We All Fall Down

by Peter Barry

  It wasn’t until after the main course that she raised the subject, quite without warning or any kind of build up. ‘Hugh, serious question: how’d you like to come and work with us? You have the kind of expertise we need right now.’

  Hugh frowned, giving a short, sharp shake of his head, almost a double take. ‘No more than you yourself, surely? Why would you need me?’

  ‘I’m moving more and more upstairs. To the bedroom – ha ha. Not being serious. But I do need help. I’m serious about that.’

  He felt, despite the fact she was being sensitive in her approach, that she pitied him. It wasn’t a good feeling. She must have seen him hesitate.

  ‘Hugh, this is a growth industry. It’s the future, believe me. Last year, in the US alone, do you have any idea how much Americans spent on bottle water? Eleven billion dollars. They also spent over one hundred and fifty million advertising the stuff – not that that concerns us. We have a problem keeping up with demand as it is. Our task at the moment is to increase the speed we take Highland Stream water out of the ground, and to maximise our bottling capacity.’

  He was reminded of when he was a child and his father used to get excited telling him about the future of computers. There was the same enthusiasm now, from Penny, the same belief and commitment. He knew that he’d lost that. There was very little that excited him now in the business world.

  He was fiddling with his dessert spoon and fork, thinking furiously. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and was unsure of the best way to answer her question.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Penny, I appreciate your offer, I really do …’

  ‘But? There’s a “but” in there somewhere, I can hear it.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s right for me. I’m not sure it’s what I want to do.’

  ‘Strangely enough, not many of us do what we want to do in this modern world of ours, Hugh. Our work is usually a means to an end. In my case, the end is hopefully that Pacific island paradise. Anyway, why not? Advertising, marketing, what’s the difference?’

  ‘Look, it’s probably just me … What I’m saying is, and this is definitely not a criticism of you, but I worry about …’

  ‘About me being your boss? I wouldn’t really be your boss. You’d be completely autonomous.’

  ‘It’s not that, Pen. It’s the ethics of the industry I worry about.’

  ‘You what?’ She put her glass of wine back on the table. Her eyes opened wide, and she stared at him in astonishment. ‘What on earth are you talking about, for heaven’s sake? Ethics!’

  ‘There are some things I’m just not happy working on.’

  ‘You mean, like tobacco and stuff – alcohol? Yeah, sure, we all say that, we all go through the motions, but water? Are you saying you have a problem with water?’

  ‘To be honest, yes I do.’

  She picked up her glass of wine. ‘I need a drink after hearing that.’ She took a large mouthful of her Riesling.

  ‘I don’t happen to believe corporations should be allowed to own water. It’s a commodity. It should be for everyone.’

  ‘Bullshit! We’re protecting the source of this particular commodity, we’re preserving it. We actually transport our water to people who can’t access fresh, uncontaminated water for themselves.’

  ‘In Australia? You’re not being serious. Everyone has access to fresh, uncontaminated water.’

  ‘We’ve started to export to Papua New Guinea. It’s our fastest growing market as a matter of fact.’

  He wiped some crumbs off the tablecloth. ‘I don’t care where you send it, Pen, you’re still taking that water from other people.’

  ‘They’re not using it.’

  ‘Not right now maybe, but it’s likely they’re going to need it in the not-too-distant future, what with global warming and everything.’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll give them some when that time comes.’

  ‘Give?’

  ‘Yes, why not? Give.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe, Penny. You’re more likely to sell it back to them.’

  They stared at each other, suddenly appreciating they were on different sides of an abyss.

  ‘Sydney and Melbourne have some of the best municipal water in the world. They don’t need to truck in water from the Snowy Mountains. They don’t need to steal someone else’s water.’

  ‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this.’

  He leant forward, his elbows on the table, trying to fight off the feeling of lethargy that had been weighing him down of late. But now the subject had been broached, it was definitely easier to say what was on his mind. ‘I’m not getting at you, Pen. Honestly, if you’re happy doing what you’re doing, that’s fine with me. But it’s not for me, that’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘That sounds just a little condescending.’

  ‘It isn’t meant to.’

  Hugh had been green for many years. Not a radical or an extremist, but what might be called an aware and concerned consumer. He understood the damage people were doing to the environment. The previous year he’d read, in the local library, a UK report on the environment. Its conclusion was that people had to drastically cut down on their emissions, that business in particular had a vital part to play in this, and that the consequences would be dire – not only for the planet, but for humanity itself – if nothing was done. Like any parent, Hugh was concerned for the future of his child. The world was unlikely to become too inhospitable during his own lifetime, but for Tim, and for Tim’s children, living in Australia – where the weather was already becoming increasingly hot and dry, and drought was already the order of the day – was likely to become very unpleasant before too long. After Penny had first told him that she’d joined the bottled water business, he’d done some research. His original intention was to find out a little about the industry his friend was now working in so that he could talk with her about it. Soon, however, he was reading more and more reports on the environmental issue – damaging, highly persuasive and extremely critical assessments of bottled water. He discovered that corporations, especially in the States, were making incredible profits out of the industry. Not only were they selling a natural resource, but their profits were at the expense of the cities, towns and small communities that once owned (as in, been on top of) the water. They were also severely damaging the environment: aquifers and underground springs were being sucked dry, new roads were being built through what had once been pristine countryside, and billions of plastic bottles were being manufactured before being discarded in tips. He knew that to make the plastic resin to produce those water bottles took tens of millions of barrels of oil every year. Global consumption of bottled water was now around two hundred billion litres, and out of all the billions of plastic bottles manufactured to hold this water, only one in five was ever recycled. It was definitely not a pretty industry.

  ‘Water is a basic human right, Penny, no different to air. And that’s how the United Nations sees it by the way. Companies shouldn’t be allowed to profit from it.’

  ‘We employ people, lots of people. We provide jobs.’

  He ignored her. ‘I think public bodies should own water on behalf of the community. It should be up to them to build the distribution pipes, the filtering plants and storage areas for the good of everyone.’

  ‘That’s a beautiful picture, Hugh, but it isn’t realistic. This is the twenty-first century. We live in a capitalist society. This is the kind of system people have voted for. It’s what we call a democracy. On top of which, a lot of our profits are fed back into the community. We support deserving charities.’

  ‘Like shareholders?’

  ‘Don’t be sarcastic. It doesn’t suit you. We support charities, not just shareholders. We build roads, we employ people –’

  ‘You’ve already said that.’

  ‘The water we use would go to waste if we didn’t bring it to the surface. It would stay underground. We’re not taking it away from anyone, so no o
ne’s being deprived.’

  ‘One day people will want to use it; they’ll have to. And, anyway, your argument doesn’t get round the problem of the plastic bottles.’

  He sat back in his chair. A four star restaurant didn’t seem like the right place to have a discussion about sustainability. He sighed. ‘Pen, when global warming becomes a crisis, when times become desperate – and they will – that water will need to be assessed for the good of everyone, not just for a bunch of shareholders. The profits companies like yours make – as you’ve said yourself – are obscene.’

  ‘I never said they were obscene.’

  ‘You said your business was a licence to print money. Same thing. Let me tell you this – even though you probably already know it. I read somewhere that if you drink the recommended eight glasses of water a day to stay healthy, if that water comes out of the tap, it’ll cost you less than a dollar a year. If you drink the same amount of bottled water, it’ll set you back something like $1,500. That says it all in my opinion.’

  ‘We live in a society where people are free to make that choice, Hugh. Anyway, since when did profit become a dirty word for you?’

  ‘It depends on how you make that profit.’

  She stared at him in silence for a few moments. She put her hand to her face, cupped across her mouth. She looked despondent. The waiter came with their coffees. A moment later, smiling, she shook her head. ‘So I take it that’s a no to my job offer?’

  He knew all too well what was on offer. A good, possibly excellent, regular income, with his superannuation salary-sacrificed. He could save up enough to put down a deposit on his own place, and pay his mortgage out of his salary before tax. He could lease a new car. He would probably be able to put money aside, so that he’d be prepared if he was made redundant a second time. The words ‘All this can be yours’ went through his head. He stared at Penny; she made an excellent Lucifer. He was tempted, he was genuinely tempted. To stop worrying about money, that was the real temptation, to not wake up every morning wondering if he had enough to buy food or pay his rent. To lose that terrible preoccupation with dollars and cents, to leave his brain free to think on other, more life-affirming things. And what difference could he make by himself? It would be negligible. He’d read somewhere that all the millions of people who were saving water at home, not using plastic supermarket bags, switching off lights and electrical appliances, and generally doing their bit for the environment, were all wasting their time. They made no difference whatsoever. It was Business and the Government who could make a difference, who were the ones responsible for the environmental mess in the first place. So why shouldn’t he just accept the job? His protest, his sacrifice, was meaningless.

  He smiled. ‘Pen, thank you for making the offer, I really mean that. I’d love to work with you again, and I’m tempted, I really am. But I couldn’t live with myself.’

  ‘I obviously don’t have your social conscience.’

  ‘It’s easy to have a social conscience when you have no money. It’s easy to decry all the cars blocking our roads and clogging up the atmosphere when you can’t afford a car. It’s easy to hold forth against air conditioners if you don’t own one. It’s easy to criticise bottled water when you can only afford to drink out of a tap.’

  He thought, to reinforce his argument and perhaps make it more meaningful to Penny, he should bring up the name of her boss, Josh McLennan. When she’d first mentioned her managing director’s name it had rung a bell, so he’d Googled him. It all came back to him in a rush. The man had been on the boards of two or three companies, and they’d all done badly under his stewardship. The last had fired him just six months into a three year contract and he’d walked off with a huge payout. The man was obviously well connected, but utterly hopeless. Hugh knew from past experience he wouldn’t be able to work with such an incompetent; he’d suffered that too much in the past. While he was hesitating, wondering if he should say anything, Penny interrupted his thoughts.

  ‘How could you involve yourself in the launch of that Bauer four-by-four when you were at Alpha? Surely that’s the epitome of an environmentally disastrous product that has absolutely no place in these times?’

  ‘You’re right – although it’s not quite as bad as a Hummer.’

  ‘And what does it cost? Something like four hundred thousand?’

  ‘Closer to three hundred.’

  ‘I bet they’re never even driven off-road. The track leading up to the million dollar weekend farmhouse will be the only dirt those wheels ever see. And what will they use the satellite navigation system for: to find the nearest polo field?’

  ‘It’s one of the more shameful episodes of my life, I admit it. You kind of get caught up in things like that, Pen. You remember what it was like? You get dragged along because you see it as your duty, because that’s what you’re being paid to do. It never occurs to you to question things.’ He fell back in his chair. ‘I’ve thought about this a lot recently, believe it or not, how it’s so easy to get divorced from what your company does. Although you work for someone, you see yourself as separate from them, divorced from whatever it is they do, whatever it is they produce, manufacture or sell. “I’m not a part of that,” you tell yourself – if you think about it at all, which, of course, you don’t.’

  ‘So you’re not perfect?’

  ‘Absolutely not. I really regret what I did.’

  ‘But you disapprove of me?’

  ‘I most definitely do not. I wouldn’t presume to judge you. It’s your industry.’ He looked around the restaurant, almost as if he didn’t want anyone to hear what he was about to say. ‘Did I tell you, just before I left Alpha, that Russell, the managing director, asked me to help on the pitch for Dan Murphy’s?’

  ‘Can’t remember.’

  ‘I think that was the tipping point for me. It wasn’t that I agreed to try and win an account that promoted alcohol – that’s bad enough – but that Russell got Murray, my group head and an alcoholic, to head up the pitch.’

  ‘You’re kidding – an alcoholic? That’s funny. That’s crazy.’

  ‘That’s advertising. That’s the business I’ve been in all my life: immoral, totally without principle, anything for a buck. And it’s taken me years to wake up to that fact.’

  ‘You’re so naïve, Hugh. That’s business. And I think – being totally blunt – you only feel this way because you don’t have a job at the moment.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s what has made me “see the light,” so to speak.’

  She reached across to take his hand. ‘You haven’t had full time work for a couple of years now, Hugh.’ She banged his hand gently on the table in time with her next four words, as if to wake him up. ‘You … need … a … job.’

  ‘It’s not easy saying no, believe me. As you say, I could do with the work.’

  ‘I think you’re mad.’

  ‘I’m worried you could be right.’ And he was. This could be the most stupid action he’d ever taken. Penny was throwing him a lifeline, and he was ignoring it. He was telling her that he didn’t need to be rescued.

  He wondered if he was asking too much. To have a job that satisfied him both mentally and emotionally, in a company that was well run and efficient, that paid him a decent, but not excessive salary and, perhaps most important of all, benefited the wider community in some way. That was his ideal. He seemed instead to exist in a world where jobs were of little value, sometimes even meaningless, verging on the immoral or disreputable, badly managed, and either run by incompetents or rapacious, anti-social psychopaths.

  Outside the restaurant, he pecked her on the cheek, then hugged her. ‘Thanks for the job offer, Penny.’

  ‘Will you think about it? Just promise me you’ll think about it.’

  He said he would, but convinced neither of them. She clutched him. ‘I’m worried about you. Will you be all right? I want to do something to help you.’

  ‘Is that why you offered me
the job, because you’re worried about me?’

  ‘No. I offered it to you because you’re good and we need someone like you.’

  ‘I’ll be all right. Something will come along soon, I know it will.’

  But he had serious doubts on that score. And he tried not to think about what he was turning down; the security, the good pay and, perhaps most important of all, the sense of belonging. When he got back to his small flat, he felt like an outcast, a piece of flotsam and jetsam drifting in a backwater.

  * * *

  For a short while he considered returning to the UK, but decided that it would be too like a wildcat returning to its lair to die. And from what he heard, the unemployment situation there was even worse than in Australia. Wasn’t it also preferable to be unemployed in a warm, sunny climate where you could sit on the beach – even though he never did – than try and survive in sub-arctic temperatures where it was dark for most of the day?

  It was when he was considering the possibility of moving to the UK that his mother died. He wasn’t too upset, feeling that he’d said his goodbyes many years before. She left him some money. It didn’t amount to much, just enough to keep him afloat for a few more months. Centrelink found out about his inheritance almost before he did – how, he never discovered; it was just one of those inevitable, modern day Big Brother facts of life he presumed. And so they immediately stopped his rental support and asked him to pay back over two thousand dollars, because of the money he’d received from his mother. So he was forced to give a large percentage of his inheritance to Centrelink. They don’t really want you to get back on your feet, he thought. Joe was right about that.

  16

  His mind wandered, as it did every day without fail, to what Tim might be doing. Was he now old enough to be surfing, or would he be more into computer games, maybe skateboarding? He worried that Kate might let him spend too long in front of the computer – or television. Neither was ideal. He wanted his son to do things, be active, rather than sit passively in front of a screen, any screen, and be little more than a receptor. Thinking about his son made him smile, as it always did.