Doug Allyn: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 799 & 800, March/April 2008

“Well, it’s hard to tell exactly, but I reckon she’d come up to about here on you.” Ron drew a line at the top of Wilfie’s shoulder. “She’s slim, but not too skinny. Blonde, like I said, with curls piled up on top that catch the sunlight when she turns, and very fresh looking, with big blue eyes and a lovely smile, and I’ll bet her skin’s as soft as silk, you lucky dog.”

“Michelle.” Wilfie rolled her name around on his tongue. Michelle. Michelle. Michelle. “And it’s been how many days now she’s come to see me?”

“Six.”

“Including Sunday.” Wilfie had heard the church bells. Faint, but unmistakable. “So we can safely say she’s not the religious type.” He smiled. “That’s encouraging.”

“So’s seeing a grin on that face of yours — hey, what’s the matter?”

“Well, that’s the trouble, isn’t it. My face.” The smile had dropped as quickly as it appeared. “Right now, this Michelle feels sorry for me. Stuck in hospital, wrapped in bandages, it brings out the best in girls like her. But she won’t want me once I’ve been discharged, Ron. Blind, limping—” (Say it, Wilfie. Say it!) “—ugly.”

“Give over, you’ve always been ugly,” Ron shot back, and Wilfie laughed as well. “But I reckon you’re wrong about Michelle. She doesn’t strike me as the sorry-for-you type. I mean, remember how she used to glance over her shoulder at you as she cycled through the village?”

“She did?”

“Oh, come on, don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how she used to suddenly have this urgent need to adjust her heels every time you passed her in the street? Or drop her handkerchief, or walk that silly dog of hers just when you happened to be in the neighbourhood.”

“Honest to God, Ron, I don’t remember any of it.”

Pretty girls just didn’t do that. Not for Wilfie. Not that he was ugly or anything. It was just that he was nothing special, him. So he’d keep his head down, scowling, hands stuffed in his pockets, and pretend he didn’t care. But... well, well, well.

All this time, and he hadn’t even realised!

“She left a letter, shall I read it?”

“Well, I bloody can’t, now can I?” But for once there was no bitterness in Wilfie’s voice. “What does it say?”

“It says—” With a theatrical cough, Ron cleared his throat. “— Mon cher Wilfie, je tu souhaite un prompt rétablissement, et j’attends avec intéret de toi rencontrer, quand tu es assez bien, and it’s signed Michelle.” Ron pushed the paper into his hand. “In other words, she—”

“Hey, I’m not stupid! I don’t need you to bloody translate it for me!”

“Sorry.”

“So you bloody should be.”

There was an awkward silence in which Wilfie wished he’d bitten off his tongue, but then Ron said he had to rush, the doctor was doing his evaluation any minute, though he’d be back for when Michelle dropped by this afternoon. But Wilfie wasn’t listening. He was too busy sniffing the letter, which smelled of disinfectant, but then it would. Everything that came into contact with this place did, and they’d probably made her wipe her hands before letting her pass it over! He waited until the squeak of the wheelchair had faded out of earshot, then called an orderly.

“Don’t suppose you could get this translated for me, could you, mate?”

“Tell me again what her letter says,” he asked Ron that afternoon.

Apparently, orderlies were too busy to do blind corporals any favours. Hardly took a glance at it, the lazy sod, and he was stuffing it back in Wilfie’s hand, trotting out more excuses than you could shake a stick at. Well, sod him, Wilfie thought, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t offered to bloody pay him for it, either.

But as usual, Ron didn’t mind a bit, and Wilfie decided he really would make a damn good teacher. He had patience, did Ron.

“Your lovely Michelle wishes you a speedy recovery, and looks forward to meeting you once you’re well enough.” Ron chuckled. “Looks forward, you notice, Wilf. Now, does that sound the type of girl who’s going to drop you once you’re up and running? I tell you, mate, she’s smitten with you — and ho, ho, ho, talk of the devil. Guess who’s walking up the path towards a certain young man’s window at this very minute?”

Wilfie felt his heart pounding. “What’s she wearing? Is it that white blouse and pale grey skirt again?”

Ron had described it to him in exquisite detail. The way the breeze would ruffle the lace around her collar. The way that single slit in the back of her skirt made it swish this way and that, to reveal her shapely ankles. The brooch she always wore at her neck, in the shape of a flying swan.

“Tell me how she walks, Ron.”

He loved to hear about her. Every tiny detail. The long, slim fingers that spoke so eloquently through the glass panes that separated them. The eagerness in her wide, blue eyes as she drank in everything about Wilfie’s family, the neighbourhood he grew up in, his friends, even his dreary old labouring job.

Michelle...

Michelle didn’t care that he hadn’t amounted to anything, but with her, anything was possible. For a start, with her, he wouldn’t be so clumsy. She’d be there to help him and support him, and that was what had been missing in his life. The love of a good woman. My oh my, how he used to laugh at that old chestnut! Talk about corny, he would scoff. Oh yeah? Well, he wasn’t scoffing now. It was early days, of course, and he wouldn’t dare tell Ron, but — don’t laugh — Wilfie thought he might, just might, be in love.

“Dr. Mallory reckons I should retain partial sight in my right eye, what do you think of that, eh, Ron?”

And the news just kept on getting better. Tomorrow he’d be out of traction and soon he would be able to hop over to the window by himself. He had no idea what kind of sign language crutches were likely to communicate, but the thought of waving them like semaphore made him laugh so hard that the night sister feared he’d taken some kind of fit.

And maybe he had, at that.

Daft, wasn’t it, he thought? Him a half-blind, limping invalid, her all cool and elegant, but don’t they say that opposites attract?

“Ask her... ask her how she feels about living in England.”

The answer, apparently, was a shrug, but it was accompanied by a coy smile.

“But she’s blushing, right?”

“Very becomingly, in my opinion, Wilf.” Ron clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re onto a winner, there, my boy.”

Oh, yes indeed. Michelle obviously liked what she saw even back when he was stationed in the village, although he wished now he hadn’t been so bloody sullen. Lack of confidence was all it was, but suddenly, with Michelle, Wilfie realised that he wouldn’t need to play the tough guy anymore. She was the kind of girl who could see through a chap’s insecurities and just let him be himself, and for that he loved her, yes, he did and — there. He’d said it. Wilfie Baines loves Michelle.

Crumbs. Who ever would have thought it! He lay awake all night thinking it was all very well passing messages to Ron to signal through the window, but what would he actually say to her when they finally met up? What would her hand feel like closed inside both of his, he wondered. How would her hair smell when he buried his face in it? Would it be warm and yeasty, from working so close to the ovens? Or would it be dusty with flour from the loaves, tickling his nose and making him sneeze? By the time the first cup of morning tea was making its wobbly way towards his mouth, he was picturing their initials carved in the trunk of the old plane tree where she came to feed the sparrows.

It might be a little premature, but Wilfie couldn’t help wondering where a man could buy engagement rings round here.