The Last Letter from Your Lover

she saw strain in his features that even she had never witnessed before.
    What happened out there? What had Jennifer Stirling been doing with that young man?
    An almost indecent spark of gratification burst into life within her, feeding her imagination until it was glowing. Perhaps he had been forced to see his wife for the selfish creature she was. Moira knew that when the office re-opened just a few words would cause the woman’s behaviour to be come the talk of it. But, she thought, with sudden melancholy, that would mean Mr Stirling would be too, and the prospect of that brave, dignified, stoic man as the butt of flippant secretarial gossip made her heart constrict. How could she humiliate him in the one place he should be considered above everyone?
    Moira stood, helpless, on the other side of the room, afraid to attempt to comfort her boss but so far removed from the revelry of her co-workers that she might have been in a different room. She watched as he went towards the makeshift bar and, with a grimace, accepted a cup of what looked like whisky. He downed it in one and demanded another. After a third, he nodded to those around him and went to his office.
    Moira made her way through the throng. It was a quarter to eleven. The music had stopped, and people had begun to go home. Those who were not leaving were evidently taking themselves somewhere else, away from their colleagues’ eyes. Behind the coat-stand, Stevens was kissing that redhead from the typing-pool as if nobody could see them. The girl’s skirt had ridden halfway up her thighs and his pudgy fingers plucked at the flesh-coloured suspenders now exposed to view. She realised that the post boy had not returned after taking Elsie Machzynski to fetch a taxi, and she wondered what she might say to Elsie later to let her know that she was aware of this, even if nobody else had noticed. Was everyone except her obsessed with matters of the flesh? Were the formal greetings, the polite conversation of every day simply a cover for a bacchanalian nature that she lacked?
    ‘We’re going on to the Cat’s Eye Club. Fancy joining us, Moira? Let your hair down a little?’
    ‘Oh, she won’t come,’ Felicity Harewood said, so dismissively that, for just a moment, Moira thought she might surprise them all and say, ‘Why, yes, actually, I’d love to join you.’ But the light was on in Mr Stirling’s office. Moira did what any other responsible personal assistant to a chief executive would do. She stayed behind to clear up.
    It was almost one in the morning by the time she finished. She didn’t do it all herself: the new girl in Accounts held a bag for her when she collected the empty bottles, and the head of Sales, a tall South African man, helped collect the paper cups, singing loudly from his spot in the ladies’ cloakroom. Eventually it was just Moira, scrubbing at the stains on the linoleum that might yet be removed, and using a dustpan and brush to pick up the crisps and peanuts that had somehow become trodden into the tiles. The men could move the desks back when they returned to the office. Apart from a few fluttering foil streamers, the place looked almost workmanlike again.
    She looked at the battered Christmas tree, its decorations broken or missing, and the little postbox, which had become rather squashed since someone had sat on it, the crêpe paper peeling away forlornly from the sides. She was glad that her mother wasn’t alive to see her precious baubles tossed aside so carelessly.
    She was packing away the last of it when she caught sight of Mr Stirling. He was sitting in his leather chair, his head in his hands. The table near the door supported the remnants of the drink and, almost on impulse, she poured two fingers of whisky. She walked across the office and knocked. He was still wearing his tie. Formal, even at this hour.
    ‘I’ve just been clearing up,’ she said, when he stared at her. She felt suddenly embarrassed.
    He glanced out of the window and she realised he had not been aware that she was still there.
    ‘Very kind of you, Moira,’ he said quietly. ‘Thank you.’ He took the whisky from her and drank it, slowly this time.
    Moira took in her boss’s collapsed face, the tremor of his hands. She stood close to the corner of his desk, certain for once that she was justified in simply being there. On his desk, in neat piles, sat the letters she had left out for signing earlier that day. It felt like an age ago.
    ‘Would