AN: I know this chapter is a bit short compared to the last couple, but it sort of has to be I'm afraid... they will get longer again as time goes by!
(if the letter seems a little disjointed in places, remember that although she's doing her best, Delia is still prone to losing her train of thought at this point, and she's having to write in intervals rather than all at once. It's still relatively early days in her recovery, so we can't expect her to be quite up to her usual standard of articulation! Somehow I don't think Patsy will care though)
Dear Pats,
I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write to you myself, I hope you didn't think for a moment that I don't appreciate your letters! I'm truly so grateful to you for sending them, they cheer me up more than I can say. I've wanted to write back to you since the very first one, but to begin with mam wouldn't let me even read them for myself in case straining my eyes brought on a seizure. I did tell her that if I wasn't allowed to write then I wanted her to at least let you know how much I was enjoying hearing from you and to keep you updated on how things were here. She said she would but I didn't read her letters, so I hope she sent nice long ones, and didn't tell too many tales about what a bothersome patient I can be!
Actually, mam's a little out of sorts today as she still doesn't think I should be writing, but after your last letter I asked the doctor for his opinion on the matter during one of my follow up checks and he said he doesn't see why I shouldn't, so in the end she had to relent. Even now though she won't let me spend more than a minute or two at a time writing in case it wears me out, so it might be several days before I actually manage to get this sent off.
It's funny, writing this. Mam showed me the birthday card I sent her last year and although I still have no memory of writing it, or even sitting in school and learning to write in the first place, my handwriting matches it exactly. It's as though my hands remember as much as they ever did, even if my mind has forgotten. It was like that with the bandages as well, now I come to think on it. I find myself staring at my fingers sometimes, as if my hands are an entity in their own right, wondering what else they know that I don't. Perhaps all my secrets are written out there in the lines of my palms, waiting for me to remember how to read them. Does that sound strange? I find it hard to judge what's normal and what isn't these days.
I wake up every Friday feeling a little bit excited, knowing that today's the day my letter from Patsy arrives. Mam says I mustn't rely on it continuing, but even though it's only been a few weeks, somehow I know that whatever she says, there it will be on the mat when I wake up, full of sunshine and funny stories. I think you must be a sort of angel, taking it upon yourself to write to injured nurses and lead cub packs when you must have a hundred more interesting things to do! But I'm glad you do it anyway.
Oh dear, am I being impertinent? Mam read a bit over my shoulder and says I am and should cross that last part out as it isn't at all appropriate to make such assumptions about someone I don't know. I told her I would but somehow I don't think you'll mind, because you're not really a stranger are you Pats?
You asked about my bedroom. Goodness knows I spend enough time here to tell you all about it! I liked the way you made it sound in your letter. I think I'd like yellow walls, it would be so sunny and cheerful to wake up to, even in winter. Really, the walls in here are whitewashed with wooden beams on the ceiling, but I do have a bit of colour too as they are covered in pictures. They weren't at first, but a few days ago mam brought out all my clumsy old artwork from my school days and spent an afternoon pinning it up in every spare inch of wall space (I did offer to help but she wouln't hear of it). She says she wants to make the room brighter, but I think really she is trying to get me to remember painting them. I am trying to, but somehow the prim floral water colours don't feel like they have much to do with me. Did I paint them because I liked them, or because she did? Or because some stuffy old art mistress thought that girls ought to paint flowers? I can't tell you how frustrating not knowing that is!
The floor is made of wooden boards too, so old that the ground isn't quite level beneath your feet, like gently rolling hills. It took me a while to realize that it really was the floor and not some manner of vertigo that made me feel as though I wasn't walking straight when I was first allowed to stand up on my own. Even so I rather like them - the boards are worn smooth as silk, which makes me want to slide across them in my stockinged feet and pretend to be an ice skater. I wonder if that's a childhood memory surfacing or just childish whimsy brought on by too much time inside? I don't know for sure, but I think perhaps I'm the kind of person that needs to be active to be truly content.
Oh dear, what must you think of me grumbling on like this over all the little things I can't do yet? I must sound so ungrateful to my poor mam! And I haven't even told you about the dolls! There are three of them on my windowsill, just where you said they'd be; two rag dolls and a sweet faced porcelain girl with ringlets and a crinoline. I wonder if I did nurse them as a child? I like to think so. I feel more able to relate to the little girl tending dolls covered in lipstick measles than the young lady painting roses and violets in pastel shades. I wonder what their names were.
I must sign off now Patsy, mam says if I'm quick she'll drop this off at the post office on her way to get the fish for supper, and I would so like it to arrive with you before you send your next one! (Oh there I go again being impertinent. I mean of course, should you decide to write again… but please do decide to!).
Love,
Delia