The Last Letter from Your Lover

long-forgotten awards. Banks of cables lie exposed, carpet tiles have been dislodged and great holes opened in the ceilings, prompting histrionic visits from health and safety experts and endless visitors with clipboards. Advertising, Classified and Sport have already moved to Compass Quay. The Saturday magazine, Business and Personal Finance are preparing to transfer in the next weeks. Features, Ellie’s department, will follow along with News, moving in a carefully choreographed sleight-of-hand so that while Saturday’s newspaper will emanate from the old Turner Street offices, Monday’s will spring, as if by magic, from the new address.
    The building, home to the newspaper for almost a hundred years, is no longer fit-for-purpose, in that unlovely phrase. According to the management it does not reflect the dynamic, streamlined nature of modern newsgathering. It has too many places to hide, the hacks observe bad-temperedly, as they are prised from their positions, like limpets clinging stubbornly to a holed hull.
    ‘We should celebrate it,’ says Melissa, head of Features, from the editor’s almost-cleared office. She’s wearing a wine-coloured silk dress. On Ellie, this would have looked like her grandmother’s nightie; on Melissa it looks like what it is – defiantly high fashion.
    ‘The move?’ Ellie’s glancing at her mobile phone, set to silent, beside her. Around her, the other Feature writers are silent, notepads on knees.
    ‘Yes. I was talking to one of the librarians the other evening. He says there are lots of old files that haven’t been looked at in years. I want something on the women’s pages from fifty years ago. How attitudes have changed, fashions, women’s preoccupations. Case studies, side by side, then and now.’ Melissa opens a file and pulls out several photocopied A3 sheets. She speaks with the easy confidence of someone accustomed to being listened to. ‘For instance, from our problem pages: “ What on earth can I do to get my wife to dress more smartly and to make herself more attractive? My income is £1500 a year, and I am beginning to make my way in a sales organisation. I am very often getting invitations from customers, but in recent weeks I have had to dodge them because my wife, frankly, looks a mess .”’
    There is a low chuckle around the room.
    ‘“I have tried to put it to her in a gentle way, and she says that she doesn’t care about fashions or jewellery or makeup. Frankly she doesn’t look like the wife of a successful man, which is what I want her to be.”’
    John had once told Ellie that, after the children, his wife had lost interest in her appearance. He had changed the subject almost as soon as he had introduced it, and never referred to it again, as if he felt what he had said was even more of a betrayal than sleeping with another woman. Ellie had resented that hint of gentlemanly loyalty even while a bit of her admired him for it.
    But it had stuck in her imagination. She had pictured his wife: slatternly in a stained nightdress, clutching a baby and haranguing him for some supposed deficit. She wanted to tell him she would never be like that with him.
    ‘One could put the questions to a modern agony aunt.’ Rupert, the Saturday editor, leans forward to peer at the other photocopied pages.
    ‘I’m not sure you’d need to. Listen to the response: “ It may never have occurred to your wife that she is meant to be part of your shop window. She may, in so far as she thinks about these things at all, tell herself that she’s married, secure, happy, so why should she bother? ”’
    ‘Ah,’ says Rupert. ‘“The deep, deep peace of the double bed”.’
    ‘“ I have seen this happen remarkably quickly to girls who fall in love just as much as to women who potter about in the cosy wrap of an old marriage. One moment they’re smart as new paint, battling heroically with their waistlines, seams straight, anxiously dabbed with perfume. Some man says, ‘I love you,’ and the next moment that shining girl is, as near as makes no difference, a slut. A happy slut. ”’
    The room fills briefly with polite, appreciative laughter.
    ‘What’s your choice, girls? Battle heroically with your waistline, or become a happy slut?’
    ‘I think I saw a film of that name not long ago,’ says Rupert. His smile fades when he realises the laughter has died.
    ‘There’s a lot we can do with this stuff.’ Melissa gestures towards the folder. ‘Ellie,