Free The Dead Beat by Doug Johnstone

the phone to me.’
    Elaine straightened up, holding her back. ‘What? On the news desk?’
    Martha shook her head. She realised she would be telling this story for the rest of her life. It already felt like a parable. The Legend of Martha Fluke. Remember that time when that guy shot himself on the phone? How we laughed all the way to the hospital.
    ‘I was covering the obituaries. The guy who was supposed to be working the shift phoned in, gave his own obituary then shot himself.’
    ‘Oh my God, Martha, are you OK?’
    ‘Shouldn’t you ask if he’s OK?’
    ‘You’re my daughter, not him.’
    Elaine looked like she might try to hug Martha, who held up a defensive hand. ‘I’m fine. I saved his life, though, kind of.’
    Elaine was standing there with Martha’s dirty blouse and skirt in her hands, rubbing the material with her fingers. Out damn spot and all that. ‘Tell me what happened.’
    Martha was still in her bra and pants. It had been empowering before, now she just felt exposed. She took a glug of coffee. ‘So I was covering for someone off sick and the phone went. The guy sounded stressed. Started reading an obituary to me. He got to the end, said it was his own obit, then bang, I heard a gunshot. No answer on the phone. So this guy Billy got his address and we went round there and he’d shot himself in the face.’
    ‘Oh God.’
    ‘I know. We went with him in the ambulance. They operated but he’s in a coma.’
    ‘That’s awful.’
    ‘Turns out this guy is the regular obituary writer, the guy I was covering for, Gordon Harris.’
    Elaine gripped the blouse in her hand tighter. ‘Gordon Harris?’
    ‘You know him?’
    Elaine didn’t speak for a moment. Looked around the room as if searching for something. Loosened her grip on the blouse a little. ‘I met him a long time ago. He worked with Ian.’
    ‘So he knew Dad?’
    ‘Years ago.’
    ‘Anyway, his wife was all over the place.’
    ‘Wife?’
    ‘Yeah. Apparently he had a history of mental problems. Like, as if we don’t know what that’s like, eh?’
    Martha was trying to make a joke about it.
    ‘That’s terrible,’ Elaine said. She went back to throwing dirty clothes into the machine. ‘You got anything else to go in here?’ She was trying too hard to be casual.
    Martha shook her head and downed the rest of her coffee in one. Went to pour another.
    ‘Should you be going back into the office?’ Elaine said.
    Martha had been waiting for this. Elaine didn’t want her there, had something against that place and the people. Martha had always put it down to antagonism towards Ian, but she wasn’t sure that added up any more. Ian was dead now, so what the hell?
    ‘I’ll be fine.’
    Elaine looked at her directly. It made Martha realise her mother hadn’t held her eye the whole time she had been telling her about Gordon.
    ‘You don’t need this kind of thing, Martha,’ Elaine said.
    ‘Please don’t say “in my condition”, it makes me sound pregnant.’
    ‘You’re not, are you?’
    Martha laughed. ‘No.’
    ‘Because that’s something else that could seriously affect . . .’
    ‘Elaine, please, I’m fine.’
    ‘Don’t call me that.’ She stepped forward and raised her hand to Martha’s cheek.
    Martha flinched and pulled away. ‘And before you say anything, yes, I remember all the “previous episodes”, and I know I have my appointment tomorrow, and you don’t need to come because Cal said he would, OK, Mum?’
    ‘You called me Mum by accident, isn’t that sweet.’
    ‘Look, Elaine.’ That spoiled teenager voice again. ‘I’m not some fragile little nutjob that you have to tiptoe around any more.’
    ‘You don’t remember the worst of it.’
    ‘I hate that,’ Martha said, her voice raised. ‘I hate how you become the official historian for my fucking depression, like you own the facts of it. I have it, I had the breakdowns, I had the incidents, I had the fifteen different medications, the time in the