“And what about the rest? Do we really want to be $2 million in debt?”
Fran shrugged. “I guess we’ll have to ask Warwick to explain the terms.
When’s he back?”
“Six weeks, I think.”
“Guess we postpone any decisions until then. There’s no rush is there?” I folded the document and placed it carefully in a desk drawer.
“Racing in Murwillumbah today, Fran,” I called. “You haven’t forgotten?”
“I’ve packed lunch for you, and I filled the car with petrol on the way home from the shops yesterday.”
“Have you been told today?”
She laughed and kissed me lightly. “Save it for after the race meeting, my darling. I think a little celebration is in order. I’ll make a special dinner. You, lover, can supply my dessert.”
For perhaps the first time in my life I was genuinely happy. My relationship with Fran was good. My children --- exceptionally mature and level–headed for their age and thankfully staying well clear of the student temptations --- were excelling at school and university and planning bright futures. I enjoyed my job at the race track. Swab steward collecting horse urine may not sound like a rewarding occupation, but I loved those beasts and it was satisfying to know I could persuade even the most difficult of them to respond to my commands. The pay was lousy, but I was acquiring a wealth of knowledge that would one day see me achieve my long–cherished ambition of devising a betting system to deliver consistent profits. Talking to trainers and jockeys was steadily adding to my wealth of knowledge about those elusive factors determining when and where a racehorse will win.
I loved being part of the town band. The occasional paid gigs with the Bavarian band were pure ecstasy, although sadly they were far too infrequent to boost my income to anything close to respectable. Fran and I were living on hope, and my hopes rested with Warwick Griswold, the patent attorney who partnered with inventors to find ways to convert ideas to reality.
Humming happily, I backed the car out of the drive and turned on to the highway.
#
“A prominent Lismore patent attorney was last night arrested on fraud charges.”
The regular Channel Nine newsreader was on vacation and his novice stand–in struggled to hide her inexperience. Sitting stiffly at her desk in her crisp linen suit, hair a flicker of fire and eyes slightly glazed, she read with nervous precision, too focused on presentation to expose any emotional response to the story she relayed.
“Warwick Griswold partnered with over 30 inventors over the past six years promising to lodge patents and arrange commercialisation loans or investment. Promising lucrative deals for clients, Mr Griswold induced them to borrow tens of thousands of dollars to secure patents and pay up–front costs to facilitate contractual agreements. But Griswold never applied for the patents and the contracts never eventuated. Instead, Warwick Griswold sold intellectual property and patent rights for any genuinely promising inventions he stumbled across, and fleeced millionaires for hundreds of thousands with promises of shares in companies he claimed could produce fuel from water or electricity from vapour, regrow amputated limbs and cure deadly diseases. Police were waiting for Griswold at Brisbane International Airport when he returned yesterday from a trip to Switzerland. He has been charged with thirty–two counts of fraud. Police say they estimate Griswold stole more than $3 million from clients and investors.”
I stared numbly at the television set. The demons taunted me. I reached for my beer and noticed my hands were shaking slightly. I felt cold.
Fran came to me, looking wretched and haggard. She put her arms around my neck, but I pushed her roughly away. Glistening tears rolled down her cheeks.
“What can I say, Paul?”
“Say you should have known better than to hope, Paul Wilson. And stop blubbering, Fran. It’s not as if it’s anything new. Snafu! Situation normal. All fucked up.”
I walked to the fridge for a stubby, then changed my mind and fetched a large bottle of vodka from the pantry. Fran sighed and said goodnight.
#
It was mixed emotions and a good deal of trepidation that I listened one evening, two months after Warwick Griswold’s arrest, to my wife’s suggestion that we up stakes again, and make a third dramatic life change. Our youngest child was about to graduate high school. The other two were already studying away from home.
“We can’t afford to keep three kids in university, all living away from home, Paul,” she said. “If we move to the city, they can live at home while they are studying.”
I didn’t know how to respond. I honestly didn’t know what I wanted. Not to leave the Bavarian band, nor to give up stewarding. But the combination of those two occupations with the intermittent casual work I was picking up didn’t pay the bills. Fran struggled to make a small profit in her little business and the hours she worked to achieve that were crazy. She had some sort of plan for another business in the city. We both figured that, from a financial perspective, things couldn’t be much worse.
A month later, an agent posted a ‘Sold’ sign in our front yard and we loaded a removal van and moved to the city. I struggled desperately to find a shred of hope to cling to, that the pattern of my life might yet somehow change. Hopes and beliefs die, but the fire of determination still burnt strong. I had a point to prove, and I had yet to exact that long–awaited revenge.
~~~~
43: GOING PUBLIC
ADELAIDE, JUNE 1997
“I’m an inventor,” I declared. It wasn’t a lie. So what if I omitted to mention that I had never actually made a dollar out of inventing and my paid occupation was embarrassingly insignificant? One thing retired army musicians never did --- well, probably most men never did, in fact --- was retreat from a pissing contest. And pissing contests were a significant feature of Australian Army Band Corp reunions.
This one was in Adelaide. I hadn’t been to one for several years and Fran had never been to South Australia, so we decided to go. As long as I didn’t have to reveal too much about my current employment status, I figured I could enjoy a few beers and plenty of good laughs with old mates.
Peter Tuck was first to ask the inevitable question and I was well prepared for it. I practised my public pose as diligently as I had practised music in my youth. Well, maybe ‘pose’ wasn’t quite the right word. I didn’t actually pretend to be something I wasn’t. It was more what I didn’t say --- the lack of significant clarification --- that might be said to mislead just a little.
Peter opened his mouth to ask for more information, but the waitress intruded just then with the hors d’oeuvre tray. Then some of our other mates from those heady young days in uniform joined us to drink and laugh over somewhat distorted and often exaggerated recollections of past exploits.
“Remember the day that pommy sergeant couldn’t remember the command ‘Fix Bayonets’, and yelled out ‘Knives on guns put?’” someone laughed. “The entire platoon cracked up!”
“What about that time Ray Waldon lost it after the drum major ripped into him? He threw his trombone high in the air and it somersaulted, split apart and crashed to the ground. We all watched in horror. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. First the trombone turned over and over, glinting in the sunlight, then first one piece then the other somersaulted and dropped at the drum major’s feet. Everyone was certain Ray’s career in army bands was over.”
“So what happened?” someone who hadn’t been there inquired.
“The drum major marched him into the boss’s office and told the boss what happened. The boss just looked at him and said very calmly ‘Then get him another one’.”
Disbelieving stares.
“True story! The boss knew the drum major had been on Ray’s case for a long time.”
Someone recalled a time, in Korea, when a group was stealthily creeping through the jungle, alert for any sign the enemy might be lurking. One of the group, renowned as a bit of a comedian, said, “I think we need some sus
pense music just now” and hummed the first few bars of Beethoven’s fifth, as used in the movie The Longest Day.
“That was Viv Law,” Peter said. “One of the nicest blokes you could ever wish to meet.” I nodded agreement. Vince had been a very special friend.
Sam chimed in then, having been with Viv when it happened. “He was about six yards in front of me in the ‘J’,” he said. “He looked around through the bushes and called out to me in a loud whisper. I said ‘What?’, then he said
‘What we need is some dramatic music’, and he did the boom boom boom baaah thing. I nearly drowned, ’cos we were up to our arses in a swamp.”
I recalled our compulsory sports afternoons in Singapore. An angry sergeant eventually put a stop to our antics, but for over a year we chose between card games, chess, darts or ‘tennis’. Someone had produced an article comparing the physical exertion involved in having sex with playing several sets of tennis, so the newlyweds among us --- and singles who could find obliging partners --- often opted to play ‘tennis’ in bed, and signed off declaring we had played eight sets.
We had some good times. Peter had done his 20 years, as had most of my mates, and I envied them the security of their army pension. I wondered, listening to them and remembering, just how I could have hated the life so much when we’d had so much fun.
What if I hadn’t left? Where would I be today?
It was a question I didn’t want to ponder, because, in hindsight, that decision had cost so much. Twenty–four years of struggle in jobs I hated, on lousy pay. Twenty–four years to realise the things I hated so much about army life were part of life in general. Authority, fools in power making decisions they aren’t qualified to make and screwing up the lives of others. Inflated egos, senseless rules, jobs that are only occasionally satisfying and more often involve boring routine. Actually, the job of an army musician was far more stimulating and fun than most, and a lot better paid than anything I’d done for more than 20 years after. And the mateship! We were trained to stand shoulder–to–shoulder against any enemy, and although we might be out of contact for decades, most of us would still defend a buddy to the death if the need arose. When challenged by outsiders, we could team up to hold successfully against a formidable enemy, but among our own the ego contests were fierce and unrelenting.
Well, I was an inventor. I invented or modified tools for every job I tackled and created all sorts of little gadgets to automate household tasks and enhance my own and Fran’s lifestyle. I’d invented three potentially commercial devices and patented two.
My next invention, a year or so later, was to be more successful. It would lead me to embark on what Fran and I would come to refer to as our ‘wild ride’ in the heady world of international big business. It would be hard to find a more unlikely couple to run a global information technology company, but we were to find ourselves, at the height of the so–called I.T. bubble, courting global industry leaders and counting millions.
At the time of Peter’s question, though, I was substantially unemployed, completely unmotivated, and lacking any realistic prospects for improvement in my situation, had I been at all inclined to want to make any. Overall, life was tough and unfulfilling. My self–esteem was at rock bottom. I eased off the drink because I couldn’t afford it, but I craved it when those frequent waves of depression washed over me and when boredom and frustration overwhelmed me --- and that was most of the time.
After years of struggling to make a decent profit selling software and services, Fran had hit on an idea that seemed destined to succeed and, having had to quit my job as a steward when we moved to the city, I was working as her 'gofer’. I spent my days running errands, photocopying courseware on a single–shot photocopier, and laboriously manually collating and binding lesson books. I certainly wasn’t going to confess my true occupation in a pissing contest. Despite never having made a dollar out of inventing, I wasn’t telling any lies.
By the time we were alone again, Peter had apparently lost his earlier train of thought and thankfully didn’t ask again about my occupation. Instead, he inquired after Fran. Peter was divorced. He could never leave Helen while Ede was alive, and he reckoned he’d suffered years of marital misery until his mother died and he was finally free to make the break. I suspected it was more likely Helen who suffered. Peter was always a bit of a cad, and I suspected Ede knew it.
He’d transferred corps about the time I got out and he did pretty well for himself. After discharge, he worked as a hospital orderly and then trained as a paramedic. He also ran a band for disabled kids, but he wasn’t paid for that.
“Of course you knew Mum passed away a few years back, didn’t you?” Peter said, as an afterthought.
“Yes. I sent flowers. I wanted to go to the funeral, but there was just no way we could get to Perth at the time.”
Peter nodded. “And your mum? Is she still alive?”
“Yes. Still fit. Misses Dad, but one of my brothers lives with her and she always has a stack of grandchildren around.
“She came up to stay with us for a while after Dad died,” I told him. “The kids were ecstatic. They adore her. Fran sorted out her pension entitlements. Turned out Dad had never received a veteran’s pension, even when he became invalid. Bloody shiny–arsed pencil–pushers never bothered to tell him he was entitled. Fran fought to get Mum a war widow’s pension, and finally succeeded. She got $11,000 back pay and to her it was as good as winning a million in the lottery. They’d been moved into government housing when Dad got sick, but she had very little furniture, and no conveniences. She bought her first washing machine, a vacuum cleaner, a microwave oven and a new lounge suite. She was in heaven.”
“It’s hard to imagine a woman in Australia still living without those conveniences into the '80s.”
“She’s a tough old bird. Never complained, and it doesn’t seem like the hard work did her any harm. She’s full of energy and has a wonderfully happy disposition.”
While she was staying with us, and later when I went out and spent a few weeks on my own with her, I finally got to know my mother and to really appreciate what a remarkable woman she was. Dad had lectured me about treating women with respect and my mother told me that as tough as her life was, she seldom suffered a harsh word from her husband. It wasn’t due to Dad’s upbringing. Elsie was a gentle, patient woman, but she had a fire in her belly and a very firm way of enforcing her high standards in the home.
She was totally unselfish --- generous to a fault --- and she had a wonderfully positive and forgiving attitude to life and people. The only time I ever heard her utter an unkind word about anyone was when my daughter told her she had been to Japan on a school exchange program. Mum could never forgive the Japs for what they had done to Dad. Anyone else’s transgressions were forgiven within five minutes of being committed. She would state her opinion very matter–of–factly and quite openly --- never behind anyone’s back --- and she would have nothing further to say ever again.
“Actually, I think your mum and mine were a lot alike in many ways,” I added. “Maybe that’s why it was so easy for me to call Ede ‘Mum’.”
Peter smiled broadly.
We chatted on for a little while about my brothers and sisters, their families, Peter’s kids and mutual friends. Then a loudspeaker buzzed, announcing the evening’s formalities were about to begin. Thankfully, there weren’t a lot more questions about my occupation. Those that were asked were deflected with the same practised response and without elaboration. The next reunion I attended, my status had changed so radically that I relished the questions.
NOVEMBER, 1998
“Four more orders in the mail and two on the fax machine. That’s over $14,000 already this week!”
Kaylee, Fran’s bubbly young personal assistant, had started work part– time, shortly after Fran started writing her computer training course. She seemed completely overwhelmed by the success of it. She had been with us several years now --- moving to full–time w
ork before the end of the first year. It seemed she would never cease to be astonished at the way orders flowed in and courseware flowed out.
“And I just took another order over the telephone,” Fran laughed. “Looks like your job is secure for another week.”
“Steve called while you were on the other line. He wants you to call him back a.s.a.p.” Kaylee said, “He said he has good news.”
Minutes later, Fran danced out of her office singing. “Prospectus approved, Paul. Call the printers! We are going public!”
It was 1998. I had just turned 50, Fran had been marketing her training course for eight years and the sales just kept growing.
I had conceived yet another invention. I’d never taken more than a passing interest in computers, but using an innovative mechanical approach, I believed I’d worked out how to copy protect digital music.
When a friend first suggested looking for venture capital, Fran had no idea what the term meant, but she went to a seminar on ‘Becoming Investor Ready’ and came back bubbling with enthusiasm. Business plans were based on the projected profits from expanding Fran’s training business, but flavoured with the excitement of potentially solving a major global dilemma by allocating a sensible percentage of turnover to research.
Fran wrote investor offers and mailed them, then for months received letters of rejection one after another. Then an offer came through, followed quickly by several more.
“Are they all going to be like this? It won’t be our business at all. We might as well sell out and be employees.”
“I suppose they figure if they are putting up the money, they should own the goods.”
“Do they have to be so insulting? Look at this! ‘Ideas are everywhere. We need to be confident that you will match our investment of dollars.’ If ideas are so easy, why don’t they come up with their own instead of wanting such a big share of ours?”
I shouldn’t have been surprised when Fran came to me one day announcing that she had figured out a better way to fund business expansion. By now, nothing Fran did should astonish. She’d started marketing her training courses before they were written. A ‘market test’, she called it. When the orders flooded in, she couldn’t bring herself to tell customers there wasn’t actually a product yet, so she told them she would send a lesson a month for the next year.
The Pencil Case Page 32