I THOUGHT YOU LEFT YOUR WIFE FOR ME

LUCY CAVENDISH

Dear Ed WHEN I was in my early 20s — more than 20 years ago now — I loved you. You were a novelist, married, with two children.

When we first met at a dinner party I thought you were funny and handsome. You had blonde, floppy hair and green eyes and, when you smiled, you looked a little out of place. I found you confusing yet devastatingly attractive with your assured demeanour and flash of insecurity.

We sat next to each other and talked all evening. You drove me home and I sat on a Tonka toy in your car. That’s when it started, I think. I just found you compelling.

For me, it wasn’t an affair. I never thought of myself as your mistress. You were my friend, my lover, my equal. I just loved you. I loved everything about you. We did crazy things together. You’d suddenly show up and say you were off for a week to Central America to work on a book and why didn’t I go with you?

One time you spirited me to New York and we holed up in the Gramercy Tavern for a week and ate room service and smoked out of the window.

Eventually, you left your wife and I thought that was it and we would be together — I was young, naive and in love. I am ashamed to say I didn’t spare a thought for your estranged wife and children. I went away for a planned month abroad and you stayed in my house. When I came back you were at the airport. I was so happy to see you and yet something had changed. You were distant. We had a row and — to cut a long story short — you told me you had found another lover. I was devastated.

A week later, I received a letter from you. It was sad and poignant, telling me that you loved me but you were sorry.

‘I’m a wreck,’ you wrote. ‘And I don’t want to mess up your life. You should find a man who can love you in a way I never can.’

The letter made me angry. I thought it was a cop-out. I was devastated, heartbroken and wanted to punish you, so I didn’t write back.

Two years ago, a mutual friend told me you had died unexpectedly. This friend told me you had wanted to talk to me and see me but, as I hadn’t replied to your letter, you thought I was still angry with you.

I wasn’t, of course, and the thought of you still makes me cry. Why didn’t I write that letter? I know exactly what I would have written. I would have told you how magnificent you were, how just the thought of you made me smile. I would’ve told you how waking up with and just seeing your beautiful face lying slumbering next to mine felt breathtakingly special. I would have told you how much I loved you.

But, the truth is, I didn’t write that letter. I couldn’t. The hurt and anger was too much. But now all those words I wish you’d heard from me are all just too late.

Love, Lucy