Page 45 (1/2)

"I wasn’t surewhat--well, whether you would even want to see the Suddenly ill at ease, Ellie takes a sip fro her coffee, but she keeps her eyes averted, she isn’t sure why

"Oh, I do want the has happened to Jennifer’s expression She isn’t tearful, exactly, but her eyes have the pinched look of someone beset by intense emotion "You’ve read the "Sorry They were in a file of so their owner I thought they were beautiful," she adds aardly

"Yes, they are, aren’t they? Well, Ellie Haworth, not e, but you have succeeded today"

"Aren’t you going to read them?"

"I don’t have to I knohat they say"

Ellie learned a long ti when to say nothing But now she’s becoly uncomfortable as she watches an old woman who has in some way disappeared from the room "I’m sorry," she says carefully, when the silence becomes oppressive, "if I’ve upset you I wasn’t sure what to do, given that I didn’t knohat your--"

"--situation was," Jennifer says She sain what a lovely face she has "That was very diplomatic of you But these can cause no eo It’s one of the things they never tell you about being old" She gives a wry smile "That the men die off so much sooner"

For a while they listen to the rain, the hissing brakes of the buses outside

"Well," Mrs Stirling says, "tell o to such effort to return these letters to me?"

Ellie ponders whether or not to mention the feature Her instincts tell her not to

"Because I’ve never read anything like the her closely

"AndI also have a lover," she says, not sure why she says this

"A ‘lover’?"

"He’smarried"

"Ah So these letters spoke to you"

"Yes The whole story did It’s the thing about wanting so able to say what you really feel" She’s looking do, speaking to her lap "The man I’m involved with, JohnI don’t really knohat he thinks We don’t talk about what’s happening between us"

"I don’t suppose he’s unusual in that," Mrs Stirling reain, she’s lost in another ti to receive a letter like that To know you’re loved so coood ords"

The rain becoainst the s, people shouting below in the street

"I’ve been mildly obsessed by your love affair, if that doesn’t sound too strange I desperately wanted the two of you to reunite I have to ask, did youdid you ever get back together?"

The , inappropriate, and Ellie feels suddenly self-conscious There’s so, she thinks She has pushed it too far

Just as Ellie is about to apologize, and make to leave, Jennifer speaks: "Would you like another cup of coffee, Ellie?" she says "I don’t suppose there’swhile the rain is like this"

Jennifer Stirling sits on the silk-covered sofa, her coffee cooling on her lap, and tells the story of a young wife in the south of France, of a husband who, in her words, was probably no worse than any others of the age A man very n of weakness, unbeco And she tells a story of his opposite, an opinionated, passionate, daht she met him at ain her head, trying not to think about the tape recorder she has surreptitiously turned on in her handbag But she no longer feels graceless Mrs Stirling talks animatedly, as if this is a story she has wanted to tell for decades She says it’s a story she has pieced together over the years, and Ellie, although she doesn’t co said, doesn’t want to interrupt and ask her to clarify

Jennifer Stirling tells of the sudden palling of her gilded life, the sleepless nights, her guilt, the terrifying, irrevocable pull of someone forbidden, the awful realization that the life you’re leadingone As she speaks, Ellie bites her nails, wondering if this is what John is thinking, right now, on some distant sun-drenched beach How can he love his wife and do what he does with her? How can he not feel that pull?