Chapter 28
28
‘We are fighting 30 degrees in a densely populated, built-up environment, trapped in an office the size of an Argos pet carrier, with broken air con, and THIS fucking thing,’ Aaron said, pointing accusingly at a desk fan, which rattled lethargically from side to side and seemed to only move the hot air around. ‘It’s like stirring porridge with a baked baguette.’
Bel snapped open the make-up compact she’d bought as ‘Bella’ and did a futile ladylike pat of her face with a pressed powder puff. She looked as if she’d been swimming.
Aaron had tied his black ‘death knock’ tie around his head, like Mark Knopfler in Dire Straits. The usually buttoned-down Connor had gone so far as to roll his sleeves up, adopting a ‘pilot forced to fix the engine himself’ energy. Bel found herself curiously distracted by the way his white shirt had gone slightly transparent, and his dark brown hair was glossy with sweat.
She re-tasked herself to transcribing her interview about a rescue package for Salford Lads Club, a two-hander between herself and Aaron: he did the splash about the anonymous benefactor saving the day, she dug into the Grade II-listed history.
The Mayor story buzzed in her brain like a bee: it was hard to think about other projects. It was hard to believe the man laughing and joking on a Manchester tram as lead item on Channel Four News last night could be brought down by people who couldn’t achieve adequate workplace ventilation.
‘By the way, gang, email’s incoming, but we’re on a three-line whip to go to the Northern Media Awards at the end of next month,’ Aaron said. ‘At the Town Hall. We’ve not been nominated for anything because we’ve not been here long enough, but Toby says they’ve still paid for a table for us. We have to go and get our faces seen and lick all the right arses.’
Bel and Connor glanced at each other in slight alarm, given they didn’t at this time want their faces seen. Furthermore, Bel knew her old paper might have a table at these awards. She’d have to do some background digging about who was on it.
‘Not how Toby put it, obviously,’ Aaron continued. He did a good impression of Toby: ‘ Ingratiate yourselves, network your damn tails off. I want everyone reeling with the triple-threat force of your charm offensive … All right, mate, I’m not cracking out the cookie dough flavour lube. Connor, you’re gonna need to hire a tux.’
‘Believe it or not, I own one. I’ll have to get it sent up,’ Connor said.
‘I do believe that. Bel, buy a new dress. The Mayor’s going to be there, Shagger Bailey himself. And they’ve got some nob ’ead actor hosting.’
Bel, heart rate increasing, was careful this time not to look at Connor.
‘The Mayor’s a shagger?’ she repeated.
‘So they say,’ Aaron shrugged. ‘There’s a right Bailey groupie lot around him, isn’t there? Word is that GB likes his bananas green. Not illegal green! Like, Leonardo DiCaprio girlfriend-age green. The old dirty bollocks.’
‘Isn’t that worth a story?’ Bel said.
Aaron snorted.
‘Er, I bet the Chicago Sun Times wanted to run the rumour that Al Capone was on the tax fiddle but there’s this thing called proof. Also, he’d probably have shot ya.’
‘I guess. Bailey’s married. Seems a bad fit with the dignity of holding high public office, etc.’
‘True but you’re kind of allowed to play away as long as you keep it on the down-low now, aren’t ya? He’d hide behind kink shaming or somesuch. Weird, cos that’s how it used to be with, like, Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe in the sixties. We’re going backwards. Not to sound like a massive feminist.’
‘Careful now,’ Connor agreed.
‘Funny how the values of every era protect men. The house always wins,’ Bel said.
‘Hey, Macauley: take one for the team and honey trap him?’ Aaron said. ‘If a woman complained about him cracking onto her, that’d be a story.’
‘I’m not a green banana, sadly. I am a lightly brown spotted banana.’
‘I can’t believe he’s that fussy,’ Aaron said, pulling the tie from his head, and drying his face with his arm. ‘Right, devastated to abandon our hot sauna three-way sex party but I’ve got to go interview an unconventional Imam. Laters.’
When they heard the door to the street bang shut downstairs, Connor said: ‘Can we go to these awards?’
‘Looks like we have to,’ Bel said. ‘Let’s be smart and keep an apex-predator level awareness of where the official photographer is in the room. Try to dodge being on anything they’ll put on a website?’
‘Copy that. And what if we end up face-to-face with Bailey?’
‘Again, let’s try to avoid him. It wouldn’t be the end of the world but if he comes into Ci Vediamo afterwards and recognises us …’ Bel made a grit teeth face. ‘The Town Hall is a big space, he’s a celebrity and we’re nobodies. Shouldn’t be too difficult.’
Connor nodded.
‘All true and yet this has a “best laid plans” feel to it.’
‘Hmm. Agree. If we skive it, though, it has to be one or the other of us. Both of us having a reason not to go is too suspicious.’
‘That’d have to be you– I don’t have the seniority to pull tactical sickies,’ Connor said.
‘Tell you what, I’ll run the problem for both of us past Toby. I feel I already know what he’s going to pick regarding “establishing the paper’s presence with Manchester’s finest” versus “Bel’s wacky caper he’s humouring”, however.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Interesting the shagger thing is now fully Out There in the gossip sphere, isn’t it? I always trusted my source but it’s still good to get it countersigned,’ Bel said.
‘Yes, though as Aaron points out, you need aggravating factors to make it reportable.’
‘I feel sure they’re there. This isn’t about a high sex drive, he’s a callous Jekyll and Hyde.’
‘Agreed.’
They worked on in a comfortable enough silence, Bel concentrating until she disconcertingly saw a WhatsApp arrive from her ex, Tim. He had her new number, but she’d given it to him as a courtesy, and it had only rated a thumb-up reply. This would need to be special circumstances. She opened it with apprehension.
Hi. Thought you should know I had a weird message from an Anthony Barr at the Yorkshire Post. Asking for your mobile number. Said you were friends at the paper and he couldn’t get you to answer an email and tell him your new one. I pointed out he could call your office number, and he said oh yeah and went away. Amazing skills for a journalist. Whole thing felt off.
Bel began shivering like a cold dog while simultaneously almost levitating with rage. Anthony contacting Tim, who didn’t know they’d been together the night before she and Tim separated? A tanks-on-lawn move and it was a taunt to Bel. It was sadistic towards Tim, wide-eyed asking for fake assistance from the unwitting man whose ex-girlfriend he’d wooed. And getting her mobile number, without her consent? It was bait, but it was bait she couldn’t ignore.
Cheers, appreciate you passing that on, useful to know– I’ll sort. Hope you’re well. Bx
No worries.
‘Everything OK?’ Connor said.
‘Yes, why?’ Bel said.
‘You look like George W Bush on 9/11 when he was interrupted reading My Pet Goat.’
‘Oh, got to make a call to my bloody internet provider, is all,’ she said, shoving her sunglasses on and marching out, gripping her iPhone like it was a stun grenade she was about to use in combat.
Downstairs, pacing the pavement, she pressed to call the Yorkshire Post reception.
She knew she had to use this anger, surf on its superpower.
‘Hi, can I speak to Anthony Barr please?’
She simmered some more while she listened to the hold music.
‘Bel, how are you!’ Anthony said, deliberately loud, upbeat. The ‘ I’m broadcasting this on the newsroom floor, your approach to me has been made known ’ volume. With a strong note of triumph. He’d finally done something sufficiently provocative that he got contact.
‘Can you explain why my ex-boyfriend has had a message from you, asking for my mobile number?’
‘Oh, is he your ex? I wasn’t sure. Apologies.’
Bel bit down the one syllable, hard consonants word she wanted to throw at him for this. He knew perfectly well– she’d told him the day the split occurred. But telling bare-faced untruths was one of Ant’s ‘exhaust your opponent’ tactics.
Bel had learned that if someone is prepared to swear black is white, knowing you know they’re lying and not caring you both know this, you have nowhere to go.