My Secret Lover

were you on September 11th?’ I
ask Joanna, halfway down the bottle.
    ‘Work. It came up on the screen.
Where were you?’
    ‘In the car. You know how it is? BBC
Radio 4. There has been a terrorist attack on New York... you’re like, yes, and
I wonder what the sell-by date is on that Ocean Pie I seem to remember at the
back of the fridge. Then it’s like, terrorist attack? I stopped the car. Man in
the car behind only just missed me. He’s shouting at me as he overtakes, and I’m
like, “Don’t you know there’s been a terrorist attack on New York?” When I
turned on the television, I was so frightened. I think it was the people
jumping out of the window. Do you think you would have jumped or stayed?’
    ‘Jumped,’ says Joanna.
    I have a sudden image of her jumping
off the top diving board at the open-air swimming pool in the days before the
boy from Wealdstone fractured his skull and they put a rope across with a No
Entry sign. I only ever got as far as standing on the edge and losing my nerve.
But I was four years younger.
    ‘Do you remember having cocktails in
the Windows on the World?’ I ask her.
    ‘Don’t,’ says Joanna.
    She pours more champagne. It feels
really decadent to be drinking champagne and talking about September 11th at
the same time.
    ‘Apparently everyone in New York had sex,’ she says.
    ‘I can understand that,’ I say. ‘I
didn’t think about sex but I did think about giving it all up and going on
holiday. But, if I’d gone on holiday, where would I be now? Broke, and without
a job. Six months down the line and everything’s the same.’
    ‘Except it’s not somehow, is it?’
says Joanna.
    ‘No. Everything changed. But I’m not
sure how.’
    Joanna opens another bottle.
    ‘I took a black cab to the boys’
school and brought them home,’ she says. ‘I sat here holding them, thinking, if
we survive this, I’ll take them to the villa in Tuscany and we’ll just live.
We’ve got enough money to last for as long as we like, if we’re careful. We’ll
be safe there. I’ll grow vegetables and make bread.’
    I like the image of Joanna huddled up
on her sofa imagining a better life. I didn’t realize she ever had doubts. I
lean over and give her a big hug.
    ‘So when are you off?’ I ask.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Tuscany?’
    ‘August, as usual. Not to live,
obviously. Once the boys got fed up with seeing the planes crash into the
towers, they were furious for making them miss after-school football, and the
actual business of looking after them drives me crazy. After a very short time,
I find I’m just saying yes and no randomly and not even listening. Vlad pointed
out that I’d never even managed to keep a pot of basil alive without the
services of a container gardener.’
    We’re chatting just like we used to
in our bedroom when Joanna came home from Oxford in the holidays and told me
about losing her virginity or becoming President of the Union.
    ‘I had a terrible thought when I saw
the first tower collapse,’ I confess.
    ‘What?’
    ‘You won’t tell?’
    ‘I won’t tell.’
    ‘I thought, I wonder if this means I
still have to get married? Do you think I’m an appallingly shallow person?’
    Joanna just looks at me.
    ‘Maybe everyone had one really awful
selfish thought,’ she says.
    I hate my sister.
    ‘Did you?’ I suddenly ask.
    She nods.
    ‘Come on!’
    ‘I thought, I wonder if this means I
can start smoking again?’
    ‘I think that’s worse than mine.’
    ‘Not as bad as Vlad’s, though,’ says
Joanna, waspishly.
    ‘Tell me!’
    ‘What he actually said was, “The
house in the Hamptons has just doubled in value.” ’
    ‘That’s obscene,’ I say, feeling
suddenly much better.
     
    Joanna absently strokes the glossy lake
landscape on the front of Beautiful British Columbia.
    ‘Your neighbour brought it round,’ I
tell her, nodding my head in the direction of next door.
    ‘He’s very keen to get to know you
better,’ says Joanna.
    ‘He’s Canadian,’ I say.
    ‘You can’t take against a whole
nation because of one guy,’ says Joanna.
     
    When I think about BerNARD, which I
don’t often, these days, I think of staying up talking all night. And doing all
that how-many-children-will-we-have stuff. And being so in love that when he
talked about having a dog and a cabin up in Whistler, I pictured us all running
through a meadow together, rather like the family in We’re Going on a Bear
Hunt, with the dog actually jumping