The Last Letter from Your Lover

“I see,” he said. There were tiny blond hairs on her arm. The sea breeze lifted and laid them down.

When he looked up, her eyes locked with his. “I’m not unhappy,” she said.

“I know that.”

She was studying him, her lovely mouth serious. She bit her lip, then turned her back to him. She stood very still. “The top button,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“I can’t undo it myself.”

Something ignited inside him. He experienced it almost as relief, that this would happen, that the woman he had dreamed about, conjured at night in this bed, was to be his after all. Her distance, her resistance, had almost overwhelmed him. He wanted the release that comes with release, wanted to feel spent, the ache of perpetual unrelieved desire soothed.

He took her drink from her, and her hand went to her hair, lifting it from the nape of her neck. He obeyed the silent instruction, lifting his hands to her skin. Usually so certain, his fingers fumbled, were thick and clumsy. He watched them as if from afar, wrestling with the silk-covered button, and as he released it, he saw that his hands were trembling. He stilled, and gazed at her neck: exposed now, it was bent forward slightly, as if in supplication. He wanted to place his mouth on it, could already taste that pale, lightly freckled skin. His thumb rested there, tender, luxuriating in the prospect of what lay ahead. She let out a small breath at the pressure, so subtle that he felt rather than heard it. And something in him stalled.

He stared at the down where her golden hair met her skin, at the slender fingers still holding it up. And he understood, with horrible certainty, what was going to happen.

Anthony O’Hare closed his eyes very tightly, and then, with exquisite deliberation, he refastened her dress. He took a small step backward.

She hesitated, as if she were trying to work out what he had done, perhaps registering the absence of his skin on hers.

Then she turned, her hand on the back of her neck, establishing what had taken place. She gazed at him, and her face, at first questioning, colored.

“I’m sorry,” he began, “but I—I can’t.”

“Oh . . .” She flinched. Her hand went to her mouth, and a deep blush stained her neck. “Oh, God.”

“No. You don’t understand, Jennifer. It’s not anything that—”

She pushed past him, grabbing her handbag. And then, before he could say anything else, she was wrestling with the door handle and running down the corridor.

“Jennifer!” he yelled. “Jennifer! Let me explain!” But by the time he had reached the door, she was gone.

The French train plodded through the parched countryside to Lyon, as if it was determined to grant him too long to think of all the things he had got wrong and all the things he couldn’t have changed even if he’d wanted to. Several times an hour he thought about ordering himself a large whiskey from the dining car; he watched the stewards move deftly up and down the carriage, carrying glasses on silver trays, a choreographed ballet of stooping and pacing, and knew it would take only the lifting of a finger to have that consolation for himself. Afterward he was barely sure what had prevented him doing so.

At night, he settled into the couchette, pulled out with disdainful efficiency by the steward. As the train rumbled on through the darkness, he clicked on his bedside light and picked up a paperback book he had found at the hotel, left by some former traveler. He read the same page several times, took nothing in, and eventually threw it down in disgust. He had a French newspaper, but the space was too cramped to unfold the pages properly, and the print too small in the dim light. He dozed, and awoke, and as England drew closer, the future settled on him like a big black cloud.

Finally, as dawn broke, he found pen and paper. He had never written a letter to a woman, other than brief thank-you notes to his mother, for whatever small gift she had sent, to Clarissa about financial matters, and his brief apology to Jennifer after that first night. Now, consumed by an aching melancholy, haunted by the mortified look in Jennifer’s eyes, freed by the prospect that he might never see her again, he wrote unguardedly, wanting only to explain himself.

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 would not be 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.

He folded it carefully into his breast pocket, and then, at last, he slept.

Don stubbed out his cigarette and studied the typewritten sheet while the young man standing awkwardly to the side of his desk shifted from one foot to the other. “You can’t spell bigamy. It’s an a, not an o.” He swiped his pencil belligerently across three lines. “And this intro’s terrible. You’ve got a man who married three women called Hilda, all within two miles of each other. That’s a gift of a story. The way you’ve written it I’d rather be reading Hansard on municipal drainage.”

“Sorry, Mr. Franklin.”

“Bugger sorry. Get it right. This was for an early page, and it’s already twenty to four. What the hell is the matter with you? ‘Bigomy’! You want to take a lesson from O’Hare here. He spends so much time in Africa that we can’t tell whether the bloody spellings are right or wrong anyway.” He threw the sheet of paper at the young man, who scrabbled for it and left the office quickly.

“So,” Don tutted, “where’s my bloody feature, then? ‘Riviera Secrets of the Rich and Famous?’ ”

“It’s coming,” Anthony lied.

“You’d better make it quick. I’ve got half a page put by for it on Saturday. Did you have a good time?”

“It was fine.”

Don tilted his head. “Yeah. Looks like it. So. Anyway. I’ve got good news.”

The windows of Don’s office were so covered with nicotine that anyone who brushed innocently against them would find their shirtsleeves stained yellow. Anthony stared out through the golden fug at the newsroom. For two days now he had walked around with the letter in his pocket, trying to work out how he could get it to her. He kept seeing her face, the flush of horror as she realized what she thought had been her mistake.

“Tony?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve got good news for you.”

“Right. Yes.”

“I’ve been talking to the foreign desk, and they want someone to go to Baghdad. Take a look at this man from the Polish embassy who’s claiming to be some sort of super-spy. Hard news, son. Right up your street. It’ll get you out of the office for a week or two.”

“I can’t go now.”

“You need a day or two?”

“I’ve got some personal business to sort out.”

“Shall I tell the Algerians to hold off on the ceasefire too? Just in case it gets in the way of your domestic arrangements? Are you kidding me, O’Hare?”

“Then send someone else. I’m sorry, Don.”

Don’s metronomic clicking of his ballpoint pen became increasingly uneven. “I don’t understand. You spend all your time hanging around the office bitching that you need to be off doing ‘real’ news, so I give you a story that Peterson would gnaw his right arm off for, and all of a sudden you want to be deskbound.”

“Like I said, I’m sorry.”

Don’s mouth fell open. He closed it, stood up heavily, made his way across the office, and closed the door. Then he came back to his seat. “Tony, this is a good story. You should be all over it like a bad suit. More than that, you need this story. You need to show them they can rely on you.” He peered at him. “You lost your appetite? You telling me you want to stick with the soft stuff?”

“No. I’m just . . . Just give me a day or two.”

Don sat back, lit a cigarette, and inhaled noisily. “Good God,” he said. “It’s a woman.”

Anthony said nothing.

“It is. You met a woman. What’s the matter? You can’t go anywhere until you’ve cracked her?”

“She’s married.”

“Since when did that stop you?”

“She’s . . . It’s the wife. Stirling’s wife.”

“And?”

“And she’s too good.”

“For him? Don’t tell me.”

“For me. I don’t know what to do.”

Don raised his eyes to the ceiling.

“An attack of conscience, eh? I wondered why you looked so bloody awful.” He shook his head, spoke as if someone else was in the little room. “I don’t believe it. O’Hare, of all people.” He placed his pen on his desk with a chubby hand. “Okay. Here’s what you’re going to do. Go and see her, do what you have to do, get it out of your system. Then be on the flight that leaves tomorrow lunchtime. I’ll tell the desk you left this evening. How does that sound? And write me some bloody decent stories.”

“ ‘Get it out of your system’? You old romantic.”

“You got a prettier phrase?”

Anthony felt the letter in his pocket. “I owe you one,” he said.

“You owe me eighty-three,” Don grumbled.

It had not been hard to find Stirling’s address. He had scanned the office copy of Who’s Who, and there it was, at the bottom of his entry, underneath “m: Jennifer Louisa Verrinder, b. 1934.” That evening, after work, he had driven to Fitzrovia and parked in the square a few doors up from the white-stuccoed house.

A Nash-style Regency villa, with pillars that flanked the front porch, it had the air of an expensive consultant’s office in Harley Street. He sat in the car and wondered what she was doing behind those net curtains. He pictured her sitting with a magazine, perhaps gazing blankly across the room and thinking of a lost moment in a hotel room in France. At around half past six a middle-aged woman left the house, drawing her coat around her and glancing up, as if checking the sky for rain. She tied a waterproof bonnet over her hair and hurried down the street. The curtains were drawn by an unseen hand and the humid evening gave way to night, but he sat in his Hillman, staring at Number 32.

He had begun to drift off when at last the front door opened. As he pushed himself upright, she stepped out. It was almost nine o’clock. She was wearing a sleeveless white dress, a little wrap over her shoulders, and walked down the steps carefully, as if she didn’t quite trust her feet. Then Stirling was behind her, saying something that Anthony couldn’t hear, and she nodded. Then they were climbing into a big black car. As it pulled out into the road, Anthony charged the ignition. He drove into the road, one car behind them, and followed.