categorized – the many years of handwritten case histories sent in by an ageing army of correspondents the length and breadth of Britain.
Loonies to a man, Marcus thought morosely. Although, in truth, most of them seemed to be women. Many of whom had, over the years, made vague proposals of marriage to the editor, whom they’d never even seen. And who were now expressing dismay at the large number of young women who appeared to be working with him.
Meryl Taylor-Whitney, Alice D. Thornborough and the rest.
All the pseudonyms of Grayle Underhill, who was changing everything.
For most of its life the flimsy pages of The Phenomenologist, as it was then known, had been grey with dense and smudgy type, its headlines not much larger. A typical one might read,
Report of Presumed Fairy Ring Received from Central Cornwall
‘And what the hell’s so wrong with that?’ Marcus had demanded of Underhill during their first, tempestuous editorial conference last year. ‘It’s straightforward, accurate and a direct statement of fact. The magazine has received, from an old biddy in Truro, a garbled letter relating to what is probably a mildly anomalous circle of mushrooms on her front lawn, but which she, in her precarious mental state, presumes to be a nocturnal meeting place for tiny men with bells in their little bloody hats.’
Underhill had let her unkempt, blonde head fall forward into her hands and had groaned. He’d stared at her, baffled and resentful.
‘Marcus,’ he’d heard from under the hair, ‘it just isn’t … it isn’t sexy, is it? And what are we doing with a magazine title that most people connect with a bunch of crazy German philosophers pre-World War Two?’
And so, just over six months ago, to surprisingly few complaints from the residual readership, The Phenomenologist had been relaunched as The Vision.
Marcus poured himself a quarter-inch of Scotch, held the whisky in his mouth as long as he could taste it. Sitting in the high-backed chair behind the bastard computer he refused to use, he leaned his head – thick grey hair lank with sweat – into its soulless foam-rubber padding.
Underhill had energy, enthusiasm and – though he was never going to admit this to her face – a certain dexterity with the written word. A touch flip, a trifle coarse – but what could one expect from a New York tabloid hack?
Hey, you know, this is fun, Marcus. We’re gonna make it happen, I can feel it. Like, if we start by bringing it out like bi-monthly … like six times a year? Then we go to monthly … Oh, sure you have the material … You just got to stop cramming it all together … have bigger type, photographs. And bigger headlines which are more, uh … evocative. Plus, you need to attract advertising. And also, of course, you have to start trying to sell it to people other than the correspondents themselves. Hold on to the subscribers, sure, but get it into the newsagents. You appreciate what I’m saying?
Well, of course he did. Known all this for years. If it had happened with Fortean Times, it could, presumably, happen to The Vision. As she told him, there was a market for ‘this sort of thing’.
But should it?
Look here, he’d told her. You know I can’t possibly pay you a decent wage.
She’d shrugged. Then she’d have to make it so that he could start to pay her. It’s gonna happen, Marcus. It was meant to happen.
Because Underhill, in her ingenuous American way, believed in destiny: coming to Britain, initially, in search of her sister, an archaeologist, who had gone missing; who, it later emerged, had been an early victim of an obscene ritual murderer residing perilously close to Castle Farm itself; Underhill accompanying the decayed remains of her sister home to the United States, where their father was a prominent academic … and then making an unexpected return within three months, arriving on Marcus’s doorstep with two large suitcases and a pale, shy, unsure
Loonies to a man, Marcus thought morosely. Although, in truth, most of them seemed to be women. Many of whom had, over the years, made vague proposals of marriage to the editor, whom they’d never even seen. And who were now expressing dismay at the large number of young women who appeared to be working with him.
Meryl Taylor-Whitney, Alice D. Thornborough and the rest.
All the pseudonyms of Grayle Underhill, who was changing everything.
For most of its life the flimsy pages of The Phenomenologist, as it was then known, had been grey with dense and smudgy type, its headlines not much larger. A typical one might read,
Report of Presumed Fairy Ring Received from Central Cornwall
‘And what the hell’s so wrong with that?’ Marcus had demanded of Underhill during their first, tempestuous editorial conference last year. ‘It’s straightforward, accurate and a direct statement of fact. The magazine has received, from an old biddy in Truro, a garbled letter relating to what is probably a mildly anomalous circle of mushrooms on her front lawn, but which she, in her precarious mental state, presumes to be a nocturnal meeting place for tiny men with bells in their little bloody hats.’
Underhill had let her unkempt, blonde head fall forward into her hands and had groaned. He’d stared at her, baffled and resentful.
‘Marcus,’ he’d heard from under the hair, ‘it just isn’t … it isn’t sexy, is it? And what are we doing with a magazine title that most people connect with a bunch of crazy German philosophers pre-World War Two?’
And so, just over six months ago, to surprisingly few complaints from the residual readership, The Phenomenologist had been relaunched as The Vision.
Marcus poured himself a quarter-inch of Scotch, held the whisky in his mouth as long as he could taste it. Sitting in the high-backed chair behind the bastard computer he refused to use, he leaned his head – thick grey hair lank with sweat – into its soulless foam-rubber padding.
Underhill had energy, enthusiasm and – though he was never going to admit this to her face – a certain dexterity with the written word. A touch flip, a trifle coarse – but what could one expect from a New York tabloid hack?
Hey, you know, this is fun, Marcus. We’re gonna make it happen, I can feel it. Like, if we start by bringing it out like bi-monthly … like six times a year? Then we go to monthly … Oh, sure you have the material … You just got to stop cramming it all together … have bigger type, photographs. And bigger headlines which are more, uh … evocative. Plus, you need to attract advertising. And also, of course, you have to start trying to sell it to people other than the correspondents themselves. Hold on to the subscribers, sure, but get it into the newsagents. You appreciate what I’m saying?
Well, of course he did. Known all this for years. If it had happened with Fortean Times, it could, presumably, happen to The Vision. As she told him, there was a market for ‘this sort of thing’.
But should it?
Look here, he’d told her. You know I can’t possibly pay you a decent wage.
She’d shrugged. Then she’d have to make it so that he could start to pay her. It’s gonna happen, Marcus. It was meant to happen.
Because Underhill, in her ingenuous American way, believed in destiny: coming to Britain, initially, in search of her sister, an archaeologist, who had gone missing; who, it later emerged, had been an early victim of an obscene ritual murderer residing perilously close to Castle Farm itself; Underhill accompanying the decayed remains of her sister home to the United States, where their father was a prominent academic … and then making an unexpected return within three months, arriving on Marcus’s doorstep with two large suitcases and a pale, shy, unsure
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