The Best Australian Stories 2017

by Maxine Beneba Clarke

  Polly attended lectures rarely, spending time instead in her role as treasurer for the Australian Liberal Students Federation, and writing and rehearsing speeches for their debating team. Her oratorical style was powerful, if robotic, and mostly consisted of repeating long strings of facts to confuse her opponents; if that did not work, she would compare them to Adolf Hitler, and this was almost always enough to clinch victory. She was only ever bested once, in a debate held in her third year at university in which she spoke in support of the proposition, ‘A woman’s place is in the home.’ Her opponent was a brilliant young Marxist called Mick McCelty, a journalism student taking part in his first debate, and he comprehensively demolished Polly’s arguments. That night, as McCelty celebrated his victory in the Students’ Union, he was gravely injured after falling down a flight of stairs, and was left permanently paralysed. His accusation that Polly Lord had crept up behind him and pushed him was derided by her allies as class warfare. The resulting police investigation brought no charges against Polly; her alibi, that she was not on campus at the time of the accident, was supported by a dozen fellow Liberal students.

  Polly graduated with a first class degree in 1952, leaving university just before the collapse of the Australian Liberal Students Federation, amid claims of gross financial mismanagement. After four years working for her father’s firm, she stood successfully as a Liberal councillor for Baynton in 1956; at only twenty-four she was the youngest councillor in the country’s history. From the first, her stridently pro-business agenda found many friends outside the council chamber, but few within, where Labor councillors accused her of bullying and intimidation. Polly was particularly active in spearheading reforms to the council’s Planning and Development Approvals Process, slashing the processing time for applications from nine months to just three days. She was also instrumental in helping to push through several massive building developments which required the demolition of a number of historic buildings, despite strident local opposition. In May 1960, after her landslide re-election, Polly was made mayor of Baynton, and shortly afterwards she married Martin Stepford, a protégé of her father’s who had made his fortune from the developments that Polly had ensured were approved. Despite repeated demands from opposition councillors for an enquiry into the Stepfords’ business dealings, and controversy over the mayor’s rapidly ballooning expenses, which included the hire of a limousine to travel fifty metres, Polly Stepford successfully quashed any questioning of her authority. The Baynton Advertiser, recently purchased by her father, was a staunch supporter of the mayor, especially after the sacking of its editor, Mick McCelty.

  Stepford weathered an increasing number of political storms over the next few years, but her tenure as mayor came to an end in September 1969 with Baynton Council’s bankruptcy. The council had been tied up in litigation for nearly two years over a parking ticket that had been given to local resident Mick McCelty, now a broadcaster for the ABC. McCelty had been given the ticket for parking in a disabled space, despite displaying the appropriate permit, and he alleged that the mayor had instructed the council parking inspectors to harass him, a claim that was eventually upheld in court. The substantial damages awarded to McCelty came amid reports of serious financial irregularities in the council’s accounts, which eventually led to the appointment of administrators and the resignation of the mayor. Stepford claimed that she had been exonerated when an independent report on the debacle was released, despite it explicitly blaming her for the council’s enormous financial losses. By then Stepford had become a director in her husband’s company, Stepford PLC. The couple’s already sizeable personal fortune increased rapidly after 197l when Stepford PLC become Australia’s only importer of ‘Miracowall’, a remarkably cheap, durable fireproof material used in plasterboard.

  After her father’s death in 1970, Polly Stepford took over his position as president of the local branch of the Liberal party, and in 1974 she was nominated to stand for the seat of Baynton in the federal election. Her campaign was notable for her absolute adherence to the party line, and even achieved a measure of notoriety when a linguist at Newcastle University released an analysis of all Stepford’s speeches and interviews in a one-year period, and found that she never used a word that did not appear in the Liberal Party’s election manifesto. Her oratory, which had become ever more mechanical since her student days, earned her the nickname of ‘The Stepford Wife’ from bored journalists.

  After the Liberal victory in 1974, Stepford was made Deputy Minister for Education, and despite a blatant conflict of interest exposed by Mick McCelty in ABC’s 45 Minutes, her husband’s company was awarded contracts to build dozens of primary school buildings throughout the country, undercutting other tenders by more than half thanks to the revolutionary Miracowall. Stepford proved a capable deputy, and her unwavering loyalty was rewarded in a 1980 cabinet reshuffle when she was promoted to Education Minister. For a brief time she was embraced as an icon for the feminist movement, but Stepford was quick to distance herself from feminism, insisting she had gotten to where she was by hard work, and had never encountered sexism in her life. Her heightened media profile saw her being interviewed more often, which only served to reveal her disconnectedness from her constituents; Stepford was in the habit of deploying bizarre idioms such as ‘Don’t pass the potato’ which she believed ordinary Australians used.

  Stepford’s greatest strength lay in her adeptness at not answering questions. In one hour-long ABC interview, every question, including ‘How are you today, Minister?’ and ‘You were close to your father; how did his death affect you?’ was steered to the topic of the Labor Party’s plan to raise taxes. In opposition after 1983 Stepford was credited with pioneering the use of the ‘four-word slogan’, a rhetorical device later embraced and finessed by Tony Abbott. At a Liberal Party fundraiser in 1985, Stepford’s barnstorming thirty-minute speech consisted of only four words, ‘Labor is not working’, which she repeated, to increasingly frenzied applause, more than one hundred and eighty times. The Liberal Party briefly adopted her slogan until it was revealed that it had been plagiarised from the British Conservative Party’s 1979 election campaign. This furore, however, was as nothing compared to the scandal which erupted in 1986, and which threatened to destroy Stepford’s political career.

  In July of that year, ABC’s flagship current affairs show Triangle broke the story of a huge unexplained spike in cases of childhood leukaemia throughout Australia. Thanks to the tireless research of Mick McCelty and his team, the cause of this increase was eventually traced back to Miracowall, which Stepford PLC had used in the construction and renovation of primary schools in the 1970s; the material was found to be riddled with carcinogens. Over the next five years, over three thousand children were hospitalised and received radiotherapy, and more than a hundred died. The removal of Miracowall from the nation’s schools cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Martin Stepford was arrested in November 1986 after releasing a statement that he alone was to blame for the Miracowall disaster. After just a week in custody, he died from a heart attack. Polly Stepford was only saved from arrest by a fire that destroyed most of Stepford PLC’s records. She insisted she had done nothing wrong, but she could not ignore the national outrage and calls for her resignation. Finally, in January 1987, Stepford released a three-thousand-word statement of apology, which did not include the words ‘sorry’ or ‘apologise’. She resigned from parliament two days later.

  Stepford disappeared from public life for several years, gradually rebuilding her support in the party, and emerging once again to run for the seat of Baynton in 1993 after a federal enquiry into the Miracowall scandal, which Labor had boycotted, cleared her of any wrongdoing. Stepford began the campaign twenty points behind Labor in the polls, and she had been all but written off before deciding on a new strategy. Aware of a growing intolerance in Australian public life, Stepford became adept at exploiting it for her own ends, after a few false starts. At first, Stepford insisted there were too
many Italians in Australia who were on benefits and stealing jobs, but when polling showed this line was not working, she moved on to the Greeks, with a similar lack of success. At last she settled on demonising Asians, which saw her popularity soar. Stepford’s dog whistling proved popular not only in Baynton but around the country, as did her new catchphrase, beginning every sentence in interviews with ‘As a battler myself …’ Not even her faux pas of attempting to eat a Chiko roll with a knife and fork at a photo op could dent her popularity.

  Bankrolled by the coal and gas industries, Stepford outspent her opponent by a factor of three and was re-elected with a massive majority, despite the many protests reminding the public of her role in the Miracowall scandal. Stepford was appointed Deputy Minister at the Department of the Environment, and immediately set about rolling back environmental protection legislation. She became the darling of the party’s hard right faction and in 1994, the Daily Trumpet predicted she would become Australia’s first female prime minister by the end of the decade. But this was not to be. In June of that year, Stepford claimed $250,000 on her parliamentary expenses for the renovation of her Baynton offices. After almost a year of investigations, Mick McCelty revealed on ABC News that only $10,000 of the money had gone to the builder; Stepford had kept the remainder for herself. Once again facing calls for her to resign, Stepford gave a tearful interview to 45 Minutes, claiming that she had always been a feminist, and McCelty’s lifelong persecution of her was simply because she was a woman.

  Stepford’s gambit failed, and a month later, with ill grace, she resigned and went to the back benches, announcing her retirement from politics at the next election. In a January 1997 interview with Coal magazine, Stepford spoke of the lucrative offers made to her to become a consultant for the coal industry, while simultaneously hinting at a return to politics. In February Stepford became ill, and was hospitalised due to breathing difficulties. Though she had never smoked, she was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer and she died in hospital on 14 April 1997. A routine Health and Safety inspection of her Baynton office shortly after revealed her cause of death; Stepford had given so little money to the builder for the 1994 renovations of her offices that he had used the cheapest material he could find: Miracowall.

  A United Front

  Raelee Chapman

  He finds his sister standing against the window. Sunlight is streaming in, her forehead pressed to the glass. Her loose hospital gown exposes her naked back, shoulderblades jutting like wings either side of her knotted spine. In the room are four beds stripped down to their rubber mattresses. A trolley of clean linen is parked near the door.

  ‘Trace,’ Luke calls, stepping around the trolley.

  She walks over for a hug, keeping herself at arm’s length so that they hug the air between them, barely touching each other. A male cleaner is shuffling about outside the room, waiting to get in, the pine-fresh smell of his mop bucket permeating the air. The ward is quiet, apart from the loud hum of the air conditioner blowing above Luke’s head. He asks after the baby.

  ‘He’s in the nursery,’ Tracey says, sitting down on an unmade bed, swinging her legs up onto it, exhausted. He waits for her to say more but she lies down, closes her eyes, and turns away from him.

  *

  Last Christmas, when Luke came home from uni, Tracey told them she was pregnant. They had just finished eating and debris from their meal cluttered the table: turkey bones, soiled napkins, torn bon bons and limp crepe-paper crowns.

  ‘Jesus,’ was all Luke said.

  ‘Well, ain’t that something. I’m going to be a young gran.’ Their mother elbowed their father, taking three quick sips from a West Coast Cooler.

  ‘You’re still young, Trace. What about your job?’ their dad said quietly. Tracey had been working at Kmart since she left school in Year 10; there was talk of a promotion – assistant manager.

  ‘You were only eighteen when you had us,’ Tracey said, rocking back on her chair.

  She was nursing a premixed can of Jim Beam and Cola. Luke glanced at the can and raised his eyebrows at no one in particular. He wondered why his parents weren’t asking who the father was but decided to keep his mouth shut. Maybe they knew something he didn’t.

  ‘We didn’t plan to have kids so young, especially not twins. It was a shock. It meant making sacrifices,’ their father said.

  The light outside the dining room window was falling; soon his mother would draw the blinds. She hated people looking in on their business. At eight o’clock a timer would turn on the Christmas lights strewn around the banksia tree on the front lawn. Neither Luke nor Trace said anything. They had heard the ‘sacrifices’ talk before. It was as tired and worn as their parents’ marriage.

  ‘Look,’ their dad said, glancing over at Luke, ‘you’re at uni with your books, trying to make a go of it … That’s more than we got when we were your age.’

  Luke knew what ‘making a go of it’ meant. Both his parents worked at the cannery – even retail was a step up in their eyes.

  ‘Don’t see why he needs to go to university. Plenty of perfectly good jobs down at the mall,’ his mother chimed in, her rosacea flushing as she twisted the top off a new bottle.

  ‘We’re talking about Trace,’ Luke reminded her. His mother always deflected when it came to his sister.

  Trace’s face was distant, as if she hadn’t heard a thing they’d said. After a moment’s silence, she raised her can and said, ‘Well, here’s to your new grandchild and your niece or nephew.’ She looked pointedly at Luke and added, ‘By the way, I’m moving out.’

  *

  At home the lawn is overgrown, and he wonders if his parents have been waiting for him to come back and cut it. His bedroom has been taken over by storage boxes, Camping Australia map books and his dad’s titty mags from the seventies. He flops onto his bed and a cloud of dust escapes beneath his old R2-D2 and C-3PO doona. He knows he’ll spend the night wheezing. He flips through old magazines until he is sleepy.

  When he wakes in the morning, his parents have already left for the cannery. He pulls on his old hiking gear, khaki shorts, thick socks and boots and grabs his inhaler. He makes coffee in the kitchen, looking for a thermos as the kettle boils. He is going to hit the trails on the old prospectors’ hills up near the hospital. He sets off, trampling the front lawn with his boots, kicking the front gate open.

  As a teenager, he was acutely aware of how close he was to this unbridled wilderness. The bush was an escape from the house, his mum and dad, from Trace and her skanky friends. Girls who wanted their cherries popped so bad, like a scab that needed picking off and couldn’t be left alone. Trace had a whole lot of them lined up. One time four of them grabbed him, pinned him down, sticking their tongues down his throat, tugging at his pants before he pushed them off. ‘You think you’d be grateful,’ Trace had said. ‘How else are you ever going to get laid?’

  Behind the hospital car park is a pebbly dirt track that leads to the reserve. His coffee swooshes in the thermos in his backpack as he crunches stones underfoot. Either side of the track, rosellas and galahs are busy with their beaks in the dewy grass. After a hundred metres or so he turns around and can no longer see the car park; the entrance has closed over. Only the statue on top of the hospital is visible, Our Mother of Mercy with her hands clasped against the sky. He swings his arms and does a few shoulder rolls to loosen up, staring at the canopy. The sun is warm but not too hot yet, he might do six kilometres. The trails are uneven but well used by dirt-bike riders and cross-country runners. The ground is littered with gum leaves, kangaroo droppings and rubbish – crushed Coke cans, a used condom, chip wrappers fluttering about like confetti, an open Domino’s Pizza box licked clean by possums. But if he keeps his eyes on the sky, he sees none of this. All he can hear are wattlebirds calling, his boots, the thermos swishing. He does this every morning he is home, before visiting hours start at the hospital.

  *

  He is here to support Trace. That is what he
is told. He and his parents are pulled into one of the hospital’s ‘quiet rooms’, where family members can stay overnight if they need to. They sit on gingham lounges with broken springs. A nurse stands before them. She has a long blonde ponytail that reaches her behind. Around her neck are several lanyards with keys and swipe cards dangling off them. Her name is Kirsty.

  Luke remembers this quiet room, or one like it, from when his grandma died. They spent so much time sitting around as they waited for cancer to rob her of her last breath. He doesn’t remember for how long but it had seemed important, the vigil, all of them together. Before his gran slipped into a coma, she asked for her jewellery box and handed out the contents. Tracey grabbed as much as she could. Their gran, loopy on morphine, offered jewellery to the nurses as well. His mum stood back and watched, nibbling at her nails. ‘It’s all junk, costume jewellery. She pawned the good stuff years ago,’ she said.

  She is chewing her nails now, listening to Kirsty. It is like an intervention. They need to be a united front.

  ‘She needs to feel the love and encouragement of her family to move forward in the right direction when she is discharged,’ Kirsty says, smiling at them.

  ‘We didn’t know. We didn’t even know …’ his mother keeps muttering.

  Kirsty says something about Trace being a high-functioning user. His mum and dad will come straight from work to the hospital each day, but for the rest of the time Luke is meant to stick around.

  ‘Keep an eye on who comes to see her, keep the undesirables out,’ his dad says under his breath.

  *

  When Tracey is showering or sleeping – they give her sleeping pills so she won’t writhe all the time, scratching her arms till they bleed – Luke goes to the special care nursery to see his nephew. Tracey named him PJ for reasons that were beyond him. The nursery is dimly lit and he peers through the glass at the screaming babies, their rigid arms thrusting out from their bodies. Their little feet offering sharp kicks to the air. Some are shuddering like when you dream you’re falling, slipping through your bed and there’s nothing below.