My Bonnie: How dementia stole the love of my life. John Suchet

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СКАЧАТЬ given to understand, subtly but to the point, that there were rumblings in London that maybe I was not up to the job. I wasn’t fazed. Hell, I would ride it out. A good strong story or two and they would see what I was made of. But I was about to be found out.

      On 2nd April 1982, Argentine forces invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. From out of nowhere, Britain was on the brink of war. The United States administration took it upon itself to lead diplomatic attempts to prevent conflict, in the shape of Secretary of State Alexander Haig. He undertook a triangular diplomatic shuttle between Washington, London and Buenos Aires. The London end was covered by our political editor, a senior reporter was dispatched to Buenos Aires, and it fell to me to cover the Washington angle. This involved attending regular press conferences at the State Department, as well as off-the-record briefings by the British ambassador, Sir Nicholas Henderson, at the British Embassy.

      At the State Department I was not asking the right questions, and my reports failed to capture the nuances of America’s negotiating tactics. My understanding of the subtleties offered to us at the ambassador’s briefings escaped me. So came the word from the foreign desk in London. One day the phone in the office rang and on the line was David Nicholas. The top man. The boss. ‘Are you properly plumbed in to Capitol Hill?’ he asked. ‘Of course, David,’ I replied. ‘Then tell me which senators you are speaking to. Who is briefing you? Who are you having lunch with?’ ‘Er…’

      Still I was not overly concerned. Can you believe that? It would still come right, I was convinced. My posting was for four years. These were early days.

      Then something happened that was to take my mind thoroughly off work-related matters. I heard from Bonnie that she was coming to the US to visit her family in New Jersey.

      It is a cold wet Easter Saturday afternoon down in France and we have just watched the 1960s film 55 Days At Peking on the television, starring Charlton Heston as the hard-as-nails heroic American major and David Niven as the suave, cool and stiff-upper-lipped British ambassador. In real life, one died of Alzheimer’s, the other of motor neurone disease. Once you get caught up in the dreadful subject of brain disease, you tend to be aware of things like that.

      It is getting dark by the time the film finishes. I say I will pull the curtains in the séjour. Good idea, Bon says, I will help you. Then into the kitchen to empty the dishwasher. A few minutes later she goes into the séjour and opens the curtains. I say nothing, but when the dishwasher is empty I say, gosh, it’s dark and wet, I’ll pull the séjour curtains. Good idea, she says. We do them again together. A few minutes later she goes back into the séjour and opens them.

      I see the funny side and give her a big hug. She doesn’t know why she has deserved this, but she smiles.

      It was all I could think of. I had to see her. I had to. I called her at home in the UK when I knew her husband would be at work. She said of course she would see me—that was why she was coming over! I was shocked. Final proof. It wouldn’t be easy, and it couldn’t be for long, she said, but somehow she would make it happen.

      On a day in the summer of 1982, I met her for lunch in Washington. We threw ourselves at each other, kissed, embraced, hugged. It was slightly early, so we were able to find a quiet table in the corner of a small Italian restaurant. We sat and started talking, and talked and talked and talked. The maître d’ came to take our order again, again and again, raising his shoulders in Italian exasperation. Still we talked. Prego, signor e signore? We muttered something to him. We barely ate. So many plans, so many possibilities, all completely hopeless. I kept my hand on hers, just wanted to touch her, not let her go. In between the torrent of whispered words, a bite or two of food. Dolci, signor e signore? A shake of the head, and still the words flowed. I looked her in the eye, stroked her cheek.

      She told me more about her life at home. Her husband was not entirely the attentive soul he appeared to be. She didn’t have a lot to complain about except that his life revolved around work and he didn’t share it with her, leaving her to raise their sons and clean the house. She felt neglected, lonely. ‘That night you kissed me,’ she said, ‘I knew my marriage was over.’ Stunned? I was struck dumb. But how to be together, Bonnie and me? That was the question we asked again and again, but could not answer. On and on we talked, trying to work out if there was a way we could have a future together.

      Finally we were brought sharply back to planet earth. The Italian boss, standing facing us, shoulders raised, arms outstretched, palms toward us, behind him an empty restaurant. ‘Eh,’ he said, ‘this is a-love, not a-mine-strone.’ We both dissolved in laughter.

      I had an office to go back to, Bon had a train to catch. We said goodbye rather perfunctorily outside the restaurant. ‘I must see you again,’ I said. She nodded. A flash of light in my head. ‘New York,’ I said. ‘Can you come to New York? I can invent a story in New York. There’s always something happening up there. Could you come over again?’ She looked worried. ‘I don’t know. I’ll need to think of how. I’ll let you know.’ And she was gone.

      What was I doing? Back in our rented house, the atmosphere was worsening. There had been a change in my attitude, brought about by several factors. We were away from the family house in Henley, the house where the boys had grown up, and I had no emotional ties to the house we were now in. The reunion with my parents had underlined for me how wrong I had been to allow the rift to happen—and how wrong Moya had been to ask me to cut all contact with them in the first place. There had been ‘The Kiss’, and now Bonnie—woman of my dreams for so long—was telling me candidly she wanted to be with me every day, night and day. I was emboldened, empowered.

      A few months after that lunch with Bonnie in Washington, I saw a story in the US press that British holidaymakers were coming over to New York on shopping trips because of the strength of sterling and also the relative cheapness of American goods. Perfect story, I thought. I sent a telex to the foreign desk in London proposing a major report, a potential lead to part two of News at Ten, filming Brits shopping on Fifth Avenue—cameras, CD players, even clothes in the big stores like Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue. It would, I wrote, mean a full day’s filming with a two-night stay in New York.

      The reply wasn’t good. The foreign editor felt the story wasn’t strong enough to merit such a trip. If there were two or three other stories to mop up at the same time, maybe. But on its own, no. If I was keen to do it, though, why not a swift day trip to New York—surely all the filming necessary could be accomplished in two to three hours?

      This was, of course, journalistically absolutely the right response. It just happened to be not the response I wanted. But why should I allow that to deter me? I was more concerned with affairs of the heart, of considerably greater importance than any journalistic consideration. I looked at the diary. I ringed three days the following week. I phoned Bon in Henley and gave her the dates. I implored her to fly over. Invent something, I said, anything, only just be in New York for these dates. She sounded flustered. She had her boys to think of, then aged 14 and 11. She would have to think of something to tell her husband. I pushed her. What better chance would we ever have? She told me she would do all she could, but it would be difficult.

      On the appointed date, I flew to New York. I was, quite simply, committing slow but certain professional suicide.

      Humour. That’s the thing. Usual difficulty getting Bon to take her clothes off to shower after breakfast. ‘Why must I? Why have I got to do this?’ I said ‘It’s a small price to pay for being beautiful.’ A beatific smile spread over her face and she co-operated fully.

      She had made it possible. I gave her the name of the hotel—the Harley on East 42nd Street—and told her I would be there from 6pm. She told me she would try to get there as soon after that as possible.

      It СКАЧАТЬ