‘Ask for Mr Ferdinand, lead editor.’ And he was gone.
Chapter Three
‘Come, bring me unto my chance’
(The Merchant of Venice)
Kelsey climbed the stairs following the sign indicating that the editor of theStratford Examiner’soffice was at the top of the building. So far, nobody had stopped her to enquire why she was there. The reception desk at the foot of the stairwell was unmanned and seemed to be little more than a storage area for cycling helmets and coats. There had been no reply when she buzzed at the outer door and, finding it was off the latch, she had pushed her way inside.
As she climbed, the steps became increasingly cluttered with piled books, folders, and old editions of the newspaper. Thinking of the steely-faced fire officer who had visited her studio last week to make sure it was workplace compliant (no filing cabinets in front of fire doors, no smoke alarms with the batteries taken out for use in a telly remote control, that sort of thing) Kelsey wondered how on earth this place could have passed an inspection any time recently.
At the top of the second flight of stairs, Kelsey passed a man coming down and was struck by his model-handsome features and wild black hair sticking up in what, in front of his mirror this morning, might have looked like artfully crafted peaks.
He said nothing as they passed on the landing, only smiling politely, if a little bemused, before turning back regretfully and calling to her up the stairs, ‘Do you know where you’re going?’
‘Mr Ferdinand?’ Kelsey asked awkwardly.
She witnessed his look of horrified amusement and heard the suppressed snorting laugh, before he replied, ‘God, no. He’s up there.’ This was accompanied by a sharp jab of his finger towards the top landing. ‘I thought we were done for the day. Are you here about a story?’ He looked begrudgingly beyond Kelsey and up the stairs as though nothing could induce him to follow her and do more work, not when the weekend was within reach.
‘Not a story, no. He’s expecting me. Something about a job? Photography?’
‘Ah! OK.’ His eyes flickered as if a thought had struck him, before he added in a low voice, ‘You sure you want this gig?’
Kelsey had no idea whether she wanted it; she didn’t know anything about it, and now there was this guy’s dubious expression putting her off before she’d even investigated it. She simply shrugged.
‘Just be sure he pays in advance.’ He cast a furtive glance to the unseen boss above them before turning again and rushing down the stairs with the air of a schoolboy let loose from class.
Kelsey wasn’t fazed; far from it. She’d been in town nearly five months now and had long ago grown used to Stratford’s more eccentric residents. The place was chock full of them; from the arty, elderly, and oftentimes wealthy, locals raised on theatre and poetry – drama running through them like silver seams through rock; to the younger population – lively, creative and often totally skint but full of ideas and enjoying the benefits of the local networks and organisations designed to support their arty inclinations. Then there were the others: the barflies; the international students in town to study Shakespeare on dreamy year-long courses; the holiday-makers who had visited once and never left; the new arrivals in town hoping for an audition, serving coffee in the theatre bars while they waited for their big break.
Back on the hot summer afternoon when she’d first run into Jonathan in the little café with the pink stripy awnings by the marina, Kelsey had remarked to him how Stratford seemed to attract people from across the world, arty nomads looking for self-discovery, and he had looked at her in her tour guide uniform with her dad’s old camera around her neck and seen in an instant that she was one of them. ‘It looks to me as though you’re actually a photographer,’ he’d said. Kelsey smiled at the memory now. He’d seen straight to her core, recognised her dreams and ambitions, and he’d engaged her services there and then to shoot his new theatrical headshots. Now here she was with her very own photography studio and about to negotiate another commission if she played her cards right.
With Jonathan’s belief in her abilities in mind she felt ready for anything as she came to a stop at the closed door with its smoky glass and a yellowing piece of paper taped across it bearing the words, ‘C. Ferdinand, Editor’.
Kelsey had visited Mirren in her newsroom once, and she’d seen them on TV dramas, and, generally, they all looked alike: rows of monitors alive with the day’s copy, coffee cups beside every keyboard, pictures being edited, phones ringing, facts being checked, experts being consulted, interviews and advertising deals being secured, doors swinging, Ubers being hailed, and everywhere the rush and bustle of news-gathering.
But this place was as still and soundless as the grave.
Kelsey’s knock was answered with stony silence and the door creaking open a few inches. Instinctively, she peeked her head around the frame, sure it would confirm her suspicions that everyone had gone home for the weekend.
Glancing inside the room, the first thing that hit her was the smell of hot dust emanating from the ancient computer on the desk, mingling with the unmistakable smell of cigarettes smoked furtively by an open window with an arm waving away each exhalation, fooling precisely no one.
Instead of the modern, sleek, grey and white office Kelsey had expected, everything was a dull and dusty manila. Folders and documents were piled high on every surface, and what must have, once upon a time, been a leafy pot plant by the window was now reduced to crunchy brown rot slumped in its pot. There in the middle of it all, well-nigh camouflaged among the clutter, his thinly combed-over head lolling on the cracked brown leather of the headrest, a curling cheese sandwich on its torn cardboard package on the desk before him, was Mr Ferdinand himself, his eyes closed and mouth agape, as beige and uninspiring as the office he inhabited.
Horrified, Kelsey pulled her head back out of the office and closed the door quietly. Was he dead? He was deathly pale. There was nothing for it but to bang loudly on the glass and, if there was no answer, ring the paramedics.
Fortunately, her determined knock was greeted with a loud snort, a few moments’ rustling, the sound of the stale sandwich hitting the bottom of a metal wastepaper basket, and a terse, discomfited, ‘Come in!’
‘Mr Ferdinand? I’m Kelsey Anderson, the photographer,’ she said, half entering the room again. She loved the sound of the words as they made their way through the stuffy air. A part of her still expected them to be greeted with a ‘Pfft! No you’re not!’ from everyone she met, but Kelsey was learning that people accepted her just as she presented herself, no questions asked, actually. The only person she had trouble convincing of her new professional status was herself.
Mr Ferdinand, still blinking in the early afternoon light, was indicating she should come in and sit down, so she moved the pile of newspapers from the only other chair onto the desk and lowered herself into it, her nose prickling from the dust in the air.
‘Looking for a job then, are you?’ He scratched thin fingers over his forehead and narrowed his eyes as he spoke.
‘Um, well, if you remember, you invited me here?’
The silence that descended was so uncomfortable and Mr Ferdinand’s eyes so penetrating, Kelsey mentally gave the situation twenty seconds to improve before she excused herself and raced out of this weirdo’s office.
At last he spoke. ‘What makes you think you would be a good replacement for our old staff photographer?’
