Challenge

by Paul Daley

  I’m sorry, she says, I’m sorry. That bit about bank robber, murderer, could be … Danny, I’m not going to ask why you didn’t tell me this yesterday.

  Come on, Eddie, remember what yesterday was like.

  Okay, she says, here’s what we’re going to do about this today. Nothing. Zip. Nothing until you’ve spoken to Bev properly.

  Eddie shrugs, takes her hand off the mouthpiece, says into the phone, Bloke’s a nutter—chuck him out, don’t let him back near the place.

  She hangs up.

  Eddie, I say, open your mouth and close your eyes, and you’re in for a big surprise.

  That’s a big leap of faith around you Danny, she says. I don’t do that for anyone.

  But she does. This once.

  So I take the jelly snake from the pocket of my shirt and place the end in her mouth. She bites down on it, stops for a moment, chews. We stop like that for a moment or two and, I wish, for longer. She gets my suit coat from the back of my chair and helps me put it on. Straightens the outer flaps of the pockets, picks lint off the lapel.

  Question Time is starting without me. I glance at the monitor, see that Proudfoot is at the despatch box explaining how I’m on my way. I run for the door with the yellow envelope in my hand.

  I walk into the foyer, bump into Deth. He says, Just coming to see you, and he hugs me, too, says, I’ve got something for you, and puts his hand into the pocket of my jacket, leaves something there and turns, walks away.

  And then I run into the chamber where Drysdale is droning on about how the country can’t be secured because I’ve refused to give him his new terror laws. If there’s a bomb, he says, it will be my fault—I am a disgrace to the Australian people. He now has no alternative but to visit the governor-general this afternoon to seek the dissolution of both Houses of Parliament.

  The place turns into a zoo as soon as I reach the despatch box where I sit, with the usual bullshit of hands banging on desks and shouts of basher, biff, killer, lunatic and terrorist from across the chamber.

  I stand, turn around and walk over to Proudfoot, say, Timmy, mate, hang foul. I’m on. Last shot in the locker.

  I wink at him. He swallows hard and sits on the long green leather bench behind me.

  I reach for a glass of water and spill it all over the table because my hand is shaking so badly. There’s vicious laughter from across the chamber and groans from behind me.

  And then I panic. Fuck, fuck, fuck—my yellow envelope. I can’t find it, then realise it’s in my hand after all.

  To much Tory laughter, some redneck cunt yells across the chamber: Your bomb’s on the way, Slattery, you hopeless joke.

  Look, he’s so nervous, he’s shaking, another voice says. Dead man walking.

  Drysdale sits impassively across from me. He’s looking at the envelope in my left hand. Wondering.

  I stand and reach inside the envelope as Col Allison declares, The Opposition leader has the call.

  Mr Speaker, my question is to the prime minister. Can the prime minister confirm that he has pressured the peak Australian internal security agency, ASIO, to hold off on executing arrest warrants against two groups of suspected terrorists while he tried to force his draconian, xenophobic, unnecessary legislation through parliament this week?

  The noise from behind me is like Bay 13. Ooooh. Gotcha.

  Drysdale writes something on a pad, knowing I know too much. Cautiously, reticently, he says, Mr Speaker, this is a desperate question from a desperate leader who will do anything to save his position …

  I smell blood.

  Supplementary question, Mr Speaker, I say. Mr Speaker, I refer to a top-secret cable from the United States Embassy in Canberra to the State Department, the CIA and …

  It’s pandemonium. My lot are banging on their desks now, yelling, Liar, liar at Drysdale, while their flustered business manager, Cuntavali, is repeatedly running in circles between Drysdale’s chair and his front bench, screaming at Allison that I’m out of order. Allison smashes his gavel and screams, Order, silence, the Opposition leader will be heard.

  I finish the question: … based on sources within ASIO, that the government directed the agency not to arrest the terror suspects until after the parliament had voted on the Suspicion of Terrorism (Amendment) Bill (2010) in the belief that to do so beforehand would a) undermine the need for the legislation and b) given that one of the group of suspects was linked to a right-wing, anti-Islamic organisation, undermine the potency of the government’s own assertion that the imminent danger to the Australian community is coming from radical Jihad, especially from the Normalian community?

  It’s quiet, suddenly. They’re all listening as I continue, And I quote here from the cable, Mr Speaker: sources within the agency are appalled that the government was hoping to leverage maximum public relations benefits from any terror raid, regardless of its target, if it were carried out after the final of a reality cooking show, Captain Cook, that is due to air on Tuesday night.

  I look behind me, see Crawley and others around me mouthing stuff to one another. But I can’t hear them. My chest is so tight I can’t breathe and I know I’m dying. Fucking heart attack on the floor of the House, what a cunt, just as I’m about to get there. I am breathing slowly—sucking it in, loosening my tie and leaning back in my chair now while bedlam spins around me.

  Drysdale is at the despatch box, struggling to answer. He looks old. Way too old to be there. No, he says, shaking his head. That’s not true. Just not true. Another lie. Another lie.

  Nobody else hears him above the chaos.

  The public gallery chimes in, clapping in time to the chant: Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar. Liar.

  Allison screams, Order—ORRRRRRRDERRRRRR, threatens to kick them all out. I get back on my feet, hold the despatch box to steady myself, seek leave to table the document.

  Cuntavali is on his feet, screaming: No, Mr Speaker, nooooooooo.

  It’s my turn again.

  Mr Speaker, I seek leave to suspend sessional and standing orders to move that the government of Prime Minister Les Drysdale no longer has the support of the parliament.

  I speak to it for five minutes, outlining where he’s lied, giving more detail from the cable and imploring the two independents, Allison and right-minded Tories, to take the opportunity to slot Drysdale for his cynical, dangerous meddling in national security for political ends.

  I’m looking into the eyes of Drysdale’s deputy, Paul Anderson, in the shared knowledge that this is the best chance that he’ll ever have of becoming PM. Drysdale’s now dead and everyone knows it. He can’t survive this. That’s obvious from the faces behind him. It’ll just take one or two wets to cross the floor and I’ll be forcing the election before Drysdale has a chance to pull his DD trigger.

  They’ll roll Drysdale this afternoon whether he goes to see the GG or not. I nod to Anderson, meaning—let’s play chicken, motherfucker, you and me, you or me, because I’ve got nothing to lose here and neither have you.

  He blinks.

  The Tories line up to filibuster and heap more shit on me. So I leave it in the sticky hands of Proudfoot who’s looking hangdog, like I might just have saved my own arse, and Crawley who’s staring at me with his mouth open.

  Usher comes up, puts her hands in mine and says, Danny, Steve and I—well, this doesn’t change anything for now. But well done.

  I don’t reply because I’m desperate to get back to the office for five, to drink water and to lie down and to maybe put my head on Eddie’s shoulder again. It’s good there.

  I walk over towards the great doors, which one of the attendants opens. I wait a moment and Eddie joins me from the advisers’ box. We leave the chamber together and step into the parquetry atrium outside. I’m still in the grip of a panic attack. But, for the first time since Saturday, the sun is shining and it illuminates the big glass corridor that links the reps chamber to the rest of the House. And I think that the worst of winter might be over. I think I might
live. I know I want to.

  She hugs me, says, Danny, rabbit, hat!

  I say, Thanks, but that was all your work. Where’d you get the document?

  She says, Nothing to do with me, darl. Ask your man Deth.

  She hands me my phone. It is so hot that I don’t want to hold it.

  It’s been ringing non-stop, she says. I don’t recognise the numbers— all Melbourne. And you know what I always say, Danny, never answer unless you know who it is.

  I say, Eddie, it’s time. I’m going to call on a vote for tonight. Settle this once and for all. And I’m thinking I’m probably not going to run. I’m just about done here.

  Eddie smiles, holds my hand and says, Danny, you don’t have to walk away—you’ve won here, don’t you see, you’re the last man standing? You’ve—we’ve—stared the pricks down.

  Nah, I’m over it, Eddie, I say. I’m quitting, going home to Ana and the kids. If they’re still there. I don’t want this anymore. So can you please call Ana for me, tell her I’d really like her and the kids here with me for the presser when I walk away from it? I mean, if she’s up for it. Maybe help organise them some flights?

  Then the phone rings in my hand.

  Uh, hullo, hullo, can you hear me?

  Yeah.

  Is that you, Danny? Danny Slattery?

  No, it’s Cinder-fuckin’-rella.

  Really?

  Um, no it’s actually Danny Slattery, I say.

  Because I’m sweating like fury, I instinctively reach into my coat pocket for Mum’s hanky. I like to carry it everywhere.

  And there it is, monogrammed DS. It’s odd because I left it in the geocache in return for the yellow envelope just a few hours back. I shake the hanky, which seems newly pressed and starched, and a little plastic sachet of white powder falls onto the shiny wood at my feet.

  For fuck’s sake, Eddie says, more in astonishment than disapproval.

  Deth, I say. A present from Deth. Think he stuck it in my pocket before I went into the chamber.

  I turn back to the phone, say, Sorry, mate, bit distracted here …

  Oh, Danny. Danny. Hi, Danny. I hope you’re not busy up there in Canberra or anything. You’ve probably got a bit on, I know. But I’ve tried to call you a few times now. And your mum has been trying to call you for a few days as well. She told me she’s been ringing you every day but couldn’t get no answer from your portable phone. Very busy you are, she said. Well anyway, you know, I try to be a good neighbour. Not much good at anything else in life, so I tried to help out your old mum, you know—get a few messages for her down at the shops at the village. I always got her medicine from the chemist—didn’t matter to me coz I had to go down there each day anyway to get me methadone. Anyway, Danny, then I didn’t hear from your mum from about yesterday afternoon and she’s called me earlier to come. Anyway, I tried knocking and that. She didn’t answer so I called the coppers down at Heidelberg. They come straight away—they know me, you know?

  Who is this?

  Danny, it’s Trev Dunkley.

  Who?

  Maggot. It’s me, Maggot. You remember me, Danny—from the village?

  Yeah, right … Maggot. Hi, mate, look I’m just a bit fuckin’ snowed …

  Yeah, Danny it’s me. Anyway, the coppers broke in. And there she was, just sittin’ in the chair by the telephone. Just like she was sitting there and waitin’ for someone to call.

  Maggot, mate, spit it out. What’re you trying to say?

  Sorry, Danny. But Bev’s dead. Your mum’s dead, Danny.

  I freeze like I do whenever Shark Face gets me. I’m choking on the monster’s ammonium stench, suffocating in its filthy fur, fighting for breath. And I’m starting to fall. Eddie catches me, helps steady me.

  The phone, still in my hand, vibrates with an incoming text.

  Through my tears that are coming, already, in a torrent, I read Ana’s message: Want me & babies to fly up ’sarvo? The Project: back on track? Xoxo A

  Acknowledgements

  I spoke to many people who work in and around politics in the course of writing Challenge. They all carry, as political and emotional scar tissue, stories of the incredible, inhuman demands of what they do. I’ve been lucky to maintain valued friendships with a few politicians and others who have served them as advisers and, of course, with some of the journalists who cover their deeds. I thank them all because their lives inspired and, to an extent, informed this book that grew from a short story that I published in 2008. Ultimately, however, this is a work of imagination that was written long after I ceased covering politics, and obsessing on its minutiae, for a living. None of the characters is real or based on any individual.

  My thanks, also, to everyone at Melbourne University Publishing— especially Louise Adler and Colette Vella—for embracing this idea and sticking with it patiently through its many iterations and my various diversions. Thank you Alexandra Nahlous for a seamless edit and Mary Cunnane for early readings and invaluable advice. Thanks also to Mark Dapin, Katharine Murphy, Foong Ling Kong, George Megalogenis, Bryan Dawe and Tony Llewellyn-Jones.

  As always, I thank my mates—especially Michael Brissenden, Chris Hammer, Mike Bowers and Jeremy Thompson—who patiently listened while I lumbered them with descriptions of characters and plot. And thank you family—Jahni, Joe and Claudia—for patiently enduring my writing absences. Finally and not least, thanks Lenore for unwavering support, love and sage advice.

  Paul Daley, Canberra, May 2014