A Crooked Sixpence Read online

‘He can spare you for a day or two. I’ve got something you can really get your teeth into. Frankly, I’m not sure you can handle it, but I’m going to give you a chance. Have you met Nick Starsh?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nick’s the production editor. My right-hand man.’ Barr pressed a button on the internal telephone and spoke into the box: ‘Spare a minute, Nick? I’ve got O’Toole here now.’

  A thin, round-shouldered man came in, evidently from an adjoining office. He had an olive Levantine face, thinning hair and bright mouselike eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. Unexpectedly, his voice had a touch of Lancashire.

  ‘You must be O’Toole. I’m Nicholas Starsh. How do you do.’

  ‘Hullo,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘I’m just giving O’Toole a run-down on the idea we discussed, Nick,’ said Barr. ‘Thought you might like to sit in.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Starsh. ‘I’ll be handling your copy when you’ve finished the job,’ he explained to O’Toole. ‘You’ll soon find I know what I want.’

  ‘Nick’s a perfectionist,’ said Barr. ‘That’s why he’s so useful to us.’

  ‘I’m here to learn,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘That’s the spirit, boy,’ said Barr. ‘Now here’s the picture. Your friend Macedon has let us down badly. Series are the life-blood of this paper. Almost all of our sales, you understand, are over the newsagent’s counter, or from a street corner seller. Therefore, we must have some good compelling reason in the paper every week why people should buy it the following week. That means long stories in instalments, two or more running at the same time so that when one ends, another is going full blast. Got it?’

  ‘It’s like the old serials at the cinema,’ explained Starsh. ‘We have to leave the heroine hanging over the cliff. The technique comes straight from the old silent days, or perhaps they got it from us.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Barr. O’Toole’s got the general idea. Now you might have to adjust your news sense a bit, O’Toole, but you’ll soon get the way of it. We’ve got quite a different approach to the dailies, because their readers buy the paper automatically every day, whereas ours have a week every time to break themselves of the habit. Which is just what we don’t want. They have to buy the paper before they can read a spot-news story, and they’ll forget it in a week. That means that the biggest news story on earth, if it’s a oncer, is almost valueless to us compared with a good gripping serial which will have them gasping for more—and people can’t forget a story when they don’t know how it finishes. Clear on that?’

  ‘Where do you get them from?’ asked O’Toole.

  ‘That’s the perpetual problem,’ said Barr. ‘We always seem to have a crisis about the beginning of summer, which is just when we want a really good series—people start to go out more on Sundays and there’s a tendency for them to cut down on newspapers. We want something they can’t miss even if they have to stay home. Now this time last year we picked up a little series from America for practically nothing-what did it cost us, Nick, the one about the Negress who kept a brothel at the age of twelve?’

  ‘Five hundred,’ said Starsh.

  ‘Dirt cheap,’ said Barr, it astonished us all by putting on two hundred thousand copies right at the beginning of the holiday season. We want to do the same again.’

  ‘I see,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘Now that your pal Macedon has done the dirty on us, there’s absolutely nothing in sight,’ said Barr. ‘Mind you, I was never very optimistic about him. Of course, there’s always something on offer but what’s around at the moment is worse than useless. I’ve had a try-on from a nun, but they’re a drug on the market.’

  ‘It runs in waves,’ explained Starsh. One nun sells her story and they all want to. There’ve been three nuns confessing everything in different Sundays in the past six weeks.’

  ‘Homosexuals are out, too,’ said Barr. ‘The public’s sick of them. The same goes for prison reminiscences. There’s a hangman doing the rounds, but he wants the earth for it, and anyway, it’s mainly a rehash of old murders most of which we’ve had. We did a dope fiend last month so they’re out. In short, boy, the cupboard is bare.’

  ‘I can see it’s tricky,’ said O’Toole, it’s the old problem of trying to arrange for unpredictable things to happen on a timetable.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ said Starsh. ‘A problem common to all newspapers, but we have it in a particularly severe form.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Barr. ‘Now Nick here has one or two ideas. We’ll kick them round and see if they appeal to you, O’Toole. Then you knock us out a sample instalment and an outline of another four. You should bring a fresh approach to this and we might get something a bit different. Let’s have it, Nick.’

  ‘I don’t think we can ever go wrong with “don’t put your daughter on the stage”,’ said Starsh. ‘We’ve served it up a dozen different ways and it always goes down well. There’s been a lot in the news lately about models and how they take to whoring. What I had in mind was to tie them up together.’

  ‘Mothers, beware of model agencies,’ said Barr. ‘They may train your daughters for a life of shame. Sounds okay.’

  ‘We could start this girl off in Bradford,’ said Starsh.

  ‘Our heaviest circulation is up that way,’ explained Barr. ‘We like to start a series off well away from London.’

  ‘I see,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘Well, she’s working away at her dreary job in t’mill,’ said Starsh. ‘But she dreams of the bright lights of London. Foolish girl, she thinks that being a model is the way to the West End.’

  ‘Do we carry any advertising from model agencies?’ asked Barr.

  ‘Not that I’ve ever seen,’ said Starsh. ‘Nor do the other publications of the group, to the best of my knowledge.’

  ‘Oh, let them look after themselves,’ said Barr. ‘After all, we have a duty to print the facts.’

  ‘Now I think she might start off by trying to get on the stage up in the North,’ said Starsh.

  ‘How does that sound to you, O’Toole?’ asked Barr.

  ‘Is she pestered by stage-door Johnnies in tweed caps who ply her with Guinness and fish and chips?’ asked O’Toole.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Barr. ‘You’re getting the idea. Don’t mention Guinness, of course.’

  ‘Bad Spanish wine,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘Better,’ said Barr. ‘Now what happens next, Nick?’

  ‘She could leave Bradford, disillusioned with men, and hitch-hike her way to London,’ said Starsh. ‘Then she sees an ad for a model agency. The job turns out to be a seedy dress warehouse in the East End.’

  ‘Rats running everywhere.’

  ‘If you like,’ said Barr. On second thoughts, no rats—we want this to appeal to women, too.’

  ‘Right, no rats,’ noted O’Toole.

  ‘Then I see her being chased round racks of twenty-nine-and-six sun frocks,’ said Starsh.

  ‘By a podgy piece-goods salesman,’ said Barr.

  ‘His fingers glittering with diamonds,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘Fine,’ said Barr. ‘Nice touch. Then the dirty old sod collapses with a heart attack just as he’s closing in for the kill.’

  ‘He dies?’ asked O’Toole.

  ‘That’s a bit drastic,’ said Barr. ‘After all, this is for family reading. No, I think he just gets a good fright, and perhaps she could revive him to show she’s got a heart of gold.’

  ‘Then champagne suppers in Mayfair,’ said Starsh.

  ‘With a Marquis, I think,’ said Barr. ‘...“I thought he was a gentleman just because he was a lord.” The head for that instalment practically writes itself.’

  ‘Then nude reviews in the West End, a life of shame and she sees the light in the last few paragraphs,’ Starsh finished.

  ‘How about her old boy-friend from Bradford rescues her?’ suggested Barr. ‘He’s down here to see the Cup Final, and he spots her hawking it round Piccadilly but nobly f
orgives everything.’

  ‘I like that,’ said Starsh.

  ‘As soon as she sees the light, get her off quick,’ said Barr. ‘We haven’t got any space to waste tying up loose ends.’

  ‘Just chop it right off,’ said O’Toole. ‘I get the idea.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Barr. ‘Now who can we get to confess this little lot, Nick?’

  ‘I thought one of Knight’s women might do nicely,’ said Starsh. ‘He ought to be able to pick us up something cheap.’

  ‘We only want a name and a couple of profile pictures,’ said Barr. ‘Most of them use phoney names anyway, I imagine. What do you think is a fair price, Nick?’

  ‘Oh, fifty should do,’ said Starsh.

  ‘I’ll just have a word with Victor about the layout,’ said Barr, pressing another button on the intercom. ‘Got a moment, Victor?’ he said into the mouthpiece.

  An apologetic man came in. He was short and thin, with protruding ears and the wide, sterile pink grin of National Health dentures.

  ‘This is the art editor, Victor Sprogg,’ said Barr. ‘This is O’Toole, the new man. He’ll be writing a series for us about a girl from Bradford who leads a life of shame.’

  O’Toole and Sprogg exchanged nods.

  ‘I think we should emphasise the mystery angle in the layouts,’ said Starsh. ‘You know, we’re not telling you too much about her to save her from the intolerant scorn of narrow-minded neighbours.’

  ‘Masked portrait?’ asked Sprogg.

  ‘Looks a bit phoney,’ said Barr. ‘No. I think a sort of profile in silhouette would be better. Norman Knight will get hold of a model for you.’

  ‘Dramatic crosslight, perhaps,’ said Sprogg.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Barr. ‘Now, we’ll be building the heads round the word SHAME, and I want you to dream up a really striking treatment.’

  ‘How about letters which look as if they’ve been whitewashed on a wall, dripping?’ suggested Sprogg.

  ‘People might wonder what they’re dripping,’ said Barr. ‘But I think the idea of brush strokes is good, and we might have the letters sort of jagged, different heights, to suggest twisted emotions. The rest of the heads in a heavy gothic, with the girl’s by-line in a good bold box, perhaps with an arrow pointing to her picture.’

  ‘What’s her name?’ asked Sprogg.

  ‘Don’t know yet,’ said Barr. ‘We’ll keep it short-probably Anne something, or perhaps Joan. Let me have a dummy as soon as you can, and some ideas for a poster.’

  ‘Right,’ said Sprogg.

  ‘Now, do you think you can handle your end, O’Toole?’ asked Barr rhetorically.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ said O’Toole.

  ‘That’s the spirit, boy,’ said Barr. ‘Don’t be afraid to pile on the emotion. Nick will see it’s okay from an obscenity point of view, so don’t worry about that. Just put your whole soul into it.’

  ‘Right,’ said O’Toole.

  XI

  O’TOOLE was wrestling with the mill-girl’s confession. He had spent the morning reading the clippings in the Sun library filed under the headings MODELS—VICE—BRADFORD TEXTILES and, irrelevantly, the personal file on JENNIFER TAYLOR. She had a part in a TV play the following week, had opened a bazaar at King’s Lynn and been interviewed for a rival Sunday paper, overstating her education and understating her age. But no new personal information, so O’Toole returned to the shadowy mill-girl. There was nothing filed under the heading SHAME and only three yellowing clippings on the subject HITCHHIKERS. He had also read two series previously printed in the Sun on similar subjects. O’Toole decided that he knew all that he was ever going to about the perils of the modelling profession.

  Then the light on his phone flashed, and the overhead buzzer sounded.

  ‘Sunday Sun, O’Toole speaking,’ he said.

  ‘James?

  ‘Yes.’ It was a female. English.

  ‘It’s Elizabeth.’ O’Toole had paused a fraction too long. ‘The girl on the boat.’

  ‘I know,’ said O’Toole. ‘It’s rather noisy in here. Presses whirring, shouts of “Boy!”, people being fired. You know. I can hear you all right now.’

  ‘I’ve been expecting you to ring,’ said the girl.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to,’ said O’Toole. ‘Terribly busy. I’m trying to grind out something on this girl who led a life of shame and it’s hard going.’

  ‘Which girl?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’

  ‘When and where will that be?’

  ‘This evening, perhaps?’

  ‘I’d love to. Where?’

  ‘I’ve just changed my address,’ said O’Toole, ‘I’ve moved to a smarter part of town, just near the South Kensington Tube. There’s a coffee-house there with a whole mess of bird cages, string, pot plants and stuff in the window. Know it?’

  ‘I think I do,’ said the girl.

  ‘It’s right opposite the Tube,’ said O’Toole, ‘I’ll be there about seven, if you can make that.’

  ‘I think I can,’ said the girl, in fact, I’m sure I can.’

  O’Toole returned to his typewriter, wound in a sheet of paper and began:

  Only a few months ago (but it seems like a lifetime) I was an innocent mill-girl in Bradford.

  My Mum had been a mill-girl before me, until she had married a handsome lad from the mines.

  They didn’t have much money, but they had each other, and soon there were eleven little ones. We were a happy, united family.

  But somehow I was restless. I didn’t realise I had ALL THE IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE.

  I couldn’t keep my mind on the warp and woof of my loom: all I could see was the GLAMOUR I had read about in magazines, the BRIGHT LIGHTS OF THE WEST END I had seen at the cinema.

  I laughed at my dear old Mum when she told me that London was HEARTLESS AND CRUEL! But how I wish I’d listened to her! How much I’d give to be back at my loom, to change my DIAMONDS AND FURS for my old cotton overall and my clogs-and a CLEAR CONSCIENCE!

  Girls, if you think there’s an easy way to the top, read the story of how I slipped down the path which leads to SHAME.

  It all began when I was offered a tiny part by a repertory theatre close to my hometown.

  The producer explained that the takings had been poor, and he took me to supper of stout, fish and chips.

  I was intoxicated by it all, the bright lights, the greasepaint, the cultured atmosphere of the theatre.

  Later, it was to be champagne and caviar, as I will reveal in subsequent instalments.

  It was that same night I discovered that the producer-like all the other men-was not really interested in my career AT ALL!

  O’Toole reread his first page. The authentic note of heartbroken remorse was there, all right, but the next bit was tricky: how much biological detail did the Sun’s readers want about the mill-girl’s first disillusionment? Better consult Starsh, he thought, before I write too much of this guff the wrong way.

  The production editor was sitting at his desk writing, and chewing gum. One hand held the end of a long grey filament from his teeth while his other flew over the paper, covering it rapidly in green ink.

  ‘Sit down a minute, O’Toole, there’s a good chap,’ he said. ‘I’m just on the end of this.’

  O’Toole sat. Starsh spun several more threads of gum and filled another sheet with the swift green squiggles.

  ‘There,’ he said, throwing his gum into the wastepaper basket. ‘Filthy habit. I just gave up smoking. Got to do something with my spare hand while I churn out this crap.’

  O’Toole must have looked startled.

  ‘Just polishing up the astrologer’s stuff,’ Starsh explained. ‘Hottest stargazer in the business, but he’s inclined to be careless. Predicts disaster for the same people two weeks running. Result: they switch from us to the Pic. I have to watch him like a hawk to make sure he rations out the bad news, no more than once every six months for each set of bulls and goats
and virgins and so on. Now, what’s your problem?’

  ‘If you have a minute, I’d like you to glance at the mill-girl,’ said O’Toole. ‘Want to get off on the right note, you know.’

  ‘Of course.’ Starsh took O’Toole’s copy and read it intently, unsmiling. ‘What’s this about warp and woof?’

  ‘Isn’t that some sort of technical jargon connected with weaving?’ asked O’Toole. ‘I just slipped it in for colour.’

  ‘Risky,’ said Starsh. ‘In principle, colour’s fine, but you’ve got to be very careful about details. Our customers don’t know much about champagne suppers in the West End but they know a hell of a lot about mills. One jarring detail, and the illusion’s gone.’

  ‘I’ll check it,’ said O’Toole. ‘How does the rest of it sound?’

  ‘Not too bad. Sincere. Perhaps the teaser about what happens to her next week ought to go right at the end.’

  ‘Finish up hanging from the moral cliff?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Starsh’s dark face showed prominent teeth. ‘Just like the silent serials. It probably strikes you as crude, and it certainly strikes me that way, but I can tell you it sells papers. A good strong sexy situation at the end of a confession one week can put half a million on the figures for the next.’

  ‘Do you enjoy reading these things yourself, Nick?’ asked O’Toole. ‘I assume it’s in order to call you Nick.’

  ‘Of course, dear boy. We’re one big happy family here. I can’t say the subject matter thrills me a great deal, but the technical problems certainly interest me. I came here just as a job in the first place, but I soon became absorbed in the technique. Talking to the masses in their own language. This business is a kind of sociological laboratory, with the results of Sunday’s experiment available in the circulation returns the following Tuesday. By a long process of trial and error, we’ve discovered just about what they want.’

  ‘The condition of the working classes in England in 1960,’ said O’Toole. ‘Engels with an adding machine.’

  ‘I was fairly left myself at one stage,’ said Starsh. ‘Probably gives me a lot of insight into the workers. We’ll take this up some other time, dear boy. Just now, I’ve got work to do, and you ought to get back to your mill-girl.’