Men from the Boys. Tony Parsons

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СКАЧАТЬ so very much like shouting. ‘The pills are nothing. I appreciate your concern, Gina. But he needs them.’

      She touched my arm. Patted it twice, and then sort of stroked it with the middle joint of her index finger. That was new too. I quite liked it. We smiled at each other, and turned to look at a barge floating by as if on air. She was right. It was beautiful.

      ‘Harry?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Why are you so angry?’ she said.

      ‘Because you didn’t put him first,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter what else was going on. New man, new job, new life. He should have been top of your list. And he wasn’t.’

      A kind of laugh. ‘Was he top of your list when you were on top of that little slut from work?’

      ‘One night, Gina.’

      ‘One night is plenty.’ She shook her head and looked at all the painted barges. ‘Don’t act as though you were burned at the stake, Harry. You were the one who fucked around.’

      Ah yes.

      There would always be that.

      

      After the show I was in the studio with Marty talking about airport security. I sat on the desk among the dead microphones, all of them a different primary colour. Like the Teletubbies. Marty swung in his chair, his hands stuffed deep inside his combat trousers.

      ‘When they stop some little old lady who looks like your granny,’ I said.

      Marty grimaced. ‘When they stop some little old lady who looks like your granny but they don’t stop the guy who looks like Osama bin Laden.’

      I laughed bitterly. ‘The way they don’t let you carry a pair of nail scissors on board in case you burst into the cockpit and give the pilot a quick pedicure.’

      Marty laughed at the insanity of the lousy modern world. ‘The way they don’t let you carry a pair of nail scissors on board but they will flog you a bottle of duty-free booze and nobody bats an eyelid.’

      ‘And what would you rather be attacked with?’ I asked. ‘A dinky pair of nail scissors or a broken bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label?’

      ‘Let me think about it for a bit,’ Marty said. He swung in his chair. ‘Shouldn’t we be writing some of this down? It’s all good stuff.’

      ‘You’ll remember it,’ I said.

      Marty looked over at the gallery. Josh had gone home. The sound engineer had gone home. But through the big glass window we could see some young guy with glasses staring at us. He had a rockabilly haircut and his quiff stood up like a shark’s fin.

      I didn’t recognise him. But that was the BBC for you. There were always new kids fresh from their firsts at Oxford and Cambridge turning up to fetch us a sausage roll.

      ‘Fancy a cup of char?’ Marty asked me, and made a ‘T’ sign with his hands towards the booth. The young guy with glasses and the shark’s fin quiff just stared at us. Marty impatiently banged the top part of the ‘T’ down on the bottom part. The sap on the other side of the glass just smiled weakly, shaking his head. He held up a hand – please wait, o mighty one – and came through to us, his cheeks a rosy glow.

      ‘Come on, you thick bastard,’ Marty barked at him, swinging his feet up on the desk. ‘You’re not taking a punt down the River Cam now. There’s no Bollinger on the lawn with the rowdies from the Bullingdon Club.’ Marty had dropped out of a comprehensive in Croydon. ‘This is the real world. Tea for two and be sharp about it.’

      The young man laughed. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ he said. They were all posh boys. And even the ones who weren’t posh boys had mastered the accent, if nothing else. ‘I should have introduced myself but I didn’t want to interrupt your editorial meeting.’ He glanced at me, as if I might help him out. ‘Blunt,’ he said. ‘Giles Blunt. Controller of Editorial Guidelines.’

       I shook his hand. It was soft and wet as the River Cam. Marty was fabulously unmoved.

      ‘And what?’ he said, his pale features set in stone. ‘Some fancy title makes you too important to get a cup of tea for the talent?’

      The silence of the mortuary lab. And then Marty laughed. And Blunt and I smiled, relieved to hear something, anything, to break that awful silence.

      ‘Just pulling your chain,’ Marty laughed, standing up to offer his hand. He could ingratiate himself with management when he felt like it.

      ‘We need to talk about the direction of A Clip Round the Ear,’ said Blunt, regaining his composure, remembering his power. ‘If you can find a window for me.’

      Marty nodded briskly.

      ‘Let me get my coat and I’ll see you in my office,’ he said.

      The young man looked startled. ‘Now?’ he said, glancing at the big old-fashioned clock. It was way after midnight. Marty and I smiled at each other.

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