Off the Record

by Craig Sherborne

  ‘Of course, and I thought twice about looking at them, I promise you. And then I thought, Come on, man, we’re partners. You’re a legend, Words. It’s just too tempting not to look into a legend’s mind. I’m in awe of you, I really am. Years and years of fantastic stuff.’

  I was disarmed again. My head pain vanished and I tried to crack my knuckles in pretend anger.

  ‘Thank you for saying that,’ I said. ‘But there are basic manners involved. I wouldn’t presume to look through your things.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I really am. But let’s talk about that anthology. Come on, you want a drink down at that place around the corner?’

  ‘I don’t think I should drink during work hours.’

  ‘We’re in charge, aren’t we? We can set the rules?’

  I shrugged and said, ‘Why not?’ I could look at his gilt face all day long. What would it be like to kiss a man?

  I was grateful that my mobile began dinging. It was Katie Brooks. A possible killing down at the docks and she asked to go. Said she’d never seen a corpse but wanted to.

  8

  The most creative things in this city are bar names. Intercourse is our local effort—before that they called it Double Entendre. Couches of brown vinyl arranged at right angles in the dimness. A fireless fireplace with a plaque saying ‘Fossil Fool’. Potted palms and cane tables. You sit in booths in a bamboo garden and get drinks delivered by toy train and carriage. A whistle then a rattle and your poison wends up the wall. Every meeting in a place like this feels risky and rude, an assignation.

  Pockets handed his Amex card to a Ned Kelly-bearded boy and we sat in a corner watching the train arrive. It was his job to lead the conversation—his idea to be here; I sipped and nodded to his voice. How his kids went to a Steiner school and didn’t read enough and couldn’t count to ten. How Mrs Breedlove, his house cleaner, trapped herself in the shower recess from dementia. Somebody should do something about cyclists riding on footpaths.

  The train rattled with more alcohol—his gin martini, my Polish vodka neat. I leant forward to where Pockets had leant to talk confidentially.

  ‘What’s the relationship with your wife like? Good?’ he asked.

  What kind of question was that? When was my wife his business? I sat there with my mouth open and wouldn’t answer.

  ‘I’m just interested.’

  ‘First my desk, now my personal life.’

  ‘You’re a man of the world. I’d value your advice.’

  ‘Emma and I live apart at the moment. But that’s normal in Europe. You live separately but not separated.’

  ‘French and Spanish get into all that shit.’

  ‘It’s modern. It’s good for sorting out problems.’

  ‘You reckon I should do that?’

  ‘Are you having problems?’

  ‘No, no, no. Well, yes, yes. I mean, just between you and me. Don’t say a word to people. I’ve had this thing with Jenny from before she worked here. Off and on. But Jenny, she wants a baby. It’s that time in her life. I had to tell her today I’m not leaving my wife and getting taken to the fucking cleaners. Fuck that. I’m a businessman first. So we’re going to have to work together and break up and get along. I’ve given her the week off to get herself together. You think that’s enough?’

  ‘I suppose. I don’t know.’

  ‘What’s the saying—Don’t shit in your own nest? Well, I have, and I’m cleaning it up best I can. I’ve promised my wife I’ll do marriage counselling. Like we’re patients or something. You ever done that?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Well, I’ll have to.’

  ‘I guess that’s all you can do.’

  ‘I’d like to know you’re a steady hand on the wheel.’

  ‘What wheel?’

  ‘Pry. You’re not going to bugger off and get another job because of my, you know, Jenny and me.’

  He stretched back in his chair while Ned Kelly delivered parmesan biscuits. Pockets stared at him, at his arms and calf muscles varicose with tattoos. A plastic disc for an earlobe. I thought for a moment there was going to be an incident but Pockets refrained from calling him white trash until the boy was gone. Then he bit on a biscuit and leant forward again so close I could smell the sour-sweet cheese on his breath.

  ‘Listen, if it didn’t work out with Jenny, if she wasn’t here anymore, you’d be editor, Words.’

  I’d been waiting to hear that all my journo life. Was it piss-talk or would he still say it sober? He wanted to eat biscuits, I wanted certainty.

  ‘So what you’re saying is, that’s a succession plan?’

  ‘Mmm,’ he said, spitting crumbs down his front. I shook out my paper napkin and flicked him clean. I was excited and wanted his attention all on me.

  ‘So how long before we know?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Whether Jenny works out.’

  ‘I can’t push her.’

  ‘I’m just asking.’

  He ate another biscuit and ordered more drinks.

  ‘Tell me, Words, what’s your philosophy about this journalism racket?’

  ‘Philosophy?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘There isn’t one.’

  I had to laugh at such a high-minded word being linked to what we do.

  I said, ‘It’s like break-and-enter into other people’s lives. Taking their tragedies’—I waved my hand—‘and turning them into stories for us.’

  ‘That’s the gig.’

  ‘That’s the gig,’ I said. ‘But it’s steady work. Steady supply of content. You get these press-gallery types and they just want to tear big people down. That’s the legacy of Watergate: bring down a president, fuck the government up, that’s the ultimate. But I’m fond of this smaller-scale way of operating. Steady content always coming in. Good crimes, nicely written and sent out into the world, then on to the next one.’

  Pockets guzzled more gin and slapped his fingertips on my kneecap. We were at the point of drunkenness where men do that—slap knees and hook arms around each other’s necks. We didn’t hook arms but we were close to it.

  ‘I wish I could write,’ he said. ‘People respect that in a person. It’s a sign you’re clever.’

  He wished he could do a lot of things, he said. ‘I’ve had this silver spoon in my mouth all my fucking life. Trying not to put a foot wrong. Having Jenny was like being a bit bad. It felt good. I don’t think I’ve done enough bad things in my life. As a kid you fuck about, smoke a bit of weed, shoplift from Woolies for the fun of it. But as an adult I dream of getting my hands more dirtier.’

  ‘Dirtier, not more dirtier,’ I said, holding up my finger in correction. ‘The more is redundant when used before the adjective.’

  I put my finger down and apologised for the pedantry. Pockets apologised for being drunk. It had affected his language. He slid to the edge of his chair, whispered, ‘Tell me something. What’s the baddest thing you’ve ever done?’

  ‘That’s a strange question! I avoid doing bad things.’

  ‘Come on. You can tell me.’

  He had his tongue out, the tip rubbing along his bottom lip, his eyebrows twitching. He tapped my knee to encourage a confession and when I refused it only aroused his devilment.

  ‘Come on. Tell me. Come on, Words. Don’t be coy, come on.’

  Was a trap being laid, a character test to confirm his trust in me? Alcohol is a dangerous truth serum. If there’s braggart in you, it will find it.

  No, I believe I saw in his eyes the traces of dead glitter. The plastic coating of menace, the pale flicker it takes cold water to flush away and even then it’s a temporary rinsing. He must have seen the same in me. I must have let down my disguise. Dead glitter to dead glitter, simpatico.

  It’s hard not to boast when you’ve done bad things, it brings out the naughty juvenile in you, showing off your ability to flout rules.

  ‘I’ve done heaps,’ I said, and rattled off my flyscreen anecdotes. My funer
al bullyings and defaming the dead. I nestled into the vinyl’s cracked cushioning and counted them off with my index finger from my pinkie to my thumb and back again. I watched Pockets laugh and wince, egging me on to brag more wickedness. My cheating on Emma in the car park that night. My jealous spying on her using my own flesh-and-blood son. Pockets clapped his hands together and praised me: ‘You’re a hard bastard, you are.’

  ‘You think that’s hard?’

  I told him about my tax-office call. I didn’t name Gordon Grace. I said ‘bigwig’—‘I want to ruin this bigwig who’s making a play for my wife.’

  Pockets giggled, applauded and shook his head to honour me. Then his bottom lip flopped down. He said, ‘Bigwig. Who?’

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘It’s just, if it’s someone I know…’

  ‘I’m sure he’s not.’

  ‘A relative. The shit might fan out. I don’t want tax problems. Don’t get me wrong—I am no tax cheat. But nobody wants tax problems. Please tell me, Words.’

  I thought of making up a false name. Decided against it. If Pockets was related to Gordon Grace, it was best I knew, for my sake. I could ring the tax office, undo my troublemaking.

  ‘His name is Gordon Grace.’

  Pockets had a vacant look as he considered the name.

  ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’

  We both sighed and laughed.

  ‘You’re a hard bastard, all right, Words.’

  He couldn’t believe he was in the presence of a liberated man. That’s what he called it, liberation, to set the animal in you free. Not caged up but all the mongrel let out. Cast away the social niceties, he said. There is no God. You answer to fuck all but the law. Even that won’t stop the mongrel in a person. It was such fun, speaking this way, he said. Totally open, not minding your Ps and Qs. Utterly animal, no manners or conscience. ‘Haven’t been struck by lightning, have we?’

  He looked up for lightning but there was only the drinks train. My lips and tongue were stinging from vodka. I’d had enough of it and only pretended to keep drinking.

  ‘The thing about Jenny is, she’d never talk like this. She’s got no mongrel. She’d read about that Brazilian guy and she’d go, That’s disgraceful, instead of Fuck, that’s amazing!’

  ‘What Brazilian guy?’

  ‘The guy you wrote about, it’s in your anthology.’

  ‘Walter Pereza?’

  ‘That’s him. What a genius mongrel.’

  ‘Arranged murders of people so he could report on them.’

  ‘That’s him. What a total genius.’

  Pockets laughed with his body shuddering, biscuit bits spraying from his lips. Talk about crazy, he said. Talk about tipping humanity on its arse. He thought he, Justin Nash of boarding-school breeding, was bad enough in what he could imagine. But killing people? That’s pure animal, one-hundred-per-cent mongrel hardcore.

  ‘Killing people is for third-world countries,’ I said. ‘There are smarter ways that have the same effect.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like techniques, various tricks and schemes. Like my tax-office thing with that Gordon prick.’

  ‘I’ve dreamt up a scheme or two,’ he said. ‘I’ve put myself in a reporter’s shoes. Remember that story about beggars from Katie Brooks? I’ve had beggars in the street abuse me for not giving money. Spit on my car when I said fuck off to them. Had to throw them cash to stop being embarrassed. And there’s my idea.’

  He stared at me as if his idea was obvious.

  ‘I’m sorry—what?’

  ‘We set people up. Someone high-profile, rich, influential. We pay a beggar to walk up, beg for money and crack the shits when they say no. We get photos of it, shame them for being so uncaring of those less fortunate. What you think?’

  He grinned as if expecting he’d impressed me and I would commend him. But that idea was old hat, called a stoning—short for heart of stone. I hadn’t done one for years—it belonged to a bygone era. I said so to Pockets and he frowned, offended. I said, Don’t be offended, you weren’t to know. That only made him grind his square and snowy jaw.

  I decided to patronise him further but do it tactfully.

  ‘The good thing about a bygone era is that people forget it. People want to hack someone’s phone or do something fancy with technology these days. A new generation means the old stuff becomes original again. We could do a stoning, for sure.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  He grinned and asked to be kept informed. Kept involved. Could he choose the victim? Just a small hand in the planning of this and he’d feel a validated newsman.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, having faith he wouldn’t remember this conversation sober. He’d remember the part about me being editor. I’d remind him if he didn’t, over and over. But the stoning nonsense—I’d consign that to oblivion: it wasn’t ‘crime’ enough if pry wanted to be serious. You need a mix of stories, certainly, but a stoning? That was pettiness. If you get too lightweight you lose your hard-nosed integrity.

  I didn’t say this to Pockets. I let him dream that he’d been liberated, a bona fide Walter Pereza. He stood and asked the way to the gents. He’d already opened his fly and didn’t realise.

  ‘In my experience we never go back to the office in this state,’ I said. ‘A few coffees and potato cakes and I’ll be right but you get a ride home.’

  He nodded that he’d get a taxi. He’d get the bill first and stroll around to clear the grog from his brain, might even walk the hour home and let the air freshen him.

  My phone dinged. A message from Katie Brooks. No foul play in the docks death, just a heart attack or stroke. She couldn’t see the body for the gurney blanket. On the whole, she said, disappointing.

  9

  I arranged to tutor Ollie that evening. It was time to give him my precious possessions: my Fowler and Fowler’s The King’s English I’d bought at a flea market in 1995. My Elements of Style by Strunk and White. An aunty gave me that when I was a bored, sulky teenager. Aunty Margo who taught primary school and wore tropical flowers for a headband. ‘The Spinster’, my mother called her. My father called her ‘Opinions’. She saw me taking notes of adult conversations. Said if you must do that then don’t neglect your grammar. Learn your prepositions from your participial phrases. Don’t just mimic people and their sloppy language. Apply some rules to a sentence. Put order and etiquette in your lines.

  I blathered this to Ollie when he opened his bedroom door. I handed him the Fowler and Fowler and showed him the cracked spine, which I’d sellotaped.

  ‘This dates from the early 1900s,’ I said. I made him touch the stiff cotton cover. ‘Nobody reads this now, which means you’ll have an advantage. You’ll have tricks up your sleeve, make your peers look illiterate.’

  I told him to turn each page gently not roughly, with care for the paper. ‘These books are yours now,’ I said. ‘From me to you, my apprentice.’

  I saw he was honoured the way he held them like special objects, one palm as a cradle, the other palm resting on top. He was still in his school uniform, dark blue jumper, blue socks slipped down below their elastic’s mark on his calves. He put the books on his bed but I told him to keep them on his desk. Keep them where he’ll reach out and read.

  His computer screen had a picture of me on it. He and I eating tacos at Byron Bay. His mother not in shot because she operated the camera. It wasn’t right to be competitive but I was touched it was me he’d chosen. It could be a picture that included his mother. Instead there was only the two of us, food spilling from our mouths as we leant together, laughing.

  Emma wasn’t home—she was getting groceries, she told Ollie. He wasn’t aware that by groceries she really meant socialising. He’d let me know if she ever did mean socialising. He’d listen in on her calls.

  ‘Keeping your ears open, that’s the boy. We must protect your mum, and protect each other. Preserve our famil
y. Keep us tight, one solid unit.’

  When I said ‘one solid unit’ I held my hands as if cupping a bird and keeping it safe. Ollie watched and cupped his hands the same, like a secret handshake, the two of us a team.

  Now came Emma driving under the carport, the sound system blaring violins and baritones. I peeped through the blinds to check she was alone and skipped down to help her with the boot load. If she hadn’t been alone, what would I do? If Gordon were lurking I’d refuse an introduction. I’d refuse to exchange a single civil word. Yet that would be foolish and only infuriate Emma. She hated rudeness; it lessened people in her eyes.

  She was alone: she knew I was there. She wouldn’t risk a scene, not with Ollie witnessing. I called the boy to come to me while I shared some special news. I made him carry a box of vegetables to the kitchen, had him stand side by side with his mother by the sink.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ I said, with a flourishing bow, my wrist rolling over in courtier foppery. ‘It is my great pleasure to inform you that I am to be editor. I’m on the verge of taking over as boss of news at pry.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Emma. I detected forced heartiness in her smile. ‘It’s what you’ve wanted. And now it’s happening.’

  Ollie said, ‘Sweet,’ and I said to him, ‘I hope I’ve made you proud.’

  ‘Yeah. Wow. Cool.’

  Emma asked how it came about.

  ‘Things aren’t working with Jenny,’ I told her. ‘She’s not impressing the Pockets of the business. I am. He and I had this little tete-a-tete.’

  ‘That’s a feather in your cap, Callum. Well done. You must be thrilled.’

  You’d have thought she’d accompany that with a cheek kiss or a hug. She didn’t move. I put my arm around Ollie and made him squeeze me.

  ‘Go upstairs, son, and get ready for our lesson. We’re polishing his English, Emma. It’s time to take his talents and make a wordsmith of him.’

  She watched Ollie mount the stairs with more enthusiasm than his usual flat-footed stomps. She took me by the elbow to move away from the stairs and nearer the back door to talk.

  ‘I think you should be realistic about this,’ she said. ‘It’s good he’s got a bit of ambition and direction suddenly, wanting to follow his father and all that. But he’s hardly shown an aptitude for writing. You know he struggles with school. It’s great to tutor him, as long he’s realistic.’