The Last Letter from Your Lover

had welled with tears at these last lines. Don’t love him. Please don’t love him. Everything had become a little clearer to her now: she had not imagined the distance she felt between herself and Laurence. It was the result of her having fallen in love with someone else. These were passionate letters: this man had opened himself to her in a way that Laurence never could. When she read his notes, her skin prickled, her heart raced. She recognised these words . But for all that she knew them, there was still a great hole at their heart.
    Her mind buzzed with questions. Had the affair been going on for long? Was it recent? Had she slept with this man? Is that why things felt so physically stilted with her husband?
    And, most incomprehensible of all: who was this lover?
    She had gone over the three letters forensically, searching for clues. She could think of no one she knew whose name began with B, save Bill, or her husband’s accountant, whose name was Bernard. She knew without a shadow of doubt that she had never been in love with him. Had B seen her at the hospital, in the days when her mind had not been her own, when everyone had been indistinct around her? Was he watching at a distance now? Waiting for her to get in touch? He existed somewhere. He held the key to everything.
    Day after day, she tried to imagine her way back into her former self: this woman of secrets. Where would the Jennifer of old have hidden letters? Where were the clues to her other, secret existence? Two of the letters she had uncovered in books, another folded neatly in a balled-up stocking. All were in places her husband would never have thought of looking. I was clever, she thought. And then, a little more uncomfortably: I was duplicitous.
    ‘Mother,’ she said, one lunchtime, over a sandwich on the top floor of John Lewis, ‘who was driving when I had my accident?’
    Her mother had glanced up sharply. The restaurant around them was packed with customers, laden with shopping-bags and heavy coats, the dining room thick with chatter and the clatter of crockery.
    She glanced around before she turned back to Jennifer, as if the question was almost subversive. ‘Darling, do we really need to revisit that?’
    Jennifer sipped her tea. ‘I know so little about what happened. It might help if I could put the pieces together.’
    ‘You nearly died. I really don’t want to think about it.’
    ‘But what happened? Was I driving?’
    Her mother inspected her plate. ‘I don’t recall.’
    ‘And if it wasn’t me, what happened to the driver? If I was hurt, he must have been too.’
    ‘I don’t know. How would I? Laurence always looks after his staff, doesn’t he? I assume he wasn’t badly hurt. If he needed treatment I dare say Laurence would have paid for it.’
    Jennifer thought of the driver who had picked them up when she left hospital: a tired-looking man in his sixties with a neat moustache and a balding head. He had not looked as if he had suffered any great trauma – or as if he might have been her lover.
    Her mother pushed away the remains of her sandwich. ‘Why don’t you ask him?’
    ‘I will.’ But she knew she wouldn’t. ‘He doesn’t want me to dwell on things.’
    ‘Well, I’m sure he’s quite right, darling. Perhaps you should heed his advice.’
    ‘Do you know where I was going?’
    The older woman was flustered now, a little exasperated by this line of questioning. ‘I’ve no idea. Shopping, probably. Look, it happened somewhere near Marylebone Road. I believe you hit a bus. Or a bus hit you. It was all so awful, Jenny darling, we could only think about you getting better.’ Her mouth closed in a thin line, which told Jennifer that the conversation was at an end.
    In a corner of the canteen, a woman, wrapped in a dark green coat, was gazing into the eyes of a man who traced her profile with a finger. As Jennifer watched, she took his fingertip between her teeth. The casual intimacy of the gesture sent a little electric shock through her. No one else seemed to have noticed the pair.
    Mrs Verrinder wiped her mouth with her napkin. ‘What does it really matter, dear? Car accidents happen. The more cars there are, the more dangerous it seems to be. I don’t think half of the people on the roads can drive. Not like your father could. Now, he was a careful driver.’
    Jennifer wasn’t listening.
    ‘Anyway, you’re all fixed up now, aren’t you? All better?’
    ‘I’m fine.’ Jennifer turned a