Australian Secrets. Fiona McCallum
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keep it together if she did win? It was such a personal story.
‘Stop with this false modesty crap – winning’s everything, Nicola Harvey, and you can. You did a bloody good job, and don’t you forget it!’ Bill barked one morning after overhearing her reply to one such well-wisher. At least someone believed in her.
That afternoon Nicola had drafted a response that adequately expressed her joy at being nominated while remaining humble about her talent. In truth, she wanted to scream that she bloody well deserved to win.
Just before the first announcement, Scott had squeezed her hand to offer support, luck, and probably sympathy – he’d told her enough times not to get her hopes up.
Nicola let out a slightly pained sigh, remembering his obvious discomfort at having microphones, cameras and spotlights thrust in his face and being asked how he felt.
‘Proud. Yes, obviously very proud,’ he’d replied awkwardly. No wonder he couldn’t wait to get to the safety of his office.
But at least Scott hadn’t been uncomfortable in his attire – that was one of the first things that had attracted her. She had always been a sucker for a man in Armani pinstripe.
It felt a little cruel to be enjoying his unease, but it reminded her he was human after all. Anyway, he deserved it for not believing in her.
As a stockbroker he’d had his share of hairy moments but somehow he’d always managed to land on his feet. It was as if he had a crystal ball.
He’d even managed to dodge the global financial crisis and make enough to pay off his BMW convertible before everything went pear-shaped. She failed to see how he could remain so calm when there was so much at stake.
As much as Nicola liked the idea, aimlessly hanging about the house during the day just wasn’t in her nature. She got up, put her mug on the sink and went back upstairs to get dressed.
Forget the day off; it was high time Bill coughed up her next serious assignment.
Nicola stood tall and proud outside television headquarters, her two solid, twenty-centimetre fountain-pen-nib inspired statuettes tucked under her arm. Shoving the frosted glass foyer door open, she strode across the polished stone floor towards the lifts.
‘Congratulations, Ms Harvey,’ Barry the doorman-cum-security-guard-cum-general-dogsbody said. ‘I knew you’d do it.’
Nicola turned and walked over to where he sat behind a long timber veneered reception desk. She grinned. ‘Thanks Barry.’
‘Thought his lordship would have at least given you the day off,’ Barry continued, tossing his head up to indicate above them.
‘He did. I’m just not cut out for sitting about.’ Nicola shrugged. The lobby phone rang and Barry waved a dismissive arm as he picked up the receiver. Nicola repositioned the slipping awards and started making her way back to the lifts.
As she ascended, Nicola felt kittens doing tumble turns in her stomach. What should she say? How should she act? Would everyone be pleased for her or be catty and jealous? The men would probably be cool and gracious, but women were always a different story.
In her acceptance speech she’d been very careful to emphasise that she was accepting the award on behalf of everyone involved with Life and Times. She was sure she’d named everyone who’d played a part.
The lift doors opened, and she stepped out onto the sixth floor.
As she strode down the narrow corridor in front of the wall of chest-high office partitions, heads bobbed up from desks, bums swivelled chairs around and there was a chorus of ‘here she is,’ and ‘congratulations!’
Within seconds the office had formed a crowd around Nicola and someone shouted, ‘Round of applause for our star reporter.’
Wild clapping and cheering followed and Nicola felt the kittens in her stomach claw their way up to the back of her throat.
‘Um, thanks guys, but you all deserve one of these,’ she said. After carefully unloading her lunch, handbag and satchel onto her desk, she thrust the gleaming sculptures towards the nearest two people.
Paul Cox, the copy boy and most junior of staff, received the Gold, his pimply adolescent face reddening right up to the ears. His hands were hesitant when he reached out to stroke the object that every serious journalist aspired to.
‘Go on, have a decent look,’ she encouraged, pushing the object firmly into his chest. Paul stared down at it, mouth open in awe, then back at Nicola like it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him.
Nicola’s chest pinged in sympathy. She too had started at the bottom. Under Paul’s lack of confidence she could see some of her own tenacity.
She smiled warmly at the lad, then turned slightly at hearing an uneven thudding tread coming down the hall to her right.
Bill Truman’s stout legs struggled under a belly that had grown considerably in the two years since he’d joined executive ranks and swapped pounding the pavements for lunch meetings.
‘Heard all the commotion and knew you’d be at the centre of it. Didn’t I tell you to take the day off?’ he added, waggling a scolding finger.
‘Too quiet at home.’
‘Well in that case, the station had better fork out for a bit of a celebratory lunch. Nothing flash; pizzas in the boardroom at noon.
‘All I ask is that I get a couple of hours work out of you lot before then. In return you can all have the afternoon off.’
There were whoops and squeals of delight.
‘So now if everyone can return to work it would be much appreciated – we can celebrate later.’
Nicola smiled. Bill was one of the best bosses she’d ever had – tough but fair. He’d cracked his fair share of whips but could still appreciate the need for the occasional slack attack.
Nicola watched the crowd slowly dissipate. Within seconds the office had returned to its loud, lively pace; masses of people made phone calls, tapped hard on keyboards, raced between cubicles, and hurried to and from the lifts weighed down with clipboards, tripods, sound booms and backpacks full of cabling and camera gear.
She turned her attention to her own desk. An array of pens, pencils and textas were jammed into an old coffee jar. Four beige plastic in-trays were stacked up to the left of her computer screen, the top one almost overflowing. To the right sat her only personal items; three matching silver photo frames.
One contained a posed, formal picture of her and Scott taken at his brother’s wedding the year before.
The second was a shot of Paul and Ruth paused from work in their treasured garden, leaning on rake and shovel. Nicola had taken it for fun, only months before the disaster that claimed them – her entire family.
The third contained a faded polaroid of a bundled newborn baby with only a shock of blonde hair and wrinkled sleeping face visible. Nicola picked it up and stared at the photo given to her the day she learned that her whole life had been a lie.
That’s how she’d felt when they told her she’d been adopted. She remembered how her five-year-old world had melted like the chocolate chips in the biscuits they tried to placate her with.
They’d joined her where she was drawing on the lounge room floor of the house that had been her childhood home; the home of Paul and Ruth Harvey until the day they left to go on holidays but never came back.
They’d sat in a circle and all held hands. Nicola had got excited, thinking they were going to play a new game. And with Daddy who rarely sat on the floor with her; Mummy always said he was too busy for games. They held hands, the three of them.
They’d