There's gonna be sex tonite

There at the protest about women's rights
She slagged Helen Garner, he said 'You're right!'
He shook his dreadlocks, condemned Wayne Carey
She offered him tofu; both were quite hairy...

There's gonna be sex tonite.

- TISM, 1998

Brad Garry ran the local news and politics desk at the Northern Star. That is to say (a) Brad Garry's byline went on any Star stories covering local news and politics; and (b) Brad Garry had a desk. Brad Garry was very rarely behind aforesaid desk, as Brad Garry prided himself on being out and about, being seen, schmoozing with the pollies, squeezing his sources and massaging the important shiny people whose quotes, and good favour, were his livelihood. Brad Garry was around so infrequently in the Star offices that he’d garnered the nickname Garry Ghost, amongst the younger staffers at least, particularly those who listened to Roy and HG’s calls of the Origin games. (Garry Ghost typically played on the wing; he would go on to play several games outside Brett Kimmorley in the coming years.) Brad Garry was in his early thirties, dressed like a used car salesman, and would have listed his interests as golf, himself, wearing an overabundance of Brut 33, himself, talking about himself (particularly in the third person), and screwing airhead bimbos ten years his junior. In short, and he was, Brad Garry was proof positive that you should never trust anyone with two first names and no surname. Brad Garry was a cock.

(Actually, McCarthy and I had a theory that anyone called Brad was a cock. It was called Brad Cock Theory. It was based around the premise that everyone we knew called Brad was a cock - Brad Garry was a cock, Brad from Toowoomba (a guy Dr Cletus and I knew from college) who wore cowboy boots and drove a ute, was a cock; Dr Cletus reckoned Brad Fittler was a cock, whereas we just thought he was overrated to the Jesus fuck. Bethany’s brother was called Brad; he was a bit of a cock as well. As Auric Goldfinger once put it, once is coincidence, twice is happenstance, three times it’s enemy action.)

Brad Garry was also very territorial when it came to news stories and other content that Brad Garry felt was within Brad Garry’s sphere of responsibility at the newspaper. And though Brad Garry was very interested in the idea, abstract though it was, of bending young Andrea Barnard over his desk and spanking her firm pert G-string-tensioned buttocks to a rosy shade of scarlet then diving into them face-first, Brad Garry certainly wasn’t averse to putting her in her place when it came to who got to write about local politics at this news organisation, and who didn’t. And that was Brad Garry.

Brad Garry leant over Andrea’s desk in an oddly similar manner to the way Andrea herself had leant over McCarthy’s the day before. Although a good six inches shorter than she, he still managed to look both patronising and obnoxious.

“Andrea,” he said, “My understanding is that you have an interest in interviewing the Member for Richmond, is that correct?”

Bob Cunliffe was the National Party MP for Richmond, the Federal electorate in which the Northern Rivers, the Star’s catchment area, was situated. Cunliffe had been in parliament for donkey’s years. The area was as staunchly National Party as you’d expect a region dominated by agriculture, fishing and tourism development to be, and Cunliffe served his consituents - namely property developers, farming lobby groups, the forestry industry and anyone else interested in defiling the local environs for a quick buck - quite nicely thank you very much. For anyone not from Cunliffe's side of politics - for instance the teacher’s son Sam McCarthy, or the Cessnock coalminer’s daughter Andrea Barnard - it just seemed that the Star’s sub-editors kept leaving a ‘T’ out of his name whenever one of Brad Garry’s fawning puff-pieces went into press.

Andrea looked up from her workstation, and did her best to suppress a grimace. “Oh, hi Brad. I wouldn’t say I was interested in interviewing Bob Cunliffe, I don’t really know where you'd have got that idea from…”

“My understanding is that there’s a song on the radio at the present moment which parodies the death of Harold Holt, which you were interested in seeing if he might have some comment on.”

“That’s… correct, but again, I don’t know where you heard that.”

Brad Garry smiled an oily smile. “Brad Garry has his sources.”

Brad Garry’s sources were in fact Sam and Andrea themselves, who he’d overheard discussing the Harold Holt song over a takeaway coffee that morning, not far from the spot where he habitually took his first B&H of the day.

“Well, it’s true. I mean it’s nothing that offensive… I wouldn’t say it parodies his death, that’s a bit harsh. But given that Bob Cunliffe supposedly knew Holt or crossed paths with him at some stage in Canberra or whatever…”

“What’s the song called?”

“Learn to Swim with Harold Holt.”

Brad Garry chuckled to himself. “Andrea,” he began reproachfully, “my understanding is that a very many people who buy our newspaper would find that very offensive. Bob Cunliffe included.”

My understanding is that you are a wanker, thought Andrea.

“You being our star entertainment reporter,” he continued with a you-know-you-want-it smirk, “you'd be able to source me a copy of this recording, righty-o?” It wasn’t a question. “I’ll be interviewing Bob Cunliffe tomorrow, as it happens, and would be very interested in pursuing this line of inquiry with him.”

“Sure you don’t want me to look after it,” she ventured, “given it’s basically just a music story?”

He smiled condescendingly. “Sweetheart,” he said, “when it comes to Bob Cunliffe, it’s always a ‘politics’ story. Once you’ve been around here a little while longer, you’ll understand that. Just leave this to Brad Garry, righty-o? And leave that CD on my desk once you track it down, OK?”

She choked on a bitter smile as he turned and strode away, silently hissing Fuck off you tosser through gritted teeth. ‘Once you’ve been around here a little while longer’? She’d been here five years already, only a year or so less than him, the cock… She glanced across towards McCarthy’s tiny desk crammed in the corner and caught his eye. Uncle Sam raised an eyebrow, inquiringly. She winked back, a grin creasing the corner of her mouth with the prospect of the karma get-square to come. He flicked an unobtrusive thumbs up, and went back to work.

Thursday must have been a slow news day, for Brad Garry’s interview with Bob Cunliffe reached the front page. As most of it was tedious self-indulgent crap, the subbies had resorted to taking the comments regarding the Harold Holt song, the only mildly controversial or interesting part of the story, and use that as the basis for the headline. Cunliffe had taken Brad Garry’s bait, hook, line and sinker, and had willingly provided indignant quotes for his column inches. Disgusted, he was. Appalled, as well. That some reprehensible individual could find juvenile amusement in the death of Harold Holt was something that he, Bob Cunliffe, could not comprehend, and he intended to act on behalf of all decent God-fearing citizens of the Northern Rivers to bring intense pressure to bear upon these radio stations to stop playing this offensive, unfunny song. Singing about crabs in your pubic hair - I ask you, is that in any way appropriate for the children of the Northern Rivers to listen to? With particular poignance, Cunliffe added that Harold Holt was a good friend and a trusted contemporary of his, and the tragedy of his passing still hurt him.

In fact, what he actually grunted was “Pig’s fucken arse to this, son. Harry Holt was an old drinking buddy of mine, used to sink piss and chase skirt together back in the day. This shithouse excuse for music is fucken off-colour and it’ll be stopped, and I’ll have these little cunts thrown in the station cells overnight for their trouble. Sure the boys can find some so called illicit substances in their shitty little student flat, know what I mean? You’ll leave that shit out of the story, obviously, and see if you can dress the rest up in the usual flowery poofter language you usually use, the old moles lap that shit up.”

Bob Cunliffe, who made Sir Les Patterson look like Boutros Boutros-Ghali, had no need for a press secretary with Brad Garry on the payroll.

Triple Z, never ones to miss a trick, responded to Cunliffe's tirade by playing Learn to Swim three times that day, their DJs delighted to pretend they were independent in their playlist selection and would bow to no political pressure in their right to play whatever they chose, while secretly counting the hours before the call would come through from head office that the big boss wanted the Harold Holt song dropped - he was also mates with Cunliffe, surprisingly enough. Same golf club membership, allegedly.

“It’s 5.15 pm, and hey, as you may have heard, there’s a lot of controversy about this new song by emerging local rockers Flange Gasket,” declared the drive-time DJ whose name escapes me, but was a stonking great tosser himself, come to think of it. “Some say it disrespects former PM Harold Holt. Others say it’s just a big joke, and a very cool song as well. We’re saying, ‘make your own mind up’. Yeeaaahhhh. Here they are with Learn to Swim. You're on Triple Z. Projecting our audio radiance to your radio audience...”

Fucking stoners. Brad Garry switched off the stereo in the subeditors’ office with an indignant flourish, ignoring the protests of the junior staffers, and made his way over to Sheree’s desk. It was certainly useful to have a ‘pet’ subeditor, if you were in the position, and of the ambition, of Brad Garry. The subbies usually wrote the headlines and the captions for most of the articles, as well as editing or culling over-expansive copy. With a carefully-considered sweep of the pen, a disgruntled or misguided subbie could shit all over a hard-working journalist’s efforts entirely with an inappropriate caption, a miss-the-point-entirely headline, or simply by identifying the journo’s best work and pissing it off completely from the article. Particularly if the subbie in question had a grievance against or harboured an unprofessional dislike for the journalist in question. Given that most of the staff at the Star, including the subeditors, thought Brad Garry was a cock, having Sheree on-side had become very useful indeed. The fact that she was a silly little blonde thing with great tits, as well as being an easily persuaded (read 'often drunk') casual fuck, was also of use to Brad Garry.

“What’s this I hear about someone else interviewing Russell Dodd?” he wanted to know.

“Don’t blame me, Brad,” she said. She did have a rather whiny voice, which he insisted on taking marks off for, along with her personality, and her face. “The story just came in, ready to go. It’s fifteen minutes to deadline, and Bill [Bowler, chief subeditor] said it goes in as-is.”

Russell Dodd, long-time history teacher at Richmond River High, was the perennial Labor candidate for Richmond. He was usually flogging a dead horse, but on the odd occasion did manage to run Cunliffe fairly close, like in the ’93 election when the looming spectre of the GST scared a lot of traditional National voters away from the John Hewson-led Liberal-National Coalition. To me, Dodd seemed a decent enough fella - he’d taught Marty’s sister back in the day - but was always well behind the game when trying to take on Cunliffe and his deeply ingrained network of communal backscratchers and graft-merchants.

“What’s the story say?” Brad Garry demanded.

“Nothing much,” she muttered. “Just responding to Bob Cunliffe’s comments about that Harold Holt song. Going on about freedom of speech, government interference in the media, that sort of thing…”

“His usual bleeding-heart leftie bullshit, in other words,” Brad Garry spat. “Whose byline is on it?”

“Noone’s,” she replied. “‘Staff Writer’, it says.”

Brad Garry considered his options for a moment. Whoever the hell was fucking with Brad Garry’s territory, Brad Garry would soon sort them out good and proper. Starting, Brad Garry decided, with stealing their thunder.

“This interview,” he snapped, “does it read like something of mine?”

“Well, not really…” Sheree would know, she read everything he wrote. “It’s quite a bit more…”

“…Amateur?” he suggested smugly.

“…Balanced, I was going to say… I mean, Brad, you don’t usually give Russell Dodd the time of day, let alone three hundred words.”

“Here’s what you’ll do,” Brad Garry directed. “Change the byline. As you all know, and as the readers of the Northern Star know, Brad Garry is the only journo who writes about local politics for this paper.”

“But it’s not your work! If Mac finds out…”

“Change it. Brad Garry is the byline that goes on that article. Understood?”

Sheree almost cowered. Bottom lip out, she had her sulk on. That shat him too. More marks off. “But… it doesn’t even read like it’s something you’d write… don't you even want to look at it first?”

“No. Fuck it.” He directed his glare straight at her. “As you said, it’ll make me sound more… what did you call it? Balanced.” The last word was spat out with enough acid to run a 12 volt car battery. Brad Garry turned on his heels and stormed out.

Interval at the theatre, they both hit it off
Discussing the meaning of Anton Chekhov
The director they hated, the actress they panned her
What they acted out later weren't exactly Uncle Vanya...

There's gonna be sex tonite.

Brad Garry turned up for his last day of work at the Star twenty minutes late, and dragged that out to an even half-hour with a cigarette in the fire escape while the rain beat down outside. Not that Brad Garry knew it was his last day of work at the Star, or even suspected it, come to think of it. The first inkling that something was slightly awry came when Brad Garry strode into the editorial offices and found every single pair of eyes following him. Staring at him, like he was some sort of Roswell escapee. Of course, when he stared back, the offending pairs of eyes looked away quickly.

Brad Garry reached his desk, noting that some occasionally useful underling had provided him with a copy of this morning’s Star. He never read the paper, other than the form guide, which he studied religiously. However, getting closer to his desk, he realised that the front-page article had been scribbled on. Several passages were circled in red marker pen. He scooped up the paper and skimmed through. By the end, Brad Garry was as white as the paper he was holding.

It was the interview with Russell Dodd by ‘Staff Writer’, not that it'd gone to press with that byline. As predicted, Dodd had blathered on about freedom of speech and government interference in the media, somehow linking the whole thing to media cross-ownership laws, one of Dodd’s pet whinges. Though as it turned out that wasn’t the bit that troubled Brad Garry the most.

However, the most contentious part of Mr Cunliffe’s outburst, according to Mr Dodd, is that he was a close personal friend of the late Harold Holt. Mr Holt, then Prime Minister, drowned at Portsea Beach in July 1967. At that stage, according to his official parliamentary profile available online, Bob Cunliffe was running a cane farm in far north Queensland. He moved to the Northern Rivers in the early 1970s and entered politics soon after, gaining office in the double-dissolution election of 1975 following Sir John Kerr’s sacking of the elected Whitlam government.

“It wasn’t until you mentioned it that I realised,” Mr Dodd told the Star, “but for Bob Cunliffe to claim he was a close personal friend of Harold Holt, given that he didn’t reach Canberra until eight years after his death, seems to me a gross perversion of the truth, and an attempt by Mr Cunliffe to gain political mileage out of Mr Holt’s drowning. That to my mind is far worse than a local student band writing a humourous song about being taught to swim by Harold Holt. Flange Gasket’s crime appears to be no more than the traditional Australian pastime of ‘taking the mickey’.”

Mr Dodd went on to say, “As you’ve also pointed out to me, the local baths at Portsea, where Mr Holt tragically drowned, were actually renamed in his honour some years ago, and to this day children of the area are taken for learn-to-swim classes at the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Baths. That, to my mind, puts Mr Cunliffe’s ridiculous outrage in the pathetic, grandstanding light it deserves.”

The red texta had circled the passages ‘close personal friend of the late Harold Holt’, ‘gross perversion of the truth’, ‘learn-to-swim classes at the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Baths’, and ‘ridiculous outrage in the pathetic, grandstanding light it deserves’. Circled and underlined were the passages ‘It wasn’t until you mentioned it that I realised’ and ‘As you’ve also pointed out to me’. The only other red markings on the paper was a short direction: See me - Mac.

Brad Garry lined up outside his editor’s office like a naughty schoolboy hoping to dodge the principal’s cane. Mac McCormack summoned him in. He seemed quite calm, which usually meant he was about to unleash a series of ferocious thunderbolts which Curtly Ambrose would have been proud of. He also began quite calmly, which did nothing to reassure Brad Garry.

“I’ve just gotten off the phone with Bob Cunliffe,” Mac remarked. He waited for a response from Brad Garry. Getting nothing, he continued, “He had quite a bit to say for himself. That he was outraged that you would write such scurrilous things about his person, saying that he’d never actually met Harold Holt, that he was a liar and a fraud.”

“Mac, I…”

“As we both know, Bradley, Bob is both of those things and worse. But his word carries weight in this area. And when his word is directed against our senior political correspondent, my attention is captured. Is that understood?”

“Certainly, Mac. But I…”

“However, Bob was more disgusted that you not only published these so-called facts, but that you fed them directly to Russell Dodd for him to gain political mileage. Next time you have a brainwave like that, he suggested, you should call him first to check. Indeed, next time you interview Bob, he has requested that you don’t put him in a position where he can be tripped up by his own trail of bullshit. After all, he said,” said Mac, his words beginning to find an edge, “isn’t that what I pay the little bastard for?”

“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Brad Garry stammered.

Mac looked at him like he was a dog turd on his favourite cyclepath.

“You might be happy to get the occasional backhander from Bob Cunliffe, but my newspaper is not of the same mindset. I think you need to make that distinction next time you talk with Bob. Whatever he pays you,” Mac growled, “buys you. Not my newspaper. He seemed distinctly surprised that I wasn’t aware of your arrangement with him, so I think you should probably clarify this with him. For future reference.”

Brad Garry was now turning redder than the marker pen which had directed him here in the first place. He asked if that was all.

“Not quite,” Mac continued. “Just before Bob Cunliffe rang, I fielded a call from Russell Dodd. He was most surprised and quite put out that he found your byline on the interview with him that went to press in this morning’s newspaper. Mr Dodd was quite adamant that you were not the journalist who’d interviewed him yesterday. He went on to say that if any of his own students had plagiarised another’s work in such a blatant manner in years gone by, he’d have had them suspended from school.”

Oh Jesus, thought Brad Garry. The first indiscretion, perhaps, Mac could have turned a blind eye to - Mac wasn’t born yesterday, he knew how the game was played, surely. But the second…

“Local politics is my area, Mac. It belongs to Brad Garry’s, dammit! When someone barges in and tries to take something which belongs to Brad Garry, Brad Garry does something about it. And it’s not as if there was a name to take off - the gutless prick didn’t even have the balls to put their name to it…”

“Bradley,” directed Mac calmly, “shut up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now,” he breezed, “this puts me in something of an awkward position. I now have two excellent reasons to fire you, Bradley.” Mac liked calling him ‘Bradley’, because it was very obvious he absolutely fucking hated it. “One, that you entered into an arrangement with a local MP involving the exchange of cash and/or goods for favourable press coverage. Which is not on. I’m not about to have my employees serving as freelance press officers for local politicians, understood?”

“But Mac, half this fucking town…”

“Bradley, shut up,” Mac reiterated mildly, still in check of his emotions. This was getting close to an all-wicket record. “And two, you stole another journalist’s work and presented it as your own...”

“Sheree told you, right?” Brad Garry ejaculated. He hadn't really looked that excited, to be fair.

“She didn’t need to. For God’s sake, did you ever think you could get away with it? It’s nothing like something you’d write. For one thing, it’s got facts in it. For another, it’s a lot less…”

“Polished?”

“Plodding,” Mac replied. “And a lot less fawning, pretentious and toss-laden. Dense though it is, it’s light years ahead of your rubbish.”

There was a pause, while all of the above began to sink in, like Monty Python’s prop 16-ton weight compressing Brad Garry’s skull in sloooowwwwww motion.

“Tell me straight, Mac, let's not fuck about here. Should I be cleaning out my desk?”

Mac smiled disarmingly. “Bradley, I’m not going to fire you for your arrangement with Cunliffe, and I’m not going to fire you because you stole another journalist’s copy.”

Brad Garry’s relief was palpable.

“No, I’m going to fire you because I think you’re an egregious, obnoxious little shit, and I'm sick of you stinking out this newspaper.”

“Sir?”

Mac stood, leaning over the desk. Here it came. The Spray.

“I don’t like you, Bradley. I don’t like your methods, your ethics, or even your work. I don’t like anything about you. When I came to this desk three years ago, you were already established and flourishing, like a persistent case of genital herpes. But even though you were an egregious, obnoxious little shit, I accepted you as a necessary evil, because of your connections, and because you generated copy in reasonable quantity if not quality. But you got lazy, Bradley. And greedy. I can’t use lazy, greedy journalists. I don’t like them and I don’t want them at my newspaper. And I certainly don’t give them employment references that would get them a job at any other newspaper worth the name. So yes, Bradley, feel free to start clearing out your desk. Starting right about... now.”

He pointed at the door. Reluctantly, heavily, Brad Garry stood.

“Sir… Mac… someone’s done a number on me here. I’m telling you, I’ve been set up…”

“Oh, so someone else demanded your name should go on the Dodd interview, then?”

“Come on Mac, join the dots here,” Brad Garry insisted. “Who was this so called ‘Staff Writer’ anyway? Someone who was out for my job, of course… Don’t you see? Come on, who was it? You must have known…”

Mac considered this for a moment, almost as though he was about to let the name slip, perhaps as a final favour. Then he smiled.

“I think the 12th Man said it best,” Mac offered. “Tell your fuckin’ story walkin’, pal.”

Brad Garry cleared out his desk, surrounded by deathly silence in the editorial office, punctuated only by the occasional bout of furtive whispering which ceased whenever he came near. He was relieved of his office keys, laptop and expenses book, and escorted from the building without further ado. He reached the carpark and felt for his car keys. Shit, he remembered, he’d had one of the newspaper’s editorial cars overnight and had driven in with it that morning. He’d have to cab it home. Considering Brad Garry lived in Alstonville, about 20km away, it wasn’t going to be a cheap taxi fare. Yet again, he cursed his luck.

He finally arrived home an hour late and seventy dollars lighter than usual, having been earbashed relentlessly by his friendly neighbourhood cabbie about the state of the nation and how it’d be all different if he was in charge. Pollies were all useless bastards, noses in the trough. He was particularly incensed about the recent actions of that Bob Cunliffe. “There’s schools shutting down, waiting lists at the base hospital, the roads are shit and we’re taxed up to the arsehole, and Bob fuckin' Cunliffe is going on about some fuckin' song on the radio? About some guy he doesn’t even fuckin' know? Fuck 'im mate. I’m gonna fuckin' vote Labor next time….”

Brad Garry was going to argue that public hospitals, schools and roads were actually state responsibilities, and therefore Bob Carr’s fault (even though he’d only been in power for a couple of years, whereas the Libs had been cheerfully running all three into the ground since the bicentennial) but he couldn’t find the heart.

“So what do you do for a crust mate?” the cabbie asked.

“I, er, work at… Mitre 10.”

“Really?” He turned and grinned. “My brother Dave works there, he’s the manager. You know him of course?”

“Ah, yeah… Any chance we could have the radio on?”

“No worries, mate,” the cabbie said. And flicked on Triple Z. And wouldn’t you know it…

No need to go and do the bolt, I learned to swim with Harold Holt.

The cabbie roared with laughter. “Give 'em credit, these boys are funny,” he’d declared. “Cracks me up every time they play it.”

Brad Garry staggered in through the front door. Flange Gasket, if that was actually their name, had ruined Brad Garry’s life. And Brad Garry didn’t even know who the hell they were.

He remembered the copy of the CD which he’d demanded from Andrea a few days ago. Hadn’t actually gotten around to playing it, of course. He’d also had to ask her for transcribed lyrics to quote in the original interview with Cunliffe. In a daze, Brad Garry scooped up the CD case, slung the disc in his stereo, and pressed play.

Crowd cheers. An amplified voice booms out of his speakers.

“G’day folks, thanks for coming out - we are Flange Gasket, the greatest rock and roll band in all of Goonellabah. Remember our name because you’ll be screaming it later.”

Small but vocal crowd cheers volubly. And Brad Garry knew that voice, too. Why did he know that voice? How did he know that voice?

“That’s what I’m talking about. This is my good friend Angus Young, folks. He’s got something he wants y’all to know about. Ain’t that right Angus?”

That voice again. Angus Young? Didn’t he play in AC/DC?

Then, another voice. “You bet yo’ ass, Uncle Sam.”

Uncle Sam.

The penny dropped.

Fuck me. Sam McCarthy, that little fucking leftie cunt.

Unfortunately for Brad Garry, this realisation of Brad Garry’s came just a bit too late to save Brad Garry’s career in journalism. Brad Garry did manage to find gainful employment, however - as Bob Cunliffe’s new press secretary. Unfortunately, Brad Garry’s new employment arrangements didn’t last long. Bob Cunliffe was unceremoniously turfed out of office at the next election, Tampa crisis or otherwise.

Brad Garry now sells real estate on the Gold Coast.

On the deck of the boat she pointed out east
Said 'A whale is in fact an air-breathing beast'
He really liked nature, he was out of the slammer
Had a gram of cocaine, and a video camera...

Much later in the day of Brad Garry and his epiphany regarding McCarthy and his Epiphone, Uncle Sam was working back in the office on a few bits and pieces. He was in a hurry to finish up and clear out, as most of the office were already at Friday drinks, and he’d been looking forward to meeting Andrea there to toast their success with a celebratory beverage or three. Mac McCormack asking to see him before he headed off was about the last thing he needed, particularly because he had a feeling in the pit of his stomach he knew what Mac wanted to talk about.

“Come in, sit down,” Mac said cheerily. “I know you should be at Friday drinks, but this won’t take a second.”

“Cheers,” said McCarthy.

“Well,” Mac began, “you’ve had an interesting week, haven’t you? Entrapping a fellow journalist in his own corrupt shitstorm and getting him fired, making a federal MP out to be a liar and a bullshit artist, and getting your band a whole swag of free commercial airplay on the back of all the controversy you’ve stirred up…”

Ouch. The bottom appeared to fall out of McCarthy’s universe right about there. One look at Mac’s expression told Uncle Sam everything he needed to know. Mac had learned the whole story, somehow. And there was little point trying to pretend otherwise.

“That’s, uh, not the context I would have interpreted things in, necessarily,” he suggested.

Mac nodded. Oddly, he didn’t look angry. Maybe this was the new touchy-feely, management-by-consensus Mac McCormack. After all, there had been barely a raised voice through his office door when he’d fired Brad Garry that morning, by all accounts.

“How’d you find out?” Uncle Sam wanted to know.

Mac shrugged. “You can thank Russell Dodd. He called me up to complain that Brad Garry’s byline was on the interview… not that nice pair of young journalists whose names he couldn’t remember.”

“To think I voted for him, and the bastard grassed on me,” McCarthy observed. “Look, it was my idea, Andrea just went along with it.”

“I know,” he said, “that Dodd interview reads like one of yours. Nice touch with the ‘I hadn’t noticed until you just told me’, though. Read like Brad Garry’s usual self-promotion.”

“To be honest, that never entered into it,” McCarthy admitted. “I had no idea he’d try and claim it for himself.”

“There’s no accounting for greed, young Sam,” Mac noted. “But if what you say is true, I’ll accept that Sheree Cross was an unwitting accomplice, and Andrea Barnard, we’ll say, played a supporting role. Which leaves you in a rather awkward position, Sam. Like I say, it could be interpreted that you’ve engineered the situation to get rid of a rival and score some free promotion for your band. As well as embarrassing a prominent local MP from the side of politics which you very clearly don’t agree with.”

“That obvious, is it?”

Mac nodded. “Something you need to work on with your writing is trying to hide your political leanings, Sam. This isn’t The Big Issue, you know.”

“Understood.”

“And another thing you have to work on,” directed Mac firmly, “is never, ever, put yourself in a situation as a journalist where your motivation can be called into question, where incidents can be interpreted in a way that reflects badly on your integrity, like today. Learn this, if nothing else, from Brad bloody Garry. And don’t ever, ever, use my newspaper as a means of settling personal grievances. Do that again and you’ll know all about it. Understood?”

“Absolutely,” nodded the chastened McCarthy.

“That’s not all. I want to know one more thing. And I don’t care how you managed to plan it all so well, or how you knew Brad Garry would fall for it. I don’t want to know any of that, and I certainly don’t want to know if myself and my newspaper have just been used in some massive promotional exercise from day one. I’d rather not know, to be honest. But I do want to know one thing, before you leave this office.”

He looked McCarthy straight in the eye.

“Are there really,” Mac finally asked, “Harold Holt learn-to-swim classes down at Portsea?”

McCarthy nodded. There were. He’d done his research.

Mac laughed out loud. “That’s beautiful,” he declared. “I love this country. Come on. You’re off the hook, come for a beer.”

Thank Christ for that, McCarthy thought.

“Mac, did you ever go to uni with a fellow called Chris Kurtin?” he asked as they wandered through the darkened offices towards the pub?

“God no. Not that I can remember. Who the hell’s Chris Kurtin when he’s at home?”

McCarthy grinned. “Just some low-grade local music promoter. Also lectures at SCU.”

“Isn’t he the one who the tax office was trying to prosecute? Seek Promotions, yeah? Sure we ran a story on that last year…”

By the time McCarthy reached the pub, Andrea was several Vodka Cruisers to the wind and was even more engaging company than usual. She wasn’t backward in coming forward, either. After post-work drinks petered out, they kicked on with some of the other younger staffers elsewhere. Given that dinner wasn’t involved in the schedule anywhere, by midnight all parties were a little bit tipsy. As Andrea lived up in Lismore Heights, not far from Chateau Dodgy, McCarthy suggested they split a cab to her place, and he’d walk back to ours from there. Tragically, he never made it home. Tragically for anyone who liked the old, submissive, diffident McCarthy, who obsessed, analysed, planned, deliberated, agonised and finally talked himself out of making any bold moves, ever. So his mother then.

“Come in for a coffee?” Andrea suggested. More than a hint of promise in those eyes.

McCarthy considered the invitation, and what it could very well lead to.

“Only,” he replied with surprising cockiness, “if I can stay for breakfast.

He was knocking on doors, she was watching television
He said 'Money for the kids? I'm collecting for World Vision.'
Her heart was full of pity, for a world that's full of grief
He donated to a charity she called 'Hand Relief'...

There's gonna be sex tonite.

“You should have got your face slapped,” I declared, but McCarthy just laughed. Still in his work clothes, he’d wandered in the door, dishevelled but glowing, just as we were rising from the grave around ten on Saturday morning, and were brewing up a batch of coffee to ward off our hangovers. ‘We’ being Jessica and myself; the other boys having crashed at someone’s place in Byron after watching some SCU muso mates play a gig at the Backroom the previous night.

“Ah, fuck off. You of all people should be proud, mate. Don’t think, do. Four years of that I had to listen to down in Sydney…”

“Yeah, but… ‘Only if I can stay for breakfast’? Come on. Jess, back me up here.”

Jessica nodded. “It’s pretty crass,” she confirmed, sipping from a large mug bearing the logo of a biotech company who were rather generous with their freebie merchandise. At least I’d gotten something tangible out of my research career.

“See?”

“But… if I was drunk enough, and I liked the guy… yeah, could work I guess.”

“As long as it was me, you mean,” I said.

“Oh, obviously. Did I not make that clear?” Her smile told all kinds of stories, more than some of which I liked the concept of. My hangover appeared to be clearing.

“So what the hell are you doing back here then?” I wanted to know.

McCarthy, tired but proud, just grinned. “Just grabbing a change of clothes,” he called. “Don’t worry, I’ll be out of your way soon enough...” He darted down the hall and disappeared into his room, emerging barely moments later with a T-shirt, boxers and jeans stuffed under his arm.

“Why don’t you just grab a shower here before you go?” was my logical suggestion.

McCarthy regarded me quizzically. “Now why would I want to go and do that,” he mused, “with a perfectly good shower waiting for me up at Andrea’s? Not to mention a perfectly good Andrea to help in the showering process…”

I frantically made a ‘time-out’ signal. “Forget I asked. Go on, get out of here.”

“I’m already gone, brother,” he called, and he was.

Jessica turned me with a relieved smile. For a moment, I thought she was just relieved Sam was gone so we could get on with Fun Stuff. Then she raised a hand, inviting a high-five which I was happy to partake in.

“Nice work, partner,” she grinned.

“Oh, so we are taking responsibility for this then? Thought we were trying to match him up with Cassia?”

She made a sour face. “Wish we’d done so, in hindsight. That Steve Bennett loser is hanging around work constantly these days. One of those guys who takes himself just a tad too seriously.”

“No accounting for taste in these parts,” I noted. “Honestly though, we can’t really take any credit for Uncle Sam hooking up with Andrea. That’s all his own devious work. Bloody devious bit of work it was, too…”

“I’m very impressed,” she admitted. “He deserves it. He should be proud. You should be proud.”

“I am, believe me. He’s done very well for himself. Even though his new missus thinks I’m an arrogant little fucker.”

“She does not,” Jessica retorted. “Anyway,” she contended, “you are an arrogant little fucker. Which is how you got me to sleep with you in the first place.”

I didn’t agree with that at all. I wasn’t ‘little’. Length has never been an issue for me. I’m six foot, dammit. But I wasn’t given a chance to make this point, because my lips and tongue had become entangled with Jessica’s, my hands cupping her gorgeous backside, lifting her lithe, giggling frame onto the breakfast bar...

We always liked having the place to ourselves, particularly on lazy weekend mornings.

I doubted, though, that Sam had initiated his devious master-plan with the specific aim of winning over Andrea; it was a welcome side-benefit, but it wasn’t his original objective. Nor did I really think he’d set out with the intention of hoisting Brad Garry on his own petard, or likewise the local National Party MP. My gut feeling was that this, all of this, was another phase in some complex scheme of McCarthy’s for world domination - or at least the domination, subjugation and humiliation of Christopher Nigel Kurtin. Whatever other results had come from this, Flange Gasket were getting played not only on student radio, but commercial radio, and Kretin’s apoplexy was growing by the day, judging by the phone messages he was leaving and the emails he was sending regarding his ‘proposition’. Not forgetting of course that McCarthy was the one who he’d picked out, rightly or wrongly, as the ringleader (not that he’d done anything to dissuade this at all), and McCarthy was the one who’d been gently agitating to do something more with the project, not to just leave things lie.

I couldn’t shake this vague feeling that everyone involved, myself included to some extent, had been carefully manipulated to achieve his desired end. But, a bit like Mac McCormack at the Star, if that was the case, I didn’t really want to know about it.