A man about her age came hurrying to the doorway, a pipe in hand. “What is — Oh my God. Ellie.”
He rushed to the woman’s aid. “What’s happened?”
“Message came,” said the older woman, indicating Charlie. “I’m afraid it’s Bill. The worst.”
“Oh dear Lord.”
Drews was coming around by this point, and they helped her up and led her back inside, leaving the door open behind them. They apparently had forgotten that Charlie was even there.
He stooped, retrieved his pillbox hat, and picked up the crumpled message.
FROM AIR MINISTRY 77 OXFORD ST W 1 PC 687
DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT ACCORDING TO INFORMATION RECEIVED THROUGH INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS CHANNELS YOUR HUSBAND F/SGT WILLIAM EVERETT DREWS LOST HIS LIFE AS THE RESULT OF AIR OPERATIONS ON NIGHT OF 30/10/44 STOP AIR COUNCIL EXPRESS SINCERE SYMPATHY STOP LETTER TO FOLLOW SHORTLY STOP...
Charlie slowly folded up the telegram, closed the front door, and carefully pushed the paper through the slot. He got back on his bike and rode across the bridge and back into the city.
While other messengers had warned him of it, that was the first “death” telegram he had ever delivered. He wondered if his mother had gotten such a message when his father had died.
Deeply regret to inform you that Private Robert Charles Matters lost his life as the result of... STOP
His mother had never spoken of receiving such a telegram, but she must have, Charlie thought. Yet she had obviously spared him from knowing about it, until she had sat down one day and told him of the sacrifice his father had made.
“He was so heroic, Charlie. All the soldiers are. He fought for you and me and Gran and Granddad. He wanted so much to come home and be with us, he loved you so dearly. But... he just couldn’t. But we will always remember him and what he did to keep us all safe.”
It was only after his mother had died that Charlie had actually thought about what she had said to him that day. His father was a hero. He had given his life for them. He would never be coming home. But they would never forget him. The only thing that made any of this bearable, at least for Charlie, was that he had a half dozen East End mates who had also lost their fathers in the war. Their mothers had all gotten that telegram. So, Charlie wasn’t alone in that loss, even though he quite often felt that he was.
He finished his deliveries for the day, conscious now of seeing if any more were from the service branches. Luckily, none were. But tomorrow was another day for regrets to be sent to suddenly widowed women and fatherless children.
It was the end of another week, so he collected his wages, with a nice bonus thrown in because Arthur Benedict liked him and Charlie was a hard worker with the skill and talent to ring up more business. In his spare minutes he had taken to hanging out at the Savoy, where the American journalists stayed. They were always sending telegrams, and they tipped quite liberally. All Americans, apparently, were rich. And Charlie had ventured inside the hotel on several occasions to see finely dressed folks eating at linen-clad tables and being served by proper-looking staff. And the food they were putting in their mouths? Charlie didn’t even know such meals existed. He recalled Gran telling him about caviar and hors d’oeuvres being served there, though he had no idea what they even were.
“See you in the morning, Ignatius,” said Benedict as he put the money Charlie had collected in the till. Then he focused on the boy’s battered face.
“My word, what happened? Did you fall off your bike?”
Charlie looked up at him. “Do all them telegrams read the same, Mr. Benedict?”
Benedict gave him a funny look. “What telegrams are you speaking of, son?”
“The... the ones that... tell the family that their... that he’s dead.”
Benedict closed up the till and came over to Charlie. “Did you deliver one of those telegrams? There were quite a few in the bin for today.”
Charlie nodded.
“Is that how you got scraped up, then? I suppose I should have told you. But I guess I was afraid you wouldn’t want to deliver the damn things, and they have to be delivered. Families have to know.”
Charlie simply looked at him without speaking.
“Yes, well, the fact of the matter is, Ignatius, that there are so many such... messages... that... well, the government apparently believes that some uniformity is... necessary.” He glanced nervously at Charlie. “In other words, yes, they pretty much all read the same, except for the names, of course.” He paused. “Your father... You said Dunkirk. So your mum received... one?”
Charlie was no longer listening. He turned and walked out, leaving Benedict to awkwardly study his hands.
Sorry, Eddie
Charlie rode through the darkness to his new “home.” It was in the basement of a partially collapsed building. It was near the telegram office, and off a street that had once been a busy thoroughfare, but that had gone quietly dormant during the war.
He rolled his bike down the steps and pushed open the door. A painted sign warned of dangerous poison gas inside. He’d found the sign in a dustbin by the river and figured it would be a good way to keep curious people away from his digs.
For his dinner he had bread, cheese, a link of fried sausage he’d bought from Peter Duckett for a few pence, a raw carrot, and a cup of water from an outside hose pipe. Then he carefully unfolded the wax paper and looked down at the boiled raisin cake, popularly known as War Cake. He carefully measured out a slice equal to the width of his thumbnail, took one bite, and then another, and let the lump of confectionary rest in his mouth until it was almost dissolved with his saliva. He believed it was real sugar in there. He wrapped it back up and put the remainder in his bag. He’d purchased it from a Sainsbury shop clerk using some of his mileage money. Before the war Charlie had once had a bit of Jaffa Cake and he had thought nothing could be better than that. But the War Cake had come close, if only because his expectations had diminished so.
It was after ten now, and his legs were tired from pedaling and his face still hurt. But the young woman who struck him had lost her husband. His wounds would heal; hers, he figured, never would.
Charlie lay on his bedding and took up his book and the pen that Oliver had given him. He opened the journal and looked at the words Lonzo had written on the flyleaf.
Sawree, Edee.
Yeah, sorry, Eddie, Charlie thought. You should still be here, mate.
He had filled in many pages of the journal already. He usually wrote at night, since sleep never came easily to him. By candlelight, with the sounds of the city just outside his door, Charlie usually labored for quite a long time, as though he desperately needed to get things out of his head and onto the paper where he could make better sense of them, perhaps.
When he was done, he looked over what he’d written and found nothing exceptional amid the poor spellings.
But you ain’t special, Charlie, six a shillin’ you are. Everybody says so, ’cept for Gran and Mum. But they’re dead now. So...
He supposed that Mr. Oliver and Molly might think him somewhat special. After Gran’s death he would have been lost without Molly’s help. And he and Molly would have been living on the pavement or else chucked into an orphanage without the aid of Mr. Oliver. The three of them together seemed to have a chance to make it. And yet now he could never be with them again. And that hurt far more than Charlie thought it would. He had always assumed he could get along fine all by himself. Yet he also supposed that people weren’t really good at being alone, at least not all the time.