The Last Letter From Your Lover

  Don shook his head resignedly. "Gardiner, eh? Tell him I said he couldn't write his way out of a paper bag."

  Cheryl, the news-desk secretary, was standing by the stationery cupboard and winked at him as he passed her on the way out. She actually winked at him. Anthony O'Hare sighed, shook his head, and reached for his jacket.

  "Winked at you? Tony, old son, you were lucky she didn't pull you into the damned cupboard."

  "I've only been gone a few years, Dougie. It's still the same country."

  "No." Douglas's eyes darted round the room. "No, it's not, old chap. London's now at the center of the universe. It's all happening here, old chum. Equality between men and women is only the half of it."

  There was, he had to acknowledge, truth in what Douglas had said. Even the appearance of the city had changed: gone were many of the sober streets, the elegant, shabby facades and echoes of postwar penury. They had been replaced by illuminated signage, women's boutiques with names like Party Girl and Jet Set, foreign restaurants, and high-rise towers. Every time he returned to London, he felt increasingly a stranger: familiar landmarks disappeared, and those that remained were overshadowed by the Post Office Tower or other examples of its architect's futuristic craft. His old apartment building had been torn down and replaced by something brutally modernistic. Alberto's jazz club was now some rock-and-roll setup. Even clothes were brighter. The older generation, stuck in brown and navy, looked somehow more dated and faded than they actually were.

  "So . . . you miss being out in the field?"

  "Nah. We'll all have to lay down our tin helmets one day, won't we? Better-looking women in this job, that's for sure. How's New York? What do you think of Johnson?"

  "He's no Kennedy, that's for sure.... So, what do you do now? Weave your way through high society?"

  "It's not like when you left, Tony. They don't want ambassadors' wives and tittle-tattle about indiscretions. Now it's pop stars--the Beatles and Cilla Black. No one with any breeding. It's all egalitarian, the society column."

  The sound of smashing glass echoed in the vast ballroom. The two men broke off their conversation.

  "Whoops. Someone's had one too many," Douglas observed. "Some things don't change. The ladies still can't hold their drink."

  "Well, I have a feeling that some of the girls in the newspaper office could have drunk me under the table." Anthony shuddered.

  "Still off the sauce?"

  "More than three years now."

  "You wouldn't last long in this job. Don't you miss it?"

  "Every damned day."

  Douglas had stopped laughing and was looking past him. Anthony glanced over his shoulder. "You need to speak to someone?" He shifted to one side obligingly.

  "No." Douglas squinted. "I thought someone was staring at me. But I think it's you. She familiar?"

  Anthony turned--and his mind went blank. Then it hit him with the brutal inevitability of a demolition ball. Of course she'd be here. The one person he had tried not to think about. The one person he had hoped never to see again. He had come to England for a little less than a week, and there she was. On his first evening out.

  He took in the dark red dress, the almost perfect posture that marked her out from any other woman in the room. As their eyes met, she seemed to sway.

  "Nope. Can't have been you," Douglas remarked. "Look, she's headed for the balcony. I know who that is. She's . . ." He clicked his fingers. "Stirling. Thingy Stirling's wife. The asbestos magnate." He cocked his head. "Mind if we go over? It might make a paragraph. She was quite the society hostess a few years back. They'll probably drop in some piece about Elvis Presley instead, but you never know . . ."

  Anthony swallowed. "Sure." He straightened his collar, took a deep breath, and followed his friend through the crowd toward the balcony.

  "Mrs. Stirling."

  She was looking down at the busy London street, her back to him. Her hair was in a sculptural arrangement of glossy bubble curls, and rubies hung at her throat. She turned slowly, and her hand lifted to her mouth.

  It had to happen, he told himself. Perhaps seeing her like this, having to meet her, would mean he could finally lay it to rest. Even as he thought this, he had no idea what to say to her. Would they engage in some polite social exchange? Perhaps she would make an excuse and walk straight past him. Was she embarrassed about what had happened? Guilty? Had she fallen in love with someone else? His thoughts careened wildly.

  Douglas extended his hand to her, and she took it, but her eyes settled on Anthony. All color had drained from her face.

  "Mrs. Stirling? Douglas Gardiner, the Express. We met at Ascot, I believe, back in the summer?"

  "Oh, yes," she said. Her voice shook. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I--I--"

  "I say, are you all right? You look awfully pale."

  "I . . . Actually I'm feeling a little faint."

  "Would you like me to fetch your husband?" Douglas took her elbow.

  "No!" she said. "No." She took a breath. "Just a glass of water. If you'd be so kind."

  Douglas shot him a fleeting look. What have we here? "Tony . . . you'll stay with Mrs. Stirling for a minute, won't you? I'll be right back." Douglas stepped into the party, and as the door closed behind him, muffling the music, it was just the two of them. Her eyes were wide and terrible. She didn't seem able to speak.

  "Is it that bad? To see me, I mean?" There was a slight edge to his voice--he couldn't help it.

  She blinked, looked away, looked back at him, as if to check he was actually there.

  "Jennifer? Would you like me to leave? I'm sorry. I wouldn't have bothered you. It's just that Dougie--"

  "They said--they said you. Were. Dead." Her voice emerged as a series of coughs.

  "Dead?"

  "In the crash." She was perspiring, her skin pale and waxy. He wondered, briefly, if she was indeed going to pass out. He took a step forward and steered her to the ledge of the balcony, removing his jacket so that she could sit on it. Her head dropped into her hands, and she gave a low moan. "You can't be here." It was as if she was talking to herself.

  "What? I don't understand." He wondered, briefly, if she had gone mad.

  She looked up. "We were in a car. There was a crash . . . It can't be you! It can't be." Her eyes traveled down to his hands, as if she was half expecting them to evaporate.

  "A crash?" He knelt beside her. "Jennifer, the last time I saw you was at a club, not in a car."

  She was shaking her head, apparently uncomprehending.

  "I wrote you a letter--"

  "Yes."

  "--asking you to come away with me."

  She nodded.

  "And I was waiting at the station. You didn't turn up. I thought you'd decided against it. Then I received your letter, forwarded on to me, in which you made the point, repeatedly, that you were married."

  He could say it so calmly, as if it had held no more importance than if he had been waiting for an old friend. As if her absence had not skewed his life, his happiness, for four years.

  "But I was coming to you."

  They stared at each other.

  Her face fell back into her hands, and her shoulders shook. He stood up, glancing behind her at the lit ballroom, and laid a hand on her shoulder. She flinched as though she'd been burned. He was conscious of the outline of her back through her dress, and his breath stalled in his throat. He couldn't think clearly. He could barely think at all.

  "All this time"--she looked at him, tears in her eyes--"all this time . . . and you were alive."

  "I assumed . . . you just didn't want to come with me."

  "Look!" She pulled up her sleeve, showing the jagged, raised silver line that scored her arm. "I had no memory. For months. I still remember little of that time. He told me you'd died. He told me--"

  "But didn't you see my name in the newspaper? I have pieces in it almost daily."

  "I don't read newspapers. Not anymore. Why would I?"

  The full ramif
ications of what she had said were beginning to sink in, and Anthony was feeling a little unsteady on his feet. She turned to the French windows, now half obscured by steam, then wiped her eyes with her fingers. He offered her his handkerchief, and she took it tentatively, as if she was still afraid to make contact with his skin.

  "I can't stay out here," she said, when she had recovered her composure. Mascara had left a black smear under her eye, and he resisted the urge to wipe it away. "He'll be wondering where I am." There were new lines of strain around her eyes; the dewiness of her skin had been supplanted by something tighter. The girlishness had gone, replaced by subtle new knowledge. He couldn't stop staring at her. "How can I reach you?" he asked.

  "You can't." She shook her head a little, as if she was trying to clear it.

  "I'm staying at the Regent," he said. "Ring me tomorrow." He reached into his pocket, scribbled on a business card.

  She took it and gazed at it, as if imprinting the details on her memory.

  "Here we are." Douglas had appeared between them. He held out a glass of water. "Your husband is talking to some people just inside the door. I can fetch him, if you like."

  "No--no, I'll be fine." She took a sip from the glass. "Thank you so much. I have to go, Anthony."

  The way she had said his name. Anthony. He realized he was smiling. She was there, inches from him. She had loved him, grieved for him. She had tried to come to him that night. It was as if the misery of four years had been wiped away.

  "Do you two know each other, then?"

  Anthony heard, as if from a distance, Douglas talking, saw him motioning toward the doors. Jennifer sipped the water, her eyes not leaving his face. He knew that in the coming hours he would curse whichever gods had thought it amusing to send their lives careering away from each other, and grieve for the time they had lost. But for now he could only feel a welling joy that the thing he had thought lost forever had been returned to him.

  It was time for her to go. She stood up, smoothed her hair. "Do I look . . . all right?"

  "You look--"

  "You look wonderful, Mrs. Stirling. As always." Douglas opened the door.

  Such a small smile, heartbreaking in what it told Anthony. As she passed him, she reached out a slim hand and touched his arm just above the elbow. And then she walked into the crowded ballroom.

  Douglas raised an eyebrow as the door closed behind her. "Don't tell me," he said. "Not another of your conquests? You old dog. You always did get what you wanted."

  Anthony's eyes were still on the door. "No," he said quietly. "I didn't."

  Jennifer was silent during the short drive back to the house. Laurence had offered a lift to a business colleague she didn't know, which meant she could sit quietly while the men talked.

  "Of course, Pip Marchant was up to his old tricks, all his capital tied up in one project."

  "He's a hostage to fortune. His father was the same."

  "I expect if you go far enough back in that family tree you'll find the South Sea Bubble."

  "I think you'll find several! All filled with hot air."

  The interior of the big black car was thick with cigar smoke. Laurence was garrulous, opinionated, in the way he often was when surrounded by businessmen or marinated in whiskey. She barely heard him, swamped by this new knowledge. She stared out at the still streets as the car glided along, seeing not the beauty of her surroundings, the occasional person dawdling on their way home, but Anthony's face. His brown eyes, when they had fixed on hers, his face a little more lined, but perhaps more handsome, more at ease. She could still feel the warmth of his hand on her back.

  How can I reach you?

  Alive, these past four years. Living, breathing, sipping cups of coffee and typing. Alive. She could have written to him, spoken to him. Gone to him.

  She swallowed, trying to contain the tumultuous emotion that threatened to rise within her. There would be a time to deal with everything that must have led to this, to her being here, now, in this car with a man who no longer thought it necessary even to acknowledge her presence. Now was not it. Her blood fizzed within her. Alive, it sang.

  The car pulled up on Upper Wimpole Street. Eric climbed out of the driver's seat and opened the passenger door. The businessman climbed out, puffing at his cigar. "Much obliged, Larry. You at the club this week? I'll buy you dinner."

  "I'll look forward to it." The man made his way heavily toward his front door, which opened, as if someone had been waiting for his arrival. Laurence watched his colleague disappear, then turned back to the front. "Home, please, Eric." He shifted in his seat.

  She felt his eyes on her. "You're very quiet." He always made it sound disapproving.

  "Am I? I didn't think I had anything to add to your conversation."

  "Yes. Well. Not a bad evening, all in all." He settled back, nodding to himself.

  "No," she said quietly. "Not a bad evening at all."

  Chapter 14

  Your hotel, midday. J.

  Anthony stared at the letter, with its single line of text.

  "Delivered by hand this morning." Cheryl stood in front of him, a pencil between her index and middle fingers. Her short, astonishingly blond hair was so thick that he wondered briefly if she was wearing a wig. "I wasn't sure whether to phone you, but Don said you'd be coming in."

  "Yes. Thank you." He folded the note carefully and put it into his pocket.

  "Cute."

  "Who--me?"

  "Your new girlfriend."

  "Very funny."

  "I mean it. I thought she looked far too classy for you, though." She sat on the edge of his desk, gazing up at him through impossibly blackened eyelashes.

  "She is far too classy for me. And she's not my girlfriend."

  "Oh, yes, I forgot. You have one of those in New York. This one's married, right?"

  "She's an old friend."

  "Hah! I have old friends like that. Are you whisking her off to Africa with you?"

  "I don't know that I'm going to Africa." He leaned back in his chair, linked his fingers behind his head. "And you're extremely nosy."

  "This is a newspaper, in case you hadn't noticed. Nosiness is our business."

  He had barely slept, his senses hypersensitive to everything around him. He had given up trying at three and instead sat in the hotel bar, nursing cups of coffee, going over their conversation, trying to make sense of what had been said. He had fought the urge, in the small hours, to take a taxi to the square and sit outside her house for the pleasure of knowing that she was inside, a matter of feet away.

  I was coming to you.

  Cheryl was still watching him. He tapped his fingers on the desk. "Yes," he said. "Well. In my opinion, everyone's far too interested in everyone else's affairs."

  "So it is an affair. You know the subs desk's opened a book on it."

  "Cheryl . . ."

  "Well, there's not much copy going through at this time of the morning. And what's in the letter? Where are you meeting her? Anywhere nice? Does she pay for everything, given that she's plainly loaded?"

  "Good God!"

  "Well, she can't be very practiced at affairs, then. Tell her that the next time she leaves a love note, she should take her wedding ring off first."

  Anthony sighed. "You, young lady, are wasted as a secretary."

  She lowered her voice to a whisper: "If you tell me her name, I'll split the sweepstake with you. There's a tidy sum."

  "Send me to Africa, for God's sake. The Congolese Army Interrogation Unit is nothing compared to you."

  She laughed throatily and went back to her typewriter.

  He unfolded the note. The mere sight of that looped script transported him back to France, to notes pushed under his door in an idyllic week a million years ago. Some part of him had known she would contact him. He jumped when he realized Don had come in.

  "Tony. The editor wants a word. Upstairs."

  "Now?"

  "No. Three weeks on Tuesday. Yes, n
ow. He wants to talk to you about your future. And, no, you're not for the chop, sadly. I think he's trying to suss out whether or not to send you back to Africa." Don poked his shoulder. "Hello? Cloth Ears? You need to look like you know what you're doing."

  Anthony barely heard him. It was a quarter past eleven already. The editor was not a man who liked to do anything in a hurry, and it was entirely possible he would be with him for a good hour. He turned to Cheryl as he stood. "Blondie, do me a favor. Ring my hotel. Tell them a Jennifer Stirling is due to meet me at twelve, and ask someone to tell her I'll be late but not to leave. I'll be there. She mustn't leave."

  Cheryl's smile was laced with satisfaction. "Mrs. Jennifer Stirling?"

  "As I said, she's an old friend."

  Don was wearing yesterday's shirt, Anthony noted. He was always wearing yesterday's shirt. He was also shaking his head. "Jesus. That Stirling woman again? How much of an appetite for trouble have you got?"

  "She's just a friend."

  "And I'm Twiggy. Come on. Come and explain to the Great White Chief why you should be allowed to sacrifice yourself to the Simba rebels."

  She was still there, he was relieved to see. It was more than half an hour after their supposed meeting time. She was seated at a small table in the extravagantly frothy salon, where the plaster moldings resembled the icing on an overadorned Christmas cake and most of the other tables were occupied by elderly widows exclaiming in shocked, hushed tones at the wickedness of the modern world.

  "I ordered tea," she said, as he sat down opposite her, apologizing for the fifth time. "I hope you don't mind."

  Her hair was down. She wore a black sweater and tailored fawn trousers. She was thinner than she had been. He supposed it was the fashion.

  He attempted to regulate his breathing. He had pictured this moment so many times, sweeping her into his arms, their passionate reunion. Now he felt vaguely wrong-footed by her self-possession, the formality of the surroundings.

  A waitress arrived, pushing a trolley from which she took a teapot, milk jug, some precision-cut sandwiches on white bread, cups, saucers, and plates. He realized he could probably fit four of the sandwiches into his mouth at once.

  "Thank you."

  "You don't . . . take sugar." She frowned, as if she was trying to remember.

  "No."

  They sipped their tea. Several times he opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He kept stealing glances at her, noting tiny details. The familiar shape of her nails. Her wrists. The way she periodically lifted herself from her waist, as if some distant voice was telling her to sit up straight.