This Charming Man (18 page)

‘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.’

‘How nice,’ I said briskly. ‘So does he.’

‘Is Jacinta around?’ He lounged in front of my desk.

I made a big show of looking up from my notes. ‘No.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Out.’

‘You busy?’

‘Yes.’

He laughed. Mocking my diligence? ‘Good woman.’

In leisurely fashion he went off and I refocused, trying to remember people I had spoken to at parties, met at functions. Had anyone mentioned they were an oncology nurse, or that their sister had breast cancer? But, despite having contacts in the oddest of places, I drew a blank in the breast cancer world. Bitterly I blamed the absence of nicotine in my system. I bet if I had a smoke I’d gear up enough to remember something.

As a last-ditch resort I could use the testimonials on the internet site, but it wouldn’t really work. I needed ‘colour’ – descriptions of stuff like the sufferer’s home (‘pretty floralcurtains, the mantelpiece crammed with family photographs taken in happier times’).

I bounced a pen up and down against my desk. I wanted to do this well. I wanted to do all my stories well, but the slapdash, penny-pinching approach to women’s health sometimes made me want to cry with frustration. If such a high number of false negatives had happened with testicular cancer – man cancer – there would be pandemonium.

‘Stop clicking that pen!’ TC yelped.

I could simply show up at a hospice, and prowl the corridors, asking among the dying untilI found a woman to interview, but I had some scruples.

The only thing to do, I decided, was to go into the belly of the beast and contact one of the specialist hospital units which had been the subject of the report. There was little point ringing them, they were bound to be on the defensive. I’d keep my powder dry and go in person.

I switched my mobile back on and tensed for the double beep. But it didn’t happen. He hadn’t left a message.

‘I’m out on a story.’ Very quickly I clicked my pen nine or ten times into TC’s ear, then swung out of the office.

‘Biopsies?’ I murmured to the receptionist.

‘Left, left again at the double doors, right at the crucifix.’

I emerged into a waiting area, took a seat and flicked through surprisingly up-to-date magazines. I wondered how to play this. I needed access to the patients’ computerized records, which I couldn’t do without the help of someone who worked here. Preferably someone who hated their job.

The girl behind the Welcome desk was clicking away at a keyboard in a swotty fashion. A jobsworth. No use to me.

A good journalist is a blend of patience and pushiness. Right now, I just needed to be patient. I watched and waited and watched and waited, drumming my fingers on my knee.

It was a busy place. People arrived and gave their details to the swotty girl and sat down and eventually got called by nurses. On the pretext of going to the loo, I took a little wander and discreetly stuck my head around severaldoors but apart from startling a man having an analexamination, I saw nothing of interest. I came back and sat down. My stomach started to hurt as the truth trickled through me. This wasn’t going to happen, I’d have to go back empty-handed.

I hated to fail, it made me feel so shit about myself, and there was no creature so pitiful as the journalist who came back without the story. A wild thought struck me. I could make it up! I could base it on Auntie Bid! And the internet stuff!

As quickly as it arrived, the idea dissolved. They’d find out and I’d get sacked and no one would employ me ever again.

I’d have to suck it up. It wasn’t often that I didn’t get my story. Then I remembered – the sand in my oyster, the stone in my shoe – that bloody Lola Daly. How everyone had laughed at me. A sappy fashion stylist with purple hair and I hadn’t been able to get her to talk about her ex-boyfriend.

But unlike Lola Daly, this story
mattered
. All those poor women who’d been told they were in the clear and were sent away to let their disease march unimpeded throughout their body, they deserved to have their say. Not to mention the small possibility of shaming the Department of Health into ensuring it didn’t happen again.

I was so sunk into gloom that I almost missed the woman huffing and puffing past me. She was talking to herself like the White Rabbit and she radiated resentment.

She barged into the office beside the desk and banged the door, but not before I heard her voice raised querulously. ‘How many times…’

Thank you, God!

She emerged some minutes later and huffed and puffed back down the corridor, me following her. When she stopped outside a door and opened it, I made my move. I’d been patient long enough; time to be pushy.

‘Excuse me,’ I said.

She turned around, her face hostile. ‘What?’

Definitely not a people-person.

I smiled as wide as I could. ‘Hi! My name is Grace Gildee. Could we have a quick chat about biopsy results?’

‘I’m nothing to do with biopsies. Go down that corridor. Ask at the desk.’ She’d turned away and was halfway into the room when I said, ‘Actually, it’s probably better that you’ve nothing to do with biopsies.’

‘Why?’ She turned around. Now she was interested.

‘Because I’m wondering if you can help me.’ I smiled my head off.

Emotions moved behind her eyes. Confusion. Curiosity. Cunning. Understanding. It was like a slide show. ‘Are you a journalist? Is it about the report?’

‘Exactly!’ Another enormous smile. I’ve discovered that when you’re trying to persuade people to do something underhand, if you keep smiling, it confuses them into thinking that they’re not doing anything wrong.

This was the moment. She’d either call security or agree to help me. She seemed frozen with indecision.

‘I just need a couple of names and addresses,’ I cajoled. ‘No one will ever know it’s you.’

Still she hesitated. She’d like her employers to be shafted, but clearly it just wasn’t in her nature to help anyone.

‘Will the unit get into trouble?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said pleasantly. ‘They will. All I need is a couple of names and addresses from you. Three at the most. Definitely no more than four. And if they could live in Dublin.’

‘You’re not asking for much.’

I ignored the surge of irritation and fag-longing that rushed up through me and forced another beam. ‘Just the names and addresses of five women in Dublin who were given false negatives. You’d be doing me a massive favour.’

She bit her lip and thought about it. ‘It’s not my area, but I’ll try. Wait in the car park. There’s a big white statue. Jesus on the cross with his grieving mother. If I get anything I’ll meet you there.’

I wanted to ask how long she’d be, but sensed it would be a bad idea. This one could turn quicker than a very quick thing.

I sat myself down on the other side of the grieving mother, then I waited. And waited. And waited. And wished I could have a cigarette. A journalist really needs to smoke. There’s so much hanging around, how else are you
meant to pass the time? And once you’ve got your story, there’s the mad rush to write it up against the clock; you need cigarettes to aid that also.

But in a perverse way the self-denial appealed: atonement.

More time elapsed and the burning pain in my stomach started up again. Had the White Rabbit lost her nerve? Had she been toying with me all along? You never know with her type. I hunted in my handbag for a Zotan (tablets for stomachs that are thinking about getting an ulcer) and swallowed one down.

I started thinking again about having to go back without my story. I was visualizing it in some detail – the scornful laughter, Jacinta’s fury, Big Daddy’s outrage at the great big hole in the paper – when the woman darted in front of me. She shoved a page into my hand, said, ‘You didn’t get this from me,’ and disappeared.

‘Thanks a million!’ Six names and addresses. Fair play to her. I figured out the nearest one, hailed a taxi and rang the picture desk, looking for a photographer.

I pulled up outside the house. (‘A neat semi with an obviously well-loved garden.’) A teenage girlanswered the door. (‘Fresh paintwork, gleaming brass.’) I cranked up my smile muscles. This is where the respectable suit and string of pearls would have come in handy. ‘Hello. Can I speak to your mother?’

‘She’s in bed.’

‘My name is Grace. I’m from the
Spokesman
. I know your mum is very sick, but I was wondering if I could have a quick word with her. I’ll only keep her a few minutes.’

Her face didn’t alter. ‘I’ll ask her.’ She pounded up the stairs, then back down again. ‘She says, what’s it about?’

Gently I said, ‘About her biopsy results. The ones that said she was okay.’

The girl’s face spasmed, a movement so small you’d hardly have noticed it. She pounded up the stairs again and when she reappeared she said, ‘She says come in.’

Up the narrow stairs (‘beige carpet, Jack Vettriano prints’) into a back bedroom. The curtains were drawn and there was a horrible smell of sickness. The creature in the bed looked exhausted and jaundiced. This woman was dying.

‘Mrs Singer.’ I advanced slowly towards her. ‘I’m so sorry to descend on you like this.’ I explained about the report. ‘I was wondering if you would like to tell your story?’

She didn’t react, then wheezed, ‘Okay.’

Christ alive, it was tragic. She’d found a lump in her breast – a bombshell for any woman – and when the biopsy came back negative for cancer, they were so relieved that the whole family had gone on holiday. But about six weeks later she was laid low by bone-tired exhaustion and began having night sweats that drenched the bed. She went for a multitude of tests, but breast cancer had been ruled out because of her biopsy results. She asked for another biopsy, because she suspected, with the intuition that people have about their own bodies, that that was where the trouble lay, but she was overruled. By the time she found a second lump, it had invaded her lymph nodes. They blasted her with chemo – like they were doing with Bid at the moment – but it was too late. Game over. The tips of my fingers tingled with fear. What if it was too late for Bid too?