Cassandra complex

In the late 18th century, scurvy was killing around 50 percent of British mariners on long-haul journeys – more than shipwrecks, battles and all other diseases combined. Between 1500 and 1800, the illness had claimed roughly two million sailors’ lives. On the disastrous 1740 expedition around Cape Horn led by Commodore George Anson, of the 1,854 men who departed, only 188 returned. The vast majority had died from scurvy. By the mid-18th century, the Royal Navy was desperate for a remedy. They noticed that, contrary to their struggles, the Dutch were losing hardly any men to the illness.

My only novel, Every Man a King (published in 1989), included a caricature of a famous political figure for whom I worked – and whom I might treat more kindly today, for as the years melt away so do the harsh judgments. As Babs Streisand sang, what’s too painful to remember we simply choose to forget. Judging by A.G. Doran’s new novel, Pale Dread, set in the State Department during the chaotic first Trump administration, its author has chosen to forget nothing of his sentence in our nation’s capital.

The valet parking man at Gatwick climbed out of my car with an expression that suggested he’d just driven a Panzer at the Russian border as opposed to bringing a very underpowered VW Polo around from the car park. “Madam,” he began, unsteadily. “I need to have a word with you about the state of your car.” I apologized. My Polo is an abysmal state. Empty coffee cups, paper napkins, crinkled bags that once contained sandwiches or donuts, plastic water bottles, 58 hair ties, decaying dog biscuits and poo bags (albeit unused) all litter the floor. It’s also disgracefully muddy because Dennis doesn’t go in the boot. He either sits beside me in the front, or lies along the back seat as if I am his chauffeur and he is a debutante who’s overdone it at The 400.