Off the Record

by Craig Sherborne

  I told her my motivations were noble. A parent crusading to ensure the safety of his boy. We agreed on a fee of five hundred dollars. I counted the cash onto the table to keep the tone formal. When I stood to go I paid for my drink only. Formal. I walked off quickly so there’d be no parting banter.

  *

  No banter with her but I bantered with me. You do that when you’ve been living by yourself. When I’m shaving, when I’m eating alone at the table, I talk most freely. I forget sometimes not to do it in public. I banter away at checkouts. I banter away on streets and can’t blame other people for giving me glances. On this occasion I bantered about status. If I’m to be editor I should have my own office. A proper desk—wide and Danish in its stylish narrow trim. Jenny Angelou’s desk, in other words. She was not coming back, so I should move there.

  ‘That is where you should be sitting, Words. Not on the same floor as your staff. Your rank means you need space from them.’

  I beeped open my car door and berated myself loudly.

  ‘Time to assert your rank and say, “If I’m editor I have rights. Rank requires a Danish desk and my own private office.”’

  Two ladies in black sportswear, jogging, went past me. They pulled faces at each other. I’m embarrassed being laughed at by people my age and not children. I uttered as much in my mumbling trance, then saw a police car slow down to watch. I waved and got behind the wheel, saying, ‘Respect, that’s all I’m asking for. An office. A Danish desk. Respectfulness.’

  I made it priority number one. This day at pry would be my moving day. Jenny still had possessions on the desk—photos of two skeletal whippets. Panadol in the drawers and tissues and notepads. A calendar with scribblings of phone numbers and leads: Missing person…Car abandoned. Craigieburn. Walks off into field. Witnesses see him. Goes missing. She hadn’t mentioned this story but I like missing persons. They add mystery to a narrative: troubled mind or foul play? I jotted the details down for my news list.

  Her computer was on but locked by a password. I unplugged it and hailed The Cat as he walked past the door. He helped me lift it into the corner and carry mine down the stairs.

  ‘Nothing will change,’ I said to him. ‘I’ll be editor but still be the wordsmith. I’ll be doing things from here from now on. You let me know if the news floor misbehaves.’

  He thought I was kidding. I rested my hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Just between you and me,’ I whispered. ‘My eyes and ears. It’ll help your spying skills.’

  If he’d said no I wouldn’t have trusted him from now on: a person prone to piety and therefore not one of us. But he said yes as I thought he would. He’d become The Cat, he was growing whiskers, a black moustache at the stubble stage and his goggle eyes narrower in their knowingness: not dead glitter yet but trying. He said thanks as if he’d been promoted. Or would be someday for this pact between us. I gave him the missing-person yarn as payment and promised there’d be more if he did right by me.

  He helped clean out the drawers and lug down my vintage files. We piled Jenny’s things in the storeroom beside the toilet. I admit it was arrogant not to let Pockets know but he was off somewhere and I wasn’t going to phone. Best to take the initiative and then what’s done is done. We mustn’t let pry suffer and stall as surely it would with no strict hierarchy. He needed me as editor, happy in an office and my editor title in silver and black lettering on the door. Imagine if he didn’t have me. He’d have no business at all, only green kids who could barely spell and think colons are only where your bowel motions come from.

  *

  When Pockets did bowl in, ruffle-haired and smelling of soap as if just showered, he had a nervous attitude and flicked his wedding ring around and around with his thumb. Could we both go to Intercourse, he asked. I said no, I had a news room to run: ‘I’m fired up. Never been so motivated.’

  His thumb flicked the gold band up and over his knuckle then back to his ring-finger webbing. He jerked his head for me to follow him to his office. He closed the door behind us and tugged the blind strings of the window-walls. The blinds shushed closed but there was light enough from slit-sunshine at the edges to see blisters of sweat on his forehead. His thumbnail picked at a droplet on his eyebrow. Here was a man on whom not to pin your hopes. A man bold one minute then given to dithering. I did not like this man: neither an ally to rely on nor an enemy.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ I asked, hands on hips, legs wide apart to bluff being superior.

  ‘You’re moving into Jenny’s space?’

  ‘Of course.’

  My nose was raised. I sensed bad news. I said as much to him—‘I like bad news when it’s us publishing it. I’ve got a feeling yours is the other kind.’

  ‘It’s Jenny.’

  ‘What about her? She’s off the scene. She is off the scene, isn’t she?’

  He thumbed that ring again. I wanted to grab his hands to be still, his fiddling insipidness.

  ‘Words, I’m in a pickle here. If Jenny sees you’ve moved in to her…’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? I’m the editor.’

  ‘Jenny won’t see it that way.’

  ‘You haven’t told her I’m editor?’

  ‘I was going to.’

  ‘Going to?’

  ‘I try to be honest with her…but…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘We ended up in a hotel room and it’s back on between us and I’m promising things.’

  I did grab his thumb. I squeezed on his ring finger. I told him be man enough to talk plainly, no fidgeting.

  ‘She’s got this hold over me.’

  ‘Money? She’s trying to milk you?’

  ‘No. I have feelings for her. I care about her.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You’re fucked. Your wife will suck your blood out.’

  ‘Just give me time. To end it well with Jenny. Meanwhile I can have her and my home life too. Just a bit longer. Just till the heat goes out of us.’

  ‘And if you get her pregnant? And this time there’s no miscarriage to save you?’

  He said he’d be careful and Jenny would too.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I sneered. ‘So what have you promised her?’

  ‘That, ah, her job is still hers. That you’re holding the fort but just holding it.’

  I shivered trying to stop the temper in my breath, the heaving and the rush-thud of my heartbeat. I folded my arms until I’d settled and let my wits gather.

  ‘This is a big mistake you’re making,’ I said.

  ‘She’s spotted you’ve done a stoning.’

  ‘We’ve done a stoning, you and me.’

  ‘She thinks it’s low of you.’

  ‘Low of us. You’re in this too.’

  ‘It demeans pry, she says. I’m just being her messenger.’

  ‘Have you told her the figures? My figures are pissing on hers.’

  ‘I get worried she’ll run off and tell the world about us.’

  ‘Let her. That’s good. Stir up talk. What’s her strategy for the next few months on pry? I’ll tell you mine. I bet mine shits on hers.’

  ‘Let’s compromise. You step aside for her, temporarily.’

  ‘I have a big story I’m working on. If I walk out, the story walks too.’

  ‘Don’t walk out.’

  ‘Then don’t do this.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You will be. No me and no big story.’

  ‘What is it, this story?’

  ‘I’m not going to tell you. The biggest story of my life. I’ll take it to TV and get respected. Not treated like this. Demoted by you.’

  ‘You’re not demoted. I’m asking a favour, Words. A favour.’

  ‘And in return?’

  ‘Your shareholding. I’ll bump it up. What’s your story?’

  ‘I’m not revealing that. I was going to get you to tag along. But there’s no future for me here in this place. I’ll go to TV. And t
ake the story of a lifetime.’

  ‘Words, please, come on. I’ll double your shareholding. And you’ll be editor soon. Just be patient.’

  ‘How would I save face with my staff? And my family? How could I bring my wife and son in as I’d hoped to do? How could I say to them, “Here is my office. Here is my title on the door.”’

  ‘I’ll square it with Jenny that she works from home. Just for a couple of weeks. You can bring your family through. You can point to your door and they’re none the wiser.’

  I kept heaving and having blood bang in my ears but thought: Double my shareholdings? That is more than a compromise. That’s a win my way. I did not express my satisfaction. I scratched my crown, digging with my nails, wincing a performance of anguish. I mumbled how the staff would think me a failure, though I’d already started planning that sermon to them: I need to be on the news floor, I’ve decided. It’s too remote from my journos if I’m down here!

  Pockets was awed by my saying ‘story of a lifetime’. Was it really that big? Go on, tell me, he harped. Come on, please, come on, tell.

  ‘I can’t yet. It’s too secret. They get wind and we’re finished.’

  ‘Who’s they?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘I can’t say, except to say: powerful people.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Shit indeed.’

  ‘When can I know?’

  ‘Soon. I promise.’

  I told him to pull up the blinds in case authorities were spying. We should act normally to them, not appear conniving.

  Pockets fumbled the blinds up and blinked and peered excitedly through the glass. Normal, act normal, I said. He said sorry and turned his back to the courtyard, then walked with a stiff arm-swing to his desk chair. Reclined in it with such exaggerated force that he tipped himself too much and hit a wall picture.

  He pointed his finger and wiggled it at the phone. ‘Is that safe?’

  ‘I don’t know. Be careful.’

  ‘Discretion?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  He nodded and blew his breath into a whistle. He mouthed, Go for it, Words.

  I mouthed, Too right I will.

  There was no big story, of course. Yet I didn’t regret this impetuous lie. Look at what lies bring you! My new office was still mine, if only for a while. My bum here at the Danish desk and up there my door title. You don’t get anywhere without ruses and cunning. I would string the lie out and then conjure excuses that the story had died. I’d been Words a long time and treated ‘stories of a lifetime’ as mere mythology. Something a journo flukes upon like winning the lotto.

  20

  Peeko felt the same.

  ‘The big big stuff, you mean? Few and far between, those stories. I can get you bread-and-butter,’ she said over the phone. ‘But if you want pure original that requires dumb luck, you know that. Pure original is like the devil kissed you.’

  What she did have was a bit of St George’s dirt. Not much, just embezzlement by its business manager. That was ten years ago and the amount was minor. Not dirt so much as a speck of muck. You wouldn’t waste your leverage threatening to publish it. I needed more than just a speck of muck to trade up Ollie’s grades.

  ‘I’ll keep going at it, Words. I’ll call my lawyer friends.’

  Pure original. Beautiful words. What’s that Prufrock poem about being ordinary? You know there are mermaids, and you know they sing, but they’re not going to sing for you.

  I wish they would but mermaids don’t exist and even my vintage files had stopped being useful. The closest I’d come to original since starting at pry was The Cat and his finger-gun story. And he was the star of that—I did not have the by-line. That’s the drawback of being a wordsmith, you’re invisible. If the boy did win a bravery award I deserved half the credit. My words not his gave the piece its power.

  I said that to Emma and Ollie when I showed them through the office. It was the night of our wedding anniversary. Emma didn’t want to go ahead with the evening but she’d cooled off enough to do it to make Ollie happy. Put on her yellow dress that showed her collarbones, but no cleavage. The dress billowed from her waist. I had cooled down, or rather my blood had warmed up. The fear-chill Emma put in me was gone. I was back to my normal nature. I wore the navy-blue Hugo Boss suit I hadn’t worn for ages. My white Hilfiger shirt. No tie. I let the collar fall open and show chest hairs.

  We were outside the entrance where the pry sign flashes along the render. Day and night a white light snaking from the bottom of the p to the y.

  I wanted this tour as part of the anniversary occasion. We’d stroll around the office and they’d see my bailiwick, then off for a cocktail and then to Christo’s.

  ‘You know something?’ I said. ‘When you’re in charge your profile isn’t out in public. You pull the strings but you’re behind the scenes. The thing you lose is your name circulating. That’s the price you pay for being successful.’

  I wanted the news room busy. I wanted no giggling or chit-chat. I had Katie Brooks and Mai Tran ready with questions: ‘Could you recommend an angle, Words?’ ‘What’s our best lead-in on this car-bomb story?’

  I arranged for Ryan Scullen to receive a mild dressing-down from me. Nothing more than, ‘This home invasion story is weak. Write it again, properly. Use more violent verbs,’ but enough for Emma and Ollie to witness my authority. I kept my tone restrained for their sake. No sarcastic ribbings or excessive impatience with anyone. I allowed myself a moment of speech-making about pry. My vision for a new kind of house style.

  ‘I’d like to see us working more in first-person as The Cat did,’ I said, clasping my hands and rubbing the palms together. ‘Personalise your story. Get involved. Don’t stand outside it. Get in there and be the story. Our figures prove it works.’

  The Cat swung his arm over his chair back. He kissed the air directly at Katie and she kissed back at him and blushed. He flicked his eyebrows up and down, a cheeky mocking of his colleagues. He felt superior to them—you could tell by his yawning. Reminded me of me when I had my first front pages. My colleagues sing-songing, ‘Here comes the wordsmith. Writes like an angel, we’re told.’

  Those days have gone, I thought. And here I am with finger-gun fuckwits. My boss is too cunt-struck to keep me as editor. I wish I’d been more controversial at The Cat’s age, done stories that carved my place into history. Challenged the law. Got arrested. Been jailed. The kind of stories they turn into movies.

  These regrets distracted me—I was neglecting Emma and Ollie. They were standing to my left, Emma’s hand on Ollie’s shoulder. I turned and said, ‘If you don’t do things yourself they don’t get done. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve had to write their yarns for them.’

  I shook my head in fake annoyance and Ollie shook his head as if concurring. Emma was po-faced about it all, mouth-corners forcing up an impatient smile. I’d hoped she’d be impressed by my speech-making. There was no need to perform for her further—I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was having second thoughts about the wisdom of this visit. Katie Brooks spoke up again as I’d arranged.

  ‘This tax story,’ she said.

  I shut her up: ‘Drop it, Katie.’

  ‘You wanted it.’

  ‘Too small-fry for us. Do something else.’

  A dozen businessmen were in trouble on suspicion of tax evasion. Including Gordon Grace. This happens sometimes when you try to tarnish names: there are truths in the lies you’ve spread that you never expected. A government crackdown on tax havens had led to a probe into GG’s affairs. ‘Irregularities’, the press release said.

  I’d gone too far with my big-noting and risked the whole night just to re-smear a man I figured I’d already beaten. Emma detected my unease. The corner of my eye saw her turn her back to me.

  I suggested we make our way to my office. I allowed Ollie to go ahead of us so he could sit in my chair, my tattered throne that no one could sit in except
me, and now him. I had to stop the boy spinning around in case he broke the bolt the brittle stem bent on. I let him pretend to be me and yell ‘fix your grammar’ down the phone. I showed Emma the commands that work the software, the way to shift the copy around and cut out the fat of the language for the muscle and bone. I’d made sure to place two photographs there, one each side of my dictionary: the two of us, and us with Ollie. I saw her look at them. I think she cared that they were there. She didn’t lean in and touch the edges of a frame, but she didn’t turn her nose up or make a scoffing sound.

  Pockets knocked and asked to enter. I hadn’t requested that he play the fawning proprietor but he took the initiative and wouldn’t stop praising me. I was the finest word professional he’d ever come across, he said. Our blossoming business was a credit to me.

  There’s a point where such puffery becomes unbelievable. I had to speak over him and say We’re late for dinner. He showed an interest in Ollie—‘What are your plans when you finish school? A journalist like your old man? That’s brilliant to hear. Perhaps we’ll see you one day working at pry.’

  I joked about carts and not putting them before horses, steered Emma into the corridor and waved Ollie to follow. I had that nagging threat-feeling men get when their wives meet other men. Do they pull out that ledger they store in their hearts and compare you, score you down against the enemy? And ‘the enemy’ is how you can feel even about best friends.

  As soon as I closed the front door I made sure I lowered Emma’s opinion of Pockets.

  ‘I’d hate to be his wife,’ I whispered to her. ‘Talk about peccadillos. He’s dilloing his pecker where he shouldn’t.’

  What a fucking stupid thing to say. Emma muttered, ‘You can talk,’ and I could have kicked myself.

  We walked north up the Chapel Street strip and jumped on the tram for a few stops, which set us down a block from the restaurant. We found a cocktail bar where Ollie was allowed to be with us providing he didn’t drink and we were gone before clubbers came in for pre-partying mixers.

  We sank into Chesterfields with very little to say. Ollie’s presence caused our air to be parental. I couldn’t court Emma (or whatever you’d call this awkward date). I toasted our anniversary and asked to clink my glass against Emma’s Pimm’s, and she relented. I gave Ollie the toothpick from my martini and let him suck the vodka-soaked olive. I drank the alcohol quickly and said Well, here we are. I said Well, fifteen years. Emma said Yes and that was the conversation. I said Listen to us now. She said It’s normal, Callum. When I asked her what she meant by that she said Fifteen years makes us too familiar. We can’t expect to talk like teenage lovebirds.