Carnival Sky (2 page)

AFTER THE LLAMA, Sheff began to think seriously of resigning. Not pique: he’d been in journalism for twenty years, and accepted that you won some, and lost some. What was it in
The Big Lebowski
? Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you. He took the editor’s decision personally only in the sense that it showed again how far his own opinion diverged from the popular appetite – and the paper’s policy, driven by corporate expectations with which Chris had to comply.

Sheff was impatient with what he did, with what was required of him, with the diminishing reach and resources of newspapers. He no longer felt the sense of challenge and social usefulness that had compensated for the mediocre pay, the hours, the increasing suspicion of the media, the responsibility for the dwindling professionalism of others. He got pissed-off very easily, that was the truth of it. He had seen it sometimes in his colleagues – a malaise that shut down drive and enterprise, and left them with an increasingly corrosive cynicism.

Yet there were the stories he wanted to finish and didn’t trust others to complete, including an investigation into the billing practices of several city law firms. The experience of his own separation and then divorce was the motivation for that piece. Though he carried on with outward application, a part of him was increasingly distanced and dissatisfied: appalled by the thought of spending the future
in the same way as he’d spent the past. The awareness was with him during the interviews he carried out, the discussions he had with fellow journalists, the time with friends, and especially when alone. In the midst of communal laughter, to which he contributed, or while standing solitary in a supermarket aisle, he knew nagging disappointment. He woke in the mornings in a mood of minor despondency, rather than expectation of worthwhile endeavour and consequent satisfaction. He sensed in himself a growing immunity to the happiness of others.

The decision to toss in his job came during one of his Friday evening sessions with Nick, Raewyn, Lloyd and others from the paper. They were in their accustomed corner of the Ascot bar.

Also usual was the relaxed, trivial end-of-week talk – minor frustrations and successes, the predictable airing of individual prejudices and humours they all recognised from long professional acquaintance. The easy laughter and half attention while the mind wandered. If some spool of an earlier week’s conversation were to be rerun in the present, no inconsistency would be noticed. Such reunion provides the shallow continuity of a theme song.

‘She used to be a top columnist, though, you have to admit.’ Nick was talking of a colleague who had gone to a women’s magazine. ‘She had an edge, Prue, and she kow-towed to no bastard. I admired that. The local government stuff she did was really thoughtful, and she wrote damn well: her copy was hardly ever touched by the subs.’

‘Yeah, but she ran out of gas,’ said Raewyn, ‘as they almost all do. The pressure of coming up with the goods week after bloody week. No one can keep it going indefinitely. The good oil gets used up, and so the hobby horses come out, the same little tricks, capers and gripes. Jesus, now she’s always talking about her family pets. How desperate is that?’

‘It still reads better than most of the crap columns.’

‘But it’s not what it was, and that’s the point,’ said Raewyn. ‘Look, I’m not bagging her so much as saying a weekly column is an absolute
bloody killer. No one should be allowed to take it on for more than a two-year contract, max.’

She was right, but rather than following the argument, Sheff was admiring her breasts. They weren’t especially on show, as she wore a high-necked green top. Raewyn was square-chinned and slightly overweight, but she did a good deal of gym work, played badminton and her figure wasn’t bad at all. He had attempted to explore it the year before after a mid-winter staff party, and been given some strict limits. ‘Only holds above the belt allowed,’ she’d said, as they stood in the corner of the yacht club balcony. It was the tone rather than the words that discouraged him: calm and friendly after his kisses, rather than breathless and aroused. They had gone to a couple of festival concerts together and a Roger Hall play, but the relationship didn’t advance much from what they had in the office – a slightly competitive respect for each other’s professional ability, and an easy familiarity.

‘Isn’t that right, Sheff?’ she said, after listing the trials of writing a column. He’d twice had that experience, and given up each time before he ran out of issues he cared about enough to give his pieces some bite.

‘It is for most people,’ he agreed. There were notable exceptions, but he wasn’t sufficiently engaged in the conversation to bother quoting them.

‘At least you get a bloody by-line,’ said Nick. He put his empty glass in front of Sheff, and rang the top with his finger as a reminder it was time for a round.

‘Same?’ asked Sheff, looking at each in turn. No one refused.

At the bar, waiting for service, Sheff felt that flat dissatisfaction: a sense of banal confinement. There he was, in predictable company and repetitious conversation, surreptitiously looking at the tits of a colleague who had no wish to be more than a friend. And in his job he was forced to witness the strengthening of the journalistic trends he most despised. ‘Moving time. Moving time,’ he heard himself say.

‘What’s that?’ said the young barman. He had a small strip of
manicured beard on the front of his chin, and a quality red and white striped shirt. The two didn’t go well together, giving him the appearance of a circus goat.

‘Sorry. Nothing.’

‘You want to watch it, mate, talking to yourself. Next you’ll have a lead, but no dog on the end of it.’

Smart bastard, thought Sheff, but he just gave a smile and his order. It was time for a change though, and the idea soon became conviction. Instead of unsettling him, the decision, arriving naturally and with certainty, cheered him up considerably. He made the two trips to the corner with the drinks, and then interrupted the talk of camper vans to tell his story of interviewing a mayoral candidate. ‘As she went on about fiscal restraint,’ he concluded, ‘I could see through an angle of the french doors her husband pissing on a raised garden of herbs. I didn’t have any of the egg and parsley sandwiches after that.’ The others of the group laughed, and it didn’t occur to him that he’d broken in when Donna had been speaking. He took for granted that his seniority in the office would transfer to their time together beyond work.

Sheff left before the others. Had he been still with them, Lloyd wouldn’t have remarked on how sour he’d become, and increasingly dogmatic, since the divorce, though the thought would have been the same. ‘Well, he’s had a rough spin, hasn’t he?’ said Donna generously.

‘And now his father’s really bad with cancer,’ Nick said.

‘Yeah, but he’s becoming a grumpy, pernickety bastard all the same,’ persisted Lloyd.

‘He’s having a tough time. I feel for him really,’ said Raewyn.

During the weekend Sheff spent some time assessing his financial position. Giving up his job carried risks, and the divorce from Lucy had been financially as well as emotionally damaging. But he’d never considered money a priority, and never had trouble finding work. And there was excitement in contemplating such a major shift: new prospects had been rare in recent years.

He rang Nick on the Sunday evening and talked to him about it. ‘Maybe you’re just feeling down,’ said his friend. ‘I wouldn’t jump ship until you’re sure – not until you’ve something sussed out to go to. I mean we all get pissed-off at times in this business, but you come through it and things aren’t so bad. I wouldn’t throw it in, not when you’ve beavered away to get somewhere.’

‘It doesn’t give me a buzz any more.’

‘Yeah, but that’s not just the job, is it? It’s the family stuff, the divorce and everything, your father being crook. You’re having a really bad patch, but you need to think of the rest of your life now. You could walk away from the paper and find yourself worse off in the end. What’s really bugging you, that’s the thing, isn’t it?’

‘Well, crap journalism for one.’

‘You’re not going to change that,’ said Nick.

‘Be nice to be clear of it for a while, though.’

‘All sorts of things are nice, but what the hell would you do? Corporate newsletters, or spin for some political bozo. You know you wouldn’t hack it.’

‘Maybe a complete break,’ said Sheff. ‘Maybe lecturing on a cruise liner, or writing up museum exhibits, or organising duty rosters. Maybe a small business of my own.’

‘Maybe bullshit,’ said Nick, and one of the last things he said during the conversation was that Sheff needed to stop being angry. That comment stayed with Sheff: it was true and it was obvious, but he hadn’t admitted its extent before, or tried to understand the cause. Anger lay not far beneath almost all his other emotions and surfaced when they wore thin. Yet he never thought of himself as an angry man. Anger meant a lack of self-control, and he prided himself on holding to reason in his behaviour. That balance had been remarked on, and also his self-sufficiency. When he thought about his feelings over the last few months he decided that, rather than anger, justifiable impatience had become his first and characteristic response to any difficulty, or to disagreement with his views. Yes, impatience was what
Nick intended to suggest, Sheff decided. And all of that, surely, was further proof he needed to make some sea change in his life.

Sometimes, too, he experienced passing concern for his health. Nothing serious enough that he would consult a doctor. Small concerns considered singly – occasional nosebleeds, vaguely located and passing stomach pains, drifting, pale fragments in his vision, neck cricks, receding hairline, and sometimes his piss was so dark that he could see the colour spiralling down to the bottom of the bowl. Lucy would have told him that such things were no cause for anxiety, but it’s different when you are alone. Reassuring yourself brings little comfort.

When he talked to the editor a little over a week later, Sheff had already moved from the urgency of the decision to resign, to anticipation of the choices it offered. Chris, however, was taken by surprise. ‘Jesus, Sheff, this is all a bit sudden. It’s not the llama, is it?’ He leant well forward, as if he might find the answer written on his chief reporter’s face.

‘No, nothing like that.’

‘What the heck then? Money? You haven’t been head-hunted by some business outfit?’

‘I haven’t any idea what I’m going to do, but I know I need a break. Something to take the rind off me so that things are fresh again.’

‘I can give you a few weeks off. I could swing that. Have a camel tour in the Gobi, or shack up with a mademoiselle in Paris. No need to throw everything over just because you’re feeling down.’

Sheff knew that part of the editor’s response was selfish: a resignation created one more complication, one more problem to be addressed, but he knew also that Chris was concerned as a colleague.

‘I’m fine, honestly. It’s not some impulse thing. I’ve thought it all out, and leaving’s the best way. I’m at a sort of dead-end. I need to try some other things, for a while at least. This place isn’t to blame. It’s more personal than that somehow.’ All part truth, but he saw nothing to be gained by making Chris feel guilty about aspects of their profession he couldn’t control.

Chris’s PA appeared at the door, but he waved her away, came from behind his desk and sat down in the remaining uncomfortable, armless chair next to Sheff. ‘Have you thought maybe it’s some delayed reaction to all the family stuff?’ he said. ‘You’ve had a hell of a pounding. Or maybe it’s the mid-life crisis thing all the magazines go on about?’

‘You think I should read up on it.’

‘Well, you’re bang on the age, aren’t you?’ They both felt more at ease with offhand evasion than personal revelation. They were comfortable on professional ground, but preferred not to probe each other’s emotions. ‘Anyway,’ Chris said, ‘I refuse to accept a resignation for two weeks, and then we’ll talk about it. I really hope you change your mind, but whatever’s best for you. Come and chat about it any time you want to. Right? Ring me at home if you like. Christ, Sheff. Talk about a bombshell.’ From habit he ran his hand over his fine, sparse hair, and the almost yellow strands were pressed close like inlay on a leather cover. ‘You’re making a pretty significant decision here you know,’ he said.

As he went back through the reporters’ room, Sheff had the feeling he was already distanced from his colleagues: that their application and concerns were no longer as important to him. Some emotional tether had been cut and he felt himself both oddly and advantageously set adrift. His own office, even, seemed to have undergone a subtle change, so that he was more aware of its plainness, its signal of laborious intensity. Unable to settle immediately to work, he began to tidy his desk. He forgot the damaged stand of the computer screen, and when he accidentally nudged it with Strunk and White’s
Elements of Style
, the monitor fell forward with a crash.

‘Fuck.’ The division between his office and the larger room was largely glass, but no one out there had noticed what had happened. Sheff sat and watched his workmates for a time, the blank, plastic back of the screen before him. Their space was full of activity, and he was very still in his. ‘Fuck it all,’ he said with deliberation, and
noticed how Donna played with her hair while talking on the phone, how Paul hunched at his desk, how people’s faces mirrored their mood although their voices couldn’t be heard. It was a busy place, with constant pressure and deadlines for editions that so quickly were superseded, forgotten, placed beneath the cat’s bowl, used to wrap the peelings, or line garage shelves.

Sheff didn’t change his mind. Rather, he became increasingly focused on leaving the paper, yet with no clear idea of what would follow. It was as if by that indecision he issued life a challenge to surprise him with opportunity. He rang Lucy to tell her. Surely it was a necessary consideration that she be aware of his action before hearing of it from others, even though they were no longer together.