The Last Letter from Your Lover

seven.’
    With an obedient purr, the car surged forward. Jennifer stared out at the busy streets, and said nothing.
    Gracious. Even-tempered. Calm. These were the words her friends, Laurence’s friends and business associates used to describe her. Mrs Stirling, a paragon of female virtue, always perfectly put together, never prone to the excitement and shrill hysterics of other, lesser, wives. Occasionally, if this was said in his earshot, Laurence would say, ‘Perfect wife? If only they knew, eh, darling?’ The men in his presence would laugh obligingly, and she would smile too. It was often those evenings that ended badly. Occasionally, when she caught the fleeting glances that travelled between Yvonne and Francis at one of Laurence’s sharper comments, or Bill’s blush, she suspected that their relationship might indeed have been the subject of private speculation. But no one pressed her. A man’s domestic life was private, after all. They were good friends, far too good to intrude.
    ‘And here is the lovely Mrs Stirling. Don’t you look gorgeous?’ The South African attaché took her hands in his and kissed her cheeks.
    ‘Not too bony?’ she asked innocently.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Nothing.’ She smiled. ‘You look terribly well, Sebastian. Getting married has evidently been good for you.’
    Laurence clapped the younger man on the back. ‘Despite all my warnings, eh?’
    The two men laughed, and Sebastian Thorne, who still carried the glow of the genuinely well-matched, beamed proudly. ‘Pauline’s over there, if you’d like to say hello, Jennifer. I know she’s looking forward to seeing you.’
    ‘I’ll do that,’ she said, filled with gratitude for such an early exit. ‘Do excuse me.’
    Four years had gone by since the accident. Four years in which Jennifer had struggled with grief, guilt, the loss of a love affair she could only half recall, and had made flailing attempts to salvage the one she belonged in.
    On the few occasions when she had let her thoughts drift that way, she decided that a kind of madness must have overcome her after she had first found those letters. She remembered her manic efforts to uncover Boot’s identity, her misidentification of and reckless pursuit of Reggie, and felt almost as if those events had happened to someone else. She couldn’t imagine feeling passion like that now. She couldn’t imagine that intensity of wanting. For a long time, she had been penitent. She had betrayed Laurence, and her only hope was to make it up to him. It was the least he might expect from her. She had bent herself to the task and banished thoughts of anyone else. The letters, those that remained, had long been consigned to a shoebox and hidden at the back of her wardrobe.
    She wished she had known then that Laurence’s anger would be such corrosive, and enduring thing. She had asked for understanding, for another chance, and he had taken an almost perverse pleasure in reminding her of all the ways in which she had offended him. He never liked to mention her betrayal explicitly – that, after all, implied a loss of control on his part, and she understood now that Laurence liked to be seen to be in control of all parts of his life – but he let her know, daily and in myriad ways, of her failures. The way she dressed. The way she ran their home. Her inability to make him happy. She suspected, some days, that she would pay for the rest of her life.
    For the past year or so, he had been less volatile. She suspected he had taken a mistress. This knowledge didn’t trouble her; in fact, she was relieved. His demands on her had lessened, were less punishing. His verbal digs seemed almost cursory, like a habit he couldn’t be bothered to break.
    The pills helped, as Mr Hargreaves had said they would. If they left her feeling oddly flat, she thought it was probably a price worth paying. Yes, as Laurence often pointed out, she could be dull. Yes, she might no longer sparkle at the dinner table, but the pills meant that she no longer cried at inappropriate moments, or struggled to get out of bed. She no longer feared his moods, and cared less when he came to her at night. Most importantly, she was no longer eviscerated by pain over all that she had lost or for which she had been responsible.
    No. Jennifer Stirling moved in a stately fashion through her days, her hair and makeup perfect, a lovely smile across her face. Gracious, even-tempered Jennifer, who gave the finest dinner parties,