Hoyle pushed the photograph aside. ‘That’s nothing,’ he said.
Woody brought out a picture taken at the factory. ‘The guards were waiting at the gate. You can see their nightsticks.’ His next picture had been taken when the shoving started. ‘The marchers were at least ten yards from the gate, so there was no need for the guards to try to move them back. It was a deliberate provocation.’
‘Okay,’ said Hoyle, and he did not push the pictures aside.
Woody brought out his best shot: a guard using a truncheon to beat a woman. ‘I saw this whole incident,’ Woody said. ‘All the woman did was tell him to stop shoving her, and he hit her like this.’
‘Good picture,’ said Hoyle. ‘Any more?’
‘One,’ said Woody. ‘Most of the marchers ran away as soon as the fighting began, but a few fought back.’ He showed Hoyle the photograph of two demonstrators kicking a guard on the ground. ‘These men retaliated against the guard who hit the woman.’
‘You did a good job, young Dewar,’ said Hoyle. He sat at his desk and pulled a form from a tray. ‘Twenty bucks okay?’
‘You mean you’re going to print my photographs?’
‘I assume that’s why you brought them here.’
‘Yes, sir, thank you, twenty dollars is okay, I mean fine. I mean plenty.’
Hoyle scribbled on the form and signed it. ‘Take this to the cashier. My secretary will tell you where to go.’
The phone on the desk rang. The editor picked it up and barked: ‘Hoyle.’ Woody gathered he was dismissed, and left the room.
He was elated. The payment was amazing, but he was more thrilled that the newspaper would use his photos. He followed the secretary’s directions to a little room with a counter and a teller’s window, and got his twenty bucks. Then he went home in a taxi.
His parents were delighted by his coup, and even his brother seemed pleased. Over dinner, Grandmama said: ‘As long as you don’t consider journalism as a career. That would be lowering.’
In fact, Woody had been thinking that he might take up news photography instead of politics, and he was surprised to learn that his grandmother disapproved.
His mother smiled and said: ‘But, Ursula dear, I was a journalist.’
‘That’s different, you’re a girl,’ Grandmama replied. ‘Woodrow must become a man of distinction, like his father and grandfather before him.’
Mother did not take offence at this. She was fond of Grandmama and listened with amused tolerance to her pronouncements of orthodoxy.
However, Chuck resented the traditional focus on the elder son. He said: ‘And what must I become, chopped liver?’
‘Don’t be vulgar, Charles,’ said Grandmama, having the last word as usual.
That night Woody lay awake a long time. He could hardly wait to see his photos in the paper. He felt the way he had as a kid on Christmas Eve: his longing for the morning kept him from sleep.
He thought about Joanne. She was wrong to think him too young. He was right for her. She liked him, they had a lot in common, and she had enjoyed the kiss. He still thought he might win her heart.
He fell asleep at last, and when he woke it was daylight. He put on a dressing gown over his pyjamas and ran downstairs. Joe, the butler, always went out early to buy the newspapers, and they were already laid out on the side table in the breakfast room. Woody’s parents were there, his father eating scrambled eggs, his mother sipping coffee.
Woody picked up the
But it was not what he expected.
They had used only one of his shots – the last. It showed a factory guard lying on the ground being kicked by two workers. The headline was: Metal Strikers Riot.
‘Oh, no!’ he said.
He read the report with incredulity. It said that marchers had attempted to break into the factory and had been bravely repelled by the factory police, several of whom had suffered minor injuries. The behaviour of the workers was condemned by the Mayor, the Chief of Police, and Lev Peshkov. At the foot of the article, like an afterthought, union spokesman Brian Hall was quoted as denying the story and blaming the guards for the violence.
Woody put the newspaper in front of his mother. ‘I told Hoyle that the guards started the riot – and I gave him the pictures to prove it!’ he said angrily. ‘Why would he print the opposite of the truth?’
‘Because he’s a conservative,’ she said.
‘Newspapers are supposed to tell the truth!’ Woody said, his voice rising with furious indignation. ‘They can’t just make up lies!’
‘Yes, they can,’ she said.
‘But it’s not fair!’
