Page 62 of The Gathering Storm

‘Wish what, honey?’ Lennie said.

‘I wish I could fall in love, and have the guy love me back, like an ordinary person.’

‘But you’re not an ordinary person,’ Lennie said, feeling a little sick at heart.

She looked up at him. ‘Is that the price I have to pay for my career? I don’t know if it’s worth it.’

‘Only you can decide that. I would never push you, you know that. If you want to quit, you can.’

She thought a moment. ‘But I love it,’ she said. ‘I love acting, I love being in front of the cameras. When I walk onto a set I get a thrill. And seeing myself on screen. I don’t know if anything else would make me feel like that.’ She followed her thoughts then said, ‘You won’t leave me, will you, Uncle Lennie? You won’t go away? I don’t think I could cope without you there at the end of the day.’

‘I’m not really your uncle, you know.’

‘But I like calling you that. Makes me feel safe.’

‘Go on and get changed. I’ll take you out to Perino’s for dinner tonight.’

She brightened. ‘That’s Bette Davis’s favourite restaurant.’

‘You’re going to be twice as famous as Bette Davis. And you’re ten times as pretty.’

She laughed happily. ‘Perino’s! I love you, Uncle Lennie.’

The Messenger took Basil to its heart in a way that confounded him. Everyone was openly friendly and helpful. Even the proprietor – normally, at a newspaper, a distant and terrifying figure – was genial. Sir Bradley Perkins, who had made his fortune through a national chain of haberdashery shops, liked to pop his head round the door of every department on his weekly visits and say, ‘Well done, chaps! Keep it up!’ and had his chauffeur deliver a box of cakes for the employees’ afternoon tea.

And everyone was so trusting that it was no fun to bamboozle them. Shirking would have been so easy that he could not work up any enthusiasm for it. Also, to his surprise, he was finding the work so interesting he did not want to avoid it. Even his probationary days went quickly. His immediate boss, news editor Dickins – a spare, rumpled, harassed individual – was generously encouraging. ‘Go where you like, see what’s going on, ask questions, find out what you’re good for. Follow your instincts,’ he had said, an open invitation to Bad Basil to disappear for most of the day. But Bad Basil was losing ground to Curious Basil, and he feared that Diligent, Eager and Focused Basil might be close behind.

He had been put under the wing of a junior reporter, Bob Zennor – an enormous young man like a friendly puppy, who had played rugby at Oxford and was only a few years older than him – and went out on ‘stories’ with him. Dickins gave him back his early attempts at writing them up almost completely obliterated by blue pencil, but still said, ‘Good effort! You’ll soon pick it up!’ Zennor told him not to be discouraged by the blue pencil – even veteran reporters were not immune. A sheet that came back unaltered, he said, would have worried him.

At the end of his month’s trial, Basil was given a rosy assessment and was offered a permanent job. He even got a handshake from the newspaper’s actual editor, Mr Comstock – a person so exalted a junior reporter hardly ever came across him. ‘Hearing good things about you, Compton. Keep it up!’

Basil accepted the manly grip with a sickly grin and muttered thanks, feeling at the same time gratified and oddly nervous. Adulthood was claiming him. He was going to be a grown-up, whether he liked it or not.

While most of the staff were male, there were some females around the building, and on one of his early expeditions, when Zennor was showing him around and introducing him to the lino men and the comps and explaining what they did, they encountered a tall young woman, who greeted Zennor with a brisk ‘Morning, Bob!’ and gave Basil a look that was swiftly comprehensive. She did not slow to be introduced, and walked rapidly to the stairs at the end of the corridor and disappeared down them.

Basil, who had turned to watch her go, discovered that her back view was almost as enticing as the front. ‘Who was that?’ he asked.

‘Miss Byrne,’ Zennor said. The tone of his voice made Basil turn back to look at him, to discover Zennor’s big, healthy face had taken on a distinctly ‘soppy’ look.

‘Tell me more,’ Basil encouraged.

‘Miranda Byrne. She works in the advertising department. She did HMDs before—’

‘She did what?’

‘Hatches, Matches and Despatches. Births, deaths and marriage notices,’ he elucidated, seeing Basil still looked blank. ‘But she was in the newsroom for a bit before that. She’s wonderful!’

‘Are you and she … ?’

‘Lord, no!’ Zennor blushed. ‘Doesn’t know I exist.’

‘She called you “Bob”.’

‘Well, we were pally when she was in the newsroom. But she’s much too good for me. I wouldn’t have a hope.’

Basil was glad to hear it, though he found himself, inexplicably, saying, ‘A girl is just a girl, you know.’

‘Not that one,’ Zennor insisted. ‘Quite apart from—’ He made a vague gesture, encompassing Miss Byrne’s charms. ‘She’s Mr Comstock’s niece. And frightfully well off.’