A Degree of Uncertainty: The final part of the Packet’s serialisation of town author’s novel – Falmouth Packet

The Packet is serialising Falmouth-based journalist Nicola K Smith’s debut novel, A Degree of Uncertainty, printing one chapter a week for six weeks to help keep readers entertained in these straitened times.

A Degree of Uncertainty was published in November 2019 and has since sold more than 500 copies, as well as attracting more than 130 free downloads as part of a St Piran’s Day promotion in March.

It has been continually on loan at Cornwall’s libraries too.

The book tells of a fictional Cornish community divided by its growing university.

Formidable Vice Chancellor Dawn Goldberg is pushing for expansion, while local businessman Harry Manchester is fighting to halt further growth and protect his beloved home town from what he sees as certain ruin.

A Degree of Uncertainty is inspired by Falmouth, but is set in a fictional Cornish community with imagined characters.

It has been variously reviewed by readers as “a fast paced story seething with romantic subplots and small town jealousies”; “very well written, and full of colourful characters that kept me hooked from start to finish” and “a great study in human nature”.

For readers wanting more, you can buy the paperback from the Falmouth Bookseller (currently online only at https://ift.tt/1UcydWM), direct from Nicola’s website at www.nicolaksmith.com (postage is free) or download the ebook online at Amazon (https://ift.tt/3fNRgIr)

This week it is chapter six.

Read chapter one here.

Read chapter two here.

Read chapter three here.

Read chapter four here.

Read chapter five here.

CHAPTER 6

Harry was walking towards the rather underwhelming offices of Cornwall Press, home of the Poltowan Post, when he heard the purr of a sports car across the car park. He turned to see Dawn Goldberg’s red MX-5 draw to a halt some hundred yards away. She was mostly hidden behind large dark glasses – undoubtedly a wholly necessary accessory on an overcast Cornish day – but her mane of blow-dried waves gave her away. Perched beside her was Dennis Flintoff.

Among other things she had been giving him an unrequested sneak preview of her plans to open a specialist impact centre on the campus. When he had looked at her blankly, she had explained rather impatiently that such a facility would make a “hugely valuable” contribution to achieving higher safety standards on roads, allowing Poltowan’s engineering graduates to simulate car crashes, measuring things like moment of inertia and centre of gravity, and equipping them with world-leading skills.

Dennis had sipped his small glass of wine as Dawn continued to explain her intentions for the centre to become an approved consultancy for the Vehicle Certification Agency and, ultimately, an FIA-approved site for crash-testing Formula One vehicles. He had been about to ask how such an expensive facility could be funded with little public money available for such projects, but Dawn had begun to suck an olive from a cocktail stick, her eyes taking on a faraway look as she imagined the stream of state-of-the-art racing cars parading onto the Poltowan campus. Dennis had sat captivated, quite losing his train of thought.

Harry barged in through the entrance to the newspaper offices, hoping he hadn’t been spotted. Minutes later, as he loitered unattended in reception, the red sports car glided past the door, followed seconds later by the breezy arrival of Dennis.

He hesitated as he entered. ‘Harry,’ he said, in a formal tone that betrayed none of their forty-year acquaintance. He held out his hand in greeting.

Harry shook it. ‘Dennis, good to see you.’

‘It’s been a while.’

‘Well, you’re looking good, very fit indeed,’ said Harry, admiring Dennis’ muscular frame. He looked as if he had been working out, his chest appearing to protrude slightly from under his winter jacket. He looked solid.

‘A bit better than you unfortunately.’ Dennis scrutinised Harry’s eye, his onion and wine breath wafting under Harry’s nostrils.

Harry stepped backwards and thrust his hands into his pockets.

‘You got my message, I assume. That eye looks nasty.’

‘Something and nothing,’ said Harry, forcing a smile. ‘I tried to call you back a couple of times but to no avail so I thought I’d swing by and say hello instead.’

‘As you gathered…’ Dennis guided Harry ahead of him into the open lift ‘… I was otherwise engaged.’

‘The perils of being a newspaper editor, I’m sure. Always being wined and dined. I only wish I could say the same about being an estate agent.’

Dennis smiled, smoothing his hand down his tie and checking his hair in the mirror. He caught sight of a fragment of green in his front tooth and stealthily tried to tease it out with his nail. It must have been that blasted lemon and chive vinaigrette Dawn had insisted on pouring over their shared potato salad.

Suddenly the lift doors slid shut and it jolted clumsily into action.

Harry looked at himself in the mirror, the purplish hue under his right eye looking even more pronounced in the clinical light of the lift. He adjusted his glasses and took in Dennis’ square shoulders.

‘You look in good shape.’

Dennis looked down at himself as if seeing his own body anew. ‘Oh, you know. Trying to lose a few pounds and fight the flab. A bit of running, a few push ups. At our age…’ He sucked his teeth.

‘Don’t forget I’m a couple of years younger than you,’ said Harry, holding two fingers in the air to make his point.

‘… it’s a constant battle. And how could I forget that, Harry?’

‘I’m sure Dawn Goldberg cast some admiring glances your way.’

Dennis looked down at his feet before cocking his head at the panel of lights and frowning as the lift continued its shaky upward trajectory. The doors finally opened, revealing a bare-looking corridor with putrid pink linoleum peeling off the floors. Harry followed Dennis to his office where they were met with a cold rush of air. The open window inched to and fro on its hook before Dennis slammed it shut, rubbing his hands together.

‘Sorry, Harry. It’s brass monkey in here. Not sure how that came to be open. Take a seat.’

The two men faced each other over the desk. Harry resisted the urge to talk, instead putting the onus on Dennis, holding him quietly with his steady gaze.

‘So, any idea who they were – these attackers?’

Harry shook his head. He had the feeling suddenly of being under police questioning, imagining the presence of his brief next to him, shooting him looks and shaking his head cautiously. Moving a few feet from the intimacy of the lift to the more formal surrounds of the office, the large desk placed squarely between them, had suddenly altered the mood. He almost expected Dennis to click his voice recorder on or start scribbling notes.

‘And did they take much? You must have been…’

‘Just my wallet, but it was pretty much empty. Look, it wasn’t premeditated, just some goons trying their luck.’ Harry drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘There really isn’t a story here, Dennis.’

He rocked back in his chair. ‘Oh, I wasn’t thinking of a story, Harry, at least not until you just mentioned it. I was merely interested to know how it happened. I can only imagine it was very frightening indeed. You certainly seem a little… less jovial than usual. Understandably, of course. Coffee?’

‘The only reason I reported it was to stop anyone unable to look after themselves becoming the next victim. Not because I felt it was a serious offence. It wasn’t. And look,’ Harry leaned forward, ‘I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t put anything in the paper, Dennis. I don’t want any fuss.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘I hadn’t considered it being a story until you…’

‘Oh, come on, Dennis.’ Harry stood up, his imposing frame suddenly filling the small office. He blew into his cold hands. ‘I don’t think you called me for purely altruistic reasons, did you?’

‘I wanted to know how you were. We go way back. I was concerned.’

‘Well, that’s kind, and I’m sorry if I seem a bit paranoid but there’s a lot going on with the university campaign and I’m keen to keep people focused on the issues that really matter – not the gossip.’

‘And as you well know, the Poltowan Post doesn’t deal in gossip, Harry, just in news that matters to residents. If it affects our readers,’ he held both hands in the air resignedly and blew a raspberry, ‘it goes in the paper.’

It was a favourite saying of Dennis’ that he often found himself repeating to staff and readers alike. He had left school at sixteen and completed his journalist training on the Poltowan Post before securing a senior reporter’s job on the Western Morning News aged twenty-one, an opportunity that saw him move eighty miles away to Plymouth. It was just eighteen months before he was coaxed back to Poltowan by his childhood sweetheart, Barbara, who had fallen unexpectedly pregnant during a particularly amorous weekend in Mevagissey.

He promptly married her and returned to the Poltowan Post as news editor. While he relished coming back to the town paper as a senior member of staff where once he had been tea boy, he had never stopped wondering what he could have been if his life had not been rudely interrupted by that twist of fate. Not that he didn’t love his daughter – he did, very much – but it was her unplanned entry into the world that had expedited his marriage to Barbara and abruptly applied the brakes to his dream of progressing to a national newspaper. He gazed out of the window, sighing at his lot.

‘How did you hear anyway?’ asked Harry.

Dennis spun round, his mouth beginning to form a word that faded away unspoken.

Harry rolled his shoulders, trying to shake his gruff demeanour and rouse his more amiable self. He was, after all, here to ask for a favour. He tried to erase the image of Dennis sitting like a pet chihuahua beside Dawn Goldberg and focus on more pressing matters. Ludo would be urging him to grasp this opportunity, turn the tide in his own favour, Harry knew.

‘One of my team actually alerted me this morning. They had, I think, seen something on the Oracle that is Facebook.’

‘Ah.’ Harry thought of Jo again, frowning at her apparent failure to consider the ramifications of her actions given his standing in the local community. Ludo had later reassured him that she hadn’t been the one to break the news, but even so, allowing herself to be needlessly drawn into the conversation in such a public domain was naive.

Frustration quickly gave way to leniency born of tenderness. Apparently, she had used the word hero. Of course, she wasn’t used to being associated with someone with such a high public profile.

Harry planted himself back in the worn swivel chair.

‘What did the police say?’ said Dennis. ‘I hope they took it seriously.’

‘Oh, you know. They asked all the right questions, said all the right things. Who knows how these things get followed up?’

‘They damn’ well better give it some attention. You could have been really hurt.’ Dennis screwed up a piece of paper and threw it a little too hard across the room. It bounced off the side of the bin and rolled back across the floor. ‘I can call my contact at the regional HQ if you like? Chivvy them up a bit and see what that lazy lot have found out.’

Harry smiled at Dennis’ apparent eagerness to act on his behalf. ‘Really, it’s fine. I’m sure they have more urgent matters to deal with.’

‘They spend too much time hiding out to catch motorists who dare to go two or three miles over the speed limit, instead of pursuing the real criminals.’

‘Oh, I don’t know if she was a hardened criminal. More someone down on their luck and looking for a break.’

‘She?’

‘Sorry?’

‘You said “she”. It was a woman?’

Harry adjusted his position once, then twice. ‘Well, there were a few of them. The one whose face I managed to glimpse was a woman.’

A look of surprise etched itself onto Dennis’ face and stayed there.

‘Her and a couple of burly guys.’ Harry raised his arms in an ape-like pose, fists clenched tight.

‘That’s really tough luck. Being set upon by a gang. Plymouth, was it, seafront?’

‘One of the side roads.’

Dennis shook his head. ‘You were very lucky to get out with just a black eye. And you held on to your wallet, you say?’

‘No, they took my wallet, cards and all.’

‘Phone?’

Harry shook his head.

‘I bet Sylvia was pretty shaken up as well, you coming home in that state.’

‘She was pretty good actually. I mean, we’re separated currently, but I had to see her to… sort some stuff out. My cards…’ Harry swiped at the air with his large hand before tailing off and looking around the sparse room for something of interest.

‘I’m sorry to hear that. I had no idea.’ Dennis frowned and nodded in a kindly way.

‘So… Dawn Goldberg. How was she?’ Harry straightened his back in the chair, lifting his chin slightly as he posed the question.

Dennis insisted that it had been a routine lunch to stay up to speed with the university’s plans.

‘What do you make of her? She seems pretty switched on, very ambitious.’

Dennis folded his hands on the desk in front of him. ‘I don’t know her very well, to be truthful. We catch up occasionally, on a business front. She is certainly very competent, very…‘ he pulled at one ear lobe ‘… very able.’

‘And pretty ruthless, timing her latest announcement for when I was live on the box.’

‘Perhaps that was just fortuitous.’

‘Oh, come on, Dennis, You and I both know she planned that to a tee. She might be many things but stupid she is not.’

Dennis nodded. ‘You may be right. I suppose she’s quite a fiesty character. Knows exactly what she wants.’

‘And where do you stand on this – this proposal to increase the number of students coming to Poltowan. Are you in support of it?’

‘Oh, we like to stay neutral, as you well know, Harry. Our job is not to take sides but to do all the information-gathering and present the facts, clear and simple, so readers can make up their own minds.’

‘But what about you personally? You’ve lived here most of your life too.’

Dennis manoeuvred a paperweight around his desk, avoiding Harry’s gaze. ‘There are benefits to the community and the local economy too, Harry. It isn’t all doom and gloom as you seem to think.’

‘I agree – some benefits, but they are already being reaped. I really fear any more students will tip the balance irretrievably.’

Dennis smiled. ‘I don’t think it’s as drastic as some are making out. Many students will be housed on campus. Some of the numbers quoted are misleading – they won’t all be studying at Poltowan but at various satellite campuses, not to mention some online.’

‘Where on campus? There are no signs of any accommodation blocks being built and the existing ones are packed to the rafters as it is. It is only first years currently being housed on campus.’

‘There are plans, Harry.’

‘But no date?’

Dennis stood up, turning to look out of the window, his shoulders rising and falling slowly.

‘I do understand your position. You are the biggest estate agent in town and you have worked hard to build your business, hats off to you. But you can’t run a campaign rooted in your own business interests – change and competition are just two of life’s certainties. Like death and taxes – hackneyed but true.’

Harry sat up a little straighter in his seat. ‘You think this is about my business?’

There was no answer. Harry felt anger surge in his chest. He glared at Dennis. ‘This is not about my business. That will continue regardless, thanks to the loyal local following I have built up over years. Some people steadfastly refuse to deal with other agents – they will only bring their business to us. That feeling runs through generations. I have no worries on that front, I know how well we serve people. No, this is about the town, its people.’

Dennis continued to look out of the window. He was thinking about the glittering array of jewellery that adorned Dawn Goldberg’s fingers, the immaculately painted nails and the way she displayed her fingers. For a slightly larger lady, she had very beautiful hands.

Harry stood up, his knee cracking as he did so. He grimaced. ‘Do you really think this is about self-interest?’

Dennis turned around slowly. If he’d been wearing a waistcoat, he would have thrust his thumbs into the arm holes.

‘I do know a lot of businesses welcome the university’s proposals.’

‘But not all, and only those that are thinking about their own bank balance and not the future good of the town.’

‘I really think they might have a case. More students, a higher profile, more public funding, job creation, a greater proportion of students staying in Cornwall to live and work and bring up families.’

‘But that’s just it,’ said Harry, dropping his hand firmly on the desk with a low thud. ‘They won’t have a hope in hell of doing that if every house is bought up by some merciless London landlord who has never even visited Poltowan, let alone taken an interest in what the town is all about.’

‘And your business?’

Harry pushed at his glasses, trying to see over the fracture in his lens, which had begun disconcertingly to separate Dennis’ head from his neck. ‘If I was all about money, Dennis, don’t you think I would take the easy route and start doing student lettings, start selling to landlords, build on my reputation and slip seamlessly into a new and growing market? It would be the easiest thing in the world.’

‘Tell me the same thing in two, three, four years’ time.’

Harry shook his head in disbelief. ‘I thought you’d get this, as a local and a newspaper editor. I thought you’d see this as a great chance to campaign, to draw the community together.’

‘Is that what you’re after, to get the Poltowan Post backing your latest PR stunt?’

Harry drew a deep breath, swallowing back some of the words that lingered on his tongue with ill intent. ‘It’s not a PR stunt. It is a campaign with a lot of substance and a lot of sense.’ He held his hand out. ‘We’ll leave it there.’

Dennis shook his hand somewhat reluctantly. ‘Don’t be angry, Harry. I just think you should regroup and rethink before you embark on this. I can see both sides of the argument. But Dawn Goldberg has a lot of influence, a lot of big ideas. They could break you.’

‘That woman might be capable of breaking other men, Dennis, but she will not break me.’ Harry twisted the door knob and swung the door open, the resulting breeze causing a proof of one of the week’s pages to float lazily to the floor. They both watched as it skidded across the lino, landing face up. Harry stooped, narrowing his eyes to read the headline now laid bare at his feet. ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ read the bold inky letters, alongside a grainy photo of Harry, his air guitar raised above his head, glasses glinting in the sunshine.

Local businessman, Harry Manchester this week swore to fight an increase in student numbers with everything he has, as news broke of Poltowan’s University’s proposal while he was live on television.

Dennis folded his arms and said Harry’s name wearily.

‘Is this your idea of delivering the essential facts – an outdated and inappropriate photo under a flippant headline?’

Dennis rocked on his heels, his eyes cast downwards at the sheet of paper between them. ‘Harry…’

‘Is this what you deem to be good journalism, Dennis? Telling the public what they need to know?’

‘It’s not been approved. My sub wrote it. It’s a first draft.’

Harry dipped his head to see Dennis clearly through his glasses, like a schoolteacher eyeballing a child with a frightening level of disapproval. But so great was the sense of frustration and injustice burning within him that words failed. He turned and left.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/3fGrxBO
via IFTTT