A Wind on the Heath

by James Pattinson

  ‘Well, come along then. Don’t keep us in suspense any longer. Who is he?’

  ‘Arthur Martin,’ Mr Sterne said, ‘is editor-in-chief of the Bury and North Suffolk Morning Post, commonly known as The Post.’

  ‘Oh, the local rag.’

  ‘Local rag, indeed! You’d better not let Arthur hear you call it that. To his way of thinking it’s just about on a par with The Times and the Daily Telegraph.’

  ‘Then he must be the only one who believes that. If he does believe it. Anyway, how do you come to know him?’

  ‘We were at school together. He was pretty brainy but no good at all at games. Always had his nose in a book. Most of us thought he was a bit of a twit really.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you would if he didn’t like kicking a ball about or swinging a cricket bat. Intelligence would count for nothing against such a handicap. So when did you have this talk with him?’

  ‘Today. When I was in Bury. Thought I might as well take the opportunity while I was there.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why should you want to speak to him? You’re not friends, are you?’

  ‘No. But there was a particular reason why I thought it might be a good idea to have a word with him.’

  He paused again, smiling, obviously enjoying himself.

  Mrs Sterne was obliged to ask the question: ‘What reason?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’

  ‘No, I can’t. Get on with it.’ She sounded impatient.

  ‘Well then, I suppose I’d better tell you. David.’

  David was startled. ‘Me!’

  ‘Yes, you, boy. You want to be a writer, so I asked Arthur if he’d take you on. Took some persuading, but in the end he agreed to have a look at you. Tomorrow morning you’re to go into Bury for an interview. If you make a good enough impression on him you’re in.’ There was an expression of smug self-satisfaction on the farmer’s heavy face as he leaned back in his chair. It was evident that he felt he had brought off quite a coup and ought to be congratulated on it. ‘Well? What do you say?’

  David hardly knew what to say. He certainly did not feel inflated by this news. His idea of a writer was not someone who worked on a provincial paper like the Bury and North Suffolk Morning Post. What he had in mind was an author, a man who had his name on the covers of books, whose stories were printed in magazines, whose productions could be found in public libraries. This which his father was suggesting was a far cry from that.

  And why had he not been consulted? It was his life after all. But it was just like the old man to take matters into his own hands without saying a word to anyone. So now this was sprung on him without warning, and no doubt he was expected to jump for joy and offer profuse thanks to the parent who had done so much on his behalf. The trouble was that he did not feel at all grateful. He did not want to go into Bury in the morning; he did not want to see Mr Arthur Martin; above all he did not want to work on the Bury and North Suffolk Morning Post.

  So he said nothing.

  The smugness drifted away from Mr Sterne’s features and was replaced by a slight frown.

  ‘Well, I must say you don’t look all that happy. Isn’t this what you wanted?’

  The honest answer to that would have been: ‘No, it isn’t.’ But he lacked the nerve to be quite so blunt. So he said: ‘Well, I don’t know –’

  ‘Don’t know! Damn it, I go out of my way to make this opening for you and you don’t know. What sort of an answer is that, for God’s sake?’

  George gave a laugh. ‘You asked for it, Davy; you did ask for it. If you want my opinion –’

  Mr Sterne turned on him sharply. ‘You can keep your snout out of this. Nobody does want your opinion.’

  Mrs Sterne said placatingly: ‘It’d be a start for you, Davy dear. You can’t expect to be at the top straightaway. This would be the first rung on the ladder, so to speak.’

  ‘Of course it would,’ Mr Sterne said. ‘You’d be learning the basics. I don’t know all that much about this writing business, but I reckon it’s a trade like any other, and all trades have to be learnt.’

  He felt trapped, and for that he had only himself to blame. He saw that he would have to go along with what his father had arranged for him. There was no way he could avoid this interview that had been fixed for the next morning. And perhaps Mr Martin would reject him anyway. Perhaps he had only agreed to the thing in order to rid himself of the importunate farmer. From what the old man had said, it appeared that he and Arthur Martin had not exactly been bosom chums at school, and there had been little contact between them since those days. So the newspaper editor would hardly have felt compelled to do any favours for his contemporary. All things considered then, the interview was likely to be merely a formality.

  Having reached this comforting conclusion he made a show of dropping his reluctance to go along with what had been proposed for his benefit. Nothing would come of it, that was certain. So why worry?

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’ll see Mr Martin. Thanks, Dad.’

  No point in antagonising the old man.

  Chapter Three – INTERVIEW

  The farm was about twelve miles from Bury St Edmunds, where the bones of the martyred King of the East Angles lay beneath the ruins of the ancient abbey. Edmund, captured by the Danes, had stoutly refused to renounce his Christian faith and rule under their supremacy. So he had been stripped naked, bound to a tree and shot at with arrows before being finally beheaded.

  David Sterne had been deeply impressed by this story when he first heard it, and often wondered whether he himself would have shown such steadfastness in similar circumstances. Sadly, he had come to the conclusion that he would probably not have done so. He doubted very much whether he was made of the stuff of martyrs. And besides, there already was a Saint David, wasn’t there? A Welshman, apparently. To add another to the list could only have led to confusion.

  Mr Sterne took him to town in his car, a rather elderly Morris Oxford saloon which he seldom allowed to reach a speed of more than forty miles per hour. He deposited his son outside the rather dingy brick building in a narrow side-street where the publication known as the Bury and North Suffolk Morning Post was produced each day.

  ‘I won’t come in with you,’ he said. ‘I’ve done my bit and now it’s up to you.’ He gave his son a pat on the shoulder. ‘Good luck, my boy.’

  David was not sorry that his father was not going in with him. Though he was nervous he preferred to do the talking to Mr Martin without any parental presence. He was wearing his best suit, his shoes were polished and his hair was combed. There was no way he could have made himself more presentable.

  There was a reception desk in a kind of lobby where he found himself after passing through the main entrance. A young woman was behind the desk, and she gave him a pleasant smile and asked if she could help him. He could hear mysterious thumpings and other noises coming from other parts of the building and there was a curious odour which he could not identify but thought might be a mingling of paper and printer’s ink.

  ‘I have an appointment with Mr Martin,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes.’ She seemed to know all about it. ‘You’ll be Mr Sterne?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He thought she was quite attractive in a mature sort of way. He guessed that she must be twenty-five at least.

  ‘He’s in his office. I could tell you how to get there, but I think it might be easier if I took you. Don’t want you getting lost, do we? Incidentally, I’m Rita Webb.’

  She seemed very obliging, but he supposed that was what she was expected to be. He was to learn when he had had more experience of life that women of all ages were inclined to do things for him that they would not have done for everyone; they just looked at him and wanted to help.

  ‘Well, thank you, Miss Webb,’ he said. ‘It’s good of you to take the trouble.’

  ‘No trouble.’ She came out from behind the desk. ‘This way.’

  They came to a flight of bare woode
n stairs and she went up in front of him. She was wearing a rather short skirt and a yellow jumper, and as he followed her he could not help noticing that her legs in the sheer silk stockings were a nice shape, a very nice shape indeed. He even reflected that it would have been rather pleasant to touch them, which he could easily have done merely by stretching out his hand, and he wondered what her reaction would have been if he had done so. Shock probably.

  But it was no time to be having thoughts about Miss Webb’s legs, attractive though they might be. He had to remind himself that he was there for an important interview with Mr Martin and that the silk-clad legs preceding him up the stairs were an irrelevance.

  They came to a landing and passed through a large room with a number of desks in it. Some of the desks were occupied, others were not. There were telephones and typewriters on them and there was paper everywhere. There was an air of relaxation about the place; nobody seemed to be doing anything very urgently, though some of the typewriters were clacking. The men were in shirt-sleeves, some talking, almost all smoking.

  ‘This is the newsroom,’ Miss Webb said. ‘It hots up later. It can get quite hectic when the deadline is approaching.’

  Mr Martin’s office was at the far end of this room. It had a glass-panelled door with the word, EDITOR, painted on it in black lettering. Miss Webb tapped on the glass with her knuckles, and without waiting for an invitation turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  ‘Mr Sterne to see you, Mr Martin.’

  She gave a tug at his sleeve and almost dragged him into the room before retiring and closing the door behind her.

  ‘Well,’ Mr Martin said. ‘So you’re David Sterne.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Your father and I were at school together. But I expect you know that. It was a long time ago. Yes, quite a long time, I’m afraid.’

  He was a tall round-shouldered man wearing horn-rimmed glasses. He had what some people called a high forehead, which really meant that he was going bald from the front. His features were thin and there was an ascetic, studious look about him. He had been standing when Sterne was ushered in, but now he sat down behind a desk and invited the younger man to sit down also.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘you want to become a newspaperman?’

  Sterne wondered what the result would have been if he had replied bluntly that he did not; that it had only been parental urging that had brought him there and that the last thing he really wanted was a job on The Post. He decided that it would be unwise to put this to the test, though it would certainly have ensured that he did not get to work on that particular paper. His father would have been certain to hear about it, and that would really have set the sparks flying.

  ‘Well, I thought –’ he said, and trailed off, leaving Mr Martin to make what he liked of this.

  The editor evidently took it for an affirmative answer. Would the young man have been there otherwise?

  ‘It’s an honourable profession; yes, a very honourable one.’ He sounded as though he were making a well-rehearsed speech, and it seemed likely that he had made this kind of statement many times before. ‘But the work demands certain qualities. Not everyone is equipped – mentally that is – to handle it. Do you think you are?’

  Sterne was spared the necessity of making an answer to this question by Martin himself, who went on immediately: ‘But of course you do. If you did not I would not be talking to you at this moment.’

  It was a curious kind of interview, Sterne thought. Martin did almost all the talking. He seemed to like the sound of his own voice, which was of the fruity variety, and in the course of this one-sided conversation he managed to give a summary of his views on a wide variety of matters. Sterne listened with a show of appreciation and spoke only when directly invited to do so; which was not often. He had no way of telling whether he was making a favourable impression on the editor or not; but he had a feeling that all this was leading up to a final rejection.

  The interview was eventually brought to a conclusion when Mr Martin abruptly became transformed from the singular to the plural.

  ‘We will let you know our decision very shortly,’ he said, and Sterne gathered that it was not just this person, Arthur Martin, who was speaking now; it was the regal Bury and North Suffolk Morning Post.

  Miss Webb smiled at him as he passed her desk on the way out.

  ‘Any luck?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. And there was of course the question of what you meant by luck. ‘They’ll let me know.’

  His father asked him a similar question when they met later.

  ‘Did you get the job?’

  ‘They’ll let me know. Very shortly.’

  *

  The letter came two days later in an envelope addressed to Mr David Sterne. It was typewritten on impressively headed writing paper. The paper was white and crisp; it made a crackling sound as he unfolded it. One sentence caught his eye immediately he began to read. It ran:

  ‘We are happy to inform you that your application for employment on this newspaper has been approved.’

  There was more – something about a probationary period of engagement etcetera. A salary was also mentioned.

  The post had come while the family was at breakfast, and they had all been watching him as he opened the letter. It was obvious to all of them what it was.

  ‘Well, what’s it say?’ his father demanded.

  ‘They’re taking me on.’

  His mother was delighted. ‘Oh, Davy, I’m so glad.’

  ‘Here,’ his father said, ‘let me see that letter.’

  David handed it to him. Mr Sterne put on a pair of glasses and read it quickly.

  ‘Well, there you are,’ he said. ‘That’s what influence can do for you. He wasn’t really looking for anyone, you know; but I persuaded him. The pay’s not much though – one pound a week. It’s not a lot.’

  ‘It’s probably more than he’s worth,’ George said.

  ‘Now, now, Georgie,’ his mother scolded. ‘That’s not at all a nice thing to say.’

  ‘But it’s probably true all the same,’ Mr Sterne said. ‘He’ll not be much help to them at first. They’ll be teaching him.’ He peered at his youngest son over the rims of his glasses. ‘You’re a lucky young man, you know. I hope you realise just how lucky you are.’

  ‘Oh, I do.’

  But he did not feel lucky. He had been so sure he would be rejected; he had been counting on it. And now this. Now he would have to go through with it, because there was no way he could pull out after having gone so far; not with everyone thinking it was the best thing that could have happened to him; his father having gone out of his way to help and all that. He regretted now that he had ever mentioned that he wanted to be a writer. That was the kind of thing it was best to keep to yourself. But it was too late to think about that now. The die was cast.

  ‘Well,’ his father said, ‘I must say you don’t sound very enthusiastic. You’re not having second thoughts about this, are you?’

  ‘No. Not really.’

  ‘I should think not. This is the sort of opportunity plenty of youngsters would give their ears for. It’s an opening for you. No telling where it may lead. It’s the beginning. It’s the – the –’

  ‘First rung on the ladder?’

  ‘That’s it. The first rung, like your mother said.’

  Well, perhaps it was at that. But what if it was the wrong ladder?

  Chapter Four – LOW KEY

  He spent three years on the Bury and North Suffolk Morning Post, working his way slowly up that particular ladder. At first he was the lowest of the low, more like an office boy than a newsman. He ran errands, he carried bits of paper here and there, he made tea, and he learned to use a typewriter with two fingers, which was not the way they taught you in the typing schools. He also developed a kind of shorthand of his own which bore little resemblance to the Pitman or any other recognised system.

  He was living in Bury, lodging with a
widowed aunt who had a Victorian terraced house and a limited income. He propelled himself around on a bicycle at first and went home to the farm at weekends. Later, with the help of a small loan from his father, he bought a secondhand motor-cycle, a 150cc Royal Enfield. This was a boon when he began to be sent round to fêtes and amateur theatrical performances and similar events of less than earth-shaking importance in small towns and villages in the circulation area of The Post. Funerals and parish meetings and suchlike were covered by local correspondents – penny-a-liners – who sent in as much copy as possible and had it cut to the bone by the sub-editors.

  He joined a tennis club and teamed up with a girl named Phyllis Chambers, who was the daughter of a solicitor. She was a lissome ash-blonde with beautiful legs and a smashing forehand drive. They partnered each other in matches and tournaments and won prizes here and there, playing on soggy vicarage courts and in the gardens of splendid country houses where tea and cakes were handed round between the sets.

  For a time he believed he was in love with Phyllis, who had an English rose kind of beauty and the figure of a boy, with no breasts worth mentioning. She came along some time after he had got over his infatuation for Rita Webb, which had always been doomed to end in disillusion, since it transpired that she was engaged to a young man named Cyril Atkins. This individual worked for a firm of insurance brokers and seemed to have a good deal more to offer than David Sterne.

  Not that he had ever managed to get at all close to Rita in the spiritual sense. She had always been ready to give him a smile and a friendly word, but she probably had no suspicions that for a time he adored her and dreamed about her and had all sorts of fantasies in which he and she were marooned on desert islands with not another human being in sight. Then one day he met her in the street with this man whom she introduced as Cyril Atkins, her fiancé. After that his feelings for her rapidly cooled, because it seemed ridiculous to be in love with a girl who had such incredibly bad taste as even to think of marrying a stick like this Atkins character. And besides, she was far too old anyway.