Henry's House

December 12th, 1945, Liverpool. -

Whoever waits for me here must think me dead, with it being so many months past the war. And perhaps it is better off left as such. I don’t think I’m scared of the answers that are hidden here in England. But I don’t believe in choosing wishful thinking over the promise of a good life with a good woman.

John

John Smith, as he had been named since his recovery, scribbled quickly as he waited to board a ship to America. His doctors had been convinced writing in his old notebook may jog his memories. It did not. There were so few pages left, John guessed he had used the previous ones to write home.

He carried little with him, for in all honesty he had very little. He carried just a bag holding only a small number of clothes. His only other possession was the small black notebook. It had been on John’s person when he was recovered by allied troops from a field in France that June. John had suffered two-gun shots, a superficial one to his left arm and a nastier one to his right leg which now caused John to walk with a cane. The real damage was done when John took a blow to the head. He must have lost his helmet and identity tags, everyone had surmised, how though John didn’t know. John didn't know anything before the hospital. All anyone could tell John about his life, was that he wore a British uniform and seemed to have a mild Devonian twang to his accent.

John had spent the last three months since his discharge from hospital searching the south west of England in the hopes of finding a family to go home to. Stopping the search was a hard decision but John had looked for months with nothing to show for it. And there was Mary, a nurse who had tended to his recovery. She was kind and beautiful. And she possessed a calm nature that put him at ease when everyone else only gave him questions. Mary had lost so much in the war she wanted to start a new life and John had decided he’d spent enough time chasing ghosts. So, with a heavy but hopeful heart they'd taken the train to Liverpool and now stood holding hands waiting to set sail to America.

July 7th, 1946, New York

A year to the day of me and Mary meeting in the hospital we have married. It wasn’t grand, no far from it. I had feared Mary wouldn’t want to become a Smith, A name that holds no family. But Mary insists it's to be our family name, and that we will build a family around it.

John

May 17th, 1963, New York

Mary gave birth today, after so many years of trying. Mary wants to call the boy Henry after her father. I lack a better suggestion and it does have a nice ring to it.

I fear I won't be a good Father to Henry, I have no memories to model myself on. But I will try, that is all I can do.

John

February 27th, 2021, Devon

Jenny cursed to herself, as she sat cuddled up under five jumpers and several blankets it her ‘dream home.’ Unfortunately for Jenny she hadn’t realised how expensive it was to keep an old cottage. She now had a leaking thatched roof without the money to fix it. But it had been her dream since they’d holidayed in Devon when she was a child. Jenny had spotted the cottage overgrown and tucked away from the roadside. Like a fairy-tale she'd thought back then. She should have known the price was too good to be true. But her dreams and her life were now in Devon, so Jenny vowed to keep the house in any way possible. Which for now would have to be with the tarpaulin she’d asked her dad to send.

Her Grandfathers notebook caught her eye from the bookcase, she was yet to write her first entry in it. Her father had only dared to make one when she herself had been born. He had then passed it on to her when she had brought the cottage. Grandad had done the same, giving it to her Dad when he decided to move to England. With each generation they were bringing it slightly closer to home her Grandad had mused. Her Grandad had written in it so sparingly Jenny knew all his entries off by heart. She shuddered to herself, after all that notebook had been through, she’d be dammed if her first entry was about her failings. Jenny was pulled from her self-pity by a knock at the door. The post thank God! She prayed it was the parcel from her parents.

Granddad insisted we buy you a tarp, as if I wasn’t already planning on it. I think he’d be down to fix that roof if I let him. He has not been adjusting to London well. He’s a bit set in his ways and he knows your Granny would have hated it. But at least he’s here. I couldn't bear the thought of him being in a home a world away, and us not allowed to visit with the pandemic. Write to him soon please, he’s only tolerable after your letters. Love you lots, Dad x

Jenny smiled to herself. She had been amazed that her Grandad had even agreed to move back to the UK. But, when talks of the pandemic had been starting, they had all agreed it to be for the best that he moved. So that her parents were able to look after him. Despite him now being in the same time zone, Jenny still wrote to him. Of course, they could have facetimed, but her Grandad held a bitter grudge against technology.

Jenny didn’t trust herself or her Dads old ladder to safely secure the tarpaulin outside. So instead, she found herself flat on her belly crawling in the loft space above her bedroom, to try and patch the rotten bit of roof from the inside. It was musty and dark and stunk of damp vastly different from the idyllic fairy-tale Jenny had imagined. Jenny was shifting damaged pieces of thatch out the way and trying to tie the tarp up to the roof when her hand closed on something distinctly metal. It felt like a box of some sort. Certain that it had no purpose being in her roof Jenny pulled it out. Grateful it didn’t cause any further damage Jenny finished her rustic repair job and carried the weighty but small box back down her ladder and into the light of her bedroom.

The lid of the box took some manoeuvring to get it free. When the lid came loose an audible gasp escaped Jenny’s lips. Safely entombed in the box sat a notebook identical to her Grandfathers, only it had been stuffed with several extra pages and was held together by a piece of sting. Untying the book with a shaky hand Jenny couldn’t prepare herself for what she found. The extra pages were all letters, taken from another notebook.

Jenny grabbed the book and the box and ran clumsily down the stairs almost tripping as one of her jumpers caught on the banister. She spread the letters out on her coffee table and grabbed her Grandfathers notebook from the bookcase. It was the same, she thought she’d known it upstairs, but she hadn’t dared believe, but it was! Each letter was an exact match for her Grandfathers handwriting. These were his letters home. A photo caught Jenny’s eye tucked in with the letters, it was a young man in uniform. Jenny gasped for sure enough her Grandfather was looking back at her from the picture. Younger than she had ever seen him in any of their family's albums. But there was no mistaking the twinkle of mischief in his eye.

The notebook itself seemed to be a diary of sorts. A lump caught in Jenny's throat as she sat and read every entry. It was a mother's perspective, her Great-Grandmother Jenny realised. She wrote frequently during the war worried about her son and his whereabouts. Her entries slowed down after the war becoming less and less frequent, with each the tone less hopeful. Jenny’s heart broke for her Great-Grandmother, yet she knew even if her Grandad had spent his whole life searching, they may never have been reunited.

Jenny started to replace the letters into the box for safe keeping unsure of how to tell her family. She moved the box on the table and heard a rattle coming from within, it had definitely been empty she thought to herself. She reached in and tapped on the bottom of the box it sounded hollow. Jenny fetched a screwdriver and unceremoniously forced it down the inside of the box. With a surprising click a false bottom popped out of place. Lifting It up Jenny saw an assortment of jewellery and another note.

I assume that through reading this you are now in possession of my cottage. My pride and joy, my only love beyond my flesh and blood. It was my dearest wish my home would one day pass to Family. I see now that is not to be. These stone walls are my legacy, my Grandfather built this home and my father and myself have kept it. I now ask that of you, look after my home, for its responsibility now falls on you.

I hope that here I have left you the means to do so. It isn’t much in a way of fortune, but it may go some ways in helping.

Eleanor Ravenscroft.

Jenny didn’t even know what to think. She had by some miracle fulfilled her Great-Grandmothers wish the house had passed to family. And Jenny had been failing it. But somehow beyond the grave her Great-Grandmother had provided her with the answer to all her problems. It wasn’t a fortune worth, but Jenny smiled it would be enough for the £20,000 the contractor needed to fix a rotting roof and some crumbling walls.

Jenny sat for a long time wandering how you tell someone with no memories that you’ve found them all for him. Her Grandfather's life before the war was here in these very walls and during it in his own letters.

She couldn’t tell her Grandad this over the phone how would she even start? But letters she knew her Grandfather trusted. Jenny sat and began to write everything in as much detail as she could muster. She would wait and deliver the book in person, but she included the photo of her Grandad.

Her Granddad Henry Ravenscroft, who’d spent most his life as John Smith. Which made her Dad also Henry Ravenscroft she realised.

Jenny walked into the village realising it was now dark outside. But she hoped to catch the morning post. She mailed the letter to her Granddad. What would he make of it all she wondered, and even more would he at last remember?