The Last Letter from Your Lover

pair of legs beneath it, a dark mackintosh. As he watches, the figure ducks to say something to the driver, and the legs walk into the park and along the narrow pathway, making straight for the shelter.
    Anthony O’Hare finds he’s standing up, straightening his jacket and smoothing his hair. He can’t take his eyes off those shoes, the distinctive upright walk, visible despite the umbrella. He takes a step forward, not sure what he’ll say, what he’ll do. His heart has lodged somewhere near his mouth. There is singing in his ears. The feet, clad in dark tights, stop in front of him. The umbrella lifts slowly. And there she is, still the same, startlingly ridiculously, the same, a smile playing at the corners of her lips as her eyes meet his. He cannot speak. He can only stare, as her name rings in his ears.
    Jennifer.
    ‘Hello, Boot,’ she says.
    Ellie sits in the car and wipes the steam from the passenger window with her sleeve. She’s parked on a Red Route, no doubt drawing down the wrath of the parking gods, but she doesn’t care. She can’t move.
    She watches Jennifer’s steady progress down the path, sees the slight hesitation in her step that tells of her fears. Twice the older woman had insisted they return home, that they were too late, that all was lost, useless. Ellie had pretended to be deaf. Sang lalalalalalala until Jennifer Stirling told her, with uncharacteristic crossness, that she was an ‘interminable, ridiculous’ girl.
    She watches Jennifer moving forwards under her umbrella and is afraid that she’ll turn and run away. This thing has shown her that age is no protection against the hazards of love. She has listened to Jennifer’s words, spinning wildly between triumph and disaster, and heard her own endless analyses of John’s words, her own desperate need for something that was so transparently wrong to be right. Her own conjuring of outcomes, emotions, from words whose meanings she could only guess at.
    But Anthony O’Hare is a different creature.
    She wipes the window again and sees Jennifer slow, then stop. And he is stepping out of the shadows, taller somehow than he had appeared before, stooping slightly at the shelter’s entrance before he stands squarely before her. They face each other, the slim woman in the mackintosh and the librarian. Even from this distance Ellie can see they are now oblivious to the rain, to the neat little park, to the curious eyes of observers. Their eyes have locked and they stand as if they could stand there for a thousand years. Jennifer lets her umbrella fall, dips her head to one side, such a small movement, and lifts her hand tenderly to his face. As Ellie watches, Anthony’s own hand lifts and presses her palm against his skin.
    Ellie Haworth watches a moment longer, then moves away from the window, lets the steam obscure the view. She shuffles over to the driving seat, blows her nose and starts the engine. The best journalists know when to bow out of a story.
    The house is in a Victorian terraced street, its windows and doorways iced in white masonry, the mismatched selection of blinds and curtains telling of the varied ownership within. She turns off the ignition, climbs out of the car and walks up to the front door, gazing at the names on the two bells. It is only his name on the ground floor. She’s a little surprised; she had assumed he wouldn’t own a flat outright. But, then, what does she know of his life before the newspaper? Nothing at all.
    The article is in a large brown envelope, with his name on the front. She pushes it through the door, letting the letterbox clap loudly. She walks back to the front gate, climbs up and sits on the brick pillar that supports it, her scarf pulled up around her face. She has become very good at sitting. She has discovered there is joy in letting the world move around her. It does so in the most unexpected ways.
    Across the road, a tall woman is waving off a teenage boy. He pulls his hood up, wedges his earphones into his ears and doesn’t give her a backward look. Down the street, two men are leaning against the propped-open bonnet of a large car. They’re talking, paying little attention to the engine inside. ‘You spelled Ruaridh wrong.’
    She glances behind her, and he’s propped against the door frame, the newspaper in his hand. ‘I got a lot of things wrong.’
    He is wearing the same long-sleeved T-shirt he had on the first time they spoke, soft from years of use. She remembers