‘Who’d bother to blow up this dump?’ Chris asked.
‘Why not take it up yourself. No one need know. She’s on the third floor, room 317.’
‘Really? She won’t think it’s an awful cheek?’
‘She’ll be thrilled,’ Ellen said.
As Chris and Paul sidled through the vestibule in a manner calculated to arouse suspicion, Duncan and Ellen made their way outside.
‘Do you think Charlie really will be pleased with that doll?’ Duncan asked. ‘I’d find it creepy.’
‘She can always leave it for the chambermaid.’
‘You know she didn’t mean it like that.’
‘No, I’m sure. I wish you’d told me you’d had an affair. That’s twice in one night! I felt such a fool.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Duncan said, stroking her arm. ‘It was so long ago I didn’t think it mattered.’
‘Do you ever regret leaving that world behind?’
‘Of course.’ Duncan shrugged. ‘But then I also regret not qualifying for the four hundred metres final at the 1982 English Schools Championships.’
‘You wouldn’t have been happy.’
‘With a gold medal?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Maybe not, but I’d like to have given it a go. I sometimes wonder, if my father hadn’t died and I’d moved to London with the rest of the gang, would I have made it writing sketches or plays or even novels? I could have brought in an editor for the Mercury and contributed my own weekly column: “Notes from the Metropolis”. I might have done something with my life.’
‘You’ve done more than something. How would Francombe talk to itself without its paper?’
‘That supposes it has anything worthwhile to say. Listen to me! I even feel futile admitting my own futility. I’m as preposterous as Uncle Vanya.’
‘The play?’
‘Right. He believes that he’s wasted his life slaving away for people who don’t appreciate him. He claims he could have been another Schopenhauer or Dostoyevsky. When I first saw it in my twenties, I thought that was his tragedy. Now I see the real tragedy is that he’s deluding himself. He’s as third-rate as everyone else.’
‘But not you, Duncan. If you won’t take my word, ask Charlie.’
‘Come on,’ he said, clasping her hand. ‘I’ll drive you home. I wasn’t joking about the early start.’
Five
The Poison in Our Society
Comment
Thursday, 7 November 2013
The arrest earlier this week of two boys aged ten and twelve on suspicion of poisoning Dragon Greenslade has sent shock waves through Francombe.
Mr Greenslade, who has now been released after several weeks in the Princess Royal Hospital, was found unconscious, his dog dead at his side, in his hut in Salter Nature Reserve on 28 September. Doctors subsequently discovered substantial traces of weedkiller in his stomach.
Although the arrest of the boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, brings the extensive police investigation to a close, it raises urgent questions for the entire community. Youth crime in the area has increased dramatically over the past decade. Figures obtained by the Mercury show that, during 2012, Francombe and Salter police arrested 316 offenders under the age of eighteen on a total of 2,042 charges.
Older residents on the Stafford Cripps and Edmund Hillary estates claim to be living in a state of siege, terrified of attack by local gangs who require prospective members, some as young as eight, to commit burglary, arson and assault as part of their initiation.
Small shopkeepers describe being forced to pay protection money to teenagers who brazenly ransack their shelves. Staff at chain stores report repeated raids by ‘hoodies’ using eight- or nine-year-old children as decoys, safe in the knowledge that they cannot be charged. Visitors to the Promenade or Jubilee Park at weekends witness the dispiriting spectacle of drunken youths vomiting, urinating and generally misbehaving. Anyone who, like the editor of this newspaper, attempts to remonstrate with them risks being subjected to a barrage of threats and abuse.
So who bears the blame for this delinquency? Discussion of the current case has already exposed a deep divergence in public opinion. There are some who maintain that despite their youth the boys knew exactly what they were doing and should face the full penalty of the law. After all, the argument goes, even if they did not appreciate the toxicity of the weedkiller, they could scarcely have overlooked the skull and crossbones on the can.
Others maintain that the fault lies with society as a whole, which has failed to provide young people with a set of fundamental values, including respect for the rights and – in the case of Dragon Greenslade, the differences – of others. According to this view, if children grow up seeing reckless, ruthless and even criminal behaviour glamorised in the media and rewarded in the City, it’s unsurprising that they should come to mimic it themselves.
At the Mercury, while acknowledging the importance of personal responsibility, we support those who apportion the guilt more widely. We do not believe that young people today are inherently more selfish, violent or, to use an old-fashioned word, wicked than they were in the past. Here in Francombe, we suffer from some of the worst rates of poverty, unemployment and family breakdown in the country. Although crime is not an inevitable consequence of social deprivation, it must be obvious to all but the most partisan observer that it’s a common one.
Nevertheless, the Council has seen fit to slash its spending on youth clubs, sports clubs and drop-in centres, leaving the most vulnerable youngsters, often banished from home in the evenings by hard-pressed parents, with nowhere to congregate but the streets. What message does it send when the only communal spaces open to them – the amusement arcades, wheel park and even the cinema – are beyond their means? Why are we shocked when they threaten, rob, attack and, in the most extreme case, poison us in order to earn the respect of their peers in a world that otherwise disowns them?
Let us treat this latest incident as a wake-up call. Next time it may not just be a dog that dies.
Duncan left the bank in a daze. Ralph Welch, a loyal ally in the fight to save the pier, had proved to be less supportive of the Mercury. He had summoned Duncan to discuss the company’s £400,000 loan, which was due for repayment in January. Duncan, who had hoped to renegotiate the loan or, failing that, to discuss new methods of finance, was stunned by the bluntness with which Ralph – their first-name terms now seemed risible – told him that the old business model was obsolete and refused to accept Mercury House as collateral when so many buildings in the town centre stood empty. He urged Duncan to consider the takeover bids from Newscom and the Provident Group, adding that the only alternative was to find a philanthropic tycoon with a love of both print journalism and the local community. Trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice, Duncan pointed out that, in the unlikely event such a saviour existed, he would not be found in Francombe.
Anxious to clear his head before returning to work, Duncan walked briskly up the Parade and through the suburban sprawl to Ellen’s house, where he had arranged to drop off her watch. Given her reluctance either to let him stay the night until the children knew him better or to leave her thirteen-year-old son alone for long in the evening, they were reduced to snatching odd hours at his flat between her cooking the family dinner and enforcing the ten o’clock curfew. Having likened their plight to the plot of a chic French film, he took to answering the doorbell in the voice of a Parisian concierge (or, at any rate, with an Inspector Clouseau accent) and once even put a copy of Le Monde on the pillow; but it did not feel chic, let alone sexy, to have to make love with one eye on the clock and defer their post-coital chat until she rang from home two hours later. It was no surprise, therefore, when she called this morning to say that she had forgotten her watch, adding, in a phrase that promised more than it delivered, that she felt ‘naked without it’. She declined his offer to take it round to the Centre while she was still on probation, which made hi
m feel even more hole-and-corner than her veto on overnight stays. So he had slipped the watch in a jiffy bag and brought it round to the house.
Holding open the letter box to push the bag out of reach of any opportunistic burglar, he heard voices, which for a moment convinced him that thieves were already at work. When he identified one of them as Sue’s, his anxiety took a new turn. All his resentment at her refusal to babysit her brother faded as he simultaneously banged the door and pressed the bell, but the only effect was to plunge the house into silence.
‘Sue, is that you?’ he asked, bending to peer through the flap. ‘It’s Duncan Neville. Are you all right? Please open the door.’
The ensuing flurry of giggles was not what he had expected. Offended, he banged harder. ‘I’m quite prepared to stay here all day,’ he said. ‘So you may as well answer me.’
Two pairs of legs entered his field of vision and the door opened abruptly to reveal Sue and Craig. Both were bleary-eyed and blinking, as though emerging from a cave.
‘Hey there, Mr N,’ Craig said. ‘Have you dropped something?’
Sue giggled as Duncan sprang up. Craig smiled smugly at them both.
‘Craig, I didn’t expect to find you here. Nor Sue, for that matter.’
‘We’re on a study period,’ Craig said.
‘That’s right. We’re on a study period,’ Sue repeated flatly.
‘And you’re allowed to come all the way back from school?’
‘We’re encouraged. It’s called “Giving the children responsibility”,’ Craig said snidely. ‘But what brings you to these parts, Mr N? Out drumming up subscriptions?’
He tempered the insult with a winsome smile that Duncan knew he was rare in resisting. Once again he feared for Craig’s influence on Jamie. This was a boy who, answering a question on obesity in a human biology exam, had chosen to write – allegedly in graphic detail – about fat admirers, men who fed and fetishised grossly overweight women. His outraged teacher gave him an F until his mother, from whom he had acquired both his confidence and his conceit, threatened to appeal to the LEA unless the paper were marked ‘objectively’, whereupon it was upgraded to a B.
‘I’ve come to return Sue’s mother’s watch, which she left when … when we had dinner earlier in the week.’
‘Was the food tough?’
‘What?’
‘Did she take the watch off to get a better grip on her fork?’
‘You’re not funny, Craig.’
‘No?’ Craig asked, glancing at Sue who was giggling inanely. As the confrontation dragged on, Duncan detected an odour that was instantly recognisable, even after twenty years.
‘What’s that smell?’
‘What smell?’ Craig asked.
‘That pungent, composty smell?’
‘Oh that! That’s just our raging teenage hormones,’ Craig replied. This time Sue did not laugh.
‘Have you been smoking pot?’
‘No!’ Sue said, reddening.
‘Scout’s honour,’ Craig said. ‘Search me if you don’t believe me.’ He pouted and raised his arms provocatively.
‘You do realise the damage you’re doing to your brain cells?’ Duncan asked, staring at Sue and wondering what, if anything, Ellen had told her of her grandfather.
‘A million die every day, so what do a few more matter?’ Craig replied.
‘Poppycock! Where on earth did you pick that up?’
‘On the Net. Which is why we should get back to our work while we’ve still got some left.’ As Craig put his arm round Sue’s shoulder and turned away, Duncan remembered why he had come. ‘Sue, don’t forget your mother’s watch!’
Craig grabbed the jiffy bag from him. ‘No sweat. We’ll make sure she gets it. Always a pleasure, Mr N.’
‘Wait…’ Duncan said as Craig slammed the door, exercising a prerogative that was all the more painful for its being denied to him. After a moment’s hesitation he hurried down the drive for fear of losing his composure, which was never more tested than during an encounter with one of the Weedons. Craig might have acquired his conceit from Frances but he had been schooled in its use by Geoffrey.
Returning to the office, Duncan was plunged into a frenzy of activity that wiped out all thoughts of debts and takeovers and drugs and truancy. Sheila was sifting through the competition entries for tickets to the Switherton Players’ production of The Crucible. Forty-six readers had submitted seventy-three answers to the question: ‘Which famous film star did playwright Arthur Miller marry?’ If they wanted to waste their time on candidates such as Groucho Marx and Lassie, that was their affair, but he never ceased to be amazed by the lengths to which the likes of Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms Victor/Victoria/Vicky/Vick/Vee Brown/Browne/Browning would go to send multiple entries for prizes that were worth less than the stamps. He had no compunction about rigging the results. The competitions, however paltry, were all that remained of the paper’s power of patronage and he was determined to wield it on behalf of the worthiest (in other words, neediest) members of the community. So whenever possible, the winning entries should come from one of the housing estates and be written in a pensioner’s neat copperplate or spidery scrawl. In recent years the system had broken down only once: when Brian Gannon, supposing that Seacombe Court was a high-rise block on the coast between Salter and St Anselm, had awarded ‘a day’s pampering’ at the Diamond Health Spa to Frieda Cradwyck.
Having picked the three winners, Duncan wandered into the reporters’ room where, unusually for a Monday afternoon, no one was out on patch.
‘So how long will this meeting last?’ Ken bawled down the phone, as he solicited the Director of Housing’s response to a leaked memo outlining proposed Council rent increases, which, given the cap on welfare benefits, would cause real hardship to children, the elderly and other vulnerable tenants. ‘Last winter they had to choose between food and heating,’ he said after truncating the call. ‘This year it’ll be between food, heating and a roof over their heads.’
‘Look on the bright side. If they don’t have a roof over their heads, they won’t need to worry about heating,’ Brian said. ‘Just a thought,’ he added, ignoring Ken’s glare.
‘Remember the old girl at the WRAC group when I asked how they coped with rising prices?’ Ken said. ‘“I skip meals,” she replied without an ounce of self-pity. “I skip meals.” Jesus wept!’
‘But it’s a story we’ve run so often,’ Stewart said, looking up from his screen. ‘If it’s going to be this week’s splash, you’ll need a punchy headline.’
‘So find one!’ Ken said.
‘How about “Blood on their Hands”?’ Rowena asked, continuing to type.
‘Too loaded,’ Ken said, newly circumspect after the libel case. ‘Town Hall would go ape-shit.’
‘Just “Genocide” in a 150-point font?’ Stewart asked.
‘That might work,’ Duncan said.
‘It sounds like Rwanda,’ said Rowena who, for all her complaints about male egos, chafed at the least rebuff.
‘The average life expectancy of a Rwandan man is fifty-two,’ Jake chimed in, incongruous as ever.
‘And for women?’ Rowena asked. ‘Or don’t they count?’
‘Fifty-five. it’s gone up twelve years over the last decade.’
‘Pity it’s not the same in Francombe,’ Brian said. ‘I wouldn’t have to cosy up to any more centenarians.’
‘Don’t be so modest!’ Ken said. ‘Think of the joy you bring them. Better than the telegram from the Queen.’
‘“I’ve always kept myself busy,” said Jessie Potts, who celebrates her hundredth birthday this week.’ Brian read out the piece in the clipped tones of a newsreel announcer. ‘“My back gives me gyp but I still do all my own housework.” On the great day, Jessie will be up at seven as usual making lunch for some of the nine children, twenty-four grandchildren, forty-seven great-grandchildren and nine great-great-grandchildren who will be spending it with her. “I’ve just had a new carpet in my fr
ont room. I mean to stick around and get my money’s worth,” she said with a twinkle in her eye.’
‘Can you think of another word for “twinkle”?’ Duncan asked.
‘I can think of plenty but they wouldn’t be printable.’
‘While I remember,’ Duncan said, turning to Ken, ‘we need someone to review the Switherton Players’ production of The Crucible.’
‘When does it open?’
‘Thursday.’
‘Rowena?’ Ken said, trying to couch an instruction in an interrogative.
‘No way,’ she replied. ‘Besides, I’ll be out on the Marsey Road.’
‘Have things got that bad?’ Brian asked with mock solicitude.
‘Very funny! I’m with the police reporting their clampdown on kerb crawlers. So be warned.’
‘On my money? Fat chance!’
‘Brian’ll go,’ Ken said to Duncan. ‘Keep him out of mischief for one evening.’
‘But isn’t that the play about witches? You want to save it for yourself, mate. You being such an expert and all that.’
‘Sort it out between you,’ Duncan said quickly. ‘I don’t mind who goes so long as it’s covered.’
Listening to their bickering, he had an uneasy sense that what had once been friendly competition had hardened into genuine antagonism. The constant strain of the shoestring operation was starting to tell.
‘Any gems in this week’s post bag?’ he asked Stewart, who was laying out the letters page. Unlike his father for whom they had been a source of cheap copy, he saw the readers’ responses as integral to the Mercury’s attempt to foster a communal conversation.
‘Much the usual. There’s yet another one from the East Sussex humanists, accusing us of pandering to ignorance and superstition by printing Henry’s column.’
‘Any specifics?’
‘No.’
‘Bin it!’
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