A Crooked Sixpence Page 21

  I have become involved with a girl I met at a party...but this was real, and O’Toole quickly shut it out of mind. Perhaps there’s a twist on My husband got a job at the iceworks, and now he’s grown cold...

  So, wrestling with his own griefs and the intractabilities of everyday life, O’Toole doggedly piled word on word, letter on letter.

  XXI

  ‘THE APPROACH of these letters is okay, James, but they somehow seem to lack sparkle,’ said Starsh. It was Saturday morning, and O’Toole was looking over Starsh’s thin shoulder as he checked a damp proof of the second feature page on a corner of the big subs’ table. O’Toole’s letters to the editor filled a shallow three-column box at the foot of the page, headed

  THEY’RE LIVELY...THEY’RE LAUGHS...THEY’RE LIFE.

  ‘We all have our off days, Nick,’ said O’Toole. ‘What do you expect for twenty-five quid a week-Lord Chesterfield? By the way, who gets the five guineas that Mrs. Elsie Shaw of Huddersfield has won for the brightest letter?’

  ‘Dear boy, you are storing up treasure in Heaven,’ said Starsh, smiling. ‘Have you checked through the copy of Norman Knight’s exposure?’

  ‘I saw the galley-pulls,’ said O’Toole. ‘Has the page come up?’

  ‘We’ll lead with it, of course,’ said Starsh. ‘I can’t get the heads and intro cast yet, and it’s far too early to get the blocks made or the captions set. In the meantime, Cam asked to see you as soon as you came in. If you will excuse me for just a second, I’ll come along.’

  Starsh bowed over the proof, his lips moving as he read the headlines letter by letter for a final check. Then, with a sigh, he initialled the page, his green ball-pointed-pen ploughing deeply into the wet paper, and signalled to a copy-boy.

  ‘It’s not the perfection we want, but it’s an early page and it will have to do,’ he said. ‘I trust you are not offended at the dispassionate criticism of a brother craftsman, James?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said O’Toole. ‘What does Barr want?’

  ‘I believe he wants you to handle an exclusive which will go very nicely with the vice exposure,’ said Starsh. ‘Come and we’ll see.’

  Barr scowled at the clock on his wall as O’Toole and Starsh came in. ‘You’re slipping into your old habits, laddie,’ he said to O’Toole. O’Toole felt it was too early to debate the point.

  Starsh said ‘I’m afraid I held O’Toole up.’

  ‘Oh, never mind,’ said Barr. O’Toole, I’ve got a really shattering story for you, but you’ll have to extract the digit and sew up the facts in a few hours, or it’s no go. Get me?’

  ‘Right,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘Well, here’s the score,’ said Barr. ‘During the week, some filthy little chemist from Victoria way was put up for trial at West London for supplying dope for abortions. It seems the police could only get the girls to give evidence against him by promising they’d try to keep their names out of the papers. Nice respect for the freedom of the Press, eh?’

  O’Toole managed a faint look of disgust at this interference with fundamental democratic liberties.

  ‘We know a trick worth two of those,’ said Barr. ‘They rushed the case on after the normal hearing time when the local court man wasn’t around, and they won’t release the transcript of the evidence. The clerk of the court gave me some cock-and-bull story about the papers being with the Director of Public Prosecutions. He actually had the nerve to suggest that we’d be helping the police by keeping the story quiet...I told him we’d be well on the way to the police state if we let them get away with a fast one like that, but he wouldn’t budge. However, a chappie in the court office has done the decent thing and flogged us the names and addresses of the girls, which as I see it is the important end of the story. The court hearing doesn’t matter, really, and the chemist needn’t come into it, either—there’s always the risk of a contempt action. But we’re on perfectly safe ground with the girls, and they’re the human interest in the story. Agreed?’

  O’Toole and Starsh nodded.

  ‘Now the angle is quite straightforward,’ said Barr. ‘Take Jensen along and snatch a picture of each girl on her doorstep. We want them to say something like this: “I sinned, and now I realise the awful crime I committed. I beg forgiveness from the broad-minded people of Britain.” If you happen to strike a Catholic, get her to say she’s going straight into a nunnery-they’ll love that in Ireland. These girls are all top society debutantes and models, of course, and we want to play that angle up: something like “I now realise how heartless and cruel the world of high society is.” It would be a bit risky to run the names of the men who got them into trouble, but I want you to emphasise that they are public school boys with titles. You see, O’Toole, we are not afraid to hit out at the snobs and the toffs when the story justifies it.’

  O’Toole nodded.

  ‘I think you’re just the man for the job,’ Barr went on. ‘Give them some line about signing them up for Australian television: that ought to get you in without difficulty. If any of them have got pictures of themselves in bikinis among the nobs in the South of France, that would really be first-class. I’ll want at least half a dozen of these girls for a decent spread, and I want them in a hurry. Luckily all the addresses seem to be around Earls Court and Fulham, so you ought to be able to knock them off one after another. In the interests of speed, I’d say you were justified in taking a cab, wouldn’t you, Nick?’

  ‘There’s just one thing, Mr. Barr...’ began O’Toole.

  ‘I can’t spare any more time,’ said Barr. ‘Nick will answer any queries and give you the list of names and addresses. On your way, laddie.’

  O’Toole followed Starsh out of Barr’s office. Starsh went to his desk and handed O’Toole a list of names and addresses, inaccurately typed on court stationery. O’Toole studied it glumly.

  ‘Models and debutantes my arse,’ said O’Toole. ‘A baby would know that top society snobs don’t live in basements in Fulham, and they don’t go to chemists in Victoria. These girls are typists and shop-girls, I can tell you that for a start. What does Barr expect them to do? Use knitting needles?’

  ‘It’s very unprofessional of you to be so perverse on a Saturday, James, you know it’s our production day,’ said Starsh. ‘From the viewpoint of our readers in Bradford, anyone who lives within feasible walking distance of Harrods is society. We’re not responsible for the condition of these young women.’

  ‘I don’t know about you and Barr, but I might easily be,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘Your morals are no concern of ours,’ said Starsh. ‘Now don’t get difficult just now, there’s a good chap. Come and see me on Tuesday and we’ll discuss it at length, if you are still interested.’

  Dismissed, O’Toole went to the art room to find the photographer, Jensen. He was reading the Express, or, rather, looking at the pictures.

  ‘We’ve got a job on, Sam,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘Snatch?’ asked the photographer.

  ‘How often do we get a willing sitter?’

  ‘Doorstep?’

  ‘As usual. It would be better if they weren’t too sure they had been photographed.’

  ‘Sounds like a Leica job,’ said the photographer. ‘Are they likely to get tough?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said O’Toole, smiling. ‘We take a cab all the way to Fulham, so you can see this is front-page stuff. Grab your gadgets and we’ll be off.’

  In the cab, Jensen didn’t ask about the nature of the story and O’Toole didn’t volunteer the information, apart from telling him that they were going to knock on a series of doors and Jensen was to stand behind O’Toole and photograph whoever answered, over his shoulder.

  The first address turned out to be a basement in Trebovir Road. The name that went with it on his list was Virginia Bradshaw (23). O’Toole, still annoyed at his unsatisfactory conversation with Starsh and uncertain about his own attitude, neglected to rehearse what he was going to say, and the photographer, knowing
nothing of this and concerned with his aperture and his distances, unconsciously led him to the door. O’Toole found himself pushing the bell-press.

  It was opened almost at once by a girl in jeans and a sweater. She was pale and pulpy under the eyes, and obviously very young.

  ‘Miss Bradshaw?’ asked O’Toole, hearing the camera shutter click behind him as he spoke.

  The girl nodded. ‘Pol...police?’ she said timidly.

  She was terrified. So, after a second, was O’Toole, the same fear which is transmitted to the hunter by the screams and struggles of a small, wounded animal. He searched and found that he had nothing prepared to follow the identification, and a good part of his mind was busy with the discovery that the girl looked a bit like Elizabeth, a bit like Jenny, a bit like all his women.

  The girl stared at him miserably, as if she expected to be arrested, but in no way questioning his authority.

  ‘No, we’re the...Gas Company,’ O’Toole improvised. He pretended to stare at her, as if comparing her face with one he’d seen before, but this merely increased his alarm. ‘You’re...you’re not the right Miss Bradshaw. I’m looking for a much older woman,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’ And he turned and went up the area steps, Jensen following, and walked quickly down the street.

  ‘No need to talk to her, eh?’ said Jensen, busy with the levers and dials on his camera.

  ‘Look, Sam, I’m sorry to involve you in this,’ said O’Toole. ‘It’s no concern of yours. These girls have been to some abortionist and Barr wants to cook up one of his so-called human interest stories about them. For some reason I just don’t want to do it. The picture will be okay if he can get someone else to handle it.’

  ‘I’ll back you up in anything you want to say,’ said Jensen. ‘You can rely on me. Digger.’

  ‘Thanks, Sam, but it’s better to leave it to me,’ said O’Toole, ‘I’m supposed to be in charge of the job. All you know is, I suddenly told you to come back to the office.’

  If it means a row, tell Norman Knight about it,’ suggested the photographer. ‘Whatever the story is, I’m pretty sure you can count on him.’

  ‘I’ll keep that in mind,” said O’Toole. ‘What are you doing?’ Jensen was twiddling with the knobs on his camera.

  ‘Fogging the film,’ said Jensen.

  They caught a cab to the office. O’Toole considered the situation. It was highly unlikely that all of the girls could have been out, or entirely uncooperative. He had not laid even the minimum groundwork for a sudden attack of illness. Because of the photographer, he could not simply get lost for the day. There was nothing for it but to face it out.

  Starsh, busy with a proof, was the first person in authority O’Toole encountered in the newsroom.

  ‘Barr in?’ he asked.

  ‘Busy,’ said Starsh. ‘What’s the trouble?’

  ‘I can’t handle this one,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘You approve of abortionists?’ asked Starsh.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said O’Toole. ‘Who cares what I approve of? I’m just telling you, I can’t handle the job. Where do I get my cards?’

  ‘That’s premature,’ said Starsh. ‘I’ll have to tell Mr. Barr what’s happened, naturally. Is this the situation: you refuse the assignment?’

  ‘If you like. Can’t, won’t, comes to the same thing.’

  ‘It’s serious, of course,’ said Starsh. ‘It means, among other things, that you’re not as tough as you look. Still, you have other qualities, I suppose. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘In the meantime?’ asked O’Toole.

  ‘Oh, take it quietly,’ said Starsh. ‘A story is only a story, after all. Don’t consider yourself suspended, or anything like that. Go and get on with your normal work, and I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Thanks, Nick,’ said O’Toole, is Norman Knight about?’

  ‘I believe he’s out for the day, tying up some loose ends,’ said Starsh. ‘If I were you I’d be inconspicuous.’

  O’Toole reported to Jacobs, who gave him the weather and some run-of-the-mill wills and follow-ups. Barr appeared once or twice in the newsroom, but said nothing to O’Toole. He could not decide if Starsh had told him anything.

  The first edition was a few minutes late coming up from the machine-room, toward nine p.m. O’Toole took the front page in at a glance. The abortion story had been done: it was the second lead. They had been able to photograph and interview one, two, three girls. The story, headed THEY SINNED, THEY ARE SORRY was by-lined VINCENT HOWARD, a name O’Toole had not encountered before in the office. After the first few words of the lead paragraph, ‘Dazzled by the FALSE VALUES of High Society...’ O’Toole could not bring himself to read any more. The vice exposure led the paper. The main head was LONDON’S SHAME EXPOSED, and beside it, in a box, was Knight’s byline and his picture, looking, without his glasses, like a movie version of a Scotland Yard inspector, and not at all like himself.

  The story was illustrated with the snatched photos of Eileen, described as ‘The Vampire of Knightsbridge’, and Hawkesley, ‘The Czar of London’s Vice Cesspool’. Lower on the page was the bland face of Oliver Dawson, captioned ‘Publicist of Prostitutes’, smiling out of the paper with the limitless self-satisfaction of the great reformers.

  Below Eileen’s picture was one O’Toole had not seen before. It showed a young girl, with the lower part of her face concealed by a drawn-on mask. It was headed ‘Here is another of the vampire’s teenage victims...’ O’Toole studied it, putting his hand over the mask. Whoever it was, it couldn’t be the girl he had met with Knight in Eileen’s flat. Nor did the story make any reference to more than one of Eileen’s victims, if anyone so eager could be described as a victim. Knight, thought O’Toole, must have dug up some more dirt on the vampire of SW1.

  O’Toole strolled over to Jacobs, also busy with the newly-printed paper.

  ‘Vice came up nicely, Aussie,’ said Jacobs. ‘I believe you did good work on it.’

  ‘I helped,’ said O’Toole. ‘Who is Vincent Howard?’

  ‘We had a lot of trouble with that story,’ said Jacobs. ‘I had four Saturday casuals on it in the finish, and then we only got three of these sows. Howard, in case you don’t know, is the most famous reporter on this paper. Norman Knights come and go, but Howard has been here for twenty-five years or more. He doesn’t exist. He’s the office phoney by-line we use on anything we’ve got too many names for, or none at all as in this case. He often gets invitations to address women’s clubs and so on, but he’s always on holiday when anybody wants to see him. You can have a handful of his visiting cards if you like, to go with your dud cheques.’

  ‘I don’t know that I’ll be needing them,’ said O’Toole.

  The rest of the night passed quietly. O’Toole was reading a book when Barr, hat in hand, tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘I’ve got a train to catch now, but I’ll be wanting to see you on Tuesday, laddie,’ he said severely. ‘Come and see me as soon as you come in, before you do anything.’

  O’Toole nodded and Barr was gone. On his way home, he tried to analyse the nervousness he had felt for most of the day, but whether it was the recollection of the girl’s fright, or the realisation that he would have to do something about Elizabeth, or the prospect of unemployment, he could not decide.

  XXII

  THE NEXT day was a cold grey Sunday; Macedon and his girlfriend had gone away for the weekend, and O’Toole was alone in the all-but-unfurnished flat. So, when Elizabeth telephoned, O’Toole asked her to come over. It was dusk when she arrived, bright-eyed, cold-nosed, a warm and fragile place which was new to O’Toole, because women only seem like that in cold climates.

  ‘This place is like a morgue,’ she said. ‘Can you take me out and buy me a drink?’

  ‘I haven’t been in a pub for months, but I’m game,’ said O’Toole.

  They went to the Three Elms, just around the corner. O’Toole inspected some small trees, growing i
n tubs by the pub door. For all he knew, they could have been elms. The place was crowded with the usual collection of extras from British films, but the people were in colour, whereas the films were generally in black-and-white, before the main feature. Life beats art again.

  ‘You can have anything but pear juice. I’ve had bad experiences with it,’ he proposed. She said gin, and O’Toole had one too, to cut down on the decisions.

  ‘You’re very jumpy tonight, James,’ the girl offered. ‘Troubles?’

  ‘Oh, things are a bit sticky at the office,’ he said. ‘I refused to do a story and there might be repercussions.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said the girl.

  ‘There you go,’ said O’Toole. ‘I should never have mentioned it. It’s hard to con people into making nitwits of themselves if you’re not in the mood, that’s all. You can’t force it.’

  ‘Might you lose your job?’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘That would be wonderful.’

  ‘For me? Out of work?’

  ‘Well, I thought you might, perhaps, be considering sort of settling down here, really using your abilities, doing something you were proud of, something constructive...’

  ‘Have a heart,’ said O’Toole, wearily. ‘This is my trade, you know, like a man might work in a bank. I just can’t afford to start telling the boss how to run his business. You don’t ask the man behind the grille if he’s considered the implications of the capitalist system when you go to the bank to change a pound for the gas meter.’

  ‘You seem to have more imagination than the run of bank clerks,’ said Elizabeth. ‘That’s why I like you.’

  ‘That’s my trouble,’ said O’Toole. ‘Here I’ve got a good job, not too badly paid for unskilled clerical work, and I look like losing it just because I let my guard down for a moment and the implications sneaked up on me. Where’s this going to end? The lucky people just can’t see the implications of anything, or they can deceive themselves to order, like my boss. If you follow up all the implications, you’re finished. You’ll have me winding up as some crummy out-of-work saint in a coffee house, martyred to absolutely no principle at all except that the world is a jungle and you can either fight it or go with it.’