Kate Nightingale – it was a great name for a byline.
Campbell McBride had no idea if she could write. He did not care. That night she was exactly what he wanted. She was late thirties, medium height, brown curls and eyes that flashed. Looked foreign – southern European. She wore a soft green blouse, two buttons undone, a black bra peeking at him. The trousers were black as well – tight as the top. A white jacket hung off a tanned shoulder. She was in control and when she laughed it sounded like an invitation to take her to bed – except it wasn’t.
When John Black threw them out at closing time, McBride offered to walk her up the hill to where she lived and she accepted. When they arrived at the house, which was in darkness, they went inside. They did not go to bed but they lay on it. They spoke and drank the coffee she made.
She told him when her marriage had ended and why. That it hadn’t been all his fault.
He didn’t tell her about his break-up or whose fault it had been. That was private stuff. He never spoke of Caroline to other women in the same way he never spoke of his women to other men. Everybody was entitled to their secrets.
They chatted about newspapers and she said she had admired his work from afar.
He didn’t tell her he had never seen any of hers.
She asked about the five awards he’d received for his work and he brushed her off – not out of false modesty but because the prizes were for big stories, the kind that wrote themselves. You just had to be in the right spot on the right day for them. The ones that gave him most satisfaction were the down-the-page pieces that needed most digging. So what if they didn’t have any international or national significance if they made life better for someone? But no one gave you trophies for them and no one else was really that interested, even on the day the stories appeared.
Then they spoke about Richard Richardson and she said Double Dick had told her he knew McBride was sniffing out a story. He’d even strongly implied he knew what the story was, she said. She wondered if that could be true and then, point blank, she asked what the story was.
McBride laughed. He did not answer either of her questions. Instead, he asked some of his own – like why Double Dick seemed to be troubled about something.
She said she didn’t know for sure but there was a rumour in the newsroom that he’d had a bad experience with a woman he’d met on the internet.
An hour later, McBride told Kate he should leave and waited for her to suggest he should stay and extend an invitation for breakfast. She did neither. Instead she put her arms round his neck and kissed him softly but briefly on the lips. Then she swung herself off the bed and took his hand, leading him towards the door.
When they reached the hallway, he turned both her shoulders until she faced him and asked simply, ‘Yes?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, lowering herself to the floor.
After they had removed each other’s clothing, it did not take long but what occurred did not depend on time, just compatibility. Then they said ‘Yes’ again but in perfect unison.
Not much later, as he walked back down the hill, McBride had no feeling of triumph, just the faintest suspicion that the conquest had been all hers.