It was the PM’s habit to rise early, after several hours of light dozing punctuated by intervals of wakefulness. This she had come to regard as a normal night’s sleep after so many years of insomnia. Well into her middle years, she had begun to feel both diminished and constrained. It was something to do with her small body that was verging on metamorphosis, though into what she was not sure. It seemed that her skin was becoming looser at the same time that its contents were tightening up. She sensed there was a thickening at the back of her neck – not, she hoped, the start of one of those little old lady hunches, though twisting around in the bedroom mirror, she could never see enough to judge – and that stiffening in the hip was developing into a definite condition. Walking eased much of this. Plus it was a very pleasant property. Vast, varied. Always good for stimulation of the mind as well as the frame. She knew that in the years to come, retirement years, the post-leadership twilight world of sitting on boards and running consultancies and working for international charities – the quiet, morning-tea existence, as opposed to the nonstop sushi train that was life now – she could easily have regrets. She would look back on this time in her life and never wish she’d been to more briefings, overseen more committees, shaken hands with more delegations, attended more conferences, held more cabinet meetings. Especially not cabinet meetings. But she would regret it if she hadn’t made the most of the garden.
Early, before full light, she would commence walking around the garden. The grounds were a mix of the landscaped and the semi-wild and offered variety every morning. She had lived here for several years but always seemed to come across something new. And she felt – though she was not – the great advantage of being alone. In the half-light, often moist, sometimes foggy, she would roam the perimeter of the main house, then turn along one of several paths. To the north of the property, past the tennis court, and behind a hedge, was a wide-open patch that she wandered around, sometimes following the fence all the way along the boundary, until it curved back towards the house at the start of the driveway. Or she would follow the tennis court hedge back south, cross the gravel path, and walk around to the bottom of the garden. She would visit the gardening sheds, the nursery and the stables. She would avoid the gates and the booth at the front, likewise the staff quarters at the rear of the property towards the western fence. So early in the morning, she did not care to contact the security staff at the front gate, or encounter the housekeeper, who also rose early, or the head gardener, the only others who lived on the premises. It was not that she felt guilty or inhibited, just that she liked walking alone. She would be constrained if she had to share these times, have her burgeoning ideas squashed by the necessary polite hellos and good mornings and lovely days, which all came soon enough after the working day began.
Though she did feel a pang of guilt; she would admit that. In recent weeks a man had appeared to camp at the front gate, and she literally had no idea what to say to him. She could not turn him away, but neither could she invite him in. All she could do was maintain a polite distance. To be fair, he did the same, coolly ignoring her when she drove in and out, maintaining an erect cross-legged posture as he gazed somewhere into a distance she could not easily discern.
That morning, she had been out even earlier than usual. She was already fully dressed – black trousers, white t-shirt and the jacket she would remove thanks to the warmth – and had headed towards the south of the property. It was not yet six o’clock, and still dark down towards the fence line where the dogwood trees grew close and high. The leaves were dense underfoot and she kicked at them, raising a flurry that smelled pleasant. Earthy and damp. Almost wholesome. She reached the furthest perimeter of the fence, adjoining the neighbour’s backyard, then turned to walk back towards the house.
‘Piss off!’
A flock of noisy miners exploded from the trees behind her as if the words were shotgun pellets. The PM looked up, then around. The birds screeched and settled in the upper branches of a horse chestnut. Without them as evidence she might have thought she had imagined it.
‘Pardon?’ She walked right up to the fence.
There was a clattering and rustling from the other side, then again the unmistakable words, ‘Piss off, why don’t you?’
She had not come here on a whim. Several times recently on her morning walks she had thought she heard her neighbour on the other side: the scrape of a shovel, the creak of a ladder. He was evidently doing some kind of work in this part of the garden, but what, and why so close to her fence, she was unsure. Not to mention in the near dark.
Over the years she had been here she was aware of this presence, registered that activity was going on in the place behind hers, but they had never met. She had seen him often enough – he always wore an orange baseball cap – when up a ladder amongst the trees, trimming branches or tying ropes. She had seen him out the front of his place, securing gates or locking his letterbox. Always mysterious, furtive, almost as if he were intruding on his own property. A few times curiosity had overcome her usual early-morning desire for solitude, and she had even called out good morning. However there had never been a response, beyond a blank stare that hovered on the edge of hostility. Assuming he had no desire for the usual niceties of neighbourly life, she had left him alone.
This was the first time he had spoken. Imagine him telling her to piss off. She was almost amused by it. Intrigued – where should she piss off to, and why? – she called out again: ‘Hello?’ But there was no further noise. ‘Hello? Are you there?’ Nothing.
She walked back through the horse chestnut grove and into the light, crossed the park-like lower garden, then went up the sloping lawn and across the parking area behind the house. Underfoot, the gravel crunched agreeably. A fresh load had been spread only the week before.
The door to the kitchen was open, and the housekeeper was already at work, squeezing oranges.
‘Therese, that man down the back,’ she stopped in the doorway and jerked her head behind her. ‘Have you ever had anything to do with him?’
‘Never. Didn’t know there was anyone there.’
‘Oh. Maybe it’s just me.’ The PM took the glass that Therese handed out. Behind her the toaster pinged with a rusty-sounding squeak as two slices spat high. Her arm shook and a few drops of her orange juice spilled on the floor. Perhaps the man had upset her more than she realised. The toast landed on the bench, and they both wrinkled their noses.
‘Burnt again,’ said Therese.
‘Frankly,’ said the PM, ‘I think those fancy retro appliances are overrated.’
Negative Client Outcomes. Patient Attrition Rates. She inked a large question mark in the margin. These sounded exactly like more euphemisms for death; however, she would seek clarification. The PM did not mind paperwork. She was a steady, focused reader and very capable of sifting through complete documents to extract their essence. Normally she did not require much in the way of summaries and briefing notes. The problem was, there did not seem to be any essence in this report. It was yielding very little. After several hundred pages she felt like she’d been squeezing oranges herself, except they were hard, dry ones. She did not expect that major deficiencies in the current health funding scheme would be solved, but she expected they would at least be addressed, or identified in something approaching ordinary prose.
She pushed the report aside. It would have to be sent back for redrafting. There was the large box, lower house green, stamped with the floral emblem of the Tasmanian blue gum, crammed with documents. Send me your submissions, she had told the people of the most southern state. I will consider them all. She felt bound to her word. She had much affection for the little triangle of land beyond the strait. It was just that she had not expected quite so many submissions. There were other matters nibbling away in her mind. The calls she would have to take. That man sitting at the front gate, who would not talk or otherwise communicate but who would also not leave. S
he had ordered things like hot tea and blankets, a camp chair and fresh fruit to be taken out to him. Sometimes they were accepted, sometimes not.
Malcolm appeared and placed the folders down in front of her.
‘Just to review the afternoon’s commitments.’ His way of reminding her that the morning was nearly over.
‘I already said I wanted to finish this. And I intend to go through all the files on the Tasmanian crisis.’ She nodded towards the box, which contained reports, newspaper clippings, email printouts and handwritten letters and postcards, from the citizens of that state whose recent election had created an excess of independents – was there a collective noun for that? a nuisance of independents, a self-righteousness of independents? – and as a consequence a hung parliament, and government in limbo. There were allegations of fraud and electoral irregularities. The public was demanding a re-election.
‘Let them go, I say. Place is only good for cheese and apple juice anyway.’
‘Is that your most professional advice?’
‘It’s caused trouble for years. Ever since that Green fellow went into the senate.’
‘You mean Brown.’
‘Same thing. Then before him there was that lunatic, the one with a hundred children.’
‘Harradine?’
‘Yes. Just one extremist dictating to the rest of the country. It shouldn’t be allowed. But if we cut them off, it won’t.’
‘Make the state secede?’
‘Why not? What do we get out of the place? Really?’
She was not sure at what point, over the last couple of years, Malcolm had progressed beyond executive assistance to policy advice, strenuously opinionated if not downright prejudiced, and unsolicited advice at that. It had been subtle enough for her not to dismiss him, or even admonish him. Now she wondered if she should have been firmer with his tendency to overstep his role.
‘Now, taking it from straight after lunch today, we have a good three hours of appointments back to back.’
‘Not right now, please. Come back in a little while.’
Malcolm looked almost hurt. He produced the prime ministerial mobile phone from his pocket. ‘Will you at least . . .?’
‘Sorry. Later.’
As he turned to leave she sat back in her chair, wondering. The Apple Isle as a separate sovereign state. What a juicy idea. Then she remembered.
‘Malcolm?’ He turned around. ‘That man who lives down the back. What do we know about him?’
‘Kerr? Not a great deal. Seems an oddball. Very secretive. The Bobs have had a couple of run-ins with him over the years. He seems to be particularly fussy about fences. Always fiddling with them.’
She watched Malcolm walk back towards the house, then checked her watch. A short break, another stroll around, then back to work. But first she would visit the stables.
Despite having the best anti-spam filters available on her personal email account, the PM still received a number of letters that she presumed were hoaxes and was prepared to trash. These arrived along with the requests from Nigerian sources for her bank account details and offers to enlarge her sexual organs that still eluded the software. However, she noticed these letters were, first, all correctly spelled, and they were addressed to her personally not only as Prime Minister of the country, but also as custodian of the house. A Mr Austin Beamish of a place called Lincolnville, Arizona, USA, was the owner of a private zoo that had lately fallen upon hard times (the spelling might have been correct, but the PM noted the euphemistic and old-fashioned phrasing). Consequently and regrettably Mr Beamish was obliged to relocate all his animals, or risk confiscation by the local authorities, specifically the Feral and Introduced Species Board. Possible euthanasia of many animals would ensue, while others would be sent to different zoos already overcrowded and/or inexperienced with the care of many of the species in his collection. He had undertaken to write to specially targeted prominent citizens around the world to offer animals that he believed would be uniquely suited to them. Testimonials would follow, but already he could reveal that he had secured acceptances from the President of South Africa, who was generously taking three lion cubs whose mother was unfit to travel and who would be remaining as Mr Beamish’s house companion; and the Queen of England herself, whose two new hyena pups would be excellent companions for the corgis. And, although they represented a priority on his list, he was not only approaching world leaders. Others included Madonna, for whom he had reserved an endangered spotted serval; Bill Gates, who was adopting a family of rare red rattlesnakes; Angelina Jolie, three black-faced chimpanzees from the lower Congo River, recently orphaned; Ben Elton, a breeding pair of King vultures; and for Richard Branson, two rare white bison.
Mr Austin Beamish somehow knew that the PM was improving the grounds of her property and extending the gardens, and he understood her facility ticked all the right boxes. The animal was available at a time convenient to them both, i.e. now. He would await instructions regarding shipping of the as yet unspecified animal, and the exact street address, at her earliest convenience.
She had ignored the first two emails, and responded with brief and polite refusals for the third and fourth time. All Mr Beamish’s letters were similar. By the fifth email, in which he finally specified the animal earmarked for her special care, she was intrigued enough to make a few enquiries, and after the seventh she was prepared to consider the idea. And then the emails stopped. Two weeks passed and she was almost missing Mr Austin Beamish’s quaint epistolary style. She contacted him, twice, but with no response. Clearly it was a hoax after all. Thank god she had not provided any of her personal details. Had she? Of course it was a hoax. Imagine the Queen of England accepting hyena pups from an oddly named man in an obscure American town. Imagine her even falling for the story of a private zoo forced to divest its animal assets around the world.
A month or so afterwards, she had been summoned early on a Friday morning. It was just after seven o’clock, and she was awake though not yet up, reading instead of walking for a change. Hazel, just winding up her evening shift at the front gates, phoned through to tell her a delivery was on its way. She went to the window to see a battered Toyota Hilux utility pulling up in the front driveway. It was towing a horse float.
‘Special delivery for the PM,’ the driver called up, walking around to the back of the vehicle to unfasten the tow bolt.
‘What’s this? What’s going on?’
‘As I said, special delivery.’ He drew the bolt free and lowered the tow bar, releasing the float from the utility. From inside came the sound of thumping and skidding as the float settled at an angle.
‘Careful! There must be a horse in there!’
The driver shrugged. ‘Assume so. I’m just the driver. You are the PM, aren’t you? Coming down to sign this or what?’ He waved the paperwork up at her but she was already flying out the bedroom and down the stairs, flinging on a dressing-gown.
‘Where’s this from? And what is it?’
‘Dunno. Subcontract job. I just took possession in Port Kembla. Sign here please.’
‘Port Kembla!’ She scribbled her name and handed the clipboard back.
‘Yeah. Ship docked late last night, I collected it soon after. Made good time, didn’t I?’
If that was a hint for a tip, she ignored it. More thumping noises were coming from the float. It was an old-fashioned one with a small window that revealed nothing.
‘We’d better have a look, then.’ She held the dressing-gown together more firmly at the front and tried the handle on the float, but the driver had already returned to the cab of the utility and started the engine. Several metres down the driveway he stopped, jumped out and reached into the back tray.
‘Nearly forgot. They said you might need this.’ He tossed out two bales of hay onto the gravel, jumped back in the cab and drove away.
They said. Who
were they? And what was this?
But of course she knew.
The door to the float was heavy. The latch securing it was rusty and ill-fitting. By the time she opened it the PM wondered if she should have asked the driver to stay, rather than facing alone the animal that was both strange and familiar. But it was too late, she stood staring at it, Equus grevyi, a Grévy’s zebra – if her strange correspondent had been correct – one of creation’s more beautiful and ridiculous beasts. The animal snorted, tossed her head, then stepped forward. Mr Beamish had also said she was tame. The PM stretched out a hand. The black and white head extended, and as the zebra walked down the ramp and into the morning, her first in her new land, and a particularly bright morning as well, the PM realised that Mr Beamish was a marvel, a genius. A stranger, half a world, a continent, away and yet he knew that the zebra was exactly what she wanted and needed.
Kerr’s side of the fence was crammed with foliage, a haven for birds, except that haven would not be the first word that sprang to her mind, now that she knew more about the man. She approached the fence from the opposite direction than she usually did. Something, she felt, was not quite right about it. She would have a good look before returning to her table under the magnolia. The fence was Colorbond, sturdy, opaque, but the ground at this point was uneven, dipping to leave large gaps beneath the bottom of the fence. She stood there, considering. It appeared that someone was digging a series of holes along the fence line, for what engineering purpose she could only imagine.
‘Woman! Get out of here, woman!’
She jerked her head up so quickly her neck hurt. There was no other woman in sight. Evidently the woman in question was her, but the PM felt unworthy of the attention, even less deserving of the insult. How was it that some men managed to make the word woman sound so derogatory? And why today should it bother her? She barely knew the man, had only just learned his name. There was no reason she should feel the effect of the insult. Woman. She had been called that before, several times, been told to get lost, woman, or leave me alone, woman, and she had been called a lot worse. In the last week of parliament she had been denounced as a middle-aged virginal vulture, the implications of which had not bothered her since she found the prospect of vultures having sex lives impossible. She had also recently been called a feral vixen and a hibernating sloth, while her government had been likened to an entire pit of venomous snakes. For some reason parliamentary debate inspired animal imagery. Insults like these were the reason she sported metaphorical duck feathers on her back.
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