April 28, 1944

Dear Peter,

Well now it's my turn to feel like a right fool. Directly after I fired off my last dispatch, Mam showed me the lovely letter you wrote her on Palm Sunday. She was thrilled to bits. Ever since, she's been talking about you like you walk on water. Of course, in Mam's opinion, you always did.

You know, Peter, when you stop mucking about and act serious once in a while, you really do sound quite sensible and not a bit like a prat. I've always known you have a heart of gold, even when you do your best to hide it. You might try to ignore your better angels, but you always do us proud in the end.

There's growing hope here at home that the war may be at a turning point. We've heard this before, so perhaps it's wishful thinking, but I choose to be optimistic. War is often the worst at the end, though, isn't it? Please keep your letters coming and I shall do the same. For all your squabbling, witless advice, and interference, you keep me sane. I worry all the time about you, as I know you do about me and Mam and all the kiddies. I need to hear from you, Pete.

Speaking of the family, I was visiting with Mam and the kiddies last Sunday for tea when Da stopped by quite unexpectedly. He was clean-shaven and surprisingly well turned-out, and hadn't had a drink in days. Of course, he always looks sharp when he's coming straight from his free lodgings with His Majesty. God knows what he was in for. He'll never say, and Mam certainly won't. We'll see how the next few weeks go. Mam offered him your bed up in the attic hallway, but he said he would stay with Vera and Alfie until he could get himself a bed-sit and that he didn't want to disrupt the kiddies' lives. It turns out Alfie was with Da for a time in the shovel once again, though Alf got out sooner. I don't how two old geezers get nicked over and over. You think they'd get better at whatever fiddle they're up to after all this time, wouldn't you?

I remember you telling me a long time ago how happy we all were when Da came home from prison the first time, when we were 5 and 10, and how good-natured he was when he was calm and sober. Peter, he was so kind, chatting and tossing horseshoes in the garden with all the kiddies. And when he laughed with Mam, he reminded me so much of you that I had to go off and have a little cry when he left. There was a peacefulness about him that I don't recall ever seeing before. I wish he'd go off the booze and stay like this, but I don't hold out much hope.

I do hope the war will end soon and we'll have you back home. When that happens, we'll all head down to The Ten Bells or The Red Lion—you can choose. And we'll sing "The Barley Mow" and "Whiskey in the Jar" and "Land of My Fathers" and "God Save the King" at the top of our lungs together, all right?

And I'll bloody well kiss whomever I wish while we're at it. I might even join in for a verse or two of "God Bless America."

Your loving sister,

Mavis

PS, I hope you're enjoying your tea. Buying and shipping that bloody Brown Betty set me back a week's wages, and you'll be taking me out for a lovely meal to make up for it. And don't you even think of wearing that suit that you tore up in that scuffle with Cynthia Quillan's brothers behind The Red Lion. It's poorly mended and out of style, and anyway I shall want to walk about with my dashing brother in his RAF uniform.

XXX

Footnotes: Shovel and pick=the nick=prison. In my story "In the Name of the Father," Freddy Newkirk spent four months in prison for receiving stolen goods in 1924-25. In "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Thief," Freddy Newkirk and his old friend Alfie Burke, aka Alfie the Artiste, ran into one another in Pentonville Prison in September 1943. Alfie gained an early release for the little job he did in the episode "The Safecracker Suite." (s1e27)