Chapter 4 #2
‘So, are we getting stuck right into this then?’ Jeff was up beside her, bringing a blast of coffee, Old Spice and fresh cigarette smoke.
His steely below-the-collar hair was combed back and still damp.
Allegedly, he worked out for an hour in the company gym before getting to his desk at 8 a.m., but Jo didn’t know if she believed this.
He was a broad and beefy man, whose thick leather belt was doing an impressive job of holding him at bay.
‘Aha,’ she said, not wanting to get drawn into the specifics just yet.
There was still an hour to go before the first news conference of the week.
Still time for her – head of a whole section – to draw up her ‘list’, which on Tuesday would be merely a list of possibles, potentials, ideas and ideals that would bear hardly any resemblance to the stories her department would have in the paper by Sunday.
‘How’s it been?’ she asked Jeff, noticing his immaculately ironed pink shirt, slightly open at the neck despite the knitted navy tie. She wondered idly when he ironed. He was always here or in the pub across the road. Maybe his wife ironed… maybe they sent out to the dry cleaners.
There was a comfortable familiarity in standing beside Jeff, scanning the TV news and contemplating the week ahead.
He’d been at the paper for years and years.
Longer than the editor, most of the reporters, longer than her, of course, and she’d been here five years – good grief, five years.
‘It’s been a fabulous fortnight,’ he said, which meant exactly the opposite.
‘All that nonsense about the Labour MP and his lap dancer: totally made up. I don’t think she’d ever met the guy.
Spikey had to up his Valium dose after that fiasco. ’
Jo smiled. Spikey was office code for their strange, unpredictable, tantrum-prone editor, firmly believed to be at the mercy of the vast range of pharmaceuticals rumoured to be stashed around his huge office with its view of the Thames.
‘Then Declan’s wife has left him. Met someone else.’
‘No!’
Jeff nodded, adding: ‘Shouldn’t have kept him as night news editor for so long. Poor sod. Might as well keep him on nights now, though. Otherwise he’ll be straight off the wagon.’
‘How thoughtful of you,’ she teased. ‘And how’s my department been behaving?’ She’d just seen Dominique enter the newsroom, but she was still well out of earshot.
‘Well, they cocked up their electric car investigation, the lawyers are dealing with that. Don’t think it’ll be too bad.’
‘I have no idea why they went ahead with that. We were going to do it this week, when I was back.’
‘Because they’re two over-ambitious little dickheads,’ was Jeff’s verdict.
‘Why did you run it?’ she asked.
‘They didn’t have anything else. I was busy at the start of the week. Forgot I was babysitting. Then, come Thursday, that was all they had.’
‘Anything else I should know?’
‘Yup.’ He told her the latest unprintable, outrageous rumour about the Prime Minister currently doing the rounds.
‘Oh, rubbish!’ she declared. ‘Where’s that supposed to have come from?’
‘The coppers at Downing Street.’ Then, ‘Savannah Tyler?’ Jeff asked without a pause. ‘Where are we with Savannah Tyler?’
Aha, so they were still on the trail of the elusive environmentalist set to become Britain’s first Green MP.
‘Still trying,’ Jo replied. ‘I’ve only been in for ten minutes.’
‘Are we going to get her?’ Jeff wanted to know. ‘Spikey is very keen. Think he’s in love with her or something.’
‘If she does a profile piece, she’s doing it with us. Tony Jarvis has promised.’
‘Well, make him sign it in blood. You’ve got thirty minutes left to come up with a list,’ he smiled. ‘Put Savannah Tyler at the top of it.’
Jo turned back to her section, where Dominique was already on the phone. ‘Yes, yes, I understand,’ she was saying into the receiver. ‘But if you have a complaint, you need to put it in writing… an email or message will do. Yes… I’ll give you the details.’
The women smiled and nodded their hellos at each other.
Dominique looked stunning, Jo couldn’t help noticing – her micro-braids wound up in a monumental bun, a gorgeous white, orange and cherry-red dress showing off her slim figure and conker-brown skin.
As Dominique put her phone down, Jo’s mobile began to ring.
‘Hell,’ she said with a smile then: ‘Jo Randall,’ into the receiver.
‘Jo. You know I want to talk to you about Mel’s school.’ Bloody Simon. She could feel her heart rate leaping up.
‘Simon,’ she tried not to shout. ‘You have talked to me about it and you know how I feel. You know how Mel feels about it too. She’s been through enough change, Simon. She’s not moving school.’
‘But she’s at a rubbish school, Jo. I want you to at least come and look at the one round the corner from my flat. I’m in a much better catchment than you.’
Oh yes, she thought, yes, just get your little dig in about how much richer than me, how much better than me, you are, Dr Freaking Simon. ‘Simon, I’m in conference until twelve. I will phone you then and talk about it.’
‘I’m busy later,’ he snapped back. ‘There is absolutely no reason why you, me and Mel shouldn’t at least go and look at that school. They have a place available but it won’t be open forever.’
‘Simon. Please don’t do this. She has friends, she enjoys school. We can think ahead for secondary school, or next year even. But there’s no need to rush into this.’ Jo kept her voice steady, was determined she wasn’t going to plead.
‘It’s a much better school,’ he insisted, ‘Much nicer. Much safer.’
‘Give me some time to think about it,’ she said.
‘Be sure you do.’ He hung up abruptly.
And her phone rang again.
‘What have you got for the list?’ she asked Dominique, catching sight of Aidan sloping into the office. A full twenty minutes late today.
‘Ask Aidan too,’ she told Dominique before answering her call.
Their ideas, scribbled onto a bit of notebook paper and tossed back to her, weren’t too bad:
A full whooping cough outbreak investigation.
A fresh look at wind power.
How Green are the top Royals?
Story idea. A backgrounder/interview with Savannah Tyler.
(Yes, thanks team, I’ve only been trying to get this for two months now.)
A report pulled off the internet:
cabbage and broccoli protect against Alzheimer’s.
She was sure she’d heard that before. Several other minor health stories…
She was reading their list, not listening too closely to the cold caller trying to interest her in an issue which didn’t sound at all interesting. ‘Hmmm… could you send me an email and we’ll give that some consideration?’ Jo was telling the voice.
As soon as she was off the phone, she had to have it out with her ‘department’ about last week’s electric car cock-up. She opened a copy of last Sunday’s paper and smoothed the offending double-page article out in front of them.
‘Hello, Aidan, maybe the solar power’s run out on your watch or something, but ten o’clock is the time I’d like you in, please.
Now,’ she moved on quickly, ‘you both know the lawyers are involved with this…’ They nodded, looking sulky and embarrassed.
‘Jeff’s already told me about it. It was too ambitious, OK?
I mean it’s good to be ambitious, have a bold plan, that’s what we try and do every week, but you’re not ready for solo flights like this just yet. OK?’
‘Aidan had a contact who gave us information he assured me we could trust,’ came Dominique’s excuse.
‘But can I remind you, I still wanted to wait until Jo was back,’ Aidan added frostily.
Aidan slipped off his cord jacket and hung it over the back of his chair, then ran his fingers through his black hair.
Jo realised she’d been watching him for slightly too long.
Desperate divorcee. She turned her attention back to the offending article.
Like Dominique, Aidan was around the twenty-three-year-old mark. Jo had been landed with them both eight months ago.
‘We’re promoting you from chief health reporter and giving you your own department,’ Spikey had called her into his office to announce. ‘Health and Environment. You’ll head it up, get a budget. Lots of great stories coming out of that area. I want us to be breaking them.’
For about half a day, Jo had been elated, thrilled with her dizzy new prospects.
She’d wondered who to bring onto her team.
Then Jeff had informed her that more trainees than usual had been taken on by the company this year and the executives were scratching their heads about what to do with them all.
So, she was getting two trainees to look after herself.
Two trainees were not the same as a new department. Two trainees were not a promotion. Two trainees were a pain in the butt as all their work had to be checked even more carefully than her own.
Still, they were improving under her watchful eye. Yes, they were charming little rats who’d sell their souls for a front page exclusive but that meant that one day soon she was going to have a cracking team.