The Last Letter From Your Lover

  She was packing away the last of it when she caught sight of Mr. Stirling. He was sitting in his leather chair, his head in his hands. The table near the door supported the remnants of the drink, and almost on impulse, she poured two fingers of whiskey. She walked across the office and knocked. He was still wearing his tie. Formal, even at this hour.

  "I've just been clearing up," she said, when he stared at her. She felt suddenly embarrassed.

  He glanced out of the window, and she realized he had not been aware that she was still there.

  "Very kind of you, Moira," he said quietly. "Thank you." He took the whiskey from her and drank it, slowly this time.

  Moira took in her boss's collapsed face, the tremor of his hands. She stood close to the corner of his desk, certain for once that she was justified in simply being there. On his desk, in neat piles, sat the letters she had left out for signing earlier that day. It felt like an age ago.

  "Would you like another?" she said, when he had finished it. "There's a little more in the bottle."

  "I suspect I've had quite enough." There was a lengthy silence. "What am I supposed to do, Moira?" He shook his head, as if engaged in some ongoing internal argument that she couldn't hear. "I give her everything. Everything. She has never wanted for a thing."

  His voice was halting, broken.

  "They say everything's changing. Women want something new . . . God knows what. Why does everything have to change?"

  "Not all women," she said quietly. "An awful lot of women think a husband who would provide for them, and who they could look after, make a home for, would be a wonderful thing to have."

  "You think so?" His eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion.

  "Oh, I know it. A man to make a drink for when he came home, to cook for and fuss over a little. I--it would be perfectly lovely." She colored.

  "Then why . . ." He sighed.

  "Mr. Stirling," she said suddenly, "you're a wonderful boss. A wonderful man. Really." She plowed on. "She's awfully lucky to have you. She must know that. And you don't deserve . . . you didn't deserve . . ." She trailed off, knowing even as she spoke that she was breaching some unspoken protocol. "I'm so sorry," she said, when the silence stretched uncomfortably beyond her words. "Mr. Stirling, I didn't mean to presume . . ."

  "Is it wrong," he said, so quietly that at first she wasn't sure what he was saying, "for a man to want to be held? Does that make him less of a man?"

  She felt tears prick her eyes . . . and something underneath them, something shrewder and sharper. She moved over a little and placed an arm lightly around his shoulders. Oh, the feel of him! Tall and broad, his jacket sitting so beautifully on his frame. She knew she would revisit this moment again and again for the rest of her life. The feel of him, the liberty to touch . . . She was almost faint with pleasure.

  When he did nothing to stop her, she perched on the arm of his chair, leaned over a little, and, holding her breath, placed her head on his shoulder. A gesture of comfort, of solidarity. This is how it would feel, she thought blissfully. She wished, just briefly, that someone would take a picture of them pressed together so intimately. Then he lifted his head, and she felt a sudden pang of alarm--and shame.

  "I'm so sorry--I'll get . . ." She straightened, choking on the words. But his hand was on hers. Warm. Close. "Moira," he said, and his eyes were half closed, his voice a croak of despair and desire. His hands were on her face, tilting it, pulling it down to meet his, and his mouth, searching, desperate, determined. A sound escaped her, a gasp of shock and delight, and then she was returning his kiss. He was only the second man she had kissed, and this instance was beyond the realm of what had preceded it, colored as it was by years of unrequited longing. Little explosions took place inside her as her blood raced around at super speed and her heart fought to escape her chest.

  She felt him easing her back across the desk, his murmuring voice hoarse and urgent, his hands at her collar, her breasts, his breath warm on her collarbone. Inexperienced, she knew little of where to put her hands, her limbs, but found herself clutching him, wanting to please, lost in new sensations. I adore you, she told him silently. Take what you want from me.

  But even as she gave herself up to pleasure, Moira knew she must keep some part of her aware enough to remember. Even as he enveloped her, entered her, her skirt hitched above her hips, his ink bottle digging uncomfortably into her shoulder, she knew she was no threat to Jennifer Stirling. The Jennifers of this world would always be the ultimate prize in a way that a woman like her never could. But Moira Parker had one advantage: she was appreciative in a way that Jennifer Stirling, that those who had always had things handed to them, never were. And she knew that even one brief night could be the most precious of all precious things, and that if this was to be the defining event of her romantic life, some part of her should be conscious enough to file it safely somewhere. Then, when it was over, she could relive it on those endless evenings when she was alone again.

  She was sitting in the large drawing room at the front of the house when he returned home. She was wearing a raspberry tweed swing coat and hat, her black patent handbag and matching gloves resting neatly on her lap. She heard his car pull up, saw the lights outside dim, and stood. She pulled back the curtain a few inches and watched him sitting in the driving seat, letting his thoughts tick over with the dying engine.

  She glanced behind her at her suitcases, then moved away from the window.

  He came in and dropped his overcoat on the hall chair. She heard his keys fall into the bowl they kept for that purpose on the table, and the clatter of something falling over. The wedding photograph? He hesitated for a moment outside the drawing-room door, then opened it and found her.

  "I think I should leave." She saw his eyes go to the packed suitcase at her feet, the one she had used when she'd left the hospital all those weeks earlier.

  "You think you should leave."

  She took a deep breath. Spoke the words she had rehearsed for the last two hours. "This isn't making either of us very happy. We both know that."

  He walked past her to the drinks cabinet and poured himself three fingers of whiskey. The way he held the decanter made her wonder how much he had drunk since she had returned home. He took the cut-glass tumbler to a chair and sat down heavily. He lifted his eyes to hers, held them for a few minutes. She fought the urge to fidget.

  "So . . ." he said. "Do you have something else in mind? Something that might make you happier?" His tone was sarcastic, unpleasant; drink had unleashed something in him. But she was not afraid. She had the freedom of knowing he was not her future.

  They stared at each other, combatants locked in an uneasy battle.

  "You know, don't you?" she said.

  He drank some of his whiskey, his eyes not leaving her face. "What do I know, Jennifer?"

  She took a breath. "That I love someone else. And that it's not Reggie Carpenter. It never was." She fiddled with her handbag as she spoke. "I worked it out this evening. Reggie was a mistake, a diversion from the truth. But you're so angry with me all the time. You have been ever since I got out of hospital. Because you know, just as I do, that someone else loves me, and isn't afraid to tell me so. That's why you didn't want me to ask too many questions. That's why my mother--and everyone else--has been so keen for me to simply get on with things. You didn't want me to remember. You never have."

  She had half expected him to explode with anger. But instead he nodded. Then, as she held her breath, he raised his glass to her. "So . . . this lover of yours, what time will he be here?" He peered at his watch, then at her cases. "I assume he's picking you up."

  "He . . ." She swallowed. "I . . . It's not like that."

  "So you're going to meet him somewhere."

  He was so calm. As if he was almost enjoying this. "Eventually. Yes."

  "Eventually," he repeated. "What's the delay?"

  "I . . . I don't know where he is."

  "You don't know where he is." Laure
nce downed the whiskey. He stood laboriously and poured himself another.

  "I can't remember, you know I can't. Things are coming back to me, and I don't have it clear in my head yet, but I know now that this"--she gestured around the room--"feels wrong for a reason. It feels wrong because I'm in love with someone else. So I'm very sorry, but I have to go. It's the right thing to do. For both of us."

  He nodded. "May I ask what this gentleman--your lover--has that I don't?"

  The streetlight outside the window sputtered.

  "I don't know," she admitted. "I just know that I love him. And that he loves me."

  "Oh, you do, do you? And what else do you know? Where he lives? What he does for a living? How he's going to keep you, with your extravagant tastes? Will he buy you new frocks? Allow you a housekeeper? Jewelry?"

  "I don't care about any of that."

  "You certainly used to care about it."

  "I'm different now. I just know he loves me, and that's what really matters. You can mock me all you want, Laurence, but you don't know--"

  He sprang up from his seat, and she shrank back. "Oh, I know all about your lover, Jenny," he bellowed. He pulled a crumpled envelope from his inside pocket, brandishing it at her. "You really want to know what happened to you? You really want to know where your lover is?" Flecks of spittle flew, and his eyes were murderous.

  She froze, her breath stalled in her chest.

  "This isn't the first time you've left me. Oh, no. I know, just like I know about him, because I found his letter in your bag after the accident."

  She saw the familiar handwriting on the envelope and was unable to tear her eyes from it.

  "This is from him. In it, he asks you to meet him. He wants to run away with you. Just the two of you. Away from me. To start a new life together." He grimaced, half in anger, half in grief. "Is it coming back to you now, darling?" He thrust it at her, and she took it with trembling fingers. She opened it and read, My dearest and only love. I meant what I said. I have come to the conclusion that the only way forward is for one of us to make a bold decision.

  I am not as strong as you. When I first met you, I thought you were a fragile little thing. Someone I had to protect. Now I realize I had us all wrong. You are the strong one, the one who can endure living with the possibility of a love like this, and the fact that we will never be allowed it.

  I ask you not to judge me for my weakness. The only way I can endure is to be in a place where I will never see you, never be haunted by the possibility of seeing you with him. I need to be somewhere where sheer necessity forces you from my thoughts minute by minute, hour by hour. I cannot do that here.

  I am going to take the job. I'll be at Platform 4 Paddington at 7:15 on Monday evening, and there is nothing in the world that would make me happier than if you found the courage to come with me.

  If you don't come, I'll know that whatever we might feel for each other, it isn't quite enough. I won't blame you, my darling. I know the past weeks have put an intolerable strain on you, and I feel the weight of that keenly. I hate the thought that I could cause you any unhappiness.

  I'll be waiting on the platform from a quarter to seven. Know that you hold my heart, my hopes, in your hands.

  Your

  B.

  "Ring a bell, does it, Jenny?"

  "Yes," she whispered. Images flashed in her mind's eye. Dark hair. A crumpled linen jacket. A little park, dotted with men in blue.

  Boot.

  "Yes, you know him? Yes, it's all coming back to you?"

  "Yes, it's coming back to me . . ." She could almost see him. He was so close now.

  "Obviously not all of it."

  "What do you--"

  "He's dead, Jennifer. He died in the car. You survived the crash, and your gentleman friend died. Dead at the scene, according to the police. So nobody's out there waiting for you. There's no one at Paddington Station. There's nobody left for you to bloody remember."

  The room had started to move around her. She heard him speak, but the words refused to make sense, to take root in anything meaningful. "No," she said, trembling now.

  "Oh, I'm afraid so. I could probably dig out the newspaper reports, if you really wanted proof. We--your parents and I--kept your name out of the public eye, for obvious reasons. But they reported his death."

  "No." She pushed at him, her arms swinging rhythmically at his torso. No no no. She wouldn't hear what he was saying.

  "He died at the scene."

  "Stop it! Stop saying that!" She launched herself at him now, wild, uncontrolled, shrieking. She heard her voice as if at a distance, was dimly aware of her fists coming into contact with his face, his chest, and then his stronger hands grabbing her wrists until she couldn't move.

  He was immovable. What he had said was immovable.

  Dead.

  She sank onto the chair, and eventually he released her. She felt as if she had shrunk, as if the room had expanded and swallowed her. My dearest and only love. Her head lowered, so that she could see only the floor, and tears slid down her nose and onto the expensive rug.

  A long time later she looked up at him. His eyes were closed, as if the scene was too unpleasant for him to contemplate. "If you knew," she began, "if you could see I was beginning to remember, why . . . why didn't you tell me the truth?"

  He was no longer angry. He sat down in the chair opposite, suddenly defeated. "Because I hoped . . . when I realized you remembered nothing, that we could put it behind us. I hoped we might just carry on as if none of it had happened."

  My dearest and only love.

  She had nowhere to go. Boot was dead. He had been dead the whole time. She felt foolish, bereft, as if she had imagined the whole thing in a fit of girlish indulgence.

  "And," Laurence's voice broke the silence, "I didn't want you to have to bear the guilt of knowing that, without you, this man might still be alive."

  And there it was. A pain so sharp she felt as if she had been impaled.

  "Whatever you think of me, Jennifer, I believed you might be happier this way."

  Time passed. She couldn't say afterward whether it had been hours or minutes. After a while Laurence stood up. He poured and drank another glass of whiskey, as easily as if it had been water. Then he placed his tumbler neatly on the silver tray.

  "So, what happens now?" she said dully.

  "I go to bed. I'm really very tired." He turned and walked toward the door. "I suggest you do the same."

  After he had gone, she sat there for some time. She could hear him moving heavily on the floorboards upstairs, the wearied, drunken path of his footsteps, the creak of the bedstead as he climbed in. He was in the master bedroom. Her bedroom.

  She read the letter again. Read of a future that wouldn't be hers. A love she had not been able to live without. She read the words of the man who had loved her more than even he could convey, a man for whose death she had been unwittingly responsible. She finally saw his face: animated, hopeful, full of love.

  Jennifer Stirling fell to the floor, curled up with the letter clutched to her chest, and silently began to cry.

  Chapter 11

  SEPTEMBER 1960

  He saw them through the window of the coffee shop, half obscured by steam, even on this late-summer evening. His son was seated at the table nearest the window, his legs swinging as he read the menu. He paused on the pavement, taking in the longer limbs, the loss of the soft edges that had marked him out as a child. He could just make out the man he might become. Anthony felt his heart constrict. He tucked his parcel under his arm and walked in.

  The cafe had been Clarissa's choice, a large, bustling place where the waitresses wore old-fashioned uniforms and white pinafores. She had called it a tearoom, as if she was embarrassed by the word cafe.

  "Phillip?"

  "Daddy?"

  He stopped beside the table, noting with pleasure the boy's smile as he caught sight of him.

  "Clarissa," he added.

  She was
less angry, he thought immediately. There had been a tautness about her face for the past few years that had made him feel guilty whenever they met. Now she looked back at him with a kind of curiosity, as one might examine something that might turn around and snap: forensically, and from a distance.

  "You look very well," he said.

  "Thank you," she said.

  "And you've grown," he said, to his son. "Goodness, I think you've shot up six inches in two months."

  "Three months. And they do, at that age." Clarissa's mouth settled into the moue of mild disapproval he knew so well. It made him think briefly of Jennifer's lips. He didn't think he'd ever seen her do that thing with her mouth; perhaps the way she was designed forbade it.

  "And you're . . . well?" she said, pouring him a cup of tea and pushing it toward him.

  "Very, thank you. I've been working hard."

  "As always."

  "Yes. How about you, Phillip? School all right?"

  His son's face was buried in the menu.

  "Answer your father."

  "Fine."

  "Good. Keeping your marks up?"

  "I have his report here. I thought you might want to see it." She fished in her bag, and handed it to him.

  Anthony noted, with unexpected pride, the repeated references to Phillip's "decent character," his "genuine efforts."

  "He's captain of the football team." She couldn't quite keep the pleasure from her voice.

  "You've done well." He patted his son's shoulder.

  "He does his homework every night. I make sure of that."

  Phillip wouldn't look at him now. Had Edgar already filled the father-shaped hole that he feared existed in Phillip's life? Did he play cricket with him? Read stories to him? Anthony felt something in him cloud over and took a gulp of tea, trying to gather himself. He called over a waitress and ordered a plate of cakes. "The biggest you have. An early celebration," he said.

  "He'll spoil his supper," Clarissa said.

  "It's just one day."

  She turned away, as if she was struggling to bite her tongue.

  Around them the clamor of the cafe seemed to increase. The cakes arrived on a tiered silver platter. He saw his son's eyes slide toward them and gestured that he should help himself.