My staff? She meant him too?
Apparently. All day she worked in her office and barely talked to him, and just after 6 pm she walked out. He watched her through the front windows as she made her way towards the path that led to the area beyond the tennis court. It wasn’t like her to abandon a task, even one as unexciting as the taxation system.
‘You know he fancies you.’ Therese placed bread on the table and departed. When she returned with the first course she added, ‘Has done for months.’
‘Surely not.’
‘Of course he does. Pepper?’ She waved a grinder over the soup as the PM shook out her napkin. ‘It’s obvious. He rings you every night, for a start.’
‘That’s just because he has to, he needs to talk about things.’
‘Really?’ Therese, hands on her hips, tea towel dangling like a lowered flag, was almost intimidating. ‘Then why doesn’t he debrief before he leaves every day? Why doesn’t he email you if he has to tell you stuff?’
The PM took a sip of the soup. ‘Nice. Not pumpkin?’
‘Sweet potato and coconut milk. A touch of curry.’
‘Why do you stay so late, anyway? You know there’s no need.’ It seemed to the PM that Therese was in danger of having no life. She started work early in the morning and was often still at the house ten, twelve hours later.
Therese ignored her. ‘And if he doesn’t fancy you then why does he always ring when he knows you’re alone, eating your dinner or watching the news?’
‘I’m not alone. You’re here.’
‘You’re not fooling me.’ Therese emitted a theatrical, disdainful sniff. ‘You realise how much you laugh when you’re on the phone to him?’
‘Laugh?’
‘Giggle, actually.’
The PM did not giggle. Did she? And while on the phone, to her executive assistant? Just the word was bordering on insult. It was saying she was superficial and empty-headed, and susceptible to flattery and deferential to the opposite sex and nervous and kooky and all the things she was not. Children giggled. Stoned people giggled. It was said that the collective noun for schoolgirls was a giggle. Prime ministers did not giggle. Prime ministers aged forty-something especially did not giggle, and certainly not when they were on the phone to their most senior staff, however charming and amusing they may be. She did not do giggling.
‘How often?’ But Therese had finally gone.
After dinner she brought her coffee back into the TV room and closed the door. She took her mobile phone from her pocket and tapped at the keypad.
‘Malcolm?’
‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing. I just wondered . . .’ Her question froze on the tip of her tongue.
‘Yes?’
‘Well. Um. Tomorrow. I thought . . . Look, could you come a little earlier than normal? Say at seven-thirty? There are a few things I need to discuss before our breakfast meeting with the –’
‘Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?’
‘Certain.’
‘You sound odd. Is someone there?’
‘No one. I’m alone.’ Oh. Should she have admitted to that? What if Therese was right and he interpreted that as an invitation to come over? He could be here in five minutes, he only lived at . . . Where did Malcolm live?
But he was already telling her about his evening. Gossiping, or researching, he called it. He regularly spent a half-hour or so at several bars where the best quality information was to be gleaned. Tonight over a glass of wine he had met the sister of the girlfriend of an assistant to the Leader of the Opposition. One of the best sources of inside information, he claimed.
‘Anything we should know about?’ Keeping the conversation idling along. She didn’t especially care about the Opposition. They were a disparate bunch: mavericks, independents, some extremists who had expediently merged as a way of appearing to offer an alternative. No one, least of all themselves, took them seriously.
She put the phone down. There. Not a single giggle. Not even a laugh.
Like many women of a certain age who had become accustomed to irregular or unsatisfactory relationships, the PM was ignorant of her personal attractions. Malcolm was around because of work, that was all. Now Therese’s comment was a window that opened directly in her face, letting a sudden shock of cold wind into a cosy room.
Had she ever thought about it properly, she may have believed she was agreeable. Neither ugly nor pretty. With the kind of face and form that blended in, rather than stood out. When she looked in the mirror she saw a deepening line between her brows, the tiniest but discernible start of sagging along her jawline. She failed to notice the clarity of her blue eyes, the fullness and natural rose colour of her lips and the persuasive charm of a nose that was straight until the very tip that softened and curved in a most unusual way. It was a nose that detoured so unexpectedly, yet so subtly, that not even the cartoonists had dared to caricature it. The PM’s face resisted the best efforts of the cartoonists. All her ministers and many of her senior public servants came under fire, but for her there remained a no-go zone, a quarantining of her face, so that she was merely drawn, not mocked. In the centre of her face was this nose that defied them. An innocent nose, almost vulnerable. The least nosy nose imaginable. And those drawings, from the lightest sketches to the more substantial feature, revealed a tenderness on the part of the artist, as if even battle-hardened cartoonists of the popular press, numerous scalps under their belt, could not bring themselves to ridicule their leader. A simple nose had defeated them.
Malcolm replaced the phone and lay back on his bed, gazing up. The ceiling in his flat was a textured grey material that looked like sprayed-on dirty foam. He presumed it was for soundproofing.
The PM possessed the most erotic nose he had ever seen. He had long desired to take that nose and kiss it. He wanted first to purse his lips and bestow small kisses on the tip, then open his lips and apply his tongue to it. He would mouth it like a baby at a nipple. He was aware that this was an unhealthy aspiration.
Someone must have actually conceived and designed this ugly ceiling. Its purpose was to offend and repel. It could not be painted, cleaned or disguised: it was a ceiling made to oppress. The whole block of flats had the same utilitarian quality. He turned over on his side.
He had barely touched the PM except to take her arm at moments when guidance might be deemed appropriate. Once they had touched hands, exchanging a document or something, a brief encounter, across the desk. He remembered withdrawing his hand and staring at the side of the palm, as if that moment might have left an impression, a sheen of something emanating from her like ectoplasm. He placed the hand very carefully in his left pocket and when he retreated to his own desk, took it out again to examine in private. Surreptitiously, he raised it to his nostrils. He believed he could detect a scent, something astringent and fresh, lime or green tea, wild thyme or cedar, and yet she never wore perfume. He sniffed again. Her own special scent? The one that would be at its strongest at the top of her neck, where the hair curled in wayward little tendrils? That place he had seen again and again, standing behind her at endless functions where he was required to maintain an attitude of affable neutrality. Which was hard sometimes, as she deplored sunglasses, refused to let her staff wear them except in direct sunlight, as recommended by the Cancer Council. She deemed them intimidating and pretentious. But behind sunglasses, he would have been able to gaze at that spot on her nape for as long as he liked and fantasise about pressing his own nose – nowhere as eccentric and attractive as hers, yet a respectable one, he felt – to the skin there and breathing in slowly and deeply, taking in that extraordinary scent (lemongrass? ginger? passionfruit?) and gently exhaling to make those little tendrils dance like dandelion flowers in the breeze.
When he thought about it like this, it seemed to him that the most erotic places on her body would be the most unlikely.
Were he alone with her – not here, of course, not this bedroom with its depressing public serviceability and its ceiling that looked like it would crumble and fall with the onset of any activity more exciting than removing your shoes – he would explore these unexpected nooks and valleys of her body. The inside of her elbow, for example, where the veins lay dark green just submerged beneath the skin. He was sure that spot would be soft and warm under his lips. That ankle. He would stroke that softly. The skin, so thin there, would slide over the bone but only so far, then it would not yield. Then there were the backs of her heels. In summer she occasionally wore sandals. Approaching her from behind, he would be struck by the vulnerable pink of those bare heels, absurdly soft-looking. It was a kind of nakedness. It surprised him that no one else, herself included, considered that she appeared indecorous or immodest. It seemed to him she could not have been more exposed had her shirt gaped to reveal her midriff, or more. Those rosy heels almost demanded that he bring her shoes – her sensible, comfortable, court shoes – kneel before her and, placing his hand to steady first one foot then the other, gently guide the shoes into place to cover up that startling nakedness.
Malcolm sat up. He was some sort of pervert, perhaps, that he had such thoughts about parts of the body as ordinary and unexciting as elbows and heels. Not to mention fantasising about the nation’s leader. And yet he was not aroused in a raw, animal way. He was, if anything, touched. And his behaviour, he knew, had always been unimpeachable. He might have brushed her shoulder once or twice, replacing a jacket or adjusting a microphone, but that was all.
He was stuck in this room for the moment, housing in the city being so short. He had taken the only place that came up for rent, and not even the influence of his position had improved the state of that ceiling, or the walls, painted in a cold shade of putty. And he wasn’t here that much of the time, anyway. It was convenient. One bedroom, and a balcony that was just small enough to resist the idea of entertaining, were that even possible given the amount of unsocial weather, the infrequency of his days off, and his lack of friends. His mobile phone had a more active social life than he. Why had she phoned him? And she had sounded so stiff. Never laughed once.
Early the next morning the PM was prepared. Malcolm would not suspect she had only phoned him last night for company. No, she had determination, purpose. Imagination and energy. She was the Prime Minister of possibilities and she would surprise him, and everyone else, with her ideas.
‘A maze?’
‘Right here.’ She spread out a rough sketch and pointed to a section beyond the tennis court. ‘It’s only wasted space at the moment. The grass never grows there properly.’
‘There are more important issues, you know. There’s that implementation of the education guidelines. And the review of defence funding . . .’
‘That’s your job. To cool down those debates. My job is to be creative. Show real leadership. And we can do both, you know. Everything.’
‘Do you think?’ After all this time, he still had these doubts.
‘I don’t think, I know. And it will give everyone focus.’
They walked upstairs and stood outside on the rear terrace, where she pointed to the site. They could see the zebra, who was wandering around, having left her shed for the morning.
‘If a zebra, then why not a maze?’ she said. ‘In fact the more I think about it, the more it seems that the two belong together. A zebra needs a maze. Plus there is that great bare patch down the back, just begging for a project.’
His eye travelled further down to the former fence, where work was well underway on the children’s mini train line.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I guess we have the perfect man for the job.’
Kerr had come into his own. Though still barely communicating, he had commenced work on the Garden Farm Playground project instantly. Sunrise to sunset, he devoted himself to the job. Within a week he had created a discernible layout and established the sandpit, the garden beds and the tracks for the miniature railway. His capacity for this sort of industry was immense. He had exceptional stamina, working with Billy and the cast of civic gardeners, landscapers and designers. When the PM approached him with her idea for the maze it was almost as if he expected it. He grunted, shoved her papers in his overalls pocket, and within no time had conjured up a set of his own notes.
Now, from the back terrace, she watched him unrolling plans, scribbling calculations, walking along rows, counting and turning, adjusting notes, walking more, pointing and marking the soil. The weather was dry. Rain had not fallen for several weeks, but the ground was still soft and the first few spadefuls were easy work. He took on much of the digging with gusto, demonstrating great skill in the task developed from years of experience. He had a way of slicing into the ground, tilting the blade, and extracting a spadeful of soil so quickly and neatly it looked like he was cutting and stacking chunks of cake. The team had enlisted the help of interested citizens, who would later boast of their involvement like any other community landscaping project. Kerr, rarely speaking, would hand the helpers their spades, point at the ground and move on. The PM occasionally walked out into the grounds for a closer look, wearing her black-and-white striped gumboots and huge Driza-Bone. A waterproof garment was not necessary, but she wore it to keep warm when the wind was chilly, which was often at this time of year, especially in the afternoons. When she attempted to take a spade and dig the ground herself she was gently relieved of the tool and directed to something else. With her on the sidelines, in her striped boots and flapping coat, work proceeded smoothly. Within a month the maze was complete, each row of cunning symmetry an illusion of perfect order. In years to come, she thought, she would look out from the terrace or even the top floor windows and still not see the design. No one would know what lay at the centre unless they succeeded in working their way through.
Wintergreen, boxwood and yew. Privet. Pittosporum and murraya. These had been advised for the best creation of a maze. But many of these were unthinkable. Privet and murraya were intolerable by the hay fever–suffering members of the public. The PM did not suffer herself but understood enough to know that. One of the landscapers had suggested maize but she rejected the idea. It was a worldwide craze. And it would be ephemeral. The trend for maize mazes would soon wane. And the plants themselves would grow, wither and die within six months. While they were being tilled and replanted the site would be a wasteland. The shoots of the freshly sown maize were too tender and vulnerable. She needed something for posterity. Her maze was to last, its evergreen shrubs easily replaceable if and when they died, in ten, twenty, fifty years’ time. Kerr had consulted with the team of landscapers for weeks, with designs and suggestions. Native shrubs were her first choice but she yielded to the durability of the many northern hemisphere species, ones that survived cold and wind, drought and frost. She reckoned that if a plant could survive the almost unimaginable cruelty of being smothered by snow, its feet frozen in the earth, and winds that sliced and tore at it for months, it could survive anything. The hardiest of the natives grew in the Tasmanian wilderness, at the bottom of the world, at the top of the mountains. But Kerr had done his research too: such plants, he advised, were either too spindly, too slow-growing, not high enough, not dense enough, or intolerant of the regular pruning needed to keep a maze in shape.
In the house’s library she had found an encyclopaedia of native plants published in 1930, and after consulting it she considered banksia. The coastal varieties would transplant well to the inland city, although she was not sure of their tolerance to frost. She regarded the banksia as one of the hardiest of the native plants, not least because they had survived May Gibbs’ conscription of them into glowering villains. But was a flowering shrub suitable? Kerr persuaded her not. The species would not like being shaped and pruned. And they would become too leggy.
Bougainvillea, then. But, no, its thorns were far too cruel, and pruning only made bouga
invillea grow more exuberantly, making it too fast and unpredictable for a maze. And bougainvillea could not grow this far south and inland; it would not survive the frosts.
The bay tree. It had literary and classical credentials as well as the required height, density and durability. They all tried to talk her out of it but at first she would not be persuaded. It would grow too high, but that could be taken care of with well-planned trimming. And what would be trimmed could be used, the leaves cleaned, dried and packed to be sent to grocery stores and restaurants around the country. The Lodge – one day she would find a way to change that name – could even open a brand of exclusive gourmet provisions, using bay leaves as the focus. Dried herbs, pickles, seasonings and sauces. Perhaps a roadside stall, out the front there, right in the heart of the city. There would have to be parking, a lay-by for safe pullovers. Maybe a coffee cart. Free water, other refreshments. A pit toilet. Sustainability, she declared to Malcolm. Isn’t that what every business aspired to?
‘You are joking,’ he said. They were standing by the marked-out entrance to the maze, where Kerr was explaining where the wicker gate would go. Kerr only glanced at her, as if not quite trusting his own mouth to exercise the compliance the rest of his being clearly desired.
‘Security. Traffic. Damage to the gardens.’ Malcolm listed all the reasons such an idea was unrealistic. ‘And conducting a commercial enterprise is not allowable under the departmental guidelines.’
She sniffed. ‘It was just a thought.’
‘And in some ways a lovely one.’ It was true, she was full of lovely ideas, so many of which had blossomed into actuality. He had visited Lake George again, only that weekend, and felt the bittersweet pleasure of all those couples and families enjoying themselves. How the PM had contrived to bring water and water sports and everything else back to the lake remained a secret to most of the population.
In the end, growing in the native garden at the east side of the property was the perfect plant. And it was Kerr who had spied it one day when Billy was occupied with the removal of a Cootamundra wattle that had died and was threatening white ant infestation. The purple-berried lilly pilly. A cluster of three were growing just above head-height, having been carefully pruned over the years to prevent them blocking the sun from a bed of Sturt’s desert peas behind. Kerr had taken out his secateurs and snipped a small length, then walked all the way up the garden, into the house and along the ground floor corridor to her office.
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