Michael Billings Collection - Wallet 11 - Part 3 of 24

5/

to have this world turned upside
down and be calm again in a few
short weeks. I get furious at my
helplessness when I am needed and
when I visualise the effects these
recurring blows must be having on
you its even worse. You needn't
hand me that line about moaning
in your letters, those that are only
the product of prejudice or unreason
don't trouble me for you are soon over
them but a sobbing cry from the
heart that underlies your recent words
bespeaks jangled nerves and for
the sake of the three of us that
discordant business must stop and
I fret because I've a notion not
based on bombast that I could 
do plenty about it.

6/

It has more angles to it than
nursing Richard, a large slice of our
lives is plain unnatural and
until that basic problem is overcome
I cannot feel happy at all about you.
It appears this way to me, that
with things going evenly for you, you
can hold your own but these added
disruptions to inner harmony are
wreaking havoc that it will take years
to repair. It's not enough to tell you
to dig your heels in and persevere
because I feel that that sort of
injunction only increases the tension
already strung tightly enough. You
simply can't keep your pecker up if
one difficulty after another is heaped
upon you. With your husband away
no home of your very own, those things

7/

must oppress a girl like you but
are not insupportable because the
future at least holds out a promise
that those rights will be yours, the
more desirable because the realisation
of them is born of deprivation and
wanting. Its damn hard the
long dreary waiting but don't let your
faith gets knocked out of you. And
above all, use me absent or present
whenever you feel that I can be of
the slightest aid. Forget all that
nonsense about moaning, be the
sweet human being I love, being that
I know your appeals are only born
from you. We didn't marry for
just a good time, you are every thing
to me and what is in your heart
is what I want to know, good or ill.

8/

Whatever may be lacking through
my inadequacy in transmitting my
thoughts to paper, it wont be
sincerity or love. I have sometimes
felt that behind the gossip in your
letters, you mask your inner thoughts
too much perhaps in the mistaken
notion that it makes of my comparatively
easy lot easier still. Dont do that,
I cant have you yet awhile heart
mind & body, at least give me the
utmost possible. Your troubles are
equally mine, remember that and
it is neither proper or necessary for
you to wait until you reach that
state you so charmingly term 'every
nerve in your body tingling and
when you reach that delightful state
of 'going crazy' dont you thing its a

9/

little late in the day to turn to the
old man for counsel and sympathy.
First don't try to fight others battles,
its very wearing and, quite useless
and I think you have had cause to
discover these last few years that
life will dole out sufficient to you
personally to keep you occupied.
So I do not forgive you
as you ask, to my mind forgiveness
is asked for bad things committed
and as the axiom has it 'That will
be the Day. One thing I will not
overlook is any attempt on your
part to smile ever so bravely through
the veil of tears and try to paint
yourself different from what you are.
You are my beloved wife, the mother
of my son, equally good and pure

10/

in either role, just keep on being
those two things and I'll always
be happy.
As this message draws
to its close I hope that what I
have said does a bit of good
more I hope what is intended to
be conveyed is rightly interpreted.
I will be looking forward to
being asked to lend a helping hand
any time you call on me, I hate
to think that although I'm a long
way away, I can't still give you
a little of the love and comfort
we have and will again give to
the other.  Goodnight, my own
Kay, kiss little Richard for me.
I love you both so much and miss
you nearly as much. Micky
 

ACTIVE SERVICE

AIR MAIL

Opened by Censor.

1 . 11 . 43

Address : -
Mrs. M. Billings
548 Barker's Road
East Hawthorn
Victoria 

Opened by Censor. 

VX38483. Cpl. M. Billings
District accounts Office
New Guinea.
3. 11. 43.
Darling Kay.
And still they roll in, your
letters I mean, yours of the 28th is to hand
today. Before going any further, you simply
must know this one, your birthday parcel
was delivered to me today, had been
on a grand tour by the look of the
numerous addresses on it.  Thanks so much
pet, it what's four or five months
between friends any how and it was a
swell parcel, too. Of course the star
item was the pyjamas, rather natty
what. I'm afraid I'm slipping sweet,
first I relinquish the big guns for the
prosaic pay racket and now I've taken
to wearing flash sleeping suits. I was
a real man when I was young too.

2/

Any how it was a fine assortment, everything
will come in handy. I'm well fixed
for paper & envelopes now with all the
pape parcels turning up so I hope mood
and opportunity combine to induce me
to pour out a spate of words to be
written on your paper and hurried to you
by one of your envelopes. You're pretty
stingy not sending a sheet or two of
stamps though. In fact you had better
send me a secretary to write them for
me. Huh, wise guy! I'm an old pipe
enthusiast of many years standing but it
took my dear Puss to introduce me to
tartan pipe cleaners. Know well darling
I appreciate every single article; bought by
you, packed by your careful hands and
the whole patiently stitched up by
those industrious loving fingers. Those same
fingers are still fresh in my imagination
They tell me of innumerable occasions