TP Fielden - A Quarter Past Dead

‘’E’s very short,’ said Terry. ‘A titch.’

‘What difference does that make?’ asked Judy, more interested in the flight of a cormorant, like a low-flying aircraft on a bombing-raid, dodging the wave-tops and searching for fish. The water was a dazzling shade of turquoise this morning, the sun crisping the edges of the wavelets and giving it sparkling life.

Terry, though far from immune to such beauty, was thinking ahead. ‘She’s much taller,’ he said. ‘You can tell.’ Judy turned and glanced at his rugged profile hunched over the steering wheel: in his mind he was composing his picture.

‘He stands, she sits,’ they said simultaneously – the problem was not exactly a new one.

Finally, with this joint decision, harmony was restored. It was hateful when the competing priorities of reporter and photographer drove them apart, for they had long been a remarkable team. Terry turned and smiled at her, his gaze perhaps lingering just a shade too long as the sunlight caught her profile.

‘Watch out!’

But Terry neatly swerved round the donkey being led down to the beach, and they safely turned the corner into the Marine’s front drive.

As they entered the vast entrance lobby a wondrous sound came to them from somewhere deep in the heart of the building. A low, sweeping voice somersaulted over itself and performed some agile gymnastics before rising in a slow portamento up towards a thrillingly high note. Then silence.

‘Moomie,’ said Terry, enthusiastically.

‘Mm?’

‘That’s the new singer you can hear – they’ve got her in for the season. Press call next Monday.’

‘That’ll be Betty with the notebook then,’ snipped Miss Dimont. She didn’t do showbiz.

‘She’s amazing – all the way from Chicago. Wonder how they got her? Normally she does West End only.’

‘Everyone loves a summer season,’ said Judy absently but her thoughts were on the story ahead as she strode purposefully towards the Primrose Bar. It was barely midday but there were already sounds of activity within.

Sure enough in a corner, shrouded by wafting palmettos, sat a short fat man with a pencil-thin moustache and shiny shoes. Next to him, leaning forward, sat one of the most notorious figures of the day, the platinum-haired Fluffles Janetti. Fluffles! Her rise to fame had been unstoppable, partly on account of her impossibly-proportioned figure, but also because of the number of men it had been draped around, from politicians to financiers to actors and now, the King of Holiday Camps, Bobby Bunton.

‘Mr Bunton. I hope you don’t mind,’ started Miss Dimont. ‘Judy Dimont, Riviera Express .’

‘Get yourself a drink,’ replied Bunton without glancing in her direction. He had eyes only for Fluffles.

‘Thank you,’ said Judy, used to such snubs. It was extraordinary how famous people treated the Press like serfs when their very fame depended on nice things being written about them.

‘Miss Janetti?’ pressed on Judy. The famous blonde locks bobbed and turned but did not wave, frozen in time as they were by a lavish dowsing of hairspray. Its noxious aroma just about won the battle with her perfume, thick and syrupy and speaking profoundly (so the manufacturers boasted) of yearning.

‘Yes.’ The voice, far from fluffy, was pure gravel. The eyes were hard and watchful. A tricky piece of work, thought Miss Dimont instantly; how can so many famous men have made fools of themselves over her?

Terry was already focusing on the answer to that question. With the unspoken compact which exists between professional photographers and famous women – of a certain sort – Miss Janetti straightened up and very slowly arched her back. For a moment her famous proportions seemed to acquire almost impossible dimensions.

‘That’s enough!’ snapped Bunton, who hated the spotlight being turned away, even if only for a minute. ‘’Ere you are,’ he said to Terry, straightening his tie-knot and brushing cigar-ash from his lapel. ‘Local rag, is it?’

Several thoughts flew simultaneously into Miss Dimont’s mind. First, why was it that reporters could be ignored, blackballed, shoved aside and generally made to feel like pariahs, while photographers were given a golden key into every rich man’s drawing-room? Second, why was it that everyone referred so dismissively to the ‘local rag’? Their Fleet Street equivalents were never known as ‘national rags’ yet they served the same purpose.

And third, Bobby Bunton had built-up heels on his shoes.

‘Nice,’ Terry was saying in the ingratiating tone reserved for the victims of his lens, ‘now one of the two of you together. Fluffles, can you just go round behind Mr Bunton, lean over the chair, like…’

Fluffles obliged, her considerable expanse threatening to envelop the King’s small head. It was an absurd pose, but one guaranteed to find space in the paper. Terry knew what he was doing all right.

Did Miss Dimont? She wasn’t quite sure where to start. The small man in front of her – even at first glance – was arrogant, manipulative, a liar, a cheat, an adulterer, and a rapacious exploiter of the small incomes and high hopes of millions of working-class families.

‘How lovely to meet you,’ she said sweetly, and sat down.

‘Everyone is so thrilled you chose Temple Regis for your holiday camp,’ she lied.

‘It has done wonders for the town.’ Another stinker.

‘All that silly opposition last year.’ We nearly saw you off, but for the whopping great bribes you paid a couple of councillors.

‘And look at the success of it all!’ One dead body, unexplained.

‘I want to write something nice about Buntorama,’ not necessarily, ‘so maybe we can clear up this shooting business with your help, Mr Bunton.’

For some reason the King chose not to look Miss Dimont in the eye. Instead he fixed his gaze on Fluffles.

‘People get excitable when they go on holiday,’ he sighed, as if having someone shot on the premises was a weekly event. ‘They’ve been saving up all year, it’s going to be the best fortnight they’ve ever had, then they come down here and don’t know what to do with themselves. That’s why I provide so many distractions – the funfair rides, the keep-fit classes, the dance competitions. These people work hard all year, they never have a moment to themselves.’

He took a swig from a heavy goblet. ‘Suddenly their time’s their own and after a few days they go a bit nuts. Some take to drink, some go off with other men’s wives, and a hell of a lot of them just sit down and have an out-and-out row. Men and women – the age-old story.’

He got up as if to signal the interview was over. A famous man, a rich man, he had generously given of his time and his wisdom to the local rag, and now it was time to get back to the business of making money.

Miss Dimont remained in her seat and elaborately turned over a page in her notebook, her signal to Bunton the interview was far from over. She could see him watching her out of the corner of his eye, even though he appeared to be summoning the wine-waiter.

‘So that’s what it was,’ said Judy, ‘just a domestic argument?’

‘Yup.’ Bunton was flapping his hand at some far-distant minion.

‘Man shot his wife dead?’

‘What else,’ came the dead-ball reply. ‘The clock ticks. He can’t stand her a moment longer, it’s driving him crazy. Clock chimes the quarter-hour and – bam! He’s glad it’s over.’

Fluffles was too busy with her powder-compact to pay attention to this shockingly arbitrary supposition. She stretched her lips and grinned in ghastly fashion back at her reflection.

‘She wasn’t married.’

The King spared his interlocutor a look. ‘How do you know?’