The Love Letter Read online

  ‘I hate to admit it, but I’m afraid I’m with Matthew on that one,’ Simon chuckled, pouring boiling water over the teabags. ‘You know, if I’m honest, I always felt Matthew was aspiring to be what he thought he should be.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Joanna sighed. ‘I just wasn’t impressive enough for him. But that’s who I am: just a boring middle-class Yorkshire girl.’

  ‘I promise you, the one thing you’re not is unimpressive. Or boring. Honest, maybe; down to earth, yes. But those are qualities to be admired. Here.’ He handed her a mug of tea. ‘Let’s defrost by that fire.’

  Joanna sat on the floor in front of the fire between Simon’s knees and drank her tea. ‘God, Simon, the thought of going through the dating process all over again is hideous,’ she said. ‘I’m twenty-seven, too old to start afresh.’

  ‘Yes, you’re ancient, I can practically smell death on you.’

  Joanna smacked his calf. ‘Don’t make light of this! It’s going to take me ages to get used to being single again.’

  ‘The problem with us humans is that we fear and dislike change of any kind. I’m convinced that’s why so many miserable couples stay together, when they’d be far better off apart.’

  ‘You’re probably right. Look at me, eating sun-dried tomatoes for years! Talking of couples, have you heard from your Sarah?’

  ‘She sent me a postcard from Wellington last week. She’s learning to sail there, apparently. Wow, it’s been a long year apart. Anyway, she’s back from New Zealand in February, so only a few weeks to go.’

  ‘You’ve been awfully good to wait for her.’ Joanna smiled at him.

  ‘“If you love someone, set them free.” Isn’t that the old adage? The way I see it is, if she still wants me by the time she arrives home, then we’ll both know that it’s right and for real.’

  ‘Don’t bank on it. I thought Matthew and I were “right” and “for real”.’

  ‘Thanks for your words of comfort.’ Simon raised his eyebrows. ‘Come on now, you have your career, your flat, and me. You’re a survivor, Jo. You’ll come out the other side, you wait and see.’

  ‘That’s if I still have a job to go back to. The piece I filed on Sir James Harrison’s memorial service was crap. What with Matthew, and my awful cold, and that weird old lady …’

  ‘You say she was living in a room full of tea chests? Are you sure you weren’t delirious?’

  ‘Yup. She said something about not being here long enough to unpack.’ Joanna bit her lip. ‘Ugh, it smelt so strongly of wee in there … Will we be like that when we’re old? The whole thing completely depressed me. I stood in that room thinking that if this was what life brings you to, then what the hell is the point of struggling through anyway?’

  ‘She’s probably one of those mad eccentrics who lives in a dump and has millions stuffed away in the bank. Or in tea chests for that matter. You should have checked.’

  ‘She was fine until she looked at this old man in a wheelchair, who came to sit by the opposite pew to us during the service. She totally freaked when she saw him.’

  ‘Probably her ex-husband. Maybe his millions were stashed away in those tea chests,’ Simon laughed. ‘Anyway, sweetheart, I must be on my way. I’ve got some work to do before tomorrow.’

  Joanna followed him to the door and he clasped her to him in a hug. ‘Thanks for everything.’ She kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Anytime. I’m always there if you need me. I’ll call you from work tomorrow. Bye, Butch.’

  ‘Night, Sundance.’

  Joanna closed the door behind him and drifted back into the sitting room feeling brighter. Simon always knew how to cheer her up. They’d been friends for all of their lives. He’d lived on the neighbouring farm to hers up in Yorkshire with his family and even though he was a couple of years older than her, living in such an isolated environment meant they had spent much of their childhood together. As an only child and a tomboy by nature, Joanna had been thrilled to have Simon’s company. He’d taught her to climb trees and play football and cricket. During the long summer holidays, the two of them had taken their ponies up onto the moors and played lengthy games of cowboys and Indians. It was the only time they’d ever fought, as Simon always and most unfairly demanded that he live and she die.

  ‘It’s my game, we play by my rules,’ he’d insist bossily, a large cowboy hat swamping his head. And after chasing each other across the coarse moorland grass, inevitably he would catch her up, tackling her from behind.

  ‘Bang bang, you’re dead!’ he’d shout, pointing his toy gun at her, and she would stagger, then fall onto the grass, rolling around in pretend agony until she eventually gave in and died.

  When he was thirteen, Simon had gone to boarding school and they’d seen less of each other. The old closeness had still remained during the holidays, but both had naturally made new friends as they grew up. They’d celebrated with a bottle of champagne up on the moors when Simon had won a place at Trinity College, Cambridge, Joanna going to university two years later at Durham to read English.

  Then their lives had separated almost completely; Simon had met Sarah at Cambridge, and in her final year at Durham, Joanna had found Matthew. It wasn’t until they’d both reconnected in London – coincidentally living only ten minutes apart – that their friendship had blossomed once more.

  Joanna knew Matthew had never really taken to Simon. Apart from towering over him physically, Simon had been offered some kind of high-flying job in the civil service when he’d left Cambridge. He always said modestly that he was just an office bod at Whitehall, but that was Simon all over. Very quickly, he’d been able to afford to buy a small car and a lovely one-bedroom flat on Highgate Hill. Matthew, meanwhile, had gophered at an ad agency before being offered a junior position a couple of years ago, which still only afforded him a damp bedsit in Stratford.

  Maybe, Joanna thought suddenly, Matthew was hoping Samantha’s superior position at the agency would boost his own career …

  Joanna shook her head. She refused to think about him any more tonight. Setting her jaw, she put Alanis Morissette on her CD player and turned the volume up. Sod the neighbours, she thought as she went into the bathroom to run a hot bath. Singing ‘You Learn’ at the top of her croaky voice, the water pouring out of the taps, Joanna did not hear the footsteps along the short path that led to the front door, or see the face peering into the windows of her ground-floor sitting room. She emerged from the bathroom as the footsteps receded back down the path.

  Feeling cleaner and calmer, Joanna made herself a cheese sandwich, drew the curtains closed in the sitting room and sat in front of the fire, toasting her toes. And suddenly felt a faint flicker of optimism for the future. Some of the things she’d said to Simon in the kitchen earlier had sounded flippant, but they were actually true. In retrospect, she and Matthew had very little in common. Now, she was a free agent with no one to please but herself and there would be no more putting her own feelings second. This was her call, her life, and she was damned if she was going to let Matthew ruin her future.

  Before her positive mood left her and depression descended once more, Joanna took a couple of paracetamol and headed for bed.

  3

  ‘Bye bye, darling.’ She hugged him to her, breathing in his familiar smell.

  ‘Bye, Mumma.’ He snuggled into her coat for a few more seconds, then pulled away, watching her face for signs of unwelcome emotion.

  Zoe Harrison cleared her throat and blinked back tears. This moment became no easier, no matter how many times she went through it. But it wasn’t done to cry in front of Jamie or his friends, so she put on a brave smile. ‘I’ll be down to take you out to lunch three weeks on Sunday. Bring Hugo if he’d like to come.’

  ‘Sure.’ Jamie stood awkwardly by the car, and Zoe knew it was her moment to leave. She couldn’t resist reaching out to brush a strand of his fine blond hair back from his face. He rolled his eyes, and for a second, he looked more like the lit
tle boy she remembered, and not the serious young man he was becoming. Seeing him in his navy school uniform, his tie done up neatly just like James had taught him, Zoe felt immensely proud of him.

  ‘Okay, darling, I’ll be off now. Ring me if you need anything. Or even if you just want to have a chat.’

  ‘I will, Mumma.’

  Zoe slid behind the wheel of her car, closed the door and started the engine. She wound down the window.

  ‘I love you, sweetheart. You take care now, and remember to wear your vest and don’t leave your wet rugby socks on for any longer than you have to.’

  Jamie’s face reddened. ‘Yes, Mumma. Bye.’

  ‘Bye.’

  Zoe pulled out of the drive, watching Jamie waving cheerfully in her rear-view mirror. She turned a bend and her son was lost from sight. Driving through the gates and onto the main road, Zoe brushed the tears away harshly and ferreted for a tissue in her coat pocket. And told herself for the hundredth time that she suffered more on these occasions than Jamie did. Especially today, with James gone.

  Following signs for the motorway that would take her on the hour’s drive back to London, she wondered once more whether she was misguided to confine a ten-year-old boy to a boarding school – especially after suffering the tragic bereavement of his great-grandfather only a few weeks before. Yet Jamie loved his prep school, his friends, his routine – all the things she couldn’t give him at home. He seemed to be thriving at the school, growing up, becoming ever more independent.

  Even her father, Charles, had commented on it when she had dropped him off at Heathrow yesterday evening. The pall of his father’s death hung on him visibly, and she’d noticed that his handsome, tanned face was finally bearing signs of age.

  ‘You’ve done so well, my darling, you should be proud of yourself. And your son,’ he’d said in her ear as he’d hugged her goodbye. ‘Bring Jamie out to stay with me in LA during the holidays. We don’t spend enough time together. I miss you.’

  ‘I miss you too, Dad,’ Zoe had said, then stood there, vaguely stunned, as she’d watched him walk through the security gate. It was rare for her father to praise her. Or her son.

  She remembered when she had found herself pregnant at eighteen, and nearly died of shock and devastation. Just out of boarding school and with a place at university, it had seemed ridiculous to even contemplate having a baby. And yet, throughout the barrage of anger and judgement from her father and her friends, coupled with pressure from a completely different source, Zoe had known, somewhere in her heart, that the baby inside her had to be born. Jamie was the product of love: a special, magical gift. A love from which, after more than ten years, she had still not fully recovered.

  Zoe joined the other cars streaking towards London on the motorway, as her father’s words from all those years ago rang in her ears.

  ‘Is he going to marry you, this man who’s knocked you up? I can tell you now, you’re on your own, Zoe. It’s your mistake, you fix it!’

  Not that there was ever any chance of marriage to him, she thought ruefully.

  Only James, her darling grandfather, had remained calm; a quiet presence exuding reason and support when all those around her seemed to be screaming at the tops of their voices.

  Zoe had always been James’s special girl. As a child, she’d had no idea that the kind, elderly man with the rich, deep voice, who refused to be addressed as ‘Grandpa’ because he said it made him feel old, was one of the most lauded classical actors in the country. She had grown up in a comfortable house in Blackheath with her mother and older brother, Marcus. Her parents had already divorced by the time she was three and she had rarely seen her father, Charles, who had moved to LA. And so it was James who had become the father figure in her world. His rambling country home – Haycroft House in Dorset – with its orchard and cosy attic bedrooms, had been the setting for her most pleasurable childhood memories.

  In semi-retirement, only popping off stateside occasionally to appear in a cameo film role, which ‘brought home the bacon’ as he put it, her grandfather had always been there for her. Especially after Zoe’s mother had been killed suddenly in a road accident only a few yards from their house. Zoe had been ten, her brother Marcus fourteen. All she remembered of the funeral was clinging on to him and seeing his face set, jaw clenched, silent tears running down his cheeks as they listened to the vicar say the prayers. The service had been tense and bleak. She’d been forced to wear a stiff black dress, the lace irritating her neck.

  Charles had returned from LA and tried to comfort a son and daughter he hardly knew, but it had been James who had wiped away her tears and hugged her as she wept long into the night. James had tried to comfort Marcus too, but he had closed up and refused to discuss it. The grief Marcus had felt for the loss of his mother had been locked away deep inside him.

  While her father had swept her up to live in LA with him, Marcus had been left at boarding school in England. It was as if she had not only lost her mother, but her brother too … her whole life all at once.

  When she’d arrived in the dry, prickly heat at her father’s hacienda-style house in Bel Air, Zoe had discovered she had an ‘Auntie Debbie’. Auntie Debbie apparently lived with Daddy and even slept in the same bed as he did. Auntie Debbie was very blonde, voluptuous and not happy to have ten-year-old Zoe arrive in her life.

  She’d been sent to school in Beverly Hills and had hated every moment of it. She’d rarely seen her father, who was too busy carving a niche for himself as a movie director. Instead, she’d endured Debbie’s idea of child-rearing: TV dinners and wall-to-wall cartoons. She’d missed the changing seasons of England desperately and hated the harsh heat and loud accents of LA. She’d written long letters to her grandfather, begging him to come and fetch her so that she could live at her beloved Haycroft House with him, trying to convince him that she could look after herself. And that, really, she would be no trouble, if he’d only let her come back home.

  Six months after Zoe had arrived in LA, a taxi had appeared on the drive. Out of it had stepped James, wearing a dapper Panama hat and a broad smile. Zoe still remembered the feeling of overwhelming joy as she ran down the drive and threw herself into his arms. Her protector had heeded her call and had arrived to rescue her. With Auntie Debbie banished to sulk by the pool, Zoe had poured out her woes into her grandfather’s ears. Subsequently, he had called his son and told him of Zoe’s misery. Charles – who had been filming in Mexico at the time – had agreed to let James take her back to England.

  On the long flight home, she’d sat happily next to James, her small hand clutched in his big one. She had leant on his firm, capable shoulder, knowing that she wanted to be wherever he was.

  The cosy, weekly boarding school in Dorset had been a happy experience. James had always been glad to welcome Zoe’s friends, either in London or at Haycroft House. It was only when she watched their parents’ wide-eyed wonderment as they came to collect their children and shook hands with the great Sir James Harrison that she started to realise just how famous a man her grandfather was. As she grew older, James began to pass on to her his love for Shakespeare, Ibsen and Wilde. The two of them would regularly take in a play at the Barbican, the National Theatre or the Old Vic. They’d stay the night at James’s grand London house in Welbeck Street, then spend Sundays in front of the fire going through the text of the play.

  By the time Zoe was seventeen, she knew she wanted to become an actress. James sent off for all the prospectuses from drama schools and they pored over each, weighing up their pros and cons, until it was decided that Zoe should go to a good university and take an English degree first, then apply for drama school when she was twenty-one.

  ‘Not only will you study the classic texts at university, which will give your performances depth, but you will also be older and ready to suck up all the information on offer at drama school by the time you get there. Besides, a degree gives you something to fall back on.’

  ‘You think I
’ll fail as an actress?’ Zoe had been horrified.

  ‘No, my darling, of course not. You’re my granddaughter for a start,’ he’d chuckled. ‘But you’re so damned lovely-looking that unless you’ve got a bloody degree, they won’t take you seriously.’

  They’d agreed between them that Zoe – if her A-level results were as good as expected – should apply to Oxford to study English.

  And then she’d fallen in love. Right in the middle of her A levels.

  Four months later, she was pregnant and devastated. Her carefully mapped-out future was in tatters.

  Uncertain and terrified of her grandfather’s reaction, Zoe had blurted it out over supper one night. James had paled a little, but had nodded calmly and asked her what she wanted to do about it. Zoe had burst into tears. The situation was so dreadful, so complex, that she could not even tell her beloved grandfather the whole truth.

  All through that awful week when Charles had arrived in London with Debbie in tow, shouting at Zoe, calling her an idiot and demanding to know who the father was, James had been there, giving her strength and the courage to take the decision to have her baby. And he had never once asked who the father might be. Nor questioned the trip up to London that had left Zoe drained and ghostly white when he’d picked her up from Salisbury railway station and she’d fallen sobbing into his arms.

  If it hadn’t been for his love, support and his complete faith in her ability to make the right decision, Zoe knew she would not have made it through.

  At Jamie’s birth, Zoe had watched James’s faded blue eyes fill with tears as he’d seen his great-grandson for the first time. The labour had been early and so swift that there had been no time for Zoe to make the half-hour journey from Haycroft House to the nearest hospital. So Jamie had been born on his great-grandfather’s old four-poster bed, with the local midwife in charge. Zoe had lain there, panting with exhaustion and elation, as her tiny, squalling son was lifted into James’s arms.