Challenge

by Paul Daley

  Thankfully, I’ve got Steve Crawley in the room, too. He’s a good deputy, Steve, always fights my corner in these tactics meetings. And Eddie—no longer in her sweaty gym gear and a bit calmer than she was a little while ago. She pipes in from the corner of the room, You lot need to get some steel. You’ve got a fighting leader here who’s just given one of the best caucus speeches you’ll ever hear—a lesson to you about why principle should conquer weak bipartisanship. And you want him to roll over? Why? Because of some Tory smear campaign that’s based on a lie about his former marriage and some unfounded tale about a night out when he was a kid. People, you really do need to grow some balls.

  She pauses to let that one settle then addresses Devo squarely: You, Justin, should just cut out the middle man and join the other side, given you’re so easily frightened by the prospect of doing what’s right.

  Crawley says, like we’re already in parliament, Hear, hear, then to Sweetman and Proudfoot who are sitting impassively on my sofa, You guys have gotta get some backbone. What brand are we?

  Crawley is so fired up that for a moment I think he’s going to do the haka or something.

  No response. Steve shrugs and picks at his fingernails.

  Andy Skinner won’t look at me. We used to be mates—at uni together, him always into student politics, me interested but inactive, more preoccupied with the real thing given my connections to McQuoid and Dethridge, and footy and girls. He thinks he—not me, or anyone else—should be leader. In some ways I don’t really blame him. He’s done the time. He’s always the smartest person in the room, besides Eddie. Problem is, he always lets everyone know it. He’s another bloke who has always talked himself up as PM-in-waiting from the age of twenty.

  Came from the Left but blew with the Right if he needed to. Smart but weak. Ran a phantom campaign against me till a day before the ballot when we rolled Dawes. Rang me when he pulled out, said, Danny I’m giving you my numbers—all I want is shadow finance. I said, Mate, what fuckin’ numbers—you’ve got a number, yours—but thanks all the same, and by the way, let me think for a bit on shadow finance. Turns out his was a critical vote. I gave him the gig. He’s been great on the Budget cuts—with me on soft welfare, likes the Window of Optimism, the postcode and all that stuff. But piss-weak on the politics; goes to the brink, then curls into the foetal position.

  In fairness that’s the instinct of most of these pricks after all the go-small preconditioning the party’s given them. I know he wants my job. And he smells an opportunity now.

  Me? I smell cordite—the stench of battle. I can’t wait to get out there and start shooting.

  I think it’s settled. But then, out of nowhere, Sweetman says, Danny, there’s always been this question about temperament with you. This whole crazy-brave thing. Now we’re seeing it made into a question about character—does a man like you, a man who’s been impulsive and who’s physically confronted his detractors for his whole life, a man who supposedly punched his first wife, does he have the character to be PM?

  Fucking hang on a sec, Dave, I never … I start to say, but the cunt just ignores me and keeps speaking, raising his voice, talking over me. I let him go.

  Danny, he’s saying, the women in the party find this utterly reprehensible, impossible to defend. They won’t do it unless they believe you. The problem, Danny, is that it just keeps getting worse. There’s the ex-wife and now there’re the rumours—rumours everywhere—about something else in your past. Like what? We don’t damn well know. What? Did you stick up a 7/11 for cash when you were a student? Break a taxi driver’s legs to avoid the fare? Now, Danny, we’ve all got a past. Most of us have done things that we aren’t proud of.

  Like hookers and hotel rooms sort of stuff, I say, nodding to Timmy Proudfoot, who winces.

  Sweetman says, Yeah, that sort of stuff—or worse—yeah. But Danny, this behaviour is becoming part of a pattern that they say makes you unfit to be prime minister.

  I say, Dave, just so I’ve got you straight here, let me recap your position on all of this. The Tories are fomenting xenophobia by saying the Normalians are terrorists who plan to attack their new country of residence. They want to pass a law that allows them to lock up suspects and throw away the key. I believe that this is wrong. With the support of the colleagues I intend to oppose the legislation in parliament. Now you say I shouldn’t bring it up in Question Time because they will unload on me—sleazy details about my first marriage that some slimeball upstairs claims to have happened before I was even in parliament and you reckon that’s part of a pattern that means I haven’t got the character to be prime minister. And now you’re worried there might be even more dirt floating around in my past—what twenty years ago? Thirty years ago? Forty years ago? Fuck me, Dave, how long ago is relevant—even if any of it were true? The fact is that I can defend anything I’ve done in my life including my first marriage—not that I should have to. And I’ll tell you my position—I will go into Question Time every day this week and I will move no-confidence motions against Drysdale on the basis that he is fabricating a terrorist crisis. And I will argue it, you will argue it, and your oxygen thief of a brother will argue it, Timmy and Andy here will argue it and so will Vadge, and Darling and Crowe and Devo and everyone else in this party. While I am the leader. And if you have concerns about my past that are based on fact and not just the latest rumours that you’ve read on the internet, bring them to me and we’ll talk them through.

  Sweetman shakes his head.

  I look at Devo. He nods.

  So, go do your thing, I say to Devo, meaning—fire up the backbench and plant a row of questions before I move for a Matter of Public Importance debate about the conduct of the government.

  Just audibly, Dave Sweetman says, Danny, there’s something here nobody’s mentioned but it’s on all of our minds, I’m sure. It’s something that I think is actually at the heart of all our concerns today.

  I say, I’m terribly sorry, Dave, but I’m feeling here a bit like I’m in—I don’t quite know really—The Prisoner of Azkaban or something. Would you mind enunciating?

  Sorry, Danny. Of course, he says. It’s Monday, right?

  Is this why the public elected you?

  Hear me out please, Danny. It’s an OzPoll week. The poll’s in the field tonight. So, tonight while Mavis Thorndyke is cooking rissoles the phone will ring and she’ll be one of three thousand people across the country who have to say where she’ll park her first preference vote and whether you’d make a better prime minister than Drysdale. She’ll look over at the telly and she’ll have just watched the news and first up will be Snake Boy on life support, and next, long and strong, will be the most trusted journalist in Australia, Antony Grimes, saying that pandemonium erupted in parliament today when Danny Slattery blocked the government’s plan to save the nation from a terrorist attack solely to divert attention from my story that the police were once called to Mr Slattery’s house to investigate a report of domestic violence against his sadly deceased first wife, and by the way, stay tuned for my exclusive interview with the Opposition leader in which he discusses his volatile first marriage. Next story will be tomorrow night’s Captain Cook final with hopefully Peng winning—yes, they’ll be thinking about Peng when OzPoll calls and how you gratuitously dissed her earlier today on the doors. So what you do next, today, Danny, leads directly to the result of that poll that’ll be around tomorrow night. I’m telling you, mate—surf the poll, don’t resist it. Go floppy today.

  Well, Dave, I guess you must think that that’s why they elected you. Sorry to disappoint you—I will not shape my tactics or my policies for the polls. And I don’t do floppy—just hard.

  Eddie steps in, shuts it down by saying, Okay, we’re done. Today is about dissent from the government. The leader needs a minute before parliament.

  The room empties.

  Once the door is closed Eddie asks if I’m ready for the Grimes interview—whether I’ve decided what I’m going to tell him.


  I am—and everything, I say.

  Everything? Really? Why don’t you try it on me first then?

  Because I don’t want to go into Question Time with tears in my eyes.

  Are you now trying to lose your job?

  No, Eddie. Just to keep it on my terms.

  Danny, just reminding you here that you put your hand up for it on their terms and now you’re acting like a petulant schoolboy—the nasty mean men keep telling me what to do. You know, you’ve got a responsibility to the organisation and to its history, too. You’ve got to find a balance between what’s right and what’s necessary. That’s the gig.

  And I’ve got an obligation, foremost, to do the first. Eddie, you’re still on my side aren’t you?

  Always, Danny. It’s why I’m here.

  Having established that, it seems like a good time to tell her I’m keeping a diary.

  Since when? she asks.

  Last few days or so.

  She looks hurt.

  Of course, she says, you don’t need a diary, Danny—that’s what Gina’s for, to keep track of appointments and record who comes in and out of the place. Don’t waste your time keeping your own diary.

  No, I explain, I mean a diary where I write down what’s happening around me every day. Sometimes it’s retrospective—you know, I do it at the very end of the day, reflect on what’s gone down. Other times I do it as the day progresses, when I’ve got a minute spare—you must’ve noticed. Just a note here and there during the day in the old Moleskines and more extensive scribblings every evening—who said what and when. Thoughts and ideas. I feel like I’m in a fairly unique space at the moment and I want to keep a record of the shit they’re doing to me so that one day, when I’m out the other side, I can look back on it all. Also it helps me to think straight, if I write down what everyone’s saying, I find it easier to work out a way through. And you know—I might publish it one day. Do a book.

  A book, Danny—really? Whatever you do don’t let anyone find the notes. And keep me out of it.

  I can’t keep you out of it, Eddie. Everyone is going to be in it. You and Tom. Everyone and everything. Even conversations like this. I think it’ll be red-hot. The publishers will go wild for something like that, Eddie.

  So, you mean you’re writing down what’s going on inside your head, too?

  Yes, Eddie. What do you think?

  Danny, I’m no longer sure what to think.

  25

  Danny, I realise it has been two lifetimes since you and me was together but I am getting an old man now and need to make peace with things before I go on from this earth.

  I been outside now for close on 10 15 years or so now and everry day of every one of them years I been thinking about you and just the same as I did when I was inside too. I never got over what happened to your sister + my little girl Dana and when they didn’t let me out for the funeral just made it so much the worse for me.

  You know Danny being in the last bit of my life I think back over my shoulder at what I done wrong and I was only evr trying to provide for Bev & Dana and you were on the way and I needed the money. And I only ever agreed to one payroll, but I were unlucky you know and the job went bad. You know it so easy to shoot someone by mistake, but they gave me murder for shooting that guard even but I meant to wing him only and at first they give me death but turn it into life instead. Lawyers. But I’d guess you’d know all about that having made yourself into one.

  So I get out and Bev warns me away and says not to come back and ruin your life, our Dana is dead because of you and Danny he has made his self into something as a star player I must say Danny I think thats a chip off the old block, and in the law and they are talking of him in politics now too you’ll roowin his prospects being a jailbird murderer come out of nowhere. And besides I tell him from a toddler age that his dad dies in the war Bev went on.

  Well it got komplic tricky when I said to Bev I could use some help settin up on the outside and then fore I know it am getting contacted by the lawyers what tried to defend me and they give me money, passpot and air tickets. And I know one of them lawyers Danny because he’s been the primeminster I think, until a year or two before, and I know him a long time back too when the heat first come on me before you even born, and hes very friendly + helpful so Danny I end up in a good place you might know it Pattaya and money each month and I get a good job doing security at the bar and w the beach and girls I lived the dream for a while if you know what I mean!!!

  But all the time I m think about you and you the baby I never get to hold and how I become so proud that you are going to be prime minister. 53 years I have your name tatted on my arm it still there but faded a bit now Danny. And now Ive not much time left here I want now to be in your life Danny. I’m come home now to finish my days with kin and I hope to spend whats little time there is with my son, thats you, and the grandkids.

  Think about it & I will be in touche soon unless that is you like Bev is ashamed and don’t want nothing more to do with me but even so we should talk it through.

  Love your loving father always Terry Morgan xoxoxo

  My first reaction is to write off this Terry Morgan as a crank. Dad was Terry Slattery. That’s what I’d always been told. And believing that has been an act of faith on my part. I’ve never seen him. Though as a kid I did pore over the few sepia photographs Mum had of him. A big guy in army greens, well-defined jaw, dark curly hair and deep-set eyes like mine. I always thought it odd that there were no photos of their wedding or of them together. But Mum swatted my questions away with talk of a fire in the flat she and Dad had lived in previously, and how so much of their stuff had gone up in smoke.

  But then there were the medals—Dad’s medals—in the little box on the mantelpiece just above the gas fire in Kokoda Street. And his dress uniform in the cupboard. Proof! Well, not exactly. The truth is I started developing doubts about Dad as a teenager. Mainly because Mum never had enough money. If he’d been killed in action as she claimed, she’d have received some sort of widow’s pension surely? Instead, as I grew up—and before I started helping her out—she’d go off first thing most days to clean offices and other people’s homes.

  At a certain point I became deeply sceptical. That point came when the club recruited me and I had to show them my birth certificate. It listed my father as unknown. Mum said, No, no, that’s a mistake. You know who your father is, my darling.

  Same thing happened again when I went to get my passport a couple of years later—father unknown. Bev gave me a similar, though more agitated, response that time. How many bloody times do I have to tell you, love, your father is …

  I decided not to pick at the scab, took Mum’s story as my own: Dad was a soldier, killed in Malaya before my birth. Nobody would ever have cause to doubt that. Father unknown could be a clerical error until someone proved that Terry Slattery wasn’t Dad.

  It was Ana who pushed me to find out the truth once and for all. As our kids—especially Sam—grew, they wanted to know more about their grandfather. I couldn’t answer their questions beyond showing them copies of those couple of old photographs and, when we visited Bev, the old service medals.

  Okay, I said to Ana, it can’t hurt to find out more. One day she rang me and said, Darling there’s no record of an Australian soldier, Terry Slattery, having been killed in Malaya. And, I hope you don’t mind but I got one of the article clerks to check out Births, Deaths and Marriages for me, and Slattery is your maternal grandmother’s maiden name. There’s no record of your mother ever marrying. But she changed her name from her maiden name, Crough, to Slattery in 1956 when she was pregnant with you.

  I never knew my grandparents. Mum always said they were lousy to her. Died young. Left her in the care of an older sister, Aunty Vi, who was around a bit when I was a kid. That was it for family.

  Ana and I workshopped it. Bev was already in her late seventies when we discovered this. She’d survived breast cancer but by then had heart fa
ilure, high blood pressure and what we suspected was the beginnings of dementia. Not to mention a serious problem with the bottle. We decided it was fair to assume that she’d had a partner who’d skipped out—or a couple of dalliances that ended in her pregnancies with Dana and me. Of course we wanted to know more. But it seemed cruel to push the old girl on it all given her health and the efforts she’d clearly gone to just to protect me from the truth.

  But what I’m fucking outraged about here is the suggestion by this Morgan that Paddy McQuoid and, of course, by implication, Vince Dethridge, were somehow involved in perpetuating the lie about my father. The truth—if, indeed, the truth is that my father is, was, a convicted murderer—could never have reflected badly on me at that stage of my career.

  So I search Terry Morgan and murder and bank and parole and up comes one small article in The Mercury from Trove: Bank job triggerman paroled after thirty-eight years. He’s named as Terry Morgan, convicted in August 1956—eight months before my birth—of the murder of a security guard at the Hartwell Branch of the Wales Bank during an armed robbery the same year. Originally sentenced to hang but sentence commuted to life on appeal. And there it was—represented at the parole hearing by a junior solicitor from McQuoid, Dethridge & Partners, who also represented Morgan at the original trial. I was out of the firm by then and at the High Court with Vince, so I don’t remember the case.

  But this puts the old boys, McQuoid and Dethridge, in my life for far longer than I’d been aware.

  The report carries a grainy mugshot of the much younger Morgan, taken when he was convicted, at twenty-six.

  Doesn’t really look like me. But I can see the resemblance with Dana.

  I call Mum. It rings out. I leave a message, Bev, it’s me. Just opened a letter from a bloke who claims he’s Dad—Terry Morgan, he’s called. Bank robber. Murderer. You get that this could be a disaster for me, Mum. Give me a call.