Sucked In

by Shane Maloney

  ‘Fair to say, and I think you’ll all agree with me,’ he started, ‘we’ve put up a pretty good show in recent weeks. The public is tiring of this government’s high-handed attitude. It’s looking to us to keep up the pressure.’

  Metcalfe was whistling dixie. The fact was, we’d been comprehensively trounced in every fight we picked. And successfully painted as a rat-pack of financial incompetents who couldn’t be trusted to run a primary school tuck-shop.

  As Metcalfe continued, chopping the air for emphasis, an air of lethargy filled the room. In the seat beside me, Kelvin Yabbsley, the member for Corio East, lowered his chin to his chest and closed his eyes.

  He was dreaming, I fancied, about his superannuation payout. After twenty-two years on the back bench, Yabbers was due to retire at the next election. With his parliamentary pension and a pozzie on the board of the Geelong Harbour Trust, he would want for nothing for the rest of his natural life.

  Play your cards right kid, I told myself, and one day that could be you.

  Eventually, Alan Metcalfe’s air-karate pep-talk petered out. ‘Fair to say, all things considered, we’ve got our work cut out for us,’ he concluded. ‘And on that note, I’ll hand the floor to the shadow ministers who’ll brief us on their respective portfolio areas.’

  Shoulders sagged lower and backsides sank deeper into seats. Con Caramalides, our point man for planning and infrastructure, began to outline his plans to stick it up the government over a raft of issues connected with increased domestic electricity charges. If anybody needed a raft, it was Con. He sounded like he was drowning in molasses.

  ‘…the flow-on of cross-ownership to low-voltage…’

  I did my best to stay awake, just in case there was any mention of my current parliamentary duties. Shadow Secretary for Ethnic Affairs, Local Government and Fair Trading. Acting assistant manager of opposition business in the upper house, pro tem. Various other bits and bobs. With our numbers so short, it was all hands on deck.

  And what a motley crew of deck-hands we were.

  Most of our frontbench were yesterday’s heroes, so busy undermining one another that they’d lost sight of any other reason for existence. Circling each other like burned-out suns, they were kept in place only by the centrifugal force of their mutual loathing. Of the fresher faces, few stood out as foreman material. For my money, our best hope was Peter Thorsen, the deputy leader.

  Thorsen was a cleanskin, untarnished by our period in government. Not yet forty, wheaten-haired with the hint of a tennis tan, he was the very picture of a golden boy on the cusp of middle age. One of the Concord faction, he carried himself with a breezy self-confidence that played well on television. He’d scored some hits on the floor of parliament and he was popular with the troops. But so far, he’d given no indication of having his sights set on the top job. Whether motivated by caution or timing or loyalty, he seemed content to play second fiddle to Metcalfe.

  ‘Natural gas, on the other hand,’ said Con, ‘is a two-edged sword…’

  Thorsen had one arm draped across the back of his chair, browsing a document. He glanced up, saw me looking his way, and gave me a sly grin. Ho-hum, it said, here we are again. I replied with a resigned shrug and put a balled fist to my mouth, stifling a yawn.

  By eleven-thirty, the shadow ministers’ round-ups had ambled to a conclusion. The room came out of its collective coma. Members began gathering up their papers. Kelvin Yabbsley opened his eyes, blew his nose and pulled up his socks.

  ‘Fair to say that covers the overall thrust,’ said Metcalfe, raising his voice above the resurgent murmur. ‘But before I close the meeting, I’ve got a brief announcement to make.’

  There was a communal deflation and bums again descended onto seats.

  ‘We’re all deeply grieved,’ said Metcalfe, ‘fair to say, at the untimely death of Charlie Talbot.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ murmured a smattering of voices.

  Metcalfe signalled for silence, then raked us with his sternest stare. ‘And I believe the best way to honour his memory is to avoid a distracting and divisive preselection brawl over the seat he left vacant. Accordingly, I’ve assured our federal colleagues that the Victorian branch can be relied on one hundred percent to adhere to the current agreement regarding the prompt filling of the vacancy in Coolaroo.’

  There was a low burble of assent from the Concord ranks.

  ‘So who’s the lucky boy?’ chipped in Nanette Vandenberg, one of the independents. ‘It is a boy, I presume.’

  Heads swivelled, then turned back to Metcalfe. ‘I’ve been given to understand that the choice is Phil Sebastian,’ he said. ‘He’ll bring a strong background in policy development to the federal team.’

  In other words, he was a policy wonk with fuck-all experience of ground-level politics. He also happened to be Barry Quinlan’s chief-of-staff. At least now I knew which particular finger the good senator was giving the voters of Coolaroo.

  A lukewarm murmur of approval wafted from the thin ranks of the Left. The choice had evidently not been met with unanimous enthusiasm among the comrades. Nothing remarkable there. Nelson Mandela would’ve got the same reception.

  ‘I’m confident I can rely on you all,’ said Metcalfe pointedly. ‘A hundred percent.’ He brought the edge of one hand down hard on the open palm of the other. ‘Understood?’

  All heads nodded in unison, a row of toy dogs in the rear window of a slow-moving vehicle.

  ‘In that case, I declare this meeting closed.’

  As the room began to empty, Peter Thorsen caught my eye. Angling his head slightly, he twitched his chin upwards in the direction of his second-floor office.

  Whatever it is, I thought, it can wait until I’ve had a cup of tea. I headed for the urn on the sideboard to dunk myself a bag. Jenny Hovacks, a Concord spear-carrier, was ahead of me in the queue. She’d been buttonholed by Eric Littler, one of the Left.

  ‘We’re not unhappy with the result,’ he was saying fiercely. ‘It’s the process we don’t like.’

  ‘Murray,’ Jenny turned to greet me. ‘What do you think of your chances tomorrow?’

  Jenny was an Essendon supporter. The Lions would be up against them at the MCG, their first Melbourne match since the merger.

  ‘I think we’ll make a good showing,’ I said. ‘Then you’ll shit on us from a great height.’

  ‘Just as well you’re used to it, eh?’ said misery-guts Eric, snaffling the last of the teabags.

  I didn’t like the turn this conversation was taking. I settled for a butternut snap and trudged upstairs to Thorsen’s office.

  His admin assistant, Del, was busy at her keyboard, fingers flying. ‘Go on in, Murray,’ she said, flipping a wrist towards the open door of the inner sanctum.

  Thorsen’s office overlooked the Gordon Reserve, a triangle of lawn studded with memorials to dead poets and imperial warriors. He was standing at his desk, a massive block of native hardwood incised with an art nouveau gum leaf motif. His jacket was draped over the back of his chair and he’d loosened his tie. A cluster of silver-framed photographs was arrayed in a semi-circle on a credenza behind him, family snaps of his barrister wife and their brood of tow-headed children, four at last count. A phone was pressed to his ear.

  ‘Yup, yup,’ he said into the mouthpiece, waving me inside and signalling that I should shut the door. ‘Yup.’

  Peter’s political base lay on the other side of town, in socially liberal seaside suburbs that had long since traded their working-class credentials for off-the-rack bohemianism, grouchy gentility and rampant property speculation. Our relationship was cordial, but it had yet to be tested where the poop meets the propeller.

  He hung up, nodded for me to sit down, ambled across to the window, propped his backside against the sill and stuck his hands in his pockets.

  ‘Everybody appreciates the job you did with Charlie Talbot, Murray, the funeral arrangements and so forth. It must have been pretty rough.’

  ‘The l
east I could do for an old mate.’

  ‘Big shoes to fill,’ he said. ‘You know Phil Sebastian, do you?’

  ‘We’ve met in passing,’ I said. ‘But I imagine I’ll be seeing a lot more of him from now on. Squiring him around the shire, familiarising him with the southerly boroughs of his new fiefdom,’ I fluttered a regal hand. ‘Introducing him to the peasantry.’

  ‘Will the folks in the local branches be welcoming?’

  ‘There’s bound to be some bitching about being taken for granted,’ I said. ‘Always is.’

  ‘Think any of them will feel aggrieved enough to take a tilt?’

  I shrugged. ‘Somebody might have a rush of blood to the head, but I doubt they’ll go the distance. The result’s a foregone conclusion after all, isn’t it?’

  ‘Alan certainly hopes so. The push for a change of leadership is building up steam. Keeping this cross-factional deal on track will be the litmus test of his authority. But if the wheels come off, he’ll have laid himself open to a challenge.’

  ‘Only if there’s a challenger,’ I said.

  A wolfish glint flashed in Thorsen’s eyes. Hello, I thought. Could he be making a move at long last?

  I looked around, mock furtive, and dropped my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Strictly between you and me, Peter,’ I said. ‘Nobody could be worse than Metcalfe. Not even a ponce like you. And if you can cook up a spill, you’ve got my vote.’ I put my hand on my heart. ‘True dinks.’

  He gave a sardonic smile. ‘The Murray Whelan seal of endorsement.’

  ‘But,’ I said. ‘Throwing the Coolaroo deal off the tracks, that’ll take some doing. You’d need a spoiler candidate, the fly in Metcalfe’s ointment.’

  ‘Do you think there’s any chance such a person might emerge?’

  ‘Anything’s possible. Plenty of wannabes out there. What you’re after is a kamikaze pilot.’

  ‘Quinlan has the numbers on the panel, so they’ll get creamed in the final count,’ he agreed. ‘The important thing is to make a decent showing in the first round, the district plebiscite. The ideal stalking horse would be some local identity with a branch or two up their sleeve.’

  The description fitted Mike Kyriakis to a tee.

  ‘Somebody encouraged to run by a friend in the parliamentary ranks?’ I said. ‘A hidden hand to steer him in the right direction.’

  ‘Precisely. An MP without a vested interest in the current arrangements. Somebody committed to the renewal of the party. Somebody with an eye to the future.’

  ‘Put away the trowel, Peter,’ I said. ‘What’s in it for me?’

  ‘Assuming this all pans out,’ he said. ‘How does a shadow ministry sound?’

  ‘Like a hollow carrot,’ I said. ‘More work for very little gain.’

  ‘But an assured seat at the grown-ups’ table when we get back into office.’

  ‘If we get back into office.’

  Thorsen smiled placidly, conceding the point. ‘Sooner or later the pendulum will swing back our way. And when it does, we’d better be ready. Not sitting around with cobwebs up our quoit.’

  He went back behind his desk, the loyal deputy leader once more. ‘We’re speaking hypothetically, of course.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  If Peter had finally decided to take a shot at the boss cockie’s job, he was approaching his target at a very acute angle. In all likelihood, he was simply testing the waters, sniffing the wind, flying a kite, laying some pipe. Whatever the case, I felt no pressing temptation to sign up for the ride.

  Wait and see, that was the motto emblazoned on my escutcheon. Head down, tail up. There was fuck-all mileage in getting sucked into the machinations of the upper echelons.

  Thorsen scrutinised my face with a look of bland innocence. I chuckled, shook my head slowly and stood up.

  ‘Before you go,’ he said. ‘Brian McKechnie is heading off on a study tour of Europe at the end of the month. Looking into export opportunities for the alfalfa industry. We’ll need somebody to cover his portfolio.’

  ‘Agriculture?’ I said. ‘What do I know about agriculture?’

  ‘Messy business, apparently. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty.’

  I went downstairs to the back door, heading for my office in the prefab annexe behind the House. The Henhouse, we called it. A cool front had arrived from the west, turning the sky into a roiling mass of rain clouds. The temperature had dropped ten degrees and gusts of damp wind whistled across the carpark. As I hunched my shoulders, bracing for the dash, my mobile phone rang.

  ‘Mr Whelan? It’s Kelly Cusack from the ABC. I wonder if you could spare me a moment of your time?’

  She was perched on one of the banquettes in the vestibule, a laptop open on her knees, too deeply immersed in her work to cast more than a cursory glance at the comings and goings around her. From time to time, she compressed her telegenic lips and looked up absently, as though hunting an elusive phrase. I ambled past in the slipstream of a tour group, then detoured into the now-empty Queen’s Hall, confident that she’d registered my presence.

  Thirty seconds later, she found me waiting beside the statue of Victoria Regina, concealed from casual view by the royal plinth. A press pass was clipped to the lapel of her jacket and her laptop case was slung over one shoulder. She was all business.

  ‘I don’t have long,’ she said. ‘I’m on a flight back to Canberra at three. Is there somewhere we can go?’

  Heavy drapes hung on brass rails across the archways at the back of the hall, separating it from the gallery outside the parliamentary library, an area off-limits to the public. I checked the way was clear, we slipped through the curtains and I led her down a carpeted corridor past the office of the Usher of the Black Rod, closed for lunch. Ten steps along, I pressed my shoulder against a section of the wood panelling. It swung open, revealing the dimly lit chamber of the Legislative Council.

  The shop was shut, the portals locked, the lights switched off. A pale wash of daylight spilled through the high transom windows, illuminating the elaborate plasterwork of the barrel-vaulted ceiling and the gilt finials of the Corinthian columns. Reflected off the crimson plush of the benches, it bathed the whole space in a rosy glow. I shepherded the journalist inside and slipped the latch on the door, a discreet hatch used by the clerks when sittings were in progress. Up close, I could smell her perfume, musky and elementally feminine.

  My hands found her hips and guided her back against the scalloped canopy of the President’s podium. Her peripherals slid to the floor as I took one of her lobes between my lips and sucked her pearl stud.

  She pushed me away, hoisted her skirt and peeled off her pantyhose. In the five seconds this took, I shucked off my jacket and tossed it across the back of the President’s chair.

  With a quick glance to double-check that we were still alone, we went back into our clinch. Her response was eager, a real buttock-gripper. As my lips slid over her cheek, she ran her palms up my chest and ground her hips against me. ‘Is that a ceremonial mace in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?’

  Too glad for words, I lunged for her earlobe again, running my hands up the inside of her jacket, one cupping the contents of her cashmere, the other savouring the sexy slither of her back, my fingers splaying as they neared the nape of her neck. ‘The hair,’ she squirmed. ‘Don’t muss the hair. You know the rules.’

  No kissing was the other rule. It played havoc with her lipstick, she said.

  Obediently, I slowed my pace, allowing things to take their time, what little time we had. Lust-flushed in the half-light, we gazed glassily into each other’s eyes, confirming our mutual understanding of the situation.

  This wasn’t romance. It was an itch. And by Christ we were scratching it.

  ‘Saw you at the Premier’s casino thing.’ My breathing was heavy with anticipation. ‘Not exactly hard news.’

  ‘Not as hard as something I could name.’

  ‘Name it,’ I begged. ‘Name
it.’

  She did more than that. She put her mouth to my ear and tendered some encouraging recommendations regarding its employment. My fingers delved beneath her skirt. She was likewise engaged, negotiating a break in my strides. As I found the passage I sought, she seized upon the pressing issue.

  ‘I hear there’s a spill in the offing.’

  With a handshake like that, she should have been in politics. She definitely had my vote of confidence. Maintaining her grip on proceedings, she edged towards the despatch table, towing me along behind.

  ‘You want spill,’ I muttered through clenched teeth. ‘Keep glad-handing me like that, I’ll give you spill.’

  She shoved aside the chief clerk’s chair and bent forward across the despatch table, cheek pressed to the baize. ‘Thorsen’s almost got the numbers, I hear.’ She widened her stance, toes gripping the carpet, fingers curled around the bevelled edge of the hardwood. ‘He’s making all sorts of offers, they say. Thinking of putting your hand up?’

  Not just my hand. I hefted her skirt, exposing her ivory orbs. My head spun with the sheer recklessness of it, the wanton folly. We could be sprung at any moment. The main doors would burst open and the chief steward would usher in a tour party of school children. It was utter madness. Again I scanned the room, confirming that we were unobserved.

  ‘Who’s this “they”?’ My trousered thighs slid forwards into a valley of bare skin.

  ‘My lips are sealed.’

  ‘Liar,’ I gasped, pressing home my point.

  The slap of flesh on flesh, the carnal squish of congress, urgent and rhythmic, ascended to the chandeliers. Regal beasts, the lion and the unicorn, stared speechless from atop the President’s podium. Mythic champions brandished their frescoed spears. The locomotive of progress hurtled onward, pistons pumping.

  We’d been at this, intermittently, for almost a year. It had begun with a spur-of-the-moment, alcohol-fuelled shag on the fire stairs at the Meridian during some interminable awards dinner, something to do with medicine and the media. She was there to accept a Golden Goitre for a doco on pharmaceutical kickbacks. I was there as the shadow of the Shadow Minister for Health, who was recovering from a colonoscopy.