The day had given no indication that it was going to bring tears before bedtime. She’d got up with Sophie and they’d eaten breakfast on the deck together—peaches, bananas, grapes and walnuts chopped up and sprinkled with Grape Nuts, freshly squeezed orange and grapefruit juice and, for Lindsay only, the industrial-strength coffee she still needed to kick-start her day. It didn’t matter how healthy her diet and her habits became; she had grown up on a high-voltage caffeine jolt first thing in the morning, and herbal tea was never going to boot her synapses into activity. Later than usual, because it was Sunday and she was only on stand-by, Sophie had headed north to the hospital in the Bay Area where she worked with HIV-positive mothers, leaving Lindsay to her computer. She preferred to work when Sophie was on duty so she could enjoy their time off together without guilt. Consequently, she didn’t mind settling down with more coffee and a pile of photocopied newspaper cuttings next to her keyboard.

Six years before, she’d stopped practicing journalism and started teaching it. Not a day had gone by when she hadn’t congratulated herself on her decision. Now, thanks to the “publish or be damned” demands of her boss at Santa Cruz, she’d been catapulted into her past life. A persuasive editor had talked her into a publishing contract for a book on the decline of British tabloid journalism from 1980 to 1995. It was supposed simultaneously to be a penetrating political analysis and an entertaining romp for the general reader. “Define oxymoron,” Lindsay muttered as her machine booted up with its usual mechanical grumbles. “The demands of a publisher’s editor. On the one hand, deep and insightful. On the other hand, shallow and superficial.”

Today, the Falklands conflict. Not the battles between the Argentinian and British soldiery, but the rows that raged between government censors and militant journalists betrayed by proprietors who caved in under pressure. And the Sun’s shameful “Gotcha!” headline on the sinking of the Belgrano. It was more than enough to keep her absorbed in her screen until late afternoon, apart from a quick break at noon to walk Mutton around the scrubland and eat a chicken Caesar salad.

By five, she’d had enough. Whistling the dog, Lindsay had fired up her battered black Caddie and headed inland to a grocery store a few miles away that carried a stock select enough to satisfy the most discriminating California foodie. Lindsay’s freezer was empty of bread, and she needed to stock up on ciabatta with olives, with artichokes, with sun-dried tomatoes and just plain. The challenge was always to get it home without tearing lumps out of it en route. While she was there, she raided the deli counter for grazing material for the evening. It was that once-a-month night when Sophie would be out with her doctor friends putting the world to rights, so Lindsay could veg out on the sofa and watch the Inspector Morse episode she’d taped the week before, with occasional trips to the kitchen to stack up another plate of nibbles. Bliss.