Never a True Word Read online

  Even though I had spent the last twenty-four hours obsessing over Ray, Bruce Fox, yachts and the whole general nightmare I hadn’t given any thought to how to approach this situation. Do I just blunder in and give it to him straight? Is there a way to gently break the news that won’t start an immediate angry response, possibly directed at me? Probably not.

  At the big door I stop, take a deep breath, give one sharp knock and walk in. Ray, behind his desk, looks up surprised but not unhappy to see me.

  ‘Got a sec?’ I enquire.

  ‘Yes, mate, what’s up?’

  I hesitate, still not sure how to start, standing in the middle of that big room with its wrap-around views of the city. I have a flashback to my job interview. Not for the first time I wish I’d just walked away.

  ‘Ah, Ray, look, have you heard from Bruce Fox recently?’ I begin.

  ‘No, mate. Why?’

  ‘You know Ian Cavendish. I used to work with him at the paper? He’s got a gig with Fox these days.’

  ‘Has he offered you a job?’

  ‘What?’ I respond, momentarily confused. ‘No. No. Nothing like that. But I met him yesterday. Cavendish. He reckons he has some dirt on you. He says he’ll use it unless you push that Village Green project through Cabinet.’

  I stop. Look at Ray. He is perfectly still. This is unusual. As long as I’ve known him he’s been a rolling bundle of energy. Some part of him is always on the move.

  ‘What does he think he has?’ he asks softly.

  ‘He hasn’t told me much. Just he has pictures from that yacht junket you went on the other month. He wasn’t specific. He did give me one picture but it’s meaningless. You can’t tell what’s going on, never mind that you are supposedly in the shot.’

  I hand the picture to him. He takes it, looking shocked now, studies it carefully and hands it back.

  ‘Sit down, mate,’ he commands.

  There is a good minute of silence as he contemplates—what? His future, his mistakes, his weaknesses. ‘I need you to know this, mate,’ he begins in a low, serious voice. ‘This is bullshit, utter bullshit. I had a few drinks that day, but not many. Three, four, maybe. I walked off that boat under my own steam. Went out to dinner afterwards with an old mate and his wife. Nothing happened. They have nothing.’

  ‘I believe you,’ I say. ‘The question is what do we do about it now. They obviously think they have something they can twist and use against you in some way. Who else was on that boat?’

  He stops to think for a few seconds, hand running across a face in a motion of worry. ‘A couple of property spivs, a few women, another bloke from the government over there I hadn’t met before,’ he says.

  ‘When you say “a few women”, what do you mean?’ I ask as gently as possible.

  ‘I don’t know who they were. They were youngish, maybe mid-twenties, good looking. I assume Bruce just thought they would brighten the place up a bit. But nothing happened. They just floated around really. I spoke to one or two of them maybe.’

  ‘Just spoke?’ I ask, again trying hard not to make it sound like I’m particularly worried about what could come next.

  ‘Yes, Jack,’ he counters and I sense he is on the verge of an explosion. ‘Just talk. I may have given one of them, Melanie I think, a farewell kiss. A peck on the cheek really, but that’s it.’

  ‘Ok, that doesn’t sound too bad. What were these girls wearing?’

  ‘Nothing too bad. Shorts, bikini tops.’ I feel pain in my chest. If there is a shot of Ray kissing some young thing in a bikini top on a yacht owned by one of the country’s richest property developers then we could be in trouble. ‘Did you see anyone taking photos, or video at any point?’ I say.

  ‘No, nothing like that. In fact Bruce told me early on that privacy is one of the reasons he likes getting out on the yacht; no one knows where he is, there are no reporters, no photographers. He just told me to relax and enjoy myself.’

  My fear is that this was an elaborate set-up from the start. That Fox’s yacht is fitted out with hidden cameras and microphones, installed on the off chance of catching out some careless politician. But I take heart from the first photo Cavendish sent me. It is out of focus to the extent that even after realising it is Sloan in the picture I can’t recognise him. It seems the pictures (and, crucially, stills not video) were taken by an opportunistic observer only able to hurriedly press the picture-taking icon on their iphone. Still, it would take only one half-decent shot of Sloan seemingly grappling with a barely dressed young woman to finish him for good.

  ‘So what do you want to do?’ he asks. ‘I could call Bruce. Maybe he doesn’t even know about this shit.’

  ‘Bad idea. There is no way Cavendish would have come up with this himself. He doesn’t have the imagination. He’s following orders from on high. And if you ring Bruce now you will look compromised if anything does come out. Especially if his Village Green project gets through Cabinet.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you now. Fox can kiss that one goodbye. He can go and get royally fucked if he thinks strong-arming me is the way to prop up his bullshit development,’ Sloan explodes.

  ‘Cops?’ I ask.

  ‘No. Keep them out of it. For the moment at least. Have you told anyone else? Leo, Harry, Bob?’

  I think of my conversation last night with Emily but decide not to mention that. ‘No. I was waiting to talk to you first.’

  ‘Good. Keep it that way. Let’s just wait this out for the minute. Let’s see what happens next.’

  38

  I do my best to keep up a pretence of normality in front of the others. We are in full election-planning mode now and I do what I can to contribute, all the while feeling like I am sitting on an unexploded bomb. Sloan glides through the days as well. Nothing changed there. He is still a grumpy fucker, so no one notices any change worth commenting on.

  There is no further communication from Cavendish. My optimistic self sees that as a sign it is all a bluff. My more dominant—pessimistic—nature notes the Village Green development is still some weeks away from being presented to Cabinet again.

  Generally, we are happy with our election prospects. Again we are in Leo’s office. Bob has gone, replaced by another keen young thing the party has thrown up. Her dad knew someone else’s dad who had met someone else at the footy. Barbara is pleasant enough, even quite bright, but the rest of us are so set in our ways by this stage we really aren’t in the mood to be adopting anyone into our little group. We have that fear of outsiders that marks out the paranoid. Still, Barbara is a blessing as she hasn’t cottoned on to what a horror the boss can be so we have sent her to as many functions, lunches and factory openings as we can manage.

  So Ray, Leo, Harry and I are in the office. It’s the first time we have really sat down to talk about what the election is looking like and how we should approach it. We discuss how we will attack the other lot. One of my jobs since starting has been to keep track of every promise the Opposition has made, including every spending promise. So, if the automobile association reckon the state’s roads are a disgrace and it will take $500 million to fix them up and the Opposition says something like ‘the government should take this very seriously, lives are at risk’ I will whack it on their running tab.

  This means reading every story featuring one of their MPs, perusing the transcript of every radio and TV interview, and every press release, even reading Hansard every day. The general idea is that come election time, when they will inevitably attack us as a big-spending, economically reckless government, we respond by pulling out my Dollar Dazzler (nifty name) and throwing it right back at them—supposedly a number running into the billions. What might make it work, or at least give the journos some pause for thought, was that I intend to back up every claim with documentation to prove I’m not making the numbers up. Well, not entirely. We would obviously also deride their economic management last time they were in charge. Happily, Sloan’s main antagonist was Treasurer before him and pretty h
opeless.

  Sloan is on safe ground talking up the government’s track record, the increased money spent on cops, teachers, doctors and nurses—those areas that generally get a government re-elected. The economy had been bubbling along nicely and unemployment had fallen. All in all there is a great deal to feel happy about.

  39

  We have one more big hurdle to overcome, ignoring Cavendish for the moment, before we devote all our attention to the election. Apart from the budget, the event that gets the policy wonks excited and the journos salivating is the mid-year budget update. Yes, I know. It’s an exciting life we lead. If things are going well we use it as another opportunity to make a big statement, an announcement to the punters about what we are about.

  If things aren’t going well we try and attract as little attention to it as possible. There was a year we held it on Christmas Eve. We were roundly criticised for our cynicism, hard to argue there, but we didn’t care as nobody was paying any attention.

  This year, though, things are good. With the election in mind I have been working with those upstairs on something different. Instead of doing the budget review in the austere press conference room in front of the flags we think we’ll hold it at the hospital. Sure, it’s a stunt, but we have more health spending to announce and if we use the hospital as the backdrop then that becomes the lead story of the day.

  I’d cleared it with Boyle’s office and I’d spoken to the hospital, even been down there to look at the spot where we will hold the press conference. The mid-year review is really the poor cousin of the budget. There are meetings with Treasury and all that nonsense but it’s really an off-Broadway production compared to the budget main show. As a result Sloan doesn’t pay as much attention as perhaps he should—and neither do the rest of us. In various staff meetings we outline the strategy. Health, hospitals, and so on. Sloan offers no opinions either way so I just keep pressing on with the idea. Two days before the big day at a staff meeting he’s in a filthy mood, perhaps the Fox thing is weighing on him. Perhaps it isn’t. I hand over the press release. He barely glances at it before he gives it back to me with a ‘fine, mate’. I reiterate that the presser is down at the hospital but I’m talking to a bag of marbles.

  As I said, the mid-year review is usually a low-key production. This year we have even decided to forgo bound copies of the document, which ran to about seven pages.

  On the big day we have a 9 am meeting scheduled with Sloan for a final (and in some ways first) run through, an hour before we’re to be at the hospital with the Premier. Sloan shows up at 9.20, in an even worse mood than he’d been two days before.

  ‘You’d better show me this fucking thing I suppose,’ is his opening line as he wanders into Leo’s office.

  Leo hands it to him, a file held together by a big bulldog clip. He looks at it like Leo has just handed him a great big turd on a plate, with a pink umbrella plonked in the middle.

  ‘What the fuck is this?’ he demands.

  ‘What do you mean?’ replies Leo. ‘It’s the mid-year budget review.’

  ‘Well, mate, it looks like your Year 10 English project, not the fucking second-most-important economic document of the year delivered by a professional government seeking re-election.’

  Despite myself I can see he has a point. But with less than an hour to go I am not sure what we can do about it. An uncomfortable silence follows as Sloan eyeballs us all in turn. I start to think this could get ugly when Harry steps up. There are twenty-five copies printed; Harry reckons there is a machine somewhere in Treasury that applies a ring binding and we can add a plastic sheet over the cover.

  ‘How long would this take?’ asks Ray.

  ‘About fifteen minutes I think,’ he replies.

  ‘Get it done then.’

  Sloan stands up and marches towards his office, with a copy of the budget statement still in his hand. He realises this when he gets to his office door. He looks at it, looks at us, then throws it so hard it whizzes over our heads and clangs into the window. And then just to confirm he’s not happy with us he slams his door with such force that the lock jumps through the doorjamb and peeks out the other side.

  The next twenty minutes are a blur of activity. Everyone is running everywhere, fuelled by adrenalin and fear. Sloan, of course, still hasn’t as much as cast an eye over the press release I have written to mark the occasion. Ten minutes before the scheduled start of the press conference, which was at least a ten-minute drive away, we are waiting outside Sloan’s office, where the slightly off-kilter door is still shut. No one is game enough to go and knock on it.

  I have also been dealing with Wilson from the Premier’s office. He wants to know what the hell is going on and why we haven’t all left for the press conference. I try to explain that things have been a little rough down our way. He doesn’t care. Finally at about two minutes to the hour Sloan comes out of his office rushing and puffing like a steam train. He sees us waiting, which annoys him more because it makes him feel like we are blaming him for being late, and barks: ‘Right let’s get upstairs and do this fucking thing. It will be a fucking disaster. This could cost us the election.’

  ‘Ray,’ I begin. ‘We are not doing the press conference upstairs, it’s down at the hospital.’

  ‘What!’ he screams. ‘Why wasn’t I told about this? I know you think you are a fucking genius but this is my future on the line. I fucking demand that you ask me about these things before you prance off and decide my life for me.’

  ‘I did,’ I protest. ‘We talked about it on Monday. You didn’t say you didn’t want to do it. The Premier’s in for it. He knows.’

  ‘Fucking great. You’ll tell Frank but not me. I didn’t agree to anything on Monday. I don’t even remember you asking me.’

  This is ridiculous. I take a deep breath. There’s a stinging sensation behind my eyes. I’m not sure if it’s fear or anger that’s driving the emotion but I stumble out a pathetic ‘I told you’ before Sloan marches off in the general direction of the lifts. I follow him as everybody else scarpers. I have the press releases and budget documents in a bag ready to go.

  The lift ride down, only eight floors worth, is a journey worthy of Shackleton himself. Like the great Ernest I have to withstand great danger, icy cold weather and a fear I may never come back. At least I don’t have to eat my dogs. Several hours later when the lift reaches the ground floor Sloan makes a left turn to head to the back door where his car is waiting. If I thought the lift ride down took an age, the car trip to the hospital is even worse. Stars are born and die, dinosaurs come and go in the time it takes us to traverse the two kilometres from the office to the press conference. Sloan doesn’t say a word, both a relief and a worry. Silence can be a terrible weapon. The closest we come to communication is when one hand snakes back over his right shoulder towards me. From this I divine he wants to look at the press release. He takes it, reads it and, in silence, drops it onto the floor of the car. Looking for small positives I decide this is a good sign.

  When we reach the hospital he bolts from the car with no intention of waiting for me. The fact he has no idea where he’s going is not going to be a hindrance. The waiting media pack stops him from marching through the hospital’s front doors, before realising he doesn’t know what to do next.

  I am tremendously happy to see them, this security blanket of journalists. I know Sloan will immediately flick the switch to professional politician mode and try to charm everyone in sight. For half an hour I will be safe. Following Sloan’s example I manage to pull myself together enough to break out the easy greetings, the casual hellos, to project the confidence that everything is under control.

  I hand out the press releases, distribute the budget document and follow Sloan and Boyle on their guided tour of the hospital to point out, to the cameras, where the money is going to be spent and why all citizens should be immensely grateful that the government was in charge.

  Once the glad-handing is done, and Sloan has looke
d sympathetic at the bedside of a carefully vetted patient, we have a model ten-minute press conference where the boss pushes all the main messages and doesn’t have to answer any curly questions.

  It is perfect. Not that Sloan says anything to me. The only communication we have in the hospital is when he asks me to find him a glass of water before the press conference. Back in the car I am back in the deep freeze, not a word uttered. When the car pulls up at the back door of our office building he charges off through the security gates and by the time I reach the bank of elevators in the lobby he has disappeared.

  40

  Sloan’s office door is tightly shut when I finally make it back to the office. I walk in to see Leo feeling as shattered as I ever have in this job.

  ‘How did it go?’ he asks.

  ‘Completely fine. No drama. Not that it really matters I suppose. Not that the fuckwit next door will ever thank me for it. Did he say anything when he came back in?’

  ‘Not a word. Didn’t even glance this way. Into the office. Slammed the door. Just the usual.’

  ‘Mate, I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up …’

  As I say this Harry drifts into the room. After the horror of the morning he can sniff a debrief in the wind, the need for a bit of counselling for another post-traumatic stress moment.

  ‘Can’t do what, mate?’ he questions, as he plonks himself into one of the spare chairs.

  ‘This,’ I lamely reply and make some generic arms movements to indicate the office, the job, the life. ‘I don’t know if I can keep doing this. No one should have to put up with that bloke. No one should treat anyone like that bloke does. He was born in the wrong era in the wrong country. Stalin’s Russia would have been more his go. He could just kill us all and get it over with.’

  It’s a reprise of my conversation the other night with Emily. I feel I’m out of energy, out of ideas, out of my depth and out of any desire to keep doing this job. It’s not the first time I have felt this way but it’s definitely the worst. Harry and Leo look slightly alarmed but we have all been here before. Perhaps with Bob jumping ship the stakes are a little higher. The tight-knit group that has managed to keep us all relatively sane up until this point is in danger of unravelling and the election is looming.