by Lilly Miles
So that’s what my sleeping bag was used for – him and Fatty. My eyes filled with hot water, and I stared at the floor while Fifi put her arm around me.
‘Don’t worry, babe, he’s a twat. You’re faberluss. You can do better.’
‘He’s ’sposed to be coming round this week to talk about things,’ I sniffed.
Then Tania Banks walked in. She was with Evil Elliot, the deputy news editor, a man so paranoid and vicious he’s not even in his own circle of trust. When he’s bearing down on you, wielding his biro like a scalpel, you know you’re about to be sent to sit on someone’s pointless doorstep until three in the morning, for no reason other than that he’s heard you had a night out planned and he likes to make people miserable.
He’s like one of the dementors in Harry Potter; I could feel what little was left of my soul being sucked out through my ears at his approach. And Banks, oh, Banks I didn’t want to see at all.
Elliot sneered as he peered at me over the rimless glasses perched on the end of his nose. He always sneers – it’s his default face. ‘Ah, it’s you. When you’ve finished gossiping about your love life I’d like to discuss your latest expenses claim with you in the office. Perhaps you can explain why you think it’s eighty-four miles to Peckham. Oh, and we’re assessing all staff for the redundancies. I’m drawing up a list.’
He stalked off to what was affectionately known as the Bunker, which is technically Bish’s office except he prefers to sit on the news desk, where he has the chance to chat to The Reader when they phone up. Elliot is a man more comfortable with clean white walls and a neat pen tidy, and tries to claim the Bunker as his own.
‘I went via Harrow,’ I told the girls defensively, as they raised eyebrows at me. ‘Twice.’
Tania Banks stopped by me and crinkled her forehead. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ I said, wiping my eyes. ‘You know.’
‘Poor thing,’ she said sympathetically. ‘You should let me take you for a drink and a chat. I could tell from the Cheryl Tweedy stuff you filed you weren’t your normal self; it wasn’t quite you. I suggested to Elliot I give your copy a little polish, you know – I made it sing like it should. There’s no need to thank me, it was just my way of helping out. You know I’m your friend, let’s pop to the Slug later, yeah? Good, see you then.’
I looked at Bridget. She glanced back at me and shrugged. ‘Maybe she’s genuinely being nice?’ she said, in a voice that suggested she didn’t really believe it.
‘Hmm,’ I said.
Later, in the bar, a rude French barman had given us each a glass of Pinot Noir, and Banks had wittered on about some political story she’d been plaguing The Reader with. Then she said: ‘Do you know what you did wrong? I mean, I know both of you, and love you equally, of course. You’re a very bright and funny girl, great fun to be with, but you’re terribly sensitive. It’s very draining. It made things very hard for him, you know. And to be honest, you can be a bit green, a bit immature. You’ve very high expectations of everyone around you and it’s hard to measure up.’
I stared, hearing the words, agreeing with some of them, but stunned at the realization that while Twatface had been staying in Banks’s flat he’d been telling her all this. He’d not said it to me. Did that make it a lie, to keep her onside, or was I the one being misled?
Banks could see I was struggling to understand, my defences down, and leaned across to squeeze my hand. She said kindly: ‘I just want to see you both happy. You can lean on me, I won’t tell a soul. Tell me what went wrong.’
So I spilled out my heart – my insecurities, my fears that maybe it was all my fault and I had pushed him into Fatty’s bingo-wings. I told her things I had not even come to terms with myself, that I had not told anyone else. She listened, occasionally pointing out my mistakes.
Tears poured down my face throughout, as she picked over the barely-scabbed wound inside me and told me how I’d pushed him away but it could be fixed if I tried hard enough and made a real effort. I told her what my lawyer had advised, what I wanted and hoped for. When the bar closed Banks left me with a hug, and I felt I’d gained my friend back, someone to lean on. When I got home I was lower than I had been for days, convinced by her that I had somehow caused all this myself, questioning everything I’d learned, and mentally replaying recent history to see if I could have done things differently.
Then there was a text from Twatface: ‘Are you seriously telling everyone I beat you?’
Banks must have rung him the moment she had left. Some friend.
DAY THIRTY-THREE
THE world’s gone mad. Although the anniversary of Michael Jackson’s death was a whole month ago, Bish has randomly decided we want a chat with his monkey.
‘Be fookin’ great read, that. And he’s not a moonke, he’s a nape. We could do “I WAS JACKO’S PLAYTHING” or maybe “BUBBLES’ TROUBLES”. I want a full sit-down chat, pictures, family album, the lot. A chimp’s eye view o’the King of Pop. Go get ’im, don’t let me down.’
I’ve been at it an hour so far, and to my certain knowledge there have been at least four Bubbles. Each and every charming chimp was replaced once he grew out of nappies and started masturbating indiscriminately – something which would, one might think, have endeared him to Jackson rather than caused offence.
It breaks down like this: first Bubbles is probably dead. Second Bubbles is in a sanctuary in Florida, and his owner refuses to expose him to ‘media intrusion’. Third Bubbles is doing tricks in a circus somewhere in Europe that I can’t track down, fourth Bubbles is living in an animal trainer’s house in Texas, still masturbating indiscriminately, but the trainer is prepared to let us do a piece for a price.
Much is made, these days, of chequebook journalism and how the dreadful media offer vast sums for stories, contaminating our society with greed and propagating a fame-focused culture which sexualizes our children and blah blah blah. The truth is that, yes, the media can be accused of all those things, but a far worse culprit is people. A person you meet one to one is sensible, sane and entirely reasonable. People en masse are tribalist xenophobes out for what they can get. People buy Coldplay records, people voted for Hitler. People can’t be trusted.
People, more often than not, are contaminated with greed long before we get to them. I spend more time telling them we’re not paying than I do telling them we will, or at the very least that the story they’ve rung up with is only worth six pars and £75 rather than the thousands they were expecting. We all have budgets, you know.
Bubbles may be a notch down the evolutionary tree, but he has grasped the basic concept of media manipulation and has demanded £20,000, copy approval, his choice of headline, and is refusing to do any pictures.
I reread the email from his trainer, who among a long list of demands, said: ‘Bubbles is very concerned about misrepresentation and would like his lawyer to suggest amendments to your contract in order to protect his image and professional reputation . . .’
Just then another missive dropped into my inbox with the annoying squeaky sound I thought was funny once, and now can’t switch off.
It was Twatface, saying, ‘I miss you. Can we talk?’
‘About Glastonbury?’ I asked him. He said ‘she’ had been expecting to go and he was sorry because he knew I wouldn’t like it. ‘Didn’t go well, if it makes you feel better.’
I replied that it didn’t, and asked what he thought he was playing at, taking my sleeping bag for the event. He insisted they still weren’t having sex and bizarrely blamed it on the fact her dad was a vicar and furious with her. Then he said, ‘Are you around tonight? Maybe we could meet for a chat.’
Vicar? This was interesting news. I forgot about Bubbles and instead ferreted through the clergy lists and electoral roll to find her father’s parish. Family stinking rich and much posher than Twatface’s. So he’s telling the truth about something, for once. I decided to ring and ask him over for dinner – it can’t be too hard to be nice to e
ach other, can it?
He was obviously on the office phone because his mobile clicked through to voicemail. And then, without thinking about it, I’d typed in his security code to listen to his messages. Yes, technically it’s illegal and it’s phone-hacking, but if it’s your husband and he’s maybe lying to you, you’re allowed, right? Morally?
Let me be clear – I’ve never been asked by any editor to hack a phone, nor worked on a story where I thought it was the only option. It is not a practice as rife as politicians and other enemies of the tabloids would have you believe, and certainly not in the decade or so I’ve been in Fleet Street. There are thousands of journalists in my trade and only a handful of them will ever be linked to the practice. Celebrities knew about it twenty years ago and it should be easy enough to dodge if you want to – get a pay-as-you-go phone, change your PIN, delete your messages. Or alternatively you can keep your nose clean, and then it doesn’t matter if a journalist hears your messages. I picked up how to do it not from Fleet Street colleagues but from the phone company, because when I was abroad I had to dial my own security code to get my voicemails, just like millions of their customers did.
There’s no defence in law for phone-hacking, no public interest case to be made for it. Personally, I think it can be justified in some instances, along with a range of other minor crimes. Trespass, theft, speeding offences, impersonating people I shouldn’t – I have done and will do any and all of these things, and a few more, if the story justifies it. I’d hack a phone, too, if I thought it was the only way to prove a truth that needed to be known.
I’m not doing anything so high and mighty here, though. This is just a cheating husband and a suspicious wife. But I don’t believe, were anyone to present the evidence to a police officer, that he’d want to bother with the paperwork. I don’t reckon a jury would think it so dreadful they had to convict, and if they did I’m reasonably sure the judge would not do much more than shrug. It’s a crime and a betrayal of trust, but so is looking at a loved one’s text messages and emails, and how many of us have done that?
How many, moreover, would not do it in my shoes? That very afternoon a person I only half know and who works in the same place as Fatty had sent me a text saying: ‘Overheard a phone call this end – apparently she’s buying SOMEONE steak and strawberries for dinner and eggs and bacon for breakfast.’ I didn’t much like being told, especially as the reason for telling me was presumably just to stir up trouble which I was going to feel the worst of. But on the other hand he was claiming they weren’t having sex and asking to see me.
So there I was calling Twatface, and – he always had the same PIN code for everything, he knew mine and I knew his – when it clicked through to voicemail my fingers tapped in the code before I’d realized what I was doing – without thought, or plan or even temptation. My first instinct was to hang up but then I heard:
‘You have three. Saved. Messages.’
Ooh.
There was one from her about dinner and breakfast, another telling him she loved him, and one from his mother asking if he was bringing me up to visit the outlaws this weekend.
My stunned fingers hit the wrong key, and a message in my ear told me I had successfully changed the security code. Bugger. Then another squeak, and more demands from Bubbles’ publicist about syndication rights and an enquiry as to which Texas-based freelance I was going to send round to interview him – there are some, apparently, he does not like. I ignored it and emailed Fifi:
I’ve just listened to his messages. He’s moved in with Fatty, but tells me he wants to come over and talk. What do I do?>
As I redialled Twatface to reset his code, she replied:
To: Foxy
Maybe he’s lying to her more than to you?>
I pinged back:
To: Jones, Fifi
Is that seriously a best-case scenario? That my lying husband doesn’t lie to me as much as he does to some tart?>
Then Twatface emailed me, demanding to know whether I’d been listening to his messages.
Then Fifi:
To: Foxy
Did you realize you copied him on that first email?>
WHAAAAAAAT? I looked back through my emails . . . shit, bollocks and balls!
To Twatface I typed: ‘Ha ha JOKE. Get over yourself.’ And to Fifi: ‘I’m pretending it was a joke. I’m so busted.’
A minute later Twatface sent me an email saying he’d ring the police and get me two years in jail unless I agreed to meet up and agree a divorce. He added he wasn’t threatening me but would advise having a quick glance at section one of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.
‘Well, that’s something of a change of tone,’ I thought. Speechless, I forwarded it to Fifi.
From: Jones, Fifi
Pompous arse. Like it even registers against what he did to you. You totally have the moral high ground! Besides, aren’t you having us round to drink his booze next weekend? You can’t let him ruin it!>
From: Bubbles
Bubbles is concerned about how he will appear to his fans. He would like you to send him a list of questions for approval or he will be forced to pull out of the deal. In this instance he will accept a £10,000 kill fee.>
Right, I’ve had it with this flipping monkey now. I told Twatface he could meet me for a chat on Wednesday and to Fifi I said: ‘OK, drinks are on. After all, it’s my thirtieth and that booze he left behind needs to be drunk.’
To: Bubbles
We’re not going to pay £20,000 to an ape with ideas above his station. We’ll pay £2,000, and for that we will want a full chat with YOU, not the ape, pictures of you with the ape, and something interesting about Michael Jackson. And no wanking, or you can forget it.>
To: Foxy
£2,000 is fine. Send your reporter round tomorrow. Bubbles was addicted to methadone when they dropped him off. Sorry to mess you around.>
Now all I have to do is issue Twatface an ultimatum – Fatty or me, for ever. Easy.
DAY THIRTY-FIVE
THERE is one source of joy on the horizon, amid the spectres of divorce, emotional breakdown and redundancy – Tania Banks is in trouble.
She’s been known as ‘Teflon Tania’ since she joined, because no matter how bad she is, trouble never sticks to her. She’s one of those reporters who gives the rest of us a bad name.
She’s so competitive she makes great white sharks look timid, makes up whole stories with casual disregard for the consequences, and is a blatant byline bandit – sticking her name on someone else’s story after they’ve done all the work – to steal their glory when it’s published. Last year she entered other people’s tales into the industry awards under her own name.
There was a byline incident this week, after I’d spent days standing up a Beckham tip. I’d found it, checked it, and written it. Except Elliot had asked Banks, inexplicably, to go to the agent for a comment. Instead of filing it as an extra line, she picked up my story from the news-desk ‘basket’ in the computer system, cut and pasted my words from ‘FSFBeckham’, and put it in a new file she called ‘TBBeckham’, sticking her byline on it. The only changes were a stock denial from the agent and Banks’ name perched smugly on top. I didn’t even get an ‘additional reporting’ credit.
Luckily someone saw she’d burgled my byline, and changed it back. But Banks was less than happy, and was seen stamping around the newsroom after the first edition dropped, demanding to know who was responsible for this ‘discourtesy’ on ‘her story’.
This morning I had an email from her on the topic:
To: Foxy
Thanks
for your help on my Beckham story. I just thought you should know that technically Victoria should be referred to as a fashion designer now, not ex-Spice-Girls singer. Pretty basic mistake, but luckily I spotted it before it got into the paper and embarrassed you.
Regards, Tania>
For the past week she’s been in Cumbria trying – and failing – to buy up a swine-flu fatality. Apparently the family politely refused to do a story, then tearfully requested she leave, and ended up ringing the police. Banks kept going at them like the Black Knight until finally, locals threw up roadblocks and refused to let her into the village. The local chief inspector’s been on the phone to The Editor, who told Bish to call her back.
‘Fire up the broomstick and get yersel’ ’ome,’ he said abruptly to Banks down the phone. Then he banged down the receiver and announced to the world at large: ‘Bluddy waste o’time that were n’all. All she did was piss off The Reader, and it’s not like we’ve that many to spare.’ Then he stamped out for a Woodbine and a fume.
Which just proves that journos like Tania are as disliked by their colleagues as they are by the public. Not that she seems to care – now that we’re no longer friends I can see she has the moral code of a hyena, only without the sentimentality. She’s far better suited to be friends with Twatface than me.
But being unpopular, when you’re a hack, is water off a duck’s back. It’s like being the fat kid at school – you get used to being the last one picked for anyone’s team, and the person who makes everyone else feel uncomfortable. We lead moral outrage against others, so it’s only fair that when the finger of blame points at us we have to take our share of the flak. Tin hats on, heads down, and press on, as my granddad used to say.