Free A Special Relationship by Douglas Kennedy

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 new-found 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