‘Who the fuck is this?’ the PM asked without stopping. We jogged behind him, like truck tyres lashed to a heaving strongman.
‘Your new speechwriter.’
‘When the fuck did this happen?’
We’d already covered a hundred metres of hallway and I was short of breath.
‘We discussed it last week. He’ll be helping out Julie.’
‘Then give him the fucking Book, and piss off.’ We stopped, and he disappeared. Patrick sucked his asthma pump.
The Prime Minister had two legs like the rest of us, but you could never describe their deployment as ‘walking’. He paraded or marched. When stationary, he appeared to levitate. He radiated such furious self-conviction that when he moved, everyone around him looked like a rubber dinghy in the wake of a warship.
‘The thing about the Prime Minister,’ Patrick said, showing me to my desk while pretending that his authority hadn’t just been cruelly undermined, ‘is that you need to know when to approach him. It’s like reading the weather. We’re all meteorologists here.’
‘How will I know?’ I said, hoping my helplessness would endear me.
‘It’ll become intuitive.’ I had just seen clear evidence that it wouldn’t or, if it could, that Patrick was yet to develop this intuition, but I allowed him this moment of superiority.
‘What’s The Book?’
Patrick removed a thick blue file from my desk’s shelf and opened it.
‘The world as the PM sees it,’ he said, tapping the contents page. ‘His vision and our agenda. All speeches derive from this. Study it.’
It seemed oddly monolithic, but given my criminal insinuation into this office, I felt restrained from questioning it.
‘I just watched Hacksaw smuggle a Nazi bomb in here,’ I said.
‘I heard about that.’
‘Do we need to comment?’
‘That’s beneath us. What I want from you is a cleansing statement about the water-polo business. We need to kill this.’
‘Water polo.’
‘If the PM hears those two words again, he’ll stab someone. Probably you.’
‘Wait, I’m sorry — parliamentary security is beneath the Prime Minister, but the social status of water polo isn’t?’ Fuck. There went my cover of eager servility.
‘Mate,’ Patrick said, emphasising the word so that it suggested the opposite of friendship, ‘we don’t decide what is or isn’t below the boss. He decides. And he’s decided that water polo has met the fucking threshold.’
‘Mightn’t cabinet help decide?’
‘That’s funny.’
‘I’ll assume The Book is silent on the matter of offending water-polo players.’
‘It is.’
‘So I should write a new verse for it — something “cleansing”.’
‘I knew there was a reason Stanley recommended you.’
I smiled weakly, angry that I had so quickly failed my deferential guise. At least I had clocked a fundamental dynamic of this place: to work here was to be smart, but never as smart as the PM — or, if you were, your intelligence had to be put in the service of disguising itself, so it didn’t appear mutinous. I returned to my desk and wrote the following ‘cleansing’ statement:
If there’s anything more Australian than ribbing a bloke, it’s playing sport or getting in the pool. For the thousands of Aussies who play water polo, they’re doing both. My remarks were meant as ribbing, but it seems I went too far and offended some fair-dinkum blokes and sheilas who love this sport. To all of you — to the kids practising in the backyard pool, to those wearing the Green and Gold — I’m bloody sorry.
As instructed, I emailed this triumph to the senior speechwriter, Julie, with a suitably ingratiating line: ‘Not sure about this: lemme know how you think I’ve done …’
Half an hour later, she replied: ‘Perfect. Add it to The Book. File under: “Apologies”.’ I was doing just that when she rushed into my office.
‘Julie,’ she said, breathlessly. Few here spoke in normal rhythms. ‘Learn The Book now, ’cause we’ll need an election announcement.’
‘A what?’
‘An election announcement.’
‘He’s got a year on his term.’
‘And we’ve got days to write a speech.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Which part don’t you understand?’
‘I guess it’s not really an issue of comprehension, but shock.’
‘The water-polo statement will clear the decks.’
‘Clear the decks?’
‘And the air.’
‘The air?’
‘Is there an echo in here?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘The PM’s on The 7.30 Report tonight. I want you to go with him to the studio, get to know him.’
‘Okay.’
‘He won’t make the announcement tonight, right? That’s in our pocket, and the interview was already booked. But it might be an opportunity to — I don’t know, get into his headspace. Squat there.’
Joan instructed me to stand before the Prime Minister’s door precisely half an hour before he was due to leave it for the ABC studio in Parliament House — a five-minute walk away. It hardly seemed like an efficient use of my time.
‘Like a plant?’ I said.
‘I’m sorry?’ Joan said.
‘You want me to just stand there, like a pot plant?’
‘I don’t want you to do anything, Toby.’
‘But you just said—’
‘Want suggests I care. I’ve suggested that you stand before the Prime Minister’s door half an hour before he leaves for the studio.’
‘Suggested.’
‘Yes.’
‘Shouldn’t I help him go over some briefing notes before the interview?’
‘My suggestion is that you stand right there.’
‘Just stand here.’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay.’
‘Actually, if you really want to help, you can make his coffee. He’ll want it when he comes through that door. Black, one sugar. His mug’s the one that says “Back in Black”.’
So I did. Then I returned to his door and waited until the Prime Minister exploded from his office, like a Navy SEAL entering Bin Laden’s compound. Honestly, the energy was terrifying. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘We’ve met, sir. I’m Toby, your new speechwriter.’
‘Where’s Roxanne?’
‘Julie. And she’s still your senior speechwriter.’
‘So who the fuck are you?’
‘I’m another speechwriter.’
‘And why are you following me?’
‘Sir, I was told to sit in on your interview.’
‘Why?’
‘Sir, to absorb you. Immerse my—’
‘Walk faster,’ and he grabbed the coffee mug.
When we reached the tiny studio, the PM sat silently in front of the camera as staff fixed his mic and dusted his cheeks and forehead. Then he told me
