News Where You Are

by Catherine O'Flynn

  Frank put his head in his hands. ‘Jesus, Phil.’

  ‘This Michael – well apparently he was good with guns – had been some crackshot in their army days. Phil had some lunatic idea of Michael walking up to him in the street, shooting him with an old National Service revolver and walking away. You know – Jill Dando style. It’d be just another unsolved mystery, Michael would never be connected with it, Phil would get what he wanted and Michelle would never know the truth. That was his main concern – that Michelle should never know.’

  ‘And he paid Michael twenty grand to do this?’

  Cyril looked at Frank again. ‘You have heard this.’

  ‘No. I’m just putting it together. Carry on.’

  ‘Michael said he didn’t want the money. Phil said he could donate it to charity – to the hospice where his wife had died. He posted it to him so Michael couldn’t refuse. Phil told him to think about how his wife had suffered at the end of her life. He asked him could he stand back and watch Phil suffer in the same way? Never mind that there was sod-all wrong with Phil – but … he was a persuasive man and Michael was his old mucker. In the end he agreed.’

  Frank stared out at the oily surface of the water. He tried to suppress both the terrible shocked laughter that he felt lurking in his chest and the tears that burned at the back of his eyes. He thought he should feel anger towards Phil for his stupidity, his selfishness, but he didn’t feel it yet. For now he just felt sorrow. Despite his shock he could somehow believe it all of Phil. He could quite easily imagine his terror of the slow decline. He could imagine too his persuasion of Michael, his tenacity with an argument, the history they shared. He thought about what Irene had said about Michael. About his strength and Phil’s weakness. He thought how little Michael had to live for after Elsie died. He kept seeing Michael’s eyes. He was the loyal, steady friend who would do anything for Phil.

  Cyril was staring ahead at the canal. ‘It wasn’t so easy, though. Michael let Phil down three times. Dates and times would be arranged. Michael would show up, but he couldn’t pull the trigger. Phil was going out of his mind, making Michelle’s life hell, but still he couldn’t give up on it; he thought the alternative was worse.

  ‘That day I saw him was the eve of the fourth attempt. Phil was going to go for a run along the country lanes near his home and Michael had said he would do it.’

  Frank had a sudden image of Michael’s sloping handwriting. ‘I won’t be there next week.’ Michael coming to his senses in the note that Phil never received.

  ‘Phil seemed jubilant and terrified at the prospect. He kept saying, “Ten thirty on the dot – all over, Cyril. All over.” It was too much for me, Frank. I hadn’t wanted to know any of this stuff and there I was being told by Phil that he was going to be killed the next day. I lost my patience. I told him to pull himself together, think of all the luck he had. I told him to stop drinking, go home to his wife and I left him in the bar.

  ‘I tried to forget about it on the way home, think of something else, work on some gags, but Phil’s nonsense kept popping into my head. I had to have a few when I got home just to get to sleep. The next morning I was up at the crack of dawn with a hell of a hangover and still all I could bloody think about was Phil. The bugger had somehow made me responsible. I couldn’t just stand back and let him go ahead with it. I knew I’d have to do something.

  ‘I tried to call him, but all I got was his voicemail. I thought, Well, there you go, I tried. But that kept the brain happy for all of two minutes and then it started up again: You should go down there, talk to him face to face. In the end I gave in and got in the car.

  ‘Traffic of course all the way down there. By the time I found his house it was ten fifteen and there was no answer. I had fifteen minutes. I headed off, driving around the country lanes, not having a clue where I was going. Those lanes are like a maze, endless hedgerows on either side – bloody claustrophobic. The headache was pounding. I was glad I had the bottle of Johnnie Walker on the seat beside me – hell of a lot more effective than paracetamol.

  ‘As I drove round in circles, I rehearsed what I was going to say to him. Maybe he was getting old, losing his edge, getting a bit soft in the head – but that happens to all of us, doesn’t it? I mean everyone else puts up with it. Apart from that, what did he have to complain about? A successful career? A devoted audience? A beautiful wife? I wanted to tell him that there were worse ways to live. Far worse. Imagine if he didn’t have any of that. Imagine if no one ever begged him to do another series. No one doubled his fee to keep him with the network. What if no one returned his calls and no one remembered his name? I’d ask him to imagine a life in which no one was won over by his charm. Women didn’t catch his eye and men didn’t offer to buy him a pint. Ever. A life spent working on his own in the same room that he slept in. A life of invisibility.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Perhaps then he’d have a point.’

  He lit another cigarette and had smoked most of it before he spoke again. ‘So, anyway, I’m haring round another bend and I see him up ahead of me in the distance. Bright red tracksuit – can’t miss him. I put my foot down, racing to get to him, but it’s after eleven. This Michael character has let him down again.

  ‘It’s only then that I really feel for him, that I understand his pain. Poor Phil, I think. Poor, poor bastard. Another bloody morning to face. God, I know how that feels. Pale light bleeding under the curtains. Weeping into your pillow. Sometimes a few Johnnie Walkers sort you out, but sometimes they don’t. Sometimes the day starts bad and ends bad. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes it’s impossible to see when the bad days are going to end. I’m getting closer to him. I see him more clearly now. I can see the whole story in his silhouette. He’s shattered, broken. Let down again. Do you know that feeling, Frank? Trapped in fucking pain? Have you ever felt like a fly smashing into a window over and over again? Desperate to get out, hurling yourself at the glass. All you want is a way out. I take a last swig from the bottle and put my foot down on the accelerator. The engine roars, my head spins and the car flies forward. I close my eyes and I’m soaring through the air. I sense a lifting inside me; I can taste freedom; I’m hurtling towards the light. But then comes the thud that brings me back down. That same bloody thud as I smash into the same bloody window again.’

  Cyril and Frank sat silently side by side for some time. Cyril was crying.

  ‘When I open my eyes, I’m back on that country lane. Blue sky above, tarmac below and no sign of Phil.’

  50

  One month later

  His mother’s room had a new occupant now. He walked past and noticed the display shelf outside her old door was covered in ornaments and photographs. The ornaments included some curious ceramic representations of half-rotten pieces of fruit with cheeky mice poking out of them. He imagined how amused his mother would have been to see these grisly tableaux of decay constantly reminding residents that not everything was evergreen.

  He eventually found Irene’s room. The door was open and she sat on a floral-print chair just inside with her hat and coat already on.

  ‘Am I late?’

  ‘No, dear. I just like to be ready.’

  He wondered how long she’d been sitting there clutching her handbag waiting for him to arrive.

  They took a detour on the way to the church. It ended up being more of a detour than originally intended as Irene’s directions were based on the road layout she remembered from the mid-fifties. Every now and again they’d come to a dual carriageway or a flyover and Irene would emit a small ‘oh’ and Frank would realize that another U-turn was necessary. She wanted to show him the area where she had lived when first married to Phil, the same area that Elsie and Michael and Phil had grown up together. She looked out from the car window at the vast Golden Cross estate.

  ‘I don’t recognize anything. It’s all gone.’

  ‘It can’t all have gone. There’s always something.’

  Eventually after much reversing out
of one-way streets and double circuits of roundabouts they came across the back of an old Victorian school.

  ‘I think that might have been where Phil and Mikey went to school.’

  They drove up the side of it and emerged onto a major dual carriageway that Frank recognized. He saw a bench on the far side of the road. He realized that this was where Michael’s body had been found. He said nothing to Irene and they carried on to the church.

  There were more people at the service than he’d expected. He recognized Azad and the women from Greggs, but there were another fifteen or so faces he didn’t know. He found out later that the women from Greggs had gone to some effort to track down Elsie’s old friends and spread the word amongst the few neighbours who had known Michael. He led Irene to a seat near the front and sat beside her.

  The police had never found any next of kin for Michael. Eventually they advised the coroner’s office to release the body for a local-authority funeral. When Jo rang Frank to let him know, he asked if he could pay for the funeral instead.

  The service was simple. Frank’s only request was that something other than the twenty-third psalm form the main reading. There were no hymns, but Azad chose a Nat King Cole track to play at the end of the service. The melody tugged at Frank. He didn’t know the song, something about a boy ‘a little shy, and sad of eye’. It seemed corny and haunting at the same time.

  Michael was finally buried alongside Elsie five months after he died. The cemetery sprawled over an incline overlooking the M6 motorway and a fine mist of rain fell. It was hard to imagine a bleaker setting. The vicar said a few more words and some of the mourners threw handfuls of soil on top of the wooden casket.

  A woman from the hospice where Elsie died came and spoke to Frank afterwards. She told him of the day some months earlier when Michael had turned up with a large brown envelope. She seemed to assume that Frank knew all about it. She said the new family room had been built now and she had wanted to invite Michael to a small event marking its opening. She said they would always be grateful for his great generosity. His name was on a plaque at the entrance. As she walked away, Azad approached Frank. ‘It was good of you to do this for Mike.’

  Frank shook his head. ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘Yeah, you did: you asked around, you found the people who knew him, you let people know that he’d gone.’

  Frank looked at the graves stretching away from them in all directions. ‘That’s my speciality – things that have gone.’

  ‘It’s good to remember. People forget without meaning to.’

  ‘But they’re not really my memories. I only met Michael once for a few seconds.’

  ‘Yeah, but you gave people a chance to remember. It’s like my wife. She remembers everything – dates, places, faces. I forget our anniversary every year. I see the card waiting for me on the table and can’t believe it’s happened again. I don’t want to forget it; it means a lot to me. She says it’s okay, says she’ll remember for both of us.’

  Frank smiled. ‘She’s a nicer person than me. My wife never remembers our anniversary. I enjoy making her feel bad about it all year.’ The other mourners had moved away from the graveside now. A council worker hovered nearby beside a small mechanical earth mover. ‘I meant to say I liked the song you chose.’

  Azad smiled. ‘ “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return” – I thought Mike would have liked that.’

  51

  The new producer was younger than Martin had been. His name was Benedict and he told Frank to call him Ben. He wore narrow black-framed rectangular glasses to which his eyes seemed attached. Throughout their meeting Frank had to try to fight the impression that when the glasses came off so did the eyes. He found the image of a blank expanse of skin above the nose stuck in his mind and proved quite unsettling. Ben apologized for not formally sitting down with Frank earlier but explained that he wanted to watch the team in action for a few weeks before speaking to individual members.

  ‘So, Frank, I notice that the jokes appear to have dried up.’

  ‘Erm … yes. There haven’t been any for a few weeks.’

  ‘The viewers aren’t very happy about this. Quite a few have got in contact and we’ve actually already noticed a drop in viewing figures. Apparently your bon mots used to brighten up the day for many viewers.’

  Frank had known this was coming. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that the man who used to write the jokes …’

  Ben looked at Frank; his eyes seemed to fill their tight black frames. ‘A man? Someone used to write those jokes for you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’d always assumed … well, I mean they seemed so … ad-libbed.’

  ‘Oh no, they were scripted by a professional.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Anyway, he’s retired, I’m afraid.’

  Frank had received a short note from Cyril. He wrote that he’d decided he needed looking after for a while, something his sister had apparently been saying for the past few years, and so he had gone to live with her and her family in Bootle. He said he would be writing exclusively for his two young nephews from now on. He asked Frank if he had been to the police and gave his new address in case they needed it. He ended the note with a one-word apology, and Frank wasn’t sure what it was for: his part in Phil’s death, burdening Frank with the information or withdrawing his puns and one-liners.

  Ben was nodding. ‘I see. Are you planning on providing your own jokes?’

  Frank shook his head. ‘I don’t think I’d be able to do that. It takes – well, a special kind of mindset to find the humour in every situation.’

  ‘So are you thinking of finding someone else to write them for you?’

  Frank felt his heart sink. ‘Do you think I should?’

  Ben looked at Frank for a few moments. ‘Frank, do you actually like including jokes in your pieces to camera? Is it very important to your image of yourself as a presenter?’

  Frank didn’t have the energy to explain to Ben about Cyril and Phil. About how this had all been foisted upon him. How it was nothing he had ever wanted, and didn’t figure at all in his image of himself as a presenter. He simply settled for: ‘No.’

  Ben smiled. ‘Good.’

  Frank looked up. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Let’s leave the jokes, then.’

  ‘What about the viewers? The drop in figures?’

  ‘To be honest, Frank, I’m thinking of making a few changes around here. There’s going to be a period of transition, we’ll lose some viewers, but hopefully we’ll gain new ones. I’ve just been discussing some of my ideas with Julia and I know we share a great deal of common ground, which is very exciting. From what she’s said I think you’re on the same wavelength too. I greatly respect your work, Frank. I know you’re a professional with high standards. I was just dreading having to persuade you that puns and one-liners didn’t form part of my vision for the future.’

  Frank left the meeting feeling uncertain. He thought that during his time at Heart of England Reports he’d perhaps seen enough new visions for the future, enough rebrandings, repositionings and refocusings. At that precise moment in time he found the whole idea of yet another change of direction filled him only with weariness. He tried to focus on the positive: no more jokes – he should have been walking on air, but he found himself slightly sad at the prospect. At least Julia would be happy.

  He looked at his watch and realized he was running late to meet Michelle, a meeting he had been putting off since learning the truth about Phil’s death. He knew he had to tell Michelle what he’d discovered, but that didn’t make it any less difficult. He’d discussed it over and over with Andrea and she thought the same. It was up to Michelle what she did with the information.

  She was waiting in the bar as he rushed in.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late.’

  ‘It’s okay – makes a change.’

  He pecked her on the cheek. ‘You look really w
ell.’

  ‘Oh, thanks. I take it that means I looked like a bag of dog food last time we met.’

  Frank had no idea how this always happened when he tried to offer a simple compliment.

  Michelle laughed. ‘It’s all right, Frank. No offence. I hope I do look better. I’m feeling a lot more myself. That’s why I wanted to see you.’

  Frank was sure that it had been him that suggested the meeting. He was keen to do what he’d come to do, to just get it over with and yet now found the conversation being hijacked by Michelle.

  ‘Look, Frank, I just wanted to apologize about the last time we met.’

  ‘Apologize for what?’

  ‘For worrying you. For being a mental case. For talking all that rubbish about Phil.’

  Frank looked at her. This was his opportunity. He hesitated a beat too long and she was speaking again.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the last few weeks. I realize that I’d just let things get out of all proportion. I’d be mad to let just a few months cloud the happy years Phil and I spent together.’

  Frank nodded uncertainly. He didn’t know what to say. ‘What about his mood swings? The erratic behaviour you were talking about?’

  ‘He was coming up to retirement, Frank. He was due to quit the show the following year. I wasn’t seeing things from his perspective. It was going to be a massive adjustment. Of course he’d get moody: he had to get used to the idea of putting his feet up, relaxing, letting me look after him – all the things he hated most! The transition was probably like a second adolescence for him – I mean it could have been a lot worse really.’

  ‘Right. Yes, I suppose that makes sense. What about that money you mentioned, though?’

  ‘Oh, that was ridiculous. I never had any idea what Phil did with his money. He was always protecting me from that side of things. I just seized on that £20,000 cash withdrawal when I saw it on his statement as evidence of something strange – something I was almost hoping to find. In reality it could have been anything – a charity donation, a poker game, whatever.