The Last Letter From Your Lover

  She climbed into the bath as she heard the slam of the front door, which announced that Mrs. Cordoza was back from the park, and slid down into the comforting water.

  Laurence had rung to say he would be late again. She sat in the back of the car while Eric, the driver, negotiated the hot, dry streets, finally coming to a halt outside her husband's offices. "Will you be waiting in the car, Mrs. Stirling?"

  "Yes, thank you."

  She watched as the young man walked briskly up the steps and disappeared into the foyer. She no longer cared to go into her husband's offices. She made the odd appearance at functions, and to wish the staff a happy Christmas, when he insisted, but the place made her uncomfortable. His secretary regarded her with a kind of curious disdain, as if Jennifer had wronged her. Perhaps she had. It was often hard to tell what she had done wrong, these days.

  The door opened and Laurence walked out, followed by the driver, in his dark gray tweed. No matter that the temperature was in the low seventies, Laurence Stirling would wear what he considered appropriate. He found the new trends in men's clothing incomprehensible.

  "Ah. You're here." He slid into the backseat beside her, bringing with him a burst of warm air.

  "Yes."

  "Everything all right at home?"

  "Everything is fine."

  "Did the boy call to wash the steps?"

  "Just after you left."

  "I wanted to be away by six--bloody transatlantic calls. They always come in later than they say they will."

  She nodded. She knew she wasn't required to answer.

  They pulled out into the evening traffic. Across Marylebone Road, she could picture the green mirage of Regent's Park, and watched girls walking toward it in lazy, laughing groups on the shimmering pavements, pausing to exclaim to each other. Just lately she had started to feel old, matronly, faced with these girdle-free dolly birds in their short, blunt skirts and bold makeup. They seemed not to care what anyone thought of them. There were probably only ten years between them and herself, Jennifer thought, but she might as well be from her own mother's generation.

  "Oh. You wore that dress." His voice was loaded with disapproval.

  "I hadn't realized you disliked it."

  "I don't have any feelings about it one way or another. I just thought you might want to wear something that made you look less . . . bony."

  It never ended. Even though she'd thought she'd covered her heart with a permanent porcelain shell, he still found a way to chip at it.

  She swallowed. "Bony. Thank you. I don't suppose there's a lot I can do about it now."

  "Don't make a fuss. But you could think a little more carefully about how you present yourself." He turned to her briefly. "And you might want to use some more of whatever you put on your face here." He pointed under his eyes. "You look rather tired." He leaned back in his seat and lit a cigar. "Right, Eric. Crack on--I want to be there by seven."

  With an obedient purr, the car surged forward. Jennifer stared out at the busy streets, and said nothing.

  Gracious. Even-tempered. Calm. These were the words her friends, Laurence's friends, and his business associates used to describe her. Mrs. Stirling, a paragon of female virtue, always perfectly put together, never prone to the excitement and shrill hysterics of other, lesser wives. Occasionally, if this was said in his earshot, Laurence would say, "Perfect wife? If only they knew, eh, darling?" The men in his presence would laugh obligingly, and she would smile, too. It was often those evenings that ended badly. Occasionally, when she caught the fleeting glances that traveled between Yvonne and Francis at one of Laurence's sharper comments, or Bill's blush, she suspected that their relationship might indeed have been the subject of private speculation. But no one pressed her. A man's domestic life was private, after all. They were good friends, far too good to intrude.

  "And here is the lovely Mrs. Stirling. Don't you look gorgeous?" The South African attache took her hands in his and kissed her cheeks.

  "Not too bony?" she asked innocently.

  "What?"

  "Nothing." She smiled. "You look terribly well, Sebastian. Getting married has evidently been good for you."

  Laurence clapped the younger man on the back. "Despite all my warnings, eh?"

  The two men laughed, and Sebastian Thorne, who still carried the glow of the genuinely well matched, beamed proudly. "Pauline's over there, if you'd like to say hello, Jennifer. I know she's looking forward to seeing you."

  "I'll do that," she said, filled with gratitude for such an early exit. "Do excuse me."

  Four years had gone by since the accident. Four years in which Jennifer had struggled with grief, guilt, the loss of a love affair she could only half recall, and had made flailing attempts to salvage the one she belonged in.

  On the few occasions when she had let her thoughts drift that way, she decided that a kind of madness must have overcome her after she had first found those letters. She remembered her manic efforts to uncover Boot's identity, her misidentification and reckless pursuit of Reggie, and felt almost as if those events had happened to someone else. She couldn't imagine feeling passion like that now. She couldn't imagine that intensity of wanting. For a long time, she had been penitent. She had betrayed Laurence, and her only hope was to make it up to him. It was the least he might expect from her. She had bent herself to the task, tried to banish thoughts of anyone else. The letters, those that remained, had finally been consigned to a shoebox.

  She wished she had known then that Laurence's anger would be such a corrosive and enduring thing. She had asked for understanding, for another chance, and he had taken an almost perverse pleasure in reminding her of all the ways in which she had offended him. He never liked to mention her betrayal explicitly--that, after all, implied a loss of control on his part, and she understood now that Laurence liked to be seen to be in control of all parts of his life--but he let her know, daily and in myriad ways, of her failures. The way she dressed. The way she ran their home. Her inability to make him happy. She suspected, some days, that she would pay for the rest of her life.

  For the past year or so, he had been less volatile. She suspected he had taken a mistress. This knowledge didn't trouble her; in fact, she was relieved. His demands on her had lessened, were less punishing. His verbal digs seemed almost cursory, like a habit he couldn't be bothered to break.

  The pills helped, as Dr. Hargreaves had said they would. If they left her feeling oddly flat, she thought it was probably a price worth paying. Yes, as Laurence often pointed out, she could be dull. Yes, she might no longer sparkle at the dinner table, but the pills meant that she no longer cried at inappropriate moments or struggled to get out of bed. She no longer feared his moods, and cared less when he came to her at night. Most importantly, she was no longer eviscerated by pain over all that she had lost or for which she had been responsible.

  No. Jennifer Stirling moved in a stately fashion through her days, her hair and makeup perfect, a lovely smile across her face. Gracious, even-tempered Jennifer, who gave the finest dinner parties, kept a beautiful home, knew all the best people. The perfect wife for a man of his standing.

  And there were compensations. She had been allowed that.

  "I do absolutely love having our own place. Didn't you feel like that when you and Mr. Stirling first married?"

  "I can't remember so far back." She glanced at Laurence, talking to Sebastian, one hand raised to his mouth as he puffed on the ever-present cigar. Fans whirred lazily overhead, and the women stood in jeweled clusters beneath them, occasionally patting their necks with fine lawn handkerchiefs.

  Pauline Thorne pulled out a small wallet that contained photographs of their new house. "We've gone for modern furniture. Sebastian said I could do whatever I wanted."

  Jennifer thought of her own house, its heavy mahogany, the portentous decor. She admired the clean white chairs in the snapshots, so smooth they might have been eggshells, the brightly colored rugs, the modern art on the walls. La
urence believed his house should be a reflection of himself. He saw it as grand, filled with a sense of history. Looking at these photographs, Jennifer realized she saw it as pompous, unmoving. Stifling. She reminded herself not to be unkind. Many people would love to live in a house like hers.

  "It's going to feature in Your House next month. Seb's mother absolutely hates it. She says every time she sets foot in our living room, she thinks she's going to be abducted by aliens." The girl laughed, and Jennifer smiled. "When I said I might convert one of the bedrooms to a nursery, she said that judging by the rest of the decor, I'd probably drop a baby out of a plastic egg."

  "Are you hoping for children?"

  "Not yet. Not for ages . . ." She laid a hand on Jennifer's arm. "I hope you don't mind me telling you, but we're only just off our honeymoon. My mother gave me The Talk before I left. You know--how I must submit to Seb, how it might be 'a bit unpleasant.' "

  Jennifer blinked.

  "She really thought I'd be traumatized. But it isn't like that at all, is it?"

  Jennifer took a sip of her drink.

  "Oh, am I being terribly indiscreet?"

  "Not at all," she said politely. She suspected her face might have taken on a terrifying blankness.

  "Would you like another drink, Pauline?" she said, when she could speak again. "I do believe my glass is empty."

  She sat in the ladies' and opened her handbag. She unscrewed the little brown bottle and took another Valium. Just one, and perhaps one drink more. She sat on the lavatory seat, waiting for her heartbeat to return to normal, and opened her compact to powder a nose that needed no powder.

  Pauline had seemed almost hurt when she'd walked off, as if her confidences had been rebuffed. The younger woman was girlish, excited, delighted to have been allowed into this new adult world.

  Had she ever felt like that about Laurence? she wondered dully. Sometimes she passed their wedding picture in the hallway, and it was like looking at strangers. Most of the time she tried to ignore it. If she was in the wrong frame of mind, as Laurence said she often was, she wanted to shout at that trusting, wide-eyed girl, tell her not to marry at all. Plenty of women didn't now. They had careers and money of their own, and didn't feel obliged to watch everything they said or did in case it offended the one man whose opinion apparently mattered.

  She tried not to imagine Pauline Thorne in ten years' time when Sebastian's words of adoration would have been long forgotten, when the demands of work, children, worries about money, or the sheer tedium of day-to-day routine would have caused her glow to fade. She mustn't be sour. Let the girl have her day. Her story might turn out differently.

  She took a deep breath and reapplied her lipstick.

  When she returned to the party, Laurence had moved to a new group. She stood in the doorway, watching him stoop to greet a young woman she didn't recognize. He was listening attentively to what she said, nodding. She spoke again, and all the men laughed. Laurence put his mouth to her ear and murmured something, and the woman nodded, smiling. She would think him utterly charming, Jennifer thought.

  It was a quarter to ten. She would have liked to leave, but knew better than to press her husband. They would go when he was ready.

  The waiter was on his way over to her. He proffered a silver tray, loaded with glasses of champagne. "Madam?" Home seemed suddenly an impossible distance away. "Thank you," she said, and took one.

  It was then that she saw him, half hidden by some potted palms. She watched almost absently at first, some distant part of her mind observing that she had once known someone whose hair met his collar just like that man's did. There had been a time--perhaps a year ago or more--when she had seen him everywhere, a phantom, his torso, his hair, his laugh transplanted onto other men.

  His companion guffawed, shaking his head as if pleading with him not to continue. They lifted their glasses to each other. And then he turned.

  Jennifer's heart stopped. The room stilled, then tilted. She didn't feel the glass drop from her fingers, was only dimly aware of the crash that echoed through the vast atrium, a brief lull in the conversation, the brisk footsteps of a waiter hurrying toward her to clear it up. She heard Laurence, a short distance away, say something dismissively. She was rooted to the spot, until the waiter placed a hand on her arm, telling her, "Step back, madam, please step back."

  The room refilled with conversation. The music continued. And as she stared, the man with the dark hair looked back at her.

  Chapter 13

  SEPTEMBER 1964

  "I don't know. I thought you were done with that part of the world. Why would you want to head back there?"

  "It's a big story, and I'm the best person for the job."

  "You're doing good stuff at the UN. Upstairs is happy."

  "But the real story is back in Congo, Don, you know that."

  Despite the seismic changes that had taken place, despite his promotion from news to executive editor, Don Franklin's office and the man himself had changed little since Anthony O'Hare had left England. Every year Anthony had returned to visit his son and show his face in the newsroom, and every year the windows were a little more nicotine stained, the mammoth piles of press cuttings teetering a little more chaotically. "I like it like that," Don would say, if asked. "Why the hell would I want a clear view of that sorry shower anyway?"

  But Don's scruffy, paper-strewn office was an anomaly. The Nation was changing. Its pages were bolder and brighter, speaking to a younger audience. There were features sections, filled with makeup tips and discussions on the latest musical trends, letters about contraception, and gossip columns detailing people's extramarital affairs. In the newspaper offices, among the men with rolled-up shirtsleeves, girls in short skirts staffed the photocopier and stood in huddles along corridors. They would break off their conversations to eye him speculatively as he passed. London girls had become bolder. He was rarely alone on visits to the city.

  "You know as well as I do. No one here has the Africa experience I do. And it's not just the U.S. consulate staff that are being taken hostage now, it's whites everywhere. There are terrible tales coming out of the country--the Simba leaders don't care what the rebels are doing. Come on, Don. Are you telling me Phipps is the better man for the job? MacDonald?"

  "I don't know, Tony."

  "Believe me, the Americans don't like their missionary, Carlson, being paraded around like a bargaining chip." He leaned forward. "There's talk of a rescue operation.... The name being bandied about is Dragon Rouge."

  "Tony, I don't know that the editor wants anyone out there right now. These rebels are lunatics."

  "Who has better contacts than I do? Who knows more about Congo, more about the UN? I've done four years in that rabbit warren, Don, four bloody years. You need me out there. I need to be out there." He could see Don's resolve wavering. The authority of Anthony's years outside the newsroom, his polished appearance, added weight to his claims. For four years he had faithfully reported the political to-and-fros of the labyrinthine United Nations.

  During the first year he had given little thought to anything except getting up in the morning and making sure he could do his job. But since then he had struggled with the familiar nagging conviction that the real story, his life, even, was taking place somewhere far from where he was. Now Congo, teetering on the brink since Lumumba's assassination, was threatening to implode, and its siren call, once a distant hum, was insistent.

  "It's a different game out there now," Don said. "I don't like it. I'm not sure we should have anyone in the country until it settles down a bit."

  But Don knew as well as Anthony did that this was the curse of reporting conflict: it gave you clear-cut rights and wrongs; the adrenaline surged, and you were filled with humor, desperation, and camaraderie. It might well burn you out, but anyone who had been there found it hard to relish the mundane slog of "normal" life at home.

  Every morning Anthony made calls, searched the newspapers for the few lines that ha
d made it out, interpreting what was happening. It was going to go big: he could feel it in his bones. He needed to be there, tasting it, bringing it back on paper. For four years he had been half dead. He needed it around him to feel alive again.

  Anthony leaned over the desk. "Look, Philmore told me the editor asked specifically for me. You want to disappoint him?"

  Don lit another cigarette. "Of course not. But he wasn't here when you were . . ." He tapped the cigarette on the edge of the overflowing ashtray.

  "That's it? You're afraid I'm going to crack up again?"

  Don's embarrassed chuckle told him everything he needed to know. "I haven't had a drink in years. I've kept my nose clean. I'll get inoculated against yellow fever, if that's what you're worried about."

  "I'm just thinking about you, Tony. It's risky. Look. What about your son?"

  "He's not a factor." One visit, two letters a year, if he was lucky. Clarissa was only thinking of Phillip, of course: it was better for him not to have the disruption of too much face-to-face contact. "Let me go for three months. It'll be over by the end of the year. They're all saying as much."

  "I don't know . . ."

  "Have I ever missed a deadline? Haven't I pulled in some good stories? For Christ's sake, Don, you need me out there. The paper needs me out there. It's got to be someone who knows their way around. Someone with contacts. Picture it." He ran his hand along an imaginary headline. "'Our man in Congo as the white hostages are rescued.' Look, do this for me, Don, and then we'll talk."

  "You've still got itchy feet, eh?"

  "I know where I should be."

  Don blew out his cheeks, like a human hamster, then exhaled noisily. "Okay. I'll talk to Him Upstairs. I can't promise anything--but I'll talk to him."

  "Thank you." Anthony got up to leave.

  "Tony."

  "What?"

  "You look good."

  "Thanks."

  "I mean it. Fancy a drink tonight? You, me, and some of the old crowd? Miller's in town. We could grab a few beers--iced water, Coca-Cola, whatever."

  "I said I'd go to some do with Douglas Gardiner."

  "Oh?"

  "At the South African embassy. Got to keep up the contacts."