Gifted and Talented (28 page)

She looked at her watch. Twenty minutes remained before it was time to get Rosie. Not enough for a full confessional, but she could make a start. Her pretext, she decided, would be to check the Saturday college dinner was still on. As she straightened and began to gather her tools, Diana felt better already. After all the hesitating and worrying, definite action was a relief.

She headed for the Lodge. No guarantee that he would be there of course, but she could always leave a note. Approaching the familiar grey concrete block, Diana felt again the tightening in her stomach. How would he receive her? Nervously she tucked her hair behind her ears and wished she had spent a few moments arranging her face. Such had her hurry been to get here that she probably still had smudges of soil on her nose.

The path before her was bordered by bare-branched beech hedges, behind which was a small car park. As Diana hurried along, she heard a vehicle swinging into it with a screech of brakes and a spray of gravel. She glanced involuntarily through the twigs.

The vastness and the whiteness was enough. She did not need the personalised number plate. Diana stood immobile while, within her, feelings of cold horror fought a sense of inevitability. Sara Oopvard had not gone home after all. She was here, at the Master’s Lodge. Diana swayed for a second or two. Even in the solid footings of her wellingtons, she felt suddenly that she might fall.

‘Hey!’

The voice exploded into her thoughts and made her jump. Her scattered senses failed to identify it. Forcing her strained features into a semblance of normality, Diana turned slowly.

‘Heard the news?’ Sally panted up to her, grinning, her arms bearing a pile of scrunched towels. She had evidently just come from the Lodge.

‘What news?’ Actually, Diana could guess, but she needed the time to compose herself, the better to control her reaction.

‘Some woman’s moved in with the Master. Arrived last night, they say.’ Sally’s eyes were bright with agitation. She shook back her golden curls and leant forward, dropping her voice. ‘I’ve not seen her,’ she added with a confidential giggle. ‘But the inside of that house is a real tip. Clothes everywhere. Underwear. Make-up all over the bathroom.’

Diana’s eye, sliding down to the towel pile in Sally’s arms, snagged on a bright red lipstick smudge. Her vision blurred and her self-control gave a violent lurch. ‘Is that right?’ she said tightly.

‘Dreadful state!’ Sally was fairly crackling with vicarious excitement. ‘And she’s totally mutton dressed as lamb, they say. Someone saw her going out this morning. Long hair. Leather trousers. Really high heels. Not the sort you’d think the Master would go for. But, according to Flora, she’s going with him to the dinner on Saturday.’

Diana could not speak.

‘Ooh,’ Sally was gasping at her watch. ‘I’m late. Must dash. See you later,’ she sang. ‘Have a lovely evening.’

Olly could scarcely believe it. At last, a breakthrough. Life had come to feel like a dark pit in whose bottom he was languishing. But now a window had opened in the blackness above and through it, fluttering down into his eager fingers – or into the text message part of his mobile – had come a job interview!

The
Post
was a new paper, so new that it had not been launched yet; its address, an industrial estate on the outskirts of town. They had advertised for an investigative journalist. It was hardly the
Guardian
, but it was a start, especially as the
Post
wanted to see him so quickly. Immediately, in fact. Now.

‘Get you!’ teased Dotty when Olly descended in the shiny suit, which had failed to bring him luck in so many previous interviews. David, admittedly, had offered him the run of his crumpled, don’s wardrobe, but Olly had tactfully turned him down. He felt he would rather take his chances with the unfortunate suit than appear before a prospective employer in baggy-kneed tweeds and jackets with holes in the elbows.

As Olly buttoned himself into his own suit, he hoped today would be an exception to the unlucky rule. Possibly, if he didn’t see Hero. He remembered his interview with the
Hagworthingham Chronicle
; her withering remarks might have been what jinxed it, not the suit.

But Olly had seen little of Hero lately. She rarely appeared downstairs, at least not in daylight hours. It seemed she foraged at night, like a rat; according to Dotty, the kitchen looked as if a bomb had hit it every morning when she came down.

And Olly had been out a lot, in search of work, while Hero had been in, avoiding it. Although Dotty
had
reported a sighting outside, in actual daylight, with the vicious poodle that intermittently hung about the place. Hero and the poodle had struck up a friendship, Dotty said, clearly surprised and hurt that her daughter loved a dog – a mean dog at that – and not her own devoted mother. Yin and yang, Olly had said, to cheer Dotty up. Black and white. Goth and poodle. Dotty had not so much as smiled, however.

She seemed, Olly thought, to have lost all hope where her daughter was concerned. As had David. Olly wondered whether he should step in, but every time he summoned the will to tackle Hero about her attitudes, he never followed through with any action. He told himself that this was because he felt it was the family’s business. Deep down, however, he knew he was afraid. Hero might bite him, like the dog.

‘Good luck!’ Dotty called encouragingly now from the sitting room as he passed the door. He smiled guiltily back at her.

On the bus, his excitement returned, even to the point of him jiggling in his seat. More than once, the grim-faced old lady in front turned to favour him with a belligerent stare. Olly didn’t even notice. To ask him for interview, he was thinking, staring unseeing through the murky bus windows, the editor must have been impressed with the features ideas he’d sent. Very impressed, given the command that he present himself instantly.

Olly was especially proud of the suggestion that he become a living statue in the shopping centre for the day. Seeing Sam had given him the idea; the experience would make an amusing piece. The fact that he could return to his job afterwards and Sam had to return to his polystyrene plinth the next day was, Olly uncomfortably decided, a bridge he would cross when he came to it.

He wondered what the editor was like. His name was Alastair Cragg, a most suitable one for an editor, Olly felt. It had an indomitable, unyielding, seeker-after-truth sort of ring to it, and was, of course, Scottish – self-evidently a good thing.

The bus ground up the road out of town, past new office buildings with cheap green glass fronts and new hotels that were indistinguishable from the offices. People were going in and out of both, no one looking very enthusiastic, and Olly felt a novel sense of his own enormous good fortune. The job he was going for was no boring grind, but both absorbing and exciting. He had no doubt that he would be good at it – if, that was, he was given the chance; but that looked likely. Why else ask for his immediate presence? It was very gratifying, especially as most other job applications had resulted in no acknowledgement whatsoever.

Yet, for all his optimism, Olly could not help his thoughts drifting to Isabel. They did so several times a day and even more frequently at night. His anger and indignation had been replaced by a nagging, growing worry. Why had she not yet seen through Jasper de Borchy? She was neglecting her work, too. He knew this because David was one of her tutors and he had waited whenever her group was due, duster in hand, heart in mouth, polishing madly on the stairs. But when she failed to turn up not once but twice, a faint inner alarm bell rang. That Isabel – the normal Isabel – would deliberately miss a session was out of the question. She was committed, enthusiastic. Or had been.

He felt shy about asking David about it, and David evidently had problems enough with his teaching career. The beleaguered tutor had been poring, in depressed fashion, over a list in the kitchen when Olly came in one day.

‘Of course,’ he was muttering, ‘that ridiculous Piggott woman’s being sent down. But I had thought better of Isabel.’

‘Isabel?’ Olly had been reaching for the teabags when he heard it.

‘Haven’t seen her for weeks,’ David muttered. Olly would have asked more but the doorbell rang and David went to answer it, as Hero no longer performed even this small service for her parents.

While he was out of the room, Olly paused by the table. The list David had been looking at contained the names and home addresses of his students. There was Isabel’s, in Scotland. Quick as a flash he took out his mobile and keyed the details in.

Now, on the bus, Olly wondered why. Some journalistic instinct, he concluded. Or perhaps a protective urge. At the very least, at some stage, he could send her a postcard.

The industrial estate that the
Post
was on was of a different vintage from the new glass ones he had passed on the way. It was a sprawl of damp-stained and rotting concrete and seemed largely deserted. The building he was to report to was easily identifiable because it was one of the few with cars outside, and not many at that.

Olly pushed open a stiff, cold metal door, crossed a deserted foyer and ascended three flights of stained, grey-carpeted stairs to a brown door on which someone had written ‘The Post’ on a piece of A4. The newspaper, Olly concluded from this, was not a very professional set-up. They would be glad to have someone even of his limited experience on board.

This impression, it turned out, could not have been more wrong. Olly had been only five minutes in Alastair Cragg’s company when he realised he was hopelessly out of his depth.

Alastair had an impressively – terrifyingly – strong grip of current newspaper trends and technology and spoke at great length and in great detail about websites and reader interaction and online advertising. Olly followed as best he could; Alastair’s intention, he gathered, was to produce both an online and physical daily newspaper.

‘That’s a lot of work,’ Olly ventured timidly, then wanted to kick himself. He didn’t want to give the impression of being workshy. ‘Which is
great
!’ he added, brightly.

Alastair flicked him a doubtful glance. He had close-cropped hair and, when he chose to display it, an engaging grin. He was not displaying it now, however. ‘Lot of work, yes. And a hell of a lot of competition. And of course we don’t have much money. Our only advantage is staff. I want the best staff.’ Alastair stared hard at Olly, who tried his best to look as if he fitted this demanding bill.

Alastair looked unconvinced. He cleared his throat and picked up something from his desk, which Olly recognised as the letter he had sent with his features ideas. Including the living-statue one. He sat up a little straighter. Now he could get his advantage back. He reminded himself that he had been sent for immediately, which had to count for something. Although, increasingly, he could not see what.

‘These ideas,’ Alastair said.

‘Yes,’ Olly beamed, widening his mouth in an expectant smile. Alastair was surely about to say he liked them, then hopefully the offer of a job would follow. He felt a glow inside. He pictured himself rushing back to Dotty and David’s with the news, perhaps picking up a bottle of champagne on the way, Dotty’s shriek of joy, corks popping . . .

‘Well, they’re not very good, are they?’ Alastair’s words cut sharply into this pleasant dream.

Olly gasped.

‘A lifetime in the day of a living statue in the shopping centre,’ Alastair quoted from the letter. His eyes bored into Olly’s. ‘It’s been done before.’

‘Has it?’ Olly faltered. And he had thought it so original.

‘
Daily Telegraph
, to name but one,’ Alastair sniffed. ‘And most of the other stuff you’ve suggested here’s been done too.’

Olly’s spirits swung sharply downwards. He felt horribly disappointed.

‘If the
Post
’s going to make its mark – survive, even –’ Alastair’s voice came through the embarrassed thumping in his ears – ‘we need to build a reputation for news stories. Headlines. I advertised for an investigative journalist, not a features editor.’

A red spike of anger now joined the other feelings churning round Olly’s heart. If Alastair had thought the ideas in the letter so bad, why had he sent for him? Did he find humiliating people amusing? He raised his head and met the editor’s eyes with a new feeling of hostility.

The evident change in his expression seemed to interest the editor. ‘Tell me,’ Alastair said, sounding unexpectedly friendly, ‘what really drives you. What story you’d really like to do, if you could.’

Olly gazed glumly back. Apart from the reiteration of the discredited suggestions on the letter, his mind was blank.

The editor’s fingers were drumming impatiently on an unassuming wooden desk that had struck Olly on arrival as being unexpectedly tidy. He had imagined newspaper editors to be surrounded by a chaotic sea of paper. But Alastair seemed to radiate calm and control. It was one of the reasons, Olly realised, that, despite everything, he wanted to please him. A sense of hopelessness, of resentment even, now joined his annoyance. Why did everything always go wrong?

‘Let me put it another way,’ Alastair said softly. He was watching Olly carefully. ‘What makes you angry? Really angry, I mean.’

‘Jasper De Borchy.’ It came out with the speed of a bullet, before Olly even had time to think about it. He hung his head, aware of expressing something ridiculously petty and personal. Alastair had probably never even heard of Jasper. This would surely be the end of his hopes for a job.

He did not dare look at Alastair Cragg. Instead, Olly stared at the floor. It was covered in hairy grey carpet tiles; one of the stains was shaped a bit like Australia and Olly was just thinking that he should probably try his chances there next when he heard Alastair inhale deeply through his nostrils. He was evidently about to speak.

‘That’s interesting,’ Alastair said, sounding really quite friendly now. ‘Very interesting. And why does
he
make you angry?’

Olly lifted his head, scanning the editor’s face to make doubly sure he was not being mocked in some way. ‘Well, the Bullinger Club, really. He’s one of its leading lights.’

The change in Alastair was striking. Gone was the weary irony. His eyes sparkled behind his spectacles and his countenance glowed with vivid speculation. ‘So I’d heard,’ he agreed. ‘Which brings me neatly to the real reason I asked you for interview.’

Olly felt a mild outrage. On the other hand, Alastair was obviously not interested in his features ideas. Being invited on false pretences was better than not being here at all. He listened as the editor now explained that Olly’s educational CV had been what caught his eye. In particular, the college Olly had been to.

It was with a growing sense of inevitability that Olly listened as Alastair explained that his first splash for the
Post
was to be an exposé of the inner workings of the Bullinger Club. ‘And you’re perfect for the job,’ he concluded.

Encouraged, Olly nodded. ‘I have done some investigation,’ he said eagerly. ‘One of the university papers I worked on once did an exposé on the price of crisps at college bars . . .’

Alastair was grinning. ‘Spare me the details. The reason you’re perfect is that you’re cheap, you’re young, you’re desperate and, most important of all, you have a motive. When I saw you’d been to St Alwine’s, it was fifty-fifty.’

‘Fifty-fifty?’ Olly was mystified, and not in a good way. He was still absorbing the fact that his lack of a job and burning sense of defeat and resentment was what Alastair was most interested in. His status as a loser, in other words.

Alastair was nodding. His glasses flashed in the flickering strip light. ‘I knew you’d be one of two things: either a roaring hooray, or someone who hates them and everything they stand for.’ He paused. ‘And I could tell by the suit that you weren’t the former.’

Olly’s mouth dropped open. Then he shut it and tried to look gratified. It was, in a way, a compliment.