‘Oh, I think so. Provided she didn’t find out where the money really came from. She isn’t a complete crook.’
VIII
Sergeant Sawyer was scowling in his booth as usual, the lift juddered up in the same old way, and there was the regular pile of Monday manuscripts waiting to be read on my desk. Rather than face them I went off to the middle room to say hello. When Tom looked up to ask if I’d had a good holiday he sounded perfectly normal—only slightly guarded when I asked how things were going. We arranged to have luncheon at El Vino’s and I assumed he would tell me then.
The first real sign that I got that things were different was from Nellie. I’d skimmed through a dozen manuscripts, even direr than usual because writers who’d stopped trying, convinced that Jack Todd had a personal vendetta against them, were having another go—many of them actually said so in their covering letters. Depression had already set in when Nellie came through the swing doors.
‘The Editor would like to see you, Mabs,’ she said.
She spoke as though she hardly knew me. She didn’t ask about my holiday. She sounded as though she was struggling through a miserable dream.
‘Oh, Nellie, I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘I dare say we shall get used to things.’
I had to give the door a shove to force it over the pile of the new carpet. Elephant grey, I saw. And yes, white walls, Swedish chairs, stainless steel floor-lamps; linen curtains. No Buffets on the walls, though, but cartoons, new ones, including several blondes-in-bed-with-rich-old-men. Mr Naylor was sitting behind a huge, flat-topped, fake-antique partner’s desk, reading next Thursday’s magazine.
‘Sit down,’ he said and went on reading. He kept me waiting five minutes, at least. Some pages he merely glanced at, others he read for a while before turning on with an impatient flick I wondered if he’d asked me in to say he had no more use for me. He put the paper down as if he’d found what he was looking for and stared at me through his beady little spectacles.
‘I’m told you come from a posh kind of home,’ he said.
‘I suppose . . . well, yes.’
‘What do you make of this?’
He smacked the magazine with the back of his hand. I had to stand to see where he’d got it open. The Round, of course.
‘It’s surprising how many people read it,’ I said.
‘Your kind of people?’
‘And ones who like to think they are. I used to, when I could. You’re a bit ashamed, but it’s sort of addictive.’
‘You didn’t find it totally balls-aching?’
‘I’m not actually equipped . . .’
He slammed the desk with his palm to stop me.
‘Having ink slung at me I can take,’ he said. ‘Being picked up on the way I talk I can’t.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .’
‘This is my magazine. It has to be the way I want it. I’ve got to be able to tell my staff what I want in my own language, uncensored, right? If I start trying to mince along like you and Duggan I’ll end up running a magazine full of masturbating little articles about getting the lawn-mower to start.’
‘Yes, I see.’
‘I’m glad you see, Margaret.’
That was the first time he’d used his flat stage voice. Till then he’d had a neutral sort of accent, with only a slight nasal whine in it, and had sounded lively in a rather aggressive way. He’d really let me see he was angry, when he was. I assumed that this was the real Brian Naylor and the stage voice and personality were a defensive system. His behaviour with Jane hadn’t suggested that he really expected women to be attracted to him. And that business with the ink—he’d seemed quite likeable then, playing the butt and fall-guy.
‘That’s what I used to think about the paper before I came,’ I said.
‘And then you were converted? On your way to Damascus-on-Thames?’
‘Only partly. When we get it wrong it can be dreary. And sometimes it’s clever without being interesting.’
‘All right. What would you do with this?’
He smacked his hand on the Round again.
‘Have we got to keep it?’
‘I have got to keep it. You look at the advertising pages sometimes, Margaret?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you will have noticed that forty per cent of our income derives from selling various forms of kitsch, and snob-appeal tobacco and perfume and corsets and shoes to a pathetic bunch of social climbers. Until I can build up a less repulsive class of advertiser I have to stick with this shit. So?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ve thought about it, of courser I used to think you could just do what Mrs Clarke does but write it rather better, but you couldn’t. It’s really only lists of names, with a few adjectives. You could think up new adjectives, but they’d get dreary too after a few weeks. You couldn’t do what I’ve done with Petronella because that depends on the existence of this. The only other possibility I can see is to turn it into the other sort of gossip-column, lots of names still, but bitchy stories about them. That would be quite expensive. You’d need extra staff, and money to pay your informants. People don’t give dirt away when they can sell it. Remember, even doing it the way she does, Mrs Clarke has spent years building up her filing system. Honestly, I don’t see a solution.’
‘You’re going to have to see a solution, because you’re taking it over.’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh, Margaret ?’
‘I mean no thank you, I suppose. I’d rather not, please.’
‘Why?’
‘I’d hate to do it the way it is. The reason why people do read it is that somehow they feel Mrs Clarke loves it, and that comes through in spite of everything. Besides, I want to do other things. And on top of that Dorothy—Mrs Clarke—has been terribly nice to me. She hates what I write, but she couldn’t have been kinder.’
Mr Naylor sighed, tilted his chair back and gazed at the ceiling.
‘Are you there, God?’ he said. ‘Dear God, sweet God in heaven, couldn’t you have sent me one teeny little professional to work with, instead of a load of whining amateurs? It’s not asking much, God, is it?’
He hung balanced, listening for an answer, before letting the swing of the chair flip him forwards to stare at me through his silly little spectacles.
‘If you can’t do what I want, girlie, you’re no use to me,’ he said.
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘So I’m stupid.’
‘If I tried to do what you want it would come out boring because I’d be bored with it. There are other reasons, but that’s what matters. I dare say there are things I don’t know I can do, but . . .’
‘How old are you, Margaret?’
‘Twenty-one, but . . .’
‘Just twenty-one, and so clever!’
‘Do you want me to resign?’
‘Oh, crap! This is just conversation. What you’re going to do now is sit down and get some ideas together about what to do with the Round. Give your manuscripts to Nellie and tell her to put rejection slips on the lot of them. Oh, and don’t waste time trying to tell me how la Clarke could jazz up what she’s doing. She’s out. Finished. Got that?’
He snatched up the magazine and started to read another page. I left and went into the middle room. Ronnie was in, sorting through the review books. Tom looked up with raised eyebrows, somehow aware that I had news.
‘I’ve just offered to resign,’ I said.
I got it wrong. It was meant to come out dry and whimsical, but a shake crept in.
‘Soon we’ll be able to start a rival rag,’ said Ronnie. ‘You, Dorothy, me. All we need is a backer. Coming, Tom?’
‘Ronnie, you’re not . . .’ I said.
‘No option. You know, there is a certain stimulus about getting the sack. New opportunities shimmer. Mirages, no doubt, but it gives one the illusion of being young and starting out afresh.’