‘Oh well. I’m sure you did your best.’
They ordered oysters followed by fresh lobster. Just as the waitress was leaving, Simon said: ‘Shouldn’t we order something for — what’s her name — Maria?’
‘Who?’
‘Your nanny.’
‘Oh, yes. I suppose we should.’
Hilary called the waitress back and ordered a hamburger.
‘What does Josephine eat?’ asked Simon.
‘Oh, some vile muck you have to get in little bottles from the supermarket. It goes in one end and comes out of the other about ten minutes later looking exactly the same. It really is the most disgusting business. And it screams all the time. Honestly, if I’m ever going to get this book started, I’m going to have to go away for a few weeks. I don’t mind where — maybe Bali again, or one of the Barrier Reef islands — any old dump, really. But I can’t get a thing done with that blasted baby around. Honestly, I just can’t.’
Simon laid a sympathetic hand on her arm.
Over coffee, he said: ‘Once you’ve got this novel under your belt, why not do a book about motherhood? Terribly popular these days.’
Hilary disliked most women, regarding them as competitors rather than allies, and so she always felt at home in the Heartland Club, the stodgy, calcified and male-dominated establishment where her cousin Henry liked to conduct most of his informal business.
Henry had broken with the Labour Party shortly before the second general election of 1974, and although he had never officially joined the Conservatives, he had, throughout the 1980s, been among their most loyal and outspoken supporters. During this period he became a familiar public figure, his bushy white hair and bulldog features (always rendered a little rakish by a trademark spotted bow-tie) forever cropping up on television discussion programmes, where he would take full advantage of his freedom from party loyalties by slavishly toeing the line of whichever cynical new shift in policy the present administration happened to be trying out at the time. It was partly for these appearances, but also — and more importantly — for the decade of legwork he had put in on a succession of policy-making committees, that he was rewarded with a peerage in the 1990 honours’ list. The notepaper upon which Hilary had been summoned to her latest audience was proudly headed with his new title: Lord Winshaw of Micklethorpe.
‘Ever think of going back into television?’ he asked her, pouring two brandies from a crystal decanter.
‘Of course, I’d love to,’ said Hilary. ‘I was bloody good at it, apart from anything else.’
‘Well, I hear there’s a vacancy coming up soon at one of the ITV companies. I’ll look into it for you, if you like.’
‘In return for which …?’ said Hilary archly, as they sat down on opposite sides of the empty fireplace. It was a hot evening in late July.
‘Oh, nothing much. We just wondered if you and your fellow scribes could start putting a bit more heat on the BBC. There’s a general feeling that they’ve gone way out of control.’
‘What did you have in mind: features? Or just the column?’
‘A bit of both, I would have thought. I really think that something pretty urgent has to be done, because as you know the situation now is completely unacceptable. The place is overrun with Marxists. They’re making absolutely no secret of it. I don’t know if you’ve seen the Nine O’clock News recently, but there’s no longer even a pretence of impartiality. Particularly on the Health Service: the way they’ve reported our reforms has been deplorable. Quite deplorable. There are homes up and down the country which are being invaded — quite literally invaded every night — by a torrent of anti-government lies and propaganda. It’s intolerable.’ He raised a brandy glass to his bilious face and took a lengthy gulp, which seemed to cheer him up. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘the PM loved your front page on Tuesday.’
‘What, LOONY LABOUR LESBIANS BAN KIDS’ CLASSICS?’
‘That’s the one. Laughed like a drain, she did. God knows, we all need a bit of light relief these days.’ His face clouded over again. ‘There’s talk of another leadership challenge, you know. Heseltine might make his move. Madness. Utter madness.’
‘This vacancy you were talking about …’ Hilary prompted.
‘Oh, that.’ Henry mentioned the name of one of the larger independent companies. ‘You know there’s been a reshuffle there and they’ve got a new MD. Luckily we were able to get one of our own men in. Comes from a financial background, so not only is he good with figures but best of all he knows absolutely sweet FA about the business. One of his first jobs is going to be to get rid of that clapped-out old pinko Beamish.’
‘So they’ll be looking for a new head of current affairs.’
‘Absolutely.’
Hilary digested this news.
‘He gave me my first break, you know. Back in the mid seventies.’
‘Quite.’ Henry drained his glass and reached for the decanter. ‘But then not even your worst enemies,’ he said drily, ‘could accuse you of being the sentimental type.’
When Hilary turned up for her meeting with Alan Beamish she was shown — as arranged — not into his office but into an impersonal interview room with a view over the main entrance.
‘I’m sorry about this,’ he said. ‘It’s a blasted nuisance. They’re repainting my ceiling, or something. I wouldn’t mind but I was only told about it this morning. Can I get you a coffee?’
He hadn’t changed much. His hair may have been greyer, his movements slower, and his resemblance to an elderly parish priest even more pronounced: but otherwise, it seemed to Hilary that the dreadful evening he had inflicted on her during that long school holiday might have been yesterday rather than twenty years ago.
‘I was more than a little surprised to get your call,’ he said. ‘To be honest, I don’t really see that you and I have got very much to discuss.’
‘Well, for instance: I might have come to ask you to apologize for calling me a barbarian in your little diatribe for the Independent.’
Alan had recently published an article about the decline of public service broadcasting called ‘The Barbarians at the Gate’, in which Hilary had been held up (rather to her delight, it must be said) as an example of everything he hated about the present cultural climate.
‘I meant every word,’ he said. ‘And you know very well that you give as good as you get. You’ve devoted plenty of column inches to attacking me over the years — as a type, if not by name.’
‘Do you ever regret giving me so much help,’ Hilary asked, ‘when you see what a Fury you unleashed upon the world?’
‘You would have got there sooner or later.’
Hilary took her coffee cup and sat on the window-sill. The sun was shining brightly.
‘Your new boss can’t have been too delighted with that piece,’ she said.
‘He hasn’t mentioned it.’
‘How have things been since he took over?’
‘Difficult, if you must know,’ said Alan. ‘Bloody awful, in fact.’
‘Oh? In what way?’
‘No money for programmes. No enthusiasm for programmes, either: at least not the sort I want to make. I mean, you wouldn’t believe their attitude over this Kuwaiti thing. I’ve been telling them for months we should be doing a programme on Saddam and his military build-up. We’re in this bloody ridiculous situation whereby we’ve spent the last few years selling him these weapons, and now we’re turning round and calling him the Beast of Babel because he’s actually using them. You’d have thought there’d be something to be said on that subject. I mean, just in the last few weeks I’ve been having talks with an independent film-maker who’s been working on a documentary about all this for years, purely off his own bat. Showed me some superb footage. But the people upstairs won’t commit themselves to it. They don’t want to know.’