Cover Story - 9

Bel hadn’t witnessed a cold approach by an admirer like that for a very long time, she and Shilpa having aged out of going to the kind of places where men roamed like feral jackals in Superdry. She was reluctantly forced to award extra points for the fact that Connor’s fangirl assumed he was spoken for, so there was no angle. Just pure worship of pleasing masculine geometry.

The funny thing was, Connor Adams looked hideously discomfited by the praise, rather than foul-gloating Jilly Cooper rotter, as she’d have predicted. Bel toyed with the possibility he wasn’t vain, then shook herself out of this gullible notion immediately.

Her ex, Tim, used to say everyone was easier on the opposite sex than their own. ‘You’ve the A to Z for your own sex but the other one you don’t know the road layout, and you get lost more easily.’

Here might be a prime example. It wasn’t that Connor wasn’t vain, it was that he wasn’t grateful. His mild affront was likely due to a sense of: ‘Yes, AND? Go scrub my staircases in the north wing, wench’ entitlement that could be seen by Google Earth.

A suspicion reinforced by his jumpy response to a phone call that allegedly, couldn’t wait – why did Bel get the feeling he was pretending he had urgent business, to make it clear he mattered?

‘Putting you through to Air Force One now, hold for the President, Mr Adams,’ drawled Aaron, as they both observed Connor scowling determinedly, gripping his handset, and Bel laughed.

A few moments later she saw Connor grinning in a devilish fashion and thought, hah, knew it. Urgent my arse. His expression was disorientating, though, a stray flash of an entirely different person. One they certainly wouldn’t get to meet. He stalked back in and she felt the strain of him trying to find a socialising gear. Bel knew it was good practice to suggest this get to know you to people who had no other contacts in the city, but she made a mental note to Aaron to suggest Friday was too big an evening to give away.

‘What made you switch careers to journalism?’ Bel said, over their panchkraut and potato pancakes, and then recalled, with heart-rate bump, she wasn’t meant to know this. ‘Mmm … Toby says you were in finance?’

Quick lie, good rescue.

‘Yeah. I’d always wanted to be a reporter, wrote a lot for my university newspaper, and so on,’ Connor said.

He pushed his chestnut brown hair back from a classically good brow. Bel watched the muscles in his jaw move and wondered how many women he’d been mean to.

‘Which university?’ said Aaron, eyes as keen as a hawk over the rim of his beer glass.

Connor looked like he spotted a trap.

‘Bristol,’ he said, and Aaron flicked a look at Bel. Aaron would have preferred Oxford, Cambridge or Durham, to suit his prejudices, she felt sure. He was working up a case file, a profile of offending.

‘But I graduated from a politics and history degree, was skint in a house share dump in London and my older brother persuaded me it was smart to take a trainee position in the City. He was a SPAD at the time, now a political consultant in the States. I did that thing a lot of people do, I guess, try a career on for size without really thinking you’re choosing it. Then you wake up ten years later and suddenly, it’s who you are.’

Bel nodded.

‘Was there a particular moment you realised it wasn’t for you?’ Bel said.

The waiter arrived with more beers, and Aaron added:

‘Do you prefer newspapers so far?’

To no surprise whatsoever to Bel, Connor ignored her and answered Aaron.

‘I now have a lot less money,’ he said, smiling, and Bel reflexively smiled back and then wished she hadn’t. He really got under her skin, blanking her question was just the latest microaggression. This sense he was better than his company radiated from him, and based on what? The personality of a microwave and the looks of a shit Bridgerton brother?

‘I like it a lot. It’s interesting, no two days are the same, you feel like you meet people and get involved in society, somehow. Instead of merely profiteering from it. What about you, what made you go into journalism?’

‘My dad worked on the Manchester Evening News ,’ Aaron said. ‘Deputy editor. And my grandad.’

‘Oh wow, a nepotistic Parry dynasty,’ Bel said.

‘Family trade. Beats selling Croc charms in the Arndale, eh,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to make any money on wikiFeet. I’ve got talons like a barn owl.’

‘What’re Croc charms?’ Connor said.

‘Things you use to Croc-jazzle your Crocs with trinkets,’ Bel said. ‘Some are supposed to look like weird little toes poking out the holes.’

‘Good God!’ Connor said and Bel couldn’t help smiling: Connor in his immaculate white shirt, thick creamy material that looked like cartridge paper.

‘What about you , Miss Macauley? Why journalism?’ Aaron said.

‘I always loved writing stories as a kid. I used to make a mini newspaper with exclusives about everyone in the family – even splashed on catching my diabetic uncle hiding Wispas in plant pots, and got him in trouble. Got the taste for controversy. After university I got a job at the Yorkshire Post and they let me podcast in the evenings and weekends. As long as I offered them any stories I thought they might want first, which they generally didn’t. Investigations have become my thing. So when you say I’m a blogger-podcaster, dilettante bullshitter who only self-identifies as a journalist, I’ve got my shorthand and done my apprenticeship.’

She grinned and slid a glance at Connor, who remained stonily impassive.

‘I know you’re proper, I just think it’s a cushy gig! Can you sign yourself off for, like, weeks at a time? I’d be in the casino,’ Aaron said.

‘It only sounds fun and easy. If you do ‘full immersion’ stories there’s more pressure to justify it all at the end. I’ve recently worked on an abuse in care homes story that took five weeks and went nowhere. I can’t believe Mr If It Bleeds It Leads here would be loving it.’

As the waiter brought the bill, her phone rattled against her leg in her bag.

Shilpa

You out?

Bel

What’s this, the girl version of ‘you up’? You’re HERE again, aren’t you? Yes I am out, with the gentlemen from work *skull and crossbones emoji*

Shilpa

Got bored so came & worked in coffee shop here for the afternoon and then a sundowner called to me. Fancy a cocktail in Schofield’s? BRING THE MEN. I’m a people person.

Oh God, Bel shouldn’t have shown Shilpa that photo of monstrous Connor Adams. She should’ve told her he looked like Danny De Vito’s Penguin. Shilpa liked to insert herself into the narrative – in this case, hoping the narrative would insert itself into her.

Bel could slip away, but she saw Aaron and Connor look at her expectantly: Aaron with hopes of a second venue, and Connor with the cynicism of: let’s hear your awkward exit line.

‘My friend is out for a drink near here. Anyone want one for the road?’

Distressingly and unexpectedly, both of them claimed they did.