Elizabeth George - Believing the Lie

Thus Zed trod carefully with his reply to Rodney’s question about the title of his piece. “I was thinking of cats, actually.”

“You were thinking of cats.”

“Uh… having nine lives?”

“Got it in a basket. But we’re not writing about cats, are we.”

“No. Of course not. But…” Zed wasn’t sure what the editor wanted, so he altered direction and plunged on with his explanation. “What I meant was that the bloke’s been eight times in rehab, see, in three different countries and nothing worked for him, and I mean nothing . Oh, maybe he’s been clean for six or eight months or once for a year but after a bit it’s back to the meth and he’s wasted again. He ends up in Utah, where he meets a very special woman, and suddenly he’s a new man and he never looks back.”

“Presto, change-o, that’s about it? Saved by the power of love, eh?” Rodney’s voice sounded affable. Zed took heart from this.

“That’s exactly it, Rodney. That’s what’s so incredible. He’s completely cured. He comes home, not to the fatted calf but — ”

“The fatted what?”

Zed backpedaled swiftly. Biblical allusion. Obviously a very bad way to go. “Stupid remark, that. So he comes home and he starts a programme to help the unhelpable.” Was that a word? Zed wondered. “And not who you’d expect him to help: young blokes and girls with their lives ahead of them. But rejects. Old blokes living rough, society’s detritus — ”

Rodney glanced his way.

Zed hurried on with, “Social rubbish getting its next meal from the inside of wheelie bins while they spit out their rotting teeth. He saves them. He thinks they’re worth saving. And they respond. They’re cured as well. A lifetime of booze and drugs and living rough and they’re cured of it.” Zed took a breath. He waited for Rodney’s reply.

It came evenly enough but the tone was suggestive of a lack of enthusiasm for Zed’s defence of his reportage. “They’re rebuilding a bloody tower, Zed. Nobody’s cured of anything and when the tower’s finished the lot of them will go back to the street.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a pele tower. And that’s what gives the story its power. It’s a metaphor.” Zed knew the very idea of metaphor put him onto dangerous ground with the editor, so he madly rushed on. “Consider the use of the towers and you’ll see how it works. They were built for protection against border reivers — those nasty blokes who invaded from Scotland, eh? — and, for our purposes, the border reivers represent drugs, okay? Meth. Coke. Hash. Smack. Blow. Whatever. The pele tower itself represents redemption and recovery, and each floor of the tower, which in the past contained something different, and by this I mean the ground floor was for animals and the first floor was for cooking and household activities and the second floor was for living and sleeping and then the roof was for fighting off the reivers by showering them with arrows and oh I don’t know hot oil or something and when you look at all this and take it to mean what it ought to mean and could mean in the life of a person who’s been on the street for what… ten or fifteen years?… then — ”

Rodney’s head dropped onto his desk. He waved Zed off.

Zed wasn’t sure what to make of this. It looked like dismissal but he wasn’t about to slink off with his tail between… God, another metaphor, he thought. He crashed on, saying, “It’s what makes this story a cut above. It’s what makes this story a Sunday piece. I see it in the magazine, four full pages with photos: the tower, the blokes rebuilding it, the befores and the afters, that sort of thing.”

“It’s a snore,” Rodney said again. “Which, by the way, is another metaphor. And so is sex, which this story has none of.”

“Sex,” Zed repeated. “Well, the wife is glamorous, I suppose, but she didn’t want the story to be about her or about their relationship. She said he’s the one who — ”

Rodney raised his head. “I don’t mean sex as in sex, stupid. I mean sex as in sex .” He snapped his fingers. “The sizzle, the tension, the make-the-reader-want-something, the restlessness, the urge, the rising excitement, the make-her-wet-and-make-him-hard only they don’t know why they even feel that way. Am I being clear? Your story doesn’t have it.”

“But it’s not meant to have it. It’s meant to be uplifting, to give people hope.”

“We’re not in the bloody uplifting business and we sure as hell aren’t in the business of hope. We’re in the business of selling papers. And believe me, this pile of bushwa won’t do it. We engage in a certain type of investigative reporting here. You told me you knew that when I interviewed you. Isn’t that why you went to Cumbria? So be an investigative reporter. Investi-bloody-gate.”

“I did.”

“Bollocks. This is a love fest. Someone up there seduced your pants off — ”

“Absolutely no way.”

“ — and you soft-pedaled.”

“Did not happen.”

“So this” — again Rodney gestured with the story — “represents the hard stuff, eh? This is how you go for the story’s big vein?”

“Well, I can see that… Not exactly, I suppose. But I mean, once one got to know the bloke — ”

“One lost one’s nerve. One investigated zippo.”

This seemed a rather unfair conclusion, Zed thought. “So what you’re saying is that an expose of drug abuse, of a wasted life, of tormented parents who’ve tried everything to save their kid only to have him save himself… this bloke who was about to choke on the silver spoon, Rodney… that’s not investigative? That’s not sexy? The way you want it to be sexy?”

“The son of some Hooray Henry wastes himself on drugs.” Rodney yawned dramatically. “This is something new? You want me to tick off the names of ten other useless bags of dog droppings doing the same thing? It won’t take long.”

Zed felt the fight drain out of him. All the time wasted, all the effort spent, all the interviews conducted, all — he had to admit it — the subtle plans to alter the direction of The Source and make it into a paper at least marginally worthwhile and thereby put his name in lights since, let’s face it, the Financial Times wasn’t hiring at the moment. All for nothing. It wasn’t right. Zed considered his options and finally said, “Okay. I take your point. But what if I give it another go? What if I go up there and do some more digging?”

“About what, for God’s sake?”

That was surely the question. Zed thought about all the individuals he’d spoken to: the reformed addict, his wife, his mother, his sisters, his father, the poor sots he was saving. Was there someone somewhere doing something he’d missed? Well, there had to be, for the simple reason that there always was. “I’m not sure,” Zed settled on saying. “But if I nose around… Everyone’s got secrets. Everyone lies about something. And consider how much we’ve already spent on the story. It won’t be such a waste if I give it another try.”

Rodney pushed his chair back from his desk and seemed to roll Zed’s offer round in his head. He jabbed a finger onto a button on his phone and barked to his secretary, “Wallace. You there?” and when she responded, “Get me another Cadbury. Hazelnut again.” And then to Zed, “Your time, your dime. And that’s the only way I’m going for it.”

Zed blinked. That put things in an entirely different light. He was on the bottom rung of the ladder at The Source and so were his wages. He tried to do the maths on a train ticket, a hired car, a hotel — perhaps a down-at-heel B amp; B or some old lady letting out rooms on a back street in… where? Not by one of the lakes. That would cost too much, even at this time of year, so it would have to be… And would he be paid for the time he spent in Cumbria? He doubted it. He said, “C’n I have a think on it? I mean, you won’t spike the story straightaway, right? I have to look at my funds, if you know what I mean.”