The Diaries of a Fleet Street Fox

by Lilly Miles

  Then there’s the executives, the ones with a lot of money and stress. The steadier ones stick to drinking, but those who spend too much time sitting at a desk wishing they were still on the road can develop a problem. They crave excitement and have been trained, over years of ordering reporters around and the ups and downs of a twenty-four-hour news cycle, to expect instant gratification. They have too much money, too much stress, and too few people telling them they’re wrong.

  When it comes to the inevitable point that they have to choose between their careers and their fun, most find that an addiction to news is more powerful, with better rewards and bigger highs.

  I honestly can’t tell you what Twatface did or didn’t do for sure, and I’m not sure I ever really want to know. When I’m working on a story and something just doesn’t smell right I ask a question, and if I think I’m being lied to, I ask it again and again and again. When you do that in a relationship you become a nag, and although he never told me the reasons for his late nights, the money that disappeared, the way my kind and loving husband seemed to turn overnight into an angry, evasive stranger, I’d be a pretty poor journalist if I couldn’t work out the most likely explanation was something he didn’t want me to know.

  Princess looked hard at me. ‘We don’t know what Twatface was doing, but I can tell you that if he never tried to fix things when they went wrong, if he always put himself before your relationship, then it was always going to go wrong. Maybe one day he would have done to you what my ex did to me. It might have taken thirty years, but it would have got worse. You’re lucky you’re out of it.’

  Her words fluttered through my ears and dropped like lead into my skull. I struggled with the thought that my husband – my Scooby, who I thought I knew as well as the lines on my own hand – could possibly be in the same category as the vicious thug who had almost killed my friend. Could it really be that I was at one end of the spectrum and she was at the other?

  It was impossible to comprehend, but at the same time made perfect sense – like that optical illusion where you look at a picture of a young woman with her face turned away, and suddenly realize it’s an old crone with a hooked nose. I remembered the time Twatface had made me get down on my knees and beg, in tears, for it all to stop. I did it because I just wanted things to be better.

  Remembering it now, I was appalled at my own denigration in a way I had not been at the time. He broke me and I hadn’t even noticed.

  Princess could be wrong, of course. Twatface might, right now, be out there feeling dreadful about everything and desperate to find a way to fix it.

  But even if he did – even if we had help, I took him back and gave him another chance – what would happen the next time things were stressful or imperfect? What if in five years’ time we had a kid and it fell ill? Or his parents died, or mine did, or one of us lost a job? The answer, I knew, was that he’d try to escape the problems again and then what would I do? He might learn to deal with it, or he might hurt me properly the next time. I couldn’t spend my life waiting for that. I wanted a husband who was on my team and would stand by me, not leave me on my tod while he went off down the pub, saying it was all too much to deal with, or who I would have to carry on my back through everything life threw at us. That’s not the way our marriage was meant to be.

  I kissed the girls goodbye and wandered home along the river. I remembered the nights spent waiting for him to come home, the tears, the rows. The things he had done to me and which I’d apologized for. For a year or eighteen months – half our marriage – I had cried most nights. What the hell had I been thinking about babies for? Was I insane? Sophia was right – it had ended just in time.

  Then a thought occurred to me: my period was late. By a week.

  DAY EIGHTEEN

  PREGNANT? I can’t possibly be pregnant.

  I could be pregnant. I mean, it’s biologically possible. But very unlikely. Twatface rarely if ever wanted to have sex with me. And I must admit that repeatedly asking your husband why he doesn’t want to have sex with you, and please could he have sex with you, and, ‘Look, I bought new knickers, what do you think?’ could be construed as nagging and thus a turn-off.

  Or so he said.

  Anyway, that aside we did manage it occasionally. And we hadn’t been that careful. It’s been six weeks since my last period.

  There are none of the normal signs of pregnancy – my boobs are smaller not bigger, my tummy is flatter not rounder – although my moods are all over the shop. And it’s been so long since I ate solid food I am probably incapable of carrying a child. On a diet of custard creams, white wine and tea you can’t even shit straight. If there was a foetus in there it would call Social Services and demand to be rehomed.

  For a week or so I’ve avoided buying a test and finding out for sure, for the simple reason that being pregnant right now would be a very bad thing and I don’t want to know.

  So when, this morning, a half-hearted period finally arrived, I should have been relieved. Instead I sat on the loo and cried.

  If there had been a baby, maybe Twatface would have come back. Maybe he would have behaved better. Even if he hadn’t the marriage could not have been written off as a total dismal failure: it would still have produced something wonderful. And at nearly thirty, with a divorce looming, I might never have another chance.

  But as I sat there and sniffled, I also realized that, had I been up the stick, I would inevitably have had other problems. Taking Twatface back ‘for the baby’s sake’, for one. Handing over said baby, once a week, to a bad husband for another. Having a child so young that it might even call the other woman it saw at the weekends ‘Mummy’. Having to stop work, sell the house, move in with my parents. All bad, all awful.

  Far better, overall, simply to decide I had wasted several years of my life with an idiot, chalk it up, build a bridge and get over it. The logic was completely inarguable, but did nothing to stop the little wail in my heart that I didn’t have my baby. None of this was going to get me anywhere. So I did what I’ve learned to do: put the sadness away, packed it up in a little box, and got on with the things I could change. I went back to see the solicitor.

  Maurice’s firm is near where I live, and he was the cheapest and kindest on the phone. He was short, portly, and middle-aged, and seemed a jolly chap considering he must spend his life dealing with other people’s irreconcilable differences. He couldn’t stop grinning when I first told him about the arrest, the adultery, the size of her arse. I sat in his office and told him what had happened since then, while he took notes and smiled. He said if I went ahead with the divorce I’d need to pay £600 up front, which as Twatface had promised to pay costs I’d get refunded at the end.

  ‘Six hundred pounds?’ I said. ‘It only cost £60 for the marriage licence!’

  Even better, he saw no reason why I couldn’t keep the house. I had put all the deposit down, I could probably manage the payments on my own, and as it was still in dire need of renovation the value wouldn’t have increased, which meant I wouldn’t have to pay Twatface off. Fatty might have my husband, and my future, and the babies I’d never have, but she was not having my house, too. Bollocks to that! I had to keep one thing, hold on to something for my future, to prove it wasn’t all pointless.

  Then he asked me what I was going to divorce Twatface for. Unreasonable behaviour was normal, he said; adultery with an unnamed third party was quite common, but people rarely wanted to shout about it. The other party, in cases such as this, rarely contested, unless you tried something bonkers like naming the other woman. ‘Name her?’ I asked. ‘Can I name her?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, smiling away. ‘But it just causes acrimony, because the other party gets papers served on them, and they have to sign admitting their adultery as well as your spouse. It’s really not wise.’

  Ooh, this sounded good. I liked the idea of acrimony. I particularly liked it if it would drop him in it. I liked it because her family would go mental. In fact
I couldn’t think of anything I didn’t like about it.

  ‘I think it’ll be adultery with a named third party then, Maurice,’ I said.

  ‘It may just antagonize your husband,’ he said, with a near-grimace.

  ‘Good,’ I replied. ‘I haven’t the money to start things now, and there’s some talking still to do, but I’ll call you.’ I left his office with a spring in my step for the first time in what felt like forever.

  After that the week was dull – it’s the time of year when everyone’s on holiday, from MPs to coppers, criminals to celebrities, and it seems like every person in my contact book is out of reach. We call it Silly Season because for most of the summer there’s nothing to write about but UFO sightings, tourist donkeys in need of rescue or large tabby cats being mistaken for escaped tigers on Bodmin Moor.

  One night I trooped down for a drink at one of the pubs on the river. There we were, several bottles down and looking over the water dancing with bar lights: me, Fifi, Bridget, Porter, Princess, Buff and Nancy. Bish even came down and stood his round, gossip was spread and tall tales were told.

  Towards the end of the evening, as the manager tried to collect his glasses and tot up his losses, and Fifi and Bridget were fighting over a £14 receipt they’d found on the ground and each wanted to use to claim back on expenses, I was drunkenly leaning over the railings when Buff came and leaned next to me.

  We’ve always had an unspoken understanding, me and Buff. I know he’s a dirty beggar who’d shag a warm loaf, and he knows I know it. We flirt and are friendly and it’s all very pleasant. Just before I got married there were one or two occasions when I was aware his mind and eyes were turning towards the possibility of getting himself a no-strings, last-minute legover, and I was even half-tempted. But he’s not really my type, and besides, there’s no point in a fling if you love your groom-to-be and never dream of being with anyone else.

  Anyway, we leaned. We chatted, and he asked how I was doing. We flirted a bit, same as ever. Then he said, while we were talking about Twatface, that he’d suspected he was a bad boy. Sensing a line, I scoffed and said: ‘Really?’

  Buff was serious, and replied: ‘Occasionally when I bumped into him around the place I would look at him, say hello, and I could just kind of sense something. And I used to think to myself, “I hope you’re being a good boy.” And it wasn’t just because I’m friends with you, it was because I could see he had a glint in his eye.’

  I was quite surprised, but frankly if anyone can spot a glint it’s Buff. I told him about the stuff I’d found out, things that worried me before Twatface even met Fatty, and Buff said: ‘In that case I reckon he was doing it before, too. You just didn’t find out.’

  I was coming to terms with this, and trying to work out who else Twatface might have been cheating on me with, when Buff touched my arm and said: ‘Do you know, my girlfriend and I hardly have sex any more.’

  Now, every girl worth her salt knows what that means. It is not a cri de coeur from a man desperate for the physical expression of love from his girlfriend. It could mean, ‘It’s got a bit boring,’ or, ‘It’s a bit infrequent’– or anything at all. But it really translates as: ‘I would like to have sex with you, if you will just react sympathetically to this blatantly obvious line, listen to me spin you some crap about how my girlfriend doesn’t understand me, and then let me put my winky in you. Please.’

  We were leaning close together, and I knew if I turned my head towards him he would kiss me. Everyone else was inside, so I knew there’d be no gossip, but it still wasn’t something I wanted to do. A no-strings shag with a dirty beggar might be just what the doctor ordered, but not when I knew he had another woman. I’m not certain of much, but I am a better woman than that. A better woman than Fatty.

  So instead I kept my head facing out over the water, took a sip of my wine, said something jokey and inconsequential, and the moment passed. We finished our drinks, pecked on the cheek and went our separate ways.

  Sat swaying drunkenly on the Docklands Light Railway as it swung through the apartment blocks back towards home, I offered up a prayer of silent thanks to whatever malevolent god might be taking an interest in my life, for reminding me that someone, somewhere still wanted to have sex with me, even if all it proved was that I didn’t need a wash yet.

  Whether Twatface had been putting it about all over town, whether I was pregnant or not, it really didn’t matter. It was over now, and with each day there was more distance and less pain. In the words of the old country and western song he really had me going – but now I’m gone.

  DAY TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWATFACE texted last night: ‘I miss you. I miss talking to you. I’m drinking alone and there’s nothing to eat but nuts. Can I come and see you, talk things over?’

  Oh, the joy. How did it get to the point where, when my husband says he misses me, my heart sinks into my shoes? I cried all night. Again.

  I quite want to see him; I dream he’ll say sorry, beg for forgiveness, ask to try again and that he loves me still. That instead of being the screwed-up tabloid newspaper exec he is, he’ll go back to being the slightly alcoholic but fun tabloid newspaper reporter he was when I met him.

  Maybe he wishes I was different, too?

  I’m not how I was. I’m angrier, older, wiser. I was also a size ten when we married; after a while it was a twelve, with the arse bordering on a fourteen in the wrong shops. Considering he’s run off with Fatty, he was probably feeding me up. Whatever, I’m about an eight these days. Looking in the mirror I can see the bum is definitely smaller, but inexplicably has more cellulite on it, and appears to sag alarmingly where it joins the back of my thighs. It looks all right in jeans, but I’m not sure anyone would like it in the flesh.

  And Fatty is a better prospect than this. God, am I that unattractive? I feel like wearing a bag over my head.

  Dragging my heels into the newsroom, I arrived my habitual ten minutes late, to be greeted by the lesser-spotted shriek of Bridget Jones.

  ‘FOXYYYYYYY,’ she screamed down the office from her desk, where she was sitting with Fifi perched nearby. ‘You won’t BELIEVE what I did at the Glastonbury Festival!’

  (Journalists, bless them, like to publish. Everything.)

  ‘Morning, you,’ I said. ‘Tell me it wasn’t another nineteen-year-old?’

  Bridget laughed, plainly proud of her exploits and wanting to boast. ‘Nah, mate, got that badge. Fifi here got me in on a press ticket because she was covering it. I met this guy in the dance tent, and I was quite drunk but not that bad, and he was a beautiful Arab man, like Omar Sharif. We talked for hours.’

  ‘Oh yeah? What about?’

  ‘No bloody idea! All I remember is waking up the next morning.’ Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper, and I leaned in. ‘I cracked open my eyes and did that thing where you try to work out if you still have all your fingers and toes, and if you can remember what your name is. Counted my feet, found my hands. Then I caught sight of him at the entrance of the tent, lookin’ out. Only in the morning he looked more like Mohammed from the kebab shop down Deptford High Street! I couldn’t remember what had happened, so I peeked under the sleeping bag to check if my knickers were on or off.’

  Eyes wide, I was gripped. ‘And?’

  ‘Worse!’ said Bridge in mock horror, before starting to cackle like Sybil Fawlty. ‘I had one leg in my jeans, and one leg out! Hahaha! Oh, the humanity! I said, “Did we have sex?” And he said, “No, you refused unless I could get all your clothes off, and we couldn’t get your other leg out.” He went off to get some water, and while he was gone I bolted. I’d only got twenty feet ’fore he turned round, and saw me hoppin’ between the tents still trying to put my jeans on. He called me back, but I kept hoppin’! Hahahahahahaha!’

  Bridge, bless her, is an unending source of shameful shenanigans. She’s secretly quite thoughtful and sweet, and everyone likes her, but she’s perennially single, and I don’t know why. She’s pretty
and clever and funny, but I think being a tabloid reporter scares men away – female reporters are by nature and environment tough, doing the kind of job not always easy to explain to a prospective mother-in-law. By dint of mathematics and working hours we’re more likely to go out with a hack, but the male of our species is generally the kind who gets further with his wits than his looks. Hacks cross-breed all the time, although rarely with much success, as Twatface and I have just proved. I guess I’m about to have the same kind of problems as Bridget.

  I joked, only half-heartedly: ‘Come back, Twatface, all is forgiven.’

  Bridget sobered up and exchanged a glance with Fifi. ‘Oh yes. You know he was at Glasto too?’

  ‘No. He said he was seeing family this weekend, asked to borrow my sleeping bag because his folks were going to be short of beds or something. He’s never been to Glasto.’

  Fifi grimaced. ‘He was definitely there, luvly. With a girl so huge I presume she must be the Scarlet Fatso, izzeht.’

  My heart, already low, plummeted to the Earth’s core.

  Fifi went on: ‘He walked into the press tent with her. I don’t know what he was thinken, I mean I was there, Bridget, Tania Banks, loads of people you know – he must be bonkers thinken he can take her into a room full of your mates. Anyway he came up to say hello and we all blanked him. I gave him a mouthful and we all talked loudly about, “MY GOD, SHE’S ’UGE” and “HOW DER SHE”, izzeht. Then they left.’