Douglas Kennedy - A Special Relationship

But then, the climate changed. The mercury soared eighty degrees. I'd left mid-January in the Canadian Rockies and was now somewhere in the tropics. Aruba, baby. Forget the frostbite. We're having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave. Like one-hundred-and-ten in the shade, with ninety-six per cent humidity. Suddenly, I was sweating. So drenched in perspiration that I had to strip off all my clothes.

Which is exactly what I did - not noticing that our front curtains were open and someone was getting out of a black cab parked right outside, and the driver was gawking at me, wide-eyed, and I felt like turning full-frontal towards him, and showing off my Caesarean scar. Instead, some intrinsic modesty took over and I made a dash upstairs for the bathroom, and turned on the cold tap full-blast, and jumped under the downpour (thank God, I'd insisted on an American power-shower), and then...

What are you doing?

I turned off the water. I leaned my head against the tiled wall. I felt another stab of panic - because I was so completely adrift and out-of-control. What was scaring me most was the realization that there seemed to be no logical progression to these strange, manic interludes. I had become an emotional pinball, bouncing wildly off every object in my path. In the midst of these mood swings, there would be moments of extreme, painful clarity - like the one I was negotiating right now, where I felt like beating my skull against the wall and repeating over and over again, What are you doing?

To which I could only answer: I really don't know. Because I don't even know how things operate within me anymore.

Oh, listen to yourself. Little Miss Self-Pity. A mild postnatal dip in your equilibrium - something any sensible, balanced person could handle - and you cleave in two. Tony's right to treat you as some sort of silly recalcitrant. Because you're making an idiot of yourself Worse yet, you keep going down this manic road, and questions will start being raised about your sanity. So get a grip, eh? And while you're at it, go make your husband a cup of tea.

I followed the advice of this hyper-censorious internal counsellor - and stepped out of the shower, determined to put everything right. As I dressed and dried my hair, I told myself that, from this moment on, calm lucidity would prevail. I would go to the hospital tomorrow morning and apologize for not showing up today. I would seek out Nurse McGuire, and let her know that I perfectly understood her concerns about my mental well-being yesterday, but would then demonstrate that I was in control by breastfeeding Jack with uncomplaining aplomb. And on the domestic front, I'd soothe all of Tony's concerns by going Stepford-ish for a while, and playacting the perfect wife.

So, not only did I make my husband a cup of tea, but I also arranged a large plateful of his favourite biscuits and found a bottle of Laphroaig (his malt whisky of preference). Then I negotiated the stairs, nearly losing my balance (courtesy of far too many items on the tray) on at least two occasions. When I reached his office door, it was closed. I used my foot to knock.

'Tony' I said.

He didn't answer - even though I could hear low-volume music coming from within.

'Tony, please - I've got your cup of tea...'

The door opened. He looked at the laden tray.

'What's this?'

'Sustenance for your literary endeavours. And an apology'.

'Right', he said with a nod. Then, relieving me of the tray, he said, 'Think I'd better get back to the desk'.

'Going well?'

'I suppose so. Don't wait up'. And he closed the door.

Don't wait up.

Typical. So bloody typical. Pissing on my parade, per usual. And while I'm trying to be so good.

Stop it. Stop it. He's working, after all. And you did have that little 'set-to' (to be bloody English about it) just before, which you can't expect him to get over in ten minutes... even if he did make that shitty comment about...

Enough. Tony's right. You really should just go to bed. The only problem is: having just been asleep for the past twelve hours...

All right, all right. Stay busy. Do something to make the hours pass.

That's how I ended up unpacking just about every box and crate still strewn around the house. The entire process took around six hours and I had to work around what remained of the builders' mess. By the time I was finished, dawn light was just making a tentative appearance - and I had the weary, but satisfied buzz that comes from finishing a major domestic chore that had been naggingly unfinished for months. Walking around the house - now nearing a state of actual liveability - I felt a curious sanguinity. There was finally a sense of space and proportion and (most of all) order.

Order was something I truly craved right now.

I ran a bath. I sat soaking in the tub for nearly an hour. I told myself: You see... a little displacement activity, andthe gods of balance and equilibrium land comfortably on your shoulders. Everything's going to be fine now.

So fine that, after I got dressed, I felt fully energized - even though I hadn't been to bed all night. I peeped in on Tony in his office. He was crashed out on his sofa... but I did notice a stack of new pages on the ever-growing manuscript pile. So I tiptoed over to his desk, made certain his radio alarm was set for nine am, then scribbled a fast note:

Off to the hospital to see our boy. Hope you like the clean-up job on the house. Dinner tonight on me at the restaurant of your choice? I await your reply.

Love you...

I signed my name, hoping that he'd respond favourably to the idea of the sort of pleasant nights out we used to have in Cairo. With Jack due home within days, this would be our last chance to roll out of the house unencumbered.

I went downstairs. I checked my watch. Just after seven am. I opened the front door and noticed that someone on the far side of the road was in the middle of building work, with an empty skip out front for assorted debris. I glanced back at the stack of empty cardboard boxes and now-broken-down packing crates, and thought: this would save a trip to the dump. I also remembered how everyone on the street emptied their attics into our skip during the first stage of our renovations. So I decided that there would be few objections if a few items from my house ended up intermingling with my neighbour's debris.

However, as I was in the process of dumping the second lot of boxes into this large bin, a house door opened and a man in his mid-forties came out. He was dressed in a dark grey suit.

'You know, that is our skip', he said, his voice full of tempered indignation. Immediately I became apologetic.

'Sorry, I just thought that, as it was kind of empty...'

'You really should ask permission before tossing things into other people's skips'.

'But I just thought...'

'Now I'd appreciate it if you'd remove all your rubbish' -

However, he was interrupted by a voice which said, 'Oh for God's sake, will you listen to yourself'.

The gent looked a little startled. Then he became immediately sheepish, as he found himself staring at a woman in her late forties - blonde, big boned, with a heavily lined face (blondes always start to fracture after the rubicon of forty is crossed), but still striking. Equally eye-catching was the very large Labrador she had by her side. She had been walking by us when she heard our exchange. I recognized her immediately: she was the woman who had spoken to me approvingly in the newsagents after I forced Mr Noor to be polite to me. And I could tell from the reaction of the Suit that he was distinctly uneasy in her presence. He avoided her accusatory gaze and said, 'I was simply making a point'.

'And what point was that?'

'I really do think this is between myself and' -

'When I was having my new kitchen put in last year, and there was a skip out front, who filled it up one night with half the contents of his loft?'