by Harriet Lane
The dishwasher is roaring away, there are pans on the stove, and the counters are covered with trays of glasses and napkins. As I pour milk on my cereal, my mother drains the green beans and pops them into the top of the oven, ready for lunch in three hours’ time.
My father has been out to buy the paper – they don’t take the Questioner, it’s too left wing – and now sits on the sofa, systematically working his way through it. Every so often, he’ll laugh or shake his head, and when I’ve come through to join him, he starts reading out random paragraphs to me: stories about a killer virus afflicting horse chestnuts, or the latest transgressions of a minor royal, a particularly withering passage in a restaurant review. ‘Listen to this one, love,’ he says, wrestling the paper into shape. ‘You’ll like this.’
‘Don’t bother to strip your bed,’ my mother calls through. ‘Just leave it. I’ll do all the sheets on Tuesday.’
‘Right,’ I say, getting up.
I’ve just stepped out of the bath when I hear the doorbell. The Pearsons and the Crofts have arrived simultaneously, and when I get downstairs, I see my mother has her special social carapace on: glassy panicked smile, apricot lipstick and lots of Elnett.
I tour the room, kissing people and shaking hands. Stewart Pearson addresses me as Hester and then looks rather put out when he’s corrected. ‘Of course – you’re in journalism,’ he says. I always wonder how much spin my parents put on my career. Hester, who teaches history at a well-regarded London girls’ school, does not require their help.
‘If you can call it that,’ I say. My mother inserts a dish of crisps between us. Terry Croft switches his glass of beer from right hand to left, and helps himself.
‘Not a good time to be in newspapers, I imagine,’ he says, compassionately.
‘No, that’s true,’ I say. ‘We’ve just been through one round of cuts, but we’ve been warned to expect more.’
‘Well, I’ll bet you’re a survivor,’ Stewart Pearson says, very jovial. ‘What’s your technique? How do you make yourself indispensable?’
‘Oh – just keep your head down, I suppose,’ I say. ‘Lie low. Dot the eyes and cross the tees. Hope for the best.’
‘Are you working on anything interesting at the moment?’ asks little Val Croft, looking up over her schooner of sherry with shiny impressionable eyes.
This sort of question always throws me. If I told her the truth – that I spend my days correcting spelling mistakes and moving commas around – she’d barely believe it. ‘Well, I’m reviewing a book at the moment,’ I say, rather liking the sound of the words, despite myself. ‘Just getting some thoughts together. Sunil Ranjan’s new novel.’
‘Oh, the Indian chap?’ says Stewart Pearson.
‘Bangladeshi,’ I murmur into my glass of sweetish white wine.
‘I hear he’s a terrific wordsmith,’ he says encouragingly. ‘On my list. Definitely on my list. Just wish I had the time to read. I don’t know when people fit it in.’
And then they’re off, talking about all the other claims on their time: golf, fishing, Rotary fund-raising, church committees, the evening lectures at the local institute. The implication being that reading is a frippery for dilettantes. Salt of the earth, I think, listening to them. Pillars of the community. Jesus wept. I find myself wishing we could talk about something – anything – else: the new vicar, the proposed bypass, Mrs Tucker’s teenaged granddaughter’s pregnancy. As the competitive self-justification goes on, I think I’d even welcome the question I dread more than any other: So, is there anyone special at the moment?
‘Well. With all that to keep you busy,’ I say eventually, to the room at large, ‘it’s a wonder you find time to draw breath.’
As I say it, I see my mother looking at me with her mouth slightly open, as if she’s catching the sound of a distant detonation, and I know I’m on the cusp of going too far.
‘To be fair, though,’ says Terry Croft, ‘Val’s a reader. Always got her nose in a book. Isn’t that right, Val?’
Val Croft flushes pink. ‘Well … I do love my Judy Arbuthnots,’ she admits, in a small embarrassed voice. ‘Not … literature. You couldn’t call it that. Frances wouldn’t, anyway.’
I give her a big understanding smile and then I ask her whether she is still helping out with the local Brownie pack.
‘How is that dog of yours?’ asks Sonia Pearson, dusting pastry off her jersey, as the barking starts up again.
‘Oh – Margot loves it when the children visit,’ my mother sighs, clasping her hands together in front of her, as if she’s about to say a prayer or burst into song. ‘After they go, she always mopes about the house – doesn’t she, Robert? – looking behind the sofa, trying to find them. She simply adores Frances.’
I hear her saying these things, mouthing these lies, and I look at my father, who hasn’t reacted but continues to sip his lager while staring out of the window at the shrubs thrashing around; and then I feel a tremendous urge to laugh, to expose my mother’s ludicrously conventional little fantasy. But I don’t. And driving back to London that afternoon, passing first the sign to Biddenbrooke and then shortly afterwards the white rectory with the stile at Imberly, I think: Maybe it’s not really lying if you barely know you’re doing it. It should be true. It’s the way it should be, in an ideal world.
I submit my review to Mary.
A few days pass before she gets around to reading it. Storm clouds are gathering over the Questioner again. Sitting at my desk, I hear people assembling in indignant knots by the printer, talking about pay freezes and voluntary redundancy schemes and the ridiculous amount Robin McAllfree, the tiny little bullet-headed editor, is splurging on Gemma Coke, his new star columnist. (There’s a general assumption that he must be screwing her. Her copy is certainly not worth the figures being bandied about.)
Emergency meetings are convened in the Albatross. Our inboxes fill up with emails from the managing editor and the Director of Human Resources and the company CEO and the mother and father of the NUJ chapel, and none of them are saying anything remotely reassuring.
Even Oliver is getting twitchy. Over the last few weeks, as well as making more of an effort to get in on time, he has been doing his best to stick around until the moment when Mary departs for the day. And he’s diligently covering his arse, as people tend to when they feel vulnerable.
On the Monday morning, just after Mary has arrived on the fifth floor, he walks over to my desk holding Sunday’s paper, which he has folded back to one of the books pages. He drops it down on my keyboard, his finger stabbing at his review of the latest Jane Coffey, specifically at a typo which has somehow sneaked past me. ‘This looks pretty shabby, doesn’t it, Frances?’ he says, in a voice loud enough to reach the desks on the other side of Books, which are occupied by TV and Travel. ‘It rather spoiled my Sunday. I mean, fuck’s sake.’
TV and Travel, I can tell, are sitting up straight and nudging each other, enjoying the prospect of someone else getting a bollocking for a change.
I feel faintly nauseous, as I always do when I’ve made a mistake. In these situations, it’s best to hold up one’s hand and accept responsibility, even though it wouldn’t have happened if Oliver had filed on time, rather than at the last possible moment, and if he’d bothered to read his copy through before sticking it in the queue. But really, there is no excuse. So I pick up the paper and look at it and say, ‘God, I am sorry. That really shouldn’t have happened.’
Oliver isn’t placated. He’s drawing breath, about to come in for round two, when Mary looks up from the letter she is reading and says, in a just-between-ourselves murmur which is nevertheless precisely calibrated to reach the eavesdroppers, ‘Frances isn’t here to nanny you, Oliver. We have plenty of contributors who already make that kind of demand on her time, and they tend not to be on staff. So perhaps you could save us all some trouble by making sure you check your copy once you’ve finished writing it, and by filing when you are supposed to.’ Then she gives him a little smile
and returns to her paperwork.
Oliver stands by my desk for a moment, unsteady and disoriented. A dark rash of humiliation is spreading over his neck and up into his soft baby cheeks. ‘No, I take your point,’ he says, gathering up the paper and moving away, back to his desk. ‘My mistake, Frances. Won’t happen again.’ I glance over at TV and Travel and see Tom, one of the subs, giving me a thumbs-up and mouthing, ‘Dickhead.’
‘Oh, and Frances,’ says Mary. ‘Nice copy. Thanks.’
Oliver is terribly helpful after that, at least while Mary is around. He makes eye contact and comments approvingly on my piece and asks for my opinion on standfirsts and headlines.
Once or twice I look up from my screen and catch him watching me. He drops his eyes when this happens, and we carry on as if nothing has taken place.
Some weeks later, Polly sends me a text. It’s all shit, apparently, and she wants to meet for a coffee one morning. I text back suggesting my day off, expecting her to nominate a Caffè Nero near her flat. Instead she messages to say she has made a reservation for 11 a.m. at the Wolseley.
I get there too early and walk around Green Park for a bit, not wanting to be on time. I’m sure Polly will be late. Pale new growth bubbles through the trees; the sky is that faint heart-stopping blue that would have you believe anything is possible. The deckchair attendants are circulating, probably for the first time this year. I watch a woman in a little navy jacket and off-white pumps stop, put down her quilted leather shopper, and lift out a small Pekinese, which sniffs suspiciously at the grass as if it barely knows what it is. On the far side of the park, along the Mall, the cherry-pickers are out, putting up flags for some state visit or other.
I leave the park and cross the road by the Ritz, borne along by the surge of tourists heading to the Royal Academy, and find the restaurant’s entrance, which is rather anonymous and easy to miss: a discreet brass plaque, thick blackout curtains obscuring the windows. The doorman steps forwards and smiles as if he recognises me, and then the doors are opening and I’m passing through them, suddenly confused by the dim, even crepuscular light within. As my eyes adjust, the space takes shape around me. I didn’t know what to expect. It’s almost as glorious as a cathedral.
I give Polly’s name to the girl at the lectern, and without looking down to consult her ledger she says, ‘Of course, Miss Thorpe. Miss Kyte has already arrived.’
It may be late morning but in here, partly because of the black lacquer and the glow of the little shaded lamps, it feels like the evening. The place is full, and even though most of the people present are conducting business, there’s something sparkly and frivolous in the air. The atmosphere crackles with gossip and speculation. And cash. The place is full of cash.
Little groups of women in proper jewellery, drinking Bloody Marys. A captain of industry joking with a newspaper proprietor. A film star in shorts and heavy stubble sitting alone, eating an omelette and pencilling his way through a pile of notes.
I’m conscious, as I follow the girl across the black and white marble, between little tables shining with silver cutlery and polished glass, that people are automatically glancing up to see whether they know me.
Polly, seated at a table in the central circle, reaches over to kiss me hello. She looks different again today, a little Nouvelle Vague in a beanie and tight striped jersey, with lots of eyeliner, but I’m realising this is part of her look: she can take it in any direction, at will.
‘Hope this is OK,’ she says, gesturing around her, as I slide into the banquette opposite. ‘I couldn’t think of anywhere else.’
‘It’s perfect,’ I say, unwinding my red and purple scarf.
Without otherwise acknowledging the waitress, Polly orders a black coffee and Birchermuesli. I’d really prefer the eggs Benedict, but I say I’ll have the same.
‘Thank you,’ I add, carefully, to the waitress.
‘You work at a newspaper, don’t you? The Questioner?’ Polly says, suddenly sharp, when we are alone.
I say that’s right, I do.
‘Well … I know it sounds silly, but this is all in confidence, right? All this family stuff?’
‘Of course,’ I say, watching her fingertips running over the grain of the tablecloth, the curve of the knife. ‘I’m not that sort of journalist, anyway.’
‘Well, sure,’ she says, not really listening. ‘It’s just that Daddy is – well, you know. He’s Laurence Kyte, isn’t he? The big man. Mr Letters. People always want to know about Laurence sodding Kyte.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ I say. ‘I’m here for you. I’m not interested in Mr Letters.’
She looks at me, and sees the expression on my face, and then she starts to giggle, and I smile back at her, relieved, and suddenly I’m laughing too, really laughing.
‘Mr Letters!’ I say, in bursts. ‘Mr Letters! Where did that come from?’
Snorting, Polly presses her hand against her stomach. ‘Oh God,’ she says, eventually, when she’s back in control. ‘Stop. Please. I’m out of practice. It hurts.’
‘OK,’ I say, pulling a poker face. ‘That’s fine. Cross my heart and hope to die, that’s the last time I’ll ever refer to Mr Letters.’
And then she’s off again.
The waitress comes back with the order, and Polly composes herself.
‘I’m sorry if I seemed kind of grumpy,’ she says, as our coffee is poured. ‘It’s just that it’s all a bit horrid at home at the moment. And I wanted to talk to someone about it, but someone who isn’t part of it, if you know what I mean.’
‘Sure,’ I say neutrally, stirring some honey into the muesli.
‘Sometimes I feel like they’re all his spies,’ says Polly. ‘Yeah, I know. It’s stupid. But it’s how I feel. Teddy. My friends. My friends’ parents. Charlotte. My tutors. They’re all on his side.’
‘Have you fallen out with your dad?’ I ask.
Polly wrinkles her nose. ‘Not exactly,’ she says. ‘But we are currently having a, um … a disagreement.’ She likes this word, I can tell. She thinks it sounds grown up, as if it dignifies the thing it describes.
‘Thing is,’ she says, twiddling her spoon in her dish. ‘Thing is, Daddy has never really understood me. That was always Mum’s thing. Mum understood. He used to leave us – me and Teddy – to her.’
She looks at me.
‘Oh, Polly,’ I say, reaching out to touch her sleeve. ‘Oh, you poor thing. I am so sorry.’
For a moment, we sit there, quite still. Then she looks down, sniffs and moves her hand away, so she can press her napkin under her eyes. I can see she’s taking care not to smudge her make-up. When she raises her face again, all evidence of tears has disappeared.
‘Anyway,’ she says, in quite a different sort of voice. ‘It’s not going very well. I think I’m going to leave drama school.’
‘Drop out?’ I say.
‘I’ve got some mates, they’re brilliant people, incredibly talented, and the plan is, we take a play – Shakespeare, maybe a couple of Shakespeares – on tour around the country. We’d just rock up and do Love’s Labour’s Lost or whatever in scout huts and school gyms and stuff. Really taking it right into communities which ordinarily wouldn’t be exposed to proper, you know, art.’
They’ve got an old decommissioned ambulance which they plan to drive from village to village, parking it outside church halls and sleeping in it overnight. Only there are ten people involved, maybe more, so they might have to take a tent or two. The weather will be getting better soon anyway so that side of things wouldn’t be a problem. They’d cook on campfires or barbecues and wash in municipal toilets.
‘It’s going to be amazing,’ she says, licking her spoon. ‘Honestly, I know it sounds a bit ropy, but if you met them, you’d know it was a good idea.’
‘Has your dad met them all?’ I ask.
She makes a face. ‘Well, he knows Sam and Gabe and Pandora from when I was at school. But I don’t think he has given them a chance, reall
y. He has just made up his mind, he thinks it’s a rubbish idea, and that’s that. Basically he just doesn’t have any faith in me. He doesn’t believe we can make it work! He’s just so fucking negative.’
‘And what about drama school? Have you told your tutors? What do they think about it?’
‘Oh no, I haven’t mentioned it to them,’ she says, contemptuously. ‘And I’m hardly in their good books at the moment anyway. I had that meeting with my tutor, do you remember? Tony Bamber. He was all sympathetic at first, because of Mum, of course, and I thought he understood, and then he said that my card was marked, and I really had to make sure I worked on my attendance record otherwise I’d have to leave. And then Sam got in touch, and – well, it seemed like perfect timing.’
‘Mmm,’ I say, non-committally. ‘Because it’s a great place to be studying. Lots of people would kill for that opportunity.’
Polly rolls her eyes. ‘You know, that’s exactly what these places want you to think. Then you get in, and you realise it’s just the same tired old rubbish being churned out by this bunch of total losers – only everyone’s too chicken to say so. It’s like the emperor’s new clothes.
‘Anyway,’ she adds, ‘Dad is livid. But I suppose if it comes to it, if I’ve made up my mind to do this tour, he can’t stop me. And neither can Charlotte, or any of them. They can’t make me stay on the course.’
‘No,’ I agree. ‘But maybe you shouldn’t rush into it.’
‘I’m not rushing into anything,’ she says hotly. ‘Sam got in touch, like, weeks ago! I’ve been really sensible about it. I’ve just been weighing it all up, and – well, anyway, now I’ve made up my mind.’
I sit back against the upholstery, stretching my arm along the banquette, trying to look as if I’m considering the facts. The newspaper proprietor and the captain of industry are being helped into their coats. The actor is sipping his orange juice. The woman I saw in the park is being shown to a table, and as she passes I glimpse the Pekinese gazing up placidly from the depths of the leather shopper, a princeling in a litter.