Dear Rosie Hughes: This is the most uplifting and emotional novel you will read in 2019!
accompli from where I’m standing.
In the middle of the HQ tent is something called the ‘bird table’ which is roughly an eight by eight trestle table covered in a map showing enemy lines. The table is covered in Perspex and there are stickers on it showing the positions of all the troops. Twice a day, the General appears at the head of the bird table (quiet chap) as does the Chief of Staff. A representative from each army section gathers around the table. A green, old-fashioned telephone handset hangs from a wire above the table. You press a button to speak into it and we all take turns to brief what’s going on in our respective departments. This brief goes out to the brigades and to the Paras. We stand around the table in a set order - the met forecast always comes first so I stand shoulder to shoulder with the Chief of Staff, next door-but-one to the General, and watch the operation unfold every day, which means that my voice is the first voice the soldiers hear on the radio every day and will be throughout the whole operation.
Typically, I still haven’t escaped from people complaining to me about the weather. Some things never change. I’m bored ninety five percent of the time. The lucky ones are the smokers. The other day I grabbed myself a cuppa and stood with the smokers – just to try to make friends. But I was holding a Polystyrene cup rather than a metal one with a lid that keeps the tea warm, and so I didn’t have the right kind of cup that says, ‘Experienced Military Woman’, so I didn’t fit in and had no conversation of worth. It was exactly like being the unpopular girl at the disco. Standing with the smokers I had a flashback to Home Economics and wish with all my heart I had befriended poor Jenny Jackson. The bullies were horrible to that girl and I watched it happen but said nothing. I was a coward and now I’ve got my comeuppance.
Sorry to be so negative. I’m just lost at sea. In fact, that’s the irony. At sea, I wouldn’t be the least bit lost. I’d have my bunk, my place of work and my extra duties to stop my mind from wandering. Sea-time was awesome compared to this. I’m also on a downer because my Decree Nisi just arrived in the post – how messed up is that? If I could turn the clock back a couple of years I wouldn’t have left Josh and I wouldn’t be losing my house. My whole life is shattered, and the person who broke it was me. It’s like I’ve been on a suicide mission to strip my life down to the absolute basics and now I feel naked, homeless and alone. Thank God for your letters and the support of Mum and Dad, I’d be lost without you all.
But … more importantly, Venice with a total stranger? Are you completely barking mad? Write as soon as you get home.
Love, Rosie
Bluey
From: Rosie Hughes
To: Joshua Fletcher, HMS Drake, Plymouth
Date: 8 January
Hi, Josh
Just thought I’d let you know I made it to Kuwait. Not sure if you still want to know I’m OK, but it seems odd to have spent all those years together and then suddenly not communicate. I got the Decree Nisi through yesterday and my solicitor told me the news about the offer on the house. It’s probably best that the sale goes through while I’m away as I couldn’t bear to empty the old place. Can you please put my stuff into storage? Before I left I put my most precious bits and bobs into a blue plastic box. You’ll find the box in the little bedroom, it has ‘Rosie’s Special Stuff’ written on the lid. Can you keep that box – and my violin – safe for me and I’ll pick them up when I get home? Hope all is good with you?
Rosie
‘E’ Bluey
From: Mr Hughes
To: Rosie
Date: 9 January
Dear, Babe
Terrible news. The school burnt down last night! Every last bit of it. Shocking. Mammy woke up at 3a.m. to the sound of an exploding LPG tank. The kids have been given the rest of the week off school which has caused havoc for the working mothers. No news on how the thing started, but it’s caused a lot of tears and upset and it’s distressing for the kids to see it – just a charred pile of rubble – and all their bits and bobs burnt to a cinder. Those nativity costumes have been worn by generations of kids. Terrible.
There’s an emergency meeting with the council in the village hall tonight, so I’m sure I’ll have more information soon.
Love, Dad x
‘E’ Bluey
From: Aggie
To: Rosie
Date: 9 January
Hi, Rosie
Just got back from my night in Venice to find out that Midhope Primary has burnt down! The girls are moping around the village in floods of tears while most of the boys are whooping it up (and they wonder why girls out-perform boys). The whole village smells of burnt toast and God only knows how much asbestos we’re all inhaling.
I’ll write later with the details of Venice but in one word – disaster.
Love, Aggie
‘E’ Bluey
From: Aggie
To: Rosie
Date: 9 January
Hi, Rosie
I’ve just got home from a meeting about the school – I didn’t know your dad was still a governor? Bless him. I’ll not steal his thunder regarding details of the meeting, because I know what you’re really aching to hear about is my night in Venice, and what a catastrophic mistake of a lifetime that was.
Paddy was only a bloody jockey – five foot three inches, max! What a liar. It seems the only correct detail on his online profile was that he’s Irish, and even then, the accent could have been fake. Who the hell knows with the Internet?
My flight arrived an hour before his into Marco Polo Airport. Clearly, I took the time to sort out my make-up and put on fresh knickers (a lacy thong would have been far too uncomfortable on the plane). I hovered around the arrivals hall feeling sexy, optimistic and very tall. When his flight came through I was so busy scanning the crowd at my head height I failed to notice the man standing directly in front of me with his face in my tits and his tongue hanging out.
I’m afraid my expression did not mask my disappointment, cue awkward taxi ride followed by a blazing row in the middle of St Mark’s Square about the importance of being earnest (moral virtue, not book) which lasted until we mounted a gondola at the bridge of sighs (bridge of lies, more like). It wasn’t a one-way conversation, though. He was sparky, but then he’s a Celt, they’re like that. He said I was a ‘total fecking hypocrite’ as I had been equally as economical with the truth as I was clearly not a twenty-seven-year-old model. But as I said, if I had put my real age on my internet profile, men my age wouldn’t consider dating me because all men are pricks and they only go for women at least seven years their junior (he had the good grace to agree). I turned my back on him under the kissing bridge and instructed Paulo to ‘just keep rowing – presto!’ (I temporarily forgot the verb to punt, although even if I hadn’t, I could not have translated it into Italian. Mum may have improved my language skills by dating a Russian, a Frenchman and a Spaniard, but she never did shag an Italian).
Eventually we cut our losses and decided to go out for a meal together. Over dinner I apologised and explained that my hostile behaviour could be explained (but not excused) by my disappointment. I said we could never have a relationship because:
a. When standing side by side we looked like a comedy duo.
b. He was just too tiny to be able to carry me over the threshold and I’ve ALWAYS wanted to be carried over the threshold – not negotiable. His honesty in replying to points one and two (above) was refreshing.
He confessed that the threshold had been the last thing on his mind when he’d asked to meet me. He’d flown to Venice expecting to have the best shag of his life with a woman who had the most magnificent tits and arse he’d ever seen in a photograph (a statement he stood by, which was nice). He’d surmised that if my sexual