The Last Letter from Your Lover Read Online Free PDF Page B

lingered longest in her bedroom. Mrs Cordoza had unpacked her suitcase and put everything away. Two built-in cupboards opened to reveal great quantities of immaculately stored clothes. Everything fitted her perfectly, even the most well-worn shoes. Her hairbrush, perfumes and powders were lined up on a dressing-table. The scents met her skin with a pleasant familiarity. The colours of the cosmetics suited her: Coty, Chanel, Elizabeth Arden, Dorothy Gray – her mirror was surrounded by a small battalion of expensive creams and unguents.
    She pulled open a drawer, held up layers of chiffon, brassières and other foundation garments made of silk and lace. I’m a woman to whom appearances matter, she observed. She sat and stared at herself in the three-sided mirror, then began to brush her hair with long, steady strokes. This is what I do, she said to herself, several times.
    In the few moments when she felt overwhelmed by strangeness, she busied herself with small tasks: rearranging the towels in the downstairs cloakroom, putting out plates and glasses.
    He arrived back shortly before seven. She was waiting for him in the hall, her makeup fresh and a light spray of scent over her neck and shoulders. She could see it pleased him, this semblance of normality. She took his coat, hung it in the cupboard and asked if he would like a drink.
    ‘That would be lovely. Thank you,’ he said.
    She hesitated, one hand poised on a decanter.
    Turning, he saw her indecision. ‘Yes, that’s it, darling. Whisky. Two fingers, with ice. Thank you.’
    At supper, he sat on her right at the large, polished mahogany table, a great expanse of which was empty and unadorned. She ladled the steaming food on to plates, and he placed them at each setting. This is my life, she found herself thinking, as she watched his hands move. This is what we do in the evenings.
    ‘I thought we might have the Moncrieffs to dinner on Friday. Might you be up to it?’
    She took a little bite from her fork. ‘I think so.’
    ‘Good.’ He nodded. ‘Our friends have been asking after you. They would like to see that you’re . . . back to your old self.’
    She raised a smile. ‘That will be . . . nice.’
    ‘I thought we probably wouldn’t do too much for a week or two. Just till you’re up to it.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘This is very good. Did you make it?’
    ‘No. It was Mrs Cordoza.’
    ‘Ah.’
    They ate in silence. She drank water – Mr Hargreaves had advised against anything stronger – but she envied her husband the glass in front of him. She would have liked to blur the disconcerting strangeness, to take the edge off it.
    ‘And how are things at . . . your office?’
    His head was down. ‘All fine. I’ll have to visit the mines in the next couple of weeks, but I’ll want to be sure that you can manage before I go. You’ll have Mrs Cordoza to help, of course.’
    She felt faint relief at the thought of being alone. ‘I’m sure I’ll be all right.’
    ‘And afterwards I thought we might go to the Riviera for a couple of weeks. I have some business there, and the sun might do you good. Mr Hargreaves said it might help your . . . the scarring . . .’ His voice faded.
    ‘The Riviera,’ she echoed. A sudden vision of a moonlit seafront. Laughter. The clinking of glasses. She closed her eyes, willing the fleeting image to become clear.
    ‘I thought we might drive down, this time, just the two of us.’
    It was gone. She could hear her pulse in her ears. Stay calm, she told herself. It will all come. Mr Hargreaves said it would.
    ‘You always seem happy there. Perhaps a little happier there than in London.’ He glanced up at her and then away.
    There it was again, the feeling that she was being tested. She forced herself to chew and swallow. ‘Whatever you think best,’ she said quietly.
    The room fell silent but for the slow scraping of his cutlery on his plate, an oppressive sound. Her food suddenly appeared insurmountable.