The Last Letter from Your Lover

thought you two had a kind of shorthand.’
    ‘Me too.’
    ‘So what’s the problem?’
    ‘She’s . . . more complicated than she looks.’
    The older man smiles wryly. ‘I’ve never met a woman who wasn’t.’
    ‘Yes . . . Well. I don’t like complications.’
    ‘There’s no such thing as a life free of complications, Rory. We all end up making compromises in the end.’
    ‘Not me.’
    The librarian raises an eyebrow. There’s a small smile on his face.
    ‘What?’ Rory says. ‘ What ? You’re not going to give me some Werther’s Original lecture about missed opportunities and how you wish you’d done things differently, are you?’ His voice is louder, snappier than he intended, but he can’t help himself. He starts to move boxes from one side of the van to the other. ‘It would have been pointless, anyway. I’m going away. I don’t need complications.’
    ‘No.’
    Rory shoots him a sideways look, registers the creeping smile. ‘Don’t go getting sentimental on me now. I need to remember you as a miserable old bugger.’
    The miserable old bugger chuckles. ‘I wouldn’t dare. Come on. Let’s go and do a last check of the microfiche area and load up the tea stuff. Then I’ll buy you lunch. And then you can not tell me all about what happened between you and this girl you patently couldn’t care less about.’
    The pavement outside Jennifer Stirling’s block is bleached a barnacle grey under the winter sun. A road-sweeper is working his way along the kerb, deftly picking up pieces of rubbish with a pair of pincers. Ellie wonders when she last saw a road-sweeper in her part of London. Perhaps it’s considered too sisyphean a task: her high street is a riot of takeaways and cheap bakeries, their red and white striped paper bags floating merrily around the neighbourhood, telling of yet another lunchtime orgy of saturated fat and sugar.
    ‘It’s Ellie. Ellie Haworth,’ she shouts into the entryphone, when Jennifer answers. ‘I left you a message. I hope it’s okay if I—’
    ‘Ellie.’ Her voice is welcoming. ‘I was just coming down.’
    As the lift makes its unhurried way down the storeys, she thinks about Melissa. Unable to sleep, Ellie had arrived at the Nation’s offices shortly after seven thirty. She needed to work out how to salvage the love-letters feature; rereading Clive’s communications to her has made her realise there’s no way she can return to her old life. She’ll make this feature work. She’ll get the rest of the information from Jennifer Stirling and somehow turn it around. She’s her old self; focused, determined. It helps not think about how utterly confusing her personal life has become.
    She had been shocked to discover Melissa already in the office. Features was otherwise empty, but for a silent cleaner, listlessly pushing a vacuum-cleaner between the remaining desks, and Melissa’s door was propped open.
    ‘I know, poppet, but Nina’s going to take you.’ She had lifted a hand to her hair, and was twisting a shining strand restlessly. The hair wove through her slim fingers, illuminated by the low winter sun, pulled, twisted, released.
    ‘No, I told you on Sunday night. Do you remember? Nina’s going to take you there and pick you up afterwards . . . I know . . . I know . . . but Mummy has to go to work. You know I have to work, sweetie . . .’ She sat down, briefly rested her head in her hand so that Ellie struggled to hear.
    ‘I know, I know. And I will come to the next one. But do you remember I told you we were moving our offices? And it’s very important? And Mummy can’t—’
    There was a long silence.
    ‘Daisy, darling, can you put Nina on? . . . I know. Just put Nina on for a minute . . . Yes, I’ll speak to you afterwards. Just put—’ She glanced up, saw Ellie outside the office. Ellie turned away quickly, embarrassed to have been caught eavesdropping, and picked up her own phone, as if involved in some equally important call. When she looked up again, Melissa’s office door was closed. It was hard to tell, from that distance, but she might have been crying.
    ‘Well, this is a nice surprise.’ Jennifer Stirling is wearing a crisp linen shirt and a pair of indigo jeans.
    I want to wear jeans when I’m sixty-something, Ellie thinks. ‘You said I could come back.’
    ‘You certainly can. I must admit, it was a guilty pleasure unburdening myself last week. You remind me a little of my daughter