Challenge

by Paul Daley

  And I promise you this, I said, the days of the small-target approach in my party, of trying to morph into government by being the same as them, finished at the last election. This is my contract with you.

  I meant it. Absolutely. I just hadn’t quite figured out how the fuck I was going to do it.

  Anyway, the polls—qual, quant, party, union, corporate, media, public, private—shot a manhole straight through the roof of Parliament House on the back of my new conversation with voters about the window. I was a human cannonball flying high, supersonic, looking down on the enemies and always with a wary eye out for Shark Face, too.

  It was utterly elating. Like just one other feeling: zipping out of the ruck, tearing round the flank, one, two, three bounces, a sidestep and then bang—long, deep, straight, right-footed torpedo goalwards, the fans in the Nolan Stand going absolutely fucking mental while the ball is still floating up there and curving inwards over the top, dead centre, of the big sticks. That feeling. That’s how I felt for months and months, after every poll and public appearance and live TV and radio interview.

  The journos and those treacherous, venal, lobotomised shock jocks couldn’t figure it out, kept saying, Stuff like what you’re saying—cook for your kids at home, doctors in schools, reciprocity—it’s hardly rocket science, and I’d go, Well, why hasn’t any other genius said it then, eh?

  But I also knew the Tories would scour the universe for shit to use against me. They’d go personal—and quick. It’s what they always did. Because it’s what my party had always traditionally done better than them. The problem for me was that the conservatives had become every bit as good at it.

  I went rogue from the start. My lot could never control me. But then again, when things were going so well they didn’t really want to.

  And then after maybe six months the polls went post-honeymoon, which is to say they went from stratospheric to excellent. And that’s when things started to get a little hairy. Suddenly, I was wondering if Shark Face was behind every door and around every corner. I’ll admit that my paranoia heightened when the pros from party HQ and party-friendly consultancies—press secs, policy advisers, strategy advisers, image consultants, a chief of staff before Eddie who I’d never heard of—began lobbing into my office to run things just so.

  Change felt like it was happening almost by osmosis and I was running so hard all the time I scarcely noticed it. After twelve to fourteen months my poll numbers started going into serious decline. I still blame the fuckers from party HQ who were turning my show back into a re-run of Dawes. But I’m to blame partly, too, for not taking control earlier.

  Drysdale knew no other way but to govern from confected crisis to confected crisis, with a bi-annual crackdown on radical Islamic clerics one week, boat people the next, all punctuated by a monthly tightening-up (single mums on welfare, deadbeat dads, Japanese whaling, dangerous dog-owners, supermarket rip-offs, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the national broadcaster, fake war heroes, the burka, flag burning, fat kids, lazy kids, sad kids, the Nigerian banking scam) of whatever popped into the PM’s Machiavellian brain. This challenged every ounce of political decency inside me. But the party boys kept pushing and pushing me to capitulate on every issue. I knew it was wrong. But I succumbed, played their game, supported most of it against my better instincts, lest I be accused of playing politics with the health or safety of the nation, or worse, of being un-Australian.

  Then one morning one of these party-boy morons is in my office and he mentions the database. I go, What fucking database? and he explains how each day they determine from the front pages what issues are media hot—women’s rights, say, or industry assistance. They’d punch a few key words into the database of businesses, factories and community groups willing to host me, an unwieldy cephalopod of TV cameras, boom mics and journos with, for example, Tasmanian marginal seat, and bim-badda-bing, he’d say, Righto, we’re off to Tassie tonight to make a speech at a shelter for gay whales about welfare dependency and single mums.

  I’ll be buggered if I entered politics to do that sort of thing. For months I’d been unwittingly running around the joint at the behest of the database in a fluoro vest getting cow shit on my feet and baby sick on my lapel while Drysdale did the same thing in a marginal seat at the other end of the country. There it was in sharp relief—the fuck-all that you know versus the fuck-all you don’t.

  Righto, you cunts, I said, if this is what you really want me to be then bring Dawes back coz I’m dust here. More open mouths and glazed-over eyes. No one said anything. So I sacked them all from the chief of staff down. All except Laurie ‘Errol’ Flynn, my press sec—the only one who’d had the kahunas to keep saying to me that I should be wary of all the nonsense from the party boys and to go back to following my own instincts.

  Errol: thirty-four, emotional age, sixteen; attention span, thirty-six seconds or just long enough to process a tabloid story; insomniac former journalist; dedicated drinker, smoker and arguer about anything; A Flock of Seagulls shock of blond hair crowning all prick and ribs and ideas and ambition; divorced; big eye on preselection; works twenty-hour days beginning when he collects the papers out the back of Manuka newsagent at three-thirty am; would do it all for no pay. I like him. And I need him.

  The comrades went into meltdown. But I went into Question Time that day and really took it up to Drysdale, even though I didn’t know quite what I was going to do next.

  9

  Eddie Katzen. Psychologist. MBA when that still meant something. Former head of a political polling company. Serious time with America’s Republicans and Democrats.

  Rings me out of the blue late that night back then. I was knackered at the end of such a prick of a day in parliament: endless points of order, screaming across the chamber, Speaker yelling so hard and so floridly he could pop—and me sin-binned for calling Drysdale a liar (which he is) and then refusing, like I had every other time, to withdraw. I had just become the first Opposition leader since mad Doc Evatt to be kicked out during QT. Some omen. No thanks.

  So I’m home in the flat at Narrabundah—alone—listening to the wind howl and the possums hiss and piss and wrestle on the roof, heating spag bol, quaffing red, ignoring the mobile as usual, waiting to see what the cunts on Newsnight might make of it all, when the landline rings.

  I jump. Only Ana and the kids, a few of the old staff who I’d just sacked, know that number. Indy, too—but she wasn’t yet on the scene. So anyway, I had to answer—kids could’ve been crook. Maybe Ana just wanted to vent again: When’re you coming home?—I didn’t sign up for this, I have a job too, kids are feral, dog needs her shots, the pool filter’s busted and the water’s going green, I have to take your bloody mother to the doctor again.

  Eddie introduces herself by name, confident I know the reputation, which I do; no one doesn’t. Says to me straight up, I can save you.

  High-pitched voice, almost like a child, that I couldn’t quite match with my image of her which was all pretty much sultry and come hither. She needed to sound husky for me. Then again, I kind of liked the contradiction of the girlishness.

  I shoot back: Who says I need saving?

  Me, she says. My bet is that if the Libs don’t turn you into John Wayne Gacy very soon then our party will. The boys have already got the jitters—all that crazy talk of yours about society and community and inclusiveness. The party will instinctively go into lockdown, try even harder to turn you into a hybrid clone of Dawes and Drysdale. It’s been a long time since our lot has talked socialism and said we want more refugees here.

  I’m back on track, I say, I’ve fired everyone in the office except Errol—so why on earth do I need you?

  And she says, Because you need to delegate to someone you can trust absolutely, because you need a filter between yourself and the party who want to run you and you need someone to run your office. You plan to have a functioning office with advisers and staff and a receptionist again, don’t you?

  I’m going just fine,
I say, flying supersonic again. Me and Errol are just fine. I don’t need anyone else.

  Really, she says, you were up there for a while when you ran on your instincts, which are good, and the voters could see your sincerity and responded to you putting out a plan and talking hope. But it’s changed in a way that I bet you’ve hardly noticed because they got to you in the end and you buckled. Like every leader before you has.

  She’s read my mind, goes on to say my support is falling because they’re blanding me out, because risk is counter-intuitive to them even though carefully managed risk is the only way we’re going to win.

  Look at where you are now eighteen months out from the election, she says. It’s not bad considering what they’ve done to you. But do you think you’ll get to the election, get through the rest of the term with a primary vote of forty-three, preferred PM and an approval of fifty-five? It’s falling away fast now—and I can bet you pretty soon there will be a crisis that’ll slam-dunk you. And if there isn’t, Drysdale will fabricate one. I can tell you when to give a little and when to stand firm, I can read between the polls and rebuild your office so it’s doing more of what you want and less of what party HQ reckons it should be doing.

  So next morning I’ve run into the House early to find Eddie sitting in my office. Errol has let her in. Surprise surprise. I’m sitting opposite her, panting and sweating in my running gear, probably leering a bit too obviously as well.

  And I do like what I see. She is capital-T Tidy. Very. Early forties, skirt just above the knees, the barest tease of black lace above modestly clad but most promising décolletage, raven-haired, swarthy skin and hazel almond-shaped eyes. Thin gold wedding band. No rock.

  She opens with, So, how can I help?

  Show me the ways, I respond. When can you start?

  I’m looking at all of her, trying not to dwell on her chest, which I can’t entirely steer my eyes away from. And I reckon she’s used to it anyway.

  She notices, smiles, and says, Just so you know—I’ve been very happily married to the same man for fifteen years and I’ve had offers from the Knesset to the White House. So please don’t think you’re anything special in that regard. I never fuck anyone else, let alone the boss, because I’ve never wanted or needed to. Or do you think that’s what a dark-skinned Jewish girl needs to do, just to get ahead?

  Errol kind of laugh-snorts and I blush—actually blush—which I don’t do very often. I can’t answer.

  She continues, I will be here for you whenever you need me for everything political and some personal—except that. I will be your best friend, your sounding board and your absolute confidante. We talk before you agree to anything in shadow cabinet or the party room. And we always talk before you do media. Always. Danny, I want you to succeed because you deserve to, and because what you’ve been saying is right. I want you to get the chance to do some of those things. Also, Danny, you should know that I’m angry about what they’ve done to this country. I passionately want to change things.

  Before I can say, Hey, I’m already aboard, she adds, This is reciprocal, two-way. So you tell me everything—personal and political—about now and then, and you do that because I can’t cope with surprises or do my job properly and get you over the line unless I know. So, Danny, there’s going to be a whole lot of stuff that I’m going to need to know. Don’t worry though—I’m not very judgemental.

  Errol is crouched forward in his chair, actually rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

  We sit, silent for a moment, staring at each other. I blink first.

  Okay, I say, like what stuff?

  Let’s start with skeletons and closets. Let’s try arrests. Drug use. Footy trips. Mistresses. Domestic violence. General violence. In any order.

  I swallow hard, say, Can we sort of ease into this a bit more gradually, do you think? Start somewhere else maybe?

  Like?

  I dunno—petty theft as a teenager?

  No. We’ll get on to that, too, though. So let’s start at the top. Mistresses.

  Okay.

  Great. Let’s go.

  Um, sorry, I mean … maybe we should do footy trips first.

  10

  I’m done with green-highlighting and am now scribbling notes in my notebook and about to start following Eddie’s instruction to get serious because Monday morning’s fast escaping.

  I’m sitting in a deep, comfortable easy chair of cream leather and cedar at the head of the long black marble coffee table in my office. There are two six-seat sofas, each on either side of the table.

  Gina pours plunger coffee for the six colleagues around the table and brings me an espresso.

  She places a plateful of iced doughnuts on the table. I sip my second double-espresso for the day, and watch caucus chairman Demitri Vagnoli lurch, swoop on a fuchsia doughnut with sprinkles and barracuda-bite two-thirds of it into his cavernous gob.

  I say, instinctively, Vadge—doughnut? Please ensure the country’s future—don’t choke.

  Vagnoli cough-laughs, blasts out an achoo and expels mucusy doughnut fragments over the rest of the plate and its contents, then masticates self-consciously. I wonder: will pink gloop ooze from his nostrils? He rolls his mouth, swallows hard, slurps steaming coffee, burns his fat gob and wipes sprinkle-flecked rubbery lips on the back of his hand.

  I say, Doughnut anyone else? and elicit much collegiate chortling. Ice broken then.

  At the opposite end of the room Eddie leans her backside against the front of my desk, legs and arms crossed. I’m the only one with whom she shares direct eye contact. It’s a tactic she always uses when the colleagues are in the room, to keep them guessing, but mostly to assert her status which is, as they know, close to oracle as far as I’m concerned.

  She blinks both eyes, frowns slightly, meaning go easy—charm, coerce, don’t antagonise or bully.

  So I ask Vadge, Mate, you right? I pass him a paper serviette.

  Thanks, Slatts.

  My deputy, Stephen Crawley, shadow treasurer, sits beside Vagnoli, closest to me. Steve’s a good man. Economist. Left, but anti-soft welfare—especially middle-class—and into my Window of Optimism. But from suit and tie to complexion and personality, he is the colour of a mottled farmyard blue heeler. Holds his own verbally on the telly. But he’s paint-dryingly dull. Still, he’s a rare triumph in this era of political vacuousness, of content over presentation. Which is why he’s deputy. He wants to be treasurer, not PM—or so he says. I trust him. Well, I trust him insofar as a leader can ever trust a deputy and shadow treasurer who aspires to be treasurer. So, just not with the life of my first born.

  Timmy Proudfoot sits on the other side of Vagnoli. The way he’s pursing his lips in that cat’s arse kind of way makes it obvious that he’s angry. He doesn’t laugh when I humiliate Vagnoli. And he usually would, because he’s the kind of puerile bullying dick-weed who laughs instinctively at others’ misfortune, such as kiddies falling off swings backwards in Funniest Home Videos. He avoids eye contact. He entered the room last, after Eddie, while the rest of us were still bantering footy and family. I can tell she’s given him a touch-up about something or other.

  On the other sofa are Lindsay Duncan, my Senate leader and shadow foreign affairs minister, sitting effetely like a girl with his hands entwined neatly over pudgy crossed knees, and Kirsty Usher.

  There aren’t enough women in the party and Usher is head and shoulders the brightest of them. Actually, she just may be the brightest MP—besides me—in the party. I got her off the backbench and gave her the toughest, shittiest job there is—shadow immigration, critical to what’s going down with the Normalians and Drysdale’s terror try-on.

  Adelaide girl, former diplomat. Hears all sorts of stuff from the spooks and her old mates at the department about what’s really happening on the terror front. Which is what this is all about. Sink or swim. She’s swimming.

  I’m grooming her in the same way every Opposition leader has a fantasy favourite who
they reckon is shaping up as worthy to take the reins once they’ve had their own good old go at being PM. Never happens. PMs like Drysdale hang on and on, ready to burn the House down for the sake of their own egos, unless someone comes in and takes them out. Me and Usher became really close when her marriage hit the rocks.

  She was married to a unionist, Andy Usher, head of the automotives and a member of the national exec. He was a nasty prick, beat her up every time she came home from Canberra. I helped her get a restraining order through the old firm, which became a bit of a scandal in the dysfunctional big family that is the party.

  Then I rang the cunt, said I’d use my influence as leader to get him kicked off the executive if he ever went near her again. He told me to fuck off, said the leader’s job was really the gift of men like him. The truth of it is, he’s half right about that. Anyway, Kirsty cried on my shoulder a lot. Even wanted to go for a roll in the sack. I was tempted. But of course I said no—I’ve never taken advantage of a vulnerable woman. Plus I’d just started out with Indy and I was trying to keep the home front with Ana uncomplicated. You know—steady as she goes in the cockpit. Anyway, Usher’s been on the up and up ever since. Stuck by me every inch of the way.

  The plan deep inside my head has always been for me to serve a couple of terms as PM, maybe three, then over to her—whacko, first sheila in The Lodge. What a legacy for me. She says she watches my back. I mostly believe her. At least I did until she conflated nihilistic and undercurrent.

  Finally, there’s Leo Jamieson, deputy Senate leader. He’s a right-wing automaton, thick as two short planks, another former unionist addicted to influence and affluence: national executive, swinging dick lounge at the airport, travel allowance, free dinners and flyer points. A more venal prick you could not find. But he’s my venal prick. I’ve told him he can maybe hope to be treasurer—even deputy—one day. It’s a profound mark of his stupidity that he believes me, but hey, show me a self-aware politician and I’ll Bamix my dick live on TV. The point is that nothing engenders loyalty quite like self-interest. He’s solid. At least until someone else buys him off.