talk bloody crap!’ Bramble had snorted bitterly. ‘Bloody Labor Governments think we are secret police oppressing the workers and spying on the unions, while Liberal Governments look nervously over their shoulders while they give us inadequate hand outs from Consolidated Revenue which is ostensibly for something else when they think Labor aren’t looking.’
He paused for breath in the middle of his tirade to sample his coffee.
‘All we’re good for is to be whipping boys whenever the CIA foul something up, there’s a Russian spy scandal or we invade somebody’s home looking for bomb making materials. When we had that bloody balls up at the Sheraton all those years ago we actually had the Victorian Labor government trying to have the names of our people publicised which would have blown their cover forever and wasted millions of dollars expended on their training! Don’t talk to me about fucking governments!’
Such had been the bitterness of his response that Wallace had let the matter ride, frankly he had some sympathy with much of what Bramble said.
Wallace had been asked to deliver a motivational speech to a convention that was being organised by the insurance industry and was being held in Singapore, and with the situation of the insurance industry as it was at that time they probably needed motivation. The industry was jittery and tending to tip large numbers of their workforces into the street clutching retrenchment cheques immediately after, or probably just before, the release of their annual statements.
Why the insurance industry selected Singapore for an industry conference was puzzling, unless they were hoping to stimulate re-insurance business from that sector, or maybe the strip clubs were more discreet.
The preparation for Wallace’s presentation was going well, he was arranging for some visual aids encompassing cartoons and drawings that should go down well. He called upon Laurie Frazer, an old friend and former work colleague who was the Assistant Manager at the Saturn Insurance, to check with him to see if he thought they were all right.
‘I can’t see much wrong with those,’ Frazer said as he riffled through them. ‘But you should make some adjustments to the features of the face of the character in this cartoon. It bears a strong resemblance to last year’s Insurance Institute President. It could be misconstrued.’
They went to lunch, and Frazer paid.
‘How is life at home?’ Frazer asked Wallace.
‘Non-existent,’ was Wallace’s bitter reply. ‘She’s gone, or more correctly, I’ve gone! It just became impossible; you know her and what she’s like. She is still living in our flat in St Kilda. This was about a year ago, it was inevitable’.
Laurie said nothing, he merely grunted and nodded. He knew Elsie Wallace formerly Elsie Palmer, he had never liked her and he clearly thought his friend was better off without her.
Wallace had been married for about four years; somehow he fell into it perhaps dazzled by her good looks and a perfect figure. But Elsie had one defect, she had much conversation and it was mainly limited to pedantic statements and a total inability to admit that she was wrong about anything, plus a penchant to be rude to people. He had believed that after a few years he may have been able to soften her aggressive attitude a little but had regretfully to admit failure.
She also had the feminist outlook. Wallace didn’t disagree with many feminist aims but he objected when it reached the stage where anything he said was carefully analysed and dissected to try and isolate some imagined chauvinism.
There were several bust ups resulting in short separations, Wallace’s work in latter days on the speaking circuits had made that inevitable, often he was away for weeks at a time. The final break had come when one of their neighbours, a lady of like ilk, had reported to Elsie that she had seen Wallace in a city restaurant with an attractive brunette.
Ironically it had been true, but it was a business lunch with a business contact, his agent, Christine Norton, who had been instrumental in arranging many presentations for him, the lunch had taken place while they had been discussing a prospective presentation to a company seminar in Perth, Western Australia. It was even more ironic that her sexual preferences were rumoured to be on the eccentric side, which made the accusation of having an assignation even more ridiculous.
Despite these obvious disqualifications for an affair being in progress, Elsie refused to amend her initial reaction, and had flounced out in high dudgeon, no doubt expecting Wallace to crawl back uttering abject apologies and bearing gifts. But by then he had had enough of the incessant arguments and accusations of chauvinism, so they separated officially and Wallace moved into a bachelor flat in South Yarra.
The aforesaid Perth assignment had come up, while there he had picked up one or two more speaking engagements, plus some temporary work with an insurance company claims department brought about by a plethora of claims caused by a torrential rainstorm that flooded several suburbs. Consequently Wallace had not returned to Melbourne for about six weeks.
‘The divorce came through recently,’ Wallace added. ‘I haven’t seen her since then.’
‘Sorry Harry,’ Laurie shook his head, ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’
‘Don’t be,’ Wallace replied. ‘Best thing that could have happened, for both of us.’
Chapter 2
It was very hot as Wallace booked into the Ming Court Hotel in Singapore, the heat seemed to shimmer from the pavement and hit with a sledgehammer. His bags were collected and taken up in the lift by a porter, and not for the first time he marvelled at the “No Tipping Allowed” sign. It made a refreshing change from avaricious London taxi drivers and virtually everyone who offered a personal service in the United States.
He revelled in the luxury of a shower and then set to work on his presentation. He was determined that this one was going to be a good one, one of his best, because he knew there would be a few in the audience that he knew from his days in the industry. Laurie Frazer called when he was finishing the second run through; Wallace was pleasantly surprised to see him in Singapore.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’ Wallace asked.
‘I didn’t know myself,’ Frazer replied. ‘My boss was called away to London at the last minute and it seemed pointless wasting the air ticket.’
Wallace went over later to the Convention Centre to check everything, he knew from bitter experience that it paid to check everything. Taking other people’s word for it that everything was in working order was a short cut to disaster.
He discovered that there was no spare light globe for the overhead projector so he asked the head porter to obtain two spares. The porter looked blank and clearly didn’t know what Wallace was talking about, and when he did he had no idea where there were any spares. So Wallace went out into the nearest shopping centre and purchased two, taking care to slip them into his shirt pocket, avoiding the side pockets of trousers or jacket. He had lost light globes like that before when placing a hip against a stiff door to open it.
He had a few drinks with Laurie Frazer that night plus two of his cronies who had arrived by the afternoon flight. From their conversation the current insurance industry in Australia did not inspire confidence, far too many companies servicing too few people.
‘If we had a population twice our size we’d be OK,’ lamented Dick Prowse,
