Martin Harbottle's Appreciation of Time (31 page)

Read all about it! You know those 2,000 court cases currently being brought against the once-mighty but now universally despised
Sunday Globe
? Well, strike one off! Minus one that bad girl till she squeals! Call it 1,999 cases now! Max respect all round!

Why? Who’s pulled out? Who’s got cold feet and cashed in his chips? Who do you think? Only your friend and mine, England’s former golden child, the once-extravagantly gifted and now permanently consigned-to-the-bench Jamie Best.

The boy Jamie and his case for privacy. Saying the nation has no interest in his haircuts (I’m inclined to agree, but he’s the one being paid millions by a hair-product manufacturer). Claiming the people do not need nor want to know about the parade of soap girls, models and former high-class escorts on his arm (so why parade them at all? Why encourage them to pose on the red carpets and nightclub thresholds?). Insisting that the whole business with the bagful of Iggle Piggles and the red-handed security footage was either a stitch-up or an intrusion into his personal business or both. He was promising fireworks in court, was Jamie. He was going to give the crowd exactly the thrills he’s been failing to deliver on the pitch all season.

And then… yesterday’s arrest. In an out-of-town retail park, in the aisles of a vast and cavernous Mothercare. With approximately three dozen six-inch Gruffalos stuffed down his shirt. Thirty-six Gruffalos (Gruffalo? Gruffali? What is the plural?) and all of Our Jamie’s case collapses. Because every paper’s got the story tomorrow, and the public interest will never have been higher. Silly boy.

One down, Martin, 1,999 to go, right? We can still win this, lads!

Au revoir
!

Dan

PS – Sorry about that crossword. It was rubbish, wasn’t it? My dad would not have been proud of that effort. Or maybe he would. Maybe he’d have been proud of any effort, sincerely made. It’s funny, you know – I never could second-guess him on that kind of thing. I relied on the odd look, the pat on the shoulder, the regular letters that never really said anything but that always came with a carefully drawn puzzle (always so much better than the sorry effort I sent you). And after he died, I found, under the bed, filed with the same care and attention, all my clippings, all the bylines I’d amassed to that point, every little grubby NIB and showbiz snippet and snatched quote I’d managed to squeeze into the papers. Carefully cut out and stored in photo albums. And he’d never said a word about it. So who knows? Maybe he would have been proud, after all. You just can’t tell, in the end, can you?

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
22.50 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, February 28.

Dear Dan

I do hope you’re well. Thank you for your recent letters and apologies for my late reply. I have been extraordinarily busy, I’m sure you understand.

Your train on February 17 was late leaving Oxford due to an earlier incident with a freight train shedding some of its cargo in the Taplow area. Fourteen Renault Clios were unfortunately written off in the incident – though I should point out that they were all empty of passengers and were being transported from London to Reading at the time.

On February 22, another incident in the same area involving a lightning strike and a fallen tree caused similar delays. As I’m sure you appreciate, neither incident was technically the fault of Premier Westward, but naturally we did our best to work with Network Rail to ensure that our passengers experienced as little delay as possible.

Your lengthy delay on the way home the following day was admittedly due to a fault on one of our trains. I am sorry to say that my job as managing director does not allow me the luxury of time to pursue ‘word puzzles’ but I am sure that the crossword you were kind enough to create for me was every bit as good as any of your father’s.

As far as non-train-related business is concerned, I do hope you are well. You certainly sound much happier of late. Positively buoyant in your last two letters! Have you spoken to your wife yet? And is the fearsome ‘Goebbels’ happier with your work? I did see Mr Best’s arrest on the news. It must be a great relief to all at the
Globe
that he’s still such a troubled young man.

Best

Martin

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
22.50 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, March 1. Amount of my day wasted: 12 minutes. Fellow sufferers: Overkeen Estate Agent.

Oh, Martin. Have I been getting you wrong all this time? Have I been underestimating you? Are you actually a bit of a sarcastic so-and-so? That last line… that had bite, Martin! That had teeth! And what’s with all the buoyant stuff? Are you being deliberately satirical? I’m not buoyant. When I get carried away with the screamers and the superlatives, when I extend my metaphors to metaphorical breaking point, when I get hyperactive with my adjectives… it’s not because suddenly everything’s OK in my pitiful life again. It’s because it’s all I’ve got.

Don’t you get it? You’re all I’ve got. You’re the only one left to try to impress. My wife’s gone back to her mother’s (telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty, as the song has it), my beautiful baby daughter’s been dragged with her, and my readers, the millions I used to make laugh every week with my cynical asides on the career aspirations and pratfalls of the nation’s celebs, well, now they’re not sure whether to secretly smile or to tut and frown in disapproval. Even Universal Grandpa’s daughter has stopped flirting with me. Or if she still is, he’s choosing not to pass the messages on.

So you’re it. It’s all on you. Even if you are showing a hitherto-unsuspected sarcastic side to your character. Even if you’re not that interested anyway. Even if my word puzzles bore you sometimes.

So, to answer your questions: no, I have not spoken to my wife yet. I haven’t even tried. She should be the one to call me, right? She’s the one who should be trying to build bridges and make amends. She’s the one who should be doing whatever it takes to save our marriage, given she’s the one who smashed a wrecking ball right through it. It’s not up to me to make the first move. I’m the victim here.

And you know what else? I am going to follow the advice of Train Girl. I’m not going to sit around in my empty house crying over dummies in the fridge and bits of shopping lists found in my pocket (‘nappies’ – how can the word ‘nappies’ reduce a grown man to tears like that? How can that one stupid word keep me sobbing all night? Was it the word itself, the reminder that I haven’t changed a nappy in weeks, or was it the fact it was written by Beth? Can I not even see her handwriting without crying now?). I’m not going to do any of that any more. I’m taking action!

Train Girl and I are going out. We’re going to smash up the place. We’re going to paint the town red and then paint it black and then paint it red all over again. We’re going to enjoy ourselves, like normal people do. The untouchably cool, the effortlessly good-looking, the unutterably sorted Train Girl… and me. The beautiful and the damned.

What was your other question? Something about Goebbels? Is he happier with me? Well, actually, as it happens, since you ask and believe it or not… yes, he is. The mad old nutjob. Do you want to know why?

We’re running the teenager-tupping Tory taxdodger story. He said he wanted to go after the people going after us and so we’re taking down the elected member who’s been most vocal in his criticism. He’s spent the last few weeks appearing on every news bulletin, talk show and liberal newspaper – and always spinning the same line, the same uncompromising condemnation of our methods, our madness (his phrase). He has, in short, set himself right up for a fall. And Goebbels wants us to be the ones to knock him over. Poetic justice, he calls it. Also: justice. There ain’t no justice – just us.

It’s not running this week, but it’s down to splash next week. We’ve got the photos (those girls in their school uniforms, wide-eyed and pouty, perched on the edge of the bed in the swanky hotel room, the champagne and truffles, looking terribly young but also old enough, looking terribly innocent but also not innocent enough…), we’ve got their words, their breathless confessions, we’ve got the corroborating receipts, the copies of expenses claims. The lawyers have had a look. We’re getting it all double-legalled now. We’re going to plaster it all over the front page a week on Sunday and, in the words of Goebbels, ‘show them just what it means to go to war with the
Globe
’. It’s all going to kick off.

And there will be my name, underneath the headline. There will be my name, under what will be our most-talked-about splash of the year. And what do I think about that? Excited: yes. Terrified: also yes. The story’s solid, I’m sure of that… but it’s our nuclear option. We’re firing our big weapons now. We’re launching a full-scale attack and I can’t help thinking that the one thing we know about nuclear war is that nobody really wins in the end.

Christ, I do sound a bit buoyant, after all, don’t I? I’m not buoyant, Martin. And despite the bluster, I meant what I said. I might be hitting the town with Train Girl again, but I’m still in bits over my wife and daughter. I might be about to score the biggest scalp of my journalistic career, but work is still utterly hellish.

You’re all I’ve got. These letters – they’re kind of all I’ve got. Talking to you is all I’ve got. And isn’t that rather pathetic, in the end?

Au revoir
!

Dan

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
22.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, March 7. Amount of my day wasted: seven minutes. Fellow sufferers: Overkeen Estate Agent.

Oh holy crap, Martin. It’s all happened. More unwelcome visitors in the newsroom. Not the police this time, but internal security. A pair of them marched in, all little grey suits and shiny shoes and name badges… they marched in, marched past everyone, entered Goebbels’ office without knocking, said something to him, and then stood back as he burst out laughing. And then stood back again as he pushed past them and addressed the whole floor.

‘Go on,’ he said, still grinning that chilling, humourless grin he has. ‘Say that again. Tell the whole paper what you just told me. We could all do with a laugh. Say it again and crack us all up.’

One of them stepped forward. Cleared his throat. Actually adjusted his (clip-on) tie. ‘I have been asked to escort you from the building,’ he said. ‘Effective immediately you are dismissed from your position at this newspaper and are no longer an employee of the company. You’re to give me your security pass, your mobile phone, your laptop, and accompany me off the premises. If necessary I’ve been instructed to make sure these things are carried out by force.’

Goebbels roared with laughter. ‘Brilliant, eh?’ he shouted. ‘Priceless! Perfect! What do you think, team? Isn’t that the best joke you’ve heard in years?’

Utter silence.

He turned back to the security men, no longer smiling. ‘Now,’ he hissed, ‘why don’t you piss off back to your little office in the basement and get back to looking at your little CCTV monitors and let me do my job?’

For a second nobody moved. And then they each took an arm, twisted them behind his back and frogmarched him across the floor and out of the door. We could hear his screams all the way down the lift.

And then, almost as one, we turned to the television (the replaced television, replacing the one Goebbels smashed) and the live feed from outside our offices and watched as Goebbels was thrown – literally thrown, slapstick style – out of the building and landed in a heap on the pavement. And then we watched as he charged at the door and bounced back off the glass, landing on the floor again. And then we watched as he got to his feet for the second time, blood streaming from his nose, hair wild, eyes glaring, opened his mouth, screamed like an animal and launched himself straight at the cameramen.

And then the live feed switched back to the studio. And that, I can’t help thinking, is the last we’ve seen of him.

What did we do? We sat there in silence for a while… and then we went to the pub. Later we got an email from someone in the managing editor’s office. Goebbels has been sacked following ‘an internal investigation into activities surrounding the illegal accessing of civilians’ private information’. He’s now been arrested too – for that, and for four counts of assault on three journalists from the broadsheets and a News 24 cameraman outside our office.

And so he’s gone. It’s a hell of a story, right?

Au revoir
!

Dan

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
23.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, March 10. Amount of my day wasted: five minutes. Fellow sufferers: No regulars (Saturday).

Guess what I did today? On the day before my big splash on the tax-fiddling Tory and his teenage totty? Guess what I did, in the offices of the
Globe
?

I hacked into Beth’s email. I illegally accessed her private information. Harry the Dog helped me.

‘The thing about passwords,’ he said, as the pair of us stared at the Gmail log-in page, ‘is that they’re always simpler than you think. Nobody can be bothered doing all that stuff with mixing up letters and numbers and what-have-yous. People can’t remember that stuff. Names, jobs, street names, birthday months, football teams, football players, film stars, pop stars. I’d say 99 percent of passwords fall into one of those categories. And the best thing about webmail is it gives you unlimited chances to guess. All you need is a little persistence.’

I folded my arms and looked at him. ‘And you know this how?’

He grinned. ‘Everyone knows it, old boy. Everyone who knows what they’re doing knows it. Don’t tell me you’ve never got into someone’s email before.’

I’ve never got into someone’s email before, Martin. It’s illegal. And then today I got into Beth’s email.

It took us 17 goes to get it. And do you know what her password was? It was my name.

I know. Don’t say it: I know.

Anyway: Harry left then and I had a quick scoot through her email history. Were there any revelations? Well, yes. Were they damning? Did they paint her as the wicked harridan, the fallen woman, the scheming unfaithful wife leading her poor husband up the proverbial garden path? Well, no, actually.

She’s been emailing her friend Karen. About us, I mean. About what’s happened between us. Here’s part of the most recent:

Kazza, it’s awful. Really, properly awful. He’s not even called since we came back to Mum’s. I know I keep saying it, but I’ve just fucked everything up so badly. What if he doesn’t call? What if he never calls?

Mum says to give him time but all I do is cry all the time. I’m stupid. I’m so stupid. I can’t believe I’ve done this to us. And you know what’s really stupid? Dan’s being a dick, of course he’s being a dick, he’s a dick a lot of the time, but that’s who he is. He was a dick when I married him. He gets himself into a state over stupid work things all the time, but he’s still Dan. He’s still my Dan. And I know it sounds crazy but I love him. I love him so much and now I’ve thrown it all away.

Christ.

Now I feel really bad. And you know what else I realised? I don’t even know who Karen is. Martin, what she did – it was wrong. It was terribly wrong. But I don’t even know who her best friend is. How can I not even know who my wife’s best friend is? What sort of husband does that make me?

And also: am I a dick? I’m not a dick, am I?

Au revoir
!

Dan

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
23.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, March 10.

Dear Dan

Thank you for your recent letters. As I believe I have mentioned before, delays of under ten minutes are not officially classed as delays at all, but I can tell you that your 12-minute delay on March 1 was due to a signalling issue and as a result we had to reroute some services. Unfortunately the 22.50 from Paddington was one of those affected.

I would also like to congratulate you on your ‘scoop’ in this Sunday’s paper. I must confess that following your tip-off I did buy a copy (I hid it inside my usual
Sunday
Telegraph
– wouldn’t want the neighbours to know, after all!) and I do think you did a splendid job. To carry on like that with his own daughters’ friends (two of them!), to claim their assignations on parliamentary expenses! As a father and a tax payer and a right-minded citizen I am shocked at his behaviour. All I can say is that the man is a disgrace and you’ve done exactly the right thing in exposing him. If only your newspaper always held such high standards you wouldn’t be in the mess you are at the moment!

Anyway, well done. I felt oddly proud of you, Daniel.

Best

Martin

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
07.31 Premier Westward Railways train from Oxford to London Paddington, March 13. Amount of my day wasted: ten minutes. Fellow sufferers: Train Girl, Universal Grandpa, Guilty New (Spymaster) Mum.

Oh Martin, I’m blushing. I’m pleased as punch you’re proud of me. Truly, I’m not even being sarcastic. Believe it or not, it really does matter to me. Isn’t that pathetic? I mean, no offence, but isn’t that pathetic?

Anyway. Thank you. Genuinely. And I’m sorry you felt the need to hide my paper in the folds of your downmarket broadsheet rag.

As it turns out you’re not the only person to offer congratulations. An email came round from circulation yesterday – our figures were up on Sunday. Up! For the first time in months, we actually sold more copies of the paper than we had the previous week. That’s what leading the news agenda does, Martin. That’s how you keep advertisers on board: get scoops, sell papers, increase circulation. Old Goebbels, as it turns out, wasn’t quite so crazy as he made out. He understood that, at least.

So, all in all, a good day for us. For the paper, and for me. I’m not even worried about the teen-tupping Tory’s threats of retribution. The randy old hypocrite’s been crucified, pilloried, neutered by the press, thrown out of his own party, threatened with a police enquiry and now kicked out of his own home by his (justifiably furious) family. I reckon that although he’s almost certainly seriously angry, he’s no longer got the clout to do anything about it. And it serves him right, too.

And, weirdest of all, there were congratulations on the train.

Universal Grandpa – he came up to me on the platform (serious breach of commuter etiquette there!). He shook my hand. He said that I’d done a good job. He said that if I kept up that kind of thing I could leave the ‘smutty stuff’ behind and ‘get a job on one of the qualities’. And you know what? Six months ago I might have had a go at him for saying that. I might have started on about the so-called qualities and the respective levels of journalism and all that other stuff… but I didn’t. I smiled back. I shook his hand back. I said thank you. I said: ‘It’s nice to have written something you’ve enjoyed as much as your daughter.’

And you know what he said? He said: ‘You should know my daughter has learning difficulties.’ He smiled as he said it, that twinkly, kind, Grandpa smile. ‘She doesn’t really understand what you write. She just knows you’re being cheeky about her favourite celebrities. And when I read it to her I miss out all the ruder bits.’

And still chuckling, he patted me on the shoulder, got on the train and set off down the carriage.

Um. Crikey! What to make of that! I feel awkward about the flirting thing, now, for a start.

Anyway. That wasn’t the end of it. I saw Train Girl this morning. She’d saved my splash again, that same way she did when I did for Jamie Best. Isn’t that sweet? Isn’t that thoughtful? She produced it with a flourish as she jumped late on the train as usual and barrelled down the aisle. She waved it, she shouted – ‘Hey scoop!’ – brandishing it above her head, laughing. Christ, Martin, she’s a looker though.

Seriously. I know I shouldn’t be thinking this (despite everything) but Train Girl’s a proper looker. Standing there, waving my paper, her face lit up, her hair pushed back behind her ears, coat off, arms bare, that short skirt, the perfect taper of her legs perfectly outlined in thick black tights… she even makes thick black tights look hot.

And then, when she got to my seat, as I sat slightly bashful and a bit embarrassed, she threw her arms around my neck, planted a big smacker on my lips and laughed, saying ‘Look at you, Woodward and Bernstein!’ and ruffled the bit on the back of my neck where my hairline ends.

And what did I do? I wasn’t sure what to do. Everyone was staring. Guilty New (Spymaster) Mum paused mid-phone conversation and stared at me with an expression of part confusion, part shock, part worry on her face (has she just realised she’s been sharing her calls with a
Sunday Globe
journalist?). I just looked at my lap and kind of stammered something about just doing my job, ma’am, and Train Girl laughed again, and sat down too, angling towards me as always, her hand still on my arm, our knees touching.

And then she told me, at some length, most of the way to London (including the ten extra minutes you so thoughtfully laid on to our service today, above and beyond the advertised and scheduled time for the journey), how she had read my story in bed on Sunday morning. Alone. Lying sprawled in only the old East 17 t-shirt she sleeps in (when she sleeps alone), half-in and half-out of the duvet, curled around a cushion… how she had read my story and couldn’t help but get excited about it.

‘There I was,’ she whispered, ‘basically naked but for my t-shirt, still all mussed-up from sleep, stretched out in my big bed by myself… and I was reading words you’d written! It was like hearing you speak to me – in bed, in the morning. And I imagined you writing them, I pictured you on the trail of the story, chasing down the leads, nailing down the facts, and I could almost see you directing the photoshoot, those two girls in their sexy little uniforms, I could almost hear you grilling them about exactly what they used to get up to with him…’

And she said all this with a smile on her face, a laugh in her voice, but I knew she wasn’t making fun of me. ‘Honestly, Dan, I had to take a shower after. The whole thing was just so… hot.’

And then I had to change the subject. Obviously. Of course. We were on a train, there were people standing in the aisles and also, you know, I’m married. I’m a married man. I had to change the subject.

Unfortunately the only thing I could think to change the subject to was to firm up a date for our next night out. So we’re going out on Saturday. After work. I would say wish me luck, but I’m not sure whether you would or not. You probably don’t approve, do you, Martin? You’re probably tutting and shaking your head as we speak. I don’t blame you. I am, after all, a bit of a dick.

Au revoir
!

Dan

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
22.20 Premier Westward Railways train from London Paddington to Oxford, March 15. Amount of my day wasted: ten minutes. Fellow sufferer: Overkeen Estate Agent.

Back to life. Back to reality. Back to the here and now. You know that sales spike on Sunday – the one led by my lead, the one brought about by good old-fashioned tabloid journalism, the one that heralded the revival of our paper and the point at which we kick against the pricks and start our glorious fightback? Yeah, that one. Well, as it turns out… it’s not made a blind bit of difference.

After a day or two going after the dishonourable member, the focus is firmly back on us. The police are promising more arrests. The government are demanding answers. And even after claiming the scalps of the features ed, the showbiz ed, the chief exec and Goebbels himself, the great British public are crying out for more blood. Scapegoats are being sought, Martin, and, as the top copper promised in every daily newspaper today: ‘Nobody is safe. From the lowliest cub reporter to the managing editor and every single employee of the company in-between. None of them are safe. We are coming after you and we will find you and we will bring you to justice and we will keep doing so until every last person responsible for the systematic culture of illegality at the newspaper has paid the price before the law.’

And that, I would say, is fairly unequivocal.

But you know what it put me in mind of? You know what that kind of language evoked for me? It conjured up a single word, Martin: ‘cleansing’. They want to cleanse the paper. They want to bombard us and batter us and smash us up and tear us down and then they want to bulldoze us all away until there’s no trace of the former regime left. They want to cleanse us, same as your man in North Africa is cleansing the old rule and the new rule out over there.

The advertisers – our last barrier against their offensive, the great buffer we had against whatever they threw at us, the enormous safety net which meant we could keep putting our paper out, keep generating profit, every week – the advertisers are pulling out.

Two major supermarkets split yesterday, a multinational department store, a couple of clothes chains and a global restaurant franchise jumped today. There will be more tomorrow. This has got momentum now.

And meanwhile… meanwhile we keep turning up for work. Shouldering our way past the pack outside, ignoring the catcalls and yells from the saddos with placards (‘Murderers!’ is what one woman screamed at me this morning. Who exactly does she think I murdered?), submitting ourselves to third-degree searches from the same security guards we saw throw Goebbels out of the building… We keep turning up here, keep sitting down and logging on and trying to get on with the job we’re paid to do.

And I’ll be honest with you, Martin. It’s not much fun, you know? It’s really not at all.

Wee Tim’rous Trainee is scared. In the pub after work, with Harry the Dog and Bombshell, she just said it: ‘I’m scared.’

Everyone stared at her.

‘I’m scared of what’s happening at the newspaper. I don’t want to get arrested. I hate all those people calling us scum. I hate it. What am I going to do if I get arrested? What will my mum say?’