If she does, there’s no clue in her expression. I shift on the chair, which amplifies my movements, making them sound absurdly nervous. “Is there anything else you’d care to have me tell them?” Paula says.
“Such as…” When this sinks into her gaze without a trace I have to say “Such as what, sorry?”
“About your intentions for the future.”
So Christine hasn’t only told her about my novel. I do my best to choke off my rage before saying “I’ve had some interest elsewhere, if that’s what you mean.” Her silence and her gaze drive me to add “I was going to mention it. I never seemed to find the proper time.”
“Sooner would have been proper. May I ask what they’re offering?”
“It looks like the chance to interview people the way I interviewed Frank Jasper.’”
“Can you use the same trick?”
My rage is close to surfacing again. “I didn’t use any on him.”
“Maybe you could learn from him.” Before I can attack this Paula says “I wasn’t asking what they’ll let you do. What are they saying they’ll pay?”
“It isn’t settled yet, but I wouldn’t expect to take a drop.”
“And is there anything that’s made you unhappy at Waves?”
“We don’t know about the new regime yet, do we? We don’t know how we may get along with them.”
“We should be seeing we do exactly that. I’d advise making up your mind.”
“You know I’ll deal with them like a professional. That’s what I am.”
Paula’s gaze is growing weary, or she wants me to think it is. “I’m saying you need to decide who you’re going to work for.”
“Can I have until we’re visited? To be honest, I don’t know myself yet.”
“If you really have to leave me in the dark that long. Meanwhile don’t forget you’re still on the air.”
It seems I haven’t earned a sweet today. I struggle out of the infirm chair and am nearly at the door when Paula says “Oh, and Graham…”
I open it and turn to her. “I don’t think you should trade so much on finding Kylie Goodchild,” she says. “It didn’t mean much to our friends from out of town.”
I almost slam the door and stalk to her desk to demand what she’s accusing me of. The twelve o’clock news has begun, and so I shut the door with a gentleness that feels like a secret threat and march to the water cooler before making for the studio. As Sammy Baxter reports that the police are awaiting the results of Kylie Goodchild’s autopsy, Christine blinks at my face. “Oh dear, was it trouble?”
“Someone wanted her to know I’ve had another offer”
My stare might be why Christine retorts “I hope you don’t think it was me.”
“Who else would have had a reason?”
“What reason do you think I’d have?”
“You might want to keep me here,” I say and dodge into the studio as the newsreader prophesises suntans all round. I don my headphones while Christine watches me with an expression I can’t interpret. It’s Join In The Joke Day, and I feel as if the joke’s on me. I’m bracing myself to deal with puns and gags and whatever else the listeners may throw at me—and then I deal the console a thump that makes Christine’s face waver. I’ve thought who else could know about Hannah Leatherhead’s proposal.
20: Hannah Leatherhead Again
“What’s it going to be, Mr Wubbleyou?”
“Nothing just now, thanks.”
“No need for the face. I don’t mind if my regulars just drop in sometimes for a natter. I was nearly feeling I couldn’t talk to you.”
“Where did you get that idea?”
“Your lady friend wouldn’t let me.”
“Which one’s that?”
“How many have you got on the go? Hang on, don’t say. I’m no champion at keeping secrets. The girl that puts you on the air, she wouldn’t let me tell you a joke.”
“I’d have had you on my show, would I? Who knows what reception you’d have got.”
“I’ll tell you it now and see what you reckon. Why don’t Muslims like to draw Mohammed?”
“I’ve no idea, and right now—”
“Because they’re not Jews.”
“I don’t get it, and to be frank—”
“They’re not so keen on making a prophet. Get it now?”
I give Benny a grimace I don’t want him to confuse with a grin, even a pained one. No wonder Christine kept him off the air, though she could have let him on as her revenge for my accusation. When I apologised for the mistake she seemed less appeased than I’d hoped. That’s another reason I’m enraged, a condition Benny either doesn’t notice or feels it’s his job to ignore. “A customer told me that one for nothing,” he says. “Go on, tell me I was robbed.”
“It was a crime all right.”
“Hey, you made one. Thought you were leaving it to the rest of us,” he chortles, though I didn’t mean it as a joke. “I expect you’ve got bigger things on your mind. How’s the writing?”
I clench my fists, but out of sight. “You don’t miss much, do you, Benny? What else did you hear?”
“When you were with the other girl? Seems like you’re in demand.”
“We were having a business discussion, and you told someone about it, didn’t you?”
Benny straightens up, stiffening his neck while his shadow that the footlights cast on the wall behind the bar mimes his umbrage too. “Are you having another joke?”
“Come on, Benny, I’m not accusing you of anything.” I am, but I’m more concerned to establish the truth. “You just said you’re no good at keeping secrets,” I say as I manage to relax my fists, which have begun to ache. “Maybe you were boasting about the kind of customer you have.”
“I don’t do that.”
“Benny, if it wasn’t you—”
“It was one of the rest of them that heard. If I could, don’t you reckon they did?”
I strain to remember who else was there, but nobody comes to mind. “If I was wrong I’m sorry, but somebody’s been talking about me.”
“They will when you do what you do.”
His expression leaves me undecided whether that’s a compliment or some other species of remark. I take it he’s still hurt by my accusation. “Have one on me, Benny,” I say no less awkwardly than I fumble out a fiver to leave crumpled on the bar.
The fierce sunlight falls on me with a roar as if it was lying in wait, a sound it borrows from the traffic. The heat and the uproar seem to crowd every thought out of my skull except one: I need to speak to Hannah Leatherhead. I’m finding her number on my mobile when a not especially slim young woman emerges from the concrete bunker of the BBC across the road. I shade my eyes and squeeze them thin before I’m sure. “Hannah,” I shout.
She doesn’t seem to hear me. As she turns along the side street occupied by one length of the bunker I dart into the traffic. A driver treads on his brakes, but the car doesn’t stop enough to let me cross. I retreat to the gutter as Hannah glances around at the hysterical screech of brakes. She sees me and gestures, but a truck obscures the movement of her hand. She must have been telling me to stay where I am, because when she becomes visible once more she’s making her way along the pavement opposite me. Once the traffic halts she ventures across the road.
Her long white muslin dress hints at the outlines of her lingerie. It makes her look oddly vulnerable, and so does her apologetic smile. “I was going to call you,” she murmurs.
“Well, now you don’t need to. Where shall we go?”
“Do you fancy a stroll by the canal?”
“I don’t much.’”
She’s already heading in that direction, and my response appears to throw her. “Excuse me, 1 didn’t realise …” She’s glancing around her, and all at once she’s less distracted. “Of course, we’ll go in here,” she says and dodges into the Dressing Room.
Is it too late to call her away? As I hurry after her, Benny shouts �
��Same as last time? It’s on Mr Wubbleyou. He’s set you up.”
“In that case,” Hannah says to both of us with some bemusement, “thanks.”
At least we’re the only customers just now. I usher Hannah to a corner booth from which I can keep an eye on the entire room, and then I touch my lips with a finger. Once Benny has brought glasses of New Zealand white—“Newsie’s Wee for both,” he confines himself to announcing—I clink mine against Hannah’s. “So you’ve made the news,” she murmurs.
“Honestly, I wish people wouldn’t keep mentioning that. I really didn’t do much at all.”
“I shouldn’t think it will do your image any harm.”
“If it helps us I suppose I shouldn’t complain.” As Hannah parts her lips I say under my breath “I’d better tell you our last meeting isn’t secret any more.”
“How did that happen?” Before I can answer she says “Who knows about it?”
“The station manager at Waves.” Without quite glancing at Benny I mutter “I think it was someone in here.”
“Would you rather talk somewhere else?”
“Not unless you would,” I say but keep my voice low.
“Well, Graham.” Hannah takes a sip of wine and then another. “I spoke to our people,” she says, “when I came back.”
I take hold of my glass in preparation for a celebratory clink. “What’s their verdict?”
“I want you to know it’s the longest discussion of the kind I’ve ever been involved in.” She gives me a moment to savour whatever substance this contains, and then she says “We came to the conclusion that it isn’t the right time.”
“The right time.” The echo doesn’t sound much like my voice, and I can’t judge how loud it may be. “When is, then?” I whisper, which makes me feel like a secretive child.
“Unfortunately none of us could foresee one.”
For a crazed moment I’m tempted to retort that they should have consulted Frank Jasper. I feel as if the bulbs that frame the mirror above the booth have focused all their glare on me, turning the rest of the room into a dark barren emptiness. The gulp of wine I take leaves my throat parched. “Maybe I can give the situation another look,” Hannah murmurs like a nurse attempting to comfort a terminal case, “in let’s say a couple of years.”
“Years.” The echo seems more detached from me than ever. “Can I ask what their problem was with me?”
“It wasn’t just theirs, Graham.”
“What’s yours?”
I’m no longer bothering to lower my voice, and I glimpse Benny leaning across the bar to take the order he assumes I’m about to give him. I grimace and just as fiercely gesture at him, only to discover that he has his back to me; he’s replenishing the bottles that hang their heads down. Hannah waits for me to look at her and says “We couldn’t very well not take into account all that business with Frank Jasper.”
“You said you were impressed with how I handled him.”
‘The first time.”
“Not just then. You told me more than once.”
“After I came back as well, that’s right. I’m sorry, Graham. I hadn’t realised you’d had him on your show again.”
“So I did. What’s wrong with that?”
“The consensus was you didn’t deal with him with the skill we were looking for, and there have to be questions in some people’s minds.”
“Which?” As Hannah meets this with a look that hopes to be silently sad I protest “Maybe if you’d heard what actually happened—
“I listened to a playback.”
In a moment my rage overtakes my confusion. “Wait a minute,” I say in a whisper that makes my teeth ache. “You want me to think you hadn’t heard it last time we met.”
“That’s the truth, Graham.”
“But you talked about it.”
“I couldn’t have. What are you thinking I said?”
“You started talking about the photo I signed for Kylie Goodchild, and then you said there was no need. You certainly didn’t give me the idea there was any kind of problem. It was after that you went into all the details about our programme.”
“Graham …” Hannah’s sounding like a nurse again, and her expression goes with it. “I meant the photographs in here,” she murmurs. “I just thought you might be unhappy there isn’t one of you.”
I can’t bear her concerned gaze or her explanation. I stare past her at Jasper performing his pantomime between the seven dwarfs and the clown. He belongs in a circus with them, but I could imagine they’re all watching me in a parody of sympathy—at any rate, that’s how he looks. The dozens of dressing-room bulbs glare in my eyes like lights in an interrogation cell, and I turn away to find Hannah keeping up her concern, which provokes me to ask “Shouldn’t helping find Kylie Goodchild make a difference?”
“Maybe it will when it’s all anyone remembers.” Hannah maintains her caring look while she drains her glass and stands up. “Will you excuse me now?” she barely asks. “Forgive me for running, but I was on my way somewhere.”
A roaring blaze of light worthy of a furnace spills into the pub, and then I’m alone with the barman. “If there’s anything to celebrate, Mr Wubbleyou,” he calls, “this one’s on me.”
I throw my head back to swallow the last mouthful of wine, but there isn’t that much in the glass. Will more help me to feel better? It can hardly make me worse. “I’ll take you up on that, Benny,” I say, only to wonder how many of his jokes may accompany the drink. They aren’t likely to improve my mood, but then I’m struck by a relatively welcome thought: I still have a secret to keep. I needn’t tell Paula that Hannah has taken back the proposal.
21: On High
Since Christine dislikes being told how to drive, especially by a computer, no navigation is built into her car. On the map Middleton appears to consist largely of roundabouts, and it’s perhaps twenty minutes away from the centre of Manchester. As we drive north the streets grow narrower and more dilapidated. Beyond villages that the city has reduced to parts of itself, distant hills are parched brown as old carpets. Along the Blackley road obstinately green trees shut out the rest of the world, and then we’re in Middleton, where bouquets decorate the railings that divide a carriageway. They might be portents of the graveyard, but none of the signs by the roundabouts refers to the crematorium. At last we find a passer-by who knows where it is, and we follow an even narrower street to the smallest roundabout of all.
It’s Saturday, and so we’re both off work. I suppose Christine has no less of a reason to attend the funeral than I have; she was with me when the police found Kylie Goodchild. The message Megan took for me simply gave the place and time. As the churchyard comes in sight a hearse bereft of its coffin turns out of the gateway, followed by an assortment of cars, and I catch myself hoping we’ve missed the funeral and any awkwardness it may involve. In fact we’re so early that Christine’s is the only car in sight when she parks it beside the chapel.
The small pale sandstone building is dominated by an outsize chimney like an omen of cremation. A rudimentary tower—little more than a stone bracket—holds a solitary silent bell. Two rows of bare unadorned pews are awaiting a congregation. In a separate room a calligraphic book of remembrance is open at today’s date. The right-hand page is blank but occupied by a pair of white gloves, and I wonder if Kylie Goodchild was the kind of girl to wear gloves to a funeral. Knowing so little about her, why am I here at all?
Grey squirrels are scurrying among the graves beneath the trees, where black headstones resemble negatives of their neighbours. I sit with Christine on a bench near a wire basket piled with dead bouquets. I don’t know whether she wants to embrace the peace or simply has nothing to say for the moment. Myself, I don’t seem able to benefit from the stillness; too many thoughts are dodging about inside my head like the squirrels the colour of stones on the grass. I haven’t told Christine I met Hannah Leatherhead again; I don’t want to risk letting the news spread until well afte
r I’ve met our new bosses. To some extent I’m relieved to see another hearse and its procession of cars arriving at the churchyard.
The hearse halts at the chapel, and an undertaker’s man lets the Good-childs out of a limousine. Wayne is with them, and they’re all in black and white; he’s even donned a suit, though it doesn’t look like his own. They stand by the door of the chapel while drivers park near Christine’s car as slowly as a funereal ritual. Kylie’s mother looks oddly fearful, possibly afraid of emotions that may catch up with her at any moment, while her husband looks as determined as Wayne to stay gruff. None of their faces waver as the other mourners, quite a few of whom must be Kylie’s schoolmates, converge on the family. I’m waiting for everyone else to go into the chapel, and then I see Frank Jasper.
He’s very much in black—suit, shoes, socks, polo-neck. He murmurs to Kylie’s parents and her boyfriend as he takes his place beside them. He looks as if he’s surveying the turnout for the funeral. His gaze comes to rest on me, and he mutters a few words to Kylie’s father. “Don’t do anything, Graham,” Christine says at once.
“I wasn’t about to.” Her assumption infuriates me even more than Jasper’s behaviour. I stare at him as expressionlessly as I can manage, and then I watch three teenage girls dab at their eyes while they giggle at the antics of a squirrel. When I glance back at Jasper he’s heading for our bench.
I’d clench my fists if Christine wouldn’t see. I make to stand up, but she holds onto my arm. Jasper doesn’t speak until he’s almost within reach. He dabs his forehead with a handkerchief, and I’d be happy to imagine he’s sweating with nervousness, but it’s the heat that even the trees can’t fend off. As he pockets the handkerchief he murmurs “Have you been put in the picture?”
He hasn’t finished speaking when his gaze shifts from me to Christine, so that I could think the question is meant just for her. That’s one reason I demand “Is that your job now?”
Keeping my voice low to avoid being overheard has reminded me of trying to be secretive in Benny’s bar. The memory inflames my rage, and Jasper doesn’t help by saying “I guess nobody here wants to upset Robbie and Margaret.”
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