This Charming Man

  ‘Morning, Sugarfree.’

  I’m called Sugarfree because I have a reputation for being acerbic. (If I was a man, however, I’d simply have a reputation for being straight-talking.) Also Sugarfree rhymes with Gildee. Everyone in the Spokesman has a descriptive nickname that rhymes with their surname. For example, Hannah Leary is always complaining about late delivery of copy and never comes for a drink on Friday night. So hers is, ‘Hannah Leary, she’s very dreary.’ (Hannah knows about this. Everyone knows their rhyme. A newspaper office is a harsh, honest environment.)

  In Features, phones were ringing and nearly everyone was already in. Apart from Casey Kaplan, of course. He kept his own hours. Monday morning at 9 a.m.? Casey was probably drinking Jack and Coke in some early house with Bono. I said hello to Lorraine, Joanne, Tara and Clare – Features was staffed almost entirely with women; the hours were more regular than news, which made life easier if you had kids. Because I was the only features writer who didn’t have any, I got sent on all the unpredictable jobs, which couldn’t guarantee to end at five-thirty on the dot.

  At the desk next to mine, TC Scanlan was typing at speed. Being that rare creature, a male features writer, he was the butt of many a sexist comment, the favourite being, ‘He sits down to pee.’ (Like I said, a newspaper office is a cruelplace.)

  ‘Sorry to hear about your car,’ he said. ‘You know, I was wondering what you were up to on Friday, all those hush-hush phone calls!’ A great big smile, now that he knew. He stood up and rummaged around in his trouser pocket, then counted out some change. ‘There you go. One euro twenty. Your bus fare home.’

  The phone rang and went straight to voicemail– we never answered. ‘Irate readers out in force this morning,’ he said. ‘That piece about the teenage boys. It’s nearly as bad as when you wrote about not wanting children.’

  Yes. I’d realized I’d overstepped the mark when I got a message from Ma on Saturday morning. The Spokesman isn’t her usualreading material, she’s a Guardian woman through and through, but she likes to keep an eye on what I’m writing.

  ‘Grace,’ she’d said. ‘Your column, that’s going too far! Yes, I can’t abide teenage boys either. They’re so… well… greasy. Not just their skin, they genuinely can’t help that, you know, it’s their hormones. But they put stuff in their hair which makes it… well… greasy is the only word I can think of, or perhaps they simply don’t wash it for weeks on end. But you can’t make jokes about internment, not even about teenage boys.’

  She added, ‘I liked the notion of the feminist literature, though.’

  ‘Any death threats?’ I asked TC.

  ‘Just the usual.’

  ‘Grand, grand.’

  They say you always remember your first time: your first love, your first car, your first death threat. About three years ago, when I’d just started at the Spokesman, to lay out my stall, I did a controversial piece on the tyranny of breast-feeding. The following morning, a message was waiting on my voicemail. ‘I’m going to kill you, Grace Gildee, you feminist slut. I know what you look like and I know where you live.’ Although his lines were a little unoriginal, I was trembling like a child. I’d never before had a death threat. Not even, at the start of my career, when I’d been working crime at the Times.

  I’d always thought of myself as a bit of a crusader but I couldn’t believe how frightened I was. And it made me wonder how I’d have coped in a place like Algeria, where if you write that the president’s new haircut makes him look like Elton John, you could look forward to your car going up like a fireball the next time you turned the key in your ignition.

  I’d told TC about the message, who’d told Jacinta Kinsella, who’d listened to the first two seconds of it then said with exasperation, ‘Oh that fool. Mr I Know Where You Live. I thought we’d got rid of him.’ She’d deleted it with a sharp jab. ‘ “I know what you look like”? All he has to do is look at your photo, for God’s sake!’

  ‘So there’s nothing to worry about?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing.’ Said impatiently. She’d been on her way out to lunch (at 10.35 a.m.).

  Now I get death threats on a fairly regular basis. (All you have to do is ring the switchboard and say to Mrs Farrell, ‘I want to leave Grace Gildee a death threat,’ and you’ll be put through.) I have five or six regulars who seem to have a rota. But none of them has followed up on their promises, so I’ve sort of relaxed and accepted that they’re just all talk.

  ‘What’ve you got for me, Grace?’

  ‘And hello to you too,’ I said.

  It was Jacinta Kinsella, carrying one of her five Birkin bags. Her husband had bought her one every time she gave birth, and to be honest I’d rather carry my stuff in a plastic bag that smelt of curry, if that was the price. Today’s bag was black, to match her mood. Whenever she showed up with her yellow one, there was rejoicing all round. It meant she would probably buy us ice-cream out of petty cash.

  Very glam, was Jacinta. She got her raven’s-wing hair blow-dried every single morning of her life and she was always dressed as if she was going to the races. Whenever a funeralneeded to be covered, Jacinta got sent, because she had the best coat.

  ‘Let me get my notes,’ I said.

  Jacinta is Head of Features and I’m Chief Features Writer and we have a good relationship. Well, goodish – if she wasn’t so rattly about me wanting her job, and, of course, if I wasn’t praying for her to take early retirement or to be head-hunted by another paper…

  Now and again something blows up in her face and Big Daddy tries to sack her but she calls in the union and flings around blame like Jackson Pollock with a can of paint. Basically there’s no getting rid of her. (Her little rhyme goes, ‘Jacinta Kinsella, she’s invincible.’)

  ‘Jacinta,’ TC called to her. ‘Message from Casey. He’s chasing up a story so big, quote “it’ll rock our world” unquote.’

  ‘Did he actually say that?’ I exclaimed. ‘That it’ll rock our world?’

  ‘What time will he be in?’ Jacinta asked sharply.

  TC shook his head sadly. ‘Why ask me? I’m nobody.’

  Jacinta was in way over her head with Casey. No control at all. Big Daddy had lured him from the Sunday Globe to ‘sex us up’, then foisted him on Jacinta. ‘Another man for Features.’

  Big Daddy was as pleased as punch with his acquisition: Casey had made such a name for himself doing big interviews that he was sort of a celebrity in his own right. His profiles had become water-cooler material and fell roughly into two types. Version one, a savage (admittedly amusing) decon-struction of the celebrity, their vapid stupidity, the bizarre requests they made of their staff and how unattractive they were up close without the benefit of air-brushing.

  Version two, a stream-of-consciousness, present-tense account of eighteen-hour marathon drinking sessions with rock bands or movie stars as they ricocheted around the city from club to club, finally coming to rest in a hotel suite strewn with baggies of coke and half-eaten club sandwiches.

  I hated his work. It was self-serving and egotistical. But I couldn’t say that because everyone would think I was jealous. Which I was.

  ‘Sugarfree? Cigarette break? It’ll rock your world.’

  ‘Can you credit that idiot?’ I produced a packet of Nicorette gum. I believed in arming myself with as much protection as possible. ‘Anyway bad news, TC, I’m giving up.’

  ‘Again? Good luck,’ he said. ‘Nothing to it. I’ve given up loads of times.’

  Wistfully I stroked my packet of gum and watched him and the others heading off to the fire escape. It wasn’t just the nicotine I wanted, it was the human contact. The best conversations I’ve ever had have been over cigarettes. Smokers were like a secret society and even – as happened in pubs – when we were coralled into smokers’ paddocks, like untouchables, cigarettes provided camaraderie and intimacy. I’d given up before so this feeling – a deep sadness, like a very good friend has moved to Australia –was familiar, but that wasn’
t making it any easier.

  Nineteen new emails since the last time I’d checked – less than an hour ago. Press release after press release from PR firms, all looking for coverage: indoor barbecue sets; the benefits of tea-tree oil; a report on incontinence; a cookbook from a celebrity chef; a newsletter from Women’s Aid…

  Anything at all I could work with? As I scanned down, a report on penile enhancement caught my eye. That might be fun.

  Then I saw something that made my heart beat faster: Madonna was coming to Ireland to do three concerts. But every media outlet in the land would be begging for her – what made me any different? I just knew I could do a good job. Better than anyone else.

  I abandoned everything to compose an agonizingly perfect pitch to Madonna’s publicist – trying to sound simultaneously craven, intelligent and fun – thus beginning the complex process of wooing a big star.

  I was coming back from buying a bag of wine gums, a cheese roll and two packets of crisps – I’d eaten a bar of fruit and nut coming up the stairs, anything to cushion the fall from Mount Nicotine – when I got enmeshed in the rush for the morning editorialmeeting. Allthe heads of department were moving, as a single body, towards the editor’s office. (‘Coleman Brien. We’re too scared of him to do a rhyme.’)

  Jacinta came clipping over. ‘Grace, where did you get to?’

  I indicated my haul.

  ‘Look, I can’t do this meeting.’

  There was always something. She had to bring a child to the dentist, or to the nutritionist, or to EuroDisney…

  ‘Okay. Which of these will I pitch?’

  She scanned my notes. ‘Go for lunchtime eye-lifts. Breast cancer. Fat brats.’

  I tore open the wine gums and crammed a handful of dark-coloured ones into my mouth. I couldn’t bring the bag to the meeting because Big Daddy went berserk at the sound of rustling.

  I slid into his office, the meeting had already started; Jonno Fido from the newsdesk was going through today’s big stories. I leant against a filing cabinet, half listening while sucking quietly. Lovely sweets. Then… no! A sour taste. I’d got a yellow one! How had that happened? It must have been lying in wait, camouflaging itself among the reds and blacks.

  I couldn’t spit it out and shout, like I would have at home, ‘Yellow one, yellow one! Mission abort!’ I had to keep sucking until it dissolved.

  Jonno finished up; foreign went next, then sport and then crime, of which there was tons.

  ‘Political?’

  David Thornberry sat up straighter. ‘The Dee Rossini story won’t go away. On Friday the news broke about her getting her house painted for free.’ I knew about this. It was the mini-scandalette which had kept Damien late at work. I stopped my mental grousing about yellow wine gums and their inherent treachery and started paying realattention. Dee Rossini was the Minister for Education and leader of New Ireland, Paddy’s party.

  ‘Over the weekend, it’s been explained away – Rossini sent the decorating firm a cheque last November but they never cashed it – but I’ve been leaked another story. An exclusive. She was supposed to pay for her daughter’s wedding, but the hotelhaven’t been paid. I did a bit of digging – the hotel is owned by the Mannix Group.’ He paused for impact. ‘The same group which owns R&D Decorators, the crowd who painted her house for free. Obviously she’s got some in with them.’ The implication was that, as Minister for Education, Dee Rossini had the power to issue contracts for building schools and the Mannix Group were giving her freebies in exchange for future commissions. If it was true, it would do long-term damage to New Ireland.

  ‘Or maybe she’s being set up?’ Big Daddy said. He was a fan of New-Ireland. ‘Go soft on it.’

  ‘What if she’s on the take and it looks like we’ve condoned it?’ David was flushed with anger. He was watching his big exciting exclusive disappear. ‘If we don’t splash on this, someone else will. My source will take this elsewhere.’

  ‘I’m telling you, go soft on it,’ Big Daddy repeated. He had a deep rumbly voice, which made windows vibrate.

  ‘If we go soft, everyone else will pick it up tomorrow and we’ll look like saps for downplaying a dirty story. And how does it make the Nappies look, in coalition with crooks?’

  ‘Dee Rossini is no crook. And if the Nationalist Party of Ireland objected to crooks being in power, they’d all have to resign.’

  ‘For fuck’s –’

  ‘Right,’ Big Daddy said. ‘Features?’

  He looked around for Jacinta and I put my hand up. ‘She sends her apologies.’

  ‘What’ve you got?’

  ‘Lunchtime eye-lifts?’

  ‘Jacinta Kinsella is not getting her eyes done on my time. Next!’

  ‘Breast cancer. Report just in. Ireland has a high percentage of false negatives, much higher than the EU average.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Obesity in schoolchildren. New figures, it’s getting worse.’

  ‘No. No, no. Sick to my craw with that. Play Stations, convenience food, trans fat. Stick to the breast cancer.’

  Good. That was the one I wanted to do.

  My mobile rang. ‘Sorry.’ Unlike in the rest of the world, it wasn’t a heinous sin to have your mobile on in a newspaper meeting because the heads of news and crime needed to be constantly accessible to their staff out in the field.

  I looked at the number and thought I was seeing things. What did he want?

  Quickly I switched it off.

  Moving on. ‘Saturday Supplement?’

  That was Desmond Hume, a small, pernickety man with an astonishingly tedious line in conversation. (‘Desmond Hume, can empty a room.’) He shook his head. It was too early in the week.

  ‘SocialDiary?’

  Declan O’Dowd said, ‘Here.’ He wasn’t the actualsocialdiarist. The real one – ‘Roger McEliss, he’s always on the piss’ – was at home, probably bent over his toilet bowl puking his guts up. (An oft-debated chicken-and-egg-style conundrum: which comes first, the social diarist or the drink problem?)

  ‘Declan O’Dowd, he never gets out’ was a poor sap who had to labour at his desk trying to patch together a page from whatever scraps he could decipher from McEliss between his dry heaves. He only got to be a real socialdiarist, going to the premieres and parties, when McEliss was incarcerated on his twice-yearly drying-out sessions.

  ‘Paddy de Courcy’s wife-to-be was seen trying on wedding dresses.’

  ‘Pics?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I bet. Being nicotine-free made me more impatient than usual. ‘From an anonymous source?’ I asked. ‘And I bet they weren’t looking for money?’

  It was obvious that the pictures had come from New Ireland’s press office. At a time when mini-scandals were surrounding Dee Rossini, photos of Paddy’s radiant wife-to-be, in a white lace extravaganza, could have a somewhat neutralizing effect.

  We were all filing back out to our desks, when Big Daddy called, ‘Oh Sugarfree?’

  Christ alive, what did he want? A puff-piece on his daughter-in-law’s kebab shop? A two-thousand-word spread on his grandson’s new haircut?

  ‘Here.’ He passed me a coin. ‘For your bus fare. I heard about your car. Only four months old? The first new car you ever owned?’ His face was creased with mirth.

  ‘Hahaha,’ I said. I mean, I had to. Then, ‘Fifty cents?’

  ‘Isn’t it enough?’

  ‘No. One euro twenty.’

  ‘That much?’ He began jingling around in his trouser pocket while I backed away. ‘No, Mr Brien. I don’t actually need it.’

  He handed me a euro. ‘Keep the change. In fact –’ he paused to enjoy a chuckle – ‘put it towards tomorrow’s fare!’

  David Thornberry was venting in a terrible fury. I could hear him from twenty desks away. ‘Can you fucking believe the dopey old fool? You can’t withhold stories just because you like the person they implicate. It’s no fucking way to run a newspaper.’

  But he was
wrong. Newspapers have always supported their friends and shafted their enemies. Journalists have taken to their graves stories which would have brought down governments if they’d ever been revealed, and perfectly innocent people have been hounded out of job and country, just because the media decided a witch-hunt was in order.

  ‘Anyone got Paddy de Courcy’s mobile number?’ David called.

  ‘On the database.’

  ‘I mean his realone.’

  I dipped my head. I should give it up – what difference would it make? I was never going to talk to him again – but…

  Jacinta still wasn’t back. I tried to commandeer TC but he was working on something else, so I bagged Lorraine. ‘Lovely report here,’ I said. ‘Lots of figures. Translate it into English, would you? And could you do a quick four hundred words on how breast cancer metastasizes? Timescales, response to treatment, etc.’

  Then I hit the phones trying to track down women who’d been told they didn’t have breast cancer, when in fact they did. I tried the Irish Cancer Society, St Luke’s Cancer Hospitaland four hospices – all very pleasant – who took my number and said they’d see if they could find a patient who’d be prepared to talk.

  ‘Today,’ I emphasized. ‘It’s for tomorrow’s paper.’

  I tried internet support groups but no luck there either. Then I gave Bid a ring, in the hope that a breast cancer sufferer might have been in the next bed during her chemo, but no. Bowelcancer, she could do me. Prostate, ovarian and of course lung, but no breast.

  ‘Christ, here he comes,’ TC muttered. ‘Lock up your cowboy accessories.’

  The molecular structure of the air had changed: at twelve thirty-seven, Casey Kaplan had finally shown up for work. In he swaggered in black leather trousers, tight enough to let the world know that he dressed to the left, a black shirt with white ranch-style piping, a brown leather waistcoat, a leather neck-string and scuffed hand-tooled shit-kickers.

  He pointed at me. ‘Message from Dan Spancil.’ A musician I’d profiled. It had been so bloody difficult to get that interview, I’d had to do the back-and-forth with the publicist for weeks, and here was Casey Kaplan behaving as though he’d just spent the weekend with him. ‘He says you rock.’