The Royal Correspondent Read online

  DEDICATION

  To my father,

  the Hon. Sir Asher Joel, AO KBE

  (1912–98)

  An Enmore boy

  EPIGRAPH

  Men don’t like hard-case girl reporters

  The Journalist’s Craft

  Lindsay Revill and Colin Roderick (eds), 1965

  Act boldly

  Dorothea Brande,

  journalist, editor and author, 1936

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Part One: Commoner

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Part Two: Courtier

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Part Three: Queen

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Alexandra Joel

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  London, 4 May 1960

  She gazed into the night from the limousine’s window, her heart beating quickly. An immense grey stone wall loomed before her. At its centre was the legendary balcony she’d viewed in countless newsreels featuring waving members of the world’s most famous family. But this was real life, and she was about to breach Buckingham Palace, the official residence of Her Majesty, Elizabeth the Second, Queen of the United Kingdom and Her Realms and Territories.

  Leaning forward, she saw a uniformed policeman check the official crested card propped on top of the dashboard, then wave the sleek car through a pair of open gates, their gold-tipped metal railings glistening like spears in the bright beam of a brace of lights. She wished she could stop time, or at least that the chauffeur would slow the limousine, for she wanted to savour every moment of this extraordinary evening. But the car purred on, past Grenadier Guards, still as waxwork models in their red coats and improbably tall black bearskin hats, then glided beneath an archway before drawing to a halt in a large inner courtyard.

  With a quiver of excitement, she gathered the billowing skirts of her ice-blue chiffon ball gown as a footman wearing a scarlet and gold coat, black stockings and knee breeches sprang forward and opened the car door. After following the directions of several other similarly attired attendants, she made her way towards a marble staircase adorned with a wide ribbon of rich ruby carpet. Pausing, she steadied herself, placed one white-gloved hand on the gilt balustrade and, with what she hoped might be taken for the poise of a princess, swept up the stairs.

  Another liveried servant clad in eighteenth-century dress met her at the entrance to the ballroom. ‘Good evening,’ he said with a polite half bow. ‘Are you quite ready, ma’am?’

  She straightened her bare, lightly tanned shoulders. ‘Ready as I’ll ever be.’

  Having first glanced briefly at the embossed entrée card, the man announced her in a booming voice. ‘Miss Blaise Hill!’

  Only then did her stomach begin to flutter. Who was Blaise Hill? An intruder, about to push her way into a place where she had no right to be. Get a grip, Blaisey, she told herself as she entered a room of astonishing grandeur.

  Using the skills that were by now second nature, she began to methodically observe the details of the sumptuous decor and the appearance of the guests – after all, despite her crystal earrings and exquisite gown, she had not come to Buckingham Palace this evening to be entertained, but to work. Her eyes flickered up to the soaring gold and white ceiling, from which hung six great chandeliers topped by shimmering cut-glass crowns. She noted the profusion of crimson roses spilling from classical urns, the velvet-draped triumphal arch framed by a pair of winged sphinxes, the gilded organ, the fluted columns, the ornate panelled walls.

  Women in sparkling tiaras and jewel-coloured ball gowns strolled by on the arms of debonair men sporting white bow ties and black tailcoats, their images multiplied by the mirrored doors. Some of the guests sipped champagne, others chatted together with the easy familiarity of old friends. The hum of their conversations mingled with the sound of lilting music; there was the occasional exuberant exclamation or peal of laughter.

  Suddenly, Blaise’s earlier discomfort returned. The glamorous people, the opulent surroundings – all were foreign, entirely beyond her own experience. What would Her Majesty’s guests think if they knew who she really was: not merely an upstart colonial reporter but a girl with a dire secret buried in her past?

  She took a deep breath. As if by magic, the advice she’d been given long before she left Australia floated into her head. You’ve got to back yourself, the man had said. Well then, if she wanted to make her mark in this glittering new world, she’d damn well have to do so.

  PART ONE

  Commoner

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sydney, January 1957

  Blaise pushed open the faded yellow front door. The house at 68 Fotheringham Street, Enmore, was the last in a row of five dilapidated single-storey terraces, each one beset by cracked window frames, peeling paint and walls that listed at unintended angles.

  Once inside she winced, unlaced her worn brown shoes, then pulled them off and rubbed her burning toes. ‘New shoes,’ she murmured, pursing her lips. ‘If only.’

  Carrying the offending footwear in one hand, Blaise shuffled down the side corridor in threadbare socks. To her right was a cramped space containing a blond wood-veneer lounge suite, slightly scratched. She’d always found it curious that her parents called this room the parlour. Surely such an old-fashioned term had no place in a world of fast cars, automatic washing machines and television sets – not that the Hill family possessed any of those trophies of modern affluence. They didn’t even have an indoor toilet.

  As Blaise passed her parents’ bedroom she glanced at the broken light fitting dangling precariously from a ceiling rose above the familiar patchwork quilt. She paused outside her own room – although it had never been hers alone. Until last year, she’d had to share it with her sister, Ivy. Blaise sighed. The younger girl’s absence brought with it a pang of desolation. Though they’d once been a source of irritation, now she yearned for Ivy’s chatter and even mourned her clutter. The jumble of rumpled clothes, hair ribbons and stray socks, the stubby pencils and the drawings that lay about like scattered leaves had vanished, replaced by an unnatural, sterile order.

  With a sudden surge of frustration she flung her shoes onto the bedroom floor where they landed with a clatter. ‘I’m home!’ she shouted.

  ‘Of course you are – who else would make such a racket?’ Maude Hill poked her head around the kitchen door. ‘Come in and I’ll make you a cuppa.’

  Maude and Blaise shared the same pert nose, heart-shaped face and abundant chestnut hair, but there the resemblance ended. Unlike her petite, dark-eyed mother, Blaise was tall and had her father’s blue eyes. Hers were as bright and clear as an Australian summer sky, although Harry’s failing vision and hard life had by now leached most of the colour from his eyes.

  She noted her mother’s blotchy, swollen face with dismay. ‘You’ve been crying again, Mum. Is it Ivy?’ she asked gently.

  Maude busied herself with the kettle.

  ‘It’s no good giving me the silent treatment. What’s going on?’

  Her mother struck a match and lit the gas. ‘She’s coming home.’

  ‘But that’s wonderful!’

  ‘Have you forgotten what your sister’s been through?’

  Blaise felt her throat constrict. How could she ever forget the sight of Ivy encased in that iron lung, her small head with its newly cropped raven hair the sole part of her remaining visible? Blaise had thought Ivy would be trapped inside the metal coffin forever.

  ‘Of course not,’ she protested. ‘But it’s all behind us now – unless there’s something you haven’t told me.’

  Maude poured boiling water into the old brown china teapot. ‘It’s the bad leg the polio has left Ivy with. She’s going to need a lot of special exercise sessions.’ Her mother’s bottom lip
trembled. ‘Expensive ones.’

  ‘And if she doesn’t get them?’

  ‘The caliper they’ve given her will be useless. Her tendons will shorten and she . . . she might not be able to walk, even with those horrible metal bars strapped to her leg.’ Despite her unsteady hands, Maude managed to pour a cup of tea for Blaise and one for herself before setting the teapot down on the scarred wooden table.

  ‘I don’t know what we’ll do,’ she said dolefully. ‘Even with the overtime your father’s been putting in, we’ll never be able to afford the physio . . . therapy.’ The hesitant way Maude sounded the word out made Blaise realise just how badly her mother was affected by this new calamity.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum.’ She leant across the table. ‘Once my Leaving Certificate results come out next week, I’ll be after a good job. Then I can pay for Ivy’s treatment myself.’

  The next morning, a Saturday, Blaise watched her father eat toast and drink a cup of tea, the mauve shadows beneath his eyes signalling his exhaustion. She’d heard the front door slam at midnight, followed by the sound of his feet plodding across the floorboards.

  ‘Any plans today, Dad?’ she asked casually.

  ‘Let’s take a walk, love.’

  ‘A walk . . . where to?’ Blaise looked at him, her eyebrows raised. Harry was an orderly: after spending his days and half his nights pushing beds up and down hospital corridors, walking was the last activity he would normally suggest.

  ‘Just round the neighbourhood. Your mother thinks we need a talk about your future.’

  The two ambled down Fotheringham Street, smiling at Mrs Gibson, who was sitting, as usual, in a lopsided armchair on number 62’s tiny veranda, before passing the rusted bathtub old Artie Crawford from the boarding house on the corner had left on the uneven pavement weeks before. Discarded bits and pieces – collapsed tyres, ragged carpet ends, broken prams, withered lengths of garden hose – seemed to accumulate in rickety cairns on the street’s footpaths almost of their own accord. There they would lie, ignored for months until, once or twice a year, the entire decaying lot would be heaved onto a council truck by the local garbage men and the same process would begin again.

  ‘Well?’ Harry asked when they reached the dusty tram yard. ‘What kind of job are you after? We only let you stay on the extra two years at school because after you won that essay prize your teacher – Miss Trent, wasn’t it? – pestered us so much. She said you had potential, but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘We’re really struggling, Blaisey. Maybe it was a mistake.’

  They watched as several fawn and green carriages were shunted into a siding with a sharp metallic clang. ‘Your mum reckons you should go in for the same line as your Aunty Jean,’ Harry said.

  Over Christmas, Jean Rollins, Maude’s best friend, who was both Blaise’s godmother and a secretary in the state Ministry for Health, had shown her how to memorise the keys on the Adler Universal typewriter she kept at home in her Stanmore flat.

  ‘Jean said the pay’s not much,’ Blaise said dismissively.

  ‘She’s got security.’ Harry folded his arms. ‘The public service is good like that.’

  Blaise rolled her eyes. ‘Only if you’re a man – or stay single like Jean. She told me women hardly ever get promoted and, anyway, there’s a rule. Once a girl gets married they chuck her out.’

  Blaise waited while a tram rattled by. ‘I want a job that will do more than pay for Ivy’s treatment,’ she said earnestly. ‘I’m looking for something that will take me far, maybe to the very top. Then you and Mum and Ivy can live in a nice house, away from this . . . well, you’ve got to admit, people call it a slum.’

  ‘It’s harder than you think to get a decent job, even tougher if you’re a woman,’ Harry said. ‘I can’t see as how you’ll ever get what you want – unless of course you catch the eye of some rich chap.’

  Blaise threw up her hands. ‘I’ll be making my own money, thanks.’

  Harry drew his sparse brows together. ‘Well, you know what they say around here. The only way a bloke from this part of town moves up in the world is by getting himself into one of the four Ps.’

  ‘I know, I know. Priest, pugilist, police or press,’ Blaise huffed. ‘You’ve been telling me for long enough!’

  ‘You’re always so damned quick to fly off the handle,’ Harry protested. ‘You won’t get anywhere if you don’t learn to keep a lid on it.’

  ‘Sorry, Dad.’ Another tram clattered past. ‘I’m not exactly eligible to be a priest or a pro boxer.’

  ‘The police could be an option. Ted O’Rourke’s a success – he’s a superintendent now in Homicide, or is it Vice? One of them, anyhow.’

  Blaise groaned. ‘Are you kidding? I’d just be stuck telling schoolkids how to cross the road – I can’t see them putting a woman in a decent squad.’

  Harry looked at his daughter, a speculative expression on his lined face. ‘I know you, Blaise Hill. It sounds to me like you’ve already got your eye on something.’

  Blaise broke into a grin. ‘I want to be a reporter. I reckon there’s a lot of important stuff going on around here that never finds its way into the newspapers, so I bet it’s the same in other places. I’ve been practising by myself, trying to write stories about –’

  ‘About what?’ Harry looked surprised.

  ‘I don’t know, little things – anything from that break-in at the corner shop where I’ve been working, to what it’s like for the new Greek family in the next street to make a home in Australia.’

  Harry rubbed his chin. ‘Blaisey, that’s all very well, but do they even have women employed in the newspaper game?’

  ‘Miss Trent said there’s a few. Her brother, Tommy, is a reporter at The Clarion. She thinks I should try my luck there. And guess what else she told me?’ Blaise’s eyes shone. ‘Journalism is the only profession where women aren’t stuck with earning three-quarters of a man’s wage – or less. There’s a really old court ruling that makes the bosses pay everyone the same.’

  ‘And has Miss Trent said anything about The Clarry actually having a job for you?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Blaise admitted. ‘But she promised she’d ask her brother to put in a good word where it counted.’

  ‘I don’t know, love.’ Harry frowned. ‘If you ask me, it sounds like a long shot.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Despite a few half-open windows, a thick pall of tobacco smoke hung defiantly over the large room. It seemed as if everyone, from callow youths to grizzled older men, had a cigarette either clamped in their mouth or jammed between their fingers. On most of the crowded desks there was also a half-finished butt burning steadily in an overflowing ashtray.

  ‘You all right?’ asked the tow-headed boy who’d brought Blaise into the newsroom. ‘The name’s Ned, by the way.’

  ‘Fine,’ she croaked. ‘It’s just – does everyone always smoke this much?’

  ‘You stop noticing it after a bit. Same as the noise.’

  The crash of hundreds of clattering keys, the strident chime the typewriters made when the end of a line was reached, the furious bang that erupted as their carriages were hurled back into place, the incessant ringing of telephones, and the clamour produced by dozens of simultaneous conversations created a wild cacophony.

  ‘They’re the reporters.’ Ned pointed towards the rows of desks behind which sat the men responsible for the din, some in shirtsleeves, others wearing loosened ties and rumpled jackets. ‘Those blokes are all hungry for just one thing: news, news and more news. It’s like a drug to them.’

  Suddenly, one of them cried, ‘Copy!’ A boy ran up to him, took a pile of small typed pages in his hand and darted out of the far door. Then another reporter yelled the same thing and a different boy appeared.

  ‘It’s getting close to deadline,’ Ned volunteered.

  The ringing, the talking, the clattering, the shouting, the sheer unremitting sense of urgency that existed within that room made Blaise’s pulse race. It was only then she became aware of how much had altered in the space of a few minutes. When Blaise had arrived at The Clarion she’d hoped that one day she might become a reporter. But ever since she’d entered that pungent, noisy room filled with taut-faced men, that hope had been transformed into a fierce determination. She had to join them.

  Blaise watched with mounting excitement as her guide led her through the frenetic scene. When they reached a glass-fronted office in the far corner of the room, he stopped. ‘This is where I was told to leave you.’