Field of Blood

Paddy didn’t take one. She looked at the packet and felt her lip tremble. “My whole family’ll think I did it.”

It was the one soft moment when Heather could have sympathized and made it all right, but she was frightened and ashamed and missed her cue. “Look, things can’t just be nicey-nice all the time. I’m not in this business to get popular. I’m sorry, but that’s just the game we’re in.” She crossed her arms over her chest again, not defensive but elegant this time, her cigarette hand resting on her upper arm. A clean thread of smoke rose high above the cubicle doors, making her taller.

There were so many reasons why what she had done was wrong that the words in Paddy’s mind became entangled. She opened her mouth to speak but stammered loudly and stopped, shocked at herself. Heather’s eyes widened triumphantly.

“Never mind,” she said, placing the cigarette between her lips.

Paddy slapped Heather so hard that she snapped the cigarette in half. The amputated tip bounced once on the floor and continued smoking. They stood for a moment staring at it, both shocked, a red blush flowering Heather’s cheek. Paddy was nervous but excited. She shouldn’t have done that. She was a bully. It was wrong.

She reached roughly around the back of Heather’s head, grabbing the thick blond hair at the nape. Roots popped from Heather’s scalp as she tugged, dragging her forwards into a toilet cubicle, shoving her head into the bowl, and yanking the handle. Paddy watched the water swirl around her head, catching her thick hair, sucking the tail of it down through the U-bend. Heather spluttered and tried to stand up, using all the strength in her back. She was very strong, but Paddy used her weight, leaned against her neck, and kept her down. The toilet water saturated Heather’s blouse: Paddy could see the adjusting clips on her bra strap. Farquarson might sack her for attacking another member of staff. It would placate Sean if she did get sacked. It might even convince her family that it wasn’t her who wrote the article. The recession couldn’t last too long; she’d get another job somewhere.

She lifted her hand away and stepped back, watching Heather bounce up from the bowl gasping, throwing her head back, her hair tracing a great wet circle through the air. She turned to Paddy, astonished, her mouth hanging open, panting for air. Paddy saw the fright in her eyes. She couldn’t look at her anymore. She turned and left the toilet.

Out in the lobby Paddy’s hot face throbbed. She was ashamed and a little shocked by what she had done. It was ignoble and undignified and thuggish and she wouldn’t have thought herself capable. She loitered on the landing, listening to the rumble from the newsroom, disentangling long blond hairs from the fingers of her right hand as she waited for her blushes to subside.

III

They were laughing at her. Paddy saw them sniggering and glancing over at her as they repeated the story, trailing their hands down from their heads to their shoulders to describe Heather’s wet hair. Some guys on the features desk called her over and asked her to go to the stationery cupboard and bring a couple of lady wrestlers.

Everyone who came back from the Press Bar at lunchtime seemed to know what had happened. Paddy guessed that instinctively they would be on her side because Heather was attractive and not yet having sex with all of them, but she didn’t care. All she could think about was how embarrassed her mum and dad would be. They’d try to believe her when she insisted the story wasn’t her fault, but they’d be wrong. It was her fault. She knew that professional journalists made difficult choices, tricked information out of people, and broke confidences for stories. She’d been prepared to steal the letter from Mr. Taylor. A good journalist had to be prepared to take off-the-record asides and turn them into stories. She should have known. She was a naive idiot.

She was in the canteen, queuing for teas and practicing her apology to Sean, when Keck approached her looking serious and angry, vicariously a

“He’s in his office,” he said, sliding in front of her in the line, keeping his back to her as if she had already been sacked.

She walked downstairs slowly, loitering on the final landing to catch her breath. She was determined not to cry if he sacked her. The side lights were on in his office and the door was closed, an arrangement that usually denoted some kind of drama. She knocked on the door and he answered immediately. She opened the door a little and slid in.

Papers littered the floor around the desk. Farquarson was trying to break into a catering box of macaroons he had stolen from the canteen, chiseling into the thick plastic around the box with a penknife. He lost his temper and pulled at the plastic, stretching it until it ripped suddenly and the bars spilled in a messy pile on the floor. Farquarson bent down, picked up three and started to unwrap one. He nodded Paddy towards the pile. “Get stuck in.”

Paddy picked up a bar and thanked him. She opened the wrapper and took a bite, hoping that eating together might establish a bond between them. Macaroon bars were almost too sweet even for her. Made with potato saturated with icing sugar, they made her teeth ache and the skin on her gums wither. Farquarson slid into his seat.

“Meehan,” he said through a mouthful of sticky white paste, “a Mr. Taylor phoned this morning to complain. He said he’d been harassed by two journalists from the Daily News.” He paused to chew. “D’you know anything about the unions in this business? D’you know that The Scotsman has just had a weeklong work-to-rule because a journalist winked at a print machine? Richards gave you permission to go out in the car, not to misrepresent yourself as a journalist at the Daily News or to steal letters from grieving members of the public. I’ve calmed Mr. Taylor down and McVie’ll keep it quiet, but I don’t want you telling anyone you’re a journalist again. We could have a walkout on our hands, understand?”

Paddy nodded.

“You’ll have to get used to tiptoeing around the unions. It’s part of the job.” He took another large bite. “Now, are you going to tell me what happened in the ladies’?”

“I had an argument with Heather.”

“I thought she had an argument with the lavvy.”

It was a stupid joke. Paddy didn’t know if it was benign. She looked at her feet and kicked the table leg.

He cleared his throat. “I don’t want to know why you did that-”

“She’s a shit.” She sounded so vicious she surprised herself.

Farquarson looked up, eyebrows raised. “Meehan, I’m not going to umpire.”

“But she is a shit.”

“Listen, she’s been convinced not to make a formal complaint, and I’d drop it if I were you. She’s flavor of the month with editorial because she’s just brought us a very important story.”

“It’s not her story,” snapped Paddy. “It’s my story. Callum Ogilvy’s my fiancé’s cousin. I saw a picture of him and was upset and I confided in Heather. My family’ll disown me when they see today’s paper.”

Farquarson was very still. “The boy’s a relative of yours?”

“I’d never have used that story.” Suddenly angry, reckless of the sack and a life at the sink, she slapped the table, hurting her hand. “And what has being Irish Catholic got to do with anything? Why does it say that in the story? If they’d been a Jewish family, would you have put that in the second paragraph?”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not right.”

“I can’t do anything about it now,” he said flatly, “but I understand why you were so angry.”

They were quiet for a moment and tried not to look at each other. Farquarson took another bite of macaroon, snapping the bar between his teeth as gently as possible. He chewed quietly until Paddy broke the silence.