The Last Letter from Your Lover(46)
Author: Jojo Moyes

What was it Anthony had once written? That there was pleasure to be had in being a decent person. Even if you do not feel it now.

She got out of the bath. She couldn’t relax. She needed something to distract her from her thoughts. She wished, suddenly, that she could drug herself and sleep through the next two hours. Even the next two months, she thought mournfully, reaching for the towel.

She opened the bathroom door, and there, on the bed, Mrs. Cordoza had laid out the two dresses: on the left was the midnight blue she had worn on the night of Laurence’s birthday. It had been a merry night at the casino. Bill had won a large amount of money at roulette and insisted on buying champagne for everyone. She had drunk too much, had been giddy, unable to eat. Now, in the silent room, she recalled other parts of the evening that she had obediently excised in her retelling of it. She remembered Laurence criticizing her for spending too much money on gambling chips. She remembered him muttering that she was embarrassing him—until Yvonne had told him, charmingly, not to be so grumpy. He’ll squash you, extinguish the things that make you you. She remembered him standing in the kitchen doorway this morning. What are you bothering with that for? I hope you can make yourself a little more agreeable this evening.

She looked at the other dress on the bed: pale gold brocade, with a mandarin collar and no sleeves. The dress she had worn on the evening that Anthony O’Hare had declined to make love to her.

It was as if a heavy mist had lifted. She dropped the towel and threw on some clothes. Then she began to hurl things onto the bed. Underwear. Shoes. Stockings. What on earth did one pack when one was leaving forever?

Her hands were shaking. Almost without knowing what she was doing, she pulled her case down from the top of the wardrobe and opened it. She tossed things into it with a kind of abandon, fearing that if she stopped to think about what she was doing, she wouldn’t do it at all.

“Are you going somewhere, madam? Would you like help packing?” Mrs. Cordoza had appeared in the doorway behind her, holding a cup of tea.

Jennifer’s hand flew to her throat. She turned, half hiding the case behind her. “No—no. I’m just taking some clothes to Mrs. Moncrieff. For her niece. Things I’ve grown tired of.”

“There are some things in the laundry room that you said didn’t fit you anymore. Do you want me to bring them up?”

“No. I can do it myself.”

Mrs. Cordoza peered past her. “But that’s your gold dress. You love it.”

“Mrs. Cordoza, please will you let me sort out my own wardrobe?” she snapped.

The housekeeper flinched. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Stirling,” she said, and withdrew in hurt silence.

Jennifer began to cry, sobs forcing their way out in ugly bursts. She crawled on top of the bedspread, her hands over her head, and howled, not knowing what she should do, only that, with every second of indecision, the direction of her life hung in the balance. She heard her mother’s voice, saw her appalled face at the news of her family’s disgrace, the whispers of delighted shock in church. She saw the life she had planned, the children that would surely soften Laurence’s coldness, force him to unbend a little. She saw a poky series of rented rooms, Anthony out all day working, herself afraid in a strange country without him. She saw him wearying of her in her drab clothes, his gaze already on some other married woman.

I will never stop loving you. I have never loved anyone before you, and there will never be anyone after you.

When she pushed herself up, Mrs. Cordoza was at the foot of the bed.

She wiped her eyes and her nose and was prepared to apologize for snapping when she saw that the older woman was packing her bag.

“I’ve put in your flat shoes and your brown slacks. They don’t need so much laundering.”

Jennifer stared at her, still hiccuping.

“There are undergarments and a nightdress.”

“I—I don’t—”

Mrs. Cordoza continued to pack. She removed things from the suitcase, refolding them with tissue paper and putting them back with the same reverent care one might lavish on a newborn. Jennifer was hypnotized by the sight of those hands smoothing, replacing.

“Mrs. Stirling,” Mrs. Cordoza said, without looking up, “I never told you this. Where I lived in South Africa, it was customary to cover your windows with ash when a man died. When my husband died, I kept my windows clear. In fact, I cleaned them so that they shone.”

Sure she had Jennifer’s attention, she continued folding. Shoes now, placed sole to sole in a thin cotton bag, tucked neatly in the base, a pair of white tennis shoes, a hairbrush.

“I did love my husband when we were young, but he was not a kind man. As we grew older, he cared less and less how he behaved toward me. When he died suddenly, God forgive me, I felt as if someone had set me free.” She hesitated, gazing into the half-packed suitcase. “If someone had given me the chance, many years ago, I would have gone. I think I would have had the chance of a different life.”

She placed the last folded clothes on top and closed the lid, securing the buckles on each side of the handle.

“It’s half past six. Mr. Stirling said he would be home by a quarter to seven, in case you’d forgotten.” Without another word, she straightened and left the room.

Jennifer checked her watch, then shrugged on the rest of her clothes. She ran across the room, sliding her feet into the nearest pair of shoes. She went to her dressing table, fumbled in the back of a drawer for the emergency supply of shopping money she always kept balled up in a pair of stockings, and thrust the notes into her pocket, with a handful of rings and necklaces from her jewelry box. Then she grabbed her suitcase and wrenched it down the stairs.

Mrs. Cordoza was holding out her mackintosh. “Your best chance of a taxi will be New Cavendish Street. I would suggest Portland Place, but I believe Mr. Stirling’s driver uses it.”

“New Cavendish Street.”

Neither woman moved, stunned, perhaps, by what they had done. Then Jennifer stepped forward and gave Mrs. Cordoza an impulsive hug. “Thank you. I—”

“I’ll inform Mr. Stirling that, to my knowledge, you’re on a shopping trip.”

“Yes. Yes, thank you.”

She was outside in the night air that suddenly felt loaded with possibility. She tripped carefully down the steps, scanning the square for the familiar yellow light of a taxi. When she reached the pavement, she set off at a run into the city dusk.