Challenge

by Paul Daley

  The most heinous, the most miserable excuse for a journalist I’ve come across is Stefan Mandrake (I kid you fucking not—to me he’s the Illusionist, obviously). He gets a proposition—Slattery told Proudfoot to his face in shadow cabinet that he was a cunt, say—and rings half a dozen frontbenchers who were in the meeting. Four deny it outright, two say they won’t comment at all because of shadow cabinet confidentiality. So you won’t deny it then? Mandrake asks. That’s good enough for the Illusionist. He rings me last thing while I’m, I dunno, getting out of the shower or on the nest and I tell the prick to piss off, of course. Then he texts me—Mate—it’s always maaaate—I want to give you one last opportunity to comment on this story. I can give you till 10.30.

  So I call him back, tell him he’s a disgrace. He says, Okay, I’ve got you refusing to deny you abused Timmy Proudfoot, and everyone else who was there is refusing to deny it. Why don’t you just deny it, and then we’ve got a straight denial that it ever happened instead of this silly, nebulous, ambiguous refusal to deny?

  At which point I really do snap and tell him I’m going to shove a double negative up his clacker and pull the trigger and trash his career when I win as well as break his nose with my elbow next time I see him at the boxes.

  Wow, you’re so angry, he says, I’m just trying to do my job. You know—I’m just asking the questions. And so it goes on.

  @Devilindrag is probably one of those who has lucked onto the merest sliver of information about my past. And now he is trolling me, chucking the first turds from the mountain of shit that is my history—just as Eddie had always anticipated. Even though I know how quickly this might all turn into a fatal avalanche, I sense that the Twitter message is just a tad too clever, too subtle, for the clunkheads upstairs; it implies specific and disconcertingly accurate knowledge of a real event.

  Errol bursts in again.

  Thought I told you to fuck off, I say. What’s up?

  He says the press office is taking call after call about the latest @ Devilindrag tweet.

  Calls from up in the gallery and shock-jock producers, Danny. They’re saying they reckon it’s got something to do with you being in a serious punch-up as a kid.

  Is that the best they can do, Errol? I’m telling you, they know nothing. They’re bluffing. You know what they’re like. Tell them to piss off backwards.

  Boss—there’s something else.

  ’Course there is. Tell me how bad—scale from one to ten?

  It’s off the scale, Danny. Have you looked at your Twitter feed again in the last few minutes? He holds out his iPad:

  GoodvEvil @Devilindrag—4m

  @DannySlattsMP tough on field, even tougher at home. True you belted your ex and the cops came?

  Errol says Antony Grimes has called in response, told Errol he’s got Domenica’s mother on the record saying I physically abused her daughter when I was ending the marriage the best part of twenty years ago. And he says there’s more. He’s demanding an interview.

  You believe what he reckons he’s got? I ask Errol.

  Errol nods. Well that depends, Danny, on whether it could be true.

  It could be, I say. Mostly.

  Fuck.

  I say, Mate, this is bullshit—you can’t just look inside someone else’s failed marriage and pluck out something like this. It’s complicated. She was not a happy person. She ended up hating me—and loving me. At the same time. Her family’s never forgiven me. Now they’re making stuff up to fuck me over.

  Errol points out, correctly, that it’s not him I’ve got to convince.

  I text Eddie: Here.

  She texts back: Gym—25.

  Now. Please. Sorry.

  A few minutes later Eddie bursts in, panting. She’s wearing Skins and a tight lycra singlet top that highlights her slim hips and breasts. Her skin is shimmering with perspiration and her hair is sticking in streaks to her neck and face.

  She catches her breath, ignores me, asks, Errol—what’s up?

  It’s the first wife, Ed, Errol says, like I’m not there and he’s talking about someone else’s first wife. Twitter says he belted her, now Grimes reckons he’s got proof of it. Says he’s going with the story pronto.

  Errol shows Eddie the tweet.

  Eddie snaps: What the fuck—Danny!

  I say, It’s nobody’s business, Eddie. I was going to talk about it in my own time. Nobody’s ever asked me. Someone’s forcing my hand here—back-footing me.

  Eddie says, That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say? Everyone says you’ve got an anger issue—can’t control your temper. Biff. That’s what they call you, Danny. Biff. You do know that, don’t you? And now you’re about to be publicly accused of domestic violence. This is it, Danny. The end, my beautiful friend. The end. Unless you say something. Start with me. I asked you all about Domenica two years ago. You neglected to mention this.

  Why is this stuff coming up now? I ask. Who’s putting it out?

  Danny, Eddie replies, for a highly intelligent man you can be surprisingly stupid. It doesn’t matter who—this is about what. Give me your phone.

  She dials Grimes from my contacts.

  Eddie here, Antony. You maliciously trolling the Opposition leader? Wouldn’t be a good look if you were.

  She holds the phone away from her ear as he screams back indignantly. Eddie’s trying it on; he doesn’t need to troll me. He’s got sources everywhere and he’s already got an interview with Domenica’s mother in the can.

  Okay, Eddie says to Grimes, so you reckon you’re doing a piece for the web first? Then make sure it says this, quote direct, Danny Slattery, leader of the Opposition, I’m not a violent person. I have absolutely no recollection of the alleged event relating to my former wife. It didn’t happen. Unquote.

  I know without hearing it what the next question is: So, is it that Danny can’t remember. Or didn’t it happen? Which?

  Antony, she says, it’s the same fucking thing. He can’t remember because it didn’t happen. Okay? Think very carefully about this. This is not fair, Antony.

  I’m waving my arms at Eddie and mouthing, No. I gesture for the phone.

  Antony, Danny. Mate it’s twenty years ago—before I got into parliament. It’s got nothing to do with my life now. Antony, you know what this will do to me? You want to think twice about running stories from the government’s dirt unit.

  Who says it came from the government, he asks?

  I know I have to give him something. Eddie is on the sofa, shaking her head incredulously, looking like she just might cry again.

  I say calmly, fighting to control my trembling voice, Antony, please don’t file for the web. Come down after Question Time. I’ll do a one on one, exclusive, till you drop—answer every question you’ve got about Domenica. The only commitment I want is that you run it in full—no editing. You tell me how long you’ve got and we’ll fill the space.

  He agrees, hangs up.

  Eddie leans forward, head in her hands, says, Okay, Danny. I’m off to pack up my desk because we’re finished. But before I do, are there any more surprises?

  Just one, I say.

  The 25th of May 1974? Tell me.

  I say, he’s not one of those people you expect to turn up in your life again. I thought he’d gone.

  Eddie says, What? Jesus Christ, Danny—I might, just might, be able to spin you out of belting your dead ex-wife. But are you telling me you’ve gone through life thinking you might have killed someone but you’ve now just realised they’re alive … and Twitter knows about it?

  I’m saying that I thought this guy had died … as a consequence of something that happened a very long time ago.

  You didn’t think to tell me this—ever?

  Eddie, I say, we were going through it, remember? You said not now—I don’t need a lecture on the mean streets of Melbourne in the seventies. So I …

  She points at the door, says to Errol, Out!

  Errol leaves sheepishly, slams the door, ang
ry at being denied such golden confidence—the currency, despite the shit pay and fucked hours and the havoc it wreaks on your personal life, that makes being press secretary to an Opposition leader occasionally—just occasionally—worthwhile.

  She says, Something that happened, Danny—oh I like the way that you’ve just said that so passively as if, you know, you were there but you weren’t actually. Time to start at the beginning—try the truth serum on this one.

  Eddie, I started to tell you when we first met. You know—the trains, the sharps. Punch-ups. Living in the seventies. But I don’t want to talk about it now. I can’t, just can’t. All you’ve got to know is that I did nothing wrong.

  Danny, who are we talking about? Who did you hurt? And what’s with the Chisel thing re Vaughan?

  I shake my head—no.

  Danny, you’re going to need to say something if you want me to help you save yourself.

  I can’t do that, I say.

  Okay, Danny, then tell me—is there any proof that you were involved in this thing—this thing you won’t talk about? Witnesses? Photographs, heaven forbid?

  There were dozens of photographers, hundreds of witnesses. But I don’t answer.

  23

  Parliament is a sick joke, a pustule on the arse of democracy. It is played out for the nightly news and sketch-writers by a bunch of fifth-rate, unemployable character actors who couldn’t get a fuck in a knock shop without detailed instructions.

  Big party politics is fatally ill. On my side the vested interests have a gun to the party’s head. The unions are incarnate in the powerbrokers and the machine men who don’t give a rat’s dick if the party loses—as long as their influence is undiluted. I’ve even heard some of them say they’d prefer to lose an election than forego their personal power.

  That’s where we’re at. More importantly, it’s where I’m at. I’ve promised that if I win I’ll change the power structure at National Conference, give the punters more say over who the delegates and the candidates are—democratise the process and remove it from the hands of the factional and so-called union warlords.

  Warlord. An evocative term, yes, but it’s just another lazy, empty media cliché that means nothing. Warlords? Give me a break. You wouldn’t follow a single one of these weak pricks over the top of the trenches.

  And when it’s all over, when we’ve been shot to pieces at the ballot box because yet again we’ve gone small target in a pathetic attempt to morph into government, along come the Wise Owls—former premiers and party intellects (there would be a one-time PM or two, as well, if they hadn’t all lost their marbles or died because of the job).

  They hold some secret star-chamber inquiry—always end up blaming the fuck-ups on the discipline of the backbench, maybe a few junior press secs or advancers in the leader’s office. But never the party organisation or the ad campaign. And never the leader. Unless, of course, the leader is like me—out of sync with party HQ and they reckon they can afford to burn him because, in their view, he’s just some sort of irredeemable stopgap while they search for the real deal.

  The most relevant sections of their report are kept secret like the old Cleo sealed section or something. Secret, that is, until the secretariat decides to selectively leak them in order to blackmail someone into shutting up or vacating their seat or saying something awful about someone else. In any event, the post-mortem report is all forgotten pretty quickly, their own parts in the fuck-up always concealed with redactor ink.

  The Tories are worse. Marginally. They want to pump more state money into private schools, reserve university education for the rich, erode universal healthcare, cut company tax, have different hospitals and nursing homes for the wealthy and make the poor pay more tax. Divide and conquer. They are the key holders to our gated communities, the spivs and two-bit crooks with short arms and sewn-up pockets who’ve bribed the middle to stick like shit to a blanket with their childcare rebates and baby bonuses and massive paternity payments and tax cuts and negative gearing—which we’ve always been too spineless to cut in government!

  They’re the fearmongers who spread the terror of otherness throughout the community. And we follow blithely because we know the Fear is potent and once it’s been unleashed you can only fight it with truth. And let’s face it—it’s always easier to maintain a lie by fuelling the Fear than it is to fight it with honesty. Warlords—in their dreams!

  Me? I’d be happy to get out there and belt the cunts with the class stuff every single day. But it spooks the party. It insists I stay small target. But what I really want is to be a big target—to walk around and say, This is what I believe in—take a shot, you bastards, let’s punch on and see who’s still standing at the end.

  I’m up for a bare-knuckle cage fight with Drysdale every single Question Time. The comrades loved that about me when I was on the up because it got me noticed. But what they actually want now, now that I’m too noticeable, is another pussycat leader—another Dawes. They want me to talk tough a little bit, but mainly just to rumba round the middle ground, to finagle my way into office, to dissemble and deceive.

  And every single sitting day I loathe being part of the cheap vaudeville of Question Time, this low-rent re-run of Yes Minister complete with canned laughter and confected outrage. It condescends to voters as morons with goldfish attention spans. Yes, it’s nothing but a malevolent political Play School that subverts enlightenment with staged mediocrity.

  Sure, it appeals to the cheap prejudices and pervasive stupidity out there. That’s not too hard, given so many of the punters really are morons. What’s worse, though, is that it’s part of a system that even I once actually believed in. As a backbencher I’d fight like a cat to get a question up through the whips so that I could then distribute a transcript throughout my electorate to demonstrate that I was a player in this great parliamentary democracy.

  But now that I’ve grown to despise it for the pantomime that it is, irony of ironies, I get to play the starring role—every day asking the PM questions that go to his style and his arrogant hubris, rather than anything substantive about his policies because, basically, I lead a party that agrees with them all.

  The system’s broken beyond repair. And here am I, giving up my life for this pointless charade—my marriage, my kids and probably my lover now that she’s starting to get a fuller picture of who I am, who I’ve been—because I am trapped in the leadership of a party I hate and can no longer believe in. In some ways I can’t fathom just how stupid and led by my vanity I’ve been.

  Seriously, I’m fifty-three. Your first twenty years you hardly know you’re alive—all Mum’s milk and prick play. The next twenty, well it’s about building who you are but you’re still not conscious of time spent, except for a little twinge on your fortieth maybe. The next twenty—your forties and fifties—well they might be your last. They’re for high achievement, for attainment—for crowning glory. They constitute the winning quarter. So that means I’m halfway through the third quarter and I’m probably about to get subbed off—no final quarter for me. Here’s where it ends.

  I’m wasting it!

  Today I’ll go into Question Time and belt Drysdale on his terror legislation. But I know that at the pre-QT strategy meeting, the usual limp-dicks on the tactics committee—my chief whip, Devo, little Timmy Proudfoot, Dave Sweetman and Andy Skinner, shadow finance—will all adopt the usual MO, say no, don’t mention it, leave it to the Dorothy Dixers if they’re that keen on talking about it.

  I’ll tell them to fuck off, say we’re opposing it and I’m going straight for the cunt’s throat with a dissent motion—going to demand, So where’s your terrorism Bill you alarmist, you nasty little shit?

  They won’t like it. But I’m going to give them crazy brave. There’s nothing else for it today.

  Gina knocks, comes in, walks over to my desk where I’m sitting scribbling away in a Moleskine I bought at Paperchain on Sunday. She puts a pile of personal mail—internals and posted—on top o
f the in-tray. Some days I look at it, other days Eddie goes through it first to filter out the crazier material. Today it’s all mine.

  A small white envelope stands out among the larger yellow ones. It is addressed to me in red texta at ‘Parlaminit House, Australia’.

  I break the seal, pull out two A4 pages, double-stapled together at the top left-hand corner. I don’t recognise the spidery red-ink handwriting. It could just as easily belong to a child as an adult.

  Except that it begins:

  Dear Daniel, I think you wont remember me after so many years but even tho Im your dad …

  24

  You pricks are all talk, no action, I tell the colleagues straight up. They respond by shifting awkwardly around on their backsides and looking blankly at the coffee table. I’m pausing to give one of them space to prove me right.

  Devo doesn’t disappoint. (How the hell did he ever become whip when I couldn’t trust him to feed peanuts to the monkeys? Another mystery about all the influences beyond a leader’s control.) He says tentatively, Danny, the comrades are cacking themselves this arvo because of—you know?—the Twitter about how you, um, beat up your first wife—and on top of that there’s all this ugly talk about you being in a punch-up at the footy or something. Danny, I reckon it’s best not to go front foot today.

  Fuck off, Devo, I snap. Where I came from you had to fight to survive. There’s nothing in it. I’m not going to dignify the rumours. And as to Domenica—well, I think you all know about the tragedy of my first marriage. I’d urge you all to think of what the outside world might make of your own marriages if the reptiles stole a peek through your curtains on a difficult night.

  But Devo’s basically right. The rumours about me courtesy of @Devilindrag are trending on Twitter ahead of Captain Cook and Snake Boy, whose doctors are now considering turning off life support.

  I know—they all know—the Grimes interview will make or break me. They’re shitting themselves. So am I; Grimes doesn’t do this for practice. He’s figured that with me on camera talking about it, together with the interview from Domenica’s mum, he’ll have a story that will bury me for all time.