The Last Letter from Your Lover

sausages.
    ‘Thank you. What are they? Mints?’ she said.
    He smiled beneath his thick white moustache. ‘Oh, no.’ His accent was thick, Afrikaans. ‘They’re to calm your nerves. You might be glad of them later.’
    She withdrew her hand. ‘I won’t, thanks. Someone once told me that turbulence is nothing to be afraid of.’
    ‘He’s right. It’s the turbulence on the ground you want to be careful of.’
    When she didn’t laugh, he peered at her for a moment. ‘Where are you headed? Safari?’
    ‘No. I need to catch a connecting flight to Stanleyville. I was told I couldn’t get one direct from London.’
    ‘Congo? What do you want to go there for, lady?’
    ‘I’m trying to find a friend.’
    His voice was incredulous. ‘ Congo ?’
    ‘Yes.’
    He was looking at her as if she was mad. She straightened in her seat a little, temporarily loosening her grip on the armrests.
    ‘You don’t read the newspapers?’
    ‘A little, but not for a few days. I’ve been . . . very busy.’
    ‘Very busy, huh? Little lady, you might want to turn around and go straight back to England.’ He gave a low chuckle. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re not going to get to Congo.’
    She turned away from him to stare out of the aeroplane window at the clouds, the distant snow-capped mountains beneath her, and wondered, briefly, if there was the faintest chance that, right at this moment, he was there ten thousand feet below her. You have no idea how far I’ve come already, she responded silently.
    Two weeks previously Jennifer Stirling had stumbled out of the offices of the Nation , stood on the steps, with her daughter’s small chubby hand in her own, and realised she had no idea what to do next. A brisk wind had picked up, sending leaves scurrying after each other along the gutters, their aimless trajectory mirroring her own. How could Anthony have disappeared? Why had he left her no message? She recalled his anguish in the hotel lobby and feared she knew the answer. The fat newspaperman’s words swam in her head. The world seemed to sway, and for a moment she thought she might faint.
    Then Esmé had complained that she needed to spend a penny. The more immediate demand of a small child had hauled her out of her thoughts and into practicality.
    She had booked into the Regent, where he had stayed, as if some small part of her believed it might be easier for him to find her there if he chose to return. She had to believe he would want to find her, would want to know that she was free at last.
    The only available room was a suite on the fourth floor, and she had agreed to it easily. Laurence wouldn’t dare quibble about money. And as Esmé sat happily in front of the large television, occasionally breaking off to bounce on the huge bed, she spent the rest of the evening pacing, thinking furiously, trying to work out how best to get a message to a man who was somewhere in the vast expanse of central Africa.
    Finally, as Esmé slept, curled under the hotel quilt beside her, her thumb in her mouth, Jennifer lay watching her in the hotel bed, listening to the sounds of the city, fighting tears of impotence, and wondering whether, if she thought hard enough, she might somehow send a message to him telepathically. Boot. Please hear me. I need you to come back for me. I can’t do this by myself.
    On the second and third days she spent most of the daylight hours focused on Esmé, taking her to the Natural History Museum, to tea at Fortnum & Mason. They shopped on Regent Street for clothes – she hadn’t been organised enough to send what they had with them to the hotel laundry – and had roast-chicken sandwiches from room service for supper, sent up on a silver salver. Occasionally Esmé would ask where Mrs Cordoza or Daddy was, and Jennifer reassured her that they would see them very soon. She was grateful for her daughter’s stream of small, mostly achievable requests, the routines imposed by tea, bath and bed. But once the little girl had fallen asleep, she would close the bedroom door and be filled with a kind of black fear. What had she done? With each hour that passed, the enormity – and futility – of her actions crept further in on her. She had thrown away her life, moved her daughter into a hotel room – and for what?
    She called the Nation twice more. She had spoken to the gruff man with the large stomach; now she recognised his voice, his abrupt manner of speaking. He told her, yes, he would pass on the