I’d love to be able to say that it was Antonia White, or Rosamond Lehmann, or one of the many other women writers she championed who brought us together. But that, alas, would be a lie. In the first instance at least, it is Padma Lakshmi, the TV cook who used to be married to Salman Rushdie, who must take the credit for my friendship with Carmen Callil.
The year was 2004 and I was at a book launch at the Polish Club in South Kensington, trying hard both not to look shy and not to drink the dangerously terrible wine that was in my glass – a tricky proposition, given that the two acts were in direct opposition to one another. The weekend before, the Observer had run a disobliging profile I’d written of Lakshmi, with whom I’d spent a long and humiliating day in New York, and to my amazement, it was this that Carmen brought up when, as the party reached its noisy climax, we were unexpectedly introduced. “Padma Lakshmi!” she all but shouted on hearing my name. And then, with even greater ferocity: “My heroine!” For a few seconds, I was confused. Was she a… fan of Lakshmi? I took a step backwards, just in case. But, no. Her smile (she had the greatest smile in the world) was benign. It appeared to be me she was praising. I decided to drink the awful wine after all.
