‘But you know his reputation,’ said Miss Dimont, who’d met the brute at the Constitutional Club. ‘And a Freemason as well – what were you thinking of?’
‘He said he wanted it that way and I did it to please him.’
‘Surely not!’
‘He made me.’
‘It’s a woman’s right to decide for herself!’
‘You don’t know what it’s like when they ask.’
You’re right, thought Miss Dimont, I don’t. The chief reporter pushed her notebook aside and got up to make the tea.
‘I don’t know, Betty,’ she said, ‘there was Derek. Then Claud Hannaford in that revolting pink Rolls-Royce – now Dudley Fensome. All in the last few weeks. None of them seems to show you any respect.’
‘I know,’ wailed Betty, ‘sometimes I’m just like putty in their hands…’ Not just sometimes, thought Miss D. But it was true – the burning desire of a bachelor Freemason had got the better of Betty. It might have been better if she’d got a professional to take care of the problem straight away, but Betty had to go and do it herself.
She looked wretched.
‘Platinum’s not so bad,’ said Miss Dimont finally, looking down at the disaster from above, teapot in hand. ‘There are a couple of green patches over your ears, granted, but I’ve got that nice crochet hat the Mothers’ Union gave me last winter – you can have that.’
Betty Featherstone wailed even louder.
Nobody else in the newsroom of the Riviera Express took much notice. It was press day, the usual hubbub of a busy newsroom augmented by the occasional bellow of anguish from the editor’s office. Rudyard Rhys may once have been a naval officer, but these days he was not entirely the captain of his own ship.
‘No, no, no!’ his voice echoed out of the door, sounding as agitated as if he were trying to avoid an iceberg. ‘Not Sam Brough again, I simply won’t have it!’
‘The first mayor of Temple Regis to go to Buckingham Palace,’ argued Peter Pomeroy, his deputy, perfectly reasonably, ‘to be made a Member of the Order of the British Empire. That’s a feather in the town’s cap. The readers will expect a good show on that.’
‘You mean His Worship will. Page Seven,’ said Mr Rhys dismissively, who hated Brough and his snobbish wife. He may dither about what to put on his front page, but when it came to pushy self-aggrandising town officials the editor’s decision was final.
‘There’s always Bobby Bunton,’ said Miss Dimont, who’d put her head round the door to see what the fuss was about. ‘By the way, Betty’s going to take the rest of the day off, d’you mind?’
‘Rr… rrrr,’ growled the editor, shuffling the page proofs in front of him.
‘Bunton,’ said Miss Dimont, who knew how to get a decision out of her procrastinating leader. ‘He’s in murderous mood.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Peter, whose responsibility it was to make sure the paper went to bed on time, and by now didn’t care much what was on Page One as long as the story fitted the gaping hole in the page.
‘Remind me,’ sighed Mr Rhys, swivelling in his chair and eyeing the seagulls circling like vultures outside his window. One of these days he’d walk out on press day and never come back. That would show them.
‘It’s the latest round in his battle with Hugh Radipole. Bunton brought in a new funfair attraction and now Mr Radipole has banned him from the Marine Hotel. It’s all-out war!’
‘Rr… rrr,’ replied Rhys and did what he always did at times of indecision. It could take a good three or four minutes for him to clean out his filthy briar pipe and load it with tobacco – precious minutes, with the newsroom clock ticking towards deadline.
Peter Pomeroy nodded urgently to Miss Dimont. ‘Do it,’ he said. ‘Four hundred words.’
‘It’s written,’ said Miss Dimont cheerily. ‘And Betty?’
‘Yes,’ nodded Peter understandingly. He’d clocked the disaster on top of her head.
‘Just don’t sensationalise it,’ said Rhys anxiously. ‘We don’t want Fleet Street picking up the story and making a mockery of this town. Bunton may be a well-known figure, but he’s hardly representative of the virtues of Temple Regis – I don’t want outsiders thinking we’re Blackpool.’
Heaven forbid, thought Miss Dimont as she whisked back to her desk. Demure, discreet, desirable – these were the watchwords which attached to any story describing their adorable town. If it wanted to get into the Riviera Express.
In truth Temple Regis was all of those d-words. What’s more it was the prettiest town in Devon; people always said that. From the palm trees which welcomed you on the railway station platform to the winding narrow streets with their interesting shops to the soothing ice-creams, the donkey-rides on the broad and beautiful beach, and the never-ending sunshine – nothing could be nearer paradise.
In the late 1950s, with the nation back on its feet at last, it was the ideal place for people to come on holiday – but Rudyard Rhys wanted to make sure only the right people came.
Indeed, the two people his chief reporter had just mentioned somehow summed up what was both right and wrong about the place. Hugh Radipole had bought the Marine Hotel after the war, put a not inconsiderable amount of money into refurbishing it, and to its smooth Art Deco halls welcomed some of the most distinguished people in the land. Their presence added tone and culture to the town.
But then somehow someone had allowed Bobby Bunton in, and with him he’d dragged the knotted-handkerchief brigade. The wrong people.
If that wasn’t bad enough Bunton also brought with him Fluffles Janetti, that well-known courtesan whose shapely form was never far from a headline and whose pot-pourri of a love life kept the Sunday newspapers very busy indeed. She loved the bar in the Marine, though apparently it no longer loved her, despite her impressive consumption of its many liquid offerings. There’d been a bit of a dust-up, with bottles smashed and a quantity of blood spilt.
NEIGHBOURHOOD DISPUTE OVER FUN FAIR RIDE
by Judy Dimont, Chief Reporter
ran the headline.
Police were called after a dispute at the Marine Hotel ended in violence on Tuesday night.
The well-known entrepreneur Bobby Bunton, owner of the Buntorama Holiday Camp, has demanded an apology after he was requested to leave the building. He and a companion have threatened to sue the management of the Marine. Mr Bunton says he had been enjoying a quiet drink in the Primrose Bar when he was suddenly asked to leave the premises and not return. His companion’s garments were torn and disarranged.
‘I take this as a personal insult,’ said Mr Bunton. ‘I can think of no reason why I should be subjected to such vile treatment.’
A spokesman for the Marine Hotel declined to comment.
Buntorama, the fifth in Mr Bunton’s nationwide chain of holiday camps, opened last year on the site of the old Ruggleswick army camp. The camp is situated on land abutting the grounds of the Marine Hotel and there have been reports of disputes between the two companies running the businesses.
Since establishing Buntorama in 1948 Mr Bunton claims to have provided cheap holidays for over eight million people and has become a familiar figure on radio and television.
‘People are entitled to have fun,’ he told the Express, ‘whatever they earn.