by Bill Whiting
It was not the most relaxing start to the day, but both had quickly got used to the routine. They had also overcome the initial blow to their dignity which resulted from having to expose their naked bodies whilst stooping uncomfortably in the sink. Neither was at any point concerned by the unhygienic aspects of their activity. They had even agreed that taking a light piss, whilst hosing themselves, was permissible, since Miller told King he knew, ‘for a scientific fact’, that urine was sterile. However, the pact included a sub-proviso that washing under foreskins would be undertaken separately in the toilet hand basin. The agreement had held firm, although Miller had accused King of washing under his foreskin in the kitchen on the second day. King vehemently denied doing so, but Miller was insistent: “I saw you pull it back and give it a splash with the hosepipe, you lying bastard.”
“I did no such thing,” King replied. “I wiped it with the hand towel – just two strokes.”
“Right,” Miller said, “I’ll watch you from now on then, because you can’t be trusted.”
“Yeah, I’ll watch you too, you sneaky sod,” King answered.
Since then, no further disputes had arisen, other than a brief discussion over whether or not the apparent dryness on Miller’s toes was a sign of athlete’s foot, an affliction which King said he knew, ‘as a scientific fact’, was highly infectious.
Rachel, however, took great exception to the entire showering practice, and now brought her coffee to the office in a vacuum flask. She refused to use the kitchen sink, or go near the bar of soap, which often had pubic hairs stuck on it. Rachel decided the only domestic chore she would undertake, purely out of self-interest, was to bleach clean the toilet pan each morning. Miller and King had refused to buy bleach on the grounds that they could, during the course of each day, piss-jet away any skid marks left on the toilet pan – not least because King knew, ‘as a scientific fact’, that piss is not only a sterile agent, but more environmentally friendly than bleach.
Almost immediately after the duo’s ‘shower, shit and shave’ routine that morning, the office telephone rang. Miller answered.
“Good morning,” the caller said, “my name is Dennis Robertson, I’m the Public Relations Officer at the county council. Could I speak to the editor, please?”
Miller’s heart sank. He put his hand over the speaker and told King the call was for him. King’s face drained as he took the phone and announced himself.
“Ah, Mr King,” Robertson said, “your newspaper’s story about the new telephone call-centre has given the council a big problem. The staff union is up in arms and demanding an explanation; and we’ve had hundreds of calls from the public.”
“I see,” King said, “well… er… I suppose that’s understandable. But you know, we had good reason to believe the story was well-founded.”
“I’m sure you did,” Robertson answered sympathetically, “but that doesn’t help us at all. This is a real crisis for the council, and we need to take firm action.”
“Okay, fair enough,” King responded. “What do you want me to do?”
“I need to know who leaked the information,” Robertson said.
“Pardon?” King answered in a puzzled tone.
“I need to know who leaked the information,” Robertson repeated. “A new call-centre proposal was being worked up confidentially, together with a number of other ideas. They would have been included in a carefully managed consultation process before any implementation. But now the whole process is out of control. We can’t manage our affairs if one of our officers is leaking information.”
“I see,” King said. “Well, it’s difficult. I can’t reveal my sources, you know.”
“I thought that would be the case, Mr King,” Robertson responded, “but you could stop using the source, couldn’t you? And if you do stop running leaked stories, we might be able to reconsider our policy not to advertise in the Chronicle. No connection, officially, between the two things of course – but a sign of a healthy co-operative relationship between the council and the local press.”
“That sounds pretty reasonable to me,” an upbeat King said. “Shall we call it a deal?”
“Yes,” Robertson said, “but on one condition. I need your assurance that you are not bribing any council employee to give you information. Whistle-blowing we can live with; corruption we can’t tolerate. There seems to be too much of it about these days.”
“Why do you say that?” King asked.
“Well, I’ve already spoken to my opposite number at the church diocese and it seems they have spurted a leak as well. He tells me most of your story was rubbish, but they have been looking into a church-sponsored credit card, which earns the holder ‘Principle Plus Points’ when spent on goods and services from specified ethically approved businesses. But you knew that, didn’t you? And you ran a satirical story based on it. But two leaks in one week seems a bit of a coincidence; so we need to know if any financial kick-backs are involved here.”
“I can assure you they are not,” King said emphatically. “I give you my solemn word on that.”
“Okay, I’ll accept that – for now, anyway,” Robertson said. “We have a gentlemen’s agreement. Thank you very much. Bye, Mr King.”
King put the phone down, turned to Miller and said, “I think the angels must have started looking after us.”
It was agreed that morning, on Rachel’s insistence and against King’s wishes, that she would be given full responsibility for advertising, together with the title Executive Director, Advertising. King would continue as editor, but Miller would take on a new role as ‘Director Without Portfolio’. As such, King told him that his first task should be to create a portfolio of useful responsibilities, in order that he could become ‘Director with Portfolio’. Miller was not pleased at all, but had discovered the voting consequences of diluting his share of the business to one third.
Rachel was quick off the mark. She spent two hours buying suitable new clothes and make-up, and then an easel and marker pens. She had a thousand business cards printed and then hit the road. Her first call was at the town’s Wyatt and Watson estate agency. She entered their High Street office, where two women were at work with clients. She thought they looked at her with some suspicion, but maybe she was just a little self-conscious. Certainly, she felt conspicuously tall in the exceptionally high-heeled boots she had bought – and her mini-skirt was just an inch short of decent.
“Can I help you?” one of the women asked.
“Yes,” Rachel said, “my name is Rachel Haines and I am the advertising director of the Chronicle. I’d like to speak to Mr Wyatt or Mr Watson if I may.”
“Selling advertising space, are you?” the woman asked.
“Not really,” Rachel responded. “I’d just like to present some new facts and figures about the newspaper, which I’m sure will be of interest.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” the woman answered, glancing sideways, with raised eyebrows, at her colleague. “Mr Wyatt and Mr Watson are very busy and don’t usually have time to mess around seeing reps. We deal with them, you and me, don’t we Doreen?”
Doreen nodded and smiled. Rachel could sense the dagger hidden behind the smile. She realised that by dressing rather lewdly, she had made these two women even more formidable barriers than they would normally present. King would have been better placed to handle them, she thought. “Okay,” she said resignedly, “I’ll try another time, thank you.”
Then, as she walked towards the door, she saw a Mercedes pull up outside, and a smart-suited middle-aged man got out and walked up to the door. He looked Rachel up and down rapidly. Then, as they both stood in the doorway, he smiled and said, “After you.”
“Thanks.” Rachel beamed back. “Oh, nice car you’ve got. That’s gorgeous. Is that the new three-litre diesel?”
“It’s five-litre petrol, actually,” he replied.
&
nbsp; “Brilliant,” Rachel replied, beaming with delight and fluttering her long eyelashes. “You get plenty of mid-range torque with the diesel, but in my dreams, if ever I could afford it, I’d always go for the V12 petrol. We’re doing a review in the paper, and our motoring correspondent reckons he’d trade torque over horsepower any day – but not me.”
“What paper is that then?” he asked.
“The Chronicle,” she said, as they shook hands. “Hi, I’m Rachel, the advertising director. I just called hoping to see Mr Wyatt or Mr Watson.”
“I’m Barry Watson,” he said, smiling broadly.
“Ah, Barry,” Rachel responded, looking as if she’d just met a handsome film star, “it’s lovely to meet you, but I hear you’ve got much more important things to do than see me.”
“Well, I am busy,” he said thoughtfully, “but I’ve got a few minutes if you’d like to come in.”
“Oh, that’s great, very good of you.” Rachel beamed. “I won’t keep you long, because I know you’re an important man. I appreciate time’s always in short supply for successful go-getters like you.”
Rachel followed Watson through the front office and smiled briefly at the two women. Their mouths smiled back, but their eyes didn’t.
Watson opened a door and gestured to the stairs. “My office is upstairs – after you,” he said. “I’ll carry that easel up for you. Don’t want you to have to scribble all over my wallpaper!”
Rachel burst out laughing in exorbitant response. “Thank you, that’s very kind,” she said. And she continued to chuckle loudly as she began to climb the stairs, closely followed by Watson.
“Mind your head on the cross-beam there,” Watson warned.
“Oops, no problem,” Rachel responded, remembering to bend from the waist and not from the knees.
TWELVE
As Rachel was dropping her marker pen for the third time at the Wyatt and Watson office that morning, King was also making a brisk start to the week. He found that inventing the news, rather than reporting it, was a vastly more time-efficient and amusing way to fill the newspaper – and one which provided a much more entertaining product for readers.
In fact, the only problem he had was deciding which stories to leave out. In the new world covered by the Chronicle, a place where almost anything imaginable could happen, there was inevitably a news glut. But after careful consideration, and the elimination of a food scare item and a piece about an escaped pet python swallowing a local poodle, King finally ticked three ideas on his list to focus upon.
The first was a human-interest story. He had invented a rather sad man, who faced a dilemma. Should he allow his frozen sperm to go to an anonymous recipient or, alternatively, have the precious seed destroyed?
King scribbled down the bones of the story in ten minutes…
HUMAN RIGHTS COURT TO RULE ON
‘DEATH ROW’ SPERM?
A Cosworth man, who has requested to remain anonymous, is considering a legal challenge to establish whether a sperm has human rights.
Two years ago, Mr X donated sperm to a local health authority ‘bank’. But before his ejaculated gift was accepted, he had to sign an agreement stipulating that he would not be told if, or when, it was used – or be given the name of any eventual recipient.
However, after months of anguished reflection, he now feels he must know the identity of any recipient.
“I have a deep primeval desire to procreate my genes,” he explained, “but I don’t want to partner or marry a woman. So I thought would deposit sperm at the bank to make it possible. At the time of my donation, I didn’t care too much about what happened to the sperm, although I deposited quite a large amount in a plastic cup. But as the weeks went by, I thought about it more and more, and started to think of it more in terms of a bank deposit, rather than as an outright donation.
“Those sperms are actually half people, and any one of them could create a future prime minister or great scientist or poet. And things like that built up in my mind.
“Then I thought, well what if the recipient is a genetically deformed criminal or evil deviant? My sperm could wind up creating a murderer, or a dictator, and I would be responsible for creating a monster.
“Given that responsibility, I just couldn’t live with the uncertainty of not knowing who gets impregnated. But can’t agree to have my sperm destroyed either. One of those sperms might even have the potential to be half the person who will invent a cure for cancer – so I can’t just stand by and allow it to be flushed down a toilet. It cannot speak for itself, so I must do it.
“I think I can take this all the way to the Court of Human Rights. If not, I will sue the authorities here for not providing me with proper counselling before I made my donation.”
King finished the story with an invitation for reader comment…
Does his sperm count? Have your say!
Is Mr X justified – or is he barmy?
Should Mr X have the night to know where his sperms go – or should they be killed?
Write or email the ‘Chronicle Hot Debate’ now.
King’s second story had more substantial roots and related to a looming and worrying economic problem presented by the demographic trend of falling birth rates and increased life expectancy. Will there be enough working people in the future to pay for adequate pensions and care for a growing army of elderly people?
Although King did not intend to get into the complex actuarial details of the problem, he nonetheless decided to lend the story weight by placing it under the authorship of ‘Our Special Economic and Financial Correspondent’.
The headline and introduction for the story were simple:
TEENS CALL FOR COMPULSORY DEATH
AT AGE OF SEVENTY-SEVEN
Local teenagers have put forward a controversial fourth alternative to solving the looming pensions crisis: the aged should agree to die at seventy-seven, or be compulsorily ‘put down’. Conventional solutions have until now rested upon a mix of three unpopular scenarios: much higher taxation, much higher compulsory saving, or a much higher pension retirement age. But so far, no consensus has been achieved.
As the neglected problem grows, it has dawned upon young people that they will have to foot the bill. And the Chronicle has found that most teenagers now support compulsory euthanasia at seventy-seven.
Armed with this introduction, King knew he could then flesh out the story with quotations from the street. First stop would be the High Street at pub closing time. There, King would stop inebriated youngsters and ask if they thought that, by the time they are thirty, they should forego all holidays and non-essential spending, in order that can they can support at least two pensioners each.
He knew, he would not be short of candidates prepared to support death at seventy-seven. And he had already written an ‘anonymous’ quote reading: Why should I slave my guts out, while leathery old reptiles park their wrinkled arses on a warm chair in Spain? Make ’em deliver pizzas using their electric wheelchairs. Sod ’em.
He could also quote an anonymous youth as saying he would support the seventy-seven-year threshold, even though it meant his own ‘gran’ would have to go next year.
It was another story which King adjudged to be sure to produce a lively response from readers, especially septuagenarians. And he was proved right. After publication that week, there was a deluge of letters and emails from Chronicle readers.
Incoming comments also continued, largely supporting the idea of a Church Loyalty Card. Two of the respondents, perhaps focused on the darker side of life, looked forward to being able to use the card as a ‘points bank’, which would enable them to build up sufficient ‘good points’ to fund an occasional withdrawal, to be spent on an enjoyable and guilt-free sin.
Under a pseudonym, King himself had also written a long letter to the Post which, to his surprise, and delight,
they published. In it, at great length, he had pointed out that many local people often confuse the common hawker dragonfly with the more rare southern aeshna, although the latter is distinguishable by its slightly smaller thorax, and by a number of other features, which King tediously listed over several numbing paragraphs.
THIRTEEN
As Rachel and King were congratulating each other at the end of a very productive week, Miller was growing increasingly irritable and anxious about his new and vacuous role. King and Rachel now had the two important jobs at the Chronicle, and he had been relegated to mundane administration tasks. He found that having to invent a useful role for himself was humiliating, and no easy task either, especially since the company had no money to fund any ideas that he did come up with.
And his darkening mood had deepened further that morning, after he was semi-ordered to volunteer to get groceries and sundry self-catering supplies for himself and King at the local supermarket. Self-catering did not demand a lot of cooking skill, and certainly nothing more complicated than a microwave oven could handle. Miller generally ate only micro-chips and baked beans, though King had a taste for curries and other pre-packed oriental dishes. Had they been living separately, then this would have been an uncontroversial ‘each to his own’ situation. But, as they now lived together in a very confined space, it provoked considerable acrimony.
King complained bitterly that the excessive intake of beans was the cause of Miller’s bedtime thunderous flatulence. Miller would unleash ten or more loud farts before falling asleep, and this would wind up King, as he tried to settle on his adjacent camp bed. A number of farts of approximate equal length, executed at predictable intervals, would have been tolerable to King, but the variability of Miller’s emissions kept him on edge. Would a long one be followed very quickly, or only after thirty seconds or more? Would it be louder or quieter, dry-or-wet sounding? King was outraged, and on one occasion had thrown his lamp at King, bruising his forehead. King also told Miller that he knew, ‘for a scientific fact’ that, over time, persistent frictional irritation could cause ‘very painful piles on the clappers’.