Never a True Word

by Michael McGuire

  28

  ‘Good morning ladies and gentleman, thanks for your time today. I gather some of you want to ask me some questions. Go ahead. I reckon you’ll run out of questions before I run out of answers.’

  And so Sloan begins the thirty minutes that may make him or break him. You have to give it to him. He looks unfazed, relaxed and confident standing behind the lectern adorned with six large microphones and in front of the state flag, a bundle of cameras and numerous bright TV lights.

  I do my best to help by copying this pose. I am resolutely upbeat, happy, relaxed and as charming as I can be as the hacks filter out of the elevator and into the press conference room on the twelfth floor of the government’s administration office. There is the usual clamour of loud voices demanding to be heard but today Caldicott is longest and loudest and eventually everyone else fades away. It’s just Caldicott v. Sloan now.

  ‘Treasurer, what happened in the parliamentary bar that night with Alistair Armstrong?’

  This is clearly a softening-up question. The real blows are still to come. ‘Well, as a I acknowledged in my statement from the US, I had a disagreement in the parliamentary bar with Alistair, I probably said a few things I shouldn’t have, things were a little heated, I acted in a manner not befitting my position. I am sorry about that, but look I am only human. I make mistakes. I apologised to Alistair the next day and he was gracious enough to accept that apology and we have both moved on.’

  Caldicott again: ‘Surely that behaviour is just not acceptable from our second most important politician. The public has a right to expect better. Shouldn’t you do the decent thing and resign? Did Boyle ask you to step down?’

  ‘No, no he didn’t. I spoke to him and while he was not happy with me, he made it quite clear that he thought I was still the best person for the job.’

  ‘Did you offer to quit?’

  ‘No.’

  And so it went on. Just about every reporter in the room asks a variation of the same question and Sloan gives a variation of the same answer. I gave him strict orders to be as humble as possible and to not respond or get agitated by the inevitable goading he was about to experience. Not that I really thought he would stick to the script but he was doing well so far. I had my eye on Annabelle Howard. She was sitting in the third row just in front of the TV cameras and had not raised her voice to ask a question in the first fifteen minutes.

  But it was only a matter of time. Eventually, she entered the fray. ‘Treasurer, why have you waited so long before deciding to address the media on the subject of your erratic behaviour?’

  ‘As you know, Annabelle, I have been out of the country for the last three weeks carrying out important business for the state, ensuring we are at the forefront …’

  At which point she cuts him off.

  ‘Save the spin, Treasurer. This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened, is it? We have all heard the stories—the late nights, the drinking, the women, being thrown out of pubs. Let’s face it, you are a disgrace to the job and if you had any self-respect you would quit today. Why won’t you?’

  There’s a long silence. I am in a state of shock. Everybody in the room is dumbfounded by Howard’s outburst. They are squirming in their seats, lacking the courage to even look at Sloan. But the cameras are still pointed in his direction, waiting for an answer, the inevitable outburst, the lead to the six o’clock news. I look at Sloan, expecting to see the inevitable flushing of his face as he prepares to launch an all-out assault on Howard.

  Except I see something different. He looks wounded, uncertain, the victim of a physical rather than verbal assault. He takes a moment to compose himself and starts in a low, wavering voice.

  ‘Annabelle, I take my job very seriously. I take this position very seriously. It’s an honour I feel grateful for every day. If I thought I was damaging the state or this government, of which I am very proud, I would step down immediately. Yes, there have been times when my behaviour has perhaps been questionable. I have put myself in situations, as with Alistair, that would have been better avoided. But you know what, I’m human. I need to have a life outside these four walls. I need to have a life that is not recorded every moment by the media. But I will try and do better in the future.’ And then he stops. For a moment I think he is about to cry, but he gathers himself and resumes. ‘Ok, that’s all for today,’ and he walks from the podium, head held high, and disappears from the room. No one says a word.

  29

  Back in the office Sloan’s door is firmly shut. I consider knocking but decide he probably needs time on his own. Harry and Leo were also watching the press conference and are likewise trying to figure out what the latest episode in the Sloan soap opera will mean for us. I walk into Leo’s office and plonk myself into a chair. Bob joins us, having heard what befell Ray at the press conference. No one seems to know what to say. We are not sure whose job is more at risk here, his or ours. Leo finally breaks the silence. He hesitates, like he is balancing in his mind what he needs to say and how to begin. There’s a deep sigh, a little cough and even a scratch of the nose before he finally pipes up: ‘You know what? Fuck the lot of them. You know generally I hate that fucker. He doesn’t make life easy for any of us, but this time I feel a bit sorry for Ray. He may bring some of it on himself, what he did with Armstrong was crazy, but I don’t think that means he should be put through that kind of crap by half-smart, vindictive journos like Howard who only have shoulders so there is somewhere to put all those fucking chips. On this one let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and back him.’

  Bob snorts in agreement. Harry and I remain silent but it seems we are all with Leo. ‘The question,’ Leo says, ‘is what do we do now?’

  ‘Depends on Ray really,’ I say, muttering my first words to anyone since the end of the press conference. ‘Will he fight or will he flee?’

  ‘Oh, he’ll stay,’ says Bob, who has known him longer than the rest of us, going right back into the dark days of Opposition. ‘What else is he going to do anyway? We know he talks about how he always wants to get out into the business world and earn a squillion, and maybe he could, but deep down he knows this is as good as it gets for him.’

  ‘If he stays then I think we just have to get out there and fight,’ I say. ‘Let’s not hide him away. Get him out there, let him do Caldicott tomorrow. In fact, for the rest of the week he can talk to anyone who wants him. Even the Country Yokel and the Suburban Nobody as far as I care. Lets talk this storm out.’

  Harry objects. ‘There is no way he will agree to that. You saw what happened up there. He just about fell apart in front of the cameras. He’s losing it. More media may tip him over the edge.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I concede, ‘but I still think it’s his best chance of getting through this. If we hide him away, he’s done. If we leave a Sloan-sized vacuum for the media to fill in this town they will happily find their shovels and fill it full of shit.’

  As Harry starts to have another crack at changing my mind we hear Ray’s door open. We all swivel in our seats and watch him walk toward us. He doesn’t look angry; he doesn’t look ready to take out all his frustrations on us. What he looks is sad and beaten. The aggression has gone from his walk; his shoulders are rolled forward, his hands in his pockets. He sits down in the spare chair by Leo’s window and looks out toward the city.

  ‘I think I’ve had it, guys. I think those fuckers have got me this time. I don’t think I have the strength to fight another battle. They want to tear me down.’ ‘Has the Premier been on the phone to you?’ Bob asks sharply.

  ‘No,’ says Ray. ‘What have you heard? Did Jennifer and Mark come down?’

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ says Bob in his best soothing voice. ‘Just wondering if Frank had called.’

  ‘No, nothing.’

  We need to get this conversation back on track. ‘Ray, what did you mean there? Are you pulling the pin?’ I say.

  ‘I don’t know, mate. Some days all this just g
ets a bit much. I wish I could run away from it all. Who wants to be up in front of the cameras every day battling those self-important fuckwits. They smell blood, they want a kill—and the way things are going they are going to get one.’

  This is going all wrong. At a time like this selfishness is a great motivator. This bloke holds my career in his hands. He certainly wouldn’t give a stuff about it, but at least one of us needs to fight for it. If he quits there is no guarantee anyone else in government will give me a job. I have annoyed plenty of them by delivering Ray’s bad news. My guilt will be by association and not giving me another gig will make them feel better about themselves. And the newspaper wouldn’t take me back, especially after the Howard episode, so for now, god help me, my fate is in Ray’s bony hands. I take a deep breath and decide to go for it.

  ‘Ray, yes, this morning was a disaster. I can’t imagine how you felt having to stare down Howard and appeal for a little humanity from the inhumans present. But you can’t give into them. Who the fuck are they? Pissant reporters with a jumped-up sense of their own goddam genius. Most of them are journos because they weren’t smart enough to get into law and are now permanently angry because all their mates who did do law earn five times what they do. You, on the other hand, are the fucking Treasurer. There is no way I am letting you give them the satisfaction of seeing you walk away from this. Apart from anything else there is an election around the corner and we are about to wipe the floor with that other mob. Do you really want to miss that? After all those fucking years in Opposition, all the humiliations and the days they took the piss. Are you really going to walk away now?’ I pause, look around, shrug. ‘Sorry about that. Rant over.’

  I am aware that I can hear cars tootling on the road nine floors below. Ray has been carefully examining his fingernails during my little lecture and for another thirty seconds seems entirely absorbed in them.

  Eventually, he looks up at me. I’m not sure what is coming next. Most times Sloan is easy to read. He’s angry, he’s mad, he’s happy. Sloan is not a complicated bloke.

  Now he rises to his feet, walks towards me. Puts a hand on my shoulder, looks me in the eye, nods, and walks out of the room.

  30

  We hear the door close. Harry lets out a loud sigh. Bob has his head in his hands. Me, I just feel a little confused, although I take Sloan’s seeming endorsement as a good sign. As we sit in our quiet little huddle, no one daring to venture an opinion, Jennifer Masters came flying into the room.

  ‘What the fuck happened up there?’ she begins. ‘Jack, how could you hang him out like that? What were you thinking?’

  ‘Hold on. I told you we were doing this. You said and I quote: “Go for it”.’ ‘Why didn’t you stop them when it got ugly? You could have dragged him out.’

  ‘Oh yes, that would have looked fucking fabulous. “Spin doctor drags Treasurer out of rough press conference” would have been a magnificent headline in the paper.’

  ‘Ok. Fine. Whatever. Where is he now?’

  ‘Next door,’ says Harry. ‘He’s thinking about quitting.’

  ‘What?’ she yells so loudly the entire office can hear her. Masters spins on her heels, charges out of Leo’s office and straight into Ray’s. This is probably the true marker of Masters’ standing in Sloan’s eyes. No prevaricating, no stuffing around, not even any knocking. Just a quick yank on the door handle and march straight in, door closing behind her. We wait. There’s not much else we can do. We barely move. There is plenty of useful work we could be doing but the inertia of the moment is just too difficult to overcome. Anyway, what’s the point of doing any work when we could all be sacked in the next fifteen minutes.

  There is desultory conversation. I think we have given up trying to understand what the hell is going on in the next office. We drift around footy talk, after-work drinks on Friday, and whether Harry should ask out the new girl in the Premier’s office. The consensus seems to be that he should.

  Bob finds some mordant humour in the situation: ‘Do you think she’ll go out with a bloke on the dole, Harry?’

  The afternoon drags on. Maybe an hour passes before Masters comes out of Sloan’s office. She comes in to see us, a smile on her face, and announces: ‘Your master will see you now.’ We troop in.

  Sloan is sitting in his usual staff meeting chair.

  Sloan tells us to sit down. ‘Right, sorry about the drama this morning. I know that sometimes I lose my cool and say things I shouldn’t. But sometimes, no matter how hard I try … and I did try this morning. Jack, despite it all I think you were right to get me out there in front of them. It would have been fine if not for Howard. She got to me. Maybe I am losing my touch.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ asks Bob quietly.

  ‘Well, I’m not going to give in. You’re right. This is no time to walk away. I won’t let those fuckers beat me down. We have an election to win. Let’s get it done. Ok, that’s enough from me. Get back to work.’

  31

  After the madness comes a spell of relative sanity. Ray decides to take a couple of days off and nobody grumbles. Even my phone seems to have stopped ringing for a while. Maybe everybody in the media world is as sick of me as I am of them. It gives me a little time to deal with some of the routine bullshit that creeps up on you in this job. I’d never claim to be the neatest or best organised chap in the building. At the best of times my desk looks like it’s one step from a paper recycling operation. After three weeks on the road, it’s fair to say I have a reasonable amount of clearing up to do. It’s clear the paperless office is still but a distant dream.

  The pile of paper in the in-tray is about twenty centimetres high when I start, with a sigh. There are files to cross off, letters to open, invitations to ignore. Down the bottom I come across a large yellow envelope. My name and address is printed on a small white rectangle, but there’s no indication who has sent it. No sign where it has come from, except a postmark from the central post office in the city. Ripping open the gummy top of the envelope I stick my hand inside and pull out an A4-sized photograph, more blur than focus, but it’s clearly taken on board some kind of yacht. There’s nothing else in there. No note, no letter. The sharp reflections of white light bouncing off bright blue water is obscuring the three figures on the boat. There are no recognisable faces, you can’t even tell if they are men or women. The figures are just dark outlines.

  I look at it front and back but can’t determine anything of note. It’s all a bit strange. I can’t imagine why someone has sent me this. It’s arrival gives me an uncomfortable sensation and I slide it into my bottom drawer and decide I will give it more thought later.

  After the press conference meltdown there is two whole weeks of calm. Sloan returns after a week away and works diligently in the office. He attends all the meetings scheduled in his diary, even the staff ones, and is unusually pleasant to be around. In small huddles and in low tones so we are not overhead, some of us ponder whether this time the change is for real. That perhaps finally he has learnt his lesson and has resolved to behave like a human being on a full-time basis.

  In retrospect you have to wonder how we could have been so foolish. It was parliament that brought the old Ray back to life. In all our nattering about whether the man had really changed we forgot one crucial factor. The two weeks of calm were non-sitting weeks. He was not subject to the pressures of performing in the chamber on a daily basis, not subject to the relentless goading from the fuckwits on the other side and not subject to having every word dissected by a media who by now would be only too delighted to see him fall.

  I hate going to parliament. Stuff all your talk about democracy and the idea of the people’s representatives thrashing out the big issues of the day. It’s all a façade. The truth is that nothing of any real note is ever accomplished during sitting weeks. All the hard work, the negotiating, and the preparation are done when parliament is in recess. What parliament boils down to is theatre for bad actors. It’s a stage for
the pollies to convince themselves of the importance of their work. Where they attack the other side of politics with hysteria and hyperbole, or stand for hours on end debating some minor point that no one cares about to obstruct a bill. The questions are inane, the answers incomprehensible. If you want to lose faith in democracy spend an hour watching Question Time or spend a day reading Hansard. It will cure you of any high ideals you might have felt towards the democratic process.

  But Sloan takes it seriously. He assumes the boxer pose in parliament, seemingly on his toes ready to duck, weave and attack. He treats it like a sport and every day is measured as a win or loss. He also enjoys living on the edge. Each and every day parliament is on we try and coral him for ten minutes so we can run through what might happen in Question Time. Every day, without fail, he will charge back to his office from whatever lunch he is at, usually when the bells ring to signal the start of Question Time, demand the folder of briefings that have been prepared on whatever subjects we thought may come up, and dash into the chamber.

  The feeling after he leaves the office is akin to that of a trailer park in Oklahoma after the latest tornado has swept through. You are glad it’s all over but immediately start to worry about the damage done.

  Then we wait. The next hour is a long, generally boring one, punctuated by moments of terror. Sloan takes his mobile into the chamber. Leo and Harry are usually on office phone duty praying the thing never rings. When it does the recipient is usually on the end of a barked instruction delivered in such a way that whoever answers the phone feels as if they have fucked up in some way.

  Occasionally it’s an annoying but harmless request such as: ‘Mate, I forgot the newspaper can you bring it down to me.’ More often the questions start with words that you know can only bring trouble, as in ‘Where is …?’, ‘Why the …?’, ‘How could you …?’. It is a fraught time. In parliament one slip of the tongue, one error of fact exposes Sloan to ridicule and point scoring from the other side. Sloan is not a man who takes ridicule well. And if Sloan tells parliament something factual that turns out not be true he can be disciplined for ‘misleading parliament’.