The Last Letter from Your Lover

elbow and looked down at him. Something in her had altered: her features had lifted, the strain had vanished from around her eyes. He enclosed her in his arms, pulling her to him so tightly that their bodies felt welded together. He felt himself hardening again, and she smiled.
    ‘I want to say something,’ he said, ‘but nothing seems . . . momentous enough.’
    Her smile was glorious: satiated, loving, full of wry surprise. ‘I’ve never felt like that in my whole life,’ she said.
    They looked at each other.
    ‘Have I?’ she said.
    He nodded. She gazed into the distance. ‘Then . . . thank you.’
    He laughed and she collapsed, giggling, on to his shoulder.
    Four years had dissolved become nothing. He saw, with a new clarity, the path of his life to come. He would stay in London. He would break things off with Eva, the girlfriend in New York. She was a sweet girl, breezy and cheerful, but he knew now that every woman he had dated over the past four years had been a pale imitation of the woman beside him. Jennifer would leave her husband. He would take care of her. They would not miss their chance a second time. He had a sudden vision of her with his son, the three of them on some family outing, and the future glowed with unforeseen promise.
    His train of thought was broken by her kissing his chest, his shoulder, his neck with intense concentration. ‘You do realise,’ he said, rolling her over so that her legs were entwined with his, her mouth inches away, ‘that we’re going to have to do that again. Just to make sure you remember.’
    She said nothing, just closed her eyes.
    This time when he made love to her, he did so slowly. He spoke to her body with his own. He felt her inhibitions fall away, her heart beat against his own, the mirroring of that faint tattoo. He said her name a million times, for the sheer luxury of being able to do so. In whispers, he told her everything he had ever felt for her.
    When she told him she loved him, it was with an intensity that stopped his breath. The rest of the world slowed and closed in, until it was just the two of them, a tangle of sheets and limbs, hair and soft cries.
    ‘You are the most exquisite . . .’ He watched her eyes open with shy recognition of where she had been. ‘I would do that with you a hundred times just for the sheer pleasure of watching your face.’ She said nothing, and he felt greedy now. ‘Vicariously,’ he said suddenly. ‘Remember?’
    Afterwards, he was not sure how long they had lain there together, as if each wished to absorb the other through their skin. He heard the sounds of the street, the occasional pad of feet up and down the corridor outside the room, a distant voice. He felt the rhythm of her breathing against his chest. He kissed the top of her head, let his fingers rest in her tangled hair. A perfect peace had descended on him, spreading to his very bones. I’m home, he thought. This is it.
    She shifted in his arms. ‘Let’s order up something to drink,’ he said, kissing her collarbone, her chin, the space where her jaw met her ear. ‘A celebration. Tea for me, champagne for you. What do you say?’
    He saw it then, an unwelcome shadow, her thoughts transferring to somewhere outside the room.
    ‘Oh,’ she said, sitting upright. ‘What’s the time?’
    He checked his watch. ‘Twenty past four. Why?’
    ‘Oh, no! I’ve got to be downstairs at half past.’ She was off the bed, stooping to pick up her clothes.
    ‘Whoa! Why do you have to be downstairs?’
    ‘Mrs Cordoza.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘My housekeeper’s meeting me. I’m meant to be shopping.’
    ‘Be late for her. Is shopping really that important? Jennifer, we have to talk – work out what we’re going to do next. I’ve got to tell my editor I’m not going to Congo.’
    She was pulling on her clothes inelegantly, as if nothing mattered but speed, brassière, trousers, pullover. The body he had taken, made his own, disappeared from view.
    ‘Jennifer?’ He slid out of the bed, reached for his trousers, belted them around his waist. ‘You can’t just go.’
    She had her back to him.
    ‘We’ve got things to talk about, surely, how we’re going to sort it all out.’
    ‘There’s nothing to sort out.’ She opened her handbag, pulled out a brush and attacked her hair with short, fierce strokes.
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    When she turned to him, her face had closed, as though a screen had been pulled across it. ‘Anthony,