Read Online The Thief of Time by John Boyne - Free Book Online

promptly exploded.
    We had been married for the best part of three hours.

Chapter 6
February-March 1999
    It was late at night – past twelve O’clock, by which time I am usually fast asleep – when I had a moment of epiphany.
    It started earlier in the evening when I was alone in my apartment. I was listening to
The Ring of the Nihelung
and was on my third night of it, playing
Siegfried,
eating some pate on toast and enjoying a bottle of red wine.
    It had been a troublesome day. I visit the offices of our satellite broadcasting corporation every Monday, when I attend a meeting of the major shareholders, have lunch with the managing director and generally fuss around the building a little, seeing if I can think up any ideas to improve our ratings, boost profits, increase our consumer base. It tends to be a pleasant enough experience, although I couldn’t bear to do it more than once a week and have no idea how people with jobs actually manage to survive. It seems like terrible drudgery to spend one’s entire life working, leaving only the weekends free for relaxation, at which time one is probably too busy recovering from the excesses of the week to enjoy oneself anyway. Not for me, I’m afraid.
    On this day, however, there were some problems to be sorted out. It seemed that our lead anchor for the six O’clock news – a Ms Tara Morrison – had been made a serious offer by the BBC and she was considering accepting the position which they were dangling before her like a noose. Ms Morrison is one of our prime assets and we could scarcely afford to lose her. She has led our advertising campaign with gusto, her face and (I’m embarrassed to admit) her body have adorned billboards, buses and the walls of tube stations for the past twelve months and her considerable physical appeal has been held responsible for our increased market share of almost three per cent within the same time period. She gives interviews to the glossy magazines on the subject of the female orgasm, appears as a contestant on television quiz shows, specialising in her Ph.D.-calibre knowledge of the Cretaceous period, and even brought out a book last Christmas, detailing how one can combine relationships, motherhood and a career, entitled
Tara Says: You Can Have It All!
That’s her catchphrase.
Tara Says:.
It seems that everybody says it now.
    We already pay her a ridiculous amount of money and James Hocknell, the managing director of our station, implied to us at the board meeting that he wasn’t sure that was what was behind her desire to leave.
    â€˜It’s all about exposure, gents,’ said James, who personifies a certain type of Fleet Street journalist turned television mogul. He’s all pinstriped suits, pastel shirts with white collars, rings, the sides of his hair combed over the balding centre. His face is permanently red and he wipes his nose with the back of his hand, but for all that we’d be lost without him. We employ him for his talents, not his beauty. We don’t expect him to be a guest model in any designer’s spring collection. His control over his employees is absolute, his ability at his job unquestioned, his commitment unparalleled. In the business it’s known that he’s screwed half the women and screwed-over half the men. The lack of a conscience has taken him to the top. And he knows this industry better than I or my two fellow investors do. We are businessmen, he’s in television, that’s the difference. ‘Tart wants to be seen on the BBC, it’s as simple as that.’ Tart is James’s nickname for Tara, one which he is always sure to use very discreetly. ‘Childhood dream or something, she says. It’s got nothing to do with the money she’s being offered, which I can tell you, gents, is not that much different to the money we shell out on her as it is. She just wants fame, that’s all. She’s addicted to it. Says she