8

SPEECHLESS

The more I see of men the more I like dogs.

– Madame de Stael

If Grafton imagined that the media only exercised its power when you ventured onto their premises, he was soon to discover otherwise. When the production crew of Bathroom Cabinet arrived at his house at the ungodly hour of eight o’clock, he found himself with as little control over events as he had in the ABC studio. He was still slumped at the breakfast table, trying to wake himself up with tea and toast when the doorbell rang. Opening it revealed a burly camera crew who, on being admitted, performed a quick but thorough reconnaissance of the entire house and then proceeded to carry in a quantity and assortment of equipment that Grafton thought would have been sufficient for a James Bond movie.

Kitty, the make-up girl, appeared, cheerfully toting a huge makeup case which she set up on the kitchen table. Grafton was soon seated back where he had been, except now under a pair of blinding spotlights. He was having the bags under his eyes painted out when the star of the program, Yolanda Yabbie, packed tightly into a terracotta-coloured suit, burst into the kitchen and greeted him effusively. It was ‘fantastic’ to meet him and she was ‘over the moon’ about having a chance to talk to him and it was all going to make a ‘fantastic’ show. She then abandoned him to the sponge to confer with the crew and reconnoitre the upstairs area.

Grafton was not unused to having a television crew in his house. For many years in Queensland he had delivered a morning commentary on politics, eccentrically, from his bed. But that had been with a two-man she’ll-be-right crew from the local TV station, who contented themselves with setting up the camera and microphone in his bedroom and then having coffee in his kitchen while he gave his address. The present crew was lugging and plugging and taping down cables as if a tsunami were on its way. When he looked sufficiently human, Kitty gave his hair one last ruffle just to give him that ‘at home’ look and he was conducted upstairs by a runner.

Even in my own home, he noted, I’m under escort.

Stepping over the cables which twisted like lianas around doorways and across the landing to fall like Rapunzel’s tresses to the hall below, he made his way to his bedroom where Yolanda was finalising matters with the crew. A sound recordist, blushing and apologising, pinned a microphone to his collar and then threaded the lead down his shirt and into his back pocket. Grafton was then led into the ensuite, where lights had been tucked out of sight behind the door and on top of the shower. After an interminable series of checks and crosschecks during which the temperature rose from uncomfortable to stifling, the cameraman finally nodded to signify they were recording, and Yolanda transformed from businesslike to bubbly as if a switch had been thrown. Smiling and sparkling, she interrogated Grafton as to what sorts of shampoo, conditioner, deodorant and aftershave he used, to which he responded in the most light-hearted way he could, despite the fact that the heat was oppressive and, because of the cramped conditions, Yolanda was pressing up against him throughout.

As soon as the camera operator said ‘Okay, got it,’ her demeanour snapped back to businesslike and she said, ‘We’ll do the cabinet while we’re here,’ referring to the climactic moment where she opened the bathroom cabinet to reveal the celebrity’s best kept secrets. With horror, Grafton suddenly remembered the blue pills sitting on the shelf inside. Was he about to be exposed as impotent on national television?

Before he could do or say anything, the cameraman had relocated, refocused and reframed. ‘Rolling,’ he said and Yolanda switched into presenter mode.

‘Now it’s time for the moment of truth,’ she leered gleefully. ‘Let’s find out what is lurking in the medicine cabinet of Senator Grafton Everest,’ and she flung open the mirrored door.

To Grafton’s surprise and huge relief, the pills weren’t there. The whole cabinet had been neatly reorganised by persons unknown.

‘So what’s this?’ said Yolanda triumphantly seizing a tube of ointment.

‘Eye ointment,’ said Grafton, who in fact had no idea what the medication was. ‘I had an infection in one eye.’

‘Well, I had heard you were a one-eyed Collingwood supporter,’ quipped Yolanda.

‘That could have been the cause,’ said Grafton jovially and they both laughed.

I’m getting the hang of this, he thought.

Then the cameraman said, ‘We’re clear,’ whereupon Yolanda’s laugh cut off in mid-chortle. ‘Let’s do the bedroom,’ she said. Not before time, thought Grafton, who was about to expire.

Everyone repaired to the space and coolness of the bedroom where Yolanda was to grill Grafton about his sleeping patterns, sleep attire and bedtime reading material. Grafton managed to crank out a few more humorous comments about how he slept in his Collingwood pyjamas which he obligingly held up so they could get a close-up, then Yolanda noticed a book on the bedside table, and picked it up.

‘You’re reading Bob Nietzsche’s Happy Endings.’

‘Um … yes,’ lied Grafton.

‘So what is your stand on voluntary euthanasia?’ asked Yolanda.

Grafton was stumped for a moment, then remembered that Bob Nietzsche was the famous advocate for assisted suicide. At the same moment he also realised that that was what Lee-Anne had meant by Janet attending meetings about ‘Youth in Asia’.

‘I know it’s a very difficult issue,’ said Yolanda, trying to cover the long pause.

Grafton swiftly cobbled up a sound-bite. ‘I think dying is part of life. If we want people to live with dignity, we have to allow them to die with dignity.’

Yolanda looked very serious and sensitive. ‘That’s very good,’ she said, nodding soberly. And then, snapping back into director mode, ‘Okay, I think we’ve got it.’

The crew immediately galvanised into action, packing up gear and coiling leads. Yolanda thanked Grafton profusely and bustled off, mobile phone to her ear.

In the odd, lonely silence that ensued, Grafton sat on the bed and looked at the Nietzsche book. So Janet was going to lectures about euthanasia AKA assisted suicide. Suicide for people with incurable diseases. Like cancer. Prostate cancer. Did she know something he didn’t? Had Dr End contacted her and told her that his case was terminal? Was she already planning a peaceful death for him? If so, was it to be towards the voluntary or the involuntary end of the spectrum? He was aware that Bob Nietzsche had designed a mobile suicide kit. You only had to dial a number and a discreet unmarked van would arrive at your house with all the necessary gear.

The implications of this churned around in his mind as he washed make-up off his face in the ensuite. That would explain why Janet was not concerned about his impotence: she knew it was not going to be a long-term problem. The end was not far off and she was already making preparations.

At this moment, however, it was necessary for Grafton to put a lid on his anxiety over this new development, as he was to meet Mr Horton for lunch.

A car duly arrived as it always did, organised by powers beyond both his control and comprehension, and in a short time he was at The Rocks, entering a homey provincial-style eatery called, originally enough, The Eatery. Horton was already waiting at a table with homey, provincial red-and-white checked tablecloths. A waiter who looked like an Algerian freedom fighter sauntered up with menus.

‘Shall I read the menu to you, Mr Horton?’ said Grafton.

‘No need, my boy. I have memorised them all,’ said Mr Horton, looking around as if appreciating the ambience he could not see.

‘All the items?’ said Grafton.

‘All the menus, my lad. In the city.’

Grafton was not surprised by this, or indeed anything, relating to Mr Horton.

He examined the menu. The trap in most Sydney eateries was to order something that looked substantial but turned out to be three pieces of asparagus drizzled with a couple of different coloured fluids. He was also aware that in the culinary world, drizzle did not refer to a fine sprinkle as it did with rain, but what looked like an attempt to write Hindu script with a squeeze bottle.

‘By the way,’ said Grafton, raising a matter which had been troubling him. ‘Yesterday in the car you told the driver to turn right. I know you have sonar which allows you to see around a room but how can you see through the windows of a car?’

‘GPS implant,’ said Horton, pointing to his skull. ‘I know where I am at all times and in which direction I’m travelling.’

I should have known, thought Grafton. He wondered how much more of his old mentor was bionic. It would not surprise him if Mr Horton opened a panel in his chest to reveal the titanium armature and electronic circuitry of a Terminator. Perhaps he was a kind of Terminator.

Following Horton’s advice, Grafton ordered a Yankee burger and they settled to talk.

‘You were going to tell me about this werewolf thing,’ said Grafton.

‘Yes,’ said Horton, who then paused and looked, as directly as a blind person might, at Grafton. ‘Believe it or not, my boy, this outbreak of lycanthropy is indirectly linked to your mother’s death.’

‘Avis? My mother? Your ex-wife?’

‘Yes. That’s the only Avis we both know,’ said Horton. ‘I apologise that I have not told you the full details of your mother’s death hitherto because it was classified.’

‘My mother’s death was classified?’ said Grafton in bewilderment.

‘Well, not the death itself, but the circumstances that brought it about.’

‘You told me that she died white-water rafting in the Andes,’ said Grafton, anxious to get past the preamble and into the actual explanation. ‘What I have never understood is why my seventy-seven-year-old mother, who objected if my father drove five k’s over the speed limit, would go white-water rafting.’

‘It wasn’t intentional,’ said Horton. ‘The guide made a mistake. We were supposed to launch the boats downstream of the rapids.’ He paused and took a sip of water, ‘… and the waterfall.’

Grafton sat silent. In his mind he saw his nervous, picky, faultfinding, hypochondriac mother cascading down a river, ricocheting off rocks before finally sailing in cinematic slow motion over a waterfall and disappearing into the mist.

‘How did you survive?’ he asked, suddenly sensing a flaw in the story.

‘Almost didn’t,’ said Horton. ‘Broke just about every bone in my body. That’s when they decided to rebuild me from the ground up.’

My God, thought Grafton, he probably does have a molybdenum steel skeleton.

‘Who’s they?’ he said.

‘The people I work for.’

‘They being …?’

‘Better that you don’t know. For your own safety,’ said Horton.

Grafton knew better than to pursue the issue further. He had always been aware Mr Horton was involved in activities he was better off not knowing about. They sat in silence for a moment as the Resistance Fighter brought bread rolls. Grafton hungrily tore one in half and then began picking at the silver paper which covered the small pat of butter so elegantly provided.

‘Now, you know that my training is in the biological sciences …’ said Horton, resuming the tale. Grafton nodded. Mr Horton had been his Biology teacher at high school.

‘I was asked by certain people to conduct an expedition to South America. We had received information that the Russians had discovered a plant in the Andes that could extend human life by several decades.’

‘What were the Russians doing in South America?’ asked Grafton.

‘They were on a secret mission on behalf of the Russian President,’ said Horton, ‘He had – and still has – an interest, shall we say, in prolonging life. He is rather taken with the idea of staying in power for perhaps another fifty to sixty years.’

‘That would be – unfortunate,’ said Grafton, still battling with the silver paper encasing the butter.

‘To say the least,’ said Horton.

‘So how did the Russians find out about this plant in the first place?’

‘They were trying to work out why Robert Mugabe wouldn’t die,’ replied Horton, expertly opening his butter and spreading it on his roll with a knife. ‘There were suggestions he was using some sort of herbal supplement from the Amazon. So the plan was for me to go to Peru, posing as an Australian tourist, and see what, if anything, the Russians had found. I took Avis along for cover which, in hindsight, was a mistake. It turned out to be more dangerous than we anticipated.

‘We checked into this tiny hotel about fifty k’s out of Cusco and I organised a guide to take me up to the mountains where we thought the Russian camp might be. I was going to go alone but Avis insisted on coming. She didn’t want to stay behind: she didn’t trust the hotel staff.’

‘Among my mother’s other sterling qualities, she was racist,’ offered Grafton, finally unpeeling the small tablet of butter which was now semi-liquid.

‘In this case, her suspicions were justified. The staff had almost certainly been paid by the Russians to tell them if any Westerners were in town.’

Horton paused to eat a piece of roll. Grafton had resorted to picking up his butter by the paper and smearing it on the bread.

‘So we went off in this antiquated Land Rover, Avis, me and the guide, up a road that ran beside the river. Spectacular scenery.

Beautiful. Eventually we saw some huts. No signs or anything but obviously fairly recent. I went to investigate. The place was deserted, but round the back there was a hothouse full of plants. I grabbed samples of everything I could and then we started to go back. Halfway down the hill I got a call on the satellite phone to say that the Russians were waiting for us.

‘Well, we were stuck. The only other way down was the river. The guide had an inflatable raft in the back of the car and he assured us he knew the river well, he took tourists for rafting trips all the time, so we went down and launched the raft into the water. It turned out, unfortunately, that our guide did not know the river that well – or he had been paid by the Russians to get rid of us. Next thing we were going through rapids. We were smashed against rocks and almost drowned. And then we came to the waterfall.’

He stopped and there was a long pause which was finally broken by the arrival of their main meals. Eventually Grafton spoke again.

‘So in the end my mother died for nothing. I presume the samples were lost.’

‘Oh, no, they survived,’ said Horton. ‘They were in a money belt. I got them back to the laboratory.’

‘At the Chimera Institute. At the University of Mangoland,’ said Grafton, putting two and two together, which was about the limit of his mathematical capability. Horton squinted at Grafton with his blind eyes, as if still surprised that Grafton knew this, even though Grafton originally hadn’t.

‘Yes. Yes. That was where we isolated the extracts. We knew that if these plants did what we thought they might, they would be worth billions.’

‘So, did you find a remedy for aging?’ said Grafton, pretty sure that, if they had, people would know about it.

‘Don’t know yet,’ said Horton. ‘The problem with an anti-aging drug is that you have to wait thirty years to see if it works. What we did extract was a male potency drug we called Agent Blue and another called Agent Violet which had great potential as a weight-loss treatment. We organised a trial of Agent Violet through Eataholics Anonymous. Then we found that long-term use produced an unfortunate side-effect: lycanthropy, the psychotic delusion that one is turning into a wolf. Of course we terminated the trial but it seems some people liked the drug so much they continued to use it.’

Grafton sat, chewing in silence. He had really not heard anything after the words ‘male potency’.

‘Excuse me,’ he finally said, ‘but did you say that you extracted a male potency drug?’

‘Yes,’ said Horton, who was now concentrating on eating his meal.

‘Well,’ said Grafton, ‘you realise that my operation has left me completely impotent.’

‘Yes I do my boy. But you would realise that Agent Blue hasn’t been fully tested. And you’ve seen what happened with Agent Violet.’

‘Mr Horton,’ said Grafton. ‘If the worst that happens is I start to think I’m a wolf, I’m not worried. I’m already regarded as a pig, a sloth, an ape and any number of other animals.’

Horton looked up at Grafton and considered the situation.

‘If you’re prepared to take the risk,’ he said, ‘I could organise a trial.’

‘Thank you,’ said Grafton, feeling for the first time in weeks a sense of hope. Despite the depressing fact that he had to fly to Canberra that afternoon, he finished the rest of his meal with relish.

Later, as they stood outside the restaurant waiting for the cars to come, Grafton tried to imagine his mother being a willing participant in an international intrigue. Mr Horton had once told him that his mother had been a spy but he couldn’t see how that was possible.

‘Are you all right, my boy?’ asked Horton who, though blind, still seemed to be able to pick up emotional cues.

‘It’s a terrible thing to say,’ said Grafton, ‘but I never liked my mother.’

Horton made a kind of sympathetic noise. ‘I realise that. But the truth is, you never knew the real Avis.’

‘She was my mother. I grew up with her,’ protested Grafton.

‘Indeed,’ said Horton. ‘I think that was the problem.’

‘Are you suggesting it was my fault?’ said Grafton defensively.

‘Not yours personally, my boy. The situation. The point is Avis was never cut out to be a wife and mother. She yearned for other things. To understand Avis you have to realise that she always wished she’d been born a man.’

All Grafton realised was that he never could realise such a thing in his wildest dreams.

Horton smiled a faint smile. ‘Do you want to know the last thing your mother said?’

‘What?’ asked Grafton, the foundations of his reality already dangerously shaken.

‘As I said, we launched the boat in the river and started paddling. The next thing we knew we were going over rocks, being drenched with water which was freezing – the river was of course meltwater from glaciers. Anyway, after almost capsizing a dozen times, we made it through to a section which was quite calm – like a small placid lake. We were soaking wet and shivering and we knew the Russians were probably waiting downriver but we were alive. As Avis turned to me with her wet hair clinging to her face, she smiled and said, “Well. So far so good.”’

He gave a little laugh and paused. The faint smile was augmented by a small tear.

‘Then we went round a bend and there was the waterfall.’

Grafton was left speechless by this and Horton was not inclined to say any more.

Then the cars came and they parted. On the way home, Grafton tried to imagine his mother being that character. How extraordinary that she, of all people, would be insouciant in the face of death. It would seem that, when it came to the crunch, Avis had somehow risen to the occasion. Grafton had always imagined – no, feared – that he was like his mother, but now it did not seem possible. He couldn’t imagine himself rising to any occasion.

Grafton arrived home feeling disturbed by what he had heard and annoyed that he had to leave again within the hour to fly to Canberra. He was also perturbed that this was the day he was supposed to deliver his maiden speech in the Senate, an issue which up until this point he had dealt with in his normal way of pretending it did not exist. He now realised he would have to write his speech on the plane.

Janet was in the living room, tidying up in the wake of the camera crew.

‘How was the business with Yolanda?’ she asked.

‘Like being on a conveyor belt in an abattoir,’ he replied. ‘It all happens so fast you can’t remember what you said or did. Did, you by any chance …?’

‘I took the liberty of removing your pills,’ said Janet, tearing a small piece of gaffer tape off the skirting board.

‘Thanks,’ said Grafton, relieved that some ABC crew member hadn’t pocketed them with a view to future blackmail. He wondered if he should bring up the issue of the book on euthanasia but decided not to chance it. Instead he raised another issue which had been nagging him.

‘Darling, by the way. Did you by any chance tell Lee-Anne that I was impotent?’

‘Of course not,’ said Janet, genuinely shocked. ‘I would never do that. Why would you even suggest it?’

Grafton immediately felt guilty for having brought it up. ‘It’s just that Nanny Neal asked me about my “condition” and I couldn’t work out how he knew.’

‘Well, you wrote an article about having the operation for that Men’s Health magazine.’

Grafton was aghast. ‘I did?’

‘Yes, darling. You wrote an article about your experience of being diagnosed and having your prostate removed and urging other men to do the same even if there was a risk of sexual dysfunction.’

‘Did I?’ said Grafton, amazed.

‘I presume Nanny Neal had read the article.’

‘Right, well,’ said Grafton lamely, ‘that would explain it.’ I really must read some of these things I’m supposed to have written, he thought.

‘So when are you leaving?’ said Janet, rubbing a scuff mark off the floor.

‘Now, I guess,’ he sighed.

‘Well, good luck with the speech, darling,’ she said and disappeared upstairs.

Grafton grabbed his saggy briefcase and headed for the door. Their conversation had done nothing to assuage his anxiety about why Janet was reading books on euthanasia but had rather added additional consternation with the revelation that many people now apparently knew he was possibly impotent. His angst level was also not diminished by noticing, as he walked towards the waiting Commcar, a strange van with no visible signage and dark tinted windows parked directly across the road.

On the plane, Grafton tried to think about what he was going to say in his inaugural address, but he could not get his mind off death – both his mother’s and his own. He was still trying to reconcile two conflicting images of his mother: the impatient, self-absorbed one of his childhood and the cool adventuress of Mr Horton’s account. The most disturbing implication of the latter was that both his parents had been the opposite of what they appeared to be: his mother had really been the man and his football-playing father the woman in the relationship. He found that idea confusing and it raised troubling thoughts about his own sexuality. He recognised that, although driven by his penis, he had always been sexually passive, reliant, like a male Blanche Dubois, on the kindness of women. The women in his life had nearly always been in positions of power or moving towards such positions. Did that mean he was fundamentally female at heart? Had he been attracted to Nina because he knew before she did that she was, at heart, more male than he? Was his love of staying in bed evidence of an innate instinct to nest rather than hunt? Was the emergence of breasts not just a side-effect of medication but his true self starting to come out? No, he decided. He was drawn to women who were independent, focused, organised and powerful for one simple reason. Laziness. It was much easier to let them do all the work.

He was jolted out of these ruminations by the wheels of the plane hitting the tarmac and immediately received another inward jolt with the realisation that he had arrived still speechless. He decided to give up worrying, sure that something would occur to him when the moment arose. After all, he had managed to extemporise quite satisfactorily on the QED program and consoled himself that his mouth would probably once more come up with something of its own accord to save the day.

On arrival at Parliament House, he found his office, as usual, a hive of activity with his advisers writing his daily utterances on social media, churning out more magazine articles, replying to letters, politely declining invitations and whatever else they did. Frankly, Grafton had no idea what they did. It transpired that Petra was in a meeting but a junior staffer greeted him and handed him a one-page document.

‘What’s this?’ asked Grafton.

‘It’s your speech, Senator,’ said the stripling. ‘Your maiden speech. We did email it to you a few days ago but … I think you might not have got it.’ He paused for a moment to allow Grafton to speak but Grafton was not of a mind to confirm or deny anything, so he continued haltingly. ‘I checked with Mr Horton and he said it would be better if I gave it to you personally. So … yes. That’s it. It’s not long. And you have … a couple of hours to look over it. Of course … you can make any changes you … want.’

He gulped and paused again in expectation of a reply but Grafton simply said, ‘Thanks’, and headed for the door. A couple of hours, the lad had said. That meant he had time to avail himself of the pleasures of the Dining Room before entering the Chamber.

As it turned out, due to a debate on sand mining in the Great Sandy Desert running late (the Australian Brownies were concerned that the removal of sand could lead to revegetation resulting in the desert no longer being a desert) Grafton’s speech did not occur until about eight-thirty that night, giving him several more hours to not think about it. He glanced over the speech they had provided for him but couldn’t quite understand it. It was full of high-concept statements about social justice and other terms he could not quite assign a meaning to. He wondered how he might personalise it but nothing came to mind and so he resigned himself to remaining in the Dining Room, nibbling cheese and biscuits and reading papers and magazines from the selection provided.

It had come down to a difficult choice between reading a magazine about bluefin fishing and the Rarefax Melbourne tabloid, when he was finally summoned to make his way to the Senate. When he arrived, the place was virtually deserted. As he took his place on the cross benches, he saw that only the President, a couple of clerks and a tired looking Hansard reporter were left in the Chamber.

‘Well, if that’s all …’ he heard the President say.

‘Sorry,’ said a Clerk, ‘There’s one more item.’

‘What?’ said the President, clearly peeved. There followed a quick exchange of which Grafton only heard fragments: ‘I thought we were going to cancel that. No, we decided we might as well get it out of the way. Well, is he here? Yes, he’s here now. Oh God. [sigh] Alright. Let’s get it over and done with.’

The Clerk then cleared his throat and announced formally: ‘Senator Everest.’

Grafton rose to his feet.

‘Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate,’ though in fact neither of those species was evident. He waited for a moment for his mouth to come up with something. When it didn’t, he decided he might need to prime it a bit. He looked at the speech he had been given but the words seemed to swim on the page. Then he gazed around the Chamber and, seeing the Australian coat of arms hanging above the President’s dais, decided that that was as good a starting point as any.

‘It is a great honour to be addressing you today in this august assembly. As I look around this Chamber I am reminded how much we in this country are indebted to the great British system of parliamentary democracy.’

Not a bad start, he thought silently. Now, where to go from here? He noted the two bearers of the coat of arms, the emu and the kangaroo, and decided to explore them as topics.

‘Our Australian coat of arms is itself a symbol which eloquently acknowledges both the noble legacy of the Westminster tradition and our own unique Australian interpretation of it. In the centre is a shield, an ancient, essentially – nay quintessentially – British symbol of government, nobility, kinship and common purpose. But that shield is supported not by a lion and a unicorn or stags or bears or any other European creature, but by two iconic Australian fauna, the emu and the kangaroo. This juxtaposition prompts me to recall two other great inheritances from Britain, the English language and a love of animals.’

The link was flimsy and Grafton had no idea where it might take him but his tongue was on the move and he decided to follow it regardless.

‘Animals are indeed powerful mythic symbols that pervade both our language and our thinking. We still talk about having the lion’s share, being eagle-eyed, of beavering away at a task, but I wonder however if we still invest animals with the same dignity and respect as our ancient forebears did when they bore images of animals on their shields and banners, drawing strength and confidence from the power of those symbols. Only in sporting teams is that primeval respect for other species still expressed. We call our football teams tigers, lions, panthers, crows, eagles, eels and, of course, dear to my own heart, magpies.

‘In other areas of life, however, that respect has dwindled. How common it is now to disparage others by calling them dogs, or pigs. I myself have been called a dog, a pig, an ape and a sloth, at which I take umbrage, not because these labels insult me but because they insult the animals in question. Today we routinely slander animals in invidious comparisons with people. A vicious woman is catty, a rude one is a cow. Young women are birds, chicks or foxes. Aging women are old ducks. Women dating younger men are cougars. An aging man is an old goat. A large clumsy man is an ape, a gorilla or an ox, a foolish one a goose, a donkey or a galah. A deceitful person is a snake in the grass or someone is as stubborn as a mule. A thoughtless vote is a donkey vote. These metaphors are calumnies. Dogs are not unfaithful, gorillas are not clumsy and snakes do not lie in wait. Donkeys are not stupid, mules are not stubborn, female pumas do not mate with younger males and pigs are not dirty. I myself was allergic to my mother’s milk and so I was raised on goat’s milk. So to me, “acting the goat” would really mean saving someone’s life.

‘In reality it would make more sense if animals insulted other animals by likening them to us. I can imagine a cat calling another cat, “you clumsy human”, a pig describing another pig as “a greedy person”, or a snake calling another snake “you man in the grass”. I suggest that we should stop regarding our fellow creatures on this planet as examples of moral failure, or mental inadequacy and take a good hard look at ourselves. I exhort all Australians to look at our shield and reflect that it is animals that hold it up. Then perhaps we might recall our debt to the animal kingdom and pay them a little more respect. Thank you.’

Grafton sat down with a sense of accomplishment and wondered what he was supposed to do next. There was no response, in fact no proof of life at all from the body of the hall; the President and the Hansard reporter both appeared to be asleep and the clerks had vanished. After waiting for a few minutes, Grafton rose and left. He made his way back to his office to arrange his departure when he met Petra coming from the inner office. She smiled at him rather nervously he thought, and almost seemed to blush. Had his speech been that bad? Then he saw Horton also coming from the inner office.

‘There you are, my boy,’ said Horton. ‘How did the speech go? We didn’t hear it. We were in a meeting.’

‘Alright, I think,’ said Grafton, suddenly suspicious that something was going on between Horton and Petra. But Horton drew him to one side and glanced around, even though there was scarcely anyone left in the building.

‘My son, I have been looking into that matter we discussed over lunch. You said you would be willing to be a test subject for a particular substance.’

Grafton most certainly remembered the conversation about the male potency treatment.

‘I have spoken to colleagues,’ said Horton, ‘and verified that we still have samples. It will take me a little time to calculate the proper dosage but I think that we should be able to organise a trial around mid-December – around the time of the Parliamentary Christmas Party.’

‘Good,’ said Grafton, not aware that there was such a thing as a Parliamentary Christmas Party.

‘The thing is, the whole business will have to be conducted in secrecy. No one but us must know.’

‘And Janet, of course,’ said Grafton.

‘No,’ said Horton seriously. ‘Not even Janet.’

‘Well that could be difficult. I mean how would I explain that I suddenly …’ began Grafton.

‘The agent will need to be injected,’ interrupted Horton, ‘so it will be better if your partner has some medical experience.’

‘Such as who?’ said Grafton.

‘Petra is a trained nurse,’ replied Horton. ‘She has agreed to be, shall we say, the other half of the experiment.’

Grafton was once more rendered speechless. He was to have sex with his goddess-like media officer in the interests of science. It was beyond anything he could have dreamt of. As far as Christmas parties went, this one would be like all his Christmases coming at once. He was so cheered by this prospect that when he arrived home that night, having caught the last flight to Sydney, he was not even unduly perturbed by seeing that the discreetly unmarked van was still parked across the road from his house.