High society

by Ben Elton

  ‘Good luck, Tommy, and when you find her come and see us again, all right?’

  A BROTHEL, BIRMINGHAM

  Perhaps the person who was moved most of all was the madam of Goldie’s premier brothel, which while having changed location remained essentially the same institution as it had been before. The madam, whose name was Nina, was passing the dull hours during which the sad, haunted-looking clients came and went, by watching Parkinson. And with growing astonishment she recognized the distraught superstar on the screen as the bruised and cocky jack the lad who had tried to buy one of her girls on a stolen credit card and had been beaten senseless for his pains. Nina could scarcely believe the truth as it sank into her slightly stoned and brandy-raddled brain. Goldie and his boys had nearly killed Tommy Hansonl There was a girl working upstairs with whom Tommy Hanson was in love. As Nina struggled to get her mind around the scale of her discovery she heard footsteps. One of Goldie’s boys was approaching. How fortunate she had been that he had had to go to the lavatory at the exact time when Tommy had been describing Jessie’s story. It was just possible that the penny might have dropped for him as it had done for her.

  How fortunate also that the girls who sat about waiting for clients spoke no English and were too out of it to bother much with Nina’s nine-inch portable TV anyway.

  Nobody knew the truth but Nina. Quickly she turned the television to another channel, thrilling plans already forming in her mind.

  CAMBRIDGE TECHNICAL COLLEGE

  The moment Peter Paget mentioned to Charlie Ansboro that he was not the first victim of Samantha Spencer’s obsession with older men the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary had seen that it was the knock-out punch that would bury the scandal for good. He spun the story carefully, placing just a hint of it with a trusted ex-colleague who was currently working for The Times. The journalist had traced the disgraced ex-Professor of Politics and Modern History’s story in exactly the same manner as Peter Paget had done, reviewing back issues of the Cambridge Evening News. Perhaps not surprisingly, ex-Professor Crozier had been cautious of the press at first but after a little persuasion had poured out his story eagerly.

  ‘She ruined me, there’s no doubt about that,’ he said. T have no idea whether Peter Paget had sex with Samantha Spencer or not, but I did and I have never for one moment denied it. I am not proud of the incident. I was thirty-seven and in a position of authority, but she was an intelligent nineteen-year-old, and what I did was not a crime. We made love only twice, but she claimed I had harassed her. She claimed numerous private tutorials had taken place during which I coerced her into sex. This was a complete lie. I have always followed a policy of never taking private tutorials, and she had no supporting evidence whatsoever. Nonetheless, in the atmosphere of the time everything she said was believed and everything I said was dismissed.’ The man from the newspaper murmured sympathetically while being inwardly thrilled. ‘As I say, I was ruined, and I now teach as a lecturer at a technical college,’ the ex-Professor continued. ‘The stigma of harassment has hung over me to this day. Now I see that this damaged girl is at her tricks again. What’s more, her victim on this occasion is a very important man, a man who may just be in the process of changing society for the good. Those are the stakes. My disgrace is unimportant, except, of course, to me and my loved ones. But if Samantha Spencer succeeds, through some wounded sexual pride or some misplaced sense of filial betrayal, in bringing down Peter Paget, she may very well succeed in bringing down an entire generation with her, a generation that will be forced like previous generations into the hands of criminals.

  THE EDITOR’S OFFICE, A NATIONAL NEWSPAPER

  Paula Wooldridge was almost too upset to speak. Milton, on the other hand, was beside himself with glee. The awful weeks during which Paula had been the toast of the newspaper, bestriding its narrow confines like a colossus, were over. The sensational effort to bring down Peter Paget, which had begun so stunningly promisingly, had collapsed in ignominy. The paper was discredited, the financial cost would be huge, and Milton as a loyal employee was absolutely delighted.

  ‘It’s still three to two,’ Paula protested, but even she did not sound convinced.

  ‘Yes!’ her editor yelled. Three to two…and let’s just look at those five witnesses, shall we, you fucking idiot! On our side we have two cynical commies, both habitual drug-takers, one a dealer — ’

  ‘Oh, come on. Dealer? Who hasn’t sold a wrap of charlie to a mate?’

  ‘Brilliant! And perhaps you’d like to make that point to a libel jury, Paula.’

  ‘Sammy’s friends are entirely ordinary, respectable, professional — ’

  ‘I don’t care what they are, you bloody fool! I care what they look like, and the rest of the media have made that decision for us. They look like a couple of sharp-operating, coke-snorting, posh snob bastards, and everybody hates them. Then, queen of the bunch, you have your darling Sammy, an embittered, emotionally retarded, tit-flashing slapper of an ex-employee — ’

  ‘Tit-flashing slapper!’

  ‘Yes, tit-flashing slapper! They’ve dug up so many topless shots of that bird I’m sick of the sight of them.’

  ‘These days lots of girls go topless when they’re on holiday.’

  ‘And of course they all flash them about at student parties, don’t they, Paula?’ This was Milton, who had been privately delighted when a rival paper had unearthed shots of Samantha at a May Week Ball obliging some fellow student’s camera by popping one of her breasts out from the front of her strapless evening gown. ‘Five of her Cambridge boyfriends have come forward so far, Paula. They all have the same story: nasty little cockteaser, egged them on, then watched them squirm.’

  ‘On top of which, the broadsheets are getting in on the act. Did you see yesterday’s Times?’

  Paula had done but she pretended otherwise.

  ‘They’ve got this fucking old Professor of Politics who reckons your precious Sammy has been in the business of destroying her seniors before…’

  The editor hurled the newspaper down, the front page of which carried yet another sexy photograph of Samantha Spencer, although in deference to the serious journalistic traditions of that newspaper it was not a topless shot. Milton had brought along his own copy of the rival paper and quoted the headline eagerly. ‘Paget not first victim of unbalanced graduate.’ He smirked. Professor Crozier’s intervention had been a bombshell, and Samantha Spencer’s entire psychologically disturbed history suddenly became public knowledge. Medical reports were leaked, anonymous therapists spoke out.

  ‘So that’s your three witnesses!’ The editor shouted directly into Paula’s face, flecks of his spittle falling on her glasses. ‘Two druggy lefties and a fucking father-fixated bunny-boiler. They, on the other hand, as you so rightly point out, have only two witnesses, witnesses who just happen to be the two most popular people in the fucking country! Paget, a man who took on his own party and the entire parliamentary establishment to alert society to the dangers it is facing. A man who risked contracting Aids in order to protect teenaged girls from a drug addict’s needle, a man whose lovely wife stands behind him…Plus…plus Cathy Paget, media star numero uno. The one who first caught the attention of the world by demolishing…who was it? Remind me again? Oh yes, of course, it was you, wasn’t it, Paula? You, the embittered nasty old hack who just happens to be the person who produces this ludicrous drugs and sex conspiracy against her father now. Cathy Paget, giant killer, the little girl who taught the press a thing or two about honest dealing, out of the mouths of babes and fucking sucklings!’

  ‘You know she’s been offered a record deal,’ Milton added, ‘and they want her to join the Newsnight team to give a youth perspective.’ Milton could not conceal his glee in imparting this thrilling information, information which, had Paula not heard it already, would have been a knife to her heart.

  The editor hardly even heard what Milton had said. ‘So, Paula, we have the most trusted and popular politician in the
country plus the most trusted and popular fucking person in the country saying that they were at the pictures together watching a Tom Cruise movie on the night when your bunch of sad acts claim he was sitting in Islington snorting cocaine and shagging birds not much older than his daughter. Tell me, Paula, bearing in mind the British public’s natural love of a conspiracy theory, given their almost pathological suspicion of the press, given the fact that you’ve spent the last five months attacking Paget, given that, as Cathy Paget so succinctly pointed out, her dad does not look like a fucking cokehead! Who do you think the jury are going to believe?’

  ‘All I know is that I trust Samantha Spencer.’

  ‘Do you? Well, I’m delighted to hear it — ’

  ‘And I believe that when the libel jury gets the chance to hear the detail of her story they may well trust her too…’

  Paula’s editor was suddenly more surprised than angry. ‘Excuse me! You don’t actually think we’re going to let this go to fucking court, do you?’

  Paula was horrified. ‘You mean…you’re going to settle?’

  ‘Of course we’re going to fucking settle! Haven’t you been listening to me? If we go to court we’ll get killed. A halfway competent brief with Cathy Paget in the dock will run rings round us! It’s damage control now. We’re going to offer half a million plus an abject apology — ’

  ‘Apology! But…but that means…I’ll be disgraced. You’re throwing me to the wolves.’

  ‘Well, the apology’s not going to look particularly sincere if we still see fit to employ such a monumental and immoral fantasist as yourself, is it?’

  ‘You mean…’

  ‘Yes, that’s it, Paula. You’re fired. Now fuck off.’

  ‘Yes, fuck right off out of it,’ Milton added, somewhat redundantly.

  POP GOES THE WEEKEND, BBC TV CENTRE

  Cathy Paget was the star guest on Pop Goes the Weekend, the BBC’s flagship Saturday-morning pop show. Chloe was the show’s new presenter, having been recently promoted from a similar show on cable. After she had been seen in the Met Bar with Tommy Hanson and front paged exiting from his Netting Hill home the following morning, the BBC Children’s Department saw her as an obvious choice.

  Cathy Paget was appearing in the phone-in part of the show, a section called ‘Press Gang’, in which the young audience was invited to interrogate a celebrity.

  ‘OK, let’s go to the phones again,’ said Chloe in an excited manner, fuelled not exclusively by strong coffee. ‘We have Tawny from Bradford.’

  ‘Hullo, Chloe, I’d like to ask Cathy is she worried that her father’s bill will make more kids take drugs?’

  ‘Top question, Tawns, mental. Go, Cath.’

  Cathy smiled prettily, looking as if she had been on television all her life. She was six years younger than Chloe, but she made the professional presenter look like an over-excited fraud. Cathy Paget was no fraud, she was genuinely warm, sexy, authoritative and utterly convincing. A true natural in everything she did.

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s possible, Tawny, but alcohol is legal and also highly addictive, and not everyone who drinks it is an alcoholic, are they? I suppose the point is that even if, say, twice as many kids became drug-takers as currently take them, and I doubt that would happen, then better for it to be out in the open and properly regulated and protected than run by gangsters.’

  ‘Top answer, Cath, mental,’ Chloe assured her. ‘Let’s go to Billy from Fife.’

  ‘I want to ask Cathy what her dad will do with the half-million pounds he got because the papers lied about him.’

  ‘As I think most people know, he’s giving it to charity, to drug rehabilitation charities, in fact, but let me tell you this. Me and my sister Suzie have told him he’s got to keep ten grand of it for a cracking, top-notch, totally humungous holiday! Well, why not? Four hundred and ninety thou to charity and a nice ten K for us to have a laugh together as a family. Because you know what, Billy? These last months have been quite stressful for us, what with Dad’s campaign and then him getting that needle jab, plus all these media smears. I reckon we’ve earnt a holiday courtesy of the press!’

  The whole studio cheered. Even the camera crews and harassed floor managers joined in. Without even trying, Cathy had got it just right again. Charity, yes, but let’s not be boring about it, eh? She was a breath of fresh air.

  ‘Top question, top answer, Cath babes,’ Chloe gushed. This was a girl with nervous energy to spare. What was more, her energy seemed to increase every time she found a moment to pop to the ladies.

  ‘Now, Cathy, as you know, we get loads and loads of emails, and we’ve never had a bigger response than you’ve got. It’s true, babes, and how good is that? And the big question everybody wants to know the answer to is: Why aren’t you Prime Minister?!’

  The entire studio erupted once more into cheering.

  ‘Well, Chloe,’ Cathy said, once the noise had died down. ‘I definitely want to go into politics like my dad, and like him I want to do it because I believe in things. I know that a lot of things need changing and if you want to make a difference it’s no good sitting around on your bum complaining about them. You have to get involved and do your bit. So I’ll definitely have a go at getting into politics, after uni, of course, because it’s really important to get an education before anything else. And then? Well, we’ll see what happens. I’m only sixteen, so who knows? You have to dream, don’t you?’

  ‘Big up to that, babes. Big up to that.’

  FALLOWFIELD COMMUNITY HALL, MANCHESTER

  So after I done Parky, I come up here, which is why I’m attendin’ a self-help group in Fallowfield, Lancashire. An’ why am I doin’ that, you may well ask? Well, the self-help thing is because this time I really am going to stay clean. I owe that to Jessie. I’m goin’ to go to all me NA and AA meetings an’ get through all me points an’ get to the fookin’ serenity bit if it kills me. It’s no good searchin’ for a bird to save if you’re pissed up an’ totally monged, is it? You’ll never find ‘er that way, will you? And as for me being’ here in Fallowfield, well, as it ‘appens, right now, personally, I prefer it to London’s glamorous fookin’ West End anyway, an’ also I’m ‘avin’ a week up here lookin’ for Jessie. Got a lead, see. I get leads all the time, ever since Parky. People keep ringin’ me up sayin’ they saw a skinny bird wi’ big eyes an’ nice tits beggin’ here or solicitin’ there. There’s plenty of girls like Jessie in the world, believe me, an’ young lads in trouble too, an’ that’s something else I’m going to do. I’m goin’ to set up fookin’ centres to help all them young people. Cool places wi’ decent cheap food and guitars and computers or whatever, an’ get this, I in’t even going to put me name on ‘em. How surprising is that? Tommy Hanson, the ego what landed, not puttin’ his name on something. I’m goin’ to do it through the Prince’s Trust. I’ve already had a meetin’. I know everybody’s laughing at me, drug-fooked Tommy falls for a bird he’s known for a day then fookin’ makes a twat of himself on telly over her an’ suddenly he reckons he’s Mother T’ fookin’—resa, but I don’t give a fook, me. I’m going to make summat o’ what I’ve got. I’m goin’ to ‘elp other people and what’s more I’m goin’ to find Jessie. I’m going to look in every doorway and dosshouse, every knockin’ shop, every drop-in centre, every fookin’ morgue if I have to. But I will fookin’ find her!’

  Tommy’s mobile rang. It was not strictly speaking good etiquette to have one’s mobile switched on in such a meeting, but Tommy didn’t care. He was determined never to be incommunicado again. At least until he found her. Then perhaps he’d turn off all the phones…if she wanted him to.

  A motorway service station, M6

  The phonecall had been from Tommy’s tour manager. He had news. Nina, the madam from Goldie’s brothel, had called Tommy’s management office telling them that she knew where the girl was. The office had immediately put her on to Tony, who did all of Tommy’s fixing, and he had arranged a meeting according to th
e woman’s instructions.

  It was lunchtime in a busy service station. Tony had been there since eleven holding the specific table Nina had asked for against all corners. Using a second driver, Tommy had joined him at twelve twenty-five, heavily disguised, of course.

  ‘Funny how I always used to love service stations when we were on the road,’ Tommy remarked. ‘It were a good laugh then, weren’t it?’

  ‘Can’t say they ever did a lot for me, Tom,’ Tony said wearily. ‘But it were your tour. You were in charge.’

  At twelve thirty on the dot a woman approached them, heavily made up with absurdly pouting collagen lips, and a look of permanent surprise imparted by one eye tuck too many. The woman put her coffee on the table and sat down. She did not introduce herself. ‘As I told you on the phone, I know where the girl is.’ She slid a photograph across the table. It was a Polaroid shot of Jessie, who was holding a copy of that morning’s newspaper.

  ‘I can bring her to you,’ the woman continued, ‘but it’s dangerous. The people who’ve keeping her are very violent. I want a million euros, half now, half later.’

  ‘Yeah, we know, you already told us,’ Tommy said. Tone, give it her.’

  Tony was very unhappy. ‘Tom, this is blackmail. Blackmail plus slavery. We should take this woman straight to the police.’

  Nina pushed her coffee cup away from her and got up. ‘If you do that you’ll never see Jessie again. Don’t forget, her owner is part of an international operation. He could send her overseas any day now. We move our girls about all the time. Punters like a bit of something new.’

  Tommy stared into his tea, trying to master his emotions. His every waking moment was plagued with thoughts of what was happening to Jessie. His dreams were worse. ‘Pay her the money, Tony.’

  ‘And what’s to stop this woman just going off overseas herself?’