GOSSIP CALUMNY - 5/5 - Hanging Offence

Pictures of phallic shaped potatoes with hats and googly eyes peaking above foamy bath water, were everywhere in the papers the next day. With headlines like 'Ride em Cowboy' , 'Mr Potatoe Head, 'Spud -Pedo,' Much fun was being had at his expense. The rude photos and cartoon caricatures were in the tabloids. In the mainstream opinion columns they were in fully incensed mode, frothing about how reprehensible and abusive his behaviour had been. Questions were beginning to be asked why Henry was still in his job at the Express. Henry, meanwhile, carried on writing his column, and the ongoing but failng campaign to 'expose' Andy Barnes as a swine. Though that was now really a lost cause when placed against his own ever expanding and grosser infamy. Henry finally decided maybe it would be better if he took 'Garden Leave. Hoping he might be able to sit out the furore and at some suitable date return. But then an event pushed that time still further into the distant future.

Andy Barnes, had endured weeks and weeks of negative untrue stories about himself, most of them with their origin in Henry Beddington's column. The press paparazzi hounding him wherever he went. He'd been forced to abandon his own family home, wife and children, in a vain attempt to protect them, or at least diminish the amount of gross intrusion they had to face. He'd gone to ground, hid himself way out in a bothy in the wilds of Scotland somewhere, well out of range of hassle from the Metropolitan press elite. London press journalists rarely venturing beyond the constraints of the M25, it being alien country the further north you went. Once Andy had escaped their unwelcome attention, separated from his family and emotional support, his mental robustness took a serious dive, and in one sour drunken evening he'd attempted to take his life. Leaving a simple note - 'If you want to understand why, look no further than Beddington's fuckin lies.'

That became the banner headline - Beddington's Fuckin Lies. The press were not now in a mood to find him mildly amusing anymore. They were out to roast Henry over his responsibility for pushing Barne's to an attempted suicide. Compiling a list of the stories he had promulgated about Barnes and printed a tick for TRUE or cross for a LIE by each. The majority, given Henry's 'self-brewing', unsurprisingly were found to be the latter. 

Without any further question the Express quickly suspended, then sacked Henry. Promising an investigation from its own feeble ethical standards committee. They went through all the motions of seeming to do the right thing. Neglecting to acknowledge their role, that all these lies that had been listed had once been approved by them, they'd been more than happy to print. Willing to overlook not just a little, but an immense amount of massaging of the facts. Because it sold papers, it kept folk reading online. The many victims and casualties of Henry's column over the decades, recounted their own mental struggles and grievances against Henry and his column, with pleasurable revenge. It turned into a public stoning. Andy Barnes would survive. Though now he needed to be turned into something approaching a living saint. The Sun having signed and paid him in advance for this already, the moment he'd first emerged from a comotose state in hospital.

Without his work, Henry had no scrap of purpose left. No one would let him buy things on account any more. The cafe wouldn't set aside his favourite lunch, his special secluded corner was gone, always booked by some ne'er do well  Worst of all Rebecca up and left. Without a PA, he had to relearn how to type, to deal with the messy complexity of his finances, the alimony, stock market arrangements, mortgages on his three houses, the simple daily expenditure of living in London. It became obvious, once he started to do this for himself, just how much he was living beyond his present means. Funds were fast dwindling. No one was going to offer him any work anytime soon, nor touch him with a barge pole. Not even the scuzzy end of right wing nut jobs, such as a Talk TV host, or that home for has been journos - GB News. Not a whiff of interest from these or any other quarter. 

There was, he realised one channel still available to him. he'd joined the status of those who' as a consequence of verbal slips, racial euphemisms, moral laxity or sexually Neanderthal transgressions., found themselves 'cancelled' from mainstream media  Much as he hated the idea. It cost very little to set up and create a studio. He was going online, launching his own You Tube channel. From where he could champion real free speech, sexual libertarianism, and be the scourge of trendy woke ideology.  He was going to offer the truth according to Henry Beddington, to 'his people', who ever would like and subscribe. Within days of launching, there were millions of them. Companies sought him out proffering sponsorship deals. A new destiny dawned.

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 4/5 - Four Queens Speak

So far the past lovers rival gossip columnists had dug up, had been all too willing participants in his youthful priapic adventures in infidelity. Though he may have treated them with abysmal callousness when ending the affair, nothing, so far as he could discern, could be interpreted as abusive or a misuse of power in the engendering of it. Apart from grossly betraying his wives trust, sometimes with his next wife of course. He was a great lover of women, however profligate he may have been with his affections. Obviously, he didn't appreciate his sexual experimentations as a younger virile man being so publicly traduced and lampooned

It appeared, however, that by virtue of a Twitter frenzy, the press articles had had the exact reverse effect, in that they actually improved his popularity and public profile. For the first time in his fifty two years, though now no longer possessing a flat six pack, with a wine red nose and a disheveled dress sense, he was being lauded as an icon of male libertarianism. The Daily Mail absolutely loved him. Though Henry wasn't at all sure that particular endorsement helped much. It was a bit like Machiavelli praising one's ethical rectitude. 

Henry understood the rules of this game blindfold. Why were they holding his ex wives testimony back? Even he couldn't wait to hear what those three queens of his life had to say. Scandals always had a limited time and momentum to them, before fatigue set in. As long as you kept feeding them daily with new, fresh and juicy details, the fickleness of public interest might not depart. At some point the focus and pull of these revelations would inevitably need to be re-adjusted, or brought to an ignominious ending.

As though someone had a line tap on his innermost thoughts, the next day all three of his wives - Nola - Jessica  & Patricia -were on the front pages of the tabloids. And were they complaining about his infidelities? No. They all were quite happy for him to play away from home, because it left them free of the pressures of  'servicing his needs'. According to them he was so perpetually rampant, his 'needs' became literally oppressive to them. The down side of his widely spread infidelity was they were constantly seeking treatment for a venerial infection, or other such like. They made no complaint about the generous financial arrangements once they'd divorced him either. This was all going quite swimmingly well. Then Patricia, his most recent and longest lasting wife, dropped in an offhand comment that exploded into the awaiting stagnant cesspool.

She started talking about Chalfont/Clarissa, and how he'd always been Henry's favourite offspring, but 'to an unhealthy degree'. When asked what she meant by 'unhealthy' she was frank. He liked to get into the bath naked with him when he was a child.' And left the statement hanging there unexplained, then blurted out - 'You'll have to ask Chalfont/Clarissa about all that. All I'll say is that it marked him. If Chalfont/Clarissa is a little confused about themselves today, then this is largely his Father's fault'  Henry's eyes bulged, he covered his mouth lest anyone heard him scream, then cried out loudly - ' That is the lowest fucking level'

The teasing nature of the press attention, was now approaching its smutty hub, that waste of space that was his son. And he was still his son, even if he now wore makeup, heels and a heavily ruched silk dress to work. Chalfont/Clarrisa worked as a personal assistant to some up and coming trans designer, that Henry had never heard of. The photo used in all the papers showed his son had had quite bit of reconstructive work done recently. Where he'd got the money for this did perhaps not require a palm reader, look no further than one of the tabloids. To Henry he looked ever more like an arche, but high glamour version of his own Mother. In other words - patently ridiculous.

The interviewer wasted no time getting to what she wanted to hear about. 

'Could you tell me more about your childhood in relation to your Father, those times in the bath with you'

' What I remember is he loved to be naked and play with my toys in the bath with me. I don't remember if my Mother was around or not. I was young, two or three, I didn't think it odd at the time. It was fun playing with Dad. He appeared to get more and more enthusiastic, then onetime he got a hard on. Delighting in showing me his engorged member, he put a small hat and pair of goggly eyed glasses on it. Shouting 'ride em cowboy' repeatedly.  This happened just the once'.

'So he never did that ever again'

'No, not that.'

'Do you mean he did something else.'

'Well, he did used to dress up in Mum's clothes, when she was out. He got an erotic kick out of that too'

'He was aroused by it?'

'Yep, but. Mum and Dad divorced shortly after this. I've always assumed there was a link. My Father has always been completely lead by his dick, a devoted wife was never going to be enough for him. I was never enough for him either. He criticises my behaviour repeatedly.  Unable to please him in whatever I chose to do, I recognised a long time ago I'd never win with him. So now I just do whatever the hell I want. Since I started transitioning he refers to me as ' only a fig leaf of a man left' or ' that prosthetic woman'. So, as you can imagine, I want little to do with him.'

The bathroom incident Henry recognised, but not the inserted innuendo - the 'pedo' slant being put on it. He and his wife, had, during their days experimenting with Viagra and other performance enhancing drugs, taken to walking around the house stark bollock naked, all day long.  Both often in a highly charged states of arousal. Patrica knew that, but was deliberately omitting her part in this account of their permissively sexual decadence. 

The hard on in the bath had taken even him by surprise, which was why he'd tried to make fun of it. It was truly embarrassing to recollect. Particularly because he recognised how badly this was now landing. His explanation, however true it might be, would not diffuse any scurrilous misinterpretation, it may even make things worse. For in matters of sexual ethics, public opinion, often quite rightly, wants to believe the very worst in people. Any desire to establish the factual truth of the matter, being the first casualty slaughtered on the altar of salacious gossip. 

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 3/5 - A Bigger Prick

As it happened it turned out to be Petronella Rishworth, a relatively short lived, minor mistress from during his first marriage. In his mental sweep stake she was seven to one, to fire the starting gun on a free for all on his reputation. How she chose to do it - no holds barred going straight for the jugular, reminded him what he'd most enjoyed about his relationship with her. Unconventional, because she was the wealthy heiress of a fortune made in marmalade and pickles. Meaning she didn't need to care a fig what anyone thought of her. A fiery Yorkshire temper that he'd found quite a turn on. And a sprightly curious intelligence that never minded exposing the laughable hypocrisy of it all. In short, he'd felt she was very like him. How wrong he'd been.

Her version went like this:-

'Of course Henry Beddington is one prize shit, he was fucking me whilst still married to his first wife, for christ sake. So I guess I should have expected he'd one day piss on me from a great height with someone else. But I bloody well didn't expect it would be with my younger sister, who was only just over the age of consent at the time. It may be only a small dick, but it is attached to an even bigger tumescent prick, that certainly ensured it got itself liberally applied - absolutely everywhere it could.'

Henry, for a moment felt a certain pride in that statement, but couldn't quite place the name or face of her sister. After all this was over thirty five years ago. He didn't have to wait long. The following day a terse statement from Clarabelle Rishworth-Balls was published. He didn't recognise her middle aged older face from the photograph. She'd married a second league tennis player, with whom she was reputedly in a blissfully contented marriage and had three children. Under the headline - ' A Complete and Utter Wanker' - she was happy to fully put the boot right in.

' My, thankfully brief time with Henry Beddington was one of the most depressing disillusioning experiences of my entire life. He uses women atrociously like they are sexual chattels.  He did once possess a wild and debonair charm, which judging by his recent writing in his column he is no longer in possession of. He is just a crude and wrinkled hack now. The very worst incident was when he'd tried to coerce both Petronella and myself to do a three in a bed with him. We both refused, even when he begged on bended knee, offering vast amounts of money, for us to do it. He's a complete and utter wanker, however tiny that legendary dick maybe in reality.'

'Agh! thought Henry 'the constant little dick references? Theres' the rub, the standard belittling tactics of the wronged woman. Its been the same since Medea slit the thoats of her own children. Come on Bedders you invented a lot of this stuff. This is minor cat nip, the drip drip approach to defamation, tawdry scene setting, Keep rising above it, and this will just float away eventually in a wash of effluents.'

Nonetheless the litany of former mistresses, girlfriend's, so called 'friends' continued unrelentingly. Until it formed itself into a relationship lineage you could draw an elaborate mind map of. He'd been nothing if not thorough in the range, age and class of women he'd once taken to bed. Out there he was sure there were children that even their Mother's were loath to say were his. So much did they not want Henry Beddington forever in their lives. But when the press came a calling with their bottomless promises of money, its amazing how quickly mindsets were changed. At least some good could now come of that tawdry brief fling and progeny.

Henry felt he was beginning to respond with an uncharacteristic air of defensiveness
'So I liked sex, so what? Nothing wrong with spreading your seed widely. As far as I'm concerned, the entire validity and purpose of the British Empire was to fuck, or fuck over, anything that moved.'

For all its comprehensiveness, there was no killer blow he could see coming. None of his three former wives had yet broken cover, which  did concern him. What had been published so far struck him as simply titillating background reading, against which something else he suspected, would be shown in starker and more alarming contrast. He'd written this playbook, he recognised the rolling format. Though it was an entirely different and more disconcerting thing when it was being used against you. Impossible to second guess exactly what may be coming next, and it was his life they were mining for tittle tattle.

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 2/5 - When Word Gets Out

A particular focus of Henry's performative ire in his recent gossip columns had been a scandal that Henry had been 'self- brewing'. Previously there hadn't been much to be said about Andy Barnes, he was a bit of an anodyne personality. A broad empty smile, severe side parting, orange coloured skin and undoubtedly fake fair hair colouring. Partnered on his early evening magazine chat sofa by Sally Wallinger.  'A vacuous piece of fluff more than the intellectual equal of Andy' is how Henry described her. Both had worked there empty headed way up to adult programming, from unremarkable origins in kids TV. Mainly through working engagingly with hand puppets, both fabricated and human.

Henry discovered Andy had a distant cousin Don who, so it turned out, was a bit of an all round wanker. Done several turns with an ASBO as a youth, highly inappropriate behaviour towards women, leaning towards rapist, recently in court for selling recreational drugs in Brighton's backstreets, had once been known to be living rough on the streets of Hove. 'Self brewing' basically meant creating a scandal where one didn't really exist, but you used the dark media arts to conjure one into visible being. Henry just went to town on the sad bad story of Don. Did his best to implicate Andy in all his cousin's felonious activities. To basically slap tar on him as being made with exactly the same brush. Implying an ever growing scale of involvement. So he knowingly tolerated, then encouraged, progressing to engaged with Don's wrong doing himself. Done repeatedly, some of this scattering of wild seeds would stick.

That Andy had been estranged from Don for well over ten years, since his first stretch in prison for rape, was consciously overlooked. As was anything that might conceivably contradict the desired narrative thread that he alone was constructing. Henry had decided he was going to bring Andy Barnes down, in order to demonstrate that he still had the power to do so. He'd done this many many times before. Relishing the challenge of turning a complete innocent into a heinous pariah, preferably within a fortnight. This was what he did for fun.

It had not taken long for Chalfont's proposed change of gender to become a thing of ribald comment in the gossip columns of rival publications. Henry, of course, gave his son's decision not one single mention. He was a professional gossip columnist, he knew you could never starve a good story to death. Particularly when there was so much festering hate in the industry, and amongst celebrities, towards Henry. With decades worth of pleasure at other more famous folks reputational expense. So the desire in some to give him a good return kicking was going to prove irresistible. Even when some of them had a public standing that could not really get much lower. This never stopped any of them from pointing their grubby immoral finger at someone else's shit hitting the fan. Said finger becoming miraculously holier than thou.

Henry could sense all sorts of scum coming up to the surface. For his own life was not exactly short on areas for scandal and controversy, if you were determined to find them. The gossip fraternity had no doubt already done the research, taken and kept notes. But had stayed quiet about them, for fear of prematurely rousing Henry to go ballistic on them. They would be daily gaining in confidence, with the first whiff of ridicule over Chalfont having passed without comment from him. Once these early indications of weakness showed themselves, his invulnerable status would visibly sag, then open season would begin. 

Henry sensed this moments imminent arrival in his very bones. And he could tell exactly where it might be set alight from. One of his previous wives, mistresses or acrimonious ex-girlfriends would break the silence, that their non disclosure agreement was meant to impose. In his mind he was already running a mental sweep stake as to which one would be first.

GOSSIP CALUMNY - 1/5 - The Daily Routine Disrupted

Henry carefully placed the pen down. That was enough words. He'd reached around the usual limit for his column. Words in his hands, composed in his mind, became these instruments of correction. Applied sparingly but with the desired effect they became a scathing whip. Their only purpose to publicly shame their victim, and to do so hard. Instilled with his version of neo puritanism that was so prevalent these days. No longer religious, it now underlay most modern discourse with its secular strain of self righteousness and mortification.

His colleagues at the Express thought him the last crusty reprobate remaining on the paper. A view reinforced by the fact he wrote all his columns out in pen and ink. Defiantly old tech, a fuddy duddy affectation it maybe, but one that chimed with his insensitivity towards all contemporary moral niceties. The type seemingly always prefaced with hash tags. He'd never justify any of his behaviour or provide reasonings. Didn't feel he had to explain himself, ever. Just so long as his writing was good, delivered on time, who the fuck cared?  

Of course someone else had to type them up. That was his PA Rebecca's  job to sort that out. He never enquired how this actually happened, just so long as it did. On a rare occasion this well oiled process would foul up. The copyist perhaps misinterpreting his illegible inky scrawl, producedf a sentence of uncharacteristic opacity. In such circumstances, it was as though the writer suddenly leapt straight off the page, and punched you in the face. It found its voice, and it was that of a foul mouthed rottweiler, ready to tear limb from limb. Henry, when angered, well, no one wanted that.

Anyway, he'd finished his column for the week. Handed it to his Rebecca. Went out for lunch. He never arranged to meet anyone. Categorically refusing to both eat and talk. Preferring to eat out alone. Everyone else preferred he did too. So much unpleasant slavering, shirt spillages, explosive grunts and derisory laughs as he read through the opposition's papers. His favourite restaurant had a corner reserved specially for him. They screened him off. Where he ate the same lunch every day, steak chips and peas, in a lake of gravy. And without fail there it would be, piping hot, ready for when he'd arrive at midday, on the dot.

He ran his life on this tightly controlled treadmill, and largely on account. Trusting the conscientiousness of his PA to deal with a complex web of monthly payments. Otherwise, lunch might be off, as would his PA. The current one, Rebecca, had worked for him for about a year. A sign of immense skill and tact on her part. Working for Henry Beddington, meant any future job would be a breeze by comparison. Other people respected you instantly, they knew exactly what you'd had to cope with. 

Ditto Patricia Beddington his long suffering and now very ex wife, who'd poured her bruised soul out, delightfully cramming it with colourful anecdotes, to a rival paper. She'd now become an extremely popular TV agony aunt. Dispensing clearly one sided advice, basically of the - all women are terribly good - all men are terribly bad - variety. Henry frequently would regularly feature as an egregious example. About which Henry was privately livid, but publicly affected to be beyond caring. He thought about his revenge all the time. But so far he couldn't quite face the exertion, not to mention expense, of going down the route to litigation. Ever since Oscar Wilde this sort of thing, of defending your bruised ego in court, could so easily backfire. Particularly as his own carefully cultivated abrasive public persona was deliberately meant to rub the liberati up the wrong way, into apoplexy.

His life outside of his writing, had frankly turned into one gigantic tangle of failed or failing relationships. All his disappointments, frustration and anger got siphoned through his columns via the verbal vitriol he dispensed. It was how he processed and resolved issues. By the time he got home after lunch, Rebecca had filtered and sorted his mail out, into Do it Now or They Can Wank For It - piles, anything else passed quickly through vetting and straight into the jaws of a jabbering shredder.  

At the top of the Do It Now was a long handwritten letter from his young wayward, and only son, Chalfont Beddington. In it he was at pains to explain in precise detail to his Father, how he had always felt himself to be really a she, and that she would now quite like Henry to call him Clarrisa from now on. Henry's heart, then jaw dropped, then his temper rose. An expletive ridden response was loudly aired, approximating to - not on your bloody nelly. Until it dawned on him quite how badly all of this might play out once it inevitably hit the tabloids. It was incontrovertibly a bad thing whenever a gossip columnist themselves became the subject of the gossip. 'God, this could be one fuckin feeding frenzy, a five star disaster in a matter of days.'