The Boys' Club Read Online Free PDF

Big Man had a reputation
for business first, Rosie decided to launch right in.
    'So, Mr Norman, are you implying you would prefer to be formally
interviewed after lunch? I have my tape recorder with me. Lara told
me I'd be talking to you about TV.'
    'And so you will,' Keith said, 'but can we just have a drink first?
Fuck, you newspaper sheilas are ball-breakers.'
    Rosie couldn't help giggling. It was true: to get through a cadetship
on a major metropolitan or national daily you had to know how to
hold your own.
    'So, tell me, what comes into your mind when I say to you,
Network Six?' Keith asked, leaning his huge frame back into the
cracked burgundy leather of his chair.
    'The most successful media institution in Australia – for now,'
Rosie replied cautiously. 'In terms of the face of Six, I think you, and
Willard Frost, although he's no longer around, of course—'
    'The best fucking newsreader this country's ever seen,' Keith butted
in, his voice low and sombre. 'He was my mate – a legend. I still miss
the old bastard.'
    'Well, he certainly was a loss to the network, which is something
I wanted to ask you about,' Rosie continued awkwardly. 'I see news
figures have dropped significantly.'
    'Listen here, I don't want to hear any of this bullshit you and your
journo mates are writing about this joint,' Keith replied, leaning
uncomfortably into Rosie's personal space. 'This network is bigger
than Willard Frost and any other bastard that works here. This
network is a fucking giant. No one person makes Six successful. It
takes a village.'
    Rosie knew Big Keith was on a roll and didn't want to miss a word
of it. 'If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to put my tape recorder on now
as this is something the readers—'
    'I told you, I don't like to do business while I eat,' Keith snapped
back. 'And what use is a fucking interview going to be for ratings
anyway? That's what TV is about, you know, ratings. Not all this . . .
one man leaves and the whole place starts to boo-hoo shit that you
and your mates like to think.'
    'Well, Mr Norman—'
    'For fuck's sake, call me Keith.'
    'Okay, Keith, as I was saying, an article on your plans for the
network could go a long way to arrest the panic—'
    Rosie stopped in her tracks as Big Keith lurched towards her, his
neck veins engorged, cheeks turning purple with rage. 'You have a
fucking hide to say that to me,' he boomed, his colourless piggy eyes
boring into hers.
    'I only asked what you plan to do to halt the decline of the network.
You're coming second in the ratings for the first time in twenty-four
years. Surely you can't be happy about that?' Rosie's voice had
climbed at least two pitches higher as she spoke. If Big Keith sniffed
even a trace of vulnerability, she'd be gone.
    'No, what you said was that I'm panicking.'
    'Well, it was one way of putting it. I mean, even you must concede
that a lot of good people have left and morale is low . . .'
    'And what makes you think morale is low? What makes you think
you know more about this place than I do?' Keith's eyes stayed fixed
on Rosie's like a lizard scoping a bug.
    'I read it,' Rosie answered, swallowing her hard-thumping heart
back down into her chest. 'You must admit the network has been
getting some bad press . . .'
    'That's because those arseholes that write that shit don't know
what they're fucking talking about. That's why there's bad press.
They never write the good news. No, they all want to have a go.
They're like seagulls at a chip. Squawk, squawk, squawk.'
    Rosie had never been happier to see an arm in her life than the
one she suddenly found offering her a small goldfish bowl of freshly
decanted shiraz. If there was one thing Rosie knew about Big Keith
from her research, it was his love of the grape, and the wine's fortuitous
arrival seemed to have diverted his attention.
    'Is it the eighty-four?' he asked the woman bearing the tray. The
fragile crystal stem threatened to snap as Keith rolled it between his
calloused thumb and