ISBN: 9781620955840

Contact: ransom.paul@gmail.com - + 61 417 837 231 - +61 3 9593 6014

01: BERNADETTE / BEAUTY

When little Lizzie first went missing some copper fella from the city came round wanting to know all about her. He took one look at me and reckoned maybe she’d just gone walkabout. I said no way.

She ain’t black enough.

She’s just hiding out I reckon, staying in some fancy place somewhere, seeing as she’s all rich and famous now. Probably just watching herself on the telly.

That lawyer fella of hers, that real good looking one, he keeps saying she’s got nothing to run from. But he don’t know nothing. I seen her on that show and in them magazines, real pretty and everything she was, just like a proper film star - only it was all lies.

People here in Jackson keep saying ain’t that your little Lizzie on the telly? Of course it is - and it don’t matter she said all that bulldung about me and old Vin neither. She’ll always be me little girl no matter what.

That copper fella said I should call him if I knew anything but God forgive me - not just yet. Her old dad never writ that book for just anyone. He writ it all for her - just like always. She was his little angel. He loved her more than anything. More than he loved me anyway.

That’s why them coppers don’t need to know nothing about what’s in that book. Little Lizzie did but.

That’s why he left it behind in the first place. He reckoned I’d always be too dumb to read it meself but that she’d get her hands on it one day for sure. That way he’d get to tell her why he was the way he was, and maybe even say sorry for leaving her the way he did. It would be their little secret then. Just like old times - and that’s why she’s gone off now, I bet.

She learned the truth after all and now look - both of us are crying our hearts out all over again.

Old Vin would be too if he was still around. There ain’t no way he woulda wanted it to end like this.

But it’s real funny him being the one to finally get her to see sense, coz she always took his word over mine. That’s why I sent her the book. She deserved it, I reckon.

God forgive me but I also wanted to show her that her dumb ugly old mum maybe weren’t so dumb after all. Least not nowadays.

02: MIRIAM / TRUTH

Truth is bullshit. Tiring hacks like me use it as an excuse. Kids like Olympia have no idea what it is. Frankly we’d all be better off without it.

Okay, maybe not … but I’ve chased the so called truth right to this dripping wet doorstep; filmed it, cut it, worked it hard for every available buck, and still I’ve got no fucking idea.

Which is why I’m here, about to knock on what I presume is her door.

Looks like I’m still hooked, after all. On her; or whatever part of me and my sad arse life she supposedly doppelgangs. I keep telling myself I’m over it but obviously I’m not, because here I am still cruising for scraps. Looking for leads in the trash.

Who is this girl? What made her this way? Why do I care? Et-fucking-cetera.

Yeah, questions questions. No wonder I’m tired.

Damn this damn riddle; this obvious, expensive distraction.

Standing here, sweating my arse off in this festering humid heat, things are starting to smell way too much like cheap soap to me, like some tacky, overhyped froth and bubble melodrama from my tabloid TV days, when it paid handsomely to be a cynical bitch and peddle vacuous, brain numbing distortion.

But wait, there’s more!

Isn’t that why I left it all behind? Wasn’t that why I shook the golden handshake and caught the first cattle cart north to paradise? To shoot the film I always wanted, to cut something real, to say something worth saying?

I flew up here determined to live out my long suppressed filmmaker fantasy; but I arrived full of poison, kidneys aching as I stepped off the plane and into the dense sweet air of the tropics. In my baggage, like toxic cargo, the hard evidence on digital video … weighing me down.

Yet with all that predictable shit came the lingering and not entirely unreasonable hope that I could somehow flush the madness out of my system and maybe, just maybe, unearth the ‘real’ Olympia.

But surprise surprise - a gang of defiant skeletons, still rattling madly in my closet, gave determined chase. Childhood stuff. Sex issues, self-loathing - you know the score. All the shitty leftovers I never quite managed to pin on her.

Even so, it was seriously good to wedge four thousand air miles between me and the fake universe I used to inhabit. Between the media spectacle I helped to fashion and the real life, skin‘n’bone girl I’m hoping is waiting on the other side of this flimsy beige painted door. She’s the one that I want; not the dysfunctional, fabricated Frankenstein who virtually stabbed me to death before doing her little vanishing number … leaving the many fingers of blame pointing directly at my muddled head.

Like so many loaded guns.

First thing I’ll do when she opens this door is to say sorry and forgive her. Maybe then we can wipe the slate clean. Start again.

Anyway, I’m full on shivering now, nervous as. It’s been a long time. So here goes nothing.

Okay, so let’s rewind.

When the star of the show first went missing, I was the number one person of interest. Rumours ran riot, rival networks set up camp on the street outside and the cops took bulldog interest.

The director and the starlet: what a story, what an obvious place to look.

The investigating officer was a certified spunk so I tried on my flirty unbuttoned blouse routine but it seemed to have no effect and I was grilled both sides till I was almost charcoal. He wasn’t interested in the booty or the mitigating circumstances; all he wanted to know about was Olympia Grazia Gallo. Familiar story that.

So as soon as I was in the clear I made my feeble excuses to my jilted daughter, apologised to my incapacitated mother and flew to the rainforest country with sixty-seven tapes of raw footage. Somewhere in there, I told myself, was the reality we were all looking for.

Yeah, reality. Nice one.

Ironic really; because if you rewind it all back to nought the tape shows quite clearly that reality and truth were little more than accidental by-products. Pizza toppings. Extra fucking cheese.

For too many years I worked at the wheel of a prime time current affairs TV show called ‘World View’. But really I was celebrity anchorman Al Sinclair’s bitch. PA if you want to be nice about it.

Basically, I was his fixer. I kept his diary, screened his calls, took his suits to the cleaners and paid off the occasional opportunist pretty boy who thought he’d got one over on him. Cheeky little fuckers never did though, because I was way too smart and Al’s pockets were like oceans, enough to drown us all. Especially me and my goddam qualms.

So we were a dream team: the uber jaded newsman pondering his retirement and the wannabe doco maker clinging to the fringes of her chosen profession. He was a cashed up old queen playing friendly uncle to his grocery buying fans and I was a mid-thirties divorcee hoping he’d recognise my true genius one day. Talk about co-dependent.

Yeah, it was a nasty orbit we spun in, alright. Neither of us truly believed what we were doing and that’s precisely what made us so damn good.

But in the weird arse world of mass media, healthy scepticism soon morphs into deadly withering cynicism, a knowingness that just about corrodes your soul. And that’s when you lose the plot.

Maybe it was the money or the self righteous vigilante glow of a big expose … or perhaps it was just the sweet aphrodisiac of fame. Whatever; Al and I were both sucked in. Well, that’s my excuse anyway.

We’d still be there too, playing the game for all it was worth, loving it and loathing it, still wondering where on earth they kept the truth hidden.

Cue Olympia.

In hindsight it’s fair to say we didn’t see her coming until well after she’d arrived. Too fucking addicted, that was our itch. Too used to living in a world where even the most brilliant people and the most worthy causes were either ratings drivers or just plain old news. As we always used to say, the people’s pain was the network’s gain. We must have been very easy meat for an operator like her.

And yet for all that she didn’t exactly fly her plane into our towers. In fact there were several moments when we almost scrambled the jets to intercept her. Another dud lead, another ho-hum, ten a penny, human interest tearjerker. Big fucking deal.

The world is full of misery, kids - but only some of it is must see TV.

But I guess she was lucky. Or not, as the case may be. For Olympia came with a built-in champion; namely, Dr Sandra Guy, Al’s long time therapist and the network’s shrink on tap. When ‘Sandi’ called with something to suck on big Al normally swallowed. It was that kind of relationship. As a result, the ‘World View’ archives are positively overflowing with shots of Sandi and her Lazy Susan of contemporary malaise. Such is the easy glamour of dysfunction.

That’s right, we live in an age of fashionable sickness and it sure as hell sells.

K-ching!

And this was exactly the kind of shamelessly brutal attitude that Al and I were paid to display; and under normal circumstances it would have kicked in as soon as Sandi first floated the rather ambitious idea of us ‘doing something serious’ on the weighty and somewhat gory topic of dissociative disorders and child sex abuse. Real shock/horror stuff. Way too complex for our dumb arse punters. Titillation they could manage … but grappling with complex issues? Nah.

Eject.

Well … not quite.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t privy to the lunchtime discussion that set the madness in motion. How different all our worlds would be if I had been; but, as always, the primary deal making took place over Chenin Blanc and salmon sashimi at the Metropolitan Club, the preferred hang out of old money relics and their nouveau riche cousins. A place I never got invited to.

Anyway, the good doctor must have addressed some key criteria because a somewhat tiddly Al was positively foaming at the mouth by the time he finally rolled back into the office, smelling of fish and thinners.

“Hey babe; reckon we should check this out.”

By which he meant I should check it out. After all, Al just sat on his coat tails and mouthed the intros. He flipped a napkin onto my desk. In all caps, he’d scrawled:

MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES

“Sounds like the kinda freakshow our punters can’t get enough of,” he gurgled, trying to sound more heartless than he was. As a career psych junkie, Al had an instinctive soft spot for what he sometimes called his ‘fellow survivors’.

I looked down at his weirdly childlike scribble and thought: here we go again, another cause celebre from the Dr Guy fun factory. Sure it was a harsh call but where Sandi was concerned I felt justified.

The fact that I knew almost nothing about the topic didn’t help; and when Al slurred the words “dissociative identity disorder” at me all I could think was how unsexy it all sounded. I knew vaguely that there were some kooky fat lesbian chicks in America somewhere that had little kids and gay skate punks living inside their heads but so what. It all sounded a bit too ‘Oprah’ to me.

But Al went full forward into explain mode. “Sandi deals with dissociatives everyday. She reckons it’s usually the result of pretty serious abuse and that its way more common than you’d think. She even thinks I’m dissociative.”

I threw in my usual ‘so what’ shrug and Al promptly switched to the real deal. “Child abuse is a hot topic these days, Mirry. Y’know, moral panic in the ‘burbs. An Archbishop in every bush. A threat to decent hard working families everywhere. Could touch a nerve out there.”

“Don’t you think that child molestation is a bit too serious a thing for us to be trivialising?”

I was trying to do the ‘balance’ thing but in truth I could see where he was coming from. It had traction. In other words, the punters would lap up the outrage.

“Sure,” he agreed, playing the vicious game. “Which is exactly why we should go big on this. Sandi can do all the pysch babble and we can tap the cops for an enforcement angle. Anyway, apparently there’s some multiple personality kid who wants to go public.”

Ah, that was more like it. A saleable product.

“She’s got, like, twenty five personalities or something. We could set up a facer. Y’know, me and the victim, or victims as the case may be. A frank exchange, etc.”

I smiled. “Mr Sinclair to the rescue, anyone?”

To which he pretended to take offence. “Whoa, that’s a bit unfair.”

“Okay, so how does tacky and opportunistic sound?”

Rather than back off, he snarled. “You seem to forget that I had a pretty fucked up childhood myself, Mirry.”

Yeah, and didn’t I know it. Join the gang, fatso. Why do you think we all get along so well? Al often used his notorious fragility as a lever to kick over my objections. It was one of the few buttons he had on me.

So I took the hint, made the requisite calls, Googled the factoids and slutted up to the cute little post-grad in research. A hint of lacy C cup normally did the trick there. Regular lingerie boy was young Timmy. Used to get his beak twitching between the covers every time. Saved me hours.

Dr Sandra Guy, on the other hand, was an entirely different bundle. She and I did not get along. When I first joined Al’s staff she tried to recruit me as a client but I ditched her after three expensively pointless sessions. I think she leaned on Al to fire me but I’d already proved myself indispensably cruel.

When I rocked up after hours to plot out the metrics of the story with her she was flanked by her short cropped dominatrix lover Rosa and a gorgeous suited up hunk reeking of designer labels and dollar bills. Must be a fag, I thought, till I spotted the wedding ring. He was introduced as Max.

Rosa was Calabresa, a bulldog lesbian, a regular whip cracker and penny pincher, and she was doing her best tough bitch routine that night. “He’s our attorney,” she told me, like I should have been impressed or scared or something.

Whatever her game it sure got my radar buzzing. That and the fact that he was almost certainly well hung. The bulge was impressive. And baby, what luscious lips you have.

“I’ve already cleared it with Al,” Sandi added, intercepting my thoughts, doing her best to play good cop. “There are some legal niceties here, that’s all. Max is helping us to steer through them.”

For someone with so many runs on the board Dr Guy always struck me as a woman in need of approval. From the tips of her mousy, nothing hair to her senior cit frockery she oozed weakness. Rosa was definitely the trousers in their little lemon grove.

But just as we were about to kick off, the hired grunt at Guy & Partners, a mission brown 70s museum piece called Derek appeared. He’d been a student of Sandi’s once upon a time and had subsequently evolved into the doting junior partner. Despite the droopy dog expression, elbow patch get up and dropped ‘h’s, he was the one poor fuck in the building who actually gave a shit. You could trust Derek’s born‘n’bred working class simplicity … and his averted eyes told me something wasn’t kosher.

Right there I decided to derail the story. After all, it was my job to be gatekeeper.

Yet this did not deter Derek’s esteemed leader. “Basically, Miriam, we have a truly remarkable young woman who comes to see us. She suffered ongoing ritual abuse as a child and as a result has developed a condition known as D.I.D. She has approximately twenty distinctly identifiable personalities, or alters as we call them, and together Derek and I have been working to help her reintegrate them and begin the process of genuine healing.”

I thought to myself: glad I’m not your client.

She then proceeded to walk me through Dissociation 1.01, bringing me up to speed on the bones: we all dissociate, it’s normal (kinda) and we do it to avoid uncomfortable situations. But some people’s level of dissociation is such that little chunks of their experience, (knowledge, feelings, memories, etc), become isolated from the conscious mainstream.

“Um … yeah … like, you’re gonna have to dumb it down a bit there, Doc,” I said, making her work for it.

Sandi smiled, not sure if I was being serious. “Imagine a choir,” she began, rolling out what was no doubt a well practised line. “There might be twenty, thirty voices all singing at once, but they can’t hear one another. The net result is a very fractured noise. If it goes on long enough most of the voices will fall silent, leaving just a few dominant voices to sing what remains of the song.”

“Very poetic,” I grinned.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Max uncross and recross his rather sexy legs.

Perhaps a little irritated, Sandi pressed on. “These isolated voices, if left to themselves, can become like little islands of perception, some of which can then take the form of personalities, each with different memories, insights and aptitudes.”

It was Derek’s turn next. He began tentatively, his corny East London brogue rendering the whole situation even more ridiculous. “Which is partly why the diff’rent alters can sometimes ‘ave their own names, like characters in a play.”

“Really?” I teased, wondering if I could get him to crack a little more.

Scratched, he reacted, talking over his unease. “The young lady in question ‘as about a dozen named alters. Some of ‘em are child alters, others adolescent. Some are even male. An’ they’ve all got their own version of events.”

Sandi did the affirmation nod thing, just like Al used to.

Sounds trippy, I was thinking. “Seems like you’ve written the script already,” I joked, testing the waters.

“Let’s just say that this is our area of expertise.”

By which Sandi meant that dissociative disorders were now her core business.

K-ching!

“Why would our audience care?” I asked, upping the ante. “It sounds way too difficult.”

“That’s where Olympia comes in,” Sandi trumped, gleaming. “She’s the most brilliant person I’ve ever met.”

I was gobsmacked. The distinct stench of infatuation filled the room. My eyes flicked over to Rosa, who must have been seething in her tight muscle shirt, and to Derek, who looked like he was going to throw up in the lap of his corduroys.

And what kind of name was Olympia? I mean, really.

“We think she’s the kind of person who can genuinely engage people,” Rosa opted in, quickly smothering the flames. “She’s part indigenous too, so that might … y’know, help us a little.”

Ouch. Tacky.

Everyone held their breath and briefly inspected the carpet. The awkward silence was punctuated only by embarrassed throat clearing from Max; and I looked up to catch his eye for the first time.

“In addition, she’s written some very good songs,” Sandi went on, recovering first. Was she hoping to impress me or just wash away the stain of Rosa’s politically incorrect frankness?

True to my profession I responded with my own acidic brand of Machiavellian banter. “A singing victim, huh?”

“That’s a rather crude way of putting it, but yes if you like.”

“Let’s not forget, Doc, our viewers are crude. They want mortgage tips, miracle cures and someone to hate.”

“Which is precisely why we need to package this one very carefully,” she went on. “Child abuse is rife in our community and, if you don’t mind me saying, its people like you Miriam, who always put it in the ‘too hard’ basket, who keep survivors silent and allow perpetrators to go free. I think perhaps it’s time you changed your approach.”

You had to hand it to her … she had a nice line in rousing speeches. She may have been a blousy soufflé most of the time but occasionally she had needles. And, at the end of day, her most famous client was my meal ticket.

Just as I was gagging on my pride Derek chipped in. “Olympia’s amazin’. She’s very charismatic. She inspires people. It’s really quite some’fin.”

I would have accepted defeat there and then if not for Rosa’s meat cleaver squint chopping poor Derek into bite size chunks. Or Max’s tight, cold expression and withheld breath. Steely and fuck me dead sexy.

The meeting continued until the wine ran out and I’d milked enough of their thinking to have them pinned. Basically, their angle was an ambitiously tasteless concoction of tissue box tear-jerking and tabloid call to action. They were pushing for nothing less than a whole series of stories focusing on their star victim and the various symptoms of abuse, with the possibility that this Olympia character might get to sing one of her songs on the show. Even by Sandi’s normally flagrant self promotional standards it was a huge ask.

I left them with the impression that their pitch hadn’t worked, (a requirement of the job), and Max with my number, (which wasn’t).

When I hooked up with Al the next morning I let him know that Dr Guy was blowing it out her arse. “She’s really pushing it this time,” I concluded. “Rosa’s just digging for the free ad, of course, but what’s really weird is the lawyer bit.”

Normally Al trusted my judgement. He was always telling me how well I screened out the freaks. Five seconds of devil’s advocacy generally sank a story without trace. But not this time. It was as though he’d already signed on the line. His surly expression was busily urging me to step off the gas.

“I think it’s about time we did something real,” he kept saying.

In his dotage Al was clearly fishing for something grand to bow out on, for something a little more significant than scaremongering and fellating celebrities. He wanted legacy. The cool macho image he presented on screen was several thousand miles from the somewhat trissy but essentially soft hearted narcissist I had come to know. Arsehole was the gig, not the man.

Still, we both had jobs to do and mine was to out-cruel him, to keep him at number one. “What’s so real about some mystery chick with mental problems and a couple of dodgy songs?”

“Child abuse is a hot button issue right now.”

“You mean a ratings winner, right?”

“Mirry, I’ve got to the stage in my career where I’m not so fussed about ratings, okay.”

“Tell that to JB,” I said.

“I already have. He’s keen to hear what we’ve got.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Al rarely put story ideas before his more aggressive supremo. In fact he was intimidated by him. Most people were.

Normally it was my job to sound out the notorious JB, (aka, Jeremiah Blazic, Executive Producer par excellence and Al’s occasional business partner). My hackles, therefore, were well and truly raised at the protocol breach. I was half tempted to chuck a little wobbly just to let the old nancy know I’d noticed; but I suspected that JB would promptly torpedo the notion and consign it to irrelevance. He was never one for activist journalism, unless of course it generated ad revenue, and I couldn’t imagine Dickhead Dave’s Discount Den wanting to buy thirty second chunks of Al’s pious half hour of incest. Child rape and crazy, never-to-be-repeated prices generally don’t mix … at least not in prime time.

A fortnight later, when I learnt that Al had invited Sandi and her crew to attend one of JB’s regular Friday soirees, I felt certain that the big fella would finally be forced to see sense. Sure, he had his loyalties to his shrink but he was also the king of commercial current affairs. If he wanted to retire on top he’d need to stay cool, not blow his wad on some wanky farewell tour. As they say in the biz: save the cream for later, sweetie.

On the evening in question JB’s swanky pad in the foothills was wall-to-wall SIPs, (self important posers); all of them skiing in a veritable blizzard of Bolivian. The overtly expensive minimalist décor, lovingly hand purchased by the peroxide trophy wife, was being leant on by wired industry sorts and token football beefcakes. The B&O sound system filled the air with chi-chi wallpaper as cute Uni kids served way cool canapés and star brand wines. Not an ideal venue for a first meeting but what the hey? Like I gave one. Anyway, it’d be fun to see Sandi and her prize nutbag go down screaming. Maybe that’d get Al to pull his head out of his arse and spare me having to explain it all to the uniquely loathsome Mr Blazic.

Things were well swinging by the time I spotted lawyer man Max coming up the stairs. He looked like one of those boys from a Dolce & Gabanna ad. The gay creatives would be all over him. So would I if I ever got the chance.

In his shadow, Sandi, dressed in corporate dyke mode and a young, slim, dark olive Latina with electric eyes, spiky hair and scuffed up Docs. A kind of woggy Goth ensemble with a bonus indigenous twist. Fucking weird.

But even at a distance I could feel her crackling, humming with energy.

Round one to the freak.

From my spot on the mezzanine I watched them circulate, noting the absence of Rosa and Derek. Perhaps the drugs were making me paranoid but I found their no show suspicious. It was unlike Rosa to miss such a gilt edged recruitment opportunity. Potential clients galore, I would have thought. Rich ones too.

Of the three who did show the girl was clearly the most switched on. She was scanning the crowd, not for anyone she knew but simply to suss the punters. Cool, I thought. Very cool.

But I opted to stay clear until Al pulled me aside. “She’s unbelievable,” he cooed, dragging me into JB’s home office. “You’re gonna love her.”

Once we were at close quarters it was obvious. She was a star alright. Her complexion was soft satin, her smile big and generous, her eyes champagne sparkly. Then there were the TV quality tits. When JB finally arrived he couldn’t keep his slit eyes off them.

I noticed that she noticed. It was an impressive display of strategy.

Al was already in her pocket but Jeremiah Blazic was far from convinced, cleavage notwithstanding. So much so that our gathering ended up being little more than a quick meet’n’greet. A few handshakes, a card swap or two, some forced banter … and out. JB jumped ship pronto, leaving Al to gulp lungfuls and look to me for a lifeline. Satisfied I’d won, I pitched in.

I got the girl talking. “I’m Olympia,” she said. “Sandi reckons you’re the one who really makes things happen round here.”

Was she going down on me here? Playing me already? Or was this for real naiveté? I could see she was young, (about twenty-three), and a little nervous too. The haughty veneer I’d admired from afar was not without its visible cracks up close. But of course, she was mentally ill, wasn’t she?

I wondered which of her personalities was present, or whether she was ‘switching’ in front of me. She was like mixed nuts with tits.

“I’m not sure if you know but I’m a musician,” she announced, and I grimaced. Another earnest woman child with a guitar and a plan for universal salvation. Oh joy. “I’ve got a demo, if y’re interested.”

If I was interested? Was she serious? I gave her my card and made my excuses but as I was on my way back to the coke, I hit the brakes. Something in her wounded expression reminded me of Zoe, the ten year old daughter I rarely saw, and a voice inside my head pulled me up.

Don’t be such a bitch, Mirry.

Sure I was hired to play hardball but not that hard. “Okay, hon. Send it along and we’ll give a spin.”

Her girlish grin booted up something buried and maternal in me. Little did I know it but I had just been force fed my first tiny morsel of Olympia. The spicy, unpredictable tang should have been enough to warn me off but I had guilty mother complex raging out of control, so I was prime sucker material.

In hindsight, I’m almost certain she was onto me right away.

Come the following Monday I had recovered but Al was still bugging. I’d never seen him so besotted, so successfully charmed. Not even the taut, hairless Asian boys he loved so much could elicit such enthusiasm. He was carrying on like a man in love. No wait … like a delusional old hack whose hard bitten news instinct had finally betrayed him.

“She’s cute, and she’s certainly weird, but where’s the story?” I kept asking.

“She’s a poster child, Mirry. Can’t you see it? A pin-up for every poor kid who’s ever been fucked up the arse and left to carry the shit. She’s hearts’n’minds material.”

It sounds awful to say but he was right. In the lexicon of mass media such commodification Is standard procedure.

“Yeah sure,” I agreed. “The Emos will love her; and then what?”

“Maybe we can use that to mobilise people. Y’know, pressure the pollies into actually doing something. Get the pigs motivated.” He sounded like he meant it.

I laughed. “Yeah, and maybe get the judiciary to stop buggering ten year old street urchins for breakfast? Get off the crack, Al.”

But then it was his turn to laugh; that condescending ‘I know better’ chuckle of his. Made my blood boil and he knew it. “Your complete lack of faith in everything is what makes you so believable.”

It wasn’t often that Al skirted my concerns but I knew the signs well enough. He’d get smug. Pull rank. Brush his bleached, thinning fringe with his chubby right hand. Remind me I was nothing without him.

“I know you have a problem with Dr Guy and that’s cool but I’d ask you to remember that she’s not only given me a great deal of comfort over the years but provided reams of excellent material for this show.”

Fuck I hated it when he ran that line. Because he was right; from day one I had Sandi down for a fraud. Maybe my judgement was coloured after all. So I eased off the throttle and let him get his way. When Olympia’s hand scrawled envelope landed in my tray that afternoon I elected not to file it in the trash, leaving it on Al’s ostentatious glass top desk instead.

Trouble is, he forgot to pick it up, didn’t he? So, too curious for my own good, I swiped it. Inside, a cheap burnt disk with song titles in purple texta and a far from impressive looking sticker saying ‘recorded at Blue Studios, September 2010.’ I imagined the kind of limp, hippy drivel it contained. A bruised girl and her acoustic guitar. God, how original. Still, I couldn’t resist.

At home, I slid it into the player while I zapped a low fat, no taste meal and charged some batteries for the vibe … but it took no more than a few bars for my complacent pre-judgement to evaporate. Rather than the usual lame chick thing the songs were devastating. Melancholy and super, super sexy. Drenched in reverb. Aloof and bittersweet at once. Like torch songs, except that you wondered exactly who was shining the light.

Well recorded too.

I hit repeat as I lifted the seal on my plastic lasagne, spooning in steaming globs as Olympia’s voice crooned gorgeously. It wasn’t long before my loins began twitching in response. There was a kind of longing in her words that wasn’t so far removed from my own pathetic loneliness. Feeling like my self pity had been validated I gave my trusty little vibe a thorough workout that night.

I arrived at the station the next day convinced Olympia really was a cut above. Even in the car her songs had an ethereal quality. The lyrics, in particular, struck me as deliciously ironic, as though she were in her abuser’s shoes, singing for the girl he wished he hadn’t noticed.

For even after all these scars

I still spell your name with stars

Our secret safe in distant night

This shiny bruise, this far off light

Wore my disguise

Loved my demise

Though I hated to give the points to Al, I conceded. “For once, I think Sandi might be onto something,” and I handed him the CD.

Later, when he’d listened to it, I had trouble keeping him on the ground. He was ready to sign his life away. This, he was convinced, was his chance for a big sign off. “We’ve gotta have this kid. This could break new ground, Mirry. I’m talking award winning, babe.”

Oh, Al. So fucking transparent.

He was right, though. Done well, the story would break out big time. Olympia would become a minor celebrity for three and half seconds and ‘World View’ would stand to reap the kudos. Hell, we might even nail ourselves a perp.

But of course ‘done well’ was the kill switch. Tabloid current affairs ain’t about journalistic integrity. The network only wore the cost of the show because it rated, and in order to keep getting good numbers we were compelled to produce an endless stream of self righteous, no brow scare campaigns and fawning celebrity profiles. Dodgy builders and national heroes sandwiched between some of the most expensive advertising real estate in the country. Somehow, I couldn’t see us making Rolls Royce TV out of Olympia.

Al was just about cumming in his Peter Morrissey pants though. “Let’s get a meeting together. Once JB gets a handle on this I’m sure he’ll be in. We’ll get big budget on this, babe, you wait.”

Again I had my doubts. JB was a premier league arsehole. A talkback jock with small man syndrome and wire brush eyebrows who’d switched to TV and, at the network’s behest, dragged ‘World View’ seriously downmarket. He and Al were also partners in a low rent production outfit that churned out cheesy lifestyle fodder for cable. Put simply, JB’s specialty was the no brainer. “It sells,” was his catch cry, and he was right on the money.

What really pissed me off about Jeremiah Blazic though, was the way he spoke to me. His canine right wing mind had me slotted as a desperate single in need of good quality meat and he was never too far from letting me know it. And he reminded me of my father, which was decidedly off putting. So whenever Al asked me to stitch together meetings I knew I was in for a few cheap jabs.

“Well hey, Miriam, what can I do for ya? Apart from the obvious, that is.”

“Al wants a round table with Dr Guy and the chick we met the other night.”

“The honey with the puppies, huh?”

“Her name’s Olympia, actually.”

“Sure it is, love. Anyway, what’s the deal?”

“We’re looking at a special feature, I think. Ongoing perhaps.”

“Got an angle?”

“We’re thinking we could really get into the nitty gritty, not shirk the gruesome details, maybe even out some paedophiles along the way.”

“Sounds like fat Al wants to win an award.”

“For what it’s worth, I think he’s onto something this time.”

“Well, I guess you’d know about getting onto things, wouldn’t ya, love?”

“Yeah whatever.”

“So you wanna pitch it, I s’pose?”

“Sure. How about Friday? Post lunch perhaps.”

Just to make me sweat he pretended to consult his diary, which we all knew he never wrote in. “Yeah sure,” he drawled. “2:30. But make sure ya bring pups along. We should get a good look at her, don’t ya think? Before we commit.”

To be fair, JB knew the value of candy and Olympia was clearly lickable. If she’d been a dog even the cute pups wouldn’t have helped her. An ugly victim is just that, ugly … and punters want pretty.

So did Al. “We should do lunch with her,” he blurted. “Just the three of us.”

I nearly choked. I couldn’t believe it. “That’s way off tap, and you know it,” I said. There was a well established rule in the biz about not meeting ‘victims’ without some kind of legally useful back up. (A hunky lawyer like Max for example.)

Al persisted, “My gut instinct is that we can’t afford to lose time on this one, Mirry.”

Eventually, after a few wriggles, I shook him off; but the lunch idea must have lodged itself in my brain because when Olympia caught me off guard by calling my mobile to follow up on the demo I found myself abruptly inviting her out. A crazy idea. Totally not protocol. Sooo not me.

“Cool,” she replied, the sunshine in her voice triggering that weird mother thing in me and reminding me to call Zoe, my absent ten year old.

We sorted the details and by the time I hung up I was charmed. Beguiled. Shocked by myself.

Wake up call anyone?

In fact, for the next two days I was permanently anxious. So I called Yanni, my masseur-cum-shrink, to debrief. Why was I doing this? What were these feelings? Like, what the fuck was all this about?

As always, Yanni had perspective. Cucumber cool, he helped me ease the sting. “We often find the truth by accident,” he said. Yanni loved trotting out cute little lines like that. Most times I’d just laugh them off.

Not this time. “Do you think that’s what I’m really scared of? The truth?”

“I dunno. What do you think?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure. But I really don’t wanna lose my job; that much I do know.”

“You’ll think of a way to spin it. You always do.”

Of course. What was I thinking? Al would buy almost any line I sold him. He was well trained; not to mention inherently lazy.

That thought helped me relax and I left Yanni’s room a few minutes later feeling much more even. Now all I had to do was deal with my own resilient suspicions.

About me.

About her.

Then, before I knew it, I was sitting across the table from Olympia in an off-the-rack café full of identikit young trendies, ordering Greek salad from a pale undergrad with a nose ring. And she was opposite, beaming, her bright pattern printed jeans and chunky market stall necklace making her stand out. Was she unique or just an asylum seeker from 1993? I simply couldn’t get a fix.

Ding-dong, Mirry. Read the warning signs, hon.

The coffees had barely arrived when she flicked the small talk and dived straight into a paint peeling bio. It was a veritable Everest of exposition and as she recounted the numerous horrors of her childhood the latent doco nerd in me, for so long frustrated by Al, sat up and took hopeful notes. Maybe this time.

“I’m so fucken normal,” she said at one point, “Y’know, I did the classic survivor thing and repeated the same shit over and over.”

I was already on the hook, curiosity yanking me forward. “Yeah?”

“Totally,” she continued. “I actually moved back into my old house. Took guitar lessons from this creepy old fuck that was living there. I even started teaching him dance steps, just like the old days with dad; and sure enough, he starts touchin’ me up. But, y’know, I was kinda used to it by then, so I stuck it out till I got what I wanted.”

My thoughts were exploding. “Which was?”

“The songs. The demo. It was him that recorded it,” she announced, like it was a trophy. “Fucked the cunt off as soon as it was done though.”

For such a frail looking girl she had a decidedly foul mouth. She told her story with a blunt savagery that had me gagging on my olives. I wondered if this was an initiation ritual of sorts, designed to test me out, or just an impolite alter dining out on the shock value.

“He was nowhere near as bad as the others though. They had this little game going, y’know. As soon as I was broken in they all had a crack. After a while I just stopped fighting, eh. At least until dad died. Then I finally put a stop to it.”

“And where was mum in all of this?” I had to ask, suddenly remembering my own silent mother … the woman who watched on for years and told me to be more understanding.

“The stupid fat bitch never believed me. Even when my things, like fully intimate things, would go missin’ off the line she’d swear blind they hadn’t. I knew she couldn’t read but I’m pretty fucken sure she could count. She just refused to acknowledge it, y’know. Classic denial shit. Fucken unforgivable.”

Punch drunk and spinning on the spitting details, my brain was being deep fried by the fucked up similarities with my own less than chivalrous upbringing, I asked her if she’d ever laid charges and she just laughed. It was a dry, vicious, knowing cackle. Far too tainted for someone so young. My heart sank.

“Nah. The town cop was in on it, anyway. Dad kicked some of the blokes outta the dance class but that’s about it as far as consequences went.”

The more gruesome the detail, the more off-hand she became. She was a casual killer, dispensing her victims while she peeled the potatoes. I was gradually being stripped. Acid bathed. By the time I’d skulled my third short black I had all but dissolved. Her shockingly ‘been there’ manner fizzed in my head, all too much like the screwed up white noise of my own well worn bitterness.

Hey, it wasn’t like I was crying for her.

“Jeez, Miriam, I’m sorry,” she said when she finally noticed.

I blubbed some inane crap like “it’s okay” and tried to regain my footing. God knows what she must have been thinking.

Anyway, no sooner had I dried up the sudden spills than she asked, “So, did ya listen to the songs?”

I sat back, blinking, thinking: excuse me darling, but did any of this just happen?

Oblivious, she flashed me her cutest smile; and it was cute. “Cos I’d love to perform them on the show, if that’s possible.”

I was just together enough to draw breath and keep it cool. “Interesting,” I said, which was code for ‘don’t be such a mercenary bitch’. She’d already undressed me once and I was all nuded out.