Lonie12

Without Audrey to slow him down, Lonie paced quickly along the pavement beside the Clyde, his back straight as if he’d a coffin attached to it, and his long legs eating up the miles. Thoughts came and went and fell into the void between one step and the next. Somehow he felt that he’d just left his house in Partick and, with his collar up, the next thing he was standing outside The Glasgownian building. He was halfway up the stairs when he met Davy Brown, the assistant night shift editor coming down the stairs with a scarf tied round his neck, keeping his big head attached to his little body. He’d a harassed look on his face, as if there hadn’t been any news that night, but that was the way he always looked even if there had been six murders, a stolen lion from Calderpark Zoo and a a crocodile had been found in the sewerage tunnels that ran underneath the city.

‘You’re late,’ snapped Davy Brown.

‘Fuck off,’ replied Lonie, then in a more conciliatory tone, ‘you got any fags?’

Davy shook his head and his thin lips puckered together beneath the moustache he was cultivating hair by hair. His right hand dug deep into the pocket of a green gabardine coat, tied so tight at the waist, that would get him arrested, or bottled, in any other part of the city, and he pulled out a packet of Embassy Silk Cut. Davy waved a cigarette delicately in front of Lonie’s face.

Lonie grabbed the fag off Davy and snapped the brown filter off, a few bit of stray tobacco drifting down like snow and settling onto his trouser leg, and shoved the fag in his mouth. He waited for Davy Brown to give him a light.

They settled into smoking on the stairs. There were no typewriters banging out copy and no phones ringing. Lonie knew it was going to be one of those days when it couldn’t get much better.

‘The fatman wants to see you when you get in.’ Davy looked at Lonie through a haze of fag smoke.

Lonie squinted at Davy. ‘What’s he doin’ in at this time?’

‘Fuck knows.’ Davy scratched at his balding head. ‘He slept in one of the chairs in the back room. He was a pain in the arse. I couldn’t get anything done for him.’

Lonie waved his fag hand about as he tried to think. ‘Hasn’t he got a wife and kids?’

‘Yeh. Think so.’ Davy clattered down a few stairs and away from Lonie. He then stopped suddenly, near the outside pavement, and turned back towards Lonie to make an observation, or correction, in a way Lonie was familiar with. He held his hand up, as if to say, my stupid fault, and jabbing his finger in the air, elaborated on it. ‘He might be getting divorced, or is divorced, or something. I’m not entirely sure yet.’

Lonie watched him go. He sounded determined to find out and, if he knew Davy Brown, he probably would, winkling information out of one source, then another and then working his way back to check again.

At his desk Lonie picked up the phone and listened to the dial tone to make sure it was working, as once he’d sat for three hours with no calls and wondered why he got a bawling out later by the fatman. The only other time that had happened was when he’d been out celebrating a fortieth birthday on Saturday night in Chandlers. It had been carry-oots and carry on all day Sunday back at one of his mates’ house afterwards. Somehow Sunday had worked its way into Monday and he’d found himself talking too loud, cracking stupid jokes and banging into the bins beside each office desk. When he’d started to type copy he kept hitting the wrong keys and the carbon sheets kept fouling up. It had been the first time he’d seen the fatman come out of his office. He stood behind his chair, looking over his shoulder, making no efforts to conceal what he was doing, but with a man his size, hiding was not an option he usually went for. He’d been sent home. Nothing more needed to be said about it, but he knew if he couldn’t hold his booze he was in the wrong job and he’d be out of a job. Now he looked over his desk to the cubicle where the fatman was sitting at his desk. Bresslen was in with him. He was another one of the big city editors. Lonie pulled open his desk drawer. He rummaged through yellowing memos, bookies’ pens and paper clips until he found the packet of Polo mints he was looking for. He put one in his mouth, cupping his hand to smell his breath, before sauntering over to the fatman’s office.

The fatman’s office smelled as if someone had overturned a lit ashtray and farted in the bucket at the side of his desk. The fatman and Bresslen had their two chairs angled together, two fags burning as they shared an ashtray on their desk, and went through that day’s front page. Bresslen was old, probably about sixty, past the age of caring what he looked like. He had a coarse little toothbrush of a grey moustache and ill-fitting false teeth that had a tendency to make him slobber and knock his words together and an ill-fitting grey suit in which the white pinstripes looked chalked and smudged on. He was deputed to do most of the paperwork, when the fatman wasn’t there, but as the fatman was always there it was difficult to say what he did. Bresslen gave Lonie a furtive look then looked back at the copy. The fatman waved Lonie into one of the chairs facing them and got right down to business.

‘How did your meeting with Cardinal Robbins go?’ the fatman asked.

Lonie coughed. ‘Well, you know what those church types are like? He talked a lot, but said nothing much. Ah’m just goin’ to type it up just now.’

The fatman picked up his fag and had a long drag on it. Bresslen did the same. They looked over at Lonie and then at each other. The fatman spoke for both of them. ‘Did he say anything about…’ The fatman had a bit of tobacco stuck to his bottom lip. He spat it out onto the table, ‘… Goldenwell hospital closing?’

‘Course,’ Lonie’s chair squeaked as he fidgeted. ‘He did mention it. After all that wis whit you sent me to interview him about. Jesus. Whit’s this all about?’

‘We’ve got nothing for the front page,’ said Bresslen. ‘Well, not nothing. All we’ve got is Danny McGrain is growing a beard and a picture of him looking like Santa the wrong side of thirty and the wrong side of Christmas.

‘And we’ve got something about a crab’s epidemic,’ said the fatman. ‘All those student types in the West End going at it like bunnies. That’s hardly news.’

The fatman’s beady eyes looked over at Lonie with renewed interest. A film of sweat began to form on Lonie’s forehead and run down his cheeks as he fought to stop his hand from straying and scratching his balls. He was sure the fatman had spotted him arm in arm with Audrey. While that wasn’t enough to put them on the front page he knew enough of how the office worked. He knew that if her reputation was trashed, and she was seen as an easy touch, it would be all feely-feely hands on her from that point on, and she’d never get beyond the first step of a copy girl that made the coffee and put out.

‘You realise, of course,’ said Lonie, ‘if they shut Goldenwell, they also shut the secure unit that goes with it?’

The fatman leaned forward as he took this in. His lips puckered up and his face contorted into an expression of maybe, but then settled into we don’t care. Bresslen leaned forward too, scratched his chin and waited. Bresslen had a Phd in waiting.

Lonie wiped at his forehead and ran his fingers through the crown of his hair. ‘Well, if they shut the secure unit it means that…’

But Lonie didn’t need to finish. The fatman and Bresslen were beaming at each other as if they were holding hands and one had asked for the other’s hand in marriage. ‘It means that Carol Peters, the most hated woman in Britain...’ said the fatman.

‘It means that Larry Murray, the beast of Rannoch Moor…’ said Bresslen slapping his hands together.

The fatman was energised, sitting up in his chair and slapping the copy in front of him away. ‘It means that all those nutters that the Catholic Church has wrapped in mumbo-jumbo and cotton wool will be moving house. Let’s hit the archives for the latest pictures of them looking like the scumbags and weirdos they are. That includes those priests and nuns who run the place.’ The fatman looked across at Lonie with paternal pride. ‘C’mere, he said, and when Lonie leaned across he kissed him a smacker on the forehead. ‘Get crackin’, the fatman said, ‘write it up and bring it straight in here when you’re finished.’

‘The Cardinal arranged for us to meet Father Campbell.’ Lonie settled back into his chair.

‘Who’s Father Campbell? the fatman asked Bresslan.

Bresslen, his hand clutching the underside of the desk, suggested, ‘that’s the guy that runs the place.’ He looked over at Lonie to make sure he was right and then over at the fag in the ashtray, which was burning down to the cork. He stabbed it out, ignoring the acrid fumes.

‘Oh, yeh, the Padre Pio of the East End. That’s right I remember him bleeding all over the place. We’ve got some good pictures of him and his magic hands. Let’s match them up with Carol Peters. That will be the good and the bad. And let’s fling in a picture of The Beast of Rannoch Moor. That can be the ugly. We can’t lose here. This story’s givin’ me a hard-on.’ The fatman glanced over at Lonie. ‘You still here?’

‘Ah didn’t go an’ see Cardinal Robbins myself. There was another reporter with me.’ Lonie’s foot started tapping as he said it.

The fatman frowned and looked at Bresslen and he shrugged. ‘Who was it? said the fatman. ‘Who was the other reporter?’ He sounded annoyed as if another tab had got in before him and scooped the story. Then he got it and started grinning. ‘Oh, you mean big tits?’ He snorted, ‘she’s not a reporter, just someone that smells nice and writes down copy for jamborees. Don’t worry about her.’

‘Ah’m not worried.’ Lonie licked his lips and tried to think of something, ‘it just she took most of the notes. She takes mean shorthand.’ He knew how stupid it sounded even as he said it.

‘You took a tape recorder. Didn’t you?’ said the fatman.

‘No. Don’t use them. They keep breaking on me and I think it puts people off, having a big suitcase sitting on the table winding round and round. It makes them anxious and jumpy. It makes me anxious and jumpy.’ Lonie looked anxious and jumpy as if to prove his point.

The fatman leaned across the table. ‘You did take some notes didn’t you?’ His voice was low unforgiving. ‘Because without notes we’ve got diddly-squat. We’ve got no verification. All we’ve got is hot fucking air.’ He banged the table.

‘But Audrey…’said Lonie.

The fatman banged the table again. ‘I don’t want to hear any more about big tits. You’re off the case. Maybe a bit of filing with big tits will help your memory, help you appreciate what you got.’ He picked up a pen, squeezed back into the back of his chair, tapped his teeth with it, all the while keeping his eyes on Lonie as he thought. He pointed the pen at Lonie and his face split into a wide open grin which showed the metallic fillings in the molars of his back teeth. ‘You’ve got a thing for her, haven’t you?’

‘Yeh,’ admitted Lonie.

‘Let me tell you something.’ The fat man’s blue –green eyes pinned Lonie to the chair like a butterfly in a catalogue. ‘I’ve been in this business thirty years.’ He turned to Bresslan for affirmation that was the case and was met with a nod. ‘And big tits…’

‘Audrey,’ said Lonie.

‘…big titbits is a classy broad. She’s from Clarkston, for god’s sake, too good for the likes of you.’ The fatman was bent over with the effort of his argument. His chair creaked as he pushed back to give his verdict. ‘But what can I say. God loves a trier.’ He tried to shrug, but he’d no neck just rolls of fat. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Just to show how fair I am I’ll let her work with you, but I’m betting a week’s wages you don’ t get a sniff of her pussy.’

‘How will you know?’ said Lonie, but continued speaking before the fatman could cut in, ‘and you’ll let her work with me?’

‘Yeh,’ said the fatman, ‘bring me something. I’ll leave that up to you, but just bring it to me. I’m betting you a week’s wages you won’t or can’t.

‘Two weeks wages,’ said Bresslen, leaning forward. ‘I want in on this too.’

Lonie ran his fingers through his hair to stop himself from smiling. ‘How long have I got?’ He smiled at the fatman. ‘How long has me and Audrey got?’

The fatman bounced as he rocked and laughed. ‘You’ve got to the end of this job to get her knickers off. You’ve got to the wrong side of never. And don’t say I don’t do anything for you now. You owe me one.’

‘You owe me a week’s wages,’ said an unsmiling Bresslen, more pointedly.