‘Come away from those!’ Fyneham snapped, but Jane had grabbed one.
Do YOU want to make your parish magazine into a genuine going-concern – a professional publication that every parishioner will want to buy?
‘Well, well…’
‘It’s a legitimate business,’ Fyneham said sulkily.
‘Jane?’ Eirion walked over.
‘JD seems to be the guy behind Parish Pump, Irene. It offers a service to vicars and parish councils, to turn their parish magazines into, like, Hello!’
‘Oh, please,’ Fyneham said. ‘I’m offering to teach them the basic craft of journalism.’
‘I don’t know anything about this,’ Eirion said.
‘He probably hasn’t hit Wales yet. Mum got the package, but decided people wouldn’t want to see pictures of the parish council in the nude and, like, read about the churchwarden’s private habits.’
‘You may take the piss,’ Fyneham said, ‘but seven parishes have already signed up for the introductory package.’
‘And what does that do for them, exactly?’ Eirion said.
‘They learn the basics of journalism. How to spot a story, how to write it. I spend a couple of weekends in the parish and sub the first issue for them. Or produce the whole thing, for a fee. It’s a shit-hot idea, Lewis, and it’s working. If a parish magazine looks halfway decent, local businesses are more inclined to advertise, and they can charge more for display ads. That way they get the new steeple before the rest of the church falls down.’
Jane was forced to concede that it wasn’t such a bad concept.
‘You do it all yourself?’
‘So far, but I expect I’ll soon be able to employ some of the guys from the media studies group on a part-time basis. Not that Lewis would be interested…’
‘This is all your dad’s kit?’ Eirion said. ‘He produces real glossies – trade stuff, right?’
‘Nah, this is just overspill. He’s got a proper plant down in town, with a few staff.’ Fyneham shrugged. ‘We help each other out.’
There was a noticeboard at the end of the long room, with some magazine covers pinned to it: Microlite Monthly. You and Your DigiCam. The Clinical Therapist. International Readers’-Group Forum. What Hereford Council Can Do for You.
All crap, really.
‘Tell the truth, the old man hates what he does,’ Fyneham said. ‘He’d rather be a real journalist any day of the week, but real journalists don’t have a pad like this with five acres and a pool. It’s swings and roundabouts, Lewis. The old man goes on about secure income. If I have this to fall back on, I can go out there and, like, soar.’
Eirion looked faintly contemptuous – but then his family had been loaded since for ever. Jane started to wonder if Fyneham would maybe give her a weekend job. Hadn’t earned a penny of her own since the maid thing at Stanner Hall.
But then she remembered why they were here.
‘Does your dad own Q, then?’
Fyneham stared down at her, eyes narrowing. She noticed a faint sheen on his face, above the weekend stubble that Eirion said some guys in his year started cultivating from about Wednesday.
‘We’re talking about Lol Robinson,’ Eirion said.
‘Aw…’ Fyneham shuffled out this crooked grin. ‘Look, maybe it’ll get in, maybe it won’t.’
‘You’re saying you did it on spec?’
‘You’ve never done that? Written a piece for a magazine and just sent it in, see if it gets used?’
‘Can’t say I have, JD.’
‘Scared of rejection, huh? I’ve had quite a few pieces published – OK, not in Q yet, but some of the others.’
‘Fanzines?’
‘Oh, better than that. Look, somebody tells me about this guy who’s just brought an album out and how he used to be halfway famous, way back, and how he used to be a mental patient with a police record. Burns me a CD. Like, I don’t personally go for that acoustic shit, but I get onto the Net, dredge up some background and think, yeah, I’ll go and interview him.’
‘You told him you worked for Q,’ Eirion said.
‘I told him I was a freelance. What’s wrong with that?’
‘You told him it was definitely going in,’ Jane said.
‘I told him I couldn’t be sure when it would go in. And I couldn’t.’
Jane looked at Eirion. He was red-faced and tight-lipped and looking far younger than he had when he was smarming the second wife at the door. It was all turning out to be no big deal; just another wannabe chancing his arm. OK, a wannabe with a head start… well, a head start on Eirion, anyway.
She wished they’d never come now. She wished she was in Ludlow with Mum. She wished they could just get out of here.
‘Anyway, it wasn’t fair,’ she said to Fyneham, more for Eirion’s sake than anything. ‘Lol Robinson’s a really decent guy, with a lot of talent, and you conned him.’
‘You won’t say that if it makes it into the magazine.’ Fyneham knowing he was on top now, his grin turning into a sneer or maybe it had been a sneer all along. ‘Anyway, why should you be worried about the guy being conned, when he’s beating the shit out of your mother?’
A few seconds later, Jane was hearing Eirion saying, like from a long way away, ‘Jane, no…’
But it was like when she’d tried on Mum’s new glasses: the whole room had gone red – all the printers and the binders, and the scanners and the copiers and the state-of-the-art flat-screen computers.
Including the big, handsome one that she was holding in her arms, maybe sixteen hundred quid’s worth, its cables wrenched out of their sockets and dragging along the carpet as she backed away towards the window.
Fyneham snarling, ‘You’re insane! You’ll be paying for that for the rest of your—’
‘It fell off the desk,’ Jane said through her teeth. ‘Our word against yours. Keep away from me, you scumbag!’
She tripped over an extension cable and had to go down on one knee to prevent the computer slipping out of her arms, and Fyneham let out a screech.
‘For Christ’s sake, Lewis, do something about this bitch!’
‘Out of my hands, JD.’
‘And it’ll be out of mine,’ Jane said, ‘if you take one more step.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want to know where you got it from.’
‘Got what?’
‘You know what. You’ve been trying to bullshit us all along. You think we’re like hicks or something, and you’re this big-time professional journalist…’
‘I don’t know what you’re—’
‘You…’ Jane hefting the computer above the level of her chin: further to fall, more damage. ‘You do!’
‘Put it down!’ Fyneham like went into spasm. ‘Put it down and we’ll talk.’
‘We’ll talk first.’
‘It’s not paid for, you stupid bitch!’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Look,’ Fyneham said, ‘I was just told what to ask, OK, and he bought me—’
Eirion came over then, and Jane clutched the computer to her chest in case he snatched it. But he just stood between her and Fyneham, who looked close to tears, Eirion just looking puzzled.
‘Bought you what?’
Fyneham looked down at his trainers, arms stiffened, fists clenched by his sides.
‘The Evesham.’
‘Your dad bought you the Evesham?’
‘He bought it, and I’m paying him off week by week. My dad… he came up the hard way. He doesn’t do anything for nothing.’
‘But he got you the Evesham if you asked Lol some questions?’
‘He’ll kill me.’
‘Is that what happened?’