by Joan Smith
‘As long as it’s a head doctor.’ Ayling snapped shut his briefcase. The door closed behind him, leaving the two men alone in the room.
‘Have you been having headaches, anything of that kind? Problems with sleeping?’
Stephen was fiddling with his phone. ‘Thanks, Angus, but you don’t have to give me a professional opinion. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a couple of urgent calls to make.’
Angus regarded him closely. Stephen’s eyes were red-rimmed and his usually handsome face was pallid; even his hair — springy and dark, as Angus’s had once been — was flattened in places, as though he’d slept on a plane. Stephen wasn’t a heavy drinker, as far as Angus knew, and he wondered if the younger man could be suffering from clinical depression. ‘You’re not looking yourself,’ he said compassionately. ‘We’re all feeling the strain, even if most of us don’t want to admit it. Not in public, at any rate.’
Stephen’s mobile rang and he started. ‘Yes, speaking.’ Pause. ‘The euro? Yes, I am broadly in favour but—’ He listened for a moment, then moved the phone away from his head while an expression of great weariness passed over his face: ‘I’m sorry, the line’s breaking up. I can’t hear you—’ He pressed a button and ended the call, then looked at Angus as if he had no idea what they had been discussing.
‘That’s the first sensible thing you’ve done all morning. Who was it?’
‘Hmm? Oh, someone from the Mail.’
Angus shook his head and began collecting his things. Folding away a copy of The Times, a picture caught his eye and he gestured to Stephen. ‘You knew her, didn’t you? That poor lass who died in Lebanon?’
Stephen stepped back, bumping into a chair.
‘A bad business, these landmines. I have a constituent, she married a Lebanese, met him when she was a nurse in one of the refugee camps — Sabra and Shatila, I think it was. Her husband’s nephew, laddie of twelve or thirteen, had his legs blown off and she’s trying to raise money for artificial limbs. Say what you like about Princess Diana, but she’s on the right lines with this campaign of hers. Did you know her well?’
Stephen said blankly: ‘Princess Diana?’
‘No, Aisha Lincoln, isn’t that her name?’
Stephen’s eyelids fluttered. ‘Yes, I — I knew her.’
‘I remember seeing you with her in the dining room. A striking lady.’ A look of enlightenment crossed his face and he added: ‘Ach, no wonder you’re not feeling yourself this morning. Sudden death is always—’
Stephen’s mobile rang again. He looked down, read the number on the phone’s display and answered in a strained voice: ‘Carolina?’
Angus touched his arm, lightly this time. ‘Give her my regards.’
‘What?’
‘Your wife. Give her my regards.’ He had met Carolina Massinger — the Honourable Carolina Massinger, not that she or Stephen made a fuss about it — and remembered her as a slightly washed-out blonde with a long face and an aristocratic accent. She had a sister, also with an unusual first name, who seemed rather more forceful — ran a charity for displaced agricultural workers, according to something Angus had read or heard recently. They were the daughters of a Party grandee, Lord Restorick, and Angus had the impression Stephen was not entirely comfortable with his father-in-law. Judging by Stephen’s grim expression, he was not on the best of terms with his wife either and Angus remembered a rumour in the tea room that the Restorick family was furious, en masse, about Stephen’s refusal of a job on the Opposition front bench. Though that was almost three months ago...
‘It’s out of the question,’ Angus heard Stephen exclaim, and he instinctively moved towards the door. Reaching for the handle, he could not help overhearing Stephen’s side of the row: ‘I told you last night, Carolina, there’s a three-line whip. There’s nothing to discuss, I’m staying in town again and that’s it. Well, perhaps in that case you shouldn’t have married a politician. What about your father? Oh God, don’t start—’
Angus had heard enough. He made a quiet exit, walking slowly down the corridor and thinking about his own wife, who had died a couple of years before from cancer. They had been perfectly content with each other, if not wildly passionate, but then Angus knew from many years of observing his colleagues where that sort of thing could lead. Perhaps it was something to do with not having children, so that Nora hadn’t minded the demands of his job or having to travel down from the Scottish borders to see him during the week. They had — Angus still had — a little flat behind Smith Square, from which they used to plan evenings at the opera while Nora cooked the simple meals Angus preferred to dinner at the House of Commons.
He descended a flight of stone steps, his hip giving him a bit of trouble, and he had almost reached the bottom when he remembered that there was no three-line whip that night. Frown lines creased his brow. Stephen was far from being the first MP to invent parliamentary business as a means of avoiding his wife, but Angus wondered if what he had just witnessed meant that another political marriage was on the rocks. A pity: he liked Stephen, who was not just out for himself like the management consultants in expensive suits who seemed to be taking over the Party in recent years.
Entering the Central Lobby, which was as familiar to him by now as the stone house just outside the constituency where he and Nora had lived for almost forty years, Angus wondered if he was getting too old for all this, especially as the Party was likely to be out of office for several years, as that pretty mixed-race girl had pointed out. His own majority had been cut, at the general election, to a figure that made it marginal for the first time in living memory, and his chairman had been pressing Angus to cut down on his part-time medical practice and show his face more often at local functions. Angus wasn’t sure he could summon the energy or the enthusiasm to lay on more than his annual Burns night supper, which fewer and fewer people had attended in recent years. On the other hand — he sat down on a green leather bench and reached for The Times again — what else lay ahead for a widower of sixty-eight who had been in Parliament for more than three decades? Turning to the crossword, he settled down to wait for a parliamentary undersecretary at the Department of Health who had promised to brief him informally about the future of a crumbling hospital in his constituency.
‘Everyone here?’ The editor surveyed the semi-circle of section heads and writers in front of his desk. His office, normally large and empty, was crammed with more than a dozen people and his PA had to negotiate her way through them as she appeared with coffee in a Styrofoam cup. He accepted it without acknowledgment, removed the lid and sipped as he waited for the journalists to settle. On his desk were copies of all that morning’s newspapers, a flat plan of the next day’s edition and a photograph of his children. Behind him, the arm of a crane moved past the window in a stately arc, its operator invisible six floors below.
Amanda, who had not been invited to morning conference before, wondered if he would say anything about her piece on Aisha Lincoln. She had looked at it again on her way to the office and thought of a couple of points she could have added if she had had more time. But it read all right — she moved her chair a fraction, unsure what to expect.
The editor pushed his coffee to one side and said, ‘Nice profile of the Foreign Secretary, Sabri, though it could have done with a bit more personal stuff.’ He looked from face to face, making eye contact and speaking slowly to make his point. ‘More anecdotes, that’s what this paper needs. Little personal touches, the readers want to be able to relate.’ His gaze came to rest on the picture editor. ‘Pic could have been a bit more exciting.’
Mark Petroni leaned back in his chair, his leather trousers creaking, and ran his hands through his lank fair hair. The editor waited a second, then returned to leafing through that day’s edition of the paper. ‘Great stuff on Aisha Lincoln, everybody. Nice to know we can handle a breaking story.’ His gaze settled on Amanda and the slightest of frowns crossed his face. ‘Well done, Amel—’
The news
editor, Simon, cut in: ‘Amanda did a very good job.’
The others stirred and there was a murmur of assent. It subsided and people shifted in their seats, waiting for the editor’s next remark. The silence was broken by the front legs of Mark’s chair hitting the floor with a thud.
‘Yeah well, I was chasing pix from Lebanon yesterday, I just assumed you guys knew what you were doing. Couldn’t we have made a bit more of an effort with Fabio Terzano? The guy took some fantastic photos and all we’ve got is a piddling box at the bottom of page four.’
‘Hang on, Mark.’ The editor flashed him a smile, conciliatory but firm. ‘We gave it three hundred and fifty words, and you’ve got to remember that far more of our readers will have heard of Aisha Lincoln than of Fabrizio Terzano.’ He mispronounced both names with a soft Z. ‘OK, I gather the guy used to be the business, but he hasn’t exactly set the world on fire in the last few years.’
‘Since he nearly copped it with the muj in Afghanistan, you mean?’
Someone said, ‘The what?’
‘Mujahidin,’ Mark said shortly.
Amanda turned to him in surprise. ‘He was in Afghanistan? I didn’t know that.’
Mark folded his arms. ‘You wouldn’t, not from us.’
‘Celia?’ The editor appealed to a tired-looking older woman, with the dry complexion of a natural blonde, who was rummaging in a folder. Half a dozen sheets of paper slipped from her lap to the floor and she flapped ineffectually as she tried to stop more following.
‘Fabrizio Terzano wasn’t on file. I had to get Alan to cobble something together and I don’t think he was aware—’
‘Some journo, American bloke, only died in his fucking arms.’
Flustered, the woman began retrieving her papers. ‘I’m commissioning half a dozen obits every week, building up our stock. If you’d like to suggest some names—’
‘It was a cuttings job. Makes us look like a bunch of wankers.’ Mark turned to stare out of the windows that ran along two sides of the editor’s office. It was sunny outside but the air conditioning in the building kept the temperature just below comfort level, regardless of the weather. The women were wearing long sleeves or cardigans — Amanda wished she had brought one to wear over her dress — and the editor was the only man in the room who had removed his jacket. He had rolled up his shirtsleeves and the only thing that was missing, she thought, was a green eyeshade.
‘Sorry about that, just getting the profile sorted for tomorrow.’ The features editor, who had been speaking quietly into his mobile phone since the meeting began, pulled his chair forward to join the group: ‘Look, it’s not as though the story’s going away, is it? We could still run a proper obit.’
The editor frowned again. ‘Well—’
‘We’ve been talking about a promotion, something that’ll attract attention without costing too much. You brought it up last week,’ he reminded the editor, ‘but no one had any brilliant ideas. So how about the Fabrizio Terzano Prize for young photographers? We get a look at their pix before anyone else, and we set up an awards ceremony with lots of nice publicity all round. In which case, the least we can do is give the guy a decent sendoff.’ He sat back in his chair, thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers and waited.
The editor steepled his hands. ‘Not bad, Steve, not bad at all. But won’t it be expensive?’
‘Doesn’t have to be. We offer a small amount of cash or equipment as a prize — we might be able to get Canon or someone to donate it.’
‘Who’s going to judge it?’
The features editor grinned. ‘You, Mark, plus a team of distinguished photographers, preferably including at least one woman.’
‘What about Eve Arnold?’ the women’s page editor suggested.
Mark stared at her. ‘Do you know how old Eve Arnold is?’
‘I think that’s aiming a little high,’ the editor agreed. ‘What about what’s-her-name — woman who takes photos of children. You know who I mean.’
Amanda heard Mark mutter: ‘For fuck’s sake.’
‘Isn’t that kind of in bad taste?’ Everyone turned to look at Vivienne Gaught, whose diary — heavily-edited — was the nearest thing the paper had to a gossip column. She was occasionally photographed leaving parties with Kate Moss or Patsy Kensit, and had been persuaded to join the staff by the editor during a lunch so costly it had entered newsroom mythology. A full-length photograph of her in a Julien MacDonald dress — what there was of it — appeared in the paper on Tuesdays and Fridays, causing much hilarity among the rest of the staff. Disaster had nearly struck a couple of weeks before when a bored sub had superimposed the editor’s head on Vivienne’s body, a prank noticed just before the paper went to press. ‘He only died three days ago?’ she added. ‘We don’t want to look like grave-snatchers.’
The editor said curtly: ‘I think you mean grave-robbers, Vivienne. You’re mixing your metaphors.’
‘Again,’ someone muttered.
‘We don’t have to announce it yet.’
‘We do, before anyone else thinks of it.’
Vivienne pulled down her knee-length skirt. She was wearing black mules and now she crossed her legs, allowing one of them to dangle from her raised foot as though she’d lost interest in the conversation. A lanky feature writer, wearing a T-shirt with ‘Babe Magnet’ emblazoned across the front, nudged her in the ribs: ‘A diarist with a conscience, I love it.’
A woman who hadn’t previously spoken snapped: ‘Oh shut up, Derek.’
‘She’s got a point,’ put in the obituaries editor.
‘Does he have family?’
Celia wrinkled her brow. ‘No wife, no children. There may be a mother. Still alive, I mean.’
‘A confirmed bachelor,’ someone said and giggled.
‘So what’s wrong with being gay?’ The comment editor, who lived with his boyfriend, was immediately alert.
‘Was he?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Don’t be so touchy.’
‘Stop it, all of you.’ The editor turned to Steve. ‘It’s your baby, could you check it out? If there’s an elderly parent, so much the better, naturally we’d invite them to the ceremony. Better if it’s a mother, but... Celia, get on to that obit. I want a big pic of the guy and at least a thousand words.’ He lifted his arms above his head in a long stretch, a habit he had acquired since discovering the basement gym.
Steve nodded. ‘Will do.’
‘Of course we’ll need a logo. I’ll have a word with the art department. Who’s his agent, by the way?’
Mark looked blank. ‘He used to be with’ — he named a well-known photographic agency — ‘but apparently they don’t represent him any more.’
‘Then find out, and while you’re at it see what’s happened to the pix he took in the Lebanon. If they’ve survived, especially if Aisha’s in them, I want them in this paper. I’ve already said we got off to a good start this morning — let’s keep ahead of the pack. Come on, everybody, give me some ideas.’ He flashed them his best boyish grin.
The foreign editor spoke first: ‘Ingrid’s writing a backgrounder. The Israeli occupation, Hezbollah, the South Lebanon Army.’
‘The what?’
‘Who UNIFIL’s trying to keep apart, basically.’
Vivienne said, ‘Isn’t Beirut where they take hostages all the time?’
The foreign editor lifted his hands in a despairing gesture.
‘But I read something about this Irish guy who spent years chained to a radiator.’
‘All right, Michael,’ the editor snapped, ‘but keep it short. People are bored with politics, especially the Middle East.’
‘But it’s a political story. There’s a war going on down there, surely that’s worth explaining?’ Michael Scott-Leakey shot a hostile glance at Vivienne. He had been on the paper for more than a decade, including a stint as its Paris bureau chief, and now he peered at the editor over his glasses like an Oxbridge don explaining som
ething to a particularly dense student.
‘We’ve got a piece on landmines.’ The editor turned pages rapidly. ‘Here it is, page five. With a very nice pic of Princess Di.’ He turned to Simon. ‘Any developments there, by the way? She going nuts or what?’
‘Still on the yacht, I’ve got Dave keeping an eye on it from St Trop.’
Michael Scott-Leakey ignored the digression. ‘So what am I supposed to tell Ingrid? I told her to file early and get down there, we’ll have to pay her—’
‘Fine, Michael, fine. A bit of local colour is great. All I’m saying is let’s not go to town on the political angle. I basically see this as a domestic story — tragic death of a much-loved public figure.’
‘Was she much-loved?’
‘She soon will be,’ said the feature writer, sotto voce.
‘Don’t be such a bunch of cynics.’ The editor made eye contact with them again. ‘Steve? Derek? Sita? This is a beautiful woman at the height of her career, who gives it all up to help kids and dies. Aren’t you moved by that?’
‘Actually she was a bit past it in modelling terms.’ The women’s page editor, who had been sent home early in a taxi the previous week, after a long lunch to celebrate her twenty-sixth birthday, saw the reaction from her colleagues and said hastily: ‘Fashion is a sexist industry. I’m not saying it’s right.’
The editor leaned back again, this time with the palms of his hands braced against the edge of his desk. ‘Let’s not get into a discussion about sexism, Sita. I’m talking about the sort of personal stuff Amanda did for us yesterday and trying to come up with a new angle. Simon, Mandy, how do you rate the chances of getting an interview with the husband?’
Amanda shook her head. ‘No luck so far. I’ve been calling him, but all I get is his answering machine. He hasn’t changed the message and it’s Aisha’s voice, which is a bit weird, actually.’ She flicked a hand towards the stack of rival papers on the editor’s desk. ‘At least he isn’t talking to anyone else, as far as I can see. There’s something about one of his kids flying home from Chile, but no first-person stuff.’
