Subject:
Visit
Fred
I am coming back to London for a review meeting in the first week in August. I know this is slightly later than I originally suggested, but I had to get a date in the diary of our CEO western hemisphere, and that is never easy. I trust you will be able to accommodate this change in your own plans as I think it is most important we meet. I am concerned that you have allowed my extended absence in Geneva (which I think we agreed at the time was an essential career step for me, and one I think that, in the light of the insecurity of your present position, I was wise to take) to lead you into a state of complacency about our marriage. While I am working every hour in the day every weekday and most weekends in order to provide for our future financial security, you appear to be leading a life progressively more and more disconnected from reality. Of course you tell me very little, but from what I can gather, you have spent the spring fishing in Scotland with your sheikh and his lady friend or sunning yourself in the Yemen with the same lady, while our flat is neglected, and I am neglected too. It is very difficult for me to say it, but I am neglected.
So please be sure to be available when I arrive in London. We need to talk.
Mary
From:
Date:
16 July
To:
Subject:
Re: Visit
Mary,
While you are at the mercy of the Inter Finance CEO western hemisphere and his timetable, my own schedule is now decided by the office of the prime minister. They have decreed I must be in the Yemen on the dates you say you will be in London, and I am afraid there is nothing I can do about that. I have to be there.
I am terribly sorry. I agree we need to meet. I will be back in mid-August, if all goes well, and I suggest either I fly to Geneva or you fly to London one weekend.
Love,
Fred
From:
Date:
16 July
To:
Subject:
Re: Re: Visit
Fred,
I cannot for a moment imagine that the prime minister couldn’t do without you for a day or two in the Yemen. He has a whole government at his beck and call, surely he could do without one fisheries scientist for a couple of days? I can only assume you are deliberately avoiding me.
You can fly to Geneva if you like. I cannot guarantee my availability that far ahead. I have a lot of travel commitments coming up.
Mary
From:
Date:
18 July
To:
Subject:
Yemen trip
Mary,
OK.
I know you don’t believe that the PM wants me in the Yemen but I think this trip and these dates have been in his diary for some weeks now, which was why I was careful to let you know about them. I can’t help it if your boss changes his plans around.
I was trying to be accommodating but if that’s the way it is, that’s the way it is. See you some time-I shall always be glad to see you-but it takes two to arrange a meeting.
Love,
Fred
From:
Date:
18 July
To:
Subject:
Re: Yemen trip
Fred,
Please come back to me.
Mary
31
Now I come to one of the most difficult chapters in a political life that has never been without its challenges. I must speak of events which transcended political life. No Aristotle, no Shakespeare, no writer that I can think of has had to describe events such as I will now write of. I do not aspire to their talents. I am simply a modest journalist who has found himself drawn into the centre of events which have changed this country, perhaps the world, for ever. I must do the best I can, with my limited powers, to help my readers understand what happened.
It all started so well.
The boss was in holiday mood. It had been a bad week in the House of Commons, and when he finally got to the plane he was almost behaving like a small boy who has been let out of school
