Just because I can’t remember the last time I heard Marie Louise sound quite that serious.
“I’ll call you back.” Then she hangs up.
For a second she just sits there looking at her notes.
I wait.
Nothing about this feels urgent.
If anything, she looks distracted.
She gestures towards the chair.
“Sit.”
Marie Louise takes her glasses off and sets them on the desk. Then she looks at me for a second in a way I don’t immediately recognise.
Not angry.
Not disappointed.
More like she’s deciding where to start.
Then she says, “We’ve had a complaint about the article.”
I swallow hard.
“My article?”
She nods. “The farm fire.”
That surprises me enough that I laugh slightly.
Not because it’s funny.
Just because I’m confused.
People complain all the time. Usually because they disagree with facts or because they expected an article about a road closure to contain more road closure.
But this one?
I frown.
“What about it?”
Marie Louise folds her hands.
“The complaint came from Station Manager Josh Walker at Fellside Fire Station.”
The name means nothing to me.
“He believes the article has an underlying sexist framing.”
For a second, I’m not confused so much as completely unable to put that sentence anywhere useful.
“Sexist?”
Marie Louise nods.
