The Three of U.S.: A New Life in New York. Peter Godwin

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СКАЧАТЬ fall back on the thought that, rather like a beautiful Italian peasant girl who, having snared a husband, rapidly inflates into a moustachioed pasta pudding, I am perhaps relaxing into middle age, propelled by fatherhood.

      Later I am consoled somewhat by a news item on the Rolling Stone, Keith Richards, the bad boy of rock ‘n’ roll. It is reported that he has broken several ribs. This injury has not been inflicted in some night club brawl, however, or while trashing a hotel room. He has, in fact, sustained it in a nasty fall from the ladder in his library while trying to retrieve a volume from the top shelf. I wonder what the book was: Proust? Dickens? Or perhaps a leather-bound edition of the New Musical Express?

      Eventually, it seems, a Rolling Stone does gather moss.

      Thursday, 21 May Joanna

      My office is on the sixteenth floor and offers a Hopperesque view across the street and into the offices opposite, where I watch the other hunch-spined workers twisted over their terminals. I like being up high, but I worry about the bank of elevators, which, I have learned, sometimes stop unaccountably between floors.

      The first time this happened was between the eighth and ninth floors and I was alone and felt reluctant to press the red alarm in case it triggered a general evacuation and froze the lift altogether.

      After waiting about two minutes, I tentatively pressed the button. It gave an unimpressive little buzz.

      ‘Hello,’ said a bored voice through the intercom.

      ‘I seem to be stuck,’ I said, trying not to sound panicky.

      ‘Yeah,’ said the voice, pausing. ‘You are.’

      ‘Well, can you get it going again?’

      ‘Yeah, the functions need resetting.’

      ‘Well, can you sort it out?’

      ‘Yeah, yeah. Don’t panic’

      ‘I’m not panicking, I just want to get out.’

      ‘OK, OK.’

      Nothing happened so, assuming it might take some minutes, I started on a muffin and opened the New York Post. I was reading the Page Six gossip column, which is usually in fact on page eight, when my eye slipped to a headline on the opposite page: ‘WOMAN NARROWLY MISSES DROWNING IN ELEVATOR’.

      I read on to discover that a woman and her Jack Russell terrier had been trapped in a lift after traipsing down to the basement to do her laundry. Unbeknown to her, workmen in the street outside had accidentally cracked a water main, which started flooding the basement and cutting the power. Eventually the water started creeping into the lift, where she was frantically pressing the alarm button. As the water kept rising she kept screaming, until her husband, worried at her delay, went down to investigate and finally heard her. By now the water was up to her neck. In order to save her dog’s life, as the water rose, she had lifted him onto her head, where he had sat barking madly throughout their ordeal.

      I pressed the button again.

      ‘Yeah?’

      ‘What’s going on?’

      ‘I told ya, I’m resetting the functions.’

      ‘But how long is it going to take?’

      ‘Another couple of minutes. I told ya, stop panicking, OK?’

      Two minutes later the car duly jerked back into life and I ascended to my floor, where there was an exasperated voicemail from the foreign editor wanting to know where I was.

      Thursday, 21 May Peter

      I have no inclination to read The Expectant Father, but am somehow drawn to it, almost titillated by the horror of what lies ahead. It warns me that Joanna may now exhibit violent mood swings as her hormones fizz with new life. My real worry is not the mood swings themselves, but her use of pregnancy as an all-purpose excuse for bad behaviour. She is already a skilful practitioner of premenstrual tension. By spicing it with the odd display of coquettishness and an occasional glancing apology, she can shroud bad behaviour for up to three weeks out of every four.

      Now Joanna has nine months’ access to the one excuse that tops PMT. I am filled with apprehension that she will seize upon her condition to behave as disruptively as she pleases. And though I’m determined to be stoical and tolerant, I suspect that this restraint on my part will only provoke her further.

      Swallowing my panic at the turn of events, I grab my kit and head for the gym. I will exercise my way out of this anxiety. The lift doors part to reveal a neighbour who is an actor and his dog, a grinning Labrador with a red polka-dotted bandanna round its neck. The dog thumps its tail on the floor and, unsolicited, puts its paw up to be shaken. His owner and I exchange small talk. ‘I’m up to my neck in Rosie’s taxes,’ he complains, patting the dog. ‘I calculate that she’s earned more appearing in commercials this tax year than I have. And there’s only so many vet’s bills and dog food that I can write off.’

      At the Printing House gym, I gaze out over the West Village, while I pedal wildly, going nowhere on the stationary bike, and it occurs to me that I will have to earn more money if we are going to have a child. Hell, even our neighbour’s dog earns more than I do.

      Friday, 22 May Joanna

      I am running late to meet Meredith, a friend and investigative magazine reporter, in the Royalton bar. Despite the fact that according to all the pregnancy books, I should now be walking briskly twenty-five minutes a day, I can’t face ten sweaty blocks of midtown crowds, so I hail a cab, which takes me twice as long.

      ‘Darling, you’re late,’ she cries triumphantly as I finally spot her in the gloom squatting on a purple velvet pouffe. She pushes a clear cone of martini at me complete with bobbing khaki olive. It looks exquisite, a fringe of icy condensation slipping down the outside. I can’t resist and take a small sip before declaring somewhat unconvincingly that I shouldn’t really because I’m off alcohol at the moment. I haven’t told her I’m pregnant.

      ‘You, off alcohol? Don’t be ridiculous,’ Meredith scoffs and, grabbing a passing waiter, promptly orders two more martinis. ‘With some of those outrageously expensive chips,’ she yells after him, ‘and we’ll take a plate of aubergine caviar.’

      I take another sip, planning to swap glasses when she goes to the loo, which she does a lot, not always, I suspect, for the actual purpose a bathroom is intended.

      ‘So, have you heard about Kelly?’ she says, leaning forward flashing her eyes in a way which signifies she has gossip. ‘She’s on Ritalin and she’s had a complete personality change!’

      ‘What?’ I demand, wondering crossly why Kelly hasn’t told me this herself.

      ‘Ritalin, you know that drug they give to kids with ADD – attention deficit disorder.’

      ‘But why? What for?’ I ask, doubly cross that a close friend hasn’t told me she’s suffering from New York’s most fashionable disorder.

      ‘Says СКАЧАТЬ