Liar Bird

  Dedication

  For John.

  Thanks for all the happy days.

  Contents

  Cover

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Down the plughole

  Chapter Two

  You look a little shy

  Chapter Three

  Three o’clock is always too late

  Chapter Four

  Who are you?

  Part Two

  Chapter Five

  Of pigs and men …

  Chapter Six

  Keep in touch

  Chapter Seven

  Look on both sides

  Chapter Eight

  We’re all mad here

  Chapter Nine

  Disenchantment

  Chapter Ten

  A silly phase

  Chapter Eleven

  High tide

  Chapter Twelve

  With what porpoise …

  Chapter Thirteen

  High time to go

  Chapter Fourteen

  A cat set loose

  Chapter Fifteen

  It’s more about the poetry

  Chapter Sixteen

  Pre-Headline-Tension

  Chapter Seventeen

  Grumpy boredom

  Chapter Eighteen

  He’s a psychopath

  Chapter Nineteen

  I was a different person then

  Chapter Twenty

  What ranger is that?

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Mortality rate second only to the black mamba

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I’m in a Stephen King novel

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Is that a PR job?

  Chapter Twenty-four

  A gigantic conspiracy

  Chapter Twenty-five

  That chicken just gave me a smile

  Chapter Twenty-six

  If not for the roosters

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Cunning counterplot

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  A mother’s wisdom

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  It’s all about the poetry

  Part Three

  Chapter Thirty

  Liar bird

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Part One

  after such a fall as this,

  I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs

  Alice, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,

  Lewis Carroll

  Chapter One

  Down the plughole

  If it wasn’t for the long-footed potoroo, I might never have heard of Beechville. But I suppose I can’t entirely lay the blame at the potoroo’s door — Warren Corbett must also take his share.

  There have been many influential figures in my life, people who have opened doors at the right time, given words of advice, turned me onto a path I might not have taken. Of all of these, Warren Corbett looms largest.

  Wazza, as he’s widely known in PR circles, was my first boss. More than that, he was my mentor. Do what it takes, girl, but don’t let them catch you, was his favourite saying. Second was, When in doubt, deny, deny, deny.

  He’s old school, Wazza. PR Ethics hadn’t been invented when he made his first million. It was my luck — some would say karma — that I ended up at Winning Edge Public Relations still wet from my Communications degree. That was when the learning really started.

  Wazza taught me everything I knew — how to set up ‘grassroots’ front groups that look and act just like the real thing; how to infiltrate real groups if need be and, most importantly, how not to let your conscience stand in the way of your career. He said it was important to look ethical; actually being ethical was optional and probably unwise.

  He was the learned master and I the eager student. I sucked up his wisdom as thirstily as any magician’s apprentice. Good old Wazza, he’s still there, doing his thing. God knows there’s no shortage of clients ready to fork out for his golden touch.

  Out of all the graduates who’d applied to his company — fifty or so — he picked me. Why?

  ‘I trust my instincts, Cassandra.’ He’d leant over his massive glass table, a whiff of cinnamon aftershave drifting towards me from his shiny cheeks. ‘In this game, you have to. And you … I can sense something. You’re smart, but they’re all smart. You look good, but they all look good. You’ve got something different, though.’ He’d placed his hand-rolled cigar in an ashtray and pointed his immaculately groomed, gold-ringed finger at my chest. ‘You are hungry.’

  He was right.

  He told me later — only half joking — that he’d been worried I’d leap over the desk and sink my teeth into his jugular if he’d knocked me back. I’d laughed politely, showing just a hint of fang to keep him on his toes.

  We had five great years together, Wazza and I. Years that bought me my Manly harbour-front apartment, my Ferrari and my five-star investment portfolio. We were the PR ‘A’ team and all Sydney knew it. There wasn’t a company director or charity queen who didn’t have our card pinned to their board. I never stopped to question where we were going. Why would you when the phone never stopped ringing, the invitations to parties kept coming, and the bank account was bursting at the seams? I was on a fast ride to glory, leaping up the ranks of society like a cheetah on speed.

  My life was mapped out in front of me — partnership in a year or two, my own business one day, a PR realm stretching its tentacles through Sydney, Australia, the world. Why not? After where I’d come from, I deserved it.

  But it was thanks to Wazza that on Monday the 23rd of September at six am the phone woke me. Sliding my hand out from under the doona, I grasped the receiver and pressed it to my ear.

  ‘Simon McKechnie here.’

  Simon was a rabid anti-progress leftist greenie and columnist for the Herald. McKechnie at six am was never good news.

  ‘From the Herald,’ he added, when I didn’t reply.

  Like I didn’t know.

  ‘The People’s Council for Better Community Services. What can you tell me about it?’

  Luckily my wits didn’t desert me. I made a chchch static noise, placed the phone down gently, unplugged it, checked my mobile was turned off, drew the curtains and, striding into the lounge room, poured myself a neat whiskey. It hit my belly like a bolt from God.

  Anthony, of course, was useless.

  ‘What’s up, Cassandra?’ he called from the bedroom. ‘Are you making coffee? Make mine a skinny.’ He was using his pathetic little sleepy-boy voice.

  I could expect no help there.

  I knew I had about ten minutes, maybe twenty — plenty of time. My feet sank into the hand-woven Turkish carpet as I padded to the meditation room. Pulling out my tattered copy of The Annotated Alice, I opened it randomly, closed my eyes and pressed my finger to the page. ‘You don’t know much,’ said the Duchess, ‘and that’s a fact.’

  I nodded — so true. Spot on, in fact.

  Why Alice in Wonderland? I know it’s not what most thirty-year-old PR executives read. Well, we all have our means of coping. Some people are into Oprah; others, Buddha; and some — well, me — rely on Alice.

  I first discovered the wisdom of Alice at the age of eight …

  It was the day of the school fete — a much anticipated event that hadn’t gone to plan. My ‘best friend’ Jessica and I had had a falling out, but that’s another story. Suffice to say, I was deflated, dejected, down and out.

  Alone at the book stall I shuffled through the Enid Blytons and out-of-date Women’s Weeklys laid out on the trestle tables but my eyes were drawn to a battered copy of The Annotated Alice. Stuffing the last morsel of Chiko Roll in my mo
uth, I picked up the book in my chubby freckled hands.

  I liked books. Ours was a TV, not a book, house. At night we all lined up on the sofa in front of the box. If I tried to leaf through a book at the same time, Mum would frown at me.

  ‘Put that away, Cassie. You’re distracting me.’

  As a result, books had an almost illicit appeal.

  The flushed and sweaty woman behind the stall eyed my greasy hands as I opened the book at random. I saw a picture of a fierce, regal-looking woman frowning at a girl with long, blonde hair and the following words: Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been …

  My thumb smeared a trail of oil across the page. I read the words over and over. They made no sense at all, whichever way I looked at them. I liked that. I liked the way it made me feel. As if I was poised on the edge of a well of wisdom. Oh yes, there was meaning there, I just needed to find it, dive in, explore … Handing over my last twenty cents, I took my treasure home.

  It has stayed with me, that book, a 1972 edition containing both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Its pages were yellowed and stained when I first bought it, but they’re more so now. The soft texture of the paper speaks of many hands fondling it before me. A faded inscription in the front reads, To darling Tessie, from Mum. I think of Tessie as my blood-sister. I’d like to meet her one day. Discuss Alice; share what it means to me. You don’t get that kind of connection with an e-book.

  So … forget the I-Ching and the Tarot — I find Alice in Wonderland much more likely to provide wise advice at the right moment. It may need interpretation, but doesn’t all the best advice?

  ‘You don’t know much,’ said the Duchess. See what I mean? Perfect. What did Simon McKechnie know after all? Not much, and that’s a fact.

  I glanced at the clock as I closed Alice. I still had a few minutes.

  Folding my legs into lotus pose, I rested my hands, palm up, on my knees and meditated, using the mantra Wazza had taught me: deny, deny, deny. It was a well-practised routine. By the time the knock on the door came, I was ready.

  ‘Just a minute,’ I called. Rinsing my mouth to remove the smell of whiskey, I wrapped myself in a blue velvet robe. Lips pursed, I applied my pale pink Innocence lipstick and inspected myself in the mirror. The baby-faced looks I’d relied on to get me this far hadn’t let me down.

  Running my fingers through my spiked and highlighted hair for a just-out-of-bed tousled look, I centred myself as I walked to the door.

  Deny, deny, deny.

  As I expected, McKechnie was there, sandy hair poking out at all angles, a holier-than-thou expression on his pale face. Puhleese. We all had to make a living. That he got to make his playing an environmental saint was his good luck, I suppose.

  ‘Why, Simon, what brings you to Manly at this time of day?’ I widened my eyes in mock surprise.

  His pale green eyes narrowed, ready for his specialty: the inquisition. He would have been in great demand in sixteenth-century Spain, would Simon. Bring on the thumbscrews …

  We’re old sparring partners, McKechnie and I. We were in the same year at university until our paths diverged. His to the gods, mine to the devil, some would say. But where would journos be without PRs? We do their job for them most of the time.

  Oh, I’d thought about journalism, but PR attracted me more. What’s wrong with PR anyway? It’s illusion, smoke and mirrors, storytelling … Everyone loves a story, don’t they? I suppose journalism is about stories too, but it’s like the difference between non-fiction and fiction. And we all know fiction’s much more fun.

  ‘Phone lines down?’ Simon’s voice was flat.

  ‘Possum must have chewed them again.’ I eyeballed him, daring him to call me a liar. It was funny to think he’d asked me out in first year uni. I’d kind of liked him then. He was sharp, and witty, in a slightly try-hard way. I didn’t mind that. Most men tried hard around me.

  But girls like me didn’t go out with guys like Simon. I was totally out of his league. Let’s face it, he might have been posh Woollahra to my rough-as-guts Blacktown, but my personal real estate was way more exclusive.

  Anthony was out of bed by now; he hovered behind me, a towel around his waist. ‘What’s up, babes?’

  I wished he wouldn’t call me that. Not in front of the media anyway. Anthony is very sweet, but brains are not his strong point. He has other Unique Selling Features, as we say in the PR world.

  ‘Why don’t you make coffee, Ant, and let me talk to our visitor?’ I said.

  It was a difficult interview, but I think I handled it well.

  Lashings of wide-eyed ingénue, a touch of sharp-edged denial and a dash of honesty — yes, I was handling the Rainforest Runaway project. There was no point in denying it. If there was one thing Simon was noted for, it was his attention to detail.

  I thought I’d got away with it.

  ‘What was that about, babes?’ Anthony handed me my skinny latte. Sometimes I found Ant a little too … frothy, but we were a good team. I knew it wasn’t fair to expect mental stimulation from a hairdresser to the stars. In other areas, he was very stimulating indeed.

  ‘Nothing you need to worry about, snookiepants.’ Energised after my bout with Simon, I wiggled my shoulders playfully.

  Ant correctly interpreted my mood. Taking my coffee cup from me, he ran his hands inside my dressing gown and lifted me onto the breakfast bench.

  Outside the window, the Manly ferry thrust itself across the sun-studded water of the harbour. The commuters on the front braced themselves for a fast, wet ride.

  It was a Harlequin Mills & Boon Sexy Sensation moment. With my bare bum cold on the black granite and my legs wrapped around Ant’s waist, I permitted myself a moment of smugness. For a girl from Blacktown, I’d done pretty well.

  I arrived at work right on time and nicely relaxed.

  Suzie, the junior on the front desk, looked up as I pushed open the glass doors. ‘You look good, Cassandra. New makeup?’

  I flashed a smile. ‘Morning Glory — you should try it.’ She scribbled a note as I went into my office. I shouldn’t tease, but there was something about her that invited it — a sweet naivety that reminded me of myself at that age.

  Wazza wandered in soon after, puffing on his cigar, a phone held to his ear. He finished his call. ‘How’s tricks, Cassandra?’

  ‘All good, Wazza.’ There was no need to trouble him with news of Simon McKechnie. The situation was under control. Wazza’s shiny silver phone directed a ray of light across my desk. It flashed in my eyes, blinding me for a moment. ‘Hey, when do I get my iPhone?’

  ‘It’s coming, darling. You know I can’t refuse you anything.’ Wazza blew me a kiss as he left.

  I spent the next half-hour or so ringing the people on the ground, telling them to sit tight — put a rain check on the day’s recruitment. The People’s Council for Better Community Services wasn’t disbanded, just lying low.

  Once that was done, I put it out of my mind. Rainforest Runaway was only one client. Twenty others were panting for the Winning Edge touch.

  There was nothing on the TV news that night, which was a promising sign, but the proof of my escape would be next morning’s Herald.

  At six am I prodded Ant. ‘Go get the paper.’ I sat up while he was gone and gazed out at the harbour. Was there any better view in the world? With the sun rising it was like an abstract painting — triangles of gold light, triangles of red boats.

  I pulled on the sunglasses I kept on my bedside table for this purpose. I’d worked so hard for a bed with a view like this. It was unfair someone like Simon McKechnie could threaten it. He’d coasted into his job on the tails of his famous journalist parents.

  The only place I’d be coasting on my parents’ tails would be the Blacktown TAB. I think my mother still holds the record for the largest loss in one race. She has other vices too — nothing illegal, though. We don’t talk about my fath
er.

  Ant handed me the paper and I gnawed my lip as I picked off the plastic. Bloody plastic wrap. The more of a hurry you’re in, the harder it is to get off. I ended up ripping at it with my teeth while Ant watched anxiously.

  Unfurling the paper, I checked page one — nothing. Page two — nothing. Page three — nothing. I flicked to the back, to be sure. ‘Yay.’ I punched my hand in the air. I was in the clear.

  Ant rolled over on top of me. ‘Feeling sexy now, poochy?’

  ‘I think I might be, snookie.’

  We were just getting all hot and steamy when the doorbell rang.

  Chapter Two

  You look a little shy

  I knew it was him — McKechnie again. I have a sixth sense about these things — call it my PR antenna.

  I pushed Ant off me. ‘Shit, shit, shitty shit.’

  ‘Don’t answer the door, babes. Come on.’ Ant nibbled at my earlobe, which I normally love, but it did nothing for me at that moment.

  ‘Damn that Simon McKechnie and his frigging Walkley Award.’ It was no secret in journalism circles — Simon was after a big story to set him up for the award.