Couples &c.

Couples. The word makes me think, first of all, of John Updike's magnificent 1968 novel (Martin Amis dismisses it, but he's been wrong about a lot). The story of Piet and Angela Hanema and their life - and those of so many others - in the little Massachusetts town of Tarbox. (Updike himself was living in Ipswich, and knew of what he wrote, I think.) Why does it occur to me now? I'll give you two reasons.

[WARNING: SPOILER ALERT]

The first is that I have just finished reading book six of Len Deighton's unsurpassable Bernard Samson triple trilogy, Spy Sinker, which reveals the story from Fiona Samson's point of view. It is the only one of the nine books written in the third person, without the engaging but unreliable narrator which is Bernd, but it stitches so much together. It also, I think, makes Fiona much more human than Samson ever gives her credit for, and exposes the terrible stresses and strains which must fall on a secret agent of any kind, let alone a double agent.

In the first five books, you don't know whether to love or hate Fiona. She is, on the face of it, likeable, the sober and moderating force on her exuberant and (dare I say it?) immature sister Tessa, but a very endearing presence, who loves Bernard and her children, even if it doesn't always show. Yet first you find out that she is a traitor, an agent of the East (I am just old enough to remember what that means), then, you discover, through Bernard's doggedness, that she has been working on the right side of the street after all, and is a double agent.

What you don't find out until book six is that she has been having an affair with a Canadian/Ukrainian KGB agent called Harry Kennedy (he meets a sticky end at the side of an East German autobahn). For me, when I first read the cycle of novels, what, 20 years ago, this spun everything on its head. Fiona had abandoned and betrayed her husband and her children, sure, though not, as it turned out, her country, but at least you came to see why. Then, you are faced with the fact that she had carried out a double betrayal of Bernard, and one for her own, nor her country's sake. God knows, I have no high horse to climb on to, but she betrays Bernard with Harry for her own sake. Infidelity, pure and simple.

As I read the last chapters of book six the other night, it set me thinking. Fiona is profoundly unhappy, and under intense strain (as of course she must have been, as the highest-placed double SIS had had in years, perhaps ever). So one ought not to judge too harshly. For her, the affair with Kennedy was a release from those stresses, and also a romantic interlude that seemed to give her something that Bernard hadn't - couldn't? - give her. For all that, coming back to the books after decades, I felt disappointed in Fiona. It felt, and feels, tawdry, and selfish, and grubby. Perhaps that's how Fiona felt.

On to connection number two. Last night I watched a BBC4 documentary (of how often have I said that?) about Fleetwood Mac, centred on the production of the brilliant Rumours album. Now, anyone who knows anything about the history of rock and roll knows how fraught the relationships within that band were. When Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were recruited to an ensemble which already contained John and Christine McVie, it might as well have been a hand grenade into a bunker. Stevie and Lindsey split, Christine and John split, Stevie went off with Mick (Fleetwood) before Mick went off with her friend Sara… It was an emotional time-bomb. But the couple-dom, if I can call it that, remained important. After all, when the band had reorientated itself after the departure of Peter Green - which took some doing - it was a lead guitarist they wanted. Lindsey came with the baggage, or so it was thought, of his girlfriend, Stevie (who would prove an invaluable part of the band's pomp).

I am (don't laugh), despite my years, something of an innocent in the ways of love and romance. I genuinely don't know how Fleetwood Mac held together through those turbulent days, and beyond. Songs were penned which were, to say the least, pointed. Dreams. Don't Stop. Oh Daddy. And the recipients of the barbs knew it perfectly well. Yet the band survived for another nearly ten years and made some great new music, although they would never again hit the heights of Rumours. It is a testament to the human spirit, maybe, or, if you're cynical, to the ring of the cash register. I like to think the former.

(Parenthesis: I have seen Fleetwood Mac live, and the chemistry between Buckingham and Nicks still crackles. They look at each other like the adolescent lovers they were. Yet they say that they have virtually no contact these days, they never visit each other's houses, they live separate lives. I can only take them at face value, but what I saw was something extraordinary, an exceptional bond. Something that, if I were Mrs Buckingham or Mr Nicks, would make me deeply uncomfortable.)

Where does all of this lead me? To two places. The first is the consideration of my parents' relationship. They separated when I was very young - I really have barely any memories of them being together - and they had their ups and downs, living streets apart but caring for me brilliantly if differently (I lived with my mother). I know, I know, I KNOW, I promised not to be a professional grief merchant, and I hope this doesn't fall into this category. When my father was diagnosed with cancer, what, three years ago (I can't remember), it brought them closer together. Each was the other's oldest friend, whatever had happened in the interim, and their relationship went back 60 years. My father's grandmother had run the local sweetie shop from which she hurled abused at local boys and girls (if she was anything like her daughter-in-law I can believe that). Mum and Dad knew each other from the age of, well, single figures, and were an item by university. I came along when Dad was 29 and Mum was 28, and they were grizzled veterans by that stage. Things drifted apart not too long after that, but, as I say, by the time my father was obviously ill, they saw each other a lot, possibly weekly.

I don't make windows into men's souls. It may be all I have in common with Elizabeth I (except perhaps that I too was born a ginger). I have grieved for Dad, and continue to do so. I cannot imagine the pain that my stepmother must be going through, because they were together for more than 30 years. But I do take time out to think about Mum too, because the man she knew for 60 years is gone. You don't - can't - shake off that kind of connection.

Place number two. It also makes me think about my own relationships. There have not been many, dear reader. As I have written before, I am no lothario. Of those to whom I have been profoundly attached, I am still in touch with two. I wish it were more. Not to rekindle dying flames - I think that is largely impossible, though there are some notable exceptions - but because I liked them as people. How else do you fall in love with someone? Of the others, I cannot speak: they have made their choices and I must respect them, even if I try to reach out the hand of friendship from time to time.

So we return to couples, where we started. They are a fine thing, but sometimes a difficult horse - pair of horses? - to ride. I draw no lessons, but I would be interested in the experiences of others. Of course, I may be preaching to an empty choir, in which case it doesn't matter. Maybe it doesn't anyway. Tant pis, as the man says.