The Prime Minister keeps a diary. He calls it his ‘legacy document’. You are not supposed to be reading this. His office describes it as “a fabrication.” But to be fair, his office describes most things as a fabrication, so make of that what you will.
Dear Diary. I’ve watched it back four times now to be certain, and I have to tell you - I was magnificent. All four times. A woman came round - in character as a man, or a man in character as a woman, I never got to the bottom of it - and I poured the whisky myself. With my own hand. Churchill poured whisky. I’ve seen the paintings. So I poured whisky. That’s the lineage.
Parliament’s off for the winter, which is when a man finds the time to become relatable. So there was a game. Three names, you pick. Bit of fun. I said no at first, very properly, on account of being six months married, and I’d like that noted, because it shows a man with a line. Then she leaned in and I felt her warming to me, so I moved the line. That’s connection. That’s rapport. Kylie. Clearly. I said it with a twinkle. There was, on the tape, a definite twinkle.
I went to bed a statesman and woke up apologising. I don’t know what happens in the night. Geoff came in the colour of a dishcloth and told me I’d cut through again. I keep cutting through. It keeps feeling like falling down stairs I didn’t know were there.
So I apologised. Unequivocally. The premium apology - no sorry-if, no sorry-but, a full one, the kind Keating never managed in his life. Historians will study it. I gave one of the great apologies, and I’m not sure the country deserved the quality. You have to be very secure to grovel that well. Not everyone could.
Which is rich, because on the Thursday I’d been magnificent. I stood up in the Parliament and I spoke for the women of Australia - about the filth online, about what it teaches young men, about the way it turns a woman into a thing to be ranked and used and handed back. Strong stuff. I meant every word. Then on the Friday a nice lady handed me three women and asked which I’d have, and I ranked them. I’ve searched for the join between those two days. There isn’t one. I asked Geoff to find it. He found it at once, which I found unhelpful.
And BARNABY - of all the men the good Lord has assembled - went on the television to say it was beneath the office. Barnaby Joyce. The nation’s headmaster now. When the footpath men start marking your homework, you’ve had a week.
But Tanya went on the telly to defend me, and I could have wept. My loyal soldier. Every time they asked whether I should apologise, she sailed clean past it and reminded the nation that no government in history has done more for women than this one. Which settled it, I thought. You can’t be bad for women if your side is good for women. That’s just arithmetic. She said she’s a fan of Kylie too. So we agree. We’re a team. She defended me so beautifully that at no point did she have to say I’d done anything right. That’s the purest loyalty there is.
None of it’s the real work anyway. The real work I did quietly - kept the petrol sixteen cents cheaper for another month - and not one card. Not one. Save the nation sixteen cents, silence. Name a showgirl, a national emergency. How good is that? That’s the job now. The whole job.
Meanwhile Pauline keeps climbing up north, saying words I’ve never heard - monoculturalism, I looked it up and I’m still not sure - and the more she says them the more they love her. I was being relatable. She was being ahead. I’ve decided the two aren’t linked. I said please explain to her in my head, and even in my head she wouldn’t.
I did keep the phone close, though. In case Kylie rang. I’d even thought of what I’d say. Something warm. She hasn’t rung. She’s playing it cool. Smart.
Jodie was in the kitchen. She’d seen it. Everyone’s seen it. Six months ago we stood in that house, and last Friday I sat in it and picked a stranger. She didn’t say my name. She didn’t say anything at all. She cut the aged cheddar into neat little pieces, the good one, slid the board across, and went to bed. The fridge door closed behind her on its own. I ate it in the quiet. I don’t deserve the cheese. I had a thought, and then it swam off.
Anyway. Enormous numbers. Everyone talking about me, and being the thing they talk about is the whole of leadership now. I might do another. Bigger. More me. Without the game.
Well. A smaller game.
I remain, as always, on the right side of history. History has not yet confirmed this. But it will.
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