High society (34 page)

THE EDITOR’S OFFICE, A NATIONAL NEWSPAPER

S
ometimes, not often but sometimes, there can be just too much news. This was just such an occasion. The editor and his team had now remade Monday’s front page four times.

The first version had concerned Tommy Hanson; a rival paper’s Sunday-morning scoop had put all Fleet Street on alert, and every single paper from red top to broadsheet carried follow-up stories commenting on the extraordinary mix of drugs, homosexuality and vote-rigging that currently swirled around Britain’s biggest star, a star who seemed, not surprisingly, to have gone completely to ground.

Then, around midnight, the page had had to be made for a second time as news came in of the murder of not one but two senior Drug Squad officers. The first had been found shot in a stolen car in central London, the other in a prostitute’s room in Soho. Yardie gangs were suspected of both shootings, and Scotland Yard was already hailing two new police martyrs in the war against drugs. The drugs debate had never raged so spectacularly, and never had the chances of Paget’s bill getting through looked better.

Then had come the third piece of news. Peter Paget, the nation’s new hero, had been finally cleared of all infection following his terrifying needle prick accident. That news surely had to share the front page with the story of the murdered Drug Squad officers, along with a front-page editorial supporting the Paget Bill.

But then had come the fourth bit of news and quite suddenly all bets were off. Every editor in London had become simultaneously aware that they had all been scooped in a quite comprehensive fashion. Paula Wooldridge, the disgraced columnist who had maintained all along that Paget was a dangerous hypocrite, had somehow produced a gorgeous young woman who was prepared to swear that she had taken drugs with him — Peter Paget, the Minister for Drugs! The family man! The man who had insisted from the beginning that he himself never touched drugs. This was truly momentous news, because if it were true then surely it was evidence that those who sought to legalize drugs were doing so in order to make their own addictions easier to maintain. While remaking the front page for the fourth time, the editor discreetly removed his editorial supporting the Paget Bill. If Paula Wooldridge had got her facts right, positions would have to shift.

THE PAGET HOUSEHOLD, DALSTON

O
nce more Peter Paget stood with his family on their now familiar front doorstep. This time his daughter Cathy stood beside him.

‘As I have already made clear to the Prime Minister, the outrageous allegations that have been published about me are a wicked fabrication. Not only did I not attend a dinner party with Ms Spencer and her two friends in which cocaine was taken, but I was nowhere near Islington that night, having taken my daughter to the pictures.’

Cathy butted in holding up her diary. ‘Mission Impossible 3,’ she said. ‘Not bad, not great, I gave it two and a half stars at the time out of a possible five…’

Cathy had indeed stuck two and a half silver stars into her diary. A brilliant little detail which she knew instinctively would play well.

‘Although to be quite frank one and a half of those stars is for Tom Cruise, who is, let us face it, a babe, and Nicole was mad to let him go.’

‘Yes, well, as I was saying, my daughter and I were here in Dalston on the night in question, and we have both made statements to the police confirming that. As far as they are concerned, there are no grounds for an investigation. Therefore all that remains is the transparent attempt to blacken my name and destroy my work. I intend to answer these slurs in court.

‘I should like to add that I wish Ms Spencer no ill will. She is a vulnerable and emotionally damaged girl whom I have always tried to support. She lost her father as a young child and I have long been aware that this tragedy was a seminal incident in her life. During the time I worked with Ms Spencer she developed a strong affection for me, I believe coming to see me in some ways as a father replacement figure. I’m deeply saddened that Ms Spencer’s obvious psychological disturbance has led to these accusations and only hope that she comes to her senses before any further damage is done.’

Behind Peter, Angela Paget clenched her fists so hard her nails began to pierce the skin on the palms of her hands.

‘I believe,’ Peter continued, ‘that Ms Spencer is the highly vulnerable victim of a vicious and predatory group within the media who are determined to destroy my drug legalization bill and with it the current government. This is clearly what lies behind the preposterous claims that I am a drug user. That the nation’s attention should be diverted from the main issue by such trivia on the very morning after we learn that two Drug Squad officers have been murdered, two more heroes sacrificed in this ludicrous war on crime, is a tragedy indeed. The journalist responsible for this and her editor should be ashamed.’

The assembled press could hold back no longer. They didn’t mind prepared statements, but this looked like it might go on a bit.

‘Do you feel these allegations have damaged you at all?’

‘Are the attacks political?’

‘Do you intend to sue?’

Peter raised his voice above the clamour. ‘I do not believe that Ms Spencer’s motives are political, but those of the newspaper that is exploiting her clearly are. That is why I most definitely do intend to sue. Indeed, the proprietors are already in receipt of my lawyer’s letter. Thank you. That will be all.’

Peter Paget turned and attempted to usher his family back into the house, but Cathy Paget was having none of it. She had expected Winston Churchill to appear on the doorstep and instead had got John Major. Her father’s performance had been dignified, certainly, but where was the fire? Where was the passion of his parliamentary debut?

‘I want to say something!’ she said.

‘Darling…‘ her mother murmured.

‘No, Mum, this is our house, our doorstep and this whole thing is just pathetic!’

‘How do you mean, pathetic, Cathy?’ the journalists enquired.

‘Because it is. Obviously it is and you all know it. Look, first let’s get one thing straight. This whole stupid scandal thing is bollocks, all right? If my dad says he didn’t shag some nutty bird who worked for him then he didn’t. I know him. He may be a pain in the bum, but he’s not a shagger and he’s not a liar. I’m telling you that straight. Plus, the drugs thing is just a joke, right, a complete sodding joke. My dad wouldn’t know an E from an aspirin! He still calls skunk ‘pot’, for Christ’s sake, he’s a classic boring dad, he’s a square, he brews his own beer, guys. Think about it. How sad is that? My dad may be a bit embarrassing, but he is just so not a drug-taker and I’ve known him for sixteen years.’

Cathy was on the front step now, standing beside her bemused father while the assembled media lapped it up.

‘But the point is, supposing all this stuff was true! Supposing he had been knocking this loser off and he had tried a toot of Bolivian marching powder to celebrate her birthday? And as I say that’s about as likely as Paula Wooldridge who trumped this rubbish up constructing a decent sentence…’

Big laughs, of course, from all but the representatives of Paula’s paper.

‘But supposing it was true. So what? My dad has made his arguments and people have listened to them. They’ve seen the sense in what he’s saying. Finally the world’s waking up to the drug madness we’ve created. Now you come to our doorstep and say that maybe Dad lied about his sex life and also about not taking drugs! Like I say, so what! Who cares! Who doesn’t lie? You guys? Your readers? Don’t make me laugh. You lot’ve all taken drugs, that’s for sure, probably last night! Half of you will have cheated on your partners. Does that make you any less able to judge an issue? Are you people honestly so pathetically weak intellectually that you only respect my dad’s arguments as long as you can respect him? That’s insane! The media’s gone mad! If Kennedy’s womanizing had come out in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, World War Three might have started while you lot asked him about his knob!’

This was truly a bravura performance. The press did not normally like being ticked off, but something about this pretty sixteen-year-old’s open style was making them laugh.

‘Well, let me give you a bit of news to add to all the crap you’re going to write. My dad hasn’t taken drugs since the odd spliff at uni, I’m sure of that. But I have! I’ve taken E twice so far…’

‘Darling!’ Angela Paget was astonished.

‘And what’s more, I’ve been pissed up on alcopops and I preferred E. So did my mates. What are you going to do about it? Come down our school and arrest us all? Put us on the front page? Shock horror, ‘Britain’s monged generation!’ Maybe it would be better to accept the inevitable and concentrate on making sure the stuff we take isn’t cut with smack and speed.’

‘Yeah!’ shouted Suzie, who did not wish to be left totally out of the limelight. ‘And me and my boyfriend smoked a joint!’

‘You did not, Suzie,’ Cathy snapped. ‘I checked it out. It was dried parsley.’

‘No way, it was a proper spliff!’

‘It was parsley, Suzie.’

‘Suzie! Go inside.’ This was Peter Paget attempting to regain some control of the press conference.

‘I think we should all go in,’ said his wife through gritted teeth.

But the press were reluctant to allow such an entertaining and newsworthy event to come to an end. ‘Anything to add, Cathy?’ they shouted.

‘Who’s your parsley-dealer, Suzie?’ a young man from the Sun enquired.

‘Piss off!’ Suzie Paget snapped back. ‘It was grass and we got totally monged on it.’

‘That’s it!’ Peter Paget shouted. ‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.’

‘Sorry, Mum, but I had to say something,’ Cathy said as the family retreated, before turning round for one final sally.

‘Whatever my dad has done, and he hasn’t done anything, it’s got nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with his bill. Just you lot remember that.’

It was probably the first time in the history of modern journalism that a full-scale doorstepping had ended with the journalists giving their prey a round of applause.

The telephone was already ringing when the family got back inside.

‘It’s Charlie Ansboro,’ Angela said. ‘He’s with the PM.’

TEN DOWNING STREET

P
aget. Fucking brilliant,’ Ansboro said. ‘I mean, seriously fucking unbelievable. Not you, obviously. Bog standard, over-formal, looked defensive, adequate but a bit crap, frankly. But those girls of yours! Fuck me, they’re awesome. What is it? Cathy? Incredible, quite a looker, too, which always fucking helps. Well, they both are. Here’s the boss.’ He pressed the conference-call button on the phone so that the PM could speak to Paget.

‘Peter, they played the whole thing live on Sky and BBC News 24. It was superb, honest, funny, it made the whole thing look so inconsequential. Amazing what a bit of honesty will do. We really should try it more often ourselves.’

‘Bollocks,’ Charlie Ansboro interjected. ‘Honesty plays well from sixteen-year-old curies. It just looks like naivety from old cunts like us.’

‘Shut up, Charlie, I’m talking to Peter,’ the PM snapped.

‘Is young Cathy a party member? Young Socialist? Good God, do we still have them? Sounds positively Stalinist. Anyway, keep her upfront, mate, she’s gold, solid gold. The public love her even more than they love you.’

THE PAGET HOUSEHOLD, DALSTON

P
eter and Angela lay in bed together. Not touching.

‘You know, Peter, Cathy was so good today. So right in what she was saying, that who you are and what you do doesn’t matter at all if what you’re saying makes sense. If only we hadn’t lied. If only we’d just admitted it. This bloody affair of yours. Now we’ll never be out from under this lie as long as we live. We’ll never have…What do the Americans call it? When you can finally walk away from something?’

‘Closure,’ Peter replied.

‘That’s it. Closure. We’ll never have it.’

Something in Peter Paget stirred. ‘You know what, Angela? Fuck closure. Who gives a damn about closure? I made a mistake, a terrible mistake, and you’re my wife and you have to carry the burden of it with me. That’s all that’s happened. I had an affair and made us vulnerable and now we’re fighting back. That’s all, we’re fighting back. And we’re going to win. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

A FLAT, WEST HAMPSTEAD

K
urt had just finished watching the news, which of course had led with Cathy Paget’s two-fisted performance, when the doorbell began to ring. He made the mistake of answering it only once.

‘Kurt, you’re supporting Samantha Spencer in her story about Peter Paget, is that right?’

‘Yes, that’s so, but I don’t wish to discuss it with you now.’

‘Kurt, if Paget took cocaine who supplied it?’

‘What?’

‘We know that it could easily have been you, Kurt, because we’ve been asking around your local and you take quite a lot of drugs, don’t you? Do you deal, Kurt? Could you sell us some now?’

Kurt shut the door, but the journalist outside continued his interrogation through the letterbox. ‘You work for the Affiliated Union of Rail and Sea Workers, don’t you, Kurt? Junior legal officer? Isn’t it the case that the AURSW has recently disaffiliated from the Labour Party, Kurt? Did you not recently attend a chapel meeting in which you accused the Prime Minister of being a Tory stooge? Is your support for Samantha Spencer politically motivated, Kurt?’

When Kurt phoned his friend Laura, he discovered that she was being subjected to similar harassment.

‘They’re saying I’m some sort of communist junkie drug-dealer! Just because my chambers is always fighting the government over something, they’re implying I’m backing Sammy just to get at them. It’s amazing.’

The spin had gone firmly against Samantha Spencer and her friends. The popularity of Peter and his cause, the honest good humour of his daughter’s arguments, the obvious personal agenda of the journalist Paula Wooldridge, had kept the public firmly behind the Minister for Drugs. With the exception of Paula’s own newspaper, the media were currently proceeding under the assumption that Spencer and her friends had formed a conspiracy to destroy Paget.

The following morning photographs of both Samantha and Laura topless on their respective holidays appeared in all the papers.