The Boys' Club (3 page)

Rosie still found it hard to comprehend how she had ended up
running the publicity department at the country's leading TV
network. In part she blamed the delusional state she was in when
she accepted the job: nappy brain combined with sheer terror at the
thought of returning to the workforce after three years of lactating,
arse-wiping and failed attempts at mothers' group assimilation. But if
she was really honest, Rosie had simply been chuffed that Big Keith
saw something special in her. The fact that she was a reporter – a
vocation the Big Man notoriously referred to as the boil on the butt
of humanity – made his out-of-the-blue offer all the more seductive.
Rosie had to admit she had been well and truly charmed.

She also had to admit she'd been terrified of returning to
newspapers full time. Her confidence had taken a massive nosedive
thanks to working as a freelance, the isolation and lack of feedback
festering into full-blown paranoia. Not to mention her marriage to
Jeff unravelling before her sleep-deprived eyes. So when Six's then
head of publicity, Lara Green, called, saying Big Keith was a fan of
her weekly personality profiles in the
Sentinel
and was wondering if
she would be interested in doing a piece on him, Rosie thought she
had landed the scoop of the decade – an interview with the media-shy
grandfather of Australian TV. Her career could get back on track
after all!

What Rosie – and certainly Lara Green – didn't know was that
she was not to interview Big Keith; he was actually interviewing
her – for Lara's job. It was Rosie's first lesson in the ways of the TV
jungle. In hindsight, she should have seen the Machiavellian move of
making someone organise the usurping of their own job as a warning.
However, the lure of playing with the big boys in the infamous bear
pit that was Network Six had blinkered Rosie to some of the more
unpleasant aspects of her seduction.

The day of that first fateful lunch, more than a year ago now, she
had been too nervous to drive, so she took a cab to the network,
double-checking that her tape recorder was working and rereading
her questions on the way, trying to ensure she didn't stumble or,
worse, have a white-out. It had happened to her before with boring
young soap stars when she was a cadet reporter, but somehow Rosie
knew Big Keith was not the type of man you'd be likely to nod off
around mid conversation.

Big Keith Norman was both an oaf and a legend. Even those who
hated him – and let's be honest, the man had enemies – begrudgingly
admired him. Known as TV Rex in the industry, Keith was a
dinosaur from the eighties still stomping around the Jurassic Park
of free-to-air television and refusing to evolve at the risk of his own
extinction. He'd been instrumental in steering the network through
an unprecedented twenty-four years without losing a single ratings
survey.

Until recently, Keith had been given free rein at the network, to
the point where he grew to believe he actually owned the station
rather than just ran it. But now that the proud owner of Australia's
finest media asset was a subsidiary of the giant Korean investment
company Tang.Inc, Keith's funds had been given a handbrake and
his ego a make-under.

With his failing health and all that digital and internet 'hoo-ha', as
he called it, speculation was rife that Keith was thinking of hanging
up his lap-lap and leaving the jungle before being booted out by a
pen-pusher. Not that anyone believed this would happen easily.

Please let this be an exclusive
, Rosie had prayed to whoever it was
up or out there watching over her as her cab arrived at the famous
network gates and was directed to the reception area.
Maybe I' ll be
asked to write his biography
, she fantasised.
Wouldn't that stick it up
Jeff?

In the foyer, Rosie felt her adrenalin levels rise and kick her
heartbeat up a gear as she surveyed the huge framed photographs
of the network's talent. Some of the biggest names in Australian
television's past and present looked down at her from those hallowed
walls, including the legendary Crystelle Callaghan, who Rosie had
been watching religiously ever since she was a toddler on her mother's
knee and would soon count as a friend and ally.

To the left was a photo of the Channel Six news team, with the
bastion of Australian journalism, the recently deceased Willard Frost,
in the foreground. Rosie pulled out her notebook and wrote down
some 'colour' that, in a pinch, could provide a good lead-in to her
profile:
'If ever there was evidence that Willard Frost is irreplaceable at
Six, it can be found in the network's grand foyer, where a portrait of the
news great still rules supreme.'

Rosie almost missed it when the receptionist at the large desk told
her to proceed to the executive lift, thinking that the young woman
was still talking to callers sent through from the main switchboard
behind her. In the few minutes she had been waiting, Rosie had heard
her directing two callers to the Network Six website to find a recipe
they had missed jotting down from a segment on that morning's
G'day Australia
program; telling others what time the tennis would
air; and, most commonly, politely informing irate viewers that their
complaints had been noted and would be forwarded to the relative
department heads.
What a horrible job,
Rosie thought, unaware that
worse jobs existed at the network.

Waiting for the famous mirrored lift with its one stop – Executive
Level 5 – Rosie recalled reading how it was built so the network's
'carpet strollers' could avoid sharing their rarefied air with any of the
lowly workers from the other levels. As it announced its arrival on
Level 5 with a ping, Rosie noticed the quiet hush, which belied the
nervous energy bristling behind each of the frosted glass doors ajar
along the dark oak halls before her. It was from one of these dark
corridors that a diminutive Asian woman approached.
I bet that's
her
, Rosie thought.
It's got to be Mae
.

Like all powerful men, Keith had a super-efficient woman behind
him in the form of his longtime PA, the notorious Mae – sometimes
called Nurse Ratched at Six, in reference to the icy nurse of
One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest
fame. She looked like someone who baked
nice bickies to have with afternoon tea, but Rosie had heard that Mae
had balls of steel under her layers of Laura Ashley.

In fact, Rosie had some questions for Keith about Mae:
Is it true
your wife refers to Mae as your 'other woman'? Is there any truth in the
legend that you make Mae take three phones to bed each night and check
she complies by randomly dialling the numbers?
These questions would
have to be slipped in at the end, of course, after Rosie had what
she really wanted – the first quotes from the Big Man himself on
what it felt like to be looking down the barrel of his beloved network
heading to the intolerable position of second place.

'Mr Norman would like you to join him in the boardroom for
lunch,' Mae said after Rosie had introduced herself.

'Oh, I didn't know we'd be having lunch but that's fine, I guess,'
Rosie answered, trying to hide her excitement.

Mae led her towards the huge floor-to-ceiling oak doors that
opened onto the boardroom of television mythology, a place where it
was said you'd just as likely be hired, fired or laid as you'd be to eat.
Rosie delved nervously into her bag, feeling again for her recorder.

'There are no tape recorders allowed in the dining room, Ms Lang,'
Mae instructed her calmly. 'I would be happy to hold it for you while
you dine.'

'Oh no, that's fine,' Rosie said. The first rule of journalism was
never to let anyone take your notebook or recorder. 'I'll hang on to
it if you don't mind.'

'Fine then, Ms Lang,' Mae replied passively. 'If you insist.'

'It's not recording. Look, no red light,' Rosie said as she held her
bag open for inspection, holding on to the machine for dear life,
realising she looked like a shoplifter pleading innocence.

'Yes, I can see that, Ms Lang. You may enter now and enjoy your
meal.'

With this, Mae quietly made her way back to her desk, leaving
Rosie to face the imposing oak doors which were all that separated
her and Big Keith Norman. Psyching herself for what lay ahead, she
took a few deep yoga breaths in lieu of the cigarette she so desperately
wanted, then knocked on the door.

'Come in,' a gruff voice bellowed from inside.

Rosie checked herself – her best Scanlan & Theodore suit had
never failed so she knew she looked okay, but, hang on, there was a
bit of telltale cat fur lodged on her skirt.
That bloody cat! If it's not piss,
it's fluff ! I should never have allowed Leon to keep it
, she admonished
herself.
What if Keith is allergic? What if this stray bit of cat fur led him
to have some kind of seizure? Word is, the man is in poor health.
Rosie
licked her finger, ran it along the offending area, blew off the fluffy
excess, took another deep breath, crossed herself for luck, then thrust
open the doors.

Big Keith looked smaller than Rosie had expected, but perhaps
the huge, imposing bulk of the heavy eighteen-person dining table
at which he sat was distorting the scale. Standing beside Keith was
Lara Green, the network head of PR, who Rosie had spoken to once
or twice in the past to organise quotes for stories she was writing for
the
Sentinel
.

Lara was one of those immaculately presented women who
belonged in shampoo ads. Her hair was like glass with the glossiest
shine and her size 8 designer suits were cut so finely they draped
catwalk perfect from her runner-slim hips. Rosie discovered much
later that Lara Green started each working day at Six in make-up
with the
G' day Australia
hosts, having her maquillage professionally
applied and her hair blow-dried poker straight. Rosie didn't know
whether she liked Lara or not. There wasn't anything not to like,
as she was always pleasant enough – it was just that Rosie had
never trusted people who were always in control. In her view
unflappability could only be attained at the expense of something
really useful – like sincerity.

'Rosie, great you could come,' Lara said, extending a slender,
perfectly manicured hand.

'Thanks for organising the interview,' Rosie replied, her voice
suddenly sounding gratingly coarse compared to Lara Green's pitch-perfect
timbre.

'What fucking interview?' Keith barked, suddenly paying attention
to the women. 'I'll be fucked if I'm going to have my lunch spoilt.'

Rosie watched as Lara gave Keith a questioning look, to which he
seemed indifferent. 'Lara, you can piss off now. I'll handle things
from here,' he continued, dismissing the surprised executive with a
wave of his enormous hand. Rosie couldn't believe it, but Lara Green
actually appeared – for the briefest moment – flustered, before her
seamless smile returned.

'Fine. Enjoy.
Bon appetit
.' And with that, Lara glided elegantly – and
reluctantly – from the room.

Keith didn't stand up to offer Rosie a chair, something she was
grateful for, as it always made her feel somehow humbled or on the
back foot when men did that. Knowing the Big Man had a reputation
for business first, Rosie decided to launch right in.

'So, Mr Norman, are you implying you would prefer to be formally
interviewed after lunch? I have my tape recorder with me. Lara told
me I'd be talking to you about TV.'

'And so you will,' Keith said, 'but can we just have a drink first?
Fuck, you newspaper sheilas are ball-breakers.'

Rosie couldn't help giggling. It was true: to get through a cadetship
on a major metropolitan or national daily you had to know how to
hold your own.

'So, tell me, what comes into your mind when I say to you,
Network Six?' Keith asked, leaning his huge frame back into the
cracked burgundy leather of his chair.

'The most successful media institution in Australia – for now,'
Rosie replied cautiously. 'In terms of the face of Six, I think you, and
Willard Frost, although he's no longer around, of course—'

'The best fucking newsreader this country's ever seen,' Keith butted
in, his voice low and sombre. 'He was my mate – a legend. I still miss
the old bastard.'

'Well, he certainly was a loss to the network, which is something
I wanted to ask you about,' Rosie continued awkwardly. 'I see news
figures have dropped significantly.'

'Listen here, I don't want to hear any of this bullshit you and your
journo mates are writing about this joint,' Keith replied, leaning
uncomfortably into Rosie's personal space. 'This network is bigger
than Willard Frost and any other bastard that works here. This
network is a fucking giant. No one person makes Six successful. It
takes a village.'

Rosie knew Big Keith was on a roll and didn't want to miss a word
of it. 'If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to put my tape recorder on now
as this is something the readers—'

'I told you, I don't like to do business while I eat,' Keith snapped
back. 'And what use is a fucking interview going to be for ratings
anyway? That's what TV is about, you know, ratings. Not all this . . .
one man leaves and the whole place starts to boo-hoo shit that you
and your mates like to think.'

'Well, Mr Norman—'

'For fuck's sake, call me Keith.'

'Okay, Keith, as I was saying, an article on your plans for the
network could go a long way to arrest the panic—'

Rosie stopped in her tracks as Big Keith lurched towards her, his
neck veins engorged, cheeks turning purple with rage. 'You have a
fucking hide to say that to me,' he boomed, his colourless piggy eyes
boring into hers.

'I only asked what you plan to do to halt the decline of the network.
You're coming second in the ratings for the first time in twenty-four
years. Surely you can't be happy about that?' Rosie's voice had
climbed at least two pitches higher as she spoke. If Big Keith sniffed
even a trace of vulnerability, she'd be gone.