Chapter 24 #2
‘Stephen basically stalked my mother for several months, back when I was a kid and he was a reporter who thought he could pass off his behaviour as journalism. It was during the financial crisis. Not that I knew what a financial crisis was, I was like seven or something. My mum worked at a big bank, as an executive assistant to the guy who basically ran the big bank, and then suddenly the big bank she worked for was in the news because it had to be bailed out by the government. I mean, none of this meant anything to me as a kid at primary school. I just knew that Mum’s work was stressful.
’ Rose takes a deep breath. ‘That there were changes at the top and she now worked for someone new, and she’d been really upset about it all.
Then one Sunday, I woke up and Mum was telling me that there had been a change of plan that day and I was going to stay at my dad’s as a special treat.
When we left the house there were all these people with cameras sort of lurking by the front gate, shouting her name.
It turned out that my mother was on the front page of a tabloid, exposed as the lover of her ex-boss.
She’d been having an affair with the man who was held responsible by the government, and the press, for the bank’s downfall and the loss of thousands of jobs in the process.
Turned out that he’d been seducing my mother while Rome burned, and expensing it.
And Stephen, who was a reporter at the paper, had got wind of it and spent months, and I mean months, having them followed.
My mum had done absolutely nothing wrong other than be taken in by a lying prick, but that happens to most of us at some point, and she didn’t deserve to have her life upended and her picture printed everywhere, under headlines such as BONKING CRISIS STRUMPET.
The worst thing is that Stephen had been trying to blackmail my mum into doing a kiss-and-tell interview with him.
There were hundreds of messages on her phone when they found it.
The last one was sent the day before the piece came out, as if he didn’t already have the six-page spread written and ready to go.
His last text said something like You still have the chance to do things on your terms, but come tonight you lose that opportunity, as if he was doing her a fucking favour.
The whole spread, all the coverage, Olivia, it was about my mum, and how if it hadn’t been for her, maybe this man wouldn’t have brought the bank down.
It basically blamed her for all the job losses, as if she was some seductress and not a single mum from Forest Hill who read me a bedtime story every night and took me swimming every weekend. ’
Rose wipes her eyes, and Olivia gently places a hand on her shoulder. ‘That’s just …’ Olivia places the other hand on the centre of her own chest, as if to keep in all the feelings that have appeared there, pushing at the surface to get out. ‘That’s just fucking awful, Rose.’
‘Yeah, well trust me, it gets much worse. My dad being the absolute twat he was, he wouldn’t let me go back home with all the journalists around.
He told me that Mum needed some time to herself, and that I could go back in a few weeks, and that was that.
But I never did go back. Mum killed herself a month later – not that Stephen or any of the papers were interested, given that they’d already moved on to their next scandal.
And that’s why I work for Stop the Press, and not The Morning.
That’s why I do what I do. And it’s why I’d hoped you’d brought me here to tell me more about that nasty hypocritical arsehole, and how he likes to take advantage of women like Nina.
I thought there might be more to that story.
Just the way you spoke about him, it felt like …
’ Rose shakes her head. ‘Neverfuckingmind. I’ve told you my truth, so I guess we’re even.
Now do you understand why I “tricked” you?
’ she says, making sarcastic quote marks with her fingers.
‘Fuck,’ says Olivia. ‘That’s, I mean, that’s …
’ She can’t find the words, can’t quite untangle all the thoughts that are flying around in her brain.
Thoughts about the awfulness of what happened to Rose’s mum, feeling desperate enough to kill herself and all because a newspaper wanted a quick scoop that would beat all the competition.
Thoughts about her own mum, unwittingly loved up with a pervert.
And her own well of hot shame, the secret she hasn’t told anyone, ever.
‘That is just appalling, Rose.’ She tries to put her hand on the young woman’s, but Rose snatches it away and stuffs it in a pocket. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘An apology doesn’t mean very much if you aren’t going to help me,’ Rose tsks. ‘So if that’s all, I’m going to leave now.’
‘No, don’t go.’ Olivia closes her eyes, shakes her head.
‘No, you can’t leave. There is something I need to tell you about that nasty hypocritical prick, actually.
There was something about the way I spoke, you’re right.
And if you can trust me with the story of your past, then I’m going to trust you with mine. ’