The Last Letter from Your Lover

a few steps towards the bar. ‘Do you know someone called Felipe?’
    ‘Who are you?’ the woman demanded.
    ‘I – it doesn’t matter.’
    ‘Why do you want Felipe?’
    Their faces had hardened. ‘We have a mutual friend,’ she explained.
    ‘Then your friend should have told you that Felipe would be a bit difficult to get hold of.’
    She bit her lip, wondering how much she could reasonably explain. ‘It’s not someone I’m in touch with very—’
    ‘He’s dead, lady.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Felipe. Is dead. The place is under new management. We’ve had all sorts down here saying he owed them this and that, and I might as well tell you that you’ll get nothing from me.’
    ‘I didn’t come here for—’
    ‘Unless you can show me Felipe’s signature on an IOU, you’re getting nothing.’ Now the woman was looking closely at her clothes, her jewellery, smirking, as if she had decided why Jennifer might be there. ‘His family gets his estate. What’s left of it. That would include his wife ,’ she said nastily.
    ‘I had nothing to do with Mr Felipe personally. I’m sorry for your loss,’ Jennifer said primly. As quickly as she could, she walked out of the club and back up the stairs into the grey daylight.
    Moira rummaged through the boxes of decorations until she had found what she wanted, then sorted and laid out what was within. She pinned two pieces of tinsel around each door. She sat at her desk for almost half an hour and restuck the paper chains that had come apart during the year, then taped them in garlands above the desks. To the wall she pinned several pieces of string, and hung on them the greetings cards that had been sent by commercial partners. Above the light fittings she draped shimmering foil strings, making sure that they were not so close to the bulbs as to be a fire risk.
    Outside, the skies had darkened, the sodium lights coming on down the length of the street. Gradually, in much the same order that they always did, the staff of Acme Mineral and Mining’s London office left the building. First Phyllis and Elsie, the typists, who always left at five on the dot, even though they seemed to carry no such sense of rigorous punctuality when it came to clocking in. Then David Moreton, in Accounts, and shortly after him, Stevens, who would retreat to the pub on the corner for several bracing shots of whisky before he made his way home. The rest left in small groups, wrapping themselves in scarves and coats, the men picking up theirs from the stands in the corner, a few waving goodbye to her as they passed Mr Stirling’s office. Felicity Harewood, in charge of the payroll, lived only one stop away from Moira in Streatham, but never once suggested they catch the same bus. When Felicity had first joined, in May, Moira had thought it might be rather nice to have someone to chat to on the way home, a woman with whom she could exchange recipes or pass a few comments on the day’s events in the fuggy confines of the 274. But Felicity left each evening without even a backward look. On the one occasion Moira and she had been on the same bus, she had kept her head stuck in a paperback novel for most of the journey, even though Moira was almost certain she knew that she was only two seats behind.
    Mr Stirling left at a quarter to seven. He had been distracted and impatient for most of the afternoon, telephoning the factory manager to berate him about sickness rates, and cancelling a meeting he had arranged for four. When she had returned from the post office, he had glanced at her, as if to confirm that she had done what he had asked, then returned to his work.
    Moira pulled the two spare desks to the edge of the room beside Accounts. She spread them with festive tablecloths and pinned some strands of tinsel to the edges. In ten days’ time this would be the base for the buffet; in the meantime it would be useful to have somewhere to put the gifts that arrived from suppliers, and the Christmas postbox through which the staff were supposed to send each other seasonal greetings.
    By almost eight o’clock it was done. Moira surveyed the empty office, made glittering and festive through her efforts, smoothed her skirt and allowed herself to picture the expressions of pleasure on people’s faces when they walked back through the door in the morning.
    She wouldn’t get paid for it, but it was the little gestures, the extras, that made all the difference. The other secretaries had little