A Special Relationship by Douglas Kennedy Read Free Book Online

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