Harvest

by Celia Brayfield

The committee table was stacked with depositions, reference books, piles of notes. The room was windowless and felt airless, the table lamps creating a pool of light in the Rembrandt gloom. The faces of the nine men and two women forming the committee were tense with the effort of concentration in the enervating heat. It was August 2, the last day before the summer recess, the day Michael Knight had chosen for his appearance before them. ‘I want them to think about these issues, really think about them. If I get to them before recess, they’ll have the whole of August to give their minds to the question.’ People only needed to think, he believed, to realize that he was right.

  He was the finale, the star turn, but his manner dismissed ego considerations. After all, his reputation preceded him. Michael Knight made nation speak peace unto nation. He had dedicated his life to NewsConnect, the news agency of record, a concept not a company. NewsConnect was about more than live pictures and interviews with telegenic English-speaking people; NewsConnect told the whole truth, including the overview, the context, the world leaders who did not speak English respectfully translated, and because it got the best pictures fastest it still grabbed audiences. NewsConnect was a national treasure. Michael Knight had invented it, he owned most of it, he was its guiding spirit and its guru, and now he wanted to sell it to a brash multinational media conglomerate spreading round the world like a virus, owned by a South African and financed God knew how.

  Michael Knight, was taller and broader in life than on television, with a noble forehead and an intense gaze; in speaking he had a habit of leaning forward and pulling up his shoulders, a posture that appeared either protective or predatory, according to his listener’s attitude.

  He chose a soft opening. ‘Forgive me, was that a question?’

  His interrogator was better than that, she ate it up. ‘Let me rephrase. This merger is one step nearer a global news consensus – how do you feel about that?’

  ‘Let me explain the view which we at NewsConnect take of the changes in the landscape of our industry. News-gathering today is a global business. There is a manifest need for international cooperation.’ He was trying to infect the committee with his own sense of mission. These were second-rate politicians trying to work up the juice for one more attempt at recognition. They saw the control of the girdle of communications satellites around the earth as a glamorous, easily assimilated field in which to deploy their overlooked talents. Michael saw it as the most crucial issue facing the world, and it frightened him that they might be stupid and ill-informed enough to screw up and make the wrong decision. The right decision favoured his own interest, but that was beside the point.

  ‘As a company within the Altmark group,’ he continued, ‘our editorial commitment will not change, but we will be better resourced, with better access to the essential technology, and able to be on top of the new developments which are going to make news-gathering a faster and more effective process in the future.’

  His delivery was magnificent. Pens flew over paper. The committee loved evidence like this, packed with ready-crafted, gift-wrapped nostrums which would leap eagerly into their own policy speeches and spawn good opinions among their party chiefs.

  The interrogator was in terrier mode; the only committee member with a legal background, she was also the only one instinctively suspicious of men who equated the public interest with their own interest. Her hands, fast-moving, kept fluttering to her lapels, feeling, for the edges of a gown. Bright-eyed and sharp-suited, she bowed and bobbed to her colleagues as if to a jury.

  ‘Be that as it may, Mr Knight, how can you reconcile the public interest with a network of strategic alliances between all the major news agencies?’

  ‘We can only function at our best if we have strong links with our co-suppliers.’ Now Knight spoke rapidly, without much inflection, as if running through an item which had already been agreed. ‘It cannot be other than in the public interest for us to be able to provide the public with high-quality news coverage obtained at a sensible cost to us. It is our overriding imperative.’

  ‘NewsConnect already has as shareholders companies such as Reuters, News International, CNN, companies with interests virtually identical to yours.’

  She had made a mistake. ‘We only have a two-way supply deal with CNN, there is no involvement beyond that.’ Regretful, almost chivalrous, he glanced in admonition towards the clerk recording the session. At that point, the interrogator lost the support of the committee.

  ‘But your company, and these, others, have exchanged non-executive directors.’

  ‘Isn’t that normal in any field of business?’

  ‘But we aren’t talking about any field of business, Mr Knight. We’re talking about public information. Your stock in trade, to extend your analogy, your stock in trade is the truth. What are you doing to guarantee the purity of your product?’ Little sighs of irritation; the pens had stopped moving.

  Knight made a helpless gesture, implying the futility of answering an irrelevant question. ‘Everything we can. Naturally, everything we can.’

  They sagged a little in their seats, embarrassed that one of their number had overstepped the brief. Knight glanced behind him at the public benches. A man who liked to be accompanied, he had arrived with a team of five who had come into the room discreetly just before his appearance and sat in the front row in a line. First was a familiar figure, NewsConnect’s Head of Corporate Affairs, William Greenstreet, who had already made his own appearance before the committee, stocky, amiable, sitting with his hands on his knees. Stewart Molfetto, the Finance Director, was beside him, sleek, dark, contained. They were both in their thirties; NewsConnect was a young company. The man next to them looked twenty years older, much grey in his thinning hair and close-trimmed beard: Graham Moynihan, Professor of Media Studies at a northwestern university, the leading voice in his field and due to appear before the committee in the autumn. Finally there were two women, one taking flowing shorthand, clearly Knight’s PA, and the other merely listening with intense interest, her fingers running through her sleek straight hair. In the rest of the public area there was only a couple of students and a scattering of corporate loafers further towards the back. A robot camera registered the scene for the day’s news bulletins.

  ‘Michael.’ It was the chairman speaking; the first questioner had sat down. ‘I think what my colleague is really interested in is the issue of editorial control.’

  ‘Of course, naturally we appreciate that.’ Never I, always we, not an unwarranted assumption of a royal we, but a way of including everyone listening in his opinion. The chairman was Morris Donaldson, a freckled chunk of blubber hunched in shirtsleeves over his papers. He had listened to Michael employing the universal ‘we’since they had started out together as young reporters on a two-bit small-town teatime news show, raw from university, the housewife’s heart throbs. Donaldson had gone directly from TV to politics, losing his looks and much of his intelligence in years of late-night bar sessions; he looked on Knight with wistful envy and Michael, who hated any degree of dislike, viewed him with fraternal sentimentality.

  ‘At NewsConnect, we consider ourselves observers of world events, not participants. Our mission is to inform to the best of our ability and after that it’s up to the viewers what to do with the news they have seen.’ Knight sat forward again, resolved to flatter them with his concern for their good opinion. He had to win them. Above all else, Alan Stern of Altmark was counting on it. Stem was new on the scene, and he had no illusions about his image. Knight’s skin prickled with shame at the mere idea of getting fucked by a bunch of mediocrities because he had been unable to win their understanding. ‘But we are well aware of who our viewers are. Our reports have reached eight hundred million screens, in two hundred countries. They reach a mass audience, and they reach world leaders, governments, armies, industries, the United Nations. All these viewers trust NewsConnect as a reliable source of information. We are an international presence, and we feel a sense of international re
sponsibility.’

  He was inspiring. The committee seized their pens again. They thought about directorships, about being interviewed, about being filmed in flak jackets on fact-finding missions at flashpoints. They thought about their futures and reminded themselves why they were there. Much to gain and nothing to lose. Media ownership was a question in which both political parties were equally uninterested, so they were not in danger of setting a contentious course, blundering into a politician’s Bermuda triangle.

  They even admired his clothes. You could not accuse the man of vanity: why, before NewsConnect he had been the most admired political interviewer of his time, and had set aside celebrity for the higher good. Some of the earlier witnesses had been disgraceful hustlers, wearing satin bomber jackets embroidered with slogans, but Knight, like the committee, wore a lightweight grey suit, a white shirt and a tie; unlike them he looked fresh, tailored, trim. He had long legs which he crossed and recrossed to punctuate his speech, just as a more hesitant personality might cough or light a cigarette. Knight never appeared hesitant in public, he projected certainty as flawless as a halo.

  ‘In short’ – he was winding up now, feeling them all nestled docilely in the palm of his hand – ‘we are aware that our reports affect the substance of decision-making processes at the highest level. Without it being our intention, we have become the channel for a new form of diplomacy. That being the situation, editorial independence is the central requirement from Altmark. There will be no deal unless that is guaranteed. Ownership and ethics are different things. You have my word on that.’

  It was over. Solemn and spellbound, the committee had no more to say. They were his. Then, at Donaldson’s side, a florid right-winger leaned in to put his stamp on the decision. ‘Our concern was only to do with information becoming a commodity …’

  ‘Information always has been a commodity.’

  ‘Our point is that the value of news product …’

  ‘That is not a phrase I would use myself.’ The words were carefully expressionless; I am not patronizing this sweaty, politically incorrect fool, although he deserves it.

  ‘The value of information must surely determine the judgements made about its dissemination …’

  ‘My people make their judgements objectively. They are first-class journalists.’ The captain on the bridge to the last, the officer defending his men; there was a ripple of appreciation from the public benches. Donaldson looked at his watch, gathered up his papers, asked if there were further questions, then thanked Knight emphatically and declared the hearing finished. They shared a quality of voice, a gritty northern burr; in Donaldson it was a broad accent, in Knight merely a tang in the vowels.

  For all he had succeeded in his purpose, Michael left the room in a backdraught of anxiety, running the questions and answers over in his memory, feeling sick with the fear of having betrayed himself. A drink would be good. He wished he smoked. He was rubbing the fingers and thumb of his right hand together, a nervous mannerism. For all he felt it proper to show modesty in public, no one was more conscious of his high position. Normally he cruised in a cloudless stratosphere of achievement, his sights fixed higher. Episodes like this were gut-wringing turbulence, in which he imagined himself out of control, plunging earthwards to annihilation.

  ‘All right, Michael?’ Donaldson caught up with him, struggling into his jacket.

  ‘Sure. Fine. What did you think?’

  ‘Great show, they loved you.’

  ‘Do you think they really grasped it?’

  ‘Oh sure. They’re not specialists, any of them. There’s a limit to the amount of background you can absorb …’

  In the lounge, the video report of his submission to the committee was running already on the early evening news, included across the channels by editors who knew the man might give them a job one day. The team from the public gallery watched him on a large, old-fashioned television in the corner of the House bar.

  The men were nodding, satisfied. The taller of the two women said, ‘He looks so calm.’ Her suit was dark blue with faint white stripes, a loose cut made baggy with long wearing.

  ‘You must tell him. He gets really strung out about these things.’ Knight’s secretary was checking the next day’s engagements on her electronic organizer.

  ‘Does he really? I can’t believe that.’

  ‘Oh yes, you’d be surprised. Do tell him. There they are now.’ She snapped the diary shut and turned around to watch Knight and Donaldson making their way towards them.

  As they approached, and the men weighed in with their congratulations, sexual alchemy transmuted Knight’s anxiety. He responded to Greenstreet’s criticism of the initial questioning, but his attention was on the women. His gaze focused on the taller one, and in the hesitant poise of her head and the softness of her smile he saw an irresistible allure. He could not distinguish between the pleasure he took in a woman’s beauty and her intention to please him. Unconsciously, his eyes flickered over her entire figure, finding the ripe high curve of her buttocks, the faintest impression of a nipple under her white vest, almost hidden in the shadow of her jacket.

  Coffee was brought. Moynihan took him aside for a few points about the committee’s amendments, then said, ‘Until Sunday, Michael,’ and left early to catch a plane. A couple more committee members appeared; Greenstreet, radiating good-fellowship, swept them into the group and a loud discussion of the opposition evidence began.

  Michael was able to move aside and concentrate on the women. ‘Morris.’ He took Donaldson by the shoulder. ‘Can I introduce you – Serena Larsen from ChildAid, and you know my assistant, Marianne Walsh. This is Morris Donaldson, we started out together.’

  ‘Another member of the Knight mafia. How do you do.’ Serena’s thin silver bangles tinkled as she shook hands.

  ‘He’s from Ilkley, just down the railway from you. You’re from Grassington originally, Serena, isn’t that right? And your father still lives there and you had to take the train to school in Ilkley.’ He was blatantly at pains to charm her, and seemed to enjoy his freedom to be obvious. They had a trivial conversation two weeks ago in which they had exchanged backgrounds; she was now astonished that Michael Knight remembered the name of her home town and that her father still lived there and the names of the stations on her railway branch line. He himself came from further south, the son of a small-town librarian, but everyone remembered that, it was part of the Michael Knight mythology. The librarian’s son who heads the NewsConnect media empire.

  There was an exchange of praise, hers for his performance, his for her suit. ‘Becoming,’ he called it, an old-fashioned word.

  ‘I got it in a charity shop,’ she told them, a slight flush on her very white skin. ‘I was pleased to find it, they’re supposed to be coming back, these stripes.’

  She looked from Michael to Morris, and compared them. Fifteen years ago they must both have been handsome. Drink and compromise had overwhelmed Morris, so his face was coarse and a substantial belly hung over his belt. He smiled at her, intending to convey friendliness but achieving only a blurred leer.

  Donaldson’s uppermost concern was deciding which woman Michael was sleeping with. After the second child of his second marriage, he had a lot of unallocated libido and little possibility of satisfying it. Michael held a special fascination for him. Of all the creeds the man could profess when he had to, feminism was the least close to his instincts; when the acolyte in attendance was female, there was only ever one reason for her presence. But he was not your common-or-garden philanderer, Michael. Not a skirt-chaser or a secretary-screwer or even a man who scored junior researchers. Michael’s women were always quality.

  The scent of lust was in the air, like the smoke of the first hearth-fire of winter. Serena felt uncomfortable. Apart from Donaldson, the other men were beginning to give her questioning looks. Michael had never behaved as if he had any sexual interest in her, there had been no flirting, no compliments. She found him attractive,
as most women did. He talked about his family a lot, in fact, more than most men. She had an instinct about him, but put it down to her own vanity. Had she been wrong?

  The atmosphere of the House intimidated her. The entire edifice was gloomy, oppressive, dirty, old-fashioned, a place where rituals and regulations masked impotence. The gothic decoration was bogus and the lighting meanly low. The bar contained only men, pompous in manner, loud, assembled in conspiratorial groups, with ugly women servants moving among them dealing with the ashtrays and dirty glasses.

  ‘Do you work for Michael?’ Donaldson was eventually able to begin a conversation with her.

  ‘No. I work for ChildAid, an international relief agency. We are helping NewsConnect with a report on the war orphans in the former Yugoslavia.’ Odd that he had not registered her introduction.

  ‘So what’s your interest here today?’

  ‘Michael suggested I should sit in on the rough cut of the programme later, I’d get a better idea than from the script. Since he had to do this first, he asked me if I’d care to see a committee in session. I’ve never even been inside the building before, so I jumped at the chance.’ She looked past him, seeking Michael. Over Donaldson’s well-padded shoulder he was just in view, with a group at the far side of the room. His presence energized them, the conversation had accelerated and there was frequent laughter.

  ‘He’s right, the rough cut will give you a better idea.’ She wondered why Donaldson was nodding over her, as if he had just made an important discovery.

  They left for the NewsConnect offices in two cars, both women travelling with Michael, who turned to Serena at once. ‘What did you make of Morris?’

  ‘He seemed very proud that you’d been friends for so long.’ Donaldson’s envy had been blatant, but it was Serena’s instinct to show the significant facts in the most flattering light.

  ‘Twenty years, it must be. He was a great reporter. Really rigorous, persistent, never let go. Excellent interviewer. Mind like a computer, always way ahead of the argument, figuring the angles. Very fine-looking man, great on camera.’