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Today would be the day. George touched the bulky package in the breast pocket of his postman’s uniform as if to check, one more time, that it was there. His best watercolour was pressed between the pages of his sketchbook to keep it flat and pristine, as a gift should be. He felt his heart beating against the board back of the book. All morning it had been beating out the seconds, the minutes and the hours between his decision and the act. Today, when he went on the last leg of his rounds, he would present Violet with the painting over which he had laboured. ‘As a token of my esteem,’ he would say, for, even to himself, he dared not use the word love.
In the sorting room at the back of the post office, he greeted the others, hung his empty bag on its hooks at the sorting table so that it sagged open, ready to be filled, and leant against the wall to take a few moments’ rest. The late-morning sun slanted down through the high windows, alive with paper dust that rose from the table: a vast horse-trough affair with shuttered sides. Kitty and her mother, Mrs Ashwell, their sleeves rolled up, picked at the choppy waves of letters, their pale arms and poised fingers moving as precisely as swans dipping to feed. Every handful of mail, white, cream and bill-brown, was shuffled quickly into the pigeonholes that covered the rear wall, each neatly labelled street by street.
‘I see Mrs Verney’s Christopher has a birthday,’ Kitty said as she pressed a handful of envelopes into ‘20–50 Helvellyn Street’.
‘He’s reached his majority,’ Mrs Ashwell said. ‘Let’s hope he’s soon home to enjoy it.’
Mr Ashwell, the postmaster, came in carrying a sack of mail over his shoulder. He nudged George and thrust the sack into his arms. ‘Dreaming again, George?’ he said. ‘You left this one by the counter right where I could trip over it.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ George said quickly.
Mr Ashwell made some show of dusting off his front and pulling his waistcoat down straight. ‘Concentration, young man,’ he said, giving George one of his straight looks. ‘Concentration is needed to make sure that work proceeds in an orderly manner.’ He stroked his moustache with his finger and thumb while continuing to fix George with his gaze. George felt his cheeks begin to burn.
Mr Ashwell said, without looking at his wife, ‘Very busy on the counter today, Mabel. Tea would be most acceptable. Arthur’s assistance sorely missed.’
Mrs Ashwell’s hands stilled amongst the letters and her back stiffened as if to brace herself against the thought of her son, so far from home. Through the doorway between the sorting room and the shop, she could see Arthur’s old position at the counter. The absence of his broad back and shoulders, of the familiar fold of skin over his tight collar and the neatly cut rectangle of brown hair at his neck struck her anew each time she let her glance stray that way. It was as though someone had punched out an Arthur-shaped piece of her existence and pasted in its place a set of scales and a view of the open post office door and the cobbled street beyond.
Sometimes, when the post office was closed and Mr Ashwell busy elsewhere, she would stand in Arthur’s old place and rest her elbows where his had rested. She would bow her head and finger through the set of rubber stamps as if they were rosary beads. At these moments, she tried not to look at the noticeboard on the side wall. Amongst the public notices of opening hours and postal rates was the sign that her husband had insisted be displayed, just as all official documents that were sent from head office must be. An innocuous buff-coloured sheet of paper that one might easily overlook, thinking it yet another piece of dull information, it read:
POST OFFICE RIFLES –
The postmaster’s permission to join must be sought.
Pay is equal to civil pay for all Established Officers plus Free Kit, Rations and Quarters.
GOD SAVE THE KING.
The detailed terms and conditions followed in smaller print below.
Mrs Ashwell thought about the boredom of the counter job on a quiet afternoon, of how Arthur’s eyes must have run over and over all the notices: ‘Foreign packages must be passed to the counter clerk.’ ‘Release is for one year’s service.’ ‘This office is closed on Sundays and official holidays.’ ‘Remuneration will be at an enhanced rate.’ She imagined the phrases repeating in his mind as he tinkered with the scales, idly building pyramids of brass weights on the pan.
‘Tea,’ she said, under her breath. Then more determinedly: ‘Tea,’ and went upstairs to their living quarters to make it.
George hefted the sack up on to the table and upended it, spilling a new landslide of mail that re-covered the chinks of oak board that had begun to show through.
‘Is that the last bag?’ Kitty asked of her father’s retreating back.
‘Better ask George if he’s left any more lying about,’ he said and closed the door behind him.
Kitty rolled her eyes at George. ‘He’s been like a bear with a sore head ever since breakfast. We got Arthur’s first letter,’ she added.
George came round to her side of the table and they sorted side by side, their heads bent companionably together, George’s fair hair ruffled where he had run his hands through it in the heat, Kitty’s springy, pale brown hair tied back neatly out of the way. George waited for her to elaborate about Arthur but Kitty bent her head to her work and pressed her lips together. After a while, when the job was almost done, George said in his slow, gentle way, ‘It must be a terrible worry for your father.’
Kitty snorted. ‘Quite to the contrary; Arthur is travelling further afield than Penrith and preparing to tackle the enemy, whereas Father is still chained to the counter like a piece of pencil on a string.’
‘Aah,’ said George, pausing to look at her more closely. ‘And how about you, Kitty? How are you bearing up?’
‘I miss him, but it makes me sad to see Mother miss him even more and it makes me cross that Father won’t let the subject rest.’ She tapped the letters in her hand smartly on their side to line them up, shoved them roughly into a pigeonhole and then, seeing her mistake, pulled them back out again.
George laid his hand on her shoulder. ‘Oh, Kit,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
She gave him a half-hearted smile. ‘Never mind. What was it we used to say at school on bad days?’
‘All manner of things shall be well,’ George said slowly.
‘Exactly.’ She looked again at the address on top of her pile of mail and placed it carefully into the correct wooden cubby-hole. ‘Here, give us your bag,’ she said. ‘I’ll fill it up.’
He held the bag open while she put in the packages of post to be delivered to the villages; then she parcelled up each street with string and dropped them in on top. She helped him on with the bag, reaching up to lift the strap over his shoulder and then settling the weight at his back.
‘Sorry it’s a heavy one,’ she said.
‘It’s cutting down the number of deliveries that’s done it. Bound to be heavy.’
She buckled the bag and gave it a pat. ‘See you later,’ she said. ‘We’ve got plum bread for tea. I’ll save you some.’
George nodded and went out through the post office, past the dour looks of Mr Ashwell and a queue of chattering customers and into the brightness of the day. The market place seemed just as busy as usual; almost impossible to believe that the country was at war: shoppers were choosing vegetables, lengths of cloth and ironmongery from