Sucked In (5 page)

Years later I wondered if Mavis had registered what was going on between Charlie and Margot. If so, she certainly kept it very close to her twin-torpedo chest. I definitely didn't twig, nor did anyone else at the time, far as I was aware.

Not that I was paying much attention. My relationship with Wendy was moving inexorably towards cohabitation, home-ownership and parenthood and it simply didn't occur to me that hidden fires might be burning behind Charlie Talbot's well-ironed shirtfront. He was just too straight for that sort of thing. Too married. And Margot, lovely Margot, she had more than enough to keep her hands full elsewhere.

And then there was the quite unlovely Mervyn Cutlett. Merv had ruled the union since the mid-fifties. He was a wily old throwback, half class warrior, half lurk merchant. A product of the Depression and the War, he regarded the Municipals as his personal property, maintaining his tenure by sheer bloody-minded intractability and a sharp eye for potential challengers.

When he wasn't interstate, shoring up the loyalty of the various state secretaries, he was ensconced in his nicotine-drenched, pine-panelled, shagpiled lair in the basement of the Trades Hall, holding court with his well-stocked bar fridge, his kitsch collection of wartime memorabilia and his attendant gopher, an ageing rocker named Sid Gilpin.

Merv and Charlie were the union's yin and yang, its past and future. As one of Charlie's appointments, yet another university-educated smartarse, I was bound to be viewed by Merv as an object of suspicion.

‘Just make sure his picture appears on every page of the union news,' Charlie counselled. ‘And try to keep out of his line of sight.'

I took his advice. And later, after he made the switch to parliament and I'd become a minister's minder, I kept taking it. No matter how busy, Charlie was always good for a word of wisdom when I needed one. That was something else I was going to miss about him.

I finished my cigarette, took the bottle back inside and restarted the tape.

‘
.'

Lesson Eleven. Future Conditional.

The Premier stood on the topmost step of the broad terrace leading to Parliament House. His chest was thrust forward, his chin tilted upwards, his hands on his hips. The tuft of his trademark cowlick stood erect, the comb of a strutting cockerel. A great strutter, the Right Honourable Kenneth Geoffries. He could strut standing still. All this is mine, his stance announced. The legislature behind me, the city at my feet.

‘This cutting-edge development will guarantee Melbourne a place in the front row of the world's leading cities for generations to come,' he declared.

A semi-circle of reporters and photographers clustered around him, scribbling and snapping. Flunkies patrolled the perimeter of the scrum. Tourists paused to observe the goings-on from between the Corinthian columns of the portico.

‘…enhanced competitive advantage…international landmark…'

It was nine-thirty the following morning and I was on my way to a caucus meeting. The sky was clear and the morning fair. Mild sunlight suffused the rich, contented lawns of the parliamentary gardens. The forsythia were still in bloom but the shrubbery borders had begun turning to russet.

The end of the autumn session was imminent and the legislature was dawdling towards its winter hibernation. Not that Joe and Joanna Public would take much notice. Parliament was a dull spectacle at the best of times and its current configuration made for monotonous viewing. The Liberals had an iron-clad majority, a steamroller legislative agenda and a bullet-proof leader. They outnumbered us two to one in the lower house, five to one in the upper house. We weren't just a minority. We were an endangered species, a puny splinter with little option but to keep our heads down, our seatbelts buckled and our powder dry. Not that we had any powder. We'd lost the formula two elections ago.

I trudged up the steps towards the main door. Skirting the mini-scrum, I paused for a second to catch the topic of the Premier's spiel.

‘The massive contribution of the gaming industry to the people of this state…'

He was barking for the new casino, one of his pet projects. Hyped as a magnet for tourists, a generator of jobs and an all-round good thing, the casino had been slowly taking shape on the south bank of the Yarra. Its grand opening was now only days away and media interest was intense. Mick and Keef were rumoured to be flying in, Wham had got back together and Freddy Mercury was rising from the dead for the occasion.

And the Premier, you could bet on it, was claiming his share of the limelight.

‘This is the kind of vision that drives my government…' he was saying.

Trotting up the last of the steps, I went into the grand old pile. The entrance was crowded with management types. They were queueing for admission to the Queen's Hall, the main parliamentary lobby. I nodded hello with the doorman, stuck my head through the door and took a quick squizz.

Fifty or so suited figures were milling around the swathe of red carpet between the two legislative chambers, helping themselves to coffee at a temporary muffin buffet. Many wore V-shaped gold lapel pins, the official insignia of the Premier's insider-trading, head-kicking, nest-feathering regime. Public service mandarins and Liberal backbenchers were mixing and mingling, not a spine among them. A rostrum had been set up, framed by banners. ‘Victoria—On the Move', they declared.

On the take, more likely, I thought. You could smell the greed in the air.

The Premier's presidential style, an innovation in Australian politics, was built on events like this. Announcements of landmark accomplishments. Policy launches. New initiatives.
Son-et-lumière
. Colour and movement. A torrent of proclamations and pronouncements that kept his highness on the front page and his critics scrabbling to keep up.

Towards the rear of the room, beside the statue of Queen Victoria, camera crews were uncoiling cables and erecting tripods. Senior members of the parliamentary press corps stood nearby, idly rocking on their heels, waiting for the curtain to go up. Among them was Kelly Cusack, the presenter of
On the Floor
.

She was standing with the other hacks, half-listening to the half-wit who did the rounds for Channel 10, her gaze skimming the room. Without the television make-up and studio lighting, she had a sexy-librarian quality, the look emphasised by her pairing of a dark suit with a form-fitting, pastel-yellow cowl-neck cashmere sweater.

She noticed me looking her way. She held my gaze, tilting her head to one side as if trying to place me.

At that exact moment, a hand clamped itself around my elbow. It jerked me abruptly sideways as the Premier swept into the room, flanked by a phalanx of ministers and minions.

‘Out of the way, sonny. Who do you think you are, standing in the way of progress?'

I turned and found myself looking down at a tubby, leprechaun-faced man with wiry grey hair and twinkly eyes. He wore a crumpled tweed jacket and a cord around his neck with his spectacles attached.

‘Let's rush him, Inky,' I said. ‘I'll grab him, you bite his knees.'

Dennis Donnelly, universally known as Inky, was a Labor Party institution. A spin doctor
avant la lettre
, he'd been press secretary to prime ministers and premiers, and eye witness to the rise and fall of more Labor governments than I'd had taxpayer-funded taxi rides. Officially retired but impossible to keep away, he was our roving media watchdog, a sniffer-out of potentially damaging press stories.

‘I been looking for you.' His voice was a whispery undertone that sounded like two press releases being rubbed together. ‘Got a tick?'

I checked my watch. The caucus meeting was still fifteen minutes away.

‘For you, Inky,' I said. ‘Any time.'

His hand still gripping my elbow, he shunted me into the corridor outside the Legislative Assembly. ‘I understand you worked at the Municipals at one point.'

‘Long ago,' I nodded. ‘In a galaxy far, far away.'

He pulled a folded copy of the
Herald Sun
out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me. ‘Seen this?'

The tabloid was folded open at an inside page. It had a furry, handled feel. Most of the page was occupied by a photo of a lanky young footballer with blond tips in his hair and a cast on his arm. A horde of grinning kids were jostling to sign the plaster.

‘It's a cruel world,' I said. ‘I've been praying to the Blessed Virgin for a speedy recovery.'

Inky and I were Lions supporters. And if the forced merger of our club with an interstate team was not indignity enough, the loss of our most promising new recruit to a shattered ulna in the first quarter of the first game of the season had rubbed salt into the wounds.

‘Bugger the Blessed Virgin,' said Inky. ‘Check the sidebar.'

The column contained a half-dozen brief news items. One of them was circled with an orange felt-tip pen. It was headed
Remains Found in Lake
.

Human remains were discovered in Lake Nillahcootie in
central Victoria yesterday afternoon. They were found in
the bed of the lake which has been recently drained as part
of maintenance work on the dam wall.

Consisting of bones and a skull, the remains were
removed by police for examination at Melbourne's Institute
of Forensic Medicine. Police said it could take some time
to identify them.

‘They appear to have been at the bottom of the reservoir
for a considerable period of time,' said Detective Acting Senior Sergeant Brendan Rice. ‘Items recovered from the
scene suggests that they belong to the victim of a drowning
which occurred at the lake a number of years ago.'

Inky watched me read, head slanted sideways, an expectant expression on his classic Hibernian dial.

‘Well, well,' I said. ‘It took long enough, but it looks like they've finally found Merv Cutlett.'

‘You reckon it's him?'

‘The odds would have to be pretty good. There can't be too many other bodies on the bottom of Lake Nillahcootie, can there?'

‘You wouldn't think so,' he rasped. ‘Is this first you've heard about this?'

‘News to me.'

Inky reached over and laid a stubby finger on the date line at the top of the page.

A memory flashed before me, so fresh I could smell the bacon and eggs. A breakfast table at the Mildura Grand, Charlie tearing at the buttons of his shirt, vomit at the corners of his mouth, his open newspaper cascading to the floor.

‘Last Thursday,' I said. ‘The day Charlie Talbot died.'

What with one thing and another, I realised, I'd never got round to finishing the papers.

‘Ironic, isn't it?' said Inky. ‘Charlie being there when Merv drowned, then carking it on the very day the body turns up, twenty years later.'

I nodded, sharing the old flak-catcher's appreciation of life's little quirks. ‘You wouldn't read about it, would you?'

Inky gave a world-weary sigh. ‘If only that was true, Murray,' he said. ‘Thing is, I've had a call from a journalist.

He's picked up on the unidentified remains discovery, put two and two together, come up with Merv Cutlett. He's got the idea there might be a story in it.'

‘Union Boss Slept with Yabbies
?'

‘Something like that,' he said. ‘He's keen to rustle up some background on the union. Problem is, I spent the late seventies in Canberra, scraping Whitlam-flavoured egg off the face of the national leadership, so I'm a bit behind the eight-ball on the twilight of the Municipals. Right now, you're the horse's mouth.'

Mouth? It was usually the other end. I glanced through the double doors at a buffet laden with coffee dregs and muffin carnage.

‘Tell you what, Inky. Buy me lunch and I'll spill my guts.'

Inky patted his paunch and made a mournful face. ‘My lunching days are over, mate. Gastric ulcer. Talk about guts, mine are completely cactus.'

The name Inky Donnelly was synonymous with the long Labor lunch. I puffed my cheeks in astonishment and gave a doleful shake of my head. ‘No wonder the party's rooted.'

As if on cue, a handful of listless suits shuffled through the entrance archway to Queen's Hall. The remnants of my decimated tribe massing thinly for the scheduled caucus meeting.

‘Tell this journo, whoever he is, he's wasting his time.' I handed Inky back his
Herald Sun
. ‘Merv Cutlett's death is old news, bones or no bones.'

Inky took the paper. ‘It's Vic Valentine,' he said.

I pricked up my ears. ‘Accidental drowning's a bit prosaic for Vic, isn't it?' I said. ‘All this gangland action going on, you'd think Melbourne's ace crime reporter would have more newsworthy leads to pursue.' We strolled out onto the clattering mosaic of the Parliament House vestibule.

‘You can see where he's coming from, though,' shrugged Inky. ‘A union official. An influential senator. A recently-deceased former minister. Three men in a boat, one of whom goes to a watery grave. It's got to be worth a sniff.'