Page 7 of The Demons of Wychwood

CHAPTER 6

THE SPECIAL DELIVERY

I was one of hundreds of clerks responsible for sorting incoming mailbags at the General Post Office warehouse in St Paul’s. I specifically dealt with mail for the Western Central district of London—a residential enclave for the well-to-do. So that meant I sorted mail for nobs—the Lords and Ladies, Princes and Princesses, Foreign ambassadors, and their households in areas around Bloomsbury, Holborn, Russell Square, Kensington, and Chelsea.

Three years ago, I’d been in battle. I knew I was to have returned from the war with all of my arms, legs and my noggin on straight, cos others weren’t so lucky. When we returned to England, the commander of our battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Ashbury proved himself to be a rare man of honour. Initially, Ashbury hadn’t even known my name; I was one of a thousand men he was in charge of. But during a skirmish I’d seen he was in trouble and I’d pulled him out of the range of an enemy’s sword. I’d saved his life and that was something neither of us could forget. I knew by then that the army was not for me. I couldn’t do twenty-one years of this, my daily life ranging from boredom to hell. I decided I’d resign and forgo my pension when I got back to England. Ashbury said he owed me; he’d put in a good word with one of his friends to ensure I got a civilian job, and he was true to his word. The friend in question happened to be a high-up at the GPO.

Being a sorting clerk for the mail of high society was a big responsibility. The days were long and repetitive, which is why it was a nice change to have a job on the side once in a while.

Traveling Post Office trains arrived at Paddington Station each morning carrying correspondence from all over the country. By the time the mailbags reached London, letters had been sorted, ready to be distributed to the clerks for each sub-division. When me and the lads got our mail sacks, we categorized letters by street, and then delivery boys picked up their bags and set out to make their rounds.

I had a keen eye; swift reflexes and I didn’t mess up. This made me a well-liked, reliable worker. A clerk who keeps messing up slows down the whole process, making the deliveries late, and then the nobs complain that they ain’t got their mail to read with their breakfast kippers! If that ever happens the Superintendent is on our backs, and no one wants that!

Witnessing young aristocrat’s attempted suicide at Wychwood had knocked me for six and left me out of sorts. Elowen noticed that I wasn’t myself, and even though I told her I was just tired, I could never get one over on my sister! I didn’t tell her the in’s and out’s, just that a young fellow I knew tried to top himself and I’d found him and helped him.

Each morning on the way to work and each night on the way home I’d sit on an omnibus and look out the window. I saw people living hand to mouth, begging on street corners, clothed in rags, and rummaging through scraps the shop keepers left out at the end of the day. None of them was giving up and lying down to die. They were fighting to survive. Part of me was bloody furious that this indulgent rich bloke thought it was fine and dandy to give up so easily when most of us make do with nuffin’. Other times, I hated myself for being such a nosy bugger and for not being able to stop thinking about 27. I couldn’t tell no one the truth of what had happened but keeping it to myself was gonna send me to the nuthouse.

“Are you coming dahhn wiv somefin’ Lazarus?” A reedy sneering voice asked as I was swatted across the head with a letter and pulled out of my daze.

“This is for ‘ampstead, an; you’ve gone an’ put it in the pile for my round in Covent Garden!” Jim Briggs, one of the postmen for the Western Central District complained.

“Oh Gods. Sorry Jim. I don’t know where my heads at these days!” I said chagrined and flustered. I prided myself in having the strictest of standards and rarely made mistakes.

“Well, I won’t be traipsing halfway across town to deliver one stinking letter that isn’t even on my round, you hear?” The postman grumbled. Jim collected his pile of letters, stuffed them in his delivery bag and then brightened,

“Hey ‘arold. You’re doin’ ‘ampstead, yeah? This one should be in your bag!” Briggs hollered to another postman as he was heading towards the door.

I sat at my station in the huge sorting room, with postal clerks working around me like bees. With the second delivery sorted and sent out I felt drained to my very bones. I slumped in my chair and I rested my head in my hands. I noted the scent of paper and smoke on my fingers. I hadn’t slept properly in days cos every time I closed my eyes, I saw 27 sleeping and remembered how his skin felt to my fingertips. I shouldn’t know what it felt like to touch a man of his station in such an intimate way, but the feeling of his skin, the memory of his mouth, they were sinful gifts I couldn’t forget. I knew then that I was most certainly heading for the nuthouse! I should have collected my next sack of mail to sort, but instead I looked up and sat staring into the dark empty pigeon holes ahead and blocked out the sounds of the industry around me. I fell back into remembrance, of winding a dark silky curl around my finger.

A tap on my shoulder made me jump. I turned and stiffened when I saw Superintendent Stockton standing erect with his hands behind his back in a military stance. Fear flooded through me, this meant trouble.

“Is paid employment keeping you from your sleep, Mr. Lazarus?” Stockton said with his regular waspish deadpan sarcasm?

“Uh… n…no sir,”

“It’s been duly noted that you are not performing to the standard required by the General Post Office of Great Britain,” Stockton said succinctly.

Oh, bugger, I knew the lads around the sorting room were listening in to my humiliation. We all did it with a kind of macabre fascination every time Stockton went off on one! I sent a quick side glance to Billy, the clerk who worked at the sorting station beside me, and saw my old mate wince and continue rapidly sorting letters into their corresponding pigeonholes.

“You need to buck up your ideas, Lazarus because there are hundreds of bright, keen young men ready to step into your shoes, do you hear. You. Are. Expendable.” He stabbed a chubby sausage finger at me reinforcing his reprimand. “You are very lucky to be employed by the General Post Office and don’t you forget it.”

“Yes sir, sorry sir. I will endeavour to meet your exemplary standards, sir.”

Stockton seemed reassured by my turn of phrase.

“Yes, yes, very well then, continue,” he ordered. The superintendent was about to move off and find his next tardy victim, but he glanced at his feet, and I saw what he saw at the same time. My superior’s face turned beetroot red. Stockton bent down and scooped an ivory envelope from beneath my chair. Oh gawd, I’m done for now, I thought. This was a disaster, and I’d be lucky if I wasn’t fired on the spot.

“There it is! I was looking for that!” I said as I whipped the errant letter from his fingers. “I do apologize for the oversight, sir. I’ll deliver this letter myself during my break.” I simpered before Stockton’s red face exploded with rage. I couldn’t sit there a second longer and wait to get shouted at in front of my mates.

“Don’t you worry sir!” I said, groping for my flat cap. “I won’t take a lunch break. This will be delivered on time, I assure you.”

“Yes, you see to it. And mark my words, Lazarus; I’ll be keeping an eye on you!” Stockton barked before marching down the line to find the next clerk with a hair out of place.

I grimaced as the midday bells of St Paul’s Cathedral rang out.

“Blimey, Felix, you’re sly fox. I thought you woz for the high jump then!” Billy laughed as he continued to sort his mail.

“You and me both, mate, you and me both!” I dragged my coat from the back of the chair, shrugged into it, then wound the woollen scarf around my neck that Elowen had knitted for me.