The Last Letter From Your Lover, Page 22

  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.

  Moira Parker walked right up to her and stood so close that Jennifer had to take a step backward. "Miss Parker?"

  Her lips were tightly compressed, her eyes bright with purpose. "Your housekeeper told me where you were. May I have a quick word?"

  "Um . . . yes. Of course." She turned briefly. "Darlings? Dottie? Esme? I'll just be over here."

  The children looked up, then resumed digging.

  They walked a few paces, Jennifer positioning herself so that she could see the little girls. She had promised the Moncrieffs' nanny she would have Dorothy home by four, and it was nearly a quarter to. She pasted on a smile. "What is it, Miss Parker?"

  Moira reached into a battered handbag and wrenched out a fat folder.

  "This is for you," she said brusquely.

  Jennifer took it from her. She opened it, and immediately placed her hand on top of the papers as the wind threatened to whip them away.

  "Don't lose any of them." It was an instruction.

  "I'm sorry . . . I don't understand. What are these?"

  "They are the people he has paid off."

  When Jennifer looked blank, Moira continued, "Mesothelioma. Lung disease. They are workers he paid off because he wanted to hide the fact that working for him has given them terminal illnesses."

  Jennifer lifted a hand to her head. "What?"

  "Your husband. The ones who have already died are at the bottom. Their families had to sign legal waivers that stopped them saying anything in order to get the money."

  Jennifer struggled to keep up with what the woman was saying. "Died? Waivers?"

  "He got them to say he wasn't responsible. He paid them all off. The South Africans got hardly anything. The factory workers here were more expensive."

  "But asbestos doesn't hurt anyone. It's just troublemakers in New York who are trying to blame him. Laurence told me."

  Moira didn't seem to be listening. She ran her hand down a list on the top sheet. "They're all in alphabetical order. You can speak to the families, if you want. Most of their addresses are at the top. He's terrified that the newspapers will get hold of it all."

  "It's just the unions . . . He told me . . ."

  "Other companies are having the same problem. I listened in on a couple of telephone conversations he had with Goodasbest in America. They're funding research that makes asbestos look harmless."

  The woman was speaking so fast that Jennifer's head reeled. She glanced at the two children, now throwing handfuls of sand at each other.

  Moira Parker said pointedly: "You do realize it would ruin him if anyone found out what he'd done. It'll come out eventually, you know. It'll have to. Everything does."

  Jennifer held the folder gingerly, as if it, too, might be contaminated. "Why are you giving this to me? Why on earth do you think I'd want to do anything that might harm my husband?"

  Moira Parker's expression changed and became almost guilty. Her lips had pursed into a thin red line. "Because of this." She pulled out a creased piece of paper and thrust it into Jennifer's hand. "It came a few weeks after your accident. All those years ago. He doesn't know I kept it."

  Jennifer unfolded it, the wind whipping it against her fingers. She knew the handwriting.

  I swore I wouldn't contact you again. But six weeks on, and I feel no better. Being without you--thousands of miles from you--offers no relief at all. The fact that I am no longer tormented by your presence, or presented with daily evidence of my inability to have the one thing I truly desire, has not healed me. It has made things worse. My future feels like a bleak, empty road.

  I don't know what I'm trying to say, darling Jenny. Just that if you have any sense at all that you made the wrong decision, this door is still wide open.

  And if you feel that your decision was the right one, know this at least: that somewhere in this world is a man who loves you, who understands how precious and clever and kind you are. A man who has always loved you and, to his detriment, suspects he always will.

  Your

  B.

  Jennifer stared at the letter as the blood drained from her face. She glanced at the date. Almost four years ago. Just after the accident. "Did you say Laurence had this?"

  Moira Parker looked at the ground. "He made me shut down the post-office box."

  "He knew Anthony was still alive?" She was shaking.

  "I don't know about any of that." Moira Parker hoisted up her collar. She managed to look disapproving.

  A cold stone had settled inside Jennifer. She felt the rest of herself harden around it.

  Moira Parker clipped her handbag shut. "Anyway, do what you want with it all. He can go hang for all I care."

  She was still muttering to herself as she began to walk back across the park. Jennifer sank onto a bench, ignoring the two children, who were now joyfully rubbing sand into each other's hair. She read the letter again.

  She took Dorothy Moncrieff home to her nanny, and asked Mrs. Cordoza if she would walk Esme to the sweet shop. "Buy her a lollipop, and perhaps a quarter of a pound of boiled sweets." She stood at the window to watch them go down the road, her daughter's every step a little bounce of anticipation. As they turned the corner, she opened the door to Laurence's study, a room she rarely entered, and from which Esme was banned, lest her inquisitive little fingers presume to displace one of its many valuable items.

  Afterward she was not sure why she had even gone in there. She had always hated it: the gloomy mahogany shelves, full of books he had never read, the lingering smell of cigar smoke, the trophies and certificates for achievements she could not recognize as such--"Round Table Businessman of the Year," "Best Shot, Cowbridge Deer Stalk 1959," "Golfing Trophy 1962." He rarely used it: it was an affectation, a place he promised his male guests where they might "escape" the women, a refuge in which he professed to find peace.

  Two comfortable armchairs stood on each side of the fireplace, their seats barely dented. In eight years a fire had never been lit in the grate. On the sideboard the cut-glass tumblers had never been filled with fine whiskey from the decanter that stood beside them. The walls were lined with photographs of Laurence shaking hands with fellow businessmen, visiting dignitaries, the South African trade minister, the duke of Edinburgh. It was a place for other people to see, yet another reason for the men to admire him. Laurence Stirling, lucky bugger.

  Jennifer stood in the doorway beside the caddy of expensive golf clubs, the shooting stick in the corner. A knot, tight and hard, had formed in her chest, just at the point of her windpipe where air was meant to expand her lungs. She realized she could not breathe. She picked up a golf club and walked into the center of the room. A small sound escaped her, like the gasp of someone ending a long race. She lifted the club above her head, as if to imitate a perfect swing, and let it go so that the full force met the decanter. Glass splintered across the room, and then she swung again, at the walls, the photographs shattering in their frames, the dented trophies knocked from their stands. She swung at the leather-bound books, the heavy glass ashtrays. She hit fiercely, methodically, her slim frame fueled by an anger that even now continued to build in her.

  She beat the books from their cases, sent the frames flying from the mantelpiece. She brought the club down like an ax, splintering the heavy Georgian desk, then sent it whistling sideways. She swung until her arms ached and her whole body was beaded with sweat, her breath coming in short, sharp bursts. Finally, when there was nothing left to break, she stood in the center of the room, her shoes crunching on broken glass, wiping a sweaty frond of hair off her forehead as she surveyed what she had done. Lovely Mrs. Stirling, sweet-tempered Mrs. Stirling. Even, calm, tamped down. Her fire extinguished.

  Jennifer Stirling drop
ped the bent club at her feet. Then she wiped her hands on her skirt, picked out a small shard of glass, which she dropped neatly on the floor, and left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Mrs. Cordoza was sitting in the kitchen with Esme when Jennifer announced that they were going out again. "Does the child not want her tea? She'll be hungry."

  "I don't want to go out," Esme chimed in.

  "We won't be long, darling," she said coolly. "Mrs. Cordoza, you can take the rest of the day off."

  "But I--"

  "Really. It's for the best."

  She scooped up her daughter, the suitcase she had just packed, the sweets in the brown-paper bag, ignoring the housekeeper's perplexity. Then she was outside, down the steps and hailing a taxi.

  She saw him even as she opened the double doors, standing outside his office, talking to a young woman at his desk. She heard a greeting, heard her own measured response, and was dimly surprised that she could be responsible for such a normal exchange.

  "Hasn't she grown!"

  Jennifer looked down at her daughter, who was stroking her string of pearls, then at the woman who had spoken. "Sandra, isn't it?" she said.

  "Yes, Mrs. Stirling."

  "Would you mind terribly letting Esme have a little play on your typewriter while I nip in to see my husband?"

  Esme was delighted to be let loose on the keyboard, cooed and fussed over by the women who immediately surrounded her, delighted by a legitimate diversion from work. Then Jennifer pushed her hair off her face and went to his office. She walked into the secretary's area, where he was standing.

  "Jennifer." He raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't expecting you."

  "A word?" she said.

  "I have to go out at five."

  "It won't take long."

  He shepherded her into his own office, closing the door behind him, and motioned her toward the chair. He seemed mildly irritated when she declined to sit and sank heavily into his own leather chair.

  "Well?"

  "What did I do to make you hate me so much?"

  "What?"

  "I know about the letter."

  "What letter?"

  "The one you intercepted at the post office four years ago."

  "Oh, that," he said dismissively. He wore the expression of someone who had been reminded that he had forgotten to pick up some item from the grocer.

  "You knew, and you let me think he was dead. You let me think I was responsible."

  "I thought he probably was. And this is all history. I can't see the point of dragging it up again." He leaned forward and pulled a cigar from the silver box on his desk.

  She thought briefly of the dented one in his study, shimmering with broken glass. "The point is, Laurence, that you've punished me day after day, let me punish myself. What did I ever do to you to deserve that?"

  He threw a match into the ashtray. "You know very well what you did."

  "You let me think I'd killed him."

  "What you thought has nothing to do with me. Anyway, as I said, it's history. I really don't see why--"

  "It's not history. Because he's back."

  That got his attention. She had a faint inkling that the secretary might be listening outside the door, so she kept her voice low. "That's right. And I'm leaving to be with him--Esme, too, of course."

  "Don't be ridiculous."

  "I mean it."

  "Jennifer, no court in the land would let a child stay with an adulterous mother--a mother who can't get through the day without a pharmacy of pills. Dr. Hargreaves would testify to the sheer number you get through."

  "They're gone. I've thrown them away."

  "Really?" He consulted his watch again. "Congratulations. So, you've made it a whole . . . twenty-four hours without pharmaceutical help? I'm sure the courts would find that admirable." He laughed, pleased with his response.

  "Do you think they would find the lung-disease file admirable, too?"

  She caught the sudden rigidity of his jaw, the flash of uncertainty.

  "What?"

  "Your secretary gave it to me. I have the name of every one of your employees who has become ill and died over the past ten years. What was it?" She pronounced the word carefully, emphasizing its unfamiliarity. "Me-so-the-lio-ma."

  The color drained so quickly from his face that she thought he might pass out. He got up and walked past her to the door. He opened it, peered out, then closed it again firmly. "What are you talking about?"

  "I have all the information, Laurence. I even have the bank slips for the money you paid them."

  He wrenched open a drawer and rifled through it. When he straightened up, he looked shaken. He took a step toward her so that she was forced to meet his gaze. "If you ruin me, Jennifer, you ruin yourself."

  "Do you really think I care?"

  "I'll never divorce you."

  "Fine," she said, her resolve strengthened by his disquiet. "This is how it will be. Esme and I will take a place nearby, and you can visit her. You and I will be husband and wife in name only. You will give me a reasonable stipend, to support her, and in return I'll make sure those papers are never made public."

  "Are you trying to blackmail me?"

  "Oh, I'm far too dim to do something like that, Laurence, as you've reminded me countless times over the years. No, I'm just telling you how my life is going to be. You can keep your mistress, the house, your fortune, and . . . your reputation. None of your business colleagues needs to know. But I will never set foot in the same house as you again."

  He genuinely hadn't realized she knew about the mistress. She saw impotent fury spread over his face, mixed with wild anxiety. Then they were smothered by a conciliatory attempt at a smile. "Jennifer, you're upset. This fellow reappearing must have come as a shock. Why don't you go home and we'll talk about it?"

  "I've lodged the papers with a third party. If anything were to happen to me, he has his instructions."

  He had never looked at her with such venom. Her grip tightened on her handbag.

  "You are a whore," he said.

  "With you I was," she said quietly. "I must have been, because I certainly didn't do it for love."

  There was a knock at the door, and his new secretary walked in. The manner in which the girl's gaze flicked between them was a banner of extra information. It boosted Jennifer's courage. "Anyway, I think that's all I needed to tell you. I'll be off now, darling," she said. She walked up to him and kissed his cheek. "I'll be in touch. Good-bye, Miss . . ." She waited.

  "Driscoll," the girl said.

  "Driscoll." She fixed her with a smile. "Of course."

  She walked past the girl, collected her daughter, and, heart hammering, opened the double doors, half expecting to hear his voice, his footsteps, behind her. She skipped down the two flights of stairs to where the taxi was still waiting.

  "Where are we going?" said Esme, as Jennifer hoisted her onto the seat beside her. She was picking her way through a handful of sweets, her haul from the troupe of secretaries.

  Jennifer leaned forward and opened the little window, shouting to the driver above the noise of the rush-hour traffic. She felt suddenly weightless, triumphant. "To the Regent Hotel, please. As fast as you can."

  Later she would look back on that twenty-minute journey and realize she had viewed the crowded streets, the gaudy shopfronts, as if through the eyes of a tourist, a foreign correspondent, someone who had never seen them before. She noted only a few details, an overriding impression, knowing it was possible she might not see them again. Her life as she had known it was over, and she wanted to sing.

  This was how Jennifer Stirling said good-bye to her old life, the days when she had walked those streets laden with shopping bags filled with things that meant nothing to her as soon as she returned home. It was at this point, near Marylebone Road, that she had felt daily the stiffening of some internal brace as she approached the house that felt no longer like a home but some kind of penance.

  There was the squar
e, flashing by, with her silent house, a world in which she had lived internally, knowing there was no thought she could express, no action she could complete, that would not invoke criticism from a man she had made so unhappy that his only course was to keep punishing her, with silence, relentless slights, and an atmosphere that left her permanently cold, even in high summer.

  A child could protect you from that, but only so far. And while what she was doing meant she might be disgraced in the eyes of those around her, she could show her daughter that there was another way to live. A way that did not involve anesthetizing yourself. A way that did not mean you lived your whole life as an apology for who you were.

  She saw the window where the prostitutes had displayed themselves; the tapping girls had disappeared to some other location. I hope you're living a better life, she told them silently. I hope you're freed from whatever held you there. Everyone deserves that chance.

  Esme was still eating her sweets, observing the busy streets through the other window. Jennifer put her arm around the little girl and pulled her close. She unwrapped another and put it into her mouth. "Mummy, where are we going?"

  "To meet a friend, and then we're going on an adventure, darling," she replied, suddenly brimming with excitement.

  "An adventure?"

  "Yes. An adventure that should have taken place a long, long time ago."

  The page-four story on the disarmament negotiations wouldn't make a lead, Don Franklin thought, while his deputy drew up alternatives. He was wishing his wife hadn't put raw onions in his liver sausage sandwiches. They always gave him gut ache. "If we move the toothpaste ad to this side, we could fill this space with the dancing priest?" the deputy suggested.

  "I hate that story."

  "What about the theater review?"

  "Already on page eighteen."

  "Eyes west-southwest, boss."

  Rubbing his belly, Don glanced up to see a woman hurrying through the newspaper office. She was dressed in a short black trench coat and had a blond child with her. To see a little girl in a newspaper office made Don feel uncomfortable, like seeing a soldier in a petticoat. It was all wrong. The woman paused to ask Cheryl something, and Cheryl gestured to him.