What You've Got Within You

1: Sydney 2002

1Sydney 2002

Paul Morahan looked up from his desk. A young, pimply-faced mail clerk hovered at the entrance to his office. “Come on, I don’t have all day!” he said. “What have you got for me?”

“Fax, Mr Morahan,” the clerk stammered.

“Okay, on the desk.” He waved the boy into his impressive office, a glass cube, seemingly perched in thin air overlooking Sydney Harbour and the Opera House. The clerk shuffled in and placed a document on Morahan’s desk and left. “Tuck your shirt in!” Morahan yelled at the fleeing shirttails.

He put down his soy piccolo and picked up the fax. He saw that it was from in-house counsel at one of his firm’s major clients, Henry King Industries Limited. The coversheet read:

Dear Morahan,

Another one for you.

Regards,

Charlie Boustead.

A statement of claim was attached to the coversheet. Paul Morahan looked at the court seal on the front of the statement of claim: filed in the Asbestos Diseases Tribunal 14 August 2002. Must have been filed this morning, Morahan thought. Charlie Boustead doesn’t muck around with his instructions. He’ll no doubt want just as swift response from us as well. Morahan then perused the rest of the document. Fairly standard. Plaintiff: James Henderson. Defendants V&L Ltd and Henry King Industries Limited. He’d seen the same defendants named on countless court documents. Keep ‘em coming, he thought. This asbestos litigation was b****y lucrative. Solicitors: the usual suspects, Shaw & Fletcher. Solicitor’s reference: VG – b****y hell, not that b***h, Vivienne Glosioli. God, she was difficult to deal with! Thankfully, he would not be the one who had to stomach her aggro. He knew just the man for the job.

Morahan stood up and strode purposefully from his office. He was a hefty, prickly, ill-mannered, long-striding man with big feet, narrow shoulders and endlessly sweaty hands. Everyone knew when Paul Morahan was coming. You could hear the thump of his boots well in advance of his arrival. The man himself had little idea he caused such a commotion.

Senior Associate, Bruce Fraser, stopped what he was doing to wait for Morahan’s arrival when he heard the trudging boom in the corridor. There was no need for Morahan to knock.

“Yes, Paul, how can I help?” he asked without looking up.

Morahan thought Fraser was an arrogant know-it-all. Unlike Morahan, Fraser came from a wealthy, eastern suburbs family. His father was part heir to a dog-food manufacturing empire with a penchant for fast, expensive cars. Fraser had gone to Sydney Grammar School where he had been senior prefect, dux and captain of the fourth eleven cricket team. Cricket had been about his only failure. While Morahan conceded Fraser had good reason to think himself superior, having an honours degree in science, law and commerce, he did not understand why Fraser had to be so smug about it all the time. And although Bruce Fraser was known to produce work of the highest calibre, he was blowed if he was ever going to give him credit for his achievements.

Morahan remained standing. He thought he could intimidate Fraser by towering over him. Show him who was the boss. He felt impressive and threatening with his US Marine buzz cut hairstyle. Fraser, however, appeared to be almost laughing at him. His green-grey eyes peered amusedly through his rimless spectacles. Morahan even thought he spotted the faintest, quizzical lift of one of Fraser’s bushy, ginger eyebrows.

“Okay, Fraser, here’s another claim against King Industries. Case of James Henderson. Meso. Doesn’t look anything special. V&L is a co-defendant. Solicitor is your old girlfriend, Vivienne Glosioli, at Shaw & Fletcher. Prognosis probably poor, so you’d better get cracking. Charlie Boustead will want a summary and outline of our approach by tomorrow morning. Shaw & Fletcher will no doubt be gunning for a hearing well before Christmas. Any questions? No? Good.” Morahan pounded out the door.

Fraser found Morahan’s constant taunts about Vivienne Glosioli to be tiresome. When he stupidly told Morahan at a litigation drinks night that he and Glosioli had been at university together, Morahan had quickly tagged them as lovers. The rumour spread rapidly and now Fraser had to cope with regular jibes from the entire asbestos litigation team about their non-relationship. He actually respected Glosioli as an adversary, and could see a certain allure in her severe, black façade. She was, however, from the wrong side of the tracks. He did not care to venture over there.