The Last Letter From Your Lover (23 page)

Before he could say more, she had turned on her heel and walked out.

Jennifer splashed her reddened, blotchy eyes with cold water for the fifteenth time. In the bathroom mirror her reflection showed a woman defeated by life. A woman so far removed from the “tai-tai” of five years ago that they might have been different species, let alone different people. She let her fingers trace the shadows under her eyes, the new lines of strain on her brow, and wondered what he had seen when he looked at her.

He’ll squash you, extinguish the things that make you you.

She opened the medicine cabinet and gazed at the neat row of brown bottles. She couldn’t tell him that she had been so afraid before she met him that she had taken twice the recommended dose of Valium. She couldn’t tell him that she had heard him as if through a fog, had been so dissociated from what she was doing that she could barely hold the teapot. She couldn’t tell him that to have him so close that she could see every line on his hands and breathe the scent of his cologne had paralyzed her.

Jennifer turned on the hot tap and the water rushed down the plughole, splashing off the porcelain and leaving dark spots on her pale trousers. She took the Valium from the top shelf and unscrewed the lid.

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.

Not as astute as you thought, Boot.

She heard Mrs. Cordoza’s voice downstairs and locked the bathroom door. She placed both hands on the side of the washbasin.
Can I do this?

She lifted the bottle and tipped its contents down the plughole, watching the water carry away the little white pills. She unscrewed the next, barely pausing to check its contents. Her “little helpers.” Everyone took them, Yvonne had said blithely, the first time Jennifer had sat in her kitchen and found she couldn’t stop crying. Doctors were only too happy to supply them. They would even her out a little. I’m so evened out that nothing’s left, she thought, and reached for the next bottle.

Then they were all gone, the shelf empty. She stared at herself in the mirror as, with a gurgle, the last of the pills was washed out of sight.

There was trouble in Stanleyville. A note had arrived from the foreign desk at the
Nation
informing Anthony that the Congolese rebels, the self-styled Simba Army, had begun to herd more white hostages into the Victoria Hotel in retaliation against the Congolese government forces and their white mercenaries. “Have bags ready. Moving story,” it said. “Editor has given special approval you go. With request that do not get yourself killed/captured.”

For the first time, Anthony did not rush to the office to check the late newswires. He did not telephone his contacts at the UN or the army. He lay on his hotel bed, thinking of a woman who had loved him enough to leave her husband and then, in the space of four years, had disappeared.

He was startled by a knock on his door. The maid seemed to want to clean every half hour. She had an annoying way of whistling as she worked so he could never quite ignore her presence. “Come back later,” he called, and shifted onto his side.

Had it simply been the shock of finding him alive that had caused her literally to vibrate in front of him? Had she realized today that the feelings she had once held for him had evaporated? Had she just gone through the motions, entertaining him as anyone would an old friend? Her manners had always been immaculate.

Another knock, tentative. It was almost more irritating than if the girl had just opened the door and walked in. At least then he could have yelled at her. He got up and went to the door. “I’d really rather—”

Jennifer stood in front of him, her belt tied tightly around her waist, her eyes bright. “Every day,” she said.

“What?”

“Every month. Every day. Every hour.” She paused, then added, “For four years. I tried not to, but . . . you were always there.”

The corridor was silent around them.

“I thought you were dead, Anthony. I grieved for you. I grieved for the life I hoped I might have with you. I read and reread your letters until they fell apart. When I believed I might have been responsible for your death, I loathed myself so much I could barely get through each day. If it hadn’t been . . .”

She corrected herself: “And then, at a drinks party I hadn’t even wanted to go to, I saw you.
You
. And you ask me why I wanted to see you?” She took a deep breath, as if to steady herself.

There were footsteps at the other end of the corridor. He held out a hand. “Come inside,” he said.

“I couldn’t sit at home. I had to say something before you were gone again. I had to tell you.”

He stepped back, and she walked past him into the large double bedroom, its generous dimensions and decent position testament to his improved standing at the newspaper. He was glad that for once he had left it tidy, a laundered shirt hanging on the back of the chair, his good shoes against the wall. The window was open, allowing in the noise of the street outside, and he went over to close it. She put her bag on the chair, laid her coat over it.

“It’s a step up,” he said awkwardly. “The first time I came back I got a hostel in Bayswater Road. Do you want a drink?” He felt oddly self-conscious as she sat down on the side of the bed. “Shall I ring for something? Coffee, maybe?” he continued.

God, he wanted to touch her.

“I haven’t slept,” she said, rubbing her face ruefully. “I couldn’t think straight when I saw you. I’ve been trying to work it all out. Nothing makes any sense.”

“That afternoon, four years ago, were you in the car with Felipe?”

“Felipe?” She looked puzzled.

“My friend from Alberto’s. He died around the time I left, in a car crash. I looked up the cuttings this morning. There’s a reference to an unnamed woman passenger. It’s the only way I can explain it.”

“I don’t know. As I said yesterday, there are still bits I can’t remember. If I hadn’t found your letters, I might never have remembered you. I might never have known—”

“But who told you I was dead?”

“Laurence. Don’t look like that. He’s not cruel. I think he really believed you were.” She waited a moment. “He knew there was . . . someone, you see. He read your last letter. After the accident he must have put two and two—”

“My last letter?”

“The one asking me to meet you at the station. I was carrying it when the car crashed.”

“I don’t understand—that wasn’t my last letter—”

“Oh, let’s not,” she interrupted. “Please . . . It’s too—”

“Then what?” She was watching him intently. “Jennifer, I—”

She stood up and stepped so close to him that even in the dim light he could see every tiny freckle on her face, each eyelash tapering into a black point sharp enough to pierce a man’s heart. She was with him and yet removed, as if she was coming to some decision.

“Boot,” she said softly, “are you angry with me? Still?”

Boot.

He swallowed. “How could I be?”

She lifted her hands and traced the shape of his face, her fingertips so light they barely touched him. “Did we do this?”

He stared at her.

“Before?” She blinked. “I don’t remember. I only know your words.”

“Yes.” His voice broke. “Yes, we did this.” He felt her cool fingers on his skin and remembered her scent.

“Anthony,” she murmured, and there was sweetness in the way she said his name, an unbearable tenderness that spoke of all the love and loss he, too, had felt.

Her body rested against his, and he heard the sigh that traveled through her, then felt her breath on his lips. The air stilled around them. Her lips were on his, and something broke open in his chest. He heard himself gasp, and realized, with horror, that his eyes had filled with tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, mortified. “I’m sorry. I don’t know . . . why . . .”

“I know,” she said. “I know.” She put her arms around his neck, kissing the tears that ran down his cheeks, murmuring to him. They clung together, elated, despairing, neither quite able to believe the turn of events. Time became a blur, the kisses more urgent, the tears drying. He pulled her sweater over her head, stood, almost helpless, as she undid the buttons of his shirt. And in a joyful wrench it was off him, his skin against hers, and they were on the bed, wrapped around each other, their bodies fierce, almost clumsy with urgency.

He kissed her, and knew he was trying to tell her the depth of how he felt. Even as he lost himself in her, felt her hair sweep across his face, his chest, her lips meet his skin, her fingers, he understood that there were people for whom one other was their missing part.

She was alive beneath him; she set him alight. He kissed the scar that ran up to her shoulder, ignored her flinching reluctance until she accepted what he was telling her: this silvered ridge was beautiful to him; it told him she had loved him. It told him she had wanted to come to him. He kissed it because there was no part of her that he didn’t want to make better, no part of her that he didn’t adore.

He watched desire grow in her as if it were a gift shared between them, the infinite variety of expressions that crossed her face, saw her unguarded, locked in some private struggle, and when she opened her eyes, he felt blessed.

When he came he wept again, because some part of him had always known, even though he had chosen not to believe it, that there must be something that could make you feel like this. And that to have it returned to him was more than he could have hoped for.

“I know you,” she murmured, her skin sticky against his, her tears wet on his neck. “I do know you.”

For a moment he couldn’t speak but stared up at the ceiling, feeling the air cool around them, her limbs pressed damply against his own. “Oh, Jenny,” he said. “Thank God.”

When her breathing had returned to normal, she raised herself on one elbow and looked down at him. Something in her had altered: her features had lifted, the strain had vanished from around her eyes. He enclosed her in his arms, pulling her to him so tightly that their bodies felt welded together. He felt himself hardening again, and she smiled.

“I want to say something,” he said, “but nothing seems . . . momentous enough.”

Her smile was glorious: satiated, loving, full of wry surprise. “I’ve never felt like that in my whole life,” she said.

They looked at each other.

“Have I?” she said.

He nodded. She gazed into the distance. “Then . . . thank you.”

He laughed, and she collapsed, giggling, onto his shoulder.

Four years had dissolved, become nothing. He saw, with a new clarity, the path of his life to come. He would stay in London. He would break things off with Eva, the girlfriend in New York. She was a sweet girl, breezy and cheerful, but he knew now that every woman he had dated over the past four years had been a pale imitation of the woman beside him. Jennifer would leave her husband. He would take care of her. They would not miss their chance a second time. He had a sudden vision of her with his son, the three of them on some family outing, and the future glowed with unforeseen promise.

His train of thought was broken by her kissing his chest, his shoulder, his neck, with intense concentration. “You do realize,” he said, rolling her over so that her legs were entwined with his, her mouth inches away, “that we’re going to have to do that again. Just to make sure you remember.”

She said nothing, just closed her eyes.

This time when he made love to her, he did so slowly. He spoke to her body with his own. He felt her inhibitions fall away, her heart beat against his own, the mirroring of that faint tattoo. He said her name a million times, for the sheer luxury of being able to do so. In whispers, he told her everything he had ever felt for her.

When she told him she loved him, it was with an intensity that stopped his breath. The rest of the world slowed and closed in, until it was just the two of them, a tangle of sheets and limbs, hair and soft cries.

“You are the most exquisite . . .” He watched her eyes open with shy recognition of where she had been. “I would do that with you a hundred times just for the sheer pleasure of watching your face.” She said nothing, and he felt greedy now. “
Vicariously
,” he said suddenly. “Remember?”