Chapter 6
‘So, that’s the update,’ she told Jeff from her car.
‘When do you think you’ll be back?’ Jeff asked.
‘Well… all the way to Canterbury, good long interview, I’ve got Ray coming down to do pictures. It’ll be after lunch, I think.’
‘We proceed with extreme caution, Jo.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she told him. ‘The family thinking what’s happened to their child is linked to the vaccine is a long way from proving things factually.
The country is panicking about a whooping cough epidemic and we’re telling them the injection that should protect their children might not be safe. ’
‘We will only run this story if the parents make a good case,’ Jeff added, ‘And I will want the full medical and government statements to go alongside it… if we run it.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Yeah, so, I’ll go through the rest of your list at conference?’
‘Unless you want Dominique to go in?’
‘I don’t think so!’ Jeff warned. ‘I can’t give Dominique a taste of conference power or I’ll find you dead at your desk next week with a great big dagger in your back.’
‘Fair point.’
‘So, the twins is a totally signed-up world exclusive, I take it?’
‘Well, it will be by the time I’ve finished with it,’ Jo assured him. ‘No, don’t worry, the woman who put me in touch with the family is a solid contact.’
‘OK then. Drive carefully.’
‘Thanks.’ Jo clicked the phone off and turned the radio on.
More whooping cough, some political stuff, blah, blah, an item about bits of the Greenland ice shelf breaking off and melting into the sea at an ‘alarming’ rate.
They should do something fresh on global warming.
She felt readers should be reminded of global warming at least once every two weeks.
Three per cent of the world’s coastlines were going to go soon.
‘You’re a reporter,’ Jeff had reminded her the last time she’d brought a climate crisis story.
‘You bring the news, you can’t change the world. ’
‘Maybe I should be trying a bit harder.’ She’d said.
‘What? To change the world?’ He’d smiled at her. ‘Come and have a beer,’ he’d suggested. ‘Your girls are with their dad tonight, aren’t they? Beer is very soothing. If all megalomaniacs drank more beer, the world would be a better place.’
‘You are very soothing,’ she’d told him, closing down the story she was working on. ‘I should have married someone as soothing as you,’ she’d added, ‘I’m sure that would have helped.’
Group therapy in the pub with the other reporters and enough beers to require a taxi home was sometimes the only way of winding down from the hectic Fridays and manic Saturdays of the job.
The talk was always scurrilous, all the outrageously elaborated rumours that could never be printed but that someone had heard from ‘an impeccable source’ who ‘swore it was true’.
It took Jo a long time to find the address she’d been given.
But finally, she was driving up a long, narrow street at the edge of town.
It wound gently up a hill; small, detached houses on each side with gardens, cars and motorbikes in front.
It wasn’t a smart area, but it was neat and tidy.
Samantha and Mick Townell were parents of twin boys, one who had suffered a stroke, which the Townells blamed on the Quintet injections given just a month ago.
Jo parked her car and locked up, bringing her bags out with her. The photographer was going to come an hour later. She liked to do interviews that way. Get talking properly without someone with a huge camera and associated equipment scaring the interviewees to death.
Scooters, bikes, plastic tractors, swings and a slide were strewn about the hilly front lawn, but there was no sign of children.
The house looked neat from the outside. Paint shiny, small leaded-effect windows, with the white toggle of a blind hanging in the centre of each one.
Before she could reach up and press the bell, the door was opened and a woman with short blonde hair wearing a smooth white shirt and cropped beige trousers was standing in front of her, holding out a hand and introducing herself as Samantha.
‘Come in… sorry, we’re in the kitchen having a snack, we couldn’t wait any longer.’
‘Sorry I’m late,’ Jo apologised, ‘it took me a while to find it.’
They had the cursory little chat about directions, driving from London, traffic and so on. Jo was as relaxed and friendly as she could be because handling the warm-up talk well was an important part of the job.
The Townells hadn’t signed any sort of contract yet, so they were under no obligation to talk to her.
They could pull out at any time, and it had happened often enough in the past: she’d arrived at out-of-the-way addresses after hours of driving only to have the door slammed in her face because people had changed their minds about an interview.
Or worse, another newspaper was already there.
‘Assume nothing’ was the newsroom motto.
Take nothing for granted. Check every single fact and waterproof your story, your contacts. Your exclusive.
‘Come and say hello to the boys,’ Samantha said, so Jo followed her into a small kitchen where the two-year-olds and their father, Mick, were sitting at the table.
Mick, a friendly-looking, casually dressed man, stood up to shake her hand, encouraging his sons with a: ‘Say hello, boys.’
The two curly heads moved in her direction and smiles and waves followed, then the faces turned back to their plates. ‘They’ll be shy to start with but I’m sure they’ll get used to you,’ Samantha explained. ‘Shall we go into the sitting room? And would you like some tea?’ Samantha asked.
‘Tea would be great. Just milk, please.’
So, finally they settled down in the spotlessly tidy room. Teacups in front of them – boys now out in the back garden with their dad – Jo, ready to record with her notebook and biro on her knee.
‘So, d’you want to tell me all about it?’
And Samantha began. A little falteringly at first, but then gathering strength, until the story was flowing.
Jo listened. She sometimes slipped in a clarifying question or two, but mainly she listened, thinking occasionally how confessor-like her job was, and the terrible things she’d heard over the years.
All spilled out into her recorded files.
The voices played over again in her earphones back at the office, their words typed out onto the computer screen in front of her, then appearing in black and white on the pages of the paper on Sunday.
It was a strange job, because she couldn’t give her interviewees much in return.
She was not there to comfort them, to bring help, to advise, she was there to listen, then to tell others and only occasionally could her articles at least serve as a warning, to try to prevent tragedies from happening again.
Samantha and Mick had tried to have children for five years.
Their boys, Ben and Ellis, were born after a third IVF attempt.
There was grief enough in that story. But what Samantha went on to tell was even worse; it made Jo wonder, yet again, why pain was doled out so unfairly in life.
Why were some people allowed to lead charmed, virtually unshadowed lives, when others were given the lion’s share of grief?
‘The boys made it to 36 weeks,’ Samantha was telling her.
‘That’s when I went into labour. I had a Caesarean because the doctors felt it would be safer for us all.
And they were a good weight for twins, both just over five pounds.
They went into special care for a week, but they were thriving.
Doing really well. It was just mad, the first few months.
We were on this wonderful, unbelievable high.
’ The words were tumbling out, Samantha smiling at the memories: ‘I mean, two healthy baby boys. It was all we could ever have hoped for. Much more than we’d ever hoped for.
We were exhausted, but the magic of it never wore off.
In the middle of the night, getting up yet again, I’d think about the women I met through the IVF.
Think about how much they’d love to be woken up by a baby crying in the middle of the night. ’
Jo scribbled this down in her notebook and underlined it.
‘The boys’ development was closely monitored, because they were premature twins,’ Samantha went on.
‘I’d go for developmental checks every couple of months, hand-eye co-ordination, hearing, sight, that sort of thing.
It was all normal, they were coming along fine.
I’ve got their log books. I can show you. ’
‘That’s great, we’ll do that afterwards, you just tell me what happened next,’ Jo reassured her.
‘March the 6th. I will never forget the date,’ Samantha began, very serious now, turning from the window to face Jo and look her directly in the eye.
‘Mick came with me, because taking them for their baby vaccinations had been an ordeal. I’d had to put one screaming baby down to hold the other one for the injection and I thought it would be better if we were both there, especially as they were toddling about by then, curious, getting into all sorts of mischief.
So, we went to the doctor’s surgery. They were exactly 24 months old.
I was always keen on vaccinations, wanted them to have them as soon as they could.
Had them all at the recommended ages, even though the boys were born a month early.
No one had suggested to me I should treat them as aged minus one month and delay everything for a month at least. So, we took them in and—’ Suddenly Samantha stopped, she looked out of the window and into the garden where Mick was trying to interest one of the boys in a tricycle.
Her hand went up to her eyes and wiped away the tears that suddenly spilled out. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘Don’t be sorry, take all the time you need,’ Jo soothed her.