Jackson climbs onto his mother’s lap and settles against her to eat another biscuit.
Elly kisses the top of his head and says, "So, your main objections are: being exposed as the letter writer, Bess discovering you actually meant them and it getting all weird if she doesn't return your feelings. And the big one – us all keeping the truth from her and upsetting her when the truth comes out."
"Yes."
"Can I just say," says Lutek quietly, "they're pretty reasonable objections."
"Lutek," Elly hisses. "Do you want to convince Ed to do this or not?"
"I feel, you know, a bit conflicted."
"Understandably," I say.
"Alright," says Jeanette. "But canIjust say it was a beautiful letter, Ed? None of us could have written anything as heartfelt and as faithful to the first letter."
"And can I just say, none of you needed to? There is the option of not actually going down this road."
"I'm not sure you believe that anymore, Ed," says Elly.
"And to be honest, it's too late for that," says Mistral.
Both Elly and Jeanette shush her this time.
"Well it's true," she continues in a rush. "It's fully out of the box now. There's no putting it back in. And people want more. She's reaching several million viewers per letter video and making tens of thousands of pounds off the back of them. If we change tactic, she loses all that momentum, and probably all that reach. The only way is forward."
"At all costs," says Carlos. "Like that Tennyson poem."
"'The Charge of the Light Brigade'?" I venture.
"That's the blighter."
"Don't all the soldiers die?" asks Jeanette.
Carlos strokes his moustache. "Well yes. I suppose they do."
"Right." Elly claps her hands.
Jackson jumps.
"In more useful news, there's a whole server hosting the masses of positive comments about the letter mystery." She thumbs her phone screen. "Listen to this one: 'An historical love puzzle? Gimme gimme gimme!'. Or this one: 'This is better than anything currently streaming. Hollywood are you listening? I take yourSeverance is the GOAT of twenty-first century TVand raise you a real-life wartime love letter mystery. When's the next instalment?'." She looks up at me with an expression last seen on The Empress of Smug.
I turn my back on them and face the fence to give myself some space to think without all of them looking at me expectantly.
I can't think. It's too much. It's too much to think about if it all goes right and both Bess and I get what we want. It's definitely too much to think about if it all goes wrong.
When I don't turn around in response to Jeanette's, "Ed, my love?", she says, "If you don't help us – Bess – with this, you're what? Just going to keep your friendship going indefinitely? Watch her live her life for the rest of yours, suffocating in the misery of unreciprocated love –"
I do turn around at that. "Steady on."
"– and just wait until she falls in love with someone else? Because she will, despite her protestations. She's going to meet someone."
"Yes. That's exactly the life I have imagined for myself. Except for the watching her fall in love with someone else part. I try very hard not to think about that happening."
"The way I personally see it," says Mistral. "There are two possibilities here. Bess will never see you in a romantic light and if she hates you after this, then you haven't actually lost a future together with her anyway. Or because of your beautiful letters, she realises she's been in love with you this whole time and you can bang happily into the sunset."
Elly clucks her tongue. "Lutek, tell Mistral to shut up, and that there'sactuallya third option irrespective of her feelings about Ed. One we're all banking on."
Lutek sensibly says nothing.
