The Last Letter from Your Lover(100)
Author: Jojo Moyes

Don picked him up two days later, on the afternoon that the hospital had agreed to discharge him, with appropriate liver-function results and dire threats of what would happen to him if he dared to drink again.

“Where are we headed?” He watched Don load his small suitcase into the boot of his car and felt like a refugee.

“You’re coming to mine.”

“What?”

“Viv says so.” He didn’t meet Anthony’s eye. “She thinks you need some home comforts.”

You think I can’t be left alone. “I don’t think I—”

“It’s not up for discussion,” Don said, and climbed into the driver’s seat. “But don’t blame me for the food. My wife knows a hundred and one ways to incinerate a cow, and as far as I can tell she’s still experimenting.”

It was always disconcerting to see one’s workmates in a domestic setting. Over the years, although he had met Viv—red-haired and as vivacious as Don was dour—at various work functions, Anthony had somehow seen Don, more than anyone, as someone who physically inhabited the Nation. He was always there. That office, with its towering piles of paper, its scribbled notes and maps pinned haphazardly to walls, was his natural habitat. Don in his house with velvet slippers, his feet up on an overstuffed sofa, Don straightening ornaments or fetching pints of milk, went against the rules of nature.

That said, there was something restful about being in his house. A mock-Tudor semi in the commuter belt, it was large enough that he didn’t feel under anybody’s feet. The children were grown and gone, and aside from framed photographs, there were no constant reminders of his own failure as a parent.

Viv greeted him with kisses on both cheeks, and made no reference to where he had been. “I thought you boys might like to play golf this afternoon,” she said.

They did. Don was so hopeless at it that Anthony realized afterward it must have been the only thing his hosts could think of that the two men might do together that didn’t involve drinking. Don didn’t mention Jennifer. He was worried still, Anthony could tell. He made frequent references to Anthony being all right, to the resumption of normality, whatever that was supposed to be. There was no wine at lunch or supper.

“So, what’s the plan?” He was sitting on one of the sofas. In the distance they could hear Viv washing up, singing along to the wireless in the kitchen.

“Back to work tomorrow,” Don said. He was rubbing his stomach.

Work. Part of him wanted to ask what that might be. But he didn’t dare. He had failed the Nation once, was afraid to have it confirmed that this time he had done so conclusively.

I’ve been talking to Spackman.”

Oh, Christ. Here it comes.

“Tony, she doesn’t know. Nobody upstairs knows.”

Anthony blinked.

“It’s just us on the desk. Me, Blondie, a couple of the subs. I had to ring them to tell them I wasn’t coming back to work when we got you to hospital. They’ll keep their mouths shut.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“That’s a bloody change. Anyway.” Don lit a cigarette, and blew a long plume of smoke. His eyes met Anthony’s almost guiltily. “She agrees with me that we should send you back out.”

It took Anthony a beat to register what he was saying.

“To Congo?”

“You’re the best man for the job.”

Congo.

“But I need to know . . .” Don tapped his cigarette on an ashtray.

“It’s fine.”

“Let me finish. I need to know you’re going to look after yourself. I can’t be worrying.”

“No drinking. Nothing reckless. I just . . . I need to do the job.”

“That’s what I thought.” But Don didn’t believe him—Anthony could see it in the sideways look. A short pause. “I would feel responsible.”

“I know.”

Clever man, Don. But Anthony couldn’t reassure him. How could he? He wasn’t sure how he was going to get through the next half an hour, let alone how he’d feel in the heart of Africa.

Don’s voice broke in again before the answer became overwhelming. He stubbed out his cigarette. “Football’s on in a minute. Chelsea versus Arsenal. Fancy it?” He climbed heavily out of his chair and flicked on the mahogany-clad box in the corner. “I’ll tell you one bit of good news. You can’t get that bastard yellow fever again. When you’ve been as sick as you were, apparently you’re immune.”

Anthony stared unseeing at the black-and-white screen. How do I make the rest of me immune?

They were in the foreign editor’s office. Paul de Saint, a tall, patrician man with swept-back hair and the air of a Romantic poet, was studying a map on the desk. “The big story’s in Stanleyville. There are at least eight hundred non-Congolese being held hostage there, many in the Victoria Hotel, and perhaps a thousand more in the surrounding area. Diplomatic efforts to save them have so far failed. There’s so much infighting between the rebels that the situation is changing by the hour, so it’s near impossible to get an accurate picture. It’s pretty woolly out there, O’Hare. Until maybe six months ago, I would have said the safety of any white man was guaranteed, whatever was going on with the natives. Now, I’m afraid, they seem to be targeting les colons . There are some fairly horrific stories coming out. Nothing we can put in the paper.” He paused. “Rape is only the half of it.”

“How do I get in?”

“There’s our starting problem. I’ve been talking to Nicholls, and the best way is going to be via Rhodesia—or Zambia, as they’re now calling the northern half. Our man there is trying to work out a land route for you, but many of the roads have been destroyed, and it’ll take days.”

As he talked travel logistics with Don, Anthony let the conversation drift away from him and saw, with some gratitude, that not only had a whole half hour gone by in which he hadn’t thought of her but that the story was pulling him in. He could feel nervous anticipation germinating in his belly, and was drawn to the challenge of getting across the hostile terrain. He felt no fear. How could he? What worse things could happen?

He leafed through the files that de Saint’s deputy handed him. The political background; the Communist aid to the rebels that had so enraged the Americans; the execution of the American missionary, Paul Carlson. He read the ground-level reports of what the rebels had done, and his jaw tightened. They took him back to 1960 and the turmoil of Lumumba’s brief rule. He read them as if at a distance. He felt as if the man who had been out there before—the man so shattered by what he had seen—was someone he no longer recognized.