The Pink and the Grey (21 page)

“The number of times I’ve heard that one, dear. What are you boys drinking?”

I stayed on the martinis, and Manish ordered the manliest beer he could find. Eddie threw in an umbrella for good measure. I took him back to my table: it was a prime slot to view the comings and goings of the usuals and the unusuals, and I could highlight a few of the characters without looking like a tour guide. Quiff, of course, still remained clamped in his usual spot with a queue of vodkas waiting patiently. I carefully failed to mention the person chatting casually to him: Seb.

The two of us had closely choreographed the evening. Half an hour or so for Manish’s nerves to settle and for the drink to kick in. Then I’d tell him Spencer wouldn’t be in the bar that night, despite what I’d promised at the office earlier, and Seb would walk over with a tray of the finest mojitos and a big smile and an official invitation to join the extended conspiracy.

If we could get Manish onside we’d have a much better chance of
controlling the narrative
as Seb had put it, since it looked like I’d be lashed to Simon for the duration. Manish was supposed to be writing a standard hatchet job on Spencer: unearth a few vicious, snarling exes with axes or one-nighters, add a couple of accurate but context-free quotes from the poor man himself, sprinkle with unsubstantiated innuendo and gossip from unattributed “friends”, serve with a highly selective personal history, and drizzle with fresh spite. Best served cold. If we could bring Manish into the fold, then even if the Archivist’s grand plan didn’t come off, whatever it was, we could fill the piece with plausible nonsense that would never stick. We could give him an unlikely history as a womaniser and get his home town or his middle name wrong, and hope that Geoff and Simon would be too preoccupied tossing each other off to do anything other than trust Manish’s big, brown, imploring, innocent eyes. With any luck they’d give the piece no more than a cursory glance, a sniff up and down, before taking his name off it — which they were guaranteed to do.

If they did check it, of course, our heads would be mounted on pikes outside the office for generations to come as a warning to others.

When the mojito moment arrived, Manish’s eyes popped. He couldn’t spit out the questions quickly enough, raising his hand and jiggling like a five-year-old needing a piss. I told him that with my superior journalistic experience I’d asked those questions a full week ago, and he told me to sod off, as was the ritual.

Seb explained everything patiently, including all the embarrassing details of the week and the slightest hint of a plan to come — keeping the few details we knew firmly to our attractive chests — and we pretty much begged him to join us, or at least not to blab everything to the barrow boys.

And then Seb had to run off: he had other crucially important business to attend to.

After Seb left us I saw Manish relax a little. He came out of journalist mode and began to speak more freely, a mate in a bar rather than on a job.

“Right, ginge,” he said. I knew what was coming. “It kind of makes sense with Seb, all honourable and shit, all that justice stuff. I’m not too sure about this Flowers guy and the toffs, but OK, I’ll take your word. But — you’re mad, you know that? Because if it goes wrong, you’re out of a job. And if it goes right, you’re out of a job.”

“This is true,” I replied with a curt nod.

“You want revenge on Geoff and Simon for old lies told in an old paper by telling new lies in a new paper. And those old lies weren’t even anything to do with you.”

“This is also true. You are very perceptive, my young apprentice.”

“So, you’re doing it for love, are you? Seb got you under his thumb?” He crushed his thumb onto the chrome.

“Bollocks,” I said. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t. He’s a good-looking fella. Loaded too, not that that makes a difference.”

“Which it does.”

“Which it does,” I nodded. “Getting a smile out of him’s like picking food out of your teeth with your tongue. You work away at it, niggle, niggle, and eventually it comes loose and you relax and rest your tongue for a few seconds, and then you feel another bit of food and it all starts again.”

“You could just use your toothbrush.” Manish mimed a brushing action, mockingly.

“Where’s the fun in that? And that doesn’t even make sense. What does it even mean?”

“I dunno. Maybe you could tickle him or something.”

“Tickle him? He’s not
eight
. I’m just saying, he can be hard work, but he seems worth it and I still would. But I’m doing this because it’s right, not because I want his babies. Not entirely because I want his babies.”

He held up his hands, almost pleading with me. “But isn’t it all madness? Total ginger Irish madness? When you’re out of work, either because you’ve won or because you’ve lost, what are you going to do? Nobody’s gonna touch you. You won’t get another job in the papers. And if I sign up to this, I won’t either.”

“Well, I’ve thought about that a little,” I said, leaning in. “If no other paper would employ me, I’d just have to start my own. After all, if it all works out, that’s the end of the
Bugle
, so there’d be a decent, handy gap in the market. I’m sure Seb would throw in a couple of quid, you know, as thanks. He could be the media mogul and you could be my deputy. Now how’s that for an enticing offer in a gay bar?”

My offer to the Master was of course designed in conjunction with the Archivist and his team to attempt to quiet the delightful old lady’s efforts to unseat me: a light psychological tinkering to impress upon her that, should I voluntarily self-defenestrate, she herself would be required to juggle the flaming clubs in my stead. I knew she would rather bury herself in her college coffin in her purple shroud of Lulu, resurrecting purely to burble nonsense and receive all the plaudits and bouquets should by some miracle the college ultimately triumph.

Despite the kerfuffle with Amanda and the
Bugle
struggling for brain-space I could not ignore the charity event — it would go ahead whether the next edition of the paper savaged me and St Paul’s or not. I had assigned a college administrative officer to handle inquiries from press and public and to process applications from prospective competitors. She was gratifyingly eager and dreadfully efficient. She indicated to me that, at close of play on Friday — the day the
Bugle
announced the race with such drag-based fanfare — there had been much traffic into and out of her systems, and firm registrations for the race were in the high tens.

With the event only a week away it was time to begin actively promoting and publicising it. A small, trusted team had been charged with an idea and a selection of large denomination notes supplied by Seb, and were nearing readiness. Early on Friday evening, upon word, sent by old-fashioned and yet rather exciting walkie-talkie, I dashed from my college room to the front gate on St Andrew’s Street. Here I met Seb — straight from Humbug and in good cheer — and team member Bryce, a lanky man-child from Exeter who had gleefully informed me how his grandparents had heard dimly of
The Beatles
, thus causing my avoidance of mirrors for half a day.
 

Bryce led us across the road, threading our way through bus queues and into the deserted, cavernous interior of Cambridge’s Grand Arcade capitalistic emporium. Then via a Staff Only doorway we climbed to a set of management offices overlooking St Paul’s and the front gate. From these windows we saw the beginnings of the usual Friday crowds, gathering and pawing their way haphazardly between drinking establishments.

St Paul’s was impressive: I had never seen it from this angle except in photographs. Three graceful Georgian storeys of creamy Portland stone, full of deep and multiple symmetries and mathematically quite tingling. At least, that was Bottom Court. To the left in the direction of Christ’s College was New Court: its own facade was prim Victorian brick, discouraging the eye, careful to reveal not even a delicate ankle of mortar lest the public become wildly unstable with such muscular emotions as
like
or
disinterest
. Of New Court, we cared little.

Bryce and another student made last-minute tinkerings with their equipment, whispering and pointing at a laptop screen I could not see.

“I am looking forward to this,” said Seb to me. “You must be excited.”

I gave him an anxious look. “The week has gone frightfully poorly so far. I dare not become excited. I shall be glad to get through the evening with my head still on my shoulders.”

“Well, I am excited.”

This was not, I have to say, immediately apparent from his demeanour. Seb had a Vulcan expression, a Spock-like regard telling nothing and everything. The universe is empty space, at first approximation, and empty space is a quantum fizz, a broil of nothingness grazing the meniscus of reality. Seb was remarkably similar.

He attempted to reassure me. “This will set the tide turning back in your favour, Spencer, I am sure of it. Tell me, is this equipment all from college or newly bought?”

Bryce answered, face lifting briefly from the laptop screen. “New, sir. Thanks to our mystery donor.” It was unclear from his smile whether Bryce suspected Seb to be the money supply or merely a gentleman friend of mine, as it were, tagging along.

“Ah, excellent. Are we nearly ready?” asked Seb.

Bryce pressed a series of keys and dabbed expertly at the touchpad, and the light on his face shifted in tone. A momentary frown disappeared. “We are now.”

A crackle on the walkie-talkie and a static-enhanced voice confirmed the St John’s half of the team was also set fair and awaiting the up-thumb. They were similarly ensconced in a room opposite that college’s front gate.

I glanced at Seb for encouragement and took a breath. “Well then,” I said, thrusting out a hand. “Engage.” One rarely has the opportunity to issue an order as Jean-Luc Picard. It would have been such a shame to waste it.

The instruction was relayed over the airwaves to St John’s, and both teams pressed their respective buttons. Seb and I watched as the lights illuminating Bottom Court’s facade dimmed to darkness and the newly purchased projector beside us shone a new image, large and bright upon the stone. Faces and voices on the street below turned and exclaimed, with scatterings of applause.
 

“Fantastic,” said Seb. “Perfect.”

I concurred, still not daring happiness.

The tentacles of news slipped quickly across college, and a stream of students began to pop through the gate and across the road to see with their own eyes. We received radio word that a similar, though less drunken, result was achieved at St John’s. Within moments an image appeared on the internet — our main target. More followed, of St John’s and St Paul’s, seen from multiple angles on the street below. Through the window I saw camera flashes firing, and faces looking up toward us, seeking the source.

I began to believe this might actually work.

The projected image showed, thanks to the blessed and holy Photoshop, the words “Band on the Run” and a web address framing a famous image of the four Beatles in their pomp, each re-dressed as saints beneath halos: St Paul, St John, St George, St Ringo. The latter two were overlaid with large question marks, indicating those colleges as having not yet been allocated.

“That should go viral,” said Seb.

I nodded. “We are about to test a new adage:
when in a hole, dig faster
. I might perhaps adopt its Latin formulation as my family motto.”

He laughed. “It does, literally, shine a spotlight even brighter upon the college, does it not?”

“This, at least, was as the Master required.” I braved a smile. “We have students on standby to revert any malicious changes on Wikipedia and alert us if any…
relevant
information is unfortunately published elsewhere. Thankfully for this project I do not dig alone.”

“Even so, I hope you are prepared for the stress, Spencer.”

“And you too. Your time is almost here.”

“It is strange. At the moment I do not feel any stress at all — in fact, I cannot wait. This is the end for me. If all goes according to plan it will lift a massive weight from my shoulders. I am very much looking forward to meeting your— your
colleagues
.”

“Interesting times, Seb. Interesting times.”

After a damp night of fitful sleep in a proper bed I arrived at college early — outrageously early for a Saturday. I nodded greetings to the duty porter — strange fellow, suspected heterosexual — and made my way directly to the Archivist’s bunker.

I resided somewhat in the administrative limbo of this world, neither outsider nor elf nor special operations, and as such required particular handling. I passed efficiently through the initial security checks only to be delayed in the plush anteroom with its wall of photographic infamy, at which I lingered only briefly, learning much, until the Archivist himself arrived and limbered up wearily. The poor man had inverted his shifts for the duration to concentrate upon our wretched predicament.

“How goes the jet lag, Archivist?” I asked by way of very small talk indeed.

He grimaced. “I have coffee somewhere. Everywhere. One copes. The first casualty of war is sleep.”

I nodded and inspected the carpet in a gallant attempt to obscure the onrushing guilty scarlet. Last night’s successful promotion of the charity race could hardly even begin to pick away at the tangled knot I had proudly tied. Aged thirty-five, and still presenting my snotty nose for matronly assistance.

“I apologise, again,” I said.

“Dr Flowers, please.” His stretches were perfunctory, and I thought of little practical use. “I am sure that lessons will be learned, but let’s please first ensure we still have a college before we set up a commission of inquiry. I do not blame. I merely observe, record, report and preserve. I leave the pointing of fingers to more sensitive souls. And that dreadful Chatteris woman. Now, let us go through or we shall miss the action.”