Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [3]
“I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a pele tower. And that’s what gives the story its power. It’s a metaphor.” Zed knew the very idea of metaphor put him onto dangerous ground with the editor, so he madly rushed on. “Consider the use of the towers and you’ll see how it works. They were built for protection against border reivers— those nasty blokes who invaded from Scotland, eh?— and, for our purposes, the border reivers represent drugs, okay? Meth. Coke. Hash. Smack. Blow. Whatever. The pele tower itself represents redemption and recovery, and each floor of the tower, which in the past contained something different, and by this I mean the ground floor was for animals and the first floor was for cooking and household activities and the second floor was for living and sleeping and then the roof was for fighting off the reivers by showering them with arrows and oh I don’t know hot oil or something and when you look at all this and take it to mean what it ought to mean and could mean in the life of a person who’s been on the street for what… ten or fifteen years?… then— ”
Rodney’s head dropped onto his desk. He waved Zed off.
Zed wasn’t sure what to make of this. It looked like dismissal but he wasn’t about to slink off with his tail between… God, another metaphor, he thought. He crashed on, saying, “It’s what makes this story a cut above. It’s what makes this story a Sunday piece. I see it in the magazine, four full pages with photos: the tower, the blokes rebuilding it, the befores and the afters, that sort of thing.”
“It’s a snore,” Rodney said again. “Which, by the way, is another metaphor. And so is sex, which this story has none of.”
“Sex,” Zed repeated. “Well, the wife is glamorous, I suppose, but she didn’t want the story to be about her or about their relationship. She said he’s the one who— ”
Rodney raised his head. “I don’t mean sex as in sex, stupid. I mean sex as in sex.” He snapped his fingers. “The sizzle, the tension, the make-the-reader-want-something, the restlessness, the urge, the rising excitement, the make-her-wet-and-make-him-hard only they don’t know why they even feel that way. Am I being clear? Your story doesn’t have it.”
“But it’s not meant to have it. It’s meant to be uplifting, to give people hope.”
“We’re not in the bloody uplifting business and we sure as hell aren’t in the business of hope. We’re in the business of selling papers. And believe me, this pile of bushwa won’t do it. We engage in a certain type of investigative reporting here. You told me you knew that when I interviewed you. Isn’t that why you went to Cumbria? So be an investigative reporter. Investi-bloody-gate.”
“I did.”
“Bollocks. This is a love fest. Someone up there seduced your pants off— ”
“Absolutely no way.”
“— and you soft-pedaled.”
“Did not happen.”
“So this”— again Rodney gestured with the story— “represents the hard stuff, eh? This is how you go for the story’s big vein?”
“Well, I can see that… Not exactly, I suppose. But I mean, once one got to know the bloke— ”
“One lost one’s nerve. One investigated zippo.”
This seemed a rather unfair conclusion, Zed thought. “So what you’re saying is that an exposé of drug abuse, of a wasted life, of tormented parents who’ve tried everything to save their kid only to have him save himself… this bloke who was about to choke on the silver spoon, Rodney… that’s not investigative? That’s not sexy? The way you want it to be sexy?”
“The son of some Hooray Henry wastes himself on drugs.” Rodney yawned dramatically. “This is something new? You want me to tick off the names of ten other useless bags of dog droppings doing the same thing? It won’t take long.”
Zed felt the fight drain out of him. All the time wasted, all the effort spent, all the interviews conducted, all— he had to admit it— the subtle plans to alter the direction of The Source and make it into a paper at least marginally worthwhile and thereby put his name in lights since, let’s face it, the Financial Times wasn’t hiring at the