The Last Letter From Your Lover

by Jojo Moyes

  She had discovered that memories could indeed be lodged in places other than the mind.

  Chapter 3

  AUGUST 1960

  "A profile. Of an industrialist." Don Franklin's stomach threatened to burst over the top of his trousers. The buttons strained, revealing, above his belt, a triangle of pale, pelted skin. He leaned back in his chair and tilted his glasses to the top of his head. "It's the editor's 'must,' O'Hare. He wants a four-page spread on the wonder mineral for the advertising."

  "What the hell do I know about mines and factories? I'm a foreign correspondent, for Christ's sake."

  "You were," Don corrected. "We can't send you out again, Anthony, you know that, and I need someone who can do a nice job. You can't just sit around here making the place look untidy."

  Anthony slumped in the chair on the other side of the desk and drew out a cigarette.

  Behind the news editor, who was just visible through the glass wall of his office, Phipps, the junior reporter, ripped three sheets of paper from his typewriter and, face screwed up in frustration, replaced them, with two sheets of carbon between.

  "I've seen you do this stuff. You can turn on the charm."

  "So, not even a profile. A puff piece. Glorified advertising."

  "He's partly based in Congo. You know about the country."

  "I know about the kind of man who owns mines in Congo."

  Don held out his hand for a cigarette. Anthony gave him one and lit it. "It's not all bad."

  "No?"

  "You get to interview this guy at his summer residence in the south of France. The Riviera. A few days in the sun, a lobster or two on expenses, maybe a glimpse of Brigitte Bardot . . . You should be thanking me."

  "Send Peterson. He loves all that stuff."

  "Peterson's covering the Norwich child killer."

  "Murfett. He's a crawler."

  "Murfett's off to Ghana to cover the trouble in Ashanti."

  "Him?" Anthony was incredulous. "He couldn't cover two schoolboys fighting in a telephone box. How the hell is he doing Ghana?" He lowered his voice. "Send me back, Don."

  "No."

  "I could be half insane, alcoholic, and in a ruddy asylum, but I'd still do a better job than Murfett, and you know it."

  "Your problem, O'Hare, is that you don't know when you're well off." Don leaned forward and dropped his voice. "Listen--just stop crabbing and listen. When you came back from Africa, there was a lot of talk upstairs"--he motioned to the editor's suite--"about whether you should be let go. The whole incident . . . They were worried about you, man. Anyway, God only knows how but you've made a lot of friends here, and some fairly important ones. They took everything you've been through into account and kept you on the payroll. Even while you were in"--he gestured awkwardly behind him--" you know."

  Anthony's gaze was level.

  "Anyhow. They don't want you doing anything too . . . pressured. So get a grip on yourself, get over to France, and be grateful that you've got the kind of job that occasionally involves dining in the foothills at ruddy Monte Carlo. Who knows? You might bag a starlet while you're there."

  A long silence followed.

  When Anthony failed to look suitably impressed, Don stubbed out his cigarette. "You really don't want to do it."

  "No, Don. You know I don't. I start doing this stuff, it's just a few small steps to Births, Marriages, and Deaths."

  "Jesus. You're a contrary bugger, O'Hare." He reached for a piece of typewritten paper that he ripped from the spike on his desk. "Okay, then, take this. Vivien Leigh is headed across the Atlantic. She's going to be camping outside the theater where Olivier's playing. Apparently he won't talk to her, and she's telling the gossip columnists she doesn't know why. How about you find out whether they're going to divorce? Maybe get a nice description of what she's wearing while you're there."

  There was another lengthy pause. Outside the room, Phipps ripped out another three pages, smacked his forehead, and mouthed expletives.

  Anthony stubbed out his cigarette and shot his boss a black look. "I'll go and pack," he said.

  There was something about seriously rich people, Anthony thought as he dressed for dinner, that always made him want to dig at them a little. Perhaps it was the inbuilt certainty of men who were rarely contradicted; the pomposity of those whose most prosaic views everyone took so damned seriously.

  At first he had found Laurence Stirling less offensive than he had expected; the man had been courteous, his answers considered, his views on his workers pretty enlightened. But as the day had worn on, Anthony saw he was the kind of man to whom control was paramount. He spoke at people, rather than soliciting information from them. He had little interest in anything outside his own circle. He was a bore, rich and successful enough not to try to be anything else.

  Anthony brushed down his jacket, wondering why he had agreed to go to the dinner. Stirling had invited him at the end of the interview and, caught off guard, he had been forced to admit that he didn't know anyone in Antibes and had no plans, other than for a quick bite at the hotel. He suspected afterward that Stirling had invited him to make it more likely that he would write something flattering. Even as he accepted reluctantly, Stirling was instructing his driver to pick him up from the Hotel du Cap at seven thirty. "You won't find the house," he said. "It's quite well hidden from the road."

  I'll bet, Anthony had thought. Stirling didn't seem the kind of man who would welcome casual human interaction.

  The concierge woke up visibly when he saw the limousine waiting outside. Suddenly he was rushing to open the doors, the smile that had been absent on Anthony's arrival now plastered across his face.

  Anthony ignored him. He greeted the driver and climbed into the front passenger seat--a little, he realized afterward, to the driver's discomfort, but in the rear he would have felt like an impostor. He wound down his window to let the warm Mediterranean breeze stroke his skin as the long, low vehicle negotiated its way along coastal roads scented with rosemary and thyme. His gaze traveled up to the purple hills beyond. He had become accustomed to the more exotic landscape of Africa and had forgotten how beautiful parts of Europe were.

  He made casual conversation--asked the driver about the area, who else he had driven for, what life was like for an ordinary man in this part of the country. He couldn't help it: knowledge was everything. Some of his best leads had come from the drivers and other servants of powerful men.

  "Is Mr. Stirling a good boss?" he asked.

  The driver's eyes darted toward him, his demeanor less relaxed. "He is," he said, in a way that suggested the conversation was closed.

  "Glad to hear it," Anthony replied, and made sure to tip the man generously when they arrived at the vast white house. As he watched the car disappear to the back and what must have been the garage, he felt vaguely wistful. Taciturn as he was, he would have preferred to share a sandwich and a game of cards with the driver than make polite conversation with the bored rich of the Riviera.

  The eighteenth-century house was like that of any wealthy man, oversize and immaculate, its facade suggesting the endless attention of staff. The graveled driveway was wide and manicured, flanked by raised flagstone paths from which no weed would dare to emerge. Elegant windows gleamed between painted shutters. A sweeping stone staircase led visitors into a hallway that already echoed with the conversation of the other diners and was dotted with pedestals containing huge arrangements of flowers. He walked up the steps slowly, feeling the stone still warm from the fierce heat of the day's sun.

  There were seven other guests at dinner: the Moncrieffs, friends of the Stirlings from London--the wife's gaze was frankly assessing; the local mayor, M. Lafayette, with his wife and their daughter, a lithe brunette with heavily made-up eyes and a definite air of mischief; and the elderly M. and Mme Demarcier. Stirling's wife was a clean-cut, pretty blonde in the Grace Kelly mold; such women tended to have little to say of interest, having been admired for their looks all their lives.
He hoped to be placed next to Mrs. Moncrieff. He hadn't minded her summing him up. She would be a challenge.

  "And you work for a newspaper, Mr. O'Hare?" The elderly Frenchwoman peered up at him.

  "Yes. In England." A manservant appeared at his elbow with a tray of drinks. "Do you have anything soft? Tonic water, perhaps?" The man nodded and disappeared.

  "What is it called?" she asked.

  "The Nation."

  "The Nation," she repeated, with apparent dismay. "I haven't heard of it. I have heard of the Times. That is the best newspaper, isn't it?"

  "I've heard that people think so." Oh, Lord, he thought. Please let the food be good.

  The silver tray appeared at his elbow with a tall glass of iced tonic water. Anthony kept his gaze away from the sparkling kir the others were drinking. Instead he tried out a little of his schoolboy French on the mayor's daughter, who replied in perfect English, with a charming French lilt. Too young, he thought, registering the mayor's sideways glance.

  He was gratified to find himself seated beside Yvonne Moncrieff when they finally sat down. She was polite, entertaining--and completely immune to him. Damn the happily married. Jennifer Stirling was on his left, turned away in conversation.

  "Do you spend much time here, Mr. O'Hare?" Francis Moncrieff was a tall, thin man, the physical equivalent of his wife.

  "No."

  "You're more usually tied to the City of London?"

  "No. I don't cover it at all."

  "You're not a financial journalist?"

  "I'm a foreign correspondent. I cover . . . trouble abroad."

  "While Larry causes it." Moncrieff laughed. "What sort of things do you write about?"

  "Oh, war, famine, disease. The cheerful stuff."

  "I don't think there is much cheerful about those." The elderly Frenchwoman sipped her wine.

  "For the last year I've been covering the crisis in Congo."

  "Lumumba's a troublemaker," Stirling interjected, "and the Belgians are cowardly fools if they think the place will do anything but sink without them."

  "You believe the Africans can't be trusted to manage their own affairs?"

  "Lumumba was a barefoot jungle postman not five minutes ago. There isn't a colored with a professional education in the whole of Congo." He lit a cigar and blew out a plume of smoke. "How are they meant to run the banks once the Belgians have gone, or the hospitals? The place will become a war zone. My mines are on the Rhodesian-Congolese border, and I've already had to draft in extra security. Rhodesian security--the Congolese can no longer be trusted."

  There was a brief silence. A muscle had begun to tick insistently in Anthony's jaw.

  Stirling tapped his cigar. "So, Mr. O'Hare, where were you in Congo?"

  "Leopoldville, mainly. Brazzaville."

  "Then you know that the Congolese army cannot be controlled."

  "I know that independence is a testing time for any country. And that had Lieutenant General Janssens been more diplomatic, many lives might have been saved."

  Stirling stared at him over the cigar smoke. Anthony felt he was being reassessed. "So, you've been sucked into the cult of Lumumba too." His smile was icy.

  "It's hard to believe that the conditions for many Africans could become any worse."

  "Then you and I must differ," Stirling retorted. "I think that there are people for whom freedom can be a dangerous gift."

  The room fell silent. In the distance, a motorbike whined up a hillside. Madame Lafayette reached up anxiously to smooth her hair.

  "Well, I can't say I know anything about it," Jennifer Stirling observed, laying her napkin neatly on her lap.

  "Too depressing," Yvonne Moncrieff agreed. "I simply can't look at the newspapers some mornings. Francis reads the sport and City pages, and I stick to my magazines. Often the news goes completely unread."

  "My wife considers anything not in the pages of Vogue to not be proper news at all," Moncrieff said.

  The tension eased. Conversation flowed again, and the waiters refilled the glasses. The men discussed the stock market and developments on the Riviera--the influx of campers, which led the elderly couple to complain of a "lowering in tone," and which awful newcomers had joined the British Bridge Club.

  "I shouldn't worry too much," said Moncrieff. "The beach huts at Monte Carlo cost fifty pounds a week this year. I shouldn't think too many Butlins types are going to pay that."

  "I heard that Elsa Maxwell proposed covering the pebbles with foam rubber so the beach wouldn't be uncomfortable for one's feet."

  "Terrible hardships one faces in this place," Anthony remarked quietly. He wanted to leave, but that was impossible at this stage of the meal. He felt too far from where he had been--as if he had been dropped into a parallel universe. How could they be so inured to the mess, the horror, of Africa, when their lives were so plainly built upon it?

  He hesitated for a moment, then motioned to a waiter for some wine. Nobody at the table seemed to notice.

  "So . . . you're going to write marvelous things about my husband, are you?" Mrs. Stirling was peering at his cuff. The second course, a platter of fresh seafood, had been laid in front of him, and she had turned toward him.

  He adjusted his napkin. "I don't know. Should I? Is he marvelous?"

  "He's a beacon of sound commercial practice, according to our dear friend Mr. Moncrieff. His factories are built to the highest standards. His turnover increases year after year."

  "That's not what I asked you."

  "No?"

  "I asked you if he was marvelous." He knew he was being spiky, but the alcohol had woken him up, made his skin prickle.

  "I don't think you should ask me, Mr. O'Hare. A wife can hardly be impartial in such matters."

  "Oh, in my experience there is no one more brutally impartial than a wife."

  "Do go on."

  "Who else knows all her husband's faults within weeks of marrying him, and can pinpoint them--regularly and from memory--with forensic accuracy?"

  "Your wife sounds terribly cruel. I rather like the sound of her."

  "Actually, she's an immensely clever woman." He watched Jennifer Stirling pop a prawn into her mouth.

  "Really?"

  "Yes. Clever enough to have left me years ago."

  She passed him the mayonnaise. Then, when he didn't take it from her, she spooned a dollop onto the side of his plate. "Does this mean you were not very marvelous, Mr. O'Hare?"

  "At being married? No. I don't suppose I was. In all other respects, I am, of course, peerless. And please call me Anthony." It was as if he had picked up their mannerisms, their carelessly arrogant way of speaking.

  "Then, Anthony, I'm sure you and my husband will get along terribly well. I believe he has a similar view of himself." Her eyes settled on Stirling, then returned to him, and lingered just long enough for him to decide she might not be as wearisome as he'd thought.

  During the main course--rolled beef, with cream and wild mushrooms--he discovered that Jennifer Stirling, nee Verrinder, had been married for four years. She lived mostly in London, and her husband made numerous trips abroad to his mines. They came to the Riviera for the winter months, part of the summer, and odd holidays when London society proved dull. It was a tight crowd here, she said, eyeing the mayor's wife opposite. You wouldn't want to live here full-time, in the goldfish bowl.

  These were the things she told him, things that should have marked her out as just another rich man's overindulged wife. But he observed other things too: that Jennifer Stirling was probably a little neglected, more clever than her position required her to be, and that she had not realized what the combination might do to her within a year or two. For now, only the hint of sadness in her eyes suggested such self-awareness. She was caught up in a never-ending but meaningless social whirl.

  There were no children. "I've heard it said that two people must be in the same country for a while to have one." As she said this, he wondered if she was sending him a message.
But she appeared guileless, amused by her situation rather than disappointed. "Do you have children, Anthony?" she inquired.

  "I--I seem to have mislaid one. He lives with my ex-wife, who does her best to make sure that I don't corrupt him." He knew as soon as he'd said it that he was drunk. Sober, he would never have mentioned Phillip.

  This time he saw something serious behind her smile, as if she was wondering whether to commiserate. Don't, he willed her silently. To hide his embarrassment, he poured himself another glass of wine. "It's fine. He--"

  "In what way might you be considered a corrupting influence, Mr. O'Hare?" Mariette, the mayor's daughter, asked from across the table.

  "I suspect, mademoiselle, that I'm more likely to be corrupted," he said. "Had I not already decided to write a most flattering profile of Mr. Stirling, I should imagine I would be won over by the food and company at his table." He paused. "What would it take to corrupt you, Mrs. Moncrieff?" he asked--she seemed the safest person to whom he could direct this question.

  "Oh, I'd be as cheap as anything. Nobody ever tried hard enough," she said.

  "What rot," said her husband, fondly. "It took me months to corrupt you."

  "Well, you had to buy me, darling. Unlike Mr. O'Hare here, you were entirely lacking in looks and charm." She blew him a kiss. "Whereas Jenny is entirely incorruptible. Don't you think she gives off the most terrifying air of goodness?"

  "No soul on earth is incorruptible if the price is right," said Moncrieff. "Even sweet little Jenny."

  "No, Francis. M. Lafayette is our true beacon of integrity," said Jennifer, her lips twitching mischievously at the corners. She had begun to look a little giddy. "After all, there's no such thing as corruption in French politics."

  "Darling, I don't think you're equipped to discuss French politics," Laurence Stirling interjected.

  Anthony saw the faint color that rose to her cheeks.

  "I was just saying--"

  "Well, don't," he said lightly. She blinked and gazed at her plate.

  There was a brief hush.

  "I believe you are right, madame," M. Lafayette said gallantly to Jennifer, as he put down his glass. "However, I can tell you what a dishonest scoundrel my rival at the town hall is . . . at the right price, of course."