Off the Record

by Craig Sherborne

  ‘So we’re doing it, then?’

  I paused, thought quickly. Why not have a stoning if it keeps his nibs happy! An editor-in-waiting needs his Pockets won over and charmed.

  His excitement when sober was no different from when drinking. He liked to touch you and talk up close as if about to kiss. And his eyes, they had that flickering menace. I wonder if dead glitter has a proper name, the kind doctors use in medical Latin.

  ‘I’d like to try my hand at writing a piece of it,’ he said. The air had the taste of his peppermint breathing.

  I nodded that if he wanted to try his hand then he could.

  ‘You’re the boss,’ I said. ‘For now we need to fob off Peeko, and do it cleverly so she’s not set against us too bitterly.’

  She pressed herself upright as we opened the courtyard door. She knew we wanted rid of her and butted her cigarette out on the edge of the timber table. ‘No need to say anything, gentlemen. I’ll ply my trade elsewhere.’

  ‘We appreciate your time,’ I said.

  ‘Entertaining,’ said Pockets. ‘Mucking around with hypotheticals. Don’t for a moment think I was serious.’

  ‘If you change your mind you’ve got my number. I can get my hand on witness statements, coroner’s reports. The Kindergarten Child Sex Murders, for instance. The journos I gave that info to won an award.’

  ‘It was a shocking crime,’ I said. ‘But at least it won an award.’

  She stopped still, said she appreciated sarcasm, that it’s not really low wit at all. She was being sarcastic.

  Pockets shook her hand and didn’t look her in the eye. I did. A speck of grey pupil beyond the parted lips of her lids.

  There are worse distractions than reading a stanza of poetry or sitting at your desk admiring the nature bits of a novel. Not the difficult dramas with characters whingeing and whining. No violent perversions or bloodthirsty wars. I’ve always flipped through pages for an elevating metaphor. It cleans the mind, a touch of the poet upon me. Keats or T. S. Eliot—the melodious mumble of Prufrock. Ask any journo and if they’re honest they’ll tell you they’d rather that writing be in them—a masterpiece instead of purple prose.

  Even I’ve wished it, though I never let it worry me. For now, I had my anthology and my daily news lists. I had a stoning to arrange and my GorGrace mischief.

  I recalled one vintage—there it was, from my 1999 selection—I did a stoning up in Sydney in a church of born-again Christians. I arranged for a dero to disrupt a service by begging. As the congregation prayed he crept along pews, his hands held out like Oliver Twist’s food bowl. When worshippers tried to escort him outside he yelled, ‘Call yourself Christians! You’re not Christians. You’re hypocrites.’

  Yes, I remembered it well as I read the browning newsprint. I’d paid the guy ten bucks and given him a script of abuse to learn: ‘Sell your fancy cathedrals and feed the poor.’ They marched him screaming into the car park.

  I’d stationed photographers by the font for a scuffle. When there wasn’t one sufficiently criminal I had to pay the bum extra to become obstreperous. Have him run back inside as if to tackle the preacher mid-Eucharist. That got parishioners out of their seats angry and physical. They threw him to the floor. His nose started bleeding. My headline went: Happy Clapper Heavies.

  Where do you go when you’re down and out? Who can you trust when you’re desperate? Don’t go to this church—they’ll call in the muscle.

  Nobody likes Christians, so you can stone them relentlessly. You won’t be called ‘bigot’ as with Muslims and Jews: all Christians are child molesters to the public. I’ve said this to Ollie to explain why his school’s gone secular. They’ve got a sandstone chapel built in 1892 but these days it’s a hall used for yoga classes. ‘They’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater,’ I said. A poor choice of phrasing but it got the message through.

  Stonings are jobs that need dead glitter to be successful. I’d been certain for a while Katie Brooks had that quality.

  I called her in, asked her to sit closer to my desk, please. I spoke softly—you would think I was giving her sad news. I said, ‘Katie, I want to trust you with a story that’s, how should I put this, creative.’ I showed her the Sydney yarn. She pushed her glasses high on her nose. A vein swelled down her forehead like visible thinking. I watched her smile and tongue her teeth and smile even wider. She looked up at me and muttered, ‘Words, this is brilliant!’ She loved the fierce photos of men in blue suits, raised fists, a bloody-faced dero.

  ‘I’m glad you like it. It’s not to some people’s taste. Especially when I tell them it’s a set-up called stoning.’

  Revealing this was not really a matter of trust, it was knowing an opportunist when you see them. That worm on her head an excited genital.

  I asked if she would ever partake in such a ‘strategy’. She nodded, she grinned. I told her to think twice before committing. ‘Best to pause before embarking on these adventures.’

  She understood the confidential nature. Her cheeks pink as if affected not by keenness but wine.

  Let us plan a stoning then, in the style of this my ’99 vintage. I told her she was ‘special’ in the reporter sense: she had nerve, a strong stomach, not squeamish.

  Then my mobile rang. Ollie’s name on the screen.

  ‘Can I take this in private, Katie?

  I suggested she get to work—choose a church, select a vagrant. Down at the esplanade, those restaurant beggars of hers. We’d tie in her beggar research and make a feature of it.

  She stood and gave a nod, more a bow of gratitude than regular nodding. Her worm still swollen and blue in its wending.

  ‘Ollie, good morning, son. Everything all right? You handed your essay in? Nothing wrong?’

  ‘That guy rang. I thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘That Gordon person?’

  ‘Yeah, I picked up the hall phone and listened.’

  ‘And? Keep going.’

  ‘He’s invited mum out.’

  ‘Keep going.’

  ‘He’s invited her out to a ball. I wrote it down—the Private Wealth Management Underwriters’ Ball.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said she’s never been to a ball before.’

  ‘That’s bullshit. I took her at least to one ball. At the casino. Something to do with, I don’t know, something to do with a sub-editing conference. And she told this prick she’d never been to one? I’m sorry, Ollie. I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at your mother. You’ve done good work.’

  ‘Do you want me to follow it up?’

  ‘Yes, of course, follow it up. Did she say she’d go?’

  ‘She said she’d think about it. She said she wasn’t sure, it might confuse me.’

  ‘Is that what she said? Confuse you? Did she say any more?’

  ‘No, that’s it.’

  ‘Good. She didn’t commit to it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. I want you to listen, Ollie. I want you to do this for me. If she brings it up with you, this ball invitation, then you be confused and unhappy. Say you don’t like this Gordon. Say it’s not right she’s seeing him. It’s distracting your schooling and affecting your feelings for her.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Tell her she’s not respecting your feelings. Bringing this man into your life. If she loves you she wouldn’t do that without considering you.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘And you report to me on what she says. You report every conversation she has with this old man who’s pushing you aside.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Okay, Dad.’

  ‘Okay, Dad.’

  ‘And remember the other thing.’

  ‘Um. What other thing?’

  ‘You do not mention that you and I have these conversations. If your mother asks you, “Do you talk to your father?” You say, “Yes, we talk about school and stuff.”’

  ‘No worries.’

  ‘Good boy. Now, have
you handed your Orwell essay in?’

  ‘Yeah, all done.’

  ‘Let’s have another tutoring session in a day or two. I’ll share some more tricks. My theory about how to structure narrative. All right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  My finger pressed ‘end call’ and I held it over ‘dial out’. I almost touched it, Emma’s number, to argue and complain: How dare she tell lies about not going to balls. She was probably standing right that minute at the mirror trying on gowns. Black and thin with shiny sequins. Or white with see-through lacing. Long forgotten in their covers at the back of our wardrobe. I could not remember if she wore fake diamonds or pearls.

  Pockets rang. ‘What about sportsmen or trade unionists?’

  Our stoning’s moved to the next phase, I told him. ‘A church target is more ironic than trade unionists.’

  My news list was boring that day. The kind of day we call ‘crime-slow’. A cockfight organised by Filipino fruit pickers. Attempted rape in Balwyn and a bag snatch near the War Memorial. Some perv at a high-end dungeon brothel bled to death during flagellation. Ryan the Innocent, as I’ve dubbed him for his boyishness, wanted his first look inside such a carnal place. ‘Speak to the girls,’ I told him. ‘Do they have celebrity clients?’

  On my first brothel job I’m embarrassed to say I got a hard-on, which was unprofessional—all the lingerie and musky perfume. That was years ago and it couldn’t happen now—I no longer wake up erect as I once did every morning. I presumed my body had turned against me for infidelity. It only wanted Emma or else would keep me impotent. Nature’s way to make a one-woman man.

  I went up to production to supervise headlines but stopped on the top stair in a panic: when was our wedding anniversary? I couldn’t remember if it was this month or next. It was this month, I was certain. But what was the day? Where was my diary?

  12

  September 22, still two weeks to go.

  I could hire a horse carriage like I did for our wedding. Have us clip-clop to Christo’s, the TV chef ’s cantina on High. You book weeks ahead there, pay a deposit and can’t cancel. The kudos of it would surely melt Emma. I dialled the number.

  ‘My name is Smith and I’m currently acting editor of pry. The news service. Yes, media. Yes, journalist, that’s right. I’d like to be put through to the manager, please.’

  A few minutes of listening to cellos and he was on. He had an Irish not a French or Italian accent.

  I said I wasn’t expecting an Irish experience. He said the food was not Irish so please don’t be concerned.

  A table for two in a fortnight? That was simply not possible, he said. Which required my using my dissatisfied voice, a cross between disdain and husky threat-whispering—I am superior and you are vulnerable.

  ‘Pry would like to review Christo’s. We have deadlines in place. If you’re unreasonable to the press, what’s your food like? Does the same tone apply at your table service?’

  A dissatisfied voice must verge on rudeness, a contest between your needs and the world’s. It doesn’t work unless you’re wearing a sheriff ’s badge. That’s what it feels like when you’re a dead-glitter journo—a sheriff with bluff and bluster instead of guns. If my Irish friend had a backbone and savvy he’d yell get fucked and slam down the phone.

  But he didn’t. He ummed and he ahhed and took the reservation. I went silent to keep the rude pretension going. He might offer the dinner as a freebie. They sometimes do and they sometimes don’t. It depends on the desperation of the business. This business was booming. I was resigned to paying.

  ‘September the twenty-second at seven-thirty. We look forward to seeing you, Mr Smith. I apologise if I’ve not been sufficiently courteous.’

  I let him off the hook. ‘And so do I.’

  I wanted to spring this on Emma, surprise her that evening and couldn’t decide if taking flowers was excessively amorous: was it time to ignore the ‘slow process’ balance? Oh yes, it was time to assert my entitlement over Gordon’s. I rang her to say I must come round at once.

  Flowers it would be, a bunch of mixed breeds from Petal Power, lying like a bushy baby along my arm when I let myself in. Emma took them in her own arms’ cradle. ‘Bringing flowers out of the blue. You must want something.’

  ‘I do want something. I admit it. There’s a little anniversary we’re due to celebrate.’

  ‘That’s ages away.’

  ‘Two weeks. That’s not ages.’

  Emma did not breathe the flowers in deeply and cut and vase them at the sink. She was not emotional as I’d hoped she’d be. No yielding to affection, no tearful sentiment. The calendar was hanging there just above her on a picture hook. I could see no scribble of our wedding date. It was always marked there in her handwriting in red pen. This year, nothing. A blank square beneath 22.

  ‘I’ve booked a table at Christo’s.’

  ‘That’s extravagant.’

  ‘Certainly is. It’s what the occasion deserves. What do you say, Ollie?’ He had wandered into the room.

  ‘Am I going too?’

  He was smiling so wide I hadn’t the heart to disappoint him.

  ‘Of course you are, son. Table for three instead of two. Mind you, it’s dependent on your mother. She doesn’t seem over the moon.’

  Now Emma scissored a stem off and poked it into a fluted pink glass. I could tell she felt bullied. Her head was tipped forward. She was nodding yes but her eyes were closed. I told Ollie to write ‘Wedding Anniversary’ in the calendar’s blank square.

  This was no time to reprimand him on his spelling: one n in anniversary.

  ‘It was just a thought, Emma. If you don’t want to go, I’ll cancel.’

  I expected my own reprimand for acting the martyr. Playing on her feelings, using Ollie as helper. ‘Damn it, we’re family,’ I was bursting to say. ‘We cannot be pushed aside or superseded. You can’t say no to us over our anniversary and yes to Gordon over a ball.’

  ‘What if I did say cancel?’ she said.

  ‘What for?’ Ollie roared.

  I told him, ‘Don’t raise your voice, not to your mother. If she’s not keen to join us we’ll go by ourselves. A very expensive father-and-son evening.’

  Ollie had a scowl that was half his mum’s thinned mouth and half my eyes when I narrow them. And my trick of going silent and letting my blinkless glare curse you. He’d reached an age when he did the same, tearlessly, his fists clenching.

  I spoke in a quiet growl. ‘Settle down, son. If your mother doesn’t want to go with us that’s her choice. I should have discussed it with her. It’s my fault.’

  ‘Callum, don’t do this.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘You know very well.’

  She had her face to the window as if facing us would sap her power. I jerked my head for Ollie to go hug her. That was the way to get things, I winked to him. Gentle beseeching not scowling.

  He did what he was told and she kissed his crown. That was a victory. I had to be careful not to smirk or say a word to unbalance it.

  She said all right, she’d come. Said it to Ollie not to me, as if I didn’t speak English and he was her translator.

  ‘Tell your father the flowers are pretty but he best leave. I’ve got dinner to cook and you had better do your homework.’

  ‘I was planning to give him half an hour’s tutoring before I leave.’

  I’d said too much. ‘But, you’re right, I best go. Tutoring can wait.’

  I said to myself: Drive to your apartment, buy takeaway Indian, red wine. The television is for lonely watching. I could fill my void up with talent quests and cooking shows. My washed underwear needed taking down from the backs of the dining chairs.

  Instead I swerved off the freeway, turned right to where plane trees form tunnels of darkness blue-blacker than the night. No stars or the moons of headlights. The ivy walls were higher there and a few mansion windows glowed misty with curtained lamps. The deeper you drove into the leaf shadow your e
yes adjusted, noticed iron gates patrolled by stick-figure cameras. It was not a good idea to be slowing down like this in Toorak, like a thief casing front yards for a home invasion. I merely wanted a look at where he lived, admire his premises and put a price on it. And in admiring get angrier at myself for not being successful. I mean, I am successful but not in magnate terms. I’m middling, and this was ten-million-dollar territory. Twenty if your compound spreads across two lots. You parked in garages here instead of at curb sides, garages the size of suburban homes.

  This was his street, Abernathy, if I remembered the title searches correctly. His was number seven to number nine. A twenty-million property, though his wall was brown brick with no creepers sculpted along it. If it were mine I’d pull the ugly thing down. I’d have a wrought-iron fence and an arty iron entrance. His garden was rose-cottage like an old person’s hobby farm. I’d have cherry trees and a Jap water feature. He had plenty of acreage for jacarandas and north-facing hibiscus. Why didn’t he paint the house render white and take those Juliet windows down? If he had no taste himself you’d think he’d purchase it.

  I pulled over up the street where it curved left and the curb lighting was dapple-blotted by oak limbs. His neighbours had cameras but I saw none for him. The wooden front gate had a sliding bolt. I gave it a shake and no dog barked. I walked on as if strolling and then doubled back to slip the bolt across. If I could see him shuffling with a cup of cocoa, wearing old-codger slippers I’d be less obsessive, feel more of a man. If I observed a sorry stooped geriatric I believed I’d be less vindictive towards him. It was a health issue: I needed my lump of animosity removed.

  In my experience, before trespassing you should always prepare excuses. You don’t say ‘I’m a journalist’ if the householder catches you. With police you do—they don’t arrest trespassing journos. A householder needs bullshit or else you spook them. I had one guy, a jewel thief, who would have socked me or worse. I said, ‘I’m a Mormon,’ and that fooled him. Even thieves ignore you when you’re snooping for stories if they think you’ve stopped by to convert them.