A Special Relationship (4 page)

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 non-plussed. 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.’