It was a good question, and I had to make the answer sound convincing.

I smiled.

"One, of course."

"All rightttt!" A big, conspiratorial grin lit up his face. We both sat down, him on a chair, me on the settee.

"Next important question, how is Kelly? She get to her grandparents OK?".

"She's fine. Yes, everything went OK. I spoke to her today; she's missing you and the crew. I think you'll be getting a thank-you card from her soon."

The small talk was already killing me. Normally I would chat happily about that sort of s.h.i.t; it was what our relationship was all about. But at the moment all I could think about was the fact that I was about to f.u.c.k him over big time even though I knew it was the right thing.

The door opened and Sarah came in. Josh stood up.

"Anyone for a brew?"

I laughed. To Americans, a brew means a beer; I'd once been with Josh and had said, "Do you fancy a brew?" He'd looked at me as if I should be certified. One, we were driving; two, we were looking after kids, and three, it was nine o'clock in the morning. It had been a bit of a standing joke ever since.

Sarah was out of this one. She sort of smiled to look as though she got it, but she probably wasn't used to being offered a brew at emba.s.sy c.o.c.ktail parties, and it certainly wasn't going to be a big thing in her social circle.

He turned to Sarah.

"Coffee good for you?"

"Thank you."

He turned and walked toward the door, talking as he went.

"The kids will be back from singing practice soon and all h.e.l.l will break loose. It'll be so cool for them to find you here."

We listened to him pottering around in the kitchen. Sarah went and sat on one of the chairs only a short distance from me, but significant in the circ.u.mstances. I said, "Sarah, we're sharing a room tonight."

She got it immediately, stood up and came and sat next to me.

"What now?"

It was pointless bulls.h.i.tting her.

"I don't know, switch on and take my lead. It's far too early yet."

She looked anxiously at the carpet.

"I'm worried, Nick. This has got to work."

"Trust me. Look over there," I nodded toward the books to the right of the fireplace.

"Second shelf down." What had caught my eye was Designing Camelot the Kennedy White House Restoration. I looked at her through her gla.s.ses.

"That's got to be a good omen." I hoped I sounded more confident than I felt.

She saw it, and her expression gained a new determination. Josh came back with the coffee pot, mugs and biscuits as she was pulling it from the shelf. He started to pour.

"Flat white?" he asked. We nodded.

He saw Sarah flicking the pages, admiring the pictures of the White House interior.

She looked up and caught his eye.

"Now there's a cla.s.sy lady." She turned the book around so we could see the picture of Jackie 0.

"Yes, ma'am, she certainly turned this town upside down. That's her in the State Dining Room. She was our Princess Diana, I guess you could say. Geri loved her. I bought her that book for her birthday, just before she left."

He started to open the packet of biscuits.

"I have to hide these from the kids, otherwise there'd be none left.

"You know what?" he said through a mouthful of biscuit, "I didn't realize all the things you have to do when you're looking after kids singlehanded.

I've had to learn so much."

Sarah looked surprised.

Josh looked over at me, quite happily, "You didn't explain?"

"I thought I'd leave it to you," I said, trying to turn it into a joke.

"Yeah, leave it to you, then I'd tell her the truth later on."

He looked at Sarah.

"Geri had gotten more and more involved in local projects and cla.s.ses, that sorta thing, so that she could"--he pulled a face to underline the words--"better herself." He pa.s.sed a mug of coffee to her.

"One of them was yoga. You know, I guess I was too busy working and stuff to see what was going on. I just didn't notice the cla.s.ses were lasting longer as the months pa.s.sed."

I smiled in sympathy as he pa.s.sed me my mug, and we had eye-to-eye.

"In fact, she got to like the cla.s.ses so much she never really wanted to come home." I could see him looking at Sarah for her reaction. He'd managed to make it sound like a joke, but I knew that deep down he was devastated.

I felt guilty as h.e.l.l as I listened to Sarah doing a number on him, but I knew it was the only way.

Nodding toward the pictures above the gas log fire, Sarah continued to reel him in.

"What about the children? They're such beautiful kids; whatever got into her to make her leave them?"

He picked up his coffee and sat back.

"The yoga teacher, that's what got into her." He tried a laugh, but it was starting to really hurt him now.

Sarah took a second or two to get that one, but I could see from her eyes that she'd picked up on Josh's sadness.

"She calls once a week," Josh said.

"The kids miss her real bad."

"How long has it been?" she asked quietly.

"Must be about nine months or so." He looked over at me. I nodded; the timing was about right. Not that he didn't know; I bet he'd counted every single day. He took a sip from his mug, deep in thought.

We all sat in silence for a while, until Sarah asked a couple of polite, ice-breaking questions about the children, and Josh told her what she already knew. She was good; they were bonding. He was almost enjoying having a woman listen to the story and appear to understand his point of view.

There came a sound of crashing and slamming, and shouting in heavily accented English. Maria was back with the kids and telling them to slow down. She put her head through the door.

"Hold!"

A second or two later, the kids came surging past her to see their dad.

At that moment they spotted me.

"Nick! Nick! Is Kelly here?"

Then they stopped and got embarra.s.sed because they saw somebody they didn't know.

"Hiya," I beamed.

"No, Kelly's at school. Did you enjoy your time in London?"

"Yeah, it was cool. It's a shame Kelly can't be here, though." They were all excited. They went over to their dad, kissing and cuddling him until he was buried.

"You guys, this is Sarah, Nick's friend. Say h.e.l.lo to Sarah."

All together they shouted, "h.e.l.lo, Sarah."

"h.e.l.lo, everybody, very nice to meet you." She shook each of them by the hand.

Formalities over, it all changed. It was straight into, Dad, can I do this?

Dad, can I do that?

"Dad, it's really cool! There are kids from everywhere, even New Mexico. Some of them are going swimming. Can we go swimming?"

Josh said, "Yes, yes, yes but later. Maria'll arrange it. Go and have something to eat. Go, go, go."

The kids went out in a whirlwind and headed for the kitchen. I heard the radio go on, tuned in to a Latin music station. We heard them all squabbling, and Maria making the most noise of all, telling them to keep the noise down.

I carried on looking for a time when I could hit him with my pitch. The kids went out, came back, eventually went to bed, and Maria went home.

By then we'd seen the new garden shed, we'd talked about Christmas, Easter, even about Thanksgiving and the different ways Americans and Brits stuff their turkeys. I still preferred Paxo to peanuts. Josh told Sarah about tomorrow's events and what the kids were going to be doing. He couldn't disguise his pride that his kids were part of it all. He was going to be watching it with some of the ERT (Emergency Response Team) people, whose kids were also involved.

Sarah was perfect all the time; maybe it wasn't even put on, because something told me she genuinely liked Josh. I was glad, as these were the only two adults I had any feeling for. I wanted them to like each other. It mattered to me. f.u.c.k the job in hand; I knew it had to be done, and soon, but we seemed to be moving into something more important between us. I hoped so. Once the job was finished, I needed Josh to appreciate our reasons for keeping him in the dark.

Before we knew it we'd had pizza, nachos, a couple of bottles of wine, and it was nearly ten o'clock. We seemed set to spin s.h.i.t all night, but I knew I had to wait for the right moment. I listened to the other two as they put the world to rights.

I heard Josh saying, "Have you met Kelly yet?"

Sarah was just sitting back drinking wine next to me.

"Kelly? No, I haven't, not yet. You know Nick, he keeps his cards very close to his chest." She gave me one of those strange looks couples give each other when they're talking about one thing, but thinking about something else.

"I have spoken to her, though." She was keeping the lies close to the truth.

It was always the best way.

Josh said, "She's a really good kid, you'll like her a lot. Maybe ifGeri was here Kelly would have come to live with us and the kids. It's been really hard for her."

Sarah looked at me to carry on the story. I began to think she was liking this, finding out about me.

"Yeah, but me and her, it's all right," I mumbled.

Sarah reached out and grasped my hand.

Josh broke the silence.

"Ah .. . you sure you two don't want to be alone?"

We all started laughing. I looked at Josh and remembered that I had a job to do, and now was the time to do it.

"Mate, I've just had a brilliant idea. Well, good for us, but maybe hard for you to sort out."

He sat back and took a sip of wine.

"Yesss ... and what could that be?"

He suddenly sounded like my dad.

"Well, if there was any chance of a trip around the White House for us you know, like the time you took me around before? Sarah would love me forever." I smiled at her.

She picked up the ball, blushed and her eyes lit up.

"That would be absolutely brilliant. Can you really fix that, Josh?"

Josh wasn't looking too sure.

"Well.. ."

I decided to jump in and keep it all upbeat. Looking at Sarah, whose face now resembled that of a child at a fun fair I said, "This boy is the greatest.

He took me around the White House last year. He was running the vice-presidential protection team."