by Lilly Miles
Back in the office, tanned and relaxed and for once unaggravated by Twatface, I spent a happy half-day writing about all the things I’d seen and done. It was five hundred words, with the intro chirping happily about bungees and how, as someone who was suddenly single, jumping off a bridge was quite a lot of fun. I hadn’t mentioned Twatface by name or made any other reference to him, but I knew he would hate it. And, I reasoned, why not ruin his holiday with Fatty while I’m at it? So I texted him. ‘A two-page spread about our divorce is going in this weekend,’ I lied, cackling to myself as I imagined the horror spreading across his face and what he would tell Fatty.
I’d filed the piece and forgotten it when, two hours later, the phone on my desk rang. It was the paper’s lawyer, Nick ‘The’ Crow, a man who always looks like he’s on his way to a funeral and has the mood to match. In a classic case of your name determining your job, he spends his days hunched over a keyboard pecking over the corpses of stories. It’s his task to bat away lawsuits, advise reporters not to do it like that, and check the paper for legal bear-traps before we publish them and have to apologize. Or worse, pay out. Reporters often grumble the lawyers make us play it safe, but without him we’d get in even more trouble than we already do.
‘Your husband’s just been on the phone,’ said The Crow. ‘He’s threatening to sue us.’
Click, brrrrrrrrrrrrr . . .
DAY SEVENTY-EIGHT
THE problem with jumping off a cliff is that you are so convinced that it is better to live without regret that, by the time reason reasserts itself, it is too late.
The initial excitement, adrenalin and fear combined to propel you over the edge and it is only when you feel a yawning chasm beneath your feet that you stop, and just as a sense of your own fallibility begins to dawn you’re grabbed by gravity and pulled towards the rocks.
Divorce is much the same, I find. Anger shields and guides you, blinkers you from noticing that you are behaving like a sociopath, until one day you’re left with a niggling sense of having overstepped the mark, vis-à-vis the shellfish you stuffed in his favourite chair. Actually that might just be me. As far as temper tantrums go I’m a slam-and-storm kind of girl, and always have been. I slam a door, and storm off until I calm down. Often my rage propels my legs to stalk in a random direction for a good half hour, until I come to my senses in a less than salubrious spot, suddenly aware I no longer have my fury to protect me from rapists, murderers or vengeful fatties all keen on pointing out the consequences of my actions. I should be used to it. I should realize what is going to happen, learn my lesson, and stop before I go too far. But of course I don’t. Dogs return to their vomit, and the fool’s hand always goes wandering back to the fire.
There is a theory I read somewhere that, with every decision you make, a perfect copy of the world peels off from this one and an extra reality is born where everyone continues down the path you didn’t take. So there is a world where Hitler decided invading Poland was a bit grandiose, one where your parents never met, one where I am still married to Twatface, and maybe even one where he isn’t a twat, although that seems far-fetched if you ask me. If the theory is true, there are a lot of angry little planets spinning through space, and the more bewildered ones are almost definitely my fault. But it means you don’t need to have regrets, you see, because on one of them you did all the things you didn’t do here.
For better or worse, however, I was in this world, which was the one where The Crow was on the phone saying Twatface was threatening legal action against me, the newspaper and my editor because I had, quite correctly, pointed out that jumping off a bridge was more fun than he was.
I wasn’t surprised, if I’m honest. I was kind of astonished Twatface was living up to his nickname so magnificently, but resigned to the fact I’d done something stupid. ‘Funny’ and ‘defamatory’ are rarely a wise combination, while ‘redundant’ and ‘mortgage’ likewise do not make the best of bedfellows.
‘He was ranting and raving for a good half an hour,’ said The Crow in his sternest, Christopher-Lee-in-a-graveyard tone. ‘He said that it was invasion of privacy, defamation of character, and breached articles one through eight of the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct.’
‘Really?’ I asked in a strangled voice. ‘Hang on, isn’t article six about not interviewing children?’
‘It is, and well done for remembering,’ said The Crow, laughing – although he still sounded like Christopher Lee, only this time while stabbing someone. ‘Ha. Ha. But then he did sound a lot like my two-year-old throwing a paddy. He’s such a twat, why’d you marry him?’
I rolled my eyes, having become accustomed to this question over the past few months from everyone, starting with my mum and going all the way down to the postman, to whom I had to explain that I was forwarding Twatface’s letters on to his squalid flat in Walthamstow because he couldn’t be bothered to pay for a redirection.
‘Anyway,’ said The Crow. ‘He can’t be a very good journalist, otherwise he’d know that phoning up threatening to sue means only one thing.’
‘A kneecapping?’ I asked hopefully. Please God, don’t let it be ‘the sack’.
‘No, I have to tell The Editor. Which means your piece will now be subjected to an extremely thorough rewrite, and if I know The Editor Twatface is going to come out of it a lot worse than he went in.’
And so it came to pass. The Editor emailed me, demanding my copy. So I pinged it back, all twenty or so words in which I said bungee jumping was more fun than being married, and another 480 words about a holiday in Greece. Barely a mention of Twatface, but then again, he wasn’t to know that.
To: Foxy; Crow, Nick
Not hard enough. What else can we say about him?>
To: Editor, The; Crow, Nick
Um, well I did toy with another couple of pars that seemed a bit strong to go in . . .>
To: Foxy; Crow, Nick
Show me.>
To: Editor, The; Crow, Nick
Right. Well, he used to puke in the sink rather than the toilet, which doesn’t sound so bad except it means the vom fountains up the wall – never nice and especially not with red wine and chips – and leave me to clean it up in the morning. Er. Or there’s his pants. His favourite ones were these leopard-print boxers I got him as a joke once. He used to do a little roar when he put them on. He wore them so often the gusset rotted away, and he insisted on full funeral rites and a minute’s silence when we finally consigned them to the dustbin.>
To: Foxy; Crow, Nick
File on the pants.>
To: Editor, The; Foxy
Just how cold is this dish being served?>
To: Editor, The; Crow, Nick
12.31 p.m.
40 below.>
Unbeknown to an enraged Twatface, by the end of the day he and his pants had been snickered over by two dozen sub-editors, ten reporters, two photographers who wandered into the office, the news desk (although Elliot merely sniffed), the sports editor, a work-experience kid, and a man fixing the photocopier. Then my editor phoned his editor, so his news desk got a chance to snicker at it, too. And when it was published, several million more all had the opportunity to say to themselves: ‘What a twat. Why’d she marry him?’
Which is a thought that occurred to Twatface when he returned home a few days later to read a travel supplement that didn’t mention him by name but had been noted, carefully, by everyone he worked with, all his friends, and all of Fatty’s friends, too. Regrets? What are they?
He emailed me today, apologizing for being such a twat and saying he didn’t stop to think. ‘How are you?’ he asked, like I cared that he was pretending to care.
I replied safe in t
he knowledge that for once the consequences of my actions had been glee and moral victory.
To: Twatface
Cock off. How was the holiday with MY in-laws that you went on with YOUR Fatty?>
It turned out he’d lost his passport, they’d missed a flight, had to sleep in the car for two nights and my former in-laws had spent the whole trip asking about me and telling him off for having an affair. Ha ha.
I turned to Nancy, who had just walked in, and launched into a long diatribe about how, if people were going to behave a certain way, they had to accept the results of their behaviour.
‘It’s no good sprinkling cannabis on your feral children’s food and then complaining that social services have let you down, or flashing your skanky pants at snappers and moaning they’ve invaded your privacy,’ I raved. ‘And if you act like a twat you will get treated like a twat. For Pete’s sake,’ I muttered, finally subsiding back into my chair as Nance wiped the spittle off her keyboard and moved my mug out of harm’s way. ‘Why can’t people accept the consequences of their actions? Why do they have to blame someone else?’
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Twatface been in touch, then?’
‘Hmpf,’ I replied grumpily, just as Princess Flashy Knickers tottered in and plonked herself in the chair opposite.
Now, Princess is a Yorkshire lass whose dad is a self-made millionaire in an industry of some sort, and she’s so privileged she sees nothing unusual in £500 handbags, holidays four times a year, and living in a stately pile with a different pony for each day of the week. Heaven knows what she’s doing in a newsroom earning a measly £35,000 writing up interviews and picture spreads, but feature writers live in a different world to the rest of us. And she is so completely without class – in every sense – that she can make friends with rich and poor alike. While wearing a lot of gold jewellery, or perhaps because of it.
Only now she was wearing a bandage. On her face. Specifically, it was wrapped under her chin and over the top of her head. Nance and I stared and blinked.
‘So, you’ve been away for a couple of weeks . . .’ Nancy began gently.
‘Have you had a facelift?’ I demanded.
Princess rolled her eyes. ‘No, I have not. It’s medical.’
We continued to stare. ‘You’ve had a facelift,’ I insisted. ‘You’re only thirty-two.’
‘I’ve not. I wish I had, though.’ Princess dumped her latest Mulberry and sighed. ‘I’ve been at home waiting for this to go down.’
‘Facelift,’ I said to Nance. ‘Definitely.’
Princess sighed again and told us the full, horrifying story. I have made reference above to living with the consequences of one’s actions, and once you have got to the end of this, Dear Reader, I hope you will think twice before doing anything. And I mean anything at all.
‘I went home for a couple of days, and met up with some of the girls. We went out for the night in Sheffield, got absolutely twatted. I wasn’t too bad, actually, but the others were. Anyway I got talking to this lad called Pete. If I’m honest he wasn’t that good-looking, but he was keen, and, well, to be frank, it had been a while. So when the club shut I took him home.
‘Anyway, nothing unusual to report. He wasn’t all that great, but it was a relief to know I hadn’t forgotten how to do it. The only thing was that he had some very sharp stubble, and the next morning there were, like, grazes all over my chin. So, whatever. I walked him down to the station in the morning . . .’
I butted in: ‘You mean you had him escorted off the estate?’
‘No, I walked with him all the way down the drive to the village,’ she said, affronted. ‘And I noticed that everyone we passed was better looking than he was. I mean, I walked past two of the gardeners who were hotter than he was. And the newsagent and the grocer – who doesn’t have any teeth – were both better looking, too. I began to regret it but then thought, “No, it’s fine, the twenty-first century, stuff the Daily Wail.” Anyway, I put him on the train and drove back to London. It was Sunday night and I felt like going for a swim, and went down to the council pool near my flat.’
Nancy and I both pulled a face. ‘Last time I went there, there were flies in the changing rooms,’ said Nance. ‘And I’m sure there was sperm in the water.’
Princess went on: ‘The next day my chin began to itch. Really itch. Soon it was unbearable. I scratched it. Blisters started to pop up all around my mouth. By lunchtime I’d started oozing green pus, I kid you bloody not.’
She stopped to look disgustedly at the two of us while we spluttered into our hands and tried not to laugh.
‘Green pus on my FACE. Oh. My. God! So I put a bag over my head and went to the doctor, who said I’d got impetigo from the pool in my stubble rash.’
‘IMPETIGO?’ screeched Nancy and I in unison, from our positions writhing on the floor in merriment and disgust.
‘Impetigo. I got green pus, and a children’s skin disease, from snogging a bloke I didn’t much fancy anyway. I’d rather my fanny was sealed shut and covered in cobwebs.’
We continued to cackle, and I had just crawled back into my chair when Princess delivered the coup de grâce.
‘The doctor says it will keep flaring up, so actually I have a recurring skin disease from, like, a totally minging shag. Could you two not laugh quite so loudly?’
I laid my head on the desk while Nancy wiped her eyes. ‘We’re sorry, Princess, but you should have known if you were going to tell us a story like that we’d find it funny. Impetigo, hee hee . . .’
Hauling myself upright and back to my keyboard, I said: ‘Jesus, Princess. That’ll learn you. No more having a shag just for the sake of it! I mean there are times that it’s completely understandable—’
‘Er, Tit-tape Tim?’ she pointed out.
‘. . . because you have to get over someone, BUT if it leads to a recurring skin condition I’m not sure it’s worth it. Although you will be able to dine out on that little tale for several years. He will be known, henceforth, as Pustulent Pete. He beats Tit-tape Tim hands down.’
‘Well,’ said Princess in a martyred tone. ‘The doctor gave me antibiotics, so I’ll just have to live with it, I suppose. There’s no point in crying over spilt spunk.’
And there you have it, folks, our lesson for today summed up in one succinct phrase. Every failed relationship, every argument, and pretty much every war in the history of humankind can be encapsulated with those eight words. By using them, emotions like anger, betrayal or fear fade away, to be replaced with a feeling of, ‘Oh, eeeuw, clean it up, and no, NOT LIKE THAT!’
If only politicians and social workers and teenaged mums all had that phrase stuck to their computers, tattooed on their hand or framed in a cross-stitch sampler and nailed to their walls, I genuinely believe the world would be a more relaxed place. Perhaps there is a world where those cross-stitch samplers actually exist. Next time Twatface pisses me off I shall repeat those words like a mantra and realize how ridiculous, pointless and stupid it all is – and maybe for once I won’t slam-and-storm in my normal fashion.
But if I do – and I’m not saying I will – I won’t beat myself up too much. No. I’ll just tell myself: ‘There’s no point in crying over spilt spunk.’ Genius.
DAY EIGHTY-EIGHT
YOU don’t have to be casually racist to work in a newsroom, but it helps. It’s also useful if you can be sexist, ageist, heightist, fattist, classist, nationalist and, if you work in features, unable to see a picture of any female without spotting some cellulite and zipping off two thousand words on the subject.
It’s not that journalists start out that way; but after long years of contact with mankind at its most extreme and emotional – death, lust, birth, Kerry Katona – you become so inured to the human condition that mockery is inevitable. There’s something strangely fitting about the fact that cabbies all hate driving, doctors can’t stand illness and journalists dislike people.
Well, all r
ight, we don’t dislike them so much. Journalists are usually empathetic to a fault, whatever you see on the telly – we couldn’t do our jobs if we were unable to understand how other people felt, even if we do bend it to our advantage. It’s just that, after a while, it becomes apparent that there are perhaps only a handful of real stories in the world, retold over and over again. The corrupt politician, the cheating spouse, the sick baby, Cinderella and Dick Whittington. Open any newspaper and you see a version of the same fairy tale played out with different names and dates, but each one is like a screw that follows the same thread. Barack Obama’s road to the White House, for example, is pure Dick. Most female celebrities indulge in a bit of warped Cinderella mythology. The economic crisis is just one big hunt to find a villain to pin it on.
I don’t know whether there are really only a few basic stories in the world, or if human brains just prefer to put things in simple categories to help them understand. Most journalists think they can persuade others to do almost anything, as though people are machines for which you simply need to figure out the switches, a vanity which leads to a sense of wearisome predictability. You know those newspaper labels people get – ‘Troubled Glamour Girl’, ‘Disgraced Children’s TV Presenter’, or maybe ‘Dog-eared Cage Fighter’? Well, when you’re a journo you often find yourself giving labels to everyone you meet. I tend to think of Mum as ‘Gardening Guru’, while Dad is ‘Mr Fixit’; the lady in the shop at the end of the road, who talks all the time and has a voice like a dustbin being dragged over cobbles, is ‘Gravelly Shop Girl’; and elderly Valerie over the road, who’s actually very sweet and rings to make sure I’m all right if my curtains are still drawn at 10 a.m., is ‘Street Snoop’.
I suppose that once you learn shorthand a need for brevity seeps into every part of your life. All I know is there comes a point where you could swear you’ve written it all before but with different names, and that’s why it was so easy to catch out Twatface after a mere two weeks of adultery.