The Speechwriter by Martin McKenzie-Murray (latest books to read .TXT) 📗

shirt, I wondered if this was significant. Another subtle element of interrogation. I decided that it was, though I was expecting my interlocutor to be more of a George Smiley type — some demure cuckold who was, nonetheless, diabolically cunning.

‘Drugs,’ he said.

I didn’t think this was a question, or even a complete sentence, so I didn’t say anything, and waited for Jason to animate this lone noun with a clause.

‘Drugs,’ he repeated, annoyed.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘are you asking me about drugs?’

‘Yes.’

‘What, exactly?’

He lifted the forms before him. ‘You’ve ticked the box on illicit drugs,’ he said, tapping the paper with his enormous finger. It looked like a zeppelin, and I wondered if I needed a lawyer.

‘Yes.’

‘So you’ve taken illicit drugs?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

I was nervous. Get it together, I thought. ‘Yes. Maybe. Shit, what did I say on the form again?’

‘You said “Yes”,’ Jason said. I had underestimated his cunning.

‘Of course. Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m just … I have, in a very distant past of innocent experimentation, taken some illicit drugs.’

‘What kind?’

‘Marijuana,’ I told him, and I laughed weakly, but what I was thinking about — and hoping my perspiration and creased brow weren’t betraying — was the time a month ago, when I was at a club. I’d swallowed a pinger, and within 10 minutes my guts were Dresden, so I’d grabbed an empty pint glass from the bar and jogged to the bathroom, locked the cubicle, and thrown up in the glass, thus preserving my pill, albeit one partially digested and resting in vomit. And then, with Herculean will, I’d heaved the contents of that glass back down my throat. I gave Jason a smile. ‘The ol’ hooch.’

‘Marijuana,’ Jason said.

‘Yes.’

‘How often?’

‘Whenever I watched David Lynch. Haven’t smoked it for years now,’ I said, and chuckled like I thought an innocent man might chuckle.

Jason scowled. ‘Was Lynch your dealer?’

‘What? No. He’s a filmmaker.’

Jason took some notes. ‘And what about alcohol?’ he asked.

‘It’s good.’

‘Says here you have a few drinks each week.’

‘Few social ones,’ I replied.

‘How many standard drinks in a usual week do you consume?’

I made a quick calculation, which was to take my average consumption and divide it by eight. ‘Six?’

‘And what are you like when you drink alcohol?’

‘What am I like?’

‘Are you discreet?’

I was now thinking of once drunkenly telling my housemate about the operatic sex noises I had heard the night before, lavishly produced by our other housemate, and impressing upon him how joyous and unashamed they were, how similar to barn animals they sounded, how alive and affirming and—

‘I’m discreet,’ I told him.

He scribbled something down. ‘Okay, we’re done. Thanks for coming in.’

‘What?’

‘We’re done.’

And just like that, our battle of minds was over.

In my fourth week, I received my first job: writing a ministerial statement on the opening of a new toilet block we’d funded for the Sydney Opera House. This wasn’t an ideal use of my talents, I thought, but I’ve always said that when life gives you lemons, make vintage Château Margaux. In retrospect, I probably should’ve just made lemonade.

I wrote:

When Churchill required solitude so that he could better plot against Hitler, he found refuge in the bathroom. The toilet was the perfect place to secure his distance from noisy advisers. It was the perfect place to think.

Today, we disrespect toilets. We smother their use in euphemism. Well, this government respects humanity enough to not shy away from humanity’s basic functions. We understand the importance of toilets, and what goes on there. We shit and we piss, and let me tell you — nothing human is alien to the federal government.

These toilets will be added to the Sydney Opera House, a nucleus of great art. And so it is hoped that these new amenities will not only facilitate basic human relief, but allow patrons some quiet contemplation — just as Churchill found.

I knew that it was unorthodox. I knew that it needed work. I knew that ‘shit and piss’ wouldn’t fly. But I wanted to make a statement. I wanted to declare my ambition, originality and contempt for preordained prose.

We would have to compromise. I knew that. But perhaps the strangeness of my speech might dislodge others from their tired grooves. Our country deserved better stories, better language. It needed some blood and vinegar. I anxiously awaited feedback.

‘I don’t … I—’

‘Spit it out, John.’

‘Are you fucking kidding me here?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Are you joking? Is this a joke?’

‘Is what a joke?’

‘The fucking speech, Toby.’

‘The toilet speech?’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’

‘Fuck, okay. Wow. First, you told me that you’ve done this before. Second, you don’t send your first draft to the minister’s office. It goes through me, then the policy divisions, then the Dep Sec, then back to me, then we repeat this process roughly 37 times. Okay? Third, you’re playing this at, like, 11. I need you turn the volume down to about a two. Maybe a one.’

My phone rang. I looked at John. ‘Answer it,’ he said.

It was Stanley, the minister’s media adviser. ‘Are you joking?’

‘People keep asking me that.’

‘Are you fucking joking, Toby?’

‘No, I’m not joking.’

‘You’re a weird little prick, aren’t you? In 30 minutes, I want 400 words on the toilet’s design, water efficiency, and how it reflects the government’s ambitions on climate change.’

He hung up.

‘I don’t think I like Stanley,’ I told John.

‘No one does.’

I was given my second job.

‘Robot pilots?’

‘That’s what they said.’

I was back in John’s office. There’d been another ministerial speech request, but the brief was unhappily vague: a thousand words on robot pilots. Perhaps I should have been grateful for the work, but I was wondering when the world-changing might begin.

‘What are robot pilots?’ I asked.

‘You’d have to ask the private sector, mate.’

‘Automated flight?’

‘Robot pilots.’

‘Do they even exist?’

‘We need a thousand words, Toby.’

‘Why is the length of the speech better defined than its subject?’

‘Here’s the drill,’ he said. ‘Assemble some pap on ingenuity. What’s the fancy word for sleepwalk?’

‘Somnambulate.’

‘Right. Do that with your keyboard.’

‘I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.’

‘I need you to go back to your desk right now, Toby, and