The Last Letter From Your Lover (8 page)

He was drunk, but there was something else in his expression, some bitterness she could not account for.

“I’m sorry, darling. I didn’t mean to give you that impression.” She pushed herself up onto her elbows. “I’m just tired, I suppose.” She reached out a hand to him.

“Ah. Tired.”

They sat up beside each other. He ran a hand through his hair, disappointment oozing from him. She was overwhelmed with guilt, and also, to her shame, relief. When the silence became unbearable, she took his hand. “Laurence . . . do you think I’m all right?”

“All right? What’s that supposed to mean?”

She felt a lump rise in the back of her throat. He was her husband: surely she should be able to confide in him. She thought briefly of Yvonne draped over Francis, the constant looks that passed between them and spoke of a hundred other conversations to which no one else was party. She thought of Dominic and Anne, laughing their way into their taxi. “Laurence . . .”

“Larry!” he exploded. “You call me Larry. I don’t see why you can’t remember that.”

Her hands flew to her face. “Larry, I’m sorry. It’s just I . . . I still feel so strange.”

“Strange?”

She winced. “As if something’s missing. I feel as if there’s some puzzle to which I don’t hold all the pieces. Does that sound terribly silly?”
Please reassure me,
she begged him silently. Put your arms around me. Tell me I am being silly, that it will all come back to me. Tell me that Hargreaves was right, and this awful feeling will go. Love me a little. Keep me close, until I can feel like it is the right thing for you to do. Just understand me.

But when she looked up, his eyes were on his shoes, which lay a few feet away from him on the carpet. His silence, she grasped gradually, was not a questioning one. It didn’t speak of things that he was trying to work out. His terrible stillness spoke of something darker: barely suppressed anger.

His voice was quiet and icily deliberate when he said, “What do you think is missing from your life, Jennifer?”

“Nothing,” she said hurriedly. “Nothing at all. I’m perfectly happy. I—” She got up and made for the bathroom. “It’s nothing. As Dr. Hargreaves said, it will soon pass. I’ll soon be completely myself again.”

When she woke, he had already gone, and Mrs. Cordoza was knocking softly on her door. She opened her eyes, feeling an ominous ache as she moved her head.

“Madam? Would you like me to bring you a cup of coffee?”

“That would be very kind. Thank you,” she croaked.

She pushed herself up slowly, squinting into the bright light. It was a quarter to ten. Outside, she could hear a car engine, the dull scrape of someone clearing snow from the pavement, and sparrows squabbling in the trees. The clothes that had been strewn across the bedroom the previous evening had somehow been tidied away. She lay flat against the pillows, letting the night’s events pierce her consciousness.

He had turned away from her when she had returned to the bed, his broad, strong back an unbridgeable barrier. She had felt relief, but something more perplexing, too. Now a melancholic weariness stole over her. I’ll have to do better, she thought. I’ll stop talking about my feelings. I’ll be nicer to him. I’ll be generous. I hurt him last night, and that was what did it.

Do try not to dwell on matters.

Mrs. Cordoza knocked. She had brought up coffee and two thin slices of toast on a tray. “I thought you might be hungry.”

“Oh, you’re kind. I’m sorry. I should have been up hours ago.”

“I’ll put it here.” She laid it carefully on the bedspread, then picked up the coffee cup and placed it on Jennifer’s bedside table.

“I’ll stay downstairs for now so that I don’t disturb you.” She glanced briefly at Jennifer’s bare arm, the scar vivid in the bright light, and averted her gaze.

She left the room as Jennifer caught sight of the book, the romantic novel she had meant to read or give away. She would have her coffee first, she thought, and take it downstairs afterward. It would be good to restore things between herself and Mrs. Cordoza after their odd exchange the previous evening.

Jennifer sipped her coffee and picked up the paperback, flicking through its pages. This morning she could barely see straight enough to read. A sheet of paper dropped out of it. Jennifer laid the book on the bedside table and picked it up. She unfolded it slowly and began to read.

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 are not 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.

And me? I knew in the moment you looked up at me that if we did this I would be lost. I would not be able to put you aside, as I had with the others. I would not be able to nod agreeably to Laurence as we passed each other in some restaurant. I would never be satisfied with just a part of you. I had been fooling myself to think otherwise. It was for that reason, darling girl, that I redid that wretched button at your neck. And for that reason I have lain awake for the last two nights, hating myself for the one decent thing I have ever done.

Forgive me.

B.

Jennifer sat in her bed, staring at the one word that had leapt out at her.
Laurence
.

Laurence.

Which could mean only one thing.

The letter was addressed to her.

Chapter 5

AUGUST 1960

Anthony O’Hare woke up in Brazzaville. He stared at the fan that rotated lazily above his head, dimly aware of the sunlight slicing through the shutters, and wondered, briefly, if this time he was going to die. His head was trapped in a vise, and arrows shot from temple to temple. His kidneys felt as if someone had hammered them enthusiastically for much of the previous night. The inside of his mouth was dry and foul tasting, and he was faintly nauseated. A vague sense of panic assailed him. Had he been shot? Beaten in a riot? He closed his eyes, waiting for the sounds of the street outside, the food vendors, the ever-present buzz of the wireless as people gathered, sitting on their haunches, trying to hear where the next outbreak of trouble would be. Not a bullet. It was yellow fever. This time it would surely finish him off. But even as the thought formed, he realized there were no Congolese sounds: no yelling from an open window, no bar music, no smells of
kwanga
cooking in banana leaves. No gunshots. No shouting in Lingala or Swahili. Silence. The distant sound of seagulls.

Not Congo. France. He was in France.

He felt a fleeting gratitude, until the pain became distinct. The consultant had warned him it would feel worse if he drank again, he observed with some distant, still analytical part of his mind. Dr. Robertson would be gratified to know just how accurate his prediction had been.

When he became confident that he could do so without disgracing himself, he shifted to an upright position. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and walked tentatively to the window, conscious of the smell of stale sweat and the empty bottles on the table that told of the long night behind him. He drew back the curtain a fraction of an inch and could see the glittering bay below, bathed in a pale gold light. The red roofs on the hillsides were of terra-cotta tiles, not the painted rust of the Congolese bungalows, their inhabitants healthy, happy people milling on the seafront, chatting, walking, running. White people. Wealthy people.

He squinted. This scene was blameless, idyllic. He let the curtain fall, stumbled to the bathroom, and threw up, cradling the lavatory, spitting and miserable. When he could stand again, he climbed unsteadily into the shower and slumped against the wall, letting the warm water wash over him for twenty minutes, wishing it could clean away what ran through him.

Come on, get a grip
.

He dressed, rang down for some coffee, and, feeling a little steadier, sat at the desk. It was almost a quarter to eleven. He needed to send his copy through, the profile he had worked on the previous afternoon. He gazed at his scrawled notes, recalling the end of the evening. The memory came back to him haltingly: Mariette, her face raised to him outside this hotel, demanding to be kissed. His determined refusal, even as he still muttered about what a fool he was: the girl was desirable and had been his for the taking. But he wanted to feel the tiniest bit glad about one thing he’d done that evening.

Oh, Christ. Jennifer Stirling, brittle and wounded, holding his jacket toward him. She had overheard him ranting mindlessly, ungraciously, about them all. What had he said about her?
Spoiled little tai-tai . . . not an original thought in her head
. He closed his eyes. War zones, he thought, were easier. Safer. In war zones you could always tell who the enemy was.

The coffee arrived. He took a deep breath, then poured a cupful. He lifted the telephone receiver and asked the operator wearily to put him through to London.

Mrs. Stirling,

I am an ungracious pig. I’d like to be able to blame exhaustion, or some uncharacteristic reaction to shellfish, but I’m afraid it was a combination of alcohol, which I shouldn’t take, and the choleric temper of the socially inept. There is little you could say about me that I have not already deduced about myself in my more sober hours.

Please allow me to apologize. If I could buy you and Mr. Stirling lunch before I return to London I’d be very glad to make it up to you.

Yours shamefacedly,

Anthony O’Hare

P.S. I enclose a copy of the report I sent to London to assure you that I have, at least, behaved honorably in that regard.

Anthony folded the letter into an envelope, sealed it, and turned it over. It was possible he was still a little drunk: he couldn’t remember ever having been so honest in a letter.

It was at that point that he remembered he had no address to which he could send it. He swore softly at his own stupidity. The previous evening Stirling’s driver had collected him, and he could remember little of the journey home, aside from its various humiliations.

The hotel’s reception desk offered little help.
Stirling?
The concierge shook his head.

“You know him? Rich man. Important,” he said. His mouth still tasted powdery.

“Monsieur,” the concierge said wearily, “everyone here is rich and important.”

The afternoon was balmy, the air white, almost phosphoric under the clear sky. He began to walk, retraced the route that the car had taken the previous evening. It had been a drive of less than ten minutes: How hard could it be to find the house again? He would drop the letter at the door and leave. He refused to think about what he would do when he returned to town: since that morning his body, reminded of its long relationship with alcohol, had begun a low, perverse hum of desire.
Beer
, it urged.
Wine. Whiskey
. His kidneys ached, and he still trembled a little. The walk, he told himself, nodding in greeting at two smiling, sun-hatted women, would do him good.

The sky above Antibes was a searing blue, the beaches dotted with holidaymakers basting themselves on the white sand. He remembered turning left at this roundabout and saw that the road, dotted with claytiled villas, led him into the hills. This was the way he had come. The sun was beating hard on the back of his neck and straight through his hat. He removed his jacket, slinging it over his shoulder as he walked.

It was in the hills behind the town that things began to go wrong. He had turned left at a church that had looked vaguely familiar and begun to make his way up the side of a hill. The pine and palm trees thinned, then disappeared altogether, leaving him unprotected by shade, the heat bouncing off the pale rocks and tarmac. He felt his exposed skin tighten, and knew that by evening it would be burned and sore.

Occasionally a car would pass, sending sprays of flint over the growing precipice. It had seemed such a brief journey the previous evening, speeded by the scent of the wild herbs, the cool breezes of dusk. Now the milestones stretched before him, and his confidence ebbed as he was forced to contemplate the possibility that he was lost.

Don Franklin would love this, he thought, pausing to wipe his head with his handkerchief. Anthony could make his way from one end of Africa to the other, fight his way across borders, yet here he was, lost in what should have been a ten-minute journey across a millionaires’ playground. He stepped back to let another car pass, then squinted into the light as, with a low squeal of brakes, it stopped. With a whine, it reversed toward him.

Yvonne Moncrieff, sunglasses tilted back on her head, leaned out of a Daimler SP250. “Are you mad?” she said cheerfully. “You’ll fry up here.”

He peered across and saw Jennifer Stirling at the wheel. She gazed at him from behind oversize dark sunglasses, her hair tied back, her expression unreadable.

“Good afternoon,” he said, removing his hat. He was suddenly conscious of the sweat seeping through his crumpled shirt and his face shining with it.

“What on earth are you doing so far out of town, Mr. O’Hare?” Jennifer asked. “Chasing some hot story?”

He took his linen jacket from his shoulder, reached into his pocket, and thrust the letter toward her. “I—I wanted to give you this.”

“What is it?”

“An apology.”

“An apology?”

“For my ungraciousness last night.”

She made no move to stretch across her friend and take it.

“Jennifer, shall I?” Yvonne Moncrieff glanced at her, apparently perturbed.

“No. Can you read it out loud, Mr. O’Hare?” she said.

“Jennifer!”

“If Mr. O’Hare has written it, I’m sure he’s perfectly capable of saying it.” Behind the glasses her face was impassive.

He stood there for a moment, looked behind him at the empty road and down at the sunbaked village below. “I’d really rather—”

“Then it’s not much of an apology, is it, Mr. O’Hare?” she said sweetly. “Anyone can scribble a few words.”

Yvonne Moncrieff was looking at her hands, shaking her head. Jennifer’s blank sunglasses were still focused on him, his silhouette visible in their dark lenses.

He opened the envelope, pulled out the sheet of paper, and after a moment read the contents to her, his voice unnaturally loud on the mountain. He finished and tucked it back into his pocket. He felt oddly embarrassed in the silence, broken only by the quiet hum of the engine.

“My husband,” Jennifer said eventually, “has gone to Africa. He left this morning.”

“Then I’d be delighted if you’d let me buy you and Mrs. Moncrieff lunch.” He looked at his watch.

“Obviously rather a late lunch now.”

“Not me, darling. Francis wants me to look at a yacht this afternoon. I’ve told him a man can but dream.”

“We’ll give you a lift back to town, Mr. O’Hare,” Jennifer said, nodding toward the tiny rear seat. “I don’t want to be responsible for the
Nation
’s most honorable correspondent getting sunstroke, as well as alcohol poisoning.”

She waited while Yvonne climbed out and tilted the seat forward for Anthony to climb in, then rummaged in the glove compartment. “Here,” she said, throwing a handkerchief at him. “And you do know you were walking in completely the wrong direction? We live over there.” She pointed toward a distant, tree-lined hill. Her mouth twitched at the corners, just enough for him to think he might be forgiven, and the two women burst into laughter. Deeply relieved, Anthony O’Hare rammed his hat onto his head, and they were off, speeding down the narrow road back toward the town.

The car became stuck in traffic almost as soon as they had dropped Yvonne at Hôtel St. Georges. “Behave yourselves now,” the older woman had said as she waved them good-bye. She spoke, he noted, with the cheerful insouciance of one who knows the alternative to be out of the question.

Once it was just the two of them, the mood had altered. Jennifer Stirling had grown silent, seemingly preoccupied by the road ahead in a way that she hadn’t been twenty minutes earlier. He glanced surreptitiously at her lightly tanned arms, her profile, as she gazed ahead at the long line of taillights. He wondered, briefly, if she was angrier with him than she had been prepared to let on.

“So how long will your husband be in Africa?” he said, to break the silence.

“A week probably. He rarely stays longer.” She peered over the side of her door briefly, apparently to gauge what was causing the holdup.

“Quite a journey for such a short stay.”

“You’d know, Mr. O’Hare.”

“Me?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You know everything about Africa. You said so last night.”

“ ‘Everything’?”

“You knew that most of the men who do business out there are crooks.”

“I said that?”

“To M. Lafayette.”

Anthony sank a little lower in his seat. “Mrs. Stirling—,” he began.

“Oh, don’t worry. Laurence didn’t hear you. Francis did, but he only does a little business out there, so he didn’t take it too personally.”

The cars began to move.

“Let me buy you lunch,” he said. “Please. I’d like the chance to show you, even if only for half an hour, that I’m not a complete ass.”

“You think you can change my mind so swiftly?” That smile again.

“I’m game if you are. You show me where we should go.”