VICTORIA Beckham is pregnant with a third child -- an event just announced in the "we are a grandmother" manner of another famous but rather different personality.

After a rotten year by anyone's reckoning, David and Victoria have signalled a return to coupledom that just a few months ago seemed impossible.

He was at the centre of a sex scandal with personal assistant Rebecca Loos, and she was a wan figure dealing with the fall-out. Relate would probably not have given them good odds on surviving.

Yet, here we are. A baby on the way, the couple finally living together in Spain with young Brooklyn enrolled in school in Madrid, and a smiling David looking happier both on the field and off.

Personally, I really hope everything is as it seems and that these previously excellent role models for happy married life returns to just that.

Unfortunately, I fear the reality may be different.

While having his wife and family with him in Spain is definitely a welcome move for David Beckham (what sane woman leaves a rich, gorgeous husband alone all those months?) it may not have resolved all Victoria's own demons.

Since leaving the Spice Girls, she has made no secret of her yearning for solo fame, and she has achieved this in a limited fashion. Her success, however, has not so far matched her ambition.

Newer, brighter, younger singers have taken her place, and now she may have to put at at least some of her hopes on the back-burner.

Babies may unite couples. They may assuage longings and boost shared emotions. They may be very welcome additions to a stable unit.

But they can drive a worrying wedge between partners. They can highlight the differences, foster resentment by one partner and create massive tensions.

We simply have to hope that none of these will happen and that the latest addition to the Beckham clan will -- for his or her own sake -- be an enduringly welcome one.

Sadly, whatever the outcome, because of the route in life the couple have chosen, much of it will certainly be played out in the public arena.