One Hundred Names

CHAPTER FOUR

Though Kitty hadn’t spent much time with Constance over the past few months, she had instinctively known she was there. There was a difference when somebody died. Their absence was felt, at every second of every day. Kitty would think of a question and would suddenly go to call Constance for the answer. She would think of an amusing story she would want to share with her or, more frustratingly, she would remember a half-finished conversation she would want to complete or a question that had somehow gone unanswered. Because Constance wasn’t there Kitty wanted her more than ever, and she tortured herself over her lack of visits to the hospital and for not calling her more regularly, not just when Constance was sick but throughout her life. There were events Kitty could have invited her to, nights out they could have shared together; there was so much time wasted not spending it together. But in the end, she knew that if they were to relive their friendship all over again, they would do it exactly the same way. Constance hadn’t needed Kitty in her life any more frequently than Kitty had been there.

Not having work to engross herself in, or a boyfriend to help distract her and show her the joys and beauty of her own life, or a functional family that lived in the same county or possessed the abilities to be understanding and show compassion, Kitty felt more alone than ever. The only place she felt she wanted to be was at the offices of Etcetera. Being there was like being with Constance, who had been the beating heart of that magazine. It was founded by her, made up of her ideologies, inspired by her, and by simply holding an issue of the magazine in her hands, Kitty felt that in some way Constance still lived on. Kitty supposed it was like seeing the child of someone who had passed away; their looks, their mannerisms, their little quirks were passed down.

As soon as she entered the office Kitty felt the pang of loss she had been running from. It hit her like an icy breeze, like a slap in her face that took her breath away. Her eyes immediately filled up.

‘Oh, I know,’ Rebecca, the art director, said, catching sight of Kitty frozen at the door. ‘You’re not the only one who’s done that.’ She went to her and hugged her warmly, took her coat off and helped her move from the spot. ‘Come on in, they’re all in Pete’s office, brainstorming.’

Pete’s office. Calling it that immediately riled Kitty, and though it had absolutely nothing to do with Pete, she momentarily despised him, as if he alone had conspired with God to obliterate her friend. As duty editor he had taken over while Constance was ill, and Cheryl Dunne, an ambitious young woman not much older than Kitty, was acting deputy editor, while Bob spent the past months full time with Constance. Because of Pete and Cheryl’s presence, the place felt different. Pete and Cheryl had found their own routine and natural rhythm, and while it seemed everybody else had learned to fall into step with that rhythm, Kitty had been struggling.

It was nine months since Constance had been at the helm of Etcetera, six months since she had stepped inside the offices at all, and in that time it was clear to see that the stories Kitty had written were not exactly her best. They were by no means below par or else Pete wouldn’t have published them and Constance, who had been keeping a close eye on everything even until the end, would have dragged Kitty into the hospital kicking and screaming to put her in her place. She had been good at doing that. As well as wanting her magazine to be the greatest on the shelves, she never wanted anybody to fail to meet their potential. To her that was the greatest error of all.

Knowing that, after Constance’s funeral Kitty had retreated to her flat, not to lick her wounds but to further pour salt on them by poring over her stories, trying to figure out where she had gone wrong, where she needed to go in the future, what her strengths and weaknesses were. As soon as she read her stories from the past six months she could see that they lacked sparkle. As much as she hated to admit it, and she never would to anybody out loud, there was almost a robotic painting-by-numbers feel to her writing. They were informative, emotional and possessed style and a little flair, and they met the standards of the magazine on all levels by covering similar themes with different angles – with a monthly magazine, having a unique angle to an already covered story was top priority – but, rereading them, Kitty felt a stale taste in her mouth. After the disastrous experience with Thirty Minutes she was aware that nothing she had ever written and would probably ever write again would please her as it once had. She knew she was deliberately finding flaw with everything about herself, and finding very little to celebrate. She second-guessed everything she said and did but, despite her self-doubt, she knew she was right about the deterioration of her writing.

Constance’s method of motivation during brainstorming was not for everyone. It had been perfect for Kitty, but while she knew Pete and Cheryl appreciated Constance’s methods, she also knew they couldn’t wait to leave the office so they could return to their own sources of inspiration: other magazines, newspapers, internet sites and twenty-four-hour news networks to see what was new, current and hot. Constance’s method was always about looking within for the answers. She had asked her staff to look at themselves for stories: what was moving them at that particular moment, what was challenging them, what were the issues not of the day in the world but of the day in their hearts and minds; mumbo jumbo to people like Pete and Cheryl. Constance always believed those subjects would make stronger stories. Instead of writing for the market, she wanted them to write for themselves. It was only then, she believed, that the readers would connect. She wanted her writers not just to be informative and stylish but she encouraged the artist within them to come out. How stories were decided on varied between Constance telling specific people to write particular stories that she knew they were suited to, or which would challenge them, and also by listening to ideas. She was very much an advocate of hearing people’s ideas.

And that’s what the problem was – Kitty had finally nailed it. In the six months of Etcetera stories that Kitty had pored over, she now realised she hadn’t written a single article that had been an idea of her own. Each story had been proposed by Pete or Cheryl or by somebody else who had enough on their own plate and was unable to write it. She hadn’t noticed it happening because she hadn’t minded. She hadn’t noticed or minded because she had been working on Thirty Minutes and each story she had covered for that show had been a story she had been told to cover. In a way, her method of storytelling for Thirty Minutes had trickled over into her writing. The stories on the show were stories that hadn’t meant anything to her, stories that hadn’t moved her, stories she hadn’t tried to understand on any deeper level because there wasn’t enough time, the filming conditions were suddenly right or not right, they’d lost a few minutes because of another story gaining momentum, they had an interview, they didn’t have an interview, they had to fill a cancelled interview with something else, and she felt she was switching herself on and off like a tap. It was a less creative style of working for her; it was mechanical, her days were spent on her toes and less in her mind. For six months Kitty hadn’t had an original thought of her own and in the week it took her to discover that, it terrified her so much she couldn’t even think of anything when she tried. Now the final conversation she had had with Constance in hospital was making more sense to her. When Constance had accused Kitty of writing a story because she was told it was interesting and not because she felt it, she had thought Constance had been referring to her stories on Thirty Minutes, but perhaps she had been talking about her articles for Etcetera. In fact now Kitty was sure of it.

Kitty walked towards the boardroom off Constance’s office, feeling vulnerable after her recent humiliation, knowing she hadn’t an original thought or idea in her head, completely alone without Constance and Bob’s support. Though there had been many monthly brainstorming sessions since Constance had left the office there had been none that could not be overruled by her, and so with Pete in the hot seat, and Bob still not present, this was the first of its kind. Kitty opened the door and everyone in the room looked up at her.

‘Hi.’

‘Kitty,’ Pete said, sounding surprised in a not-so-good way. ‘We didn’t expect to see you here this week. Bob said he gave you the week off.’ And it sounded like he’d rather not have seen her this week either, or perhaps she was just being paranoid.

‘He did,’ Kitty explained, standing at the back of the room as all the chairs had been taken, ‘but I just couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.’ She received sad and sympathetic looks from a few around her.

‘Okay. Well. We were talking about next month’s edition, which is going to be a tribute to Constance.’

Kitty’s eyes welled. ‘That’s a beautiful idea.’

‘So…’ he clapped his hands and Kitty jumped. ‘Ideas. I suggest an eight-to-twelve-page look at Constance’s journey, stories that she’s written for Etcetera and other publications throughout her career. A look back on her greatest exposés, the writers she helped discover, for example an interview with Tom Sullivan would be good, all about how she helped him find and develop his voice. Dara, I want you to interview Tom; I talked to him at the funeral and he’s already agreed to it. Niamh, I want you to cover the other writers living and dead: who she found, how she found them, what they wrote, what they went on to write and so on.’

Dara and Niamh nodded and made notes.

Pete began dishing out pieces to the others around the table and Kitty couldn’t help but think that it all felt rather wrong. Constance would hate this edition, not just because it was all about her, but because it was rehashing old material. She looked around at the others for their reactions but they were all concentrating hard, busy scribbling down Pete’s orders in their notepads. And that’s what they felt like: orders, nothing gentle or inspiring, nothing to try to coax out further ideas from the people sitting around the table. No questions about personal stories or memories about a woman they all deeply respected, just information from his own head on what he thought was a good idea. Kitty appreciated that it was difficult for Pete having to do this at all and she hadn’t an original idea in her head to offer, so she kept her mouth shut.

‘Okay, so that’s that sorted out. Let’s talk about the rest of the magazine. Conal, how’s that piece on China in South Africa coming along?’

They began talking about the rest of the magazine, Constance’s tribute piece already over. That made Kitty angry.

‘Uh, Pete?’

He looked at her.

‘I don’t know, Pete. That all seems a bit… old?’ Not a popular thing to say when people were discussing their work. Some tutted and shifted in their chairs. ‘What I mean is, the Constance tribute. Constance hated republishing old articles.’

‘We’re not just doing that, Kitty. If you’d been listening properly you’d have heard that. And we have to look back, that’s what a tribute piece does.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Kitty said, trying not to annoy anybody. ‘But Constance said it was like using used toilet paper, remember?’ She laughed. Nobody else did. ‘She wouldn’t want to just keep looking back. She’d want something new, something that looked forward, something celebratory.’

‘Like what?’ Pete asked, and Kitty froze.

‘I don’t know.’

Someone sighed heavily.

‘Kitty, this twelve-page spread is to celebrate Constance. We have the rest of the magazine to create new stories,’ Pete said, trying to sound patient but instead sounding like a patronising father at the edge of his tether. ‘If you don’t have any ideas to offer then I’m going to move on.’

She thought long and hard, while all eyes were bearing down on her. Instead of coming up with ideas, all she could think was that she couldn’t think of anything. She hadn’t been able to think of anything for six months, so she surely wouldn’t start now. Eventually people began to look away, feeling embarrassed for her, but Pete kept the spotlight on her, as if to prove a point. She wanted him to move on; why wasn’t he moving on? Her cheeks burned and she looked down to avoid meeting anyone’s eye, feeling that she couldn’t possibly sink any lower.

‘I don’t know,’ she eventually said, quietly.

Pete moved on but Kitty couldn’t concentrate on a word he said thereafter. She felt as though she had let Constance down – she was sure she had let herself down, and though it still hurt, she was used to that now. She kept wondering what exactly Constance would want. If she was in this room, what story would she want to tell…? That’s when Kitty thought of it.

‘I’ve got it,’ she blurted out, interrupting Sarah’s feedback on how her story on contrasting nail varnish sales increases in a recession with lipstick sales during the Second World War was shaping up.

‘Kitty, Sarah is talking.’ Others looked at her annoyed.

She shrunk lower in her chair and waited for Sarah to finish. When she had, Pete moved on to Trevor. She sat through two more ideas pitches, neither of which Pete would probably use, and then finally he looked back at her.

‘The last time I spoke to Constance she had an idea that she wanted to run by you. I don’t know if she did or not. It was just over a week ago.’ When she had been living and breathing.

‘No. I haven’t spoken to her for a month.’

‘Okay. Well, she wanted to tell you an idea she had and that was a piece about asking retired writers, if they had the opportunity to write the story they always wanted to write, what would it be?’

Pete looked around the table and he could see that people looked interested.

‘Writers like Oisín O’Ceallaigh and Olivia Wallace,’ Kitty continued.

‘Oisín is eighty years old and lives on the Aran Islands. He hasn’t written a word for anyone for ten years and hasn’t written anything in the English language for twenty.’

‘They’re the people she mentioned.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes,’ Kitty replied, cheeks burning again at being repeatedly questioned.

‘And are these interview pieces about their stories or are we asking them to write their actual stories?’

‘First she said I should interview them-’

‘She said you should interview them,’ Pete interrupted.

‘Yes…’ She paused, unsure what the problem was. ‘But then she said you could ask the writers to write the stories they always wanted to write.’

‘Commission them?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Writers of that standard, that’s a costly piece.’

‘Well, it’s a tribute to Constance, so maybe they’d offer their time for free. If it’s a story they’ve always wanted to write, perhaps that’s payment enough. It will be cathartic.’

Pete looked doubtful. ‘How did this conversation come about?’

Everyone looked from Pete to Kitty.

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘I’m trying to find a link between this idea you have and it being a tribute to Constance.’

‘It was one of her final feature ideas.’

‘But was it? Or was it yours?’

Everyone looked uncomfortable and shifted in their chairs.

‘Are you accusing me of using this tribute piece so that I can use one of my own ideas?’ Kitty had wanted it to sound bigger than him, superior, to make him seem small, but instead her voice came out battered and meek, and she sounded as if she was doing exactly what she was accused of.

‘Why don’t we call this meeting off for now and everyone can get back to their desks?’ Cheryl added in the awkward silence.

Everyone quickly exited the room, glad to be away from the awkwardness. Pete remained standing at the head of the table, two hands spread on the surface, leaning over. Cheryl remained, too, at the table, which annoyed Kitty.

‘Kitty, I’m not trying to be smart here but I want this to be authentically Constance. I know you knew her more personally than the rest of us but you’re talking about a conversation you both had alone. I want to make sure it was something Constance really wanted to do.’

Kitty swallowed and suddenly doubted herself. What had once been a crystal-clear memory of the conversation now seemed fuzzy. ‘I can’t tell you if it was something she really wanted to do, Pete.’

‘Come on, Kitty,’ he laughed with frustration. ‘Make up your mind, will you?’

‘All I know is that I asked her what story she had always wanted to write but never did. She liked the question and said that it would be a good idea for a feature, that I should do a piece where I asked retired writers about the story they’d always wanted to write or, better yet, asked them to write the piece. She said she would talk to you about it.’

‘She didn’t.’

Silence.

‘It’s a good idea, Pete,’ Cheryl said quietly, and Kitty was momentarily glad she’d stayed.

Pete tapped his pen on the table while he thought. ‘Did she tell you her idea?’

‘No.’

He didn’t believe her. She swallowed.

‘She told me to find it in her office, bring it back to her at the hospital and she’d explain, but when I brought it back to the hospital it was too late.’ Kitty’s eyes filled and she looked down. She hoped then for a bit of humanity but none came.

‘Did you open it?’ Pete asked.

‘No.’

He didn’t believe her again.

‘I didn’t open it,’ Kitty said firmly, her anger rising.

‘Where is it now?’

‘Bob has it.’

Pete went quiet.

‘What are you thinking?’ Cheryl asked.

‘I’m thinking it would be a great feature and tribute if we had Constance’s story that she always wanted to write, to tie in with the other writers’ pieces. If Bob gives us the story, you could write it,’ he said to Cheryl.

Kitty felt angry at Pete for handing the story over to Cheryl.

‘Maybe Bob would prefer to write it,’ Kitty suggested.

‘We’ll give Bob first preference.’

‘I have it here.’ Bob’s voice came from the adjoining room.

‘Bob.’ Pete straightened up. ‘I didn’t know you were here.’

Bob entered the room. He looked tired. ‘I wasn’t going to come in but then I realised there was nowhere else I’d rather be,’ he repeated Kitty’s line, which told Kitty he’d been there since the beginning and had heard it all. ‘I needed to get something from Constance’s office – her address book, God knows where she’s put it – and I couldn’t help but overhear talk about covering her story.’ Bob smiled. ‘Pete, I think that’s a marvellous idea. Well done.’

‘Would you like to write it?’ Pete asked.

‘No. No. I’m too close to it.’

‘What is the story?’ Pete asked.

‘I have no idea,’ Bob shrugged. ‘The envelope is sealed, it’s never been opened.’

Kitty was vindicated. She tried not to leap up and punch the air.

‘Okay,’ Pete looked at Cheryl, pleased with himself, and about to do the honours on her behalf but Bob sensed that and interrupted.

‘I’d like Kitty to write it.’

Pete and Cheryl were surprised.

‘I think she’s better suited,’ he explained gently, as ever thoughtful and apologetic to Cheryl.

Cheryl tried to look accepting.

‘Even though you don’t know what it’s about,’ Pete said, defending his number one.

‘Yes. Even though,’ Bob replied, handing the envelope to Kitty.

They all looked at her in suspense. Kitty carefully opened the envelope. A single sheet lay inside. She slid it out and was faced with a list of one hundred names.