The Last Letter From Your Lover, Page 29

  Ellie sits, rapt, pictures building in her head, trying not to think about the tape recorder she has surreptitiously turned on in her handbag. But she no longer feels graceless. Mrs. Stirling talks animatedly, as if this is a story she has wanted to tell for decades. She says it's a story she has pieced together over the years, and Ellie, although she doesn't completely understand what is being said, doesn't want to interrupt and ask her to clarify.

  Jennifer Stirling tells of the sudden palling of her gilded life, the sleepless nights, her guilt, the terrifying, irrevocable pull of someone forbidden, the awful realization that the life you're leading might be the wrong one. As she speaks, Ellie bites her nails, wondering if this is what John is thinking, right now, on some distant sun-drenched beach. How can he love his wife and do what he does with her? How can he not feel that pull?

  The story becomes darker, the voice quieter. She tells of a car crash on a wet road, a blameless man dead, and the four years she sleepwalked through her marriage, held in place only by pills and the birth of her daughter.

  She breaks off, reaches behind her, and hands Ellie a photo frame. A tall blond woman stands in a pair of shorts, a man with his arm around her. Two children and a dog are at her bare feet. She looks like a Calvin Klein advertisement. "Esme's probably not that much older than you," she says. "She lives in San Francisco with her husband, a doctor. They're very happy." She adds, with a wry smile, "To my knowledge."

  "Does she know about the letters?" Ellie places the frame carefully on the coffee table, trying not to begrudge the unknown Esme her spectacular genetics, her apparently enviable life.

  This time Mrs. Stirling hesitates before speaking. "I've never told this story to a living soul. What daughter would want to hear that her mother was in love with somebody other than her father?"

  And then she tells of a chance meeting, years later, the glorious shock of discovering she was where she was meant to be. "Can you understand that? I had felt out of place for so long . . . and then Anthony was there. And I had this feeling." She taps her breastbone. "That I was home. That it was him."

  "Yes," says Ellie. She's perched on the edge of the sofa. Jennifer Stirling's face is illuminated. Suddenly Ellie can see the young girl she had been. "I know that feeling."

  "The awful thing was, of course, that having found him again, I wasn't free to go with him. Divorce was a very different matter in those days, Ellie. Awful. One's name was dragged through the mud. I knew my husband would destroy me if I tried to go. And I couldn't leave Esme. He--Anthony--had left his own child behind, and I don't think he ever really recovered from it."

  "So you never actually left your husband?" Ellie feels a sinking disappointment.

  "I did, thanks to that file you found. He had this funny old secretary, Miss Thing." She grimaces. "I never could remember her name. I suspect she was in love with him. And then, for some reason, she handed me the means to destroy him. He knew he couldn't touch me once I had those files."

  She describes the meeting with the unnamed secretary, her husband's shock when she revealed what she knew at his office.

  "The asbestos files." They had seemed so innocuous in Ellie's flat, their power dimmed by age and hindsight.

  "Of course nobody knew about asbestos then. We thought it was wonderful stuff. It was a terrible shock to discover that Laurence's company had destroyed so many lives. That was why I set up the foundation when he died. To help the victims. Here." She reaches into a bureau and pulls out a pamphlet. It details a legal-help scheme for those suffering work-related mesothelioma. "There's not much money left in the fund now, but we do still offer legal help. I have friends in the profession who provide their services for free, here and abroad."

  "You still got your husband's money?"

  "Yes. That was our arrangement. I kept his name and became one of those rather reclusive wives who never accompanied their husbands to anything. Everyone assumed I'd dropped out of society to bring up Esme. It wasn't unusual in those days, you see. He simply took his mistress to all the social events." She laughs, shaking her head. "There was the most astonishing double standard back then."

  Ellie pictures herself on John's arm at some book launch. He has always been careful not to touch her in public, not to give any indication of their relationship. She has secretly hoped that they will be caught kissing, or that their passion will be so apparent they become the subject of damaging gossip.

  She looks up to find Jennifer Stirling's eyes on her. "Would you like more coffee, Ellie? I'm assuming you're not in a hurry to be anywhere."

  "No. That would be lovely. I want to know what happened."

  Her expression changes. The smile fades. There is a short silence.

  "He returned to the Congo," she says. "He used to travel to the most awfully dangerous places. Bad things were happening to white people out there at the time, and he wasn't terribly well . . ." She no longer seems to be directing her words at Ellie. "Men are often a lot more fragile than they seem, aren't they?"

  Ellie digests this, trying not to feel the bitter disappointment this information seems to induce. This is not your life, she tells herself firmly. This does not have to be your tragedy. "Why did he sign his name as 'B.'?"

  "I called him 'Boot.' That was our little joke. Have you read Evelyn Waugh? His real name was Anthony O'Hare. Actually, it's strange, telling it all to you after all this time. He was the love of my life, yet I have no photographs of him, few memories. If it wasn't for my letters, I might have thought I'd imagined the whole thing. That's why your bringing them back to me is such a gift."

  A lump rises to Ellie's throat.

  The telephone rings, jolting them from their thoughts.

  "Do excuse me," Jennifer says. She walks out into the hallway, picks up a telephone, and Ellie hears her answer, her voice immediately calm, imbued with professional distance. "Yes," she is saying. "Yes, we still do. When were you diagnosed? . . . I'm so sorry . . ."

  Ellie scribbles the name on her notepad and slips it back into her bag. She checks that her tape recorder has been running, that the microphone is still in position. Satisfied, she sits there for a few minutes longer, gazing at the family pictures, grasping that Jennifer will be a while. It doesn't seem fair to hurry someone who's evidently in the clutches of lung disease. She rips a page from her pad, scribbles a note, and picks up her coat. She goes over to the window. Outside, the weather has cleared and the puddles on the pavement gleam bright blue. Then she moves to the door and stands there with the note.

  "Do excuse me for one moment." Jennifer holds her hand over the receiver. "I'm so sorry," she says. "I'm likely to be some time." Her voice suggests that their conversation will not be continued today. "Someone needs to apply for compensation."

  "Can we talk again?" Ellie holds out the piece of paper. "My details are there. I really want to know . . ."

  Jennifer nods, half her attention on her caller. "Yes. Of course. It's the least I can do. And thank you again, Ellie."

  Ellie turns to leave, her coat over her arm. Then, as Jennifer is lifting the receiver to her ear, she turns back. "Just tell me one thing--just quickly? When he left again--Anthony--what did you do?"

  Jennifer Stirling lowers the receiver, her eyes clear and calm. "I followed him."

  Chapter 21

  NOVEMBER 1964

  "Madam? Would you like a drink?"

  Jennifer opened her eyes. She had been holding the armrests of her seat for almost an hour as the BOAC airplane bucked its way toward Kenya. She had never been a very good flyer, but the relentless turbulence had ratcheted up the tension in the Comet so that even the old Africa hands were clenching their jaws with every bump. She winced as her bottom lifted from the seat, and there was a wail of dismay from the rear of the plane. The smell of hastily lit cigarettes had created a fug of smoke in the cabin.

  "Yes," she said. "Please."

  "I'll give you a double," the air hostess said, winking. "It's going to be a bumpy ride in."
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br />   She drank half of it in one gulp. Her eyes were gritty after a journey that had now stretched to almost forty-eight hours. Before leaving she had lain awake for several nights in London, chasing her thoughts, contradicting herself as to whether what she was attempting was madness, as everyone else seemed to think.

  "Would you like one of these?" The businessman beside her held out a tin, its lid cocked toward her. His hands were huge, the fingers like dry-cured sausages.

  "Thank you. What are they? Mints?" she said.

  He smiled beneath his thick white mustache. "Oh, no." His accent was thick, Afrikaans. "They're to calm your nerves. You might be glad of them later."

  She withdrew her hand. "I won't, thanks. Someone once told me that turbulence is nothing to be afraid of."

  "He's right. It's the turbulence on the ground you want to be careful of."

  When she didn't laugh, he peered at her for a moment. "Where are you headed? Safari?"

  "No. I need to catch a connecting flight to Stanleyville. I was told I couldn't get one direct from London."

  "Congo? What do you want to go there for, lady?"

  "I'm trying to find a friend."

  His voice was incredulous. "Congo?"

  "Yes."

  He was looking at her as if she was mad. She straightened in her seat a little, temporarily loosening her grip on the armrests.

  "You don't read the newspapers?"

  "A little, but not for a few days. I've been . . . very busy."

  "Very busy, huh? Little lady, you might want to turn around and go straight back to England." He gave a low chuckle. "I'm pretty sure you're not going to get to Congo."

  She turned away from him to stare out of the airplane window at the clouds, the distant snow-capped mountains beneath her, and wondered, briefly, if there was the faintest chance that, right at this moment, he was there ten thousand feet below her. You have no idea how far I've come already, she responded silently.

  Two weeks previously Jennifer Stirling had stumbled out of the offices of the Nation, stood on the steps, with her daughter's small, chubby hand in her own, and realized she had no idea what to do next. A brisk wind had picked up, sending leaves scurrying after one another along the gutters, their aimless trajectory mirroring her own. How could Anthony have disappeared? Why had he left her no message? She recalled his anguish in the hotel lobby and feared she knew the answer. The fat newspaperman's words swam in her head. The world seemed to sway, and for a moment she thought she might faint.

  Then Esme had complained that she needed to go to the loo. The more immediate demands of a small child had hauled her out of her thoughts and into practicality.

  She had booked into the Regent, where he had stayed, as if some small part of her believed it might be easier for him to find her there if he chose to return. She had to believe he would want to find her, would want to know that she was free at last.

  The only available room was a suite on the fourth floor, and she had agreed to it easily. Laurence wouldn't dare quibble about money. And as Esme sat happily in front of the large television, occasionally breaking off to bounce on the huge bed, she spent the rest of the evening pacing, thinking furiously, trying to work out how best to get a message to a man who was somewhere in the vast expanse of central Africa.

  Finally, as Esme slept, curled under the hotel quilt beside her, her thumb in her mouth, Jennifer lay watching her in the hotel bed, listening to the sounds of the city, fighting tears of impotence, and wondering whether, if she thought hard enough, she might somehow send a message to him telepathically. Boot. Please hear me. I need you to come back for me. I can't do this by myself.

  On the second and third days she spent most of the daylight hours focused on Esme, taking her to the Natural History Museum, to tea at Fortnum & Mason. They shopped on Regent Street for clothes--she hadn't been organized enough to send what they had with them to the hotel laundry--and had roast-chicken sandwiches from room service for supper, sent up on a silver salver. Occasionally Esme would ask where Mrs. Cordoza or Daddy was, and Jennifer reassured her that they would see them very soon. She was grateful for her daughter's stream of small, mostly achievable requests, the routines imposed by tea, bath, and bed. But once the little girl had fallen asleep, she would close the bedroom door and be filled with a kind of black fear. What had she done? With each hour that passed, the enormity--and futility--of her actions crept further in on her. She had thrown away her life, moved her daughter into a hotel room--and for what?

  She called the Nation twice more. She had spoken to the gruff man with the large stomach; now she recognized his voice, his abrupt manner of speaking. He told her, Yes, he would pass on the message as soon as O'Hare called in. The second time she had the distinct impression he wasn't telling the truth.

  "But he must be there by now, surely. Aren't all the journalists in the same place? Can't someone get a message to him?"

  "I'm not a social secretary. I told you I'll pass on your message, and I will, but it's a war zone out there. I'd imagine he's got other things to think about."

  And she would be cut off.

  The suite became an insular bubble, her only visitors the daily maid and the bellboy from room service. She dared not ring anybody, her parents, her friends, not yet knowing how to explain herself. She struggled to eat, could barely sleep. As her confidence dissipated, her anxiety grew.

  She became increasingly filled with the conviction that she could not remain alone. How would she survive? She had never done anything by herself. Laurence would make sure she was isolated. Her parents would disown her. She fought the urge to order an alcoholic drink that might dull her growing sense of catastrophe. And with every day that passed, the little voice that echoed in her head grew more distinct: You could always return to Laurence. For a woman like her, whose only skill was to be decorative, what other option was there? In such fits and starts, in a surreal facsimile of ordinary life, the days went by. On day six she telephoned her house, guessing that Laurence would be at work. Mrs. Cordoza answered on the second ring, and she was humbled by the woman's obvious distress.

  "Where are you, Mrs. Stirling? Let me bring you your things. Let me see Esme. I've been so worried."

  Something in Jennifer sagged with relief.

  The housekeeper had come to the hotel with a suitcase of her belongings within the hour. Mr. Stirling, Mrs. Cordoza told her, had said nothing except that she should not expect anyone in the house for a few days. "He asked me to clear up the study. And when I looked in there"--her hand lifted briefly to her face--"I didn't know what to think."

  "It's all fine. Really." Jennifer couldn't bring herself to explain what had happened.

  "I'd be happy to help you in any way I can," Mrs. Cordoza went on, "but I don't think he--"

  Jennifer placed a hand on her arm. "It's quite all right, Mrs. Cordoza. Believe me, we'd love to have you with us. But I think that may be difficult. And Esme will have to go home to visit her father quite soon, once everything has calmed down a little, so perhaps it will be better for everyone if she has you there to look after her."

  Esme showed Mrs. Cordoza her new things and climbed onto her lap for a cuddle. Jennifer ordered tea, and the two women smiled awkwardly as she poured it for her housekeeper in a reversal of their former roles.

  "Thank you so much for coming," Jennifer said, when Mrs. Cordoza stood to leave. She felt a sense of loss at her imminent departure.

  "Just let me know what you decide to do." Mrs. Cordoza replied as she pulled on her coat. She looked steadily at Jennifer, her mouth compressed into a line of anxiety, and Jennifer, on impulse, stepped forward and hugged her. Mrs. Cordoza's arms reached round her and held her tightly, as if she was trying to imbue Jennifer with strength, and had understood how much she had needed to feel that from someone. They stood like that in the middle of the room for several moments. Then, perhaps a little embarrassed, the housekeeper disengaged herself. Her nose was pink.

  "I'm not going bac
k," Jennifer said, hearing her words hit the still air with unexpected force. "I'll find somewhere for us to live. But I'm not going back."

  The older woman nodded.

  "I'll ring you tomorrow." She scribbled a note on a piece of hotel writing paper. "You can tell him where we are. It's probably best that he knows."

  That night, after she had put Esme to bed, she rang all the newspapers in Fleet Street to ask if she could send messages to their correspondents on the off chance that they might run into Anthony in central Africa. She telephoned an uncle who, she remembered, had once worked out there, and asked if he could recall the names of any hotels. She had placed calls with the international operator to two hotels, one in Brazzaville, the other in Stanleyville, and left messages with receptionists, one of whom told her mournfully, "Madam, we have no white people here. There is trouble in our city."

  "Please," she said, "just remember his name. Anthony O'Hare. Tell him 'Boot.' He'll know what it means."

  She had sent another letter to the newspaper to be forwarded to him: I'm sorry. Please come back to me. I'm free, and I'm waiting for you.

  She had handed it over at Reception, telling herself as she did so that once it was gone, it was gone. She mustn't think about its progress, mustn't imagine over the next days or weeks where it lay. She had done what she could, and now it was time to focus on building a new life, ready for when one of the many messages reached him.

  The estate agent was grinning again. It seemed a reflexive, rictus thing, and she tried to ignore it. It was the eleventh day.

  "If you could just put your signature there"--Mr. Grosvenor pointed with a beautifully manicured finger--"and there. Then, of course, we'll need your husband's signature here." He smiled again, his lips wavering a little.