The Last Letter from Your Lover

now.’
    ‘Not me, darling. Francis wants me to look at a yacht this afternoon. I’ve told him a man can but dream.’
    ‘We’ll give you a lift back to town, Mr O’Hare,’ Jennifer said, nodding towards the tiny rear seat. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for the Nation’s most honourable correspondent getting sunstroke, as well as alcohol poisoning.’
    She waited while Yvonne climbed out and tilted the seat forward for Anthony to climb in, then rummaged in the glove compartment. ‘Here,’ she said, throwing a handkerchief at him. ‘And you do know you were walking in completely the wrong direction? We live over there.’ She pointed towards a distant, tree-lined hill. Her mouth twitched at the corners, just enough for him to think he might be forgiven, and the two women burst into laughter. Deeply relieved, Anthony O’Hare rammed his hat over his head, and they were off, speeding down the narrow road back towards the town.
    The car became stuck in traffic almost as soon as they had dropped Yvonne at Hôtel St Georges. ‘Behave yourselves now,’ the older woman had said, as she waved them goodbye. She spoke, he noted, with the cheerful insouciance of one who knows the alternative to be out of the question.
    Once it was just the two of them the mood had altered. Jennifer Stirling had grow silent, seemingly preoccupied by the road ahead in a way that she hadn’t been twenty minutes earlier. He glanced surreptitiously at her lightly tanned arms, her profile, as she gazed ahead at the long line of tail-lights. He wondered, briefly, if she was angrier with him than she had been prepared to let on.
    ‘So how long will your husband be in Africa?’ he said, to break the silence.
    ‘A week probably. He rarely stays longer.’ She peered over the side of her door briefly, apparently to gauge what was causing the hold-up.
    ‘Quite a journey for such a short stay.’
    ‘You’d know, Mr O’Hare.’
    ‘Me?’
    She raised an eyebrow. ‘You know everything about Africa. You said so last night.’
    ‘“Everything”?’
    ‘You knew that most of the men who do business out there are crooks.’
    ‘I said that?’
    ‘To Monsieur Lafayette.’
    Anthony sank a little lower in his seat. ‘Mrs Stirling—’ he began.
    ‘Oh, don’t worry. Laurence didn’t hear you. Francis did, but he only does a little business out there so didn’t take it too personally.’
    The cars began to move.
    ‘Let me buy you lunch,’ he said. ‘Please. I’d like the chance to show you, even if only for half an hour, that I’m not a complete ass.’
    ‘You think you can change my mind so swiftly?’ That smile again.
    ‘I’m game if you are. You show me where we should go.’
    The waiter brought her a long glass of lemonade. She took a sip, then sat back in her chair and surveyed the seafront.
    ‘Lovely view,’ he said.
    ‘Yes,’ she conceded.
    Her hair fell from her head like paint from a pot, in a sheet of silky blonde ripples that ended just above her shoulders. Not his normal type. He liked less conventionally pretty women, those with a hint of something darker, whose charms were less obvious to the eye. ‘Aren’t you drinking?’
    He looked at his glass. ‘I’m not really meant to.’
    ‘Wife’s orders?’
    ‘Ex-wife,’ he corrected. ‘And no, doctor’s.’
    ‘So you really did find last night unbearable.’
    He shrugged. ‘I don’t spend much time in society.’
    ‘An accidental tourist.’
    ‘I admit it. I find armed conflict a less daunting prospect.’
    Her smile, when it came this time, was slow and mischievous. ‘So you’re William Boot,’ she said. ‘Out of your depth in the war zone of Riviera society.’
    ‘Boot . . .’ At the mention of Waugh’s hapless fictional character, he found himself smiling properly for the first time that day. ‘I suppose you could legitimately have said much worse.’
    A woman entered the restaurant, clutching a button-eyed dog to her vast bosom. She walked through the tables with a kind of weary determination, as if she could allow herself to focus on nothing but where she was headed. When she sat down at an empty table, a few seats along from them, it was with a little sigh of relief. She placed the dog on the floor where it stood, its tail clamped between its legs, trembling.
    ‘So, Mrs Stirling—’
    ‘Jennifer.’
    ‘Jennifer. Tell me about yourself,’ he said, leaning forward over the table.
    ‘You’re meant to be telling me. Showing