The Last Letter from Your Lover

for much of the previous night. The inside of his mouth was dry and foul-tasting, and he was faintly nauseous. A vague sense of panic assailed him. Had he been shot? Beaten in a riot? He closed his eyes, waiting for the sounds of the street outside, the food vendors, the ever-present buzz of the wireless as people gathered, sitting on their haunches, trying to hear where the next outbreak of trouble would be. Not a bullet. It was yellow fever. This time it would surely do for him. But even as the thought formed, he realised there were no Congolese sounds: no yelling from an open window, no bar music, no smells of kwanga cooking in banana leaves. No gunshot. No shouting in Lingala or Swahili. Silence. The distant sound of seagulls.
    Not Congo. France. He was in France.
    He felt a fleeting gratitude, until the pain became distinct. The consultant had warned him it would feel worse if he drank again, he observed with some distant, still analytical part of his mind. Mr Robertson would be gratified to know just how accurate his prediction had been.
    When he became confident that he could do so without disgracing himself, he shifted to an upright position. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and walked tentatively to the window, conscious of the smell of stale sweat and the empty bottles on the table that told of the long night behind him. He drew back the curtain a fraction of an inch and could see the glittering bay below, bathed in a pale gold light. The red roofs on the hillsides were of terracotta tiles, not the painted rust of the Congolese bungalows, their inhabitants healthy, happy people milling on the seafront, chatting, walking, running. White people. Wealthy people.
    He squinted. This scene was blameless, idyllic. He let the curtain fall, stumbled to the bathroom and threw up, cradling the lavatory, spitting and miserable. When he could stand again, he climbed unsteadily into the shower and slumped against the wall, letting the warm water wash over him for twenty minutes, wishing it could clean away what ran through him.
    Come on get a grip.
    He dressed, rang down for some coffee and, feeling a little steadier, sat at the desk. It was almost a quarter to eleven. He needed to send his copy through, the profile he had worked on the previous afternoon. He gazed at his scrawled notes, recalling the end of the evening. The memory came back to him haltingly: Mariette, her face raised to him outside this hotel, demanding to be kissed. His determined refusal, even as he still muttered about what a fool he was: the girl was desirable and had been his for the taking. But he wanted to feel the tiniest bit glad about one thing he’d done that evening.
    Oh, Christ. Jennifer Stirling, brittle and wounded, holding his jacket towards him. She had overheard him ranting mindlessly, ungraciously, about them all. What had he said about her? Spoilt little tai-tai . . . not an original thought in her head . He closed his eyes. War zones, he thought, were easier. Safer. In war zones you could always tell who the enemy was.
    The coffee arrived. He took a deep breath, then poured a cupful. He lifted the telephone receiver and asked the operator wearily to put him through to London.
    Mrs Stirling,
    I am an ungracious pig. I’d like to be able to blame exhaustion, or some uncharacteristic reaction to shellfish, but I’m afraid it was a combination of alcohol, which I shouldn’t take, and the choleric temper of the socially inept. There is little you could say about me that I have not already deduced about myself in my more sober hours.
    Please allow me to apologise. If I could buy you and Mr Stirling lunch before I return to London I’d be very glad to make it up to you.
    Yours shamefacedly,
    Anthony O’Hare
    PS I enclose a copy of the report I sent to London to assure you that I have, at least, behaved honourably in that regard.
    Anthony folded the letter into an envelope, sealed it and turned it over. It was possible he was still a little drunk: he couldn’t remember ever having been so honest in a letter.
    It was at that point that he remembered he had no address to which he could send it. He swore softly at his own stupidity. The previous evening Stirling’s driver had collected him, and he could remember little of the journey home, aside from its various humiliations.
    The hotel’s reception desk offered little help. Stirling? The concierge shook his head.
    ‘You know him? Rich man. Important,’ he said. His mouth