In Pieces (29 page)

Increasingly, he spent far more time feeling frustrated than enjoying his job. He knew he should do something about it. But what else could he do? He was just another over-educated generalist, trained by a decadent society to appreciate literature and abstract art, but incapable of explaining how a kettle worked, let alone how to build a house or mend a car. Those were really useful things to be able to do. It wasn't as if he was really contributing anything to the greater knowledge of mankind. Bottom line, he was a crappy journalist doing a shitty job, being paid to poke his nose into other people's affairs, interfering where he wasn't wanted.

‘Do you fancy a drink?'

Bill looked up with a blank look on his pug features. The sun had brought out his Scottishness, spraying a rash of ginger freckles across his face.

‘A pint? I don't know about you but I really feel I'm not getting anywhere here.' Not that he'd even started to tackle the story Dougy had pushed his way that morning. Si hated Dougy's so-called “leads”. He just couldn't seem to get them right, to get into his boss's mindset.

‘What about the story? It's already three thirty.'

True, if they went out for a drink they'd be hard-pressed to get the page together on time. Well, one drink would probably be just about all right.

‘We'll only go for a quick one. How about it… That place just over the park? I'll buy.'

They sat on the wooden benches contemplating the river. The Thames flowed past thickly, clearly as exhausted by the heat as everyone else. Washed out, dripping office workers in suits, bred for English weather not continental heat, wandered despondently by.

In the park—as the thin strip of yellow grass and three trees sandwiched between the road and the river was optimistically called—some pink individuals lay prostrate before the sun god. Why was it that whenever the sun came out, the normally reserved and prudish English abandoned their inhibitions and stripped almost naked? If only they had the bodies to get away with it. But these red blobs were typical: grey bras, flabby chests and summer skirts tucked into oversized knickers, which had been designed for undercover protection on cold winter nights.

Si watched an obese girl with compassion. The poor thing was so obviously suffering, but seemed determined not to miss even one photon of potential tan. Elephantine thighs, puckered with cellulite, rolled over the dry grass like lard on toast. The girl mopped her perspiring brow furiously but seemed to have abandoned the rolls of sweating torso which flopped over the waistband of her skirt.

Si looked away. This was terrible, no way to live. He was tempted to wander over, offer the girl a drink, tell her to cover up. But guessing the reaction this would provoke, he just sighed and abandoned the girl to her humiliation.

Bill sat on the bench beside him sipping his pint. ‘Did you watch the Cup Final?' Si asked. He'd asked the same question a few weeks before but couldn't remember Bill's answer.

‘What Cup Final?'

Si wondered how to take this. He looked at Bill, taking in the shiny nose ring and the surrounding, inflamed skin which seemed to be going septic; at least his colleague's hair had grown a bit, although Si was unconvinced by the red tint Bill had recently applied. But perhaps most disconcerting about Bill's appearance today was the studded metal collar around his neck. This accessory was making its debut appearance. Si had managed during the morning to resist the temptation to nickname Bill ‘Fido' or to make doggy jokes. He knew this would only be met by a serious sense of humour failure.

It wasn't easy making conversation with Bill. On paper his subordinate was quite bright. And there was no doubt about his growing ambition. Bill clearly intended to take over the Diary at some stage. But despite this, Bill had few social skills and often appeared to be thick as two short planks. Si
suspected that much of this was deliberate and that Bill got a perverse pleasure from testing those who conversed with him. He probably regarded conversation as a sort of duel in which the winner was the one who managed to psyche his opponent into social niceties. No doubt Bill scorned Si's interest in his views, considering it a sign of weakness.

Si groaned inwardly. It was definitely one of those days. Bill was probably right to adopt the stonewall approach. He would make a good journalist one day, if he had the breaks. Compassion and understanding rarely sold newspapers.

‘Yeah, I saw it… Weeks ago, though,' admitted Bill eventually. Perhaps he had been psyched out himself by Si's protracted silence? ‘Crap, wasn't it?'

‘True, it wasn't great. But I suppose that the best team won in the end, didn't they?'

‘I hate Man United. They were crap. Even the goal was a fluke deflection.'

‘Oh, I don't know. It looked pretty inspired to me, the way Cantona cracked it through the defence. Fairy tale stuff, eh?'

Bill looked at Si as if he'd just confessed that he was an active paedophile. ‘It was crap,' he repeated sullenly.

Si studied the bottom of his pint glass. Against his better judgement, he pursued the subject. ‘What did you think of the new United lad?'

‘Which one?'

‘You know… Jimmy Sweeny's his name, I think?' Si hoped that this disingenuous approach might allow Bill to break with form and compliment his friend. He'd not mentioned his friendship with Jimmy to anyone at work before. But somehow it seemed important that a sceptic like Bill should appreciate Jimmy's success.

‘No idea. Can't say I noticed him. Even if I had, I doubt he was very good. United were crap. I really hate them. More than anything, I think.' Bill pondered this for a moment, an unusually alert expression illuminating his blunt features. He nodded sagely. ‘Yeah, definitely. More than anything.'

Si felt unutterably depressed. He suppressed a desire to grab Bill's dog collar and twist it until his colleague lay choking on the ground. Instead, he thought grimly that Bill clearly revelled in mediocrity, knocking talent and cynically undermining true excitement, blinded by petty jealousy. He clearly had the right skills to work on the Diary. Si realised it was going to be a long summer.

‘Let's get back, shall we? We've got a page to finish.'

Bill grunted. They raised themselves from the bench and shuffled in silence along the dusty street towards the hulking
Courier
building.

~

Mary pressed the button and turned off the telly. They were in Si's flat ensconced for an evening of take-away curry, an episode of
This Life
and if they had the stamina, for a video recording of last
Friday night's
Friends
and
Frasier
. In Si's book this was the perfect way to unwind. But Mary was now introducing a dissonant note.

‘So where does it end, Si? Do we just go on like this until we die?'

Si recognised the thought. The easiest thing in modern life was to keep going in a straight line: work, friends, films, sport, dinners out and so on. No need to do anything radical. Why rock the boat? He suspected that was why so few of his friends had married yet or had kids or done any of the great life-affirming acts which have traditionally measured out the span of human existence, the events between birth and death which endow direction and meaning and give the lie to Beckett's supreme, nihilistic image of women giving birth astride a yawning grave. Si wasn't sure how his contemporaries measured out their lives. They didn't really. They just assumed their present existence would continue forever. Perhaps that's why they were so serious, so purposeless, so un-attuned to the spiritual? Because endless life was such a depressing prospect.

‘So? What have you got to say, then?' Mary demanded.

Although Si recognised the question, he had not expected his girlfriend to put it to him, and he certainly didn't have a clear answer.

‘The thing is, Si… I love being with you. We go well together. But we're not getting any younger and I need to know how serious you are.'

‘About what?' It began to dawn on Si that Mary was coming at the question from a slightly different angle.

Exasperated, she shook her head violently. ‘About me, you idiot. Oh, I don't know why I bother.'

‘Right, I see. Sorry, I just didn't quite understand.' Si played for time. ‘Well, yeah, I agree. We're great together. But I guess I thought we could carry on like this for the moment. After all, we haven't known each other that long, have we?'

‘How long do you need? It's over six months. In another year I'll be thirty. Do you realise that?'

Si hadn't really thought about it. But now he did he saw what Mary was driving at. It wasn't that he didn't think he could marry Mary; he just hadn't thought they were anywhere near that stage yet. Obviously Mary had other ideas. ‘Listen, my love, I see what you're saying. But give me a bit of time, okay? I'm still trying to get my life under control, you know, at
The Courier
, and I'm not quite there yet. But trust me, okay? I'm not messing you around. Right?'

Mary seemed reasonably satisfied with the answer. She calmed down. ‘Okay. I'm not pressurising you or anything. I just sometimes wonder if you feel the same as I do. I'm sorry if I was unreasonable.' She leaned over and kissed him.

Si gathered her in his arms. For the moment the storm had passed. After what he judged to be a respectful interval, Si pressed the remote control and
This Life
flickered back on.

~

Resigning was far easier than Si had thought it would be. It was obviously the right thing to do.

‘Bill, how you doing?'

Bill looked up with a curious look on his face. A mixture of embarrassment and pity. ‘Morning, Si.' Despite the clock showing eleven thirty, Bill's voice contained no note of irony. ‘Look, Dougy's been on the phone. I think you'd better ring him.'

‘Did he say what it was about?'

‘Something to do with last night's page. He thought it wasn't that good.'

No, I bet he didn't, thought Si. It had been a pretty pathetic effort; even he knew that. Not only were there no stories about at the moment, but in the July heat it was hard to motivate himself to get out and dig them up. Bill had come up trumps with a story about the editor of a literary magazine, but one story was not enough. He'd had to resurrect a couple of old cast-offs and stretch the boundaries of journalistic license on another to make it even half-interesting. Even then the Diary had only filled two thirds of the space allotted to it. Dougy would surely not have accepted it without further work. But he'd been away and Si had left it with the Deputy Editor who hadn't commented.

‘Thanks, Bill.'

‘Do you want a coffee?' Bill was increasingly eager, helpful and professional. He knew his star was rising and it didn't cost him anything to be kind.

Perhaps he's taking pity on me, thought Si. But he couldn't feel any rancour towards Bill. Good luck to him. ‘Yeah, I'd love one. Thanks.'

After shuffling through a few faxes and routine mail, Si picked up the phone. ‘Is Dougy there?'

‘Hi, Si. I'll just put you through.'

Dougy didn't hang around. ‘Listen kid, I don't care what time you choose to pitch up in the morning. But I do care about this newspaper. What you served up last night was crap. If I'd been around I would have refused it. Unfortunately I wasn't. What's the excuse, eh?'

‘No excuses. I know it wasn't good but…'

‘Not good? It was diabolical.'

‘Yeah. It's just there's not a lot about at the moment… You know, it's a lean time for Diary stories.'

‘Don't bullshit me, Si. I know about newspapers. I've been doing this since you were in nappies. Of course there aren't any stories… That's why you're paid to find them. Do you get where I'm coming from?'

Si knew Dougy was right. He was just making excuses to himself. There were always stories in a city like London. Just sometimes one had to try harder to find them. That took determination and drive—two qualities Si had been lacking recently.

‘Now listen up, kid. I'm not about to sack you. This time, anyhow. I still think you've got what it takes. But don't let me down again, okay?'

‘Okay. I mean I won't. Today's page will be much better, I promise.'

‘It'd better be.' And Dougy was gone.

But it wasn't. Bill found a fun angle on the Edinburgh Festival: a bright varsity comic duo with the talent to follow in the footsteps of a panoply of stars from previous generations. But while Bill tapped away happily on his word processor, Si's leads all ended in frustration.

He skipped lunch and tried phoning contacts who had produced successful stories in the past. He drew a blank.

Then Bill got a call from one of his many sources with a bit of gossip about the opening of a new restaurant. He finished off the Edinburgh Festival and cracked on with the new piece.

Meanwhile, Si made himself a coffee and leaned back in his chair, deep in thought.

It became apparent to Si that he had to be courageous. For the first time in his life he had to take a really difficult and crucial decision. He'd always done what was expected of him and it occurred to him that he was aptly named:
si
meaning yes in several languages. This provoked a wry smile but no real happiness. It was inescapably clear that at the age of twenty-eight he needed to say no for once and take control of his life.

He had proved that he could be a journalist, maybe even quite a good one. But in his heart of hearts he knew he didn't want to be an editor one day, and, more importantly, he didn't want to be a journalist now. In fact, he probably didn't want a career at all. Not that he was lazy—no, it was just that he needed to believe in what he was doing.

Si wasn't sure what he would do, but right now he wanted the time and space to change direction. Of course, he would need money to live. But for the moment he had enough savings to live on for at least six months. Until the fog cleared and he found out what he should do. He had no doubt that he would find the right course if he took the time to look around carefully.