3
Back when I was giving lectures at Petersham TAFE in the PEA course, I told the students my first rule was: check out your client. Although I was impressed by Lou Kramer and believed her, I still followed the rule. Harry Tickener, who worked on and edited and was fired from a variety of newspapers, now runs a web-based newsletter entitled Searchlight Dot Com. His office is in Leichhardt near the Redgum Gym where I go for workouts most days. I rang Harry and told him I'd be visiting.
I went to the gym and put in a solid treadmill, free weights and machine session. The Redgum is a serious place. As Wesley Scott, the proprietor and chief trainer once said, 'This isn't a lycra gym.' Many of the members are athletes- swimmers, footballers, cricketers and basketball players-and some of us older types are ex-cops, ex-army, ex-something or other, trying to stave off the effects of age and stay flexible and strong. It works, according to the amount of time you spend at it. I'm somewhere in the middle range-the despair of the true believers who go there five or six times a week and really sweat, respected by the slackers, who attend irregularly and struggle to lift what they lifted last week.
I turned up at Harry's door a little after eleven with two large takeaway flat whites from the Bar Napoli.
Harry has stripped staff back to himself and two others and he was alone in the office when I arrived. Bald as an egg, homely and cheerful, Harry wears sneakers even with suits because he has foot trouble. Today he was in jeans and a T-shirt with his Nikes on the desk in front of him.
He mimed lifting a weight, ridiculous with his pipe-stem arms. 'Good gym?'
I clenched a fist. 'Bracing. You should try it.'
'My dad lifted a coal pick about half a million times before silicosis got him. I'm against physical work. Who was it said the best thing about being working class is that it gives you something to get out of?'
'I think it might've been Neville Wran, but your father was a funeral director.'
'So, he lifted coffins. Same thing applies. Let's have that coffee. No cake? Oh, no, you're too figure conscious these days.'
I took the lids off the coffees and handed him his, several packets of sugar and a plastic stirrer. 'I don't eat anything until the evening meal most days and then as little as I can. Gym in the morning; long walk in the afternoon or evening. Lost ten kilos. I break out from time to time, but that's the routine.'
Harry shuddered. 'Spare me. What about the grog?'
'Don't want to waste away. I take in a few calories there. Of course, as we now know, red wine's good for everything that ails you.'
I perched on the edge of his big desk; Harry poured three packets of sugar into his coffee, stirred vigorously and took an appreciative sip.
'I've got three names, Harry. Be grateful for your input on all or any.'
'What's in it for me?'
'A subscription to your newsletter.'
'You already subscribe.'
'A renewal-three year.'
'Shoot.'
'Louise Kramer. Jonas Clement. Rhys Thomas.'
'The first is doing a book on the second who employs the third.'
'Shit, Harry, I know that. I mean-'
'I know what you mean. Okay, Clement's a bit of a mystery man. Came from nowhere. I've got a suspicion it's not his original name, shall we say. At a guess, I'd bet on him being a South African or from somewhere close, like Zimbabwe.'
'Thought I twigged to an accent.'
'Right. I don't really know much about him. Bloody rich, political connections. Conservative of course.'
'Reactionary, I'd say.'
Harry grunted. 'Kramer's a bit of a handful. She wrote for me when I was running The Clarion and she still does bits and pieces for me. She's been around. She can research and write but tends to piss people off. Word is she got a big advance for the book. There's a story in Clement if she can suss it out. She's your client, right?'
'Yes.'
'You're doing what?'
'Looking into things for her.'
C mon.
'Harry, you know I can't tell you, especially as she's writing a book. Tell you what, if she gets it done I'll try to persuade her to let you run extracts for free.'
'Her publishers'd have something to say about that, but I take the point. Now Thomas is a bad bastard. He's been banned from the racing industry for life, not allowed to look at a horse. Tough nut, but he isn't dumb.'
'I've already run up against him. He had a grip on Kramer that was likely to bruise the bone. I had to… cause him to stop.'
'Bad enemy to make. When was this?'
'Last night, at a Clement fund-raising party.'
'Oh, yeah, I heard about it. Absolutely no press present, meaning lots of publicity because the press speculates about who was there and who wasn't. Clement knows how to play it. Doesn't sound like your sort of gig, though.'
'I was filling in for someone.'
'How'd Lou get in?'
I shrugged.
'She's a tricky one, Cliff. Watch yourself.'
'Meaning?'
'I dunno. Her stuff was always good but I wasn't completely sure she got her info… ethically. Sailed close to the wind with her a few times-quotes ever so slightly doctored, questions about what was on and off the record. That kind of thing.'
We finished the coffee and the cups went into the bin. I asked Harry about Billie Marchant, mentioning that she'd been interviewed by Lou Kramer in Liston, and Eddie. He'd never heard of her and all he knew about Eddie was that he'd cashed in. 'No great loss,' he said. 'What d'you know about Liston, Cliff?'
'Heavyweight champ. Lost to Ali twice. Probably tanked the second time.'
'Very funny. It'll open your eyes. Three generations of welfare dependents out there, with a fourth coming along.'
'Well, my grandad was on the dole when he wasn't on the wallaby, and my dad was on it in the Depression. Me too, for a bit, when the insurance company sacked me.'
'You can compare notes then with some of the people out there, but I doubt you'll find much similarity. Some of them are locked into poverty traps no one has a clue about relieving.'
'You're talking about our political masters, our elected representatives.'
Harry blew a raspberry. 'Yeah, and we're about to elect the same lot again, or worse. Stay in touch, mate. I'll hold you to that promise about the extracts if Lou gets her shit together.'
'You have doubts?'
'She always filed dead on time. What's her deadline on the book?'
'I didn't ask.'
'You should.'
'Why?'
'It puts writers under stress. Some of them spend the advance and can't get on with the book. They go for the booze or the drugs, even suicide. It's been known.'
'Sounds like you know.'
'Sort of. I've been trying to write a novel for years. Can't crack it.' Harry waved his hand at the computer and other professional material in the room. 'Lucky I've got this. Haven't you ever tried to do something and couldn't make it, Cliff?'
