by Bill Whiting
But just as Miller was hitting his downbeat note, a cheerful Basil Hathaway was congratulating his managers at the Post. They had gathered in his office to appraise their progress.
“First things first,” Hathaway began, “you are still all in a job.”
Hathaway then fell silent, as he panned his eyes slowly around the table. Then, after a lengthy pause for dramatic effect, he added, “So far.
“My battle plan is working,” he continued. “Forward advertising contracts are up ten per cent, and it looks as though all of that has been at the Chronicle’s expense. The discounted advertising rate is hurting us, but it’s hurting the Chronicle a whole lot more. And we can afford it; they can’t. The editorial is also looking sharper than ever; so well done, McKinlay.”
Jock McKinlay glowed. Praise from Hathaway was rare.
“Tomorrow,” Hathaway continued, “we launch our reader competition, with the special week one whopping £20,000 prize. And here, I would like to congratulate Jock and his team again for producing a magnificent full-colour four-page centre spread to launch the promotion.”
Hathaway passed copies around, before returning into his stride: “I expect upwards of twenty-five thousand entries and we’ve printed an extra four thousand copies of the edition to meet the demand.
“All in all,” he concluded, “a great start, but remember, this may wound the Chronicle severely, but it won’t kill it. And I want it dead. Stone dead – and buried.”
Jock McKinlay filed out of Hathaway’s office with a rare, if narrow, smile on his face. It was not often he was paid a compliment by his boss, and this was the first time it had ever been done in front of his colleagues. This gave him extra pleasure, because he knew they would resent it. McKinlay was a man whom the whole world seemed to dislike. Only when some misfortune befell him was he a source of pleasure for others.
Bullying behaviour – both receiving it and giving it – had been the central feature of McKinlay’s life. His father was a violent man, and this had bred into him a deep sense of insecurity and an angry, mistrustful attitude. However, rather than be hard on himself, McKinlay found an outlet in being hard on others. Almost everyone with authority over him, from schoolteachers to news editors, had treated McKinlay with indifference or disdain; some out of repulsion for his excessively deferential manner to those in positions above his station. He was a creep to those above him, and a beast to those below.
But Hathaway had been quick to see that here was an editor who could be relied upon to comply entirely with his will. Hathaway enjoyed authority, and the high level of fear he could instil in McKinlay gave him particular pleasure. He therefore often humiliated him in public. Hathaway’s power-centric ego was especially boosted because he knew that McKinlay, who was a widely feared man, feared him.
McKinlay put as much energy into bullying his subordinates as he put into creeping to his superiors. He had been nick-named ‘Knife’ by his staff, the name having been shortened from ‘Mac the Knife’ in the distant past. McKinlay’s favourite target was junior reporters and his favourite weapon was known as the ‘Mac-slash’. If he found any error, however small, in a submitted story, he would slash a red pen through every single line of the entire piece and demand that it be corrected and resubmitted. But he would never specify what the error was: spelling, punctuation, grammar, house copy rules, or whatever. It was up to the reporter to ‘learn the hard way’ and find the mistake; and it was a dismissible offence for anyone else to provide the unfortunate reporter with any help. McKinlay insisted this was the most effective way to discipline and teach young reporters to get things right. It was also a very effective way to reduce many of them to tears. Had he been an army officer, McKinlay would have measured his effectiveness by the height of the casualty rate among his men.
And it was with extracting blood in mind that, after arriving back at his desk following the meeting, he put a call in to the Chronicle and asked for Bill King. McKinlay was looking forward to this conversation. King took the call and put it on speaker, so Miller and Rachel could hear.
“Mr King, Jock McKinlay here,” he announced. “Of course, you’ll know I’m the editor of the Post.”
“No, never heard of you,” King replied.
“Well, you could say that we are friendly rivals, Mr King,” McKinlay said, “and I just wanted to give you a wee bit of advice.”
“Well, that’s nice of you,” King said, as he became intrigued by the placatory tone of the Scot.
“Now,” McKinlay continued, “I happen to know that you’ve run this week’s Chronicle with a wee story about the park toilets closing down. Of course, I suppose it’s your business if you think shite is a worthy subject to display your particular brand of journalistic talent – but I wonder if you consulted your advertising director before you… how can I put this… took the piss out of the local council.”
King and Miller exchanged glances, before King said, “It’s none of your business, but we don’t have a lick-arse editorial policy round here. We kick arse when we need to.”
“That’s excellent, Mr King,” McKinlay responded. “It’s a brave policy indeed. It won’t matter to you then, that your third biggest advertiser is the local council. You won’t be missing all those council recruitment ads and all those official notices, all paid for at full rates, of course.”
Miller mouthed a slow and silent ‘fuck me’ in King’s direction.
“No reason that should happen,” King told McKinlay. “The story is fair game.”
“Well, I think you will find the advertising ban will happen, Mr King,” McKinlay said. “In fact, it has happened. The council staff have been told the Chronicle is now out of bounds. You see, the officials at the council are very upset at the way you’ve been, shall we say, stirring the shit. I know them well, as indeed does Sir Basil. We’re on very close and friendly terms, in fact.”
“Okay, McKinlay, is that it?” King asked. “You finished with the friendly advice?”
“Well, just one more thing, Mr King,” McKinlay replied. “Last night the council told us the toilets were only closed temporarily for renovation. It seems you have misunderstood things. They’re being improved: equipped with wheelchair access even. In fact, they’ll be one of the best municipal facilities in the country. Indeed, they’ll be so good that I’ve made the splendid news a front-page story in the Post. Your story is worse than shite, Mr King, it’s inaccurate shite. And for you, very expensive inaccurate shite too.”
Rachel and Miller raised their eyebrows in despair and looked at King.
“You finished then?” King asked McKinlay sharply, struggling to keep his composure. “I think we can handle you, McKinlay, so I wouldn’t bother losing any sleep over us if I was you.”
“Oh, I won’t be doing that,” McKinlay responded. “After all, Mr King, I believe you’ve a penchant for wee Chinese sayings, so you’ve probably heard this one: ‘The cat never weeps for the rat’!”
NINE
As McKinlay put down the phone, both Miller and King sat in silence. A hurt and angry response at their humiliation would have indicated simply another low point in their dwindling morale. Their dumb silence gave testimony to much deeper despair.
King now felt a new respect and longing for the life he had left behind. What would he give now, he thought, for a trip to China with Norman? How would he relish the prospect of a peaceful night on a plane with nothing more to worry about than an overweight American neighbour? And even the Pearl River Hotel was a palace compared to the office bunk bed he now occupied in the Chronicle office. Even dinner at the Pearl River would be a banquet compared to the offerings of the office microwave. And he recalled all the dreams of future riches he had harboured while in Hong Kong, Bangkok and Grindelwald. And yet now he had no apartment, no money and a job that he was crap at doing and which paid nothing anyway.
Miller too, considered his
new-found plight and pitiful prospects. This was not, he thought, the world of the Sure-Thing salesman’s ‘gentleman’. But Andrew Althorpe had been right enough when he said that poverty is prison. The Chronicle office was beginning to feel like a cell – with a self-sealed, rather than a self-lubricating lock. He felt he had followed the glowing promise of the monetary rainbow and found a piss pot at the end of it.
It was King who broke the silence. “I think I’ll go and get drunk,” he said.
“Yeah, that’ll help a lot,” Miller said.
“Well, it can’t do any harm,” King answered. “Let’s face it, we’re fucked. Might as well admit it and go and find a proper job. This place is fucking jinxed.”
“Do you have to keep swearing?” Rachel said, angrily. “I’d have thought a newspaper editor could manage to do a bit better than talk like that.”
“Okay,” King said, “fuck the Chronicle, the fucking fucker’s fucked. And pardon me, dear, for the fucking use of fuck as a fucking verb, a fucking adjective, a fucking noun and a fucking interjection. The fucking point is, that fucking Khan fucked off with our fucking money and left us for fucking dead. And now that fucking Scotsman is picking our bones and eating them for his fucking lunch.”
“A rat ate my dad’s lunch once,” Rachel said.
“A rat?” Miller queried.
“Yes,” Rachel answered, “he was a miner and one day he sat down in the dark pit and put down his sandwiches, nicely wrapped in silver foil. Then while he was opening his flask of tea, the sandwiches began to creep away from him. It was very strange, and he thought it might be a ghost or something, a dead miner’s ghost in the pit. Then his mate noticed what was going on and he shouted, ‘A fucking rat’s got your lunch.’”
“So what’s your point?” King enquired in a puzzled tone.
“Well, the point is it was too late. He couldn’t eat the sandwiches at all after a rat had nibbled them.”
“No,” King said, exasperated. “What’s the point of it? What does the story say about what we should do now?”
“There isn’t really a point,” Rachel responded. “You said McKinlay was eating us for lunch, and it just reminded me of my dad and the rat.”
King groaned and said, “Oh, thanks then, Rachel. Thanks for the completely pointless parable of the rat in the coal mine. This really isn’t my lucky day, is it!”
“Mine neither,” Miller said, “and my bad run started when I met you two.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, it’s my lucky week,” Rachel said. “My horoscope says I will make great progress in money matters this week, thanks to help from friends at work. Things may look dark and difficult early on, but as Venus enters my star sign later in the week, things will quickly improve. My horoscope is always good. And yours are too now.”
“How do you know that?” King asked impatiently.
“Well, I know your birth dates and I write the horoscope,” she said.
“You mean in the Chronicle?” Miller queried.
“Yes – and I make sure we all get a good one.”
“No science or sense in that then,” King commented.
“No,” Rachel answered, “I don’t know anything about the stars and telling fortunes, so I just make all the forecasts good. I mean, they must all do that anyway, those horoscope people. How many people in the world die every day? Or have a bad accident? Or get told by the doctor they’ve got cancer? Millions of them. But you never see things like that written in horoscopes. You never see, ‘Today you will die’, or ‘Today, you will be crippled in a car crash’. Nobody would want to read that would they? So they write things like, ‘An important meeting will bring some positive news’, or ‘Wednesday is excellent for travel’.”
“Fine,” Miller said, “no worries for us on the horoscope front then, eh, Bill?”
King didn’t reply. He sat staring open-mouthed at Rachel.
“Bill, are you with us?” Miller asked.
Then at last King spoke. “Fucking brilliant,” he said, “Rachel, you are fucking brilliant. You’re a big-time towering fucking genius.”
“I’m obviously missing something here,” Miller said.
“Don’t you see?” King responded. “She’s got the answer. I’ve been scratching around this one-horse town all week, desperately looking for news, and the biggest thing I could find was an old bloke with a piss stain. I’ve been sat in the dark like Rachel’s dad, and couldn’t see the bleeding obvious staring me in the face.”
“See what? What couldn’t you see?” Miller asked.
“I should just make it up, same as the horoscope. I should make the news up. Sit here at my desk and invent it. People want interesting news, so I’ll give it to them, just like Rachel gives them an engaging horoscope.”
“You can’t invent the news,” Miller protested. “The news is the news. It’s about things which happen, not things which don’t happen.”
“No, you’re wrong,” King said. “Think about it. If something’s in the news, then it’s true. Or to be more precise, it becomes true, especially if people are interested and want it to be true. Everybody likes excitement and we can give it to them. We can give them the most exciting news Cosworth has ever had, and they’ll love it!”
“Are you pissed already?” Miller asked.
“No, I’m dead serious,” King replied. “Think about yourself. Did you tell the truth about all those products you wrote adverts for? Do the advertisers say real things about canned soft drinks: like, ‘Buy our fizzy water which is full of sugar and a lot of other unhealthy chemicals hardly anyone has ever heard of, all mixed up in a colourful tin’? No, they say buy it because it’s young, vibrant, popular and exciting, and the thing to be seen drinking. It’s special and makes you special. It’s the thing to be seen drinking.’ They don’t mention any real or concrete things at all. They just invent a desirable image and the image becomes the product.”
“Now that’s a fair point,” Miller said, clearly impressed with King’s logic. “I suppose we could just invent the news, couldn’t we? We could make up lots of readers’ letters too.”
“And the letters to Auntie Rachel,” Rachel said.
“Who’s Auntie Rachel?” Miller asked.
“The lady who we could invent to run the problem page,” Rachel explained. “You two can dream up all the problems and I can make up all the answers. What people like is lots of sexual problems. Things like sex-starved women whose husbands spend all night secretly masturbating on the internet. Or young girls worried they might have caught chlamydia off a toilet seat. Then there’s emotional problems too. Women can’t get enough of them nowadays. They don’t feel complete without a good complicated hang-up which needs therapy. And men aren’t any better, but they can’t bring themselves to talk about things. But they can write to Auntie Rachel anonymously.”
“I think we might be on to something here,” Miller said, “but it won’t solve the advertising problem and we need money fast.”
“Well, at least it’s a start,” King said. “Something might turn up. And anyway, before I go down with this ship I want to screw that fucking Scotsman.”
“Okay,” Miller said, “let’s do it. But don’t go over the top. Even if we make the news up, it needs to be at least semi-believable. This will need a bit of guile and subtlety, to get the balance right.”
TEN
A week later the Chronicle hit doorsteps with a split-cover, double-headlined front page.
Page left read:
CHURCH TO RELAUNCH BRAND
‘Holy Points’ to be issued with diocese loyalty card
Page right read:
FIRE SERVICE CALLS TO BE OUTSOURCED TO CHINA?
Emergency calls may be routed via Shanghai
The church story, the Chronicle stated, was based on an explosive document left on the back seat of a taxi
by a company of marketing consultants, which had been hired by the diocese. The document put forward radical new ideas to counter dwindling attendances at services and growing apathy towards the church, especially among the young.
The document outlined a three-point plan:
1.All church steeples to be painted with bright abstract ethnic art murals (Gothic architecture relating to an age when society was more singularly ethnic).
2.Church Public Relations Unit to be established to put favourable Christian spin on all current events. God to be proactively assigned credit for all good events (spells of good weather, new-found medical cures, bumper harvests, sporting triumphs, peace agreements, near misses, etc). The Devil to be apportioned full blame for all bad events (storms, earthquakes, new diseases and virus mutations, terrible accidents, wars, etc).
3.A loyalty card scheme to be launched with Blue, Silver and Gold tier membership. Card swipe machines at churches will register points for Sunday attendances, plus bonus points under an ‘introduce a friend’ scheme. A points redemption service will be available, and will include cut-price deals for weddings, funerals and christenings. Card membership points status will be mentioned at all deceased holders’ funerals and priority positions will be allocated at church cemeteries for Gold Card members.
The fire service story was said by the Chronicle to originate from a leak by a local authority union member, who was angered by the extent of proposed cost- and job-cutting plans. The authority was said to be in ‘advanced talks’ with a company in Shanghai to handle all its emergency service telephony requirements, including police, fire and ambulance calls.
The story ended with a footnote: ‘See Editorial Comment, page five’. The page five comment column, written by King, was headed: ONE CALL-CENTRE TOO FAR, and was a hard-hitting critical editorial comment piece:
God knows our public services could do with a dose of efficiency – but the proposed establishment of a new emergency call-centre in Shanghai is a step too far. It’s not difficult to imagine this scenario: Your chip pan has gone up in flames and in a panic you dial 999.