He doesn’t even have kids!
One sharpish text to Goebbels back at the office (‘story big, send snapper, more to follow’), and I was out of there like a whippet, like a young Maradona, showing blistering pace, with the kid from security hot on my tail. And as we streaked down to intercept the boy Best, we talked tactics.
It was a classic move. We sprung the old inside-out, the onside-offside trap. The give-and-go. Security hung back, out of sight, behind our man’s back… and I took up a position on the wing, off the ball as it were, but close enough to see his every move.
It worked like a dream. I watched England’s hottest young prospect in 20 years hoover up Iggle Piggles and Upsy Daisys and Makka Pakkas. I witnessed him shovel in armloads of Tombliboos and fistfuls of Pontipines. I saw the precocious Boy Wonder fill his bag with Ninky Nonks and Pinky Ponks. It wasn’t shoplifting: it was theft on a grand scale, every bit as audacious and extraordinary as the 30-yard screamer against Italy that marked his England debut just eight or so months ago. And if his goal that day filled me with wonder and joy and heart-bursting belief in the future of this country, Jamie Best’s performance in the aisles of Toys R Us on Saturday made me feel a million times better.
After that it was easy. A tap on the shoulder, an introduction, a flash of the press card, a nod towards the security guard and the offer of a deal. My heart was hammering and I felt sick with terror at what I was about to do… but I kept my voice calm, I kept my gaze steady, I held my nerve. I did it all by pretending to be Harry the Dog.
Talk to me now, Jamie, I said, tell me everything I want to hear. Lay it all out in heartfelt detail, in sentimental, remorseful, sincere tones, in the simplest, most easily understood terms. Fess up to the crime. Give me the skinny on every cuddly toy you’ve taken and every children’s plaything you’ve pinched. Don’t spare a single detail.
And then, tell me and my eight million readers about the terrible pressure you’ve been under, about your troubled childhood, about your need to get professional off-the-pitch help. Plead with us to show you some compassion, to let you get your head together so you can get back to doing what you do best for club and country next season. Pose for the photos, promise us the exclusive follow-up chat in a week’s time and another after that should it ever happen again…
Do all that for me, Jamie, play ball, give the Globe everything you’ve got – and I think I can persuade my boy in the uniform over there, and the other lads watching in the security office, to do the decent thing and not press charges. I think I can convince them that the best and most compassionate thing to do would be to let you seek the help you need, on your terms, and not according to the ruling of some judge in some crown court. I think I can leave the police out of it, pretty much.
What do you say, Jamie?
Oh, and we need to have this chat right now. (I need to file my copy by three p.m.) The snapper’s on his way. He’ll meet us at my hotel. And you need to not tell a soul until the first editions hit the stand tomorrow morning. And then not talk to any other papers about it. Not ever. Or at least not until we say it’s OK.
Are we cool with that, Jamie? Are we game?
Of course we were cool with that! He never stood a chance. I took England’s Jamie Best on, and I totally owned him. It was a stellar performance. Textbook tabloid journalism. A classic. I nearly threw up with relief when he nodded and followed me out of the shop.
(Goebbels, needless to say, was over the moon. A proper scoop, willingly and lawfully obtained. When I called him, when I breathlessly filled him in on developments in the cab on the way back to my Travelodge, with a frowning, furious, terrified Jamie Best sitting next to me, taking in every word, he sounded so happy he could have cried. I swear if he’d been there he would have kissed me.)
After that it was easy. Autographs for the boys in security, autographs for me and the photographer and Goebbels and Harry the Dog back in London, contracts hastily drawn up and emailed over and signed, two hours of chat, another half-hour of pictures, hand-shakes all round and Jamie got back to his club in time for training. And I sat at my desk in my Travelodge with my laptop, shaking – literally shaking – as I bashed out the copy.
So did you see it on Sunday morning? Did you splutter into your cornflakes? My name, right there on the front page of the Globe. And better than that: my photo! A page one picture byline! That’s about as good as it gets, in my filthy trade.
Did you see it? I’ll tell you who did see it. Because that’s the other reason I’m in such a sunny mood on this beautiful sunny day.
You remember Train Girl? The only good thing about the 07.31 from Oxford to London Paddington? The girl with the bobbed dark hair and the soft eyes and the winningly short business skirts just now? The girl I always see at the same spot on the platform, who always sits in the same seat opposite me in Coach C every day? The girl I’ve never actually spoken to but have, um, noticed?
Today, she didn’t sit in her usual seat opposite me. Today she sat down next to me. She sat down next to me in that too-short skirt and bare legs, and she spoke to me.
She pulled out a copy of Sunday’s Globe. She’d saved it to show me! She smoothed it out, put it on my lap, pointed at my picture byline and said: ‘It is you, isn’t it? I knew it was you!’ And she burst out laughing. In a good way. And then we talked, all the way to London. And she’s funny. Funny and smart and quick. And it was nice to actually have a conversation with a girl that didn’t revolve around how unhappy she is or how difficult everything is or how if only I was around more/listened more/cared more then perhaps her life wouldn’t be so rubbish. It was nice to make a girl laugh again. It was really nice.
And I hardly looked at her legs at all. Even when she bent over to pick up her ticket from the floor and her skirt hitched right up at the back. I hardly even paid any attention at all to how smooth her skin seems to be. Because I’m married, right? Because – as we’ve already discussed – I’m not that kind of person.
It was nice to make a friend. Good old Jamie Best and his odd cuddly-toy-centric peccadilloes. Jamie Best and his Iggle Piggle pickle! He’s given me my finest career moment and he’s made me a new friend.
(Sadly, he hasn’t managed to make the trains run on time. But he is only one man. And, believe it or not, and don’t take this the wrong way and get any funny ideas, for once I welcomed the delay. Eighteen minutes extra chatting to Train Girl this morning? It flew by!)
Au revoir!
Dan
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, July 26.
Dear Dan
Thank you for your letters of 21 and 26 July. I’m sorry to hear that once again our service has not been up to the standard I expect. The five-minute delay on the 21st was due to minor congestion and the lengthier delay on the 26th occurred because of the late arrival of a driver to another service in the Reading area. Unfortunately that left that particular service stuck on the platform – which then impacted upon a wide number of other services, yours included.
On unrelated matters, I’m afraid I don’t take generally take the Sunday Globe as a rule, though I have been known to pick it up on occasion. I am very pleased to hear that you scored a ‘scoop’ however and I do hope it makes things a little easier for you at work. I am more of a rugby than a footer fan myself, but I also hope Mr Best receives the professional help he so clearly needs. He would seem to be a very troubled young man.
Best regards
Martin
Letter 17
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 20.50 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, July 27. Amount of my day wasted: nine minutes. Fellow sufferers: Corporate Dungeon Master.
Martin, I’ve been thinking again.
What you want to do is take inspiration from
the people of North Africa. Look south. Look beyond Paddington station and over Europe and into the streets and the squares of North Africa. There’s change afoot. There’s a revolution going on – and for once, it looks like the good guys are winning.
It’s inspiring, isn’t it? It only takes a spark. It only takes a moment to change everything about everything.
We’ve got another sweepstake running in the Sunday Globe newsroom. This war will be over by Christmas? Forget that: this war will be over by Halloween. (Although I’m not sure they celebrate either Christmas or Halloween down there.) When will this war be over? You know where I’ve put my money? I’ve put £50 on this war being over by the August Bank Holiday. I’ve put half a ton of my hard-earned on this war being over by the Reading Festival. They’ll be dancing on top of those tanks before September – you watch.
And if that’s not inspiring enough for you, take a look at the streets of Athens! Have a butchers at the piazzas of Naples! Get yourself an eyeful of what’s going down in Seville and Murcia! The people are taking control again. There’s agitation. Aggravation. There’s anticipation of change. Strikes and barricades, marches and demonstrations: all across southern Europe.
What are they getting up and angry about in our holiday hotspots? Who cares? Isn’t it enough that they are at all? Taxes, unemployment, corruption, student rights, agricultural policies… whatever. The point is that they’re putting down their cappuccinos, they’re abandoning their kebabs, they’re spurning their siestas and they’re shouting about it. They’re trying to make a change. They’re trying to make a change.
Still not inspired? OK, try this. How’s this for a tale of changing fortunes? You can keep your civil wars and revolutions, you can pooh-pooh your populist uprisings – this one’s a doozy. This one came straight out of left field.
It’s about me.
It seems I’m the man these days. At work, I mean. (I’m not the man at home. I mean, I am the man, the only man in the house, the only one of the three of us there with a Y chromosome – but I’m still not the man. I’m still the one to blame for everything, back at home.)
But at work… at work, I’m the man. Since my adventures with England’s Number 9, I’m the new darling of the news desk. It may even be that my days of non-bylined NIBs (News In Briefs, Martin, do keep up) might be numbered. It may even be that all those hours I spend getting the stories and standing up the stories, only to hand the stories over to someone more senior, might be over.
Goebbels is practically in love with me right now. It seems my scoop has eased the heat on him a little. Sales were up on Sunday, every news channel and Monday paper followed our lead, and for the first time in months, people stopped talking about us as a scandal-hit rag, or a shamed tabloid, or a crumbling empire, and remembered what it is we actually do. And that made everyone happy.
So Goebbels has gone all sweet for me. It seems I can do no wrong in the misty eyes of the deranged old psychopath. He even wants to take me out to lunch. (I say lunch – there’s unlikely to be any actual eating involved. In the best Fleet Street traditions that men like Goebbels were spawned from, ‘lunch’ means ‘pub’. And only women and children eat in pubs, right?)
Goebbels taking out a junior showbiz writer for lunch? It’s unprecedented. It’s unheard of. It’s, frankly, unbelievable. It’s about as predictable as a civil war in North Africa, about as rare as a pan-Mediterranean protest. And it’s certainly as exciting as both. (Well, for me, anyway.)
I’ll let you know what he says. I’ll let you know what comes of it all. But in the meantime, stay tuned – and hey! Don’t get so down on yourself! So my train was nine minutes late home tonight: that’s better than the 18 minutes it was delayed yesterday, right? That’s twice as good.
Au revoir!
Dan
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 20.50 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, July 27.
Dear Dan
Many thanks for your letter and thank you for your encouraging words. Although your service on July 27 was unfortunately a victim of an incident involving the disturbance of a badger sett in the Taplow area, it is reassuring to know that it has not put you off continuing to use Premier Westward.
Best
Martin
Letter 18
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Re: 21.18 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, August 3. Amount of my day wasted: 14 minutes. Fellow sufferers: Corporate Dungeon Master.
Dear Martin
What about you, big man? Are you well? Are you good? (Don’t you just hate it when you ask someone how they are and they reply ‘good’? I’m not asking after your moral health. I don’t care if you’re good or bad. Or even, as Corporate Dungeon Master’s little on-screen alter-ego would appear to be, ‘Chaotic Neutral’. I was enquiring about your physical and mental wellbeing. Are you well? Or unwell?)
I hope you’re well. Both physically and mentally. I hope you’re in a better state (physically, mentally and most likely morally) than the company you’re supposed to be running, at least.
As for me, I’m OK, thank you. You know, mustn’t grumble. Work is still going well, at least. I’m still the news desk’s golden child. Did you see the paper on Sunday? Three bylined pieces! (Plus all my usual guff, the stuff that doesn’t get my name attached to it, the titbits and teasers and gossipy asides.) Goebbels is still smiling at me. Creepy though that is.
And there’s the England match to look forward to. I’ll be working Saturday afternoon of course, but I’ll have the radio on. The first England match of the season. Against the European champions, too. How will our plucky lads fare against the continental pass masters? How will our gritty determination play out against their silky skills? All eyes will be on Jamie Best. All of England will be looking towards the troubled young striker and sometime soft-toy kleptomaniac…
I, personally, cannot wait. It will be a match to savour, one way or the other. Will you be there? In your box at Wembley, quaffing Chianti and eyeing up the prawn sandwiches? Of course you will. England expects!
But, you know, it’s not all wine and roses, is it? Nothing ever is. What’s that we were saying about Pyrrhic victories? Work, for example, is going well – but it’s coming at a cost, of course.
I hate to keep asking your childcare advice, but do you ever cease arguing, once you become parents? Do you ever stop it with the nagging and the sniping and the snapping? Do you ever get back to how things were before the birth, when you used to enjoy talking to each other?
And so we have these arguments, over and over and over and over (like a monkey with a miniature cymbal, as someone smarter than me once put it) and the end result is always the same: I don’t understand. And she’s always crying. And I feel frustrated and angry and misunderstood, but also like a bully and a bad husband and a bad man. And it breaks my heart.
I don’t want to be a bully and a bad husband and a bad man. I don’t want to argue with Beth. Why would I want to do that? I want to help her. I love her. I want it to be like it was before, when we never argued, when we spent most of our time laughing, when we could make fun of each other without immediately taking offence, taking it personally, taking it the wrong way. I want to come home and have her happy that my career looks like it might be going somewhere.
And instead… take my scoop. Take the weekend’s adventures, my moment of triumph, my big break. What was my wife’s reaction? A weak ‘Well done’ and a week’s worth of resentment. It’s all very well for me to go off gallivanting to Manchester chasing stupid footballers, you see – but some people have to stay at home and look after our baby. It’s all very well for me to drop everything at a moment’s notice to go enjoy myself writing about celebs – but some of us have to live in the real world, the world of feeds and nappies and endless exhaustion.
My Sunday scoop: the way you’d hear it in my house, you’d think it was an entirely selfish act. Can you credit it?
Oh, and now I feel worse. Because now I’ve read this letter back to myself and it sounds like I hate Beth. I don’t. I love her. It’s just… I wish I wasn’t always in the wrong. I wish she’d appreciate what I have to go through too.
It makes me wonder what they talk about at these baby groups she goes to. (Three times a week now.) She’s made friends there, which is great, obviously, a couple of older mums I know from sight, one on her third and the other on her second, living proof that it must get better, that people must go back for more of the same; plus some single dad type from up Jericho way, where the houses are nicer and the pubs are all ‘bars’ and the shops are all ‘delis’.
He’s a Guardian reader, apparently. Just him and his baby boy in an end-of-terrace. With basement and loft-conversion, natch. No doubt tastefully decorated in stripped pine and neutral colours and a hint of the exotic. Just him and his baby boy… oh – and the cleaner three times a week, obviously.
Seems he got disillusioned with working in the city and now freelances for charities. No idea where the mother is. (Part of me wonders if she got sick of the sheer smugness of it all: you see his type round Oxford a lot – sipping on their fairtrade lattes and rustling their Guardians and banging on about the shanty towns and slums of New Delhi and Buenos Aires, talking earnestly of their internet campaigns and letters to the editors of worthy magazines nobody actually reads, and all the while sitting on mortgage-free half-a-million-quid houses and planning to send their kids to public schools.)
Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time Page 7