Spike: An Intimate Memoir. Norma Farnes

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СКАЧАТЬ the same. Four wheels and an engine. Get in and I’ll show you how.’ So for ten minutes I was given a lesson by an unusually quiet, patient Jack Clarke. Until the car hiccoughed.

      ‘For Christ’s sake, woman!’ He turned puce but somehow stifled his anger. ‘It happens to us all.’ Then he smiled once more. ‘Excellent. Do you feel more confident now?’

      I nodded.

      ‘Good, because I’ve got an idea. You’ve always wanted to be a reporter. Now’s your big chance. Katherine’s girlfriends are driving past the gatekeeper with flowers and stuff. To congratulate her, I suppose. I want you to do the same.’

      ‘You’re out of your mind.’

      ‘No I’m not. You’ll see. It’ll work. The reporters and photographers are all in the pub so nobody will recognize you.’

      ‘How about the gatekeeper? He’ll stop me.’

      ‘He won’t if you drive at him as if you don’t intend to stop. Just give him a casual wave.’

      I do not know why I fell for it but I did. Off we went to Helmsley for a giant bouquet and then half a mile from Hovingham he stepped out of the car and I was on my own, with firm instructions to get into the Hall if I could. If Katherine was not there I was to hand the flowers to the butler or footman and remember everything I saw, furniture, pictures on the wall, and ask if the Duke was there with her. If she came to the door then I was to remember what the engagement ring looked like and wish her all the best from Jack’s agency.

      I drove off – quite well, actually – at a steady twenty-five miles an hour, never faltering, and waving to the gatekeeper who saluted and opened the gates. I skidded to a halt at the huge door, got out of the car with trembling legs, rang the bell and waited. The door swung open to reveal a liveried manservant, a young, very good-looking one. I opened my mouth but the words would not come. How dare Jack put me in this position. I thrust the flowers into his hands. He looked at me expectantly and then the words tumbled out.

      ‘I’m not a friend of Katherine Worsley. My boss is a journalist and made me come to ask if the Duke is here with Katherine and if not where are they?’

      He looked at me impassively. More blurting.

      ‘Is Katherine at home? Is the Duke here? I didn’t want to do this. He made me. I’d have lost my job if I’d refused.’

      He took pity. ‘The Duke isn’t here. He’s with Miss Katherine at Nawton Hall.’ Which, I knew, was where the Countess of Feversham lived.

      I jumped in the car. It was such a relief to drive off. Did I say drive? More accurately, hiccough past the gates where Jack was waiting, along with thirty or forty reporters and photographers who had heard that an E-type had been admitted to the Hall. I pulled up and stalled the engine as I had forgotten to take it out of gear.

      I made straight for Jack, absolutely furious. ‘Don’t ever put me through that sort of thing again!’ I yelled. He put me back into the car and got behind the wheel.

      ‘Tell us what happened, love,’ one of the reporters shouted.

      Jack put the car into gear. ‘You can read all about it tomorrow,’ he told them. And we roared off.

      From such flimsy details he wrote a story that made several page leads and one of our photographers got an exclusive picture of the Duke and Katherine leaving Nawton Hall, the first of them both together.

      ‘I’ll never do that again,’ I said. But I did, and I got better at it. The best was when I was sent to a local Lady who had held a charity sale of fashion clothes but instead, it was rumoured, had put most of the proceeds into her handbag. After Jack had broken the story hinting at her misdeeds her ladyship was very wary of the Press when she held a second sale. When I was dispatched to the manor, in the E-type again, she was delighted to show a ‘model from London’ around. After chatting for a quarter of an hour we were bosom pals. ‘I do hope we come across one another again,’ she said as I made to leave. ‘It’s so nice to meet a working gal.’

      And then KERPOW. A camera bulb flashed in my face. Somehow the reporters had got to the front door again and one of them shouted at her ladyship, ‘I thought you said reporters weren’t allowed in the house. What about her?’

      ‘I’m certainly not a reporter,’ I said, quite truthfully. ‘He’s obviously mistaken me for someone else – dreadful man!’

      ‘Riff raff,’ agreed her ladyship.

      Head held high, I walked disdainfully through the throng of pressmen, some of whom I recognized, and got into the car quickly. And this time, thank God, I drove away smoothly.

      Jack was delighted with my description of the house, Lady , and the clothes on offer. He wrote his piece, with carefully guarded hints about the proceeds of the previous sale having shrunk by the time they reached the charity, and sure enough, the nationals splashed with it.

      ‘I should get a bonus for this. I got the story and you’ve made money out of it,’ I told him.

      ‘But you couldn’t have written it.’

      ‘Without me you wouldn’t have had anything to write about.’

      ‘But you’re on a salary.’

      ‘Yes, as a secretary and researcher. Not an undercover reporter.’

      He sighed. ‘You win.’ He gave me a generous bonus and I now realize that this was my first stab at negotiating.

      Life in Jack’s office could be tough. I still remember going home after a particularly bad day. The reporters had ragged me, Jack was in an impossible mood because one of them had lost a story to someone else – ‘You’ll be lucky to hold down a job on a sleepy country weekly’ – and in his fury he started to throw things around the office.

      The sheer pressure of the day made me burst into tears when I got home. My dear mother was mortified. I can still hear her now. ‘Dear oh dear. For goodness’ sake don’t go back there any more. All this upset. It’s only a job. I’ll have a word with Dick Colclough at the Town Hall. He’ll get you a respectable job in his department. There’ll be none of this upset there.’

      The tears dried up immediately. ‘What do you mean – a job at the Town Hall? I couldn’t stand it. Boring, boring, boring! If you think I’m going to let Jack Clarke browbeat me you’re wrong. When I go in tomorrow I’ll give him a piece of my mind.’

      Mum could not understand my reasoning then and to the end of her days wished I had gone to the Town Hall or stayed at ICI, married a local boy, settled down and provided her with grandchildren. But I was not interested. The same determination not to give in to Jack’s forceful personality would serve me well as I refused to wilt when times were bad with Spike.

      When I arrived at the office the next morning Jack behaved as if nothing had happened. That was yesterday’s news and therefore history as far as he was concerned.

      Jack and I had a vibrant, loving relationship for almost three years. He would leave his family: this week, next week, after Christmas, sometime, never. Eventually I realized I took second place to them, though I knew he adored me. It had been the most wonderful and exciting time of my life and he would always be in my heart, but the time had come to part. I was desperately sad СКАЧАТЬ