Message on the Wind

Message on the Wind

The letter, caught by a sudden burst of warm air on this summer’s day, scurried from the scene as if it did not want any more tears to smudge the ink on its page. Until a few moments ago it had been gripped in Mia’s hand. She hadn’t realised she had dropped it. The shock of seeing her brother’s coffin being carried to the chapel had caused her to draw her hand to her mouth to stifle the sobs and it was gone from her grasp. Not that she had been able to stifle her sobs. Later that day she would go to the beach – then she would realise it was gone. She would cry thinking she couldn’t remember the words her heart had written. That she couldn’t say her special message to her brother without her script.

The letter bobbed along curving up and down as the wind tunneled down the side of the building, anyone watching would have thought it had landed on the roof of the outbuilding attached to the chapel. It hadn’t, nor had it landed in the puddle of water gathered in the gutters from the recent summer downpour, no, it had joined the fallen leaves from last autumn. At the end of November, the year before, the gardener had heaped them behind the oak tree intending to add them to the compost, but his mother had fallen ill before he had completed his task so they lay burnt dry by the summer sun, unnoticed. They made an excellent temporary home for the message.

Mia had loved her elder brother with all her heart. Two years earlier he had complained of headaches and she nearly had to force him to go to the doctor, claiming, ‘Mother would be angry with her if she didn’t make him go’. Their mum had died years earlier, and now rested with their dad under the oak tree at the back of the chapel gardens where a mound of dried fallen leaves made a bed for the message on the crumpled pages of London Bond. Only the very best of paper for her darling brother who commanded the ink of his fountain pen with fluidity she could never master. Yet she knew he would love her words, that she still hadn’t realised had been taken away on a small gust of wind.

On the far side of the crematorium a mother and her two young children walked. The little girl, Lala, spotted the fallen leaves behind the oak tree and ran towards them. ‘Mummy, Mummy,’ the little girl called to the woman, now laying flowers beside her mother’s memorial plaque. ‘It’s like Autumn here.’

The mother paused to look at her child, craving the ability to be carefree and trample amongst the leaves, recalling the joy she used to feel when she heard them scrunching under her feet as a child. When had she last done anything like that?  ‘Darling, you will get your feet mucky,’ she called and quickly reprimanded herself. Why should she worry about her child’s sockless feet getting dirty? ‘That’s what baths are for . . .’ She heard her mother’s words clearly, as if she was standing next to her.

Lala would have sighed, but she was having too much fun. She needed to scrunch as many leaves as she could before her brother Ben joined her. He was only three years old so it had taken him longer to reach the gnarled tree where she played. She stole a look at her mother, wishing she didn’t look so sad. She could just about recall when her mum played with her in the leaves, picking them up and throwing them high, then, together, they would watch them fall and try to guess which leaf would be last. Lala couldn’t remember when her mum had last played with her like that, but she was a child and had no ‘what ifs’ lodged in her beautiful young mind, so her thoughts quickly turned to the more pressing thought. She wished she had her pink unicorn wellingtons on so she could dig more deeply with her feet.

People walked past and the mother felt judgmental eyes upon her. It was to do with Lala of course, and now Ben who had joined in the leaf destruction. She should not allow the children to play like this. It is a chapel garden, she reminded herself. It is a place for quiet reflection, not squeals of laughter and joy. She also knew some people scattered the ashes of their loved ones beneath the trees. This tree had a copper-plate sign beneath it numbering it twenty-nine. Whoever lay beneath this tree would be relocated along with the leaves. It made her shudder to think she had allowed this to happen. ‘Lala, Ben, stop. You must not be on the grass nor play in the leaves.’ Two sad faces looked back at her. ‘Look, let’s go and get an ice-cream and see if we can find any leaves to scrunch in our back garden.’

Ben clapped and ran to his mummy’s open arms. Lala knew her mother would forget her promise and their little garden didn’t have a tree so there were no leaves to play in. Therefore the place Lala loved the most came into the mind. The beach. They did the best ice cream at the beach kiosk. Lovely whippy ones with strawberry syrup, sprinkles . . . and if her mum could afford it she might get chocolate flake as well.

‘Mum . . .’ but her mum was twirling Ben around and hadn’t noticed Lala who was trying to decide whether to mention going to the beach or not. She hung her head. She wanted her mum to swing her around like that, but her mother had told her she was too heavy. She wasn’t too heavy for her dad, but he didn’t live with them anymore. Her mother told her that he still loved her and Ben as much but lived somewhere else now. A small tear threatened to escape and she brushed it away and that’s when she saw the letter poking up between the leaves. It made her think of the film where they found a letter floating in a bottle out to sea. Maybe this was a secret letter? She slipped it into her summer skirt pocket. The only problem she had was that she couldn’t read it. She was only five after all.

Mia did not know how she got through the funeral, but she managed to share special moments with family and friends about her brother, listened to the music he had selected and knew she would never be able to hear them again without being reminded of the grief she felt. Now the wake was in full flow and people were relaxing, laughter flowed with the wine as gritty stories were being shared that could not be told in the chapel.

She took herself off for a quiet moment and delved into the pocket of her summer dress for the message to her brother. It wasn’t there. She searched the floor and her linen jacket. It was nowhere to be found. She knew she’d had it at the chapel but had no idea where it was now. She cried. She did not think she could ever write the words again. They would never flow as they had when she penned them a few days ago.

Mia slipped away from the wake, walked across the tarmac path over the small bridge that spanned the river, dipped under the branches of the palm trees and stopped. The view always took her breath away. The sea seemed to go on forever, little pink clouds dotted the horizon, her brother would have known if they brought a change in the weather with them or not. Today Mia wouldn’t have cared if it was raining, or snowing. She needed to feel. She took her sandals off and allowed her feet to sink into the golden sand, warm from the midday sun, and made her way towards the sea.

Ahead of her a small girl and boy walked. Each held a whippy ice cream in their hand. Then the little girl thrust hers into the open hand of the woman by her side and ran as if her life depended on it. Her ponytail bounced with each step, fountains of water splashed casting tiny rainbows as their droplets rejoined the little lakes of water, the little girl nearly stumbled but still she ran. A man waited for her his arms wide. She could hear the squeals of joy from the little girl as he twirled her around. Mia was right to come to the beach today. Her brother would have shared her delight with her. It was one of the memories in her message – of being swung in their father’s strong arms when they were children with their mother watching on.

Lala was so excited to see her father, together they splashed between the rippling waves. Her mother looked happy too. In Lala’s pocket was her secret message. She’d imagined it to read, I want my daddy to swing me in his arms . . . and he had. Her dream had come true. Now she knew what she had to do. She took the crumpled letter from her pocket and, although she knew she must not litter, she did what any five-year-old would do who believed in magic she let it catch the wind from the incoming tide and it blew over her head. She watched it for a few moments as it hung there, almost disappearing into the sea to be caught on the next breeze to float along the beach. Lala’s mother was calling – the letter was forgotten. Her father was coming home for tea. He hadn’t done that for a long time. She wanted chocolate cake. It had to be chocolate cake to celebrate. Her mother would say, ‘no’ and her father would smile and her mother would smile and say, ‘yes, just this once’. That is what else she imagined the letter to read. Let my daddy come home again.

Years ago on a deep-sea fishing trip Mia and her brother had talked about the afterlife. He hadn’t believed there was one, he didn’t think their mum and dad would be there to greet them when they died. He’d laughed and asked for a sign from their recently departed father. From a calm sea, the wind had blown with such force they had to abandon any fishing, and the skipper, who told them he was a fifth-generation fisherman, had talked about it all the way back to dock. He’d told them he could read the clouds and weather and he had no idea where the storm had suddenly come from.

Mia stooped at the water’s edge to pick up an empty water bottle. She hated to see litter on the beach; as children she and her brother had been part of the ‘litter team’. Beside it was a piece of paper. She was about to put it in her pocket ready for the bin when she decided to open its ragged folds.

To my darling bruv, it read. She spun around, this could not be true. The letter, her letter that she had lost was here in her hands; she expected to see her brother standing beside her with a big grin on his face as if to say, ‘Ha, caught you that time!’ Her tears fell and smudged with her tears from earlier that day, smudged with the handprints of the little five-year-old and mixed with the sea spray. Now, before her was an inky mess, her words no longer legible. Her hands clenched to have them snatched away, again. She looked out to sea and her eyes rested on a fishing boat. In that moment Mia realised she knew what she had written. How could she have thought she would forget?

‘Darling bruv’, Mia said to the rolling waves and sun. ‘When the sea wind blows, I will think of you. When the storms rage I will think of you. When the summer breeze plays upon the hair of your son I will think of you. I will think of you as I know you would think of me should it be the other way around. I will think of our wonderful childhood with our mother, with a gentle smile on her face, watching as our father swung us around.

I love you.’

A small dog bounded over to Mia and barked. Mia smiled.   

Lala, sitting on her daddy’s broad shoulders, laughed at the little dog running in circles around the two men who were hugging and twirling each other around. A lady came into view and stood watching with a small smile playing on her lips.

The Daddy looked to see what his daughter was laughing at. He could only see a young girl grinning at a small terrier.

The owner of the pooch called, but his dog would not return. He was worried that it would upset the girl, who stood alone on the water’s edge – he had seen her crying earlier.

Mia opened the bottle and rolled the piece of paper into a scroll. She put it inside and gently placed it on the outgoing tide. 

The dog owner tutted. Litter lout, he thought as he watched the bottle get drawn out to sea. He called the dog but he was already by his side waiting to resume his walk.

The Daddy smiled it reminded him of a film he had once seen.

The little girl said, ‘They’ve gone now, Daddy. Can we have a dog?’

The man looked at Lala’s mum. He had no idea if they could get a dog.

Mia waved and laughed and cried into the sea breeze. She told her brother their parents would come for him and she was right. It felt good to have the last word for once, she thought, as she watched the bottle bob out of sight.