Even Henry got that. Even Henry wanted some of Lyndon’s funk to rub off on the public record. And I’ve never forgotten it. In my determination to allow some of my funk to rub off on these pages, Henry — more than Father, Garry, or Bessie — is the greatest influence on this memoir.]
I left Henry and took the lift upstairs to LBJ’s archives. I requested boxes relating to his March 31 speech — his announcement in 1968 that he, the sitting President, would not contest a second term. Less than four years earlier, 12 months after JFK’s murder, Johnson received more than 60 per cent of the popular vote, the most in a century. But now his popularity had curdled and his arteries were jammed; the Vietnam War continued and assassins stalked the land. ‘I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.’
I read many handwritten drafts of that speech, scribbled on blue and yellow legal pads. I studied marginalia and the speech’s advancements. And while I enjoyed physically touching history, none of these words explained where the Southern grifter’s will to power had gone, why Johnson — who had, without shame or exhaustion, lied, bitten, and schemed his way to high office — was relinquishing the presidency.
The best words I read weren’t by the President’s speechwriters. They were found in a letter sent to Johnson by a Nebraskan teacher, punched out on a typewriter after watching his resignation speech. I guess Johnson never read it. The note wished the President well, before saying: ‘Americans are a heavy-handed and vulgar people; impatient, impudent, and grasping. But we are also well-meaning, generous, and possessed of a conviction of national purpose. While we ignore our geniuses, butcher our saints, and vilify our leaders, we rush to give our lives, our sons, and our substance to just causes.’
Here was Demos, again. Passionate, sacrificial, imperfect. God, how I loved The People. In Canberra, I would refine, reflect, and amplify them.*
[* ‘It’s always in threes with you. Do you know that? Do you even know you’re fucken doing it? “Refine, reflect, and amplify.” This, this, and this. Gets fucken tired, mate.’]
Two days before Obama was sworn in, I was sitting alone on the back porch of my hostel, swaddled in goose-down and staring at the yard’s bare maples. It was morning, and gorgeously quiet. No-one else was up yet. I removed a glove, lit a cigarette, then checked my phone. And there it was: an email from the Department of Art, Innovation and Robots — phonetically rendered ‘DARE’. They were offering me the speechwriting role in Canberra. It wasn’t a political role, but that was okay — I’d be writing for a federal minister. A balladeer for our national project! A sweet and resonant voice of the government’s vision!
That evening, while I sat in my hostel room, John — DARE’s Director of Communications — Skyped me from Canberra to confirm my position. John was fat, bald, and radiated profound regret.
‘So you’re in Washington for the inauguration, hey?’
‘That’s right. It’s very exciting.’
‘So who is it this year? Cowboys, Steelers?’
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about American football.’
‘No, I’m here for the inauguration.’
‘Yeah, you said.’
‘So not the Super Bowl. I think you’re thinking of the Super Bowl.’
‘So what’s this — baseball?’
This stung. I was silent for a while as I contemplated the gulf of knowledge between us. I had expected everyone in government to share my interests, to be similarly electrified by them.
I also expected to be intellectually intimidated by him. Was he not a director of communications in our new Camelot? I’d wanted to talk Teddy Sorenson with him, but instead I was explaining what a paywall was.
‘Toby?’
‘Sorry. Yes?’
‘We’ll see you next month. Enjoy the game.’
This did not bode well. Still, I could ignore it for now because pilgrims had tripled Washington’s size. On every corner, street vendors sold unauthorised POTUS swag from mats on the pavement. Alongside the Mall ran a mile of TV news vans, their satellites erect. From the doors of the National Archives snaked a line of people that extended around the block. The Lincoln Memorial was full, its gift shop overwhelmed, but from its marble stairs, from the spot that Martin Luther King declared his dream, you could look eastward over the whole Mall, over the reflecting pool and the distressed lawn, past the pilgrims exhaling vapour, down to the giant obelisk, pausing on the history being made and communing, vainly, with history past … and I could absurdly think, as a man of political letters destined for our own capital, that all of this was an extension of me, that I was an extension of it, that we were dreaming each other into existence.
Where eagles dare
I’d arrived at Canberra airport. My tears had dried, but I could feel the reservoir rippling again. Its lip would breach soon. I missed Rachel intensely.
Our goodbye was wordless. If we spoke we’d dissolve, so we shut our mouths and, through a veil of tears, communicated with the intensity of our embrace — broken only when the camera crew for Nine’s Drug Mules? became super intrusive.
I wept for most of the flight, and contrived an alibi by twice watching Free Willy. At the baggage carousel, I was sandbagging my eyes. I turned to one of the TV screens. The Prime Minister was speaking. Cheer up, I thought. I was in Camelot now.
We’ve reviewed the consensus and will entwine some unorthodoxy, if you don’t mind me saying. Which is to say, we’ve subjected this policy to independent analysis, some very rigorous analysis, which has upheld the orthodox view but left room for some discretionary manipulation, which is what I, as Prime Minister, and in collaboration with my cabinet, intend to exercise. Which is to say …
I knew it didn’t sound great. But back then, I thought the Prime Minister was a bashful nerd. A man embarrassed by his intellect, but reluctantly persuaded to apply it to our public life. Consider the anxious adjustment of his glasses; the nervous sweeping of his fringe. Consider his apologetic use of jargon — and his innocent mishandling of idiom.
A benevolent technocrat, a less-articulate Jed Bartlett. A man humbled by God, but respectful of evidence-based policy. A man who slept well and never swore. An honourable and serious man. A leader. A reformer. A man who would govern for a decade.
I called this man — or at least this idea of a man — the Mandarin Priest, and I thought he was entitled to sermonise on Good Governance even if he sounded like a pompous droid when he did. He would take us to the mountaintop, a place of coherent and evidence-based reform — so what if the press mocked his homilies? I was sure that public servants welcomed them as validating. Few in public life ever defended them. For the press gallery, Parliament House comprised government. Not the departments. When bureaucrats were noticed, it was usually as subjects of hostile caricature. Now, it seemed, they had the ultimate champion.
My idealism had survived exile and bull fellatio. I grabbed my suitcase.
For reasons I was yet to understand, our floor smelt like a fish market and was lit by rows of flickering tubes that inspired, on average, two epileptic seizures a month. Beige dividers formed our ‘work spaces’, which were mostly dressed with excitedly doctored calendars.
The building itself was a crime that legislation was yet to recognise. It resembled a giant mass of congealed pus, if congealed pus could be sculpted into harsh angles and appointed with windows. Birds glimpsed the atrocity and fell dead. Junkies, intuiting some dark connection with the building, jabbed themselves with their last fix in our lobby.
On my first day, John introduced my team.
‘Toby, I’d like you to meet Susie,’ he said. Startled, Susie turned from her screen, which showed an eBay page for an industrial-sized tarpaulin. The neckline of her faded red T-shirt was laced with a string of multicoloured resin beads. ‘Susie writes our media releas
es,’ John explained.
‘But that’s not really my passion,’ Susie said.
‘Oh? What is?’ I asked. John stiffened.
‘Susie, I don’t think Toby is—’
‘Film,’ Susie said.
‘You like film?’
‘I don’t just like film,’ Susie smiled proudly. ‘I make films. Specifically, pornography.’
I nodded.
‘Ready for my pitch? I’m looking for investors.’
‘Sure.’
‘It’s summer in the suburbs,’ Susie said, gesturing sweepingly to suggest an Australian dream. ‘The barbie’s on, the beer is cold, and the boys are in the backyard, playing cricket. Camera moves in: there’s a shirtless man wielding a bat. Like he was born with it. Who is that man?’
I shrugged.
‘It’s Dong Bradman. Camera pulls back. Bowler’s charging in. It’s a short delivery, bit of chin music. But is The Dong intimidated?’
I shook my head.
‘Correct. He moves to the back foot, hooks the ball for six. Textbook. But the ball’s gone, Toby, over the neighbour’s fence. Six and out. Now Dong’s gotta fetch it.’
‘From the neighbour?’ I asked, knowing the answer.
‘Right.’
‘That’s you?’
‘Bingo. And that, mate, is Sex and Out. I see myself as an auteur. The Tarantino of todger.’
She definitely had a vision. John was rubbing his brow despairingly. ‘This,’ John gestured, ‘is Archibald Honeydew, a departmental treasure and our media liaison officer.’
A tall, elderly man stood gracefully and offered his hand. He was dressed with incongruous elegance — I could imagine him having been a witty confidant to Jackie Kennedy. Bowtie with herringbone jacket; impeccably pleated pants. A thin tuft of hair was carefully parted and secured with gel. Then, suddenly, his face crumpled with embarrassment and he walked quickly away.
‘Don’t take that personally,’ John said. ‘Archie has Tourette’s.’
‘Where’s he going?’ I asked, watching him open a door and disappear inside.
‘The Vault,’ John replied. ‘We’ve fitted the stationery room with foam padding, so it’s acoustically secure. More or less.’
‘He’s a darling,’ Susan told me.
‘A gentle puritan,’ John said.
Archibald had a doctorate in ‘continental philosophy’, John explained, and had once edited an influential newspaper in the ’70s until, during an interview, he called the prime minister a ‘piss gibbon’.
The soundproofing was imperfect, and while John and Susan described the sweetness of their colleague’s virtue, I heard what sounded like distant artillery fire. Then the Vault’s door opened and Archibald reappeared, walking towards us, his height shrunk with shame. He extended his hand to me again. ‘My richest apologies,’ he said. ‘My psyche hosts a voluble demon.’
Our floor met in the conference room once a week, whether we needed to or not. Though discussion was almost entirely concerned with toner levels and the dubiousness of the Vault’s soundproofing, everyone brought pens, folders, and thick notepads to suggest their workload and expectation of a lively meeting.
‘Good morning,’ John said. ‘Before we start, I want to acknowledge our newest staff member. Toby is our speechwriter, and will be working closely with Susan, Archibald, and the Minister’s office.’ I nodded. ‘Now, first up we have Abigail on a lingering issue. After repeated warnings, I had really hoped this would have stopped by now. But here we are. Abigail.’
Abigail was John’s personal assistant, and the logistics manager for the floor. It was said that she was once a feared and fastidious gatekeeper of stationery, until she accidentally sent a private email to everyone on the floor, in which she mocked Susan’s homemade earrings with the kind of invective usually reserved for condemning abusive priests. After this, Abigail was no longer regarded as coldly scrupulous — with one stray email, she had destroyed her moral authority.
Abigail gently cleared her throat. ‘The prawn issue is ongoing,’ she said. Some scribbled ‘prawns’ in their notebooks. ‘Last week, Geoffrey discovered four taped to the bottom of his keyboard. Now, it’s possible that someone from another division is responsible. But if it’s one of us, please stop immediately or this will be escalated.’
That explained the smell.
With no work to do, in my first few weeks at DARE I developed a cheap ruse: printing off long articles unrelated to work and reading them with a concerned face and hovering pen to give the impression I was crafting the next Redfern speech. But the duplicity was unnecessary: a casual survey of the floor revealed shamelessly undisguised sessions of Minesweeper.
This idleness, I learnt, wasn’t simply a common personality flaw — it reflected the distrust of the Minister’s office, which was assigning less and less work to the department. This distrust was demoralising, if not unfounded, and it created a circular contempt. Shown little faith, the bureaucrats became idler and more petulant, reinforcing the political staffers’ assessment of them as superannuated parasites.
Susie was in the Vault with Rupert from accounting, ‘shooting the interiors’ for Sex and Out, though I didn’t see any cameras. I was editing her script. The writing was appalling, but at least I had a rare opportunity to elevate porn’s language.
EXT. FRONT DOOR, MILF’S HOUSE — DAY
MILF opens front door. Sees shirtless DONG BRADMAN in boardies cricket whites.
DONG BRADMAN
G’day. Sorry to disturb you, miss.
MILF
What seems to be the problem?
DONG BRADMAN
Well, my ball is in your backyard.
MILF
Oh. Well, you’d better come in then.
INT. MILF’S HOUSE - DAY
It’s a house, with stuff in it. Definitely a couch. Relaxed interior, suggesting MILF’s creative, independent but unpretentious spirit. There’s an oil painting of David Boon on the wall, and two old but comfortable couches. A copy of Wisden lies open on one.
MILF
You look thirsty. Can I get you a Gatorade?
DONG BRADMAN
Sounds nice. Interesting painting. It seems paradoxically poised — simultaneously declaring reverence and irreverence.
MILF
Let me see what I’ve got in the fridge. Make yourself comfortable. That’s very perceptive. Our appreciation of Boonie is usually warm but ironic, but I think there’s some solid virtues to respect in the man too.
DONG BRADMAN
Don’t mind if I do. Oh, such as?
Then Cam the Intern invited me up to the roof to smoke a joint. I accepted his invitation, but declined the cabbage, and as we sat against a large exhaust vent —which was busy releasing the souls of a thousand crustaceans — he told me he’d just finished his doctoral thesis on the efficacy of micro-loans in Tunisia, but now did little except tutor John in Excel and online dating.
‘He has no discernible skill,’ Cam said, expelling a pungent cloud of smoke. ‘And yet he’s reached the executive level. His existence is like an unsolvable Babylonian riddle.’
When I returned to my desk, John yelled for me to join him in his office. I was frightened that he’d discovered my script-editing, or the fact I had nothing else to do.
‘I have your mission,’ John says.
‘I’m sorry?’ I say.
‘I have your mission.’
‘Am I in trouble?’
‘Why would you be in trouble?’
‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. You have a mission for me?’
‘Yes. You are to return in time and kill Hitler.’
‘What?’
‘I’m putting you in a time machine, Toby.’
‘To kill Hitler?’
‘That’s right.’
/> ‘Ok. How old is he?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘He’s an infant.’
‘Then I can’t do it.’
Stretched over John’s shirt, gut, and tie was a woollen jumper, marred by Cosby-patterns and spilt custard. His corner office — ‘the Fishbowl’ — was exposed to the rest of the floor by glass. I couldn’t decide if its banality was confirmed or relieved by the plastic fern and framed Ron Barassi poster.
‘You refuse?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re refusing an order?’
‘I’m refusing. One, there’s probably no universe in which you would possess that kind of authority. Two, he’s not Hitler yet.’
‘But he’s always Hitler. He’s never not Hitler.’
‘He’s a baby. He’s got loose bowels and a rattle. He’s not yet the masturbating goon, the mad butcher, a horseman of the apocalypse.’
‘That’s the fucking point, mate. You’d stop him from becoming—’
‘Here’s what I think will happen: Mr. and Mrs. Hitler, roused from their game of bridge, find some guy with a Country Road sweater and commando knife bent over their son’s cot, blood everywhere, and sweet Adolf’s neck slashed like arts funding.’
John is considering this. I go on. ‘They scream — I’ll never forget the noise — and then I turn to them and say: “Hey, this will sound really weird,” and I explain the cosmic obscenities their son will commit, but this doesn’t quell their horror because, for a start, mate, they don’t speak English. Second, I’ve returned to a place where time travel doesn’t exist yet, so even if they could understand me, my rationale is just hot gibberish. Third, none of this changes the fact that I’ve just butchered a child before its adoring parents. They aren’t suddenly overcome with relief, mate. “Oh, danke, Mr. Time-Travelling Assassin, come play bridge with us — the maid will mop up.”’
The Speechwriter Page 7