I skim through them. The ones that are addressed with a more cursive writing – Evelyn’s presumably – are to a man named Stanley. ‘Thanks for these,’ I tell him. ‘You can’t imagine how touching it is to me that she’d do this . . .’
‘If you want to know the truth, I think Evelyn is a little starved of female company. I mean, she sees a lot of women in the home, but most of them don’t even know their own name, let alone hers. She’s probably bonded with you because you’re the first compos mentis female who has paid her any attention in a very long time. And you’re kind, and she can tell.’
‘How do you know I’m kind?’
‘Aren’t you?’
I put on my best growly face.
‘Okay, then she knows you’re not kind, but she doesn’t care. She’s desperate. She’s going to foist her business on you, anyway. Because you’re there.’
I laugh.
‘Of course, if you ever get the burning compulsion to share what’s in them, I’m your man. In fact, maybe I’ll give you my contact details and my national insurance number before I leave. Just to make sure you can find me.’ He thrusts his hands into his trouser pockets, looks over his shoulders, sassily, and whistles, as though he really is looking for his ID in his pocket.
‘Ha! Thoughtful of you! Trust me, if I get the calling to blurt out Evelyn’s personal business, you’ll be the first person I’ll ring.’
He winks at me.
As I’m arriving home, oddly cheered up, I receive a text from Justin that sinks me all over again.
Deposited ￡￡ into your account. What you spent on wedding + my share of rent for next 6mths until lease is up.
Ten minutes later, another comes in.
I hope that one day you will be able to forgive me.
I deposit my pack of Marks & Spencer’s Food Hall Scottish salmon on the counter, no longer feeling like eating it. I check my bank statement online. The money is there; he’s right. I hadn’t even thought about the flat, or where I’m going to live next. But this text suddenly puts it on the agenda. For some reason, I think of all the houses Justin and I visited – ones we thought we might see ourselves buying after we moved out of here – how exciting it had felt. None we had fallen in love with, though. Perhaps it had been a sign. I can’t stop staring at the money. It’s a bit like being paid off.
Snap out of it, I can almost hear my mother saying. On this note, I pour myself a glass of wine, and shove the salmon under the grill. Sally texts to ask if I fancy a night out, and my first instinct is to say no, but I type, You’re on, instead. I eat my meal, sitting at the breakfast bar, with some pre-washed rocket I shake out of a bag. It’s surprisingly edible. After, I top up my glass and take the letters over to the window chair. Since Justin’s visit, I haven’t been able to sit in my normal chair and stare at the sofa where he sat, looking so distraught. I move around it, glancing at it, like it’s alive.
I start with the first letter – they have been arranged in date order. The one from Eddy begins:
I hope you will forgive me writing to you like this. I remembered the name of your magazine, and I enquired in a bookshop and found the address.
I read Evelyn’s reply, and the letters that follow. Several of them. Eddy talking about his dreams, his routine, his visits to tend to her mother’s garden, his seeing her there every time, in his mind’s eye. Evelyn describing her London life, signing herself as Your Constance Chatterley. What is it about the ability of letters to elucidate so much more than just words? I can feel Eddy’s impatience, his frustration, his suspense, his relief, his grace and gratitude. Somehow, in their handwriting, I see Evelyn and Eddy so vibrantly on those pages; I can almost hear their voices as though I have travelled back in time.
I get to that shocking one where Eddy says he can’t go on like this any more. Then Evelyn’s, saying she’s leaving Mark.
The next letters contain their plan. I practically ingest them. The correspondence ends here.
As does my breath. I am seized by What next? But no. I have missed one. Perhaps in my re-reading of them I have reorganised them in the process. This one I haven’t seen yet. On the envelope, Eddy has written Return to Sender.
Dear Eddy,
I’ve made a terrible mistake. I can’t do it, for everyone’s sake. I am so sorry.
I read it once, twice. I tingle with an eerie déjà vu.
I thought I could go through with it. I meant it when I promised you; I meant it with my whole heart. But when it came down to it, I just found myself in an impossible position. It takes a brave person to radically change their life, and someone else’s, and I suppose that person isn’t me.
I wish I had stayed all those years ago, then there would never have been a Mark to hurt. You would never have had a family to leave. And while I am a firm believer that we have to seize the day, and it’s never too late to follow our hearts and do what we must do, I do believe it is too late for us. We have loved others – perhaps in different ways to how we love one another – but who is to say that one kind of love is worth more than another? That our love devalues another? Love finds its own level where it can exist most true to itself. But I need to be true to myself, too. Even though I am distraught right now, and thoroughly and utterly broken-hearted, my decision to stay with Mark sits more comfortably on my conscience, as does knowing that if you do end up leaving your marriage one day, it will not be because of me.