The Ghostwriters, page 5
Clara was smiling at her. Beautiful and calm. Susan was disappointed because it was obvious to her that Gunnar and Clara were lovers. Gunnar’s slim fingers had slid along her shoulder and lingered on her back where the skin was exposed, and she had looked up at him and smiled in an easy familiar fashion. Susan was not jealous. She had just hoped for better from him. When he mentioned the possibility of resistance, she had not thought it would have to coalesce around whomever he was currently sharing his bed.
Susan spoke, trying to keep the snark out of her voice, “So, why am I here?”
Gunnar beamed at her. She felt slightly disturbed by that look. Clara leaned in and spoke softly, “We need you.” She looked back at Gunnar. “We have started a movement. We’re trying to gather like-minded people together and make things happen.” Clara’s face was genuine and lovely. Susan noticed how earnest the expression was in her eyes. Could she be for real? A healer, an activist, a rebel? Susan was reminded of years ago and the voices of her students. Young, equally earnest, and sincere.
Clara continued, “We want to try to spread information, and education. I’m willing and so are others.”
“What kind of information?”
Clara paused in thought. When she spoke, the question came out in a considered and serious way. Gunnar grinned proudly as she spoke.
“What matters, … today?” Clara looked directly as Susan.
Susan’s response was a cagey, puzzled frown.
“And who matters? Who are the people in society that matter? These days.”
Susan looked from her to Gunnar. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“It’s hard to put into words – I’m not a teacher or a writer like you -,” Clara smiled.
“It’s been a long time,” Susan muttered.
“I feel – I imagine – that once, people mattered and cared. And that ideas mattered. I’m not sure what I mean. Oh, I’m sounding stupid and naïve.”
“No,” Susan sighed and with a fingertip traced a shape on Gunnar’s worn tabletop as she spoke. “You’re not stupid. You care. That’s very, very rare these days. You’re talking about education – the shape of education – that builds empathy and promotes criticism. It wasn’t perfect – it wasn’t always fair – but there used to be things we could do and anticipate, that we just can’t imagine now.”
She still felt a creeping irritation as she spoke but relished the opportunity to put into words some of her thoughts from way back, especially to someone so attentive and eager. Clara was so very beautiful, and Gunnar was clearly besotted. She had a way of speaking in a soft tone but with passion, and her gestures along with her words had a balletic calming effect. A therapist. Someone whose company alone could be soothing.
Susan found herself full of explanations for why Clara was right. She remembered the world as a complicated, unkind place but because of the feeling Clara imbued in her she wanted the past to seem golden.
“It was better. The weather was unpredictable, but cooler. Everybody got to go to a school or college. Food was better – some of it really, really good – so good. So much of it. I’m talking bakeries, supermarkets, and stalls for everyone. You could go out late at night and buy ice cream! Then take it home and keep it until you wanted to eat it because everyone had a little freezer unit to keep it cold.” She was dredging some of what she knew first-hand but also what she remembered from the stories her parents’ parents had told the family. Her voice ran on. Anecdote. Memoir.
“You see,” Clara looked at Gunnar, “we need to hear about these things. That once we could have plentiful food and an education – a proper one – not just little ones corralled in a big room. Friendly, and kind.”
“That’s not all,” Susan had warmed to her role. “There was an atmosphere and a culture in the country and in this city that was alive. It came from our language. There were so many people here from all over the world. People sang, recited, performed, and wrote in many languages. When I was a student, we had great books that taught us about our language. English wasn’t a formal, stuffy Mother tongue. It was a messy, lively, teenager. It was a youthful, ever-changing, punk language. That’s what we’ve lost. What we gave up on.”
Clara looked intently at Susan as she spoke. Susan suddenly felt self-conscious. She stood up, “I’d better get going now. It’s late.” She pushed back her chair with a scrape and headed for the door.
“Susan,” Clara called out to her and she turned. “Susan, this is exactly what we needed to hear and you’re exactly what we need. You can tell people how it used to be with books and stories in abundance. Just think,” and she moved closer to Susan who had paused at the shop door, “a world of warmth and full of plant life and a blossoming of the old ideas returning. We can have everything back – we can!”
Susan stood for a little longer and then turned and opened the door that let out into the alley behind the Emporium.
She spent a fitful night and awoke, still tired, to Ellery mashing her chest and purring close to her face with such intensity that she had to get up. She was annoyed with herself. Going through the motions of the early morning she pondered on how she had opened up the previous evening, and felt irritated at the memory. She thought about Clara’s lovely, earnest face and scolded herself for being judgmental, immature, and too picky.
“You silly old woman,” she said out loud. “This is exactly what’s been on your mind for years. You’re just peeved that someone else is doing something about it before you!”
She surveyed her bookshelf and reached down a dog-eared copy of ‘Middlemarch’.
Evening
Evening Primrose tapped her perfect manicure on the polished wooden rail of the mezzanine overlook. From this glass, wood, and metal stronghold she could survey her workforce at the Sky-stream HQ. Her very own panopticon. They knew she was there, and they were always wary, always on guard. Good, she thought, that’s just as it should be. She was still ruminating on the shambles of a show the night before. When things went awry like that and the messaging got mixed up and problematic it made her very anxious. She awaited the fallout and very soon it arrived.
Her phone vibrated and the display on screen caused her heart to sink even further and her stomach to tie up in knots. She strode through the offices, decisively and purposefully to hide her anxiety, and made it into her sanctuary where she swiftly made the glass walls completely opaque with a wave of her hand and answered the call. With a deep breath she began as cheerily as she could, “Premier! What an honour – to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Primrose, cut the shit.”
The Premier, the Cabinet’s highest minister and effectively England’s authoritarian leader, was, in public, an affable and tousled-haired numpkin. A blundering, bowdlerising, blond bear of a man, protective of patriotic feeling, Englishness, tea and crumpets, and full of a ‘Hail-fellow-well-met’ manner. Evening knew his other side, however, one that was fickle, mercurial, and cruel, very, very cruel. She braced herself for the onslaught.
The Premier tore strips off her.
“On message – on fucking message, you feckless cunt! Why am I calling you? Why am I calling you? Why am I calling you?”
“To keep me on message, sir.”
“And not just that – I am wasting my time, my valuable time – don’t you think my time is valuable?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Wasting my valuable fucking time – it’s a waste of my time – don’t you think that I have better things to do than this?”
“Yes, sir.” Evening felt cowed and this only made her festering temper worse. She felt the stress building up in her head and her stomach.
“Why would I bother to contact you about a Sky-stream show? Because it matters – the message matters! You are the messenger, the mouthpiece – and you are on my team are you not, Primrose?”
“Yes, yes, I am, and I hoped the message would have been more clear – clearer. I didn’t – …”
“Oh, so you aren’t in control of your own media? Am I talking to the wrong person here? Should you put me through to whoever is really in charge?”
She felt his rage down the phone.
“I’m sorry,” Evening muttered and breathed heavily, “I will personally see to it that such a thing does not happen again. Heads will roll.”
“Yes, yes you will. Because any other slip-ups – such as getting some jobless malingerer on air – and I will end you at Sky-stream. I can replace you in minutes, so the only job you’ll be able to get will be distributing rations at a Hub. The only reason you’re still in your office is because of past loyalty. Repeat after me – I will stay on message!”
“I will stay on message,” she took up a bland tone.
“Fuck, yes – you will!”
Evening slowed her breathing and opened a cabinet that was discretely camouflaged in the walnut and brass panelling. She poured herself a large Scotch over ice – something unknown to anyone but the highest of the haves and higher-ups. She downed a large gulp and hit the button on her intercom. She spoke abruptly into it: “Get in here, Jennifer.”
Moments later, Jennifer Sinclair tapped and entered Evening’s glass fortress.
“Yes, Miss Primrose. What can I do for you?”
Evening looked at her with smug satisfaction. She liked this woman performing servile acts for her. It was why she would never sack Jennifer – well not yet, at any rate. It suited her to have her work in humiliating circumstances. Jennifer was an elegant – innately elegant – woman, from birth. She looked like a higher-up, as if born into that position. She was possessed of that long-boned natural poise that simply exuded grace. The cranium and the neck on which it sat sported a simple haircut that always behaved itself, whatever the atmosphere, as if she had just stepped out of a salon. Evening Primrose had always hated that type of woman. She was always forced to feel self-conscious about her short neck and mannish fingers, wide calves and hips. She hated the women who looked like they did not have to try. Surgery, strict diets, vigorous toning of face and body, and strategic tailoring of all her wardrobe had created Evening Primrose’s TV-ready body. Although, the Sky-stream viewers were convinced that ‘healthy eating, plenty of water, good bones from mother, and getting my steps in,’ were what worked.
“Sit down,” she spoke in a clipped fashion and instructed Jennifer, “take notes.”
“Yes, of course.”
“There has been a screw-up and now I have to firefight.”
“I know,” Jennifer broke in, “and I really didn’t mean –”.
“Ah-ah-ah – shut up,” Evening interrupted with quiet glee, “this is instruction not discussion,” and then she turned to Jennifer and spat out, “you stupid bitch.” But she instantly regretted it. She should not let her feelings carry her away. Stay in control, Evening.
Jennifer looked down at her tablet and blanched.
Evening continued with a certain amount of sly triumph. She enjoyed bullying people and making this woman, in particular, feel sick and anxious for her job. She took pleasure in others’ pain.
“We have a new policy – write this down,” she prodded Jennifer’s shoulder. “First, we vet everyone who comes into the building. Ramp up security. And then, she paused in her perambulation around the office and poured another Scotch, “we audition.”
“Audition?”
“Anyone coming on air is an actor, or someone we can guarantee has no skeletons or flaws!” Evening cast a cruel look at her. “We initiate a system of auditions and recruitment for guests and interviewees. I’d prefer them to be actors – briefed with the correct scripted message. In fact, that will be an imperative. Find some writers to take it on – back stories, character biogs, and naturalistic speech and commentary. We invent a full scheme for each one, make it a major project from now. Wardrobe has to be briefed and – well you know the rest. Get on with it. Go.”
Jennifer collected her things and just as she reached the door, Evening narrowed her eyes and followed up with, “And don’t let me down.”
Jennifer scurried out.
Evening sat in her office chair with her drink and sighed deeply. She massaged her temples. She felt choked up and anxious and wanted to take it out on someone else – but without making it too obvious. She looked around and considered un-masking her office but decided against it. She would leave the shields up for longer because she craved some privacy for now. Her staff had to live under regular scrutiny, but Evening wanted time. Time to think. She was angry. Angry at the Premier and Cabinet and angry at herself. The Prime Minister was good at many things and she believed in him, without doubt, but not without some personal conflict. She had been a loyal foot-soldier since the beginning of the Project, but now he and the others lashed out too quickly. She knew he would not be long for this world.
In the beginning, it had been fun almost all the time. Evening, or Patricia, as she was back then, had grown up in the post-war, post-UK-Split years. Those summers from her childhood, that grew warmer every year, when everyone could say: ‘Who needs Europe?,’ ‘Who needs a house in France?,’ ‘We have our own great weather now’. Some people reflected on it with: ‘If this is global warming, then we love it!’ England had everything; beaches, vineyards, plantations, and cities, they did not need the rest of Britain. A right little, tight little nation. But then the seasonal storms grew worse and undermined the country’s efforts to go it alone. Farming and food production suffered, and so rationing came in and the import of bulk food-stuffs for processing. It seemed to Patricia, growing up, that chaos and mayhem had steadily increased and were actively encouraged in all branches of the press and television, and especially the internet. She wanted to do something about it. She decided that a university education was the way to go. It would be meaningful. Evening sneered slightly at the memory of how naïve and idealistic Patricia had been.
What a joke! The plan to attend a good college at which she could learn critical thinking and argument was soon put off – permanently. She laughed at the recollection of the closure of her course and how she and fellow students had protested at the time. Such children, she sighed, and swilled the last of her drink in the tumbler as it combined with the melting ice-cube. Her life had taken a decided up-turn after the phasing out of writing and literature studies.
At one of the protests that she had thought would be meaningful, she had encountered him for the first time. Derrick. Derrick Smallman. He was a determined, small-eyed man, already balding in his early thirties. He had approached her and asked, “Do you want to make a real difference?” And, if so, “What are you prepared to do about it?” This had been the call, and Patricia heeded it. So, she joined him and his newly formed ‘think tank’ made up of his circle. They also began a sexual affair, whilst he was engaged to the docile, loyal Charlotte. Patricia was groomed as part of Derrick’s media revolution. She became Evening Primrose, a confrontational and radical radio and podcast host, and eventually the major Sky-stream presenter. She did not have to be accurate or consistent, in fact, better not, he told her. Be inflammatory and provocative. She was a ‘voice of the people’ and ‘only saying what everyone is thinking’.
As Patricia she thought, for a little while at least, that she loved him, but as Evening she knew that she did not. Derrick paired her with Eliot, a veteran broadcaster, known for his sympathy to the Project and reactionary views. Eliot Chalmers became Eliot Charming in popular parlance and the name stuck. The ‘Evening and Eliot’ show was spawned.
Derrick had been quite hands-on at first. He helped her to chart the direction of the show and they even continued their affair for a little while after each married. Evening’s wedding to Eliot was a glitzy, celebrity-laden event. Derrick and Charlotte had a low-key quickie morning ceremony at the Cheltsea Registry Office. Gradually, he had to pull away as he became more involved in the political side of the Project. And the politics took on a more and more authoritarian tone until it was as if it had always been that way. Derrick thrived in that environment and was a persuasive and passionate instigator with violent language and hefty amounts of prejudice. The Smallman Project became the foundation of the country’s political direction of neo-Albion patriotism. Cabinet-controlled politics meant a Premier with increased personal power, and the Chairmanship of the government overwhelmed policy making. So, as Derrick had planned, he was able to put his man in the seat of power and reinvent Parliament’s role as merely ceremonial. The regular jostling for power resulted in the current Premier, the bumbling, cruel idiot-in-charge. But his days (like all the others before and after him) were numbered.
Evening finished her drink. She had not seen Derrick in – what was it? – eight or even ten years. Hard to keep track of time these days. He had been ousted in a reshuffle. That benign-sounding operation masked, she knew, a much more sinister and sometimes brutal overthrow and action. Well, Derrick had known what might be in store. How the mighty have fallen, and she raised a glass under cover of the masked walls of her office and took a final dilute sip. Thanks to the Smallman Project, the existence of which was known only to a select few, she now wielded the kind of power and enjoyed the privileged lifestyle most in England could only dream about. Derrick had been made a casualty of his own success and what had become of him, she did not know.
Evening stood up and adjusted her beautifully tailored, flattering suit. Well, she told herself, remember dear Derrick’s words: “Be extraordinary, be a weirdo, be a wild-card and a maven. Think outside the box!” She swiped the control to alter the opacity of the walls. Immediately, she could see her production team, their heads down hard at work. Evening walked out of her office and scanned the desks. Where was Jennifer? Skiving – again. She was a good producer, but she must always be made to feel she was hanging by a thread. Evening pursed her lips and frowned.
