In Another Life, page 5
But inside everything had changed.
10
The day Loretta was due to start work, the heavens opened. The outfit she had thought to wear looked too lightweight and she had to have a last-minute change of plan. She hoped she looked the part – serious but with a sense of humour, stylish but practical, fitting in yet standing out. Was that too much for one set of clothes to convey? She would try nonetheless.
She reached the Daily Chronicle’s offices on Fleet Street, her stomach churning. She had pictured this: her standing on the pavement and staring up at the frontage of the building that represented all her endeavours until now and everything she hoped to achieve in the future. In her imagination, the moment had taken on an almost reverential significance, something that would stay with her for a lifetime and that she would recount to young recruits when she herself was a grande dame of journalism.
However, reality did not live up to the movie-worthy scene she had created in her head. She found herself being bundled inside by a man in a mackintosh with a large black umbrella.
‘Don’t just stand there in the rain getting in the way,’ he said, not unpleasantly. ‘You’re coming in here, are you?’
She was flustered and wet and this wasn’t at all how she’d pictured stepping over the threshold into the hallowed offices, but she offered the man her best smile and then there was an unsightly dance as he tried to negotiate his umbrella whilst holding the door open for her at the same time.
Eventually, they were both inside and dripping on the chequered linoleum. The man shook out his umbrella, droplets of rain landing on her sopping coat, and began to furl it efficiently. Loretta took a metaphorical deep breath and determined to begin as she meant to go on. Confidently and with an air of being in control.
‘I’m Loretta Halliday,’ she said, thrusting her hand towards him.
He looked at it then up at her but had no hand spare to shake it with.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ he said instead, with what she feared might be an indulgent smile. ‘I’m Malcolm Penn. I know. Great name for a journalist. I call it fate. And what brings you here, Loretta Halliday?’
Loretta tilted her chin upwards ever so slightly.
‘I’m starting work here today,’ she said. ‘Apprentice in the newsroom.’
‘Are you, by God,’ he said. ‘Well, you’d better come with me. This way.’
He set off in the direction of the stairs, clearly expecting Loretta to follow. She wasn’t sure what to do. She had been told to announce herself at the reception desk, which she could see at the far end of the hall. As she dithered, Malcolm Penn had reached the double doors that she assumed led to the staircase and he turned to see where she was. Finding her still standing where he had left her, he called over.
‘Are you coming, Miss Halliday?’ he asked.
Loretta’s glance flitted between him and the reception desk and he seemed to grasp her dilemma.
‘Susan,’ he called over to the reception desk. ‘This is Loretta Halliday, starting here today on the apprentice scheme. I’ll take her upstairs with me. Tell the powers that be, would you?’
‘Right you are, Mr Penn,’ replied Susan and immediately picked up her telephone.
‘There. That’s sorted. Now, are you coming or am I destined to hold this door open forever never quite being able to get my teeth into whatever juicy story awaits me, like some kind of modern-day Tantalus?’
‘Sorry,’ said Loretta, and virtually ran across the hall to him.
As they climbed the stairs – ‘the lift can be temperamental’ – he quizzed her on her life thus far including where she was from, where she’d studied and what her main ambitions were. As she fired back answers, it occurred to her that she was witnessing a real journalist in action, relieving her of information as easily as breathing.
He was puffing a little by the time they reached the top.
‘Not as fit as I should be,’ he confessed. ‘Too many fags. Not enough apples. Right. We’re through here.’
Loretta still had no idea why he had taken her under his wing and whether his actions were appropriate, but she was committed to them now and just had to hope that he wasn’t going to play some terrible practical joke on her and leave her locked in a stationery cupboard all day.
He didn’t seem the type for that kind of caper, though. He was old, for a start – forties at least – with soft frog-like features and thinning, slightly greasy hair that was pushed off his wide forehead but kept flopping forward, forcing him to scrape it back almost constantly. His John Lennon glasses were smeared but that might just have been the rain. He looked fundamentally benign.
They reached a half-glazed double door, which he pushed open and then paused on the threshold.
‘Behold! The newsroom.’
Loretta stared, awestruck at this veritable hive of frantic activity.
The first thing that struck her was the noise. Typewriters clattered on almost every desk and people shouted back and forth at one another to spare themselves the effort of getting up. Piles of papers were scattered over desks, and in-trays overflowed on to the floor. Everywhere people were striding about with a sense of purpose, as if there were somewhere they should have been five minutes earlier. The atmosphere was alive with electrifying energy and thick with cigarette smoke, butts burning in ashtrays on almost every surface.
Along the far wall was a string of offices, all with glass fronts. Venetian blinds hung at jaunty angles at some and were fully drawn at others. The only women she could see in the room were stationed directly outside each glass-fronted office. There seemed to be no women in the central space at all.
‘Welcome to the madhouse,’ said Malcolm, raising his voice a little so that he could be heard over the racket. ‘Let’s go and speak to Anthea. She knows everything. She’ll sort you out.’
Loretta followed him across the room. One or two men looked up from their typing as she went past but no one seemed interested in her. She tried to look confident but she could feel her pulse pounding.
Sitting at the far end of the room at a desk that commanded a view of the entire space was a woman who Loretta guessed would be in her fifties. Her short hair was dyed an unconvincing chestnut and set into rigid waves, and she wore a beige twinset. She didn’t appear to have changed her look for thirty years.
‘Anthea,’ shouted Malcolm over the racket. ‘This is our new recruit, Loretta Halliday.’
‘Don’t bellow, Malcolm,’ Anthea replied. ‘It’s noisy enough in here without you adding to the hullabaloo. Now. Miss Halliday. Welcome. I’ll take it from here, Malcolm, thank you.’
Malcolm, clearly dismissed, retreated with a casual salute and Loretta thanked him for his help.
‘I’ll bring your paperwork in due course,’ said Anthea, ‘but let’s get you settled first. You’ll be working with Mr Redpath. He’s one of our most experienced reporters on the crime desk. He’s not in yet but that means we can get you settled before he arrives. Follow me.’
She said this as if it would be preferable to his already being at his desk and Loretta’s stomach clenched. She had noted how first names were adequate for Malcolm but apparently not for her new boss. The crime desk, though. That sounded exciting. She had been worried that she’d be placed on something dull to cut her teeth, but it seemed she was going to be thrown straight into the melee.
Anthea bustled across the floor. Loretta followed in her wake, stepping around piles of papers and chairs that had been pushed away from their desks as if the occupants had left in a hurry. Almost in the middle of the room was a desk that stood out from the rest by virtue of its neatness. There was a telephone, its curly cable fastidiously unknotted, a typewriter, ready loaded with paper, a pen pot, a tower of three in-trays and a shorthand notebook. The desk next to it, half its size and about six inches lower, was completely clear except for a telephone.
‘Mr Redpath is a stickler for tidiness. A lone voice in this wilderness,’ said Anthea. ‘This will be your desk. I suggest you sit there and look busy until he arrives.’
And then she turned and made her way back to her own desk.
Loretta sat down. Look busy? Busy doing what, precisely? There wasn’t even a typewriter to type up a story. She thought about picking up the telephone handset but who would she be talking to? Her eyes scanned the space, desperate to find something useful to do, and she didn’t see her new boss approaching.
‘Well, you’re off to a fine start. Can’t even use your time productively, I see.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve just this second got here. I was just . . .’
‘You’ll find that I’m not interested in excuses. Sit down. Tell me you can take shorthand at least.’
Loretta nodded. They had learned the Pitman system and she had practised until she was up to one hundred words per minute. Mr Redpath opened a desk drawer and passed her a dog-eared notebook and a Bic biro.
‘Good. Now write this down.’
11
Loretta took the lid off the pen and opened the notebook, flicking through to find the first clean page. The pad was full of shorthand, some examples neater than others, but before she could fully take that in, Mr Redpath had started to speak. Flustered and trying to hold the start of his sentence in her head, Loretta found a page and began.
‘It is a phenomenon worthy of note,’ he began, ‘that in newsrooms up and down the country apprentices who turn up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on their first day invariably disappoint by the end of the week. Many fail to make it to their first payday. It is not clear what makes the current generation of recruits, particularly the girls, so unsuitable for the task but one has to consider whether in the absence of national service we as a nation are breeding young people with little initiative and even less backbone.’
He clicked his fingers at her and held out his hand.
‘Show.’
Loretta passed him the notebook, the sense of what she had been asked to take down slowly washing over her now she had time to think. She pulled her lips between her teeth in a mixture of nervousness and anger.
Mr Redpath read over what she had written, his face set in a scowl.
‘Bushy-tailed isn’t clear,’ he said. ‘And initiative is incorrect.’
He handed the notebook back to her but Loretta wasn’t sure what he wanted her to do. Was she supposed to rewrite those two words, or do the whole piece again, although what would be the point of that? But before she had time to ask, he spoke again.
‘Not brilliant. Not terrible,’ he said. ‘Mine’s a tea, milk two sugars.’ He opened a desk drawer and passed her a plain white mug. ‘This is my cup. It is to be kept clean at all times and never to find its way into general circulation. Do you understand?’
Loretta took the mug, nodding.
‘Don’t just nod. I know you have a tongue in your head. Answer me properly.’
‘Yes, Mr Redpath,’ she said.
He stared at her.
‘Well, go on then. A man could die of thirst.’
Loretta was on the point of asking him where she would find the kettle and supplies but then she stopped. This was a test. He wanted initiative. She would give him initiative. He lifted his hands to the keys of his typewriter and began to type, steadfastly not looking in her direction.
Feeling panicked, she glanced around the newsroom to see if she could see where the tea station was, or at the very least someone with tea that she could ask. As her eyes cast around, she saw Malcolm Penn watching her. She gave him a tentative smile and he tipped his head towards a door on the far wall. She looked over and then looked back at him questioningly. He nodded.
‘Thanks,’ she mouthed and set off confidently in the direction he’d suggested.
The door, when she reached it, opened on to a small kitchenette with a hot-water boiler, a fridge and a cupboard that contained various stained and chipped mugs. She could see why Mr Redpath insisted on using his own. There was a box of PG Tips on the countertop, teabags scattered around it where people had removed more than one and not bothered to return the spare. There was also a huge jar of Nescafé and an open bag of sugar. Teaspoons littered the surface like little boats.
Loretta made the tea, carefully stirring the sugar in to make sure it was all dissolved. She decided that she shouldn’t make one for herself at this point. She considered making a cup for Malcolm but she didn’t know what he drank or how he took it. She would return his kindness when she got a chance, though.
Then she took the cup of tea and delivered it to Mr Redpath. He was still typing when she got back to the desk and she placed the cup of tea on a coaster at his elbow. With a flourish, he pulled the paper from the typewriter and she saw that it wasn’t a single sheet but a few all fastened together. He handed them to her.
‘Remove the carbons,’ he said. ‘Then the top copy goes to the news desk, the second copy for the copy taster, the third for the picture desk and the last one is for your files.’
Was this another test, she wondered. Was she expected to distribute each copy to its rightful home? Not sure what to do, she looked down at the paper and let her eyes skim the words.
It is the role of the apprentice to listen and learn. Questions are permitted but not encouraged. A good junior reporter can use their initiative and deduce what is expected of them by reading the signals around them. And making a good cup of tea is essential.
She looked up. If she’d hoped that Mr Redpath would now be smiling at her, test passed with flying colours, she was sorely mistaken. He looked just as implacable as he had done before. So she sat back down at her desk, picked up the notebook and pen and glanced up at him expectantly. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw a thumbs-up sign from Malcom Penn but she couldn’t swear to it.
12
At one o’clock there seemed to be a general downing of tools for lunch. Mr Redpath, who had spent much of the morning explaining the finer points of newspaper production to her, all things she had covered in depth at university, opened his briefcase and took out a square packet of sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper. He opened it on his desk and Loretta got the unmistakeable whiff of egg. She hadn’t brought any lunch with her, not being sure of the form, and now she wasn’t sure what she was expected to do.
She supposed she should ask to be dismissed, or at least if she was allowed a lunch hour, but the prospect of interrupting Mr Redpath and his egg sandwich was too much. She’d rather go hungry. She could probably last all day without any lunch anyhow. She resolved to have a bigger breakfast the following day.
And then Malcolm was at her back.
‘Don’t mind if we whisk your apprentice away, do you, Redpath? Take her to the pub, show her where the real work happens.’
Mr Redpath looked up disdainfully. He had a tiny morsel of egg yolk lodged in his moustache. This was so at odds with his fastidious behaviour thus far that it made Loretta want to giggle, probably a stress release from her terrifying morning.
‘As long as she’s back here by two I don’t care where you take her,’ he said, without making eye contact with Loretta.
‘Come on then, Loretta. Grab your stuff.’
Oozing gratitude, Loretta put her coat over her arm and picked up her handbag. Then she followed Malcolm across the newsroom to the door to the stairs. On the way they picked up a guy a few years older than her and a girl who had been sitting at a desk directly outside one of the glass-fronted offices.
‘Loretta, Dave. Dave, Loretta,’ said Malcom as they walked.
‘And I’m Tracey,’ said the girl, rolling her eyes at Malcolm. ‘Pleased to meet you. How’s your first morning been? Awful, I’d guess. He’s such a boring old bastard, that Redpath.’
Loretta didn’t want to be overheard criticising her boss on her first morning so she just smiled and hoped that would do, but Tracey was having none of it.
‘Did he make you take dictation and then go on about how rubbish he expects you’ll be? He did, didn’t he? He does that to everyone. I don’t know why they put the new people with him. It hardly gives a good impression. The rest of us are all right, aren’t we, Malcolm?’
Malcolm didn’t seem to feel the need to reply and Loretta held her tongue too. They were on the stairs now and she was less anxious, but she’d be happier when they were out of earshot of anyone who might report back to her new boss. ‘Don’t worry,’ Tracey continued. ‘You’re only thinking what we already know. He’s a miserable sod.’
‘But a great reporter,’ said Malcolm, holding the door open for them. ‘You can learn a lot from him as long as you don’t rub him up the wrong way.’
Loretta smiled again. She wasn’t sure what response was expected of her but she definitely didn’t want to rub anyone up the wrong way, especially not on her first day.
There was a pub right next door to the newspaper offices and Dave led the way. Inside, it was almost as noisy as the newsroom. Men were standing three deep at the bar, each with a cigarette in one hand and a pint in the other. Loretta had heard stories of the Fleet Street pubs, where golden nuggets of information melded together into stories, and here she was, right in the middle of it.
‘I’m buying, seeing as it’s your first day,’ said Malcolm, wagging a finger at her, ‘but don’t get used to it. What’ll you have?’
Loretta looked around her. Everyone had alcohol of some kind or other but that didn’t feel right when she was working.
‘Orange juice?’ she suggested tentatively.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Dave. ‘You’ll never make a reporter if you don’t drink at lunchtime.’
‘Okay. Half a dry cider then, please,’ she said, capitulating without a fight.
‘That’s more like it. Trace?’
‘Cinzano and lemonade please, Dave,’ she said, and then without warning she bolted across the room to secure a table from a group who were leaving.
