ON AIR
‘A wise man once said, or quite possibly a woman—in fact, I’d pay good money on it being a woman—that betrayal is its own punishment. If that’s true, then we should all get off Wayne Carey’s case now because the size and scope of that man’s betrayal should buy him a lifetime in purgatory. Of course that’s not me saying that, listeners—let he who is without sin and all that—but that’s what you would have read in the weekend’s papers. That’s certainly what I read all weekend, ingesting it all in one hit like a bad airport novel. Speaking of bad airport novels, Kelly, have we got a prize for Caller of the Morning? We neglected to give one away yesterday and I haven’t heard the end of it.’
Kelly, a commerce graduate who’s lost her way, doesn’t look up from her desk.
‘Thanks, Kelly. Fantastic concert tickets coming up for the best call.’
Kelly looks incredulously through the glass, arms upturned: What concert tickets?
‘But back to Wayne Carey. King Carey. Football royalty. On the field he can do no wrong and in this country that counts for a lot, if not everything. But according to reports that are now widely confirmed, the King is now at odds with his own club due to an indiscretion at a recent social gathering. That’s how the ABC is describing this tawdry situation, folks, but I can put a finer point on it. Wayne Carey had an affair with his teammate’s missus. The missus. Of his teammate. In the very same act, he ultimately betrayed his own wife in a very public and humiliating way. Folks, we could talk all morning about what sort of guy does this to his wife, about the long-term repercussions of a very short-term act. And I’m happy to take those calls. I’m always happy to take your calls. But I’m also very keen to explore the other dimension to this and in many ways it’s the part that enrages us most, whether or not we care to admit it. It’s what I’m calling the no-go zone. It’s that place not bounded by contracts or rules; nothing is written down about the no-go zone. It’s shaped by human expectations, dangerously implicit and often only ratified after the zone has been breached.’
Beam looks over at Kelly, who is reading the Sydney Morning Herald with her feet on the desk.
‘Wayne Carey didn’t just have adulterous sex with anyone. He had it with his teammate’s wife. That’s a no-go zone. We’ve called it. Polite society has called it. And it lifts the act from linear betrayal to something far more complicated and socially unforgivable. Or does it? Are we only having this discussion because the centrepiece is Wayne Carey? Maybe Wayne Carey doesn’t think the no-go zone applies to him because he’s Wayne Carey? Maybe elite sport occupies a rarefied atmosphere that exists beyond normal society?’
Beam spins the biro at his fingertips. Today’s topic hits on everything. God he loves this job. ‘Maybe,’ he posits, setting up his call to arms, ‘King Carey and Anthony Stevens will be able to sort this out over a little kick-to-kick?’
He looks through the glass at his utterly disengaged producer just as the phones light up and her arms flail across the desk, causing an eruption of broadsheet chaos.
It’s going to be a magic morning, Beam thinks. A huge ratings week. Thank you Wayne Carey and your kingly dick.
And it is. It’s talkback gold, bar a couple of suitably twisted ex-wives who argue vehemently that all zones that aren’t the home-zone are no-go zones. After the last couple of dry, politics-heavy days of talk, Beam knows the suits on level eight are being reminded today of his power to get people talking.
He hears a litany of betrayal yarns, some choked out in rage, others eked through sniffly recollections. Always the common denominator is a betrayal made infinitely more painful by the choice of target; by the breaking of a rule that shouldn’t have to be written down. Some are clear-cut—the guy who hooks up with his best mate’s ex-wife, the woman who sleeps with her sister’s husband—yet others are beautifully divisive dinner-party fodder, panoplies of ethical conundrums and moral ambiguities. It’s sad and dark and wonderful.
Bookending it all are two calls from self-confessed breachers of no-go zones, both women, both now married to their best friend’s ex-husbands, who argue that the zone is redundant if permission from the otherwise aggrieved third party is granted.
‘Indeed,’ Harvey says, rounding out three hours of talkback manna that felt like twenty wild minutes, ‘it’s generally easier to ask for permission than forgiveness. But how many of us would grant it?’