Kevin thrust the paper under his nose. “What’s this, Arthur? We’ve got a
blackmailed politician committing suicide, and the Evening Post says
it’s an accidental overdose.”
Cole looked past him. “Barney,” he called. “Here a minute.” Kevin said:
“What’s going on, Arthur?” Cole looked at him. “Oh, fuck off, Kevin,” he
said.
Kevin stared at him.
Cole said to the reporter called Barney: “Ring Essex police and find out
whether they’ve been alerted to look for the getaway van.”
Kevin turned away, dumbfounded. He had been ready for discussion,
argument, even a row; but not for such a casual dismissal. He sat down
again, on the far side of the room, with his back to the news desk,
staring blindly at the paper. Was this what provincial diehards had
known when they warned him about Fleet Street? Was this what the nutcase
lefties at college had meant when they said the Press was a whore?
It’s not as if I’m a lousy idealist, he thought. I’ll defend our
prurience and our sensationalism, and I’ll say with the best of them
that the people get the papers they deserve. But I’m not a total cynic,
not yet, for God’s sake. I believe we’re here to discover the truth, and
then to print it.
He began to wonder whether he really wanted to be a journalist. It was
dull most of the time.
There was the occasional high, when something went right, a story turned
good and you got a byline; or when a big story broke, and six or seven
of you got on to the phones at once in a race with the opposition and
with each other something like that was going on now, a currency raid,
but Kevin was out of it. But nine tenths of your time was spent waiting:
waiting for detectives to come out of police stations, waiting for
juries to return verdicts, waiting for celebrities to arrive, waiting
just for a story to break.
Kevin had thought that Fleet Street would be different from the Midlands
evening paper he had joined when he left the university. He had been
content, as a trainee reporter, to interview dim, self-important
councilmen, to publish the exaggerated complaints of council house
tenants, and to write stories about amateur dramatics, lost dogs, and
waves of petty vandalism. He had occasionally done things he was quite
proud of: a series about the problems of the town’s immigrants; a
controversial feature on how the Town Hall wasted money; coverage of a
lengthy and complex planning inquiry. The move to Fleet Street, he had
fondly imagined, would mean doing the important stories on a national
level and dropping the trivia entirely. He had found instead that all
the serious topic–politics, economics, industry, the art–were handled
by specialists; and that the line for those specialist jobs was a long
line of bright, talented people just like Kevin Hart.
He needed a way to shine–something which would make the Post’s
executives notice him and say: “Young Hart is good-are we making the
most of him?” One good break could do it: a hot tip, an exclusive
interview, a spectacular piece of initiative.
He had thought he had found that something today, and he had been wrong.
Now he wondered whether it would ever happen.
He stood up and went to the Gents’. What else can I do? he thought. I
could always go into computers, or advertising, or public relations, or
retail management. But I want to leave newspapers as a success, not a
failure.
While he was washing his hands, Arthur Cole came in. The older man spoke
to Kevin over his shoulder. To Kevin’s astonishment, he said: “Sorry
about that, Kevin. You know how it gets on that news desk sometimes.”
Kevin pulled down a length of towel. He was not sure what to say.
Cole moved across to the washbasin. “No hard feelings?”
“I’m not offended,” Kevin said. “I don’t mind you swearing. I wouldn’t
care if you called me the biggest bastard on earth.” He hesitated. This
was not what he wanted to say. He stared in the mirror for a moment,
then took the plunge. “But when my story appears in the paper without