Page 3 of So, I Met This Guy . . .

WARNING TO HIKERS – EWE BE CAREFUL!

It was terrible. Even more terrible was she’d written it.

By Felicity Lomax. Community Reporter.

Seeing her name in print gave rise to the usual feelings of pride and frustration. It was also a timely reminder. This is why you’re here, remember?

Taking a swig of the cold dregs of her takeout coffee, she pressed her nose determinedly against the windscreen and peered out across the field ahead. Big, fat drops streamed down the glass, blurring her view, but then she saw it. In the corner. On the far right-hand side, between the trees and the stone wall.

A caravan.

And no, not a cute, vintage, candy-coloured-bunting-strung-across-Instagram-friendly caravan. But a knackered, mouldy-old-memories-of-wet-camping-trips-to-Wales-with-her-mum-and-Auntie-Pam caravan.

OK, so this definitely must be it.

Straightening up, Flick turned off the engine. The car fell silent; just the sound of the rain drumming on the roof. Brushing off the crumbs from her unfinished croissant, she checked her reflection in the rear-view mirror, making sure her liquid black eyeliner was perfect, complete with the signature flicks at the corner of her eyes. In her only good suit, a new pair of smart white vegan trainers that she could ill afford, and a hardcore blow-dry to get her fringe just as she liked it, she was aiming for savvy, confident and professional. An investigative journalist with a killer nose for a story and really good hair.

A twenty-something reporter from a crappy local paper stared back. Nerves jangled in the pit of her stomach. And she had really bad hair.

Shit.

Attempting – and failing – to flatten down the frizz that threatened to erupt from her head like one of those magic kitchen sponges that pinged the moment they encountered water, she grabbed her bag and umbrella, then reached for the door handle. It really was coming down now. Flick paused. She wasn’t known for looking on the bright side – as a journalist she was a confirmed realist – but in a brief, uncharacteristic moment of optimism, she glanced at the leaden skies, hoping to see a break in the clouds.

But nope. Nothing but endless grey. She braced herself. There was nothing else for it.

Flinging open the door, she climbed out of the car.

And stepped right into a quagmire.

What the . . .?

After several weeks of relentless rain, the farm track, previously a pretty wildflower lane, had been churned into thick, claggy mud and filthy puddles of water. Into which Flick’s lovely new white vegan trainer promptly submerged itself.

Fuck.

As she yanked it back out, dripping wet and filthy, there followed a series of increasingly desperate manoeuvres that involved trying to lever herself out of the car and onto a central island of grass without ruining both trainers, whilst trying to put up her umbrella in the driving rain.

At which point Flick felt herself having one of those out-of-body experiences where you suddenly look at your life and think, How did I get here?

Five years ago she’d graduated from university with high hopes and big dreams of being a journalist. Of adrenaline-charged newsrooms, breaking news stories and urgent deadlines. It all seemed so glamorous and exciting and important. Dashing around cities with a Dictaphone and a cigarette, doing exclusive interviews with famous people, investigating sources, digging deep to find answers.

Actually, no one uses a Dictaphone any more, and smoking gives you cancer, but you get the picture.

Nowhere in this vision of her exciting journalistic future did she see herself standing in a field in the middle of nowhere in the pouring rain, with feet caked in mud, getting piss-wet through.

For a brief moment Flick considered getting straight back in the car. Abandoning the whole thing. But there was so much riding on this interview. It wasn’t just about her chance at proving herself, of getting a promotion and a pay rise, of making the leap from a local newspaper to a national one. If she turned around now, there’d be no hope of ever—

She stopped herself. She wasn’t even going to go there.

Checking she had her phone and earbuds, she looped her bag over her shoulder, unhooked the gate and, making sure to close it behind her (memories of the headbutting sheep causing mayhem were still fresh in her mind), set off across the field.

She’d been over the moon when she finally got the job as a junior reporter at The Local Echo. But after nearly three years of covering local news stories about missing cats, Boy Scout jumble sales and wayward sheep, she was ready, more than ready, for an opportunity to prove she could be a proper journalist. For a story that would give her the break she desperately wanted.

Other reporters had been at the paper for years. Be patient, your time will come, they told her. But when? She’d be sitting around waiting for her big break for ever at this rate. She’d end up like Tupperware Tony, who’d been doing the Letters page for twenty-five years. Every day he brought in a packed lunch and announced to the rest of office what sandwich his partner had made. ‘Ooh, what have we here? Tuna and sweetcorn, a true classic!’ ‘Cheese and pickle, hurrah, my favourite!’ ‘Roast beef and pesto, how about that for controversial?’ Twenty-five years, and the most exciting thing to happen to Tony was his sandwich fillings.

No, big breaks don’t just come. They don’t just happen. You had to make them happen.

Which is why, last week, when Flick overheard a couple of people in the pub gossiping about some local scandal, her ears pricked up. From the snippets of conversation, it sounded terrible. And completely fascinating. She knew immediately it would make a great story; this was a hot topic of national concern right now and she kept hearing about it on the news or reading articles on the subject online. This was her chance to finally do some proper investigative reporting. To get her big break and make her name.