Open Writing

'Ha, and what are you doing here?'

'I might ask you the same question.'

'Go on then.'

'What are you doing here?'

The same as you, I suppose.'

'And what's that?'

'You know very well what it is.'

'And so do you.'

'How did the Guardian get hold of it?'

'Get hold of what, darling?'

'The fact that Bill Taggs and I went to church . . . It's in the gossip column. Listen . . . "Why were two of Britain's most prominent atheists praying in the church at Ockley on Sunday?'"

'Well, somebody must have seen you and phoned - '

'Oh, wait a minute ... it couldn't have been Susan, could it?'

'Now, don't start blaming your daughter.'

'I'm not blaming her. I'm proud of her. She says she wants to be a journalist, well, she showed journalistic enterprise, didn't she? She must have followed me to the church and . . . Good for her.'

'Good for who, or should I say whom, Daddy?' asked Susan, coming in.

'You, of course, with your scoop about me and Bill Taggs.'

'Scoop? Bill Taggs? I really don't know what - '

He turned to his wife. 'You?' he yelled.