“All right. Thank you, Iris.”
“I’m putting you through.”
“Newsdesk. May I help you?”
“Well, I hope we can help each other.” A man’s voice. Youngish (though you could so often be mistaken about that), middle-class, none of the northern accent which she’d half expected. “I’m offering you a big exclusive scoop.”
Despite the boldness of the words, no doubt carefully rehearsed, the trace of nervousness she had detected in his first sentence was still apparent in his second. Because of it she held back the kind of retort she would otherwise have liked to make. She respected people’s nervousness.
“That sounds interesting.”
“But before I tell you, I want to know something.”
“Go on.”
“How much you’d be paying me for the information.”
Her respect began to diminish at the same time her instinct for a story suddenly began to stir.
“Well, that would depend. If it’s really as big as you say it is…”
“Thousands?” he asked, a little hoarsely.
“All I can tell you, Mr…” She wrote down his name. “All I can tell you, Mr Heath, is that it is…always…in theory…a possibility.” She pulled a face at Bob Clarke, who sat at right angles to her and who—alerted perhaps by something in her tone—had paused in his typing to wink at her. “If you could give me some idea of what the story is, obviously I’d be in a better position to judge.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to put your back up.” He was quick, she thought, and he had charm. “But I know absolutely nothing about the way you people work, and I have to protect my interests!” He laughed, apologetically. The nervousness had gone.
“Of course,” she said.
“Impasse,” he murmured. “How do we get round it?”
There was a pause.
“You know, Mr Heath, sooner or later you’ll really have to trust us.”
He continued to speak lightly. “But how do I know I can?”
“Because you picked up the telephone and dialled our number.”
“Wrong,” he said.
At the same moment she remembered. “Because you asked the operator to do it for you.” And might, she added, but only to herself, come to the point a little quicker if you hadn’t. “And because you know we have responsibilities we need to live up to, a reputation we have to maintain.” She laughed. “And because we don’t like anyone to take us into court.”
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She gave it to him. After all this his story had better be good and not just a storm in a local teacup—a teacup currently being slopped along the counter by some avaricious weirdo. She noticed that Bob had come to the end of his typing and now sat watching her with open interest, elbow on table and chin in hand.
“Do you believe in God, Ms Coe?”
Even as she experienced it she realized her disappointment was disproportionate. All right, then, so he was a weirdo. Phone calls from fanatics of every type were nothing new in the newspaper world. Religious fanatics were possibly the worst, since their long-windedness was usually a consequence of their concern and it was therefore harder, if you had any sensitivity left in you at all, simply to cut them short or cut them off. Only the previous week, for instance, she’d had an old lady wanting to give her a list of aeroplanes that would be crashing in the following fortnight—no flight numbers, just routes, dates and approximate timings—and the old lady had actually been weeping as she spoke because she’d thought that no one would believe her and she so wished her dear Lord could have picked on somebody a little younger to pass on these dreadful revelations.
But Miss Hester Johnson certainly hadn’t asked for any thousands of pounds, nor had she reversed the charges. Geraldine didn’t feel she would need to be quite so tactful in dealing with this present call.
She gave a small sigh.
“I don’t see why it’s relevant, Mr Heath, but to tell you the truth I’ve never finally made up my mind. Now I ought to mention that I’m extremely busy at the moment and so if—”
“It was relevant in that we know where we stand with one another. You’re an agnostic; I’m an atheist. Now the position is this. Last Wednesday my two sons, aged fourteen and fifteen, had a vision in Scunthorpe. They saw an angel. He spoke to them and gave them a message for the world. Naturally, I myself didn’t, and don’t, believe a single word of it, although it’s very clear that both my children are convinced they’re telling the truth. What’s more, our parish vicar, who’s somewhere in his thirties, intelligent, analytical, by no means the kind to countenance anything dodgy (unless it happens to be in the Bible) and who at first was wholly sceptical, has now changed his mind. He believes that an angel did appear in Scunthorpe last Wednesday. At this very moment he’s probably arguing the question with some small-fry bishop or other, en route to make a fat impression on the really big fish: he who rings the bell at Canterbury. And there’s a silly little thing, too, which happened last Friday, which some people might call a sign, or a miracle, and which even I can’t put down to coincidence. Tell me: are you interested?”
“Yes,” she said. “Very.” She had been making quick shorthand jottings. “May I have the name of the vicar? And what was the nature of this sign you mention?”
“And what did the angel say, and what are my children’s names, and how does my wife feel about all this? No way, Ms Coe. (And is that Miss or is it Mrs?) No, if you really want to hear the answers to these questions—and, obviously, to a great number of others—I’m afraid you’ll need to travel up to Scunthorpe, pronto. Cheque in hand, naturally.”
“What’s your address, Mr Heath? And phone number?” It was hard to keep her tone from sounding cool.
“No phone, and I’ll meet you at the station. Then I can take you on a little tour of the sites. Or will you come by car?”
“I’m not sure it will be me who’ll come at all.”
But it was largely her resistance to him making her say that. She wanted this story; she thought it could be big; and she felt confident that Geoff would let her handle it.
She added, “We do have correspondents already in the north.”
“Well, you can keep your correspondents already in the north. It’s you I mean to deal with. You or no one. And you can damn well tell that to your editor, or subeditor, or whatever.”
She wanted to say: “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” But plainly it would be foolish to antagonize him to no purpose. (And he could very reasonably answer, anyway, “He who knows the steps will lead the dance.”) She inquired instead whether he knew how long the journey would take by road, and they arranged to meet—still at the railway station; he thought it best—at about three.
“See you then, Miss Coe”…having decided upon her status without any direct assistance from herself. (The fact his decision was correct annoyed her further.) “I shall look forward to it. Oh, and by the way, you don’t need to wear a carnation in your buttonhole or even have a sticker saying ‘Press’. I’d rather recognize you by that chequebook you’ll be waving.”
“By now I can well believe it. But I trust to find you less repetitive, Mr Heath, a lot less repetitive, when it comes to telling me your story.”
She heard him laugh. “A hit, Miss Coe. A palpable hit. I know I’m going to like you.” And he put down the receiver before she could reply.
“From the sweet expression on your face,” observed Bob Clarke, sympathetically, “my intuition tells me this could be the start of something big. And of something very beautiful.”
She swore.
22
It hadn’t been easy telling her mother. At first Mrs Plummer had said that she refused to believe it. “It will be years before he’s in any position to marry you. It was extremely wrong of him to ask.” She was still seated at her dressing table but at least she had accepted back the hairbrush she had dropped. “Years!” she repeated, as though deriving comfor
t from the very word or maybe hoping she had found herself a mantra. “Years and years and years!”
“We thought next month.”
“Ginny, you’re behaving like a child. Stop it! Even if you are besotted with this egocentric young man you must surely see—”
“He’s decided he won’t take up his place in college—and naturally I shan’t take up mine either—”
“Just wait until your father hears about this!”
“—and then we’ll both get fixed up in something very temporary, me in a shop or office, him on a building site. All we’ll need is a cheap bedsit. In London that can’t be difficult.”
“And in nine months’ time a baby comes along. Oh, that will be nice!”
“Well, at least Mr Heddingly should be pleased.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, grow up! I suppose he thinks it’ll be pleasant just to drift from one thoroughly demeaning job into another. As I say, your father is simply going to love this!”
“No, we’re hoping the only temporary jobs will be right at the beginning. Merely to tide us over. Afterwards, if we can, we’d like to find work together in a home for old people—and eventually to open one ourselves.”
“What!”
“Simon feels he’s never done anything to try to benefit the world. I tell him that’s nonsense.”
Mrs Plummer would have told him the same thing.
“Then love really is blind. As though any further evidence were needed! I’ve never known you express even the least bit of interest in old people.”
“I’m very fond of Granny.”
“That’s different.”
“And, in any case, I can learn. If that’s what he wants it’s also what I want. More than anything—apart from him.”
“I thought you had a less dependent turn of mind.”
“I thought so, too. But it’s not something I appear to value any longer.”
“That’s simply because you’re eighteen and think you’re in love. But the sex thing wears off after a year or two; you can take that from me, my girl. Four legs in a bed may sound wonderful to you at this moment but there’ll come a time when you’re inventing headaches just like any other woman.”
No, Ginny thought. No. Never. You’re telling me about yourself and I’m sorry if that’s the way things are, I truly am, I wish I could change them for you. But I’m not you and Simon isn’t Daddy. It won’t ever be like that for us. It couldn’t be. I know it.
“Romance is not so easy to sustain in the face of dirty socks and dirty underwear and all the usual bathroom smells.”
Ginny shrugged. “Who’s talking of romance? I think dirty socks are perhaps a bit of a cliché but I love him for his dirty socks and for his dirty underwear and for all the usual bathroom smells. Why not? They’re a part of him just as much as they’re a part of me and I wouldn’t want him any different. I embrace it all—eagerly.”
Suddenly she laughed and put her arms around her mother’s shoulders and her cheek against her mother’s cheek.
“So help me God!” she said.
Their eyes met for a moment in the mirror and then Mrs Plummer abruptly pulled away.
“So help you God, indeed! You’ll want all the support that you can get. For let me tell you one more thing, Virginia. Believe me, all old people are not like Granny and the aunts. They dribble, they become senile, they wet their beds. And worse—far worse! Emptying the chamber pots will be the very least of your worries!” It occurred even to herself that she was being a little lavatorial and maybe wholly unjustified. Certainly not like the mother she had always done her best to be. But she had never meant to encourage Ginny to do any more than lightly flirt with a good-looking boy, as she herself in some of her most secret dreams, a carefree hopeful girl again, sometimes lightly flirted. “What does his mother say about all this?”
“Simon thinks she’ll be pleased.”
“Obviously ripe for incarceration in this old people’s home you talk about. Perhaps you were surprised to find that your own was made of slightly sterner stuff?”
“No, not a bit!” snapped Ginny. “If that’s of any comfort to you.”
23
It was only two-forty-five when Geraldine Coe and Graeme Peters drove into the station forecourt but Josh Heath was already there and she knew him instantly despite his appearance being unlike what she had pictured. His face was even fairly pleasant and although he assuredly gave her the once-over she didn’t find this altogether offensive. He managed to convey that he’d been expecting her to be attractive and that he wasn’t disappointed.
“Graeme takes the photographs,” she said.
“Haven’t had a good picture of an angel in months,” drawled this smiling Australian. He was large and loose-limbed and thirtyish but he gave an exaggerated wince at the power of Josh’s handshake. “Hell, what do they feed you on round here? If it isn’t prime steak, at least the manna must be packed with protein.”
“Look,” said Geraldine, “before we start, all of us, let’s make a pact. No bible jokes, please. Where’s a good place for coffee?”
Josh always liked The Buccaneer; he considered it relatively sophisticated. Both the travellers had a sandwich, Josh a glass of fruit juice. Geraldine said, “I don’t know about diet but you look as though you’ve been on holiday. Somewhere in the sun.”
He smiled, a little ruefully; told them he was unemployed. In that case, Geraldine replied, his complexion said a lot for the gardens, parks and general climate of Scunthorpe. “As a matter of fact it isn’t what I expected.” She meant the town. “And it has been a pretty good summer. How long have you been out of work?”
“Four-and-a-half years.”
“Hell’s bells!” said Graeme Peters.
“Mr Heath, I have a small confession to make. On the phone I thought you sounded mercenary. Forgive me.”
“But I am mercenary. There’s nothing to forgive.”
“What I mean is, anyone who’s been out of work that long and has a family to support has a right to be.” She took a notepad from her shoulder bag and pushed aside her plate. “Four-and-a-half years,” she said. “What a mess it all is! What was your job, Mr Heath?”
“I was a teacher. I wish you’d call me Josh.”
“Joshua?” exclaimed Graeme Peters, with considerably more surprise than Josh felt the name warranted and with an expression that dissolved into a grin.
Geraldine put up her hand warningly.
“Graeme, don’t say it! Don’t you dare say it!”
“Why, lady, can’t think what’s got your dander up! No notion what you mean.”
And he glanced about him casually and began to whistle.
Josh knew the words that accompanied the tune.
Geraldine laughed.
“Oh, you bastard! I might as well tell you, Mr Heath, and get it over with: my poor dead parents either had a lousy sense of humour or were just so dumb they didn’t notice. Perhaps they were drunk. Geraldine, of course, shortens to Gerry. You can guess, therefore, what they call me on the paper: the same very witty thing I’ve been saddled with since kindergarten.”
“But you enjoy it, Jericho! Don’t pretend you don’t enjoy it!”
“Again forgive me, Mr Heath: for the playground mentality of those I have to work with.”
“Josh.”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry. Were you teaching for long, Josh? What made you leave?”
He spread his hands. They were strong and well looked after. “I heard there were brighter opportunities in Germany. Better pay. I decided I had to take a gamble but unfortunately…”
“You’re obviously a brave fellow.”
“I suspect, though,” Geraldine told Graeme, “that only when a gamble pays off do people call you brave. When it doesn’t, the word is more likely irresponsible.”
Josh nodded. “And actually, while we’re on the subject, I’ve got to ask that neither of you will mention it before my wife. It’s still a bit of a sore p
oint.”
“Then you did it off your own bat?”
“Well, I’m not the type who—once he has an idea—likes to waste time. I believe you really have to make a grab for what you want in life.”
Geraldine wondered how much notice teachers had to give; she would have thought it was a term. But all she said was, “Mm. I think I might faintly have gathered that impression even before we met!”
“Touché, Miss Coe.”
“Jericho,” said Graeme.
“That may have sounded drier than I meant it to. I’m very much in sympathy. Both with you and your wife.”
“Yes, it’s been hard on Dawn, of course, and the kids. But in a strange way they’ve got something out of it. My wife has found religion. And the boys…well, they too after a fashion. And all of them, they’ve got their angel.”
“And would you say,” asked Graeme, “that you’d got anything out of it?”
“Oh, myself—yes, in all honesty, I think I have.” His expression was wryly self-mocking. “You see, Dickens here has embarked upon the Great British Novel. The definitive Great British Novel.”
“Has he indeed?” said Geraldine. “That’s wonderful! What’s it about?”
“The effects of unemployment. People who’ve not been out of work…they may be sensitive, imaginative, as well-intentioned as all getout but they really have no idea, no idea at all.” He smiled. “Yes, I know! It all sounds very dreary! But I trust it won’t be, any more than Hard Times or Bleak House.”
“Have you a title yet?” asked Geraldine. “May I read some of it?”
“Behold a White Horse. But, no, I wouldn’t want anyone to look at the book, not even you, until at least the first draft is finished.”
“I can understand that. How long will it take?”
“A further six months?”
“You won’t mind my mentioning it, though?”
“Advance promotion? Not at all.” Josh told himself he’d better get to work on it—and fast! He could think of no better incentive. He watched her write in shorthand what he took to be the title.
“Then I certainly wish you luck with it. Now, what about this second thing you spoke of on the telephone? A sort of sign, you said, which even you couldn’t put down to coincidence.”
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