The Last Letter From Your Lover Page 10

  Mr. Stirling left at a quarter to seven. He had been distracted and impatient for most of the afternoon, telephoning the factory manager to berate him about sickness rates, and canceling a meeting he had arranged for four. When she had returned from the post office, he had glanced at her, as if to confirm that she had done what he had asked, then returned to his work.

  Moira pulled the two spare desks to the edge of the room beside Accounts. She spread them with festive tablecloths and pinned some strands of tinsel to the edges. In ten days' time this would be the base for the buffet; in the meantime it would be useful to have somewhere to put the gifts that arrived from suppliers, and the Christmas postbox through which the staff were supposed to send each other seasonal greetings.

  By almost eight o'clock it was done. Moira surveyed the empty office, made glittering and festive through her efforts, smoothed her skirt, and allowed herself to picture the expressions of pleasure on people's faces when they walked back through the door in the morning.

  She wouldn't get paid for it, but it was the little gestures, the extras, that made all the difference. The other secretaries had little idea that a personal assistant's job was not just a matter of typing personal correspondence and making sure the filing was in order. It was a far greater role than that. It was about making sure that an office didn't just run smoothly but that the people within it felt part of . . . well, a family. A Christmas postbox and some cheerful decorations were what ultimately tied an office together, and made it a place one might look forward to coming to.

  The little Christmas tree she had set up in the corner looked nicer there. There was little point in having it at home, now that there was no one but her to see it. Here it could be enjoyed by lots of people. And if someone happened to remark on the very pretty angel at the top, or the lovely baubles with the frosted crystals, she might tell them casually, as if it had just occurred to her, that those had been Mother's favorites.

  Moira put on her coat. She gathered up her belongings, tied her scarf, and placed her pen and pencil neatly on the desk ready for the morning. She went to Mr. Stirling's office, keys in hand, to lock the door, and then, with a glance at the door, she moved swiftly into the room and reached under his desk for the wastepaper bin.

  It took her only a moment to locate the handwritten letter. She barely hesitated before she picked it up and, after checking again through the glass to make sure that she was still alone, she smoothed out the creases on the desk and began to read.

  She stood very, very still.

  Then she read it again.

  The bell outside chimed eight. Startled by the sound, Moira left Mr. Stirling's office, placed his bin outside for the cleaners to empty, and locked the door. She put the letter at the bottom of her desk drawer, locked it, and dropped the key into her pocket.

  For once, the bus ride to Streatham seemed to take no time at all. Moira Parker had an awful lot to think about.

  Chapter 7

  AUGUST 1960

  They met every day, sitting outside sun-drenched cafes, or heading into the scorched hills in her little Daimler to eat at places they picked without care or forethought. She told him about her upbringing in Hampshire and Eaton Place, the ponies, boarding school, the narrow, comfortable world that had made up her life until her marriage. She told him how, even at twelve, she had felt stifled, had known she would need a bigger canvas, and how she had never suspected that the wide stretches of the Riviera could contain a social circle just as restricted and monitored as the one she had left behind.

  She told him of a boy from the village with whom she had fallen in love at fifteen, and how, when he discovered the relationship, her father had taken her into an outbuilding and thrashed her with his braces.

  "For falling in love?" She had told the story lightly, and he tried to hide how disturbed he was by it.

  "For falling in love with the wrong sort of boy. Oh, I suppose I was a bit of a handful. They told me I'd brought the whole family into disrepute. They said I had no moral compass, that if I didn't watch myself no decent man would want to marry me." She laughed, without humor. "Of course, the fact that my father had a mistress for years was quite a different matter."

  "And then Laurence came along."

  She smiled at him slyly. "Yes. Wasn't I lucky?"

  He talked to her in the way that people tell lifelong secrets to fellow passengers in railway carriages: an unburdened intimacy, resting on the unspoken understanding that they were unlikely to meet again. He told her about his three-year tenure as the Nation's Central Africa correspondent, how at first he had welcomed the chance to escape his failing marriage, but hadn't adopted the personal armory necessary to cope with the atrocities he witnessed: Congo's steps to independence had meant the death of thousands. He had found himself spending night after night in Leopoldville's Foreign Correspondents' Club, anesthetizing himself with whiskey or, worse, palm wine, until the combined horrors of what he had seen and a bout of yellow fever almost ended him. "I had something of a breakdown," he said, attempting to emulate her light tone, "although no one is impolite enough to say so, of course. They blame the yellow fever and urge me not to go back."

  "Poor Boot."

  "Yes. Poor me. Especially as it gave my ex-wife yet another good reason not to let me see my son."

  "And there I was, thinking it was that little matter of serial infidelity." She laid her hand on his. "I'm sorry. I'm teasing. I don't mean to be trite."

  "Am I boring you?"

  "On the contrary. It's not often that I spend time with a man who actually wants to talk to me."

  He didn't drink in her company, and no longer missed it. The challenge she posed was an adequate substitute for alcohol, and besides, he liked being in control of who he was when he was with her. Having spoken little since his last months in Africa, afraid of what he might reveal, the weaknesses he might expose, he now found he wanted to talk. He liked the way she watched him when he did, as if nothing he might say would change her fundamental opinion of him, as if nothing he confided would later be used in evidence against him.

  "What happens to former war correspondents when they become weary of trouble?" she asked.

  "They're pensioned off to dark corners of the newsroom and bore everyone with tales of their glory days," he said. "Or they stay out in the field until they get killed."

  "And which kind are you?"

  "I don't know." He lifted his eyes to hers. "I haven't yet become weary of trouble."

  He sank easily into the gentle rhythms of the Riviera: the long lunches, the time spent outdoors, the endless chatting with people of whom one had only limited acquaintance. He had taken to long walks in the early morning, when once he had been dead to the world, enjoying the sea air, the friendly greetings exchanged by people not bad-tempered with hangovers and lack of sleep. He felt at ease, in a way he had not for many years. He fended off telegrams from Don, threatening dire consequences if he didn't file something useful soon.

  "You didn't like the profile?" he had asked.

  "It was fine, but it ran in the business section last Tuesday, and Accounts wants to know why you're still filing expenses four days after you wrote it."

  She took him to Monte Carlo, spinning the car around the vertiginous bends of the mountain roads while he watched her slim strong hands on the wheel and imagined placing each finger reverently in his mouth. She took him to a casino, and made him feel like a god when he translated his few pounds into a sizable win at roulette. She ate mussels at a seafront cafe, plucking them delicately but ruthlessly from their shells, and he lost the power of speech. She had seeped into his consciousness so thoroughly, absorbing all lucid thought, that not only could he think of nothing else but no longer cared to. In his hours alone, his mind wandered to a million possible outcomes, and he marveled at how long it had been since he had felt so preoccupied by a woman.

  It was because she was that rare thing, genuinely unobtainable. He should have given up days ago. But his
pulse quickened when another note was pushed under his door, wondering if he'd like to join her for drinks at the Piazza, or perhaps a quick drive to Menton?

  What harm could it do? He was thirty, and couldn't remember the last time he had laughed so much. Why shouldn't he enjoy briefly the kind of gaiety that other people took for granted? It was all so far removed from his habitual life that it seemed unreal.

  It was on the Saturday evening that he received the telegram telling him what he had half expected for days: his train home had been booked for tomorrow, and he was expected at the Nation's offices on Monday morning. When he read it, he experienced a kind of relief: this thing with Jennifer Stirling had become strangely disorienting. He would never normally have spent so much time and energy on a woman whose passion was not a foregone conclusion. The thought of not seeing her again was upsetting, but some part of him wanted to return to his old routines, to rediscover the person he was.

  He pulled his suitcase from the rack and placed it on his bed. He would pack, and then he would send her a note, thanking her for her time and suggesting that if she ever wanted to meet for lunch in London, she should telephone him. If she chose to contact him there, away from the magic of this place, perhaps she would become like all of the others: a pleasant physical diversion.

  It was as he put his shoes into the case that the call came from the concierge: a woman was waiting in reception for him.

  "Blond hair?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Would you mind asking her to come to the telephone?"

  He heard a brief burst of French, then her voice, a little breathless, uncertain. "It's Jennifer. I just wondered . . . if we might have a quick drink."

  "Delighted, but I'm not quite ready. Do you want to come up and wait?"

  He tidied his room rapidly, kicking stray items under the bed. He rearranged the sheet of paper in his typewriter, as if he had been working on the piece he had wired across an hour earlier. He pulled on a clean shirt, although he didn't have time to do it up. When he heard a soft knock, he opened the door. "What a lovely surprise," he said. "I was just finishing something, but do come in."

  She stood awkwardly in the corridor. When she caught sight of his bare chest, she looked away. "Would you rather I waited downstairs?"

  "No. Please. I'll only be a few minutes."

  She stepped in and walked to the center of the room. She was wearing a pale gold sleeveless dress with a mandarin collar. Her shoulders were slightly pink where the sun had touched them as she drove. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, a little windblown, as if she had driven there in a hurry.

  Her gaze took in the bed, littered with notepads, the near-packed suitcase. They were briefly silenced by proximity. She recovered first. "Aren't you going to offer me a drink?"

  "Sorry. Inconsiderate of me." He telephoned down for a gin and tonic, which arrived in minutes. "Where are we going?"

  "Going?"

  "Have I time to shave?" He went into the bathroom.

  "Of course. Go ahead."

  He had done this on purpose, he thought afterward, made her party to the enforced intimacy. He looked better: the sick man's yellow pallor had left his skin, the lines of strain had been ironed from his eyes. He ran the hot water, and watched her in the bathroom mirror as he lathered his chin.

  She was distracted, preoccupied. As his razor scraped against his skin, he watched her pace, like a restless animal. "Are you all right?" he called, rinsing his blade in the water.

  "I'm fine." She had drunk half the gin and tonic already, and poured another.

  He finished shaving, toweled dry his face, splashed on some of the aftershave he had bought from the pharmacie. It was sharp, with notes of citrus and rosemary. He did up his shirt and straightened his collar in the mirror. He loved this moment, the convergence of appetite and possibility. He felt oddly triumphant. He stepped out of the bathroom and found her standing by the balcony. The sky was dimming, the lights of the seafront glowing as dusk fell. She held her drink in one hand, the other arm laid slightly defensively across her waist. He took a step closer to her.

  "I forgot to say how lovely you look," he said. "I like that color on you. It's--"

  "Larry's back tomorrow."

  She drew away from the balcony and faced him. "I had a wire this afternoon. We'll be flying to London on Tuesday."

  "I see," he said. There were tiny blond hairs on her arm. The sea breeze lifted and laid them down.

  When he looked up, her eyes locked with his. "I'm not unhappy," she said.

  "I know that."

  She was studying him, her lovely mouth serious. She bit her lip, then turned her back to him. She stood very still. "The top button," she said.

  "I'm sorry?"

  "I can't undo it myself."

  Something ignited inside him. He experienced it almost as relief, that this would happen, that the woman he had dreamed about, conjured at night in this bed, was to be his after all. Her distance, her resistance, had almost overwhelmed him. He wanted the release that comes with release, wanted to feel spent, the ache of perpetual unrelieved desire soothed.

  He took her drink from her, and her hand went to her hair, lifting it from the nape of her neck. He obeyed the silent instruction, lifting his hands to her skin. Usually so certain, his fingers fumbled, were thick and clumsy. He watched them as if from afar, wrestling with the silk-covered button, and as he released it, he saw that his hands were trembling. He stilled, and gazed at her neck: exposed now, it was bent forward slightly, as if in supplication. He wanted to place his mouth on it, could already taste that pale, lightly freckled skin. His thumb rested there, tender, luxuriating in the prospect of what lay ahead. She let out a small breath at the pressure, so subtle that he felt rather than heard it. And something in him stalled.

  He stared at the down where her golden hair met her skin, at the slender fingers still holding it up. And he understood, with horrible certainty, what was going to happen.

  Anthony O'Hare closed his eyes very tightly, and then, with exquisite deliberation, he refastened her dress. He took a small step backward.

  She hesitated, as if she were trying to work out what he had done, perhaps registering the absence of his skin on hers.

  Then she turned, her hand on the back of her neck, establishing what had taken place. She gazed at him, and her face, at first questioning, colored.

  "I'm sorry," he began, "but I--I can't."

  "Oh . . ." She flinched. Her hand went to her mouth, and a deep blush stained her neck. "Oh, God."

  "No. You don't understand, Jennifer. It's not anything that--"

  She pushed past him, grabbing her handbag. And then, before he could say anything else, she was wrestling with the door handle and running down the corridor.

  "Jennifer!" he yelled. "Jennifer! Let me explain!" But by the time he had reached the door, she was gone.

  The French train plodded through the parched countryside to Lyon, as if it was determined to grant him too long to think of all the things he had got wrong and all the things he couldn't have changed even if he'd wanted to. Several times an hour he thought about ordering himself a large whiskey from the dining car; he watched the stewards move deftly up and down the carriage, carrying glasses on silver trays, a choreographed ballet of stooping and pacing, and knew it would take only the lifting of a finger to have that consolation for himself. Afterward he was barely sure what had prevented him doing so.

  At night, he settled into the couchette, pulled out with disdainful efficiency by the steward. As the train rumbled on through the darkness, he clicked on his bedside light and picked up a paperback book he had found at the hotel, left by some former traveler. He read the same page several times, took nothing in, and eventually threw it down in disgust. He had a French newspaper, but the space was too cramped to unfold the pages properly, and the print too small in the dim light. He dozed, and awoke, and as England drew closer, the future settled on him like a big black cloud.

 
Finally, as dawn broke, he found pen and paper. He had never written a letter to a woman, other than brief thank-you notes to his mother, for whatever small gift she had sent, to Clarissa about financial matters, and his brief apology to Jennifer after that first night. Now, consumed by an aching melancholy, haunted by the mortified look in Jennifer's eyes, freed by the prospect that he might never see her again, he wrote unguardedly, wanting only to explain himself.

  Dearest,

  I couldn't make you listen, when you left in such a hurry, but I was not rejecting you. You were so far from the truth I can hardly bear it.

  Here is the truth: you would not be the first married woman I have made love to. You know my personal circumstances, and to be frank, these relationships, such as they are, have suited me. I did not want to be close to anyone. When we first met, I chose to think you would be no different.

  But when you arrived at my room on Saturday, you looked so wonderful in your dress. And then you asked me to unfasten that button at your neck. And as my fingers met your skin I realized in that moment that to make love to you would be a disaster for both of us. You, dearest girl, have no idea of how you would feel to be so duplicitous. You are an honest, delightful creature. Even if you do not feel it now, there is pleasure to be had from being a decent person. I do not want to be the man responsible for making you someone less than that.