A Special Relationship

Douglas Kennedy

A Special Relationship

Another one for Max and Amelia, another one for Grace.

In my enormous city it is - night, as from my sleeping house I go - out, and people think perhaps I'm a daughter or a wife, but in my mind is one thought only: night.

- ELAINE FEINSTEIN, INSOMNIA

A SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP

One

ABOUT AN HOUR after I met Tony Hobbs, he saved my life.

I know that sounds just a little melodramatic, but it's the truth. Or, at least, as true as anything a journalist will tell you.

I was in Somalia - a country I had never visited until I got a call in Cairo and suddenly found myself dispatched there. It was a Friday afternoon - the Muslim Holy Day. Like most foreign correspondents in the Egyptian capital, I was using the official day of rest to do just that. I was sunning myself beside the pool of the Gezira Club - the former haunt of British officers during the reign of King Farouk, but now the domain of the Cairene beau monde and assorted foreigners who'd been posted to the Egyptian capital. Even though the sun is a constant commodity in Egypt, it is something that most correspondents based there rarely get to see. Especially if, like me, they are bargain basement one-person operations, covering the entire Middle East and all of eastern Africa. Which is why I got that call on that Friday afternoon.

'Is this Sally Goodchild?' asked an American voice I hadn't heard before.

'That's right', I said, sitting upright and holding the cell phone tightly to my ear in an attempt to block out a quartet of babbling Egyptian matrons sitting beside me. 'Who's this?'

'Dick Leonard from the paper'.

I stood up, grabbing a pad and a pen from my bag. Then I walked to a quiet corner of the veranda. 'The paper' was my employer. Also known as the Boston Post. And if they were calling me on my cell phone, something was definitely up.

'I'm new on the Foreign Desk', Leonard said, 'and deputizing today for Charlie Geiken. I'm sure you've heard about the flood in Somalia?'

Rule one of journalism: never admit you've been even five minutes out of contact with the world at large. So all I said was, 'How many dead?'

'No definitive body count so far, according to CNN. And from all reports, it's making the '97 deluge look like a drizzle'.

'Where exactly in Somalia?'

'The Juba River Valley. At least four villages have been submerged. The editor wants somebody there. Can you leave straight away?'

So that's how I found myself on a flight to Mogadishu, just four hours after receiving the call from Boston. Getting there meant dealing with the eccentricities of Ethiopian Airlines, and changing planes in Addis Ababa, before landing in Mogadishu just after midnight. I stepped out into the humid African night, and tried to find a cab into town. Eventually, a taxi showed up, but the driver drove like a kamikaze pilot, and also took a back road into the city centre - a road that was unpaved and also largely deserted. When I asked him why he had chosen to take us off the beaten track, he just laughed. So I pulled out my cell phone and dialled some numbers, and told the desk clerk at the Central Hotel in Mogadishu that he should call the police immediately and inform them that I was being kidnapped by a taxi driver, car licence number... (and, yes, I did note the cab's licence plate before getting into it). Immediately the driver turned all apologetic, veering back to the main road, imploring me not to get him into trouble, and saying, 'Really, it was just a short cut'.

'In the middle of the night, when there's no traffic? You really expect me to believe that?'

'Will the police be waiting for me at the hotel?'

'If you get me there, I'll call them off'.

He veered back to the main road, and I made it intact to the Central Hotel in Mogadishu - the cab driver still apologizing as I left his car. After four hours' sleep, I managed to make contact with the International Red Cross in Somalia, and talked my way on to one of their helicopters that was heading to the flood zone.

It was just after nine in the morning when the chopper took off from a military airfield outside the city. There were no seats inside. I sat with three other Red Cross staffers on its cold steel floor. The helicopter was elderly and deafening. As it left the ground, it lurched dangerously to the starboard side - and we were all thrown against the thick webbed belts, bolted to the cabin walls, into which we had fastened ourselves before take-off. Once the pilot regained control and we evened out, the guy seated on the floor opposite me smiled broadly and said, 'Well, that was a good start'.

Though it was difficult to hear anything over the din of the rotor blades, I did discern that the fellow had an English accent. Then I looked at him more closely and figured that this was no aid worker. It wasn't just the sangfroid when it looked like we might just crash. It wasn't just his blue denim shirt, his blue denim jeans, and his stylish horn-rimmed sunglasses. Nor was it his tanned face - which, coupled with his still-blond hair, leant him a certain weather-beaten appeal if you liked that perpetually insomniac look. No - what really convinced me that he wasn't Red Cross was the jaded, slightly flirtatious smile he gave me after our near-death experience. At that moment, I knew that he was a journalist.

Just as I saw that he was looking me over, appraising me, and also probably working out that I too wasn't relief worker material. Of course, I was wondering how I was being perceived. I have one of those Emily Dickinson-style New England faces - angular, a little gaunt, with a permanently fair complexion that resists extended contact with the sun. A man who once wanted to marry me - and turn me into exactly the sort of soccer mom I was determined never to become - told me I was 'beautiful in an interesting sort of way'. After I stopped laughing, this struck me as something out of the 'plucky' school of backhanded compliments. He also told me that he admired the way I looked after myself. At least he didn't say I was 'wearing well'. Still, it is true that my 'interesting' face hasn't much in the way of wrinkles or age-lines, and my light brown hair (cut sensibly short) isn't yet streaked with grey. So though I may be crowding middle age, I can pass myself off as just over the thirty-year-old frontier.

All these banal thoughts were abruptly interrupted when the helicopter suddenly rolled to the left as the pilot went full throttle and we shot off at speed to a higher altitude. Accompanying this abrupt, convulsive ascent - the G-force of which threw us all against our webbed straps - was the distinctive sound of anti-aircraft fire. Immediately, the Brit was digging into his daypack, pulling out a pair of field glasses. Despite the protestations of one of the Red Cross workers, he unbuckled his straps and manoeuvred himself around to peer out one of the porthole windows.

'Looks like someone's trying to kill us', he shouted over the din of the engine. But his voice was calm, if not redolent of amusement.

'Who's "someone"?' I shouted back.

'Usual militia bastards', he said, his eyes still fastened to the field glasses. 'The same charmers who caused such havoc during the last flood'.

'But why are they shooting at a Red Cross chopper?' I asked.

'Because they can', he said. 'They shoot at anything foreign and moving. It's sport to them'.

He turned to the trio of Red Cross medicos strapped in next to me.

'I presume your chap in the cockpit knows what he's doing', he asked. None of them answered him - because they were all white with shock. That's when he flashed me a deeply mischievous smile, making me think: the guy's actually enjoying all this.

I smiled back. That was a point of pride with me - to never show fear under fire. I knew from experience that, in such situations, all you could do was take a very deep breath, remain focused, and hope you got through it. And so I picked a spot on the floor of the cabin and stared at it, all the while silently telling myself: It will be fine. It will be just...

And then the chopper did another roll and the Brit was tossed away from the window, but managed to latch on to his nearby straps and avoid being hurled across the cabin.

'You okay?' I asked.

Another of his smiles. 'I am now', he said.

A further three stomach-churning rolls to the right, followed by one more rapid acceleration, and we seemed to leave the danger zone. Ten nervous minutes followed, then we banked low. I craned my neck, looked out the window and sucked in my breath. There before me was a submerged landscape - Noah's Flood. The water had consumed everything. Houses and livestock floated by. Then I spied the first dead body - face down in the water, followed by four more bodies, two of which were so small that, even from the air, I was certain they were children.

Everyone in the chopper was now peering out the window, taking in the extent of the calamity. The chopper banked again, pulling away from the nucleus and coming in fast over higher ground. Up in the distance, I could see a cluster of jeeps and military vehicles. Closer inspection showed that we were trying to land amidst the chaos of a Somalian Army encampment, with several dozen soldiers milling around the clapped-out military equipment spread across the field. In the near-distance, we could see three white jeeps flying the Red Cross flag. There were around fourteen aid workers standing by the jeeps, frantically waving to us. There was a problem, however. A cluster of Somalian soldiers was positioned within a hundred yards of the Red Cross team - and they were simultaneously making beckoning gestures towards us with their arms.

'This should be amusing', the Brit said.

'Not if it's like last time', one of the Red Cross team said.

'What happened last time?' I asked.

'They tried to loot us', he said.

'That happened a lot back in '97 too', the Brit said.

'You were here in '97?' I asked him.

'Oh yes', he said, flashing me another smile. 'A delightful spot, Somalia. Especially under water'.

We overflew the soldiers and the Red Cross jeeps. But the aid workers on the ground seemed to know the game we were playing, as they jumped into the jeeps, reversed direction, and started racing towards the empty terrain where we were coming down. I glanced over at the Brit. He had his binoculars pressed against the window, that sardonic smile of his growing broader by the nanosecond.

'Looks like there's going to be a little race to meet us', he said.

I peered out my window and saw a dozen Somalian soldiers running in our general direction.

'See what you mean', I shouted back to him as we landed with a bump.

With terra firma beneath us, the Red Cross man next to me was on his feet, yanking up the lever which kept the cabin door in its place. The others headed toward the cargo bay at the rear of the cabin, undoing the webbing that held in the crates of medical supplies and dried food.

'Need a hand?' the Brit asked one of the Red Cross guys.

'We'll be fine', he said. 'But you better get moving before the Army shows up'.

'Where's the nearest village?'

'It was about a kilometre due south of here. But it's not there anymore'.

'Right', he said. Then he turned to me and asked, 'You coming?'

I nodded, but then turned back to the Red Cross man and asked, 'What are you going to do about the soldiers?'

'What we usually do. Stall them while the pilot radios the Somalian central command - if you can call it that - and orders some officer over here to get them off our backs. But you both better get out of here now. The soldiers really don't see the point of journalists'.

'We're gone', I said. 'Thanks for the lift'.

The Brit and I headed out of the cabin. As soon as we hit the ground, he tapped me on the shoulder and pointed towards the three Red Cross jeeps. Crouching low, we ran in their direction, not looking back until we were behind them. This turned out to be a strategically smart move, as we had managed to dodge the attention of the Somalian soldiers, who had now surrounded the chopper. Four of them had their guns trained on the Red Cross team. One of the soldiers started shouting at the aid workers - but they didn't seem flustered at all, and began the 'stalling for time' gambit. Though I couldn't hear much over the din of the rotor motor, it was clear that the Red Cross guys had played this dangerous game before, and knew exactly what to do. The Brit nudged me with his elbow.

'See that clump of trees over there', he said, pointing towards a small patch of gum trees around fifty yards from us.

I nodded. After one fast final glance at the soldiers - now ripping into a case of medical supplies - we made a dash for it. It couldn't have taken more than twenty seconds to cover the fifty yards, but God did it seem long. I knew that, if the soldiers saw two figures running for cover, their natural reaction would be to shoot us down. When we reached the woods, we ducked behind a tree. Neither of us was winded - but when I looked at the Brit, I caught the briefest flicker of adrenalin-fuelled tension in his eyes. Once he realized that I'd glimpsed it, he immediately turned on his sardonic smile.

'Well done', he whispered. 'Think you can make it over there without getting shot?'

I looked in the direction he was pointing - another meagre grove of trees that fronted the now-deluged river. I met his challenging smile. 'I never get shot', I said. Then we ran out of the trees, making a manic beeline for the next patch of cover. This run took around a minute - during which time the world went silent, and all I could hear were my feet scything through the high grass. I was genuinely tense. But like that moment in the helicopter when we first came under fire, I tried to concentrate on something abstract like my breathing. The Brit was ahead of me. But as soon as he reached the trees, something brought him to a sudden halt. I stopped in my tracks as I saw him walking backwards, his arms held high in the air. Emerging from the trees was a young Somalian soldier. He couldn't have been more than fifteen. His rifle was trained on the Brit, who was quietly attempting to talk his way out of this situation. Suddenly the soldier saw me - and when he turned his gun on me, I made a desperate error of judgment. Instead of immediately acting submissive - coming to a complete halt, putting my hands above my head, and making no sudden movements (as I had been trained to do) - I hit the ground, certain he was going to fire at me. This caused him to roar at me, as he now tried to get me in his sights. Then, suddenly, the Brit tackled him, knocking him to the ground. I was now back on my feet, running towards the scene. The Brit swung a clenched fist, slamming it into the soldier's stomach, knocking the wind out of him. The kid groaned, and the Brit brought his boot down hard on the hand that was clutching the gun. The kid screamed.

'Let go of the gun', the Brit demanded.

'Fuck you', the kid yelled. So the Brit brought his boot down even harder. This time the soldier released the weapon, which the Brit quickly scooped up and had trained on the soldier in a matter of seconds.

'I hate impoliteness', the Brit said, cocking the rifle.

The kid now began to sob, curling up into a foetal position, pleading for his life. I turned to the Brit and said, 'You can't...'

But he just looked at me and winked. Then, turning back to the child soldier, he said, 'Did you hear my friend? She doesn't want me to shoot you'.

The kid said nothing. He just curled himself tighter into a ball, crying like the frightened child he was.

'I think you should apologize to her, don't you?' said the Brit. I could see the gun trembling in his hands.

'Sorry, sorry, sorry', the kid said, the words choked with sobs. The Brit looked at me.

'Apology accepted?' he asked. I nodded.

The Brit nodded at me, then turned back to the kid and asked, 'How's your hand?'

'Hurts'.

'Sorry about that', he said. 'You can go now, if you like'.

The kid, still trembling, got to his feet. His face was streaked with tears and there was a damp patch around his crotch where he'd wet himself out of fear. He looked at us with terror in his eyes - still certain he was going to be shot. To his credit, the Brit reached out and put a steadying hand on the soldier's shoulder.

'It's all right', he said quietly. 'Nothing's going to happen to you. But you have to promise me one thing: you must not tell anyone in your company that you met us. Will you do that?'

The soldier glanced at the gun still in the Brit's hands and nodded. Many times.

'Good. One final question. Are there any army patrols down river from here?'

'No. Our base got washed away. I got separated from the others'.

'How about the village near here?'

'Nothing left of it'.

'All the people washed away?'

'Some made it to a hill'.

'Where's the hill?'

The soldier pointed toward an overgrown path through the trees.

'How long from here on foot?' he asked.

'Half an hour'.

The Brit looked at me and said, 'That's our story'.

'Sounds good to me', I said, meeting his look.

'Run along now', the Brit said to the soldier.

'My gun...'

'Sorry, but I'm keeping it'.

'I'll get in big trouble without it'.

'Say it was washed away in the flood. And remember: I expect you to keep that promise you made. You never saw us. Understood?'

The kid looked back at the gun, then up again at the Brit.

'I promise'.

'Good lad. Now go'.

The boy soldier nodded and dashed out of the trees in the general direction of the chopper. When he was out of sight, the Brit shut his eyes, drew in a deep breath and said, 'Fucking hell'.

'And so say all of us'.

He opened his eyes and looked at me. 'You all right?' he said.

'Yeah - but I feel like a complete jerk'.

He grinned. 'You were a complete jerk - but it happens. Especially when you get surprised by a kid with a gun. On which note...'

He motioned with his thumb that we should make tracks. Which is exactly what we did - negotiating our way through the thicket of woods, finding the overgrown path, threading our way on to the edge of swamped fields. We walked nonstop for fifteen minutes, saying nothing. The Brit led the way. I walked a few steps behind. I watched my companion as we hiked deeper into this submerged terrain. He was very focused on the task of getting us as far away from the soldiers as possible. He was also acutely conscious of any irregular sounds emanating from this open terrain. Twice he stopped and turned back to me, putting his finger to his lips when he thought he heard something. We only started to walk again when he was certain no one was on our tail. I was intrigued by the way he held the soldier's gun. Instead of slinging it over his shoulder, he carried it in his right hand, the barrel pointed downwards, the rifle held away from his body. And I knew that he would never have shot that soldier. Because he was so obviously uncomfortable holding a gun.

After around fifteen minutes, he pointed to a couple of large rocks positioned near the river. We sat down, but didn't say anything for a moment as we continued to gauge the silence, trying to discern approaching footsteps in the distance. After a moment, he spoke.

'The way I figure it, if that kid had told on us, his comrades would be here by now'.

'You certainly scared him into thinking you would kill him'.

'He needed scaring. Because he would have shot you without compunction'.

'I know. Thank you'.

'All part of the service'. Then he proffered his hand and said, 'Tony Hobbs. Who do you write for?'

'The Boston Post!

An amused smile crossed his lips. 'Do you really?'

'Yes', I said. 'Really. We do have foreign correspondents, you know'.

'Really?' he said, mimicking my accent. 'So you're a foreign correspondent?'

'Really', I said, attempting to mimic his accent.

To his credit, he laughed. And said, 'I deserved that'.

'Yes. You did'.

'So where do you correspond from?' he asked.

'Cairo. And let me guess. You write for the Sun?'

'The Chronicle, actually'.

I tried not to appear impressed. 'The Chronicle actually, actually?' I said.

'You give as good as you get'.

'It comes with being the correspondent of a smallish newspaper. You have to hold your own with arrogant big boys'.

'Oh, you've already decided I'm arrogant?'

'I worked that out two minutes after first seeing you in the chopper. You based in London?'

'Cairo, actually'.

'But I know the Chronicle guy there. Henry...'

'Bartlett. Got sick. Ulcer thing. So they sent for me from Tokyo around ten days ago'.

'I used to cover Tokyo. Four years ago'.

'Well, I'm obviously following you around'.

There was a sound of nearby footsteps. We both tensed. Tony picked up the rifle he had leaned against the rock. Then we heard the steps grow nearer. As we stood up, a young Somalian woman came running down the path, a child in her arms. The woman couldn't have been more than twenty; the baby was no more than two months old. The mother was gaunt; the child chillingly still. As soon as the woman saw us, she began to scream in a dialect that neither of us understood, making wild gesticulations at the gun in Tony's hand. Tony twigged immediately. He tossed the gun into the rushing waters of the river - adding it to the flooded debris washing downstream. The gesture seemed to surprise the woman. But as she turned back to me and started pleading with me again, her legs buckled. Tony and I both grabbed her, keeping her upright. I glanced down at her lifeless baby, still held tightly in her arms. I looked up at the Brit. He nodded in the direction of the Red Cross chopper. We each put an arm around her emaciated waist, and began the slow journey back to the clearing where we'd landed earlier.

When we reached it, I was relieved to see that several Somalian Army jeeps had rolled up near the chopper, and the previously marauding troops had been brought under control. We escorted her past the soldiers, and made a beeline for the Red Cross chopper. Two of the aid workers from the flight were still unloading supplies.

'Who's the doctor around here?' I asked. One of the guys looked up, saw the woman and child, and sprang into action, while his colleague politely told us to get lost.

'There's nothing more you can do now'.

Nor, it turned out, was there any chance that we'd be allowed back down the path towards that washed-out village - as the Somalian Army had now blocked it off. When I found the head Red Cross medico and told him about the villagers perched on a hill around two kilometres from here, he said (in his crispest Swiss accent), 'We know all about it. And we will be sending our helicopter as soon as the Army gives us clearance'.

'Let us go with you', I said.

'It's not possible. The Army will only allow three of our team to fly with them' -

'Tell them we're part of the team', Tony said.

'We need to send medical men'.

'Send two', Tony said, 'and let one of us' -

But we were interrupted by the arrival of some Army officer. He tapped Tony on the shoulder.

'You - papers'.

Then he tapped me. 'You too'.

We handed over our respective passports. 'Red Cross papers', he demanded. When Tony started to make up some far-fetched story about leaving them behind, the officer rolled his eyes and said one damning word, 'Journalists'.

Then he turned to his soldiers and said, 'Get them on the next chopper back to Mogadishu'.

We returned to the capital under virtual armed guard. When we landed at another military field on the outskirts of the capital, I fully expected us to be taken into custody and arrested. But instead, one of the soldiers on the plane asked me if I had any American dollars.

'Perhaps', I said - and then, chancing my arm, asked him if he could arrange a ride for us to the Central Hotel for ten bucks.

'You pay twenty, you get your ride'.

He even commandeered a jeep to get us there. En route, Tony and I spoke for the first time since being placed under armed guard.

'Not a lot to write about, is there?' I said.

'I'm sure we'll both manage to squeeze something out of it'.

We found two rooms on the same floor, and agreed to meet after we'd filed our respective copy. Around two hours later - shortly after I'd dispatched by email seven hundred words on the general disarray in the Juba River Valley, the sight of floating bodies in the river, the infra-structural chaos, and the experience of being fired upon in a Red Cross helicopter by rebel forces - there was a knock at my door.

Tony stood outside, holding a bottle of Scotch and two glasses.

'This looks promising', I said. 'Come on in'.

He didn't leave again until seven the next morning - when we checked out to catch the early morning flight back to Cairo. From the moment I saw him in the chopper, I knew that we would inevitably fall into bed with each other, should the opportunity arise. Because that's how this game worked. Foreign correspondents rarely had spouses or 'significant others' - and most people you met in the field were definitely not the sort you wanted to share a bed with for ten minutes, let alone a night.

But when I woke next to Tony, the thought struck me: he's actually living where I live. Which led to what was, for me, a most unusual thought: and I'd actually like to see him again. In fact, I'd like to see him tonight.

Two

I'VE NEVER CONSIDERED myself the sentimental type. On the contrary, I've always recognized in myself a certain cut-and-run attitude when it comes to romance - something my one and only fiancé told me around seven years ago, when I broke it off with him. His name was Richard Pettiford. He was a Boston lawyer - smart, erudite, driven. And I really did like him. The problem was, I also liked my work.

'You're always running away', he said after I told him that I was becoming the Post's correspondent in Tokyo.

'This is a big professional move', I said.

'You said that when you went to Washington'.

'That was just a six month secondment - and I saw you every weekend'.

'But it was still running away'.

'It was a great opportunity. Like going to Tokyo'.

'But I'm a great opportunity'.

'You're right', I said. 'You are. But so am I. So come to Tokyo with me'.

'But I won't make partner if I do that', he said.

'And if I stay, I won't make a very good partner's wife'.

'If you really loved me, you'd stay'.

I laughed. And said, 'Then I guess I don't love you'.

Which pretty much ended our two-year liaison there and then - because when you make an admission like that, there's very little comeback. Though I was truly saddened that we couldn't 'make a go of it' (to borrow an expression that Richard used just a little too often), I also knew that I couldn't play the suburban role he was offering. Anyway, had I accepted such a part, my passport would now only contain a few holiday stamps from Bermuda and other resort spots, rather than the twenty crammed pages of visas I'd managed to obtain over the years. And I certainly wouldn't have ended up sitting on a flight from Addis Ababa to Cairo, getting pleasantly tipsy with a wholly charming, wholly cynical Brit, with whom I'd just spent the night...

'So you've really never been married?' Tony asked me as the seatbelt signs were switched off.

'Don't sound so surprised', I said. 'I don't swoon easily'.

'I'll keep that in mind', he said.

'Foreign correspondents aren't the marrying kind'.

'Really? I hadn't noticed'.

I laughed, then asked, 'And you?'

'You must be joking'.

'Never came close?'

'Everyone's come close once. Just like you'.

'How do you know I've come close?' I said.

'Because everyone's come close once'.

'Didn't you just say that?'

'Touché. And let me guess - you didn't marry the guy because you'd just been offered your first overseas posting...'

'My, my - you are perceptive', I said.

'Hardly' he said. 'It's just how it always works'.

Naturally, he was right. And he was clever enough not to ask me too much about the fellow in question, or any other aspects of my so-called romantic history, or even where I grew up. If anything, the very fact that he didn't press the issue (other than to ascertain that I too had successfully dodged marriage) impressed me. Because it meant that - unlike most other foreign correspondents I had met - he wasn't treating me like some girlie who had been transferred from the Style Section to the front line. Nor did he try to impress me with his big city credentials - and the fact that the Chronicle of London carried more international clout than the Boston Post. If anything, he spoke to me as a professional equal. He wanted to hear about the contacts I'd made in Cairo (as he was new there), and to trade stories about covering Japan. Best of all, he wanted to make me laugh... which he did with tremendous ease. As I was quickly discovering, Tony Hobbs wasn't just a great talker; he was also a terrific storyteller.

We talked nonstop all the way back to Cairo. Truth be told, we hadn't stopped talking since we woke up together that morning. There was an immediate ease between us - not just because we had so much professional terrain in common, but also because we seemed to possess a similar worldview: slightly jaded, fiercely independent, with a passionate undercurrent about the business we were both in. We also both acknowledged that foreign corresponding was a kid's game, in which most practitioners were considered way over the hill by the time they reached fifty.

'Which makes me eight years away from the slag heap', Tony said somewhere over Sudan.

'You're that young?' I said. 'I really thought you were at least ten years older'.

He shot me a cool, amused look. And said, 'You're fast'.

'I try'.

'Oh, you do very well... for a provincial reporter'.

'Two points', I said, nudging him with my elbow.

'Keeping score, are we?'

'Oh, yes'.

I could tell that he was completely comfortable with this sort of banter. He enjoyed repartee - not just for its verbal gamesmanship, but also because it allowed him to retreat from the serious, or anything that might be self-revealing. Every time our in-flight conversation veered toward the personal, he'd quickly switch into badinage mode. This didn't disconcert me. After all, we'd just met and were still sizing each other up. But I still noted this diversionary tactic, and wondered if it would hinder me from getting to know the guy - as, much to my surprise, Tony Hobbs was the first man I'd met in about four years whom I wanted to get to know.

Not that I was going to reveal that fact to him. Because (a) that might put him off, and (b) I never chased anyone. So, when we arrived in Cairo, we shared a cab back to Zamalek (the relatively upscale expatriate quarter where just about every foreign correspondent and international business type lived). As it turned out, Tony's place was only two blocks from mine. But he insisted on dropping me off first. As the taxi slowed to a halt in front of my door, he reached into his pocket and handed me his card.

'Here's where to find me', he said.

I pulled out a business card of my own, and scribbled a number on the back of it.

'And here's my home number'.

'Thanks', he said, taking it. 'So call me, eh?'

'No, you make the first move', I said.

'Old fashioned, are we?' he said, raising his eyebrows.

'Hardly. But I don't make the first move. All right?'

He leaned over and gave me a very long kiss.

'Fine', he said, then added, 'That was fun'.

'Yes. It was'.

An awkward pause. I gathered up my things.

'See you, I guess', I said.

'Yes', he said with a smile. 'See you'.

As soon as I was upstairs in my empty, silent apartment, I kicked myself for playing the tough dame. 'No,you make the first move'. What a profoundly dumb thing to say. Because I knew that guys like Tony Hobbs didn't cross my path every day.

Still, I could now do nothing but put the entire business out of my mind. So I spent the better part of an hour soaking in a bath, then crawled into bed and passed out for nearly ten hours - having hardly slept for the past two nights. I was up just after seven in the morning. I made breakfast. I powered up my laptop. I turned out my weekly 'Letter from Cairo', in which I recounted my dizzying flight in a Red Cross helicopter under fire from Somalian militia men. When the phone rang around noon, I jumped for it.

'Hello', Tony said. 'This is the first move'.

He came by ten minutes later to pick me up for lunch. We never made it to the restaurant. I won't say I dragged him off to my bed - because he came very willingly. Suffice to say, from the moment I opened the door, I was all over him. As he was me.

Much later, in bed, he turned to me and said, 'So who's making the second move?'

It would be the stuff of romantic cliché to say that, from that moment on we were inseparable. Nonetheless, I do count that afternoon as the official start of us - when we started becoming an essential part of each other's lives. What most surprised me was this: it was about the easiest transition imaginable. The arrival of Tony Hobbs into my existence wasn't marked by the usual doubts, questions, worries, let alone the overt romantic extremities associated with a coup de foudre. The fact that we were both self-reliant types - used to falling back on our separate resources - meant that we were attuned to each other's independent streak. We also seemed to be amused by each other's national quirks. He would often gently deride a certain American literalness that I do possess - a need to ask questions all the damn time, and analyse situations a little too much. Just as I would express amusement at his incessant need to find the flippant underside to all situations. He also happened to be absolutely fearless when it came to journalistic practice. I saw this at first hand around a month after we first hooked up, when a call came one evening that a busload of German tourists had been machine-gunned by Islamic fundamentalists while visiting the Pyramids at Giza. Immediately, we jumped into my car and headed out in the direction of the Sphinx. When we reached the sight of the Giza massacre, Tony managed to push his way past several Egyptian soldiers to get right up to the blood-splattered bus itself - even though there were fears that the terrorists might have thrown grenades into it before vanishing. The next afternoon, at the news conference following this attack, the Egyptian Minister for Tourism tried to blame foreign terrorists for the massacre... at which point Tony interrupted him, holding up a statement, which had been faxed directly to his office, in which the Cairo Muslim Brotherhood took complete responsibility for the attack. Not only did Tony read out the statement in near perfect Arabic, he then turned to the minister and asked him, 'Now would you mind explaining why you're lying to us?'

Tony was always defensive about one thing: his height... though, as I assured him on more than one occasion, his diminutive stature didn't matter a damn to me. On the contrary, I found it rather touching that this highly accomplished and amusingly arrogant man would be so vulnerable about his physical stature. And I came to realize that much of Tony's bravado - his need to ask all the tough questions, his competitiveness for a story, and his reckless self-endangerment - stemmed out of a sense of feeling small. He secretly considered himself inadequate: the perennial outsider with his nose to the window, looking in on a world from which he felt excluded. It took me a while to detect Tony's curious streak of inferiority since it was masked behind such witty superiority. But then I saw him in action one day with a fellow Brit - a correspondent from the Daily Telegraph named Wilson. Though only in his mid-thirties, Wilson had already lost much of his hair and had started to develop the sort of over-ripe fleshiness that made him (in Tony's words) look like a wheel of Camembert that had been left out in the sun. Personally, I didn't mind him - even though his languid vowels and premature jowliness (not to mention the absurd tailored safari jacket he wore all the time with a check Viyella shirt) gave him a certain cartoonish quality. Though he was perfectly amiable in Wilson's company, Tony couldn't stand him - especially after an encounter we had with him at the Gezira Club. Wilson was sunning himself by the pool. He was stripped to the waist, wearing a pair of plaid Bermuda shorts and suede shoes with socks. It was not a pretty sight. After greeting us, he asked Tony, 'Going home for Christmas?'

'Not this year'.

'You're a London chap, right?'

'Buckinghamshire, actually'.

'Whereabouts?'

'Amersham'.

'Ah yes, Amersham. End of the Metropolitan Line, isn't it? Drink?'

Tony's face tightened, but Wilson didn't seem to notice. Instead, he called over one of the waiters, ordered three gin-and-tonics, then excused himself to use the toilet. As soon as he was out of earshot, Tony hissed, 'Stupid little prat'.

'Easy, Tony...' I said, surprised by this uncharacteristic flash of anger.

'"End of the Metropolitan Line, isn't it?"' he said, mimicking Wilson's over-ripe accent. 'He had to say that, didn't he? Had to get his little dig in. Had to make the fucking point'.

'Hey, all he said was...'

'I know what he said. And he meant every bloody word...'

'Meant what?'

'You just don't get it'.

'I think it's all a little too nuanced for me', I said lightly. 'Or maybe I'm just a dumb American who doesn't get England'.

'No one gets England'.

'Even if you're English?'

'Especially if you're English'.

This struck me as something of a half-truth. Because Tony understood England all too well. Just as he also understood (and explained to me) his standing in the social hierarchy. Amersham was deeply dull. Seriously petit bourgeois. He hated it, though his only sibling - a sister he hadn't seen for years - had stayed on, living at home with the parents she could never leave. His dad - now dead, thanks to a life-long love affair with Benson and Hedges - had worked for the local council in their Records Office (which he finally ended up running five years before he died). His mom - also dead - worked as a receptionist in a doctor's surgery, located opposite the modest little suburban semi in which he was raised.

Though Tony was determined to run away from Amersham and never look back, he did go out of his way to please his father by landing a place at York University. But when he graduated (with high honours, as it turned out - though, in typical phlegmatic Tony-style, it took him a long time to admit that he received a prized First in English), he decided to dodge the job market for a year or so. Instead, he took off with a couple of friends bound for Kathmandu. But somehow they ended up in Cairo. Within two months, he was working for a dodgy English language newspaper, the Egyptian Gazette. After six months of reporting traffic accidents and petty crimes and the usual small beer stuff, he started offering his services back in Britain as a Cairo-based freelancer. Within a year, he was supplying a steady stream of short pieces to the Chronicle - and when their Egyptian correspondent was called back to London, the paper offered him the job. From that moment on, he was a Chronicle man. With the exception of a brief six-month stint back in London during the mid-eighties (when he threatened to quit if they didn't post him back in the field), Tony managed to drift from one hot spot to another. Of course, for all his talk of frontline action and total professional independence, he still had to bite the corporate bullet and do a couple of stints as a bureau guy in Frankfurt, Tokyo and Washington, DC (a town he actively hated). But despite these few concessions to the prosaic, Tony Hobbs worked very hard at eluding all the potential traps of domesticity and professional life that ensnared most people. Just like me.

'You know, I always end up cutting and running out of these things', I told Tony around a month after we started seeing each other.

'Oh, so that's what this is - a thing'.

'You know what I'm saying'.

'That I shouldn't get down on one knee and propose - because you're planning to break my heart?'

I laughed and said, 'I really am not planning to do that'.

'Then your point is... what?'

'My point is...'

I broke off, feeling profoundly silly.

'You were about to say?' Tony asked, all smiles.

'The point is...' I continued, hesitant as hell. 'I think I sometimes suffer from "foot in mouth" disease. And I should never have made such a dumb comment'.

'No need to apologize', he said.

'I'm not apologizing', I said, sounding a little cross, then suddenly said, 'Actually I am. Because...'

God, I really was sounding tongue-tied and awkward. Once again, Tony just continued smiling an amused smile. Then said, 'So you're not planning to cut-and-run?'

'Hardly. Because... uh... oh, will you listen to me...'

'I'm all ears'.

'Because... I'm so damn happy with you, and the very fact that I feel this way is surprising the hell out of me, because I really haven't felt this way for a long time, and I'm just hoping to hell you feel this way, because I don't want to waste my time on someone who doesn't feel this way, because...'

He cut me off by leaning over and kissing me deeply. When he finished, he said, 'Does that answer your question?'

'Well...'

I suppose actions speak louder than words - but I still wanted to hear him say what I had just said. Then again, if I wasn't very good at outwardly articulating matters of the heart, I'd come to realize that Tony was even more taciturn on such subjects. Which is why I was genuinely surprised when he said, 'I'm very pleased you're not cutting and running'.

Was that a declaration of love? I certainly hoped so. At that moment, I knew I was in love with him. Just as I also knew that my bumbling admission of happiness was about as far as I'd go in confessing such a major emotional truth. Such admissions have always been difficult for me. Just as they were also difficult for my schoolteacher parents - who couldn't have been more supportive and encouraging when it came to their two children, but who also were deeply buttoned-down and reserved when it came to public displays of affection.

'You know, I can only once remember seeing our parents kiss each other', my older sister Sandy told me shortly after they were killed in an automobile accident. 'And they certainly didn't score big points on the tactile front. But that really didn't matter, did it?'

'No', I said. 'It didn't at all'.

At which point Sandy broke down completely and wept so loudly that her grief sounded something like keening. My own displays of raw public grief were few in the wake of their death. Perhaps because I was too numb from the shock of it all to cry. The year was 1988. I was twenty-one. I had just finished my senior year at Mount Holyoke College - and was due to start a job at the Boston Post in a few weeks. I'd just found an apartment with two friends in the Back Bay area of the city. I'd just bought my first car (a beat-up VW Beetle for a thousand bucks), and had just found out that I was going to graduate magna cum laude. My parents couldn't have been more pleased. When they drove up to the college to see me get my degree that weekend, they were in such unusually ebullient form that they actually went to a big post-commencement party on campus. I wanted them to spend the night, but they had to get back to Worcester that evening for some big church event the next day (like many liberal New Englanders, they were serious Unitarians). Just before they got into the car, my father gave me a big uncharacteristic hug and said that he loved me.

Two hours later, while driving south, he nodded off at the wheel on the Interstate. The car veered out of control, crashed through the centre guard rail and careened right into the ongoing path of another car - a Ford station wagon. It was carrying a family of five. Two of the occupants - a young mother and her baby son - were killed. So too were my parents.

In the wake of their death, Sandy kept expecting me to fall apart (as she was doing constantly). I know that it both upset and worried her that I wasn't succumbing to loud, outward heartbreak (even though anyone who saw me at the time could tell that I was in the throes of major trauma). Then again, Sandy has always been the emotional roller coaster in the family. Just as she's also been the one fixed geographic point in my life - someone to watch over me (as I have watched over her). But we couldn't be more disparate characters. Whereas I was always asserting my independence, Sandy was very much a homebody. She followed my parents into high-school teaching, married a phys ed teacher, moved to the Boston suburbs and had three children by the time she was thirty. She'd also allowed herself to get a little chunky in the process - to the point where she was crowding one hundred and seventy pounds (not a good look on a woman who only stood five foot three), and seemed to have this predilection for eating all the time. Though I occasionally hinted that she might consider padlocking the refrigerator, I didn't push the point too hard. It wasn't my style to remonstrate with Sandy - she was so vulnerable to all criticism, so heart-on-her-sleeve, and so damn nice.

She's also been the one person with whom I've always been open about everything going on with me - with the exception of the period directly after the death of my parents, when I shut down and couldn't be reached by anybody. The new job at the Post helped. Though my boss on the City Desk didn't expect me to begin work immediately I insisted on starting at the paper just ten days after my parents were buried. I dived right in. Twelve-hour days were my specialty. I also volunteered for additional assignments, covering every damn story I could - and quickly got a name for myself as a completely reliable workaholic.

Then, around four months into the job, I was on my way home one evening, when I passed by a couple around my parents' age, walking hand-in-hand down Bolyston Street. There wasn't anything unusual about this couple. They didn't resemble my mom or dad. They were just an ordinary-looking husband-and-wife in their mid-fifties, holding hands. Maybe that's what undid me - the fact that, unlike many couples at that stage of a marriage, they seemed pleased to be together... just as my parents always seemed pleased to be in each other's company. Whatever the reason, the next thing I knew, I was leaning against a lamppost, crying wildly. I couldn't stop myself, couldn't dodge the desperate wave of grief with which I had finally collided. I didn't move for a long time, clinging on to the lamppost for ballast, the depth of my sorrow suddenly fathomless, immeasurable. A cop showed up. He placed his big hand on my shoulder, and asked me if I needed help.

'I just want my mommy and daddy', I felt like screaming, reverting back to the six-year-old self we all carry with us, eternally desperate for parental sheltering at life's most fearful moments. Instead, I managed to explain that I was simply coping with a bereavement, and all I needed was a cab home. The cop flagged one down (no easy thing in Boston - but then again, he was a policeman). He helped me into it, telling me (in his own faltering, gruff, kind way) that 'cryin' was the only way outta grief'. I thanked him, and kept myself in check on the drive back. But when I got to my apartment I fell on my bed, and surrendered once again to grief's wild ride. I couldn't remember how long I spent crying, except that it was suddenly two in the morning, and I was curled up on the bed in a foetal position, completely spent, and hugely grateful that my two roommates had been out that evening. I wanted no one to see me in this condition.

When I woke up early the next morning, my face was still puffy, my eyes still crimson, and every fibre in my body depleted. But the tears didn't start again. I knew I couldn't allow myself another descent into that emotional netherworld. So I put on a mask of stern resolve and went back to work - which is all you can ever do under the circumstances. All accidental deaths are simultaneously absurd and tragic. As I told Tony during the one and only time I recounted this story to him, when you lose the most important people in your life - your parents - through the most random of circumstances, you come to realize pretty damn fast that everything is fragile; that so-called 'security' is nothing more than a thin veneer which can fracture without warning.

'Is that when you decided you wanted to be a war correspondent?' he asked, stroking my face.

'Got me in one'.

Actually, it took me a good six years to work my way up from the City Desk to Features to a brief stint on the Editorial page. Then, finally, I received my first temporary posting to Washington. Had Richard found a way to get transferred to Tokyo, I might have married him on the spot.

'It's just you cared for Tokyo a little more', Tony said.

'Hey, if I'd married Richard, I'd be living in some comfortable suburb like Wellesley. I'd probably have two kids, and a Jeep Cherokee, and I'd be writing Lifestyle features for the Post... and it wouldn't be a bad life. But I wouldn't have lived in assorted mad parts of the world, and I wouldn't have had a quarter of the adventures that I've had and got paid for them'.

'And you wouldn't have met me', Tony said.

'That's right', I said, kissing him. 'I wouldn't have fallen in love with you'.

Pause. I was even more dumbfounded than he was by that last remark.

'Now how did that slip out?' I asked.

He leaned over and kissed me deeply.

'I'm glad it did', he said. 'Because I feel the same way'.

I was astonished to find myself in love... and to have that love reciprocated by someone who seemed exactly the sort of man I'd secretly hoped to stumble upon, but really didn't think existed (journalists, by and large, being the wrong side of seedy).

A certain innate caution still made me want to move forward with prudence. Just as I didn't want to think about whether we would last beyond the next week, month, whatever. I sensed this as well about Tony. I couldn't get much out of him about his romantic past - though he did mention that he once came close to marriage ('but it all went wrong... and maybe it was best that it did'). I wanted to press him for further details (after all, I had finally told him about Richard), but he quickly sidestepped the matter. I let it drop, figuring that he would eventually get around to telling me the entire story. Or maybe that was me also trying not to push him too hard - because, after two months with Tony Hobbs, I did understand very well that he was somebody who hated being cornered, or asked to explain himself.

Neither of us made a point of letting our fellow journos in Cairo know that we had become an item. Not because we feared gossip - but rather because we simply didn't think it was anybody's damn business. So, in public, we still came across as nothing more than professional associates.

Or, at least, that's what I thought. Until Wilson - the fleshy guy from the Daily Telegraph - let it be known otherwise. He'd called me up at my office to suggest lunch, saying it was about time that we sat down and had an extended chat. He said this in that slightly pompous style of his - which made it sound like a royal invitation, or that he was doing me a favour by taking me out to the coffee shop in the Semiramaris Hotel. As it turned out, he used the lunch to pump me for information about assorted Egyptian government ministers, and to obtain as many of my local contacts as possible. But when he suddenly brought up Tony, I was slightly taken aback... because of the care we had taken to keep things out of the public eye. This was the height of naϊveté, given that journalists in a place like Cairo always know what their colleagues ate for breakfast. But I still wasn't prepared to hear him ask, 'And how is Mr Hobbs these days?'

I tried to seem unflustered by this question.

'I presume he's fine'.

Wilson, sensing my reticence, smiled.

'You presume...?'

'I can't answer for his well-being'.

Another of his oleaginous smiles.

'I see'.

'But if you are that interested in his welfare', I said, 'you could call his office'.

He ignored that comment, and instead said, 'Interesting chap, Hobbs'.

'In what way?'

'Oh, the fact that he is noted for his legendary recklessness, and his inability to keep his bosses happy'.

'I didn't know that'.

'It's common enough knowledge back in London that Hobbs is something of a political disaster when it comes to the game of office politics. A real loose cannon - but a highly talented reporter, which is why he's been tolerated for so long'.

He looked at me, waiting for a response. I said nothing. He smiled again - deciding that my silence was further evidence of my discomfort (he was right). Then he added, 'And I'm sure you're aware that, when it comes to emotional entanglements, he's always been something of a... well, how can I put this discreetly?.. Something of a raging bull, I suppose. Runs through women the way...'

'Is there some point to this commentary?' I asked lightly.

Now it was his turn to look startled - though he did so in a quasi-theatrical manner.

'I was just making conversation', he said, in mock shock. 'And, of course, I was trading gossip. And perhaps the biggest piece of gossip about Mr Anthony Hobbs is the way that a woman finally broke the chap's heart. Mind you, it's old gossip, but...'

He broke off, deliberately letting the story dangle. Like a fool I asked, 'Who was the woman?'

That's when Wilson told me about Elaine Plunkett. I listened with uneasy interest - and with growing distaste. Wilson spoke in a low, conspiratorial tone, even though his surface tone was light, frivolous. This was something I began to notice about a certain type of Brit, especially when faced with an American (or, worst yet, an American woman). They considered us so earnest, so ploddingly literal in all our endeavours, that they attempted to upend our serious-mindedness with light-as-a-feather irony, in which nothing they said seemed weighted with importance... even though everything they were telling you was consequential.

Certainly, this was Wilson's style - and one that was underscored with a streak of malice. Yet I listened with intent to everything he told me. Because he was talking about Tony - with whom I was in love.

Now, courtesy of Wilson, I was also finding out that another woman - an Irish journalist working in Washington named Elaine Plunkett - had broken Tony's heart. But I didn't feel in any way anguished about this - because I didn't want to play the jealous idiot, musing endlessly about the fact that this Plunkett woman might have been the one who got away... or, worst yet, the love of his life. What I did feel was a profound distaste for the game that Wilson was playing - and decided that he deserved to be slapped down. Hard. But I waited for the right moment in his monologue to strike.

'... of course, after Hobbs burst into tears in front of our chap in Washington... do you know Christopher Perkins? Fantastically indiscreet... anyway, Hobbs had a bit of a boo-hoo while out boozing with Perkins. The next thing you know, the story was all over London within twenty-four hours. Nobody could believe it. Hard Man Hobbs coming apart because of some woman journo...'

'You mean, like me?'

Wilson laughed a hollow laugh, but didn't say anything in reply.

'Well, come on - answer the question', I said, my voice loud, amused.

'What question?' Wilson demanded.

'Am I like this Elaine Plunkett woman?'

'How should I know? I mean, I never met her'.

'Yes - but I am a woman journo, just like her. And I'm also sleeping with Tony Hobbs, just like her'.

Long pause. Wilson tried to look nonplussed. He failed.

'I didn't know...' he said.

'Liar', I said, laughing.

The word hit him like an open hand across the face. 'What did you just say?'

I favoured him with an enormous smile. And said, 'I called you a liar. Which is what you are'.

'I really think...'

'What? That you can play a little head game like that with me, and get away with it?'

He shifted his large bottom in his chair, and kneaded a handkerchief in his hand.

'I really didn't mean any offence'.

'Yes, you did'.

His eyes started searching the room for the waiter.

'I really must go'.

I leaned over towards him, until my face was about a half-inch away from his. And maintaining my jovial, non-commital tone, I said, 'You know something? You're just like every bully I've ever met. You turn tail and run as soon as you're called out'.

He stood up and left but didn't apologize. Englishmen never apologize.

'I'm certain American men aren't exactly apology-prone', Tony said when I made this observation.

'They're better trained than you lot'.

'That's because they grow up with all that latent Puritan guilt... and the idea that everything has a price'.

'Whereas the Brits...'

'We think we can get away with it all... maybe'.

I was tempted to tell him about the conversation with Wilson. But I'd decided that nothing good would come out of him knowing that I was now well informed about Elaine Plunkett. On the contrary, I feared that he might feel exposed... or, worse yet, embarrassed (the one emotional state which all Brits fear). Anyway, I didn't want to tell him that hearing the Elaine Plunkett story actually made me love him even more. Because I'd learned that he was just as delicate as the rest of us. And I liked that. His fragility was curiously reassuring; a reminder that he had the capacity to be hurt too.

Two weeks later, I was offered the opportunity to gauge Tony in his home terrain - when, out of the blue, he asked, 'Feel like running off to London for a few days?'

He explained that he'd been called back for a meeting at the Chronicle. 'Nothing sinister - just my annual lunch with the editor', he said casually. 'Fancy a couple of days at the Savoy?'

It didn't take any further persuasion. I had been in London only once before. It was during the eighties, prior to my foreign postings - and it was one of those dumb two-week dashes through assorted European capitals, which included four days in London. But I liked what I saw. Mind you, all I saw was assorted monuments and museums and a couple of interesting plays, and a glimpse of the sort of upscale residential life that was lived by those who could afford a Chelsea town house. In other words, my vision of London was selective, to say the least.

Then again, a room at the Savoy doesn't exactly give you a down and dirty vision of London either. On the contrary, I was just a little impressed by the suite we were given overlooking the Thames, and the bottle of champagne waiting for us in an ice bucket.

'Is this how the Chronicle usually treats its foreign correspondents?' I asked.

'You must be joking', he said. 'But the manager's an old friend. We became chummy when he was running the Intercontinental in Tokyo, so he always fixes me up whenever I'm in town'.

'Well, that's a relief', I said.

'What?'

'The fact that you didn't violate one of the cardinal rules of journalism - never pay for anything yourself'.

He laughed and pulled me into bed. He poured me a glass of champagne.

'No can do', I said. 'On antibiotics'.

'Since when?'

'Since yesterday, when I saw the embassy doctor for a strep throat'.

'You've got a strep throat?'

I opened my mouth wide. 'Go on, peep inside'.

'No thanks', he said. 'Is that why you weren't drinking on the plane?'

'Booze and antibiotics don't mix'.

'You should have told me'.

'Why? It's just a strep throat'.

'God, you are Ms Toughie'.

'That's me, all right'.

'Well, I have to say I am disappointed. Because who the hell am I going to drink with over the next few days?'

Actually, that was something of a rhetorical question, as Tony had plenty of people to drink with over the three days we spent in London. He'd arranged for us to go out every night with assorted journalistic colleagues and friends. Without exception, I liked his choice of cronies. There was Kate Medford - a long-time colleague from the Chronicle who now presented the big late afternoon news programme on BBC Radio 4, and who hosted a little dinner for us (with her oncologist husband, Roger) at her house in a leafy inner suburb called Chiswick. There was an extremely boozy night out (for Tony anyway) with a fellow journo named Dermot Fahy, who was a diarist on the Independent and a great talker. He was also an all-purpose rake who spent much of the evening leering at me, much to Tony's amusement (as he told me afterwards, 'Dermot does that with every woman', to which I just had to reply, 'Well, thanks a lot'). Then there was a former Telegraph journo named Robert Matthews who'd made quite a bit of money on his first Robert Ludlum-style thriller. He insisted on taking us for a ridiculously expensive meal at the Ivy, and ordering £60 bottles of wine, and drinking far too much, and briefly regaling us with darkly funny stories about his recent divorce - stories which he told in a brilliant, deadpan, self-mocking style, but which hinted at a terrible private pain.

All of Tony's friends were first-rate conversationalists who liked staying up late and having three glasses of wine too many, and (this impressed the hell out of me) never really talking about themselves. Even though Tony hadn't seen these people in around a year, work was only lightly mentioned ('Haven't been shot by Islamic Jihad yet, Tony?', that sort of thing), and never at great length. If personal matters did arise - like Robert's divorce - a certain sardonic spin was put on things. Even when Tony gently enquired about Kate's teenage daughter (who, as it turned out, was getting over a near-fatal involvement with anorexia), Kate said, 'Well, it's all a bit like what Rossini said about Wagner's operas: there are some splendid quarter-of-an-hours'.

Then the matter was dropped.

The intriguing thing about this style of discourse was the way everybody disseminated just enough information to let each other know the state of play in their respective lives - but, inevitably, whenever the talk veered towards the personal, it was swiftly deflected back towards less individual matters. I quickly sensed that to speak at length about anything private in a gathering of more than two people was considered just not done... especially in the presence of a stranger like me. Yet I rather liked this conversational style - and the fact that banter was considered a meritorious endeavour. Whenever serious events of the day were broached, they were always undercut by a vein of acerbity and absurdity. No one embraced the kind of earnestness which so often characterized American dinner table debate. Then again, as Tony once told me, the great difference between Yanks and Brits was that Americans believed that life was serious but not hopeless... whereas the English believed that life was hopeless, but not serious.

Three days of London table chat convinced me of that truth, just as it also convinced me that I could easily hold my own amidst such banter. Tony was introducing me to his friends - and seemed delighted that I integrated with them so quickly. Just as I was pleased that he was showing me off. I wanted to show off Tony too - but my only friend in London, Margaret Campbell, was out of town while we were there. While Tony was lunching with the editor, I jumped the tube to Hampstead, and wandered the well-heeled residential backstreets, and spent an hour roaming the Heath, all the while thinking to myself: this is very pleasant. Maybe this had something to do with the fact that, after Cairo's ongoing urban madness, London initially came across as a paragon of order and tidiness. Granted, within a day of being there, I was also noticing the Utter on the streets, the graffiti, the indigent population who slept rough, and the snarling traffic. But these scruffy civic attributes simply struck me as an essential component of metropolitan life.

Then there was the little fact that I was in London with Tony... which made the city look even better. Tony himself also admitted the same thing, telling me that, for the first time in years, he actually 'got' the idea of London again.

He remained pretty close-lipped about his lunch with the editor - except to say that it went well. But then, two days later, he gave me further details of that meeting. We were an hour into our flight back to Cairo when he turned to me and said, 'I need to talk to you about something'.

'That sounds serious', I said, putting down the novel I'd been reading.

'It's not serious. Just interesting'.

'By which you mean...?'

'Well, I didn't want to mention this while we were in London - because I didn't want to spend our last two days there discussing it'.

'Discussing what exactly?'

'Discussing the fact that, during my lunch with the editor, he offered me a new job'.

'What kind of new job?'

'Foreign Editor of the paper'.

This took a moment to sink in.

'Congratulations', I said. 'Did you accept it?'

'Of course I didn't accept. Because...'

'Yes?'

'Well... because I wanted to speak with you first about it'.

'Because it means a transfer back to London?'

'That's right'.

'Do you want the job?'

'Put it this way: His Lordship was hinting very strongly that I should take it. He was also hinting that, after nearly twenty years in the field, it was time I did a stint at HQ. Of course, I could fight coming back. But I don't think I'd win that one. Anyway, the foreign editorship isn't exactly a demotion...'

A pause. I said, 'So you are going to take the job?'

'I think I have to. But... uhm... that doesn't mean I have to come back to London alone'.

Another pause as I thought about that last comment. Finally I said, 'I have some news too. And I have an admission to make'.

He looked at me with care.

'And what's this admission?'

'I'm not on antibiotics. Because I don't have a strep throat. But I still can't drink right now... because I happen to be pregnant'.

Three

TONY TOOK THE news well. He didn't shudder, or turn grey. There was a moment of stunned surprise, followed by an initial moment or two of reflection. But then he took my hand and squeezed it and said, 'This is good news'.

'You really think that?'

'Absolutely. And you're certain...?'

'Two pregnancy tests certain', I said.

'You want to keep it?'

'I'm thirty-seven years old, Tony. Which means I've entered the realm of now or never. But just because I might want to keep it doesn't mean you have to be there too. I'd like you to be, of course. However...'

He shrugged. 'I want to be there', he said.

'You sure?'

'Completely. And I want you to come to London with me'.

Now it was my turn to go a little white.

'You all right?' he asked.

'Surprised'.

'About... ?'

'The course this conversation is taking'.

'Are you worried?'

Understatement of the year. Though I had managed to keep my anxiety in the background during our days in London (not to mention the week beforehand, when the first pregnancy test came back positive from my doctor in Cairo), it was still omnipresent. And with good reason. Though part of me was quietly pleased about being pregnant, there was an equally substantial portion of my private self that was terrified by the prospect. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I never really expected to fall pregnant. Though there were the usual hormonal urges, these were inevitably negated by the fact that my happily self-governing life could not incorporate the massive commitment that was motherhood.

So the discovery that I was pregnant threw me completely. But people always have the capacity to surprise you. Tony certainly did that. For the rest of the flight to Cairo, he informed me that he thought this pregnancy was a very good thing; that, coupled with his transfer back to London, it was as if fate had intervened to propel us into making some major decisions. This had happened at the right moment. Because we were so right for each other. Though it might be something of an adjustment for both of us to be setting up house together - and for us to be at desk jobs (he was certain I could talk my way into the Post's London bureau) - wasn't it time we finally surrendered to the inevitable and settled down?

'Are you talking marriage here?' I asked him after he finished his little spiel.

He didn't meet my eye, but still said, 'Well, yes, I, uh, yes, I suppose I am'.

I was suddenly in need of a very large vodka, and deeply regretted not being able to touch the stuff.

'I'm going to have to think about all this'.

Much to Tony's credit, he let the matter drop. Nor did he, in any way, pressure me over the next week. Then again, that wasn't Tony's style. So, during the first few days after we got back from London, we gave each other some thinking time. Correction: he gave me some thinking time. Yes, we spoke on the phone twice a day, and even had an amusing lunch together, during which we never once mentioned the big 'elephant in the closet' question hanging over us... though, at the end of it, I did ask, 'Have you given the Chronicle your decision?'

'No - I'm still awaiting an update from someone'.

He gave me a little smile when he said that. Even though he was under pressure to make a decision, he was still refusing to pressure me. And I could only contrast his low key approach with that of Richard Pettiford. When he was trying to compel me to marry him, he overstepped the mark on several occasions, eventually treating me (in true lawyerly style) like a reluctant juror who had to be won around to his point of view. With Tony I didn't even need to respond to his comment about 'awaiting an update from someone'. He knew that he was asking me to make a big decision, so all I asked him in reply was, 'And you still won't be going back for three months?'

'Yes, but the editor does need to know my decision by the end of the week'.

And he left it at that.

Besides doing a lot of serious thinking, I also made several key phone calls - the first of which was to Thomas Richardson, the editor-in-chief of the Post, and someone with whom I had always had a cordial, if distant relationship. As an old-school Yankee, he also appreciated directness. So when he returned my call, I was completely direct with him, explaining that I was marrying a journalist from the Chronicle and was planning to move to England. I also said that the Post was my home, and I certainly wanted to stay with the paper, but the fact that I was also pregnant meant that I would eventually need a twelve-week period of maternity leave, commencing about seven months from now.

'You're pregnant?' he said, sounding genuinely surprised.

'It looks that way'.

'But that's wonderful news, Sally. And I can completely understand why you want to have the baby in London...'

'The thing is, we won't be moving there for three months'.

'Well, I'm certain we can work something out at our London bureau. One of our correspondents has been talking about coming back to Boston, so your timing couldn't be better'.

There was a part of me that was alarmed about the fact that my boss had so eased my professional passage to London. Now I had no reason not to follow Tony. But when I informed him that my transfer to the London bureau of the Post seemed certain, I also said that I was terrified of this huge change in circumstances. Once again, his reply (though predictably flippant) was also reassuring - telling me that it wasn't as if I was going behind the veil. Nor would we be moving to Ulan Bator. And I would have a job. And if we found that we couldn't stand being behind desks in offices... well, who's to say that we were indentured to London for the rest of our lives?

'Anyway, we're not the sort of people to become each other's jailers, now are we?' he said.

'Not a chance of that', I said.

'Glad to hear it', he said, with a laugh. 'So, I don't suppose it will be the end of the world if we get married in the next few weeks, now will it?'

'Since when did you get so damn romantic?' I asked.

'Since I had a conversation with one of our consular chaps a few days ago'.

What this 'chap' told Tony was that my passage into Britain - both professionally and personally - would be far more rapidly expedited if we were husband and wife. Whereas I would be facing months of immigration bureaucracy if I chose to remain single. Once again, I was astounded by the rate at which my life was being turned around. Destiny is like that, isn't it? You travel along, thinking that the trajectory of your life will follow a certain course (especially when you're starting to crowd middle-age). But then, you meet someone, you allow it to progress, you find yourself tiptoeing across that dangerous terrain called 'love'. Before you know it, you're on a long-distance phone call to your only surviving family member, telling her that not only are you pregnant, but you're also about to...

'Get married?' Sandy said, sounding genuinely shocked.

'It's the practical thing to do', I said.

'You mean, like getting pregnant for the first time at thirty-seven?'

'Believe me, that was completely accidental'.

'Oh, I believe you. Because you're about the last person I'd expect to get intentionally knocked up. How's Tony taking it?'

'Very well. Better than me, in fact. I mean, he even used the dreaded words "settling down" and in a positive manner as well'.

'Maybe he understands something you still don't get...'

'You mean, the fact that we all have to settle down someday?' I said, sounding just ever so slightly sarcastic. Though Sandy had always supported my peripatetic career, she did frequently make noises about the fact that I was heading for a lonely old age, and that if I did dodge the child thing, I would come to regret it in later fife. There was something about my free-wheelingness that unsettled her. Don't get me wrong - she didn't play the envy card. But part of the reason she was so delighted with my news was because - once I became a mother - we would occupy similar terrain. And I would finally be brought down to earth.

'Now, hang on - I didn't tell you to get pregnant, did I?' Sandy asked.

'No - but you've only spent the last ten years asking me when it would happen'.

'And now it has. And I'm thrilled for you. And I can't wait to meet Tony'.

'Come to Cairo for the wedding next week'.

'Next week?' she said, sounding shocked. 'Why so fast?'

I explained about wanting to sidestep working and residency permits before we moved to London in just under three months' time.

'God, this is all a little whirlwind'.

'Tell me about it'.

I knew that Sandy wouldn't be able to make it over for the wedding. Not only did she not have the money or the time, but to her, anything beyond the borders of the United States was Injun Country. Which is why, even if she did have the wherewithal to get to Egypt, I'm certain she would have found a way of avoiding the journey. As she openly admitted to me on several occasions: 'I'm not like you - I have no interest in out there! That was one of the many things I so loved about my sister - she was completely no-crap about herself. 'I'm limited', she once told me; a comment which I found unnecessarily self-lacerating - especially as she was a very smart, very literate woman who managed to keep her life together after her husband walked out on her three years ago.

Within a month of his seismic departure, Sandy had found a job teaching history at a small private school in Medford - and was somehow managing to meet the mortgage and feed the kids at the same time. Which (as I told her) showed far more moxie than ducking in and out of assorted Middle Eastern hell holes. But now I was going to learn all about life on the domestic front - and even on a crackly phone line from Egypt, Sandy quickly sensed my fear.

'You're going to do just fine', she told me. 'Better than fine. Great. Anyway, it's not like you're giving up your job, or being sent to Lawrence (perhaps the ugliest town in Massachusetts). And hey, it's London, right? And after all those war zones you've covered, motherhood won't seem much different'.

I did laugh. And I also wondered: is she telling the truth?

But the next few weeks didn't allow me much opportunity for extended ruminations about my soon-to-be-changed circumstances. Especially as the Middle East was up to its usual manic tricks. There was a cabinet crisis in Israel, an assassination attempt on a senior Egyptian government minister, and a ferry boat which overturned on the Nile in Northern Sudan, killing all 150 passengers aboard. The fact that I was suffering from an extended bout of morning sickness while covering these assorted stories only seemed to accentuate the banality of my condition compared to such major human calamity. So too did the large number of baby books that I had expressed to me by amazon.com, and which I devoured with the obsessive relish of somebody who had just been told she was about to embark on a complicated voyage and was desperately searching for the right guide to tell her how to get through it. So I'd return home after writing about a local cholera scare in the Nile Delta and start reading up on colic and night feeds and cradle cap, and a range of other new words and terminologies from the child care lexicon.

'You know what I'll miss most about the Middle East?' I told Tony on the night before our wedding. 'The fact that it's so damn extreme, so completely deranged'.

'Whereas London is going to be nothing but day-to-day stuff?'

'I didn't say that'.

'But you are worrying about that!

'A little bit, yes. Aren't you?'

'It will be a change'.

'Especially as you'll have additional baggage in tow'.

'You're not referring to yourself, by any chance?' he asked.

'Hardly'.

'Well, I'm happy about the additional baggage'.

I kissed him. 'Well I'm happy that you're happy...'

'It will be an adjustment, but we'll be fine. And, believe me, London has its own peculiar madness'.

I remembered that comment six weeks later when we flew north to Heathrow. Courtesy of the Chronicle, they were repatriating their new Foreign Editor and his new wife in Club Class. Courtesy of the Chronicle, we were also being put up for six weeks in a company flat near the paper's offices in Wapping while we house-hunted. Courtesy of the Chronicle, all our belongings had been shipped last week from Cairo and would be kept in storage until we found a permanent place to five. And courtesy of the Chronicle, a large black Mercedes car collected us from the airport and began the slow crawl through evening rush-hour traffic towards central London.

As the car inched along the motorway, I reached over and took Tony's hand - noticing, as I still did, the shiny platinum wedding bands adorning our respective left hands, remembering the hilarious civil ceremony at which we were spliced in the Cairo Registry Office - a true madhouse without a roof, and where the official who joined us as husband-and-wife looked like an Egyptian version of Groucho Marx. Now here we were - only a few short months after that crazy twenty-four hours in Somalia - rolling down the M4 towards...

Wapping.

That was something of a surprise, Wapping. The cab had negotiated its way off the motorway, and headed south, through redbrick residential areas. These eventually gave way to a jumble of architectural styles: Victorian meets Edwardian meets Warsaw Public Housing meets Breezeblock Mercantile Brutalism. It was late afternoon in early winter. Light was thin. But despite the paucity of natural illumination, my first view of London as a married woman showed me that it was an extended exercise in scenic disorientation; a Chinese menu cityscape, in which there was little visual coherence, and where affluence and deprivation were adjacent neighbours. Of course, I had noticed this hodgepodge aspect of the city on my visit here with Tony. But, like any tourist, I tended to focus on that which was pleasing... and like any tourist, I also avoided all of South London. More to the point, I had just been passing through here for a few days - and as I wasn't on assignment, my journalist's antennae had been turned off. But now - now - this city was about to become my home. So I had my nose pressed against the glass of the Mercedes, staring out at the wet pavements, the overflowing litter bins, the clusters of fast-food shops, the occasional elegant crescent of houses, the large patch of green parkland (Clapham Common, Tony informed me), the slummy tangle of mean streets (Stockwell and Vauxhall), yielding to office blocks, then a spectacular view of the Houses of Parliament, then more office blocks, then more faceless redbrick, then the surprise appearance of Tower Bridge, then a tunnel, and then... Wapping.

New bland apartment developments, the occasional old warehouse, a couple of office towers, and a vast squat industrial complex, hidden behind high brick walls and razor wire.

'What's that?' I asked. 'The local prison?'

Tony laughed.

'It's where I work'.

Around a quarter-mile beyond this compound, the driver pulled up in front of a modern building, about eight stories tall. We took the elevator up to the fourth floor. The corridor was papered in an anaemic cream paper, with neutral tan carpet on the floor. We came to a wood veneered door. The driver fished out two keys and handed one to each of us.

'You do the honours', Tony said.

I opened the door, and stepped into a small boxy one-bedroom apartment. It was furnished in a generic Holiday Inn style, and looked out onto a back alleyway.

'Well', I said, taking it all in, 'this will make us find a house fast'.

It was my old college friend Margaret Campbell who expedited the house hunting process. When I called her up prior to my departure from Cairo and explained that, not only was I about to become a full-time London resident, but I was also just married and pregnant to boot, she asked, 'Anything else?'

'Thankfully, no'.

'Well, it will be wonderful to have you here - and, believe me, you will end up liking this town'.

'By which you mean...?'

'It's just something of an adjustment, that's all. But hey, come over for lunch as soon as you arrive, and I'll show you the ropes. And I hope you have a lot of cash. Because this place makes Zurich seem cheap and cheerful'.

Certainly, Margaret wasn't exactly living in disadvantaged circumstances - she and her family resided in a three-storey town house in South Kensington. I phoned her the morning after we arrived in London - and, true to her word, she invited me over that afternoon. She'd become a little more matronly since I'd last seen her - the sort of woman who now sported a Hermes scarf and wore twin-sets. She'd given up a serious executive position with Citibank to play the post-feminist stay-at-home mother, and had ended up in London after her lawyer husband had been transferred here for a two-year stint. But despite this nod to corporate-wife style, she was still the sharp-tongued good friend I had known during my college years.

'I sense this is just a little out of our league', I said, looking around her place.

'Hey, if the firm wasn't footing the sixty grand rent...'

'Sixty thousand pounds?' I said, genuinely shocked.

'Well, it is South Ken. But hell, in this town, a modest studio in a modest area is going to set you back a thousand pounds a month in rent... which is crazy. But that's the price of admission here. Which is why you guys really should think about buying somewhere'.

With her two kids off at school all day - and with my job at the Post not starting for another month - Margaret decided to take me house hunting. Naturally, Tony was pleased to let me handle this task. He was surprisingly positive about the idea of actually buying a foothold here; especially as all his colleagues at the Chronicle kept telling him that he who hesitates in the London property game is lost. But as I quickly discovered, even the most unassuming terraced house at the end of a tube line was exorbitant. Tony still had his £100,000 share from the sale of his parent's place in Amersham. I had the equivalent of another £20,000 courtesy of assorted small savings that I had built up over the past ten years. And Margaret - immediately assuming the role of property advisor - started working the phones and decided that an area called Putney was our destiny. As we drove south in her BMW, she pitched it to me.

'Great housing stock, all the family amenities you need, it's right on the river, and the District Line goes straight to Tower Bridge... which makes it perfect for Tony's office. Now there are parts of Putney where you need over one-point-five to get a foot in the door...'

'One-point-five million?' I asked.

'Not an unusual price in this town'.

'Sure, in Kensington or Chelsea. But Putney? It's nearly the 'burbs, isn't it?'

'Inner 'burbs. But hey, it's only six or seven miles from Hyde Park... which is considered no distance at all in this damn sprawl. Anyway, one-point-five is the asking price for a big house in West Putney. Where I'm taking you, it's just south of the Lower Richmond Road. Cute little streets, which go right down to the Thames. And the house may be a little small - just two bedrooms - but there's the possibility of a loft extension...'

'Since when did you become a realtor?' I asked with a laugh.

'Ever since I moved to this town. I tell you, the Brits might be all taciturn and distant when you first meet them - but get them talking about property, and they suddenly can't stop chatting. Especially when it comes to London house prices - which is the major ongoing metropolitan obsession'.

'Did it take you a while to fit in here?'

'The worst thing about London is that nobody really fits in. And the best thing about London is that nobody really fits in. Figure that one out, and you'll have a reasonably okay time here. Just as it also takes a while to work out the fact that - even if, like me, you actually like living here - it's best to give off just the slightest whiff of Anglophobia'.

'Why's that?'

'Because the Brits are suspicious of anyone who seems to like them'.

Intriguingly, however, Margaret didn't play the Anglophobic card with the rather obsequious estate agent who showed us around the house on Sefton Street in Putney. Every time he tried to gloss over a defect - like the paisley-patterned carpets and the cramped bathroom and the woodchip wallpaper which evidently hid a multitude of plastering sins - she'd break into one of her 'You've got to be kidding?' routines, deliberately acting the loud American in an attempt to unsettle him. She succeeded.

'You're really asking four-hundred-and-forty-thousand for this?'

The estate agent - in his spread collared pink shirt and his black suit and Liberty tie - smiled weakly.

'Well, Putney has always been very desirable'.

'Yeah - but, gosh, it's only two bedrooms. And look at the state of this place'.

'I do admit that the decor is a little tired'.

'Tired? Try archaic. I mean, someone died here, right?'

The estate agent went all diffident again.

'It is being sold by the grandson of the former occupants'.

'What did I tell you?' Margaret said, turning to me. 'This place hasn't been touched since the sixties. And I bet it's been on the market...'

The estate agent avoided her gaze.

'Come on, 'fess up', Margaret said.

'A few weeks. And I do know the vendor would take an offer'.

'I bet they would', Margaret said, then turned to me and whispered, 'What do you think?'

'Too much work for the price', I whispered. Then I asked the agent, 'You don't have anything like this which might just be a little more renovated?'

'Not at the moment. But I will keep your number on file'.

I must have heard that same sentence dozens of times over the next ten days. The house hunting game was terra incognita for me. But Margaret turned out to be a canny guide. Every morning, after she got her kids off to school, she drove us around assorted neighbourhoods. She had a nose for the areas that were up-and-coming, and those worth dodging. We must have seen close to twenty properties in that first week - and continued to be the bane of every real estate agent that we encountered. 'The Ugly Americans', we called ourselves... always polite, but asking far too many questions, speaking directly about the flaws we saw, constantly challenging the asking price, and (in the case of Margaret) knowing far more about the complex jigsaw of London property than was expected from Yanks. With pressure on me to find something before I started work, there was a certain 'beat the clock' aspect to this search. And so I applied the usual journalistic skills to this task - by which I mean I gained the most comprehensive (yet entirely superficial) knowledge of this subject in the shortest amount of time possible. When Margaret was back home with her kids in the afternoon, I'd jump the underground to check out an area. I researched proximity to hospitals, schools, parks, and all those other 'Mommy Concerns' (as Margaret sardonically called them) which now had to be taken into account.

'This is not my idea of a good time', I told Sandy during a phone call a few days into the house hunt. 'Especially as the city's so damn big. I mean, there's no such thing as a simple trip across town. Everything's an expedition here - and I forgot to pack my pith helmet'.

'That would make you stand out in the crowd'.

'Hardly. This is the melting pot to end all melting pots - which means that no one stands out here. Unlike Boston...'

'Oh, listen to the big city girl. I bet Boston's friendlier'.

'Of course. Because it's small. Whereas London doesn't need to be friendly...'

'Because it's so damn big?'

'Yeah - and also because it's London'.

That was the most intriguing thing about London - its aloofness. Perhaps it had something to do with the reticent temperament of the natives. Perhaps it was the fact that the city was so vast, so heterogeneous, so contradictory. Whatever the reason, during my first few weeks in London, I found myself thinking: this town's like one of those massive Victorian novels, in which high life and low life endlessly intermingle, and where the narrative always sprawls to such an extent that you never really get to grips with the plot.

'That about gets it right', Margaret said when I articulated this theory to her a few days later. 'Nobody's really important here. Because London dwarfs even the biggest egos. Cuts everyone right down to size. Especially since all Brits despise self-importance'.

That was another curious contradiction to London life - the way you could mistake English diffidence for arrogance. Every time I opened a newspaper - and read a lurid account of some local minor celebrity enmeshed in some cocaine-and-jail-bait scandal - it was very clear to me that this was a society that stamped down very hard on anyone who committed the sin of bumptiousness. At the same time, however, so many of the estate agents I dealt with deported themselves with a pomposity that belied their generally middle-class origins... especially when you questioned the absurd prices they were demanding for inferior properties.

'That's what the market is asking, madam' was the usual disdainful response - a certain haughty emphasis placed on the word madam, to make you feel his condescending respect.

'Condescending respect', Margaret said, repeating my phrase out loud as we drove south from her house. 'I like it - even though it is a complete oxymoron. Then again, until I lived in London, I'd never been able to discern two contrasting emotions lurking behind one seemingly innocent sentence. The English have a real talent when it comes to saying one thing and meaning the' -

She didn't get to finish that sentence, as a white transit van pulled out of nowhere and nearly sideswiped us. The van screeched to a halt. The driver - a guy in his twenties with close-cropped hair and bad teeth - came storming out towards us. He radiated aggression.

'The fuck you think you was doing?' he said.

Margaret didn't seem the least bit flustered by his belligerency, let alone his bad grammar.

'Don't you talk that way to me', she said, her voice cool and completely collected.

'Talk how I want to talk, cunt'.

'Asshole', she shot back, and pulled the car back out into traffic, leaving the guy standing on the road, gesticulating angrily at her.

'Charming', I said.

'That was an example of a lowly species known as White Van Man', she said. 'Indigenous to London - and always spoiling for a fight. Especially if you drive a decent car'.

'Your sangfroid was impressive'.

'Here's another little piece of advice about living in this town. Never try to fit in, never try to appease!

'I'll keep that in mind', I said, then added, 'But I really don't think that jerk was saying one thing and meaning another'.

We crossed Putney Bridge and turned down the Lower Richmond Road, heading back to Sefton Street - our first port-of-call on this house hunting marathon. I'd received a call from the estate agent who'd shown us that first house, informing me that another similar property had just come on the market.

'It's not in the most pleasing decorative order', he admitted on the phone.

'By which you mean tired?' I said. He cleared his throat.

'A bit tired, yes. But structurally speaking, it has been considerably modernized. And though the asking price is four-thirty-five, I'm certain they will take an offer'.

Without question, the estate agent was telling the truth about the shabby interior decor. And yes, the house was distinctly cottagey - with two small reception rooms downstairs. But a kitchen extension had been built on to the back - and though all the cabinets and appliances were outdated, I was pretty certain that a ready-made kitchen from somewhere like IKEA could be installed without vast cost. The two bedrooms upstairs were papered in a funeral-home print, with an equally gruesome pink carpet covering the floor. But the estate agent assured me that there were decent floorboards beneath this polyester veneer (something a surveyor confirmed a week later), and that the woodchip paper in the hallways could be stripped away and replastered. The bathroom had a lurid salmon-pink suite. But at least the central heating was new throughout. Ditto the wiring. There was also substantial space for an attic office. I knew that, once all the decorative horrors were stripped away, it could be made to feel light and airy. For the first time in my transient life, I found myself thinking a surprisingly domesticated thought: this could actually be a home.

Margaret and I said nothing as we toured the house. Once we were outside, however, she turned to me and asked, 'So?'

'Bad clothes, good bones', I said. 'But the potential is fantastic'

'My feeling exactly. And if they're asking four-thirty-five...'

'I'm offering three-eighty-five... if Tony gives it the thumbs-up'.

Later that night, I spent the better part of my half-hour phone call with Sandy waxing lyrical about the cottage's possibilities and the genuine pleasantness of the neighbourhood - especially the towpath fronting the Thames, which was just down the street from me.

'Good God', she said. 'You actually sound housebroken'.

'Very funny' I said. 'But after all the dismal stuff I've seen, it is a relief to find somewhere which could be actually made liveable'.

'Especially with all the Martha Stewart plans you've got for it'.

'You're really enjoying this, aren't you?'

'Damn right. I never expected to ever hear you sound like someone who subscribes to Better Homes and Gardens'.

'Believe me, I keep shocking myself. Like I never thought I'd be poring over Dr Spock as if he was Holy Writ'.

'You reach the chapter where he tells you how to flee the country during colic?'

'Yeah - the stuff about false passports is terrific'

'And wait until you experience your first broken night...'

'I think I'll hang up now'.

'Congrats on the house'.

'Well, it's not ours yet. And Tony still has to see it'.

'You'll sell it to him'.

'Damn right I will. Because I start work again in a few weeks - and I just can't afford, time-wise, another extended house hunting blitz'.

But Tony was so wrapped up in life at the Chronicle that he could only make it down to Sefton Street five days later. It was a late Saturday morning and we arrived by tube, crossing Putney Bridge, then turning right into the Lower Richmond Road. Instead of continuing down this thoroughfare, I directed us towards the towpath, following the Thames as it continued snaking eastwards. It was Tony's first view of the area by day, and I could tell that he immediately liked the idea of having a river walk virtually on his doorstep. Then I steered him into the green-and-pleasant expanses of Putney Common, located right beyond our future street. He even approved of the upscale shops and wine bars decorating the Lower Richmond Road. But when we turned into Sefton Street, I saw him take in the considerable number of Jeeps and Land Rovers parked there, signalling that this was one of those areas which has been discovered, and populated, by the professional classes... of the sort who looked upon these charming little cottages as family starter homes, to be eventually traded in (as Margaret had informed me) for more capacious residences when the second child arrived and the bigger job came along.

As we toured the area, and seemed to be passing a nonstop procession of pushchairs and strollers and Volvo station wagons with baby seats, we started shooting each other glances of amused disbelief... as if to say, 'How the hell did we end up playing this game?'

'It's bloody Nappy Valley', Tony finally said with a mordant laugh. 'Young families indeed. We're going to seem like geriatrics when we move in'.

'Speak for yourself', I said, nudging him.

When we reached the house, and met the estate agent, and started walking through every room, I watched him taking it all in, trying to gauge his reaction.

'Looks exactly like the house I grew up in', he finally said, then added, 'But I'm sure we could improve on that'.

I launched into a design-magazine monologue, in which I painted extensive verbal pictures about its great potential once all the post-war tackiness was stripped away.

It was the loft conversion that won him over. Especially after I said that I could probably raid a small stock-market fund I had in the States to find the £7000 that would pay for the study he so wanted, to write the books he hoped would liberate him from the newspaper that had clipped his wings.

Or, at least, that's what I sensed Tony was thinking after our first two weeks in London. Maybe it was the shock of doing a desk job after nearly twenty years in the field. Maybe it was the discovery that newspaper life at Wapping was an extended minefield of internal politics. Or maybe it was his reluctant admission that being the Foreign Editor was, by and large, an 'upper echelon exercise in bureaucracy'. Whatever the reason, I did get the distinct feeling that Tony wasn't at all readjusting to this new office-bound life into which he'd been dropped. Anytime I raised the issue, he would insist that all was well... that he simply had a lot on his mind, and was just trying to find his feet amidst such changed circumstances. Or he'd make light of our newfound domesticity. Like when we repaired to a wine bar after viewing the house, and he said, 'Look, if the whole thing gets too financially overwhelming, or we just feel too damn trapped by the monthly repayment burden, then to hell with it - we'll cash in our chips and sell the damn thing, and find jobs somewhere cheap and cheerful, like The Kathmandu Chronicle'.

'Damn right', I said, laughing.

That night, I finally got to show my husband off to my one London friend - as Margaret invited us over for dinner. It started well - with much small talk about our house-to-be, and how we were settling in to London. At first, Tony managed great flashes of charm - even though he was tossing back substantial quantities of wine with a deliberate vehemence that I had never seen before. But though I was a little concerned by this display of power drinking, it didn't initially seem to be impeding his ability to amuse, especially when it came to telling tales about his experiences under fire in assorted Third World hell holes. And he also kept everyone entertained with his own wry, damning comments on Englishness. In fact, he'd won Margaret over - until the conversation turned political and, shazam, he went into an anti-American rant which sent her husband Alexander on the defensive, and ended up alienating everyone. On the way home, he turned to me and said, 'Well, I think that went awfully well, don't you?'

'Why the hell did you do that?' I asked.

Silence. Followed by one of his languid shrugs. Followed by twenty additional minutes of silence as the taxi headed east to Wapping. Followed by more silence as we prepared for bed. Followed by the arrival of breakfast in bed courtesy of Tony the next morning, and a kiss on the head.

'Drafted a little thank you card to Margaret', he said. 'Left it on the kitchen table... post it if you like it... okay?'

Then he left for the office.

The card was written in Tony's illegible hieroglyphics but after the second go, I was able to crack the code.

Dear Margaret:

Wonderful meeting you. Splendid food. Splendid chat. And tell your husband I did so enjoy our head-to-head on matters political. I do hope it didn't get too heated for all concerned. I plead 'in vino stupidus'. But what is life without a spirited argument?

Hope to repay the hospitality soon.

Yrs...

Naturally, I posted it. Naturally, Margaret rang me the next morning when it arrived and said, 'May I speak my mind?'

'Go on...'

'Well, as far as I'm concerned, his note gives new meaning to the expression "charming bastard". But I'm sure I've spoken out of turn'.

It didn't bother me. Because Margaret had articulated another emerging truth about Tony - he had a cantankerous underside... one which he largely kept hidden from view, but which could make a sudden, unexpected appearance, only to vanish from view again. It might just be a fast, angry comment about a colleague on the paper, or a long exasperated silence if I started going on a little too much about house hunting matters. Then, a few minutes later, he'd act as if nothing had happened.

'Hey, everyone gets a little moody, right?' Sandy said when I told her about my husband's periodic dark moments. 'And when you think of the changes you guys are having to deal with...'

'You're right, you're right', I said.

'I mean, it's not like you've discovered he's bi-polar'.

'Hardly'.

'And you're not exactly fighting all the time'.

'We rarely fight'.

'And he doesn't have fangs or sleep in a coffin?'

'No - but I am keeping a clove of garlic and a crucifix handy under the bed'.

'Good marital practice. But hey, from where I sit, it sounds like you're basically not doing too badly for the first couple of months of marriage... which is usually the time when you think you've made the worst mistake of your life'.

I certainly didn't feel that. I just wished Tony could be a little more articulate about what he was really feeling.

Only I suddenly didn't have enough time on my hands to consider my feelings about our new-fangled life together. Because two days after the dinner with Margaret, our offer on the house was accepted. After we paid the deposit, it was I who organized the housing survey, and arranged the mortgage, and found a contractor for the loft and the extensive decorative work, and chose fabrics and colours, and did time at IKEA and Habitat and Heals, and also haggled with plumbers and painters. In between all these nest-building endeavours, I also happened to be dealing with my ever-expanding pregnancy - which, now that the morning sickness was long over, had turned into less of a discomfort than I had expected.

Once again, Margaret had been brilliant when it came to answering my constant spate of questions about the state of being pregnant. She also gave me the low-down on eventually finding a nanny once my maternity leave was over and I was back at work. And she also explained the workings of the National Health Service, and how to register myself at my local doctor's office in Putney. It turned out to be a group practice, where the receptionist made me fill out assorted forms and then informed me that I had been assigned to a certain Dr Sheila McCoy.

'You mean I can't choose my own doctor?' I asked the receptionist.

'Course you can. Any doctor in the surgery you like. So if you don't want to see Dr McCoy...'

'I didn't say that. I just don't know if she's the right doctor for me'.

'Well, how will you know until you've seen her?' she asked.

I couldn't argue with that logic but, as it turned out, I did like Dr McCoy - a pleasant, no-nonsense Irish woman in her forties. She saw me a few days later, asked a lot of thorough, no-nonsense questions, and informed me that I would be 'assigned' an obstetrician... and if I didn't mind crossing the river into Fulham, she was going to place me under the care of a man named Hughes.

'Very senior, very respected, with rooms in Harley Street - and he does his NHS work out of the Mattingly... which I think you'll like, as it's one of the newest hospitals in London'.

When I mentioned this last comment to Margaret, she laughed.

'That's her way of telling you she doesn't want to horrify you and your need for newness by sending you to one of the grimmer Victorian hospitals around town'.

'Why did she think I had a need for newness?'

'Because you're a Yank. And we're supposed to like everything new and shiny. Or, at least, that's what everyone over here thinks. But hey, when it comes to hospitals, give me new and shiny any day'.

'I'm not exactly thrilled either about being "assigned" an obstetrician. Do you think this guy Hughes is some second-rater?'

'Well, your GP told you he has rooms on Harley Street...'

'Makes him sound like a slum-lord, doesn't it?'

'Tell me about it. I mean, the first time I heard my doctor's office over here referred to as a surgery...'

'You thought that's where they operate as well?'

'What can I say? I'm a new, shiny American. But listen, Harley Street is the place for all the big-deal specialists in town. And all those guys do NHS work as well - so you've probably landed yourself a top ob-gyn. Anyway, you're better off having the kid on the NHS. The doctors are the same, and the care's probably better... especially if anything goes wrong. Just don't eat the food'.

Certainly, there was nothing new or shiny about Mr Desmond Hughes. When I met him a week later at an office in the Mattingly Hospital, I was immediately struck by his reediness, his beak-like nose, his crisp, practical demeanour, and the fact that, like all British consultants, he was never referred to as Dr (as I later learned, in this country all surgeons were traditionally called Mr - because, back in less medically advanced times, they weren't considered proper doctors; rather, high-end butchers). Hughes was also a testament to the excellence of British tailoring, as he was dressed in an exquisitely cut chalk-stripe suit, a light-blue shirt with impressive French cuffs, and a black polka-dot tie. Our first consultation was a brisk one. He ordered a scan, he requested blood, he felt around my stomach, he told me that everything seemed 'to be going according to plan'.

I was a little surprised that he didn't ask me any specific questions about my physical state (beside a general: 'Everything seem all right?'). So when we reached the end of this brief consultation, I raised this point. Politely, of course.

'Don't you want to know about my morning sickness?' I asked.

'Are you suffering from it?'

'Not any more...'

He looked at me quizzically.

'Then morning sickness isn't an issue now?'

'But should I be worried that I occasionally feel nauseous?'

'By "occasionally" you mean...?'

'Two or three times a week'.

'But you're never physically sick?'

'No... just a hint of nausea'.

'Well then, I'd take that to mean that, periodically, you feel nauseous'.

'Nothing more than that?'

He patted me on the hand. 'It's hardly sinister. Your body's going through a bit of a change right now. Anything else troubling you?'

I shook my head, feeling gently (but, oh-so-firmly) chastized.

'Very good then', he said, shutting my file and standing up. 'See you again in a few weeks. And... uhm... you're working, yes?'

'That's right. I'm a journalist'.

'That's nice. But you do look a little peaky - so don't overdo it, eh?'

Later that evening, when I related this entire conversation to Tony, he laughed.

'Now you've just discovered two general truths about Harley Street specialists: they hate all questions, and they always patronize you'.

Still, Hughes rightly observed one thing: I was tired. This wasn't merely due to the pregnancy, but also to the manifold pressures of trying to find the house, arrange all the building work, and simultaneously feel my way into London. The first four weeks evaporated in a preoccupied blur. Then, my initial month in London was over... and I had to start work again.

The Boston Post's office was nothing more than a room in the Reuters building on Fleet Street. My fellow correspondent was a twenty-six-year-old guy named Andrew DeJarnette Hamilton. He signed his copy A.D. Hamilton, and was the sort of ageing preppie who somehow managed to lace every conversation with the fact that he'd been to Harvard, and also let it be known that he considered our newspaper to be a mere staging post for his triumphant ascendancy to the New York Times or the Washington Post. Worse yet, he was one of those determined Anglophiles who'd allowed their vowels to become a little too languid, and who had started to dress in pink Jermyn Street shirts. And he was also the sort of East Coast snot who made the same sort of disdainful noises about my grubby home town of Worcester as that fat little twerp Wilson had done about Tony's suburban place of birth. But given that A.D. Hamilton and I were stuck with each other in a small office, I simply decided to work very hard at ignoring him. At least, we did agree that I would handle most of the socio-political stuff, whereas he would corner the market on culture, lifestyle and any celebrity profiles he could sell to the editor back in Boston. This enabled me to be out of the office on a regular basis - and to start the long, laborious task of making contacts at Westminster, while also attempting to fathom Britain's byzantine social structure. There was also the little problem of language - and the way the wrong choice of words could lead to misconstrued meanings. Because, as Tony was fond of noting, every conversation or social interaction in Britain was underscored by the complexities of class.

I even wrote a short, moderately humorous piece for the paper, entitled 'When A Napkin is Definitely Not A Serviette' - in which I explained the loadedness of language on this island. A.D. Hamilton went ballistic when he read the article, accusing me of usurping his territory.

'I'm the cultural chap in our bureau', he said.

'True - but as my piece was about the nuances of class, it was a political piece. And as I am the political chapette in this bureau...'

'You should check with me in the future before writing something like that'.

'You're not the Bureau Chief, pal'.

'But I am the senior correspondent here'.

'Oh, please. I have far more seniority on the paper than you do'.

'And I have been at this bureau for two years, which means that I have higher rank in London'.

'Sorry but I don't answer to little boys'.

After this exchange, A.D. Hamilton and I went out of our way to avoid each other. This wasn't as difficult as I imagined, because Tony and I had to vacate the company apartment in Wapping and move into Sefton Street. I decided to start filing most of my stories from home, using my advanced pregnancy as an excuse for working from Putney. Not that chez nous was the most ideal place to write, as the interior of the house was under construction. The carpets had been pulled up and the floors partially sanded, but they still needed sealing and staining. The living room was being replastered. All the new cabinets and appliances had been installed in the kitchen, but the floor below was chilly concrete. The living room was a catastrophe. Ditto the attic - the conversion of which would now be delayed, as the contractor had been called back to Belfast to deal with his dying mother. At least the decorators had made the nursery their first priority, finishing it during our second week of residency. And thanks to Margaret and Sandy, I had found out which crib and carry-cot to buy, not to mention all the other baby paraphernalia. So the stripped pine crib (or 'cot' as they called it here) toned in well with the pink starry wallpaper - and there was a changing mat and a playpen already in position, ready for use. But no such attention had been lavished on the guest room, which was piled high with boxes. Similarly our own en suite bathroom lacked a few necessities like wall and floor tiles. And though our bedroom had been painted, we were still waiting for the wardrobes to be fitted, which meant that the room was cluttered with assorted clothes rails.

In other words, the house was a testament to builders' delays and general domestic chaos - and possibly one of the reasons why I wasn't seeing much of Tony right now. Mind you, he was fantastically busy - he never seemed to get his pages to bed before eight most evenings - and, in this early phase of his new job, he was also having to stay out late schmoozing with his staff, or work the phones, talking with his assorted correspondents around the planet. But though I accepted his preoccupation with his job, it still bothered me that he dodged any responsibility when it came to dealing with the builders and decorators.

'But you Americans are so much better at threatening people', he said.

I didn't find this comment wildly amusing. But I decided to ignore it, instead saying, 'We should get together with some of your friends'.

'You're not suggesting having them over, are you?'Tony asked, looking at our half-finished jumble of a kitchen.

'You know, darling - I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid'.

'I'm not suggesting you are', he said lightly.

'And I certainly wasn't proposing that we bring them into this disaster area. But it would be nice to see some of the people we met when we came up from Cairo'.

Tony shrugged.

'Sure, if you want to'.

'Your enthusiasm is spectacular'.

'Listen, if you feel like ringing them up, then by all means ring them up'.

'But wouldn't it be best if the invitation came from you?'

'The invitation to what?

'To go out and do something. I mean, we live in this amazing cultural capital, right? Best theatre in the world. Best classical music. Great art. And we've both been so bound up in work and this damn house that we haven't had a chance to see any of it...'

'You really want to go to the theatre?' he asked, phrasing the question in such a way that it sounded like I had just suggested joining some whacked-out religious cult.

'Yes, I do'.

'Not my thing, actually'.

'But might it be Kate and Roger's thing?' I asked, mentioning the couple who had had us over for dinner that first time we were together in London.

'I suppose you could ask them', he said, a little undercurrent of exasperation entering his voice; an undercurrent which had started to make a regular appearance whenever I said something that... well, I suppose, exasperated him.

But I still called Kate Medford the next day. I got her voice mail, and left a pleasant message, saying how Tony and I were settled in London, how I had become a huge fan of her programme on Radio 4, and how we'd both love to see them. It took about four days for her to get back to me. But when she did, she was most friendly - in a rushed sort of way.

'How lovely to hear from you', she said, the crackly line hinting that she was talking to me on her cell phone. 'Heard you'd made the move here with Tony'.

'And maybe you also heard that we've a baby due in just over three months'.

'Yes, the bush telegraph certainly picked up that piece of news. Congratulations - I'm so pleased for you both'.

'Thank you'.

'And I suppose Tony will eventually adjust to life in Wapping'.

This stopped me short. 'You've been speaking to Tony?'

'We had lunch last week. Didn't he mention it?'

'My brain's so elsewhere these days', I lied, 'what with the job and pregnancy and trying to get the house...'

'Ah yes, the house. Putney, I hear'.

'That's right'.

'Tony Hobbs in Putney. Who would have believed it'.

'Roger well?' I asked, changing the subject.

'Desperately busy, as always. And you? Settling in?'

'Getting there. But listen... our house is still in no fit state for livestock, let alone friends...'

She laughed. I continued.

'Maybe we could all meet up one night, go to the theatre, perhaps...'

'The theatre?' she said, rolling that one around on her tongue. 'I can't remember the last time we did that...'

'It was just a suggestion', I said, hating the embarrassed tone creeping into my voice.

'And a lovely one too. It's just we're both so busy right now. But it would be lovely to see you. Perhaps we could do Sunday lunch sometime soon'.

'That would be great'.

'Well, let me have a chat with Roger and get back to you. Must fly now. So glad you're settling in. Bye'.

And our conversation was terminated.

When Tony finally got home that night - well after ten o'clock - I said, 'I didn't know you had lunch with Kate Medford last week'.

He poured himself a vodka and said, 'Yes. I had lunch with Kate last week'.

'But why didn't you tell me?'

'Am I supposed to tell you these things?' he asked mildly.

'It's just... you knew I was planning to call her to ask about the four of us going out...'

'So?'

'But when I mentioned it a few days ago, you acted like you hadn't heard from her since we'd moved to London'.

'Did I?' he said, the tone still temperate. After the merest of pauses, he smiled and asked, 'So what did Kate say to your idea of an evening at the theatre?'

'She suggested Sunday lunch', I said, my voice even, my smile fixed.

'Did she? How nice', he said.

A few days later, I did go to the theatre... with Margaret. We saw a very well acted, very well directed, and very long revival of Ibsen's Rosmersholm at the National. It was an evening performance - and had come at the end of a day that started with the arrival of plasterers at eight am, and finished with me filing two stories and just making it across the river right before the curtain went up. The production had received very flattering reviews - which is why I chose it. But about twenty minutes in, I realized I had let myself and Margaret in for an extended three-hour sojourn through some serious Scandinavian gloom. At the intermission, Margaret turned to me and said, 'Well, this really is a toe-tapper'.

Then, halfway through the second act, I fell fast asleep - only waking with a jolt when the applause came for the curtain call.

'What happened at the end?' I asked Margaret as we left the theatre.

'The husband and wife jumped off a bridge and killed themselves'.

'Really?' I said, genuinely aghast. 'Why?'

'Oh, you know - winter in Norway, nothing better to do...'

'Thank God I didn't bring Tony. He would have filed for divorce on the spot'.

'Not a big Ibsen fan, your husband?'

'Doesn't want anything at all to do with culture. Which is, in my experience, a typical journalist philistine thing. I mean, I suggested going to a play with a couple of friends of his...'

Then I recounted my conversation with Tony and my subsequent call from Kate Medford.

'I promise you, she won't get back to you for at least four months', Margaret said when I finished telling her the story. 'Then, out of the blue, you'll get this call. She'll sound all friendly, talk about how "frightfully busy" she's been, and how she'd just love to see you and Tony and the baby, and might you be free for Sunday lunch six weeks from now? And you'll think to yourself: is this how it works here?.. and is she only doing this because she feels obliged to do this? And the answer to both questions will be a big resounding yes. Because even your good friends here are, to a certain degree, standoffish. Not because they don't want to be around you... but because they think they shouldn't be disturbing you, and also because you probably don't really want to hear too much from them. And no matter how much you try to convince them otherwise, that edge of reticence will be there. Because that's how it is here. The English need a year or two to acclimatize to your presence before they decide to be friends. When they are friends, they are friends but they will still keep their distance. Everyone in this country is taught to do that from a very early age'.

'None of my neighbours have bothered to introduce themselves'.

'They never do'.

'And people are so abrupt with each other in shops'.

Margaret grinned a big grin.

'Oh, you've noticed that, have you?'

Indeed, I had - particularly in the form of the guy who ran my local newsagent. His name was Mr Noor - and he was always having a bad day. In the weeks that I'd been buying the morning papers at his shop, I'd never known him to ever favour me (or any other customer) with a smile. I had tried many times to force a grin out of him, or to at least engage him in a basic, yet civil conversation. But he had steadfastly refused to budge from his position of ongoing misanthropy. And the journalist in me always wondered what was the root cause of his unpleasantness. A brutal childhood in Lahore? A father who beat him senseless for the slightest infraction? Or maybe it was the sense of dislocation that came with being yanked out of Pakistan and dropped into the chilly dankness of London in the mid-seventies - whereupon he discovered he was a Paki, a Wog, a permanent outsider in a society that despised his presence.

Of course, when I once articulated a version of this scenario to Karim - the guy who ran the corner shop next to Mr Noor's newsagency - I was greeted with serious laughter.

'Bloke's never been to Pakistan in his life', Karim told me. 'And don't think it's something you've done that's made him treat you the way he does. He does it with everybody. And it's nothing to do with nothing. He's a miserable git, that's all'.

Unlike Mr Noor, Karim always seemed to be having a good day. Even on the bleakest of mornings - when it had been raining nonstop for a week, and the temperature was just above freezing, and everyone was wondering if the sun would ever emerge again - Karim somehow managed to maintain a pleasant public face. Maybe this was something to do with the fact that he and his older brother, Faisal, were already successful businessmen, with two other shops in this corner of South London, and plenty of plans afoot for further expansion. And I wondered whether his innate optimism and affability were rooted in the fact that, though a native Brit, he had aspirations - and a curiously American sense of confidence.

But on the morning after my Ibsen night out with Margaret, I didn't need anything from Karim's shop - so my first public contact of the day was with Mr-Bloody-Noor. As usual, he was in sparkling form. Approaching his till with my Chronicle and my Independent in hand, I said, 'And how are you today, Mr Noor?'

He avoided my eyes, and replied, 'One pound ten'.

I didn't hand him the money. Instead I looked directly at him and repeated my question, 'And how are you today, Mr Noor?'

'One pound ten', he said, sounding annoyed.

I kept smiling, determined to get a response out of him.

'Are you keeping well, Mr Noor?'

He just stuck his hand out for the money. I repeated my question again.

'Are you keeping well, Mr Noor?'

He exhaled loudly.

'I am fine'.

I graced him with a very large smile.

'Delighted to hear it'.

I handed over my money, and nodded goodbye. Behind me was a woman in her forties, waiting to pay for the Guardian she held in her hand. As soon as I left the shop, she caught up with me.

'Well done you', she said. 'He's had that coming to him for years'.

She proffered her hand.

'Julia Frank. You live at Number 27, don't you?'

'That's right', I said, and introduced myself.

'Well, I'm just across the road at Number 32. Nice to meet you'.

I would have lingered, trying to engage her in a chat, if I hadn't been late for an interview with a former IRA man turned novelist, so I simply said, 'Drop over sometime'. She replied with a pleasant smile... which may have been her way of indicating yes, or just another example of the maddening reticence of this city. But the very fact that she stopped to introduce herself (and to compliment me on standing up to Mr Charm School) kept me buoyed for most of the day.

'So a neighbour actually spoke with you?' Sandy said when I called her later that day. 'I'm surprised I didn't see a news flash about it on CNN'.

'Yeah, it's pretty momentous stuff. And get this - the sun was even out today'.

'Good God, what next? Don't tell me somebody smiled at you on the street?'

'Actually, somebody did. It was on the towpath by the river. A man walking his dog'.

'What kind of dog?'

'A Golden Retriever'.

'They usually have nice owners'.

'I'll take your word for it. But you would not believe how pleasant that path by the river can be. And it's only three minutes from my door. And I know it's not a big damn deal, but while I was strolling by the Thames, I found myself thinking: maybe I'm going to find my footing here after all'.

That evening, I expressed similar sentiments to Tony after I saw him glancing around the builders' debris amidst which we were living.

'Don't despair', I said, 'it will all get finished eventually'.

'I'm not despairing', he said, sounding forlorn.

'This will be a wonderful house'.

'I'm sure it will be'.

'Come on, Tony. Things will get better'.

'Everything's fine', he said, his voice drained of enthusiasm.

'I wish I could believe you mean that', I said.

'I do mean it'.

With that, he drifted off into another room.

But then, at five that morning, I woke up to discover that everything wasn't fine.

Because my body was suddenly playing strange games with me.

And in those first few bewildering moments when the realization hit that something was very wrong, I bumped into an emotion I hadn't encountered for years.

Fear.

Four

IT WAS AS if I had been attacked during the night by a battalion of bed-bugs. Suddenly, every corner of my skin felt as if it was inflamed by what could only be described as a virulent itch - which no amount of scratching could relieve.

'I don't see any rash', Tony said after he discovered me naked in our bathroom, scraping my skin with my fingernails.

'I'm not making this up', I said angrily, thinking that he was accusing me of falling into some psychosomatic state.

'I'm not saying you are. It's just...'

I turned and stared at myself in the mirror. He was right. The only marks on my skin were those made by my frantic clawing.

Tony ran me a hot bath and helped me into it. The scalding water was momentarily agonizing - but once I adjusted to its extreme heat, it had a balming effect. Tony sat down beside the bath, held my hand, and told me another of his amusing war stories - how he contracted head lice while covering some tribal skirmish in Eritrea, and had to get his head shaved by a local village barber.

'The bloke did it with the dirtiest straight edge razor imaginable. And, wouldn't you know it, he didn't have the steadiest hand - so by the time he was done, not only was I bald, but I looked like I needed stitches. Even then - having had every last hair scraped away - my head still itched like a bastard. Which is when the barber wrapped my head in a boiling hot towel. Cured the itching immediately - and also gave me first degree burns'.

I ran my fingers through his hair, so pleased to have him sitting here with me, holding my hand, getting me through all this. When I finally emerged from the bath an hour later, the itching was gone. Tony couldn't have been sweeter. He dried me with a towel. He dusted me with baby powder. He put me back to bed. And I did fall fast asleep again, waking with a start at noon - as the itching started over again.

At first, I thought I was still in the middle of some hyperactive dream - like one of those falling nightmares where you know you're plunging into a ravine, until you hit the pillow. Even before I snapped into consciousness, I was certain that another pestilent squad of insects had taken up residency beneath my skin. But the itching had doubled in intensity since last night. I felt sheer unadulterated panic. Dashing into the bathroom, I stripped off my pyjama bottom and teeshirt, and checked myself all over for blotchy rashes or any other signs of epidermal inflammation - especially around my bulging belly. Nothing. So I ran another very hot bath and fell into it. Like last night, the scalding water had an immediate salutary effect - scorching my skin into a kind of numbness that deadened the all-pervasive itch.

But as soon as I hauled myself out of the bath an hour later, the itch started again. Now I was genuinely spooked. I rubbed myself down with baby talc. It only intensified the discomfort. So I turned on the taps for another hot bath. Once more I scalded myself, and was consumed by itching as soon as I stepped out of it again.

I threw on a bathrobe. I called Margaret.

'I think I'm going out of my skull', I told her - and then explained the war taking place beneath my skin, and how I was worried it might all be in my mind.

'If you're really itching like that, it can't be psychosomatic', Margaret said.

'But there's nothing showing'.

'Maybe you have an internal rash'.

'Is there such a thing?'

'I'm no quack - so how the hell do I know. But if I were you, I'd stop being a Christian Scientist about this, and get to a doctor fast'.

I heeded Margaret's advice and called the local surgery. But my doctor was booked up for the afternoon so they found me an appointment with a Dr Rodgers: a dry-as-dust GP in his late forties, with thinning hair and a chilly bedside manner. He asked me to take off my clothes. He gave my skin a cursory inspection. He told me to get dressed again and gave me his diagnosis: I was probably having a sub-clinical allergic reaction to something I ate. But when I explained that I hadn't eaten anything out of the ordinary for the past few days, he said, 'Well, pregnancy always makes the body react in odd ways'.

'But the itching is driving me nuts'.

'Give it another twenty-four hours'.

'Isn't there anything you can prescribe to stop it?'

'If nothing is visible on the skin, not really. Try aspirin - or ibuprofen - if the pain gets too much'.

When I related all this to Margaret half an hour later, she became belligerent.

'Typical English quack. Take two aspirin, and stiffen your upper lip'.

'My usual GP is much better'.

'Then get back on the phone and demand to see her. Better yet, insist that she makes a house call. They will do that, if coerced'.

'Maybe he's right. Maybe it is some minor allergic reaction...'

'What is this? After just a couple of months in London, you're already adopting a "grin and bear it" attitude?'

In a way, Margaret was right. I didn't want to whine about my condition - especially as it wasn't my nature to get sick, let alone break out in manic itches. So I tried to busy myself by unpacking several boxes of books, and attempting to read a few back issues of the New Yorker. I resisted the temptation to call Tony at the paper and tell him just how bad I was feeling. Eventually I stripped off all my clothes again and started scratching my skin so hard that I actually began to bleed around my shoulders. I took refuge in the bathroom. I let out a scream of sheer, unequivocal frustration and pain as I waited for the bath to fill. After scalding myself for the third time, I finally called Tony at the paper, saying, 'I think I'm in real trouble here'.

'Then I'm on my way'.

He was back within the hour. He found me shivering in the bath, even though the water was still near boiling. He got me dressed. He helped me into the car and drove straight across Wandsworth Bridge, then up the Fulham Road, and parked right opposite the Mattingly Hospital. We were inside the Casualty Department within moments - and when Tony saw that the waiting room was packed, he had a word with the triage nurse, insisting that, as I was pregnant, I should be seen straight away.

'I'm afraid you'll have to wait, like everyone else here'.

Tony tried to protest, but the nurse was having none of it.

'Sir, please sit down. You can't jump the queue unless...'

At that very moment, I supplied the unless, as the constant itch suddenly transformed into a major convulsion. Before I knew what was happening, I pitched forward and the world went black.

When I came to, I was stretched out in a steel hospital bed, with several intravenous tubes protruding from my arms. I felt insanely groggy - as if I had just emerged from a deep narcotic sleep. For a moment or two, the thought struck me: where am I? Until the world came into focus and I found myself in a long ward - one of a dozen or so women, enveloped by tubes, respiratory machines, foetal monitors and other medical paraphernalia. I managed to focus on the clock situated at the end of the ward: 3.23 pm... with a greyish light visible behind the thin hospital curtains. 3.23pm Tony and I had arrived at the hospital around eight last night. Could I have been out cold for... what?.. seventeen hours'?

I managed to summon up enough strength to push the call-button by the side of the bed. As I did so, I involuntarily blinked for an instant and was suddenly visited by a huge wave of pain around the upper half of my face. I also became aware of the fact that my nose had been heavily taped. The area around my eyes also felt bruised and battered. I pressed the call-button even harder. Eventually, a small Afro-Caribbean nurse arrived at my bedside. When I squinted to read her name tag - Howe - my face felt pulverized again.

'Welcome back', she said with a quiet smile.

'What happened?'

The nurse reached for the chart at the end of the bed and read the notes.

'Seems you had a little fainting spell in reception. You're lucky that nose of yours wasn't broken. And you didn't lose any teeth'.

'How about the baby?'

A long anxious silence as Nurse Howe scanned the notes again.

'No worries. The baby's fine. But you... you are a cause for concern'.

'In what way?'

'Mr Hughes, the consultant, will see you on his rounds this evening'.

'Will I lose the baby?'

She scanned the chart again, then said, 'You're suffering from a high blood pressure disorder. It could be pre-eclampsia - but we won't know that until we've done some blood work and a urine test'.

'Can it jeopardize the pregnancy?'

'It can... but we'll try to get it under control. And a lot is going to depend on you. You'd better be prepared to live a very quiet life for the next few weeks'.

Great. Just what I needed to hear. A wave of fatigue suddenly rolled over me. Maybe it was the drugs they'd been giving me. Maybe it was a reaction to my seventeen hours of unconsciousness. Or maybe it was a combination of the two, coupled with my newfound high blood pressure. Whatever it was, I suddenly felt devoid of energy. So drained and de-vitalized that I couldn't even summon the strength to sit myself up. Because I had an urgent, desperate need to pee. But before I could articulate this need - before I could ask for a bedpan or assistance to the nearest toilet - the lower part of my body was suddenly enveloped in a warm, expansive pool of liquid.

'Oh fuck...', I said, my voice loud, desperate.

'It's okay' Nurse Howe said. Reaching for her walkie-talkie, she summoned assistance. Within moments, two large male orderlies were by the bed. One of them had a shaved head and sported an earring; the other was a thin wiry Sikh.

'So sorry, so sorry...' I managed to mutter as the two orderlies helped me sit up.

'Don't you worry about it, darling', the shaved head said. 'Most natural thing in the world'.

'Never happened to me before', I said as they lifted me off the sodden mattress and put me in a wheelchair. My hospital nightgown was stuck against my body.

'First time, really?' Shaved Head asked. 'Ain't you had a charmed life. Take my mate here. He pisses his pants all the time, don't you?'

'Don't listen to my colleague', the Sikh said. 'He needs to talk rubbish'.

'Colleague?' Shaved Head said. 'Thought I was your mate'.

'Not when you accuse me of pants pissing', the Sikh said, starting to wheel me down the ward. Shaved Head walked alongside him, their repartee nonstop.

'That's the problem with you Sikhs - no sense of humour...'

'Oh I laugh all the time... when something is funny. But not when an Oik...'

'You callin' me an Oik?

'No, I am making a generalization about Oiks. So, please, try not to take it so personally...'

'But if you is making a sweeping general...'

'If you are making a sweeping generalization...' the Sikh said, correcting him.

'Know who my friend... sorry, colleague... thinks he is?' Shaved Head asked me. 'Bloody Henry Higgins'.

'And why can't the English teach their children how to speak?' the Sikh said.

'Shut it'.

It was like listening to an old married couple in the midst of the sort of comic bicker which had been going on, nonstop, for twenty years. But I also realized that they were carrying on this banter for my benefit - to divert me from my humiliation, and stop me feeling like the bad little girl who'd wet herself and was now in a helpless state.

When we reached the bathroom, the two orderlies helped me out of the wheelchair, then positioned me standing up against the sink and waited with me until a nurse arrived. Once she showed up, they took their leave. She was a large cheery woman in her late forties with an accent that hinted at Yorkshire. She gently lifted the drenched nightgown over my head.

'Get you cleaned up in no time', she said, while running a shallow warm bath. There was a mirror over the sink. I looked up and froze. The woman staring at me appeared to be a victim of domestic abuse. Her nose - shrouded in surgical plaster strips - had swollen to twice its normal size and had turned a slightly purplish colour. Both eyes had been blackened, and the areas around the eyelids were also discoloured and puffy.

'A nose injury always appears worse than it is', she said, immediately aware of my distress. 'And it always clears up very quickly. Give it three, four days, and you'll be back to your beautiful self'.

I had to laugh - not simply because I never considered myself beautiful... but also because, at the moment, I looked like I belonged in a freak show.

'American, are you?' she asked me.

I nodded.

'Never met an American I didn't like', she said. 'Mind you, I've only met two Yanks in my entire life. What you doing living here?'

'My husband's English'.

'Aren't you a smart girl', she said with a laugh.

She lowered me into the warm water and gently sponged me down, handing me the wash cloth when it came to the area around my crotch. Then she helped me back up, dried me off, and dressed me in a clean nightgown. All the while, she kept up a steady stream of trivial chat. A very English way of dealing with an uncomfortable situation... and one which I liked. Because, in her own gruff way, she was actually being gentle with me.

By the time she wheeled me back to the ward, the soggy sheets had been stripped away and replaced with clean linen. As she helped me into bed, she said, 'Don't you worry about anything, luv. You're going to be fine'.

I surrendered to the cool, starched sheets, relieved to be dry again. Nurse Howe came by, and informed me that a urine sample was needed.

'Been there, done that', I said laughing.

I eased myself out of bed again and into the bathroom, filling a vial with what little pee I still had on reserve. Then, when I was back in bed, another nurse came by and drew a large hypodermic of blood. Nurse Howe returned to tell me that Tony had just called. She'd informed him that Mr Hughes would be here at eight tonight, and suggested that he try to be at the hospital then.

'Your husband said he'd do his best, and was wondering how you were doing'.

'You didn't tell him anything about me wetting the...'

'Don't be daft', Nurse Howe said with a small laugh, and then informed me that I shouldn't get too cosy right now, as Mr Hughes (having been alerted to my condition) had ordered an ultrasound prior to his arrival. Alarm bells began to ring between my ears.

'Then he does believe that the baby's in danger?' I said.

'Thinking that does you no good...'

'I have to know if there's a risk that I might mis' -

'There is a risk, if you keep getting yourself in an anxious state. The high blood pressure isn't just due to physiological factors. It's also related to stress. Which is why you fell on your face last night'.

'But if I'm just suffering from high blood pressure, why is he ordering an ultrasound?'

'He just wants to rule out...'

'Rule out what?' I demanded.

'It's normal routine'.

This was hardly comforting. All during the ultrasound, I kept staring at the vague outline on the foetal monitor, asking the technician (an Australian woman who couldn't have been more than twenty-three) if she could see if anything was untoward.

'No worries', she said. 'You'll be fine'.

'But the baby... ?'

'There's no need to get yourself so...'

But I didn't hear the last part of that sentence, as the itching suddenly started again. Only this time, the area most affected was my midsection and my pelvis... exactly where the ultrasound gel had been smeared. Within the space of a minute, the itch was unbearable, and I found myself telling the technician that I needed to scratch my belly.

'Not a problem', she said, removing the large ultrasound wand which she had been applying to my stomach. Immediately, I began to tear at my skin. The technician looked on, wide-eyed.

'Take it slow, eh?' she said.

'I can't. It's driving me mental'.

'But you're going to hurt yourself... and the baby'

I pulled my hands away. The itching intensified. I bit so hard on my lip that it nearly bled. I snapped my eyes shut, but they began to sting. Suddenly, my face was awash with tears - the action of shutting my eyes provoking all the bruised muscles around the upper part of my face.

'Are you all right?' the technician asked.

'No'.

'Wait here for a sec', she said. 'And whatever you do, don't scratch your belly again'.

It seemed to take an hour for her to get back to me - though, when I glanced at the clock, only five minutes had elapsed. But by the time that the technician returned with Nurse Howe, I was gripping the sides of the bed, on the verge of screaming.

'Tell me...' Nurse Howe said. When I explained that I wanted to grate my stomach to pieces - or do anything else to make the itching stop - she examined me, then reached for a phone and issued some orders. She leaned over and clasped my arm.

'Help's on the way'.

'What are you going to do?'

'Give you something to stop the itch'.

'But say it's all in my head', I said, my voice verging towards mild hysteria.

'You think it's in your head?' Nurse Howe asked.

'I don't know'.

'If you're scratching like that, it's not in your head'.

'You sure?'

She smiled and said, 'You're not the first pregnant lady to get an itch like this'.

An assistant nurse arrived, pushing a tray of medication. She cleaned off the ultrasound gel. Then, using what looked like a sterile paint brush, she covered my stomach with a pink chalky substance - calamine lotion. It instantly alleviated the itch. Nurse Howe handed me two pills and a small cup of water.

'What are these?' I asked.

'A mild sedative'.

'I don't need a sedative'.

'I think you do'.

'But I don't want to be groggy when my husband gets here'.

'This won't make you groggy. It will just calm you down'.

'But I am calm'.

Nurse Howe said nothing. Instead she deposited the two pills in my open palm, and handed me a glass of water. I reluctantly downed the pills and allowed myself to be helped into a wheelchair and transported back to the ward.

Tony arrived just before eight with a few newspapers under his arm and a grim bunch of flowers. The pills had taken full effect - and though Nurse Howe didn't lie about the lack of grogginess, she didn't say anything about the way they deadened all emotional agitation and left me feeling flat, benumbed, muffled... but also very aware of the way Tony was trying to mask his disquiet at the state of me.

'Do I look that awful?' I asked quietly as he approached the bed.

'Stop talking rubbish', he said, leaning over to give me a peck on the head.

'You should've seen the other guy' I said, then heard myself laugh a hollow laugh.

'After the way you pitched forward last night, I expected much worse'.

'That's comforting to know. Why didn't you call me today?'

'Because, according to the ward sister, you weren't with us until after three'.

'But after three...'

'Conferences, deadlines, my pages to get out. It's called work'.

'You mean, like me? I'm work to you now, right?'

Tony took a deep annoyed breath; a way of informing me that he wasn't enjoying the route this conversation was taking. But despite my flattened drug-induced state, I still continued to play vexed. Because, right now, I felt so completely furious at everything and everyone - most especially, at the diffident man sitting on the edge of my bed, who had gotten me into this mess in the first place by knocking me up. The selfish shit. The little fucker. The...

And I thought these pills were supposed to smooth everything right out...

'You could ask me if the baby's all right', I said, my voice a paragon of tranquillized calm.

Another of Tony's exasperated intakes of breath. No doubt, he's counting the minutes until he can flee this place, and rid himself of me for another night. Then, if his luck holds out, I might just fall on my face again tomorrow, and I'll be incarcerated for another couple of days.

'I have been worried about you, you know', he said.

'Of course I know. Because you so radiate worry, Tony'.

'Is this what's called "post-traumatic shock"?'

'Oh, that's right. Try to write me off as Little Ms Loony Tunes. Rue the day you met me'.

'What the hell do they have you on?'

A voice behind Tony said, 'Valium, since you asked. And from what I've just overheard, it is not having the desired effect'.

Mr Desmond Hughes stood at the edge of the bed, my chart in his hand, his bi-focals resting on the extreme edge of his nose. I asked, 'Is the baby all right, doctor?'

Mr Hughes didn't look up from the chart.

'And a very good evening to you, Mrs Goodchild. And yes, all seems fine'. He turned towards Tony. 'You must be Mr Goodchild'.

'Tony Hobbs'.

'Oh, right', Hughes said, the only acknowledgment of Tony's name being the slightest of nods. Then he turned back to me and asked, 'And how are we feeling tonight? Bit of a ropey twenty-four hours, I gather'.

'Tell me about the baby, doctor'.

'From what I could see on the ultrasound scans, no damage was done to the baby. Now I gather you were admitted suffering from cholestasis'.

'What's that?' I asked.

'Chronic itching. Not uncommon among pregnant women... and it often arrives in tandem with pre-eclampsia, which, as you may know is...'

'High blood pressure?'

'Very good... though, clinically speaking, we prefer to call it a hypertension disorder. Now the good news is that pre-eclampsia is often characterized by a high level of uric acid. But your urine sample was relatively normal - which is why I consider you not to be suffering from pre-eclampsia. But your blood pressure is dangerously high. If left unchecked, it can be somewhat treacherous for both the mother and the child. Which is why I am putting you on a beta-blocker to stabilize your blood pressure, as well as an antihistamine called Piriton to relieve the cholestasis. And I would also like you to take 5mgs of Valium three times a day'.

'I'm not taking Valium again'.

'And why is that?'

'Because I don't like it'.

'There are lots of things in life we don't like, Mrs Goodchild... even though they are beneficial...'

'You mean, like spinach...?'

Tony coughed another of his nervous coughs. 'Uh, Sally...'

'What?'

'If Mr Hughes thinks that Valium will help you...'

'Help me?' I said. 'All it does is gag me'.

'Really?' Mr Hughes said.

'Very funny', I said.

'I wasn't trying to be amusing, Mrs Goodchild...'

'It's Ms Goodchild', I said. 'He's Hobbs, I'm Goodchild'.

A quick exchange of looks between Tony and the doctor. Oh God, why am I acting so weird?

'So sorry, Ms Goodchild. And, of course, I can't force you to take a substance that you don't want to take. At the same time, however, it is my clinical opinion that it will alleviate a certain degree of stress...'

'Whereas it's my on the spot opinion that the Valium is doing bad things to my head. So, no... I'm not touching the stuff again'.

'That is your prerogative - but do understand, I do think it is inadvisable'.

'Noted', I said quietly.

'But you will take the Piriton?'

I nodded.

'Well, that's something at least', Hughes said. 'And we'll continue to treat the cholestasis with calamine lotion'.

'Fine', I said again.

'Oh, one final thing', Hughes said. 'You must understand that high blood pressure is a most dangerous condition - and one which could cause you to lose the child. Which is why, until you have brought this pregnancy to term, you must essentially put yourself under no physical or emotional strain whatsoever'.

'By which you mean...?' I asked.

'By which I mean that you cannot work until after' -

I cut him off.

'Can't work? I'm a journalist - a correspondent. I've got responsibilities...'

'Yes, you do', Hughes said, interrupting me. 'Responsibilities to yourself and to your child. But though we will be able to partially treat your condition chemically, the fact of the matter is that only complete bed rest will ensure that you stay out of jeopardy. And that is why we'll be keeping you in hospital for the duration...'

I stared at him, stunned.

'The duration of my pregnancy?' I asked.

'I'm afraid so'.

'But that's nearly three weeks from now. And I can't just give up work...'

Tony put a steadying hand on my shoulder, stopping me from saying anything more.

'I'll see you on my rounds tomorrow, Ms Goodchild', Hughes said. With another quick nod to Tony, he moved on to the next patient.

'I don't believe it', I said.

Tony just shrugged. 'We'll deal with it', he said. Then he glanced at his watch, and mentioned that he had to get back to the paper now.

'But I thought you'd already put your pages to bed?'

'I never said that. Anyway, while you were unconscious, the Russian Deputy Prime Minister was rumbled for his involvement in a kiddie porn ring, and a little war's broken out among rival factions in Sierra Leone...'

'You have a man on the scene in Freetown?'

'A stringer. Jenkins. Not bad, for a lightweight. But if the thing blows up into a full-scale war, I think we'll have to send one of our own'.

'Yourself, perhaps?'

'In my dreams'.

'If you want to go, go. Don't let me stop you'.

'I wouldn't, believe me'.

His tone was mild, but pointed. It was the first time he'd directly articulated his feelings of entrapment. Or, at least, that's how it came over to me.

'Well, thank you for making that perfectly clear', I said.

'You know what I'm saying here'.

'No, actually, I don't'.

'I'm the Foreign Editor - and foreign editors don't dispatch themselves off to cover a pissy little firefight in Sierra Leone. But they do have to go back to the office to get their pages to bed'.

'So go then. Don't let me stop you'.

'That's the second time you've said that tonight'.

He placed his gift of newspapers and wilting flowers on the bedside table. Then he gave me another perfunctory kiss on the forehead.

'I'll be back tomorrow'.

'I certainly hope so'.

'I'll call you first thing in the morning, and see if I can get over here before work'.

But he didn't call me. When I rang the house at eight-thirty, there was no answer. When I rang the paper at nine-thirty, Tony wasn't at his desk. And when I tried his mobile, I was connected with his voice mail. So I left a terse message: 'I'm sitting here, already bored out of my mind, and I'm just wondering: where the hell are you? And why didn't you answer the phone? Please call me ASAP, as I really would like to know the whereabouts of my husband'.

Around two hours later, the bedside phone rang. Tony sounded as neutral as Switzerland.

'Hello', he said. 'Sorry I wasn't available earlier'.

'You know, I called you at home at eight-thirty this morning, and discovered that nobody was home'.

'What's today?'

'Wednesday'.

'And what do I do every Wednesday?'

I didn't need to furnish him an answer, because he knew that I knew the answer: he had breakfast with the editor of the paper. A breakfast at the Savoy, which always started at nine. Which meant that Tony inevitably left home around eight. Idiot, idiot, idiot... why are you looking for trouble?

'I'm sorry' I said.

'Not to worry', he said, his tone still so detached, almost uninvolved. 'How are you doing?'

'Still feeling like shit. But the itch is under control, thanks to the calamine lotion'.

'That's something, I guess. When are visiting hours?'

'Right now would work'.

'Well, I'm supposed to be lunching with the chap who skippers the Africa section at the F.O. But I can cancel'.

Immediately I wondered: now why didn't he tell me about this lunch yesterday? Maybe he didn't want to let me know, then and there, that he wouldn't be able to visit in the morning. Maybe the lunch was a last-minute thing, given the situation in Sierra Leone. Or maybe... oh god, I don't know. That was the growing problem with Tony: I didn't know. He seemed to live behind a veil. Or was that just my hypertension fatigue kicking in, not to mention my cholestasis, and everything else that was now part and parcel of this wondrous pregnancy? Anyway, I wasn't about to raise the emotional temperature again by kicking up a stink about his inability to get in here immediately. Because I wasn't going anywhere.

'No need', I said. 'I'll see you tonight'.

'You certain about that?' he asked me.

'I'll phone Margaret, see if she can pay me a visit this afternoon'.

'Anything I can bring you?'

'Just pick up something nice at Marks and Spencer's'.

'I shouldn't be too late'.

'That's good'.

Naturally, Margaret was at the hospital within a half-hour of my call. She tried not to register shock when she saw me, but didn't succeed.

'I just need to know one thing', she said.

'No - Tony didn't do this to me'.

'You don't have to protect him, you know'.

'I'm not - honestly'. Then I told her about my charming little interaction with Hughes, and how I refused to become a citizen of Valium Nation.

'Damn right you should refuse that stuff', she said, 'if it's giving you the heebie-jeebies'.

'Trust me to get aggressive on Valium'.

'How did Tony handle all this?'

'In a very English, very phlegmatic kind of way. Meanwhile, I'm quietly beginning to panic... not just at the thought of three weeks' enforced bed rest in here, but also the realization that the paper isn't going to like the fact that I'm out of action'.

'Surely the Post can't let you go?'

'Want to put money on that? They're financially strapped like every damn newspaper these days. Rumour has it that management has been thinking about cutting back on their foreign bureaus. And I'm certain that, with me out of the picture for the next few months, they'll evict me without a moment's thought'.

'But surely they'll have to give you some sort of a settlement?'

'Not if I'm in London'.

'You're jumping to conclusions'.

'No - I'm just being my usual Yankee realist self. Just as I also know that, between the mortgage and all the renovations, spare cash is going to be scarce'.

'Well then, let me do something to make your life in hospital a little easier. Let me pay for a private room in here for the next couple of weeks'.

'You're allowed to upgrade to a private room?'

'I did when I had my kids on the NHS. It's not even that expensive. Around forty pounds a night tops'.

'That's still a lot of money over three weeks'.

'Let me worry about that. The point is: you need to be as stress-free as possible right now... and being in a room on your own will certainly aid the process'.

'True - but say my pride doesn't like the idea of accepting charity from you?'

'It's not charity. It's a gift. A gift before I kiss this city goodbye'.

This stopped me short. 'What are you talking about?' I asked.

'We're being transferred back to New York. Alexander only heard the news yesterday'.

'When exactly?' I asked.

'Two weeks. There's been a big shake-up at the firm and Alexander's been made the senior partner heading up the Litigation Department. And since it's mid-term at school, they're shipping us all back in one go'.

I now felt anxious. Margaret was my one friend in London.

'Shit', I said.

'That's about the right word for it', she said. 'Because as much as I complain about London, I know I'm going to miss it as soon as we're ensconced back in the 'burbs, and I turn into some soccer mom, and start to hate every other white-bread I meet in Chappaqua, and keep wondering why everyone looks the same'.

'Can't Alexander ask to stay on longer?'

'Not a chance. What the firm wants, the firm gets. Believe me, three weeks from now I am going to so envy you. Even though this town may be completely maddening, it's always interesting'.

By the time Tony arrived at the hospital that evening, I had been transferred into a perfectly pleasant private room. But when my husband asked me how the upgrade came about - and I told him of Margaret's largesse - his reaction was both abrupt and negative.

'And why the hell is she doing that?'

'It's a gift. To me'.

'What did you do, plead poverty with her?' he asked.

I stared at him, wide-eyed.

'Tony, there's no need for...'

'Well, did you?'

'Do you really think I would do something like that?'

'Well, she obviously felt so sorry for you that...'

'Like I said: it's a gift. Her very kind way of helping me out...'

'We're not accepting it'.

'But why?'

'Because I'm not accepting charity from some rich American' -

'This is not charity. She's my friend and' -

'I'll pay for it'.

'Tony, the bill is already settled. So what's the big deal?'

Silence. I knew what the big deal was: Tony's pride. Not that he was going to admit such a thing. Except to say, 'I just wished you'd talked this over with me'.

'Well, I didn't hear from you all day - and until I was moved in here, where there's a phone by the bed, it was a little hard to get up to make calls. Especially when I've been ordered to hardly move'.

'How are you doing?'

'The itch is a little better. And there is a lot to be said for being out of that godforsaken ward'.

A pause. Tony evaded my gaze.

'How long did Margaret pay for the room?'

'Three weeks'.

'Well, I'll cover anything after that'.

'Fine', I said quietly, dodging the temptation to add, 'Whatever makes you happy, Tony'. Instead I pointed to the Marks and Spencer bag in his hand and asked, 'Dinner, I hope?'

Tony stayed an hour that night - long enough to watch me gobble down the sandwich and salad he brought me. He also informed me that he'd called A.D. Hamilton at the Post to explain that I had been rushed to hospital last night.

'I bet he sounded disconsolate', I said.

'Well, he didn't exactly radiate enormous concern...'

'You didn't say anything about how I'd be out of commission for the next few weeks?' I asked.

'I'm not that dim'.

'I'm going to have to call the editor myself'.

'Give yourself a couple of days to feel a little better. You're shattered'.

'You're right. I am. And all I want right now is to fall asleep for the next three weeks, then wake up and discover that I'm no longer pregnant'.

'You'll be fine', he said.

'Sure - once I stop looking like a battered wife'.

'No one would believe the "battered wife" thing anyway'.

'Why's that?'

'Because you're bigger than me'.

I managed a laugh, noting my husband's ability to divert me with humour whenever we veered into argumentative terrain, or when he sensed that I was becoming overly exercised about something. But though I was concerned about plenty right now, I was also too tired to start a recitation of everything that was worrying me - from my physical state, to the fear I had of losing the child, to how the Post would react to my extended medical absence, not to mention such trivial domestic details as the state of our half-finished house. Instead, a wave of exhaustion seized me - and I told Tony that I'd best surrender to sleep. He gave me a somewhat perfunctory kiss on the head and said he'd drop by tomorrow morning before work.

'Grab every book you can find', I said. 'It's going to be a long three weeks in here'.

Then I passed out for ten straight hours, waking just after dawn with that mixture of drowsy exultation and sheer amazement that I had slept so long. I got up. I wandered into the en suite bathroom. I glanced at the mangled face in the mirror. I felt something close to despair. I had a pee. The itching started again. I returned to my bed and called the nurse. She arrived and helped me pull up my nightgown, then painted my stomach with calamine lotion. I dropped two tabs of Piriton, and asked the nurse if it was possible to have a cup of tea and slice or two of toast.

'No problem', she said, heading off.

As I waited for breakfast to arrive, I stared out the window. No rain - but at 6.03 am, it was still pitch black. I suddenly found myself thinking how, try as we might, we never really have much control over the trajectory of our lives. We can delude ourselves into believing that we're the master captain, steering the course of our destiny... but the randomness of everything inevitably pushes us into places and situations where we never expect to find ourselves.

Like this one.

Tony arrived at nine that morning, bearing the morning papers, three books, and my laptop computer. We only had twenty minutes together, as he was rushing to get to the paper. Still, he was pleasant in a pressed-for-time way, and happily made no further mention of our little disagreement about the private room business yesterday. He sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand. He asked all the right questions about how I was feeling. He seemed pleased to see me. And when I implored him to keep the pressure on the builders and the decorators (as the last thing I wanted was to walk back into a construction site with a baby in my arms), he assured me that he would make certain they were all kept on task.

When he left, I felt a decided twinge of jealousy. He was heading out into the workaday world, whereas I had been barred from doing anything productive. Complete bed rest. No physical activity whatsoever. Nothing stressful to send my blood pressure into higher stratospheric levels. For the first time in my adult life, I had been confined to quarters. And I was already bored with my incarceration.

Still, I did have one crucial piece of business to get out of the way. So later that morning, I wrote an email to Thomas Richardson, the editor of the Post, explaining my medical situation, and how I would be out of action until the arrival of the baby. I also assured him that this was all due to circumstances beyond my control, that I would be back on the job as soon as my maternity leave was over, and that as someone who had spent all of her professional life chasing stories, I wasn't taking very well to being corralled in a hospital room.

I read through the email several times, making certain I had struck the right tone, emphasizing the fact that I wanted to return to work ASAP. I also enclosed the phone number of the hospital, in case he'd like to speak with me. After I dispatched this, I punched out a short message to Sandy, explaining that Murphy's Law had just been invoked on my pregnancy, and detailing the fun-filled events of the past forty-eight hours. I also gave her the number at the Mattingly. 'All phone calls gratefully accepted', I wrote, 'especially as I have been sentenced to three weeks on the bed!.

I pressed send. Three hours later, the phone rang and I found my sister on the other end of it.

'Good God', Sandy said, 'you really do know how to have a complicated life'.

'Believe me, this wasn't self-willed'.

'And you've also lost your famous sense of humour'.

'Now I wonder how that happened'.

'But don't mess around with this. Pre-eclampsia is serious stuff'.

'It's borderline pre-eclampsia'.

'It's still pretty dangerous. So you'd better stop playing Action Girl for the first time in your life, and listen to what the doctor tells you. How's Tony handling it?'

'Not badly'.

'Do I detect a note of uncertainty in your voice?'

'Perhaps. Then again, he is very busy'.

'By which you mean... ?'

'Nothing, nothing. I'm probably just overly sensitive to everything right now'.

'Try to take things easy, eh?'

'There's not a lot else I can do'.

Later that afternoon, I received a call from Thomas Richardson's secretary. She explained that he was away on business in New York for the next few days. But she had read him my email and he wanted me to know of his concern about my condition, and that I shouldn't think about anything right now except getting better. When I asked if I could speak to Mr Richardson personally after his return, she paused for a moment and said, 'I'm certain he'll be in touch'.

That comment bothered me all day. Later that evening, during Tony's visit, I asked him if he detected anything sinister behind her response. He said, 'You mean, why didn't she come straight out and say: "I know he wants to fire you"?'

'Something like that, yes'.

'Because he probably isn't planning to fire you'.

'But it was the way she said, "I'm certain he'll be in touch." She made it sound so damn ominous'.

'Didn't she also tell you that Richardson said you shouldn't think about anything else right now?'

'Yes, but...'

'Well, he's right. You shouldn't think about all that. Because it won't do you any good, and also because, even if something sinister is going on, there's nothing you can do about it'.

That was the truth of the matter. I could do absolutely nothing right now, except lie in bed and wait for the child to arrive. It was the most curious, absurd sensation - being shut away and forced to do damn all. I had spent my entire working life filling just about every hour of every day, never allowing myself extended periods of good old fashioned downtime, let alone a week or two of sheer unadulterated sloth. I always had to be active, always had to be accomplishing something - my workaholism underscored by a fear of slowing down, of losing momentum. It wasn't as if this desire to keep on the move was rooted in some psychobabbly need to dodge self-examination or run away from the real me. I just liked being busy. I thrived on a sense of purpose - of having a shape and an objective to the day.

But now, time had suddenly ballooned. Removed from all professional and domestic demands, each day in hospital seemed far too roomy for my liking. There were no deadlines to make, no appointments to keep. Instead, the first week crept into the next. There was a steady stream of books to read. I could catch up on four months of back issues of the New Yorker. And I quickly became addicted to Radios 3 and 4, listening avidly to programmes that grappled with obscure gardening questions, or presented a witty and informed discussion of every available version of Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony. There was a daily phone call from Sandy. Margaret - bless her - managed to make it down to the hospital four times a week. And Tony did come to see me every evening. His post-work arrival was one of the highlights of my otherwise prosaic hospital day. He'd always try to spend an hour - but often had to dash back to the office or head off for some professional dinner thing. If he didn't seem otherwise preoccupied, he was amusing and reasonably affectionate. I knew that the guy was under a lot of pressure at the paper. And I knew that getting from Wapping to Fulham chewed up an hour of his time. And though he wouldn't articulate this fact, I sensed that he was silently wondering what the hell he had landed himself in - how, in less than a year, his once autonomous life as a foreign correspondent had been transformed into one brimming with the same sort of workaday and domestic concerns that characterized most people's lives. But he wanted this, right? He was the one who made all the convincing arguments about coming to London and setting up house together. And after my initial doubts, I fully embraced those arguments. Because I wanted to.

But now...

Now I still wanted all that. But I also wanted a sense of engagement from my husband - of shared mutual concerns. Yet anytime I asked him if something was worrying him, he would do what he'd always do: assure me that 'Everything's fine'. And then he'd change the subject.

Still, when Tony was on form, he was the best company around. Until we had to talk about something domestic and serious. Like my situation with the Boston Post.

Around ten days after sending that initial email to Thomas Richardson, I was growing increasingly concerned that he had yet to call me - even though Margaret and Sandy both assured me that he didn't want to disturb my convalescence.

'Why don't you just concentrate on feeling better', Sandy told me.

'But I am feeling better', I said, telling the truth. Not only had the itching finally vanished, but I was regaining my equilibrium (and without the help of Valium). More tellingly, the beta-blockers were doing their job, as my blood pressure had gradually decreased - to the point where, by the end of the second week, it was only marginally above normal levels. This pleased Hughes enormously. When he saw me on his bi-weekly rounds - and glimpsed the new blood pressure levels on my chart - he told me that I seemed to be making 'splendid progress'.

'You obviously have willed yourself better', he said.

'I think it's called all-American bloody-mindedness', I said, a comment which elicited the smallest of laughs from Hughes.

'Whatever it is, your recovery is remarkable'.

'So you think that the pregnancy is no longer in the danger zone?'

'Now I didn't exactly say that, did I? The fact remains that we now know that you are prone to hypertension. So we must be vigilant especially as you're due so soon. And you must try to avoid any undue stress'.

'I'm doing my best'.

But then, two days later, Richardson called me.

'We're all deeply concerned about your condition...' he said, starting off with his usual paternalistic patter.

'Well, all going well, I should be back on the job in six months tops - and that's including the three months of maternity leave'.

There was a pause on the transatlantic phone line and I knew I was doomed.

'I'm afraid we've been forced to make a few changes in our overseas bureaus - our finance people have been insisting on some belt tightening. Which is why we've decided to turn London into a single correspondent bureau. And since your health has put you out of the picture...'

'But, as I said, I will be back within six months'.

'A.D. is the senior correspondent in the bureau. More to the point, he is on the job now...'

And I was absolutely certain that A.D. had been plotting my downfall ever since I phoned in sick.

'Does this mean you're firing me, Mr Richardson?' I asked.

'Sally, please. We're the Post, not some heartless multi-national. We take care of our own. We'll be paying you full salary for the next three months. Then if you want to rejoin us, a position will be made available to you'.

'In London?'

Another edgy transatlantic pause.

'As I said, the London bureau will now be staffed by only one correspondent'.

'Which means if I want a job, I'll have to come back to Boston?'

'That's right'.

'But you know that's impossible for me right now. I mean, I'm only married a few months, and as I am having a baby...'

'Sally, I do understand your situation. But you have to understand mine. It was your decision to move to London - and we accommodated that decision. Now you need to take an extended period of health leave, and not only are we willing to pay you in full for three months, but also guarantee you a job when you can work again. The fact that the job won't be in London... well, all I can say is: circumstances change'.

I ended the call politely, thanking him for the three months' pay, and saying that I'd have to think about his offer - even though we both knew that there was no way I'd be accepting it. Which, in turn, meant that I had just been let go by my employer of the last sixteen years.

Tony was pleased to hear that, at least, I'd be able to help with the mortgage for the next few months. But I quietly worried about how, after my Post money stopped, we'd be able to manage all our manifold outgoings on one income.

'We'll work it out' was his less-than-reassuring reply.

Margaret also told me to stop worrying about the money problem.

'Given the number of newspapers in this town, I'm sure you can eventually find some freelance work. But only when it becomes necessary. Tony's right - you do have three months' grace. Right now, you should only be thinking about getting through the next week. You're going to have enough to cope with once the baby arrives. On which note, I don't suppose I could interest you in a cleaner? Her name's Cha, she's been with us for the entire time we've been in London, she's completely brilliant at what she does, and is now looking for additional work. So...'

'Give me her number and I'll talk it over with Tony. I'll also need to review the domestic budget before...'

'Let me pay for her'.

'No way. After arranging the private room for me you're making me feel like a "Help the Needy" case'.

'Hey, I'm a sucker for good causes'.

'I can't accept it'.

'Well, you're going to have to. Because it's my going away gift to you. Six months of Cha, twice a week. And there's nothing you can do about it'.

'Six months? You're crazy'.

'Nah - just rich', she said with a laugh.

'I'm embarrassed'.

'That's dumb'.

'I'll have to talk it over with Tony'.

'He doesn't have to know that it's a gift'.

'I prefer being straight with him. Especially about something like this. I mean, he wasn't exactly pleased to learn that you paid for the private room'.

'Well, in my experience, "being straight" is never the shrewdest marital strategy... especially when the male ego is involved'.

'Whether he accepts the gift or not, you've been the best friend imaginable. And you shouldn't be leaving'.

'This is the problem of being a corporate wife. Those who pay you the big bucks also dictate where you live. I think it's what's called a Faustian Bargain'.

'You're my one pal here'.

'As I told you, that will change... eventually. And hey, I'll always be at the end of a phone line if you need an ear to scream into... though, given that it's me who'll be drowning in the vanilla ice cream confines of Westchester County, it's you who'll be receiving the hysterical transatlantic phone calls'.

She left town two days later. That evening, I finally got up the nerve to inform Tony about Margaret's goodbye gift.

'You cannot be serious', he said, sounding annoyed.

'Like I said, it was her idea'.

'I wish I could believe that'.

'Do you actually think I'd do something as tacky as talking her into giving us a cleaner for six months'.

'It's just a little coincidental, especially after...'

'I know, I know - she paid for this damn room. And you can't stand the idea of somebody actually making my life a little easier by...'

'That's not the point - and you know it'.

'Then what is the point, Tony?'

'We can well afford to pay for a bloody cleaner, that's all'.

'You don't think Margaret knows that? This was merely a gift. And yes, it was a far too generous one - which is why I said I wouldn't accept it until I talked it over with you. Because I had a little suspicion that you'd react exactly like this'.

Pause. He avoided my angry gaze.

'What's the cleaner's name?' he asked.

I handed him the piece of paper on which Margaret had written Cha's name and her contact number.

'I'll call her and arrange for her to start next week. At our expense'.

I said nothing. Eventually he spoke again. 'The editor would like me to go to The Hague tomorrow. Just a fast overnight trip to do a piece about the war crimes tribunal. I know you're due any moment. But it's just The Hague. Can be back here in an hour, if need be'.

'Sure', I said tonelessly. 'Go'.

'Thanks'.

Then he changed the subject, and told me a rather entertaining story about a colleague at the paper who'd been caught fiddling his expenses. I fought the temptation to show my amusement, as I was still smarting after our little exchange... and didn't like the fact that, once again, Tony was up to his usual 'mollify her with humour' tricks. When I didn't respond to the story, he said, 'What's with the indignant face?'

'Tony, what do you expect?'

'I don't follow you...'

'Oh come on, that fight we just had...'

'That wasn't a fight. That was just an exchange of views. Anyway, it's ancient history now'.

'I just can't bounce back the way...'

He leaned over and kissed me.

'I'll call you from The Hague tomorrow. And remember - I'm on the mobile if...'

After he left, I must have spent the better part of an hour replaying our little spat in my head, taking apart the argument, piece by piece. Like some post-modernist literary critic, I was trying to excavate all the subtextual implications of the fight - and wondering what its ultimate meaning might be. Granted, on one level, this dispute had again been rooted in Tony's vanity. But what I couldn't get out of my brain was the larger, implicit realization that I had married someone with whom I didn't share a common language. Oh, we both spoke English. But this wasn't simply a case of mere Anglo-American tonal differences. This was something more profound, more unset-ding - the worry that we would never find a common emotional ground between us; that we would always be strangers, thrown in together under accidental circumstances.

'Who knows anyone?' Sandy said to me during our phone call that evening. But when I admitted that I was beginning to find Tony increasingly hard to fathom, she said, 'Well, look at me. I always considered Dean to be a nice, stable, slightly dull guy. But I bought into his decent dullness because I thought: at least I'll be able to count on him. He'll always be there for me. And when I met him, that was exactly what I was looking for. What happens? After ten years of staid decency and three kids, he decides he hates everything about our staid secure suburban life. So he meets the Nature Girl of his dreams - a fucking park ranger in Maine - and runs off to live with her in some cabin in Baxter State Park. If he now sees the kids four times a year, it's an event. So, hey, at least you realize you're already dealing with a difficult guy. Which, from where I sit, is something of an advantage. But I'm telling you stuff you already know'.

Maybe she was right. Maybe I just needed to let everything settle down, and enter the realm of acceptance and other optimistic clichés. As in look on the bright side, forget your troubles, keep your chin up... that sort of dumb, sanguine thing.

Over and over again, I repeated these Pollyanna-ish mantras. Over-and-over again, I kept trying to put on a happy face. Until fatigue finally forced me to turn off the light. As I drifted off into a thinly veneered sleep, one strange thought kept rattling around my brain: I am nowhere.

Then another thought seized me: Why is everything so soggy?

At that moment, I jolted back into consciousness. In the initial few seconds afterwards, I absently thought: 50 that's what they call a wet dream. Then I squinted in the direction of the window and noticed that it was light outside. I glanced at the bedside clock and saw that it read: 6.48 am. Then an earlier thought replayed itself in my head:

Why is everything so soggy?

I sat up, suddenly very awake. I frantically pulled off the duvet. The bed was completely drenched.

My waters had broken.

Five

I DIDN'T PANIC. I didn't succumb to trepidation or startled surprise. I just reached for the call-button. Then I picked up the phone and dialled Tony's mobile. It was busy, so I phoned his direct line at the paper and left a fast message on his voice mail.

'Hi, it's me', I said, still sounding calm. 'It's happening... so please get yourself to the Mattingly as soon as you get back to London. This is definitely it'.

As I put down the receiver, a midwife showed up. She took one look at the sodden bedclothes and reached for the phone. Two orderlies arrived shortly thereafter. They raised up the sides of my bed, unlocked its wheels, and pushed me out of the room, negotiating a variety of corridors before landing me in the baby unit. En route, I began to feel an ever-magnifying spasm. By the time the doors swung behind me, the pain had intensified to such an extent that I felt as if some alien was gripping my innards with his knobbly fist, determined to show me new frontiers in agony. A midwife was on the scene immediately - a diminutive woman of Asian origin. She grabbed a packet of surgical gloves from a nearby trolley, ripped them open, pulled them on, and informed me that she was going to do a quick inspection of my cervix. Though I'm certain she was attempting to be as gentle as possible, her gloved fingers still felt like highly sharpened claws. I reacted accordingly.

'You are experiencing severe discomfort, yes?' she asked.

I nodded.

'I will have a doctor see you as soon as...'

'Is the baby all right?'

'I'm sure everything is...'

There was another maniacal spasm. I reacted loudly then asked, 'Can I have an epidural now?'

'Until the doctor has examined...'

'Please...'

She patted my shoulder and said, 'I'll see what I can do'.

But ten godawful minutes passed until she returned with a porter... by which time I felt so tortured that I would have signed a document admitting to be the cause of everything from the French Revolution to global warming.

'Where have you been?' I asked, my voice raw and loud.

'Calm yourself, please', she said. 'We had three other women waiting before you for ultrasound'.

'I don't want ultrasound. I want an epidural'.

But I was whisked straight away into the ultrasound suite, where my belly was coated with gel and two large pads applied to the surface of the skin. A large fleshy man in a white jacket came into the room. Beneath the jacket he was wearing a check Viyella shirt and a knit tie. His feet were shod with green wellington boots. Take away the white jacket and he could have passed for a member of the rural squirearchy. Except for the fact that the boots were splattered with blood.

'I'm Mr Kerr', he said crisply. 'I'm Mr Hughes's locum today. In a spot of bother, are we?'

But suddenly he was interrupted by the ultrasound technician who said that sentence you never want to hear a medical technician say to a doctor, 'I think you should see this, sir'.

Mr Kerr looked at the screen, his eyes grew momentarily wide, then he turned away and calmly sprang into action. He spoke rapidly to a nurse - and, much to my horror, I heard him utter the words: 'Baby Resuscitator'.

'What is going on?' I asked.

Mr Kerr approached me and said, 'I need to examine you right now. This might be a bit uncomfortable'.

He inserted his fingers into me and began to press and probe. I was about to demand information about what the hell was going on, but another rush of pain made me scream with extremity.

'I'll have the anaesthetist here in a jiffy', Mr Kerr said. 'Because we need to perform an emergency Caesarean'.

Before I could react to that, he explained that the ultrasound had shown that the umbilical cord might be around the baby's neck.

'Will the baby die?' I said, interrupting him.

'The foetal monitor is showing a steady heartbeat. However, we need to move fast, because...'

But he didn't get to finish that sentence, as the doors swung open and two orderlies with carts came rushing in. The first was pulled up next to me. Then a small Indian woman in a white coat arrived and walked over to the bed. 'I'm Dr Chaterjee, the anaesthetist', she said. 'Relief is on the way'.

She swabbed the top of my left hand with a cotton ball. 'Little prick now', she said, as she inserted a needle into the top of my hand. 'Now start counting backwards from ten'.

I did as instructed, muttering 'Ten, nine, eig...'

And then the world went black.

It's strange, being chemically removed from life for a spell. You don't dream under anaesthetic, nor are you even notionally aware of the passage of time. You've entered the realm of nothingness, where all thoughts, fears, worries cannot invade your psyche. Unlike that easily permeable state called sleep, you're being kept in suspended chemical animation. Which - after the agonizing trauma of the past hour - suited me just fine.

Until I woke up.

It took me a moment or two to realize where I was - especially as my first view of the world was a pair of glowing fluorescent tubes, lodged above me. My eyes were half-glued together, making everything seem bleary, obscure. More tellingly, my head was shrouded in a freakish fog - which made all voices seem leaden, oppressive, and also left me wondering (for the first few minutes of consciousness) where the hell I was. Gradually, the jigsaw pieces began to fall into place: hospital, ward, bed, sore head, sore body, baby...

'Nurse!' I yelled, scrambling for the button by the side of the bed. As I did so, I realized that I had tubes coming out of both arms, while the lower half of my body was still numb.

'Nurse!'

After a few moments, a dainty Afro-Caribbean woman arrived by my bedside.

'Welcome back', she said.

'My baby?'

'A boy. Eight pounds, two ounces. Congratulations'.

'Can I see him now?'

'He's in the Intensive Care Unit. It's just a routine thing, after a complicated delivery'.

'I want to see him. Now'. And then I added, 'Please'.

The nurse looked at me carefully.

'I'll see what I can do'.

She returned a few minutes later.

'Mr Kerr is coming to see you'.

'Do I get to see my baby?'

'Talk to Mr Kerr'.

He arrived just then. Same white jacket, same shirt, same wellington boots - only this time bloodier than before... no doubt, thanks to me.

'How are you feeling now?'

'Tell me about my son?'

'Quite a straightforward Caesarean... And the cord around his neck wasn't as tight as I feared. So, all in all...'

'Then why is he in Intensive Care?'

'Standard postoperative care - especially for a newborn after a difficult delivery. We did have to immediately ventilate him after birth...'

'Ventilate?'

'Give him oxygen. He did arrive a little floppy, though he responded well to the ventilation...'

'So the cord around the neck might have caused brain damage?'

'As I said before, I was pleased to discover that the cord hadn't wound itself firmly around your son's neck. But we've already run an ultrasound to make certain there was no blood on the brain...'

'Was there?'