23 July

Mary came back from Geneva this afternoon. She’s in the spare room asleep. Home for two hours, and we had a row.

First of all, when I tried to tell her about Sheikh Muhammad and his wonderful vision of salmon running the waters of the Yemeni wadis, she dismissed it by saying, ‘The old boy must be insane. Are you sure you want to be associated with something quite as bonkers as that?’

‘But you told me to,’ I said.

‘I told you not to throw over your job in a tantrum; I didn’t tell you to attach your name to something that sounds like professional suicide. Still, I expect you know your own business best.’

‘I hope I do,’ I said stiffly.

There was a long silence and then she said she was sorry, it had been a long day.

Mary often says it has been a long day. She seems to think she is the only one who gets stuck late in the office, who has to sit through tedious meetings resisting the urge to drum one’s fingers or doodle all over the agenda. We all get tired. I had a bubble of excitement inside me, a picture captured within that bubble of the sheikh in his white robes speaking of visions of shining salmon rivers in his quiet voice, of the black waters of his own river in the Highlands, of the sea trout that lurked there. I wanted to talk about the private jet that flew us there, of the grave and immaculate butler Malcolm, of the bubbles in the champagne. Somewhere in this picture, seen through the wrong end of a telescope, was Harriet, beautiful in her evening gown, head on one side, leaning forward to listen to the sheikh saying something. I wanted to share all this with Mary. I wanted to share my scientific excitement with her, the thought that with Sheikh Muhammad’s money I could do something different, something that had never been done before; change the rules of the game.

But she wasn’t interested, and the picture in the bubble darkened and went out, and I buried it deep within me. It’s the first time I haven’t shared something important with her. She just didn’t want to know.

Later over supper I found out what was on her mind.

‘They want me to move to Geneva,’ she said. She didn’t look at me when she spoke, but concentrated on getting her pasta round her fork.

‘Move?’ I asked, putting my own fork down.

‘Move, yes, as in relocate.’

‘Why?’

‘Because the man who went absent on sick leave won’t be coming back.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he’s dead.’

I considered this; it seemed conclusive. So I asked, ‘For how long?’

‘I don’t know. At least for six months.’

‘Well, obviously that is impossible,’ I said, and then wished I hadn’t.

‘Why is it impossible?’ asked Mary quietly, fixing me with a level stare and sitting upright.

‘Well, I mean, how can you? We’ve got a life here. My work is here. Our home is here.’

Mary was silent and ate some more pasta. Finally she said, ‘I’ve sort of told them I’ll do it.’

Well of course, after that I spoke my mind, and then Mary spoke hers. Now she is asleep in the spare room and I am sitting here writing my diary, and in a minute I will put down my pen and lie on our bed with my eyes open, grinding my teeth.

28 July

Today, like the last few days, has been spent mostly in meetings with Fitzharris & Price, either with me going to Harriet’s offices or she visiting NCFE. There were cost estimates to prepare, project plans to be drawn up, equipment suppliers to be located. At first we held our meetings in Smith Square, but David Sugden had a way of suddenly appearing in my office and asking to look at what we were doing. This took up a great deal of time, especially as he liked to explain to us how to do things which we had almost always already done.

He has a way of looking at Harriet that I do not quite like. This evening he said to me, after she had gone back to her own offices, ‘Bright girl, that, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, she seems very able.’

‘I suppose she’s a chartered surveyor by profession. She must find all this is taking her a bit out of her depth?’

I don’t know why I resented his remark. Perhaps it was the tone, not the words. ‘I think she is coping. She has a well-ordered mind.’

‘Attractive girl, too,’ he suggested.

When I did not reply he rubbed his hands together for a moment, looking at the lino floor of the corridor where he had stopped me on my way from the meeting room to my office. Then he asked if Harriet was married. As a matter of fact, I knew the answer to that one and told David that she was engaged. He said nothing further and returned to his office.

The reason I know Harriet is engaged is that she took me out to lunch today. We had spent the morning looking at spreadsheets and both of us needed a break, so when she suggested lunch (a meal I do not normally indulge in) for once I was quite ready to accept.

We found a Middle Eastern restaurant nearby, which seemed an appropriate choice. I ordered a salad and some water. Harriet ordered a salad and a glass of white wine. When it came she held the glass up and looked over it at me and said, ‘A toast-to the project.’

I raised my glass, but she wouldn’t allow me to drink a toast with mineral water, so wine was ordered, despite my telling her I never drank in the day, and then we raised our glasses and both said, rather solemnly, ‘To the project.’

Our eyes met as we sipped our wine together, and I looked away, embarrassed without knowing why. Harriet was undisturbed, and put her glass down and asked me if I was married. When I told her I was, she asked, ‘What does your wife do?’

‘Mary? She’s in finance with a big international bank.’

‘A career woman like me,’ said Harriet, smiling.

But Mary wasn’t like Harriet; she would never have ordered a glass of white wine at lunch, much less persuaded me to have one.

‘Alcohol is all very well in its place,’ Mary used to say, ‘and as far as I am concerned, during weekdays its place is in a bottle and nowhere else.’ And Mary didn’t dress like Harriet or, frankly, smell like Harriet. Mary didn’t believe in smart feminine clothes or perfume. Mary wore baggy brown linen work suits at home and grey ones at the office. She smelled clean, of rather antiseptic soap. She was always neat and tidy…To my dismay I found I was comparing the two women and the comparison was unfavourable to Mary. What was so wrong with wearing an elegant calf-length dress, rather than a suit that looked as if it had been designed by a junior member of the Chinese communist party? What was wrong with smelling faintly of peaches ripening in a greenhouse, instead of something that recalled a mild industrial disinfectant?

We talked for a moment about Mary, and her endless travelling.

The salad arrived, and I concentrated for a moment on chasing an olive around my plate with my fork. Then I decided it was my turn to keep the conversation going and asked Harriet if she was married.

‘No, but I will be next spring.’

‘Oh, have you just become engaged?’

‘It hasn’t been in the papers yet, but it will be as soon as Robert comes back.’

‘Comes back from where?’

Harriet put her knife and fork down on her plate and looked down for a moment, then said quietly, ‘From Iraq.’

‘What’s he doing out there?’ I said, watching her. Her smiling, easy look had gone and now her lips were compressed and she had turned pale. I suddenly realised she was on the verge of tears. In a panic I tried to make a joke: ‘Well, perhaps we can get a contract to introduce salmon into the Euphrates, and then you can join him out there?’