The Last Letter from Your Lover

you’ve had a few drinks first. You relax more. C’mon . . . let your limbs go. Just lean forwards a bit.’ He had skated backwards in front of her, his arms outstretched so that she clutched them. When she fell over, he laughed mercilessly. It was liberating to do this with someone whose opinion she cared so little for: if it had been John she would have fretted that the chill of the ice was making her nose red.
    She would have been thinking the whole time about when he would have to leave.
    They have arrived at her door. ‘Thanks,’ she says to Rory. ‘Tonight was going pretty badly, and I ended up having a great time.’
    ‘Least I could do, after raining all over your birthday with that letter.’
    ‘I’ll get over it.’
    ‘Who’d have thought? Ellie Haworth has a heart.’
    ‘It’s just an ugly rumour.’
    ‘You’re not bad, you know,’ he says, a smile playing around his eyes. ‘For an old bird.’
    She wants to ask him if he’s talking about the skating, but she’s suddenly unnerved by what he might say. ‘And you’re all charm.’
    ‘You’re . . .’ He glances back down the road towards the Tube station.
    She wonders, briefly, if she should invite him in. But even as she considers it, she knows it won’t work. Her head, her flat, her life are full of John. There’s no room for this man. Perhaps what she actually feels for him is sisterly, and only mildly confused by the fact that he is not exactly ugly.
    He’s studying her face again, and she has the unnerving suspicion that her deliberation was written on her face.
    ‘I’d better go,’ he says, gesturing towards his friends.
    ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Thanks again, though.’
    ‘No problem. I’ll see you at work.’ He kisses her cheek, then turns and half jogs towards the station. She watches him go, feeling oddly bereft.
    Ellie makes her way up the stone steps and reaches for her key. She will reread the new letter and go through the papers, checking for clues. She’ll be productive. She’ll channel her energies. She feels a hand on her shoulder and jumps, stifling a scream.
    John is on the step behind her, a bottle of champagne and a ridiculously large bunch of flowers under one arm. ‘I’m not here,’ he says. ‘I’m in Somerset, giving a lecture to a writers’ group, who are talentless and include at least one interminable bore.’ He stands there as she catches her breath. ‘You can say something – as long as it’s not “Go away.”’
    She’s mute.
    He puts the flowers and champagne on the step and pulls her into his arms. His kiss has the warmth of his car. ‘I’ve been sitting over there for almost half an hour. I started to panic that you weren’t coming home at all.’
    Everything inside her melts. She drops her bag, feels his skin, his weight, his size, and allows herself to fall against him. He takes her cold face in his warm hands. ‘Happy birthday,’ he says, when they finally pull apart.
    ‘Somerset?’ she says, a little giddy. ‘Does that mean . . . ?’
    ‘All night.’
    It’s her thirty-second birthday, and the man she loves is there with champagne and flowers and is going to spend all night in her bed.
    ‘So, can I come in?’ he says.
    She frowns at him in a way that says, ‘Do you really need to ask?’ Then she picks up the flowers, the champagne, and heads upstairs.

Tuesday I’m busy. To tell the truth, I’m not all that crazy about us catching up any more . . . I’m guessing that just being upfront is going to be a wee bit less insulting than meeting up and then just not agreeing to do so again.
    Male to Female, via email

18
    ‘Ellie? Can I have a word?’
    She’s sliding her bag under her desk, her skin still moist from the shower she had not half an hour previously, her thoughts still elsewhere. Melissa’s voice, from the glass office, is hard, a brutal re-entry into real life.
    ‘Of course.’ She nods and smiles obligingly. Someone has left a coffee for her; it’s lukewarm, has obviously been there some time. There is a note underneath it, addressed to Jayne Torvill that reads: ‘Lunch?’
    She has no time to digest this. She has whipped off her coat, is walking into Melissa’s office, noting with dismay that the features editor is still standing. She perches on a chair and waits as Melissa walks slowly round her desk and sits down. She’s wearing a pair of velvety black jeans and a black polo-neck, and has the toned arms and stomach of someone who