◆ SpookStack

‘om Melinda before they were * arried, in which she writes: i | *It’You do feel an urge to have }g drinking orgy why don't you Hhave it at home—so at least you iat be able to get safely to Jett Cairo again at the begin- ning of March and by the time I returned at the beginning of May the end of his career in Egypt was within sight. ‘There had already been two incidents of which a certain inumber of people knew, and several very unpleasant domestic and more private scenes. The first incident was _rela- ‘tively unimportant. Afler two cocktail parties Maclean, instead of going home, had wandered off sand had been found shocless on a Genel if the Eebekien Gardens The second was far more _werious, i i Dangerous Melinda a 2 ple- Auresque wide-sailed 4 tuced to take some friends up the Nile to Helouan. The wind dropped gna the trip, instead of taking two - hours, took eight. And Maclean became dangerously drunk. At one point, in a fit of mad rage, he seized Melinda round the neck snd might have strangled her had the others not inter- vened. When they reached Helouan at 2 am. a ghaffir, or watchman, efjalienged them with an anti- Gfated rife. Maclean wrested {rewwide from the began to swing it w bis head. ‘One of the guests, also a Sec- ; retary at the Embassy, tried to | restrain Maclean, but’ in their struggle they both fell down the bank—and the other man broke his leg. What story was told at the Embassy is not known. But the, extraordinary feature of this! escapade is that it seemed to do no harm to Maclean's career. ~ And this ts true, also, of the final episode, the culminating incident in his 18 months’ tour of office as Counsellor and head of Chancery. Sick leave It occurred nearly two months, later, when Melinda was again Pregnant. round On a two-day “binge® he and} a friend entered a flat belonging to a girl who worked at the Us. Embassy, drank what they coud find and ‘then proceeded to breuk up the furniture. The next my morning, Melinda and: Maclean ha‘ heart-to-heart: talk, after which, with a loyalty which even his outrageous be-| haviour had not shaken, she went to see his Ambassador. She told him that Donald was. il, was suffering from a nervous breakdown and must be given} sick leave to return to London to see his own doctor at once. And it is, one can only presume, | on the strength of ‘Maclean's exceptional qualities and the! excellent. work he done continued to do, it appears from official statements, even at a time when he was drinking sa heavily that he was becoming notorious—that this permission was immediately given. [World copyright]