The Last Letter from Your Lover

me, in fact.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘That you’re not a complete ass. I do believe you gave yourself half an hour.’
    ‘Ah. How long have I got left?’
    She checked her watch. ‘About nine minutes.’
    ‘And how am I doing so far?’
    ‘You can’t possibly expect me to give anything away quite so soon.’
    They were silent then, him because, uncharacteristically, he didn’t know what to say, she perhaps regretting her choice of words. Anthony O’Hare thought of the last woman he had been involved with, the wife of his dentist, a redhead with skin so translucent he was reluctant to look too hard in case he saw what lay beneath it. She had been flattened by her husband’s long-term indifference to her. Anthony had half suspected that her receptiveness to his advances had been as much an act of revenge as anything else.
    ‘What do you do with your days, Jennifer?’
    ‘I’m afraid to tell you.’
    He raised an eyebrow.
    ‘I do so little of any worth that I’m afraid you’d be terribly disapproving.’ The way in which she said this told him she was not afraid at all.
    ‘You run two houses.’
    ‘I don’t. There’s a part-time staff. And in London Mrs Cordoza is much cleverer than I am at housekeeping.’
    ‘So what do you do?’
    ‘I host cocktail parties, dinners. I make things beautiful. I look decorative.’
    ‘You’re very good at that.’
    ‘Oh, an expert. It’s a specialised skill, you know.’
    He could have stared at her all day. It was something about the way her top lip turned up a little as it joined the soft skin below her nose. There was a special name for that part of the face, and he was sure that if he stared at her long enough he would remember it.
    ‘I did what I was bred to do. I bagged a rich husband and I keep him happy.’
    The smile faltered. Perhaps a man without his experience might have missed it, a slight give around the eyes, a suspicion of something more complex than the surface might suggest.
    ‘Actually, I’m going to have a drink,’ she said. ‘Would you mind awfully?’
    ‘You should absolutely have a drink. I shall enjoy it vicariously.’
    ‘ Vicariously ,’ she repeated, holding up a hand to the waiter. She ordered a martini, lots of ice.
    A recreational drink, he thought: she wasn’t out to hide anything, to lose herself in alcohol. He was a little disappointed. ‘If it makes you feel any better,’ he said lightly, ‘I don’t know how to do anything but work.’
    ‘Oh, I think you do,’ she responded. ‘Men find it easier to work than to deal with anything else.’
    ‘Anything else?’
    ‘The messiness of everyday life. People not behaving as you’d like and feeling things you’d rather they didn’t feel. At work you can achieve results, be the master of your domain. People do as you say.’
    ‘Not in my world.’ He laughed.
    ‘But you can write a story and see it on the newsstands the next day just as you wrote it. Doesn’t that make you feel rather proud?’
    ‘It used to. That wears off after a while. I don’t think I’ve done much I can feel proud of for some time. Everything I write is ephemeral. Tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper.’
    ‘No? Then why work so hard?’
    He swallowed, pushing an image of his son from him. Suddenly he wanted a drink very much. He forced a smile. ‘All the reasons you say. So much easier than dealing with everything else.’
    Their eyes met and, in that unguarded moment, her smile fell away. She flushed a little, and stirred her drink, slowly with a cocktail stick. ‘“Vicariously”,’ she said slowly. ‘You’ll have to tell me what that means, Anthony.’
    The way she said his name induced a kind of intimacy. It promised something, a repetition in some future time.
    ‘It means . . .’ Anthony’s mouth had dried ‘. . .  it means pleasure gained through the pleasure of someone else.’
    After she had dropped him at his hotel, he lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling for almost an hour. Then he went down to Reception, asked for a postcard and wrote a note to his son, wondering if Clarissa would bother to pass it on.
    When he returned to his room, a note had been pushed under the door:
    Dear Boot,
    While I’m not yet convinced you’re not an ass, I’m willing to give you another chance to convince me. My dinner plans have fallen through for this evening. I’ll be dining in the Hôtel des Calypsos on rue St Jacques and would welcome company, 8 p.m.
    He read this twice, then ran