My editor rang me with urgent news. I hung up and cried in the street

1 day ago 6

This is the first piece in a summer opinion series from our writers about a year of their youth when they had trying times.

The boss was on the line with some urgent news: my transfer to the Canberra press gallery, every young reporter’s dream, was cancelled due to a “reorganisation”, which I think now was code for “the editor-in-chief doesn’t think you are up to it”.

So, how did Perth sound? Or (even worse) Adelaide, the city of churches and boredom?

I put the phone down, went out onto the street and cried.

But to my surprise, everyone raved about Perth. It was fun, it was beautiful, Perth people were great, the Perth bureau was terrific. It was also newsworthy: home to Alan Bond, Lang Hancock, Gina Rinehart and the terrifying Claremont serial killer.

So, as a promising reporter of two years’ standing, and a not-at-all confident gay, Perth it was.

I arrived in April 1997, aged 23, knowing one person, whom I was replacing. For my first dinner Penny suggested a place in Claremont, down the road from the serial killer’s stalking ground. Back in Sydney, Mum was concerned, but Penny said: “You have got to live your life.”

So, I did. For two unforgettable years: I crisscrossed the state, covered courts, covered parliament, covered Pauline Hanson’s first federal election, made friends. I got my first mobile phone and my first boyfriend.

There were highs – I made the front cover of The Australian Magazine as the world’s most inept sheep handler for a story titled “From Mr Magoo to Jackaroo”. And lows – my briefing to the national news director back in Sydney about getting acupuncture treatment at a heroin clinic when I was a cadet went awry when he missed the bit when I said the visit was purely for a story.

I later found out he then stood up in the middle of the Sydney newsroom and announced: “Did anyone know that Stephen Brook was once treated for addiction at a heroin clinic?”

But even that had a silver lining: months later he gave me a double pay upgrade.

Perth was a small town, and it was great. Gay Perth was even smaller, and at its centre was a gay nightclub with the bestest name ever: Connections. Each weekend I would head with my friend and wingman Claremont Matt, as I called him, into the city and ascend the stairs of Connections for a lot of dancing and even more drinks.

One night while we were on the dance floor Matt had major news: a very cute guy across the club was looking at me! But stay cool – and don’t look around.

With the zeal of a Reuters breaking news reporter, Matt fed me breathless updates. He was getting closer! And closer!! Finally he was right behind me!!!

Matt could stand the tension no longer so he suddenly stuck out his hands and shoved me backwards.

This is the first piece in an opinion summer series from our writers and reporters about the year that changed them.

I stumbled into the guy behind me and my life turned a corner. Grant was a swimming coach with sunny, floppy hair and a laugh to match. He was smart, kind and generous, but also ruthless at cutting down my self-indulgence.

Drunk, we stumbled down the nightclub stairs and suddenly his face clouded with concern. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Oh no. What was wrong? “What was your name again?” he asked.

The next morning proved rockier. Very early there was angry knocking on the front door of Grant’s North Perth house. His ex-boyfriend had unexpectedly returned. Grant padded out, shut the bedroom door and ordered me not to open it. Outside, two angry voices argued over who owned the kitchenware (remember these were two gay men).

Well, Stephen, you said to yourself as you hid under the bed and thought about your sheltered life to date, you have always been a fan of soap operas – now you are in one. Weeks later, just when I began to wonder if we could be boyfriends, Grant dumped me. He was on the rebound, everyone explained. Whatever that meant.

But then Grant decided to give me something of incredible value – the gift of his friendship.

He was two years older than I was, but much more grown up. He was a Perth native, knew everyone, owned his own home, wanted to coach at the Olympics, liked avant-garde fashion and fine dining. And his flatmates were a journalist and a photographer. What were the chances? We all went to Bali together.

After two years, I transferred back to Sydney, and made it to Canberra. Our lives intersected again and again. But we both knew things had shifted, the friendship bent into a different shape. It was never the same. Gradually our messages became fewer and briefer, before all he sent me were emojis.

In 2020, after a period of no contact, I returned to Perth to pay Grant a visit. I felt it was my duty. As he opened the front door, I told myself fiercely to look happy no matter what. And there he was – older, but undeniably the same handsome Grant.

“I know you,” he said, creasing into his familiar grin.

I kept smiling hard.

His carer welcomed me in and we talked, sort of. I showed pics of our Bali trip; we took his latest dog out to a nearby park and had a coffee.

But when the carer suggested we play Kylie Minogue’s Impossible Princess, our soundtrack to 1998, I just couldn’t.

Grant had been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, and stupidly I thought that meant early stage Alzheimer’s, but his degenerative dementia was of a particularly vicious type.

Grant, whose coaching dreams did take him to the Olympics, and to world records, died three years later aged 52.

Everything is connected, I often write in my columns, usually for a laugh, but also because it is true.

Now a colleague who sits a couple of desks away from me is that old flatmate of Grant’s.

Because of that, and for many other reasons, it feels like Grant is still around.

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