The Last Letter From Your Lover, Page 5

  A ripple of laughter passed around the table. Mariette's foot pressed against Anthony's under the table. On his other side, Jennifer Stirling was quietly instructing staff to clear the plates. The Moncrieffs were engaged in conversation on each side of M. Demarcier.

  Jesus, he thought. What am I doing with these people? This is not my world. Laurence Stirling was talking emphatically to his neighbor. A fool, thought Anthony, aware even as he said it that he, with his lost family, his disappearing career, his lack of riches, might more accurately fit that description. The reference to his son, Jennifer Stirling's humiliation, and the drink had conspired to darken his mood. There was only one thing for it: he motioned to the waiter for more wine.

  The Demarciers left shortly after eleven, the Lafayettes a few minutes later--council business in the morning, the mayor explained. He shook hands around the huge veranda to which they had retreated for coffee and brandy. "I will be very interested to read your article, M. O'Hare. It has been a pleasure."

  "All mine. Believe me"--Anthony swayed as he stood--"I have never been more fascinated by council politics." He was now very drunk. The words emerged from his mouth almost before he knew what he wanted to say, and he blinked hard, conscious that he had little control over how they might be received. He had almost no idea of what he had discussed over the past hour. The mayor's eyes met Anthony's for a moment. Then he relinquished his hand and turned away.

  "Papa, I will stay, if you don't mind. I'm sure one of these kind gentlemen will walk me home in a little while." Mariette stared meaningfully at Anthony, who gave an exaggerated nod.

  "I may need your help, mademoiselle. I haven't the faintest idea where I am," he said.

  Jennifer Stirling was kissing the Lafayettes. "I'll make sure she returns home safely," she said. "Thank you so much for coming." Then she said something in French that he didn't catch.

  The night had grown chilly, but Anthony hardly felt it. He was aware of the waves lapping the shore far below, the clink of glasses, snatches of conversation as Moncrieff and Stirling discussed stock markets and investment opportunities abroad, but paid little attention as he downed the excellent cognac that someone had placed in his hand. He was used to being alone in a strange land, comfortable with his own company, but tonight he felt unbalanced, irritable.

  He glanced at the three women, the two brunettes and the blonde. Jennifer Stirling was holding out a hand, perhaps to show off some new piece of jewelry. The other two were murmuring, their laughter breaking into the conversation. Periodically Mariette would glance at him and smile. Was there a hint of conspiracy in it? Seventeen, he warned himself. Too young.

  He heard crickets, the women's laughter, jazz music from deep within the house. He closed his eyes, then opened them and checked his watch. Somehow an hour had passed. He had the disturbing feeling that he might have nodded off. Either way, it was time to go. "I think," he said, to the men, as he hauled himself out of his chair, "I should probably get back to my hotel."

  Laurence Stirling rose to his feet. He was smoking an oversize cigar. "Let me call my driver." He turned to the house.

  "No, no," Anthony protested. "The fresh air will do me good. Thank you very much for a . . . a very interesting evening."

  "Telephone my office in the morning if you need any further information. I'll be there until lunchtime. Then I leave for Africa. Unless you'd like to come and see the mines in person? We can always do with an old Africa hand . . ."

  "Some other time," Anthony said.

  Stirling shook his hand, a brief, firm handshake. Moncrieff followed suit, then tipped a finger to his head in mute salute.

  Anthony turned away and headed for the garden gate. The pathway was lit by small lanterns placed in the flower beds. Ahead, he could see the lights of vessels in the black nothingness of the sea. The lowered voices carried toward him on the breeze from the veranda.

  "Interesting fellow," Moncrieff was saying, in the kind of voice that suggested he thought the opposite.

  "Better than a self-satisfied prig," Anthony muttered, under his breath.

  "Mr. O'Hare? Would you mind if I walked with you?"

  He turned unsteadily. Mariette stood behind him, clutching a little handbag, a cardigan slung around her shoulders. "I know the way to the town--there's a cliff path we can take. I suspect you will get very lost on your own."

  He stumbled on the gritty path. The girl wound her slim brown hand through his arm. "It's lucky there's moonlight. At least we shall see our feet," she said.

  They walked a little way in silence, Anthony hearing the shuffle of his shoes on the ground, the odd gasp escaping him as he tripped on tufts of wild lavender. Despite the balmy evening and the girl on his arm, he felt homesick for something he could not articulate.

  "You're very quiet, Mr. O'Hare. Are you sure you're not falling asleep again?"

  A burst of laughter carried to them from the house.

  "Tell me something," he said. "Do you enjoy evenings like that?"

  She shrugged. "It's a nice house."

  " 'A nice house.' That's your principal criterion for a pleasant evening, is it, mademoiselle?"

  She raised an eyebrow, apparently untroubled by the edge in his voice. "Mariette. Please. Do I take it you didn't enjoy yourself?"

  "People like that," he pronounced, aware that he sounded drunk and belligerent, "make me want to stick a revolver in my mouth and pull the trigger."

  She giggled, and, a little gratified by her apparent complicity, he warmed to his theme: "The men talk about nothing but who has what. The women can't see beyond their bloody jewelry. They have the money, the opportunity, to do anything, see anything, yet nobody has an opinion on anything outside their own narrow little world." He stumbled again, and Mariette's hand tightened on his arm.

  "I'd rather have spent the night chatting to the paupers outside the Hotel du Cap. Except, no doubt, people like Stirling would have them tidied up and put somewhere less offensive. . . ."

  "I thought you'd like Mme Stirling," she chided. "Half the men on the Riviera are in love with her. Apparently."

  "Spoiled little tai-tai. You find them in any city, mademois--Mariette. Pretty as a peach, and not an original thought in her head."

  He had continued his tirade for some time before he became aware that the girl had stopped. Sensing some change in the atmosphere, he glanced behind him and, as his gaze steadied, saw Jennifer Stirling a few feet back up the path. She was clutching his linen jacket, her blond hair silver in the moonlight.

  "You left this," she said, thrusting out her hand. Her jaw was rigid, her eyes glittering in the blue light.

  He moved forward and took it.

  Her voice cut through the still air: "I'm sorry we were such a disappointment to you, Mr. O'Hare, that how we live caused such offense. Perhaps we would have met with your approval if we had been dark-skinned and impoverished."

  "Christ," he said, and swallowed. "I'm sorry. I'm--I'm very drunk."

  "Evidently. Perhaps I could just ask that, whatever your personal views of me and my spoiled life, you don't attack Laurence in print." She began to walk back up the hill.

  As he winced and swore silently, her parting line caught on the breeze: "In fact, perhaps the next time you face the prospect of having to endure the company of such bores, you might find it easier just to say, 'No, thank you.' "

  Chapter 4

  NOVEMBER 1960

  "I'm going to start on the vacuuming, madam, if it won't disturb you."

  She had heard the footsteps coming across the landing and sat back on her heels.

  Mrs. Cordoza, vacuum cleaner in hand, stopped in the doorway. "Oh! All your things . . . I didn't know you were sorting out this room. Would you like me to help?"

  Jennifer wiped her forehead, surveying the contents of her wardrobe, which were strewn across the bedroom floor around her. "No, thank you, Mrs. Cordoza. You get along. I'm just rearranging my things so that I can find them."

  The house
keeper hovered. "If you're sure. I'll be going to the shops after I've finished. I've put some cold cuts in the refrigerator. You did say you didn't want anything too heavy for lunch."

  "That will be quite sufficient. Thank you."

  And then she was alone again, the dull roar of the vacuum cleaner receding down the corridor. Jennifer straightened her back and lifted the lid from another box of shoes. She had been doing this for days, spring cleaning in the depths of winter, the other rooms with Mrs. Cordoza's help. She had pulled out the contents of shelves and cupboards, examining, restacking, tidying with a fearsome efficiency, stamping herself on her belongings, imprinting her way of doing things on a house that still resolutely refused to feel like her own.

  It had started as a distraction, a way of not thinking too much about how she felt: that she was fulfilling a role everyone else seemed to have assigned to her. Now it had become a way of anchoring herself to this home, a way of finding out who she was, who she had been. She had uncovered letters, photographs, scrapbooks from her childhood that showed her as a scowling, pigtailed child on a fat white pony. She deciphered the careful scrawl of her school days, the flippant jokes of her correspondence, and realized with relief that she could recall whole chunks of it. She had begun to calculate the gulf between what she had been, a buoyant, adored, perhaps even spoiled creature, and the woman she now inhabited.

  She knew almost everything it was possible to know about herself, but that didn't ameliorate her ever-present sense of dislocation, of having been dropped into the wrong life.

  "Oh, darling, everyone feels like that." Yvonne had patted her shoulder sympathetically when Jennifer had broached this, after two martinis, the previous evening. "I can't tell you how many times I've woken up, gazed at the unadulterated loveliness that is my snoring, stinking, hung-over husband, and thought, How on earth did I end up here?"

  Jennifer had tried to laugh. No one wanted to hear her prattling on. She had no alternative but to get on with it. The day after the dinner party, anxious and upset, she had traveled alone to the hospital and asked to speak to Dr. Hargreaves. He had ushered her into his office immediately--a sign less of conscientiousness, she suspected, than of professional courtesy to the wife of an extremely wealthy customer. His response, while less flippant than Yvonne's, had essentially told her the same thing. "A bump on the head can affect you in all sorts of ways," he said, stubbing out his cigarette. "Some people find it difficult to concentrate, others are tearful at inappropriate moments or find they're angry for a long time. I've had gentlemen patients who became uncharacteristically violent. Depression is not an unusual reaction to what you've been through."

  "It's more than that, though, Dr. Hargreaves. I really thought I'd feel more . . . myself by now."

  "And you don't feel yourself?"

  "Everything seems wrong. Misplaced." She gave a short, diffident laugh. "Sometimes I've thought I was going mad."

  He nodded, as if he had heard this many times before. "Time really is a great healer, Jennifer. I know it's a terrible cliche, but it's true. Don't fret about conforming to some correct way of feeling. With head injuries there really are no precedents. You may well feel odd--dislocated, as you put it--for a time. In the meantime I'll give you some tablets that will help. Do try not to dwell on matters."

  He was already scribbling. She waited for a moment, accepted the prescription, then stood up to leave. Do try not to dwell on matters.

  An hour after she returned home, she had begun to sort out the house. She possessed a dressing room full of clothes. She had a walnut jewelry box that contained four good rings with gemstones and a secondary box that contained a large amount of costume jewelry. She owned twelve hats, nine pairs of gloves, and eighteen pairs of shoes, she noted, as she stacked the last box. She had written a short description at each end--pumps, claret, and evening, green silk. She had held each shoe, trying to leach from it some memory of a previous occasion. A couple of times a fleeting image had passed through her mind: her feet, clad in the green silk, descending from a taxi--to a theater?--but they were frustratingly ephemeral, gone before she could fix them.

  Do try not to dwell on matters.

  She was just placing the last pair of shoes back in their box when she spied the paperback. It was a cheap historical romance, tucked between the tissue paper and the side of the box. She gazed at the cover, wondering why she couldn't recall the plot when she had been able to do so with many of the books on her shelves.

  Perhaps I bought it and decided against it, she thought, flicking through the first few pages. It looked rather lurid. She'd skim a little tonight and perhaps give it to Mrs. Cordoza, if it wasn't her cup of tea. She placed it on her bedside table and dusted off her skirt. Now she had more pressing matters to attend to, such as tidying this mess away and working out what on earth she was going to wear this evening.

  There were two in the second post. They were almost carbon copies of each other, Moira thought, as she read them, the same symptoms, the same complaints. They were from the same factory, where each man had started work almost two decades before. Perhaps it was something to do with the unions, as her boss had said, but it was a little unnerving that the faint trickle of such correspondence several years ago had become a regular drip, drip, drip.

  Glancing up, she saw him returning from lunch and wondered what to tell him. He was shaking hands with Mr. Welford, their faces wreathed in the satisfied smiles that told of a successful meeting. After the briefest hesitation, she swept both letters from the table and into her top drawer. She would put them with the others. There was no point in worrying him. She knew, after all, what he would say.

  She let her gaze rest on him for a moment, as he saw Mr. Welford out of the boardroom toward the lifts, recalling their conversation of that morning. It had been just the two of them in the office. The other secretaries rarely turned up before nine, but she regularly arrived an hour earlier to start the coffee machine, lay out his papers, check for overnight telegrams, and make sure his office was running smoothly by the time he stepped into it. That was her job. Besides, she preferred eating her breakfast at her desk: it was less lonely somehow than it was at home, now that Mother was gone.

  He had motioned her into his office, standing and half raising one hand. He knew she would catch the gesture: she always had an eye half open in case he needed something. She had straightened her skirt and walked in briskly, expecting a piece of dictation, a request for figures, but instead he had crossed the room and closed the door quietly after her. She had tried to suppress a shiver of excitement. He had never closed the door behind her before, not in five years. Her hand had reached unconsciously to her hair.

  His voice dropped as he took a step toward her. "Moira, the matter we discussed some weeks ago."

  She had stared at him, stunned into paralysis by his proximity, the unexpected turn of events. She shook her head--a little foolishly, she suspected afterward.

  "The matter we discussed"--his voice carried a hint of impatience--"after my wife's accident. I thought I should check. There was never anything . . ."

  She recovered, her hand fluttering at her collar. "Oh. Oh, no, sir. I went twice, as you asked. And no. There was nothing." She waited a moment, then added, "Nothing at all. I'm quite sure."

  He nodded, as if reassured. Then he smiled at her, one of his rare, gentle smiles. "Thank you, Moira. You know how much I appreciate you, don't you?"

  She felt herself prickle with pleasure.

  He walked toward the door and opened it again. "Your discretion has always been one of your most admirable qualities."

  She had to swallow hard before she spoke. "I . . . You can always rely on me. You know that."

  "What's up with you, Moira?" one of the typists had asked, later that day in the ladies' powder room. She had realized she was humming. She had reapplied her lipstick carefully and added just the lightest squirt of scent. "You look like the cat that got the cream."

  "Perhaps Mario in t
he post room's got past her stockings after all." An unpleasant cackle followed from the cubicle.

  "If you paid half as much attention to your work as you do to silly tittle-tattle, Phyllis, you might actually progress beyond junior typist," she said, as she left. But even the giggling catcall as she walked out into the office couldn't dampen her pleasure.

  There were Christmas lights all around the square, large white tulipshaped bulbs. They were draped between the Victorian lampposts and strung in jagged spirals around the trees that bordered the communal gardens.

  "Earlier every year," Mrs. Cordoza remarked, turning from the big bay window in the drawing room as Jennifer walked in. She had been about to draw the curtains. "It's not even December."

  "But very pretty," Jennifer said, putting on an earring. "Mrs. Cordoza, would you mind terribly fastening this button at my neck? I can't seem to reach." Her arm was improved, but still lacked the flexibility that would have allowed her to dress unaided.

  The older woman drew the collar together, fastened the dark blue silk-covered button, and stood back, waiting for Jennifer to turn. "That dress always looked lovely on you," she observed.

  Jennifer had become accustomed to such moments, the times when she had to catch herself so that she didn't ask, "Did it? When?" She had grown adept at hiding them, at convincing the world around her that she was sure of her place in it.

  "I can't seem to remember when I last wore it," she mused, after a beat.

  "It was your birthday dinner. You were going to a restaurant in Chelsea."

  Jennifer hoped that this might dislodge a memory. But nothing. "So I did," she said, raising a quick smile, "and it was a lovely evening."

  "Is it a special occasion tonight, madam?"

  She checked her reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece. Her hair was set in soft blond waves, her eyes outlined with artfully smudged kohl. "Oh, no, I don't believe so. The Moncrieffs have invited us out. Dinner and dancing. The usual crowd."

  "I'll stay an extra hour, if you don't mind. There's some linen that needs starching."

  "We do pay you for all your extra work?" She had spoken without thinking.