No one at the Bugle Group ever spoke to Miles about his confrontation with Ros, not even Mr. Charles. The Bugle Group had not forgotten its reporting traditions. If panel beaters or real estate agents wanted to get their message in the paper then they could always buy an ad. However, Ros also did not move. Instead she tried to make his life difficult, no doubt hoping that he would leave. Unfortunately for her, Miles was not the sort of man to wilt from a few harsh words.
“And where have you been?” she would say to Miles from her office door when he returned from an interview.
“Out Ros,” he said, without stopping, his mind on other things.
“What have you been doing?”
“Stuff for the paper, Ros.”
“I demand to know what you’ve been doing.”
“’Been having fun Ros,” said Miles almost as his desk.
Later, Kelly said: “she really hates you, you know. I’ve heard her on the phone and some of the things she says about you.”
“Nah, she really loves me,” said Miles, not particularly worried that bad words from Ros would affect his career, “talking with her reminds me of talking with me mum as a kid.”
The occasional exchange of views with Ros aside there was the paper to produce and the reactions of readers to deal with, including a piece of official reaction to the front page story about Mudlark Ave which unexpectedly filled up the news room door the day after publication. Detecting a darkening in the room, Miles turned to see a tall, heavily built, middle-aged man, with receding black hair and spreading midriff. He had squeezed himself into jeans, topped with open-necked, coloured shirt and a gold chain. In the cooler months he wore a light, black leather coat. His hawk-like face, hook nose and dark-complexion spoke of a Mediterranean heritage but his mouth was all Australian.
“Bastards in Mudlark Ave,” he said, without introducing himself. “Told ‘em it was no-go, already. Council says the road’s gotta go through and they gotta go to court – not much hope there – or forget it. Bastards, dropping me in it! Already rung up that deadshit Kenny ‘n gave ‘im a serve.”
“Um.. Councilor Gouter, I presume.”
“Yeah, that’s me.” He and Miles shook hands, the latter thinking that the Lovett City councilor whose ward was one of two wards in the circulation area of the Koala Bay Bugle, looked like a cross between a used car salesman, a gangster and a fruit stall owner. Having seen the size of him – Gouter had played prop forward for the Koala Bears for 10 years, making up for a lack of skill by charging hard in the scrums - and the way he had walked into the office as if he owned the place, he was glad he had only mentioned Kenny’s complaints about the councilor in passing and had made every effort to contact him. For reporters on the local papers community, or official, reaction is likely to take the form of gigantic councilors who walk right in of the streets and make their thoughts on a story involving them known in good, round terms.
“I rang you twice.”
“Know you did.. overseas. So, alright, not worried about a serve or two. Serve it straight back. ‘specially to the likes of Kenny. So where did ya come from?”
Miles told him but the information did not mean much to him. The councilor’s eyes flicked once or twice to Angela who had her earphones on, but did not try to speak to her.
“Where did you go overseas?”
“Um, New York for a bit, then Bangkok - business, ya know.”
Miles wondered briefly what business a Lovet City councilor who ran a plumbing supplies wholesaler might have in Bangkok but let it slide for the moment.
“Tried ringing the other councilor for the area. Theo..”
“..Georgiou. Half ya luck if you can get him. Never seen him anywhere or do any bloody thing since he got on last election. Council can’t even get hold of him half the time. I didn’t say that by the way. You do your own shit work.”
“Fair ‘nough.”
Councilor Gouter then put one elbow on the filing cabinet, waving away Miles’ suggestion that they try and lift the newsroom’s one visitor’s chair over Angela.
“Never see you fellas right down here, do they?” he said, looking around. “That lunatic Ros” – Miles opinion of the councillor lifted a few notches – “takes the good office to do bugger all, at least that’s what Jan always said. She wasn’t here long. What happened to her?”
“Ros got to her. She kept claiming she had to see stories..”
“’Cause she’s Charles’ sister?”
“Yeah. And Ros had her mate fend off any queries down at South Forest, so Jan could never get through to the editor in chief to find out otherwise.”
“Ha! That’s why the paper was shit. People were thinking nothing happened in Koala Bay. Nothing much does o’ course, but the paper’s gotta say something.”
After a few more minutes of this the reporter asked again about the missing councilor Georgiou.
“Off the record, right? Don’t want you quoting me on this. He got on last year on a Labor-greenies ticket. He was sorta known through the surf club and his wife’d done a few charity things. Dunno why he agreed, ‘cause he’s been invisible since. He had one interview in the paper when he was running, and I saw him at one council thing after the election. Since then he’s not been seen. Been overseas a couple of times they reckon but even when he’s here he just has the answering machine on. If they do catch him, he’s always got some excuse for not doing things – kids are sick, or wife needs help, or some bloody thing. Even the Labor guys ’d reckon ram it up ‘im. Been completely useless.”
Miles nodded. He had never rammed it up anyone in a newspaper before but he was certainly prepared to try.
“Where would I go to get confirmation of the fact that he doesn’t attend meetings? There has to be a record.”
“Ah dunno – give the city manager, Barry Michaels, a call. Come ta think of it, try the Mayor first, but you might end with Michaels. He’s got a stud up in the back blocks somewhere, so you and he should get on fine. Maybe he can give a statement about attendance. No one’s gonna say more on the record, I reckon. Anyway gotta go. See ya ”
The gigantic councillor moved away, turning his head to look at Angela’s glorious, golden mop on the way out but not saying anything.
Miles rang the mayor, a women who ran a fast printing and delivery franchise. The mayor rang Michaels who promptly invited Miles, via an assistant, to his office. Miles drove down to find the city manager to be white-haired and close to retirement, but still with the dark active eyes and ruddy complexion of someone who worked on the land. He soon detected Miles’ accent and, when he found out that he grew up on a stud, became quite animated. He owned a tiny, thoroughbred stud with which he expected to occupy his retiring years. With good management, and luck, it might not cost too much to run.
“So what’s brought you down here. Why not breed horses?”
“Its like everything else in the country, Mr. Michaels…”
“Barry..”
“Barry. You’ve gotta get big, get specialised or get out. My dad can’t do the finance to get big, he likes working with different types of horses and he doesn’t want to get out.”
“But you’re in newspapers,” he protested. “Aren’t they going the way of small studs too? Who reads newspapers these days?”
“I’m a content provider. I provide content, some other poor sod decides what media its going in. Maybe they’ll bring out an electronic version of the Bugle that’ll run stories about Lovett Councilors no one can find, but the stories won’t be there unless some stupid bastard like me goes ‘n asks stupid questions.”
The older man smiled, and shrugged. “I spoke to the mayor about the, um, issue you raised. This is the best we can do by way of creating content.” He passed to Miles a bland, extremely brief statement saying that councilor Georgiou had been recorded as absent from all council meetings, as well as absent from meetings of the works committee of which he was also a member. Apologies had been recorded on two occasions. “Neither myself nor the mayor have any further comment. That’s the line.”
Miles nodded. He still had to make every effort to contact Georgiou, but he could make something of this.
WHERE IS CR GEORGIOU?
Elected last year on a Green-left ticket in the Koala Bay North ward Cr Theo Georgiou has yet to attend a single council meeting, or a meeting of the council works committee of which he is also a member.
The City Manager, Barry Michaels and Mayor Joyce McKinley, made a formal statement, in response to a query by the Koala Bay Bugle that Cr Georgiou had not attended any meeting of the council or the committee. They had received apologies on two occasions. Neither Mr. Michaels nor Mayor McKinley would make any further comment.
The Bugle has attempted to contact Cr Georgiou on a number of occasions….
By necessity it was a brief story. Miles could not step outside the facts and there were not many facts. With a little searching he found years of back copies of the Bugle burned on DVDs which were kept under Kelly’s desk, and had managed to unearth Georgiou’s one and, as far as he knew, only interview. That stretched the story for two more paragraphs. He added exactly one adjective - “spectacular”, as in “spectacular non-attendance” – but Eve insisted on showing the story to a lawyer, who crossed out the “spectacular”. Miles would find out more about lawyers later. Finally, it ran in the paper and resulted in a phone call.
“Its Councilor Georgiou here.” To judge from the voice, the councilor was in his mid-30s.
“Hello Mr. Georgiou. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for some time.”
“Yes, I heard you left messages. You never said what it was about.”
“Now hold on. I left a message saying the council was asking where you were.”
“You never said you were going to write a story.”
“Well, what did you expect me to do? I’m a reporter.”
“I’ve had so much grief over that story. My friends have seen it, my neighbours, my colleagues. My kids got grief at school over it.”
“Stories in the paper are like that, I’m told. People read them.”
“I want you to print a retraction tomorrow.”
“The paper’s weekly, Mr. Georgiou, and here we come to the point – are you saying you have been to council meetings or not?”
“I’m not making any comment.”
“Okay, then it’s no comment.”
“I don’t want you to say anything.”
“As far as I’m concerned this whole conversation is on the record.”
“What!”
“You knew who I was when you rang. You didn’t say anything about going off the record.”
“I didn’t know I was supposed to. All I want is for you to take the story back.”
“You haven’t denied it.”
“Well, no.. its just, I’ve been overseas...”
“Since being elected?”
“Well, yes… look forget it. I would have expected more co-operation from the local press!”
“So how long were you overseas for?”
Georgiou hung up. Next thing Miles heard he had resigned from Council and a by-election had been called. He used two sentences from the interview in the subsequent story, but never heard from Georgiou again.