'd hoped he would find his beloved wife once more, that together they would be at peace. She had insisted that he be buried in the graveyard in Great Chalkham, although he no longer lived there, so that his final resting place would be near his wife and son, even if it was not in the same plot. He had been her rock throughout her childhood and teenage years and especially when she fell apart after Billy’s death. For her and her unborn child, he had given up his job, his life, in Great Chalkham and moved to a village in Norfolk where no one knew them, where she could bear the stigma of giving birth to an illegitimate child. He had never complained; she never doubted that his love for her and, later, his granddaughter, transcended all else.
She reread the sentence she had written. The rest of the page, blank, untouched, seemed to mock her. This was too hard, like trying to paint an appealing self-portrait when your face is covered in warts. How could she win her daughter’s forgiveness with sentences in a letter? She needed to hold her, let her feel the love and the regret pulsating through her.
Just tell her your story. The words rang out so clear and true that she actually looked round to see who had spoken them but she was all alone, except for the ghost hovering at her shoulder. Just tell your story. She could do that; it was fairly unremarkable after all. The weight of the pen in her hand slid towards the page and she continued from where she had left off.
I have been told I have just a few months to live and that it’s time to put my affairs in order. My affairs are not important to me – you are. I only regret one thing in my life but it is a huge regret, one that has weighed heavily on me, and that is my decision to give you up. Let me explain what happened.
For the first fifteen years of my life I lived in Great Chalkham with my father, Arthur after my mother, Norah, died giving birth to me. It was a happy life although times were very hard. When my dad was at work, I spent my time with the Mayhews who were like a second family to me. I worked hard at school and had ambitions to go to university. My dadalways said that my mother had set her heart on going to St Hilda’s in Oxford so that was my college of preference. However, then war broke out and life changed. My dad joined the Suffolk Regiment and thankfully came through the war unscathed. Others were not so lucky. One of those was a lad called Billy Talbot, your father, who was only nineteen when he died. Everyone loved Billy; he was that kind of person – funny, kind, generous, loyal to his friends. With his fair hair, blue eyes and cheeky grin, he was popular with the girls too but he never took any of them too seriously and then he and I became an item. We had always been friends, although he was four years older than me. He was frequently at the Mayhews too, larking about with the boys but he always had time for me, even when we were kids. Then war came and that was like a hothouse for romance. You had to take love when you could; who knew, when your young man went off, if he would ever return.
I was heartbroken when the terrible news came. Billy had been serving in the North-West Europe Campaign right near the end of the war and had been fatally injured.
It was about a month later when I realised I was pregnant. My dad was still away and I told no one. My heart was raw
