The Last Letter From Your Lover (24 page)

Afterward, he was not sure how long they had lain there together, as if each wished to absorb the other through their skin. He heard the sounds of the street, the occasional pad of feet up and down the corridor outside the room, a distant voice. He felt the rhythm of her breathing against his chest. He kissed the top of her head, let his fingers rest in her tangled hair. A perfect peace had descended on him, spreading to his very bones. I’m home, he thought. This is it.

She shifted in his arms. “Let’s order up something to drink,” he said, kissing her collarbone, her chin, the space where her jaw met her ear. “A celebration. Tea for me, champagne for you. What do you say?”

He saw it then, an unwelcome shadow, her thoughts transferring to somewhere outside the room.

“Oh,” she said, sitting upright. “What’s the time?”

He checked his watch. “Twenty past four. Why?”

“Oh, no! I’ve got to be downstairs at half past.” She was off the bed, stooping to pick up her clothes.

“Whoa! Why do you have to be downstairs?”

“Mrs. Cordoza.”

“Who?”

“My housekeeper’s meeting me. I’m meant to be shopping.”

“Be late for her. Is shopping really that important? Jennifer, we have to talk—work out what we’re going to do next. I’ve got to tell my editor I’m not going to Congo.”

She was pulling on her clothes inelegantly, as if nothing mattered but speed, brassiere, trousers, pullover. The body he had taken, made his own, disappeared from view.

“Jennifer?” He slid out of the bed, reached for his trousers, belted them around his waist. “You can’t just go.”

She had her back to him.

“We’ve got things to talk about, surely, how we’re going to sort it all out.”

“There’s nothing to sort out.” She opened her handbag, pulled out a brush, and attacked her hair with short, fierce strokes.

“I don’t understand.”

When she turned to him, her face had closed, as though a screen had been pulled across it.

“Anthony, I’m sorry, but we—we can’t meet again.”

“What?”

She pulled out a compact, began to wipe the smudged mascara from under her eyes.

“You can’t say that after what we’ve just done. You can’t just turn it all off. What the hell is going on?”

She was rigid. “You’ll be fine. You always are. Look, I—I have to go. I’m so sorry.”

She swept up her bag and coat. The door closed behind her with a decisive click.

Anthony was after her, wrenching it open. “Don’t do this, Jennifer! Don’t leave me again!” His voice echoed down the already empty corridor, bouncing off the blank doors of the other bedrooms. “This isn’t some kind of game! I’m not going to wait another four years for you!”

He was frozen with shock until, cursing, he collected himself and sprinted back into the room, wrestled into his shirt and shoes.

He grabbed his jacket and ran out into the corridor, his heart thudding. He tore down the stairs, two at a time, to the foyer. He saw the lift doors open, and there she was, her heels clicking briskly across the marble floor, composed, recovered, a million miles from where she’d been only minutes earlier. He was about to shout to her when he heard the cry: “Mummy!”

Jennifer went down, her arms already outstretched. A middle-aged woman was walking toward her, the child breaking free from her grasp. The little girl threw herself into Jennifer’s arms and was lifted up, her voice bubbling across the echoing concourse. “Are we going to Hamleys? Mrs. Cordoza said we were.”

“Yes, darling. We’ll go right now. I just have to sort something out with reception.”

She put the child down and took her hand. Perhaps it was the intensity of his gaze, but something made her look back as she walked to the desk. She saw him. Her eyes locked on his, and in them he caught a hint of apology—and guilt.

She looked away, scribbled something, then turned back to the receptionist, her handbag on the desk. A few words were exchanged, and she was away, walking out through the glass doors into the afternoon sunshine, the little girl chattering beside her.

The implication of what he had seen sank into Anthony, like feet into quicksand. He waited until she had disappeared, and then, like a man waking from a dream, shouldered on his jacket.

He was about to walk out when the concierge hurried up to him. “Mr. Boot? The lady asked me to give you this.” A note was thrust into his hand.

He unfolded the little piece of hotel writing paper.

Forgive me. I just had to know.

Chapter 15

Moira Parker walked up to the typing pool and switched off the transistor radio that had been balanced on a pile of telephone directories.

“Hey!” Annie Jessop protested. “I was listening to that.”

“It is not appropriate to have popular music blaring out in an office,” Moira said firmly. “Mr. Stirling doesn’t want to be distracted by such a racket. This is a place of work.” It was the fourth time that week.

“More like a funeral parlor. Oh, come on, Moira. Let’s have it on low. It helps the day go by.”

“Working hard helps the day go by.”

She heard the scornful laughter and tilted her chin a little higher. “You’d do well to learn that you’ll only progress at Acme Mineral and Mining with a professional attitude.”

“And loose knicker elastic,” muttered someone behind her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing, Miss Parker. Shall we switch it on to Wartime Favorites? Will that make you happy? ‘
We’re going to hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line
. . .’” There was another burst of laughter.

“I’ll put it in Mr. Stirling’s office. Perhaps you can ask him what
he
prefers.”

She heard the mutters of dislike as she crossed the office, and made herself deaf to them. As the company had grown, the standards of the staff had sunk commensurately. Nowadays nobody respected their superiors, the work ethic, or what Mr. Stirling had achieved. Quite frequently she found herself in such a poor humor on her way home that she was at Elephant and Castle before even her crocheting could distract her. Sometimes it felt as if only she and Mr. Stirling—and perhaps Mrs. Kingston from Accounts—understood how to behave.

And the clothes! Dolly birds they called themselves, and it was horribly apt. Primping and preening, vacuous and childish, the girls in the typing pool spent far more time thinking about how they looked, all short skirts and ridiculous eye makeup, than about the letters they were supposed to type. She had had to send back three yesterday afternoon. Misspellings, forgotten date lines, even a “Yours sincerely” where she had clearly stated “Yours faithfully.” When she pointed it out, Sandra had raised her eyes to the ceiling, not caring that Moira saw her.

Moira sighed, tucked the transistor under her arm, and, noting briefly that Mr. Stirling’s office door was rarely shut at lunchtime, pushed on the handle and walked in.

Marie Driscoll was sitting opposite him—and not on the chair that Moira used when she was taking dictation, but
on his desk
. It was such an astonishing sight that it took her a moment to register that he had stepped back suddenly as she entered.

“Ah, Moira.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stirling. I didn’t know anybody else was in here.” She shot the girl a pointed look. What on earth did she think she was doing? Had everyone gone mad? “I—I’ve brought in this wireless. The girls had it on ridiculously loudly. I thought if they had to explain themselves to you, it might give them pause for thought.”

“I see.” He sat down in his chair.

“I was concerned they might be disturbing you.”

There was a long silence. Marie made no effort to move, just picked at something on her skirt—which ended halfway up her thigh. Moira waited for her to leave.

But Mr. Stirling spoke. “I’m glad you came in. I wanted a private word. Miss Driscoll, could you give us a minute?”

With evident reluctance, the girl lowered her feet to the floor and stalked past Moira, eyeing her as she passed. She wore too much perfume, Moira thought. The door closed behind her, and then it was just the two of them. As she liked it.

Mr. Stirling had made love to her twice more in the months after that first time. Perhaps “made love” was a slight exaggeration: on both occasions he had been very drunk, it was briefer and more functional than it had been the first time, and the following day he had made no reference to it.

Despite her attempts to let him know he would not be rebuffed—the homemade sandwiches she had left on his desk, the especially nice way she had kept her hair—it had not happened again. Still, she had known she was special to him, had relished her private knowledge when her coworkers discussed the boss in the canteen. She understood the strain such duplicity would cause him, and even while she wished things were different, she respected his admirable restraint. On the rare occasions when Jennifer Stirling dropped in, she no longer felt cowed by the woman’s glamour.
If you had been wife enough, he would never have needed to turn to me.
Mrs. Stirling had never been able to see what she had in front of her.

“Sit down, Moira.”

She perched in a far more decorous manner than the Driscoll girl, arranging her legs carefully, suddenly regretting that she had not worn her red dress. He liked her in it, had said so several times. From outside the office she heard laughter and wondered absently if they’d got hold of another transistor somehow. “I’ll tell those girls to pull themselves together,” she murmured. “I’m sure they must make an awful racket for you.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. He was shuffling papers on his desk. When he looked up, he didn’t quite meet her eye. “I’m moving Marie, with immediate effect—”

“Oh, I think that’s a very good—”

“—to be my personal assistant.”

There was a brief silence. Moira tried not to show how much she minded. The workload had gotten heavier, she told herself. It was understandable that he would think a second pair of hands was needed. “But where will she sit?” she asked. “There’s only room for one desk in the outer office.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“I suppose you could move Maisie—”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ve decided to lighten your workload a little. You’ll be . . . moving to the typing pool.”

She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “The typing pool?”

“I’ve told Payroll you’ll remain on the same salary, so it should be rather a good move for you, Moira. Perhaps give you a bit more of a life outside the office. A little more time to yourself.”

“But I don’t want time to myself.”

“Let’s not make a fuss, now. As I said, you’ll be on the same salary, and you’ll be the most senior of the girls in the pool. I’ll make that quite clear to the others. As you said, they need someone capable to take charge of them.”

“But I don’t understand. . . .” She stood up, her knuckles white on the transistor. Panic rose in her chest. “What have I done wrong? Why would you take my job away from me?”

He looked irritated. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Every organization moves people around once in a while. Times are changing, and I want to freshen things up a bit.”

“Freshen things up?”

“Marie is perfectly capable.”

“Marie Driscoll’s going to be doing my job? But she knows nothing of how the office runs. She doesn’t know the Rhodesian wage system, the telephone numbers, or how to book your air tickets. She doesn’t know the filing system. She spends half her time in the ladies’ room doing her makeup. And she’s late! All the time! Why, twice this week I’ve had to reprimand her. Have you seen the figures on the clocking-in cards?” The words tumbled out of her.

“I’m sure she can learn. It’s just a secretarial job, Moira.”

“But—”

“I really don’t have any more time to discuss this. Please move your things out of the drawers this afternoon, and we’ll start afresh with the new setup tomorrow.”

He reached into his cigar box, signaling that the conversation was over. Moira stood up, putting out a hand to steady herself on the edge of his desk. Bile rose in her throat, blood thumped in her ears. The office felt as if it was collapsing on her, brick by brick.

He put the cigar into his mouth, and she heard the sharp snip of the clippers as they sheared off the end.

She walked slowly toward the door and opened it, hearing the sudden hush in the outer office that told her others had known this was taking place before she had been told.

She saw Marie Driscoll’s legs, stretched against her desk. Long, spindly legs in ridiculous colored tights. Who on earth would wear royal blue tights to an office and expect to be taken seriously?

She snatched her handbag from her desk and made her way unsteadily through the office to the ladies’, feeling the stares of the curious and the smirks of the less than sympathetic burning into the back of her blue cardigan.

“Moira! They’re playing your song! ‘Can’t Get Used to Losing You’ . . .”

“Oh, don’t be mean, Sandra.” There was another noisy burst of laughter, and then the cloakroom door was closing behind her.

Jennifer stood in the middle of the bleak little play park, watching the frozen nannies chatting over their Silver Cross prams, hearing the cries of small children who collided and tumbled, like skittles, to the ground.

Mrs. Cordoza had offered to bring Esmé, but Jennifer had told her she needed the air. For forty-eight hours she had not known what to do with herself, her body still sensitized by his touch, her mind reeling with what she had done. She was almost felled by the enormity of what she had lost. She couldn’t anesthetize her way through this with Valium: it had to be endured. Her daughter would be a reminder that she had done the right thing. There had been so much she had wanted to say to him. Even as she told herself she had not set out to seduce him, she knew she was lying. She had wanted one small piece of him, one beautiful, precious memory to carry with her. How could she have known she would be opening Pandora’s box? Worse, how could she have imagined he would be so destroyed by it?

That night at the embassy he had looked so pulled together. He couldn’t have suffered as she had; he couldn’t have felt what she had. He was stronger, she had believed. But now she couldn’t stop thinking about him, his vulnerability, his joyful plans for them. And the way he had looked at her when she had walked across the hotel lobby toward her child.

She heard his voice, anguished and confused, echoing down the corridor behind her:
Don’t do this, Jennifer! I’m not going to wait another four years for you!

Forgive me
, she told him silently, a thousand times a day.
But Laurence would never have let me take her. And you, of all people, couldn’t ask me to leave her. You, more than anyone, should understand.

Periodically she wiped the corners of her eyes, blaming the high wind or yet another piece of grit that had mysteriously found its way into one. She felt emotionally raw, acutely aware of the least change in temperature, buffeted by her shifting emotions.

Laurence is not a bad man, she told herself, repeatedly. He’s a good father, in his way. If he found it hard to be nice to Jennifer, who could blame him? How many men could forgive a wife for falling in love with someone else? Sometimes she had wondered whether, if she hadn’t got pregnant so quickly, he would have tired of her, chosen to cut her loose. But she didn’t believe it: Laurence might not love her anymore, but he wouldn’t contemplate the prospect of her existing somewhere else without him.

And she is my consolation. She pushed her daughter on the swing, watching her legs fly up, the bouncing curls flying in the breeze. This is so much more than many women have. As Anthony had once told her, there was comfort to be had in knowing you had done the right thing.

“Mama!”

Dorothy Moncrieff had lost her hat, and Jennifer was briefly distracted by the search, the two little girls walking with her around the swings, the spinning roundabout, peering under the benches until it was located on the head of some other child.

“It’s wrong to steal,” said Dorothy, solemnly, as they walked back across the play park.

“Yes,” said Jennifer, “but I don’t think the little boy was stealing. He probably didn’t know the hat was yours.”

“If you don’t know what’s right and wrong, you’re probably stupid,” Dorothy announced.

“Stupid,” echoed Esmé, delightedly.

“Well, that’s possible,” Jennifer said. She retied her daughter’s scarf and sent them off again, this time to the sandpit, with instructions that they were absolutely not to throw sand at each other.

Dearest Boot
, she wrote, in another of the thousand imaginary letters she had composed over the past two days,
Please don’t be angry with me. You must know that if there was any way on earth I could go with you, I would do so
. . .

She would send no letter. What was there to say, other than what she had already said? He’ll forgive me in time, she told herself. He’ll have a good life.

She tried to shut her mind to the obvious question: How would she live? How could she carry on, knowing what she now knew? Her eyes had reddened again. She pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed them again, turning away so that she wouldn’t attract attention. Perhaps she would pay a quick visit to her doctor, after all. Just a little help to get her through the next couple of days.

Her attention was drawn to the tweed-coated figure walking across the grass toward the play park. The woman’s feet tramped determinedly forward with a kind of mechanical regularity, despite the muddiness of the grass. She realized, with surprise, that it was her husband’s secretary.