by Derek Hansen
‘I don’t like lying, Billy, and it’s something I’ve never been good at. I told the police that he got home just after ten. It seemed ridiculous to say anything else. They thanked me for my cooperation. One of them used the phone in the kitchen and then they left. A little while later I got a phone call from a solicitor who said he was representing Grant. He asked if the police had been and what I’d told them. He told me Grant had been taken to Mosman police station for questioning.
‘Grant came home by taxi around nine. He closed the door quietly and stood in the hall looking at me. “Grant, what have you done?” I said. He ignored me. He just glared at me. “You stupid bitch!” he said. “I told you what to say, but did you? You had to open your big mouth, didn’t you, you stupid, stupid bitch!” He clenched his fists and started towards me, as if he was going to thrash the daylights out of me. “Go ahead!” I yelled. “Beat me as much as you like. But what are the police going to think when they come back tomorrow?” That stopped him. “What have you done?” I demanded. “Tell me!” He just shrugged. “Nothing, I’ve done nothing. It was an accident,” he said. “We argued. I pushed her and she fell and hit her head on the edge of the table. It was an accident. The cops can think what they like but it was an accident.” I asked him what the argument had been about. He did this sneering, incredulous sort of laugh. “The stupid bitch went and got pregnant on me. Can you believe it? Pregnant, for fuck’s sake.” He shook his head and laughed again, as though it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “Why the fuck did she have to go and do that?”
‘As soon as Grant left the next morning, I packed up Jammy and as many of our things as I could fit in the car and drove to my parents’ place. I’d had enough. One of the detectives had given me his card so I rang and told him where I was. They came out to see me later that afternoon and asked if Grant had ever hit me. I told them he had and told them about the collarbone. They asked if I would stand up in court and testify that he’d hit me. I told them I would. It turned out that they’d found bruising on Sharna’s body that was inconsistent with her fall. They’d also found old bruising. The office receptionist had told the police about the number of times Sharna had come to work covered in bruises and her suspicions as to the cause. They charged Grant that evening.
‘The police argued that Sharna didn’t fall but was knocked down by a punch. She hit her head first on the edge of the table and again when her head whiplashed against the floor. Grant got bail and used every trick in the book to delay his trial. I lost count of the times he rang threatening me with all hell if I didn’t withdraw my testimony.’ Linda sighed and drew her hand through her hair.
‘Grant always maintained that Sharna’s death was an accident and that he’d never hit her. He admitted arguing with her, admitted pushing her and admitted running away. He claimed he ran away because he was confused and upset and because he wanted to protect Jammy and me from scandal. But the police did their job well and built up a compelling argument of a violent man who one day went too far. Experts testified at his trial that much of Sharna’s bruising was the result of blows and not caused by her impact with either the table or the floor. Neighbours told how they’d heard arguing that night and Sharna screaming. But for all the good work the police had done, they needed a clincher. The thing was, nobody had witnessed Grant hitting Sharna and, of course, she’d always denied that he had. She’d always had some excuse. The evidence against him on that score was purely circumstantial. But my testimony gave the evidence credibility, particularly in regard to my broken collarbone and the lacerations on the back of my head.
‘To this day Grant believes the case turned on my testimony. Jammy had seen him hit me, of course, but I wouldn’t let her testify. His barrister grilled me for hours but I stuck to my story. They knew how important it was. Grant is convinced it was my testimony, and mine alone, that got him convicted and sent to gaol.
‘There was this strange period between his conviction and sentencing. Even the police seemed relieved when Grant was found guilty. They thought the verdict could’ve gone either way. While nobody who knew Grant believed for a second that he intended to kill Sharna, I know he would’ve wanted to punish her. He didn’t hold back when he hit and he seemed to enjoy the power it gave him. Grant undoubtedly caused her death, but I was prepared to concede that there’d been an element of misfortune. It was because of this ambivalence about his degree of guilt that half the people in the office expected him to get off with weekend detention or six months at worst. Yet the judge saw things in very black and white terms. I think he saw through Grant to the kind of man he really is.
‘His summary was frighteningly blunt. According to him, Grant deliberately attacked Sharna because she told him she was pregnant. He hit her hard enough to cause her to fall and in the process suffer fatal injuries. He ran away and, in running away, showed callous disregard for the victim. At no stage had he shown remorse for what he’d done. He showed no sympathy towards relatives or friends of the victim. He showed no regret over the loss of what would have been his child. My testimony confirmed Grant as a bully with a history of violence towards women. I know from conversations I’d had with the detectives that the police were hoping Grant would get up to four years. The judge gave him eight.’
‘Christ Almighty. Eight years?’
‘Eight years with a non-parole period of six years. The court was stunned by the severity of the sentence. I felt like someone had punched me in the belly and knocked all the breath out of me. Then I looked at Grant. However badly I felt, the effect on him was infinitely worse. He staggered and I thought he was going to fall. He turned, as though looking for his barrister or anyone who could help him, when his eyes locked on mine. For a moment he seemed to forget all about his fear. I’ll never forget the look on his face. It was pure hate, the kind of look that turns the blood in your veins to ice. Someone stood in front of me and broke the contact. I all but ran from the court.’
‘Eight years.’
‘He only served six.’
‘That’s more than enough. Do you want me to make you tea now?’
‘I haven’t finished. Maybe I’ll have some more verdelho. Just half a glass.’
Billy tipped a little more wine into her glass. The breeze had finally died away completely and there wasn’t even the rustle of leaves to disturb the silence of the night.
‘The accountants rang the following day and asked me to come into the office. They’d held off calling me because of the uncertainty over Grant’s sentence. They told me Film Gate, which was the name of the company, was heavily in debt and that they needed my signature to begin the process of selling it or winding it up. I was stunned. As far as I knew, the company had never been anything other than successful. I went in and discovered how Grant had bled Film Gate dry paying his legal expenses. Because of the trial and the demands on his time from lawyers, he’d been doing a lot fewer jobs. All up we were doing a third of the normal number of jobs and we owed money all over town. I discovered something else, though discovered isn’t quite the right word.
‘In the early days of Film Gate, Grant assigned forty per cent of the shares in the company to me to minimise his tax. It was a simple income-splitting exercise. He paid himself director’s fees on every commercial he made, took bonuses out of profits and paid me an inflated salary. At some stage, he’d allowed our two tied directors to buy ten per cent each from his sixty per cent but still left me holding my original forty per cent. Maybe he didn’t want to pay the stamp duty on transferring my shares back into his name or realised the day would come when I wouldn’t draw any salary and wanted to keep splitting the dividends. My shares had never been an issue because I knew I was just holding them for Grant. Suddenly they assumed enormous importance.
‘The accountants gave us three choices: sell, close the door or try to trade our way out. Nobody thought we could trade our way back into the black without Grant, our biggest star, but I thought otherwise. There was plenty of
work on offer and I still had two sought-after directors and the nucleus of a good team. Besides, I was desperate. When we’d separated, Grant had paid me an allowance directly into my bank account and he also paid Jammy’s school fees. But now there was no money left. I had no choice but to go back to work and earn some. I needed Film Gate to keep going. I convinced the others that we could trade on.
‘Grant still had debts to settle with his lawyers and the leases on the apartment and his car. I put a deal to them that I would settle his debts in exchange for his forty per cent. Grant didn’t want to pay his lawyers another cent but they in turn put a proposition to him that included appealing the sentence. Grant had little choice. He was desperate to appeal. Of course he agreed. I don’t know how much effort his lawyers put into the appeal but it failed miserably. I borrowed money from my parents and my sister and gained control of the company, distressed as it was.
‘I set about reassuring clients that we were back in business and reassuring crew that they would get paid if they worked for us. I’d built up a fair bit of goodwill and drew on every bit of it. It was a battle, a day-by-day struggle. Just when we looked like getting our heads above water, we had a job go bad on us that nearly put us under for good. The two directors stuck by me and took equity in place of salary. I paid them and myself just enough to live on and ploughed the rest of our fees back into the business. We survived and I ended up still in control of sixty-two per cent of the business.
‘It took me eighteen months to pay back the bank, my parents and my sister. When one of the directors decided to try his luck in America, I offered his equity to the accountant of an advertising agency I’d had dealings with. He was clever, young and ambitious but, more than that, he was a man in the wrong job. He was crunching numbers for the agency’s head office in Chicago. I thought he was born to run a business and I was desperate for someone to take over the finances and administration of Film Gate so I could dedicate myself to producing and building the business back up to a position of dominance. He agreed to join us and that was the turning point.’
‘Smart move.’
‘Thanks. I’m proud of what I accomplished. It was hard work and tough times but, I’ll be honest with you, I loved every second of it, every success and every knock-back. I rebuilt the business out of nothing.’
‘Like I say, well done.’
‘Grant, of course, doesn’t see things that way. I think he somehow imagines Film Gate could have run itself while he was in gaol and delivered him a steady stream of income. It didn’t help that one of my young producers, a guy Grant had picked up off the street and given the same instruction he gave me all those years earlier, had stayed loyal to him, visited him in gaol and put money in his prison account. When I found out he was visiting Grant and doing things for him, I didn’t fire him or tell him to stop. In truth, I was blown away by his loyalty. I commended him. It didn’t occur to me that he was also feeding Grant’s hatred with distorted tales of my success. The end result is, Grant is convinced that I took advantage of Sharna’s death to make sure he got locked away so I could steal his business. He also believes I did a deal with his lawyers to make sure the appeal failed and he’d stay locked away. As ridiculous as it sounds, that is what he believes and that’s what’s been eating away at him for the past six years. I’m sure he blames me for his latest setback. I’m sure he blames me for everything that’s gone wrong in his life. That’s why I came out here to hide.’
‘I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
Linda shook her head.
‘I don’t know. It’s so late. Why don’t we just go to bed?’
‘You’re not ready for bed. You’re wound up like a watch. I want you to stay there and listen for the night parrot.’
‘Night parrot?’
‘Yes, the night parrot. It’s what you do out here when you can’t sleep. You have to relax and listen real hard.’
‘How will I know if it’s a night parrot?’
‘I dunno. Nobody’s heard one for more than fifty years.’
Linda laughed and her tension began to seep away. She swung her feet up on the rail and gazed into the darkness. Listening for a bird that was probably extinct wasn’t such a silly idea. Her whole body relaxed as she began to let go of the thoughts whirling around inside her head and embraced the vastness of the outback.
‘So,’ said Lucio, when he realised Neil was breaking for coffee, ‘so now we know why Grant was sent to gaol. I think Linda has every right to live in fear of him.’
‘There is no excuse for a man hitting a woman,’ said Milos. ‘None at all.’
‘I don’t think that is what Lucio meant,’ said Ramon.
‘No?’
‘No, Milos. Despite Linda’s protestations that the police did a good job, I think it is clear her evidence was pivotal. Without her evidence I doubt there would have been a conviction. Look at the facts. They argued, he pushed, she fell, he panicked. Sharna has been described as fiery and not easily intimidated. I imagine she also had a quick temper. Of course they argued and maybe sometimes the arguments got a little physical. It is quite possible that, on some occasions, the volatile Sharna even threw the first punches. What worries me is that there is no evidence that Sharna ever suffered anything more than bruises. I’m not condoning what Grant did, but if he is half as violent as he’s been portrayed, I would have expected broken bones. They were together for what — five, six years? If he was going to hurt her, I mean break her arm or fracture her skull, don’t you think he would have done so earlier? I think she was unlucky to hit her head, and he was unlucky that she hit her head. I accept that Grant was a bully, but couldn’t he also be a victim of bad luck? Six years in gaol is a long time for bad luck.’
‘You overlook the fact that he broke Linda’s collarbone.’
‘Ahhh, Milos, the break that broke the defence. Linda’s testimony.’
‘That’s right. You can’t ignore it.’
‘Let’s just say that the collarbone was a lucky break for Linda. A very lucky break. Grant went to gaol and she wound up with everything she wanted.’
‘That is preposterous,’ said Milos. ‘You are adopting Lucio’s argument. It wasn’t so long ago that you took the opposing view and lectured us on the characteristics of domestic violence offenders, how they blamed everyone but themselves for their situation. Make up your mind, Ramon. You can’t ride two horses at the same time, no? Everything Neil has said about Grant suggests he conforms to the stereotype you defined. He sees himself as the victim. He is angry and bitter because he feels betrayed. Sharna betrayed him first by getting pregnant and then by getting herself killed. Linda betrayed him by testifying. It’s everyone’s fault but his that he is in gaol. The cold hard facts are: a woman is dead because Grant assaulted her. That is why he went to gaol. And his going to gaol did not make Linda successful. Linda became successful because she was brave enough, strong enough and clever enough to take a debt-ridden company and turn it into something.’
‘I’d like to hear Grant’s side of the story.’
‘You don’t think Linda’s telling the truth?’
‘Is she? Or is he? Truth is the big issue in Neil’s story, is it not?’
‘So who do you think is telling the truth?’ cut in Lucio.
‘I am,’ said Neil plaintively, but it was clear he was also mocking them. He shifted in his seat to try and ease his cast into a more comfortable position. ‘How many times do I have to tell you?’
Chapter Twenty-four
For the second time, Grant’s world came crashing down around him. His life and career were in tatters and once again it wasn’t his fault! He’d done nothing wrong. In fact, he’d done everything right. His bitterness at this latest injustice plumbed new depths. He stared at the television, oblivious to the twittering fools on the morning show, while his anger slowly built.
Cameron hadn’t sacked him as he’d threatened to do but had sacrificed him nonetheless. He’d fired him off the job and success
fully re-pitched the quote with a new director. He kept Grant on in acknowledgement of the fact that it had been his ideas and the star-studded crew he’d assembled that had really won the job. It seemed a perfect solution all round. Cameron would get the payday his fledgling company desperately needed and the client and agency would get the spectacular commercials they’d been promised. Only Grant was left out in the cold. With nothing.
Nothing!
Prison had taught Grant how to hide his feelings no matter how depressed, frightened or angry he was. He put on a brave face for Jasmine and his parole officer and shrugged off the commiserations of everyone who’d worked with him on the submission. He allowed no glimpse of the bitterness beyond his façade. He hit his pillow anaesthetised by Johnnie Walker only to wake up in the morning dead in the soul with nothing to do and nothing to look forward to. Cameron told him to take a month off on full pay and to go and sit on a beach somewhere up in Queensland. Grant agreed. He couldn’t even contemplate going into the office, where he knew everything would be buzzing with activity and everyone running around doing the final preproduction on his job. Someone had to pay for the injustices he’d suffered and he didn’t have to look far to be reminded who that someone was. It was hard to watch television for more than thirty minutes without seeing at least one commercial her company — his company — had made. Cameron had told him to go take a holiday. Grant decided instead to take revenge.
He turned off the television just as the weather girl excitedly told him there were lots of sunny icons up and down the coast. He put on a Miles Davis tape, pulled the phone account he’d taken from Linda’s sister out of his desk drawer and started ringing the numbers he’d marked. Miles Davis had just begun to play ‘Freddie Freeloader’, second track, side one, when Linda spoke to him. The sound of her voice was as immediately recognisable as it was unexpected. He’d already cross-referenced the numbers on the phone account with those he’d taken from Fran’s teledex. He had that number under J Downs. Who the hell was J Downs? And, more to the point, who the hell was Billy Dwyer? He smiled grimly when the tone of her voice changed from affection to apprehension. She had every right to be apprehensive, every fucking right! He gently replaced the handset.
