The Last Letter from Your Lover

by her shifting emotions.
    Laurence is not a bad man, she told herself, repeatedly. He’s a good father, in his way. If he found it hard to be nice to Jennifer, who could blame him? How many men could forgive a wife for falling in love with someone else? Sometimes she had wondered whether, if she hadn’t got pregnant so quickly, he would have tired of her, chosen to cut her loose. But she didn’t believe it: Laurence might not love her any more, but he wouldn’t contemplate the prospect of her existing somewhere else without him.
    And she is my consolation. She pushed her daughter on the swing, watching her legs fly up, the bouncing curls flying in the breeze. This is so much more than many women have. As Anthony had once told her, there was comfort to be had in knowing you had done the right thing.
    ‘Mama!’
    Dorothy Moncrieff had lost her hat, and Jennifer was briefly distracted by the search, the two little girls walking with her around the swings, the spinning roundabout, peering under the benches until it was located on the head of some other child.
    ‘It’s wrong to steal,’ said Dorothy, solemnly, as they walked back across the play park.
    ‘Yes,’ said Jennifer, ‘but I don’t think the little boy was stealing. He probably didn’t know the hat was yours.’
    ‘If you don’t know what’s right and wrong you’re probably stupid,’ Dorothy announced.
    ‘Stupid,’ echoed Esmé, delightedly.
    ‘Well, that’s possible,’ Jennifer said. She retied her daughter’s scarf and sent them off again, this time to the sandpit, with instructions that they were absolutely not to throw sand at each other.
    Dearest Boot , she wrote, in another of the thousand imaginary letters she had composed over the past two days, Please don’t be angry with me. You must know that if there was any way on earth I could go with you, I would do so . . .
    She would send no letter. What was there to say, other than what she had already said? He’ll forgive me in time, she told herself. He’ll have a good life.
    She tried to shut her mind to the obvious question: how would she live? How could she carry on, knowing what she now knew? Her eyes had reddened again. She pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed them again, turning away so that she wouldn’t attract attention. Perhaps she would pay a quick visit to her doctor, after all. Just a little help to get her through the next couple of days.
    Her attention was drawn to the tweed-coated figure walking across the grass towards the play park. The woman’s feet tramped determinedly forward with a kind of mechanical regularity, despite the muddiness of the grass. She realised, with surprise, that it was her husband’s secretary.
    Moira Parker walked right up to her and stood so close that Jennifer had to take a step backwards. ‘Miss Parker?’
    Her lips were tightly compressed, her eyes bright with purpose. ‘Your housekeeper told me where you were. May I have a quick word?’
    ‘Um . . . yes. Of course.’ She turned briefly. ‘Darlings? Dottie? Esmé? I’ll just be over here.’
    The children looked up, then resumed digging.
    They walked a few paces, Jennifer positioning herself so that she could see the little girls. She had promised the Moncrieffs’ nanny she would have Dorothy home by four, and it was nearly a quarter to. She pasted on a smile. ‘What is it, Miss Parker?’
    Moira reached into a battered handbag and wrenched out a fat folder.
    ‘This is for you,’ she said brusquely.
    Jennifer took it from her. She opened it, and immediately placed her hand on top of the papers as the wind threatened to whip them away.
    ‘Don’t lose any of them.’ It was an instruction.
    ‘I’m sorry . . . I don’t understand. What are these?’
    ‘They are the people he has paid off.’
    When Jennifer looked blank, Moira continued, ‘Mesothelioma. Lung disease. They are workers he paid off because he wanted to hide the fact that working for him has given them terminal illnesses.’
    Jennifer lifted a hand to her head. ‘What?’
    ‘Your husband. The ones who have already died are at the bottom. Their families had to sign legal waivers that stopped them saying anything in order to get the money.’
    Jennifer struggled to keep up with what the woman was saying. ‘Died? Waivers?’
    ‘He got them to say he wasn’t responsible. He paid them all off. The South Africans got hardly anything. The factory workers here were more