The Most Important Correspondence
Now that Ive passed my fiftieth year, I still remember that day so clearly: the way he walked into our classroom, clutching the strap of his satchel, with wild ginger hair that refused to be tamed by any brush and a bashful smile when the teacher introduced him, This is George, everyone, do make him feel welcome.
I, Alice, was the top of the class. Star pupil, my uniform always pressed to perfection, my hair plaited neatly in a tight, proper braid.
My life followed a timetable: school, piano lessons, helping Mother. Yet inside, something wild and uncharted brewed.
I was instantly drawn to the new boy, for no particular reasonjust because he was. His arrival set a hairline crack through my ordered little world.
It felt rather like a gentle madness.
I recall writing in my diary: Today at break he ate a Chelsea bun and the crumbs scattered on his desk. I wanted to sweep them away with my hand. Then a wild idea struck meso sudden, so absurd, that I frightened myself. But there was no turning back; the thought consumed me. I tore pages from two different exercise booksone squared, one lined, as if by two distinct hands. In the hush of my bedroom, palm pressed to the oilcloth, I ripped the pages into neat rectangles.
Thus began my play, performed for an audience of onemyself.
There I was in the reading room (where I often sat). There he was, George, at the next table. He wrote: Hello. Are you here often? I like how seriously you turn the magazine pages. I tried to change my handwriting, making it angular, boyish, as I imagined his would be. His notes were bold: Your braids plaited differently today. Its lovely. Mine were shy and evasive: No more compliments, please. Im just doing homework. In my invented correspondence, I became the girl I longed to be: not the model student, but a mysterious stranger.
One day, I tucked the bundle of notes into my history book. At the start of lunch break, when George passed by the window, I made the book slip from my desk. The racket, to me, was deafening. Two class clowns, Tom and Ned, beat me to the floor to snatch up the scattered notes.
Well, well, what have we here? Tom declared, snatching up the papers with practiced ease.
The world shrank to a point. I couldnt breathe; the heat of shame crept up my neck, burning my cheeks and temples. They began reading aloud, putting on silly voices.
Your braid lovely today Ned crooned with theatrical swooning. The class roared. I sat rigid at my desk, wishing the floor would swallow me whole. Tears pricked my throat, sharp as needles, but I wouldnt let them fall. It was torture. A hell of my own making.
Then, something unexpected.
George, my dreamed-up hero, stood up. He strolled over to Tom, took the bundle from his hands with calm gravity, and looked at him steadily.
Give it here, thats not yours, he said quietly.
He gathered the slips of paper and brought them to my desk. I couldnt lift my eyes, only saw his scuffed trainers. He placed the notes in front of me.
Nothing to laugh at, he tossed over his shoulder at the others. Just normal correspondence.
After class, George caught up with me by the cloakroom.
Let me walk you home, he said. Dont want those two giving you any bother.
We walked in silence; I couldnt squeeze out a single word the whole way. At my doorstep, he scratched his head bashfully.
Listen, Alice shall we carry on? The correspondence, I mean. Properly. Only, I cant write as neat as your chap in the library.
I nodded, afraid if I spoke, all my happiness would rush out and disappear.
So began our real exchange of notes.
Wed sit in the same classroom, within arms reach, and pass each other messages. Folded in concertinas, triangles, or as blotted-paper envelopes. His writing was misshapen, full of blunders: Ali, is it true you play violin? I picture you waving the bow like a maestro. Id reply, You move the bow; you dont wave it! Come to the hall after school, weve got rehearsalIll show you.
At first, classmates teased us, but soon they joined in, acting as couriers. Once, cheeky Ned, feigning innocence behind a textbook, slipped me a crumpled note: George wants to know if youll be at the skating rink after school. Hes got new skates.
That secret post became the pulse of our class, its brightest intrigue. We never told anyone how it truly began. It was our shared secrethis, mine, and all of Sixth Form B. Even my closest friend, Jane, would sigh, You two are like something out of a film! Never guessing Id written and directed the opening scene, alone, terrified, desperate.
Then spring arrived. The last note of that, our first year together. On the day we returned our textbooks to the library, he handed me a scrap torn from a diary: Ali. Dont vanish over the summer. Ill write you postcards. Ill get your address from Jane. Your braid is still the prettiest. George.
The cards did come through summerscenes of the lake where he stayed with his grandmother, filled with his awkward scrawl.
***
We wrote to each other right up until the end of school. Then university, his posting up north, my research years. Then life. Our life together, which, like that first note, turned out to be very real indeed.
Now, all these years later, I sit in the kitchen of the flat we share. Outside, rain fallsjust as it did that first day he walked me home. On the table before me is a cardboard box, brought by our grown son whod been sorting things at the old cottage. Dad said this is for youhis archive.
Inside the box: folders of blueprints, dog-eared notebooks. And at the very bottom, bound with ribbon, a thick stack of yellowed notes, folded into triangles and accordions. My heart quickened. I undid the ribbon. Then came the flood.
There it wasthe infamous note, lined paper: Your braids plaited differently today. Its lovely. My invention. Underneath it, a real one, in his shaky hand: Ali, dont listen to anyone. Youre easily the cleverest of us. And the skating rink note, passed via Ned. Dozens, hundreds more. Every note Id ever written him. Hed kept them all.
From beneath the bundle slid a single, newer sheet, with the letterhead of his design firm, dated twenty years earlierprobably written at work. In a clear, confident script, the handwriting of a chief engineer, hed written:
Today I saw a girl on the Tube with a braid just like yours from school. I thought: how lucky am I, that the quiet, clever girl so bravelyso foolishlytried to catch my attention. Thank you for that wild idea. And for all the rest. If it werent for those daft slips of paper, perhaps thered never have been us. Keep them. Theyre our best design ever.
I laughed, tears springing to my eyes. Laughed at the girl with trembling hands tearing up exercise books, at my awkward, desperate little plot. And cried, too, because against all odds, it worked for a whole lifetime.
The clack of his keyboard comes from the studyGeorge is working on a new project. I choose a fresh sheet of papernot squared, not lined, but fine, from the journal I gave him last Christmas.
I write, as I have for years, in a steady hand:
Archive received. Design approved without amendment. Only note: chief engineer still makes typographical errors. As for meI regret nothing. Not even the silliest act of my life. Because it led me to you. Shall we have tea?
I fold the note into a perfect triangle and walk down the hall, ready to deliver my message just as I did all those years agothrough time, and back again.
