‘I don’t, and I do owe you one. So, what is it you want me to do?’
‘Get me a meeting with Lois Bailey.’
‘The PM’s wife?’ Alec nodded. ‘Why?’
‘I want her to persuade her husband to support a program I am developing.’
‘About?’
‘Postnatal depression.’
‘Alec Moncrieff. An actual cause. I am surprised and impressed.’
‘Don’t get too excited. This will be the one and only time, I swear it.’
‘Right. Well, I’ll need more than that to get her to agree to meeting with an opposition staffer.’
‘Tell her I recognised her story, that my sister’s was similar, and that I am hoping she can help me because the only way this will work is if it is bipartisan.’
‘Family and a heart. Wonders will never cease.’
‘You aren’t going to be difficult about this, are you?’
‘Of course not. As it happens, it’s a cause close to my own heart as well. So congratulations, Alec. You’ve used up your favour over something I would have done for you anyway.’
Damn. ‘Can I withdraw the favour bit?’
‘You cannot.’ Lobelia stood. ‘I am seeing Lois this afternoon, and I’ll call you with the time for your meeting this evening.’
Alec frowned. ‘You’re not leaving, are you?’
‘Is there something else you wanted to say to me?’
‘No, but you did say if I told you mine, you’d set me up with some goss.’
Lobelia shook her head. ‘You are hopeless, Alec Moncrieff.’
‘Did I happen to mention I have a bottle of a certain substance in my bottom desk drawer?’
Lobelia laughed as she sat down. ‘Outgunned. Very well. Apart from the usual drunken shenanigans from the usual drunken louts, two things stood out to me. One was that your opposition spokeswoman for health appeared to be taking a lot of pills for someone who claims to be so healthy. A lot of pills. And then there was John Worthing—you know him, right?’
‘Blakely’s COS. Apparently quite good.’
‘A competitor to you, dear boy.’ Alec wanted to squirm in his seat. That so wasn’t true. ‘Anyway, he was talking to me when suddenly, he was transfixed by something over my shoulder. I followed his gaze to a stunning blonde woman in an amazing red dress. The bell rang to go in and John just abandoned me, took off after her. Later, I saw the two of them sitting together, leaning towards each other, talking as if they had known each other forever. They left together just after the main was served. Well, they tried to make it look like they were leaving separately, but they most assuredly were not. So there you go—a health issue and a hook-up. Is that good enough for you?’
‘That is brilliant.’ Alec already knew that the opposition spokeswoman for health had some hidden health issues, although if she was actually taking pills in public, it had developed and maybe needed to be looked into. The news about John was gold.
He reached into his drawer and pulled out the bottle of Shaw Botrytis Semillon. ‘For you.’
‘You are too kind.’ Lobelia took it.
Alec walked her out. Still no Gwen. He shook Lobelia’s hand and after the lobbyist was gone, said to Hamish, ‘Send Gwen into see me when she gets back, will you?’
Back in his office, Alec had to stop himself dancing with glee. Not only was he on the verge of an appointment with the woman who could help make his program a reality, but he had the most delicious gossip about John Worthing.
Lunch was soon approaching without any sign of Gwen. Alec had ducked his head out into the office several times, in between looking through social photos of last night’s event. There were several women in red, but none that he would have called ‘stunning’ and only a couple of blondes. Who could the mysterious woman be?
When he poked his head out again for the last time before he headed out for food, Gwen was at her desk, putting a pile of papers on her desk.
‘Gwen, thank goodness you’re back.’ Alec stepped into the main room. ‘I need to see you for a moment.’
‘Certainly. But first, here’s Peter Fenton to meet with you.’
Alec looked around to see Peter Fenton, staffer for one of the new opposition senators, in the doorway, grinning as if he’d won some sort of prize. Which, Alec thought, he had. It was a ballsy move, turning up here pretending you had a meeting and hoping you didn’t get turned away. He had to admire it.
‘Of course. Peter, come in, take a seat.’ Alec looked at Gwen. ‘I’ll talk to you after.’
‘Thanks, Alec. I just know you’re going to have some great advice,’ Peter said as he came into the room.
Alec sat and turned on his mega-watt smile. The smile that looked so happy hid what he was really thinking. ‘What can I help you with?’
Peter wasn’t just ballsy. He was ambitious, for his boss at least, who had entered parliament at the last election. He came armed with four different ideas on how to get the member more press coverage and thus more leverage in the party room.
Shame for him it was entirely the wrong approach. Alec let him go through all the ideas and waited until Peter said, ‘So what do you think?’ before he tore it apart.
‘Great ideas, and if press coverage was what you really wanted, they would absolutely work. But you don’t want press coverage.’
Peter frowned. ‘I’ve done studies, and I’ve seen—’
‘Sorry, old chap, but you studied the wrong thing. Sure, the people with the most power in the party get the most press coverage, but they get the press coverage because of the power, not the other way around. You need to get the power first.’
‘How do I do that?’
‘The factions.’
Peter shook his head. ‘The boss is very anti-factions. Thinks they are destroying the party. He won’t play along.’
Alec leant back in his chair. ‘That’s an interesting point of view.’ He casually leant over and typed the member’s name into his search engine.
‘He’s determined to be a new voice in the party, but he needs leverage in the party room to get people to listen to him. He’s tried networking, talking people around, but they either ignore him or actually laugh in his face.’
Well, the man was talking about getting rid of factions. Alec looked at the reports of his preselection. It turned out his electorate was split between the left and right sides of the party, and Peter’s boss had been their consensus candidate. A one termer if Alec had ever seen one.
‘You need your boss to understand he’s playing the long game,’ Alec said. ‘He’s talking about turning around decades of party handling. He definitely wants to stay out of the media. It will piss people off if he starts getting coverage he doesn’t deserve. What he needs to become right now is the ultimate party supporter. He needs to be one hundred per cent behind everything the party does. And be vocal about it. He can stand in the party room, but only in support. Every press release should be in support. People will notice. They’ll start watching him. He needs to keep going, to build up the trust. It’s going to be at least eighteen months before he can even begin to whisper about whether the factions are good for the party. Long game.’
Peter scribbled it all down. ‘He wants to act now.’
‘Then getting him acting for his constituency. Point out to him he won’t get re-elected if he’s a crap local member, and he wants to be re-elected. So make this year about hitting loud goals for his people. Or loud failures. Whatever. Make sure he gets lots of press back home about how hard he’s trying to achieve everything they want. Then he can spin it—I could do all this if we were in government. Helps the party. He wins. Everyone wins.’
‘Brilliant. Thank you, Alec, thank you. This is invaluable.’
That should have been the end of the meeting, but Peter didn’t want to leave. He prattled on about the leadership speculation (they should definitely hammer that), taxes (they needed to be dropped) and the economy (needed a boost). By the time Alec fin
ally ushered him out of the door, more than an hour had passed.
Alec slumped at his desk, shaking his head. He hated being railroaded. Then he stormed into the main part of the office.
‘Next time someone turns up for a meeting and they’re not in my calendar, you turn them away, understand?’ He leant over Gwen, glaring at her.
‘But he was in your calendar.’
Alec blinked. ‘What?’
‘He was in your calendar. See?’
Alec strode around the desk to look over her shoulder. Sure enough, there was the meeting. But Alec hadn’t put it in. He never scheduled meetings over lunch. Lunch was too important.
Then he realised what the smiley face was about. ‘Worthing. I’ll kill him.’
‘What?’
Alec patted Gwen’s shoulder. ‘Be warned, dear Gwendolen. You may have to bail me out of jail this evening.’
‘Hopefully after you’ve bought me several drinks,’ Gwen said.
Alec went back into his office, closed the door and made the call.
‘John Worthing.’
‘How did you get into my computer, you piece of crap?’
‘How did you get into my phone, you lump of excrement?’
‘This isn’t funny, John. I haven’t had lunch. I am hungry and grumpy and I’ve just had to waste an hour of my day talking to an idiot.’
‘Surely not. I thought all the members of your party were angels sent from the heavens to save us all.’
‘How did you get into my computer?’
‘I’m not telling.’
Alec ground his teeth. ‘Well, that’s the last lunch you ever ruin. I—’
John interrupted. ‘Far from the last, dear chap.’
Alec frowned, then opened his calendar. A lunch meeting tomorrow. And Friday. And every day next week. ‘You bastard.’
‘I’m going to enjoy the story of how you got out of all of them. I hope the burlesque was worth it.’
Alec hung up, swearing. Some people didn’t deserve to live.
He was so angry he actually got up and paced for a couple of minutes before he remembered how hungry he was. He opened his door and yelled, ‘Gwendolen, get me some lunch,’ then slammed it again.
More pacing and as he paced, he went through his options. You could call off one, maybe two meetings, but seven? People in the party would begin to suspect he didn’t like them and didn’t want anything to do with them. The truth was a dangerous thing for people to know. But he wasn’t going to give John Worthing the satisfaction of ruining another seven lunches.
The door opened and Gwen came in. ‘They’ve run out of the chicken schnitzel. All over the building. I made them call around, I swear. I had to get you the chicken Caesar wrap.’ Gwen put the wrap, along with the usual emergency roast vegetable focaccia on his desk.
‘That will do,’ Alec muttered. It was such a shit when you couldn’t find your favourite food anywhere in the building.
The ideas came in quick succession, explosion after explosion, until the final plan was fully formed. Alec spun around. Gwen hadn’t even left the room yet.
‘Gwen, get in touch with all my lunch appointments for this week and the next. Invite them all to a breakfast meeting tomorrow. Say I want to start up a little club of staffers giving each other support. Once a month. Find a room and organise some catering. Actually, no, don’t do that. I’ll work something else out. Something special. If they can’t make it tomorrow, then organise a new meeting, but not at lunch time. Got it?’
‘Got it,’ Gwen said, and she left.
Alec looked at his watch. It was too early in the day to order catering. There was too much time for extra supplies to be brought in. No, he’d do it at the last minute. And then tomorrow morning, when the cafes opened, they’d all have to do so without blueberry muffins. The one thing John Worthing insisted upon in his day.
Alec sat, opened the wrap and took a bite. Hmm, not bad. Maybe he’d start ordering this instead of the schnitzel more regularly. Then his attention was given over to the food.
***
Alec was at home when he realised he’d completely forgotten to ask Gwen about John’s mystery woman. So he called her.
‘Last night. Was there any women wearing red?’
‘A few. Why?’
‘One of them hooked up with John Worthing.’
‘What? What makes you think that?’
‘Lobelia Prism told me. She and John were talking and she thought they’d end up sitting together, but then next thing she knew he was totally entranced by a stunning blonde in a killer red dress. They talked quite earnestly. They didn’t leave together, but Lobelia has no doubt they ended up together. Lobelia reads people like most of us read books.’
‘What does it matter if he did hook up with someone?’
‘What does it matter? Darling girl, he tried to ruin more than a week’s worth of lunches. He shall not get away with it. I need you to find out who the woman is.’
‘How shall I do that?’
‘I have no idea. I do have a clue, however.’
‘What?’
‘Her initials are CC.’
‘What?’
‘CC. He’s been meeting with someone of that name regularly. Oh, he said it stood for credit card but seriously, as if that is real. No, this CC and the woman who he left the dinner with must be the same person. I have no doubt.’
A pause. ‘I’ll find out who CC is.’
‘Good work.’ Alec hung up. Gwen was in a much better position to do some snooping without being caught than he was, and she would recognise the woman the moment she met her.
Then his phone beeped. A message from Lobelia. ‘Seeing LB eleven Friday morning at Lodge’.
Brilliant. Absolutely amazing. It was going to happen. It was.
John
‘Here. These are for you.’
A plastic bag was dumped in the middle of the table, followed by Alec sitting on the other side. John opened the bag and grinned.
‘Weren’t interested in the muffins, were they?’
‘Turns out Georgina Funder is gluten free, and no one else wanted to eat the muffins in front of her.’
‘You did.’
‘Of course. But I couldn’t eat them all myself, so here.’
John picked up one of the blueberry muffins and bit into it. It wasn’t as fresh as it would have been this morning, but it was welcome.
‘I did consider revenge against the great blueberry muffin heist,’ he said. ‘But then I saw it play out to its natural conclusion and it was you and I, standing in the courtyard, watching the dust rise from the rubble that was Parliament House and saying ‘well, that escalated quickly’ and I decided to be the better man and end things now.’
‘A wise decision.’ Alec lifted his beer. ‘Here’s to peace in our times.’ They toasted.
‘So, how was the burlesque?’
‘Terrible.’ Alec took a muffin. ‘Even when he’s played by a gorgeous six foot blond fellow with a six pack, John Howard just shouldn’t be seen in his underwear.’
‘I can see that.’
‘Had its moments though. Janet was sensational.’
‘I always knew you had a secret Janet fetish.’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’ Alec finished the muffin and took another. ‘I was quite taken with the musical selections. Better Get The Party Started for the first election win. Ego is Not a Dirty Word for Peter Costello. Made me wonder what music would be chosen for the movie version of my life. Yesterday afternoon when I was trying to deal with all the lunch appointments, it would have been the Benny Hill theme.’
‘Yackety Sax. Good choice for you. When I went on the great muffin hunt this morning, it would have been Ride of the Valkyrie. I had to go out to Fyshwick.’
Alec grinned. ‘Cue the finding muffin in Fyshwick jokes.’
‘Actually, I found this fabulous bakery called The Flute. Amazing cakes. I am very impressed with the culinary expertise.’
&nb
sp; ‘Noted.’ Alec got out his phone.
‘If you took your job as seriously as you do food, you’d be unstoppable.’
‘When my job gives me the pleasure food does, I will,’ Alec said. ‘So, how was the dinner really? Apart from inspiring your Machiavellian plan.’
‘Wasn’t the worst,’ John said. ‘Caught up with Lobelia. You know she’s always good value.’
‘Damn. Knew I should have made Barry keep that dinner appointment with her. You actually had some fun, didn’t you?’
‘More fun than you, I’d wager.’
‘Damn and damn again. Well, I have learnt my lesson. I shall attempt to undo you no longer.’
‘Great plan.’ Alec reached for the bag and John slapped his hand. ‘Stop eating all my muffins.’
‘I bought them.’
‘Your fault.’ John tied the bag up and put it on the ground by his feet. ‘So why did you organise for Lobelia and Barry to meet?’
‘No. You have to do better than that to winkle my secrets out of me. Let’s discuss important things. Where shall we eat?’
‘Somewhere quick,’ John said. ‘I have work to do.’
‘If you took food as seriously as you do your job, you’d be a much happier person,’ Alec said.
***
By eight-thirty, John was back home. The reports he needed to read were sitting on the dining table, ready for him, daring him. Instead, he went out onto his balcony.
The night was cool, but not frigid. A breeze tossed leaves on the grass below. John leant on the railing and considered the reason for his inability to concentrate.
Gwendolen Fairford.
She’d been popping into his head constantly for the past two days. He knew all the reasons he shouldn’t go there. She worked for the opposition. She worked for Alec Moncrieff. They were Romeo and Juliet, forever doomed.
John couldn’t stop thinking about her. About how her smile made him want to make her laugh. About how her laughter made him want to tear her clothes off. About how amazing her body felt, under and around him.
All the reasons not to want her, yet all the reasons it was the best idea he’d ever had.
The Importance of Ernestine Page 7