The Pink and the Grey

by Anthony Camber

  “Should I go over there, do you think?” I asked Seb. “Give him a cuddle and a cup of warm milk and tell him it’s all gonna be alright, somehow, as the lava starts flowing through the letterbox?”

  “Inadvisable. I suspect he would not be too coherent.” He sighed. “I assume the Bugle will train its sights on him and St Paul’s — you will no doubt discover tomorrow. We need to subvert this for next week’s edition.”

  I shook my head sadly. “I hate to say it but are you sure you want to keep on with this? Our little conniving hasn’t exactly gone well so far.”

  “It was a miscalculation. Poor research. Speed-libel is not my area of expertise, I admit. I take full responsibility of course.”

  “That’s all fine but it doesn’t do Spencer a gram of good. This is his life, his career, we’re talking about. I freely admit I might have thought he was an arsehole before but he’s doing some good there, I’ve seen it.”

  “But how can we walk away now? If we do nothing, if we let it go, then your editor, your paper, will crucify him.”

  “I might be able to talk Geoff away from the edge.”

  “You do not really believe that, I think. You know what he is like. We both do.”

  He was right. Geoff might have had an air pump trained up his arse for the last two decades but the old killer instinct was still there. Once his fangs were fixed on a story he wouldn’t let go no matter how much you shook. I’d seen it a few months after I joined, when some local sports guy — in the soccerballs or the cuddleballs or whichever it was — drove his cockmobile a trifling thirty over the thirty limit and tried to celeb his way out of a ticket. Word got to Geoff by the usual channels and he was bang, bang, bang, a two-year-old with a hammer until he whacked him out of the team. Big headline, DISGRACED, by-line Geoff Burnett, naturally, even though most of the legwork was by Manish.

  Spencer didn’t call me until much, much later in the evening, full of the doom and the gloom. The sky was falling, a big chasm was opening up beneath him, a dark storm was brewing, he was running low on gin, and other natural disasters. He said he’d felt like — my words — that twat in Titanic, all top-o-the-world, then next minute he’s having a cold bath and watching his toes drop off. Needless to say he was spannered to within an inch.

  He told me it was a nine point nine recurring, and I asked what that meant, and he said something about scales and, I think the word was, asymptotes. The cogs in my maths brain locked up at school when Mrs Foster told me x could mean either multiplication or a top-secret number that might not exist, so I just agreed and hoped I sounded convincing. Apparently Claire would understand, but he couldn’t face telling her. I said “OK” a lot and made sympathetic noises like my grammy made to me when I came home from school with my ego or my nose bent out of shape.

  I promised him it would feel better in the morning, which I knew it wouldn’t, and that we’d sort something out, which I was hazy on at best. On the plus side — I told him, before realising it now made me the twat — the charity race story with the photo of the booby girls was sitting there pride of place on page one. Headline: Lady Ma-Donor. One of Manish’s suggestions, the git.

  A bright and breezy Friday morning came, all set for a lynching.

  I tried to ghost my way stealthily in to work, fifteen minutes after I was supposed to have begun my usual routine of cocking up the templates for the next edition and then rebuilding everything before anyone else noticed. But Geoff had sprung a trap. An unannounced editorial conference, unprecedented on a Friday to my knowledge — the usual Fridays were kind of like bring-games-into-school days, nothing serious, no actual acts of journalism committed, and lunch on the playing field.

  I knew what the conference would be about, of course. I said three Hail Simons in penance and let Geoff have my editorial doughnut.

  “Oh, right, on a diet are you ginge?” he said. “Trying not to lose your hourglass figure?” He made the universal sign for a curvy lady.

  “Trying not to look like you, boss.” I made the universal sign for a lardy-arse in response and gave him a big fat grin as I wheeled my chair over to the group. Give and take, give and take. “OK, who died?”

  “Your mate,” said Simon.

  My blood froze. “What?”

  “Oh, relax. Not yet. Next Friday, maybe. Once we’ve finished with him. Dead, or as good as.”

  Manish raised a curious hand. “Um, who are we talking about?”

  “Conor’s chum at St Paul’s. Spencer Flowers. Gave us the right run-around yesterday, got himself a nice, friendly lead for his charity bollocks as a result — with ginge’s generous assistance. Next week, we’ll have him.”

  Geoff added, “I doubt the prat realises it’ll be ten times worse for him now. He tried to palm us off with some celebrity crap or other, reckoning it was all hush-hush doncha-know. Open bleedin’ secret, weren’it.” He made a cackle-wheeze-cough noise and his face reddened.

  I tried my best to act nonchalant as my heart rate thudded back down through the stratosphere. “So, that sex pest piece. That’s the lead next week?”

  “Early doors, ginge. I reckon we can have a bit of fun with St Paul’s. Looks as though there might be two or three stories to choose from. Candy from a baby.”

  “What are the other stories?” asked Manish.

  “You got St Paul’s itself — dodgy reputation, bit too queer for its own good. And this race — who’s actually gonna benefit? Bound to be something going on there. Bit of a bung, a back-hander, thank you very much? Then there’s this ‘Archivist’ fella. Not the fake bird Psych saw, the real one we’ve heard about. Who is he? Snooping on students? Is this how the college gets funded, by blackmailing people?”

  I took notes like a good boy. In all honesty the questions weren’t that unreasonable. It couldn’t hurt to dig a little, just in case.

  “Do we get straight on it?” I asked. “Who’s doing what?”

  “Keen, all of a sudden, ain’t you?”

  “Big story, Geoff. My first exposé. I’d be happy to look into the race, since I’m pretty clued up on that already.”

  He held up his chubby hands. “Hold your horses, son. No good you fart-arsing around town on a chase right now. You’ve got to clean the toilet before you take a dump, as my old mother used to say.”

  I nodded as if I had the faintest clue.

  “I reckon you should go after Flowers. You’re both, you know— that way. He can trust you. You can commiserate over a bleedin’ Babycham.”

  “Nobody has drunk Babycham in a hundred years, Geoff, not since you were a wee slip of a lad.”

  “Well, whatever you lot drink then. Go and hunt him down and get drunk together. He’s paying.”

  Simon cut in. “Geoff, he can’t do both Flowers and the race. He’s right, he should concentrate on the race. Twiglet can do Flowers. He’s prettier anyway. Closer to jailbait.”

  “You know I am still here, guys,” I said. “I could do both.”

  Geoff weighed it up. “OK, Psych, point taken. Twiglet, you’re on Flowers. Ginge, the race — once you’ve done your chores. Simon and I will sort out the college between us and see if we can’t make head or tail of this Archivist bloke.”

  That plan lasted about five minutes. I’d barely started breaking the templates when Simon crouched beside me, knees cracking, and whispered nicotine nothings in my ear. “I think you and I are going to stick together on this one, Mr Geraghty.”

  “What do you mean?” I said quietly.

  “I mean, I want to keep my eyes on you. Make sure you remain objective.”

  “There’s no such thing as objective, it’s—”

  “I’m not sure I can trust you, you see. And I think you know why.”

  “You can trust me. I’m a Bugle boy through and through. All for one and all that. Was that the ninja turtles? Anyway. I’m your man.”

  He patted my shoulder. “I hope so,” he said, and grunted to his feet and back to his desk.

  Ma
nish immediately shone a hypothetical bright light on my face and began an interrogation. I replied using the medium of shrug, until he realised he wasn’t getting anywhere and changed tack.

  “This Flowers man,” he said. “Who is he? Where do I start?”

  I threw him a few bones, a couple of dollops of info — objective, trustworthy, ninja, Simon-friendly nuggets. Technically I might have missed out the middle third of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  “So you reckon I should, you know, go down the gay bar and chat him up?” He made the frown-smile of a child watching a cat vomit.

  “You might not be his type, Twiglet. He might prefer a Twix or a Bounty.”

  “Sod off, I’m everybody’s type. I’ve had so much interest from men it’s not true.”

  “Have you ever actually been to a gay bar?”

  “There’s a place back home—”

  “I’ll ask again. Have you ever, actually, walked through the door into a gay bar?”

  Two, one, zero. “No, but—”

  “Right. I think I ought to come along and help you out a little. I’m a pretty decent chaperone, I won’t try it on or anything, and I won’t desert you if someone gives me the eye. Not unless, you know, he’s really hot.”

  He thought quickly. “OK. Yeah. Cool.”

  I left it until the early afternoon, when the post-lunch lazy times were kicking in and nobody was paying me much attention, before I slid out my phone and texted Seb one word: call. Although it was my own phone, and I paid my own bill, I didn’t want Bugle airspace invaded by any incriminating radio waves if I could help it. For all I knew Simon had had a portable 3G cell inserted in the space where he’d never had a heart, and he’d fart out transcriptions every night before bed.

  Seb called a few minutes later and I bundled myself out of the room. I told Manish it was a man about a man, you know, and made what my grammy would call a suspicious gesticulation. It’s the ideal way to kick one of those insecure macho types off your tail.

  I made small talk about weather and cocks until I was downstairs and outside on the street with a 360-view and a red plastic beanie marked paranoid on my head. I told him I had to keep it brief or Simon would be sniffing after me, and rattled off the outcome of the editorial meeting. I waited for a few words of considered reason, some Greatsholme insight to guide us, but all I got back was “Right”, which might have been considered and might have been reasonable but it wasn’t particularly insightful.

  So I let him know I’d volunteered to hold Manish’s hand down at Bar Humbug that night to stop him being dragged away to see a wonderful wizard and a wicked witch and a couple of other W words, and he said “Right” again.

  And at this point I thought he was either not listening too closely or he was giving me directions somewhere, so I asked him whether he’d been paying any attention at all, and I felt two firm taps on my shoulder from behind.

  I’ve never been much for ballet, apart from the men in tights, but right then I could have pas’d de fucking deux for Ireland. I jumped and spun round, thrusting out my crystal jaw ready to be splintered into a thousand pieces by Simon’s baseball bat.

  And it was Seb.

  Which was almost worse.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I said into the phone, hearing it echo from his a fraction later.

  “I’m here to see Burnett,” he said into his, ditto. Both voices were firm, tight, holding back. “Would you like to show me in?”

  “I’m afraid Mr Burnett’s busy right now. I think he’s eviscerating a small child. Can I take a message?”

  “In here, is it?” He hung up and pointed into the dreary, fifties-era building behind me. Eyes darting, jaw tensed, decision made.

  “Listen, you can’t go up there, Seb,” I said.

  “You were right. Last night. We have been remarkably foolish.” He started to pull open a door. “We really should not drag St Paul’s into this, and we especially should not risk Spencer’s career. This is not his war.”

  I followed him through the door, past the faux-marble reception and its faux-marble receptionist. “It’s too late for that,” I said in a kind of stage whisper, trying not to echo. “They’re not going to agree to another deal.”

  “Who said anything about a deal? Up here?” Two flights to climb, two flights to stop him. “I’m going to threaten him.” Matter-of-factly, breathing more heavily.

  “Seb, don’t do this.” He started climbing the steps.

  “I will simply say: drop the stories about Spencer and St Paul’s, or I will go public about what you did to my family.”

  I chased and ranted, with a tight tinny echo. “Listen to me, that won’t work. Trust me. You know what they’ll do? Print the stories anyway, and add a bonus one about you trying to blackmail and besmirch the good name of a free press, and how they’re shocked, shocked to the very core. They’ll get to dictate the story about you just like they dictated the story about your dad twenty years ago.”

  I grabbed his arm, and he stopped. First floor: some little shitty software start-up, all glass and chrome and skateboards and hipster twats pretending they’re gonna change the world with their beards and their cat videos.

  I continued, more softly. “Let’s just… talk to Spencer, at least. See what he wants to do in the cold light of day. You never know, he might want a career change. It’s not long to Christmas, John Lewis will need a Santa.” I tried a smile and received a flicker of eye contact.

  He relaxed, his jaw slackening, his blazing eyes cooling. Reluctantly I let his arm go. It was the most emotional, passionate, I’d seen him, even more so than the night we met. Not the cold, calculating Seb he normally showed to the world. It was good to see, in a bad sort of way.

  He nodded, slowly, almost sadly.

  “Good,” I said. “You know I’m right. It’s one of those annoying things about me that you like.”

  He turned and started downstairs again, and the calculator was back. “I shall contact Spencer. Let’s all meet up this evening.”

  “Do I not get a hug? I’d like a hug.” I held out my arms.

  “I bet you would.” He kept walking. I was sure I could see the glimmer of a smile.

  thirteen

  The Lie

  I awoke at a distressingly late hour on Friday morning with the Adam and Steve of all heads. I was sprawled in my college room, approximately on the sofa. I had either been viciously mugged or had fallen into a dead sleep on the two-metre journey from my desk, scattering various items to the four winds as I descended. I eventually located my mobile phone nestling up to an unread copy of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, and grunted at the brash, unsubtle ingenuity of smartphones.

  The device glared the time at me through the orange bus-depot gloom and I swore inventively. I knew a student was due within half an hour for an earnest discussion about a subject of no importance, and although I was an adept at failing to prepare this was bordering on magisterial. I was proud I had never yet bailed entirely from a supervision — on two occasions I had excused myself briefly and swiftly as I felt a tsunami rising — and had no intention of cancelling this one. The show, as it were, must go on.

  I cleaned up the room as best I could with the timpani accompaniment belting out an old favourite in my frontal lobe. I managed a half-hearted wash in the miniature bathroom along the wonky hall and was grateful that the morning’s stubble was camouflaged by the beard. At the arrival of the student, precisely on time, I was at least half-present and correct and hoping terribly that the emergency instant coffee would enable me — and the poor boy — to survive the hour. The lad was vocally furnished neither with a hypnotic monotone nor a piercing squawk, which was a source of much solace. For an hour, musings upon the upcoming Bugle disaster were temporarily banished. I almost enjoyed myself.

  At the student’s departure my thoughts returned immediately to sleep and the abandonment of the day. Perhaps I could forge some kind of maternal letter excusing m
e from whichever games were planned. It couldn’t, I observed with the day’s nth grunt, be any less discoverable a fake than the transcript provided to Wantage by Seb. Though, brutally, our failures there were multiple. Circular finger-pointing would help us little.

  A knock at the door interrupted my attempt to shut my eyes. It was, I was startled to learn, the Archivist. I let out a short moan, which was at least a change from a grunt, as I saw from his expression how the conversation was likely to proceed.

  “Dr Flowers, I should like a word, if it is convenient.”

  I ushered him in to the chair recently warmed by the student.

  “I suppose you have heard of yesterday’s events,” I said glumly.

  “Heard, and saw.” He was efficiently brusque. “I was off shift, of course, asleep, and despite in hindsight the obvious urgency I was alerted by an elf only as I arrived for duty last evening. Otherwise I would have come sooner. Preferably a day sooner, before the nonsense occurred. If only I had known of this!” He struggled to contain a whirlwind of anger.

  “I thought you might find it acceptable or even tolerably amusing under the circumstances. Needs did must, if that’s a phrase.”

  He huffed and fidgeted, and his hair shuddered. “Good god man, protocol, protocol. I wish you had come to me first. We have contingencies for precisely this scenario. And you instead bumble along and present a false Archivist! With a concocted story well known to be true! And allow the Master to bluster forth and bring the house of cards tumbling down!”

  “Protocol, contingencies. How was I to know?” My defensive shields were raising. All hands on deck. Red alert.

  He puffed out his cheeks and calmed a little, then glanced up at the camera watching over my room. “Now there is a question, Dr Flowers. A question indeed. Come with me. Swiftly.”

  He jumped up and went to the door, his gown billowing. I followed meekly behind clinging grimly to the struggle bus. There was no speaking as we walked at speed in procession across New Court into Bottom, students scattering before us, and directly to his secure underground facility.