The Last Letter from Your Lover(8)
Author: Jojo Moyes

“She’d probably prefer not to dwell on it, if you don’t mind.” Laurence stood up to fetch another bottle of wine from the sideboard.

“Of course not.” Dominic lifted a hand in apology. “Thoughtless of me.”

Jennifer began to collect the plates. “I’m fine. Really. It’s just that there isn’t much I could tell you. I don’t remember very much at all.”

“Just as well,” Dominic observed.

Yvonne was lighting a cigarette. “Well, the sooner you’re responsible for everyone’s brake linings, Larry darling, the safer we’ll all be.”

“And the richer he’ll be.” Francis laughed.

“Oh, Francis, darling, must we really bring every single conversation back to money?”

“Yes,” he and Bill answered in unison.

Jennifer heard them laughing as she picked up the pile of dirty china and headed toward the kitchen.

“Well, that went well, didn’t it?”

She was seated at her dressing table, carefully removing her earrings. She saw his reflection in the mirror as he came into the bedroom, loosening his tie. He kicked off his shoes and went into the bathroom, leaving the door open. “Yes,” she said. “I think it did.”

“The food was wonderful.”

“Oh, I can’t take any credit for that,” she said. “Mrs. Cordoza organized it all.”

“But you planned the menu.”

It was easier not to disagree with him. She placed the earrings carefully inside their box. She could hear the washbasin filling with water. “I’m glad you liked it.” She stood up and wrestled herself out of her dress, hung it up, and began to peel off her stockings.

She had removed one when she looked up to see him standing in the doorway. He was gazing at her legs. “You looked very beautiful tonight,” he said quietly.

She blinked hard, rolling off the second stocking. She reached behind her to undo her girdle, now acutely self-conscious. Her left arm was still useless—too weak to reach round to her back. She kept her head down, hearing him moving toward her. He was bare-chested now, but still in his suit trousers. He stood behind her, moved her hands away, and took over. He was so close that she could feel his breath on her back as he parted each hook from its eye.

“Very beautiful,” he repeated.

She closed her eyes. This is my husband, she told herself. He adores me. Everyone says so. We’re happy. She felt his fingers running lightly along her right shoulder, the touch of his lips at the back of her neck. “Are you very tired?” he murmured.

She knew this was her chance. He was a gentleman. If she said she was, he would step back, leave her alone. But they were married. Married . She had to face this some time. And who knew? Perhaps if he seemed less alien, she would find that a little more of herself was restored to her.

She turned in his arms. She couldn’t look at his face, couldn’t kiss him. “Not if . . . not if you’re not,” she whispered into his chest.

She felt his skin against hers and clamped her eyes shut, waiting to feel a sense of familiarity, perhaps even desire. Four years, they had been married. How many times must they have done this? And since her return he had been so patient.

She felt his hands moving over her, bolder now, unclipping her brassiere. She kept her eyes closed, conscious of her appearance. “May we turn out the light?” she said. “I don’t want . . . to be thinking about my arm. How it looks.”

“Of course. I should have thought.”

She heard the click of the bedroom light. But it wasn’t her arm that bothered her: she didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to be so exposed, vulnerable, under his gaze. And then they were on the bed, and he was kissing her neck, his hands, his breath, urgent. He lay on top of her, pinning her down, and she linked her arms around his neck, unsure what she should be doing in the absence of any feelings she might have expected. What has happened to me? she thought. What did I used to do?

“Are you all right?” he murmured into her ear. “I’m not hurting you?”

“No,” she said, “no, not at all.”

He kissed her br**sts, a low moan of pleasure escaping him. “Take them off,” he said, pulling at her knickers. He shifted his weight off her so that she could tug them down to her knees, then kick them away. And she was exposed. Perhaps if we . . . , she wanted to say, but he was already nudging her legs apart, trying clumsily to guide himself into her. I’m not ready—but she couldn’t say that: it would be wrong now. He was lost somewhere else, desperate, wanting.

She grimaced, drawing up her knees, trying not to tense. And then he was inside her, and she was biting her cheek in the dark, trying to ignore the pain and that she felt nothing except a desperate desire for it to be over and him out of her. His movements built in speed and urgency, his weight squashing her, his face hot and damp against her shoulder. And then, with a little cry, a hint of vulnerability he did not show in any other part of his life, it was over, and the thing was gone, replaced by a sticky wetness between her thighs.

She had bitten the inside of her cheek so hard that she could taste blood.

He rolled off her, still breathing hard. “Thank you,” he said, into the darkness.

She was glad he couldn’t see her lying there, gazing at nothing, the covers pulled up to her chin. “That’s quite all right,” she said quietly.

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.