The only letter she ever sent

or, something that might have happened

It was just before ten when I arrived. The sky was heavy with clouds and there wasn’t a star in sight. I glanced down at the note, the looping handwriting illuminated by the glow of a nearby streetlamp.

Meet at the back of the church at 10.
Don’t be late.
—L.

I couldn’t remember a time in my life I had been late, and I sure wasn’t going to make this a first. Ten before ten, I found myself thinking. Would it have been any different had it been nine, or eight, or even two o'clock in the afternoon? I didn’t think so. Ten minutes early felt appropriate for any meeting; doubly so when it involved a girl.

I was still holding the note. My hands were shaking. I folded the paper carefully and slipped it into my pocket, having every intention of pinning it back in place behind my desk when I returned home to my dorm. If I return home tonight, I thought, a little feverish.

The church loomed before me, the crooked spire a crone’s finger that pointed up into the sky. I’d been past the building perhaps a hundred times—it wasn’t far from the campus where I was studying—but I’d never stopped to look and I’d certainly never been inside. There was a gate out front and the only way to get around to the back was to pass through the small cemetery. I could see some thirty or so headstones of various sizes poking out of the ground, grey and curved and covered with moss. I felt a moment of hesitation, unsure of whether I wanted to proceed. I hated graveyards. The headstones were angled towards the road, but, just like with the eyes of a portrait, I was convinced they shifted, turning and watching and waiting for my advance.

Of course, I knew it was just in my mind, but I couldn’t help it. It’s always been like this. I’ve never witnessed anything strange, but I get nervous around burial sites. Ghosts aside, a graveyard is quite literally full of bodies that are spread out in various and unknown states of decay, deep beneath your feet. The bodies might not even be that deep. There could be a hand inches from your foot, ready to thrust out of the soil and grab you by the ankle.

Such is my imagination.

I say that nothing bad had ever happened, but that’s not true. When I was young, maybe 11 or 12, I remember my mother taking us all out for a test drive of a new car. It was a Toyota Celica, slim and sleek and with a metallic grey finish that, to my childish eyes, looked futuristic. That day, I was sat in the back with my brother whilst mum drove us around the English country roads, dad almost certainly making noises about watching the speed limit or fretting over how close we were getting to the hedge.

At some point, as we were venturing down yet another country lane, we saw an old church up ahead. Every village in the area had one; a fairly standard addition from medieval England. I wasn't brought up religious, but even so I’ve always found something calming and peaceful about churches. The older ones with interesting architecture, at least. Standing next to a church, my mind can easily drift back hundreds of years to imagine the stonemasons and builders assembling the structure, can see the workers labouring through the English rain, can feel the reverence of prayer from those who would eventually sit within its walls.

Anyway, there were no houses nearby and so it was unusual to find a church standing—more crumbling, really—out on its own. I don’t remember the name of the road or even how you’d get there today, but it was somewhere between two of the many similar-sounding villages found dotted throughout Leicestershire. My parents knew the villages of the area well, but they’d never visited this specific church. They’d never even seen it before, they said.

Mum pulled over, wanting to have a short break from driving and to take a closer look. We got out of the car, stretched our legs. There was little left of the trail that led up to the church—the hedges and grass were so overgrown it was as though they wished to erase all memory of any path—but the sight of that church has remained entirely untouched in my mind. The roof had fallen in, leaving holes where swifts darted in and out; the northern wall was covered with creeping vines, smothering any trace of the stone underneath; and in the empty frames where the windows had once been, you could see through and into the church’s darkened heart.

It should have been interesting, in a historical kind of way, but for whatever reason it felt strange, and that feeling of strange only became heightened when we stepped into the area that would have served as the cemetery. Headstones were strewn about the ground, broken and in fragments, as though a hammer had been used to smash them to pieces. On those that were intact, the names were barely discernible, the words weathered by time. Elsewhere, great slabs of limestone lay flat and decaying and obscured by weeds, and in the far corner, shrouded by the gloom of a huge oak, a lone cross stood erect, its thick stone seeming untouched. It looked like a sentry, watching us from its solitary position.

We moved in silence, looking at the graves, my father trying to decipher what remained of some of the words written on one of the slabs. Then, mum spoke.

“I don’t like it here. There’s something wrong about it. We need to leave.”

Writing out those words still pricks the hairs along the nape of my neck. It’s been thirty years since that day, near enough. And it wasn’t just what she said, it was how she said it. There was something, well, wrong about the way she spoke. The tone of her voice was off. I’d never heard her speak like that, and rarely have since. She was, my young self realised, frightened, and as a boy not yet a teenager, when your mother is frightened then that fear permeates through your skin and sets into your bones. She grabbed me by the hand and, without another word, led me back along the not-path and away from the church, my brother and father following behind in silence.

At the car, no one said anything about what had happened. Perhaps mum and dad spoke about it that evening. I don’t know. The only thing I can say, other than the inconsequential fact that she ended up buying that car, is that some years later I realised she was—how else can I put it?—receptive to certain things. Things that I can’t explain. Another occasion comes to mind, relayed to me by my father upon their return home from a trip around France: when visiting a beautiful harbour along the coast, mum was overcome by a sudden and deep revulsion. Only later, when dad was researching the history of the area, did he discover that the ostensibly pretty site had once been the location of a gallows. There by the sea, under the uncaring eyes of the sun, untold numbers had been executed by hanging.

I try not to think about it too much. It could be coincidence. Or not. For some reason, I’ve never asked about it, and though I am aware that many of my traits and quirks have been inherited from my father, often I have wondered whether my mother has instilled in me some sense of what cannot be readily observed.

In writing that out, I realise I have drifted far from my original story. It tends to happen. My apologies. Let us join him again, the 20-year-old me still stood there alone on the road, the note tucked away in his pocket. I sense he is waiting for our prying eyes to alight once more on his form.

*

Taking a deep breath, I made for the church. The roadside gate squeaked as it opened, making me wince. I tried to reassure myself there wasn’t a law preventing night-time sojourns into church grounds, but I wasn’t sure whether that was true. The gate let out another metallic wail as it shut behind me and I winced again before beginning to move across the path. I made my way around to the back of the church, trying my best to ignore the way the graveyard headstones turned to face me and watch me pass, trying not to think how close my feet were getting to the graves, letting instead my mind think about who I was about to meet.

L— was already there. I had to blink to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. Under the clouded night sky, the light blonde of her hair had lost all its colour, making each strand seem grey. She was facing away from me, peering at something. She turned around as she heard me approach.

“Hey,” I said. “Made it.” For some reason, I pulled the note out of my pocket and waved it in the air, flapping it back and forth like an idiot. My hand slowed and I slipped the note away when I saw she wasn’t smiling.

“Look,” she started.

My heart dropped. Starting a sentence with “Look” is never going anywhere good.

“I don’t know why you think something is going on here.”

I swallowed. By now my heart was approaching my foot and it threatened to leave my body altogether, perhaps to sink through the soil and give life to those buried below.

“What do you mean?” I managed.

“There’s nothing going on between us.”

I wasn't quite sure what I was hearing. It didn't seem to make sense.

“What?” I tried again. “But what about—”

She cut me off with a motion of her hand. “We’re just friends. That’s all we’ve been. That’s all we are.”

The air was quivering. I lost my balance and sunk to the floor, resting my back against the church’s outer wall. For some moments, I said nothing. L—, in all her greying form, said nothing, one of her fingers twisting through her hair in the manner she employed when bored.

“Why here?” I heard myself ask, aware I might have been crying. “Why at a graveyard?”

“Because I knew you'd come. You'd always come wherever I asked.”

Before she walked away, she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. There was no affection there. It wasn't a kiss that said sorry. It was a kiss that said only the opposite.

*

Later, as I stumbled home, I watched my fingers tear the note into pieces, the shredded paper fluttering in the air like snow.

---

Of course, that’s not how it really played out. In reality, it was worse. There were more words and it might have involved an airport. There was more destruction, is what I mean. Mentally.

It's taken some time to write this. I’ve thought about it before, venturing down this path. Over the years I’ve disassembled the components of the experience and only now, in my attempt to reconstruct the parts, I find it is difficult. Like a watchmaker who's forgotten his craft, I cannot say with confidence that I know where each gear was once placed.

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