Acknowledgments Read Free

Board’s narrow-minded interpretation of the requirements of public safety, so our time together was strictly limited and spent in conditions far from conducive to frank and open conversation. However, it was no small recompense to meet Sienna’s five siblings for the first time, and in particular to discover that young Jonquil is every bit as fun-loving as my wife. Jonquil it was who accompanied me on a nostalgia-filled visit to that very same night-club where Sienna and I met, and it was heart-warming to see that a talent for pole-dancing runs in the family.
    To Ludmilla Arkadin, formerly Woodthorpe, the ex-wife of my agent Dean, I must offer especially profound thanks. Ludmilla generously took time out from her ceaseless fight against deportation from this country (and what happened, may I ask in passing, to our fine tradition of tolerance?) to break important and disturbing news that she judged – quite rightly – I needed to know.
    At first, I was shocked by the suggestion that the easy and laughter-filled friendship between Sienna and Dean that I had so happily encouraged might have blossomed into something more intimate. Ludmilla, to her eternal credit, continued to press the point, refusing to be discouraged by my insistence on putting the phone down and deleting her emails. The photographs she forwarded to me were too grainy to offer, in my opinion, cast-iron proof of infidelity, although something in the way that Sienna bent over Dean in the darkened car park of a motorway service station prompted more than a few fluttering of anxiety on my part.
    My philosophy in life is simply expressed: “Expect the worst and hope for the best”. It seems especially well suited to the life of a professional writer, and on the whole it has served me well, offering comfort even in my darkest days. It was in this spirit that I confronted Dean with what his former spouse had told me, and when he laughed it off as the maunderings of an embittered woman who had married only for convenience and money, I was glad to take him at his word.
    Unfortunately, it was a different story when, in a casual aside, I raised the matter with Sienna. By a miserable coincidence, I had told her only the previous evening that my share of the assets inherited from our parents (Tom has long squandered his on women and booze, of course) had diminished to a point where soon we would both need to seek paid work elsewhere if we were not to join Roger in relying on state hand-outs. Sienna took the news with a stoicism bordering on indifference, not least when I pointed out the wisdom and significance of that famous old phrase “for richer, for poorer”.
    However, when I referred to the absurdity of Ludmilla’s allegation, it was as if a dam had burst, and Sienna subjected me to a tirade that combined confession with calumny. Bad enough to be a cuckold in my own home, but to be sent pottering around the drabbest back-waters of Britain to provide my wife and her lover with endless opportunities to satisfy their lust added insult to injury. The sting of her contempt as a self-appointed literary critic was, by comparison, something I could bear with my customary phlegm. It is not as if I enjoy writing any longer, let alone all the ghastly research. This business turns us all into brain-dead hamsters, forever running on an endless wheel.
    I must express, therefore, my gratitude along with my sincere apologies to the coroner and his officers, as well as such members of the emergency services as are tasked with clearing up the mess that they find. Sienna and Dean are due here at any moment, for what I have perhaps disingenuously characterised as a “heart to heart”.
    I am fully prepared, with two rifles and enough ammunition to destroy a small army, let alone three people. I have no qualms, given that, as Dean says, we’re all in it together.
    The doorbell is ringing.
    Before I go, I must conclude by expressing my utmost