Читать книгу Died and Gone to Devon - TP Fielden - Страница 17

Though adored by many, there were a few who disliked Athene Madrigale intensely; and they tended to be the ones who worked closest to her.

This wasn’t to say that Devon’s finest soothsayer was anything other than lovely. Miss Dimont felt instantly better if she could spot Athene across the newsroom, half hidden behind her lopsided bamboo screen adorned with ostrich feathers and silk scarves, staring at the ceiling for inspiration and puffing gently on a Craven ‘A’. She lit up the room with her clouds of smoke, her oddity and originality.

No, it was the sub-editors, the down-table reporters, the photographers and, of course, the printers, whose lordly attitude towards all was a bit of a disgrace – these were the ones who sneered at her ethereal presence.

‘Call that work?’ one would say to another. ‘Dreaming up rubbish like Capricorn is rising – oh what a glorious week you’ll have! To think we struggle to fill the newspaper with real news and she just sits there making it up.’

It was no coincidence that in the newsroom the editor’s placard, near to Athene’s desk, had had its message:

MAKE IT FAST

MAKE IT ACCURATE

Augmented thus:

… MAKE IT UP

Mercifully, serene Miss Madrigale was above such common slights, and anyway at the moment she had too much on her hands to worry about trifles. Apart from her weekly column – the first item everyone turned to when they paid their sixpence for the Express