‘Thank you,’ Kitty whispered.
‘I supported you doing Thirty Minutes because I know that you’re a good reporter and you have it in you to be a great reporter. We all make mistakes, some bigger than others, but none of us is perfect. We use these times to become better reporters and, more importantly, better people. When you came to be interviewed by me ten years ago do you remember the story you tried to sell to me?’
Kitty laughed and cringed. ‘No,’ she lied.
‘Of course you do. Well, if you won’t say it, I will. I asked you if you were to write a story for me then and there about absolutely anything, what would it be?’
‘We really don’t have to go through this again. I was there, remember?’ Kitty blushed.
‘And you said,’ Constance continued as though Kitty had never spoken, ‘that you had heard of a caterpillar that could not turn into a butterfly …’
‘Yes, yes, I know.’
‘And you would like to examine how it would feel to be denied such a beautiful thing. You would like to know how it feels for the caterpillar to watch other caterpillars transform while all the time knowing he would never have that opportunity. Our interview was on the day of a US presidential election, and on the day a cruise liner sank with four thousand five hundred people aboard. Of the twelve interviewees I saw that day, you were the only person who did not mention anything about politics, about the ship, or about wanting to spend a day with Nelson Mandela, for that matter. What concerned you most was this poor little caterpillar.’
Kitty smiled. ‘Yeah, well, I was just out of college. I think I still had too much weed in my system.’
‘No,’ Constance whispered, reaching out for Kitty’s hand again. ‘You were the only person who truly told me in that interview that you weren’t afraid to fly, that in fact you were afraid that you wouldn’t.’
Kitty swallowed hard, close to tears. She certainly hadn’t flown yet and was, she felt, further from it than ever.
‘Some people say that you shouldn’t operate from a place of fear,’ Constance went on, ‘but if there is no fear, how is there a challenge? Often that is when I’ve done my best work, because I have embraced the fear and challenged myself. I saw this young girl who was afraid she wouldn’t fly and I thought – a-ha – she is the girl for us. And that is what Etcetera is about. Sure, we cover politics but we cover the people behind the politics. We want them for their emotional journeys, not just so we can hear their policies but so we can hear the reason for their policies. What happened to make them believe in this, what happened to make them feel this way? Yes, we sometimes talk about diets, but not organic this and wholewheat that, but of why and who. We are all about people, about feeling, about emotions. We may sell fewer but we mean more, though that is merely my opinion, of course. Etcetera will continue to publish your stories, Kitty, as long as you are writing what is true to you and definitely not what somebody else is telling you will make a good story. Nobody can pretend to know what people want to read or hear or see. People rarely know it themselves; they only know it after the fact. That is what creating something original is all about. Finding the new, not rehashing the old and feeding a market.’ She raised her eyebrows.
‘It was my story,’ Kitty said quietly. ‘I can’t blame anyone else.’
‘There are more people involved in telling a story than the writer, and you know that. If you had come to me with this story, well, I would not have covered it, but hypothetically, if I had, I would have pulled it before it was too late. There were signs and someone above you should have been able to see them, but if you want to take the entire blame, well then, you ask yourself why you wanted to tell that story so badly.’
Kitty wasn’t sure if she was meant to answer then and there but Constance gathered her energy and continued: ‘I once interviewed a man who seemed increasingly amused by my questions. When I asked him what he found so entertaining, he told me that he found the questions an interviewer asked revealed much more about the interviewer than any of his answers revealed about himself. During our interview he learned far more about me than I about him. I found that interesting and he was right, on that occasion at least. I think that the story one covers often reveals more about the person writing it than perhaps the story is revealing itself. Journalism classes teach us that one must extract oneself from the story in order to report without bias, but often we need to be in the story in order to understand, to connect, to help the audience identify or else it has no heart; it could be a robot telling the story, for all anyone cares. And that does not mean injecting opinion into the pieces, Kitty, for that bothers me too. I don’t like it when reporters use a story to tell us how they feel. Who cares what one person thinks? A nation? A genre? A sex? That interests me more. I mean inject understanding in all aspects of the story, show the audience that there is feeling behind the words.’
Kitty didn’t want to have to think about what covering that story said about her – she never wanted to have to think or talk about it again – but that was impossible because her network was being sued and she was a day away from going into a libel court. Her head was pounding, she was tired of thinking about it, tired of analysing what on earth had happened, but she suddenly felt the need to repent, to apologise for everything she had ever done wrong just to feel worthy again.
‘I have a confession.’
‘I love confessions.’
‘You know, when you gave me the job, I was so excited, the first story I wanted to write for you was the caterpillar story.’
‘Really?’
‘Of course I couldn’t interview a caterpillar, but I wanted it to form the basis of a story about people who couldn’t fly when they really wanted to, what it meant to be held back, to have your wings clipped.’ Kitty looked at her friend fading away in the bed, big eyes staring up at her, and she fought the urge to cry. She was sure Constance understood exactly what she meant. ‘I started researching the story … I’m sorry …’ She held her hand to her mouth and tried to compose herself but she couldn’t, and the tears fell. ‘It turned out I was wrong. The caterpillar I told you about, the Oleander, it turns out it does fly after all. It just turns into a moth.’ Kitty felt ridiculous for crying at that point but she couldn’t help it. It wasn’t the caterpillar’s predicament that made her sad but the fact her research then as now had been appalling, something that had got her into serious trouble this time. ‘The network have suspended me.’
‘They’ve done you a favour. Wait for it to settle and you can resume telling your stories.’
‘I don’t know what stories to tell any more. I’m afraid I’ll get it wrong again.’
‘You won’t get it wrong, Kitty. You know, telling a story – or, as I like to say, seeking the truth – is not necessarily to go on a mission all guns blazing in order to reveal a lie. Neither is it to be particularly ground-breaking. It is simply to get to the heart of what is real.’
Kitty nodded and sniffed. ‘I’m sorry, this visit wasn’t supposed to be about me. I’m so sorry.’ She bent over in her chair and placed her head on the bed, embarrassed that Constance was seeing her like this, embarrassed to be behaving this way when her friend was so sick and had more important things to worry about.
‘Shush now,’ Constance said soothingly, running her hand gently through Kitty’s hair. ‘That is an even better ending than I originally wished for. Our poor caterpillar got to fly after all.’
