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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