Chapter 03

Fifty Years On

The Saturday following the last Friday in November fifty-one years after Ernie’s death is the date the Fiftieth Annual Cable Company Charity Dinner Dance is being held. The usual venue for this function holds a maximum of five thousand people and five thousand tickets are sold. This year it’s at another venue that’ll take twelve thousand people and it’s being organised for twelve thousand people, yet only the usual five thousand tickets have been placed for sale, all of them to the general public. There’s much speculation by the locals and the media as to what’s going on. This year the tickets are one thousand dollars each and all five thousand tickets are sold very fast, making five million dollars raised from their sale. Yet the organisers report raising twelve million dollars from ticket sales, thus indicating the full twelve thousand tickets have been sold and the event is now sold out. There’s much speculation on what happened to the thousands of other tickets, but nothing is known because those that do know aren’t talking and the event is only a few days away. This is a nationwide mystery all of the media organisations have people all over the country trying to track down the slightest leads, but with no success at all, yet.

Friday Morning

At Central High School at 9.30 a.m. on the morning of the Friday before the Charity Dinner one of the teachers, Vanessa Cable, walks in to talk to the Principal, Mr Benson. He’s surprised to see her because she’s on leave today. She applied months back and it was approved. He wonders what’s up while he leads her into his office. He thought she’d asked to have the day off to help get ready for tomorrow’s charity function, the last one she’ll be involved with as a working teacher at the school because she retires in a few weeks’ time.

After waiting for the Principal to sit down Vanessa hands over a list of thirty pupils with a bunch of signed parental approval slips attached to it while she says, “I’d like to take these students out of class at the next bell, please. As you can see, I’ve the approval of their parents. I’ve left organising this until today so I’d minimise the disruption due to others wanting to come along.”

Mr Benson looks up at that comment before returning to the list. He sees the names of the current president of the Performing Arts Club, the lead reporter for the school media service, and its best image capture artist (that job used to be called a photographer), the five members of the short school band, the three cheerleader team leaders, the current president of the Cable Company, and the other listed students are all related to Vanessa, descendants of the Cables, Constables, and Watsons from Ernie’s day. He knows all of the families because his grandmother, Jenny, was a close friend to them all and the families are still very close. That’s something about growing up as the child of a Cable Company member, you often end up in the Cable Company as well, and all of the families tend to stay in contact. It’s obvious this is something to do with the Cable Company, but he’s not being told what or why. Oh well, he’ll probably find out tomorrow night at the dinner.

While nodding his head in approval Mr Benson calls his secretary in and has her post personal messages on the school board for all of the listed students to report to his office at the next bell. It’s really a muted buzzer, but it’s still called a bell. Within minutes all of the students have acknowledged receipt of the message via the school board, another anomaly there because it’s an electronic messaging system that goes direct to their individual computers, but they still call it the board. Isn’t social inertia a wonderful thing?

Twenty minute later the group is gathered together and Vanessa looks them over. She sends the cheerleaders and the band members to get into their uniforms, and the band to collect their instruments. The rest are told to make themselves nice and tidy for a media presentation. The school media people go to get all their equipment as well. Five minutes later they’re all back and they pass muster. She leads them out and into a hover coach she’s hired for the day.

Fifteen minutes later they’re exiting the hover coach at the city transport hub. Vanessa leads them along the concourse to the terminal for Regional Air Hover Services (RAHS). They make a colourful knot in the drab colours of the commuting business workers.

One of the leading young reporters for the regional unit of a major national media services spots the group so he wonders what’s up. He watches them set up to wait at the end of the passenger tunnel for the RAHS line. Then he gets a good view of who’s in the group and who’s leading them. Gulping hard he turns to a terminal to get a list if passengers for the next inbound RAHS passenger transport. It’s got only twenty people listed! Yet the unit is a sixty seater, and he knows they would’ve used a smaller unit if they had less than thirty people on board. That means there must be at least ten or more people who’ve a media blackout on their names; thus they’re class A passengers and very, very newsworthy people. The make-up of the school welcoming committee makes him very sure he knows who some of the passengers are. Moving to a terminal phone he calls the security unit and asks for the security commander. Very soon a voice responds, “Ernie Bradley, Shift Security Commander, how can I help you?”

The reporter says, “Ernie, Roadrunner, I’m at the RAHS passenger tunnel. You best start a security lock down for the terminal and get over here with an extra squad of security. The inbound RAHS unit is a sixty seater with only twenty passengers listed, so that means a number of class A passengers, and Vanessa Cable is here with a bunch of school kids to greet someone, care to make a guess on who?”

His response is a hurried, “Thanks, Mate. See you soon,” before the connection is broken. The reporter sees all of the security staff around the terminal stiffen while they listen to their radio units, then they all go to a higher level of alertness.

He walks to the high-school group with his assistant who works the mobile image capture equipment and says, “Morning, Aunt Vanessa.” Technically she’s his great aunt, but he knows better than to call her that, he made that mistake once - in his youth, and only the once.

Vanessa Cable turns to look at who spoke to her, and she goes very pale. After gulping she says, “Hell, what are you doing here, Henry? Forget that, do us all a favour and be very fast while you haul arse to the car park, please. I know she’s never said, but you’re a twin for your grandfather and I can’t risk springing you on her unprepared, now get out of here, and you can have an exclusive interview in the coach. Your assistant can stay and fill in for you until then. OK?”

Stunned at this new personal news he gives a simple nod yes before giving Joe, his assistant, a quick briefing and running from the building. He loves his grandmother too much to risk hurting her in anyway at all. When he leaves the building he passes his distant cousin, Ernie, leading extra security people into the terminal. Ernie smiles to see him leaving, as he knows about the resemblance issue. It’s never been kept a secret, but not made public, either. Nor are there many photos of the original Ernie Cable.

Arrivals and Meetings

A few minutes later the inbound RAHS transport lands and the passengers get off. When they make their way down the tunnel it’s easy to see the flight was nearly full and about thirty-five of them are keeping together in a tight group. Joe can’t believe his eyes while he starts his image capture unit and adds a vocal describing the scene and listing the people he can identify straight away. As per Henry’s instructions he’s punched for the signal to go live to their base with his by-line instead of Henry’s. This will be a big career boost and he doesn’t understand why Henry did this, but Joe is delighted Henry insisted it goes out live with Joe’s by-line. This’ll probably be live across the nation before he finishes the second sentence. After the description of the welcoming committee he gives colourful descriptions of the group of class A passengers’ clothes and says, “Leading the inbound group is the well-known financial wizard and hero Melissa Cable; flanking her are the two great acting legends Margaret Constable and Maggie Simpson; closely followed by the science legends Lee Cable-Howard and Lisa Simpson-Smythe. The school band is playing the school song while the cheerleaders do a short welcome routine. Next is Senator Tom Cable while he almost runs over to give his teacher wife, Vanessa, a big hug, followed by Senator Pearl Constable-Miller and the media magnate Nancy Constable-Parker, I better wave and say Hi boss because it never hurts to be friendly with the management.” He almost dies of shock when the owner of his media network sees him and waves back when she calls him by name while smiling straight at the lens. “Now we see the great sports star and Minister for Recreation and Sport, Jenny Benson, followed by the international singer April Mason, and the great concert pianist Robert Haining. I’m sorry, people, the crowd of the great and famous are coming way too fast for me to keep up a running commentary, and, anyway, I’m not sure I can remember all of the names that go with all the faces. Suffice to say we have a significant portion of the country’s rich, famous, and powerful here to be met by a group from their old high school. I think we can now surmise what happened to the extra tickets for this year’s special Cable Company Charity Dinner Dance, they’ve been bought by past members of the Cable Company who are now starting to arrive for tomorrow’s fiftieth anniversary dance.” He takes care to make a slow pan of all of the incoming famous people walking down to meet the school group.

He continues to describe the scene as best as he can, despite being sure one of the anchor people back at headquarters is giving a voice over on his transmission. Later in the day he gets a shock when he finds out Henry talked the producer into letting the transmission go out nationally exactly as he produced it with his commentary.

Melissa asks Vanessa, “I see Joe’s here, where’s Henry?”

Vanessa says, “I couldn’t risk you seeing him without expecting him, so I sent him outside. He’s in the car park, and I promised him some exclusive interviews to get him out of the terminal. I’m sorry, Melissa, but I let the cat out of the bag and told him why he had to leave.” She nods in response, because she knew it had to happen sometime. Once all of the initial greetings are over they give a series of short talks for the school media people and head off, as a group, for the hover coaches Vanessa has organised. The eight security staff they brought are busy looking after the luggage and will take it to the hotel for them. Melissa leads the group of nearly seventy people to the exit.

When she passes Joe she surprises him by saying, “Joe, shut that off for a moment, please.” He does. “Do you have a spare recorder in your vehicle?” He nods yes. “Good, please get it because Vanessa promised Henry some interviews and I’d like to split them up with you doing some at one end of the bus while Henry does some at the other. What’re your best subjects for interviewing people?”

Joe says, “Thanks, Ma’am. At the moment my best knowledge areas are the arts, politics, and sport. Our unit’s just outside, so I can get the spare recorder when we exit and I send it back to base on automatic.”

She nods, “So you’ll be able to do a good interview of Margaret, Maggie, Tom, Pearl, April, Robert, and Jenny. Say five minutes each for the seven of them; that should give you enough for a thirty minute spot of your own later tonight.” With a very wide grin he nods yes. Hearing this Vanessa drops back to let the others know the agenda. They’ll agree, because they all know Melissa is always in charge when she’s around.

Outside they find a very patient Henry waiting, and Melissa opens her arms for him to run into for a hug. He’d always wondered why he was her favourite grandchild, and now he knows. He also knows how much it must hurt her whenever she sees him. While they say hello Joe ducks over to get the other recorder for Henry and to send the vehicle back to their base depot on automatic control.

They’re all soon on the transports with Henry interviewing Lee, Lisa, Nancy, Vanessa, Peter Stevens the mortgage king, and Melissa while Joe is busy with the others at the other end of the bus. All of the interviews revolve around what they’ve been doing, why they’re in town, and what are their plans for the immediate future. The trip to the hotel is taken at a slow pace and they stop outside to finish them. Once they’re done the recordings are sent off to the producer for editing and to get them ready for transmission. Each interview carries the by-line of the interviewer who handled it. Joe’s career is getting a huge boost today.

Exiting the transports Melissa asks Henry to accompany her for the rest of the day, plus Joe can record some of the events and meetings she and Vanessa will be going to today. Another major scoop and a major surprise for both media people is when their boss says this is Joe’s story and by-line because Henry is going to be part of it.

Melissa, Vanessa, Nancy, Henry, and Joe leave the hotel soon after an early lunch; they go with a driver and security guard in a ground effect vehicle. The first stop is the venue for the Dinner Dance, where Joe is allowed to image the arrangements for the twelve thousand attendees. The walls are lined with photos from the last fifty-two years; one side is photos of students from the various years while the other side is photos of the activities of the Dinner Dances and the operations of the Cable Foundation with some of the better research results.

The second stop is the board meeting of the Cable Foundation, where Joe and Henry are allowed to watch the board deliberations and prepare a summary for later use in their article. About an hour is taken up with requests for grants, then they spend twenty minutes talking about the appointment of a new board member because Melissa is retiring from public life and has lodged her resignation from the board and as Head of Publicity effective as soon as the appointment of a replacement is made. This is a surprise to most of the board as well as Henry and Joe, but not Vanessa or Nancy. The other board members study the profile of a replacement Melissa is proposing to take her place, it has everything except the personal details. Much discussion is made on the person’s young age, because some board members see this as a potential problem during the person’s first months. This is killed when Melissa offers to stay on as a personal adviser to this person for the next two years, if they’re appointed. More discussions around the person’s large experience with the media and public relations, they like the person’s list of contacts. The key question for many is voiced by the head of administration, “This is all well and good, but how committed are they to the foundation as such? Will they devote their life to it?”

Melissa says, “I’ve not formally asked the person those questions and I haven’t spoken to them about the positions. But I know they’re very dedicated to the aims of the foundation and I feel they’ll devote their life to it, just as I have. It’s not mentioned in the profile, but they’re a graduate member of the Cable Company and up to date with external membership dues, unlike many I can name. If the board is willing to give a provisional approval now I’ll speak to the person over the next few days and ask them.” The board does give a provisional approval and sets a time on next Friday afternoon to do a formal interview and appoint the person if they give an acceptable answer to the question on their commitment. Melissa, Vanessa, and Nancy smile while they leave the meeting room.

The next call is to Central High School to just walk around the older parts of the school before they study the Cable Company Stand to evaluate recommended construction work to repair and improve it. The work gets approved. They’re still walking around the school grounds when classes for the day end. Many of the students see them and come over to say hello. Melissa and Nancy seem to know all of their names and have a kind word for them all.