House for All Seasons

by Jenn J. McLeod

  ‘What’s new?’ Poppy scoffed. ‘We all know which camp WS support. Another good reason for me not taking on that anchor job.’

  ‘Yes, well, you may not want to do this one either. I know you.’

  Poppy sighed her boss’s name. ‘Max, right now you could talk me into doing a piece on why logging Tasmania is good for the planet. That’s how desperate I am to get back into work so I can feel normal again.’

  ‘You still might want me to assign another reporter. Just say so.’

  ‘Please stop treating me like I’m fragile. I’m not going to break, and I know you know what I’m talking about. I haven’t done any of that stuff for ages.’ Poppy shook away the image of the spilled pills on the vanity the other morning. ‘I told you I’m fine. I’m totally going crazy without a cigarette, I’m talking to a fish, but other than that … So, anyway, Max, if WS want a controversial piece, that’s what they’ll get. What’s the big deal?’

  ‘I know you, Pops, and this is different.’ Max’s voice had shifted to an uncharacteristic sombreness.

  ‘Different how?’

  ‘The army. They’re bringing a soldier back home … Back home to the country. Back home to Saddleton.’

  ‘Oh.’ Poppy’s immediate thought was of the gorgeous, down-to-earth guys she’d met while on assignment in Afghanistan two years ago. There had been a soldier from out this way. She’d first met him in the mess one night after dinner. They’d talked. Was it Saddleton? She couldn’t remember and at the time they’d all looked so alike to Poppy in their combat uniforms. But this was a local soldier coming home.

  The death of a soldier was a tough assignment. No reporter liked doing them, but her years in the business had taught Poppy to compartmentalise the sadness and get on with the job. Not too different to how she managed her life. She’d learned how to shut down her emotions years ago.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, maintaining a matter of fact tone. ‘So what do they want exactly?’

  ‘They want more than a grab on the nightly news. You know how politics can influence when and how much gets reported. The nightly news will keep to the usual safe political message. WS have a brief to control the message. They want to make a statement.’

  ‘A statement.’ Amber’s catty remark in the conference room that day flashed through Poppy’s head. You always did like making statements, Poppy.

  ‘I’m guessing the network’s come to us because they’re after something a bit more provocative, but still sensitive, of course.’

  ‘Sensitive? To the politics or the parents?’ Poppy didn’t bother hiding the cynicism in her voice.

  ‘You know the drill. I don’t want to give you this gig; I’d rather not give it to anyone. If I could say bugger off I would, but Coffey’s doesn’t knock back work. We stay on the fence because—’

  ‘—because being on the fence pays the bills. Yeah, yeah, I know the mantra. So much for the power of the press. Here’s to the power of politics.’

  ‘That’s the game we’re in. So was I right to call and interrupt your little interlude up there? Do you want the gig?’ Without waiting for her reply, like he already knew the answer, he said, ‘I’m assuming you’ve got film, camera and editing capability with you. I know you’d never go anywhere and leave that snazzy thingamabob behind. I’m just bloody grateful the thing doesn’t vibrate. What hope would a bloke have?’

  ‘Ha, ha. Very funny. You are such a Luddite.’

  Max liked to make jokes. He knew how things were done all right. He knew better than most people. He also knew she’d have Old Faithful, her high-end, custom-configured laptop, loaded with masses of memory—and fast. Six months ago she’d shouted herself a compatible digital video recorder, telling Max it was love at first sight.

  ‘So what’s your answer?’

  ‘You know my answer. I’ll have a piece edited and in the can ASAP.’

  Max whooped down the phone line. ‘Ahhh, yes, in the can. Love it when you talk like that. Takes me back to the good ol’ days. I don’t need to know how you techno-heads do it these days. I just need you to get it done.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll do my bit and have it down the wire even faster. Can I have Nigel to do the final edit?’

  ‘Already on it. I’ll send the details through as soon as WS let me know the final parameters. Should be the next couple of days. They’ll be coming by carrier pigeon naturally, so watch out for—’

  ‘Oh crap!’

  ‘Exactly what I was going to say.’

  ‘No, Max, you just reminded me. It was you talking about pigeons. I haven’t let the chooks out.’

  ‘The what?’ Max spluttered. ‘All right then, who are you? Where’s Poppy? What have you done with my favourite hard-arse reporter?’

  ‘Very funny. I have to go. I’ll be in touch. Bye.’

  *

  The returned soldier story occupied her headspace for the next twenty-four hours. Max had obviously decided against carrier pigeon, instead emailing the information. After reading the documentation, she knew his first thought had been spot on. This assignment wasn’t about a soldier’s homecoming. The required skew, as outlined in the brief, stank of political spin doctoring.

  At one point she contemplated discussing the assignment with Max, but he’d good as said he wouldn’t knock the job back. If she let Max know how much this angle was messing with her head, he’d simply assign another journo. The notion ignited Poppy’s competitive streak. She’d do it all right, and she’d do it well.

  Starting with an interview strategy, Poppy jotted down optional man-on-the-street questions, just in case she found a couple of locals who’d known the soldier as a boy, or maybe went to the same school. That kind of thing worked well. Questions were everything. Poppy loathed predictable reporter prattle. She’d learned early which stories headlined and which stories ended up cut. Editors cut prattle every time. Research was the key. She could probe, dig deep, get a reaction. The client wanted a reaction. Tears could be good, although not too many; politics and tears were like oil and water. Instead, she would capture suitably soulful shots of obligatory government officials, and edit the images accordingly, but always with one thing in mind. The Maximilian Coffey Agency might not openly support any particular party, nor any other influential authorities, but there was no doubting the persuasion politics had over the how, the when, and the where—or even the survival of a media report. An Aussie soldier story like this could go either way. Poppy knew that; no sense putting all her energy into a piece only to have it cut to shreds by the network programmers because someone significant was likely to get antsy.

  *

  That night in bed, Poppy couldn’t switch off her reporter’s brain. For some reason—maybe the unfamiliarity of her surroundings, maybe taking time off for the first time in goodness knows how many years—this assignment wasn’t sitting well. Every time she got her questions down pat, she’d hear Gypsy’s voice in her head saying, Tell the stories that need to be told and tell them your way.

  Perhaps the real reason this soldier story was affecting her was the memories it stirred. Johnno and Poppy had butted heads when he first found out about her overseas posting, and it remained a wedge in an already fractured father-daughter relationship. Surely an award-winning doco to show Afgan and Australian soldiers working together to rebuild the country, not destroy it, would have met with his approval. But despite every soldier she interviewed sharing the same sentiment—pride, commitment, and a determination to finish the job—she had failed to sooth her father’s disappointment in her.

  Too restless for sleep, she flicked on the bedside light and kicked off the sheet that had tangled itself around her legs from all her tossing and turning. She scanned the room, her eyes settling on the stack of books on the dresser at the foot of the bed. She got up, grabbed The Wizard of Oz and fell back onto the pillows with a huff, the book resting against raised knees. As she opened the cover, a single, folded newspaper page fell out.

  The year was
1986. The feature article, photograph included, was the story of a local Saddleton farmer fighting to save his livelihood. He’d claimed a reporter had published a false report connecting the farm to mad cow disease, which had sprung up in Britain and was scaring the community into a frenzy.

  Poor Mr Gill. Poppy remembered.

  Gypsy had been so upset at the time. She’d helped the farmer fight back when no one else would. The local council had called for an inquiry into his claim that a local council member was feeding reporters stories to force the sale. No one believed the farmer. Mad cow disease was good fodder for a sensation-hungry media. The Gill property had been on the old East Road and …

  Poppy slapped the article back on the book with the flat of her palm.

  ‘Bastards!’ she cursed, realising the last part of the highway before the turn-off to Calingarry Crossing was probably running right through the middle of Mr Gill’s old place. ‘The power of the bloody press.’

  She snuggled back under the covers and turned the page in the hope that Dorothy and her unfulfilled friends would help put her to sleep.

  *

  Poppy woke the next morning from the craziest dream, the image still fresh of her pet axolotl and a red-shoed Dorothy merrily skipping hand in hand down the Yellow Brick Road.

  ‘I am going nuts.’ She threw back the bedcovers, buoyed by the thought of planning her soldier-comes-home report, despite her consternation.

  I can do this.

  Toe the line.

  Tick the boxes.

  Move on.

  She’d need to dig around a little and sniff out her own angle. That was the predatory part of what she did—the hunting, the trapping, the kill. It was what World Snapshot loved.

  *

  The big, rustic kitchen table, no longer a morning roost for the hens thanks to the new lock on the back door, was a perfect storyboard platform. With sticky Post-it Notes, she mapped out the key production requirements, moving each slip of paper around until she was happy with the flow. She scribbled the words: INTERVIEW PARENTS on one Post-it Note and wondered what her chances would be. Knowing access to the soldier’s mother and father would be limited, and under the watchful eye of army PR people, Poppy hoped one, if not both, grieving parents would keep their composure and let her get a quick grab. Of course, the angrier they got, the closer she would be to meeting the WS brief.

  22

  ‘What the hell is this?’

  Poppy squeezed both eyes shut in disbelief. She’d gone to bed early and woken early, keen to put the finishing touches on her production storyboard and transfer the detail from her Post-it Notes to a scribble pad as an on-location reference, but when she saw her work like confetti on the kitchen floor, she wanted to scream. She probably looked like Rocky, presently staring from the bottom of his tank, mouth agape.

  ‘Who did this?’ She looked at him accusingly, the axolotl ducking for cover behind the sunken wreck.

  Hours of pedantic planning, of arranging and rearranging, of connecting and deleting, was now scattered over the floor. A ceiling fan was her first thought, but there wasn’t one, not in the kitchen. She eyed the front door. Closed.

  ‘Shit!’

  With no time to resurrect her hard work from the previous night, she showered, threw on the best clothes she had in her duffle bag and rushed out the door, knowing an open car window and a Calingarry Crossing summer would dry her hair—no problem. By the time she reached Saddleton, she’d have the wayward locks secured with a basic black elastic so they didn’t get in the way of her camera lens. From memory, River’s Edge Road to Saddleton was the more direct route and the drive would be even easier on a sealed road. Lots of Calingarry’s roadways, once dirt and gravel, were now bitumen.

  She saw Eli on the way down the driveway, yelled out she was glad he was back and rattled off a hasty explanation about what she’d been doing and where she was going. Even though she knew he wouldn’t understand, she said it anyway, adding that she hoped to be back by mid-afternoon. With a final wave from the car window, she tooted and left a cloud of dust behind.

  Poppy Hamilton, award-winning reporter, was back.

  *

  Within an hour she’d hit the outskirts of Saddleton, slowing to take in part of the town that hadn’t existed twenty years ago. The regional centre’s newest housing estate now spilled out across plains once dotted with cattle, the barely standing sale yards the only sign of the town’s dairy history. With no time, nor any interest in looking around, Poppy drove another fifteen minutes to the cemetery on the far side of the town.

  Lots of cars filled the small parking area to overflowing, people given no choice but to tiptoe across an adjacent dusty paddock. At the cemetery gates was the expected glut of government vehicles, the drove of Commonwealth-employed drivers puffing away disrespectfully, not that there was anyone around to see. Everyone, including what looked like a couple of local newspapermen, was already gathered on the well-maintained grass inside the lawn cemetery.

  Max had been right to think that no major networks would come all the way out here, not when they would have covered yesterday’s ramp ceremony at the RAAF Base.

  Identifying the soldier’s parents among the crowd of mourners was not difficult. There were camera lenses, watchful eyes and supportive hands trained on them, just in case.

  Poppy felt a grab in her stomach at the impropriety, even though she had fixed her own camera on all manner of people during her career, and at the worst time of their lives.

  Why was this media attention suddenly so wrong to her?

  Oh. My. God! That’s why.

  The mother hesitated at the framed photograph of the uniformed soldier with a cheeky grin and innocent eyes. Something about his smile, the one chipped front tooth and his soul patch—the short, thin strip of beard immediately below the bottom lip—messed with Poppy’s head.

  Sapper Andrew Pandleton!

  The other troops had called him Andy Pandy for fun. He’d been part of Poppy’s escort on her last assignment, although his face never made it into her final report, mostly because the guy was always mucking around, entertaining them with jokes on the one occasion Poppy and her crew had come nerve-rackingly close to enemy fire. Now, with the banging inside her chest as loud in her ears as the gunfire that day, Poppy melted into the background, taking refuge on a small park bench away from the crowd, away from the painful reality.

  With her face buried in both hands, she stayed that way until the service ended and the mourners left. Then she sucked in some courage and walked over to the graveside, looking closer still at the photograph.

  It was him all right, the fun-loving larrikin from base camp.

  ‘Andy Pandy,’ she said aloud.

  ‘Hello,’ a voice said behind Poppy, making her spin on her heels and sniff back her sobs. ‘It’s hard to say goodbye, isn’t it? I had to come back myself one more time.’

  Poppy gasped inside. It was her—Andy’s mother.

  She reined in her emotions, corralling them in the hope her professional persona would take over. Time to act. Her fingers tightened instinctively around the small recording device in her hand. This was one gift horse she would be mad to let get away.

  ‘Hello. I … I’m very sorry for your loss,’ she said.

  ‘Did you know my son?’ the woman asked, picking up the photograph and clasping it to her heart with both hands.

  The softly spoken words winded Poppy. This grieving mother had a better handle on conversation right now than she did.

  ‘I think so,’ Poppy said, witnessing the woman trying hard not to give in to her grief, as if Poppy’s presence had handed her a final, precious moment with her son. ‘Can I …? Would you like to sit down?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Poppy guided the woman over to the bench seat.

  ‘I’m sorry. You were saying you knew Andrew? And you’ve come to say good—’ The woman eyed the press ID hanging around Poppy’s neck. ‘Oh. So you’re not really a
friend?’

  ‘No. Yes. I …’ Poppy sounded like an idiot. ‘I wasn’t a friend exactly. But I met Andy Pand—I mean Andrew.’

  The woman smiled, as if she knew what Poppy had stopped short of saying.

  ‘I have met many of Andrew’s army buddies. I was hoping you were not army, but just a friend from the city. My son was so much more than a soldier, and yet that seems to be all the media are interested in.’

  ‘Really, Mrs Pandleton, I—’

  ‘Cecilia.’

  ‘I … I won’t be bothering you for anything today.’ Poppy stood, ready to walk away from a too-good-to-be-true interview opportunity. Most of the cars were now gone. Only immediate family, it seemed, remained. ‘I’ll let you be with your family,’ she said, slipping the recording device into her bag.

  ‘Wait.’ Cecilia grabbed Poppy’s hand and pulled her back down. Poppy didn’t resist, feeling something in the woman’s grip, feeling a sense of desperation in eyes still hidden behind big, dark sunglasses. ‘You can help me,’ the woman said. She peeled the sunnies away. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Poppy. Poppy Hamilton. But I’m afraid I don’t understand …’

  ‘I think you must be a good person, Poppy Hamilton. I also think you might be able to help me. You’ve come here today to do a story?’

  Poppy nodded, wishing she hadn’t left her own tear-concealing sunnies in the car.

  ‘I want people to know my son, but not as a headline in the news. All the reporters in Sydney seemed interested in is if I think the war is wrong, and if I believe the government is doing the right thing—keeping our troops over there. Reporters want to mix up Andy’s death with sensationalised stories and politics. That has nothing to do with my son and it’s not how I want him remembered.’

  Poppy almost gagged on the lump of guilt plugging her airway. Wouldn’t she have done the same as those other reporters?

  ‘Of course, Cecilia, but what can I do?’

  ‘If you knew him, you’ll want to make sure people know about the real Andrew.’

  ‘I … I can’t help. I didn’t know him that well. I’d need—’