Geoffrey Cousins - The Butcherbird

Yesterday he’d been in Canberra visiting the Minister, massaging perceptions, ensuring when the results were released there wasn’t a spin that the profits were excessive, explaining the return on equity was still only fifteen per cent-low considering the risks, and the regulatory regime, never forget the regulatory regime, the impact on the business of filing all those reports, of copying all those board papers. And as the Minister was escorting him out-yes escorting him out, a good sign the company’s handler said, an excellent sign-who did they meet as they strolled through the corridors of Parliament House? The Prime Minister. Just like that, in the corridor. The Minister had simply stopped the PM as he hurried past with a couple of minders. ‘Prime Minister, good morning. I’d like you to meet Jack Beaumont, new CEO at HOA. Giving us some of his valuable time.’

And the Prime Minister had stopped in his tracks and seemed genuinely pleased to meet Jack. ‘Welcome to the people’s house. Heard a great deal about you, Mr Beaumont. Keep up the good work.’

What would he have heard about him? Jack couldn’t imagine, but it was obviously positive, that was the point. He wasn’t impressed by meeting important people; he’d met plenty of important people. Half of them lived in residences he’d built, for goodness sake. But this was the Prime Minister of Australia, who lived in a relatively modest late Victorian house on the harbour in Kirribilli, a house Jack had never been in but now would probably be invited to because-because he was who he was. And this was the Prime Minister.

As the last of the press packed up their gear, Jack saw Mac Biddulph wave from the doorway and give him the thumbs-up sign. It was one of the qualities Jack had come to appreciate in Mac. He was supportive, but let him get on with the job.

‘Mr Beaumont. Could I have a word before you go?’ He turned to find a woman he’d noticed during the presentation because she’d been impossible to miss. At least, impossible for Jack to miss. She’d been seated in the front row but had asked no questions. He knew the PR people were careful to allocate seating positions based on rank, so she had to be a journalist of some substance, but he’d no idea who she was. In truth, it wasn’t her stature as a journalist that had caught his attention. She was an extraordinarily attractive woman in a severe sort of way. There was nothing overtly sexual or flirtatious in the way she was dressed or looked, quite the contrary. She appeared to be wearing a man’s suit, but it wasn’t cut like any man’s suit Jack had ever seen. There was some subtlety in the shape that made it completely feminine, despite the fact she was also wearing a collar and tie. The collar on the shirt was spread somehow, the tie was knotted lower; whatever it was, the effect was captivating, compelling, almost heady as she stood smiling at him with a wry, challenging smile.

‘I’m Prue Patterson from the Australian. We haven’t met. Very impressive presentation. You must be pleased with your results.’ She gazed at him from clear, blue eyes behind the oversized, black-rimmed glasses of a librarian or a school mistress.

‘Thank you, but they’re not really my results, you know. I’m the new boy on the block, so I’m just putting the shine on other people’s hard work.’

‘Indeed.’ She smiled again. ‘But you polish up so well. I’m not a business journalist, which is why you may not have seen me before. I used to write for the business pages but I get bored by figures.’

‘So do I. But don’t tell anyone.’

‘I’m very good at keeping secrets-unless, of course, they’d interest my readers. I write mainly profiles and opinion pieces these days, and I’d like to write a personal profile on you to run in the feature pages. You’re very important to a lot of people now, Mr Beaumont, and we don’t know much about you.’

She observed his dismissive shrug with amusement. He seemed such an unlikely person to be connected with Mac Biddulph, who she knew well. Her profile on Mac had won her a Walkley Award and a trip on the Honey Bear. Both sat on her mantlepiece, one way and another. There was a certain naivety about Jack Beaumont that appeared deeper than just natural charm. Not that there was anything wrong with natural charm. ‘I’d very much like to interview you in a relaxed setting-over lunch, for example.’

Jack had flirted with too many attractive women not to recognise the undertones. But despite the heady injection of adrenalin from the morning, he was in control.

‘I don’t have lunch these days. I mean, I eat lunch, but usually at my desk or a sandwich in the park or something. I’m not really a luncher anymore, if you know what I mean.’

Her mouth curled up at the corners in an extremely alluring way. ‘How interesting. You see, we’ve just discovered you’re not like the average run of businessmen who move from club to restaurant to boardroom on a regular lunching cycle, and we haven’t even started the interview. So it’s dinner then?’

‘Well I’d rather it was just in the office, if you don’t mind. If I could get my assistant to call you…’

‘I don’t deal with assistants. It’ll be quite painless, the dinner, I promise you. It’s a well-established format I’ve used many times. You might even enjoy it.’

Jack handed over his card with his direct line number and found himself in the restaurant before the week was out. She was extremely professional and businesslike in her approach to the interview, as they sat in a booth at the back of a fashionable restaurant in The Rocks. She ordered the wine and the food, after asking what he’d like, told the waiter to leave the white wine out of the ice bucket, was in control from the moment she arrived fifteen minutes after he’d been seated. Her research was extraordinary. She knew details about his life he’d forgotten himself. When she asked about his competitive streak he’d tried to shrug it off with an ‘Oh shucks’ line, but she brushed it away with facts.

‘You won the eight hundred metres open championship in the GPS athletics in one minute fifty-four point two seconds which, although it wasn’t a record, was only nought point five seconds outside; you play golf off a single figure handicap, you blitzed the top end of the Sydney property market for ten years, you’re the CEO of a major corporation. Don’t be coy.’

The restaurant was nearly empty, and half of the second bottle of wine sat between them. She’d switched off the tape machine ten minutes ago and put the notebook into some extraordinary handbag that appeared to be constructed from rusty nails. They sat, relatively silent after the steady rhythm of her questions. He wasn’t entirely surprised when she carefully removed her glasses and, looking him straight in the eyes, said ‘I don’t normally sleep with the people I interview Jack, but in your case I might make an exception.’ It was two days later and the buzz of press interviews and chance meetings with the Prime Minister had worn off. Jack sat at his desk with stacks of documents arranged across its surface. He’d asked Renton Healey for a summary of the company’s financial position, key performance indicators and potential cost savings, but this trolley-load of unbound papers had arrived. When he’d complained that he was drowning in detail, Renton had replied, ‘Let me know what you feel is irrelevant and I’ll have it removed immediately.’ The implication was obvious-you won’t know enough to sift the gold from the dross.

But he was sifting: painstakingly, excruciatingly slowly, Jack was working through the piles. And the nuggets were there. Sometimes they appeared to be fool’s gold and raised more questions than answers, but he was determined to grasp the essence of this business. He would not be a once-over-lightly presenter of someone else’s work-a show pony of a CEO. And if any of them thought he’d ever operated that way, they were wrong. Sure he’d been the creative force in his own business, but he’d always understood the detail, even if it was managed by others.