Lonie21

The phone rang again. ‘It might be something important.’ Father Campbell gave an apologetic smile.

Lonie watched through the open door as Brother Connelly and Jerome came trekking along the corridor from one direction, and through the office window observed Lorna, with Jim tagging behind her, coming from the opposite direction. There weren’t enough seats in the office. Jim slipped into the seat beside Lonie and quickly became engrossed in his crossword. Lorna seemed happy with her edge of the desk near the Botticelli print. Lonie’s eyes made little darting glances towards Father Campbell talking on the phone, but he seemed far away as if he was in a personal telephone booth and Brother Connelly and Jerome squeezed in each side of him like the twin Tors’ of Ben Vane.

‘How is Carol today?’ Brother Jerome asked Lorna.

Lonie picked up his pen and did a bit of doodling, but he was listening.

‘Much the same. She’s had lunch. Lentil soup. She likes that. She wasn’t that keen on the custard.’ Lorna sounded disappointed on her behalf. ‘She’s settled down a bit after her outburst.’

Lonie shifted slightly in his seat, his head turned towards Lorna. Father Campbell put the phone down, stood up and clasped his hands together. He spun around to address Lonie, ‘I’m sorry, as you can see,’ he shrugged, ‘it gets a bit hectic in here.’

Lonie smiled back at Father Campbell, but all he’d seen so far was a man eating some Custard Creams, and talking on the phone, someone doing a crossword and very little else. ‘Yeh,’ said Lonie, giving his best false grin. ‘Ah get that impression.’

‘So,’ said Father Campbell, leaving the words hanging in the air.

‘So,’ said Lonie, ‘can Ah speak to Carol Peters for a minute?’

‘No,’ replied Father Campbell affably. ‘You’d need a female escort. She rarely speaks to males and she never speaks to journalists.’

‘What if I interviewed her with Lorna present?’

‘No means no.’ Brother Connelly patted Lonie on the shoulder, a reminder of his role of Prefect of Discipline. ‘Lorna has other duties.’

‘What other duties?’ Lonie looked up at the surly face of one of the twin peaks.

‘Other duties.’ A glare was all the explanation Brother Connelly would offer.

‘What if I interviewed her with another female journalist present?’

‘No.’ Brother Connelly's eyes drifted towards Father Campbell. He'd an expression on his face that suggested he was reaching the end of his patience and needed his permission to frogmarch Lonie out of the ward and give him a good kicking on the way.

‘What if a female journalist interviewed her?’

Brother Jerome’s feet shuffled from side to side as if marching for Jesus. He let out a protracted sigh. Lonie turned to meet his gaze, but it was so full of menace his eyes skidded away and back to his notes.

‘No,’ said Brother Connelly with finality.

‘I’m not sure. ‘She might like that?’ Lorna’s voice was nervous, not sure in challenging Brother Connelly and turning it into a tentative question. ‘She gets so few visitors.’ She turned to Father Campbell with pleading eyes for support.

‘What do you think Jim?’ Father Campbell asked.

Jim’s finger traced down the clue in his crossword. His face seemed to settle into a shrug. ‘I think you should ask her.’ He turned back towards his crossword.

‘Yes,’ said Father Campbell, in a way that suggested he hadn’t thought of such a novel solution. ‘Maybe later on, when she’s settled.’

Lonie felt sweat running down his forehead and the back of his neck. The two brothers were squeezing in tighter at his back ready to eject him. He pushed his chair back. Brother Connelly stepped closer to the window and Brother Jerome took a step nearer the door. ‘Well, now would be a good time to get a preliminary interview with Larry.’ Lonie reached for his fags.

Brother Connelly spat out. ‘He doesn’t do interviews.’

Lonie sniffed as if he was thinking about it. Then he lit a fag. ‘What if you asked him?’

Father Campbell laughed, whether it was his phone ringing again, or at his remark, Lonie wasn’t quite sure. ‘Larry’s a rather different kettle of fish from Carol,’ was what he offered, with an apologetic wave of his hand, before he picked the phone up.

Brother Connelly leaned over and whispered in Lonie’s ear. ‘I’ll escort you out.’

‘Sure,’ said Lonie, pointing up at Father Campbell, ‘I’ll just have a word with him before I leave.’

‘Now,’ growled Brother Connelly.

Lonie reached for his pen and paper. He scraped the chair back and forward, took his time fiddling with his pockets and making sure everything was just right, before he put his coat on. His eyes met Father Campbell’s, but he prattled away on the phone and turned towards the filing cabinets.

‘Nice meeting you,’ Lonie said to Lorna. She shyly smiled back. He patted Jim on the shoulder, who looked up at him through his thick specs in acknowledgement, but Lonie could no longer put off leaving. Brother Jerome walked ahead and Brother Connelly fell in behind Lonie. He tried to catch a glimpse of the most evil woman in Britain or the beast of Rannoch Moor, before he was huckled out, but saw neither. He was sure the fatman would not be pleased.

Lonnie had time to think on the bus. He got off a few stops early in the town, turning his collar up, the rain battering down and making slippery streams on the pavements. The first bar he hit was The George, a one room dive where people came to drink glasses of Lanliq tonic wine and blink out daylight. He found a seat away from prying eyes in the corner, near the dartboard and chain smoked, fag ash falling off the edge of the burn marks and the flaking, nicked edges of the table. He had a few pints and jotted down question after question in his notebook while things were still fresh in his mind. In his long coat and unshaven appearance he began to blend in, becoming part of the guy’s hand that trembled when he asked for a drink; the guy at the bar that smelled like he’d peed himself; part of the broken window sellotaped with peeling cardboard; part of the ramshackle fixture and fittings. There was no story in his head or on the page, but he knew it was time to go.

The walk back to the office cleared his head, and the rain gave a shine to his hair, but his feet slowed at the Press Bar. The swing doors banged open bringing with it the familiar sour smell of fag smoke and spilled drink. A punter, stumbled in front of Lonie, an older man, the shock of fresh air hitting him a blow to the guts. He clung onto Lonie’s arm until his eyes balanced.

Lonnie hung his wet coat on his chair in the office, the tail-end splayed out on to the floor. He dug in his pockets for notebook and fags and looked over to see if the usual coterie around the fatman in his office and knew he’d been spotted. There wouldn’t be much time before he was summoned. He hurried, in plain sight, in a different direction, with his fag packet clutched in his hand and his lighter in his pocket. Audrey was sitting straight-backed pecking out copy in the mini-Siberian part of the office. He plonked himself down sideways on the edge of the empty desk near her, one foot trailing the floor and began coughing and spluttering. It took him a few minutes to recover. He took a deep breath, tapped a Woodbine out of his packet and lit one.

‘Hi.’ The palm of Lonie’s hand flapped up from his lap and he waved at her like a stranger.

‘Hi.’ Audrey didn’t stop typing, didn’t stop looking at the page in front of her, but her nostrils flared.

‘Ah guess Bresslen told you…’ Lonie didn’t know what to say. His hands made half-circles, grasped for words. Fag smoke swirled between them in the silence of their relationship falling off the end of the world. ‘Ah never made you any promises.’

‘Keep telling yourself that and you might believe it.’ Audrey stopped typing. Her eyes hooked onto him. ‘Look at you.’ She banged the carriage of the Olivetti across. ‘I expected nothing. I got nothing. That’s us about even.’ She straightened the bar holding the paper and began typing furiously.

Lonie eased his bum off the desk, he’d made a seat, his feet finding the floor. He scratched under his unshaven chin and felt the straggly hair growth around his cheeks, nose and mouth, his fingers finding half a beard and quarter a moustache. ‘Ah’m no’ that bad um ah?’

Audrey snorted and stamped her foot. ‘Well from where I’m sitting you smell like an old Jakey.’ She looked over. ‘You look like one too.’

‘Hing on. Hing on.’ Lonie held his hand’s up to stop her saying any more. ‘What brought aw this on?’

‘What brought all this on?’ Audrey stopped typing and swivelled her chair round to face him. ‘You lied to me.’ Her foot jerked her chair forward ‘And then when you were found out you didn’t even have the decency to tell me yourself.’ Her eyes narrowed and she shook her head in derision. ‘You let Bresslen do your dirty work.’ Her hands clasped and her upper thumb squeezed down on her lower, as if it was stopping her hands from slapping him. ‘You know what? You’re pathetic.’

Her words hit Lonie like a blow. He staggered back, his bum butting against the desk, but he bounced back. ‘You didn’t think that the other night! Did you?’

Audrey’s jaw clenched and with one kick of her feet she twirled her chair around and away from him. Another push and she’d moved her chair back her desk. She spoke dispassionately. ‘You’re right, of course. You’re not pathetic. I am.’

‘You were right the first time.’ Lonie left her typing, with her teeth clenched. He didn’t know whether that made it better or worse. The only thing he knew was she didn’t want him hanging about and the fatman didn’t like been left waiting.

The noise of the fatman’s office always surprised him. He thought only women could chatter like that. But with a deeper bass, men were much the same. Bresslen was leaning over the desk telling fatman some god-awful joke where everybody knew the punch line and the punch line was Bresslen was god-awful at telling jokes. There was childish sniggering and raised eyebrows. Lonie lit a fag. He felt tired. So tired he wanted to lie down for a week and not get up. The fatman laughed the same hyena laugh as the others, but there was something in the glint in his eyes, in the way he looked over at Lonie standing near the door, and the way he brushed the forced frivolity aside to show that he understood.

‘What have you got for us?’ The fatman growled at Lonie.

‘Sweet Fuck all.’ Lonie felt the others weighing his words, weighing him up. ‘There was some kind of emergency, with bells ringing and people running about everywhere before I went in.’

‘A break-out?’ said the fatman hopefully.

Lonie shrugged. ‘Dunno. They were all very tight-lipped about it.’ He let his fag drop and stubbed it out with his heal. ‘Ah’ll see if I can find out more tomorrow. Ah’ll need to phone first thing to see if I can get a pass.’

‘You goin’ for a quick drink?’ The fatman looked over at Lonie, but he was including everybody around him.

‘Dunno,’ said Lonie, ‘Ah’ll probably need to have a word with Mr Bresslen first.’

The fatman and the other editors were putting on coats and winding scarves around necks; Bresslen dressed the same winter of summer, so he just gawped at Lonie.

‘What about?’ Bresslen scratched at his head.

He sounded worried, but he always sounded worried. Lonie had to make his move. ‘Oh, nothing much. Carol Peters won’t talk to me unless there’s a woman journalist present.’

‘Carol Peters?’ The fatman had been helped on with his coat. His desk had been dragged back to allow extra room for him to get out from behind his chair, but he sat down again.

‘Woman journalist?’ said Bresslen.

The fatman slapped himself on the knees laughing. ‘Big tits?’ He looked at Bresslen.

‘That would be alright,’ said Bresslen to Lonie. ‘Tilby should be back tomorrow. He can do his fair share.’

‘Will Ah tell Audrey?’ asked Lonie.

‘Oh, Audrey is it? Very nice, but she’s already away. She left,’ Bresslen looked at the clock above the door, ‘About ten minutes ago.’

Lonie tried not to run, but as he got to his desk and made a grab for his coat, he couldn’t help himself and his feet slapped double time as he ran down the stairs. Her Hillman Imp was not in its usual spot. He searched his pockets for change. Maybe he could have a drink, just one, to help him sleep. Then he could have an early night and he’d be fresh in the morning. He would be able to tell her then. The telling was swirling round his head, as he walked towards Partick, and it seemed to him such a real thing that it felt like a physical pain. His body almost turned back towards work to wheedle her home number out of records. Then it struck him. He knew she lived with her mother, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have a boyfriend, or any other kind of life. His walk became more of an angry stride, his coat tails swirling like cloak behind him and he was glad he hadn’t told her. Maybe it would be best, he thought, if he worked alone. That way he wouldn’t need to rely on anyone.