Fixing Sixty Six

by Tim Flower

  ‘What!’ I sniggered. ‘The Handyman told my paper that?’

  ‘Not just that. He told them that…’ Her voice broke. ‘That the Fox was having an affair with me.’ Close to tears, she continued, ‘He made me sign a statement, in front of Mr Cudlipp, admitting to it.’

  ‘Rita, that’s terrible.’ As I said it, I realised the assumption I had made. ‘You weren’t, were you?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ she said, sounding resentful rather than indignant. She drew sharply on her cigarette. ‘Harry, I was so scared people would hear about it… think I was the sort of girl who would, you know… before they were married.’

  ‘The Handyman had no business doing that.’

  ‘He made it known in Fleet Street that Mr Cudlipp had written proof that the Fox wasn’t a… you know, and threatened to sue any paper that even hinted he was.’ She stubbed out her cigarette and, from her sleeve, pulled out the hankie she had used to blot my trousers. Whilst absentmindedly inspecting the tea stains on it, she added, ‘None of them did, thank God. They didn’t even mention his existence.’

  ‘Here. Use this,’ I said, handing her the white linen square that Ma had lovingly folded for me the day I got married and had remained in my breast pocket ever since.

  She dabbed her eyes and nose and forced a gentle smile. ‘I’m being silly. No one else knows about the statement. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. There was no harm done, as it turned out.’

  ‘No thanks to my paper,’ was all I could think of to say.

  Having composed herself, Rita put on a cheerful face and said, ‘Despite the rumours, I’m sure the Fox isn’t… you know…’

  ‘Queer.’

  ‘You can tell, can’t you?’

  I recalled a Sunday Mirror piece, a while back, entitled “How to Spot a Homo”. As well as a liking for the theatre, the symptoms it listed included dropping of the eyes and glancing shiftily. I was inclined to agree with Rita. Forsyth hadn’t done either of those - or even mentioned the theatre.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sunday, 27th March 1966

  Being released by Forsyth until further notice meant I could focus on reporting football matches. The sixth round of the football world’s oldest knock-out competition, the FA Cup, was being held on the Saturday and I had been allocated the pick of the ties, Manchester United’s visit to their neighbours, up the A6, Preston North End. It was competing that day with several other major sporting events taking place around the country. As the two Lancashire teams prepared to kick off at Deepdale, just down the A59 at Aintree, the Grand National field were coming under starters orders; in Cardiff, Wales were playing France at rugby, hoping to win the Five Nations Championship; and Nell’s Cambridge were preparing to race rivals Oxford, on the Thames, in the University Boat Race.

  Unlike the football, all these events were being broadcast live on BBC’s “Grandstand”. At Deepdale, to remove the incentive for reporters to abscond to local betting offices or TV showrooms to see the competing contests, a small portable television had been set up in the corner of the press box. Being a conscientious journalist and not a betting man, I preferred to watch - in glorious actual-colour - the live event which I was being paid to attend, rather than a shrunken, black & white picture of a different one happening elsewhere. But, particularly since the match never did ignite and seemed destined to be inconclusive, I was one of a small minority.

  Although I didn’t need to watch the match that closely. I wasn’t there to inform our readership of what happened on the pitch over the ninety minutes: that would be reported in Sunday’s papers. My job was to get a story arising from it for Monday’s edition. Ironically, most of those with the task of describing the game for Sunday readers, were engaged for a good deal of the afternoon watching something else. So, by the time I left, many of them owed me “a drink” for briefing them on what they missed whilst they were huddled around a twelve-inch telly.

  As a junior on the Liverpool Echo, I worked with “Hugh”, a reluctant sports reporter, who had an alternative approach to not being present for some or even all of the action. He would file what he thought readers would expect to have happened, judging by the result. “No-one can disprove it”, he would say. And certainly, in those days, before Match of the Day was even thought of, he was right. To Hugh’s mind, it did no harm. In fact, he maintained that his fictionalised reports were more enlightening than other reporters’ factual ones. But our editor saw it differently and fired him. Hugh’s parting words were, “I’m going to get a job in news. There they like you to be creative”.

  That afternoon, I knew Nell would have been glued to our television at home. She never missed the BBC’s coverage of the Boat Race. She would sit in the lounge, wearing her college scarf, and shriek her support for Cambridge so loudly at the screen they could have heard her on the Thames.

  I was also hoping that Nell’s old university would be the first across the finishing line at Mortlake, so she would wake up in a good mood on the Sunday and I might just get both my oats in bed and my breakfast. This hope was dashed, however, before I had even left the ground. One of the telly-watching reporters broke the news to me that Oxford had won by 3 3/4 lengths.

  Back in Finchley, I awoke the following morning to find the Sunday papers on the other side of the bed, but not Nell. Nonetheless, I told myself, this was an improvement on the previous Sunday.

  As I shared some of the distress of the defeated Cambridge crew pictured in the papers, I could hear Nell downstairs with our daughter. From what she was shouting, I surmised that Alison had rejected the toast she had been given because it was burnt. Nell refused to buy Wonderloaf, much to both my and Alison’s disappointment. Instead she would feed our pop-up toaster uneven slices of our local baker’s seeded bloomer or cottage loaf, which she had cut herself. As a result, we were invariably presented with a partially blackened offering. I often managed to smother the taste of soot with a thick layer of Golden Shred marmalade. But Alison stood no chance with the smear of strawberry jam that Nell allowed her.

  Whilst I waited to see if Nell brought me breakfast, I read the reports of Preston’s game against Man. U. I wasn’t surprised to see they contained few details I recognised. Indeed, if the match programme hadn’t been sitting on top of the teasmade to prove my presence at Deepdale, I would have wondered whether I had seen a different game.

  I finished the sports pages and my first cup of tea and there was still no sign of breakfast. So I decided to don, what I considered to be a suave, Bond-esque dressing gown and go downstairs to investigate.

  Alison was nowhere to be seen. She had possibly left home in disgust; more likely, she was sulking in her room.

  I found Nell in the kitchen, reading an airmail letter, smoking a Consulate and supervising a coffee percolator. This wasn’t unusual: but her appearance was. Instead of wearing her chiffon nightie, she was swamped in one of my pyjama tops. And that wasn’t all.

  ‘What have you done to your hair?’

  ‘I’ve had it cut.’

  ‘I can see that.’ Instead of falling to her shoulders in soft curls, it now reached no further than the nape of her neck. ‘Did you go to my barber?’

  ‘No need,’ she sneered. ‘My salon is now unisex.’

  ‘Is that why they gave you a short-back-and-sides?’

  ‘It’s called Italian style, if you really want to know. It’s modern, easy to care for, and I like it.’

  It struck me, women were looking more like men, just when men were growing their hair and looking more like women. Would we all become unisex?

  ‘You didn’t ask me whether I’d like it,’ I said.

  Nell gave me a defiant glare, calmly responded, ‘No, I didn’t,’ and returned to her letter.

  I didn’t want to get into an argument, not least because I hadn’t given up all hope of us having sex. But her hair care was troubling me - and not just in relation to her head. Earlier in the week, when I witnessed her dressing, I noticed dark downy
tufts under her arms and that her pubic hair had spread beyond the borders of her panties. I enquired, light-heartedly, whether she had lost her Ladyshave. She just smirked, stepped into her slacks and changed the subject.

  Through the serving hatch, I could see milk, sugar and jam on the dining table and Alison’s black leavings. But, otherwise, there was no sign of breakfast. ‘Are you making anything for me?’, I enquired gently.

  ‘No. I’m going to sit down and have my coffee.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, trying to sound hurt.

  ‘You can put cereal in a bowl, can’t you? There’s milk and sugar on the table.’

  I muttered to myself, ‘That’s more than there was last week, I suppose.’

  Having watched me open and close identical, yellow fitted cupboards at random, Nell tutted, took a bowl from the draining rack behind her, and presented it to me. ‘Can you manage the rest of it yourself?’

  This stung; but I didn’t want to add to the increasing tension. So I moved the conversation on to the blue, tissue-like, combined letter and envelope now littering our Formica worktop. ‘Who’s that from?’ I asked innocently, although I was pretty sure of the answer.

  ‘Maria,’ she said. ‘And it’s really good news.’

  As far as I was concerned, Maria’s news was rarely good. ‘What’s happened?’

  After reminding me about her court case (information which I had seen no reason to retain) she said, ‘As a result, a sort of equality commission over there have ruled that all airlines’ marriage restrictions are illegal.’

  ‘And that’s good for her is it?’

  ‘It’s good for all women,’ Nell said impatiently. ‘American women, anyway. They can’t be sacked just because they’ve got married. What’s more, Pan Am have now offered to settle Maria’s case. She’s going back to work.’

  Seeing as it was a Sunday, the letter could not have newly arrived. I suspected Nell was sharing this old news as part of building her own case for going back to work. So I started laying the foundations of my defence. ‘It’s a shame her husband doesn’t earn more. Then she wouldn’t have to work.’

  ‘Philip is the manager of Kings County Savings Bank in New York. Maria worked, not because she had to, but because she wanted to. She wasn’t happy staying at home.’

  ‘I assume they have a nice house and a car?’

  ‘Yes, I think so,’ Nell said suspiciously.

  ‘Then how can she be unhappy?’

  The coffee percolator started hissing and bubbling. As Nell dragged it off the hotplate, steam from it scalded her hand.

  ‘Ow!’ She glared at me as if it were my fault. ‘It isn’t as simple as that,’ she snapped. ‘It’s called “the problem that has no name” for a reason.’

  ‘How do you know Maria has this mystery problem?’

  Having poured her coffee, Nell slammed the percolator down on the hob. ‘If she was happy to be a housewife, she wouldn’t be suing Pan Am, would she?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I started to hunt for some cereal. ‘What I do know is, if she’d rather work as an air hostess than make a home for her husband, they should look closely at their marriage.’

  Nell wrenched open an eye-level cupboard behind her, snatched a box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and thrust it into my chest.

  ‘You’re right. They probably should,’ she said with a pointed smirk.

  She grabbed her coffee and marched out of the kitchen, leaving her letter on the worktop, slowly absorbing drips from the percolator.

  I couldn’t resist reading it, as I poured out my cereal. I soon wished I hadn’t. It was semi-pornographic - without being at all arousing - and extremely anti-men. Maria asserted that women didn’t need men for sexual gratification, any more than they did for economic support. She quoted the Friedan woman: “No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor” and suggested that Nell should explore her own vagina and find her “G-spot” - whatever that was. Maria went on to detail that other women she knew achieved orgasm with a rapid hand movement, but that she preferred a slow, steady motion.

  I couldn’t read any more. As I carefully replaced the letter on the coffee splashed Formica, I couldn’t help thinking that, if Nell would just come back to bed, she wouldn’t have to do either and we would both be happy.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Monday, 28th March 1966

  The Daily Mirror’s home - and my regular workplace - was a purpose built, concrete tower block, eleven storeys high, with the presses below and the offices above. I was based, of course, in the expansive newsroom on the ground floor. This housed, under long florescent lights and around a forest of columns, a sprawling grid of desks, most supporting a Remington typewriter, a stack of wooden filing trays and a ream or more of sundry printed paper. There was constant movement around the network, which quickened as the large analogue clocks on the columns advised that deadlines - print or pub - were approaching. And late in the day, when the klaxon sounded and the presses roared into life, it felt as if the building’s engine had been fired up and the entire edifice was about to trundle slowly across Holborn Circus.

  Like the vast majority of the country, professional footballers rested on a Sunday. So, for me, Mondays at the Mirror started slowly. I would arrive in the newsroom at a civilised twenty to ten, having missed the worst of the rush-hour, light my pipe, and have an unhurried sift through my in-tray. Most of the contents could be re-filed in “Pending”, and attended to later, or put straight in the cylindrical “out tray” beneath my desk. I would then turn to the most important Monday morning activity for a sportswriter, claiming his “exes”.

  On a Friday we would form a disorderly queue at “the bank in the sky” (as the accounts department, high in the tower, was known) clutching chits claiming an advance on our Saturday expenses. The following Monday we would have to account for the sum we had been given, by submitting expense claims that at least equalled but, preferably, exceeded it. For fellow reporters - whose advance funded, not only their professional activities but also rounds in the pub and the wife’s housekeeping - drawing up the exes claim on a Monday was often the week’s most creatively demanding activity. But I kept things simple. I claimed what I had actually spent on the newspaper’s business over the weekend. So the process didn’t take me long and I would be first in line with my mug when Mavis came around with her tea trolley.

  Monday 28th March, however, proved to be an exceptional start to the week. I had just sat down at my desk and lit up when the phone rang.

  ‘Sports desk.’

  ‘Harry: it’s Rita. The Fox needs you at No 10.’ She spoke economically. I suspected Forsyth was on her back.

  ‘How come? On Friday, I was as welcome there as Ted Heath. What’s changed?’

  ‘They’ve found the World Cup and arrested the man who demanded fifteen thousand pounds for its return.’

  ‘You mean they’ve found the replica.’

  ‘Shh!’

  ‘It’s okay. Nobody can hear me. They’re all too busy fiddling their expenses.’ I expected that to get a chuckle, but it didn’t.

  ‘You need to come quickly.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘The Fox wants your help with publicity.’

  ‘What kind of publicity?’

  ‘He’ll explain when you get here.’

  ‘Will the Government pay for a taxi?’

  ‘No. But I’m sure the Party will.’

  So I donned my wedding suit and hailed a taxi in Fleet Street.

  Alighting in Downing Street, I asked the cabbie for a receipt.

  ‘How much do you want it for?’, he enquired. ‘Or would you prefer it blank?’ He was clearly used to picking up journos.

  Up on the second floor, I found Brenda’s side of her and Rita’s office packed in preparation for the worst. In contrast, judging by Rita’s desk and filing, the Fox held no fear of having to vacate the premises in three days’ time. Rita was busy typing, surrounded by the same grey office equipment and
carefully ordered manila folders as before. Wearing a figure hugging, yellow jumper with matching cardigan, she was a welcoming splash of life and colour - like a buttercup on a bomb site.

  When she saw me, her fingers froze on the keys momentarily and she said, ‘Oh good, Harry, you’re here. Mr Forsyth has Mrs Williams with him at the moment. But he wants to see you as soon as they’re finished.’

  ‘Can’t wait,’ I said facetiously. Rita continued typing at a frantic pace. ‘So where did the police find the, so called, trophy?’

  Rita’s eyes flashed towards Brenda who was also typing.

  I discretely put my forefinger to my lips, to show I knew not to talk of a replica in her presence.

  Rita acknowledged it with modest smile. ‘The police didn’t find it. Pickles did.’ She tugged the paper from her typewriter, removed the carbons, placed the original into Forsyth’s signing book and shut it with a relieved sigh.

  ‘Who’s Pickles?’

  ‘A black and white dog owned by a Mr Corbett.’

  ‘Not Harry, of Sooty fame?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ I said. ‘His dog is called “Sweep”.’ Rita seemed in no mood for banter, so I moved swiftly on. ‘How did he find it?’

  Rita plucked an unmarked manila folder from the locked filing draw of her desk, opened it, and consulted a crested document on the top, marked “Highly Confidential”.

  ‘According to Scotland Yard, Mr Corbett left his flat in South Norwood last night to make a phone call and took his dog with him. When they got outside in the front garden, Pickles started sniffing at a parcel tied with string, lying against the wheel of a car parked on the drive. Mr Corbett said it felt heavy. He opened it, and found the trophy wrapped in a copy of the Daily Mirror.’