2

BORN AND BRED IN A BRIAR PATCH

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it
exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong
remedy.

– Ernest Benn

The next day Grafton flew business class for the first time in his life, to Canberra where a Commonwealth car was waiting to convey him to Parliament House. As the morning progressed, the turmoil over his flaccidity was substantially assuaged by the experience of being waited on, escorted, pampered and referred to as ‘Sir’ and even ‘Senator’. Doors were opened for him, luggage carried and, best of all, food and beverages offered constantly. After a couple of hours, his despondency had almost lifted and he found himself thinking, ‘I could get used to this.’

When they reached Parliament House, his driver Aziz did not head for the main entrance but turned down the driveway which led to the entrance used by politicians and staffers. As they approached the security point, Grafton noticed a crowd of reporters and camera crews. ‘I wonder who they’re waiting for,’ he pondered aloud. His driver looked at him in the mirror and said, ‘I would imagine it’s for you, Senator.’ Even as he spoke, the media scrum saw his car and came running. Within moments they were fogging the tinted windows with questions, flashing cameras, clawing at each other for position. Being totally unprepared for this, all Grafton could manage to do was smile a slightly demented smile, wave a little and give a V for victory sign. Then they were through the checkpoint and into the secure area.

Grafton stepped from the car somewhat shaken. He could see the press pack living up to their name, pressed against the distant chain link fence, trying to get shots of him with long lenses. He gulped and entered the building.

Inside he followed another official through the labyrinth of corridors towards the parliamentary offices. Along the way he saw faces he recognised, though not because he had met them. These were not the ragtag pollies he knew in Mangoland who fronted up to its one-house parliament for a few weeks each year and spent the rest of their time running their real estate businesses or piggeries. These were faces he had seen in the news: the real power in the country. The suits were bespoke, the shoes were Italian, even the haircuts looked imported. Walking down one corridor, he estimated he had passed more Doctors of Economics than in all the universities in Mangoland.

What was slightly unnerving, however, was that conversations stopped in mid-sentence and people turned to look as he approached. Grafton glanced down to make sure he was not trailing toilet paper or leaving a track of dog shit footprints but saw nothing. In the end he settled for briefly smiling and nodding to each group of people who stood frozen as he passed.

At the end of a long corridor Grafton was ushered into an office suite which he was slightly unnerved to see had his name on the door. His guide excused herself saying, ‘Your staff will be here in a minute.’ Grafton grunted thanks, wondering who or what his ‘staff’ might consist of. He wandered through an area with a large conference table and into an inner office dominated by what was presumably his desk. He went around the room, opening drawers and looking in cupboards as you might in a hotel room, until he found a bar fridge that was stocked with spirits and wine, which were of no use to him, and a packet of Maltesers which was of immediate use.

As he was searching the expansive beech desk for some sharp object with which to open the packet, the door opened and a tall gaunt figure entered. With a shock, Grafton recognised the Nosferatu-like form of his mentor, friend and sometime stepfather, Lee Horton, who seemed to glide across the floor like a ghost. For a moment Grafton wondered if he was a ghost as he was pale and moved silently with his eyes closed tight.

‘Mr Horton?’ said Grafton.

The apparition turned to face him and smiled a cadaverous smile.

‘Grafton. My dear boy,’ said Horton, extending his hand, his eyes still closed as if sewn shut. Grafton shook a hand that was cold but dry. ‘Good God, Mr Horton. What happened to your eyes?’

‘Blind, my boy,’ said Horton, turning his head and sniffing slightly as if imaging the room through his nostrils. ‘Absolutely. As a bat. Literally. Do you mind?’ he said, gesturing towards the fridge.

‘By all means,’ said Grafton, watching the confidence of Horton’s movements with wonder. Horton adroitly opened the fridge, drew out a bottle of sparkling mineral water and unscrewed the lid.

‘If you’re … um … how do you … um …?’ said Grafton, watching Horton pour the water into a chilled glass.

‘See?’ said his former Biology teacher. ‘Sonar! Ultrasonic emitters and receivers connected to my optical cortex. They give me a very detailed, if monochrome picture of my environment. As I said, just like a bat. And, as with bats, it has the advantage of working in the dark.’

Horton replaced the bottle in the fridge and scanned the room. ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘One of the better ones. Not as big as the President’s, but nice.’ Desperate now, Grafton wrenched the Maltesers pack open with his teeth and popped a couple in his mouth. ‘Where have you been, Mr Horton?’ he said. ‘It’s been so long, I thought you might have been dead.’

‘In a way I was,’ said Horton mysteriously. ‘I had some business up in Queensland where, I should mention, I visited your mother’s grave. You know, I still feel a great sense of closeness to her.’

Horton sipped the water and it seemed to Grafton for one moment that small tears were seeping from those blind eyes. He did a quick mental calculation and figured that it was seven years since his mother Avis had died white water rafting in the Andes with Horton – her then husband. In accordance with Avis’s will, Horton had buried her on the family property in the Darling Downs. Since that time, he had seen Horton on only a few occasions, all of which Grafton now realised had been, like the present one, moments when Grafton felt he was caught up in something beyond his control.

‘So why are you here?’ asked Grafton, already half-knowing the answer.

‘Why do you think, my boy? I’m the one who put you here.’

‘But how …?’ spluttered Grafton, tipping another handful of Maltesers into his mouth.

‘It wasn’t too hard. I simply devised an algorithm to convert unused voting energy into meaningful results. Not unlike the cryptography that uses the unused data in a digital photograph to contain hidden messages.’

‘You mean … you’re the Preference Whisperer?’

‘Yes,’ said Horton, continuing to look around the room with his closed eyes, as if taking it all in. ‘And now I’m here to be your minder. I am your political adviser and there is much we have to do.’

‘Like what?’ said Grafton, who still had no idea why he was here or what he was supposed to do.

‘The first thing I’m sure you realise, Grafton, my dear boy, is that you hold the balance of power in the Senate.’

‘I do?’ said Grafton, who in reality did not realise any such thing.

Horton took a seat. ‘Grafton, the Senate was originally set up to represent the States of Australia. Now the only states it represents are those of confusion, inebriation and shock. Thanks to a series of preference deals, similar to but not as effective as mine, the red leather seats of the crossbenches are now occupied by a tatterdemalion group of members from single issue, sometimes no issue, ad hoc parties – the Australian Waterski Enthusiasts, the Brett and Kaylene Hopkins Family Party, the Country Practice Party, which was formed to bring back …’

‘Regional medical services?’ ventured Grafton.

‘The TV show,’ said Horton. ‘In short, there are more loose cannons in this Parliament than a capsized Spanish man-of-war. Now, most of them have already entered into deals with the major parties which has resulted in both sides having equal numbers. The only remaining un-allocated vote in the Chamber is yours.’

‘Oh,’ said Grafton, sinking down into the chair behind his barren desk.

‘Which means you are about to be wooed, my dear boy. You are going to have offerings made to you, promises, inducements and enticements, some of which, I warn you now, might be of a carnal nature.’

Grafton sniffed sardonically. ‘Well that’s not going to be much use. You see, I’m …’

‘Impotent. I know,’ said Horton. ‘That’s one reason why you are ideal for this mission.’

‘What mission?’ said Grafton, suddenly sitting up straight, but Horton ignored the question. ‘If you were in full possession of your faculties I am quite certain that within days your dick would trip you up – in, I hasten to clarify, the ethical rather than a physical sense. I’m sure, for example, it would compromise your working relationship with this young lady.’

Horton flipped a forefinger towards the door through which a young woman had just entered. She crossed the room sinuously and extended an elegant hand to Grafton, who half-rose clumsily from his seat.

‘Hi, my name is Petra,’ she said. ‘I am your social media officer. I have been asked by Mr Horton to set up your website, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and personal blog.’

She smiled and waited for a reply which was not immediately forthcoming. In fact Grafton had heard nothing after the name ‘Petra’ and was standing stock-still, gazing at a finely crafted face framed by glossy dark hair, a torso perfectly shaped above and below a tight waist and two very large brown eyes. For a moment it flashed into Grafton’s mind that she might be an Iranian spy. If so, he thought, I am about to betray every national secret I can lay my hands on.

‘Um … yes,’ he finally said, coming out of suspended animation. ‘Um … Do I need all those things?’

‘You certainly do,’ she said with the kindly tone of a geriatric nurse.

‘But I’m not sure what I would write …’ began Grafton, experiencing a mild onset of panic at the thought of possibly having to do something.

‘Petra will take care of all that,’ said Horton. ‘She will manage the sites and create the content. All you have to do at the moment is attend your first meeting.’

‘With whom?’ said the increasing agitated Senator-elect, feeling unprepared for any sort of discussion.

‘The Prime Minister,’ said Horton. ‘Two o’clock this afternoon. At the Shangri-La Health Resort. In the sauna.’

‘The sauna? Why the sauna? I hate saunas.’

‘It has to be somewhere you cannot be overheard or bugged – and where you can’t wear a wire,’ said his mentor, rising from his chair. ‘She would face a party revolt if they knew she was speaking to you. And besides, she’s trying to lose weight. Meanwhile, I’ll show you the dining room.’

Horton led him down a further maze of corridors to the Parliamentary Dining Room where Grafton’s anxiety was summarily exiled on the discovery that the food was of high quality, abundant and free. Like a child at his first smorgasbord, he piled his plate so high that even he could almost not consume it. But he managed.

‘Why did you say the PM would face a revolt if they discovered she was talking to me?’ he asked Horton between plates.

‘Because of your long-time association with the Workers’ Party. You were policy adviser and speechwriter to Bevan Fudd; you crafted most of his speeches and policies. And you were instrumental in persuading Judy Gillies to replace him as PM. Then you were primarily responsible for bringing Fudd out of exile and reinstating him,’ said Horton.

‘All of which was a total disaster for the Workers’ Party,’ said Grafton, munching. ‘The People’s Party should be grateful.’

‘Oh, I’m sure they are,’ said Horton. ‘But they harbour a quite reasonable fear that even the slightest contact with you could affect them in the same way. You are seen as the kiss of death to any organisation. You are “Everest, Destroyer of Parties”.’

Grafton was slightly taken aback to learn that he was seen as some sort of political Vishnu and not sure whether to be insulted or flattered. In the end, his mind gave up thinking about it and diverged into wondering if the Parliamentary Dining Room ever served rogan josh.

Towards the end of the meal, Horton excused himself to organise transport for Grafton. On being reminded of the impending meeting, Grafton’s anxiety reasserted itself. Upon making his commitment to fidelity with Janet, Grafton had been pleased to discover that, contrary to what he had feared, thoughts and memories of former lovers rarely entered his mind. Until now. His Chief of Staff in Mangoland, the woman whom he had so quickly and lastingly turned lesbian, was now the Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon. Nina Poundstone – the very person he was about to meet, as it turned out, in a sauna. The prospect filled him with so much trepidation that he could almost not eat his second dessert.

As he swallowed mouthfuls of baked cheesecake he recalled that ‘desserts’ spelt backwards was ‘stressed’.

The Shangri-La Health Club was a sprawling gymnasium, aquatic centre and nightclub on the outskirts of Canberra. Built in the seventies it was Asian-themed with a thatched Bali-hut portico that was now bald in patches and a series of terracotta Buddhas, several of which had fallen over, dotted around the gravelled forecourt.

Grafton arrived in a taxi since Horton did not trust the discretion of the Commonwealth car drivers, and stepped out near the front steps, telling the driver to wait. A security guard stood to attention outside the front doors. As Grafton hauled himself up the stairs the guard raised his hand. ‘Sorry sir, the centre’s closed.’

‘Closed?’

‘A chlorine leak, sir. Just a precaution.’

Grafton stood nonplussed for a moment, wondering if the appointment was a mistake, or worse, some sort of trick, then the sliding glass doors opened and a small man in a grey suit and wraparound sunglasses came out briskly.

‘It’s alright, Sammy. This way, Senator.’ The man, who reminded Grafton rather of a possum, stood politely aside for Grafton to enter, cast a quick look round the car park to check no one was watching and then followed him inside. They walked across the empty foyer and into the pool area which was eerily deserted. At the door to the changing rooms, The Possum picked up a large white towel from a stack and handed it to Grafton. ‘You can get changed in here, sir,’ he said.

Grafton entered the changing room and slowly began removing his clothes. Oddly, the item he was most reluctant to take off was his white Panama hat. He had begun wearing the broad-brimmed headpiece when he first moved to Mangoland as a defence against the savage tropic sun, little knowing that it would be a completely unexposed part of his anatomy that would ultimately fall victim to cancer. The hat had since become his trademark and he was so reliant on it that taking it off now made him feel more naked and vulnerable than the removal of all of his other clothes put together.

The silence of the building, the empty changing room with its long, silent rows of lockers, the slow drip of water somewhere, reminded him somehow of The Shining. He almost expected to turn and see a figure in a frightening masquerade costume standing there. Eventually he emerged from the changing room with the towel wrapped like a muu-muu around his rotund form. The Possum was standing rigidly at attention waiting for him. He snapped his heels, turned on the spot and led the way to a cedar cabin standing not far from the pool.

‘Water, Senator?’ he said, handing Grafton a bottle of Happy Valley lightly sparkling mineral water, and opened the door. Grafton idly wondered whether bottled-water companies had people whose job it was to sort the lightly sparkling mineral water from the heavily sparkling. He took a deep breath and walked into the sauna. The door was shut behind him.

As his eyes adjusted to the dim orange light, he saw a large white object move at the far end of the sauna, and for one panicked moment, thought he had been lured into a cage with a polar bear. Then the object rose and walked towards him. He saw it was Nina, though not Nina as he had remembered her. She was enormous. She picked up a steel ladle, dipped it into a bucket and poured water onto the hot rocks, then swayed back to the bench, turned and discarded her towel.

‘It’s all good, Grafton. No one will come in,’ she said as she lowered her bulk onto the wooden bench. ‘You can take off the towel. We’ve both seen it all before.’

Not this much, thought Grafton, dropping his towel just a little and sinking down on a bench with the towel lying across his groin. Nina leaned back, her huge white breasts flopping over her midriff like pillows. If Lucian Freud had only lived to see this, thought Grafton, Nina could have kept him painting for years.

‘So, Grafton,’ said Nina, looking at him with an expression that might almost have been interpreted as admiration. ‘You’ve done it again. Fifteen years ago you managed to become Premier of Queensland without even running a campaign. Now you’ve got yourself elected to the Australian Senate and hold the balance of power. I don’t know how you do it.’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ said Grafton, wiping away the perspiration that was already trickling into his eyes. ‘I didn’t even know I was on the ballot paper. I went back to Mangoland to vote – because I’m still on the electoral roll there – and when I went to the polling booth, there were pictures of me stuck up outside. I thought it must be someone who looked like me.’

‘No one looks like you,’ scoffed Nina.

Grafton ignored this. ‘Then I went inside and there was my name on the ballot paper. At the top. In bold print. I had nothing to do with it.’

Nina shook her head. ‘I can almost believe that, Grafton. You’ve always been the same. A political jellyfish floating on the tide: not caring which way you were washed, nor seeking to understand the currents that bore you. Well, whatever forces of evil contrived to put you in this position, and I have fucking good idea who they might be – someone beginning with haitch …’

‘Aitch,’ corrected Grafton. ‘We’re not in Mangoland now.’

‘Apologies – aitch,’ said Nina, ‘and we both know who we’re talking about – regardless of the events that led to your grotesque presence in the Upper House of this nation, the fact is I need your help.’

Gasping in the heat, Grafton grappled for the bottle of water and twisted off the plastic cap. As he was gulping down a mouthful, Nina rose from the bench and came towards him. Grafton started and almost choked but Nina walked past to the corner where the bucket of cold water stood.

‘The situation is, Grafton, that I’ve been shown the figures, the real ones, the ones the press and the public never see. The Treasury is broke, the deficit has passed the fail-safe point and our credit is maxed out. If we don’t cut expenditure or raise taxes, this country is going out backwards.’

She stopped and tipped a ladle of water over her head.

‘The problem is, the public won’t accept cuts or tax hikes, which means that whatever we do has to be done … invisibly.’ She shook herself like a polar bear emerging from Arctic waters and droplets sprayed around the room and her breasts slapped the sides of her ribcage. ‘We have created as many invisible taxes as we can, which means we now have to look at cutting costs. Now! How to do that?’

Nina started to pace up and down. It was a compelling oratory, not so much in the views she expressed as the ones she afforded. As she pivoted, paced and gestured, Grafton was treated to a spectacular display of superabundant flesh in motion. Muscles tightened, bulged and relaxed; skin dimpled, rippled, billowed and undulated; whole body sections, some previously unfamiliar to him, swung like pendulums from left to right as she fulminated.

Suddenly remembering his penis, Grafton became fearful. While he desperately longed for his pudgy organ to display some sign of erectile function, if the sight of Nina caused it to even twitch he knew he might have to consider the option of suicide.

‘Rule number one,’ expounded the PM. ‘Don’t worry about offending people who always vote for you. They’re not going to vote against you no matter what you do. In tertiary education – your area – for example. Putting up the cost of medical degrees doesn’t matter because people studying to be doctors are smart enough to know it’s a small investment for a huge lifetime return. Number two: don’t worry about offending people who never vote for you anyway.’

‘Like all the other students?’ suggested Grafton.

‘Yes,’ she said, but then turned dramatically and pointed a cautionary finger at him.

‘But not exactly. Offending uni students doesn’t change the polls; they’re going to vote against us whatever we do. The problem is their parents. Ninety per cent of the population still want their children to go to university even if they can’t write a sentence more than three words long.’

Grafton puffed in the heat and nodded. He recalled one of his students at the University of Mangoland who presented a dissertation on the fragmentation of the Holy Roman Empire in the form of a puppet show.

‘They want their kids to get a degree in something – anything – and they want it to be free. Meanwhile our universities are enrolling thousands of dumb bastards and sticking us with the bill.’

Finally reassured that his penis was dormant, Grafton spoke up. ‘So what do you want from me?’

Nina slumped down opposite him like a huge pink marshmallow. ‘First of all, I want you to help us get our budget measures over the line in the Senate. I want you to vote for them no matter how unpopular that might make you.’

Grafton nodded and smiled to himself. That was no problem. Unpopularity was the air he breathed. Born and bred in a briar patch, he said to himself.

‘Second, I want you to chair a Senate inquiry into tertiary education that will see half the useless pricks working in universities made redundant over the next three years.’

Grafton nodded again.

‘By way of expressing my gratitude …’ said Nina, leaning forward and smiling with what for one awful moment Grafton thought might have been lust, ‘we are reintroducing the Imperial Honours System. The current system bequeathed to us by that fucking great Chardonnay Socialist Edmund Goss Whitman is an embarrassment. We have British pop stars and actors coming to this country with titles like Sir Elton John, Sir Bob Geldof, Dame Judy Dench. Even the bloody Kiwis have Sir Peter Jackson. And what do we have? OA. Companion of the Order of Australia. What the fuck does that mean? A companion? How is that an honour? Is that just a fancy way of saying “a mate”, you’re a “mate of Australia”? What a load of egalitarian bullshit. Grafton, what I’m offering you, if you head up this inquiry is … a knighthood.’

So saying, Nina stood up, wrapped her towel, which was as big as a queen-size bed sheet, around her and tapped on the glass of the door.

‘By the way,’ she said, ‘you need to lose weight.’ And she flicked him a card that read ‘EA’.

‘Eataholics Anonymous,’ she said. ‘I’m a member and as of this moment so are you. I can’t afford to have you cark it. I’ll see you at the next meeting.’ And she squeezed out the door.

Later, as Grafton sat in the back of the taxi on its way to the airport, he smiled. A knighthood for overseeing the dismissal of half the academics in Australian universities?

Jesus, he thought, I would have done it for free.