The Last Letter from Your Lover

downstairs and sent a telegram to Don:
    IGNORE LAST TELEGRAM STOP AM STAYING ON TO WORK ON SERIES ABOUT RIVIERA HIGH SOCIETY STOP WILL INCLUDE FASHION TIPS STOP
    He grinned, folded it and handed it over, picturing his editor’s face when he read it, then tried to work out how to get his suit laundered before the evening.
    That night Anthony O’Hare was utterly charming. He was the person he should have been the previous evening. He was the person he perhaps should have been when he was married. He was witty, courteous, chivalrous. She had never been to Congo – her husband said it was ‘not for your sort’ – and, perhaps because he now had some inbuilt need to contradict Stirling, Anthony determined to make her want to love it. He talked to her of the elegant, tree-lined streets of Leopoldville, of the Belgian settlers who imported all their food, tinned and frozen, at hideous expense rather than eat in one of the world’s most glorious cornucopias of produce. He told her of the shock of the city’s Europeans when an uprising at the Leopoldville garrison ended with their pursuit and flight to the relatively safety of Stanleyville.
    He wanted her to see him at his best, to look at him with admiration instead of that air of pity and irritation. And something strange happened: as he acted the charming, upbeat stranger, he found that he briefly became him. He thought of his mother: ‘Smile,’ she would tell him, when he was a boy, it would make him happier. He hadn’t believed her.
    Jennifer, in turn, was light-hearted. She listened more than she talked, as socially clever women were wont to do, and when she laughed at something he said he found himself expanding, keen to make her do it again. He realised, with gratification, that they drew admiring glances from those around them – that terribly gay couple at table sixteen. She was curiously unabashed at being seen with a man who was not her husband. Perhaps this was how Riviera society functioned, he thought, an endless social duet with other people’s husbands and wives. He didn’t like to think of the other possibility: that a man of his stature, his class, could not be seen as a threat.
    Shortly after the main course, a tall man in an immaculately cut suit appeared at their table. He kissed Jennifer on both cheeks, then waited, after they had exchanged pleasantries, to be introduced. ‘Richard, darling, this is Mr Boot,’ she said, straight-faced. ‘He’s been working on a profile of Larry for the newspapers back in England. I’m filling in the detail, and trying to show him that industrialists and their wives are not entirely dull.’
    ‘I don’t think anyone could accuse you of being dull, Jenny.’ He held out his hand for Anthony to shake it. ‘Richard Case.’
    ‘Anthony . . . ah . . . Boot. There’s nothing dull about Riviera society, as far as I can see. Mr and Mrs Stirling have been wonderful hosts,’ he said. He was determined to be diplomatic.
    ‘Perhaps Mr Boot will write something about you too. Richard owns the hotel at the top of the hill. The one with the fabulous views. He’s at the absolute epicentre of Riviera society.’
    ‘Perhaps we can accommodate you on your next visit, Mr Boot,’ the man said.
    ‘I should like that very much, but I’ll wait and see if Mr Stirling enjoys what I’ve written before I predict whether I’ll be allowed back,’ he said. They had both been so careful to mention Laurence repeatedly, he thought afterwards, to keep him, invisibly, between them.
    That evening she glowed. She gave off a vibration of energy that he suspected only he could detect. Do I do this to you? he wondered, as he watched her eat. Or is it just the relief of being out from under the forbidding eye of that husband of yours? Remembering how Stirling had humiliated her the previous evening, he asked her opinion on the markets, Mr Macmillan, the royal wedding, refusing to let her defer to his own judgement. She was not greatly aware of the world beyond hers, but was astute on human nature and interested enough in what he had to say to be flattering company. He thought briefly of Clarissa, of her sour pronouncements on the people around her, her readiness to see slights in the most cursory gestures. He had not enjoyed an evening so much for years.
    ‘I should be going soon,’ she said, after a glance at her watch. The coffee had arrived, accompanied by a small silver plate of perfectly arranged petits fours .
    He