‘I don’t know what to believe.’
‘Yes, you do. You believe me. I’m not badmouthing your mother, I’m just saying she’s got her wires crossed.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, almost inaudibly. And that tone of his. Like his mother’s when suspicious of my fakes. He was smart enough for that now, it seemed. I’d have thought perspicacity beyond him. It was primitive perspicacity if it existed at all. Still unformed enough for me to work around it.
‘You’re on a roll, son, with the good marks you’re getting.’
‘That’s you, not me. You intimidate people. You got Mr Gumm frightened.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘Mum says you dug up dirt. She said that to Gordon too.’
‘That’s appalling. Her wires are crossed on this issue as well. I have a few words in a teacher’s ear about the benefits of confidence and next thing I’m a villain and being intimidating.’
That addled his perspicacity. He was silent.
‘And stop calling him “Gordon” as if you’re friends. I want to confide something in you, Ollie. Your father’s involved in a very important cause at the moment. He’s doing a good turn for someone who is suffering. A young mother the law has forbidden to be with her child. I admit I have a chest-swelling feeling: the first time in my career I’ve had a cause other than my career. People bang on about doing good for others. I can see the benefit: you become proud of yourself; you feel a foot taller.
‘The issue will be that your dad has to chill the reader’s bones. This will interest you if you want to follow in my shoes. “Listen here,” I have to shout to the public. “I have a human tragedy to show.” I’m utterly sick of third-person when I’m writing a piece: she said; he said. That bullshit’s boring. I’m a first-person fan but first-person is not original. An original story should be original in every capacity. Why don’t I do this in second-person, I’m thinking? As if I’m speaking for Kelli O’Bough, pleading her case—They said you committed infanticide but you don’t remember a thing. You were a loving mother before it happened…
‘There it is. There’s the opener. It was your doing, Ollie. Addressing you like consulting with a colleague, a crafty grown-up, not some sulky victim kid. See how confidence works? You get a few good marks and you’re a different person, more confident. Aren’t you? Eh? Answer me.’
‘Suppose so.’
‘Suppose so? Well, I’ll tell you something. Your confidence is contagious. Your confidence has jumped to me and I’m bubbling ideas up, not flattened by writer’s block.’
I told him: go to your desk and do your reading and writing. Do your maths work, do your essays. Don’t say I’m too dumb or too lazy and pull a shamed face. What did Mr Oxford say? That you were clever enough to change the Fowler and Fowler around, take old punctuation and make it modern-looking. Let’s see that cleverness translate into real marks, not fraudulent ones.
‘Know what I’m going to do? Your father is going to pull an all-nighter. Straight to the office now and get this big story written. I’m on a mission. Like I’m heading to parliament, like a senator righting the wrongs in a broken-down system.’
That smoothed matters for now. The boy said Sweet in his usual manner and we ended the call. Sweet was better than him rudely talking back. Telling me to shut up. Getting uppity, getting bold. You don’t say shut up to your father, whatever his habits or sins. You defer to his word if you’re a dim boy like Ollie. You only get one father and shouldn’t take him for granted. I’ll be dead one day and my son will wish he’d not questioned me. Keep your father on a pedestal. Live with the myths in life and live happy unless you’ve wits enough to cope with the truth of people.
30
Pry has reserved parking, six spaces over the road behind the pharmacist and a paint shop. I checked my watch and it was half-past eight. I thought by now I’d be the only one working but Katie Brooks’ scuffbumpered Getz was still in a spot and I could see lights on up in the office—the hall, the stairs and the journo floor. Normally I’d think I’m impressed by her work ethic but this night I hoped to have the place to myself. Just me, my wordsmith ways and a story to die for. I wanted to pace around the office, mutter my lines to test their timbre. Talk to myself in friendly argument about selection of phrasing and viable word choices. I’d use the system I call my Wordsmither’s Egg Theory—the top line the egg tip; beneath it the structure swells out with tragedy in detail, then trims down to a rounded-off ending. It takes talking to get that shape manifested. To make the words fit in the shell and not spill everywhere.
I went up the stairs expecting Katie to stretch her arms to emphasise her desk-bound fatigue but there was no sign of anyone and I worried about burglars. You have that happen when you turn up after hours. A head pops up from jemmying open drawers and suddenly two kids come at you with screwdrivers.
That didn’t happen. Instead I heard moans and a squeal. I saw a foot, red-painted toes hovering above Katie’s desk corner, a high-heel shoe dangling from a shin by its strap. The shoe swayed in rhythm with the moaning.
‘What the hell’s this?’ I called out.
The foot went still. The Cat’s head periscoped up, hair bedraggled over his eyes. He panted Shit, his head disappeared behind the desk. I bent down and could see him under there, pulling his pants up with difficulty given his crouched position, his erection and his panicking. His blue underpants jammed on his knees. He banged foreheads with Katie, who was yanking up her tights. Her bra was undone and between yanks she tried refastening it. I looked the other way on glimpsing a little white breast. Not from coyness but sympathy. No one wants their boss mulling those images—their breast or their privates—whenever they liaise with them.
The Cat stood and buttoned his shirt. He zipped his fly and flicked his forelock back. I leant forward and said: ‘Your fly is broken, Mr Katsipis?’
He couldn’t look in my face. He tucked his shirttails and muttered, ‘Sorry, Words. Sorry.’
Katie crawled around her desk, ‘Can’t find my glasses. Cat, help look. My glasses.’
A side of her skirt was caught inside her tights. Her shoe dragged behind her like a broken ankle.
I affected disgust—it was my duty to do so. I shook my head, cursed Unacceptable, unprofessional. The truth was I was only angry for my disrupted plans. I had history to make. I did not want company.
Katie found her glasses and arranged her skirt in its proper fall.
‘We live with our parents,’ she explained.
‘You know something?’ I said. ‘I’m not going to fuss. I’m in too good a mood to have my brain distracted by healthy young people copulating.’
I left them alone to smooth their clothing. I went to my desk, emptied my satchel—my pad, my pen, my old silvery voice recorder. I’d bought new batteries at a 7-Eleven and inserted them and wound the cassette back to the beginning. I had forty minutes of Kelli recorded and wanted to type it to a file for picking out quotes.
‘You still there?’ I called.
In they came. Katie first, her shoes off and a hole in the calf of her tights. She leant against The Cat’s shoulder and strapped her shoes on, hopping for balance as she buckled them.
‘Are you serious? That’s the end of the matter?’ The Cat asked.
‘I think so. Who am I to be a prude? In fact, I’ll let you two in on a personal scandal. When I was a younger man I borrowed my editor’s car for a stake-out on a story. My future wife, Emma, kept me company in the back seat. I missed getting the story but was thorough about cleaning up the back seat after us. Have you cleaned up after you?’
That was vulgar, I know, but such was my energy—I employed no restraint against poor taste. I, Words, had a pure original. I was God.
Sex has the smell of salmon and apricots. It drifts from the body for a distance of three metres. That’s how far away Katie and The Cat were. The scent went to my nostrils, not an unpleasant way to fill them.
‘You two go off and shower and leav
e me in peace.’
I am convinced there’s a smell that good stories give a body. A pong that seeps past your Aramis and drifts to other journalists. Whatever it’s like—the metallic of blood or the orange peel of crushed ants—Katie had picked the odour up in her breathing. She didn’t leave as I’d asked. She loitered and fixed her ponytail with fist-threads of a band.
‘You got something you’re working on, Words?’
‘I do. Well spotted. Full marks for perspicacity.’
‘What is it?’ The Cat asked. I bet he couldn’t smell me. He was no Katie. Not yet. Rubbing shoulders and groins with her might fetch him along quicker, turn his nascent dead glitter up higher.
‘Mai Tran mentioned nothing?’
They both shook their heads.
‘Her powers of secrecy are commendable, even if her tendency for tears on the job is not.’
One should not run down a staff member to others but in this case it would serve as a softening-up. Mai Tran, I’m afraid, had zero dead glitter. Soon enough I’d have to tell her to clear her desk and leave. My ‘tendency for tears’ comment would filter back and give the girl warning. Provide her with a chance to resign with dignity.
‘I’m working on a story,’ I said.
Katie’s vein genital was engorging from hairline to eyebrow.
‘What is it?’
‘A pure original, as they’d say in the old days.’
‘Can I get in on it?’
‘Can I get in too?’ said The Cat, determined to keep up with his brazen belle.
The point of pure original is that your by-line is not for sharing. Especially in this case, where I’d want jail time. Kudos shared is kudos watered down, fame-wise. That didn’t mean there weren’t minor tasks for juniors, jobs to enhance the narrative, but only peripherally. Nothing to take attention from me, the agitator.
‘I do have one or two things,’ I said. ‘I can’t do this all on my own. I was thinking Ryan the Innocent might help. But you’ll have to do.’
Katie’s genital became bluer from my insult.
‘Oh come on, Katie, only kidding. You’ll be perfect for this. My first choice. You too, Cat. A team effort. Sit down and listen.’
I told them about Kelli and played a minute of my cassette. Katie’s vein stayed swelled like twisted bone.
‘Shit hot,’ she said.
‘Shit hot,’ The Cat echoed.
‘What kind of society keeps a child from its mother? Infanticide’s awful but where’s our decency?’
Katie’s vein lost its whorl. It deflated to normal skin. She looked at The Cat and said, ‘This rings a bell.’
He shrugged. Katie said, ‘That’s Mai’s story. You rejected it.’
‘Yes, I did. For Mai’s sake, Katie. She’s not up to this, you must know that. My plan is to take the story to another level. They can put me in jail but I will not be gagged. To hell with contempt-of-court laws. We should report on the court of hearts because that’s where our souls live. Mothers, fathers and children. These yarns touch all of us.’
Katie’s vein started filling again and the blue smudged through.
‘Shit,’ she said. ‘That’s out there, Words. Wow.’
The Cat’s eyes were at full bulge, two olives in egg white.
‘They wouldn’t put you in jail, would they?’ he asked.
‘They can and I hope they do. All the better for making my stand. I won’t be bullied by lawyers and judges.’
‘Fuck, Words, you’ll be like a legend ten times over.’
I waved No more ofthis silly legendtalkbut I was biting back smirks and out of breath from palpitations of adrenaline.
‘This is what I want you both to do. Katie: your Pastor Shaw friend.’
‘From the stoning?’
‘From the stoning. Give him a call. He was keen for publicity. Well, this is his chance. I want an opinion piece from him calling for mercy for Kelli. A plea from the pulpit as if direct from Jesus.
‘Cat, from you I want infanticide figures: how many cases per year, official statistics. The official definition of infanticide as opposed to murder. It’s to do with not recovering from the birthing process. But check it. Get quotes from a specialist. Get quotes from mothers. Deadline is three days from now at the latest. Off you go, please. I’m about to put on my thinking cap.’
I rang Pockets before lowering my thinking cap into place. He couldn’t be trusted to show a smidgeon of gumption. I wanted him gone before I published my masterpiece. Because the law is a frightening nemesis. It demands you appease it with obedience, which was not my intention. Pockets would get lawyers involved and what are lawyers’ intentions? They are there to protect you. I did not want protection; I wanted the book thrown at me.
‘We’re heading off tomorrow, Words. A resort in Hawaii. I’ll be gone a week or so. That suit you?’
‘Take longer,’ I said with sagely nonchalance. ‘You need to treat your wife. Not rush repairing things. It’s a delicate business, patching up a marriage. It needs gentleness. It needs time. I call it the “slow-process balance”.’
‘We’re flying in one of those new first-class sections. Did you know they have queen-sized beds and a butler now?’
‘No, I did not know. I’m sure they’re romantic. You head off tomorrow, mend your marriage and let me run things here.’
‘How far are you along with the big story—the mother–child reunion?’
‘Oh, that’s in its infancy, so to speak. It might come up quickly. It might linger along. You go to Hawaii and put pry out of your mind. You’ve got personal troubles and that has priority.’
‘Tiffany and I have sort of bonded on this story. It’s helping us patch things. Me the good-guy advocate. It’s sexy and makes me look serious.’
‘I’m glad. But like I said, it’s far from ready.’
I wished him bon voyage but was thinking piss off.
31
I wrote the last lines first to have an ending to aim at:
If you don’t get access then what will life be for you? Lying in your bedroom wishing you were dead. Staring at photos of what life used to be.
I transcribed my tape and conjured a few pars of hyperbole:
Your future died the night your baby did. You wish you had died that night instead. You had everything you wanted. Now you have nothing.
I paced about, muttering more sentences.
Police at the hospital let you hug Jade for a while. If you’d known they’d take her from you, you’d have never let her from your arms.
All night I paced and muttered and by dawn the piece was two-thirds done. Two thousand words of pulled heartstrings and hammer-fist piety:
The law is a coward that has committed a crime itself—the theft of a child from a sick young mother. Merciless in its conduct by denying natural love. An ignorant overrider of expert doctors.
I denounced the Children’s Court as a secret society:
Behind closed doors they create your misery. I’ll probably go to jail for this story, but surely we’ve had a gutful of judges destroying innocent lives.
I knew the procedures well enough to predict how they’d arrest me. First there’d be a panicky phone call by prosecutors, a bully-bluff threat: ‘Wipe it from your website or we’ll go you!’ I’d say no and straight away there’d be a courier with a letter, same threat in writing under official letterhead. I’d write no and have a courier send that back to them.
At this stage I’d arrange for Peeko to tip off other media: the TV, the radio: ‘Callum Smith will not be broken. He’s taking on the law. He’s going all the way.’ She’d still be hurt, she’d still be bitter, but business is business. I’d talk her around.
Police would arrive at pry, senior detectives—‘We’re here to interview you.’
The story will not be withdrawn, I’d vow. No, I won’t apologise. No, I won’t back down. ‘I don’t want to go to jail,’ I’d claim. ‘But I will if I have to. Put me in handcuffs.’ All this would
happen in hours, not days. They’d arrest me and I’d appear before a Supreme Court judge. I’d refuse to co-operate: ‘I’m taking a moral stand.’ They’d lock me in a cell beneath the courtrooms. I’ve never seen down there but crooks call it The Cooler. I’d hold my nerve somehow and be sent to remand. That’s the part I’m most worried about: in with rapists and murderers. I looked up the rules about contempt-of-court jailing and in theory a judge could keep me in custody forever. But there’d be campaigns to free me. Petitions signed. Protests. A cause célèbre colleague for less valiant journos.
If I were writing the headlines they’d begin with ‘Brave Bid’. Brave Bid for Law Change. Words Worth Jail Says Judge.
If I smelt of a story to Katie and The Cat I smelt of body odour from my armpits eight hours on. I was sweat-wet and trickles tickled my sides. I do that when I work at fullest concentration. My spine-skin channels little creeks of sweating. It soaks my belt and the back of my trousers. I stand and the crack feels oily behind my testicles. I saved the file to my personal emails and strolled and stretched. Flicked tap water in my itchy eyes and had a long piss.
Off with the lights, I locked the premises and bought coffee at Go Joe’s cafe. When you’re young an all-nighter doesn’t rattle your nervous system. You yawn and shower and on you go with your day. Get to forty-eight and you fall asleep waiting for waiters. I sat and used my arms for a napping pillow. The girl who made my latte had to prod me. I used the steering wheel to nap driving west to my apartment. Twice somebody beeped me at the green signal.
Tiredness provides you with a different perspective on tribulation. It makes your trials worse, weakens resolve, begs you to give up and crawl. It is hopeless and pitiless. It was the perfect state for thinking about Emma. I could finally admit it. We did not like each other. I her. Her me. How could this be, after fifteen years and a child between us, a house we’d shared? The answer did not matter. It had happened and the tiredness was like a formal letter: you will be divorced within twelve months. Accept it. Start again. Fight hard in the settlement. Make peace with your son. If there’s no peace you must accept that too. You can have another child. This time a daughter. A new wife. Younger, firm-fleshed. A clean-slate future.
Off the Record Page 20