“Oh really, how lovely,” says benefactor, Dowager Baillieu. Baffled look on her face. She held out a drooping hand. Her other hand reaching for her pearls, at the same speed as his puckered lips glided downwards towards her non-gloved skin.
“Yes, my wife Jane and I… like the writer?” He stopped, seemingly mid sentence.
“I’m sorry?”
“Jane Austin, my wife.”
“Really?”
“Got a good deal on a small apartment near work.”
“Oh.”
Anyone's guess, really? There is just something, an inescapable something. How he made it to Melbourne is... who knows? He’s the Zebra who dares to wear red shoes, back where he came from. No doubt. Barton, or Page, or Dunk, all those terrible Canberra suburbs have terrible names like that. More chance of winning lotto than a Canberrian, is that what the collective noun is for them, fitting in with Melbournians.
“He’s one of the Canberra Austins?” asked the dowager, mystified. “Apparently, his wife writes.”
The man is the embodiment of pain relief. Some, mostly the twinset brigade, say a voice as smooth as honey. I'd say a monologue as relentless as a tsunami, but not nearly as interesting. Have A Chat, that's what they call him, Mr Have A Chat, sadly no body listens, as those who do soon glaze over as they look down at their watch. For Jon is Valium in human form. He even makes ditch water look like a Monet painting. Five minutes in a room with him and sloths are trying to slit their wrists.
He's not even a nice bloke. Some would say rude. The chip of the colonies. I'd say who cares, as long as I don't have to listen to him any longer. Thank the universe for office reshuffles, my life is saved. Mazz hated him, called him non existent. "You can see right through him, almost as if he wasn't there."
He’s just a shadow, he works in the shadows. He is that moment that your reflection tapped you on the shoulder and said, Now about that misdemeanour, you know the one. Talking to the local media about Empire’s work, you thought nobody would notice. Ring, ring. “You got a minute.”
“What’s this about?”
“Oh, nothing heavy.” Just talking outside your role and potentially jeopardising your funding, but we will get to that.
Oh when I heard those faithful words, unexpectedly, first thing one Monday morning. "Jon Austin here, is it a good time for a chat?"
NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anybody else in the department getting that phone call, with those opening words, they’ve told the rest if us. Compared stories, misdemeanours. How were you supposed to run campaigns, if you had to get every small detail checked off by the man himself, every time you wanted to make a decision? It bought shivers. Always, whenever you had strayed outside of the brief. Some times you knew when you did it. Oh, is that going to bring a phone call. Shiver. You know you just said what wasn't meant to be said.
"Is now a good time?" Jon asked.
Any sane member of the team would be begging, I begged kill me now, as the words were still passing, meticulously timed, out of his mouth.
"Yes." Meek. In reaction already. Flight or fight. Defence, be small, the smallest target that anyone could possibly hit.
Why me? Who have I spoke to in the last few days? What media releases says? Who said what. Why did you have to send in Jon Austin? Internal Investigation. Faceless auditor. The shadow behind every decision you have ever made.
"I just want to have a civilised chat about what your side of the story is..."
"What story?" I was stupid enough to ask once.
"Christian, you were named in the news report as the source."
"My side of the story."
"Why don't we start there," coo'd Jon's voice, less like a trickle of honey and more like being suffocated by too much rose scented talc in the air.
"Now just so we understand what we are dealing with." He would list the crimes with which you were now charge in order of least importance, finishing with the big kahuna, the most criminally damaging allegations on his list of you digressions.
Once your side was done, put out there, offered up, then he was relentless, the chilled voice, like a velvet tsunami, never stopping, never relenting, never changing speed, on how it was going to be in the future.
“You know,” Jon laughed for the first time. “Just so we are on the same page.”
What is he? COO Brand of Empire Group. CEO of operations of Service Empire International. Frightening, he truly is. What is he? He is so whacked up on his own self importance, that just isn't any questions coming from him re authenticity. You don't deign to speak to him, unless he has business with you. He's a cold fish. He gives me the creeps just now thinking about him.
“I didn’t realise the implications.”
“That is why I am here,” Jon coo'd.
He's neat. Shoes that always matched his belt, no matter what he was wearing, it was almost psychopathic in its adherence. Of course, he only wore camel pants, or jeans, a short-sleeved shirt, more often than not checked, leather moccasins, or a pristine runner, the occasional wow factor suit and tie, but that only if he was going out for some forensic smoozhing.
Friday afternoon he’d finish at 3pm, as he has a kid, he’d leave the office on his way to pick up the insufferable Charlotte wearing her pink backpack. Or he worked from home, three day weekend, those days are free and liberating, just a small taste of how things could be.
Fran and I have been known to crack a bottle of red Friday afternoons, once Jon had departed the building. He never knew. It was one of the perks of not driving to work. Fifteen years ago, we’d have been outside having a fag, but Fran and I had long since given up the gaspers. We’d go into Fran’s corner office and close the door. One of the few, still with an office, thank god. Let the inmates have full reign. Only occasionally, you understand, not every, single Friday afternoon. I’m not exactly sure what he would have said about that?
I don’t think he is as important as he likes to think he is. Fran Di Dio does a good job, what is she, COO Empire People, and is way more respected than Jon Austin. He’s not one of us, he never has been. Fran's a no-nonsense kind of, hands on her hips and knuckle down and fix the problem through hard work, kind of gal. I think of her as the Katherine Hepburn of the NGO world. She never has a need of the existential, like our boy Jon. He's the master of it. I bet you he does cross words.
Fran brings her dog in to work, Tilly, the standard poodle. You can bring your dog in whenever you want. Bruno knows the routine and is at the front door waiting for me, the only time he wants to walk with me, I have to add. Fran always arrives at your desk in person, if there is a problem, if she wants to "have a word". She has no tag line, no not for her. “Christian, about the Men’s Program?” She wouldn’t refer you to some mythical spirit of the organisation, she’d just give you an answer. Done. Short and sweet. Problem fixed. Tilly would often lick you, in Fran’s wake, when it was all done. Fran wouldn’t suck your ear down a phone for 3/4s of an hour on the philosophies of the organisation and where we’d like us all to be heading, together.
Fran’s alive and real and earthy. Fran photosynthesises.
Jon is a hologram, a perfect corporate image. Jon sucks oxygen.
Tilly and Bruno lay together in the after noon sun, in front of the floor length windows on the north side of the floor. Cindy, Jon’s Schipperke, cowers and growls from under Jon’s desk, when Tilly and Bruno go and sniff around her, whenever Jon isn’t around.
“Life imitating art,’ I said to Fran. It didn’t quite come out right. “You know what I mean?”
“They say it is all in the upbringing,” said Fran. She pointed to Cindy with her chin. “The first 6 weeks are crucial.” She laughed.
“They really should just beat her up one day,” I sneered, slowly, as I watched Tilly and Bruno sniff at the snarling Cindy, questioningly. Tilly, long nose down. Bruno, sniffing up close from behind.
“Oh Christian.” I felt a hand grab my arm. Fran was trying very hard not to laugh, but she couldn’t stop herself. She walked off chuckling, shaking her head.
“Do you have a minute,” she said, seemingly into the ether as she walked away.
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