Somewhere she had once read that if you think too hard about how to kiss someone, you are bound to make a mess of it. It had been one of the few aspects of cultural theory that she remembered. It made no sense that a theorist should also be cautioning against over-stretching the mind, but it contained an irresistible logic, an implicit prioritising of the instinctive. She thought about how she had always thought too hard, about everything. She would not think too hard about what to do next. She would not think at all. She settled back on her feet. He leaned forward. Still smiling.
It was only the prelude to a kiss. And if they were to kiss, it would be a short brush of lips against lips, then a drawing back. She would be surprised to discover that his would be warm and soft because Malcolm’s cynicism, his wry humour, his perpetual air of mocking the world and everyone, including her, suggested that his lips would be firmer, or cold. Up this close she noticed they were fuller than their rather pale colour first suggested. Some people had very rosy lips. Others had bloodless ones. Some men of a certain northern European complexion had a fairness that lent itself to a pasty colourlessness around the mouth and eyebrows. The PM had never gone for these men with ill-defined features, with eyebrows bordering on baldness and lips that looked like they were permanently swiped with zinc cream. She preferred a more assertive eyebrow, a mouth with colour and movement. Even so, she knew that colour could be deceptive. Her first real boyfriend had, she thought, the most beautiful lips. Before she even spoke to him she used to admire them from across the room in their undergraduate social work classes. Instead of concentrating on the social and justice policy integration process, or on community work theory, she daydreamed about how it would be to kiss those lips. They looked moist and warm. They would taste sweet. And so it was a great surprise, when they did first kiss, awkwardly and almost accidentally, to discover they were cool and salty. She had licked her own lips in the safe dark of wherever they were (the back seat of his car? the porch of his house?) and tasted the disappointment of finally touching those luscious-looking lips, before warming them herself with her own mouth and making them as kissable as they looked.
Malcolm’s lips invited her again, curving to a smile. As did his eyes, now crinkling at the corners. Smiling herself, she allowed her face to approach his again. He leaned down as she stretched up.
But no. She stopped reaching. She was no good at this. She never had been. Kissing was an art she had never mastered. In kissing she was a hopeless amateur, a weekend dabbler, capable only of producing clumsy blurred messes.
If she kissed Malcolm now their lips would do more than brush, they would touch, firmly, then press together. What happened then she knew would be a disaster. He would think her ridiculous or disgusting. He would push her back, hold down her arms, smile yet not conceal condescension, and turn around. He would walk back down this final stretch of the maze, turn the corner to the left, then follow the gravel path through the rows of lilly pilly hedges all the way back to the entrance, push through the wicker gate and exit. Anyone might be out there, all the people who waited around a politician hoping for handouts and tidbits, the journalists and other media people, publicists and hacks and hangers-on and everyone, who would be waiting to hear the story of their leader’s most abject humiliation, the woman who couldn’t even kiss. She would be left standing here with an indifferent zebra, not even the birth of its foal to comfort her, here in the centre of her maze, her folly. She glanced at the zebra again. It was nibbling at the new mauve tips of the lilly pilly, something she had never done before, as if having produced such an extraordinary infant it was entitled to these privileges.
She held out her hands. ‘Malcolm . . .’
He said nothing. He was not good at leaping into the empty spaces of an awkward conversation. And he was still smiling down at her.
‘I . . . I’m . . .’
Still he smiled and did not speak.
She looked away, then up at him, then away again. The zebra was placidly chewing while its foal butted its nose against her side. Was it a colt or a filly? She would have to have a closer look. And were zebra/donkey cross foals even called colts or fillies?
‘I can’t . . . I don’t . . . I’m no good at . . . I don’t know how . . .’
How stupid to be admitting she did not know how to kiss. As if he was expecting a kiss, in any case. Of course he was not, and to blurt out this nonsense would only make her more ridiculous in his eyes.
But his face was expectant, his eyebrow raised. He was waiting for her to finish what she’d started to confess.
‘You’re no good at what?’
She swallowed. Looked around. If only there were someone nearby to whisk her away, a posse of media demanding her attention, a car waiting to drive her off to some urgent appointment.
‘Telling jokes.’
‘Jokes?’
‘Yes. I’m no good at telling jokes. Never worked it out. A great handicap, you know, in my position.’
‘Well,’ he said after a moment. ‘There’s no need, really, what with warm-up people. Hosts. You know.’
‘Oh, yes, that’s right.’ Could she have sounded more stupid? ‘No need at all.’
She straightened her spectacles, not that they were crooked.
‘I’m going back to the library. To research zebra foals, see how to look after them.’
‘Right. Good idea.’
She turned and walked up the path. One turn to the left, and she and the moment would be gone, forever gone.
He called out. ‘Wait.’
‘Yes?’
‘Maybe I’ll give the vet a call. Or the zoo.’
‘Oh. Yes. Thanks.’ And then she was gone, around the corner of the maze.
He went up close to the zebras, hands in his pockets. He was such a fool. She wasn’t interested in him and he was blind not to have realised it. For a moment there he had thought they might be going to embrace and kiss. He would have loved to hold her close and brush his lips against hers. He was so happy, having found the zebra and her preposterous foal. They had both laughed aloud at the unexpected discovery and he couldn’t remember feeling quite so happy about something, about anything. If he could have just held her, placed his arms around her back and gazed straight into her face. They did face each other, closely. Smiling. They could see the simple joy in each other’s eyes. For several giddy, delicious seconds he had thought he might lean forward, down, and meet her smiling lips with his own. Then he would draw back, gaze into her eyes again, place the tips of his fingers and thumb just under her chin and draw her closer as he pressed his lips upon hers again. Harder this time, longer. He would not have forced her mouth. No tongue. Not yet. Kissing was an art. A good kiss took time. He would wait for the kiss to evolve as it needed. He was sure she would be marvellously kissable. Her lips would be warm and sweet and moist. They would soften when they met his. And then, after three or ten or seventeen or a thousand and fifty-six of those little opening butterfly kisses – whatever it took, he could wait – their mouths would slowly open, their kisses taking them deeper into the endless world of new love. He would hold tighter her body to his. Life to life. Love to love. At some point he would kiss her excellent nose.
But kissing was evidently the last thing on her mind.
Lake George was not the only water paradise. The Murray–Darling was now flowing again so reliably that entire fleets of paddle steamers were making their way up and down the old routes, taking tourists as well as transporting stock, grain and other agricultural goods. The old steamers, restored and proud, along with newer craft like ferries and barges, began responding to a growing demand for honeymoon tours, for the Murray–Darling river route, with its lazy pace, its illusion of travelling in a timeless world, its soft breezes, soon became the favoured destination for newlyweds. Some fortunate couples went on board in the High Country and travelled the Murray through to Wentworth, then followe
d the Darling north all the way to its source, loitering in the lake in Menindee, passing Wilcannia, Wilga, Tilpa, then turning around at Brewarrina to do it all again, for the waters were so plentiful, the birdlife so colourful and spectacular, the banks so green and fresh, the trip so relaxing and stimulating, it was the best way to start a marriage, or so the couples said.
Retired people abandoned the trend for camping trips across the Top End or along the Great Ocean Road, left their campervans and took to the inland water routes instead. At Echuca, Swan Hill, Mildura, boarding houses and bed and breakfasts had opened in formerly abandoned homes. Hotels were refurbished, rooms that had barely been occupied for decades were now full again, and the dance halls, the bars, the cafés and the movie theatres were alive in the evenings with visitors from the ferries and steamers that stopped for the night.
Koalas began to come out of their trees, and to amble across parks and around reserves as if there had never been the spectre of extinction, there had never been threats from hunters or foxes or four-wheel drives.
The platypus was regularly seen in creeks and billabongs and not just by naturalists or wildlife specialists on secret expeditions.
Down south, sightings of thylacine were now confirmed.
And the PM was not happy. All the time she had attended to the rest of the country and her own modest estate within it, the nagging thought that these changes were barely enough had become an obsession. And the growing realisation that for all her or anyone else’s zeal, passion and fair-mindedness, she would only ever, as Prime Minister, be patronising. Relief work was not the answer. Charity an insult. Housing plans, educational programs, health initiatives and work schemes, despite their evident well-meaning, forever doomed to be the plans of those in power over those in need.
Here she was, mucking around with kisses (or not) and mazes and weird mongrel animals. Meanwhile the country was taking care of itself. The fertile land, the swollen waterways, the abundance of wildlife, all proved that. She needed to get out, away. She had been in this house for too long. Telling herself that she needed to reform this and that and basking in all the successes, from improvements in children’s literacy to the increased participation in music, dance, drama, juggling and all the things that she believed added up to some greater whole – the reduction of the use of cars, stimulation of higher, more satisfying employment, eradication of hospital waiting lists and public service excesses – all this had only made it possible for her to avoid her real responsibilities, to confront the greatest challenges.
Success, popularity. They were all just peony flowers. Remarkable, even stunning, and doomed to wilt, then crumple, turn brown and fall. She would be a pile of compost soon enough, and before that happened she needed to expose herself, almost literally. She realised what had once sustained her now held her captive, and before it suffocated her she needed to get out and away. And she needed to do it soon before another encounter with Malcolm, before she dissolved into some abject creature, some cringing, shrunken half-person obsessed with her own status and comfort, the sort of despised political animal she had observed in the past, before she became PM, and had determined never to become.
She had become too comfortable. She had been sleeping, these last few weeks, sleeping like a koala. It had happened slowly and incrementally. What had happened to her? She had not slept like this since she was a child. Then it occurred to her that this recent restlessness coupled with sleeping meant something more significant.
Across the country, her country, a child was in jail somewhere for stealing a chocolate bar, and she was sleeping? That man camped at her gates was here for a reason. She had remembered the joke, the zebra question, and one might laugh but it was not a funny joke at all, it was sadder than sad. And here she was, comfortable in this bed, this room, this house.
She would have to do something, go out into the world, take some action. There was nothing more she could do here at the house. But where would she go? And how?
The PM woke early. Five am. That was not unusual. But she had woken from a deep sleep, one that had brought a dream. In fact she had been dreaming about being asleep. She had been asleep! She had slept.
Sleeping, again, and she an insomniac. This had been happening for too long. She threw the covers back, sat on the side of the bed and checked the clock again. She remembered turning off the light soon after eleven. Nearly six hours.
She slipped into a pair of shoes and, still wearing her pyjamas, left the bedroom, passing down the stairs, along the hallway and, aided by the dimmed night lights, through the doors leading to the kitchen and then to the rear of the house. If she went out the back she would remain unobserved, and John or Hazel wouldn’t be alarmed or think an intruder was about. She unbolted the door that led to the courtyard off the kitchen, and opened it to a chilly freshness, the beginning of autumn. She walked softly across the paved square, unlatching the gate, past the kitchen garden to the gravel drive and down to the small flight of steps and the path that led to the tennis court and, behind it, the maze. A pale glow was spreading low in the sky. She stayed on the path, unwilling to leave footprints on the damp lawn, not quite understanding how she had almost overnight begun to feel like an intruder in her own home.
Since the birth, the zebra had chosen to stay in the maze, keeping her foal close, accepting apples and handfuls of grass from visitors who made it to the centre with the same enigmatic demeanour she had exhibited from the moment she stepped out of the back of the horse float and into the PM’s life. This morning she raised her head and sniffed then stared at the PM as if to signify something was in the air, was not quite right, and what was the PM going to do about it?
She went over and placed her hand just below the zebra’s neck, the only touch that the zebra tolerated, but the foal came closer and nudged her with its moist nose, snuffling into her shirt, hopeful and eager. In the gloom it was hard to tell but she thought the creature’s leg stripes were becoming more prominent, contrasting with the grey-brown of its body. She rubbed its head with her free hand, then gently scratched in the velvety place under its chin, while it trembled with pleasure. When she stood back, the foal attached itself to her mother and commenced suckling. The zebra lowered her head, sighed and nosed the foal, an attitude of contented resignation.
As she walked back through the maze, she noted the lilly pillies needed trimming, the crushed gravel paths a sweep. She made her way up to the wicker gate, pausing to brush away leaves here, pick up twigs there, break off the occasional untidy sprig. Constant work, a garden, especially one like this, with all its features. But Kerr would clearly be up to the job of supervising the entire property – how much she had achieved! – since despite all that bad history, his diligence and hard work could not be bettered, and his tenderness towards the land and its plants more than evident. She could leave the place in his hands and be confident it would be tended well. She wondered now if he really had been the one who destroyed the peonies. They had never discussed it.
She gazed up towards the house, looming brighter through the dawn. She had loved and nurtured the house, transformed it into a true home. And all her housekeeping, her good order, her sensible decisions, the harmony and joy that had rippled through the rooms like the laughter of elves had extended past the house, outside the grounds, beyond the neighbourhood, through the city, and flowed past the borders, across the states, the whole country.
The Lodge had become a place for the people, but she had not taken it far enough. In short, it didn’t lodge enough people. There was one last important step to take, and it did not involve finding the right name for the place. That was why she had not been able to settle on a name, for a name was the least of it.
As she realised this she heard soft thuds behind her, and turned to find the zebra with her foal at her heels. They both followed her through the gate, which swung back to shut after them with a click. And then the zebra pushed the PM with her n
ose, pushed her on the arm, gently and firmly, and, as if propelling her back towards the house, walked close beside her all the way. The PM raised her hand to pat the animal, then, inspired, daring, placed her arm around its neck. The zebra did not resist, and the odd trio walked all the way up to the gate into the kitchen courtyard, which the PM had left open. After she went through, she turned around at the door to the house and stared at the zebra. And the zebra stared at her, head high, eyes unblinking, for a long time. The PM wondered what she would do if the zebra wanted to enter the house. She even stepped back from the entryway and held the door wide open. But the zebra only stared for a few moments more then tossed her head, whinnying faintly. She swung around and walked away, her foal trotting behind. She did not turn towards her stable in the garden shed, nor did she take the path back to the maze. Instead, she continued walking around the house, turning left onto the path that led to the driveway out to the street.
She fetched a glass of apple juice and sat at the kitchen table. People had told her she had changed their lives, and that the country was a kinder, gentler, more prosperous and peaceful place than ever. That it was the best country in the entire world, blessed and bountiful, warm and welcoming. She felt a prickling of disgust. She was a fraud. If it were true she had achieved so much, more than anyone before her, she had done so by accident. Freakish coincidences had conspired to bring her to this role and all she had done was wave her hands around and order this and that to be done; she had conceded nothing of herself, given over to the country and its people not an iota that implied sacrifice, commitment or discomfort.
It had all been too easy.
There was her maze, with hundreds of visitors each week marvelling at the deviousness of the design and delighting in the experience of being lost then found, all in the safety of the gardens of the PM’s home. The zebra had been sent to her; she had done nothing to earn it, indeed had at first denied the initial requests to take her. And as for her hybrid foal – cunning Mr Beamish, if he had known – the PM had suddenly become something of a celebrity amongst animal lovers and wildlife groups, as if she herself had been responsible for the foal’s existence. And now it appeared the zebra was going. Moving on. Relocating.
Zebra Page 24
