by Judy Nunn
His friend’s change of image irritated Bruce Hamilton enormously. He refused to call Jason ‘JB’ as Wallace did, loathing the American use of acronyms, and when Wallace had had the effrontery to refer to him as ‘BH’, he had made his thoughts on the matter quite clear.
‘What do you think, BH?’ Wallace had asked innocently enough.
‘Oh for God’s sake, Wallace, my name’s Bruce and you bloody well know it.’ He glared at Wallace and Jason across the boardroom table. ‘Call me BH once more, either of you, and you’ll cop Wal and Jase from me, and you won’t like that in public, will you?’
But even Bruce had to admit that the three of themmade a formidable team. Wallace Kendall, Chairman of the Board, bold, innovative; Jason Bruford, Managing Director, expert on the state of the market, knowing when to buy up a failing company, when to sell; and he, Bruce Hamilton, keeping the other two in check, tempering their enthusiasm with sound financial management.
Bruce Hamilton wasn’t too sure ifheliked Jason Bruford, but perhaps that was because Jason Bruford was a homosexual, a fact which made Bruce a little uncomfortable. Jason went to no pains to disguise his persuasion. In fact he even seemed boastful of it, which Bruce had to admit was brave. Sydney might be becoming a city of poofters as some said, and homos were certainly a dime a dozen, particularly in the eastern suburbs, but in the corporate world it was wisest to keep quiet if one was homosexual.
Bruce was a good bloke by most people’s standards, one who rarely took a dislike to others, and he tried to be fair. It was because Jason had turned Wallace into a bit of a poseur, that was it, he decided. He didn’t like Jason Bruford because the man was manipulative. Not that it mattered, he had the feeling that Jason considered him a touch plebeian and didn’t much like him either.
It was Shangri-La Chalets which put Kendall Enterprises well and truly on the map.
‘They’re broke and they’re desperate. The place is only four years old, in perfect nick and we can buy it for half its market value,’ Jason said.
Shangri-La was a five-star resort in Queensland. Superbly designed, it sat on green, hilly slopes and was surrounded by rain-forest. The resort consisted of forty split-level luxury chalets, hidden amongst the hills, each private, secluded and complete with spa and sundeck.
Nestled in the valley below was a superb cordon bleu restaurant with its own wine cellar, a large piano bar overlooking the valley, and a cigar lounge with an open log fireplace at one end. Even in Queensland the winter nights could be chilly.
The resort also boasted an eighteen-hole golf course, two tennis courts, an Olympic-size swimming pool and a gymnasium for those who liked to temper their hedonism with a healthy workout. So why had the owners gone bankrupt?
‘The hills,’ Wallace said. ‘It’s the hills. No-one’s going to pay five-star prices to walk up hills.’
‘A miniature railway system?’ Bruce suggested. ‘Or cable cars?’
‘No, no,’ Jason said dismissively, ‘mini-mokes. A guest simply picks up a phone and dials a mini-moke and a driver. They’d have to be on tap twenty-four hours a day of course, so—’
‘Too expensive, too complicated, and there’s a much better way,’ Wallace interrupted.
His idea was simple. Pure genius.
The place was converted into a health resort. The hills were marketed as ‘incidental exercise’. Shangri-La had been deliberately designed, the guests were told, to ensure that they received a daily workout as they walked from their luxury chalets to the restaurant or the lecture room—the converted bar—where expert advice on nutrition, diet and exercise was offered, or to the pampering lounge—the cigar room—where beauticians administered facials and massages. ‘Incidental exercise’, they were informed with all due seriousness, was as important to their stay at Shangri-La Chalets as was the daily regime of tai chi, meditation, circuit training and swimming.
Wallace poached the manager from a popular health resort in the Blue Mountains, offered the personal trainer of an Olympic marathon runner twice what the Olympian could afford, and hired a top nutritionist and chef, as well as several beauticians and masseurs. After a fanfare of publicity and marketing hype, Shangri-La Chalets never looked back.
With Jason’s shrewd eye, Bruce’s tough financial negotiation, and the limitless support of Tricontinental, Wallace acquired other properties which had lost their way, and set about creating a series of thematic resorts to appeal to specific markets. That was what it was all about. Marketing. Target your market correctly and you couldn’t go wrong.
The Kendall Family Resort on the Gold Coast was the next acquisition. No flashy name, no flashy prices. Well within the working man’s budget, the Kendall Family Resort offered not only value for money but all the beauty and comfort of a five-star resort. Brand new, it boasted rooms with verandahs or terraces, for all the world like luxury suites. The massive swimming pool was landscaped with an island in the middle, and even the children’s wading pool had a miniature fountain, a smiling dolphin which squirted water on the toddlers as they crawled about.
Regular competitions were run, prior to the resort’s opening, for lucky families to win a week’s holiday at the luxurious Kendall Family Resort. When interviewed by the press, the families agreed that the Kendall Family Resort was every bit as impressive as the glossy brochures had boasted.
But, shoddily built with cheap materials, its gloss would not last long, and the Kendall Corporation sold it after three years, ensuring that its new owners would be blamed for its eventual shabbiness.
The Kendall Corporation had gone public with a massive publicity campaign, and the company’s stockmarket value steadily rose as small buyers queued up for shares in such a substantial commodity. It was heartening to the small stockholder to be able to see where his money was going. To witness the opulence and success of the Kendall resorts and to know that he owned a small part of it all.
‘Wealth certainly doesn’t buy good taste. He’s made a monstrosity of that beautiful family property, no wonder his sisters won’t speak to him.’
Bruce Hamilton heaved a sigh. Kitty Farinelli was at it again. As soon as she’d arrived at his mother’s house, she’d dived on the topic and worried it like a dog did a bone. As a lad, Bruce had found Kitty exciting. He’d fancied her. He and his brother Jim both had. Kitty Farinelli had been sexy and bold. She’d held passionate views on the most controversial of subjects like free love and abortion, and the Hamilton boys had found her slightly shocking and very attractive.
Bruce found her neither shocking nor attractive these days, although he had to admit that she was pretty damn good for her age. Alittle hatchet-faced perhaps, but still lean and lithe. Good God, she’d have to be in her late fifties and yet she had the body of a woman half her years. But he found her dogmatic and, at times, downright aggressive. Towards him, anyway.
To be fair, Bruce knew that Kitty picked on him because she was worried about his mother, but he wished she’d lay off. There was little he could do about his mother’s predicament and he’d told Kitty as much when she’d delivered her lecture over six months ago. He’d called in to see Caroline and discovered the two women in the kitchen, where they’d been playing Scrabble.
‘Do you want a lift home in my new car?’ he’d asked Kitty, with all the eager pride of a ten-year-old. He loved showing off his new Mercedes Benz.
‘But you’ve only been here ten minutes,’ Kitty said.
‘I know, just time for a quick cuppa, but I’ve got to dash.’ He looked at his watch as he put his cup down. ‘Big bad world of finance beckons. Mum understands, don’t you, Mum?’ He kissed Caroline on the cheek as he rose from the kitchen table.
‘Of course I do, dear.’ Caroline smiled proudly at Kitty. ‘He’s doing so well, he just got back from America last week.’
‘I know, you told me.’ Kitty smiled tightly at Bruce. ‘You were there for a whole month, I believe.’ So now that you’re back, you could stay with your mother for longer than t
en minutes surely, she thought. ‘I am impressed,’ she added a little archly.
‘Bye, Mum,’ Bruce said, wondering what he’d done to put Kitty’s nose out of joint. ‘I’ll pop in next week. Want that lift, Kitty?’
‘Well, I don’t need a lift,’ she’d driven as usual, ‘but I’ll accept a drive around the block in your brand new car.’
Damn, that hadn’t been the offer at all. ‘Okay,’ he said pleasantly enough. ‘Have to be a quick one though, I’ve got a meeting at three.’
Kitty hugged Caroline goodbye. She looked so old, Kitty thought, unhealthily bloated, her skin patchy, her poor hands like talons, crippled as they were with arthritis. Stoic as always, Caroline never complained, but Kitty worried terribly about her.
‘Very impressive,’ Kitty said as Bruce opened the passenger door. Then, as soon as they’d pulled out from the kerb, she got straight to the point.
‘You should see more of your mother, Bruce, she’s not well and she’s lonely …’
‘I see her once a week when I’m in town, Kitty,’ he said mildly, although he found the criticism a little offensive.
‘… she needs you,’ she barged on regardless. ‘Emma barely even phones any more …’
If the truth be known, it was Emma who really raised Kitty’s ire. Selfish little bitch. Her husband earned a fortune, they holidayed twice annually with business friends, St Moritz in the winter, the south of France in the summer, and yet she’d been home to see her mother just once in the last five years.
Caroline always came to Emma’s defence of course. ‘Gordon is feting his clients,’ she’d say, ‘he needs his wife with him. And there’s an open offer for me to visit them at any time. They even sent me a first-class return ticket.’
Well that was so easy for them, wasn’t it? And they bloody well knew she’d never take them up on it. The one trip she’d made to London had nearly killed her. Her sciatica was so bad she hadn’t been able to walk for three days after she’d got there, and then for another week after she’d got back. Emma was a selfish little bitch.
‘… and Jim,’ Kitty continued, ‘well, Jim’s of no use. It’s up to you to—’
‘I visit Jim once a week too,’ Bruce interrupted. They were turning from Macleay Street into Darlinghurst Road at the top of the Cross and she hadn’t once commented on the car or even looked out the window. ‘I visit Jim and I visit Mum, both of them, once a week whenever I can,’ he continued evenly, ‘and I’m a very busy man, it’s all the time I can afford.’
Christ, what did the woman expect of him? He’d offered to buy his mother a new house, but she didn’t want to move. He’d helped support his poor, pathetic brother for years. A drunk who lived alone on a war pension, his wife having deserted him, and who could blame her. Christ alive, he felt sorry for both his mother and his brother, and he helped them in every way he could, but he had ahighly successful and demanding career, he couldn’t sit around and hold their hands all day. Jesus, he didn’t even have time for a social life, he didn’t even have a girlfriend.
‘But surely you can spare a little more than ten minutes when you visit her, Bruce?’ Kitty never knew when to stop. ‘A little more time, that’s all I’m asking.’
‘Time is the one commodity I don’t have, Kitty,’ he said stuffily as they turned into William Street; he couldn’t wait to get her out of the car. ‘I don’t think you quite understand. I work in the corporate world, I have responsibilities to my companies, to my stockholders.’
Kitty knew she’d annoyed him with her nagging. She hadn’t meant to. But he’d changed. Dear, nice, mild Bruce Hamilton had grown pompous and self-important. What a pity. Bruce had always been one of those good all-round blokes Kitty had thought would never change.
They sat in silence, each deep in thought, until they returned to the house in Woolloomooloo. Bruce said, ‘Kitty, I didn’t mean to sound …’ just as Kitty began, ‘I didn’t mean to nag …’
They smiled at each other. ‘I do care,’ Bruce said. ‘I love Mum very much and I care a great deal.’
‘I know you do.’ She patted his hand; perhaps the old Bruce Hamilton was there underneath. And she had been pushy. She’d grown cantankerous of late. Arturo’s illness hadn’t helped. Nor the fact that he’d wished her to keep it a secret. He didn’t want people’s sympathy, he’d said.
Caroline was the only person she’d told. Artie had undergone a series of radiation treatments, and the cancer was currently in remission, but nothing was certain and they lived on the knife-edge of hope.
She got out of the car. ‘I know you love her, Bruce,’ she said. Before she closed the door, she bent down and added through the open window, ‘Just spare a little more time for her, that’s all I ask.’
Bruce had shaken his head as he’d driven off. Kitty Farinelli just couldn’t bloody help herself.
‘It’s an eyesore, an absolute eyesore. Wallace should be shot for such desecration.’
And here was Kitty, going on again.
‘He’s bought the property next door, you know,’ Bruce said just to shock her.
‘The pretty one with the terraces down to the water?’
‘Yep.’
‘Oh well, that’s tasteful enough.’
‘He’s going to mow it down and build a three-storey mansion with a helipad on the roof.’
‘A what?’
‘A helipad, so that he can land his helicopter on top of his home.’
Kitty’s face was laughable, a picture of horror, and Caroline smiled at Bruce, aware that he was baiting her.
Bruce grinned back at his mother, but he shook his head as he said, ‘It’s no joke, Mum, it’s a fact.’
‘My God,’ Caroline laughed, ‘the man’s a megalomaniac.’
‘What do his neighbours have to say about this helipad thing?’ Kitty demanded to know.
‘Oh there’ll be complaints, I’m sure, and they’ll try to stop him, but Wallace has the council in his pocket, I reckon he’ll pull it off.’
That wasn’t quite true, there was one councillor who was proving a lot of trouble. Bernard Williams couldn’t be bought, and he was heavily on the side of the local residents. Bruce secretly admired the man for his stance, but Jason had said he’d look after it, and Bruce had no doubt that, through whatever nefarious means he chose, Jason Bruford would do exactly that.
‘Wallace is a very powerful man now, Kitty,’ Bruce continued, ‘very powerful and very wealthy.’
Kitty refused to be impressed. ‘He’s still a vulgarian. Like I said, money doesn’t buy good taste. What he’s done to that beautiful property’s downright disgraceful, and now it appears he’s going to repeat the exercise. Somebody must stop him. The harbourside should belong to the people of Sydney, not to the rich vulgarians who want to desecrate—’
‘I have to go,’ Bruce interrupted, kissing Caroline on the cheek. ‘Bye, Mum.’
‘No, no,’ Kitty insisted, rising from her chair, ‘you stay, I can always come back tomorrow. I have plenty of time to share with your mother …’
Was that a deliberate dig, Bruce wondered.
‘Kitty,’ he saidfirmly, ‘I’ve been here for an hour and a half, I have to go!’
‘Oh all right.’ Unperturbed, Kitty sat down again. An hour and a half, well that was better than ten minutes.
‘He’s a good son,’ Caroline saidpointedly when he’d gone.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘And you’re a bugger of a friend.’ Caroline never found Kitty offensive, brittle and aggressive as she could be. The poor woman was a bundle of nerves, and who could blame her? Caroline wished she could have told her son the truth about Artie, but she’d been sworn to secrecy. ‘You’ll frighten the poor boy off the way you carry on,’ she smiled. ‘Honestly, Kitty, if there was one poor sheep alone in a paddock, you’d worry it to death, I swear you would.’
Fifty-year-old Bernard Williams was a man with a conscience. Not only had he never accepted a bribe, he had never made use
of privileged information to gain or sell a property, as many of his colleagues had, nor had he ever traded information for favours. Bernard was scrupulously ethical.
A devoted Rotarian and tireless charity worker, he was an unprepossessing little man in appearance. Grey-haired, bespectacled and somewhat colourless. But he was not meek when challenged and, over the years, he had achieved quite a reputation in the press. Unintentionally of course, he did not seek headlines, but one bright journalist had called him ‘the mild-mannered tiger’ and the name had stuck.
He was voicing the views of local residents when he opposed Wallace Kendall’s monstrous three-storey mansion, and the helicopter landing pad, which guaranteed noise pollution for all. Over his dead body, Bernard said in an interview with the local Went worth Courier.
‘Which could be arranged,’ Jason muttered to Wallace with such deadly humour that Wallace wondered whether perhaps he was serious. ‘But there are other ways,’ Jason added.
‘Whatever,’ Wallace said. ‘Just do it.’
Mike Lowe, talkback radio king and darling to the millions who hung on his every insincere word, had opened his breakfast programme with the subject of Sydney’s Gay Mardi Gras.
‘Should it be banned?’ he demanded, as if he cared. ‘Should it be encouraged?’ The voice of command had just the right edge of concern and query; Mike was keen to hear his listeners’ views, he said. Then the patronising ploy (he could afford to be patronising, few of his fans were poofters): ‘And, should it, I ask you, be called ‘Gay and Lesbian’? Why not just ‘Gay’? Surely ‘gay’ means homosexual persons of both gender?’
Mike was pleased, the Gay Mardi Gras was a nicely controversial subject to get the morning up and going. People were bound to ring up and complain about Sodom and Gomorrah, as they had for the past eight years since the parade’s inception. He’d booked the Reverend Fred Nile for eleven o’clock. Fred’d have a lot to say about such unnatural, deviant behaviour, which would get the militant poofters riled. It promised to be an exciting morning.
