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Douglas Kennedy: A Special Relationship

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Douglas Kennedy A Special Relationship

A Special Relationship: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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Douglas Kennedy's new novel bears his trademark ability to write serious popular fiction. A true page turner about a woman whose entire life is turned upside down in a very foreign place where they speak her language. 'About an hour after I met Tony Thompson, he changed my life. I know that sounds just a little melodramatic, but it's the truth. Or, at least, as true as anything a journalist will tell you'. Sally Goodchild is a thirty-seven year old American who, after nearly two decades as a highly independent journalist, finds herself pregnant and in London... married to an English foreign correspondent, Tony Thompson, whom she met while they were both on assignment in Cairo. From the outset Sally's relationship with both Tony and London is an uneasy one - especially as she finds her husband and his city to be far more foreign than imagined. But her adjustment problems soon turn to nightmare - as she discovers that everything can be taken down and used against you... especially by a spouse who now considers you an unfit mother and wants to bar you from ever seeing your child again.

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'Let us go with you', I said.

'It's not possible. The Army will only allow three of our team to fly with them' -

'Tell them we're part of the team', Tony said.

'We need to send medical men'.

'Send two', Tony said, 'and let one of us' -

But we were interrupted by the arrival of some Army officer. He tapped Tony on the shoulder.

'You - papers'.

Then he tapped me. 'You too'.

We handed over our respective passports. 'Red Cross papers', he demanded. When Tony started to make up some far-fetched story about leaving them behind, the officer rolled his eyes and said one damning word, 'Journalists'.

Then he turned to his soldiers and said, 'Get them on the next chopper back to Mogadishu'.

We returned to the capital under virtual armed guard. When we landed at another military field on the outskirts of the capital, I fully expected us to be taken into custody and arrested. But instead, one of the soldiers on the plane asked me if I had any American dollars.

'Perhaps', I said - and then, chancing my arm, asked him if he could arrange a ride for us to the Central Hotel for ten bucks.

'You pay twenty, you get your ride'.

He even commandeered a jeep to get us there. En route, Tony and I spoke for the first time since being placed under armed guard.

'Not a lot to write about, is there?' I said.

'I'm sure we'll both manage to squeeze something out of it'.

We found two rooms on the same floor, and agreed to meet after we'd filed our respective copy. Around two hours later - shortly after I'd dispatched by email seven hundred words on the general disarray in the Juba River Valley, the sight of floating bodies in the river, the infra-structural chaos, and the experience of being fired upon in a Red Cross helicopter by rebel forces - there was a knock at my door.

Tony stood outside, holding a bottle of Scotch and two glasses.

'This looks promising', I said. 'Come on in'.

He didn't leave again until seven the next morning - when we checked out to catch the early morning flight back to Cairo. From the moment I saw him in the chopper, I knew that we would inevitably fall into bed with each other, should the opportunity arise. Because that's how this game worked. Foreign correspondents rarely had spouses or 'significant others' - and most people you met in the field were definitely not the sort you wanted to share a bed with for ten minutes, let alone a night.

But when I woke next to Tony, the thought struck me: he's actually living where I live. Which led to what was, for me, a most unusual thought: and I'd actually like to see him again. In fact, I'd like to see him tonight.

Two

I'VE NEVER CONSIDERED myself the sentimental type. On the contrary, I've always recognized in myself a certain cut-and-run attitude when it comes to romance - something my one and only fiancé told me around seven years ago, when I broke it off with him. His name was Richard Pettiford. He was a Boston lawyer - smart, erudite, driven. And I really did like him. The problem was, I also liked my work.

'You're always running away', he said after I told him that I was becoming the Post's correspondent in Tokyo.

'This is a big professional move', I said.

'You said that when you went to Washington'.

'That was just a six month secondment - and I saw you every weekend'.

'But it was still running away'.

'It was a great opportunity. Like going to Tokyo'.

'But I'm a great opportunity'.

'You're right', I said. 'You are. But so am I. So come to Tokyo with me'.

'But I won't make partner if I do that', he said.

'And if I stay, I won't make a very good partner's wife'.

'If you really loved me, you'd stay'.

I laughed. And said, 'Then I guess I don't love you'.

Which pretty much ended our two-year liaison there and then - because when you make an admission like that, there's very little comeback. Though I was truly saddened that we couldn't 'make a go of it' (to borrow an expression that Richard used just a little too often), I also knew that I couldn't play the suburban role he was offering. Anyway, had I accepted such a part, my passport would now only contain a few holiday stamps from Bermuda and other resort spots, rather than the twenty crammed pages of visas I'd managed to obtain over the years. And I certainly wouldn't have ended up sitting on a flight from Addis Ababa to Cairo, getting pleasantly tipsy with a wholly charming, wholly cynical Brit, with whom I'd just spent the night...

'So you've really never been married?' Tony asked me as the seatbelt signs were switched off.

'Don't sound so surprised', I said. 'I don't swoon easily'.

'I'll keep that in mind', he said.

'Foreign correspondents aren't the marrying kind'.

'Really? I hadn't noticed'.

I laughed, then asked, 'And you?'

'You must be joking'.

'Never came close?'

'Everyone's come close once. Just like you'.

'How do you know I've come close?' I said.

'Because everyone's come close once'.

'Didn't you just say that?'

'Touché. And let me guess - you didn't marry the guy because you'd just been offered your first overseas posting...'

'My, my - you are perceptive', I said.

'Hardly' he said. 'It's just how it always works'.

Naturally, he was right. And he was clever enough not to ask me too much about the fellow in question, or any other aspects of my so-called romantic history, or even where I grew up. If anything, the very fact that he didn't press the issue (other than to ascertain that I too had successfully dodged marriage) impressed me. Because it meant that - unlike most other foreign correspondents I had met - he wasn't treating me like some girlie who had been transferred from the Style Section to the front line. Nor did he try to impress me with his big city credentials - and the fact that the Chronicle of London carried more international clout than the Boston Post. If anything, he spoke to me as a professional equal. He wanted to hear about the contacts I'd made in Cairo (as he was new there), and to trade stories about covering Japan. Best of all, he wanted to make me laugh... which he did with tremendous ease. As I was quickly discovering, Tony Hobbs wasn't just a great talker; he was also a terrific storyteller.

We talked nonstop all the way back to Cairo. Truth be told, we hadn't stopped talking since we woke up together that morning. There was an immediate ease between us - not just because we had so much professional terrain in common, but also because we seemed to possess a similar worldview: slightly jaded, fiercely independent, with a passionate undercurrent about the business we were both in. We also both acknowledged that foreign corresponding was a kid's game, in which most practitioners were considered way over the hill by the time they reached fifty.

'Which makes me eight years away from the slag heap', Tony said somewhere over Sudan.

'You're that young?' I said. 'I really thought you were at least ten years older'.

He shot me a cool, amused look. And said, 'You're fast'.

'I try'.

'Oh, you do very well... for a provincial reporter'.

'Two points', I said, nudging him with my elbow.

'Keeping score, are we?'

'Oh, yes'.

I could tell that he was completely comfortable with this sort of banter. He enjoyed repartee - not just for its verbal gamesmanship, but also because it allowed him to retreat from the serious, or anything that might be self-revealing. Every time our in-flight conversation veered toward the personal, he'd quickly switch into badinage mode. This didn't disconcert me. After all, we'd just met and were still sizing each other up. But I still noted this diversionary tactic, and wondered if it would hinder me from getting to know the guy - as, much to my surprise, Tony Hobbs was the first man I'd met in about four years whom I wanted to get to know.

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