Whole Wild World (35 page)

‘Hey, Tata, you know I'm not going to uni next year?'

‘Of course, I know that. You've been applying for jobs in journal-ism.' He said it in a way to emphasise it was in the same family as communism.

‘HSC results aren't that important, it's how well you do in the writing tests and general knowledge quiz. And, if you get that far, how well you go at the interview to show editors you can do the job.

‘Selling papers! You know that I'll be happy with whatever you want to do. It's your life, do something you'll enjoy.'

Tata had said the same thing to Sam and to me many times. After realising we weren't going to meet the expectations when I was born – one son a Croatian soldier, the other a Catholic priest – he'd always become more earnest, no matter what had come before, because he wanted us to know he meant it. He'd certainly never planned to work in an oven roasting cereal on the other side of the world.

Our future prospects were bright.

Now I was stuck: he had become serious, when I needed him to be less so. Okay, use the joke against him.

‘No, seriously, Tata, not the paperboy stuff again. What kind of HSC mark do you think would be reasonable for me to get, so as not to shame the family or upset you?'

‘Well, you're not as academic as Šime, but you'll want to score at least 300, just in case you change your mind about uni. Make sure you have some marks to spare.'

I thought the old man wouldn't give me a precise number, that he would hit me with a ‘do your best'. Perhaps the message was subtle, telling me I wasn't as bright as my brother so that I would bust myself to beat him. I wasn't shopping for subtle or looking for motivation. I was after an ‘on the record' figure.

Oh boy, he could not have been clearer. I expected he'd be pushing me for another 100 marks. But no, he'd said 300. Out of 500! I'd always played a tight game at school, chasing Sam's standards, being diligent. The striving had often been palpable, a weight. But a valve had been released. I could stop going to class right now. Never hand in another essay. I'd be able to get that score in eight units of English, maths and economics. I'd surf the rest of the year into final exams, have fun, then, done with all this academic stuff and essay business, head out into the wild.

By mid-year, I'd recovered in maths by grinding it out, but I was slipping in English. There were only half a dozen of us in the advanced group, taught by new principal Brother Quentin. I was estranged from the texts and underdone, but supremely confident I could turn on the right amount of brain power when required, write my way through anything: exam-proof.

‘Tom shows a deal of literary talent,' Brother Q had written in support of my application for a cadetship to John Fairfax & Sons Limited. It was tentative support at best. I wasn't fooling him.

Literary! Poison to an editor.

My Croatian results did not appear on school reports but I'd been in free-fall on Saturdays since the start. It didn't bother me because only half of my result in Croatian would count in my final mark. I figured I was second-last in the course, technically a satisfactory result, and meeting Tata's low expectations. Then the guy coming last pulled out.

I bombed in the trials in all my subjects.

‘Tom faces a serious challenge over the coming months', the principal wrote in my final report before the HSC. I thought I was in control, master of exam conditions, but I'd become the hapless guy spinning plates on sticks at the circus. The plates in front of me were fine, but those at opposite ends needed more energy and attention to keep them spinning, to balance, to stave off a crash.

I'd submitted writing assignments to Fairfax and made it to the interview stage with a grizzled, no-nonsense editorial training manager. He was located in a rooftop demountable. Finding your way through the maze of the Broadway building's corridors, lifts and stairwells must be part of the cadet filtration process.

‘Is anyone in your family a journalist?' Mr Hoffman asked.

‘My cousin is a reporter on the
Leader
and she also writes stories for the
Women's Weekly
.'

‘Where's Condell Park?'

‘Near Bankstown.'

‘What's Dusevic, is it Yugoslav?'

‘No, it's Croatian. My parents were born in Croatia and came here as refugees after the war.'

‘I think there are some Croatians who work at Fairfax.'

Yeah sure, probably in the canteen or printing section. I've
been checking bylines for years, mate, and there aren't many foreign names in the paper, certainly no ‘ics'. This cranky line comes to me on the sooky train back to Bankstown as I relive the entire experience, question by question.

‘Now what's special about you?' he asks, fixing me with the stare of a bloke who's seen hundreds of hopefuls and put thousands of editions to bed. ‘Why should we consider you ahead of the thousand other people who'd like a cadetship with Fairfax?'

‘I don't know any of the other people who have applied. But I'm a hard worker, I've already had lots of different jobs, and I'm streetwise.'

‘Really?'

I'm not any kind of wise. I sit on street corners, deliver milk, carry a drinks tray, hog the basketball, talk myself up. I'm cocksure, but this man knows my type, it comes with the territory of screening strivers in this game, the maddening know-it-alls. I've gorged myself on newspapers and magazines and now think I occupy them, that I know what it takes to produce them. Perhaps what makes me ‘special' is I've developed a sense of entitlement and a chip on my shoulder. Not only do I have my head in the clouds, I'm straining to see above them.

‘I know how people live in the western suburbs,' I continue, burnishing my specialness just in case he missed it. ‘I understand how tough things are there, and I have experience with heaps of different cultures.'

‘There are people we are considering with two university degrees, some who speak a couple of languages, others are already working on country and local newspapers and some are employed in this building as copy assistants. What will you do if you don't get a cadetship here?'

‘I've applied to other newspapers and magazines but I'm very much hoping to do my cadetship at Fairfax.'

‘Some years we only hire people with journalism experience
or broader life experience. We are taking more people with degrees these days, not necessarily journalism graduates. You're up against people much older. Think about what you can do to have an edge over other candidates. A portfolio of published work to show us you can write with accuracy and to deadline will put you in a strong position.'

There was no plan B, other than the on-court creed of ceaseless improvisation. I'd see which door in journalism opened, I told myself. If it came to nothing, I'd regroup and keep moving towards that goal. My parents had started with nothing in a foreign land, couldn't even speak the language, and they'd just built a bloody mansion.

Still, Mr Hoffman planted two ideas in my head: don't be disheartened if you miss out, but if you do, give yourself an edge, like on court.
Under time pressure, I can quickly gather information, partial and imperfect, and act
.

A month out from HSC exams a letter from Benilde addressed to my parents arrived. Mama had not opened it, so I grabbed the letter, slipped out of the room casually, and read it.

‘I am sorry to report that Tom seems to be experiencing great difficulties in applying himself to his studies at this important time of the year as evidenced by his remaining outside during two serials today instead of being in the Library,' Brother Quentin had written. He concluded: ‘It is sad to see his lack of application in his studies. I thought it wise to notify you of the situation.'

Sorry, sad, wise, a good summary of Q's patience and concern over several months. Bastard.

‘Is everything okay?' Mama asked when I returned to the kitchen. ‘I'm sure your father has paid the school fees.'

‘Yes, it's just a reference for me from the principal for my job applications,' I said, showing her the middle part of the letter. ‘It says here “Overall, Tom's conduct and co-operation have been very good during the year”. See here, it says very good.'

Headline: Principal Backs Tom.

As editors will attest, you can't teach this stuff. And news, second-hand, gets skewed. This letter goes straight to the cigarette box, my all-purpose bunker. Again, I check the little blue piece of notepaper with J.W. Russell's address in Emerald. Something has never seemed right about the writing – that old person's hand. I won't discard it or dwell on it, lest the mind wander into dark places. It will be a keepsake, forgotten, a story one day.

As the final exams rolled in I was on a different track from my friends and classmates. I was calm and unprepared; they were the opposite. What's done is done, I tell myself, no point in getting ridiculous about it. Earlier in the year one of the ace students from the Class of 1980 had come back to share his study tips for success.

‘What I did the night before a big exam was to go for a walk,' said the guy, studying medicine. ‘It's best to be relaxed and get a good night's sleep. You're not going to learn something new the night before or perform at your best if you're tired and stressed. So do the hard work now.'

I took the easy part of his advice. Don't freak yourself out by finding out how much you don't know, be fit and fresh so that you can at least retrieve the stuff you do know from memory and try to write legibly, with confidence and vigour. It was important to stay away from people who were panicky or ultra-competitive. I'd ride my bike to school, to get the blood pumping, eyes on the wide, open road ahead. That was my exam plan. I did the best I could, tried not to distract my mates and did not fret.

Even though we weren't a couple, Jackie asked me to the Nazareth formal and I took her to mine: a pact, allies in peace and war. There were many girls I knew and a few, like Jackie and Jane, whom I thought of as my closest friends. My parents had a medieval idea that the only relationship with a girl was a deeply serious one, like a courtship for marriage, with strict
protocols around behaviour. The honour of our family and the girl's depended on such rules. This was ludicrous, and it meant I had to keep a distance from Croatian girls, for instance, in case we got stuck in a vortex of commitment that neither of us wanted. I had to keep my parents and the girls I went out with completely apart; my folks could not know about my girlfriends, who in turn could never find out about my parents' ancient ideas. These dynamics were not conducive to truth and trust.

While Jackie and I were killing it on the civic centre dance floor at the Benilde formal, the Kingswood was stolen from the carpark. We reported the theft to the police, went home and told my dad, then hitched a ride with Harpo to the after-parties, staying out till the early morning.

The next afternoon I had my Croatian written exam. The newest subject was the last one on the HSC schedule. Irene and I did the three-hour exam in a classroom at Nazareth. At 5 pm, time had expired.

The war is over. The war is over. We embraced, kissed on both cheeks, Cro-style, and charged after our friends who'd been free for the past fortnight. School's end had been drawn out, sugary and ritualised. Beginnings, though, were entirely in our hands.

I'd never been further from home than the Snowy Mountains, a school trip we'd made in Year Six. World traveller Sam had not only made a pilgrimage to the old country and a victory tour of Asia, he'd gone to Fraser Island in Queensland for a fortnight as part of Benilde's outdoors program. My own forays had been humble camping and canoeing ventures not far out of Sydney. On one trip, Mop, Peter and I became lost in the Royal National Park for an exhilarating two hours during a wild storm, bushwhacking our way out of thick, prickly bush after taking a
shortcut in a race to beat other campers. As a family we never went on holiday; the very idea of spending money to go somewhere to have more time together was beyond contemplation.