Can We Still Be Friends (12 page)

This reverence was not genuinely echoed in the minds of most who worked there. Gossip about Lewis’s frequent extramarital affairs was a favourite conversational ball to toss around in spare moments.

‘’Course, he signs his own expenses, doesn’t he? That helps.’

‘A permanent table at the Savoy. Not like he has to make a pass in the taxi home. He’s probably tamed the concierge to keep a room on tap.’ His senior editors were torn between jealous admiration for Lewis’s undeniable powers of seduction and the need to poke fun at his goings-on in order to keep the loyalty of the lower orders.

Currently, Lewis enjoyed the absolute trust of his proprietors and was regularly chauffeured down in his Jaguar on Saturday afternoons to join their Wiltshire shoot, leaving his deputy to sign off the final pages. Recently, he had improved his stock considerably by being asked to play the harp at Highgrove, the Waleses’ new country home.

‘HRH tells me he finds it refreshing that a newspaper editor understands the symphonic capabilities of the harp’ was one of the lines that regularly did the rounds as his lieutenants shared several pints after work. ‘He’s a tosser, but a clever one’ was the general consensus.

From his desk, Patrick Lewis could see across Fleet Street to the curves of the shiny black
Express
building but, today, any view was blotted out by the crowd of
Herald
staff lining the windows, the most senior seated as a panel on chairs near the boss’s desk. Even through the wall of men’s suiting Sal could see that the editor was wearing one of his trademark white-collared, pink shirts.

‘There’s been a bomb at Harrods. The first news guys are nearly there.’ Stuart, seated to the left of Patrick, addressed the room. ‘Ten to one it’s the Provos, but no one’s claimed responsibility yet. This is
our
story. We’ve got ten hours till we hit the presses. We’re going to blow the others out of the water. I want you all
on it.
We’re tearing up the features section for more space. Andrea, get your lot out there too. Colour. Anecdotes. The personal stuff. We don’t know casualties yet but get on to the families as soon as we do.’

Sal could see Patrick’s leg swinging like a metronome under his desk as he swept the dark curls that were the subject of both envy and speculation from his face then examined his fingernails as he listened to Stuart. The editor cleared his throat.

‘It’s important that we are intellectually rigorous in our coverage. I’ve got General Sir Richard Potterton filing for the op-ed. Anthony, I assume you’ve contacted Leon Brittan. Tomorrow the country is going to want to know who, what and most importantly
why
.
Contex
t is vital. That’s the
Herald
’s strength.’

The editor’s lack of interest in the bare facts of the news agenda was a frustration in the office, as was, at times, his sense of reality. Even Anthony, his deputy, who bowed to no one in his admiration for Patrick, thought it unlikely that Brittan, the Home Secretary, would have time to file a piece for the
Herald
.

‘Absolutely,’ mouthed Stuart to his superior, making a note on a yellow legal pad. The room emptied.

‘Sal, you cover the local stores, get the story from their angle. After all, this is one of the biggest shopping days of the year. Marsha, you take the man on the street.’ Andrea looked up at the television on the far wall. No news. All she could see was horses strolling around some paddock in preparation for the afternoon’s racing.

‘Call the desk in a couple of hours. The copytakers can take the initial stuff, and we’ll see what we’ve got. I’ll be here knocking it into shape.’

Sal and Marsha shared the cab from Fleet Street. Sal suspected that if Marsha had managed to close the door quickly enough she would have happily left her on the pavement, but she flung herself on to the seat too, scuffing her new boots in the process. Marsha ignored her companion, busying herself with a notebook. What on earth is she writing, thought Sal. We haven’t talked to anyone yet. It was unnerving watching Marsha concentrate, as if she had discovered an exam question that Sal had somehow managed to miss.

‘So, shall we pool our findings?’ she said, rummaging in her bag for a cigarette.

Marsha turned, tucking her bob neatly behind her ears. ‘I think you’ll find it works best on big stories if we keep to our own patch. That way we can cover the ground. Andrea wants you in the shops – perhaps you should go down Sloane Street. Talk to some of those boutique places. I’ll handle the close-up picture.’ She yanked down the window in a showy objection to Sal’s smoking. This was Sal’s first major news story, the first time she had rushed out of the office as part of the whole speeding newspaper machine. Even so, she knew that it was important to be at the heart of the action; certainly
not wandering down a posh shopping street. Marsha must think she was really naïve.

‘I’m going to try to get a bit closer than that,’ she said. If Marsha hadn’t been such a cold bitch, she would have added that she was scared, that her stomach was turning watery and that she didn’t begin to know how to achieve what she knew she was meant to.

‘Well, good luck to you. The police will have the whole place secured by now. You’d have to be a real pro to get through.’ Marsha looked away, as London landmarks passed outside the window – Nelson’s Column, the crenellations of Westminster, Apsley House – their route to the bomb mimicking that of a tour bus.

The traffic into Knightsbridge was unmoving and the taxi became grounded at Hyde Park Corner. Sal jumped out and ran into the streets, dodging around bewildered shoppers taken aback at the commotion surrounding their Saturday trip into town and unclear what had happened. It was many people’s last opportunity to shop before Christmas and, at midday, the crowds were already laden with carrier bags. All around, there was the wail of sirens. In the distance, Sal saw the dome of the huge rust-coloured department store. There were police everywhere, standing beside barriers of white tape blowing in the cold wind. From her position among the wandering crowds, it was clear that the area around the shop was empty – of cars, buses, shoppers. There was an unusual smell. She walked into a small jewellery store near the Tube station.

‘Sal Turner,
Sunday Herald
,’ she announced. Did that sound convincing? ‘Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about what’s just happened?’ Sal offered her NUJ card as ID to the small bespectacled man who was arranging a tray of rings, their cheap gold exposed by their brightness against the black velvet.

‘What has happened? Nobody’s telling us anything.’ He didn’t look up.

‘A bomb … in Harrods. We don’t know right now if it was inside or outside. They suspect the IRA. Could I ask you what you saw? What did you hear?’

‘A bang – that’s it, my love. I heard a bang. There were no
customers in here and I was just about to change the window display. I’ve got some lovely gold chains in. Perfect, they are, for Christmas. I went to look outside and people were running everywhere, so I thought it wise to stay in. Saturday is one of my best days and I didn’t want to be evacuated or anything. Kept myself to myself.’

Sal scribbled away. Her half-cocked shorthand worked well enough to speed her up, but she had never been properly fluent and a blunt pencil didn’t help. As the afternoon passed, Sal kept hearing the same from everyone – a bang, the sirens, the smell. Everyone mentioned the smell. The minutes to her deadline were ticking past and the darkness of the December afternoon was starting to close in, the Christmas decorations in many windows a strange contrast to the destruction around Harrods and the sinister emptiness behind the cordons. Marsha was right. She wasn’t getting anywhere.

The cold, the growing possibility of failure and the prospect of Marsha’s patronizing mocking made her desperate for a pee. She found a small sandwich bar, where a young woman dressed in a white apron smeared with dirt was sitting on a stool staring down at a mug of tea. Across the road, in the distance, Sal could see a yellow curtain flapping, ripped outside the window, the glass blown out, even at that distance from the blast.

‘She’s been there a couple of hours now. One cup of tea. Don’t know how she thinks we’re meant to make a living. And that’s without bleeding bombs going off round the corner.’ Behind the cabinet of sweaty sandwich fillings a man poured boiling water into the pot of tea Sal had bought mainly in order to grant her access to the toilet. She carried it to where the girl was sitting, next to the wall, preparing to read back her notes in the hope that she might find more than she knew was there. She prayed Marsha was finding it equally difficult to dig anything up.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked her neighbour. It was a few moments until the girl turned to look at Sal. Her hands were shaking as she picked up her cup. After two hours, that tea must be stone cold. ‘Can I buy you a hot one?’ she asked.

The girl shrugged, staring out into the dank street ahead. ‘Thanks. That’s very kind of you.’ Her voice was unreconstructed Sloane.

Sal offered her new acquaintance a cigarette, but it was waved away. ‘I’ve been sent to cover the bombing by my paper but, to be honest, I’ve got nothing and I’m on deadline. I can’t find out anything. It’s a nightmare. The first time they send me out to cover something proper, and I’m cocking it up.’ Sal’s view of the world was entirely subjective and did not allow her to think that this sad creature might not be interested in her problem. She was younger than Sal had realized initially.

‘I was there,’ she said simply, looking away. ‘Yeah, I was right there. Wish I hadn’t been.’

Sal sat up. She needed to talk to this girl. She would have to take notes, but if the girl saw her doing it, would she stop talking? If she formally asked for an interview, wouldn’t that sound a like a police caution? The image of Marsha preparing her story in the cab flashed across her mind. She had nothing to lose, and took out her own.

‘You are the only – and I mean
the only
– person I’ve come across that can tell me anything. I mean, I imagine it was pretty … traumatic.’ It wasn’t as if Sal was trying to say anything very complicated, but it seemed difficult to get anything out.

‘Sure. I’ll tell you. There’s not a lot to say. I was there in Harrods. I was working there. It’s my holiday job. I’m Ali Charter, by the way. They take on lots of us just for Christmas, and I was in the food hall. I’d been stacking Christmas puddings most of the morning, and the place was packed.’ She sipped her hot tea. ‘I was on a break and went downstairs to the loo. That’s where they are, the staff loos, and I wanted to catch up with my friend, who was working there too. He was in menswear. Ground floor. I know they were putting him on ties today. I think the bomb is in menswear … or was. I can’t find him. I’m worried sick. We were going to go to this party tonight, but now I don’t even know if he’s alive. Well, he probably is, don’t you think? He probably is?’ Sal assured her that he probably was, then urged Ali to continue.

‘I was in the Ladies. There was one woman in there. She said she
was in perfumery. She was putting on mascara when we heard the noise, and she jumped so hard she stuck the wand in her eye, and I was saying, “God, what was that?”, and she was saying, “Christ, I’ve got mascara all over my eye.”

‘I’ve never heard a noise like it. Not surprising really, I’m not used to bombs. It was like the end of the world, and there we were, underground. We didn’t know what to do. I don’t remember what we did … I don’t think we moved for a bit. And then there was this smell and some smoke – not much, but some – and we knew we had to get out. So we ran. And upstairs it was bedlam and everyone was shouting, “Get out!” and the glass was all blown in, and there was this car – what
was
a car, anyway – and I saw a man lying on the ground. Some of a man …’ Ali took another sip of tea and rubbed her eyes as if to clear the image away. ‘When the air hit me I thought I was going to faint. I don’t do chaos well. My mum always tells me I catastrophize. I think that’s the word. You know, when you think the worst is going to happen? But then, a bomb on a holiday job – well, that is the worst, when you come to think of it, isn’t it?’ Ali spoke quickly. Sal asked her a few more questions. Andrea was going to love this. She was always banging on about how they needed more human interest. Marsha couldn’t possibly have found someone who was actually in the building at the time. Ten minutes till deadline though. She would have to find a phone.

‘That sounds terrible. Poor you.’ Sal dug around in her bag to find her purse so that she could pay.

‘Yeah, I’ve just been sitting here. Can’t really move. Don’t know why. What paper do you write for, anyway?’

Telling the man behind the counter to bring Ali another tea – ‘Put tons of sugar in it. I think she’s kind of in shock’ – Sal paid and ran out of the door, making a guess at where she’d find the nearest phone box. A couple of minutes, and she saw a block of red at the end of a street. It was only then that she realized she didn’t have any change. How often had she been told she should always keep some coins in her purse for exactly this?

She dialled 100 and asked to make a reverse-charge call to the paper.

‘Will you accept the call?’ Sal heard the emotionless voice ask the girl at the
Herald
’s switchboard.

‘We don’t accept reverse charge’ was the reply.

‘Caller, they won’t accept the call. Will you pay?’

‘Tell her that it’s Sal Turner. Features. I need to be put through to the copytakers
now
. It’s about the bomb. You know, the bomb at Harrods. You’re putting me through to a newspaper, for heaven’s sake.’ For what seemed hours she was in limbo – connected to nobody, maybe even cut off – until, finally, she heard the familiar clattering noise of typists.

‘For one young woman, yesterday was a shocking departure from her normal Saturday job (
full stop
). Ali (
capital A for alpha, L for Lima, I for India
) had just been on her break at her holiday job in Harrods food hall …’

It was only after she had finished that she realized she had dictated a report straight from her head. She asked to be put through to Andrea. To her surprise, she heard Marsha’s voice.