Words We Don’t Have - for athousandwinds
Title: Words We Don’t Have
Author: venilia
Recipient: athousandwinds
Rating: PG
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: If you’ve read The Magician’s Nephew, you’re good.
Summary: “Digory,” Polly says one day as Digory steadies her on her back in the water, teaching her to float. “I don’t want to marry you. I’m saying this right now so you won’t make any plans.”
Words We Don't Have
Takallouf
“Digory,” Polly says one day as Digory steadies her on her back in the water, teaching her to float. “I don’t want to marry you. I’m saying this right now so you won’t make any plans.”
Digory splashes water at her. “I know that, you goose,” he says. “Arch your back more, and try to get the air in your lungs down low, you see.”
He lets go and Polly floats for a sweet, silver moment, her hair splayed out around her in the water and the skirt of her bathing suit twirling around her knees. Then she starts to sink. She rights herself before the water can get up her nose.
“It’s only, I do love you awfully,” she says. “But I don’t think I could ever love you in a wifely sort of way.”
Digory gives her a funny look.
“What?” she asks, defensive.
“Wifely,” he says. “I’m trying to picture you being proper, all grown up and coifed and corseted and, and starched!”
She shoves him. “I could be proper! Anyway, I don’t see what any of that has to do with getting married.”
“No, I suppose not,” he says. “Really though, I don’t think I ever want to get married. I’m not cut out for it.”
It’s true. Digory never seems to notice girls the way most boys his age do.
“So it’s decided then?” she asks.
“However you want,” Digory says agreeably. Then he dunks her under and swims for shore, laughing.
Meraki
When Polly is twenty she meets Freddy Carlington. He’s tall, slightly awkward, and well mannered. When she shows him the illustrations she’d done for a child’s map of Ancient Greece he doesn’t laugh at the tiny illustrations she’s added of fauns with cakes and dryads dancing with donkeys. Instead he runs a finger over the filigreed corners, past a mergirl kissing a hippopotamus fondly on the forehead, and his mouth curls into the awed smile of a child at Christmas.
She’s only known him two weeks, but Polly decides then and there to marry Freddy.
Genare
Of course, it takes a bit to ease Freddy into this idea. She starts by introducing him to Digory, because this is the second reason her beaus have been scarce. It is one thing to be friends with a boy when you’re eleven and there are no other girls in your row of houses, but quite another thing to still be friends with the boy when all the other girls you know are thinking about husbands and babies.
(Well, this isn’t quite true. Polly runs in odd circles, and only half the girls she knows are preparing trousseaus. The other half are handcuffing themselves to lampposts and lying on their backs for hours in the town square. Polly helps with signs for the marches.)
Freddy takes it well.
“Polly!” Digory jumps down from the apple tree he’s been reading in. The apple tree is in fact their apple tree, the child of the great apple tree in Narnia. It’s one of Polly’s favorite places in all the world, and she and Digory had had a fight about it when she was thirteen and her mother made her start wearing more petticoats and lacing her corset tighter. It was only the third fight they’d ever had and had been over before it really started because Digory truly didn’t mind if Polly thought of it as her tree too, and he thought the new, restrictive underthings and the way Mrs. Plummer and Aunt Letty had started hinting about the future were equally horrid.
Freddy doesn’t know any of this. All he knows is that a young man his own age has dropped down from an apple tree like a schoolboy, and is kissing Polly fondly on the cheek before turning to shake his hand.
Polly’s two former (and only) beaus had both bristled at Digory, chests puffed out and voices dropping low. Digory hadn’t noticed because the boy’s head is in the clouds most of the time contemplating Kant or Plato. He’s turned philosophical since his mother’s recovery.
“Good to meet you, Carlington,“ Digory says now. “Polly seems very fond of you. “
Freddy ducks his head happily and sneaks a glance at Polly out of the corner of his eye. Polly smiles back.
“Mr. Kirke,” Freddy says. “Pip talks about you an awful lot.” Polly’s mother thinks it forward of him to call Polly such a familiar name, and in front of other people it’s always ‘Miss Plummer’ this and ‘Miss Plummer’ that. “She says you’re her dearest friend.”
“Polly and I go back,” Digory says. Polly is a bit charmed by the phrase. It sounds both as if they were simply ordinary children who had grown up together, and also as if they were old, comfortable companions. Both are true in their own way.
“I’m glad,” Freddy says. “I mean, that is to say that Pip’s friends are always rather grand, and I’m glad she has such good ones.” The phrasing is hesitant, but Freddy has a way of being so sincere that anything he says comes across as decisive. Polly loves it.
As they troupe up to the house for tea she shoots Digory a look that means, ‘Well?’ He returns one that means something like, ‘It’s none of my business, Polly’. It’s not, but he’s just as important to her as her parents. She wants him to like Freddy.
She conveys this with a tilt of her head.
Digory rolls his eyes. Then he smiles. He likes Freddy.
They look up to see Freddy laughing at them.
Cafuné
She and Freddy sit in the garden on a quilt, looking up at the stars.
“I can never capture that,” she tells Freddy. “That beauty. It’s untamable.”
His hand comes up to comb through her loose hair.
“But it’s something we can always reach for,” Freddy murmurs. “It’s just right up there.”
Polly smiles. Freddy loves the sky.
“At least,” Freddy says, “we can see how beautiful it is. I think sometimes that’s more than enough.”
His fingers card through her hair gently. Polly thinks they’re good for each other.
“Bit poetic,” she says.
“You bring it out in me,” Freddy laughs. “I’m an utter sop around you. It’s terrible.”
Her mother ducks her head out the window and calls Polly inside. In the still moment after they’ve got to their feet, Polly kisses Freddy.
Wanktok
Freddy is at university for architecture. Given half an excuse he goes on about the new Art Noveau buildings in Paris, and yammers about things like load bearing walls and natural lines. He’s just as good when she starts talking about impressionism.
They plan a summer holiday there the summer before his last year. It doesn’t occur to Polly to worry about propriety until her mother makes a fuss about how she can’t get away from the charity work she does on such short notice.
Apple House doesn’t have any telephones, so Polly takes the train out that evening. It’s an hour’s trip, but she doesn’t mind. Polly loves trains.
“You will come with, won’t you?” Polly says to Digory and Mrs. Kirke over supper. “Only I won’t be allowed without company, and Freddy won’t go without me. Says he’s promised me a trip to Paris, and by God he’ll keep that promise.”
“Oh, I don ‘t mind,” Digory says. “Sounds jolly. Pass the potatoes.”
“But are your certain you don’t want to save Paris for your honeymoon, dear?” Mrs. Kirke asks. She’s as much of a mother as Polly’s own, and they adore each other.
Polly blushes. “I’m sure seeing Paris twice won’t be bad,” she says. “Or we, not that it’s something we’ve talked about, you know, Freddy still has to finish his degree. But we might take a tour of the continent. Or go to India. We might do anything then. So, so why wait until then to have fun, do you see?”
“Oh darling!” Mrs. Kirke says. “I know exactly what you mean. You needn’t explain at all.” She turns to Aunt Letty. “You don’t mind watching out for my brother and Thomas, do you?” Her eyes are sparkling, and Polly silently blesses Mrs. Kirke, who taught her to climb trees and to ride horses and has never worried about Polly being a proper lady.
“Oh, go on Mabel. Have some fun. I can manage Andrew and your husband, I dare say.”
Down the table, Uncle Andrew grumbles good naturedly into his peas. He’s become such a dear that Polly hardly remembers how terrifying he once was.
“You must promise to have a grand time,” Mr. Kirke tells Mrs. Kirke.
Digory winks at his father. “I’ll make sure not to let her get into too much trouble.” He stands, bussing his aunt’s cheek on his way out. “You,” he says, “Are a queen among women.” She swats at him fondly.
“You really are, Aunt Letty,” Polly says. “Thank you.”
Aunt Letty blushes.
Gezelligheid
Paris is wonderful. She and Freddy walk along the Siene alone saying nothing and enjoying every minute.
Digory decides it’s their mission to try all the best wines Paris can offer. They drink at every meal, and Polly should probably worry that it’s improper but it’s too lovely and comfortable too be fussy. They see art exhibits. They see the Eiffel tower. They go to a park and have a picnic under a sturdy old oak. She leans her head back on Freddy’s shoulder and rests her feet on Digory’s lap. Mrs. Kirke is plaiting poppies into a coronet. She places on her son’s head with merry but solemn pomp.
Polly’s breath catches, and in that moment she’s in Narnia again, watching a Lion crown a former cabby and his dear wife King and Queen of a magical land.
Digory meets her eyes and smiles and she knows that he’s remembering too. Sometimes Narnia bleeds into the everyday world like golden ink bleeding onto blot paper.
Freddy’s shoulder shakes gently under her cheek. His head is tipped back to watch the fluffy clouds roll by lazily, and he laughs for sheer joy of the company and the beautiful day.
Polly closes her eyes and memorizes the moment so that she’ll always have it when she needs it.
Inshallah
War comes. She knew it would.
Digory looks wry and sad in his uniform. He’s not supposed to talk about his posting, but Polly has suspicions.
Freddy looks proud and handsome in his RAF uniform. His hands don’t shake when he cups Polly’s face to kiss her goodbye.
She’s twenty-five. It’s the last time she sees him.
Hiraeth
Digory sends her a letter. It doesn’t say much, large swaths of it blacked out by a cautious hand. Polly, who hears more than most, knows what he isn’t saying. She’s see the photographs of men dying from explosions, men drowning in mud, men dying of cold, men with such terror in their eyes that Polly thinks they can die from that just as surely as from a gunshot.
There’s a little sketch on the back of a lamppost. To anyone else it looks like homesickness. Well, it is. A different sort of homesickness.
Polly writes three words: Freddy presumed dead.
Digory sends back a careful, bare-lined drawing of a Lion with great, sad eyes.
Polly hangs it above her drafting table, next to the photograph they’d had taken in Paris, and the wax-papered apple blossom in its little frame.
Ya’aburnee
She’s in Wales. Somehow before the war she’d begun mapmaking. She’s always been good at scale and relative position, the math coming easily to her. An officer had come to her and asked if she would like to join the war effort. Now Polly finds herself in a cramped office in the wilds of Wales making maps of first France and Belguim, then Italy and Greece and Turkey. Much of it is cross-referencing photographs taken from aeroplanes against traveler’s guides and books on geography appropriated from the archaeology departments of Cambridge and Oxford.
Elspeth and Gwyneth, who have radio headsets almost pasted to their heads and talk themselves hoarse everyday coordinating information, run in and out of Polly’s little room. Mostly they bring her telegrams relating to troop movements, but of late they’ve begun bringing her cup upon cup of tea, and so many biscuits that Polly loses her appetite for them.
She’s dropped a bit of weight, it’s true. But, as Polly says often, she’s getting on all right. It’s only the long walks she’s taken to in the lonely, peaceful Welsh countryside. Fresh air and exercise, that’s all. She eats, and she sleeps. Please stop worrying.
Uitwaaien
Polly walks for miles. Sunday is her day off. She should be in church, but the little parish nearby is full of mothers and fathers, sisters and wives, worry etched onto all their faces like scars from some great battle.
Everyone is a soldier.
Polly walks.
This is mountain country, everything blue and green and grey. The hem of her dress is dirty, and her neckline itches with sweat.
She comes to the top of a peak. Not a large one, she doesn’t have time for that today. The wind blows in her face. The land stretches out sleepily behind her, and sweeps up boldly before her. She thinks about Freddy and his love for clouds.
She closes her eyes and remembers her own flight on a winged horse over mountains much like these. Everything is wild and perfect for a moment.
Polly sits down and takes out the sandwich she packed. She nibbles at it, but the bread is dry and it fills her mouth like red, defeated dust.
When she puts it back in her pocket, her hand brushes something. She pulls it out. It’s a toffee. She stares at the sweet in bemusement. Elspeth must have tucked it in when Polly wasn’t looking.
She unwraps the toffee and eats it. It doesn’t taste as good as the toffeefruit in Narnia.
She digs in her pocket and finds another one. She eats that one too.
It’s not as good, but she’s glad of it anyway. It tastes golden.
Toska
After the war, she drifts.
Polly goes home to London. She unpacks her luggage. She tidies her room. She sits down in the window seat and watches the winter street.
Hours pass.
When the sun goes down, she readies for bed, slides under the blankets, and stares at the ceiling.
She doesn’t sleep.
Litost
She gets a job as a shop girl. She lasts for three months, and then has an unfortunately loud fit of hysterics in the ladies’ room. Her manager is kind enough to allow Polly the dignity of quitting rather than being sacked, but it’s made clear that she will not receive any references.
She comes home at three in the afternoon with puffy eyes and hair coming out of her pins. Her hat is crumpled in her hands, and she’s forgotten her coat. Her father, who as a doctor can make his own hours, looks up when she enters.
“You’re home a bit-“ he starts, and then he sees her. “Polly, sweetpea, what’s wrong?” he asks. He takes her gently by the elbow and sits her down.
“I-I-I,” Polly splutters, and finds to her horror that what little calm she’d drawn together between the shop and home is gone. She feels her face crumpling again, the sobs choking up in her throat. She buries her face in her hands.
“Oh, shh. Hush,” her father sits next to her on the setee, and Polly finds herself half on her father’s lap, crying as if Freddy’s death were yesterday.
When she’s cried herself out and her body is more asleep than awake, everything slow and dull, her father leans her back against the cushions and goes to put the kettle on.
Polly stares at nothing for long moments, miserable to her fingertips. Her fiancé is dead, her duty over, and Polly has nothing left. The war to end all wars is done, but Polly has no idea how to be happy.
Her father returns with tea.
“Go and pack, Polly,” he says. “You’re to visit the Kirkes. The country will do you good.”
Polly tries to smile at him.
Dozywocie
On the train, she sleeps against the window, the glass cool under her cheek. It’s the first time she’s had a decent sleep in weeks, and it’s wonderful.
Digory picks her up in his father’s automobile. Polly’s not sure she could remember how to speak even if she wanted. Digory, who is wonderful, seems to understand, and they don’t say anything as he drives them to Apple House. Polly hasn’t brought a motor bonnet, and with a shrug she lets her hair down so it can blow about in the wind. The wind is cold, but the early spring sun is warm.
Digory ushers her to his mother’s sitting room, where Mrs. Kirke takes over. She has the cook bring porridge with butter and cream, and Polly finds it’s perfect for her touchy appetite. Aunt Letty comes in briefly and tuts over Polly’s thinness, but she doesn’t stay long.
Aunt Letty brings up a tea, and Mrs. Kirke gives Polly a crumpet with jam. Polly waves it away. Mrs. Kirke takes Polly’s hand and places the jammy crumpet in it, smearing raspberry on her fingers. Polly puts it down.
“Polly, dear,” Mrs. Kirke says, firmly but kindly, “you will eat that crumpet.”
Polly looks up into her grey eyes. She realizes that this may be the first time she’s met anyone’s eyes in several months. Mrs. Kirke stares back at her, unwavering.
Polly eats the crumpet.
Nunchi
She spends two days letting Mrs. Kirke direct her and cuddle her like a child. There are no worries or responsibilities. Mrs. Kirke brushes her hair, and tells her to brush her teeth. She shoos the cook out of the kitchen, and orders Polly through breadmaking and cooking a soup. Then she sits Polly down and tells her to eat. She tucks Polly into bed at night with a kiss to her forehead. She sits vigil in the rocker, the lights turned low. When Polly wakes herself crying, Mrs. Kirke wraps her arms about her and rocks, saying nothing.
In the morning Polly is embarrassed, but Mrs. Kirke chucks her under the chin. “Digory had a hard time of it too, love,” she says. “And honestly, it’s a mercy to have my chicks under my wing for a bit. A mother does worry.” She smooths Polly’s hair back and suggests a walk in the sunshine. Polly remembers being tucked under Fledge’s wing in a strange, newborn country.
The third morning she puts a pencil in Polly’s hand, and a sheet of paper in front of her. Polly picks her hand up to draw, then puts it down again.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Kirke,” she says. “I’m not ready yet.” She stands and wanders out onto the grounds. Digory is there bouncing a ball against a wall. She watches him for a bit. The whole house has stayed clear while Polly recovered, and it’s the first time she’s seen Digory since he drove her from the train station.
“You look all right,” she says. In her mind it’s an idle comment, but once it’s out in the air Polly can hear the ugly jealousy seeped all through it. She realizes with a shock that she rather despises Digory for not being a worse mess than her.
Digory looks up at her, hurt. His mouth opens to say something, but before he can Polly throws her arms around him.
“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t. I’m so sorry. I hate myself awfully for even thinking it. Please say you’ll forgive me.”
He pats her shoulder. “All right, Pols. Not to worry.”
“But Digory, it was horrid of me. I didn’t have to go and be a soldier like you did. I didn’t have to shoot any guns. And here I am being wretched because one man died and no one needs me anymore.”
“Well,” Digory says after a pause, “The man who died was going to be your husband. And look here, Polly,” he draws her back enough to look him in the face. “Really, it could be a lot worse. At least you didn’t ring that damned bell and wake up Her.”
“Then you forgive me?” Polly asks.
“You were very good about that bell. Forgiving you a little madness in your grief is peanuts, really.”
And because this is Digory, that is that. He turns and starts bouncing his ball again. Polly dives to catch it, and they bounce it back and forth. She sneaks glances at him. Digory looks the same, but older, very much older. She thinks about the photographs she’s seen of the trenches. She thinks about Elspeth’s brother who had come home with one leg and only half his mind.
It still doesn’t feel as if Freddy’s death is any less unfair and terrible. But, she resolves, if she can’t be happy, she can at least be grateful not to have memories of the trenches. Her next throw is distracted and goes wild. There’s the sound of breaking glass and the maid starts screeching. Digory shouts, “Run!” and Polly grabs hold of his hand as they scurry away like guilty school children.
Polly feels alive.
Jeong
“I’m going back to university,” Digory says. They’re sitting below the apple tree. “I’m going to study Philosophy properly.”
Polly looks up at the branches. Little buds are beginning to show.
“Am I going to have to call you ‘Professor’ one day?” she asks. Digory snorts.
“What will you do?” he asks her. It’s the first time anyone has asked since the war ended.
“I,” Polly says, “am going to travel. I’ll make guide books, I think.”
“Good on you,” Digory says. “You’ll love it.” He stands, and offers a hand to help her up. She takes it.
“You will write me, won’t you?” he asks.
She rolls her eyes at him, and it feels like something she’s been waiting to do. Rolling her eyes at Digory is the normal way with them.
“I’ll even visit you,” she says.
“Well that’s all right then.”
“Digory?” she asks. “Did you know you were the only person I wrote the whole war? Freddy always hated letter writing, and my mother and father have a telephone.”
“Was I?”
“Yes. I really think we’ll always be, not with each other, you know. But sort of with each other anyway.”
“We both saw Charn,” Digory says. “We both saw Narnia begin, we both flew to the gated garden, and back again to Aslan.”
“There is that,” Polly says.
Whatever else happens in her life, there is always, always that. And there will also always be Digory.
“Still, I’m awfully glad I never married you,” Polly says.
Digory laughs.
L’appele du vide
Polly stands on a clifftop, looking down at the water. She spreads her arms and throws back her head. The waterfall is so loud, she can’t hear her own laughter. The spray paints her face wet, and fills her mouth.
She writes, “The wonder of Victoria Falls is not its majesty, but the sense of violent joy underscoring that majesty.”
Kokusaijin
Polly sits in a garden, drinking tea. The garden is utterly amazing, full of pools and quite corners and old, old trees.
She sets the pale tea down on the flagstone before her and digs through her satchel for sketchpad and pen. She draws. Here is where the path curves around a pile of boulders. There is the little stone statue of a lion.
In the margins she sketches a horse, clouds curling back from him like wings as he races towards the sun. Opposite him are leaping rabbits and dancing elephants. In the corners are large red poppies.
A small, dark eyed child who has wandered away from her mother spies over Polly’s shoulder. She points a chubby finger to the elephant and babbles something Polly doesn’t understand.
“Elephant,” Polly says.
The child grins at her shyly, apple-cheeked. She traces the rabbits and the horse in silent happiness.
Polly adds the child in her bright frock at the spot she’s in. She leans back and looks at her drawing.
“I think I’ll use gold ink for this one,” she tells her new little friend. The girl smiles up at her, not understanding but happy to be spoken too by the strange lady who drew pretty animals.
Polly smiles back.
Author’s Note:
Due to the untranslatability of these words, I’ve chosen to not include a pat definition for each one. However, most of them came from these lists:
1
2
3
4
5
Original prompt we sent you:
What I want: England fic! I'd like something that feels historical - tied to a specific period in history, I mean, like the 1920s (for Digory and Polly) or the Blitz or the early 1950s. I'm happy to read about any of the characters you'd like to write about, though I'm less interested in Peter and Lucy (however, if you have a good idea for fic about them, please write it!).
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: debutante, sport, dinner jacket, hiraeth
What I definitely don't want in my fic: Incest. It's just not my thing, I'm sorry.
Author: venilia
Recipient: athousandwinds
Rating: PG
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: If you’ve read The Magician’s Nephew, you’re good.
Summary: “Digory,” Polly says one day as Digory steadies her on her back in the water, teaching her to float. “I don’t want to marry you. I’m saying this right now so you won’t make any plans.”
Words We Don't Have
Takallouf
“Digory,” Polly says one day as Digory steadies her on her back in the water, teaching her to float. “I don’t want to marry you. I’m saying this right now so you won’t make any plans.”
Digory splashes water at her. “I know that, you goose,” he says. “Arch your back more, and try to get the air in your lungs down low, you see.”
He lets go and Polly floats for a sweet, silver moment, her hair splayed out around her in the water and the skirt of her bathing suit twirling around her knees. Then she starts to sink. She rights herself before the water can get up her nose.
“It’s only, I do love you awfully,” she says. “But I don’t think I could ever love you in a wifely sort of way.”
Digory gives her a funny look.
“What?” she asks, defensive.
“Wifely,” he says. “I’m trying to picture you being proper, all grown up and coifed and corseted and, and starched!”
She shoves him. “I could be proper! Anyway, I don’t see what any of that has to do with getting married.”
“No, I suppose not,” he says. “Really though, I don’t think I ever want to get married. I’m not cut out for it.”
It’s true. Digory never seems to notice girls the way most boys his age do.
“So it’s decided then?” she asks.
“However you want,” Digory says agreeably. Then he dunks her under and swims for shore, laughing.
Meraki
When Polly is twenty she meets Freddy Carlington. He’s tall, slightly awkward, and well mannered. When she shows him the illustrations she’d done for a child’s map of Ancient Greece he doesn’t laugh at the tiny illustrations she’s added of fauns with cakes and dryads dancing with donkeys. Instead he runs a finger over the filigreed corners, past a mergirl kissing a hippopotamus fondly on the forehead, and his mouth curls into the awed smile of a child at Christmas.
She’s only known him two weeks, but Polly decides then and there to marry Freddy.
Genare
Of course, it takes a bit to ease Freddy into this idea. She starts by introducing him to Digory, because this is the second reason her beaus have been scarce. It is one thing to be friends with a boy when you’re eleven and there are no other girls in your row of houses, but quite another thing to still be friends with the boy when all the other girls you know are thinking about husbands and babies.
(Well, this isn’t quite true. Polly runs in odd circles, and only half the girls she knows are preparing trousseaus. The other half are handcuffing themselves to lampposts and lying on their backs for hours in the town square. Polly helps with signs for the marches.)
Freddy takes it well.
“Polly!” Digory jumps down from the apple tree he’s been reading in. The apple tree is in fact their apple tree, the child of the great apple tree in Narnia. It’s one of Polly’s favorite places in all the world, and she and Digory had had a fight about it when she was thirteen and her mother made her start wearing more petticoats and lacing her corset tighter. It was only the third fight they’d ever had and had been over before it really started because Digory truly didn’t mind if Polly thought of it as her tree too, and he thought the new, restrictive underthings and the way Mrs. Plummer and Aunt Letty had started hinting about the future were equally horrid.
Freddy doesn’t know any of this. All he knows is that a young man his own age has dropped down from an apple tree like a schoolboy, and is kissing Polly fondly on the cheek before turning to shake his hand.
Polly’s two former (and only) beaus had both bristled at Digory, chests puffed out and voices dropping low. Digory hadn’t noticed because the boy’s head is in the clouds most of the time contemplating Kant or Plato. He’s turned philosophical since his mother’s recovery.
“Good to meet you, Carlington,“ Digory says now. “Polly seems very fond of you. “
Freddy ducks his head happily and sneaks a glance at Polly out of the corner of his eye. Polly smiles back.
“Mr. Kirke,” Freddy says. “Pip talks about you an awful lot.” Polly’s mother thinks it forward of him to call Polly such a familiar name, and in front of other people it’s always ‘Miss Plummer’ this and ‘Miss Plummer’ that. “She says you’re her dearest friend.”
“Polly and I go back,” Digory says. Polly is a bit charmed by the phrase. It sounds both as if they were simply ordinary children who had grown up together, and also as if they were old, comfortable companions. Both are true in their own way.
“I’m glad,” Freddy says. “I mean, that is to say that Pip’s friends are always rather grand, and I’m glad she has such good ones.” The phrasing is hesitant, but Freddy has a way of being so sincere that anything he says comes across as decisive. Polly loves it.
As they troupe up to the house for tea she shoots Digory a look that means, ‘Well?’ He returns one that means something like, ‘It’s none of my business, Polly’. It’s not, but he’s just as important to her as her parents. She wants him to like Freddy.
She conveys this with a tilt of her head.
Digory rolls his eyes. Then he smiles. He likes Freddy.
They look up to see Freddy laughing at them.
Cafuné
She and Freddy sit in the garden on a quilt, looking up at the stars.
“I can never capture that,” she tells Freddy. “That beauty. It’s untamable.”
His hand comes up to comb through her loose hair.
“But it’s something we can always reach for,” Freddy murmurs. “It’s just right up there.”
Polly smiles. Freddy loves the sky.
“At least,” Freddy says, “we can see how beautiful it is. I think sometimes that’s more than enough.”
His fingers card through her hair gently. Polly thinks they’re good for each other.
“Bit poetic,” she says.
“You bring it out in me,” Freddy laughs. “I’m an utter sop around you. It’s terrible.”
Her mother ducks her head out the window and calls Polly inside. In the still moment after they’ve got to their feet, Polly kisses Freddy.
Wanktok
Freddy is at university for architecture. Given half an excuse he goes on about the new Art Noveau buildings in Paris, and yammers about things like load bearing walls and natural lines. He’s just as good when she starts talking about impressionism.
They plan a summer holiday there the summer before his last year. It doesn’t occur to Polly to worry about propriety until her mother makes a fuss about how she can’t get away from the charity work she does on such short notice.
Apple House doesn’t have any telephones, so Polly takes the train out that evening. It’s an hour’s trip, but she doesn’t mind. Polly loves trains.
“You will come with, won’t you?” Polly says to Digory and Mrs. Kirke over supper. “Only I won’t be allowed without company, and Freddy won’t go without me. Says he’s promised me a trip to Paris, and by God he’ll keep that promise.”
“Oh, I don ‘t mind,” Digory says. “Sounds jolly. Pass the potatoes.”
“But are your certain you don’t want to save Paris for your honeymoon, dear?” Mrs. Kirke asks. She’s as much of a mother as Polly’s own, and they adore each other.
Polly blushes. “I’m sure seeing Paris twice won’t be bad,” she says. “Or we, not that it’s something we’ve talked about, you know, Freddy still has to finish his degree. But we might take a tour of the continent. Or go to India. We might do anything then. So, so why wait until then to have fun, do you see?”
“Oh darling!” Mrs. Kirke says. “I know exactly what you mean. You needn’t explain at all.” She turns to Aunt Letty. “You don’t mind watching out for my brother and Thomas, do you?” Her eyes are sparkling, and Polly silently blesses Mrs. Kirke, who taught her to climb trees and to ride horses and has never worried about Polly being a proper lady.
“Oh, go on Mabel. Have some fun. I can manage Andrew and your husband, I dare say.”
Down the table, Uncle Andrew grumbles good naturedly into his peas. He’s become such a dear that Polly hardly remembers how terrifying he once was.
“You must promise to have a grand time,” Mr. Kirke tells Mrs. Kirke.
Digory winks at his father. “I’ll make sure not to let her get into too much trouble.” He stands, bussing his aunt’s cheek on his way out. “You,” he says, “Are a queen among women.” She swats at him fondly.
“You really are, Aunt Letty,” Polly says. “Thank you.”
Aunt Letty blushes.
Gezelligheid
Paris is wonderful. She and Freddy walk along the Siene alone saying nothing and enjoying every minute.
Digory decides it’s their mission to try all the best wines Paris can offer. They drink at every meal, and Polly should probably worry that it’s improper but it’s too lovely and comfortable too be fussy. They see art exhibits. They see the Eiffel tower. They go to a park and have a picnic under a sturdy old oak. She leans her head back on Freddy’s shoulder and rests her feet on Digory’s lap. Mrs. Kirke is plaiting poppies into a coronet. She places on her son’s head with merry but solemn pomp.
Polly’s breath catches, and in that moment she’s in Narnia again, watching a Lion crown a former cabby and his dear wife King and Queen of a magical land.
Digory meets her eyes and smiles and she knows that he’s remembering too. Sometimes Narnia bleeds into the everyday world like golden ink bleeding onto blot paper.
Freddy’s shoulder shakes gently under her cheek. His head is tipped back to watch the fluffy clouds roll by lazily, and he laughs for sheer joy of the company and the beautiful day.
Polly closes her eyes and memorizes the moment so that she’ll always have it when she needs it.
Inshallah
War comes. She knew it would.
Digory looks wry and sad in his uniform. He’s not supposed to talk about his posting, but Polly has suspicions.
Freddy looks proud and handsome in his RAF uniform. His hands don’t shake when he cups Polly’s face to kiss her goodbye.
She’s twenty-five. It’s the last time she sees him.
Hiraeth
Digory sends her a letter. It doesn’t say much, large swaths of it blacked out by a cautious hand. Polly, who hears more than most, knows what he isn’t saying. She’s see the photographs of men dying from explosions, men drowning in mud, men dying of cold, men with such terror in their eyes that Polly thinks they can die from that just as surely as from a gunshot.
There’s a little sketch on the back of a lamppost. To anyone else it looks like homesickness. Well, it is. A different sort of homesickness.
Polly writes three words: Freddy presumed dead.
Digory sends back a careful, bare-lined drawing of a Lion with great, sad eyes.
Polly hangs it above her drafting table, next to the photograph they’d had taken in Paris, and the wax-papered apple blossom in its little frame.
Ya’aburnee
She’s in Wales. Somehow before the war she’d begun mapmaking. She’s always been good at scale and relative position, the math coming easily to her. An officer had come to her and asked if she would like to join the war effort. Now Polly finds herself in a cramped office in the wilds of Wales making maps of first France and Belguim, then Italy and Greece and Turkey. Much of it is cross-referencing photographs taken from aeroplanes against traveler’s guides and books on geography appropriated from the archaeology departments of Cambridge and Oxford.
Elspeth and Gwyneth, who have radio headsets almost pasted to their heads and talk themselves hoarse everyday coordinating information, run in and out of Polly’s little room. Mostly they bring her telegrams relating to troop movements, but of late they’ve begun bringing her cup upon cup of tea, and so many biscuits that Polly loses her appetite for them.
She’s dropped a bit of weight, it’s true. But, as Polly says often, she’s getting on all right. It’s only the long walks she’s taken to in the lonely, peaceful Welsh countryside. Fresh air and exercise, that’s all. She eats, and she sleeps. Please stop worrying.
Uitwaaien
Polly walks for miles. Sunday is her day off. She should be in church, but the little parish nearby is full of mothers and fathers, sisters and wives, worry etched onto all their faces like scars from some great battle.
Everyone is a soldier.
Polly walks.
This is mountain country, everything blue and green and grey. The hem of her dress is dirty, and her neckline itches with sweat.
She comes to the top of a peak. Not a large one, she doesn’t have time for that today. The wind blows in her face. The land stretches out sleepily behind her, and sweeps up boldly before her. She thinks about Freddy and his love for clouds.
She closes her eyes and remembers her own flight on a winged horse over mountains much like these. Everything is wild and perfect for a moment.
Polly sits down and takes out the sandwich she packed. She nibbles at it, but the bread is dry and it fills her mouth like red, defeated dust.
When she puts it back in her pocket, her hand brushes something. She pulls it out. It’s a toffee. She stares at the sweet in bemusement. Elspeth must have tucked it in when Polly wasn’t looking.
She unwraps the toffee and eats it. It doesn’t taste as good as the toffeefruit in Narnia.
She digs in her pocket and finds another one. She eats that one too.
It’s not as good, but she’s glad of it anyway. It tastes golden.
Toska
After the war, she drifts.
Polly goes home to London. She unpacks her luggage. She tidies her room. She sits down in the window seat and watches the winter street.
Hours pass.
When the sun goes down, she readies for bed, slides under the blankets, and stares at the ceiling.
She doesn’t sleep.
Litost
She gets a job as a shop girl. She lasts for three months, and then has an unfortunately loud fit of hysterics in the ladies’ room. Her manager is kind enough to allow Polly the dignity of quitting rather than being sacked, but it’s made clear that she will not receive any references.
She comes home at three in the afternoon with puffy eyes and hair coming out of her pins. Her hat is crumpled in her hands, and she’s forgotten her coat. Her father, who as a doctor can make his own hours, looks up when she enters.
“You’re home a bit-“ he starts, and then he sees her. “Polly, sweetpea, what’s wrong?” he asks. He takes her gently by the elbow and sits her down.
“I-I-I,” Polly splutters, and finds to her horror that what little calm she’d drawn together between the shop and home is gone. She feels her face crumpling again, the sobs choking up in her throat. She buries her face in her hands.
“Oh, shh. Hush,” her father sits next to her on the setee, and Polly finds herself half on her father’s lap, crying as if Freddy’s death were yesterday.
When she’s cried herself out and her body is more asleep than awake, everything slow and dull, her father leans her back against the cushions and goes to put the kettle on.
Polly stares at nothing for long moments, miserable to her fingertips. Her fiancé is dead, her duty over, and Polly has nothing left. The war to end all wars is done, but Polly has no idea how to be happy.
Her father returns with tea.
“Go and pack, Polly,” he says. “You’re to visit the Kirkes. The country will do you good.”
Polly tries to smile at him.
Dozywocie
On the train, she sleeps against the window, the glass cool under her cheek. It’s the first time she’s had a decent sleep in weeks, and it’s wonderful.
Digory picks her up in his father’s automobile. Polly’s not sure she could remember how to speak even if she wanted. Digory, who is wonderful, seems to understand, and they don’t say anything as he drives them to Apple House. Polly hasn’t brought a motor bonnet, and with a shrug she lets her hair down so it can blow about in the wind. The wind is cold, but the early spring sun is warm.
Digory ushers her to his mother’s sitting room, where Mrs. Kirke takes over. She has the cook bring porridge with butter and cream, and Polly finds it’s perfect for her touchy appetite. Aunt Letty comes in briefly and tuts over Polly’s thinness, but she doesn’t stay long.
Aunt Letty brings up a tea, and Mrs. Kirke gives Polly a crumpet with jam. Polly waves it away. Mrs. Kirke takes Polly’s hand and places the jammy crumpet in it, smearing raspberry on her fingers. Polly puts it down.
“Polly, dear,” Mrs. Kirke says, firmly but kindly, “you will eat that crumpet.”
Polly looks up into her grey eyes. She realizes that this may be the first time she’s met anyone’s eyes in several months. Mrs. Kirke stares back at her, unwavering.
Polly eats the crumpet.
Nunchi
She spends two days letting Mrs. Kirke direct her and cuddle her like a child. There are no worries or responsibilities. Mrs. Kirke brushes her hair, and tells her to brush her teeth. She shoos the cook out of the kitchen, and orders Polly through breadmaking and cooking a soup. Then she sits Polly down and tells her to eat. She tucks Polly into bed at night with a kiss to her forehead. She sits vigil in the rocker, the lights turned low. When Polly wakes herself crying, Mrs. Kirke wraps her arms about her and rocks, saying nothing.
In the morning Polly is embarrassed, but Mrs. Kirke chucks her under the chin. “Digory had a hard time of it too, love,” she says. “And honestly, it’s a mercy to have my chicks under my wing for a bit. A mother does worry.” She smooths Polly’s hair back and suggests a walk in the sunshine. Polly remembers being tucked under Fledge’s wing in a strange, newborn country.
The third morning she puts a pencil in Polly’s hand, and a sheet of paper in front of her. Polly picks her hand up to draw, then puts it down again.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Kirke,” she says. “I’m not ready yet.” She stands and wanders out onto the grounds. Digory is there bouncing a ball against a wall. She watches him for a bit. The whole house has stayed clear while Polly recovered, and it’s the first time she’s seen Digory since he drove her from the train station.
“You look all right,” she says. In her mind it’s an idle comment, but once it’s out in the air Polly can hear the ugly jealousy seeped all through it. She realizes with a shock that she rather despises Digory for not being a worse mess than her.
Digory looks up at her, hurt. His mouth opens to say something, but before he can Polly throws her arms around him.
“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t. I’m so sorry. I hate myself awfully for even thinking it. Please say you’ll forgive me.”
He pats her shoulder. “All right, Pols. Not to worry.”
“But Digory, it was horrid of me. I didn’t have to go and be a soldier like you did. I didn’t have to shoot any guns. And here I am being wretched because one man died and no one needs me anymore.”
“Well,” Digory says after a pause, “The man who died was going to be your husband. And look here, Polly,” he draws her back enough to look him in the face. “Really, it could be a lot worse. At least you didn’t ring that damned bell and wake up Her.”
“Then you forgive me?” Polly asks.
“You were very good about that bell. Forgiving you a little madness in your grief is peanuts, really.”
And because this is Digory, that is that. He turns and starts bouncing his ball again. Polly dives to catch it, and they bounce it back and forth. She sneaks glances at him. Digory looks the same, but older, very much older. She thinks about the photographs she’s seen of the trenches. She thinks about Elspeth’s brother who had come home with one leg and only half his mind.
It still doesn’t feel as if Freddy’s death is any less unfair and terrible. But, she resolves, if she can’t be happy, she can at least be grateful not to have memories of the trenches. Her next throw is distracted and goes wild. There’s the sound of breaking glass and the maid starts screeching. Digory shouts, “Run!” and Polly grabs hold of his hand as they scurry away like guilty school children.
Polly feels alive.
Jeong
“I’m going back to university,” Digory says. They’re sitting below the apple tree. “I’m going to study Philosophy properly.”
Polly looks up at the branches. Little buds are beginning to show.
“Am I going to have to call you ‘Professor’ one day?” she asks. Digory snorts.
“What will you do?” he asks her. It’s the first time anyone has asked since the war ended.
“I,” Polly says, “am going to travel. I’ll make guide books, I think.”
“Good on you,” Digory says. “You’ll love it.” He stands, and offers a hand to help her up. She takes it.
“You will write me, won’t you?” he asks.
She rolls her eyes at him, and it feels like something she’s been waiting to do. Rolling her eyes at Digory is the normal way with them.
“I’ll even visit you,” she says.
“Well that’s all right then.”
“Digory?” she asks. “Did you know you were the only person I wrote the whole war? Freddy always hated letter writing, and my mother and father have a telephone.”
“Was I?”
“Yes. I really think we’ll always be, not with each other, you know. But sort of with each other anyway.”
“We both saw Charn,” Digory says. “We both saw Narnia begin, we both flew to the gated garden, and back again to Aslan.”
“There is that,” Polly says.
Whatever else happens in her life, there is always, always that. And there will also always be Digory.
“Still, I’m awfully glad I never married you,” Polly says.
Digory laughs.
L’appele du vide
Polly stands on a clifftop, looking down at the water. She spreads her arms and throws back her head. The waterfall is so loud, she can’t hear her own laughter. The spray paints her face wet, and fills her mouth.
She writes, “The wonder of Victoria Falls is not its majesty, but the sense of violent joy underscoring that majesty.”
Kokusaijin
Polly sits in a garden, drinking tea. The garden is utterly amazing, full of pools and quite corners and old, old trees.
She sets the pale tea down on the flagstone before her and digs through her satchel for sketchpad and pen. She draws. Here is where the path curves around a pile of boulders. There is the little stone statue of a lion.
In the margins she sketches a horse, clouds curling back from him like wings as he races towards the sun. Opposite him are leaping rabbits and dancing elephants. In the corners are large red poppies.
A small, dark eyed child who has wandered away from her mother spies over Polly’s shoulder. She points a chubby finger to the elephant and babbles something Polly doesn’t understand.
“Elephant,” Polly says.
The child grins at her shyly, apple-cheeked. She traces the rabbits and the horse in silent happiness.
Polly adds the child in her bright frock at the spot she’s in. She leans back and looks at her drawing.
“I think I’ll use gold ink for this one,” she tells her new little friend. The girl smiles up at her, not understanding but happy to be spoken too by the strange lady who drew pretty animals.
Polly smiles back.
Author’s Note:
Due to the untranslatability of these words, I’ve chosen to not include a pat definition for each one. However, most of them came from these lists:
1
2
3
4
5
Original prompt we sent you:
What I want: England fic! I'd like something that feels historical - tied to a specific period in history, I mean, like the 1920s (for Digory and Polly) or the Blitz or the early 1950s. I'm happy to read about any of the characters you'd like to write about, though I'm less interested in Peter and Lucy (however, if you have a good idea for fic about them, please write it!).
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: debutante, sport, dinner jacket, hiraeth
What I definitely don't want in my fic: Incest. It's just not my thing, I'm sorry.