The Daffodil Sky (27 page)

‘Shall I put, “Dear Tom, I hope you're all right”?'

‘Yes. That'll do.'

He wrote it, labouring, tongue out, his arrogance momentarily gone. While he wrote, she thought. It seemed a pain to think, as though her mind were tied up.

‘Well, go on, I got that. “Dear Tom, I hope you're all right.”'

‘Tell him I'm all right.'

He looked dubious, thinking it over. But at last he wrote it. Having written, he said:

‘You wan' tell him any news or anything?'

‘News?' She sat and looked at her hands, a long time troubled. ‘I can't think o' nothing. Tell him I dug some tatters.'

‘Dug some—oh! Blimey. Look here mother, he don't wanna know about taters. He wants news. Summat about horses or summat. People having kids or summat. Summat about yourself.'

‘All right. Tell him th' old place is about the same and I don't git out far now it's so hot.'

He Ignored it. ‘I'll tell him about that horse o' Simpson's winning at Lingfield. He'll wanna—'

‘Don't say nothing about horses. He's done enough with horses for a bit. He don' want so much on horses. They got him into enough trouble.'

‘Oh! All right.' He dipped the nib. ‘Have it your own way. Only let's know what you
are
going to put.'

She sat silent, thinking again. It was a struggle. It was as though, at the back of her mind, she had it all locked up and could not release it. Every time she was defeated.

‘Look here,' he said at last. ‘Shall I put it down and then read it over to you? We s'll be here a month o' Sundays.'

‘All right. You put it down.'

And while he wrote she sat then in the renewed struggle of thought, unsuccessful again, her mind and face still blank. She hooked up her hands into rigid knots of bone. It was like the verge of a crisis: as if something any moment would break.

But nothing happened. And at last he had the letter finished.

‘Shall I read it?' he said.

‘Yes. You read it.'

‘“Dear Tom,

I hope you are all right, I am all right myself. There isn't nothing very special to tell you but I hope the food is all right where you are and if—”'

She listened almost without hearing. The phrases of the letter were spun out like straight threads of cotton. They had nothing to do with her. Her heart was not in them at all.

Having finished reading, he said: ‘I'll just put “love, Mother.” You got the address?'

She gave it him, on the back of a used envelope. He looked at it.

‘Don't you put his name?' he said.

‘No. Just the number.'

So he wrote it: ‘No. 19734, H.M. Prison, Dartmoor.'

‘I want to try to write to him every month now,' she said.

‘Every month!' he said. ‘For five years? Blimey.'

‘I want to try,' she said.

Five minutes later he took the letter and went. She sat there some time after he had gone, with a look of complexity and conflict on her face, as though she were still trying to remember all it was she had wanted to say.

H. E. Bates was born in 1905 in the shoe-making town of Rushden, Northamptonshire, and educated at Kettering Grammar School. After leaving school, he worked as a reporter and as a clerk in a leather warehouse.

Many of his stories depict life in the rural Midlands, particularly his native Northamptonshire, where he spent many hours wandering the countryside.

His first novel,
The Two Sisters
(1926) was published by Jonathan Cape when he was just twenty. Many critically acclaimed novels and collections of short stories followed.

During WWII he was commissioned into the RAF solely to write short stories, which were published under the pseudonym ‘Flying Officer X'. His first financial success was
Fair Stood the Wind for France
(1944), followed by two novels about Burma,
The Purple Plain
(1947) and
The Jacaranda Tree
(1949) and one set in India,
The Scarlet Sword
(1950).

Other well-known novels include
Love for Lydia
(1952) and
The Feast of July
(1954).

His most popular creation was the Larkin family which featured in five novels beginning with
The Darling Buds of May
in 1958. The later television adaptation was a huge success.

Many other stories were adapted for the screen, the most renowned being
The Purple Plain
(1947) starring Gregory Peck, and
The Triple Echo
(1970) with Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed.

H. E. Bates married in 1931, had four children and lived most of his life in a converted granary near Charing in Kent. He was awarded the CBE in 1973, shortly before his death in 1974.

Discover other books by H. E. Bates published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/hebates
.

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For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been removed from this book. The text has not been changed, and may still contain references to missing images.

First published in Great Britain in 1955 by Michael Joseph

This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Reader

Copyright © 1955 Evensford Productions Limited

‘The Letter' first published in 1938 in
The Star

The moral right of the author is asserted.

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eISBN: 9781448215164

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