When Miles came in the next morning he found, on his PC keyboard, the pile of story print outs he had dropped on Ros’s desk last night, with a note attached. It read -
Miles – you must be more polite! I won’t have papers thrown on my desk like that. It is disrespectful. See my comments. One story banned. Also need two stories done.
Miles glanced through the small pile. On a few of the pages, Ros had attempted copy editing. The one she had banned was an innocuous story about a new president for the community radio station – the previous one had died in office, mourned by all – which might get above page five on such a slow news week. She had scrawled “no - not an advertiser” across the front, and slashed two lines down it. A few paragraphs in two other stories had been inexplicably crossed out. Ros’s suggested stories were a feature on a panel beater, and another on a planned council industrial park. Miles was sure that sending the subs a story on a panel beater without some sort of justification for it would quickly earn him a call enquiring what on God’s green earth he thought he was doing up there. The industrial park was a possibility. What was happening with that? After noting all this with mild interest, Miles dropped the pile in his waste paper bin. He looked at the discarded pile for a moment, thinking that act had been satisfying, then he picked up the papers up and stuck them in one of his desk drawers. There was a chance Ros might see it and call her brother, before the paper came out. After all, he had done exactly as the managing director asked and shown the stories to Ros for her comments. Those comments he had given as much consideration as he thought they deserved. Instinctively he had chosen a strategy of passive resistance – unkind people might call it obstruction - to bizarre directives from higher management.
There was another item on his desk. The map had been ripped down again and another note scrawled across it, in red texta.
This has become annoying. Stop it!
He might have to concede defeat on that issue. He rolled the map up and threw it so that it lodged behind the printer on the filing cabinet, earning Miles his first glare for the day from Angela, who was in the middle of one of her irritating conversations.
“Nah, just someone chucking things around,” she told the other party.
The phone rang. Was this a lead? No, it was from the sub, Eve. She had begun to look through the copy. Most of the paper was sub-edited and laid out on Friday afternoon, with a few details to be sorted out on Monday. It was waiting in the resident’s mailbox when they arrived home from work on Tuesday.
“Stories seem better Miles, so you got rid of that woman you were talking about?”
“Ros. Nope! She’s still around, causing me misery. Has Justin been in this week?”
“Yeah, he’s been around. I’ve seen him on the floor.”
“I’ve called him every day this week about Ros. He never gets back to me.”
“Yeah?… He’s not the hardest worker I’ve seen. Never does anything for you,” there was a certain bitter edge in that last remark, “but he doesn’t ignore calls”.
“I’ve even had Jim Charles ring me up, asking me to let her see copy.”
“What?” Eve was silent for one shocked moment. “What does Justin have to say about that?”
“I’ve been trying to talk to him all week. He just doesn’t return my calls. If you see him around, can you ask him why he hasn’t returned my calls.”
“Sure Miles, I can do that. You usually have to leave a message with Bronwyn, you know, if you just leave a message with her…”
“I’ve been leaving messages all week,” snapped Miles, “it doesn’t work. Grab him when you see him and ask him what the problem is about returning calls. Don’t leave messages and expect anything to happen.”
“All right – all right, don’t get testy with me. As soon as I see him, I’ll grab him. In the mean-time what do you want to lead – anything I’ve seen so far?”
“Nope. I’m keeping back one in case I have to stretch it, but I’m still hoping.”
“Okay, so what about the sports star? I haven’t seen that yet.”
“The what?”
“The sports star. Each paper has some sports star; just some local who’s doing well at sports. You let it run for about eight pars, if you can get that far. Longer is okay. Weren’t you told about this?”
“Not a word.” Miles had wondered about the sports coverage, but he had assumed, incorrectly, that someone would tell him what he had to do before the matter became urgent.
“No one’s told you anything?”
“Seems not.”
“Well, I suppose this week we can make do with the Lovett Bay star. She’s pretty good. Just remember it for next week.”
“Sure.”
Miles had barely hung up when Ros poked her head through the door. “You saw the stuff I left last night?”
“Uh huh.”
Her face was neutral, expressionless, but in her eyes there was a glint of battle. She was expecting a fight.
“You have any questions for me?”
“Nope!”
“Any comments on the stuff I left?” Her eyes flicked over the desk, looking for the pile of stories she had left there.
“Nope!”
“Humph! Always had to put my foot down with Jan. You’re not going to argue about my decisions?”
“Nope!”
Ros was baffled over this. She had figured Miles for a fighter. Then her eyes flicked to where the map had been, but where there were now only faint blu tack marks, and smiled slightly. “Well, that’s a pleasant change. Makes my job a lot easier. If I can help you with any of the stories, let me know.”
“Sure!”
With any luck Ros would not work out she was being ignored until Tuesday morning when the paper reached the Koala Bay office. Then he would point out that her brother had said nothing about her having control, just the right to make comments. If that did not work then even Justin might get involved. Miles was an ‘operator‘, as his first editor had told Justin. He turned back to his phone and PC.
Later that day, just before lunch, someone rang up to tell Miles where he could find what he had been searching for all that week – angry residents. In one of its committee meetings, Lovett Council had declared that it would transform Mudlark Ave, on which the angry residents lived, from a cul-de-sac into a through road. As matters stood Mudlark Ave, on the outskirts of suburban Koala Bay, ran from a feeder road for several hundred metres before petering out in scrub. A few hundred metres further on, through the scrub, was a housing development which could only be reached by a circuitous tour through narrow side streets to the North and West. Council wanted to extend the broader Mudlark Ave to make a simple, direct route to the development. The builders would be happy and, much more importantly, the consumers who took up residence in the new development would be happy to have a direct route out to the Koala Beach shopping centre. Those consumers would also be Lovett City voters. Everybody was happy with the change, except for the residents of Mudlark Ave. They did not want their quiet cul-de-sac changed into a through road. A soulless council was destroying their way of life. They wanted their say. Miles would give it to them.
The president of the recently formed Mudlark Ave Action Group (MAAG), one Kenny Grover, who had rung Miles, agreed to meet him on the street to explain. A beefy, red-faced man he greeted the reporter dressed in an open necked shirt, green jumper and slacks, looking as if he had just stepped out from behind a store counter. In fact, he had - a hardware store down in the shopping centre. His wife, Alison, a hefty blonde women popped out of her house early in the interview, curious about why her husband was standing in the street in mid-afternoon, and stayed to add her authority to the interview. That meant she echoed everything her husband said.
“Look at this, I ask you, look at this,” Grover said, pointing to Mudlark Ave. Miles saw a street like any other in the area - except that it was not a through road - lined with modest but solid brick houses with above ground swimming pools in the back gardens. The one difference was that there were rather more trees in the distance. It was a nice, quiet if not particularly affluent neighborhood, at some risk of bushfire during summer. But if council was to have its way, so Miles was given to understand, this nice life would be ruined; the aged and children would be subject to extreme risk. All because the road could be used by through traffic.
“We’ll have trucks running down here all hours…,” said Mr. Grover
“Trucks at all hours..,” said Mrs. Grover.
“Children play on this street all the time,” said Mr. Grover.
“Children out here all the time,” said Mrs. Grover.
“Then there’ll be cars always going through... there’ll be traffic all the time.”
“Traffic all the time..”
“And the fumes. There’s Mrs. Simpson at number 16 – she’s quite elderly..”
“Quite elderly poor thing.”
“And all the families along here with children.”
“Lots of children…”
“Sure,” said Miles, “but don’t all the other streets in the area have through traffic with those problems.”
“Not with trucks going to this development,” said Mr. Grover.
“Yes, there’re the trucks..”
“And the fumes.”
“The fumes..”
“We’ve found studies connecting truck fumes to cancer..”
“Ooh, they cause cancer..”
“But when the development goes ahead, won’t the trucks have to come in some how?” asked Miles. “Won’t they then have to come in from the North?”
Grover shrugged. “Don’t have the development.
“We don’t want the development..”
“We’re here, we don’t need other new houses here. Turn the place into a park and a wildlife sanctuary.”
“Yes, a park and a sanctuary.”
“But won’t the park and sanctuary need an access point? Your street seems like an obvious access point. Won’t you have plenty of traffic then, and people parking in the street all day?”
Miles remembered reading about an American editor of an aliens ate my baby-style tabloid who had warned his reporters against asking too many questions of sources. But he could not help occasionally picking at a story. Fortunately, the Grovers had a ready answer.
“They can come in from the north like they do now.”
“Yes, the north..”
“They’ve already got the cars coming in there.”
“You’ve spoken to council about this?”
“They won’t do anything for us. The councilor Nick Gouter” (this was the councilor overseas) “told us the approvals were all done before any of us even came here. Well, we didn’t know about any approvals.”
“We didn’t know..”
“And someone’s making real money selling the development.”
“Yes, selling the development..”
“Here we are, our lifestyle’s been adversely affected; our risk of disease has been increased and there’s people out there making money..”
“Yes, money.. ”
Miles dutifully wrote this down. Residents could be relied on to object to anything new - roads being opened, roads being closed, toilet blocks, infant welfare centers (too much traffic), council depots or half way houses for the mentally handicapped, or anything else at all. Sometimes the complaints were justified; sometimes not; but angry residents always made for a story.
Excusing himself from the exhausting statement-chorus double act that was the Grovers, Miles drove back to the office. He had a lead. It was not much of a lead, but it was better than many of the stories he had done in the country. Now he had to ring council for its response and organise a picture. As it happened, Emma dropped by just after he had returned.
“Got anything for me, Miley,” she said from the door of the news cubby hole (it was not big enough to be called a news ‘room’).
“Got angry residents.”
“Oh okay – what are they angry about, Miley?” He told her. “So I have to get this Grover guy on the street, looking angry.”
“Yep. Ya know. Grrr!” Miles barred his teeth as if he was snarling. He was not the type of reporter that took his own stories very seriously.
Emma giggled. “I see. Grrr!” She barred her own teeth in a pretend snarl. “So I get Grover and his missus to go Grrrr!”
“Yep, they’re angry.”
She giggled again. “Housewarming at my place in a few weeks Miley. Lots of girls.”
“I‘m there - just gimme a date.”
“Just don‘t mention this horse break-up thing, Miley.”
“Don‘t mention horses romantically. Gottit!“
“Be charming and suave.”
“Where I come from, it’s all suave.”
“That’s what the guys round my way use to say, Miley, and I‘m marrying a Sydney guy.” With that she departed, leaving Miles alone with Angela in the midst of one of her lengthy, inane telephone conversations.
Two minutes after 4pm the next day, Friday, Miles was waiting by Justin’s car in the car park at the South Forest office. An attempt to get in to see Justin unannounced had been angrily rebuffed by Bronwyn so, after glad handing the subs, he had posted himself by Justin’s BMW. Just to be sure, he was standing by the driver’s side front door. Justin soon came out in no very good mood, carrying his keys in one hand and a small, tattered brown leather briefcase in the other. He stopped short when he saw one of his reporters standing by his car.
“Miles?” The charm of the interview had been replaced by a hard tone. He was not used to finding one of his reporters standing by his car. “What are you doing here?” He walked forward until he was standing in front of Miles. The car beside Justin’s had gone so they had space for confrontation.
“I’ve been trying to catch up with you,” said Miles. “I’ve been leaving messages all this week. You’ve trouble picking up the phone?”
“I didn’t get any messages,” he said, exasperated. “Eve was telling me earlier that you’d been trying to call. I haven’t seen anything. Just leave the messages with Bronwyn.”
“I’ve left every message with Bronwyn.”
“Yeah?” He shrugged. “I’ll speak to her on Monday. Miles, mate, you’re in my way. I’m done with this shit heap for the weekend.”
Miles did not move but he was taken aback.
“You didn’t say anything about the place being a shit heap in the interview.”
“Miles, mate, it was an interview. I wanted you to go up to that smaller pile of shit up the road. You think I like nurse-maiding a crowd of wannabes and metro rejects? You think that listening to them whine about not having stuff, and getting paid fuck-all to write about fiftieth wedding anniversaries makes me want to stay here?”
“Thanks very much. I love you, too.”
“Yeah, right. So whadda ya want anyway? Can’t it wait until Monday.”
“It’s about Ros wanting to see stories.”
Justin’s mouth gaped open. “Is that what this is about? That fucking women is up to her old tricks. I told Jimmy to shift her somewhere, anywhere she can’t get in the way. I don’t give a shit who’s sister she is. She doesn’t get her nose into editorial and that’s flat.”
“I even had Jim Charles ring me about her.”
“Shit! Jim’s up to his old tricks too. Whaddid he say?”
“He asked me to let her look; to consult.”
The editor in chief shook his head emphatically. “She doesn’t consult about anything. She writes reports on the titles which I just chuck away. If Jim rings again, just tell him to ring me. His sister doesn’t exist as far as you’re concerned. Now get outta the way, I’m late for the weekend.”
Having got what he wanted, Miles moved away from the car door and Justin got in.
“I even had Bronwyn tell me that I had to take orders from Ros,” he said quickly, just before Justin slammed the car door. “I GOT AN EMAIL FROM YOU,” he yelled through the glass.
Justin rolled down the window. “If it’s not one thing it’s another,” he muttered. In fact, it was the only crisis he had been handed all day. “Ohhh, she’s a mate of Ros, and she has access to the editor’s inbox. I’ll talk to her too - on Monday. Watch your toes Miles!”
The editor in chief drove off, tyres crunching on stones, leaving Miles shaking his head over his first, strange week at the Bugle group. But the week was not over yet, he was due for end of week drinks at the offices of the Lovett Bay Bugle.