The Last Letter from Your Lover

“And you work for a newspaper, Mr. O’Hare?” The elderly Frenchwoman peered up at him.

“Yes. In England.” A manservant appeared at his elbow with a tray of drinks. “Do you have anything soft? Tonic water, perhaps?” The man nodded and disappeared.

“What is it called?” she asked.

“The Nation.”

“The Nation,” she repeated, with apparent dismay. “I haven’t heard of it. I have heard of the Times. That is the best newspaper, isn’t it?”

“I’ve heard that people think so.” Oh, Lord, he thought. Please let the food be good.

The silver tray appeared at his elbow with a tall glass of iced tonic water. Anthony kept his gaze away from the sparkling kir the others were drinking. Instead he tried out a little of his schoolboy French on the mayor’s daughter, who replied in perfect English, with a charming French lilt. Too young, he thought, registering the mayor’s sideways glance.

He was gratified to find himself seated beside Yvonne Moncrieff when they finally sat down. She was polite, entertaining—and completely immune to him. Damn the happily married. Jennifer Stirling was on his left, turned away in conversation.

“Do you spend much time here, Mr. O’Hare?” Francis Moncrieff was a tall, thin man, the physical equivalent of his wife.

“No.”

“You’re more usually tied to the City of London?”

“No. I don’t cover it at all.”

“You’re not a financial journalist?”

“I’m a foreign correspondent. I cover . . . trouble abroad.”

“While Larry causes it.” Moncrieff laughed. “What sort of things do you write about?”

“Oh, war, famine, disease. The cheerful stuff.”

“I don’t think there is much cheerful about those.” The elderly Frenchwoman sipped her wine.

“For the last year I’ve been covering the crisis in Congo.”

“Lumumba’s a troublemaker,” Stirling interjected, “and the Belgians are cowardly fools if they think the place will do anything but sink without them.”

“You believe the Africans can’t be trusted to manage their own affairs?”

“Lumumba was a barefoot jungle postman not five minutes ago. There isn’t a colored with a professional education in the whole of Congo.” He lit a cigar and blew out a plume of smoke. “How are they meant to run the banks once the Belgians have gone, or the hospitals? The place will become a war zone. My mines are on the Rhodesian-Congolese border, and I’ve already had to draft in extra security. Rhodesian security—the Congolese can no longer be trusted.”

There was a brief silence. A muscle had begun to tick insistently in Anthony’s jaw.

Stirling tapped his cigar. “So, Mr. O’Hare, where were you in Congo?”

“Léopoldville, mainly. Brazzaville.”

“Then you know that the Congolese army cannot be controlled.”

“I know that independence is a testing time for any country. And that had Lieutenant General Janssens been more diplomatic, many lives might have been saved.”

Stirling stared at him over the cigar smoke. Anthony felt he was being reassessed. “So, you’ve been sucked into the cult of Lumumba too.” His smile was icy.

“It’s hard to believe that the conditions for many Africans could become any worse.”

“Then you and I must differ,” Stirling retorted. “I think that there are people for whom freedom can be a dangerous gift.”

The room fell silent. In the distance, a motorbike whined up a hillside. Madame Lafayette reached up anxiously to smooth her hair.

“Well, I can’t say I know anything about it,” Jennifer Stirling observed, laying her napkin neatly on her lap.

“Too depressing,” Yvonne Moncrieff agreed. “I simply can’t look at the newspapers some mornings. Francis reads the sport and City pages, and I stick to my magazines. Often the news goes completely unread.”

“My wife considers anything not in the pages of Vogue to not be proper news at all,” Moncrieff said.

The tension eased. Conversation flowed again, and the waiters refilled the glasses. The men discussed the stock market and developments on the Riviera—the influx of campers, which led the elderly couple to complain of a “lowering in tone,” and which awful newcomers had joined the British Bridge Club.

“I shouldn’t worry too much,” said Moncrieff. “The beach huts at Monte Carlo cost fifty pounds a week this year. I shouldn’t think too many Butlins types are going to pay that.”

“I heard that Elsa Maxwell proposed covering the pebbles with foam rubber so the beach wouldn’t be uncomfortable for one’s feet.”

“Terrible hardships one faces in this place,” Anthony remarked quietly. He wanted to leave, but that was impossible at this stage of the meal. He felt too far from where he had been—as if he had been dropped into a parallel universe. How could they be so inured to the mess, the horror, of Africa, when their lives were so plainly built upon it?

He hesitated for a moment, then motioned to a waiter for some wine. Nobody at the table seemed to notice.

“So . . . you’re going to write marvelous things about my husband, are you?” Mrs. Stirling was peering at his cuff. The second course, a platter of fresh seafood, had been laid in front of him, and she had turned toward him.

He adjusted his napkin. “I don’t know. Should I? Is he marvelous?”

“He’s a beacon of sound commercial practice, according to our dear friend Mr. Moncrieff. His factories are built to the highest standards. His turnover increases year after year.”

“That’s not what I asked you.”

“No?”

“I asked you if he was marvelous.” He knew he was being spiky, but the alcohol had woken him up, made his skin prickle.

“I don’t think you should ask me, Mr. O’Hare. A wife can hardly be impartial in such matters.”

“Oh, in my experience there is no one more brutally impartial than a wife.”

“Do go on.”

“Who else knows all her husband’s faults within weeks of marrying him, and can pinpoint them—regularly and from memory—with forensic accuracy?”

“Your wife sounds terribly cruel. I rather like the sound of her.”

“Actually, she’s an immensely clever woman.” He watched Jennifer Stirling pop a prawn into her mouth.

“Really?”

“Yes. Clever enough to have left me years ago.”

She passed him the mayonnaise. Then, when he didn’t take it from her, she spooned a dollop onto the side of his plate. “Does this mean you were not very marvelous, Mr. O’Hare?”

“At being married? No. I don’t suppose I was. In all other respects, I am, of course, peerless. And please call me Anthony.” It was as if he had picked up their mannerisms, their carelessly arrogant way of speaking.

“Then, Anthony, I’m sure you and my husband will get along terribly well. I believe he has a similar view of himself.” Her eyes settled on Stirling, then returned to him, and lingered just long enough for him to decide she might not be as wearisome as he’d thought.

During the main course—rolled beef, with cream and wild mushrooms—he discovered that Jennifer Stirling, née Verrinder, had been married for four years. She lived mostly in London, and her husband made numerous trips abroad to his mines. They came to the Riviera for the winter months, part of the summer, and odd holidays when London society proved dull. It was a tight crowd here, she said, eyeing the mayor’s wife opposite. You wouldn’t want to live here full-time, in the goldfish bowl.

These were the things she told him, things that should have marked her out as just another rich man’s overindulged wife. But he observed other things too: that Jennifer Stirling was probably a little neglected, more clever than her position required her to be, and that she had not realized what the combination might do to her within a year or two. For now, only the hint of sadness in her eyes suggested such self-awareness. She was caught up in a never-ending but meaningless social whirl.

There were no children. “I’ve heard it said that two people must be in the same country for a while to have one.” As she said this, he wondered if she was sending him a message. But she appeared guileless, amused by her situation rather than disappointed. “Do you have children, Anthony?” she inquired.

“I—I seem to have mislaid one. He lives with my ex-wife, who does her best to make sure that I don’t corrupt him.” He knew as soon as he’d said it that he was drunk. Sober, he would never have mentioned Phillip.

This time he saw something serious behind her smile, as if she was wondering whether to commiserate. Don’t, he willed her silently. To hide his embarrassment, he poured himself another glass of wine. “It’s fine. He—”

“In what way might you be considered a corrupting influence, Mr. O’Hare?” Mariette, the mayor’s daughter, asked from across the table.

“I suspect, mademoiselle, that I’m more likely to be corrupted,” he said. “Had I not already decided to write a most flattering profile of Mr. Stirling, I should imagine I would be won over by the food and company at his table.” He paused. “What would it take to corrupt you, Mrs. Moncrieff?” he asked—she seemed the safest person to whom he could direct this question.

“Oh, I’d be as cheap as anything. Nobody ever tried hard enough,” she said.

“What rot,” said her husband, fondly. “It took me months to corrupt you.”

“Well, you had to buy me, darling. Unlike Mr. O’Hare here, you were entirely lacking in looks and charm.” She blew him a kiss. “Whereas Jenny is entirely incorruptible. Don’t you think she gives off the most terrifying air of goodness?”

“No soul on earth is incorruptible if the price is right,” said Moncrieff. “Even sweet little Jenny.”

“No, Francis. M. Lafayette is our true beacon of integrity,” said Jennifer, her lips twitching mischievously at the corners. She had begun to look a little giddy. “After all, there’s no such thing as corruption in French politics.”

“Darling, I don’t think you’re equipped to discuss French politics,” Laurence Stirling interjected.

Anthony saw the faint color that rose to her cheeks.

“I was just saying—”

“Well, don’t,” he said lightly. She blinked and gazed at her plate.

There was a brief hush.

“I believe you are right, madame,” M. Lafayette said gallantly to Jennifer, as he put down his glass. “However, I can tell you what a dishonest scoundrel my rival at the town hall is . . . at the right price, of course.”

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.”