Think life is always quiet in the country? Think again.
After a trip to Canberra last year, I returned to find a Channel 7 news crew camped across the road from my little cottage. Hoping that someone from Channel 7 had read my novel and was desperate to interview me, I made a great show of dragging all my luggage into the house. I put the kettle on, leaving the front door wide open. As I opened all the other doors and windows to let in some fresh air, it became apparent that no one was rushing across the road to make my acquaintance, so confronted with the realisation that they weren’t interested in me, I decided to sit at my desk and … observe proceedings.
I took a photo of the news crew and sent it to my boyfriend. I responded to his less-than-flattering reply of ‘What have you done?’ with ‘Not sure yet … watch the 6pm news on Channel 7 and we’ll find out.’
At that point, I got a phone call.
‘What’s going on?’ he says.
‘No idea,’ I reply, ‘but don’t worry, I am currently observing proceedings.’
‘Sarah, you’re stickybeaking.’
‘I’m observing,’ I say.
‘Go and ask the journo what’s happening,’ he suggests.
Is this the person who just accused me of stickybeaking?
Not known for my scintillating conversational skills, I say, ‘You know I’m not going to go and talk to them.’
Realising the futility of trying to cajole me into making live inquiries, he resorts to the internet.
‘There was a carjacking in town and then a siege in your street today,’ he says. ‘They’ve caught one of the suspects, but the other one is still at large.’
My head is spinning. ‘Wow,’ I say, ‘I wouldn’t have thought anything like that would happen out here.’
He reads the entire article to me as I continue my observations. At the end he says, ‘You have got all your doors locked, haven’t you?’
‘Umm …’
‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ he says. ‘There’s a carjacker on the loose … go and lock up the house!’
With that, he hangs up on me and, seeing the sense in his suggestion, I go around and lock all the doors and windows. I return to my desk – or stakeout point, as I’m now calling it – and ring my mother. When I tell her what’s going on, she says, ‘You do have all your doors and windows locked, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I say, like a surly teenager, ‘of course I have.’
We chat until the police arrive with the “alleged perp”. Though no official announcement was made, I deduce it is the “alleged perp” because he is in handcuffs and he’s wearing his cardigan over his head rather than the more traditional place on the torso.
‘Gotta go, Mum,’ I say, ‘I’ll call you back.’
There is a brief flurry of activity as the news crew scrambles to capture footage of the police retracing the “alleged perp’s” movements. As the police disappear over the crest of the hill though, the news crew stands down – presumably to wait for the next dramatic instalment in proceedings. They pass the time smoking, chatting and doing “stuff” on their phones. I don’t smoke, so I break out a bag of potato chips.
I’ve now been watching this for over an hour, and it occurs to me that the reason the crew is still onsite is because they’re going to do a “live cross” on the evening news. Just before 6pm, the police announce that they are leaving, much to the journalist’s consternation.
‘Are you sure you couldn’t wait another few minutes?’ he asks. ‘It’d be great to have that patrol car in the shot.’
‘Do you want lights?’ an officer says, before the unmistakable flash of red and blue light up the night.
‘Woohoo!’ the journalist cries, with an enthusiastic fist pump.
As the crew makes final preparations for the “live cross”, I race into the loungeroom to turn up the volume on the television before returning to my desk. Now, I can hear the commentary in stereo while watching the “live cross” … actually live. Pretty weird.
Afterwards, I watched the Channel 7 news coverage. All 40 seconds of it. I caught two hours of the shenanigans across the street, but I have no idea how long the crew was actually there. All for 40 seconds worth of news.
As a writer, I’ve often invested a lot of time and effort for little reward. I can spend hours drafting and revising one paragraph … only to ultimately delete the whole thing. And I didn’t think there were any jobs out there that were as lopsided in relation to the effort/product ratio. Seems, I might have been wrong.