The Last Letter from Your Lover

romantic poet, was studying a map on the desk. ‘The big story’s in Stanleyville. There are at least eight hundred non-Congolese being held hostage there, many in the Victoria Hotel, and perhaps a thousand more in the surrounding area. Diplomatic efforts to save them have so far failed. There’s so much infighting between the rebels that the situation is changing by the hour so it’s near impossible to get an accurate picture. It’s pretty woolly out there, O’Hare. Until maybe six months ago, I would have said the safety of any white man was guaranteed, whatever was going on with the natives. Now, I’m afraid, they seem to be targeting les colons . There are some fairly horrific stories coming out. Nothing we can put in the paper.’ He paused. ‘Rape is only the half of it.’
    ‘How do I get in?’
    ‘There’s our starting problem. I’ve been talking to Nicholls, and the best way is going to be via Rhodesia – or Zambia, as they’re now calling the northern half. Our man there is trying to work out a land route for you, but many of the roads have been destroyed and it’ll take days.’
    As he talked travel logistics with Don, Anthony let the conversation drift away from him and saw, with some gratitude, that not only had a whole half-hour gone by in which he hadn’t thought of her but that the story was pulling him in. He could feel nervous anticipation germinating in his belly, and was drawn to the challenge of getting across the hostile terrain. He felt no fear. How could he? What worse things could happen?
    He leafed through the files that de Saint’s deputy handed him. The political background; the Communist aid to the rebels that had so enraged the Americans; the execution of the American missionary, Paul Carlson. He read the ground-level reports of what the rebels had done and his jaw tightened. They took him back to 1960 and the turmoil of Lumumba’s brief rule. He read them as if at a distance. He felt as if the man who had been out there before – the man so shattered by what he had seen – was someone he no longer recognised.
    ‘So, we’ll book flights to Kenya tomorrow, yes? We’ve got a man on the inside at Sabena who’ll let us know if there are any internal flights to Congo. Otherwise it’s drop at Salisbury airport and make your way across the Rhodesian border. Yes?’
    ‘Do we know which correspondents have made it there?’
    ‘There’s not an awful lot coming out. I suspect communications are difficult. But Oliver has a piece in the Mail today, and I’ve heard the Telegraph are running big tomorrow.’
    The door opened. Cheryl’s face was anxious.
    ‘We’re in the middle of something, Cheryl.’ Don sounded irritated.
    ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘but your boy is here.’
    It took Anthony several seconds to grasp that she was looking at him. ‘My boy?’
    ‘I’ve put him in Don’s office.’
    Anthony stood up, barely able to digest what he had heard. ‘Excuse me a moment,’ he said, and followed Cheryl out across the newsroom.
    There it was: the jolt he experienced on the few occasions he got to see Phillip, a kind of visceral shock at how much he had changed since the last visit, his growth a constant rebuke to his father’s absence.
    In six months his son’s frame had elongated by inches, tipped its way into adolescence but not yet filled out. Hunched over himself, he resembled a question mark. He looked up as Anthony entered the room, and his face was blanched, his eyes red-rimmed.
    Anthony stood there, trying to work out the cause of the grief etched across his son’s pale face, and some distant part of him wondered, Is it me again? Did he find out what I did to myself? Am I such a failure in his eyes?
    ‘It’s Mother,’ Phillip said. He blinked furiously and wiped his nose with a hand.
    Anthony took a step closer. The boy unfurled and threw himself with unexpected force into his father’s arms. Anthony felt himself gripped, Phillip’s hands clutching at his shirt as if he would never let him go, and he allowed his own hand to fall gently on to his boy’s head, as sobs racked the thin body.
    The rain was so loud on the roof of Don’s car that it almost drowned thought. Almost, but not quite. In the twenty minutes it had taken them to edge through the traffic on Kensington High Street, the two men had sat in silence, the only other sound Don’s fervent drags on his cigarette.
    ‘Accident,’ Don said, staring at the snaking red tail-lights in