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‘She just needs a little encouragement, Pete,’ Bob said, a little firmer then. ‘It’s a daunting task.’
‘Fine,’ Pete said suddenly. ‘We have two weeks until we go to print. Kitty, keep me up to date with how you’re getting on. I’d like daily feedback.’
‘Daily?’ she asked, surprised.
‘Yep.’ He gathered his things and made for Constance’s, his, office.
With Pete’s demand for daily updates, Kitty knew that her suspension from the television network, the vandalism to her flat, her relationship breakdown and the court case loss had just scratched the surface, and now the real repercussions of Thirty Minutes were beginning.
Kitty reluctantly sat behind Constance’s desk in her home office, her hands up in the air as though she was being shot at, afraid to touch anything, afraid to ruin the order of how Constance had placed things, knowing they would never find their way back to their rightful place without their rightful owner to fix them. Last week she had loved the feeling of being there but now she felt like an intruder. Bob had given her free rein in the office; there was nothing she couldn’t read, no territory she wasn’t allowed to examine. The previous Kitty – the Kitty who had Constance in her life and who hadn’t a court ruling against her for irresponsible journalism – would have jumped at the chance to be meddlesome and would have read everything she could get her hands on, whether it was related to the story or not, but now it was different.
She spent the afternoon doing fruitless but time-consuming searches through the filing cabinet, trying to see if any other paperwork matched up to the one hundred names. It was pointless because she had no idea what the names meant and how they could be linked to anything else. She Googled the names but nothing of interest came up; everything led her down deceiving paths.
By the end of day two, after an embarrassing meeting with Pete in which she had nothing to report, she returned home to find her flat with red-paint-splashed toilet paper hanging in strands across the front door as if to mimic a crime scene.
Despite going to bed without an ounce of hope and a blocked toilet from when she’d tried to flush away all the toilet paper at once, she managed to wake up somehow feeling vibrant and full of possibilities. A new day meant a new start to her search. She could do it. This was her moment to redeem herself, to make Constance proud. Her final thought of the night had been that the people on the list could be absolutely anyone – and where else do you find people who could be anyone? Not bothering to get dressed, she retrieved the phone directory and sat at the table in her pants.
She had made various photocopies of Constance’s list, not wanting to damage the original, which she had placed back in Constance’s filing cabinet. Kitty’s own copy was now covered in thoughts, questions, cartoon squiggles and shapes and so she took a fresh copy, a new notepad, the phone book, a fresh mug of coffee – instant, as Glen had taken his coffee machine and fresh coffee beans – took a deep breath and prepared herself. She heard a key in the door and it suddenly opened and she was faced with Glen. Her hands went straight to her naked chest. Then, feeling vulnerable, she folded her legs, opened the phone directory and covered herself more.
‘Sorry,’ Glen said, still frozen at the door, key in hand, staring at her. ‘I thought you’d be at work.’
‘Do you have to keep staring at me?’
‘Sorry.’ He blinked, looked away, then turned his back. ‘Do you want me to leave?’
‘Too late for that, isn’t it?’ she snapped, marching to her wardrobe.
‘Oh, here we go,’ he said, politeness leaving his voice. The door banged and he followed her into the bedroom.
‘I’m not dressed yet.’
‘Do you know what, Kitty, I’ve seen it all before and I really couldn’t care less.’ He didn’t glance at her as he rooted in her drawers.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘None of your business.’
‘It’s my flat, of course it’s my business.’
‘And I’ve paid my half of this month’s rent, so technically it’s mine too.’
‘If you tell me what it is, I can help,’ she said, watching him root. ‘Because I’d really like for you to take your hands off my knickers.’
He finally retrieved a watch from her underwear drawer and strapped it around his wrist.
‘How long has that been there?’
‘Always.’
‘Oh.’
How much more hadn’t she known about him? That’s what they were both thinking: how much more didn’t they know about each other? They were silent for a moment, and then he looked around the room again, more gently this time, placing shoes, CDs and other miscellaneous items he’d left behind into a black bin liner. Kitty couldn’t watch and went to sit at the kitchen table again.
‘Thanks for telling me you were leaving,’ she said as he passed her and made his way around the kitchen. He took the oven gloves, the oven gloves. ‘It was very gentlemanly of you.’
‘You knew that I was leaving.’
‘How the hell did I know that?’
‘How many arguments did we have, Kitty? How many times did I tell you exactly how I felt? How many more arguments did you want to have?’
‘None, of course.’
‘Exactly!’
‘But this wasn’t quite the outcome I was hoping for.’
He seemed surprised. ‘I thought you weren’t happy. You said you weren’t happy.’
‘I wasn’t having a happy time. I didn’t think that … anyway, it doesn’t matter now, does it?’ She was surprised to feel hope in her heart, hope that he would say, of course it matters, let’s fix this … but instead he left a long silence.
‘Why aren’t you at work?’
‘I decided to work from home.’
‘Did the magazine fire you?’ he asked, disbelieving her.
‘No,’ she snapped, tired of being second-guessed. ‘They didn’t fire me. It may surprise you to know that some people still believe in me.’ Which wasn’t entirely true with the way Pete was treating her.
Glen sighed, then walked to the door, bin liner over his shoulder. She looked back down at the directory. Her eyes jumped from one name to the next, unable to concentrate while he was there.
‘Sorry to hear about Constance.’
Emotion flooded her and she couldn’t speak.
‘I was at the funeral, in case you hadn’t heard.’
‘Sally told me.’ She wiped her eyes roughly, annoyed that she was crying.
‘Are you okay?’
Kitty blocked her face with her hands. It was too humiliating to have him stand there while she cried, when before he would have comforted her. She cried about that and she cried for Constance. And she cried about everything else in between. ‘Please go,’ she sobbed.
She heard the door softly close.
With dry eyes Kitty started afresh. She went to the first name on the list, Sarah McGowan. She turned to the McGowan pages in the directory. There were hundreds of McGowans in total. Eighty Mr and Mrs McGowans, twenty S McGowans, eight Sarah McGowans, which meant she would at least have to attempt to call them all if the twenty-eight specific S’s didn’t work out for her.
She began by ringing the Sarahs. The first call was answered immediately.
‘Hello, can I please speak to Sarah McGowan?’
‘This is she.’
‘My name is Katherine Logan and I’m calling from Etcetera magazine.’
She left a pause to see if there was any recognition.
‘I don’t want to take part in any surveys, thank you.’
‘No, no, this isn’t about a survey. I’m calling on behalf of our editor, Constance Dubois. I believe she may have been in contact with you regarding a story.’
She hadn’t been. Nor had she been with six other S’s she had contacted, while two calls rang out and she left a message for another two. Kitty started on the other McGowans in the directory, hoping Sarah was listed as a Mrs Somebody Else McGowan. Ten calls weren’t answered and she made a note to call them back. There were no Sarahs in the first eight Mr and Mrs’ homes she called; on the ninth there was, but at three months old baby Sarah was not the subject of Constance’s story, Kitty quickly learned. Twenty McGowans left, not to mention ninety-nine other names on the list with at least one hundred of each name to call. A possible ten thousand more phonecalls awaited her, unless she began with the more obscure names. Kitty didn’t doubt that she could do it – nothing bored her about research – but there were two factors working against her: time and money. She simply couldn’t afford to make all of these calls.
She abandoned her work-from-home strategy and returned to the office at lunchtime. It was busy with everyone working flat out to meet their new deadline for Constance’s tribute section as well as researching and writing stories for future issues.
Rebecca, the art director, came out of Pete’s office pulling a face. ‘He’s in a mood today. Good luck.’
An unfamiliar woman was sitting in Kitty’s usual desk, which wasn’t all that rare as they had many freelance writers in the editorial section who came and went from the office. Kitty stood in the centre of the room looking for a free desk and when that proved fruitless she looked for a free phone. Pete opened the door and called her into his office.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Looking for a desk. I have a mountain of calls to make, do you think you could get somebody’s phone for me for the day? And who is that lady at my desk?’
‘You on to something?’
‘I’m going to contact the names directly to see if Constance was speaking to them. Who is that lady at my desk?’
‘How can you contact them?’
‘From the phone directory,’ she said, trying not to show that she was well aware it was a stupid idea.
‘That’s it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how many people are on the list?’
‘One hundred. Who is the lady at my desk?’
‘One hundred? Jesus, Kitty, that will take for ever.’
‘I’ve already worked my way through most of the first name.’
‘And? Any luck?’
‘Not yet.’
He stared at her angrily.
‘Her name is “McGowan”; it might as well be “Smith” in this country. I’ve made about one hundred calls already. Pete, what do you expect me to do? There’s no other way. I started by Googling them all and Archie Hamilton is either a clown available for kids’ parties, he works at Davy’s stockbrokers, he died ten years ago or he went to prison five years ago for assault. Which one do you think I should just guess it is?’
He sighed. ‘Look, you can’t work here.’
‘Why not?’ She looked out the window, then pointedly back at her desk.
‘That’s Bernie Mulligan. I’ve asked her to write a story in your place in this month’s issue. The Cox Brothers called, along with a few other of our major advertisers. They’ve come under severe pressure to pull this month’s advertising.’
‘Why?’
Silence.
‘Oh. Because of me.’
‘They’ve been put under pressure for months but after the court case now they feel that they can’t support the magazine without it been seen to at least reprimand you in some way.’
‘But the television network have already suspended me. It has nothing to do with Etcetera.’
‘Somebody is stirring trouble for them.’
‘Colin Maguire’s crowd,’ she said. ‘They’re doing whatever they can to destroy me.’
‘We don’t know it’s them,’ he said, but with very little energy and belief behind it. He ran his hand through his hair. It was so glossy and perfect it fell straight back into place and reminded Kitty of a Head & Shoulders commercial. For the first time, she noticed he was actually quite handsome.
‘So you’re suspending me.’
‘No … I’m asking you not to work in the office for the next three weeks while I try to convince them.’
‘But what about Constance’s story?’
He rubbed his eyes tiredly.
‘That’s why you didn’t want me to write it, isn’t it? That’s why you asked Cheryl.’
‘My hands are tied, Kitty. They’re our biggest advertisers. We lose them, it’s suicide and I can’t afford to let that happen.’
‘Does Bob know?’
‘No, and you’re not to tell him either. He doesn’t need this on his plate. That’s why Cheryl and I are here.’
‘I want to work on the story,’ Kitty said. She suddenly very much needed to do this story. It was all she had.
‘If they do as they say then we can’t publish your name,’ he said, appearing tired. ‘I don’t see a way round it.’
Kitty suddenly liked this side of him. He seemed human, not like his usual bulldog self. ‘I was thinking of writing under Kitty Logan from now on. You know, drop Katherine. Nobody but my mother calls me it anyway …’ She swallowed. Katherine Logan carried such weight, she felt embarrassed saying it aloud, self-conscious when she phoned up the names on the list, paranoid about their reaction and what they must be thinking but not saying. She was ashamed of her own name. Kitty could be her fresh start.
Pete looked at her rather pityingly.
‘Or even better,’ she fought off his pity and brightened as a new idea sprung to her mind, ‘we put Constance’s name to it. It’s her final story.’
