‘Won’t you come and have a cup of tea in Lovely Mary’s?’ she smiled, touching her newly permed hair and secretly blessing M’sieur Alphonse for his finesse.
‘Will ya no’ look at this rubbish,’ spat John Ross. He’d adopted his customary posture in the chief sub-editor’s chair, lolling sideways and flipping bits of copy paper over his shoulder as he read and rejected them. His foot pushed the bottom drawer of his desk back and forth, and from within you could hear the rattle of a half-empty bottle of Black and White whisky.
A couple of junior reporters looked up, then hastily down again. They may only have been here since leaving school in the summer, but already they’d learned the perils of being sucked into Ross’s vortex of cynicism and derision.
‘Betty Featherstone at her vairy worrrst! Listen to this:
FOND FAREWELL TO TEMPLE’S
TREMENDOUS SIR FREDDY.
‘Friends, admirers and well-wishers gathered at the Temple Regis Conservative Club at the weekend to give a rousing send-off to Sir Frederick Hungerford, who steps down as the town’s MP next spring.
‘Sir Freddy, as he is known, has for forty years served the constituency with distinction and dedication. His place as Conservative candidate at the general election will be taken by Mrs Mirabel Clifford, a prominent Temple Regis solicitor whose Market Square practice was established in 1950.
‘A much-loved figure in the…
‘I canna go orn,’ wailed the chief sub-editor. ‘Did the man write it himself? I canna imagine anyone else getting it so wrong!’
He got up and stalked over to the juniors’ desk. ‘I’ll expect better of ye when it’s yeur turn to write about politics. This man – he’s turned himself into a saint.’
There followed a lengthy monologue along the lines of how this businessman’s son had reinvented himself as a member of the aristocracy, and even now was awaiting the call to the House of Lords as reward for the years of his devoted service in the bars of Westminster and Whitehall.
Hungerford, ranted Ross, never visited the constituency, discouraged visitors to the House of Commons, served on no parliamentary committees, and spent a lot of time toadying round the fringes of royalty. His service to self-promotion was exemplary, however.
‘Betty!’ he yelled, but to no avail – she was having her hair done. Again. She’d taken the wiser course of action and written a chunk of syrupy prose rather than the mutinous squib she’d threatened Sir Freddy with on Friday night. The editor liked Betty and gave her extra big bylines on Page One – why rock that particular boat?
With a grunt Ross picked up the pieces of copy paper he’d scattered to the four winds and shoved them viciously on the spike. ‘Picture caption only,’ he ordered one of his underlings. If Freddy Hungerford lived by the oxygen of publicity, he could suffocate as far as John Ross was concerned.
‘Next!’
It was Tuesday morning, and though the Riviera Express described itself as a ‘news’ paper, most of what would appear on its pages this coming weekend was already sewn up – Renishaw’s entry-fee piece for Page One and a small picture of Betty having her hair done with a turn to Page Two. Page Three top, Judy’s hospital crisis. Then, through the rest of the newspaper, the customary smorgasboard of inconsequence and run-of-the-mill which each week was lapped up by the readership.
There was a piece on a new operating table at the local vet’s, an item about lost anchors in Bedlington Harbour, and a picture story on an irritating child prodigy who would go far (and the sooner the better). The centrepiece, as always, was Athene Madrigale’s glorious page of predictions for the coming week:
Sagittarius – Oh, how lucky you were to be born under this sign. Nothing but sunshine for you all week!
Cancer – Someone has prepared a big surprise for you. Be patient, it may take a while to appear, but what pleasure it will bring!
Capricorn – All your troubles are behind you now. Start thinking about your holidays!
If there was a ring of familiarity to these soothing phrases – indeed, if any reader had a sharp enough memory – Athene might easily be accused of self-plagiarism. But no right-minded Temple Regent would do that, for she was a much-loved figure in the town with her long flowing robes a kaleidoscope of colours, her iron-grey hair tied back with a blue paper flower and, often as not, odd shoes on her feet. When Athene spoke – whether in print or on the rare occasions she granted an audience – the world slowed its frantic spin and everything in it seemed all right again.
Only slowly had Rudyard Rhys come to realise what an asset this ethereal figure was to his publication, but when he tried to make Athene his agony aunt – offering tea and sympathy, solving problems, restarting people’s lives – she was driven to despair. For Athene discovered, when given her first batch of readers’ letters, that there is no solution to some problems – indeed, to most problems. And being Athene, she could not bear to face that eternal truth.
So instead she now doubled as Aunty Jill, writing the Kiddies’ Korner which featured the birthday photographs of some of the ugliest children in the West Country. This, too, was a great success – they loved her and, having no children of her own, she loved them.
A centre-spread of photographs sent in by readers, a welter of wedding reports, a raft of local district news, and pages and pages of football reports, made up the rest of the wholesome mix which constituted the Riviera Express. That was enough for its readership – leave the scandal to the Sunday papers!
Temple Flower Club – Our demonstrator for the evening was Mrs Lydia Sabey, a florist from Dartmouth, and her exhibit was titled Going Dutch. She started off with a copper urn and created an arrangement depicting the Dutch artists using coral and red dahlias, cosmos, red trailing amaranthus, berries and grapes…
Riviera Writers’ Group – Mrs Bellairs read her first piece since joining the group and held us spellbound with her account of a Christmas party with a twist – she took us on a visit to a stately home with dark-panelled walls, hidden chambers and relics belonging to a persecuted Catholic priest. She then proceeded to find herself trapped between time dimensions…
Bedlington Social Club – Mrs Bantham led the meeting and introduced our speaker, Mrs Havering from Torquay. Her first recital was the Devon Alphabet, never heard by any of us before!
Occasionally there was room in the Express for something meatier, and certainly the goings-on down at the Magistrates Court could provide enough spice to fill the paper several times over. But as an editor Rhys lived cautiously, caught between angry city fathers desperate that nothing should besmirch the town’s reputation, and underlings desperate to tap out the truth on their Olivettis and Remingtons. It was the city fathers who invariably prevailed.
In the far corner of the newsroom by the window overlooking the brewery, a tremendous thundering could be heard. It was the newcomer David Renishaw, evidently putting the finishing touches to what was destined to be the bombshell Page One splash – that Temple Regis would soon be charging holidaymakers for the privilege of walking its gilded streets.
The rate at which you could hear the ‘ting’ from the carriage return showed just how rapidly Renishaw worked, with barely a pause to consult his shorthand notes. Such industry in a weekly newspaper was unusual and, to be frank, unnerving: if you were lucky enough to get the splash, you could save up writing it till Thursday morning – this was only Tuesday!
With a final flourish,