by Judy Nunn
'GBH? Grievous bodily harm?'
'Right,' she laughed. 'Sorry, I didn't get it.'
'Everyone quakes in their boots when we turn up to audit the books and cast a legal eye over what's been going on,' he said, tucking into his meal with relish. 'Most of our work is with major corporations but we accept the odd government contract. God, I wish you could get dhufish in Sydney.'
'So what exactly are you doing for the government?' Jo was intrigued.
'Oh, just the usual – our team's running a check on the various federal departments. We're doing Health this week, then we'll be back for Tourism, then Foreign Affairs, Defence, Vet Affairs – a sort of ongoing audit. All pretty mundane stuff.'
'Really?' She looked sceptical. 'Isn't it a little coincidental that an "ongoing audit" has been ordered right at this time? I mean, given the current situation in Perth?'
'You mean the inquiries into WA Inc?'
'Exactly. They're mounting a Royal Commission – Carmen Lawrence announced it just last week. Surely that's why you're here?'
'Good God, no, we're an independent company under contract to the federal government.' His expression was one of mock horror. 'And the federal government never involves itself in state affairs, everyone knows that.' He took a sip of his wine. 'My presence in Perth has no connection at all with the current fracas.'
She smiled and raised a dubious eyebrow. She didn't believe him for a minute.
'Well, one does keep one's eyes and ears open, of course,' Andy admitted, returning her smile. 'Everyone's naturally interested in what's going on in WA.' Interested, he thought, they were terrified! Bob Hawke's federal Labor government was as worried as all hell – and justifiably so. The fiasco in WA could backfire on the lot of them.
'We lawyers do talk amongst ourselves, you know how it is. I mean, word does get around.'
Jo laughed. He was outrageous, he'd all but confessed to the fact. 'Face it, Andy, you're a spy.'
'What a terrible thing to suggest. Are you up for dessert?'
They both decided upon the crème caramel.
The political situation in WA had indeed reached epic pro-portions, which now reverberated around the country.
The final liquidation of Rothwells Merchant Bank had caused huge losses, not only to its investors, but to the Western Australian government. The subject of the 150-million-dollar government guarantee to Rothwells had come in for heavy questioning, and attention had been drawn to many other government involvements with private businessmen during Brian Burke's premiership.
Carmen Lawrence, having replaced Dowding as WA Labor Premier earlier that year, had just announced her government's intention to hold a Royal Commission to 'inquire into certain matters'. Heads were plainly set to roll.
'How was lunch today?' Mike asked that night when he arrived home from the Institute shortly before seven thirty.
'We ate at the Parmelia, the dhufish was excellent, and I had crème caramel for dessert.'
'Come on,' he laughed, 'you know what I mean.' He crossed to the sideboard and poured himself a scotch. Jo was sipping a cup of tea as she watched the ABC News. 'How was your old mate Andy?'
She put down her cup, picked up the remote and turned the television set off. The news was nearly over and she very much wanted to talk anyway.
'He was funny actually. The whole thing started out as a scene from Private Lives – I'd forgotten just how funny Andy can be. But you were right.'
'About what?'
'He's still in love with me.'
The news itself was no surprise to Mike, but the man's declaration most certainly was.
'He didn't say so, surely!'
'Oh yes. I'm fully aware it's been twenty years, and I've loved you for every single one of them.' She gave the words their full theatrical flair. 'As I said, he was playing Noel Coward, or Elyot, or both. But he meant every word.'
Bloody cheeky, Mike thought, taking a swig of his scotch. 'Are you going to see him again?'
'Oh, I don't know,' she said teasingly as he sat beside her on the sofa. 'Why do you ask? Are you jealous?'
'Not a bit,' he replied. 'I trust you. But if the bloke tries to come on to you I'll knock his bloody lights out.'
Realising he was serious, she stopped playing games. 'Andy wasn't coming on to me, Mike. In his own way, he was just letting me know how much I'd hurt him. I must say I was surprised – it was all so long ago – but let's face it, I did leave the poor man virtually at the altar.'
She leaned in to him and kissed him gently. 'I didn't really have much option though, did I?' she murmured, and as she looked into his eyes her smile was brazen. 'It's all your fault, you know. You broke Andy's heart. I didn't.'
He would have liked to make love to her there and then, but she rose from the sofa.
'What do you want for dinner?' she asked, well and truly breaking the mood of the moment. Jo hadn't yet broached the subject uppermost in her mind, but she felt it wise to get off the topic of Andy before she did. 'I could defrost some chops. It'll just be the two of us – Allie's gone to the movies.'
'Do you really feel like cooking?'
'Nope.' She didn't, after the dhufish and crème caramel; lunch was normally a sandwich. 'Shall we go decadent?' Go decadent was their shorthand for pizzas.
'Good idea.' He downed the scotch and stood. 'I'll order a couple of family size. I'm starving, and Allie'll wolf down whatever's left when she gets home. Name your poison,' he said as he crossed to the phone.
'Don't care. Anything with anchovies.'
He rang and ordered the takeaway, after which Jo decided that the moment was right.
'Mike,' she said, 'how would you feel if I were to go back to work?'
'What do you mean? You do work.' He was puzzled. 'You work at the Institute. You're invaluable to us.'
'I'm not any more, not these days.' Surely he'd noticed, she thought. Then she realised that he probably hadn't. 'I report in several times a week, but my duties are token, you must know that. I want to go back to medicine. Full-time. I thought I might apply to the Royal Perth Hospital in the new year. They need doctors.'
'Do they?' he asked, simply for want of something better to say. He was at a loss – this had come completely out of the blue. How could she call her duties token? And what difference did it make whether she worked several or seven days a week? She was devoted to the Institute, she always had been.
'Every hospital needs doctors, Mike. And that's what I am. A doctor.'
The words were Andy's. 'You're a doctor, Jo,' he'd said. 'Surely you're not happy working part-time in a laboratory? Don't you miss medicine? You were so dedicated. What happened?' She hadn't pursued the conversation he'd introduced over coffee, but he'd made his point anyway. He'd successfully stirred up the hornets' nest of longing which, although dormant for some time, hadn't needed much awakening.
'I take it this is Andy's doing,' Mike said coldly. Of course it was, he thought, it had to be.
'Partly,' she admitted. She sensed he was annoyed, but she wanted to be honest. 'I hadn't realised how compliant I'd become, Mike. I need inspiration, I need to work. My work's who I am. Or who I used to be,' she corrected herself.
'Well, well, well . . .'
He crossed to the sideboard to pour himself a rare second scotch, biding time, trying to control his growing anger. Compliant? Compliant to whom? To what? To him? To the Institute? They'd shared a dream, the two of them. Surely the McAllister Institute was inspiration enough for her.
'It appears Andy Gaden has a lot to answer for,' he said tightly. The presumption of the man astounded him. Not content with declaring his undying love, he'd aroused dissatisfaction in Jo. What gave him the right to meddle in their lives?
'Don't blame Andy, Mike, please.' She crossed to him. 'He simply asked if I missed medicine, and I realised how very, very much I did. I'm grateful to Andy, and I'd like you to be too. I'll be happier working at the hospital, I know I will.'
His anger died in an ins
tant and he turned to face her.
'Have you been unhappy, Jo?' Surely not. How could she have been unhappy? He would have noticed.
She smiled her reassurance; she could see he was concerned. 'Not unhappy, my darling,' she said gently. 'Not unhappy, I promise you, but perhaps a little unfulfilled – lately, anyway. I need to rediscover a life of my own.'
'I see.' He put down the glass of scotch, he didn't want it anyway. Had he really deprived his wife of a life of her own? If so, he certainly hadn't realised it. Should he feel guilty? Mike was confused. 'I'm sorry,' he said. He didn't know what else he could say.
'What on earth for?' She laughed – he looked so boyish in his confusion, like a child who'd been chastised for a wrong he couldn't comprehend. 'There's nothing to be sorry about. I just need a change, that's all.'
The doorbell rang.
'That'll be the pizzas. Excellent timing. End of conversation.'
She grabbed her wallet and disappeared into the hall, and he was left wondering how he'd allowed himself to become so completely out of touch. It appeared Andy Gaden knew his wife better than he did.
'Time to eat,' she announced when she returned minutes later with the pizzas. He followed her into the kitchen where she dumped the boxes on the table.
'Oh, by the way,' she said, lifting the plates out of the cupboard, 'I forgot to tell you. Andy's a spy.'
'He's a what?'
'Well, he's not actually a spy, and yet he is in a way.' She handed him the plates. 'His team of legal eagles is here to run a check on the books of federal government departments, but he's obviously expected to sniff around and report back on the WA Inc debacle.'
'Really?'
'Yes, really.'
She fetched a roll of paper towels and they sat at the table.
'Well, it's hardly surprising that they're worried in Canberra. Bob Hawke was good mates with Burke and Connell – according to Spud, anyway. He says Hawke was primarily responsible for Burke getting into power in the first place.'
Jo lifted out a wedge of seafood pizza. 'Spud was pretty matey with Burke himself,' she said. 'How does he feel about the Royal Commission?'
'He's not talking about it much, not to me anyway. He just shrugs it off, saying it's the politicians who'll suffer. They're the crooks, he says, all he ever did was donate funds to the party.' Mike tackled the pepperoni. 'I suppose we'll have to wait and see what happens in the new year, but Spud'll be fine, I'm sure.'
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Royal Commission's first principal witness, Laurie Connell, didn't shy away from telling the facts as they were. He was quite blunt, even boastful, about his relationship with Brian Burke and their joint business dealings. He was open also about the dealings of others, and of Brian Burke's 'new order', his 'elite of the able'.
The fresh allegations that arose from Connell's evidence revealed the true extent to which Western Australia, under Burke's premiership, had become an executive state with no constitutional balance maintained. The government and those with powerful vested interests had acted unchecked and in total collusion, undermining the very principles of the Westminster system of democratic rule.
Political shockwaves reverberated around the country.
Prime Minister Bob Hawke was under mounting pressure to recall Burke from his position as ambassador to Ireland and the Holy See. Hawke refused. But a month into the hearings, the heat generated was so intense that Foreign Minister Gareth Evans announced Brian Burke would return to Australia, having been granted three weeks' paid leave, and that he would give evidence to the WA Royal Commission. Shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Hawke agreed at a press conference that he, too, was prepared to appear before the Commission if asked to do so.
In May 1991, Brian Burke took the witness stand, pale, puffy-eyed and nervous, a shadow of his former braggart self.
Burke and Connell remained central figures crucial to the proceedings, but they were only two of many witnesses, from both the political and private business sectors, who would be called upon to give evidence over the twenty-one months of inquiries and hearings. And they would not be the only ones left facing criminal charges.
'I've stood by you through it all, Ian.'
Arlene Pemberton was trembling with justifiable rage. She'd been a good wife, she told herself, she'd behaved nobly. She'd stood by him when Excalibur Holdings had gone into liquidation, and she'd stood by him these past months with the Farrell Corporation facing bankruptcy. But this? This was going too far. She couldn't be expected to stand by him through this.
'I've watched our entire world crumble around us. I've watched as we've lost everything, and I haven't said a word.'
She'd actually said a great deal, and, as her husband's remaining assets were in her name, she actually owned a great deal, but none of that was pertinent to Arlene under the current circumstances.
'But I warn you, if you're charged I will seek an instant divorce and you will never see your children again. Do you understand me?'
Arlene refused to succumb to the hysteria that threatened. Ultimatums lacked conviction if delivered hysterically.
'You will move out of this house until the hearings are over,' she said. 'And if you end up facing charges, Ian, don't bother coming back.'
She lost control just a little before she swept out of the room. 'How could you have let it come to this?' she hissed. 'The shame! How could you do it to me? How could you do it to the children?'
Ian Pemberton and Spud Farrell were to be the next cabs off the rank. Laurie Connell had continued to testify before the commission until the end of November. A lengthy array of politicians and businessmen, including Alan Bond, had been called to give evidence, and now, in the new year of 1992, it was Spud's and Pembo's turn.
Spud watched with an element of distaste as Ian, his head in his hands, sobbed uncontrollably.
'She's kicked me out of the house, Spud. She says if I end up being charged, she'll divorce me.'
Good riddance, Spud thought, you'd be better off without the bitch. But he didn't say anything. He knew he should feel sorry for Pembo: this wasn't the customary Pemberton panic, this was a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown. But he wished Pembo would stop blubbering; they needed to form a strategy.
'She says I'll never see the children again.'
'Your kids are nineteen, for God's sake! They're adults! They can make up their own minds.'
'She'll turn them against me, I know she will.' Ian fought to control himself, wiping his runny nose with the back of his hand. 'What am I going to do, Spud?' He looked up in despair, a quivering mess. 'I can't go to jail, I'll lose everything. What am I going to do?'
'You're going to pull yourself together, that's what you're going to do.' Spud disappeared to the nearest bath-room and returned with a box of tissues. 'Where are you staying?' he asked.
'I booked into the Sheraton.' Ian took a fistful of tissues from the box Spud handed him and blew his nose loudly.
'Right. Well, for starters, we'll collect your stuff. You can move in here.'
'Thanks, Spud. I really appreciate that.' Wiping his tear-stained face, Ian attempted a tremulous smile. He'd more or less gained control now. 'You're a good mate to have around,' he sniffed.
'It's not as if Cora and I don't have enough space.'
Spud gave a comradely grin as he looked about at their lavish surrounds, but the offer hadn't really been made in the true spirit of mateship. Spud knew that Pembo would go to pieces completely in a hotel room on his own. And he couldn't afford to have Ian Pemberton go to pieces. They needed to work as a team.