‘Oh, it’s OK, I’m a lightweight anyway,’ Zoe says. ‘I’ll have a Diet Coke as well.’
We scan the laminated menus on the bar, hearts sinking. The Castle’s menus have clearly been written by marketing managers who think they are conversant in the foreign language of ‘funny’. We try merely pointing at our selected lunch items to save our dignity. No dice with the morose barman.
‘I’ve got astigmatism,’ he says, as if I should know this.
‘Oh,’ I reply, flustered, trying for the last route out. ‘Then we’ll both have the Ploughman’s.’
‘Naked, Piggy or Extra Pickly?’
Dammit. ‘Piggy,’ I mumble, defeated. ‘Naked for her.’
‘You want that as a melt?’ he sighs, in a way that suggests most of the world’s problems are down to people like us wanting melts. We decide we do, but both pass on a squirt of the chef’s special sauce, given we’re not on nodding terms with him.
We make small talk, battling the octave range of Mariah Carey and multiple televisions, while two microwave-warm plates are banged down under our noses. As soon as Zoe finishes her meal, she says ‘Here’s what I wrote’, brushing crumbs off her hands and producing a spiral-bound notepad from her bag, flipping to the right page. ‘I wrote it out longhand.’
I feel a twinge of irritation at being expected to mentor while I’m still eating, but swallow it, along with a mouthful of rubbery cheese. I scan her story, braced for, if not car crash copy, a fender bender at the very least. But it’s good. In fact, it’s very fluid and confident for a first time.
‘This is good,’ I nod, and Zoe beams. ‘You’ve got the right angle, that the father and the uncle don’t deny that they went to see the boyfriend.’
‘What if something better comes up this afternoon? Do you stick with your first instinct?’
‘Possible but unlikely. The wheels turn pretty slowly. We probably won’t get on to the boyfriend’s evidence this afternoon.’
I hand Zoe’s notepad back to her.
‘So how long have you been here?’ she asks.
‘Too long. I went to uni here and did my training in Sheffield, then came to the Evening News as a trainee.’
‘Do you like court?’
‘I do, actually, yeah. I was always better at writing the stories than finding them, so this suits me. And the cases are usually interesting.’ I pause, worried I sound like the kind of ghoul who goes to inspect the notes on roadside flowers. ‘Obviously it’s nasty sometimes.’
‘What’s it like here?’ Zoe asks. ‘The news editor seems a bit scary.’
‘Oh yeah.’ With the flat of my knife, I push away a heap of gluey coleslaw that must’ve been on the plate when they heated it. ‘Managing Ken is like wrestling a crocodile. We all have the bite marks to show for it. Has he asked you the octuplets question yet?’
Zoe shakes her head.
‘A woman’s had octuplets, ninetuplets, whatever. You get the first hospital bedside interview, while she’s still whacked up on drugs. What’s the one question you don’t leave without asking?’
‘Er … did it hurt?’
‘Are you going to have any more? She’ll probably try to throw the bowl of grapes at you but that’s his point. You’re a journalist, always think like one. Look for the line.’
‘Right,’ Zoe’s brow furrows, ‘I’ll remember that.’
I feel that hopeless twinge of wanting to save someone the million cock-ups you made when you were new, and knowing they will make their own originals, and trying to save them anyway.
‘Be confident, don’t bullshit and if you do mess up and it’s going to come out, own up. Ken might still bawl at you but he’ll trust you next time when you say it’s not your fault. Lying’s his bête noire.’
‘Right.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I assure her. ‘It can be a bit overwhelming at first, then sooner or later, you start to recognise all human experience boils down to half a dozen various types of story, and you know exactly how desk will want them written. Which of course is when you’ve achieved the necessary cynicism, and should move on.’
‘Why did you want to be a journalist?’ Zoe asks.
‘Hah! Lois Lane.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Oh yes. The brunette’s brunette. Ballsy, stood up to her boss, had her own rooftop apartment and that floaty blue negligee. And she went out with Superman. My mum used to put the Christopher Reeve films on if I was off sick from school and I’d watch them on a loop. “You’ve got me, who’s got you?” Brilliant.’
‘Isn’t it weird how we make big decisions in life based on the strangest, most random things?’ Zoe says, sucking the straw in her Coke until it gurgles. ‘Like, maybe if your mum had put Batman on we wouldn’t be sat here right now.’
‘Hmm,’ I murmur indistinctly, and change the subject.
7
I see Mindy a mile off in her purple coat and red shoes. She looks like a burst of Bollywood sunshine compared to my kitchen-sink-drama drab black and white.
She calls it her Indian magpie tendencies – she can’t resist jewel colours and shiny things. The shiniest thing about her is always her hair. For as long as I’ve known Mindy, she’s used this 99p coconut shampoo that leaves her with a corona of light around her liquorice-black bob. I used it once and ended up with an NHS acrylic weave, made of hay.
She spots me and swings a key on a ribbon, like a hypnotist with a fob watch. ‘At last!’
Mindy isn’t kidding about it being central. Five minutes later we’re there, stood in front of a red-brick Victorian building which has changed from a temple of hard toil to a place of elegant lounging for the moneyed.
‘Fourth floor,’ Mindy says, gazing up. ‘Hopefully there’s a lift.’
There is, but it’s out of order, so we huff up several flights of stairs, heels pounding in time.
‘No parking,’ Mindy reminds me. ‘Is Rhys keeping the car?’
‘Oh yes. Given the way negotiations have gone so far, I’m glad we don’t have any pets or children.’
My mind flashes back to hours of my life I’d pay good money to have erased. We sat and worked out how to pick apart two totally meshed lives, me effectively saying ‘Have it, have it all!’ and Rhys snapping ‘Does it mean so little to you?’
Mindy slots the key in the lock of the anonymous looking Flat 21 and pushes the door open.
‘Shit the sheets,’ she breathes, reverentially. ‘She said it was nice but I didn’t know she meant this nice.’
We walk into the middle of a cavernous room with exposed brickwork walls. A desert of blonde wood flooring stretches out before us. Pools of honeyed light are cast here and there from some vertical paper lamps that look like alien pupae, or as if a member of Spinal Tap might tear their way out of them. The L-shaped sofa in the sitting area is an acre of snowy tundra, scattered with cushions in shades of ivory and beigey-bone. I mentally put a line through any meals involving soy sauce, red wine or flaky chocolate. That’s most Friday nights as I know them buggered.
Mindy and I wander around, going ‘woooh’ and pointing like zombies when we discover the wet room with glass sink, or the queen-sized bed with silvery silk coverlet, or the ice-cream-pink Smeg fridge.