The Water Clock

2

By the time Dryden got back to the office, via a chip shop with Humph, the newsroom looked like a cabin on the Marie Celeste. The advent of the computer had brought with it a lot of talk about the paperless office: but it was just talk. And The Crow – established 1882– was hardly at the leading edge of new technology. Waste paper covered almost the entire floor and plastic coffee cups lay in small heaps by the PCs. An ashtray fashioned from an old hubcap contained the contents of a small volcano. Spikes – supposedly banned with the introduction of the PCs – still bristled on every desktop to collect used copy and notes, and the occasional passing eyeball. The newsroom consisted of three reporters’ work stations, a larger mahogany news editor’s desk in the bay window, a subs’ table with two dumpy make-up computers, and a copytaker’s table complete with acoustic hood salvaged from a skip in 1965 when the old post office was demolished. Splash, the office cat, was curled up on the single fax machine for extra warmth. Behind a glass partition was the editor’s office. The glass had been obscured by various absolutely essential pieces of paper carrying information ranging from the tide times at Brancaster to the constitution of the Three Rivers Water Authority. This paper camouflage had been erected by reporters over the years and now entirely baffled any attempt by the editor to see his staff.

The office was on the first floor of The Crow’s premises in the centre of Ely, above the front counter and telesales. It looked out on Market Street where, tonight, frozen rain slanted across the amber blaze of the street lights. The top deck of the Littleport bus had just drawn up at the stop directly outside and, barely visible behind the streaming condensation, was what appeared to be the entire cast of St Trinian’s.

Dryden’s story, not surprisingly, had made the lead: HUNT FOR FEN KILLER in sixty-eight point across two decks shouted from the proofs left lying on the subs’ table. The top-single beside it was hardly in the same league: FIREWORK WARNING OVER KIDS’ PRANK.

He was rereading the copy when Kathy Wilde, his fellow senior reporter, thudded up the stairs, kicked open the newsroom door, and deposited the office’s allocation of fifty freshly printed copies on to the floor with a wallop that lifted the floorboards on which Dryden was standing.

Kathy, a red-haired Ulster woman, distracted attention from lurking depression and a tendency to put on fat by a nearly continuous exercise in extrovert behaviour. She knew someone would be in the office from the lights. It was one of her less dramatic entrances.

‘Would yer effing believe it.’ The Ulster accent was sharp enough to make the windows rattle. ‘Page eight! Stark-bollock naked in the front of his bloody Mondeo with a blow-up doll and these tossers stick it in the briefs on page eight!’

‘Pity he didn’t keep it in his briefs,’ said Dryden.

He liked it when Kathy laughed. She let herself go – one of Dryden’s litmus tests of character. She advanced towards him.

Kathy had developed a kind of cat-walk designed to draw attention to her hour-glass figure. It was an ample hour-glass through which a lot of sand had passed, but an hour-glass none the less. The effect was mildly hypnotic and Dryden froze like a rabbit in the headlights of an oncoming car.

Kathy invaded his personal space – in Dryden’s case an area slightly smaller than Norfolk. When she moved she sounded like a mobile in the wind – the earrings, necklace, and bracelets tinkling together.

She removed a piece of imaginary lint from Dryden’s shoulder. ‘You tell me – go on. I’ll take it from you. Tell me I don’t know a decent story when I see one.’ She thrust a mangled copy of the paper – hardly hot off the presses but still warm – into Dryden’s hands.

Kathy had come to England to do feature-writing shifts on the Fleet Street Sunday papers. She’d cut her teeth as a reporter on the stricken doorsteps of the Troubles. The Crow was a day job that paid the bills and gave her a base within striking distance of London for her lipstick-red MG sports car. She had a low view of The Crow’s professional competence and had not taken kindly to the occasional lecture from the paper’s poorly talented senior staff. For Dryden she made an exception: his Fleet Street track record put him on a pedestal. It also made him doubly desirable. She liked the emotional distance, the unselfconscious good looks, the scruffy oversized clothes on the six-foot-plus frame, and the shock of jet black hair. But she loved the CV most of all.

She realized, suddenly, just how close she was standing and backed off in confusion. Subsiding into the newsroom’s one battered armchair she burst into angry tears. It was a regular but effective performance. Her face, impish and animated, slumped and crumpled. A considerable amount of make-up began to coalesce giving her a tragic theatrical appeal to which Dryden was just a little susceptible.

He snapped out of it. ‘So they wouldn’t know a decent story if it bit them on the arse. What’s new?’

Kathy stemmed the floods to a series of appealing snuffles.

Dryden admired the front page splash. He’d been a reporter ten years and had often written the front page lead on the News – circulation one million. But he got just as big a kick out of The Crow – circulation 17,000 and falling.

Kathy’s snuffles threatened to upgrade to sobs. Action, he decided, was the best way to head-off emotion. ‘Look, I’ve got a night job – civic opening at the Maltings. Why don’t you come with me? We can have a drink and discuss Henry’s news judgement at the same time.’

Henry was the The Crow’s ancient editor and the constant object of critical attack. In one memorable harangue Kathy had told the assembled newsroom staff of The Crow – in Henry’s absence – that the editor was to modern journalism what ‘shit pie is to haute cuisine’. Dryden had found this hugely amusing while the rest had made a mental note to look up ‘haute cuisine’ when they got home.

Kathy was transformed. She stood and swung her suitcase-sized handbag over a shoulder, narrowly missing Dryden’s head. ‘You’re on. Let’s go. I could do with a drink and I’m buying.’ One of the many things Dryden liked about Kathy was that she would.

The Maltings, part of the old Ely Brewery, had been converted into a cinema and restaurant complex on the riverside. The district council had put up most of the money with help from the Millennium Fund. As a result Ely’s civic dignitaries were out to squeeze every last drop of publicity they could from the project. Tonight marked the showing of the first film: Waterland – based on Graham Swift’s portrayal of life in the Fens.

As they walked down Forehill towards the river Dryden and Kathy found themselves in picture postcard country: the willows, dusted with ice, hung over a skating rink of river. Smoke drifted up into the snow clouds from the renovated waterside cottages which had attracted incomers into an area once infamous as a damp slum. On the opposite bank had stood the medieval suburb of Babylon, but now the marina sulked in the darkness, punctuated by the ghostly white shapes of floating gin-palaces up on blocks for the winter. Beyond them stretched the water meadows, gently suffocating below a freezing mist.

At the water’s edge a crowd had gathered around a narrow boat moored by the Cutter Inn. The excruciating sound of splintering, tortured wood echoed in the silence. The boat sat at a dizzy angle, her plant pots smashed on the ice and her gay green and yellow painted boards twisted and cracked. A dog barked at the creaking wood.

The crowd, warmed by the prospect of witnessing a minor tragedy, had formed a small amphitheatre around the Sally Anne – the name just showed above the ice – as the owners ferried valuables out through her side windows and hatch.

Dryden fished a notebook out of the folds of the greatcoat – always a good way of getting attention. A young man in an old sailor’s blue cap gave him a suspicious look.

‘Can I help?’

In Dryden’s experience this was a euphemism for ‘fuck off’. The man was about twenty-five, tall, fit and sporting an outdoor tan.

‘Philip Dryden, The Crow’

Kathy shimmied up and struck a pose. ‘Kathy Wilde – also with The Crow.’

‘You must be desperate – sending two of you…’

‘We were just passing actually. Sorry to bother you, especially now. Can you spare us a second?’

It was nicely judged. Dryden’s body language, like Kathy’s, was relaxed and vaguely bored. Years of experience had taught them both that excited aggression – the normal stock-in-trade of the Fleet Street reporter – was inappropriate in almost all situations outside TV drama.

‘Paul Camm, Camm’s Boatyard. This is one of ours.’

Dryden nodded, biro poised. Kathy walked along the towpath checking the other boats. She too produced a notebook and started interviewing one of the river authority’s watermen who had turned up to catch the last hours of the Sally Anne.

Camm was in a hurry to tell his story. ‘She’s stove in. It’s minus 2C. Probably cracked her boards early this morning and slipped under when the air warmed up during the day. Now she’s locked in again. She could well go under completely tomorrow.’

‘Don’t you heat them during the winter?’

Camm scowled.

Tactless, thought Dryden. Concentrate.

Camm broke eye contact and looked out over the water-meadows: ‘Yeah – usually anyway. But we’ve got thirty boats. We’re short of people – this one got left out. The heater must have run out of oil.’ Camm looked distracted. Worried, yes. But about more than the narrow boat.

‘Heaters do work though?’ Dryden pictured his own boat out at Barham’s Dock. He’d refilled the heaters with paraffin that morning.

‘Oh yeah. Yeah.’ Camm’s eyes searched the far bank, the middle distance of reeds and trees white in the frost. ‘No problem. Or just leave the pump on and keep the water moving around the outflow – as long as there’s somewhere for the ice to expand to. But this one we cocked up.’

Dryden nodded to a pile of kitchen ware, cushions, books, and ornaments. ‘Whose stuff?’

‘Just standard fittings – we hire them out as part of the package. TV, all mod-cons, corkscrew. That’s what most of them really want – a chance to relax and get pissed for a week.’

‘Must cost a few bob these?’

It was a nice try but Camm was no fool.

‘Enough.’

‘How much do you hire them for?’ Reasonable question – and if he didn’t answer Dryden could find out.

‘Four hundred a week in summer – it sleeps eight.’

‘Bit of a warning to others then?’ That, Dryden decided, was what the story needed – a forward-looking angle.

‘Yeah. If we can lose a boat anyone can – especially in this weather. It’s going to get worse as well.’

Dryden scribbled the quote – relying on his erratic spidery shorthand.

Inside the Maltings the ceremonies had begun. The place was an industrial palace in newly pointed brick. All the usual suspects were up on a makeshift stage, most of them with some variety of bent-spoons strung round their necks. A crowd of about a hundred, enlivened by a free sherry, was prepared to listen politely to a speech by the Lord Mayor, Councillor Roy Barnett. Kathy started taking a note and gave Dryden her wallet.

At the bar he ordered a pint of bitter and a Campari and soda – he could not resist that sickly red colour. Inside the wallet was a picture of Kathy’s father, Eugene. Dryden had heard the story several times, always in a bar. A Catholic lawyer in Londonderry, he’d specialized in taking cases against the IRA – harassment, punishment shootings, extortion. He’d stood and been elected to the new Ulster Assembly, until a midnight knock at the door had left him with a gunshot to the head. He was the most potent of all role models for his daughter – a dead one.

The mayor was speaking from what appeared to be handwritten notes in green ink: two bad signs in one. He looked no better than usual – a Bobby Charlton haircut spread over skin the colour and texture of grey lard. Kathy was taking a crude note which she would tidy up into proper sentences later for a piece. She knew that if most politicians were quoted accurately they’d sue.

Beside the mayor sat his wife, Liz, a Labour councillor herself and one-time leader of the party on the district council. The mayor’s office was largely ceremonial. The party leadership had involved the wielding of some real political power – even if it had been on a tiny provincial stage.

Roy Barnett’s speech was rambling, incoherent, and extremely badly delivered. A model of its kind, it also ran for twenty-three minutes. Kathy had time to visit the bar regularly and both she and Dryden were much happier by the time the mayor sat down – the gasp of delight this produced being a mark of relief not admiration.

Kathy recognized a couple of pliable councillors and slipped off to see if they were in an indiscreet mood. Liz Barnett caught Dryden’s eye across the second round of sherries and motioned him towards the bar. By the time she got there Dryden had bought her a large malt whisky and for himself a deliberately understated brandy and Babycham.

She noted the malt with a slight nod of appreciation and Dryden’s drink with horror. ‘The press,’ she said, as a toast.

Liz Barnett was one of those women who inspire two questions. How, followed promptly by why: how did the appalling Roy get her to the altar in the first place and why had she stayed with him for more than thirty years? She had been a beauty once and was still striking. Auburn hair turning grey, with no attempt to cheat nature. Strong features and a naturally tanned skin supported by industrial quantities of make-up expertly applied. Her secret was colour: she wore shawls, dresses, headscarves, and various layers of material in bright gypsy designs. She was fifty-four and looked good: husband Roy was sixty and struggling to keep a beer gut inside a nylon shirt.

The mayoress’s political assets were impressive. She could give an impression of genuine, rapt interest while being shown round a basket-weaving class for the fifth time in a year. She had proved adept at slipping into the clothes of New Labour while preserving a sharp edge of social antagonism towards the middle classes. Socialism had never been a great force in the Fens – radical Liberalism being the natural successor to religious nonconformism and rural deprivation. But Liz Barnett had channelled some of those forces into support for Labour during the Thatcher decade. If she hadn’t been a woman she’d have made it to Westminster. But being a woman had taught her one thing, the corrosive evil of prejudice. Dryden looked at her feet. She still wore an ankle bracelet, a gypsyesque touch that had caused a scandal at Roy’s investiture as mayor at the start of the year.

Liz Barnett was also ferociously street-wise and had realized early the power wielded by the press. Her friendship for Dryden had been – at first – entirely manipulative. There was now a grain of genuine respect as well.

‘Your wife?’ she asked, nodding to the barman to repeat the malt whisky and Dryden’s concoction.

Dryden could never answer this particular question without feeling that he was lying in some way, keeping back some part of the truth.

‘The same. No better, no worse. What can I say?’

She was enough of a professional not to apologize for the question. She stepped a foot closer. Dryden appeared to be having one of those days. It was a tribute to the mayoress that she could produce such effects at such a tender age. Her husband was holding forth on the other side of the room to a captive audience that looked as though it had been injected with concrete. His face was mottled crimson with a dash of what could only be called cardiac blue.

She leaned in close as the noise in the room rose with the consumption of free sherry.

‘You will have seen the planning and resources committee’s agenda on the request for extra funds for the cathedral restoration?’

It was a rhetorical question. Liz Barnett was one of his best contacts.

She pressed on. ‘Frankly they’ve got a bit of a cheek. It’s virtually a demand for a £30,000 contribution because they’ve discovered, at the very last moment, that they need to put up scaffolding around one of the transepts to reach the high gutters.’

She broke off to kiss a passing councillor who got her name wrong and then staggered away. ‘Anyway, apparently they needed to clear gutters ahead of a thaw. If the water collects and freezes, then cracks the stonework – it’s gargoyles crashing to the ground, plagues of frogs, that sort of thing.’

‘What’s the problem?’ Dryden could feel the effects of the alcohol as it stole over his modest intellect. He burped and ordered a fresh round of drinks.

‘The point is, why wasn’t this eventuality foreseen – cold weather in winter not being a totally unexpected development.’ She tossed her hair. ‘Apparently there’s some argybargy between the diocesan authorities and the contractors. You’ll need to put the questions. But it’s a bit of a shambles if you ask me.’

Dryden looked hopeful.

‘Although if you did, I would, naturally, be unable to comment at this time.’

Kathy appeared at Dryden’s elbow and ordered another round of drinks. The mayoress declined and drifted off to rescue a tray of alcohol from her husband’s embrace.

Dryden felt the room sway and was acutely aware of Kathy’s lips which had begun to whisper in his ear. He struggled briefly with an amorphous feeling of guilt. But the room was on the move and it seemed sensible to hold on to something. Their bodies touched in several places – in fact an increasing number of places.

Suddenly a woman screamed in that theatrical fashion usually reserved for amateur-night productions of The Mousetrap. Dryden thought two things very quickly. First that he was late visiting Laura. Second that he had somehow caused the scream.

But Roy Barnett had caused the scream by the simple expedient of collapsing to the floor – courageously holding on to his pint glass. He was now in the arms of two rather startled WRVS women who had been listening to his anecdotes for the last half hour. It looked like a modern-day re-enactment of the Death of Nelson. Liz Barnett was calmly calling an ambulance on her mobile. She hadn’t spilt her drink – and she was ordering another.

Dryden called Humph’s mobile and woke him up in a lay-by. The ambulance beat the cab to the Maltings by thirty seconds.

‘Follow that ambulance,’ said Dryden, enjoying himself. Humph happily handed Dryden a miniature bottle of Campari from the glove-compartment bar and slammed his foot down on the accelerator, but they had to imagine the screech of tyres.

Kathy watched them streak off into the night. She would recall little about the evening the next morning but the memory of the kiss lingered like a hangover.