Re: Newspaper office: Cat/Jack
[The dusty office had seen turn-over like no other Jack had sat in. The young came in, bloody hungry to write something worthwhile but riddled with errors and wild assertions and writing sat on your arse in front of a screen wasn't the same as chasing facts down to their tails. And the interns, the young ones with all that appetite? He wasn't turning them loose without a lawyer nearby. The tea was black, and Cat was ensconced and Jack couldn't remember the last time they'd been anyone in here worth listening to.]
Small's about the staffing, not about the material in the paper. You're going for two veins at once, which is dirty fighting, but I approve of your tactics. If I fed my roving young things who come along with their eyes full of stars and bylines to the stories out there [He swept the line of the town with his tea-mug to demonstrate] I would need a very good and very expensive lawyer to dig myself out of the libel suit. Either they don't come because there's journalism in the Capital where there's a school and if they come here, they're useless. But you're also on about my ability to write. If I wanted to get into cock-measuring contests, I'd keep my press cuttings.
[His grin was ribald. Abruptly, he swung away from the desk where the extremely dirty kettle lived with its mess of teabags and stained teaspoons, and collected the whiskey as an afterthought. He shoved the door to the little glassed in office with his shoulder and the blinds swung haphazard from the last time the blasted animal had knocked them down.]
Pass me the notepad [Direction, because he expected her to follow. Cat was in full queen of all she surveyed mood and he expected withering remarks on the interior decoration in his bloody office but he expected her to follow as he put the whiskey down on the desk and slid armfuls of print-runs off the couch.]
But before I start sketching out my article like I've got a new bloody editor on a paper I run so she'll change out the sodding ink, tell me what the last fear of yours was you faced. When's the last time you looked your ghosts in the face? You give it out, Cat. Do you take it? [He held out his hand expectant for the notebook, digging out a pen from the rubble of news now sifting over to the floor.]