The Last Letter from Your Lover

be caught kissing, or that their passion is so apparent they become the subject of damaging gossip.
    She looks up to find Jennifer Stirling’s eyes on her. ‘Would you like more coffee, Ellie? I’m assuming you’re not in a hurry to be anywhere.’
    ‘No. That would be lovely. I want to know what happened.’
    Her expression changes. The smile fades. There is a short silence.
    ‘He returned to Congo,’ she says. ‘He used to travel to the most awfully dangerous places. Bad things were happening to white people out there at the time, and he wasn’t terribly well . . .’ She no longer seems to be directing her words at Ellie. ‘Men are often a lot more fragile than they seem, aren’t they?’
    Ellie digests this, trying not to feel the bitter disappointment this information seems to induce. This is not your life, she tells herself firmly. This does not have to be your tragedy. ‘What was his name? I’m guessing it wasn’t Boot.’
    ‘No. That was our little joke. Have you read Evelyn Waugh? His real name was Anthony O’Hare. Actually, it’s strange, telling it all to you after all this time. He was the love of my life, yet I have no photographs of him, few memories. If it wasn’t for my letters I might have thought I’d imagined the whole thing. That’s why you bringing them back to me is such a gift.’
    A lump rises to Ellie’s throat.
    The telephone rings, jolting them from their thoughts.
    ‘Do excuse me,’ Jennifer says. She walks out into the hallway, picks up a telephone, and Ellie hears her answer, her voice immediately calm, imbued with professional distance. ‘Yes,’ she is saying. ‘Yes, we still do. When was he diagnosed? . . . I’m so sorry . . .’
    Ellie scribbles the name on her notepad and slips it back into her bag. She checks that her tape-recorder has been running, that the microphone is still in position. Satisfied, she sits there for a few minutes longer, gazing at the family pictures, grasping that Jennifer will be a while. It doesn’t seem fair to hurry someone who’s evidently in the clutches of lung disease. She rips a page from her pad, scribbles a note and picks up her coat. She goes over to the window. Outside, the weather has cleared and the puddles on the pavement gleam bright blue. Then she moves to the door and stands there with the note.
    ‘Do excuse me for one moment.’ Jennifer holds her hand over the receiver. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m likely to be some time.’ Her voice suggests that their conversation will not be continued today. ‘Someone needs to apply for compensation.’
    ‘Can we talk again?’ Ellie holds out the piece of paper. ‘My details are there. I really want to know . . .’
    Jennifer nods, half her attention on her caller. ‘Yes. Of course. It’s the least I can do. And thank you again, Ellie.’
    Ellie turns to leave, her coat over her arm. Then, as Jennifer is lifting the receiver to her ear, she turns back. ‘Just tell me one thing – just quickly? When he left again – Boot – what did you do?’
    Jennifer Stirling lowers the receiver, her eyes clear and calm. ‘I followed him.’

There was no affair between us. If you try to suggest otherwise I shall make clear it was all in your imagination.
    Male to Female, via letter, 1960

20
    ‘Madam? Would you like a drink?’
    Jennifer opened her eyes. She had been holding the armrests of her seat for almost an hour as the BOAC aeroplane bucked its way towards Kenya. She had never been a very good flyer, but the relentless turbulence had ratcheted up the tension in the Comet so that even the old Africa hands were clenching their jaws with every bump. She winced as her bottom lifted from the seat, and there was a wail of dismay from the rear of the plane. The smell of hastily lit cigarettes had created a fug of smoke in the cabin.
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Please.’
    ‘I’ll give you a double,’ the air-hostess said, winking. ‘It’s going to be a bumpy ride in.’
    She drank half of it in one gulp. Her eyes were gritty after a journey that had now stretched to almost forty-eight hours. Before leaving she had lain awake for several nights in London, chasing her thoughts, contradicting herself as to whether what she was attempting was madness, as everyone else seemed to think.
    ‘Would you like one of these?’ The businessman beside her held out a tin, its lid cocked towards her. His hands were huge, the fingers like dry-cured