Chapter 4 #4
‘Totally… Well, I thought maybe I’d leak a hint of it for Saturday just to excite some interest and recoup a bit of my money.’
‘Good idea.’
‘Is that a genuine pap picture, or did the happy couple pose for it?’ Vince wanted to know. ‘I mean it’s such a clear shot, you’d think they were in on it.’
Martina just raised an eyebrow: ‘Don’t think that matters to us, does it?’
‘Doesn’t he have a big film opening in about a week’s time, which the reviewers have said is pants?’ Vince asked.
‘Didn’t know you had such a conscience, Vince,’ Martina defended herself.
‘I don’t have a conscience,’ was Vince’s reply, ‘I just like news and advertising to be separate.’
‘OK, that’s enough. Martina will ask the snapper more about it,’ Spikey said, to bring the spat to an end. ‘Tilly, what’s in this week? What’s out?’
Jo’s friend, Tilly, fifty-something, smart as a whip, eccentric, glamorous, pure, undiluted fashionista, leaned back in her chair and said: ‘Oh, like you care, Paul! It’s Tuesday morning, I’ve not even had time for a cigarette yet, if I decide on something today, it’ll be out of fashion by Sunday.
It’s May, spring’s turning to summer, expect a double-page spread of skinny girls in tight tops and tiny skirts, but then that’s what I give you all year long. ’
‘The warm snap’s over, though, heavy rain forecast,’ Jeff warned.
‘Shut up, Jeff,’ Tilly replied. ‘Do I need your advice? What you know about fashion could be written in capitals on the back of a molecule. Anyway, rain, no problem, we’ll do miniskirts and see-through macs. Everything dark is out, everything light is in. That’s all you need to know.’
Which perhaps explained why Tilly was dressed head to toe in complicated white items but these were tame compared with what the other women in her department wore: belt-sized skirts, crop tops and the kind of heels you wouldn’t exactly be able to sprint about London in.
Not that fashion writers did much sprinting – unless it was opening day of the Miu Miu sale.
‘Right, go away everyone and get me something decent for the front page,’ was Spikey’s final remark. Class was dismissed for another day.
Jo headed for the bathroom, not because she needed to go, but because this was where she and Tilly liked to hold their private post-conference meetings and Jo, back from holiday, had to catch up with at least the most important elements of a weeks’ worth of office gossip.
‘You know about Declan, of course?’ was Tilly’s opener.
‘Yes, the wife is off.’
‘With another woman,’ Tilly added.
‘Oh, ouch, that’s harsh.’
‘Yeah, and the wife’s been commissioned to write a piece about it for Marie Claire.’
‘No!’
‘Oh yes, Mrs Declan comes out in the July issue.’
‘That’s terrible.’
‘Hilarious. And Vince has finally worn Binah down. They left together on Friday night.’
‘Eeeugh, no, how could she?’
‘She’s run out, she’s done everyone else,’ was Tilly’s verdict.
‘Not everyone.’
‘No, to my knowledge Spikey and Jeff are just about the only men left standing.’
‘Aidan?’
‘Oh God, no. Her car, his second week.’
‘Why didn’t I know that?’
‘We didn’t want to spoil your little crush,’ Tilly said, scrunching her grey-white bob up in the mirror. She took off her dramatic lilac-framed glasses and began to polish them.
‘Oh, please!’ was Jo’s response. ‘Anyway, how’s your department?’
‘All good. But I’m fitting a new lock to the clothes cupboard.
Another designer dress loaned to us has walked away.
Causes me such a bloody headache. If anyone is going to steal expensive clothes from this office, it’s going to be me, on an occasional and acceptable level, so I can’t tolerate any further pilfering.
There are going to be lots of high street spreads for the next few months while I suffer designer penance. ’
‘And your love life?’ Jo asked.
‘Still bonking the banker… with the help of the little blue pills.’ Tilly replied.
‘Him or you?’ Jo snorted.
‘Both of us, of course. He’s taking me to Mauritius, so I’ll stick around for that, but then – who knows?
Still seeing the Little Chef?’ Tilly asked.
‘Bet he doesn’t need Viagra. Bet he does a nice breakfast too.
You’ll have to watch your waistline. Mind you, I’m sure you’re working it all off together. ’
‘Thank you, Tilly. Love you too. I’m not seeing him, I’m just dabbling,’ Jo said. ‘I’m Bridget Jones in reverse,’ she added, putting on a fresh coat of lipstick in front of the mirror. ‘I’ve spent over a decade of my life with one man and now I want to be single. Well, single-ish. Uncommitted.’
‘The grass is always greener,’ Tilly reminded her, then couldn’t help herself from adding: ‘Jo, that’s an awful shade on you. Ageing. You need light pink or apricot.’
‘Thank you, bitch-friend.’
‘Bridget Jones in reverse!’ Tilly laughed, ‘You could finally be starting a fashionable new trend, Jo. Yes, darling, you, in your sensible shoes,’ Tilly said, casting a despairing look at the offending pumps.
‘I have to leave the office, you know, walk places, go on the Tube,’ Jo reminded her, ‘I can’t totter about in stilettos.’
Jo peered critically at the lipstick. Bloody Tilly, she was always right. It was too dark. She did need pinky apricot. Hell. And this was the most expensive lipstick she’d ever bought.
Back at her desk, Jo left another message for Tony, who was now ‘tied up in a meeting’, she briefed Aidan and Dominique about the wind farm investigation and began with the thing she really wanted to get stuck into – whooping cough.
She clicked into her email basket and looked at the messages that had arrived in the forty minutes she’d been away.
There was the one from Jayne, the leader of a support group for parents who believed their children had been damaged by vaccines.
Jo, how are you? Called last week, but you were away. Need to speak to you. Do not want parents with vulnerable kids to rush for Quintet. Can provide your paper with latest US research etc. Lots of angry parents wanting to speak to you.
Jayne
Jo opened her address book and dialled Jayne’s office number. ‘So, what’s the latest?’ she asked when their friendly preamble was over.
‘OK. US researchers have found a link between a hereditary condition – admittedly rare – and susceptibility to the kind of problems we’re seeing in some of our children.’
Jo liked the way she said ‘our’. Every one of the children Jayne knew about was ‘our’. Yes, she had a child herself, but she fought just as hard for everyone else’s kids.
‘If people know they have this condition running in their family, they must not, on any account, let their child have a vaccination, especially one that’s new to market, until a full risk assessment is done.’
‘Does the government know about this?’
‘Of course the government knows. They have the US research, plus we’ve told them, we’ve sent the Department of Health all the papers, all the contact details of the scientists.
But they’re “considering all the evidence”, apparently.
They’re quite happy to let other children be harmed, while they consider.
They’re prepared to wait for hell to freeze over before they act. ’
‘OK, calm,’ Jo soothed, but then asked: ‘Should I have my daughter vaccinated against this whooping cough outbreak?’ Not particularly professional, but she and Jayne had discussed this several times already. ‘Should I let her have Quintet?’
‘How old is she now?’ Jayne asked.
‘Three years and two months.’ Jo’s eyes moved to the little silver-framed photo of her girls on her desk.
It was a year old now: Mel laughing hysterically as her two-year-old sister, chubby and pretty as a doll, waved hands clad in giant oven gloves – she should get an updated snap, although it was lovely to remember them like this too.
‘If there’s no issues around blood clotting in the family, there shouldn’t be any reason to worry for you, Jo.
I’m not anti-vaccine, I always tell people that.
I just believe that the facts need to be available, so that any possible harms are avoided.
And this outbreak is nasty,’ she added, ‘The children are getting very ill…’
‘And it sounds like some of them had already been vaccinated… so I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe this is some kind of new strain and we do need the newest vaccines to protect them,’ Jo added. Dominique was holding a piece of paper up in front of her nose.
Tony Jarvis on line 2
was scribbled across it.
‘Jayne, I have to go, sorry, another call. Why don’t you send me that info over?
I’ll see if I can do something with it. Also, I’d like to do some fresh interviews.
Some parents who’ve joined you recently.
Don’t suppose you’ve got anyone who’s contacted you about a bad reaction to Quintet yet, have you? ’
She was doing the ‘just one second’ wave to Dominique.
‘I was just coming to that,’ Jayne said. ‘I had parents on the line yesterday. IVF twins. They’re only two years old and they had Quintet the week it was introduced – one boy had a paediatric stroke days later.’
‘Good grief.’ There was nothing but sympathy in Jo’s voice, but she couldn’t help her story muscles from flexing. IVF twins.
My Vaccine Heartbreak by Mum of Twins
This could be really good.
‘Could you ask them if they’d like to talk to me about it? I’ll call you later. OK. You’re a star, Jayne, really. Bye, darling.’
‘Bye.’
‘Tony,’ Jo clicked to line two.
They did the hellos, how are yous, how was your holiday thing. Then he went straight into: ‘Someone who may well be the first Green MP to get into Westminster wants to do a talk.’
‘Oh yesssss!’ She couldn’t stop the grin.
‘Talented, committed, good-looking, passionate… with a great story to tell—’
‘Yessssssss! I’m going to stand up and shout this to Jeff, if you don’t mind.’
‘He’s called Finlay Logan,’ Tony went on quickly, before she could do that. ‘He’s standing for election in Glasgow and you’ll love him.’
‘Er… he?? Finlay Logan?… Glasgow?! No, no, no! No Tony!’ She was annoyed now, not least because Aidan and Dominique’s eyes had swivelled to her when she’d uttered the first excited ‘yes’.
‘Look, Tone, you and I, we go way back, we have history, I came and covered Green Party meetings when only two hippies and their dog turned up. Don’t take the mickey.
I can’t profile everyone who’s scraped together a deposit and got themselves nominated. ’
‘Jo. There’s another by-election in Glasgow next month. The hope is he’ll achieve an even better result than Savannah.’
‘So, I’ll give you the number of our Scottish desk, they can do Finlay. I want Savannah.’
‘The Scottish papers have done him. We want him to go national now.’
Then Jo had an idea: ‘I’ll do him with Savannah,’ she said. ‘The Green Team… the Green duo set to storm into Westminster. How about that?’
Tony paused. He was obviously imagining headlines along the lines of:
Double Green whammy, Green Dream Team
while Jo pictured the huge:
Savannah Talks – exclusive!
With a tiny insert about Finlay.
‘I like that, Jo. Why didn’t we think of it before?’ Tony asked.
‘Because you’re a bunch of amateurs,’ she teased.
‘I’m meeting Savannah tomorrow, I’ll put this to her. OK? Meanwhile, you look up Finlay. You’ll like him and he’s single,’ Tony added cheekily.
‘Thanks, yes, thanks, Tone, when I run out of men to date in London, I will come straight to you for advice.’
‘You do that.’
‘Bye.’
‘Wind farms—’ She shooed her trainees’ glances back to their screens. ‘Got anything good for me on wind farms yet?’