Campaign Ruby

by Jessica Rudd

  The report began with footage of a perspiring Prime Minister in a pair of unflatteringly short shorts. Smiling through his exhaustion, he stumbled across the finish line to half-hearted applause.

  ‘With thirty-six degrees on the barometer here in Canberra,’ said the even hotter reporter, ‘organisers of today’s annual Fun Run for Prostate Cancer Awareness were delighted but surprised when the Prime Minister’s office called early this morning to say that Hugh Patton was eager to participate—causing speculation that, however severe the temperature outside might be, nothing quite compared to the heat inside the government’s party room.

  ‘For at least a fortnight there have been mutterings from prominent government backbenchers that his party is no longer confident Mr Patton can deliver a fifth consecutive win at the next election, due in eighteen months.

  ‘Senior government figures, including the Health Minister, were this morning forced to defend their leader and call on detractors to put up or shut up.’

  A confident and relaxed Max Masters stood open-collared outside radio studios surrounded by journalists and fluffy microphones.

  ‘There’s Luke.’ I spotted the bad suit in the background.

  ‘Mr Masters,’ said a journalist, ‘the Prime Minister is at a fun run today—are you going to wish him luck?’

  ‘Of course I wish him luck,’ said Masters, ‘but he doesn’t need it. He’s a practised athlete—he knows how to run away from a political reality.’

  ‘Tellingly,’ said Oscar Franklin, in a voice so manly it made Russell Crowe sound like Shirley Temple, ‘Treasurer Gabrielle Brennan was unavailable for comment. It should be an interesting week in parliament. Back to you, Peter.’

  ‘I wish that Oscar guy would wear a tie—he’s the only political journalist in the country who never bothers,’ said Daphne.

  I, too, was staring at his open-necked shirt. ‘In Oscar’s case,’ I murmured, ‘I’m not sure many other women would agree with you.’

  ‘He’s fucked.’ Debs muted the television.

  ‘Who?’ asked Daphne.

  ‘The Prime Minister?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Debs, ‘not a good look to go on a fun run when your backbench is plotting against you.’

  Daphne carried a platter of roast chicken to the table.

  ‘Masters’ analogy was clever,’ I said.

  ‘You’re going to be great at this.’ My aunt patted my shoulder.

  You’re in way over me, said my head.

  ‘It’s just a coffee.’ I helped myself to peas.

  ‘You know,’ Daphne said, ‘afterwards you should spend the night at my place in the city. It’ll give you a chance to look around—unless you’d prefer to come back here with Debs.’

  I contemplated her offer. Having admired the work of a few Australian designers online, a quick shop wasn’t out of the question. Mmm, Bettina Liano, Kirrily Johnston, Akira, Scanlan & Theodore, Fleur Wood…

  ‘Actually, I’d love to spend some time in Melbourne.’

  And sleep on a bed.

  While Daphne watched Australian Idol, Debs and I did the washing up. ‘Do either of you have a belt I could borrow for tomorrow?’ I handed her a soapy dinner plate. ‘I’ll lend you a belt if you don’t make a big deal out of me spending time with the pups,’ she said under her breath.

  ‘You mean doting?’

  ‘Whatever you want to call it,’ she said. ‘I don’t want Daph thinking I want to keep those little critters, because I don’t. They’re nice ’n’ all, but we can’t have four dogs running around here.’

  ‘Deal. I promise not to tell Daphne that you’re a hopeless puppy-doter.’

  ‘You’re dangerously close to missing out on my cream, waist-cinching Stella McCartney.’

  Dishes done, I packed an overnight bag. For some reason when we packed Fran and I had images of sandy beaches, the outback and quaint towns. Anyone looking at my suitcase would be forgiven for concluding I had picked from the washing lines of Miss Universe and the cast of Australia. For tomorrow, I settled for a watermelon shift dress with capped sleeves, the Mius and the Stella belt.

  I switched off the living-room lights and lay down on the couch. On the back of a boarding pass, I wrote:

  1. Set alarm for seven o’clock

  2. Get up; have breakfast

  3. Wash hair and shave legs

  4. Pack toiletries

  5. Call Fran

  6. Buy newspapers

  7. Find out meaning of ‘to do a doorstop’.

  Yarrawhatla?

  I was in the public gallery in what looked like the House of Commons with Daphne and Debs. On one side sat British members of parliament. On the other, a raft of rowdy Australians. Dame Edna Everage was Thatcheresque in a skirt suit; Rolf Harris wore a wig and robes; Kylie Minogue sat in the prime minister’s seat and chatted with fellow frontbencher Dannii.

  Max Masters stood. ‘Thank you, Mr Speaker. I invite members of the gallery to do The Doorstop.’ The lights dimmed and a disco ball lowered from the ceiling. The members stood back and hung their heads.

  Then two huge trap doors opened, sinking both front-benches and the table between them. In their place, a giant, wedge-shaped wooden doorstop slowly emerged. Covered in rich green leather, its highest point reached the balcony of the public gallery and its lowest stopped just short of the Speaker’s chair.

  The galleries cheered. ‘Order, order,’ said the jowly Speaker, before breaking into song. ‘Keep on, do The Doorstop,’ he grooved, ‘don’t stop ’til you get enough.’ The MPs joined a conga line, led by Alf Stewart. Back in the public gallery, two Qantas flight attendants in roller-skates stood on either side of The Doorstop. Rolling in time with the music, they pointed towards it with spirit fingers.

  Daphne pulled out a life jacket from underneath her seat and put it on. ‘Come on, darling,’ she shouted, ‘that’s our cue.’ She kicked off her sandals, stepped up onto the railing and slid effortlessly down The Doorstop. When she reached the bottom, she looked back at Debs and me. ‘Come on, darlings!’

  ‘Your turn,’ said Debs. The flight attendants flashed their torches at me, creating a spotlight.

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Ruby, get up,’ she said, putting on her life jacket.

  I gripped the seat.

  ‘Come on, Ruby, it’s time.’ She kicked off her shoes.

  ‘No.’ I turned my head.

  ‘Ruby!’ Debs shook me. ‘You slept through your alarm—we have to leave in twenty minutes!’

  ‘Bollocks.’ I leaped off the couch. ‘I had the weirdest dream.’

  ‘You can tell me about it in the car.’

  I scrambled for my list.

  ‘One,’ I read aloud, ‘set alarm for seven o’clock. Fuck. Two, get up and have breakfast.’ I ran to the kitchen and put two bananas in my handbag. ‘Three, wash hair and shave legs…’

  ‘No time, sunshine!’ yelled Debs from her bedroom.

  ‘Bugger, bugger, bugger. Four, pack toiletries.’ I raced for the bathroom and began packing before catching a frightening glimpse of the spot on the tip of my nose. ‘You bastard,’ I said to my skin, plastering it madly with concealer. I brushed my teeth, zipped my wash bag, squeezed into my dress, grabbed my handbag and overnighter and ran back to the kitchen, stepping into my wedges on the way.

  ‘Five, call Fran; six, buy newspapers; seven, find out meaning of “to do a doorstop”.’ I sprayed myself with deodorant.

  ‘No time!’ yelled Debs.

  ‘Leave her alone, Deborah,’ scolded my aunt. ‘This is a very important day for Ruby.’

  ‘It’s an important day for me too.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ barked Daphne, seemingly out of nowhere. ‘Maybe you’re not right for this—it’s not all about you.’

  My head cringed. You know you’ve overstayed your welcome when people start fighting in front of you.

  ‘You look lovely, darling,’ said Daphne, trying to avoid staring direc
tly at the hideous creature on my nose.

  Debs grabbed her briefcase and went to kiss my aunt goodbye, but she was rejected. She turned to me. ‘Right, we’ve got to…what the fuck happened to you?’

  ‘Deborah!’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said, ‘she’s just telling it like it is.’

  ‘See, she understands me.’ Debs stormed out the door.

  I kissed my aunt goodbye and slinked into the car, where I lowered my sunglasses and thanked the fashion gods that huge frames were in.

  Once we were on the open road, I dared to go there.

  ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Fine.’

  Don’t pry, Ruby, urged my head.

  ‘It’s just that,’ I paused, ‘well, things didn’t seem fine.’

  ‘Daph’s driving me up the wall. She keeps going on about babies. Babies, babies, babies.’

  I should have listened to my head.

  ‘If I wanted to be a mum, I’d be a mum. Clearly, I don’t.’

  ‘Is that…practicable?’

  ‘You mean getting knocked up?’ We purred onto the highway.

  I nodded.

  ‘Guess so. I haven’t really looked into it—it’s Daph’s agenda, not mine—but it’d have to be me. And I don’t want to have to lug another person around inside me and then on me—I like being unencumbered.’

  I let it go for a while but couldn’t help myself. ‘For what it’s worth, I think you’d be great parents.’

  ‘Bullshit. We both work too hard to be able to incorporate another person. Anyway it’s all totally hypothetical.’ She dialled in for a conference call. ‘There’s no point in discussing it.’ While we listened to the hold music, she turned to me and summoned her most diplomatic voice. ‘You don’t look that terrible.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘No worries,’ she smiled, thinking she’d fixed things. ‘Listen, I have a friend who works miracles. Not that you need a miracle because you don’t look terrible. But if you did need a miracle, she’d be the one to go to.’

  ‘Right, excellent.’ I had no idea what she was on about.

  ‘Her name is Olga. When I’ve done an all-nighter and I look like hell—not that you look like hell—but when I look like hell and need to go to court I see Olga in the morning and she fixes me for the day. I’ll call her for you after this call and you can see her first up. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Four conference calls and a banana later, we were on the outskirts of Melbourne, when Debs rang her.

  ‘Olga, it’s Debs.’

  ‘Da,’ said Olga.

  ‘My niece needs you.’

  ‘Da?’

  ‘She needs’—Debs looked at me intently—‘hair washed and styled.’

  ‘Da, da.’

  ‘Brows waxed. Legs waxed.’

  ‘Da.’

  Debs lifted my right arm. ‘Pits waxed.’

  ‘Da.’

  ‘Bikini?’ she asked me. I shook my head.

  ‘Da,’ pre-empted Olga.

  Good grief.

  ‘She needs make-up, a manicure and pedicure. I’ll drop her off at your place in twenty minutes. Okay?’

  ‘Da.’

  ‘Sorted.’ Debs hung up. ‘She’s real nice. She’s Russian.’ Not Japanese?

  We soon pulled up at a rather grotty block of flats. ‘Go to the first floor,’ Debs said, ‘press the buzzer and Olga will come and get you.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Daph told me to give you this map and keys to the apartment, but it’s a bit confusing, so just call her when you get there and she’ll tell you how to get in. I’ll drop your bags off there this arvo. Gotta go, kiddo.’

  Abandoned, I pressed the buzzer. Footsteps bounded down the stairs towards me and then a pint-sized blonde lady appeared. She looked like an Olympic figure skater.

  ‘You must be Olga,’ I said. ‘I’m Ruby.’

  I followed her into a sitting room. Olga took my handbag and reached into it for my phone, which she switched off. She handed me a robe and glass of water and showed me to one of the smaller rooms.

  ‘I’m on quite a tight schedule,’ I said. ‘I need to be at Treasury Place by a quarter to twelve at the latest.’ Olga looked at her watch. ‘Da.’

  ‘You want me to lie down?’ I asked.

  ‘Da,’ she smiled.

  Another woman joined her, and as they chatted incomprehensibly, they waxed, plucked, scrubbed, washed, buffed, dried, moisturised and painted me.

  In two hours, I was a new woman. My spot had vanished, my hair bounced and my legs slithered.

  Back in my dress, I grabbed my things and thanked them profusely. ‘Da,’ they said and showed me the door.

  ‘Four Treasury Place,’ I said to the cab driver.

  ‘Righto, love, you off to something special?’

  ‘I guess,’ I said. ‘I have an interview of sorts.’

  The driver eyed me in the mirror. ‘You’ll get the job for sure.’

  At Treasury Place a police officer appeared to be guarding a row of white Edwardian buildings.

  ‘Press?’ he asked.

  ‘I have an appointment with Luke Harley in the Leader of the Opposition’s office.’

  ‘Right, I’ll call and find someone for you. As you can appreciate, it’s pretty hectic in there at the moment.’ He picked up a radio and said, ‘G’day, is Luke Harley there? Yeah, there’s a lady here to see him; she reckons she has an appointment. Let me ask. Are you Ruby Stanhope?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yep, that’s her. I’ll escort her in.’ He put on his hat and stepped down from his post. ‘This way please, ma’am.’

  I followed him down a narrow pathway to a nondescript office where a receptionist who could have auditioned for Golden Girls sat at a cluttered desk.

  ‘Ruby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Beryl. Did you get our messages?’

  ‘No,’ I said, remembering Olga had silenced my mobile. ‘I’ve been in appointments all morning.’

  ‘So have we, mate,’ she said. ‘We’ve been trying to call you to reschedule. Things are pretty fraught in there.’ She pointed towards a pair of heavy oak doors.

  ‘Big day?’

  ‘You haven’t seen the news?’

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her there was lipstick on her teeth. ‘I haven’t had a chance to read anything this morning,’ I bluffed, smoothing a wrinkle in my dress.

  ‘There’s been a spill,’ she said.

  ‘Oil?’

  ‘No, mate, a spill in the government.’

  ‘Is someone…er…cleaning it up?’

  She laughed. ‘The PM’s been toppled by the Treasurer and the new PM’s on her way to Yarralumla.’

  I longed for subtitles. ‘I’ve just been down at the Yarra Valley,’ I hesitated, ‘it’s a beautiful place.’

  ‘No sweet ’art—Yarralumla. The GG’s place. She’s gonna be sworn in and we’re being told she’s calling an early election.’

  I was still lost.

  ‘How about I put the telly on and get you a cuppa?’

  ‘That would be lovely.’

  She turned on the antique television on her desk and swivelled it towards me, ushering me to a coffee-stained office chair. ‘Voila,’ she said. ‘How do you have yer tea?’

  BREAKING NEWS: PM PATTON OUSTED—BRENNAN TO BE SWORN IN AS PRIME MINISTER, streamed across the news ticker at the bottom of the screen. ‘I’m standing here on the road to the Governor-General’s residence at Yarralumla,’ said an elegant, almond-eyed journalist, ‘where, any minute now, the new Prime Minister, Gabrielle Brennan, is expected to be sworn in to her new role. At this stage, we are unsure who will take her position as Treasurer. Peter?’

  ‘Thanks, Anastasia,’ said Peter, back in the studio. ‘Do we have any idea whether Prime Minister, sorry, former prime minister Hugh Patton will be standing again in his inner-Sydney seat at the next election?’

  ‘At this stage, Pete
r, we don’t, but it’s highly unlikely that he would serve under his challenger and successor. This was a swift and seamless move on the part of Gabrielle Brennan and her co-conspirators. Very few people expected this day would come quite so quickly, if at all. Everybody is stunned. Peter?’

  Peter pressed two fingers against his earpiece. ‘Right, thank you, Anastasia. Senior Political Correspondent Anastasia Ng there, live in Canberra. We’re hearing now that Hugh Patton is going to doorstop on the steps of Old Parliament House’—bingo—‘evoking vivid memories of the dismissal of Gough Whitlam in 1975. We’ll cross live to that press conference now, where Oscar Franklin’— yum—‘has the latest. Oscar?’

  Beryl arrived with my tea in a chipped Flintstones mug, interrupting my Oscar-related daydream.

  ‘Thanks.’ I cleared my throat. ‘What happened to Whitlam?’

  ‘What do you mean, love?’

  ‘Well, why was he dismissed?’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘England.’

  ‘Oh, that makes sense. In a nutshell, the GG dissolved the House of Reps and the Senate and put Fraser in as caretaker. It’d be like the Queen sacking your PM.’

  ‘What’s the significance of Old Parliament House?’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Because Patton is about to do a doorstop there.’ I hoped I had used the term correctly.

  ‘Shit, that’s dramatic.’

  ‘I should just go,’ I said, grasping the significance of the event.

  Beryl shook her head. ‘Luke wants you to stick around, if you’re interested.’

  Hugh Patton stood on a flight of white steps. He was emotional, supported by his wife, her hand firmly on his back.

  ‘Ladies and gentleman, people of Australia—they say thirteen is an unlucky number. For my colleagues, my staff, my family and me these thirteen years have been the luckiest of our lives. We have been lucky enough to serve this country—to serve you.

  ‘We’ve made some changes in health, defence, tax and education. We’ve been a force for good and, of that, I am proud.

  ‘Sadly, someone else got lucky today. I wish her and her team—my party—well. I bear no resentment. No animosity. Because the fact remains I will always have those thirteen lucky years and that is thanks to them.