Soon after we were finally together, I put these facts to her, in a desperate attempt to try to understand her folly. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I am utterly different to you, in origin, in looks, probably in everything.’ ‘So?’ she countered. I wasn’t going to be put off. ‘All right, I’m not a blonde, blue-eyed Adonis, you can’t argue against that.’ ‘No, I can’t,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want a blonde blue-eyed Adonis.’ ‘Right,’ I replied, gearing myself up for what I knew would be the knockout punch, ‘I am not six-foot two. OK? However you look at it, I am not bloody six-foot two. Not even on a good day.’ ‘So?’ she said, moving towards me. ‘Look,’ and she nestled her head neatly between my upper chest and my neck. ‘We are a perfect fit.’ ‘Darling, would you like some more tomatoes?’
‘I like tomatoes, all right? I like them. But I can’t eat them now while I’m having this lunch.’
‘Fine, darling.’
I couldn’t have known just how perfect the fit would be, in everything, absolutely everything, physical, mental and emotional. But before I relate how we began to discover that, I need to fill you in on the developments in my glittering career. For once, just once, it really was beginning to glitter.
I had joined ITN in the summer of 1972 in the same lowly capacity as at the BBC, only this time I managed to get the weather forecast and football results mostly right. I was soon promoted from junior scriptwriter to chief sub-editor, but my heart lay in reporting. More than anything else I wanted to be a reporter, to travel the world reporting for News at Ten, to be a ‘fireman’, to use the journalistic term—to go into work in the morning not knowing where in the world I would be that evening. After three years ITN announced it had a vacancy for a reporter, and would accept external as well as internal applications. I was pretty sure I stood no chance, but I also knew if I didn’t put in for it, I could kiss my ambitions goodbye. I applied. I did a camera test. I read yesterday’s news bulletin. I got the job.
When I left ITN 30 or so years later, my colleagues made a leaving video for me. They unearthed that camera test. A very young me, long hair halfway down to my shoulders, sideburns almost down to my chin, tinted glasses that went automatically darker under the studio lights, wide lapels. Very 1970s, very self-conscious, very gauche. No wonder it was years before Bonnie deigned to afford me a second glance.
The reporting went well, because I loved doing it. Do a job you love, and it’s hard to mess it up. ‘Suchet delivers,’ said the senior foreign desk editor. I did indeed travel the world. I covered the Iran revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I was sent on an impossible mission to the teeming city of Algiers to find an Arab terrorist wanted for masterminding the Munich Olympics massacre: I found him and got an exclusive interview. One boring Sunday afternoon I sat at the reporters’ desk, twiddling my thumbs; three hours later I was on a chartered executive jet, flying to Spain to cover a hostage crisis. I attended the last Rhodesian Independence Ball before the country became Zimbabwe. In the late 1970s I came to know Belfast and Derry nearly as well as I knew London. My passport and contact lens solution were always in my briefcase.
Then the plum came up, the most important and prestigious position open to an ITN reporter: US correspondent, based in Washington; ITN’s only overseas posting. Back in 1973, as a junior scriptwriter, I had been sent to Washington to act as runner for the then US correspondent, as President Nixon became engulfed in the Watergate scandal. It was my first trip to the United States, and from the day I entered the ITN office, I coveted the job of US correspondent. It was not only an unrealistic ambition, it was an impossible one. No mere scriptwriter had ever become a reporter at ITN, let alone US correspondent. Well, I had achieved the first part of that impossible dream, and now the ultimate prize was open.
I applied for it, and got it. The then editor of ITN, David Nicholas, wrote me a letter telling me the job was mine, and expressing his assurance that I would bring the same distinction to it that I had shown as a general news reporter.
Of course I would. I had wanted this job for the best part of a decade. I had achieved the impossible. Now I would really show what I was capable of. Well, I certainly did that. I proceeded to make such a hash of it that it almost brought my career to a total halt. Doesn’t that have a rather familiar ring to it?
Yes, yours truly, ace reporter and superstar John Suchet, was about to prove, once again, how when offered his dream on a plate, he repaid his employers’ faith in him by messing it up. Big time. I had brought my career at Reuters to a halt with the decision to resign rather than take the job as bureau chief in Brazzaville. It was at Moya’s urging, but ultimately it was my decision. After that I almost got myself sacked by the BBC because my work was sloppy and careless, my attitude arrogant. But I came to my senses in time and just as the BBC was applauding my newfound commitment, I cut my losses and moved to ITN. Two damned close-run things had concentrated my mind, and when I began my career at ITN I was utterly determined not to fail. A third disaster would surely mean curtains for this fledgling journalistic career.
I developed a sort of mantra. In my early years at ITN, I would walk through tube stations on my way to work repeating in my head At ITN I have so far, at ITN I have so far, at ITN I have so far…It was a way of saying to myself that although things were going well so far, I shouldn’t be arrogant because it could all go wrong tomorrow. I remember consciously deciding not to say anything as foolish as At ITN I will, or At ITN I have…That would be tempting fate.
Now, nine years or so into my career at ITN, it really did look as though I had so far. Ah yes, so much success, from junior writer to senior writer, to reporter, to correspondent. I truly didn’t stop to give those insignificant little words so far another thought. But things were soon to become very bad indeed.
In the early months of 1981, I prepared myself and my family for the move to the US, scheduled for July. My three boys were aged 10, seven and five. Moya and I needed to sort out schooling, rent our house out, arrange shipment, and so on. It would be a mammoth task. But hey, in 1979 I had earned plaudits for my coverage of the Iran Revolution (had I not flown from Paris to Tehran with Ayatollah Khomeini?), then I had returned to a greatly changed Tehran to report on the American hostage crisis, as the new Islamic Republic of Iran under the Ayatollah flexed its muscle. At the beginning of 1980, it was off to Afghanistan to cover the Soviet invasion. I went into Afghanistan no fewer than five times, the last three with the Mujahedin, dressed as one of them. Once, my camera crew and I found ourselves in front of what we thought was a Soviet firing squad, up against a wall after being captured at gunpoint by Russian soldiers. Good old Boys’ Own adventures. Just what I had always dreamed of doing. Plaudit followed plaudit. My career was on track, and the track was golden.
Imagine my state of mind in 1981. I had landed the plum job at ITN, against all expectations. There could not have been a more exciting time to take up the Washington posting, with a new President in the White House. It was mine, all mine. On the personal level, I was leaving behind that beautiful and gorgeous woman I had been secretly in love with for almost a decade, and whom I had kissed in one unforgettable moment in the pouring rain. But she had given me hope by saying she would try to get over to the US to visit her family, and if she did maybe we could see each other.
We’re down in France. Bon loves it here so much. She gets gently confused, though. This morning when I brought tea up to bed, she had already dressed. I have learned not to snap now. So I quietly said, Take your clothes off and get back into bed, then after tea you can shower. She said yes, I didn’t need to get dressed.
She went into the bathroom and I listened at the door. She was whispering to herself, ‘Right, clothes off and then I shower. OK. Right, take my clothes off first…now shower.’ It was quite a relief when I heard the water come