The Unseen(12)

I think this child must be a boy, and a big one. I am quite unrecognisable, I am vast. The creature has taken over my body. He’s too big now to even move around and kick me like he did these last few months. He’s tight packed in, like the air in a balloon. How I wish he would stay there! I don’t know where I will find the strength to raise him with a pure heart, happy and carefree, when I labour under such shadows. Enough now. I am tired. Even writing a letter is enough to tire me out; and especially a letter to you, sir, when I come to know that I shall have no reply. Still I hope for it, and that tires me even more.

Wishing this letter brings you some comfort, in the cruel place where you are,

H. Canning

Again, Leah read, and reread. She read the letter a third time, but only because she did not trust herself to look up, to look at Ryan and to speak to him. How did it always come to this? She cursed inwardly. That liquid feeling, hot in the marrow of her bones, as though her resolve was an actual substance that could melt under pressure, rush off into her bloodstream and be quite lost. Ryan was not even that close to her. He was perched on the window sill opposite, and she was sitting on the edge of the bed, one hand holding back her hair as she read. He stood up so suddenly that Leah jumped.

‘More coffee?’ he offered, voice so casual that Leah doubted herself, doubted that he had feelings anything like her own.

‘No thanks.’ She didn’t look up.

‘Sounds like she was in a right pickle, doesn’t it?’ he asked, pouring hot water onto a fresh scattering of instant granules. ‘What do you make of it?’

‘I hardly know. Something dire happened. She was left to deal with the aftermath by herself, our guy buggered off somewhere, and then to the war. She thinks he knows something about what happened,’ Leah said. Now she looked up at him. His back was turned, it was safer. The long, loose shape of his spine, the broad spread of his shoulders beneath his shirt. Just flesh and skin and bone, no more than she; but still magic, somehow.

‘But they weren’t lovers?’ he said.

‘I don’t think so, no. She’d hardly call him “Dear sir” if they were, would she? Not even a hundred years ago. It’s a bit cold and formal.’

‘The content of the letters isn’t though, is it? Cold or formal, I mean,’ Ryan pointed out. He sat down next to her, too close, touching at thigh, hip, elbow. Leah felt a sinking inside, the pulling open of old wounds. It was an odd pain, almost satisfying; like tugging at a loose tooth, pressing a bruise. A bruise that went right the way through. She remembered his treachery, the flying apart of everything she thought she knew.

‘It is and then it isn’t. Very odd. It’s as though she’s trying to be proper about it all, but there’s no way to reconcile what she needs to say with that. And the way she’s so vague – it’s almost like she half expected someone else to get hold of the letters and read them, and she didn’t want to give too much away …’ Leah trailed off. Ryan had tucked her hair behind her ear for her, left his fingers to brush her cheek with a touch softer than snowflakes. Mutely, she met his eye.

‘So you’ll look into it then? Try to find out who he was?’ Ryan said. Leah nodded. ‘It’s like old times, watching you get stuck into a mystery. An … unexpected bonus.’

‘What do you mean? Didn’t you think I’d do it?’

‘No, I thought you’d deliberately avoid doing it just because I’d asked you to.’ He smiled.

‘I did think of that,’ she admitted. ‘I … part of the reason I came out here was for the chance to say no to you. To refuse you something.’ Tears blurred into her eyes and she wiped them away angrily.

‘You fell at the first hurdle,’ he said, softly. ‘You came out here in the first place. When I asked you to.’

‘I know. Not very good at this, am I?’

‘I don’t know. You’ve made me wait five months to see you. You made me come to Belgium to try to forget you.’

‘That’s a lie. You always wanted to come and work with the War Graves Commission,’ she said, struggling to find a toehold, something to grasp as she slipped further and further over the cliff edge.

‘Leah, I’ve missed you so much,’ Ryan whispered, his lips in her hair, words touching her skin like butterflies. In silence, Leah gave in.


When she woke it was to the sound of more rain, flecked with hail, tapping at the window pane. The little room was dark and gloomy, the bed crowded. Ryan was turned to the wall, his back to her, deeply asleep. Without moving a muscle, Leah scanned the room, made note of each item of her clothing, cast off the night before. For a second, she tried to find a way to undo what she’d done, knowing it was utterly futile. She shut her eyes and let despair wash through her. It was like being underground, being smothered, seeing no way out. I will never be free.