MIKE WAKES IN A white room, sprawled out on a bed, still in his Fantasyland outfit. He has no memory of getting in last night. There’s a door across the room. He opens it and finds tall pines and a blue ocean.
There’s a phone on the bedside table. Mike gets reception on the line. ‘Where am I?’
A motel in Coolangatta, apparently.
Down on the border.
Coolangatta is a small place.
The God Minister can see this motel from his penthouse.
No doubt.
After the shaky start, Mike hits the morning hard. He’s thirty-two years old next month and still has the constitution of a teenager. A room service bloody mary and two coffees take care of his hangover, except …
The photo.
His pants around his ankles, wet dick centre frame.
‘Oh, darl, just a little souvenir. Nothing to worry about.’
Mike smiles at the memory, despite it all. He replays vivid images of the redhead. Can’t keep her out of his mind. But if there’s one rule in politics it’s this: everything is always something to worry about. Worrying is half the job.
Mike gets on the phone and starts making calls. No one will give up the woman’s name. Everyone says the same thing: they didn’t see her. She’s an apparition. The only person who gives him a hint is Allan Watts, who sounds like he still has a load on. ‘Buddy, you don’t want to know who that was. Trust me on that one.’
But he wants to know.
Has to.
The big-ticket item of the day is lunch with Buddy Winters, heir to Fantasyland. Mike doesn’t know what to expect. The meet is happening in the Playroom on the shore of Tallebudgera Creek. The place is a grimy rock club.
Mike knocks on the glass out front.
Allan Watts opens up.
‘I should have known,’ says Mike. ‘Let me guess, you own a piece of this shithole?’
‘Hey, hey, this is Australian culture, mate.’ Allan waves a hand at the posters plastered to a nearby wall. ‘We’ve got No Fixed Address performing this weekend. Chisel on the way. It’s all happening.’
Mike could give a fuck. Pop music is low-life trash. Inside the venue, the place is empty except for a half-dozen men and one woman standing by the bar. Most of the men are familiar faces in the murk. The mayor. Dennis Benson. Buddy Winters. They call these blokes the White Shoe Brigade. They’re the money down here on the coast. The men who keep development cooking, or did before the recession.
To start the meeting, they take their beers and stand in a circle. ‘Good party last night,’ one of them says.
Buddy Winters ignores it. ‘Can we move this along?’
They come in closer.
Buddy stares, dead-eyed, as he starts, ‘Look, right at the top, I want to say I’m doing everything I can. I’m pushing things as hard as they can go right now.’
‘No, you’re bloody not,’ says the mayor. ‘You’re killing me with these delays. My phone is running white-hot, day and night.’
Allan chimes in. ‘Same here. I understand that shit happens and that these things take time, but I’ve got—’
‘It’s my father,’ says Buddy. ‘He’s … he’s having trouble.’
Everyone stops.
‘What sort of trouble?’ says Allan, quietly.
‘Head trouble. The situation is affecting him. He’s not coping.’ Buddy takes a pull on his beer. ‘I know this thing has been dragging on, but …’
‘Out with it,’ says the mayor.
‘It’s the boat. He’s fixated on the boat.’
A ripple of confusion circulates.
‘The pretend ship?’ says the mayor.
‘Yeah, the fucking HMS Whatever-it-is,’ says Buddy.
‘It’s the Endeavour,’ says Dennis Benson.
‘Yeah, that bloody thing,’ says Buddy. ‘The old man is losing his mind over it. It’s just … He’s not himself. He says he won’t open the park until they can do the landing re-enactment properly and he won’t listen to me or anyone else.’
The mayor puts his drink down. ‘You’re telling me we’re all about to lose our shirts because your dad’s pretend ship doesn’t work?’
‘The ship is fine,’ says Benson. ‘It’s finished. That was my contract.’
Buddy turns to one of his aides, the woman. ‘It’s the canal,’ she says. ‘The canal is the real problem.’
‘The canal. The canal looks fine to me,’ says the mayor, sputtering. ‘I pissed in it last night. How is the canal the problem?’
Buddy keeps his eyes on the ground.
‘It’s too narrow,’ says the aide, facing off with the mayor like it’s just another day at the office. ‘The Endeavour can’t round one of the corners. It keeps getting stuck. It’s a bit too long.’
Benson lifts his head. ‘It’s not too long. It’s the length you ordered.’
‘It is a bit long,’ says the aide. ‘But the canal is also significantly more narrow than planned. It doesn’t work. Further excavation is underway. We’ve broken—’
‘Dad’s doing it,’ says Buddy. ‘That’s the problem. Since the recession, Dad has taken it upon himself to dig the canal out to keep expenses down. He’s using an excavator. He dug the thing originally, if you remember? It took years. He’s fucking stuck. Fixated. We have to do something.’
‘Something fast,’ quips Allan, mainly to himself.
The room goes quiet.
Mike sips his beer and studies the scene. ‘The minister wants to help.’
‘Can he drive an excavator?’ says the mayor.
‘He is an excavator,’ says Mike.
They all know it.
It’s what this whole meeting is leading to.