Geoffrey Cousins - The Butcherbird

Jack was stunned. ‘But we agreed there’d be no announcements or public discussion until I finally committed.’

‘My friend, you’ve got a bit to learn about the market. This is not an announcement or a public discussion, it’s just Mac having a little chat with a few people who treat us well because we treat them well. No decision’s been communicated, just flying a kite. But they’re going to love you, Jack, that’s the main thing.’

She was the only woman he’d ever loved, he was certain of that.

He looked across the table at her now and there she was staring straight into his eyes, as she had the first time they met. It was at a party in the surf club at Bondi when he’d just graduated as an architect and was pondering the shape of life, usually with a beer in each hand. He’d seen her around the university campus but they’d never spoken. She came towards him, holding his gaze. ‘So you’re Jack-the-lad? Do you like that name? Or does it embarrass you just a bit? Do you lie awake on hot summer nights thinking How can I live up to this? You can tell me the truth, everyone does.’

In truth, he hated his nickname, but he tried to banter with her as he did with any woman, to hold the high ground and keep her off balance, but she was too nimble and slipped away from any thrust, so he seemed to find himself on the defensive, teetering between enjoyment of the contest and discomfort at the result. And then she was leaving as suddenly as she’d arrived. ‘I’ll see you in about five years, Mr Jack-the-lad. It’s a little too early in the cellaring for me. But we’ll talk again. I did enjoy your spontaneous sense of enthusiasm.’ She turned away with that wonderful warm but slightly quizzical smile and disappeared into the crowd.

He saw her often after that, at parties or friends’ flats, and asked her out a couple of times, but she never came. It was about five years later, maybe a little more, that they’d started to work together and, not long after that, to make love and to love.

She’d never directly approached his colourful reputation but once, when he was reminiscing about his father, about how he loved Jack’s mother but couldn’t resist wandering, she’d interrupted his relaxed flow.

‘How did your mother survive?’ He’d paused and examined her carefully. ‘I think either she never really knew for sure, or chose to ignore it.’

She’d laughed, a humourless laugh. ‘Women know, Jack, they know even when they don’t know for sure. Did they argue?’

‘Not that I remember. He was sweet and loving to her, it seemed to me. It was only later, much later, that I learned he was famous for being sweet and loving to a few other women as well.’

She’d let it go at that until a few months later when, unexpectedly and unrelated to their earlier conversation, she said, ‘I can understand your mother ignoring your father’s affairs-up to a point. But there must have been a boundary beyond which the relationship would break; there’d have to be. Self-respect isn’t infinitely flexible.’

When, after a couple of years, he’d asked her to marry him, she’d said, ‘Yes. I can’t think of anyone else I’d care to live with or have children with or make love to, anymore, and I don’t want to die alone, an old spinster wearing a knobbly cardigan while an obese cat eats my meals-on-wheels dinner, so I guess it’ll have to be you.’

And she’d watched his shocked face with amusement before reaching one hand to his mouth and letting a finger caress the line of his top lip. ‘Besides, you’re the sexiest man alive, a moderately good provider and will never let me down. So, yes.’

As he looked at her now, he could say he never had. Not really.

‘Okay. We’re at our favourite restaurant, with our favourite wine, eating our favourite pasta. And you have something to tell me. So tell me.’

He poured the Curly Flat and smiled. ‘Can I ever have a secret that’s not immediately obvious to you?’

‘Darling Jack, what secrets could you possibly want to have from me?’

He laughed and a slight flush deepened the tanned skin. It only happened with her, this tendency to redden slightly in the face at difficult moments.

‘Now I’ve made you blush, darling. Why don’t you just get on with it and tell me what’s bothering you?’

He paused, ran his finger around the lip of the wine glass and hesitantly started to unwind his dilemma. ‘I need your advice. I want to do this thing with Mac and I don’t want to do it. I talked myself into it a week ago because it’s a monumental challenge, way beyond anything I’ve ever contemplated. Twelve thousand employees-not just me and twenty kids; hundreds of millions in premiums, vital to the country’s wellbeing, and so on. But I’m worried about the people, particularly the chairman. You’re always the wise one, so what do I do?’

She’d never seen him so uncertain, openly at least, about anything, even though he turned to her for advice frequently. But usually the advice sought was how to do something he’d already decided to pursue, not this wallowing in the ultimate dilemma. ‘You’re bored, darling, and a bored Jack is a dangerous thing. It’s not so much whether you’re sure about this, but more how you’re going to be if you don’t do it, spending the rest of your life wondering how good you would’ve been, whether you were up to the job, whether you could have mixed it with the big boys. That’s it, isn’t it? You want to know if you can run in the Olympics?’

She was always right, always knew him better than he knew himself. ‘Yes, I guess so.’

‘Then do it. Cast aside your doubts, don ye mighty armour, ride thy great steed across the moat of indecision-and pour me more of that lovely wine while you’re about it.’

Jack felt the adrenalin pumping through him in a way he hadn’t for years. The boardroom was packed with journalists and photographers and he’d finished his last radio interview as fresh as the first, even though he’d said the same things twenty times over. He was very good at this, he knew it. Everyone in the room knew it, you could feel it. The public relations people hadn’t liked his concept of posing the questions about the company’s results before they were actually asked, but he’d insisted it would allow him to present the material in a contained, logical flow, and it had worked beautifully. When he opened the forum for additional questions, there were very few and they were mainly follow-ups from the ones he’d flashed on the screen in his own presentation. It was a virtuoso performance. Journalists didn’t clap, but he’d felt they’d wanted to.

He loved performing in public, always had. Speech-making was easy, selling a message was a gift. Why, he’d even developed a groundbreaking communications package for the staff. Each month a live video was transmitted on closed circuit to all HOA offices via satellite. Jack was the star of the show, true, but so were the employees, in a lesser way. There was the ‘hero of the month’, someone who’d made a unique contribution. A camera crew surprised this individual at his or her workplace with Jack presenting an award-like ‘This Is Your Life’ without the relatives. There were questions and answers, and graphs and charts, and every other device anyone could dream up. The staff loved it-and they loved Jack, almost ran from their workstations to shake his hand when he wandered through a call centre, to no great purpose, just so they could see him, just so they had the opportunity to run from their workstations. But this was the big time, with radio and TV and every major newspaper in the country. HOA had a massive retail shareholder base apart from insuring half the homes in the country. Its performance was an indicator to the economy’s performance; its results were real news. Even though they weren’t really his results, yet, but he was the head of the company, he was the person they wanted to see.