The Last Letter from Your Lover

of negotiating a whole Saturday without work, without her friends, who all seem to be busy, was terrifying. That freckled hand again.
    ‘It’s Ellie Haworth. About your letters.’
    ‘Ah. Come in. I’m on the fourth floor. You may have to wait a while for the lift. It’s terribly slow.’
    It’s the kind of building she rarely goes into in an area she hardly knows; her friends live in new-build flats with tiny rooms and underground parking, or maisonettes squashed like layer cakes into Victorian terraced houses. This block speaks of old money, imperviousness to fashion. It makes her think of the word ‘dowager’ – John might use it – and smile.
    The hallway is lined with dark turquoise carpet, a colour from another age. The brass rail that leads up the four marble steps bears the deep patina of frequently polishing. She thinks, briefly, of the communal area in her own block, with its piles of neglected post and carelessly left bicycles.
    The lift makes its stately way up the four floors, creaking and trundling, and she steps out on to a tiled corridor.
    ‘Hello?’ Ellie sees the open door.
    Afterwards she’s not sure what she had pictured: some stooped old lady with twinkling eyes and perhaps a nice shawl amid a house full of small china animals. Jennifer Stirling is not that woman. In her sixties she might be, but her figure is lean and still upright, only her silver hair, cut into a side-swept bob, hints at her true age. She’s wearing a dark blue cashmere sweater and a belted wool jacket over a pair of well-cut trousers that are more Dries van Noten than M&S. An emerald green scarf is tied round her neck.
    ‘Miss Haworth?’
    She senses that the woman has watched her, perhaps assessing her, before using her name.
    ‘Yes.’ Ellie stuck out her hand. ‘Ellie, please.’
    The woman’s face relaxes a little. Whatever test there was, she seems to have passed it – for now, at least. ‘Do come in. Have you come far?’
    Ellie follows her into the apartment. Again, she finds her expectations defied. No animal knick-knacks here. The room is huge, light and sparsely furnished. The pale wood floors sport a couple of large Persian rugs, and two damask-clad chesterfields face each other across a glass coffee-table. The only other pieces of furniture are eclectic and exquisite: a chair that she suspects is expensive, modern and Danish, and a small antique table, inlaid with walnut. Photographs of family, small children.
    ‘What a beautiful flat,’ says Ellie, who has never particularly cared about interior decorating but suddenly knows how she wants to live.
    ‘It is nice, isn’t it? I moved here in . . . ’sixty-eight, I think. It was rather a shabby old block then but I thought it would be a nice place for my daughter to grow up, since she had to live in a city. You can see Regent’s Park from that window. Can I take your coat? Would you like some coffee? You look terribly wet.’
    Ellie sits while Jennifer Stirling disappears into the kitchen. On the walls, which are the palest shade of cream, there are several large pieces of modern art. Ellie eyes Jennifer Stirling as she re-enters the room, and realises that she’s not surprised that she could have inspired such passion in the unknown letter-writer.
    The photographs on the table include one of a ridiculously beautiful young woman, posed as if for a Cecil Beaton portrait; then, perhaps a few years later, she’s peering down at a newborn child, her expression wearing the exhaustion, awe and elation seemingly common to all new mothers – her hair, even though she has just given birth is perfectly set.
    ‘It’s very kind of you to go to all this trouble. I have to say, your letter was intriguing.’ A cup of coffee is placed in front of her, and Jennifer Stirling sits opposite, stirring hers with a tiny silver spoon, a red-enamel coffee bean at the end. Jesus, thinks Ellie. Her waist is smaller than mine.
    ‘I’m curious to know what this correspondence is. I don’t think I’ve thrown anything out accidentally for years. I tend to shred everything. My accountant bought me one of those infernal devices last Christmas.’
    ‘Well, it wasn’t actually me who found it. A friend of mine has been sorting out the archive at the Nation newspaper and came across a file.’
    Jennifer Stirling’s demeanour changes.
    ‘And in it were these.’
    Ellie reaches into her bag and carefully pulls out the plastic wallet with the three love letters.