‘I’ll think about it,’ he said.
‘Think about this, too: if you’re worried about the business getting bad publicity … Gavin Gunn being a part owner would counteract that.’
He sighed.
Maggie gave his hand a final pat. ‘Tell that dog of yours I’ve got some chicken wings defrosting in the kitchen sink if he fancies one. Mind, he’ll have to eat it outside.’
The call Hux was about to make was to someone even more bull-headed and full of themselves than the Huxtable sisters. He sat on the pew outside the pub, Possum at his feet, gnawing at the promised spoils from Maggie’s kitchen, and pulled her name up in his contacts and let it ring. Once … twice …
‘Gavin. About time. I’ve had my ear chewed off by the TV producer. They’re not happy that you’re vetoing all of their script changes. They’re saying it’s putting production behind and there’ll be cost overruns. I gave them some blather about character integrity and said I’d talk to you. Which I have been trying to do for some days now, if you’d looked at your emails. And text messages. And listened to your voicemails.’
‘Sorry, Nandita. I’ve been busy.’
‘With revisions? Excellent. Can I let them know a date you’ll have them in?’
‘Not with revisions, no, although I am working on them.’ At about the pace rust ate out a ute bonnet, but still. ‘I wanted to sound you out about something. But first … How cosy are you with the publicist who looks after my stuff at the publishing house?’
‘Darling one, how could you doubt me? I am cosy with everyone that matters—Paul and I are two hearts that beat as one. Why do you ask?’
‘I’m hoping he can drum up a little media attention for me.’
‘Magazine? Radio? Online?’
‘Whatever he can manage, as big as he can get.’ The news article Maggie had suggested was a good idea, but Maggie was a publican whose interests were focused on a community with a population of a few hundred from town, maybe a thousand if you counted the station families who visited to buy groceries or fuel or attend the Yakka. She knew he was Gavin Gunn, author, but it was one thing knowing that your old friend wrote books under a pen name that sold okay, it was another knowing justhowokay they sold. Just how big the splash could be if his publisher was on board with a media release. Maggie didn’t know that if he decided to go big, it would be bigger than she could envisage. And possibly catastrophic.
‘I’m sure he can do something. But what’s our news?’
He hesitated. ‘I’m just thinking this over at the moment, so don’t say anything unless I give you the okay. I’m thinking of doing a …’ Press release? Interview? They were so ordinary. They wouldn’t get the public on the side of Team Cocker.
Oh—he had it. A community event. One of those ‘in-conversation’ formats. ‘I’m thinking of doing a library talk in Yindi Creek.’
‘Yindiwhere?’
‘Yindi Creek. It’s a small town northwest of Winton in outback Queensland. It’s sheep station country, Nandita.’
Nandita was a city dweller with gel coat nails that she probably had groomed the way other people had their pet poodles groomed. Hux doubted she’d even recognise a sheep.
‘I’m speechless,’ she said. Clearly just a turn of phrase, as she carried straight on speaking. ‘Can you explain to me why some tinpot library out Woop Woop has managed to convince you to give an author talk, but the last time I tried to persuade you to do one you had a tantrum, Gavin? Atantrum.’
‘Saying no is not having a tantrum, Nandita.’
‘Who’s even heard of Yindi River, anyway? It’s not likely to be a big enough deal to get the publisher interested. What are you thinking? A book signing, some bookmarks to give away, maybe get some of the local high school kids along for a workshop on graphic novels …’
‘Yindi Creek. And there’s no high school as such here, Nandita. There’s a one-teacher school with about fifty kids in it that goes from Prep to Year Ten, and then it’s boarding school or School of the Air.’ Or a governess, if you were from one of the bigger stations that could afford the wage.
‘You seem to know a lot about this place. What’s the drawcard?’
He hesitated. ‘It’s where I grew up.’
‘I thought you were from the Sunshine Coast.’
Yes, well, she thought that because that’s what he wanted her and everyone else in his writing world to think. That’s what was in his bio, and why he always wore his grey hat and grew in some stubble for events and used a graphic sketch avatar on social media.
‘I live at the Sunshine Coast three months a year; the rest of the year I’m in Yindi Creek. Flying a helicopter, mustering cattle, living the quiet life.’ The untalked-about life. That he’d have preserved if he could.
‘How did I not know this?’
‘It’s complicated. Have you got time to hear it all now?’