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the week after her departure from Behind the News going back into the office to pick up things she had left behind (five times), having lunch with people who might be useful but weren’t (three times), and getting incredibly depressed (all the time). I took her to my health club and to a theatrical party with Alex, but at the former she tried to drown herself in the jacuzzi and at the latter she spent the whole evening talking to the only gay guy there. Shakespeare once said something about how you should grapple your friends to your soul with hoops of steel (sounds a bit like bondage to me), but my hoops were beginning to show the rust. Meanwhile, Crusty Beardstandard got back to England on Saturday, had tea with my mother on Sunday (I’d already enlisted her support for Roo), and on Monday I met with him at the Rip-Off Café.
    I chose the Rip-Off because I know Crusty likes it, though I don’t. It has scenic views over the river, glass and steel minimalist décor and film-starlet waitresses. The food is as minimalist as the décor and very, very expensive – a single plover’s egg with a stick of asparagus, or one raviolo parcel drizzled with a sauce so subtle it has virtually no flavour at all. You know the kind of thing. They once served me a fritto misto which included two langoustines battered in the shell . How the hell was I supposed to eat that? Peel off the batter, get the langoustine out of the shell, then reunite the two? (I sent it back.) I go to the Rip-Off quite often, naturally, because it’s very trendy, but I still don’t think much of it. Of course, it’s frightfully good for your figure, because the portions are so small.
    Crusty was there before me, drinking prosecco. He’s known in television as a Character and he looks the part, on account of the upright carriage mentioned earlier, a hint of Edwardian side-whisker, and that solid portliness that comes from a lifetime of good lunches, probably followed by port. Only the well-off become portly; the poor just get fat, usually on junk food, but portliness implies high-priced high living (and port). Crusty also has the resulting cerise complexion, set off by his white hair and currently deepened to a sort of beetroot-bronze by the Caribbean sun.
    As soon as we’d ordered I began to explain about Roo. I hadn’t been sure what to say about the Kyle affair, but I had to give him her reasons for dumping Behind the News and, anyway, Crusty is awfully chivalrous, despite decades in television.
    â€˜She wasted years on that show because of Kyle,’ I said. ‘She effectively put her career on hold to work with him, and now he’s married this slapper out of the blue and she’s left high and dry. He should be the one to quit, but of course she did, because she’s so honourable.’
    Honourable is a good word to use with Crusty. It presses all the ex-army buttons.
    â€˜Poor child,’ he said. ‘I seem to remember meeting her at your mother’s place . . . ten, twelve years ago? Quiet little thing, rather pretty. Nice manners.’
    â€˜That’s her.’ Well, she does have nice manners, except for the lapse with the cut crystal, which I totally approved. I don’t like cut crystal either.
    â€˜Trouble is, it’ll be a tough job, dealing with . . . well, a lot of difficult people.’ Surely he didn’t mean me ? ‘People who won’t necessarily get along. A nice girl like her, she mightn’t have the thick skin, the requisite resilience . . .’
    â€˜Roo does tough,’ I insisted. ‘She’s worked on location in war zones, with guerrillas shooting at her.’ More or less. ‘And she’s naturally diplomatic. She’ll be really good with Hot God.’
    â€˜Jennie spoke highly of her,’ the Major conceded. ‘She said your Roo’s one of a kind.’
    â€˜She is,’ I averred, dropping