Challenge

by Paul Daley

  I know exactly what they’ve been doing and saying. With their incessant leaks to the media they are like phantoms—evil wisps of smoke that vanish when I lunge at them. They’re like the VC—political Charlies who set the mantraps and then fold into the shadows to watch you scream at the bottom of a hole full of punji stakes. It’s an irresistible metaphor, I know, for an Apocalypse Now freak, and it brings the horror, during these 3 am panic attacks, so full circle that I have to wonder if I am actually Atticus or Kurtz. Yes, I feel more like Kurtz stuck in a cave up the river. Atticus doesn’t know real fucking pain.

  The comrades had always been in awe of my crazy-brave shit. But they wouldn’t be at all if they could see me now, cowering facedown in my own sweat in the doona, terrified of my heartbeat and the voices.

  Indy … Indy, baby, you there? I call.

  No. Again she’s retreated at the first opportunity. No one could really blame her for that.

  Indy, you there, honey? Indy … baby?

  No. She’s gone home to the dog.

  I know she reckons I’ve lost the plot, too. I’ve quit trying to convince her otherwise.

  A few weeks ago Indy took to shifting out onto the sofa around midnight, just as I fell into post-coital slumber, so that she, at least, might sleep through until dawn.

  Then my desire died. Affection dissipated along with my capacity for empathy. Unrelenting fear of failure had apparently catapulted my self-absorption into a new stratosphere.

  The worst had happened. I couldn’t get it up. I experienced total equipment failure. And then, naturally, I couldn’t talk to her about anything else except not being able to get it up. And that, too, was their fault.

  I know I’ve sounded nuts to her. One minute I’d talk to Indy about marrying her, the next about how guilty I felt about Ana and the kids. Eddie heard all this shit, too, constantly—about how I was going to fix it all with Ana and the kids and how it would all be better when we were all together in The Lodge. Then that would segue into how I’d take a long holiday in Europe with Indy—just the two of us—after I was out of politics and then maybe settle in Dublin.

  Indy wanted too much from me. Which is to say she wanted something. Anything. So now I’ve stopped talking to her completely. No more talking. No more stories. No more sex. I reckon, probably, no more us.

  39

  As always I take a temazepam, eventually fall back into heavy slumber and wake, exhausted, to the alarm at five-fifteen.

  Fuck it. The start of another unrelenting day. Not sure I can do it.

  I drag myself up, make coffee and check the phone. Pretty much everyone is still trying to get me. Two calls last night from Mum, missed while I was at Deth’s. I couldn’t reach her all day yesterday to ask her about this clown who reckons he’s Dad. But given the sort of day I know I’m going to have and the way my head is pounding, right now I’m happy to file that problem under doesn’t matter right now, because besides the letter, I haven’t heard any more from him. I notice Mum also called again in the middle of the night, after I fell asleep. She left a garbled message this time.

  As usual, she sounds half pissed, doesn’t make much sense, saying, Danny, it’s Mum, love. I know I owe you an explanation about your dad, but I was only ever trying to protect you. But knowing as you’ve always been so clever I’d feared that the day will come when you’d work out that Terry Slattery may not have been killed and may not be your dad or even exist at all. But I tell you, love, this Terry Morgan—you have nothing to do with him because he’s a bad character. Bad. Yes, I knew him well. Love, he might’ve been Dana’s father. But I don’t know. Oh, love I’m sorry. I know this will come as a shock to you, Danny. But Danny, he ain’t yours. I promise. We’ll talk more soon about your father. I love you, Danny. Believe me I do.

  I call her immediately. Voicemail again.

  So I just sit for a while at the kitchen table and scribble some more notes about last night (don’t do coke; remember to eat; Indy’s gone for good; forget Violin Girl), fire up the iPad and check my emails.

  There’s one from an address—Demonspawn@ozmail.net.au—that I can hardly ignore. Sent at 2.21 am it reads: New geocache—Ngambri’— up there on your fave walking track. Youse are in for a nasty treat.

  It’s somebody who knows where I run in the mornings. Which means it could be anyone. Eddie? Tom? Deth—the mad fucker—or just about any of the comrades.

  I am dressed in running gear. I lock the front door, pocket the key, my mobile and a hanky. Out front I briefly stretch my ruptured Achilles and set off along La Perouse towards the base of the hill. It’s minus-three and the mist is so enveloping that I can see only a few feet ahead. There’re icy puddles in the gutters and the frozen grass crunches under my feet.

  The cold air initially stings my bare legs and face, but I like it because it means that I’m feeling—actually feeling—something else for a change. My breath belches forth like great blasts of smoke from a dragon nostril as I find my rhythm; knees and hips ache as tendon and gristle slowly warm and loosen, allowing me to match stride with breath.

  The heart kicks back into sync. I love this sensation, which takes me back three decades to the park when I was eighty-seven kilos and all legs, blasting down the flank in front of the members’ stand, the cheer squad frenzied, and feeling—because you always had a last split-second volt of prescient something when it was going to happen—that the goal was about to come. It would. And I’d savour that and I’d fucking want it again and again, live for it. And that’s why I kept doing it again and again for so many—too many—years, until my body gave out.

  I run along the kerb now and volt across Mugga Way. The sky behind me is cracking with crimson bolts of dawn light while in front of me the moon hangs low, just winking at me over Davidson Trig on the top of Red Hill.

  I hit the verge and run uphill. I strain to move quickly towards the car park at the base of the hill.

  My deep, even breaths pull me into a kind of trance that yields no space for the enemies or what the rest of the day might hold. This might be the only good thing that happens to me today.

  Or not.

  At first I think that the blinding light is from a car in the parking lot. I stop dead, panting, hands on hips. Then I hear their voices. As my eyes slowly adjust I begin to distinguish dark figures in the shadows just beyond the great ball of blinding light.

  My heart immediately slips back into arrhythmia. Panic rises in my stomach.

  I wonder if it’s somebody come to kill me.

  The boom mic, which I don’t recognise at first and think is the shape of a huge pincer-type arm—Shark Face!—is thrust into my orbit just a foot or so above my head. It scares me shitless so I clench a fist and instinctively send a solid right its way. Then I see the sound guy attached to it. He reacts quickly, swiftly jigging the microphone upwards out of the orbit of my punch and away from the cameraman’s frame.

  Then comes the unmistakable baritone: Mr Slattery, are you expecting a challenge to your position as party leader today?

  It’s the Electric Eel, Eric Ellingsen—the clown who I threatened to punch a decade back. Right now I wish I had belted him.

  The prick steps in suddenly from the darkness so he’s inside the camera’s illuminated frame with me. I try to ignore him and continue to jog slowly across the car park to the gap in the fence, leading to the track up the saddle of Red Hill. The camera crew keeps pace. So, too, does Ellingsen who, with his long stride, has no need to break into a canter.

  He demands again, Mr Slattery, we’re hearing there’s going to be a spill—sources say there is serious concern about your personal life and about your leadership style. Any comment?

  Get real, Eric, I say, I’m just going for an early-morning run. Can’t I have a bit of privacy, mate?

  Eddie will be pleased with me when she sees how calmly I said this.

  Then Ellingsen’s feet slip on the wet gravel next to me. As he falls into me I reactively raise my hands
to avert collision. I push him slightly with the intent of stopping him from falling onto the ground. But he’s lost his footing and the dorky prick stumbles and lands heavily on the gravel, at which point I’d be lying if I didn’t concede a strong desire to snap the boot in, but I’ve got more common sense than that.

  But I do stop, put my hands on my hips, and look down at him.

  You silly dickhead, I say to him, not menacingly but in a way I’d say to a mate who’d just done the same thing. I lean over and offer him a hand up.

  Ellingsen refuses, cowers, bellows, Don’t you dare touch me.

  The cameras are still rolling.

  I’m losing my breath. Panic is rising in my chest.

  I turn squarely to the camera. Turn that fucking thing off, I say. There’ll be shit to pay if this goes to air.

  Ellingsen, having shimmied up onto his arse, has blood trickling from a cut at the corner of his eye. He says, With great respect, Mr Slattery I’m just trying to do my job. I don’t expect to be assaulted in the process.

  Assaulted, I say, don’t be an idiot, Eric. It’s you lot who were staking me out, invading my privacy. And you know that’s the truth.

  * * *

  Yes, I look menacing. Yes, I look like a bully. No, I don’t look anything like a prime minister.

  I’m perspiring like a madman, with steam rising off my back, as I stand over Ellingsen, who’s looking up at me with abject fear in his eyes.

  Turn that fucking thing off. They play it on an endless loop but bleep out the obvious swear word to protect the sensibilities of the millions of people watching this in their homes over breakfast. I look and sound demented.

  All in all it compounds what is already a pretty bad media mix this morning.

  The clips are killing me. Again. Death by a thousand more little clips.

  Three of the papers—The Nation, The Mercury and The Sun—lead with not-so-sympathetic stories about me and Domenica, making me out to be the narcissistic root rat that I was, but with spin saying I’d put in a smooth-as performance with Grimes to inoculate against the character fall-out. Combined with endless replays of Turn that fucking thing off, I have to admit it’s a pretty awful look for a guy who’s struggling to find his front foot.

  But ever the optimist, I figure that it can only get worse. Which it quickly does.

  Errol comes in, under-slept and wired with nervous energy as usual. He says, Grimes and Smeaton from The Nation both have copies of the same two Kick photographs that we received in the internal mail yesterday and are preparing to run them online this morning. They both insist that the second photograph shows you kicking a defenceless man in the head.

  Danny, this is the thing you were being trolled on—by someone in your own party, they reckon. Crucial date—25 May 1974. They say that the victim was rendered a paraplegic. They reckon it’s Victor Chislette aka Vaughan Charles, but that Charles will confirm nothing on the record. Yet.

  Errol is standing before my desk, flipping a pencil from end to end in one hand, holding the photographs in the other.

  It’s quite a story, boss, he says. It’ll be everywhere. Whoever sent the photographs to us has dropped them widely. It doesn’t get much more damaging.

  I say, So what’s the question?

  It’s been a busier morning than usual for Errol. He’d been in the office for hours by the time I arrived about 7.30. I’d been ignoring his increasingly frantic voicemails about the incident with the Eel, who’s running with the beat-up from hell, saying I’d flattened him when he’d dared ask me a question.

  I tell Errol to keep denying that I assaulted Ellingsen, no matter what it looks like on TV, which he does. It makes no difference: Ellingsen’s running it hard, alleging I’ve belted him, but without including my denial. Soon, once Smeaton and Grimes have broken the Kick, he’ll tack on a bit of that and it will all look just that much more woeful.

  Shithouse.

  Then it’ll be all over red rover for me.

  But this is what Errol lives for.

  The question? Errol asks. What do you mean, Danny?

  The question from fatso or the Smear? I mean what the fuck do they want to know?

  Nothing. They’re just saying it’s you in the photographs.

  Well, they’d be wrong.

  Is that your comment? he asks.

  No. I thought you said they didn’t want to know anything.

  Well, boss, just say you had a comment. What would it be?

  Tell them off the record—no comment, I say.

  I’ve never said no comment to a journalist before. And I hate that I have to today. But this is a truly exceptional circumstance. And it’s not the same as lying.

  Errol rings Grimes in front of me. Mate, Flynn here, he says, no comment from the boss.

  He texts Smeaton the same. Their stories will be online in thirty seconds.

  Boss, Errol implores me, save yourself, please—say something. Tell the truth.

  That is the truth, Errol, I say. Now where’s Eddie?

  Last I saw, keeping the comrades from smashing down the door.

  Tell her I need her.

  I’ve missed two calls from Ana, one from Sam. I haven’t heard from Indy since she slipped out of the flat early this morning.

  I feel like shit. Maybe if I had more coke …

  Tom calls. I take it, say, I’m surprised to hear from you.

  He ignores my accusatory tone, asks, How was Deth last night?

  Fucking barking mad. Mostly. Gargling wine and snorting marching powder, obsessed with the cooking show. Came up with some crazy story about you walking away from me, not standing in the way of a Crawley–Usher ticket, and said you’d always known the old boys had looked after Chisel, raised him as another one of their social experiments, another pup, just like me after … well, but you know what happened, don’t you. Unlike stupid in-the-dark gullible me, thinking the dickhead is dead all these years.

  There’s a long pause.

  Danny, you know Jack is highly unstable. You don’t want to believe anything he tells you. He’s in another world—he’ll end up killing himself or being committed if it goes on like this. I’m deeply concerned about him.

  So, I say to Tom, Let’s speak about the other elephant in here, brother. Are you walking away from me?

  There’s a very long silence which I’m not going to break for him.

  Danny, he eventually says, as recently as last night I really thought that you could make it. I really did. But the latest, belting the reporter, and the Kick—it looks so bad, mate. It’s time, Danny. It’s time.

  Eddie walks in. She looks a million bucks as usual: well-cut, grey pinstripe pants suit, white blouse undone to the third button, perfectly made up, hair up to show off her long, sinewy neck.

  As she closes the door I see the Sweeties, Proudfoot and that dirtbag Phil Moncke—The Mad Monk—who is the party secretary, giraffe-necking above them, all trying to steal a look into my space. I catch a fleeting glimpse of Usher and Crawley, too. Crawley catches my eye for a split second, then looks away.

  And I know that everything Deth said to me last night is true.

  I tell Tom to hang on, and then to Eddie I say, Aha. A delegation. Come to give me the tap on the shoulder? Tell ’em not so quickly, boys and girls. And keep the door shut on them please.

  Then, back into the phone I say, Now what precise kind of cuntery am I dealing with from my supposedly best mate here, Tom? This takes it to a whole other level. We’ve been best friends for almost forty years. I’ve trusted you more than anyone.

  Eddie steps towards me, goes to say something.

  I cover the phone, point to the lounge, say to her, Sit down. Shut up, please, which she promptly does. Uncharacteristically.

  Tom, avoiding the substantive, confirms everything, at least to my satisfaction.

  Danny, he says, you’ve got everything to be proud of. You’ve done an amazing job as leader. Dragged us back from the abyss where we were with Daw
es. Given the party new ideas, new courage to stand up for what’s right. But the punters are never going to make you prime minister, Danny. It is the character thing.

  The latest thing, sitting the Eel down just because he tried to ask you a —

  For fuck’s sake, Tom, I interrupt, Ellingsen, the great streak of pelican shit fell into me. I was trying to stop him hitting the ground.

  Danny—even if that was true, the problem is that nobody believes you anymore.

  Come on, Tom. The problem for everyone who wants to get rid of me is that the punters do believe me. It’s just that you all don’t want them to. And character! Fuck off, Tom. I don’t believe I’m hearing this sort of shit from you. Here you are, escaped to the fuckin’ priesthood when you couldn’t handle real life just like you walked away from the club when it got a bit tough, travelling around the country like some dilettante, disconnecting rich ladies from their undies, all just waiting, waiting, waiting, until you decide that yes, you’d like to impose another leader. You reckon that’s character? Well bugger you, Tom. I’ve been loyal to you my whole life—to my detriment. And you know what I mean. I’ve covered up for your weakness. I’m going to fight my corner. You bastards will have to blast me out.

  Danny, he says, I was wrong—it’s not Deth who needs committing. It’s you. And you know it’s going to get a whole lot worse for you. I’ve been trying to protect you here. But I just can’t control who does what next. Just like the Kick, Danny. I’ve had nothing to do with that coming out. I’ve never told anyone about it, Danny. Remember—we had an agreement.

  Jesus Christ, Tom. You’ve only ever tried to protect yourself. You know everyone thinks it’s me. That’s always suited you.

  Well, just tell the truth, Danny. And all your troubles will be over.

  Tom, I always keep my word. You’ve always had that in your back pocket and you know it.

  You’ve never had a choice. Fucking scared of your own image in the mirror, Danny. You could never stand by yourself. You needed me.

  Goodbye, Tom, I say.