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

an airport lounge somewhere, and distractedly gazing at a plasma screen on mute — this was where the broadcast cut to a lengthy commercial break.

In the Prime Minister’s car on the way to the airport, there was no doubt my drugging regime was working. The acid was liberating the Prime Minister from his technocratic pieties. The Mandarin Priest was dead, or dying, which was good, because the polls were suggesting that the people preferred crazy. Still, I thought my experiment — if that’s what it was — would end in a hospital bed for both of us. The Prime Minster admitted for drug-induced psychosis; me for the metastasising fear of discovery.

‘How’d that go?’ he asked me.

‘Good.’

‘Good?’

‘It was great.’

‘There was a standing ovation, Lawrence.’

‘They connected with you, sir.’

‘I felt something different tonight.’

‘Like what?’

‘Electricity.’

‘That’s exciting, sir.’

‘I’m thinking, Richard.’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘I’m thinking I won’t debate the opposition leader.’

‘But, sir, you’ve promised that you will.’

‘Yes, but I’ve now decided that it’s beneath me.’

‘Beneath you? You’ll be condemned, sir. You’ll be painted as a liar and a coward.’

‘But I don’t want to hide. It’s just the opposite. I want to channel this electricity. I have something else in mind.’

‘Okay?’

‘Andrew Denton’s people have asked for an hour interview. Live, intimate, no holds barred.’

‘Okay.’

‘And I’m going to give it to them. I’m going to give them all of my electricity. They just have to plug into my socket.’

‘Sir, have you discussed this with anyone else?’

‘No.’

‘Patrick won’t like it.’

‘Fuck him.’

‘Okay, sir.’

Perfect.

Denton’s people couldn’t believe their luck. Nor could they believe it when I told them that he wanted to give Andrew his electricity.

‘His what?’

‘His electricity.’

‘He used that word?’

‘He did.’

‘And where does he want to do this?’

‘The Lodge.’

It was official: the campaign was berserk. It was also a one-man show — the PM’s staff, party, and cabinet were all excluded. Everyone but me. They all knew something was up. How could they not? The Prime Minister’s walk was almost languid now, and he was playing heaps of Pink Floyd — but no-one could understand it. I wasn’t suspected as the agent for all this, probably because the staffers couldn’t comprehend that a young, obscure, and seemingly servile scribe could ever possess the power to change the Prime Minister’s behaviour — much less run a criminally rococo experiment.

But they were panicking. I later learnt that the PM’s staff were holding secret emergency meetings with his concerned wife and astonished ministers. But it was all too little, too late. They could run their parallel campaign — no-one was watching.

The Lodge it was. Initially, he had only wanted me and his wife there, but she insisted that he invite Patrick. As I watched technicians arrange lights and cables, and a make-up artist powder the Prime Minister’s face, Patrick whispered in my ear: ‘You’re helping him destroy his own party.’

‘My pay grade asks that I support the Prime Minister, Patrick — not challenge him.’

‘I don’t know what’s happening with him, but he’s not well.’

‘That’s not for me to say.’

‘We won’t govern for a generation.’

‘Don’t be dramatic.’

The floor manager counted us down to the live broadcast.

‘Prime Minister, I’d like to begin with the sharks,’ Denton opened. ‘The policy has surprised many people.’

‘Sure.’

‘And I’m wondering: is it possible that the shark has some other, symbolic meaning?’

‘You mean, like evil?’

‘I was thinking for you. Personally.’

‘What are you driving at, Andrew?’

‘It’s been said before, but sharks aren’t a federal issue, Prime Minister.’

‘No.’

‘And two deaths in three years doesn’t scream “crisis”.’

‘That depends upon who you talk to.’

‘Well, is it possible that you’ve projected upon the shark your own sense of dread and vulnerability?’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘In conversations we’ve had before tonight, you’ve mentioned the polls to me.’

‘Yes.’

‘You said you were hated.’

‘Yes.’

‘And misunderstood.’

‘Correct.’

‘And that factions plot against you.’

‘They do.’

‘Well, what I’m wondering, Prime Minister, is if you feel stalked — hunted — by forces too large and shifting to be properly defended against, and if you have sought to correct this helplessness by targeting an easily definable predator: the shark.’

‘Andrew, that question is hauntingly penetrating.’

‘Do you feel stalked?’

‘A little.’

‘Only a little?’

‘More than a little.’

‘Are sharks coming for you?’

The Prime Minister paused. ‘Thousands.’

‘That sounds scary.’

‘They want to eat me,’ the Prime Minister said in a childish voice.

‘Why?’

‘Because they’re sharks.’

‘They’re acting on instinct?’

‘Yes.’

‘Just like sharks.’

‘Which ones?’

‘The actual sharks.’

‘The wet ones?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have I—’

‘You’ve conflated them, Prime Minister.’

‘Conflated what?’

‘You’ve conflated actual sharks with the forces that threaten you.’

‘You don’t like my shark policy?’

‘That’s not what I’m saying.’

‘You despise it.’

‘Prime Minister, you don’t have a policy. It’s just denunciation and metaphor.’

‘Nets.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I’d spread nets.’

‘Nets?’

‘And sonar pulses.’

‘Okay.’

‘That’s my policy.’

‘Sure.’

‘I’m head of security.’

‘Yes.’

‘And if you’re a wet, knife-jawed goon, then one of two things will happen if you approach our dance floor.’

‘Go on.’

‘Either you’re captured, or your tiny shark brain is melted by weaponised frequencies. What do you think about that, Andrew?’

‘Prime Minister, I think what’s most interesting here is not the details of your policy, but your need for my approval.’

‘But I don’t need it.’

‘You don’t need my approval?’

‘I’m just riffing here.’

‘Okay. Why did you want to be Prime Minister?’

‘I think I’ve made that perfectly clear.’

‘But I’ve only just asked you.’

‘My answer is on the public record, Andrew. I thought you followed the news?’

‘I’d like to hear it from you.’

‘Growth, truth, and sharks.’

‘That’s just a campaign slogan.’

‘It’s my raison d’être.’

‘I was hoping for something more … reflective.’

‘You want my electricity, don’t you?’

‘I’m just curious to hear your reasons for assuming the country’s hardest job.’

‘It’s a fair question. I often wonder myself. I mean, I think I know what happened to Harold Holt.’

‘You do?’

‘Yeah. He had a fucking gutful, Andrew. He’d had it up to here.’

‘I see.’

‘And he walked out there himself, and prayed for Neptune to take him.’

‘Okay.’

‘He said, “Mighty Lord of the Oceans, may your crabs take my eyes and your eels find refuge through my cold sphincter. May your—”’

‘Can I just—’

‘Yes?’

‘There’s a real water theme emerging here.’

‘Is there?’

‘There is.’

‘I don’t see it.’

‘Neptune and Harold Holt. Sharks and water polo.’

‘Is this significant?’

‘You tell me.’

The Prime Minister paused. ‘Mum died when I was six.’

‘That’s terrible.’

‘Buggers you for a