The Last Letter from Your Lover

front of him. ‘Must have been a big one. We should ring the newsroom.’ He made no effort to pull over by the telephone boxes.
    When Anthony said nothing, Don leant over and fiddled with the radio until static defeated him. He examined the end of his cigarette, blew on it, making it glow. ‘De Saint says we have till tomorrow. Any later than that and we have to wait four days for the next scheduled flight.’ He spoke as if there was a decision to be made. ‘You could go and we’ll pull you off if she deteriorates.’
    ‘She’s already deteriorated.’ Clarissa’s cancer had been shocking in its swiftness. ‘She’s not expected to last the fortnight.’
    ‘Bloody bus. Look at it, taking up twice the road.’ Don wound down his window and threw his cigarette into the soaked street. He brushed the raindrops off his sleeve as he closed it again. ‘What’s the husband like, anyhow? No good?’
    ‘Only met him once.’
    I can’t stay with him. Please, Dad, don’t make me stay with him.
    Phillip had gripped his belt like someone hanging on to a life-raft. When Anthony had finally taken him back to the house in Parsons Green, he had felt the weight of those fingers long after he had handed him over.
    ‘I’m very sorry,’ he had said to Edgar. The curtain merchant, older than he had expected, had eyed him suspiciously, as if some insult had lain in what he’d said.
    ‘I can’t go.’ The words were out there. It was almost a relief to say them. Like finally being given the death sentence after years of possible reprieves.
    Don sighed. It might have been melancholy or relief. ‘He’s your son.’
    ‘He’s my son.’ He had promised: Yes, of course you can stay with me. Of course you can. It’s going to be all right. Even as he said the words he had not fully understood what he was giving away.
    The traffic had begun to move again, at first a slow crawl and then walking speed.
    They were at Chiswick before Don spoke again. ‘You know, O’Hare, this might work. It might be a bit of a gift. God knows what could have happened to you out there.’
    Don glanced sideways.
    ‘And who knows? Let the boy settle down a bit . . . you can still go off into the field. Maybe we’ll have him to stay. Let Viv look after him. He’d like it at ours. God knows, she misses having children around the place. Christ.’ A thought occurred. ‘You’re going to have to find yourself a bloody house. No more living out of hotel rooms.’
    He let Don ramble on, laying before him this mythical new life, like stories on a page, promising, soothing, the fellow family man emerging to make him feel better, to hide what he had lost, to quell the drum still beating somewhere in the darker regions of his soul.
    He had been given two weeks’ compassionate leave to find himself somewhere to live and to shepherd his son through his mother’s death and the dour formality of her funeral. Phillip had not wept in front of him again. He had expressed polite pleasure at the small terraced house in south-west London – close to his school, and to Don and Viv, who had thrown herself into her role as prospective auntie with relish. He sat now with his pitiful suitcase, as if waiting some future instruction. Edgar did not telephone to see how he was.
    It was like living with a stranger. Phillip was anxious to please, as if afraid he would be sent away. Anthony was at pains to tell him how pleased he was that they were living together, although he felt secretly as though he had cheated someone, been given something he didn’t deserve. He felt horribly inadequate to deal with the boy’s overwhelming grief, and struggled to function in the face of his own.
    He embarked upon a crash course in practical skills. He took their clothes to the launderette, sat beside Phillip at the barber. He didn’t know how to cook much more than a boiled egg so they went each night to a café at the end of the street, huge, hearty meals of steak and kidney pie and overboiled vegetables, steamed puddings swimming in pale custard. They pushed the food listlessly around their plates, and every evening Phillip would announce that it had been ‘delicious, thank you’, as if going there had been a great treat. Back at the house, Anthony would stand outside his boy’s bedroom door, wondering whether to go in or if acknowledging his sadness would only make it worse.
    On Sundays they were invited to Don’s house, where Viv would serve a roast dinner with all