The Importance of Ernestine

by Elizabeth Dunk

  Not returning to Canberra was an option, but not one she valued. She loved her job at Parliament House. She loved the friendships she had made—Gwen and, yes, even John, the lying bastard. And she instinctively hated the idea of being forced to leave the life she had created. She’d been moved on from homes too much as a child to find joy in it now.

  She remembered Alec’s words—tell your story first up, then it can’t be news anymore. That seemed sensible, but this wasn’t just a story people would report and then forget. She was a member of the Prime Minister’s family and while in Australia that didn’t automatically engender the sort of coverage it did in other countries, she would definitely be an exception to that rule for some time.

  If she made her life boring enough, though, they would lose interest quickly enough. The PM’s daughter going to work, going home and hanging with her friends would only be news worthy once or twice.

  Then there was Alec. She couldn’t stop thinking of him, couldn’t stop wanting him, even though the lies he’d told had been seriously wrong. But then he’d been so good, helping her with her parents, supporting her, not pressuring her to do anything but giving her the space she needed to make her own decisions. It was now clear to see the lie had been a mistake, but it wasn’t the entirety of who he was and, for the most part, what he was was good.

  But if she dated someone who worked for the opposition—that would keep the media interest high and she didn’t want that.

  ‘Cecily.’

  She looked up to see Gwen had come out of the house. ‘I thought you were napping?’

  ‘I was almost asleep, then my phone beeped. Cecily, Alec has quit his job and the party.’

  ‘What?’ Cecily sat up, swinging her legs around to sit on the chair. ‘Why?’

  ‘The party accused him of betrayal because he helped the PM’s wife and helped you. So he told them where they could stick it. And there’s more—John’s left as well.’

  ‘John?’

  ‘Mrs B lost her cool that John put you and your needs before hers. So he walked as well. I thought you might want this.’ Gwen held out Cecily’s phone, which had been turned off since she left home.

  Cecily took the phone. ‘Thanks.’ She switched it on and it started beeping madly with messages and texts and emails.

  ‘Wow.’ Gwen sat down beside her.

  Cecily started with the texts, looking at who sent them. There were texts from co-workers at PH. Texts from the Perths. Texts from John, Alec, Michelle, the PMO.

  Cecily read the PMO text first. They were asking to know where she was, so they could keep an eye on her. She responded, letting them know and saying she was fine and didn’t need any assistance. Then she responded to the Perths, letting them know that she was fine, shocked but happy and thanking them for their love and guidance over the years. Then Michelle, who offered her help and support regardless of what Cecily did. Cecily let her know it was appreciated, and she didn’t know when she would be back at work, but that she would be.

  Right, decision number one, commitment number one, made.

  Then John’s. He gave her support, encouragement, belief in her, and then he told the story of having left Mrs B. Then there was the list of job offers he’d had, and that he was a bit cold on going to work for someone else after the bitterness of Mrs B’s treatment of him.

  ‘John’s thinking of not returning to politics,’ Cecily said.

  ‘I know,’ Gwen said. ‘He sent me a text about it. I’m not sure what to think. If he doesn’t work for the party any more, than that’s the barrier to us being together removed. Except for ensuring he’s truly remorseful about the lies and making sure he’ll never do it again. But can he be happy not working for the party? I do want him to be happy.’

  ‘Maybe you should talk to him about it?’

  ‘Maybe I should. We can’t sort anything out if we don’t talk.’ Gwen frowned. ‘Am I forgiving him too easily?’

  ‘You can do this without forgiving him.’

  ‘But I will. I know I will. I’ll hear his voice and I’ll melt.’

  ‘You’ll know when you talk to him. You’ll be able to tell if he’s ready to be forgiven.’ Cecily looked at her phone, at Alec’s unopened texts. ‘Would Alec want to be with me, now that I am the PM’s daughter? I’m going to have media all over me.’

  ‘The only way you’ll know is to ask.’

  Cecily nodded and opened Alec’s texts.

  They generally followed the same pattern as John’s—giving her support, offering to be there for her. Then there were texts that said a message had been left. So Cecily flicked to her messages.

  Michelle had left a message, along with a number of unknown numbers. In the middle were two messages from Alec. She listened to the first.

  ‘Beautiful Cecily. Cecily Carter for PM. When you get the chance, Cecily Carter for PM, call me. My life has changed, forever.’

  His words were slurred and there was a lot of background noise. It was the most un-Alec like message she could have expected.

  The second—‘Cecily, I see I left you a message last night. Don’t recall what I said—drunk for the first time in my life and I swear, it will be the last. If I said anything offensive, I apologise. I’ll call again once the work crew jackhammering in my skull finish.’

  Drunk Alec Moncrieff. Cecily would have liked to see that. It sounded like she needed to wait for him to call her to find out what had happened, rather than attempt to talk to him when he had a hangover.

  Instead, she called John.

  ‘You seriously walked out on Mrs B?’

  ‘I did. Horrid old witch. Can’t believe she thought I should throw you over for her career advancement. Already backfiring for her. Apparently the PM is right pissed about it.’

  ‘So what will you do now?’

  ‘I don’t know. How are you doing? Worked your head around it yet?’

  ‘No. I keep getting stuck on who they are. On the impact that will have. I wish they were just normal people, so all I had to adjust to and decide about was having a family.’

  ‘You were never going to be the progeny of normal people, Cecily. But yes, I can see that this is more than usually above the norm. I was on TV last night.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Managed to keep your grubby foster families off the current affair shows by promising myself to one of them. And Michelle has had her longed-for image change. She’s been on television several times, talking about you, looking very serene and calm and lovely and people are saying the nicest things about her.’

  ‘She needs to make a major speech in the chamber,’ Cecily said. ‘Something that makes her look serious and committed to the people.’

  ‘Have already suggested that to her, my dear.’

  ‘See, you still want to be involved in politics.’

  ‘I don’t know. Honestly, the past few weeks have had me questioning the whole party thing. Is it that important? It broke up Gwen and I—’

  ‘You broke up Gwen and you, with your lies.’

  ‘I know. Was the party worth that? Is it worth enslaving yourself to an ideal when it means working with people like Mrs B? Am I better off influencing things outside the system?’

  ‘Or better off working within, and being one of the people that changes things.’

  ‘Indeed. But is that ridiculously idealistic, when being idealistic has robbed me of so much?’

  ‘And gained you so much. You probably would never have met Gwen if you weren’t working in Parliament House.’

  ‘So true, so true. Life is a conundrum, Cecily. But what’s important right now is getting things right for you.’

  Cecily sighed. ‘I don’t know what’s expected of me. It’s like every time I got moved to a new foster home. I crept around, not making a peep, hoping they wouldn’t pay me any attention until I worked out the rules of how to survive.’

  ‘Well, this time you can talk to people to find out the rules. I think Mrs Bailey in particular woul
d be helpful.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cecily said. ‘Yes, she probably would be. Thank you, John. What are you doing to make things up with Gwen?’

  ‘Apart from apologising profusely and begging? It has occurred to me that taking a job outside of politics will help a lot. But it needs to be something that will engage me and do good.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve got a lot of thinking to do, and I have a phone call to make.’

  ‘Take care, and call me any time.’

  Cecily hung up and went through the messages from numbers she didn’t know until she found the one she was looking for—‘Anything you need, Cecily, you can call me any time—Lois Bailey’.

  With a shaking finger, Cecily pressed the icon to call her mother.

  ‘Hello?’ Lois Bailey sounded calm, which was a good thing.

  ‘Mrs Bailey? It’s Cecily Carter.’ A part of Cecily wanted to add ‘Your daughter’ but that sounded stupid.

  ‘Cecily, how wonderful to hear from you. I hope you are somewhere safe.’

  ‘I am. A friend has brought me to her parents’ property in country Victoria. No one knows where I am. Are you safe?’

  ‘I am. There are some media gathered at the gate to the property but that’s more than a kilometre from the house and there’s a hill in between so I can’t see them and they can’t see me. I’m only answering calls of numbers I know from people I want to speak to, so I’m quite safe here.’

  ‘But you’ll have to leave the farm and face them, eventually.’

  ‘Indeed, and you’ll return to Canberra and meet them. I am so sorry you are having to deal with this, Cecily. It’s enough that you have re-discovered your family and need to deal with that, let alone the media intrusion.’

  ‘Actually, that’s why I called you. I was hoping you’d have some advice, so I can stop worrying as much.’

  ‘Generally, I have found that if you give the media polite smiles and small talk, but don’t engage, they get bored and leave you alone. But then, I haven’t been a sensation before.’

  ‘What are you planning on when you do face them?’ Cecily said.

  There was a pause. ‘The best thing will be to talk to them. Give a media conference, provide a statement, if you have some friends in the media you can trust then allow them to ask questions so it appears you are participating but don’t open yourself to questions that you don’t want to answer. Then go polite but say nothing. They may then go and try to dig up things to say about you, and when they do you just ignore it. It can be exhausting, expending all this additional energy in trying to keep them at bay, but if you do it politely then you aren’t feeding them and eventually a better story will come along. It always does. It’s just a matter of time.’

  ‘I don’t have any friends in the media.’

  ‘Your father and I do.’ Cecily swayed with the impact of that simple sentence. Your father and I. Four words spoken to billions of children throughout the years, but the first time she had heard them.

  ‘When you return to Canberra, have the PMO organise the media event for you. They’ll tell you who it is safe to call upon and who not. And then you can go about your life and after a while, they’ll get over it.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ Cecily said. ‘What if they never get over it?’

  ‘They will,’ Lois said. ‘The media machine needs fresh news. People get over the old stuff. They’ll try to find an angle to turn your news back into fresh news to keep it going, but eventually it runs out. It will be absolutely horrible while it lasts, but it will end. Do not worry about that. Your life will return to normal. And then when that happens, you can put your mind to working out whether you will accept your new family into your life or not.’

  ‘You’re prepared to wait?’

  ‘I am. I know I have no right to expect any relationship with you. I abandoned you, and that is unforgiveable. I am ready and willing to accept you into my life, but the choice is completely and one hundred per cent yours.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Cecily said. ‘I appreciate that. I am glad that I know now, who I really am, where I really belong. I just need time to work it all together in my head so it makes sense. Right now it still feels like a dream.’

  ‘I understand. Regardless of what you decide, Cecily, I am so glad that I now know that you are alive, and safe and well, and that you have turned into a remarkable person. I am proud of you.’

  Tears welled in Cecily’s eyes. Words she never expected her mother to say to her. ‘Thank you.’

  She hung up, stood and walked over to the horse paddock. Jupiter came over and pushed her nose against Cecily’s shoulder. Cecily put her arms around Jupiter’s neck and cried into her mane.

  On her way back to the house, Cecily contacted the PMO and told them she would be back in Canberra Sunday evening and would like to speak to the media Monday morning before going back to work. They promised to make all the arrangements.

  Dinner was being served when Gwen’s father came home. They all gathered around and sat and waited for him to take the first bite and compliment Gwen’s mother, as seemed the tradition.

  Instead, he looked at Cecily. ‘So, you are the PM’s daughter?’

  Cecily’s first reaction was to jump to her feet and run away, but she curtailed it. Instead, she curled her hands into fists in her lap to control the reaction. ‘We are still awaiting DNA tests to confirm it, but it appears so.’

  ‘Must have been a shock.’

  This conversation seemed headed the right way. ‘Yes, sir. I grew up not knowing my parents at all, so to find them, and hear the story, has been very shocking.’

  ‘Not to mention the politics.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Gwen murmured and Cecily got the feeling things were about to go terribly bad.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘That he’s on that side, and as you are family you’re going to have to subscribe to it as well. Must be a bitter pill to swallow.’

  Cecily wasn’t sure how to respond so was thankful when Gwen stepped in.

  ‘Cecily has always been a supporter of the other side of politics,’ she said in a soft, steady voice. ‘She works for a government senator.’

  Gwen’s father’s eyes almost bulged out of his head. ‘What?’

  ‘Cecily works for the other side. Is a member of the party. And she is my friend.’ Gwen smiled at Cecily and Cecily had never been prouder of anyone.

  ‘We cannot be friends with people who believe what they believe,’ her father spluttered.

  ‘Of course we can. Cecily is a fine, funny, supportive, interesting person. Okay, so her views on how to better this country differ to mine, but we agree that we want to make Australia a better place and that is a great basis to work from for understanding.’

  ‘There is no understanding,’ her father sneered and shot to his feet. ‘I cannot believe you bought this person into my home, Gwendolen.’

  Gwen stood as well. ‘Her name is Cecily, she is my friend and she is in need. I mistakenly thought that human feelings would mean more to you than politics. I was wrong.’

  ‘You will remove her from this house instantly. Do you hear me, young lady?’

  ‘Loud and clear.’ Gwen nodded at Cecily. ‘Come. We do not want to spend another night under a roof supported by hate.’

  In Gwen’s room, Cecily took hold of her hand. ‘I’m so sorry. So sorry. I’ll go to the station, get a train back to Canberra, and you can stay here and repair things with your family—’

  ‘I have no intention of repairing that,’ Gwen said. ‘I’m ashamed that he could say those things. I have no wish to be the daughter of a man who would act like that to another human being. We are going to the pub for the night, and we are going to have a fabulous pub dinner and drink and laugh and show the whole world that we don’t give two hoots for hate. Then tomorrow we shall find somewhere to stay and my family can go get fucked.’

  ‘Gwen.’ Tears sprung in Cecily’s eyes. How could her finding her fami
ly rob another woman of hers?

  Gwen shook her head. ‘I mean it, Cecily. When politics becomes more important than friendship, then I am done with it and with the people who peddle that shit.’

  The pub was a traditional old two-story building, with accommodation on top and the bar and restaurant on the ground floor. The room they got (with twin beds) was basic, without a bar fridge but with a hand basin in a corner. The beds were comfortable and Cecily lay on hers with a sigh.

  ‘I’m not sure I can face going down and seeing people,’ she said. ‘I just want to hide away and lick my wounds.’

  ‘I understand,’ Gwen said. ‘I’ll go down, get us some drinks and order some dinner. They do the best burger you will ever taste here.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ Cecily said.

  Cecily closed her eyes after Gwen left, her mind whirring with how she could possibly mend the fences between Gwen and her family when her phone rang.

  When she saw it was Alec, she answered. ‘I am so glad it’s you.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. Are you all right? John said he spoke to you this afternoon and all was going well.’

  ‘It was, and then it went to shit. Gwen’s father kicked us out because I am on the wrong side of politics.’

  ‘You are fucking kidding me.’

  Cecily almost dropped the phone, she was so shocked by the vehemence of Alec’s words and voice. ‘No. It appears he’s even more of a believer than any of us, let alone our bosses. The mere idea of someone who supports the government being in his house was enough to almost cause a heart attack. And lovely Gwen just stood up to him, told him off for not being nice and took me away from there. How do I fix things with her family? It’s my fault.’

  ‘It’s not your fault. It’s his fault for being a dick. How did lovely, sweet Gwen come from that household?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it is her household, and that is her family and I need to get them back together.’ Cecily’s voice choked up as she fought back tears.

  ‘My darling. Where are you?’

  ‘The pub at Tybrim. Gwen I think is intent on staying until the wedding on Saturday, and she should, but I can’t stay here when my presence is tearing her family apart. So I have to go, but I don’t know where or when or how.’ The tears started to roll.