sunflower writing
The Summer Collection of Sunflowers by Caroline Auckland
T
he envelope arrived, damaged, its contents scattered like torn scraps of card tossed out with the rubbish. She could see flowers, petals, bright sunshine yellow sunflowers full of hope. On the reverse, like scrabble pieces, letters were visible. Who they were from was obvious, the handwriting so familiar, but what they said was a mystery. Sometimes they wrote to each other in code, but this was a puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle. He had been gone so long it seemed. They had met on a school cruise ship, he had been part of the crew and she a schoolgirl with a crush. They communicated by letter with occasional meet ups when his ship docked at Tilbury. ‘A’ levels finished, she was now at a crossroad, she had a position as a temporary seasonal in a retail department store to supplement her university grant. He was having an exciting time in warm foreign climes with a variety of passengers, she was folding knickers repetitively and if she was lucky had the occasional shift on the till. They had to write to each other, her parents were very strict with the telephone listening in to her calls, always complaining about the cost. Heaven help anyone who called after nine o’clock in the evening, they were given very short shrift. Still she did not mind. It was so exciting waiting for a letter to arrive. In the morning as she was getting dressed for work, she watched out of the window for the postman to appear, as soon as he came down the hill she would hold her breath as he progressed from house to house. Would there be one today for her, from him? That familiar thud of post as it came through the letterbox and hit the floor was like her heart sounding an extra beat. She would rush down the stairs wanting to be the first. To sort through and salvage her own communications, keeping them secret and hugging them to herself. She did not want to share, to explain, to divulge. She would put her letters inside her dressing gown and hold them close to her heart or place them in the pocket of her work uniform if the postman had taken a long time to arrive. If she had a letter she could savour it in her own time, when she found her own place to read it, again and again. Quickly at first and then at leisure, going over and over the same passages for hidden meanings and composing a reply. Knowing that it would be a week or so before the next one arrived. The days when the postman failed to stop at her house or failed to deliver a letter for her where difficult and she would walk to work sad, her day dreams working hard to lift her spirits as she turned herself into a shop assistant, not a student who had a lover who posted letters from every port. What would her future hold? Should she go to university, if she passed? Was there a point, was she capable? Should she just throw it all in and carry on working? Here in her home town was a history of women, all in retail, all with families, all content, or seemingly so. What could you tell from the uniform, the pleasant faces, the thank you smiles, ‘shall I fold it for you and put it in a bag?’ You could have a conversation, ‘I am not really listening, or not with a formed opinion, or even if I have one you will not really count it. I am only a shop girl, not worthy of opinion or life, just here to service your convenience’. This was the inner dialogue she had on the way to and from work. On one of the days when she had folded the knickers in triplicate, two flat, one folded in at each side gusset folded under, the pile was flat and so was her zest for life, she was called to the till. She smiled the smile of retail commercialism,
58 ~ what the dickens?