Gerald called Hamish Tovey of NBI – News Broadcast International – and said, ‘The public are getting hysterical. They won’t go out in the rain: they won’t have picnics; I went to the lido with my wife and there was almost no one there, just us and a couple of friends. The farmers are complaining; the horticulturists are complaining; the fashion trade’s complaining; and the Electric Power Authority are having kittens because the future of nuclear power is in jeopardy. Not only that, the vets are complaining of litters having two heads; I’m even getting tales of budgerigars exploding.’
‘Budgerigars can explode if you feed them the wrong grain,’ said the NBI man. ‘We’ve just done a feature on it, nothing to do with Chernobyl.’
‘Tell that to the public,’ said Gerald, bitterly.
‘That’s what we are doing,’ the NBI man pointed out, ‘as best we can. But the public can’t tell a roentgen from a rad, and to tell you the truth neither can anyone at NBI. If you could put some of your experts at our disposal to help our graphics team out, I’d be grateful. We’ve a world opportunity here and it’s going to waste. It’s sickening.’
Gerald said he thought Britnuc had some spare experts in the divinatory area, tested and proven in the field, and Hamish Tovey seemed as interested and grateful as a TV newsman can get: that is to say, he said, ‘There just might be an interesting wind-up item there, I suppose. A light closing laugh. I could look into it. Now what can I do for you?’
Gerald said his Department could see the value of some kind of prize-winning news feature, fronted by someone from the commercial rather than the governmental sector – inasmuch as official announcements had lost credibility in this particular area. A popular yet authoritative figure, if such a person existed.
‘Carl May?’ suggested Hamish Tovey.
‘Brilliant idea!’ said Gerald Coustain.
‘Did you see him drink that glass of milk on TV?’ said Hamish Tovey, suddenly animated, ‘defying the roentgens! Brilliant PR! How’s he been since?’
‘Fit as a fiddle, top of the world,’ said Gerald. ‘Perhaps we could get him to do something just as dramatic.’
‘Or even more so,’ said Hamish.
‘So long as it’s safe,’ said Gerald. ‘We don’t want to lose him!’
‘So long as the roentgens and the rads are as harmless as you lot make out,’ said Hamish Tovey. ‘I have my crew to think about, not to mention the union.’
‘Back in 1957,’ said Gerald, ‘when Windscale caught fire and the instrumentation failed – twice round the clock and back again and no one noticed – the duty engineer lifted the lid of the pile to see what was going on. He stared right into the burning heart of the dragon. He’s still alive to tell the tale. Head of the Nuclear Safety Inspectorate, as it happens.’
‘Is that so!’ said Hamish Tovey. ‘Now that would be really something by way of a visual fix. Radiation’s something we’re all going to have to learn to live with, I guess.’
‘I guess so,’ said Gerald Coustain.
‘Do you think Carl May would do it?’ asked Hamish, wistful and dependent all of a sudden, like a greedy child lusting after a cream cake it knows its mother’s purse can’t afford.
‘You can only ask him,’ said Gerald. ‘I have his personal number here, as it happens. He’s not averse to publicity, of the right kind. If you took his astrologers and tea-leafers off his hands, he’d certainly feel obliged. I think his board aren’t too happy about them.’
‘I’ll have to ask the boss about that,’ said Hamish Tovey.
‘I didn’t know you had one,’ said Gerald.
‘When it suits me,’ said Hamish.
‘Mind you, these old Magnox stations of Britnuc’s aren’t the same as Windscale, or Sellafield as we call it now,’ said Gerald, ‘but I suppose they could raise a fuel rod from the pile and Mr May could clasp it to his bosom. How would that do? Or he could jump into the cooling ponds with his young companion: something like that might not go amiss.’
‘Oh yes, the young companion,’ said Hamish Tovey. ‘I filmed her jumping into a trout pond with someone or other, once. Quite a looker. Amazing eyes. Now that’s really interesting. It would have to be a zoom lens of course, this time. I don’t see my crew with an underwater camera in a cooling pond.’
‘Depends if they’re running scared or not,’ said Gerald, and left him to it.
Gerald was using the public phone at the lido. He knew better than to call from the office. He made a further call or so to contacts in Britnuc too low down the ranks of command to be directly under Carl May’s eye, but men of action and responsibility, like himself. Then he went back to his family and friends.
The lido was almost deserted, in spite of the warm weather. Angela, Joanna and a brusque young woman with boots, who seemed a security risk of one kind or another, sat in the tearoom, under shelter. He didn’t like them sitting out in the open: he’d asked them not to and they’d obliged. Angela had ordered the full tea for everyone – sandwiches, scones, cream, jam, muffins, cake. He went to join them.