The Last Letter from Your Lover

happy.’
    Nicky raises an eyebrow.
    ‘Okay. I’m happier and unhappier than I’ve ever been with anyone else, if that makes sense.’
    Unlike her two best friends, Ellie has never lived with a man. Until she was thirty she had assigned marriage-andchildren – it was always one word – to the folder of things she would do later in life, long after she had established her career, like drinking sensibly and taking out a pension. She didn’t want to end up like some girls from her school, exhausted and pushing prams in their mid-twenties, financially dependent on husbands they seemed to despise.
    Her last boyfriend had complained that he had spent most of their relationship following her while she ran from place to place ‘barking into a mobile phone’. He had been even more pissed off that she’d found this funny. But since she’d turned thirty, it had become a little less amusing. When she visited her parents in Derbyshire, they made conspicuous efforts not to mention boyfriends, so much so that it had become just another form of pressure. She’s good at being on her own, she tells them and other people. And had been the truth, until she’d met John.
    ‘Is he married, love?’ the woman asks, though the steam.
    Ellie and Nicky exchange a subtle glance.
    ‘Yes,’ Ellie says.
    ‘If it makes you feel any better, I fell in love with a married man and we’ve been married four years next Tuesday.’
    ‘Congratulations,’ they say in tandem, Ellie conscious that it seems an odd word to use in the circumstances.
    ‘Happy as anything, we are. Of course his daughter won’t talk to him any more, but it’s fine. We’re happy.’
    ‘How long did it take him to leave his wife?’ Ellie asks, sitting up.
    The woman is pushing her hair into a ponytail. She has no boobs, Ellie thinks, and he still left his wife for her.
    ‘Twelve years,’ she says. ‘It meant we couldn’t have children but, like I said, it was worth it. We’re very happy.’
    ‘I’m glad for you,’ says Ellie, as the woman climbs down. The glass door opens, letting in a burp of cold air as she leaves, and then it’s the two of them, sitting in the hot, darkened cabin.
    There’s a short silence.
    ‘Twelve years,’ says Nicky, rubbing her face with her towel. ‘Twelve years, an alienated daughter and no kids. Well, I bet that makes you feel loads better.’
    Two days later the phone rings. It’s a quarter past nine and she’s at her desk, standing up to recognise it so that her boss can see she’s there and working. What time does Melissa come to work? She seems to be first in and last out in Features, yet her hair and makeup are always immaculate, her outfits carefully co-ordinated. Ellie suspects there’s probably a personal trainer at six a.m., a blow-dry at some exclusive salon an hour afterwards. Does Melissa have a home life? Someone once mentioned a young daughter, but Ellie finds that hard to believe.
    ‘Features,’ she says, staring absently into the glass office. Melissa is on the phone, walking up and down, one hand stroking her hair.
    ‘Do I have the right number for Ellie Haworth?’ A cut-glass voice, a relic from a previous age.
    ‘Yup. This is she.’
    ‘Ah. I believe you sent me a letter. My name is Jennifer Stirling.’

What did I do? That Thursday you said you didn’t want to let me go. Your words, not mine. And then nothing. I actually thought you had an accident! S***** said you did this before and I didn’t want to believe her, but now I just feel like an idiot.
    Female to Male, via letter

19
    She walks briskly, head down against the driving rain, cursing herself for not thinking far enough ahead to bring an umbrella. Taxis follow in the slipstream of steamy-windowed buses, sending sprays of water in graceful arcs over the kerb. She is in St Johns Wood on a wet Saturday afternoon, trying not think of white sands in Barbados, of a broad freckled hand rubbing sun cream into a woman’s back. It is an image that pops into her head with punishing frequency, and has done for the six days John has been gone. The foul weather feels like some cosmic joke at her expense.
    The mansion block rises in a grey slab from a wide, tree-lined pavement. She trips up the stone steps, presses the buzzer for number eight and waits, hopping impatiently from one soaked foot to the other.
    ‘Hello?’ The voice is clear, less elderly than she had imagined. She thanks God that Jennifer Stirling suggested today: the thought