Read The Last Letter From Your Lover for Free Online Page A

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.
    “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