Chapter 30

Friday 2nd Sept 2022

On the way to uni, Larissa dropped into a shop and bought the day’s newspapers. She really wanted to see what they’d written about Isla. She sat in the university cafe and read them.

Isla was, of course, front page news everywhere. Her press conference, along with the video, had been a monster story, but in addition someone had spilled the beans on David Jones. Anna, or her agent, Larissa would bet - it was a total hit job with considerable insider knowledge. And someone had finally made the connection between the murder and the presence of the special forces in the press.

The financial press was completely filled by the deal between Isla and Bob, and their comments about the renewables transition. There was even a story about Thomas and the transition in the valley. Larissa ignored all that and read the opinion pieces about the deal itself. It seemed the papers had randomly assigned their opinion writers to write either a for or against opinion. All of the pieces stated with some variation of WTF had Isla done. From there, they explored the the potential pitfalls, the upsides and downsides for both Bob and Isla, and then either said, ‘its probably the stupidest decision ever, but we’ll see’, or ‘what a wise decision, if it works out.’ Just a few had picked up on the irony: Isla in effect gave away her father’s fortune to the young girl who’d brought him down. At least the ones willing to point it out.

As for her old friend Peter Nutter ... she really expected him to be critical, but he said that the key point was that both parties agreed that it wasn’t driven by financial considerations for either of them, and so you couldn’t evaluate it that way, which probably everyone else would. Instead, ask yourself, would you make this decision? What was important to you? This was a very unexpected decision, but all the braver for it, and bravo.

Interesting. But her favourite comment of all was on the front page of the paper, a political cartoon. It had a picture of a man on the ground, recognisably David, with a darkened face and zip tie tail coming off his neck. A woman, recognisably Isla, was standing with her foot on him, and saying, ‘I think I’ll give away your fortune for a song.’ Very apt, and she loved it.

She packed the newspapers up, and left them on the table - someone else could read them. When she stood up, there was silence in the cafe. Everyone was staring at her. She was used to getting a lot of attention, but this was certainly more than usual. “Morning everyone. It’s a great morning, I don’t have to have any security, and the sun’s out. Sweet!” They all laughed. Her lectures were the same - everyone looking at her. It’d pass; it always had before.

In the research meeting, she presented her analysis and findings. She’d stopped getting new responses, and done all her analysis, and written up provisional results while in Townsville, and now everyone got to criticise her work. Fortunately she still had some time up her sleeve because she was underdone after this week, and they found more analysis for her to do. But she was certainly going to get a published paper out of it, and her target was to submit before the end of the academic year, though it would take months of follow up to see it through. But she was going to pass this one, and finish her degree this year. Alright!

Then it was time, and she rode down to join the family in looking at their outrageous plan. The discussion had grown through the year: wouldn’t it be wonderful if they all lived in the one place? They’d have their own houses, but just a stone’s throw apart, all on the same property, and a common recreation wet area modelled on Dave and Kat’s one in the middle of all of them, with a big party space. But where the heck could you do that? Sophie had found a farm for sale in the hobby farm belt that had it’s own internal private road, and enough space for them all, space for some animals, and bush round the edges. In any rational life, it would’ve been way out of their budget, but they figured that if they pooled what they had - James and Sophie’s place, and Steph and Xander’s place, and Julian and Larissa’s cash, they’d have enough to get a deposit on it, and over the next few years, they could afford to start building it out. It’d be uncomfortable in the short term, but worth going for. Larissa had been worried that Xander and Steph would have to move down to Sale for his work, but Bob had said no, leave things as they were. She didn’t know whether it was because he knew Steph would refuse anyway.

It was only a bit further from uni or work, inland and a bit further south, and though much of the ride was on dedicated bike paths, Larissa was still feeling it. When she arrived at the place, there was a huge crowd. James, Sophie, Xander, Steph with Rachel, Julian, Jaiden and Asha. Kemala too, and Larissa had a good hug with her. Amelia, since she would be doing any overall design, her first commercial architecture work. So Ross was there as well, sharing the excitement. Also present: Layna, Joe, Chez, Suzy and Nathan. Why? They really had finally run out of space in Steph’s building, and needed a new option that would let them grow. And maybe, they could be based here as well ... so they were looking at it.

“Hey, Layna, does Bob pulling out of funding the project make any difference?” Larissa asked.

Layna grinned at her. “Well, nah, because Bob’s still actually paying. It’s just more complicated, he pays Niall and Niall pays us. But somehow, in the horse trading between them, they just happened to triple the sponsorship.” Layna smiled. “I couldn’t beat them down below that.”

Also Isla had come along, all smiles, totally happy with her life. Just so she could be with her friends, and meet Larissa’s family. And Dee, Dyunh, and Alex had come along, of course, though one of Isla and Layna’s tasks today was to find replacements for them, so they could go back to their families and lives.

They walked around the land first with the agent. Plenty of space, an orchard and a huge presentation lawn. Enough road frontage that they could and would build an independent entrance for the project, and a barn in place that the project could have to get going while better facilities were built. Then the house - a small mansion with plenty of space around it. Amelia walked around and pointed out where she thought the different buildings should go, along with the common water management facilities. Larissa was overwhelmed. It was perfect, but how on earth could they afford this? She’d happily throw everything they had into it, including all of Bob’s money, which she clearly need have no qualms about anymore, but even pooling everything, they surely couldn’t afford this. Oh, but would the project make a difference?

Then sat down around a picnic table out the front of the house, and James asked the first important question: are we legally allowed to do what we’re planning given the planning rules. Larissa discovered that this wasn’t an idle question - Nathan had already looked into it, and knew the answer, and went through the planning restrictions. Yes, they could, though Amelia had some restrictions to work around. No problem, according to her.

That led them to the second important question: paying for all this. The project didn’t have any way to invest in property, but had a solid stream of cash they would throw in, and pay for building projects. Then they summed up what they had for a deposit and minimum initial costs, and Larissa figured that they were half a million short at least. Then James turned to the agent, and asked. The price was less than she expected, and maybe they could reach the deposit after all? They tossed that back and forward, and decided that James and Xander would go to the bank and see what they could borrow, and if the bank came to the party, maybe that would be enough.

At this point Isla, who’d listened in silence, opened her purse and tossed her credit card at the agent. “I’ll pick this one up, thanks.”

In the shocked silence that followed, the agent said, “What, you mean the deposit?”

“Nah, I think the whole thing,” Isla said.

“Umm, Isla,” Larissa said, “are...”

“No!” Isla said, “I’m not interested in discussion on this one. You and Layna gave me something absolutely priceless this week, and I want to give you something. So the only condition associated with this is that Joe and Layna also live here rent free as long as they want.”

“Umm, OK. Thanks? I don’t know what to say, haven’t you given enough already!”

“Nah. That’s clear to me. I made no gifts yet this week, that was a business transaction with Bob. I pay him my messy companies which are my fortune so I can live a life of luxury without care. His gift to me was bigger than my gift to him. So this, I can pick this up out of my personal cash. Which, by the way, if I still have by the end of next week, I have to kick into the combined fortune. Why do that? If you really want to pay it back, pay it forward once you’re properly set up.”

The agent was flabbergasted, Larissa could see. Right, when would this kind of thing happen?

“We’d love to have Joe and Layna live here, but does that work?” James said.

Nathan and Amelia agreed they could make that work, but what did Layna and Joe want? Layna’s eyes boggled. “How would I know? A little bedroom and a good shower for two on the side of my project’s workspace ... I don’t know. I’d live in a shed out the back. Living here with the family of my heart would be awesome, right Joe?” Joe nodded enthusiastically.

“Now seriously, let’s negotiate,” Isla said to the agent. “What will they sell at for a cash settlement today?” The agent just about fell off his seat, but he walked away and called the vendor. He came back with a lower price, and a date to occupancy - four weeks, but they could come in early and do work around the place other than the home and one barn.

“Done,” Isla said. “If you guys are all happy with the conditions.”

The rest of them were still looking at her in disbelief. “I kind of understand why you’re looking at me like that,” Isla said, “but don’t. Think about it from my point of view. It’s just money, I never knew what I was going to do with it, when what I really wanted was a good life. Then Larissa showed me what that means in the raw. I want her to go and have her big life, and as much as I love her beach pad, and they do too, that’s not a platform for their life now. And Layna, I’ll figure out something else more, but hey, you already got the song.”

Layna nodded, smiling. She’d mentioned that to Larissa the day before ... the song was something really different and they were copyrighting it so that TV networks and so forth had to pay royalties on it, and they were running it a lot across the world, and it was about to released as single on the commercial music networks. And that’s how it would remain unless it was adopted by the European council as their official song, as USA and Australia were strongly encouraging, in which case some company would pay really serious amounts of money as the royalties to get the kudos for contributing it. Niall had already bid to get them thinking big. Outcome either way: the project had a guaranteed income stream for years, since Isla had signed over her rights to Layna. Chez’s problem now was how to spend the money, not how to pay for their costs. Layna, Chez and Julian had finally agreed that it was time to give a hefty pay rise to their fanatically loyal staff.

“Well, OK,” Larissa said. “I certainly didn’t do it for money, but thanks.”

“Of course, Larissa. If you’d done it for money, you wouldn’t have done it at all.”

“Isla, I don’t know how to thank you,” James said, “but we’re going to make sure that the guest room in that house is yours any night you want it. You’ll always be welcome here. And we promise that once we’re all set up, we’ll make sure we pay it forward.”

“Great. Sounds good to me,” Isla said, “since I don’t have a real home for the moment. I refuse to live in that other disaster anymore.”

Larissa was still shaking her head when she left, while Isla went off to with James and Xander to finalise the purchase. She parked her bike at a station and got the train into the city. Everywhere she went, people recognised her, staring at her. She could no longer claim that she wasn’t a proper celebrity. Her destination this time was the headquarters of Kayla’s company. Kayla welcomed her at the door, a deep hug, and then led her into a meeting with the board and CEO of her company.

They welcomed her, and began by apologising for their conduct under the previous leadership and promised a new approach with new leadership. The new approach included an advertising campaign against domestic violence, product changes around producing Larissa’s drinks for retail sale, funding additional research into responsible drinking, and sponsoring Deanna’s organization with a multi-year contract. The question they put to her: was that enough?

“Have you got new leadership, have you?” Larissa asked, giving the CEO a hard look.

Wow, that made the CEO sweat, and he bent over backwards to explain, he’d wanted to act, but how could he, given the board politics? But he had acted, it’d just taken time. Larissa gave him a final hard stare, but she saw Kayla nodding, so she let that go - it might even be true. But she knew: if she’d said he had to go, he’d be gone.

“I’m not hearing anything in your plans about teenage drinking?”

Right, they promised to be all over that. They’d get back to her when they had figured it out.

“OK. Well, soon you’ll meet Louise. I really think that Louise is the beating heart of the campaign in Gippsland. Do you know about the results there?” They wanted her to tell them. “Violence is down. Health problems are down. Teenage drinking is way down. They keep running out of condoms in the valley.” They found that funny, “Alcohol sales by alcohol amount are way down. Alcohol sales by value are up.” They knew that. “So you should fix your sales up by sponsoring a Louise in all the critical regions across Australia. Talk to her, and find out what she’s doing. The regulation changes are going to land soon as well, so what are you waiting for?”

They agreed with that, and said that they’d talk to Louise.

“What about indigenous women?”

They knew about that, had a team already trying to navigate the complex politics of that in various states. Larissa nodded, she’d heard all about it how difficult it was to come up with any rational policy in that space.

“So, maybe, this is something I’ve been wondering about. There’s these new apps mixing loyalty programs with horizontal motivational programs for exercise. What if you rfid every drink, and help bars do that with their glasses, and give drinkers a loyalty program, and then they can compete to get medals for responsible drinking, and you can track their drinking for them, tell them when they approach driving and loving limits? And if they demonstrate responsible drinking enough they qualify for admission to special dances or whatever. Is there something you can put together that gives you a working loyalty program, but helps people drink responsibility? And track the pledge too, lovers can sign off on each other’s pledge?”

Kayla was looking at her in astonishment.

“That’s interesting,” the CEO said. “We’ve considered that, but the problem is getting people to scan their drinks.”

“Right. That’s why you need the horizontal bit, so they’re all motivated to watch each other, and compete. And you effectively pay them to do it, but you get marketing and loyalty. Then they want to do it for both reasons. It has some challenges, like it doesn’t really work at home, which is where the real problem is, but the data from Gippsland shows that moving people’s expectations changes that too.”

“And you’d help us market that, lead by example?”

“Well, if Deanna signed off on it as part of the campaign, and she agreed that it hung together as a benefit, then I sure would. So you’d have to work it up in consultation with her team. And also, I can’t lead by example for alcohol since I never have any. So you’d have to cover non-alcoholic drinks too, so I could. But then I could, sure. Me and a few other celebrities, have a public contest. I can rustle up a few big names for that, if it hangs together.”

“OK, thanks. I’ll certainly put some of my best people on it, and talk to Deanna about it. Now, Larissa, what can we do for you?”

Larissa looked at them blankly. What did she want? “I don’t know. This week’s been kind of difficult, and I’m not sure I know where I am anymore. I mean, really, what I want you to do for me is to make women’s lives better, but I guess you weren’t talking about that.” No, shaking their heads.

“Well, I suppose you could pay me some money. I guess. I mean, I don’t know what you’d want me to do for that. I did some consulting with a couple of other companies, which really meant I spent a day with their management kicking their thinking to a different place and doing a video with the CEO for all the staff. They needed that early on because the CEO’s management were thinking that the pledge was a thing that would go away if they ignored it. Now, they’re about to hit the market in force. But you guys, do you need that?”

“Well, we’ve got Kayla who wants to do that, and she’ll do it well,” The CEO said. “But we certainly want you to bless Kayla in an internal video. But you might be right about the campaign, we all know how serious it is now, and all our retail partners are begging us to get on board with Larissa’s drinks. Specially, as you say, with the change in regulations coming.”

“Well, I’ll bless Kayla for free. She’s a friend.”

The CEO gave her a look. “You’re not getting this, Larissa. I’ve got half a million for you, I’ve just got to figure out an excuse.”

“Well, if you really want to. I mean, maybe we should go to the AFL grand final together. Kayla, Isla, Layna, me, and you, and we can sit there in public, all wearing your caps and jumpers or whatever, and I’ll get Tamara to come interview us on TV about why, and you can take photos to go in your marketing? And maybe Tony as well, if he’s not playing?”

He just about fell off his seat for that idea. “You could pull that together?”

“Sure, I reckon I could, if you can get us seats. I’m sure if I knew who to ask they’d fall over themselves to get Isla and Layna there.”

“And you,” Kayla said.

The CEO was shaking his head in wonder. “That’s worth half a million easy. Much more.” The other board members were nodding their heads. “But you’d have to share it with them, right?”

“I guess. Not Tamara - she’s being paid. So she’d have to sell it to management, but Isla on TV ... sold. Can’t pay Isla, she’s immune to money. Layna ... you should make a contribution to Layna’s work directly, she wouldn’t want the money personally, I think. But Tony ... sure.”

“Whatever you sort out with Tony, we’ll kick that in too.”

“Nah, why don’t you take Tony on directly? Do something with dancing and footy with him. He’d be game, I think. And he’s pretty hot and good at dancing, I know that.” They all laughed for that, they’d seen the footage. Just about everyone in Australia had.

“We could do that,” the CEO said. “OK, let’s say we’ll do that, thanks. OK, go set that up.”

“Hey Kayla, want to nominate a charity for my fee?”

Kayla look at her in surprise. “What?”

Larissa shrugged. “Sorry, shouldn’t have said. But Julian and I agreed that half of what I earn for this kind of stuff goes to some women’s kind of charity, not Deanna’s one. I didn’t tell the other companies. I was just excited cause I could ask Kayla - something we talked about over the weekend.”

The CEO was giving her the most unexpected look. “Why on earth would you do that?”

Larissa shrugged. “When I started the pledge campaign, we didn’t realise that companies would want to pay me, and when we realised that they were thinking of that, at first I was going to say no, because it’s important that it doesn’t look like a standover racket. But Bob and Julian convinced me to work with them, because it would be good for the campaign, so I did, but we said that if I give half of it away, then if ever people find out, they’ll understand that it wasn’t about the money.”

Kayla laughed. “I can see how it would look like standover racket, but half? You’re a most unusual person, Larissa.”

Larissa sighed. “It’s important to myself that I don’t bend on principles, and Julian and I have reinforced that with each other. It’s super important for Layna and Julian as well, and particularly when they deal with the White House, who are always testing that. But this week, it turned terrifying. I am very lucky to have escaped alive from that, and we’re still wondering what we should learn from it.”

“That’s true,” Kayla said. “It all sounded so innocent last weekend, and then it blew up so quick, and even though I was involved a little, it was way more awful than I could’ve believed. This press conference is going to be a mess.”

“I know. We should start it a little early, and let them question me for a while, get it out of their systems, and then we can focus on the actual subject. Otherwise, I’ll just be a distraction. And you can talk to Louise while I do that.”

The CEO smiled. “We’ll do that. I think we have a deal, yes? Do you want to check you can set that up?”

“Sure. I’ll ask them now. I should probably know by the end of the press conference.”

Then it was time to get ready for the press conference. The room was full of journalists twenty minutes before start, as Larissa expected. Not all the other participants were there, but they told her it was all set up and good to go, she went and stood at the podium and said, “Hey everyone, it’s good that you’re here early. Gotta get a seat, huh? I’m going to refuse to talk about this week once the actual press conference starts, but I know you all want to ask me about it. So let’s do that now. I’ll make a statement, and then you can all ask questions until the other one is good to go. Happy with that?” They were very happy, so she tweeted the link to the live stream and sent it to some of her group chats while they got ready.

“OK. So last weekend, Isla and Layna agreed that they’d record that song. Sounded like a bit of fun, though Isla expected that her family would be upset enough to not talk to her for a while, which was one of her goals. Layna helped her disappear from her father, and she expected to get a bit of heat from Isla’s parents. Instead, he fixated on me. People keep asking me, why did I choose to do that? I didn’t, I was pretty much a bystander, though well informed and sympathetic to Isla’s desire to be free. Why would he pick on me? But he did, and once he had, I recorded everything to protect myself. Sure, I could have told him the truth, but I gave my word I wouldn’t, and my word is my bond. Then once it escalated, we realised that recording everything wouldn’t be enough, but by then, it was too late to stop being involved, and I still couldn’t betray Isla or my principles. Layna and I talked about it with Joe and Julian, and it seemed to us that the most likely way to get a good outcome was to go ahead with it, and that worked. I mean, it worked better than we could have expected but even if he hadn’t happened to be murdered, he was still going to be in jail for a long time. So I was truly terrified this week, broke down several times, and I think one of those was on the videos that will be released, but in the end, I said, I will not bend on my principles, whatever the cost. I very much hope and pray that I will not be tested like that again. OK, questions.”

They exploded into noise, all asking questions. She held up her hands and when they were finally silent said, “Uh no. It’s going to work like Isla’s press conference. Jackie’s the teacher, and she’ll smack you with a ruler for your first warning, and send you off to the headmaster if you don’t get the message.” They laughed at her, but Jackie shrugged and stood out the front and picked the first question.

“Can you smack me with a ruler, Larissa? We know you like those kind of games.” The was said in a very suggestive way.

“Oh, a funny guy?” She shook her head. “There’s always one. You can go see the headmaster immediately. Go on, out.” He looked at her in disbelief. “You think I’m joking. No way. I’m not taking any more questions until you’ve left.” Jackie agreed, they could see, and he actually had to leave. Throwing her weight around like that felt good. When he’d left, she said, “OK, you can ask me questions about that subject, and you can joke with me, but you will all teach respect for women. Specially after the week I’ve had.”

The next question was from a female journalist, who said, “Thanks, Larissa, for that, and for this week. It’s an amazing story. What has Isla said to you about it?”

“Really, I think that’s private. Isla is, of course, extremely appreciative. I expect that she’ll put some of her appreciation into music, given what’s she said in public.”

“Larissa, one of the really surprising things about this is that David Jones let you record these videos, including apparently making criminal threats. Can you shed any light on that? And when will they be released?”

“Sure. Of course, he didn’t want to do that by zoom and let me record our conversations, but I gave him no choice. If he wanted to talk to me, that’s how he did it. When will they be released? I think this afternoon sometime, I’m not sure when. And he didn’t get actually criminal until Wednesday morning, and by then ... I think he’d lost his mind and it made him careless. Though probably he figured he had lots of money, he’d push through. But after that the police were insanely angry with him, determined to put him away for a long time, and I think he wasn’t going to be able do that.”

The next question was, “That’s really interesting. There’s plenty of speculation that he was murdered by the special forces, though no one really knows why. Do you think that the police were in on that too?”

“No. They were extremely focused on following the law, and prosecuting him. That’s what they do, and the police commander was very clear about where they were going. We were listening to the audio from there - that’s why the soldiers were there, so we could listen, and the police were totally blindsided by what happened. And I guess we’ll never know what happened, but I’m sure from being there that the police weren’t part of it. But I do want to express my strong appreciation to the police and particularly Johnny-boy, Shane and Lisa for their personal attention to my safety, it made a huge difference to me.”

“Larissa, there’s plenty of comment in the media this morning about the relationship between you and Bob Smith, and his comments yesterday about learning honour and integrity from you. Would you like to comment about that, and how on earth did that work?”

“Well, my mother is Bob’s second wife. Not legally, since he can’t, but as far as our family is concerned, that’s what it is, and we’re all happy about it. Specially now she’s pregnant, and ecstatic through and through about it. It’s lovely, and Thomas and I are super excited about getting a sibling, as is the whole family. And Isabella being pregnant too, it’s great. I wanted to get pregnant along with them, that’d be awesome, but Julian and I thought hard and decided that now is not the time. But it took time for us to build a family like that. Step-children, blended families, all that, and yes, that was a thing for us, but we stuck with it, and persevered, and worked through our issues, and now it’s very lovely. I think it’d be accurate to say that our initial relationship was hostile. When Mary rescued Mum, our own relationship was broken, and toxic, because of the man who was my father. And Bob was very suspicious of Julian, seeing him as just another radical socialist Youtuber.”

“But the thing about Bob and Mary and their family is that they hear and listen, and think. And they did, and over the last eighteen months, all of us have grown, learnt from each other, become better people, and our relationships are very good now. I trust Bob a great deal, and rested on him heavily through this week. Yes, Bob and Mary have done things they regret in the past. Yes, some of those things are public. But I also have done things I regret in the past. Some of them were very public. But others of them were not, and they were worse. Insomuch as I taught Bob to act with more integrity and honour, I am pleased. But that’s not specially reserved for him. Julian and I teach each other that every day. Have I taught you that? Isn’t that what the pledge is about: treating people with integrity and honour?”

Jackie broke the pattern to say, “Yes, Larissa, you have taught me that, thank you. I am more careful in my reporting after talking to you. Colleagues, Larissa has a no compromise attitude to this that we all should have.”

The a journalist said, “Larissa, it’s fine for you to talk about your integrity, but you can see how it looks, can’t you? You pried the man’s daughter away from him, convinced her to make a piece of music that could only reduce his fortune, then while that was happening, you prodded him into getting angrier and angrier, and then when the special forces killed him, his daughter gives you his fortune, and says that you advised her to do that. I mean, it’s a pretty remarkable sequence of events. I’ve heard it said that your father put you up to the whole thing. What do you say about that?”