Disraeli Avenue. Caroline Smailes

       Number 5

       Mrs Grant

      Red front door

      Red garage door

      No car

       Stamps for Crystal

      Crystal from Number 9 came and knocked on my door. She’s a sweet kid.

      ‘I’m starting a stamp collection. Have you got any spare ones?’ She had her eyes pointing to the floor and she was fidgeting, moving from foot to foot.

      ‘Are your mum and your dad with you?’ I asked, looking over her shoulder.

      ‘No. Mam’s in bed and Dad’s at work.’

      ‘I’ll have a good look around and I’ll pop what I’ve got through your door, in an envelope. I’ll put your name on the envelope. Is that okay Crystal?’

      ‘Thank you Mrs Curtis.’ She smiled, she turned and she walked away.

      I started searching for stamps, looking in the bin and on the kitchen side, searching for used envelopes. I looked in cupboards and then in drawers. I had found quite a few before I found the postcard. It was picture down, his handwriting looping up at me.

      19 August 1972.

      My dearest Loulou,

      Weather hot, fishing without a shirt on. Not seen the Monster yet.

      Had a dodgy stomach last night. Perfecting my Scottish tongue.

      Miss you. Back soon.

      Love Bob xxx

      I turned the postcard over, the picture was a cartoon. Nessie was coming out from the loch, wearing a tartan beret and looking rather grumpy. She was breathing fire onto a man fishing in a boat. The man’s fishing line was attached to Nessie’s nostril. I know that Bob would have smiled when he found that card. I know that he would have felt it to be perfect.

      Holding the card that Bob had sent to me, seeing the handwritten words that he had chosen for me. I could hear his voice. I could hear him reading the words, emphasising ‘yet’, laughing after the word ‘tongue’.