The Fourth Estate Read online

  “Now there’s an idea,” said Keith.

  “Can you make the same time next Saturday?” Penny asked, as she pulled her polo-neck sweater over her head.

  “I’ll try,” said Keith. “But it can’t be in the gym next week because it’s already booked for a house boxing match—unless of course you want us to do it in the middle of the ring, surrounded by cheering spectators.”

  “I think it might be wise to leave others to end up lying flat on their backs,” said Penny. “What other suggestions do you have?”

  “I can give you a choice,” said Keith. “The indoor rifle range or the cricket pavilion.”

  “The cricket pavilion,” said Penny without hesitation.

  “What’s wrong with the rifle range?” asked Keith.

  “It’s always so cold and dark down there.”

  “Is that right?” said Keith. He paused. “Then it will have to be the cricket pavilion.”

  “But how will we get in?” she asked.

  “With a key,” he replied.

  “That’s not possible,” she said, rising to the bait. “It’s always locked when the First Eleven are away.”

  “Not when the groundsman’s son works on the Courier, it isn’t.”

  Penny took him in her arms, only moments after he had finished doing up his fly buttons. “Do you love me, Keith?”

  Keith tried to think of a convincing reply that didn’t commit him. “Haven’t I sacrificed an afternoon at the races to be with you?”

  Penny frowned as he released himself from her grip. She was just about to press him when he added, “See you next week.” He unlocked the gym door and peeked out into the corridor. He turned back, smiled and said, “Stay put for at least another five minutes.”

  He took a circuitous route back to his dormitory and let himself in through the kitchen window.

  When he crept into his study, he found a note on his desk from the headmaster asking to see him at eight o’clock. He checked his watch. It was already ten to eight. He was relieved that he hadn’t succumbed to Penny’s charms and stayed a little longer in the gymnasium. He began to wonder what the headmaster was going to complain about this time, but suspected that Penny had already pointed him in the right direction.

  He checked the mirror above his washbasin, to be sure there were no outward signs of the extra-curricular activities of the past two hours. He straightened his tie and removed a touch of pink lipstick from his cheek.

  As he crunched across the gravel to the headmaster’s house, he began to rehearse his defense against the reprimand he had been anticipating for some days. He tried to put his thoughts into a coherent order, and felt more and more confident that he could answer every one of the headmaster’s possible admonitions. Freedom of the press, the exercise of one’s democratic rights, the evils of censorship—and if the headmaster still rebuked him after that lot, he would remind him of his address to the parents on Founder’s Day the previous year when he had condemned Hitler for carrying out exactly the same gagging tactics on the German press. Most of these arguments had been picked up from his father at the breakfast table since he had returned from Yalta.

  Keith arrived outside the headmaster’s house as the clock on the school chapel struck eight. A maid answered his knock on the door and said, “Good evening, Mr. Townsend.” It was the first time anyone had ever called him “Mr.” She ushered him straight through to the headmaster’s study. Mr. Jessop looked up from behind a desk littered with papers.

  “Good evening, Townsend,” he said, dispensing with the usual custom of addressing a boy in his final year by his Christian name. Keith was obviously in deep trouble.

  “Good evening, sir,” he replied, somehow managing to make the word “sir” sound condescending.

  “Do have a seat,” said Mr. Jessop, waving an arm toward the chair opposite his desk.

  Keith was surprised: if you were offered a seat, that usually meant you were not in any trouble. Surely he wasn’t going to offer him …

  “Would you care for a sherry, Townsend?”

  “No, thank you,” replied Keith in disbelief. The sherry was normally offered only to the head boy.

  Ah, thought Keith, bribery. He’s going to tell me that perhaps it might be wise in future to temper my natural tendency to be provocative by … etc., etc. Well, I already have a reply prepared for that one. You can go to hell.

  “I am of course aware, Townsend, of just how much work is involved in trying to gain a place at Oxford while at the same time attempting to edit the school magazine.”

  So that’s his game. He wants me to resign. Never. He’ll have to sack me first. And if he does, I’ll publish an underground magazine the week before the official one comes out.

  “Nevertheless, I was hoping that you might feel able to take on a further responsibility.”

  He’s not going to make me a prefect? I don’t believe it.

  “You may be surprised to learn, Townsend, that I consider the cricket pavilion to be unsuitable…” continued the headmaster. Keith turned scarlet.

  “Unsuitable, Headmaster?” he blurted out.

  “… for the first eleven of a school of our reputation. Now, I realize that you have not made your mark at St. Andrew’s as a sportsman. However, the School Council has decided that this year’s appeal should be in aid of a new pavilion.”

  Well, they needn’t expect any help from me, thought Keith. But I may as well let him go on a bit before I turn him down.

  “I know you will be glad to learn that your mother has agreed to be president of the appeal.” He paused. “With that in mind, I hoped you’d agree to be the student chairman.”

  Keith made no attempt to respond. He knew only too well that once the old man got into his full stride, there was little point in interrupting him.

  “And as you don’t have the arduous responsibility of being a prefect, and do not represent the school in any of its teams, I felt you might be interested in taking up this challenge…”

  Keith still said nothing.

  “The amount the governors had in mind for the appeal was £5,000, and were you to succeed in raising that magnificent sum, I would feel able to inform the college you’ve applied to at Oxford of your stalwart efforts.” He paused to check some notes in front of him. “Worcester College, if I remember correctly. I feel that I can safely say that were your application to receive my personal blessing, it would count greatly in your favor.”

  And this, thought Keith, from a man who happily climbed the steps of the pulpit every Sunday to rail against the sins of bribery and corruption.

  “I therefore hope, Townsend, that you will give the idea your serious consideration.”

  As there followed a silence of over three seconds, Keith assumed the headmaster must have come to an end. His first reaction was to tell the old man to think again and to look for some other sucker to raise the money—not least because he had absolutely no interest in either cricket or in going to Oxford. He was determined that the moment he had left school, he would join the Courier as a trainee reporter. However, he accepted that for the moment his mother was still winning that particular argument, although if he deliberately failed the entrance exam, she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

  Despite this, Keith could think of several good reasons to fall in with the headmaster’s wishes. The sum was not that large, and collecting it on behalf of the school might open some doors that had previously been slammed in his face. And then there was his mother: she would need a great deal of placating after he had failed to be offered a place at Oxford.

  “It’s unlike you to take so long to come to a decision,” said the headmaster, breaking into his thoughts.

  “I was giving serious consideration to your proposal, Headmaster,” said Keith gravely. He had absolutely no intention of allowing the old man to believe he could be bought off quite that easily. This time it was the headmaster who remained silent. Keith counted to three. “I’ll come back to you on
this one if I may, sir,” he said, hoping he sounded like a bank manager addressing a customer requesting a small overdraft.

  “And when might that be, Townsend?” inquired the headmaster, sounding a little irritated.

  “Two or three days at the most, sir.”

  “Thank you, Townsend,” said the headmaster, rising from his chair to indicate that the interview was over. Keith turned to leave, but before he reached the door, the headmaster added, “Do have a word with your mother before you make your decision.”

  * * *

  “Your father wants me to be the student rep for the annual appeal,” said Keith, as he searched round for his pants.

  “What do they want to build this time?” asked Penny, still looking up at the ceiling.

  “A new cricket pavilion.”

  “Can’t see what’s wrong with this one.”

  “It has been known to be used for other purposes,” said Keith, as he pulled on his trousers.

  “Can’t think why.” She pulled at a trouser leg. He stared down at her thin naked body. “So, what are you going to tell him?”

  “I’m going to say yes.”

  “But why? It could take up all your spare time.”

  “I know. But it will keep him off my back, and in any case it might act as an insurance policy.”

  “An insurance policy?” said Penny.

  “Yes, if I were ever spotted at the racecourse—or worse…” He looked down at her again.

  “… in the slips cradle with the headmaster’s daughter?” She pushed herself up and began kissing him again.

  “Have we time?” he asked.

  “Don’t be so wet, Keith. If the First Eleven are playing at Wesley today and the game doesn’t end until six, they won’t be back much before nine, so we have all the time in the world.” She fell to her knees and began to undo his fly buttons.

  “Unless it’s raining,” said Keith.

  Penny had been the first girl Keith had made love to. She had seduced him one evening when he was meant to be attending a concert by a visiting orchestra; he would never have thought there was enough room in the ladies’ loo. He was relieved that there was no way of showing the fact that he had lost his virginity. He was certain it hadn’t been Penny’s first sexual experience, because to date he hadn’t taught her a thing.

  But all that had taken place at the beginning of the previous term, and now he had his eye on a girl called Betsy who served behind the counter in the local post office. In fact lately his mother had been surprised by how regularly Keith had been writing home.

  Keith lay on a neatly laid-out mattress of old pads in the slips cradle, and began to wonder what Betsy would look like in the nude. He decided that this was definitely going to be the last time.

  As she clipped on her bra, Penny asked casually, “Same time next week?”

  “Sorry, can’t make it next week,” said Keith. “Got an appointment in Melbourne.”

  “Who with?” asked Penny. “You’re surely not playing for the First Eleven.”

  “No, they’re not quite that desperate,” said Keith, laughing. “But I do have to attend an Interview Board for Oxford.”

  “Why bother?” said Penny. “If you were to end up there, it would only confirm your worst fears about the English.”

  “I know that, but my…” he began, as he pulled up his trousers for a second time.

  “And in any case, I heard my father tell Mr. Clarke that he only added your name to the final list to please your mother.”

  Penny regretted the words the moment she had said them.

  Keith’s eyes narrowed as he stared down at a girl who didn’t normally blush.

  * * *

  Keith used the second edition of the school magazine to air his opinions on private education.

  “As we approach the second half of the twentieth century, money alone should not be able to guarantee a good education,” the leader declared. “Attendance at the finest schools should be available to any child of proven ability, and not decided simply by which cot you were born in.”

  Keith waited for the wrath of the headmaster to descend upon him, but only silence emanated from that quarter. Mr. Jessop did not rise to the challenge. He might have been influenced by the fact that Keith had already banked £1,470 of the £5,000 needed to build a new cricket pavilion. Most of the money had, admittedly, been extracted from his father’s contacts, who, Keith suspected, paid up in the hope that it would keep their names off the front pages in future.

  In fact, the only result of publishing the article was not a complaint, but an offer of £10 from the Melbourne Age, Sir Graham’s main rival, who wanted to reproduce the five-hundred-word piece in full. Keith happily accepted his first fee as a journalist, but managed to lose the entire amount the following Wednesday, thus finally proving that Lucky Joe’s system was not infallible.

  Nevertheless, Keith looked forward to the chance of impressing his father with the little coup. On Saturday he read through his prose, as reproduced in the Melbourne Age. They hadn’t changed a single word—but they had edited the piece down drastically, and given it a very misleading headline: “Sir Graham’s Heir Demands Scholarships for Aborigines.”

  Half the page was given over to Keith’s radical views; the other half was taken up by an article from the paper’s chief educational correspondent, cogently arguing the case for private education. Readers were invited to respond with their opinions, and the following Saturday the Age had a field day at Sir Graham’s expense.

  Keith was relieved that his father never raised the subject, although he did overhear him telling his mother, “The boy will have learned a great deal from the experience. And in any case, I agreed with a lot of what he had to say.”

  His mother wasn’t quite so supportive.

  * * *

  During the holidays Keith spent every morning being tutored by Miss Steadman in preparation for his final exams.

  “Learning is just another form of tyranny,” he declared at the end of one demanding session.

  “It’s nothing compared with the tyranny of being ignorant for the rest of your life,” she assured him.

  After Miss Steadman had set him some more topics to revise, Keith went off to spend the rest of the day at the Courier. Like his father, he found he was more at ease among journalists than with the rich and powerful old boys of St. Andrew’s from whom he continued to try to coax money for the pavilion appeal.

  For his first official assignment at the Courier, Keith was attached to the paper’s crime reporter, Barry Evans, who sent him off every afternoon to cover court proceedings—petty theft, burglary, shoplifting and even the occasional bigamy. “Search for names that just might be recognized,” Evans told him. “Or better still, for those who might be related to people who are well known. Best of all, those who are well known.” Keith worked diligently, but without a great deal to show for his efforts. Whenever he did manage to get a piece into the paper, he often found it had been savagely cut.

  “I don’t want to know your opinions,” the old crime reporter would repeat. “I just want the facts.” Evans had done his training on the Manchester Guardian, and never tired of repeating the words of C.P. Scott: “Comment is free, but facts are sacred.” Keith decided that if he ever owned a newspaper, he would never employ anyone who had worked for the Manchester Guardian.

  He returned to St. Andrew’s for the second term, and used the leader in the first edition of the school magazine to suggest that the time had come for Australia to sever its ties with Britain. The article declared that Churchill had abandoned Australia to its fate, while concentrating on the war in Europe.

  Once again the Melbourne Age offered Keith the chance to disseminate his views to a far wider audience, but this time he refused—despite the tempting offer of £20, four times the sum he had earned in his fortnight as a cub reporter on the Courier. He decided to offer the article to the Adelaide Gazette, one of his father’s papers, but the editor spiked
it even before he had reached the second paragraph.

  By the second week of term, Keith realized that his biggest problem had become how to rid himself of Penny, who no longer believed his excuses for not seeing her, even when he was telling the truth. He had already asked Betsy to go to the cinema with him the following Saturday afternoon. However, there remained the unsolved problem of how you dated the next girl before you had disposed of her predecessor.

  At their most recent meeting in the gym, when he suggested that perhaps the time had come for them to … Penny had hinted that she would tell her father how they had been spending Saturday afternoons. Keith didn’t give a damn who she told, but he did care about embarrassing his mother. During the week he stayed in his study, working unusually hard and avoiding going anywhere he might bump into Penny.

  On Saturday afternoon he took a circuitous route into town, and met up with Betsy outside the Roxy cinema. Nothing like breaking three school rules in one day, he thought. He purchased two tickets for Chips Rafferty in The Rats of Tobruk, and guided Betsy into a double seat in the back row. By the time “The End” flashed up on the screen, he hadn’t seen much of the film and his tongue ached. He couldn’t wait for next Saturday, when the First Eleven were playing away and he could introduce Betsy to the pleasures of the cricket pavilion.

  He was relieved to find that Penny didn’t try to contact him during the following week. So on Thursday, when he went to post another letter to his mother, he fixed a date to see Betsy on Saturday afternoon. He promised to take her somewhere she had never been before.

  Once the first team’s bus was out of sight, Keith hung around behind the trees on the north side of the sports ground, waiting for Betsy to appear. After half an hour he began to wonder if she was going to turn up, but a few moments later he spotted her strolling across the fields, and immediately forgot his impatience. Her long fair hair was done up in a ponytail, secured by an elastic band. She wore a yellow sweater which clung so tightly to her body that it reminded him of Lana Turner, and a black skirt so restricting that when she walked she had no choice but to take extremely short steps.