John is deep in thought. He leans back in his chair and examines my clothes. ‘Wouldn’t your skinny jeans tip them off about your time travelling?’
‘Doubtful.’
‘Your fashion would stand out, I think. Kind of distinctive.’
‘I think my fashion would be a triviality, John, because I’ve just butchered their fucking baby.’
‘I mean, did denim even exist then?’
‘I think you’re missing the point here.’
‘It’s an alien fabric to them.’
‘Fine.’
‘Cut in an alien style.’
‘Sure.’
‘I mean, skinny jeans are a mystery to me, and I live in this century.’
‘My jeans, John, aren’t being read by Hitler’s parents as proof of my time travel. Okay?’
‘Fine. Fuck it. What about Phil Spector?’
I had not moved to Canberra for this.*
[* This idea of time-travelling assassination piqued Garry’s interest, and after some thought he nominated the ‘dingo cunt’ that killed Azaria Chamberlain as his quarry. Politely, I expressed surprise that Garry had used this extraordinary power so narrowly. This unravelled things quickly. Garry accused me of trying to stop him from killing the dingo, and I argued that I couldn’t possibly stop him because it was just a thought experiment. Which only angered him more. Effectively, he accused me of being indifferent to Lindy’s multiple victimisations and of trying to police his emotions, at which point he held my head in the toilet while repeatedly flushing it.]
A requirement for my job was submitting to security vetting. For some reason, I required a ‘Top Secret’ clearance. The guiding logic of this process is not to determine your moral laxity, but to establish whether you are sufficiently embarrassed by your mottled humanity that you have become vulnerable to blackmail. Friends who had been through this explained that confession of drug use and niche pornography was the smart move. It wasn’t about what you had done, they said, but about what you wanted to hide. I wondered if they knew about Bessie and, if so, if that was significant.
Before leaving for the capital, I completed the vetting documents with qualified candour, and posted them back. Once in Canberra, the security team arranged an interview with me. Jason, an ex-bouncer, ushered me into a stark room with fluorescent lighting. He resembled a boab tree, and wore a shirt at least three sizes too small. I wondered if the threat of its buttons bursting explosively from the strain of his pecs, and hurtling catastrophically into my corneas, was intentional.
In the middle of the room were a grey desk and two opposing chairs. Jason gestured to mine. It was the chair that, once occupied, forced my back to the door. Like his shirt, I wondered if this was significant. Another subtle element of interrogation. I decided that it was, though I was expecting my interlocutor to be more of a George Smiley type — some demure cuckold who was, nonetheless, diabolically cunning.
‘Drugs,’ he said.
I didn’t think this was a question, or even a complete sentence, so I didn’t say anything, and waited for Jason to animate this lone noun with a clause.
‘Drugs,’ he repeated, annoyed.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘are you asking me about drugs?’
‘Yes.’
‘What, exactly?’
He lifted the forms before him. ‘You’ve ticked the box on illicit drugs,’ he said, tapping the paper with his enormous finger. It looked like a zeppelin, and I wondered if I needed a lawyer.
‘Yes.’
‘So you’ve taken illicit drugs?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
I was nervous. Get it together, I thought. ‘Yes. Maybe. Shit, what did I say on the form again?’
‘You said “Yes”,’ Jason said. I had underestimated his cunning.
‘Of course. Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m just … I have, in a very distant past of innocent experimentation, taken some illicit drugs.’
‘What kind?’
‘Marijuana,’ I told him, and I laughed weakly, but what I was thinking about — and hoping my perspiration and creased brow weren’t betraying — was the time a month ago, when I was at a club. I’d swallowed a pinger, and within 10 minutes my guts were Dresden, so I’d grabbed an empty pint glass from the bar and jogged to the bathroom, locked the cubicle, and thrown up in the glass, thus preserving my pill, albeit one partially digested and resting in vomit. And then, with Herculean will, I’d heaved the contents of that glass back down my throat. I gave Jason a smile. ‘The ol’ hooch.’
‘Marijuana,’ Jason said.
‘Yes.’
‘How often?’
‘Whenever I watched David Lynch. Haven’t smoked it for years now,’ I said, and chuckled like I thought an innocent man might chuckle.
Jason scowled. ‘Was Lynch your dealer?’
‘What? No. He’s a filmmaker.’
Jason took some notes. ‘And what about alcohol?’ he asked.
‘It’s good.’
‘Says here you have a few drinks each week.’
‘Few social ones,’ I replied.
‘How many standard drinks in a usual week do you consume?’
I made a quick calculation, which was to take my average consumption and divide it by eight. ‘Six?’
‘And what are you like when you drink alcohol?’
‘What am I like?’
‘Are you discreet?’
I was now thinking of once drunkenly telling my housemate about the operatic sex noises I had heard the night before, lavishly produced by our other housemate, and impressing upon him how joyous and unashamed they were, how similar to barn animals they sounded, how alive and affirming and—
‘I’m discreet,’ I told him.
He scribbled something down. ‘Okay, we’re done. Thanks for coming in.’
‘What?’
‘We’re done.’
And just like that, our battle of minds was over.
In my fourth week, I received my first job: writing a ministerial statement on the opening of a new toilet block we’d funded for the Sydney Opera House. This wasn’t an ideal use of my talents, I thought, but I’ve always said that when life gives you lemons, make vintage Château Margaux. In retrospect, I probably should’ve just made lemonade.
I wrote:
When Churchill required solitude so that he could better plot against Hitler, he found refuge in the bathroom. The toilet was the perfect place to secure his distance from noisy advisers. It was the perfect place to think.
Today, we disrespect toilets. We smother their use in euphemism. Well, this government respects humanity enough to not shy away from humanity’s basic functions. We understand the importance of toilets, and what goes on there. We shit and we piss, and let me tell you — nothing human is alien to the federal government.
These toilets will be added to the Sydney Opera House, a nucleus of great art. And so it is hoped that these new amenities will not only facilitate basic human relief, but allow patrons some quiet contemplation — just as Churchill found.
I knew that it was unorthodox. I knew that it needed work. I knew that ‘shit and piss’ wouldn’t fly. But I wanted to make a statement. I wanted to declare my ambition, originality and contempt for preordained prose.
We would have to compromise. I knew that. But perhaps the strangeness of my speech might dislodge others from their tired grooves. Our country deserved better stories, better language. It needed some blood and vinegar. I anxiously awaited feedback.
‘I don’t … I—’
‘Spit it out, John.’
‘Are you fucking kidding me here?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Are you joking? Is this a joke?’
‘Is what a joke?’
‘The fucking speech, Toby.’
‘The toilet speech?’
‘Yes.’
‘No.’
‘Fuck, okay. Wow. First, you told me that you’ve done this before. Second, you don’t send your first draft to the minister’s office. It goes through me, then the policy divisions, then the Dep Sec, then back to me, then we repeat this process roughly 37 times. Okay? Third, you’re playing this at, like, 11. I need you turn the volume down to about a two. Maybe a one.’
My phone rang. I looked at John. ‘Answer it,’ he said.
It was Stanley, the minister’s media adviser. ‘Are you joking?’
‘People keep asking me that.’
‘Are you fucking joking, Toby?’
‘No, I’m not joking.’
‘You’re a weird little prick, aren’t you? In 30 minutes, I want 400 words on the toilet’s design, water efficiency, and how it reflects the government’s ambitions on climate change.’
He hung up.
‘I don’t think I like Stanley,’ I told John.
‘No one does.’
I was given my second job.
‘Robot pilots?’
‘That’s what they said.’
I was back in John’s office. There’d been another ministerial speech request, but the brief was unhappily vague: a thousand words on robot pilots. Perhaps I should have been grateful for the work, but I was wondering when the world-changing might begin.
‘What are robot pilots?’ I asked.
‘You’d have to ask the private sector, mate.’
‘Automated flight?’
‘Robot pilots.’
‘Do they even exist?’
‘We need a thousand words, Toby.’
‘Why is the length of the speech better defined than its subject?’
‘Here’s the drill,’ he said. ‘Assemble some pap on ingenuity. What’s the fancy word for sleepwalk?’
‘Somnambulate.’
‘Right. Do that with your keyboard.’
‘I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.’
‘I need you to go back to your desk right now, Toby, and write me a thousand words on robot pilots.’
My eyes drifted between the plastic fern and the perpetual custard stain on John’s sleeve. I found the combination strangely provocative, and resolved to tell John to go fuck himself.
‘I won’t do it.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I did not fly 3,000 kilometres for this. I came as a balladeer, John. A troubadour for truth and beauty. That’s why I’m here.’
‘This isn’t Woodstock, son. Now fuck off and somnambulate.’
‘Why are you even here?’ I asked him.
‘To serve the Minister and collect my cheque. Now, I’ll concede that this might not be the job you thought it would be. But it’s the one you fucking have.’
‘That’s it? That’s your Agincourt speech?’
‘I don’t know what this is; now, fuck off and google some Steve Jobs quotes. The Minister loves them.’
But I couldn’t leave. My blood pressure was increasing. I was experiencing intrusive memories of Ms. West and bull fellatio. I think I was hyperventilating, I’m not sure. ‘Let me tell you what’s happened here,’ I said.
‘Oh, please. Enlighten me. I’ve got all fucking day.’
‘The Minister’s adviser is younger than I am, has never built a robot, flown a plane, or managed a tech company,’ I said. ‘And he never will. But occasionally Stanley reads Wired, and when he does he makes sure others see him, because there’s a part of him that’s kinked with doubt. He’s not super bright, but he’s smart enough to occasionally grasp his limitations. But these doubts are mostly forgotten when he goes home to Sydney to visit the family, where they purr over the success of their son and his proximity to power. He revels in this attention, which he repays with political gossip. In this orgy of familial pride, no-one bothers to ask if he is either passionate about or experienced in the areas he is ostensibly there to advise upon.’ John had a look of boredom that I chose to interpret as disguised admiration.
‘Now, Stanley,’ I continued, ‘spends three seconds on a Reddit forum. It’s filled with young men tumescent with the desire to become the next Elon Musk. They have no expertise or attention spans, but they do own weird hats. And our adviser, signed up as Jobs4Life, lurks in the shadows of this thread, scribbling notes and thinking he’s taking the pulse of tech’s avant-garde.’
I thought my jaw might snap — I was really building up some steam now. ‘He’s excited, reckons he can add something usefully exotic to his briefings to the minister. And having fished a few buzzwords and pipe dreams from this excited bilge, Jobs4Life logs off, just before the “conversation” disintegrates into ad hominem and emotional cannibalism. This forum, John, is incredibly volatile — composed of bitter freaks who’ve confused their personality disorders for genius. At this point, injured by the abuse of strangers, young blokes in Jamiroquai hats self-harm in their parents’ basements.
‘Our adviser sees none of this. He’s already gone, thinking he’s glimpsed the zeitgeist, and is now drafting briefing notes. He’s giddy, you know, because he thinks he’s hit upon the solution to his boss’s problem: that the minister knows nothing about either innovation or art, much less automated flight. And so our young man, his self-belief oiled nicely with parental approval, offers to his lord … Robot pilots.’
John leant forward in his chair again to interrupt me, but it was half-hearted.
‘Now, here’s where we come in,’ I continued. ‘We’re asked to reflect — no, formalise — this profound idiocy with a speech.’
‘We do what we’re told to do, or we fuck off,’ John said.
‘Fuck off where?’ I said.
‘Well, in your case, back to the other side of the country.’
He had a point. The department had paid for my airfare, substantial shipping, and a fortnight of serviced accommodation — and my contract stipulated that I was liable for those costs if I didn’t serve at least a year. That was far more money than I had.
‘Robot pilots,’ I said, defeated.
‘At last.’
I walked back to my desk. Susie was polishing the Sex and Out script, which meant removing all my changes. Archibald was reading St. Augustine’s Confessions.
I googled ‘inspirational Steve Jobs quotes’. The minister’s office had a fixation with the guy. Saw him as universal shorthand for innovation, even though the witless regurgitation of his quotes was the opposite of ingenuity. This habit demoralised the policy teams of the department — members of which had never built a robot, flown a plane or managed a tech company either — but who could at least offer more sophisticated references than the minister’s teenage advisers. But the policy teams were ignored, in favour of endless citations of Steve Jobs.
Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful, that’s what matters to me. Sure, fine.
Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. Precisely. And we, the government, would demonstrate both innovation and leadership by blithely copying the words of a man who would despise us.
But I was now realising that there was a similarity between Jobs and this government, as my notions of the Mandarin Priest were exposed as sweet and childish fantasy. Like our new Prime Minister, the Apple guru’s ambition was dark and irritable. In glorifying treatments of Jobs, his drive is accepted as some beatific abstraction — something rare and beautiful, to be thoughtlessly revered like the sun or Justin Timberlake — rather than the product of a fevered vanity. Jobs changed the world; he was also cruel and deceitful, and his clichéd pronouncements on innovation masked the more interesting origins of his brilliance.
I could now see that the Prime Minister also concealed himself with platitude
s. Jargon was a kind of camouflage. A way of suggesting benevolent superiority — a dull and wonkish dependability — when in truth his ambition was governed by rage. While old grievances spurred him, technocratic pieties disfigured his speeches and paranoia shrank his cabinet. ‘I guess what I want to say to you, mate,’ he’d say, ‘is that we must move towards retrieving holistic policy approaches from the demands of programmatic specificity.’
A day passed. Susie was more advanced on her film script than I was with the speech. After opening with a platitudinous Jobs quote, I added: ‘This government believes in robot pilots. For the same reason it believes in innovation. In ideas. In pushing the envelope, expanding the box, sparking the imagination.’
After writing this, I went to the toilet and sparked my gag reflex. Mostly I did this to relieve dread, but I also hoped that, while heaving demonically over the bowl, I would be sufficiently emptied of pride that inspiration might come and refill me. While on my knees, I studied a constellation of hardened shit and waited. But there was nothing. I wasn’t channelling Jobs, but Job, humiliated by a vast power, and in my moment of abjection I waited desperately for guidance.
The bathroom’s door opened. This must be it: Providence. But it was only John washing custard from his jumper. If I was to be guided, I’d have to demand it. So I waited for John to leave before calling my girlfriend.
We’d only spoken a few times since I’d left. I felt too great a burden on the conversation to fill the distance. Too much pressure. To speak compounded the fact of our separation. So we texted. Older readers might seize on this as proof of my generation’s atrophic hearts. But the truth was, my heart was too tender to speak.
It wasn’t just heartache. I was reluctant to call because I was withholding a small but growing doubt. To announce it would undermine the presumed importance of my moving to Canberra. Which was pathetic. I was paid good money for words, yet where it mattered I had none. Pride and longing had strangled them.
But on wet knees, my head above the freckled porcelain, I decided that no more would my heart be silent. It was time to speak honestly. I called Rachel.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘Hey, baby.’
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