Ben's Story: An Australian Romance

By R L Humphries

Young University graduate Ben Dixon has always wanted to be a newspaper reporter, even though he's from a farming background, so he goes to the editor of Queensland's biggest morning daily, the Brisbane Courier-Mail and asks him for a job--not the usual path followed by aspiring reporters. Gray admires the young man's unorthodox approach and tell Ben to go out into the city and bring back a story. Ben dresses in old clothes, moves into a home for destitute men and lives with them for three days, writes his story and presents it to the editor. His story is published and Gray employs him. But Ben is totally untrained and unprepared for the job. It's nothing like he thought. He gets off to a bad start when he clashes with beautiful Milly Bartlett, a rising star at the paper.She's known as Miss Icechip. Other reporters, seeing that Ben needs some guidance, help him find his way and even Milly thaws and befriends and helps him. Ben quickly becomes a competent reporter. He and Milly become friends and then lovers. He takes her home to his parents' cattle property near the Great Dividing Range and they are married. When they return to work Milly has received a big promotion, putting her in the executive class and on her ambitious path to the top. Ben then mistakenly raises the question of children and Milly fiercely disillusions him. There is no room for children in her plans. The dispute almost ends their marriage but Ben concedes to Milly's ambitions. But she later changes her mind and they try unsuccessfully to become parents until Ben, realizing Milly is becoming distressed at their failure calls their plan off. Milly becomes a special writer and is becoming famous around Australia. Her fame consumes her and she totally neglects Ben and their marriage. Ben offers her a divorce and she accepts and Ben returns to his parents' cattle property, finished with journalism and now a cattleman. But Milly, now aware and frightened, has other plans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483510668

Book preview

fiction

Chapter 1

My first meeting with Miss Milly Bartlett did not go well.

Brand new and as nervous as hell, I had no idea, when told to go and find a desk somewhere in the reporters’ room, that some desks belonged to certain favored members of the staff. Unfortunately, I chose Miss Bartlett’s desk.

There were no names on any of the desks—they were all nondescript timber jobs with a chair behind them, and a typewriter sitting on top. Who was to know?

So I took a seat and had my head down practicing some shorthand for this, my first illustrious day as a reporter on The Courier-Mail, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. I was very nervous. I said that didn’t I?

There was a sharp dig on my shoulder and I looked up, startled, at what would normally have been a very pretty blonde girl, except for the flinty blue eyes and penetrating icy expression. She was about my age.

‘You’re sitting at my desk, Junior. Go and find another one over there,’ nodding at the other side of the big reporters’ room. Her voice might have been nice in more friendly circumstances, but she was hostile, the voice was granite hard so I stumbled out of her chair and shot off to the indicated desk. There were about 40 desks and chairs in the big room. What the hell did it matter?

But, once resettled, I took a good look at her as she moved into place behind the prized desk. She was a very pretty girl when not scowling and hostile. No, let me correct that. She was beautiful!

I was saved by a tall young man, about my age, moving through the desks and pointing at me.

‘You’re with me, mate. Police rounds. I have to show you the ropes,’ and he swiftly swung out of a side door and sped down a corridor. He was tall and rangy and moved quickly. I hurried after him. He slowed a bit and stuck out his hand.

‘Kev Lawrence, I’m on day rounds today so they want me to show you around and get you as briefed as you’re ever gonna be in this place. You’re Ben Dixon, right? I see you’ve already met Queen Milly. She’s not too popular. Up herself. Stay away from her is my advice.’

I shook his hand. ‘Thanks Kev. Nice to meet you. Don’t worry. I can sniff toxic air.’

I followed Kev down the fire stairs to a laneway at the back of the building and into a Holden sedan. Before starting he seized a microphone and made a call to someone that he was about to leave the building. It was all sort of ‘Police File’ or some other TV program to me. He started the car and we sped to Roma Street Police Station. He parked illegally, hurried out of the car into the station, with me hurrying behind him, went to the front desk, identified himself to the officer behind the desk, asked if anything had been happening and then departed back to the car, Ben trailing hurriedly behind. The same at Fortitude Valley and then at Woolloongabba Station and then speedily to Kangaroo Point, under the Story Bridge, to a pub. Nothing at all had come of these visits. I wasn’t sure what to expect. In every case the desk officer didn’t seem impressed by our presence. Where was the mighty power of the press, I wondered?

‘Lunchtime,’ said Kev, ‘want a beer?’

‘Not sure, Kev. First day and all that. And I’m not much of a drinker. Perhaps a lemonade.’

He wasn’t bothered about the lemonade so we bought a meat pie and a drink each and went and sat outside. If this was work, give me work like this every day.

‘So,’ he said. ‘We all know how you got the job but what the hell are you doing here without one minute’s journalism training? Usually you’d be a cadet or at least, if you’re from Uni, you’d have a Diploma of Journalism. I have to tell you, mate, everyone thinks you got the job by conning your way in and a reporters’ room is not the place to have anyone questioning your knowledge or abilities. It’s a bit like a shearing shed. They’ll find you out and make you pay. Sorry, but that’s the way it is.’

‘I’ve always wanted to be a reporter,’ I said, ‘and was through my Arts degree so went to the Royal Hotel to talk to some real reporters to find out how. They suggested I ask the Editor-in-Chief, J.L.Gray, for a job. I’d had a few beers and was feeling brave so went upstairs and asked for an appointment. His secretary got it wrong and thought I wanted to interview him for the student paper, so I saw him. When we got it straight he told me to go out and get a story, on any subject—a special he called it, and bring it back to him. I dressed as a street drunk, spent three days with them, sleeping at the Salvos’ Home and went drinking with them in the Botanical Gardens, on the riverbank. I wrote a story of my experience and took it to Mr. Gray. It was published, so here I am. Was that false pretenses?’

Kev looked at me in amazement. ‘Shit no! That was the real thing. We all thought the Editor hired you just because you were a Uni student. He loves Uni students. You wrote that street people story? Mate, you’re good. But you’re only as good as your last best story. Sorry, mate, I insulted you. Sure you won’t have a beer?’

I declined. On my first day I thought I should take it easy. I wasn’t a very good drinker. My time with the street people had proved that. They drank ‘steam’ as they called it—dry or sweet sherry or some cheap wine which they boosted with methylated spirits. I was quickly under. But for one of them, a kindly man called John, who pretty well carried me back to the Men’s Home, I think I would have been damaged or dead by now. He knew I was writing a story and each day he went through what I thought I’d learned about these defeated men and guided my thinking and, later, my thoughts on what I was going to write. He seemed to know what he was talking about and I wondered about him. But I was grateful to this mysterious man.

I stuck close to Kev all afternoon. He never stopped talking about reporting methods. He was right—I knew nothing—and it really wasn’t fair that he should have to be my instructor. I could understand the feelings of those who thought I’d conned my way into a job but was a complete ignoramus. So now I was not only inexperienced but was aware that I was not among friends. My self-confidence plunged further.

But he made me work. The police round consisted of endless phone calls to the police stations, fire brigades and ambulance stations all over Brisbane and its near surrounds. Kev explained that the rounds car was used for urgent travel only and to get the reporters out of the newsroom and away from the Chief of Staff who delighted in giving them general assignments if police rounds was quiet. The police reporters believed they should be left alone for police work only. If it was quiet, that was their good luck. It was an endless battle. Oh, and the car was used as a taxi for the roundsmen and as a booze carrier when week-end parties were on, which was most of the time. I was astonished that life and work, and rules of engagement, were taken so lightly in this world I’d entered.

But the phone was the main tool of trade and that afternoon, Kev had me phoning all of the abovementioned places on almost a continuous circuit. Sometimes I struck gold with the occasional vehicle accident. After I completely ballsed up my first story, Kev patiently went through the basics—who or what, when, where, how and, sometimes, why. It really was that simple and my later few stories received a nod of approval and were handed back to me so that I could be seen to lodge them in the chief’s copy basket. There they were quickly seized by the deputy COS and pored over by him and his boss. Kev noticed too.

‘Shit, mate. I think you might be going to have a hard time here with this story of how you got the job. If the chief doesn’t know the truth you are in deep sheet, amigo. That’s not fair.’

I just listened and hoped the truth would out. Wasn’t this a place where the truth was outed, always?

We hung around the reporters’ room for the rest of the day until the night roundsman started his shift. He was not friendly, but Kev drew him aside and talked earnestly, both of them staring at me. Now that was disconcerting!

I wondered whether this likely miserable existence was going to be worth it. I had a big cattle property awaiting me outside Monaldo where my parents were waiting for me to see sense, give up this unreasonable obsession and come home. But the night roundsman came over and shook hands and was friendly.

The Courier-Mail was housed in a sizable art deco building in Queen Street in Brisbane. The big reporters’ room occupied the core of the building, surrounded by a corridor, with offices encircling the building on the outside of the corridor. They housed other more senior reporting staff and the editor and sub-editors. The building was handy to everything including the most important—the Royal Hotel.

The three of us went down to the Royal Hotel, to the back bar, where all journos congregated. Kev had quietly told me they wouldn’t care what I drank but I should be seen there on my first day. He introduced me all round as the writer of the street people feature and told how Mr. Gray came to employ me.

We began to be a big group when Kevin O’Malley and Merv Burnett arrived and the group parted to allow them access to the bar. It was obvious that they were highly respected. Kevin was a big hearty Australian/Irishman and Merv was a nuggety bespectacled bloke with a cigarette always in his mouth and his eyes narrowed against the smoke. Pretty tough bloke, I thought. Kev shook me vigorously by the hand. He and Merv were the blokes who’d told me to go and see Mr. Gray and, by now, I realized it was a wind-up.

‘Jesus boy, you did a great job on the street people story and Merv and I give you all credit for it. Merv give the lad credit.’

‘All credit to you, whoever you are,’ said Merv through a cloud of smoke.

Kev Lawrence moved in. ‘He’s Ben Dixon and he’s going to be ok. I trained him myself,’ he said, amid roars of laughter—and the party began. I didn’t move from drinking lemonade which drew a few glances but no comments.

My first day as a journalist. We were tossed out of the pub at closing time. I caught a tram to my flat at West End and vomited up four hours of lemonade.

****

I was on again at 10 am and barely made it. I was not an early riser, being used to late study nights, but I was going to have to change my habits.

I was looking forward to this day—I think. I hadn’t really been impressed by the first day. I thought it was pretty mundane. Where were the murders, the big fires, the bank hold-ups?

But again the day didn’t start well. I walked to the lift and there was Miss Icechip—Milly Whatshername, waiting too. I pulled the cumbersome door open for her and again at the third floor. She said ‘thanks’ and breezed through and off. I knew now to take a desk well away: too cold over there anyway.

This time I was assigned to another police reporter, Tom Wells. The same routine applied except that Tom drank his lunch at the Royal. I settled for a pie at a nearby street stall. The phoning routine continued and I scored a couple of reasonable stories, wrote them, Tom perused them and suggested some minor changes and so it went. Then a big smash story came through and Tom departed with a photographer, leaving me at the rounds desk. I rang around a bit. Nothing. I didn’t know whether to wait for Tom and was sitting twiddling when O’Malley walked past and said, ‘Go home, Ben. You finished ages ago.’

I went straight home. I had to ring Kate.

****

And now a word about Ben Dixon, and how all this came about. And about Kate.

I was born and bred in a little rural dairying town called Monaldo, near the western foothills of the Great Dividing Range, about 100 miles due west of Bundaberg over the range.

My parents have a very big cattle property called Wellington Springs, or just The Springs to locals. It’s in the actual foothills of the Great Divide, 30 miles from Monaldo, and a rough road to town. I’d had a governess until it was time for me to go to secondary boarding school, which I did in Brisbane, and then I went straight to University to complete an Arts degree. I thought that would be the quickest way into journalism. I took some time off to backpack overseas for a year and then took on some hard physical work at the Brisbane fruit and vegetable markets. I figured I needed toughening up and I wasn’t wrong. I was a different bloke when I finished heaving big bags and crates of fruit and vegetables and went back to studies. We’re talking of the late 1950’s here.

My parents, John and Marion Dixon, had wanted me to study something to do with the land but I didn’t want to be a cattleman. I wanted to be a reporter. Where that came from, nobody knows. We barely saw a paper in Monaldo but when I got to Brisbane I consumed them and studied the by-lined reporters and wanted to be one. I saw no other goal. It looked pretty easy to me.

Now I had a foot in the door but it had been more nerve-wracking than I’d thought, because of my total ignorance. I couldn’t expect many Kev Lawrences along the way. I didn’t stop being nervous all through the two days.

And now for Kate—a gorgeous honey-blonde with a great figure, a beautiful nature and a voice and face to marvel at. We’d known each other since childhood. Her parents and mine had been friends for many years, and although separated by scores of miles, Kate and I were playmates as much as we could be, seeing each other as infrequently as we did. Our parents spent Christmases and those sorts of holidays together. We were the same age and went away to Brisbane and our boarding schools together, always travelling on the train with each other. As we grew older, Kate’s beauty began to shine out and she attracted a bit of attention on the train. I fought off one unwelcome and persistent bloke and Kate spent the rest of the journey clinging to me. I didn’t mind.

Now she was a veterinary student in Brisbane and we saw each other as often as we could.

I considered Kate as my property and we were both old enough now to start thinking of the future. We had some pretty heavy sessions but no sex and part of me wondered what I’d do if that big moment came. I still felt like Kate’s protector, perhaps even from me.

She was waiting when I got off the tram, agog for news of Clark Kent’s adventures but it was all mundane and she looked a bit let down. We had a nice dinner and an even nicer cuddle and then she left for home. I rang my parents to tell them of my first days, but again I felt flat and I think I transmitted that.

There had to be more to it than this!

Chapter 2

‘Ah sheet, senor! The senorita of the Icecheep is there again.’ There was Milly Icechip at the lift door as I arrived for my third glorious day. I’d have to pick a different time, or freeze to death.

I worked the doors for her and she said, ‘Thanks,’ and SMILED at me. She was indeed a beautiful girl. That wonderful, lustrous hair and superb figure and legs.

‘How’s it been so far?’ she asked as we travelled up. ‘And congratulations on your street people story. It was well done. But they didn’t give you a by-line. I thought it warranted that, at least.’

I have to admit I was a bit overcome by this lady and I quickly understood why she qualified for ownership of a desk. She was very attractive with a strong personality—no self-doubt at all. She had a marvelous voice. I’d copped the chill before but now I was getting the warmth. But it was her intelligence that showed out. This was some redoubtable woman.

I found myself at a bit of a loss with her. I