The Last Letter from Your Lover

blameless oblivion of deep sleep. She felt him pause, his hand still, and then, with a sigh of his own, he lay back heavily on his pillows.

I wish I could be the person that saves you but it’s just not going to happen . . . I won’t call you after you get this letter because that might upset you and that won’t be a fair reflection of you if I hear you cry because I have never seen you cry in a year and a half and I’ve never had a girlfriend like that before.
    Male to Female, via letter

2
    Moira Parker regarded the grim set of her boss’s jawline, the determined way in which he strode through her office to his own, and thought it was probably a good thing that Mr Arbuthnot, his two-thirty, was late. Clearly the last meeting had not gone well.
    She stood up, smoothing her skirt, and took his coat, which was speckled with rain from the short walk between his car and the office. She placed his umbrella in the stand, then took a moment longer than usual to hang the coat carefully on the hook. She had worked for him long enough now to judge when he needed a little time alone.
    She poured him a cup of tea – he always had a cup of tea in the afternoons, two cups of coffee in the mornings – collected up her papers with an economy born of years’ practice, then knocked on his door and walked in. ‘I suspect Mr Arbuthnot has been held up in traffic. Apparently there’s a big jam on the Marylebone Road.’
    He was reading the letters she had left on his desk earlier for his signature. Evidently satisfied, he took his pen from his breast pocket and signed with short, abrupt strokes. She placed his tea on his desk and folded the letters into her pile of papers. ‘I’ve picked up the tickets for your flight to South Africa, and arranged for you to be collected at the airport.’
    ‘That’s the fifteenth.’
    ‘Yes. I’ll bring them through if you’d like to check the paperwork. Here are the sales figures for last week. The latest wage totals are in this folder here. And as I wasn’t sure you would have had time for lunch after the car manufacturers’ meeting, I’ve taken the liberty of ordering you some sandwiches. I hope that’s acceptable.’
    ‘Very kind, Moira. Thank you.’
    ‘Would you like them now? With your tea?’
    He nodded and smiled at her briefly. She did her best not to colour. She knew the other secretaries mocked her for what they considered her over-attentive manner with her boss, not to mention her prim clothes and slightly stiff way of doing things. But he was a man who liked things done properly, and she had always understood that. Those silly girls, with their heads always stuck in a magazine, their endless gossiping in the ladies’ cloakroom, they didn’t understand the inherent pleasure in a job well done. They didn’t understand the satisfaction of being indispensable .
    She hesitated briefly, then pulled the last letter from her folder. ‘The second post has arrived. I thought you should probably see this. It’s another of those letters about the men at Rochdale.’
    His eyebrows lowered, which killed the small smile that had illuminated his face. He read the letter twice. ‘Has anyone else seen this?’
    ‘No, sir.’
    ‘File it with the others.’ He thrust it at her. ‘It’s all trouble-making stuff. The unions are behind it. I won’t have any truck with them.’
    She took it wordlessly. She made as if to leave, then turned back. ‘And may I ask . . . how is your wife? Glad to be back at home, I should say.’
    ‘She’s fine, thank you. Much – much more her old self,’ he said. ‘It’s been a great help for her to be at home.’
    She swallowed. ‘I’m very pleased to hear it.’
    His attention was already elsewhere – he was flicking through the sales figures she had left for him. Her smile still painted on her face, Moira Parker clasped her paperwork to her chest and marched back out to her desk.
    Old friends, he had said. Nothing too challenging. Two of those friends were familiar now, having visited Jennifer in hospital and again once she had returned home. Yvonne Moncrieff, an elongated, dark-haired woman in her early thirties, had been her friend since they had become close neighbours in Medway Square. She had a dry, sardonic manner, which stood in direct contrast to that of the other friend, Violet, whom Yvonne had known at school and seemed to accept the other’s cutting humour and droll put-downs as her due.
    Jennifer had struggled