By now, everyone but Max, even the chief and the pairers, even the Editor, had stopped working. The newsroom stood and watched him silently. The subs twisted in their chairs or followed what he was doing on their screens. The double column of paired pages gleamed blue but for pages one, four and five. The chief pairer was at Max’s elbow, turning a red biro in his fingers and saying, ‘One minute.’

Everything was now in his hands. The work of hundreds of reporters, stringers, snappers, editors, designers and subs was complete but for the keystone he had to place. Never had he been calmer, more lucid. His concentration was total, meditative, emptied of all but the splash and the time. His mind held the copy suspended within itself and did not see but felt where something was amiss. All he knew were the columns, the flow, a tweak to the third par, the time; the ache in his fingers went unfelt and the phones went unheard as Max outpaced the clock.

Twenty-four seconds before deadline, he inhaled, coming out of it, and hit send.

The pairer spun on his heel and called across the strange quiet. ‘Pages one, four and five coming now. You’ve got the splash.’

His assistant looked, moved, clicked, and spoke into the direct phone he’d been holding to his ear in readiness. ‘One, four and five are through. The splash is through.’ Then he added, ‘Thanks,’ put the phone back on its cradle and said, ‘It’s gone. We’re off stone. The paper’s away.’

14

‘Assembled around the subs’ desks, but much reduced in number and uncertain now that the struggle was over, the Beast’s staff looked to the Editor to lead them. He, however, was in inaudible consultation with Geraldine. The subs stood up at their desks or whispered to one another. The pairs of onliners at the doors wandered in little circles or swung their arms uneasily. The phone at Newsdesk rang and was answered. As the heady imperative of getting the paper away slowly faded, the fears it had suppressed began to re-establish themselves. While they’d been embodying the Beast in full roar the crowd had been vast and invincible; now they felt again the fragility of being only one easily punctured bag of skin.

But then the Editor finished what he was telling Geraldine and addressed them like a general amid the wreckage of his enemy. He said, ‘Well done, everyone,’ and they burst into a relieved cacophony of clapping, cheering and banging on tables. The Editor took this as his due. Once it was tailing off, he spoke over them, and they fell silent to listen: