‘I broke off choking with rage and humiliation. The PM waited a moment, then said: “Please be quiet and listen to me. Please, please. I’ll let you in on what happened. We had no way of knowing, or of getting word to you. Strategy was planned and put into operation on a day-to-day basis. You’re new to the game and don't know how these things are settled ...”
‘My rage had fallen away and I let him continue. Quietly, he explained: “Your rival, he was proving too strong for us to contain. What could we do? It was by sheer chance that he went against you in the first place. All preliminary polls showed that the result would be close and that the deciding factor would be the black vote. So we used what we considered our trump card and brought in Detective Inspector Watson Holmes Jackamara. Well, we had never considered the amount of prejudice against Aborigines in the district. The farmers are frightened that their land may be alienated from them. So what could we do? Party comes first and your opponent was strong material, cabinet material, just what we needed. Everyone knows him. Very popular, indeed. Just a miscalculation. Sorry about that; but our country needs the strongest government in these somewhat difficult times. I am sure that you would have made a fine Minister of Aboriginal Affairs ...”
‘ “Christ,” I burst out. “Cut the twaddle, you aren’t in the house now. I don’t care what the country needs; I know what I need. I relied on you, and now thanks to you I’m finished. I’m overdrawn at the bank not by hundreds but by thousands, and at this very moment my creditors are about to pounce. They’ll skin me alive. I’ve barely got the price of a decent meal in my pocket and when my credit card is dishonoured, I’ll be dishonoured. Christ, can’t you see the fix I’m in?”
‘The PM was a good sort, perhaps. He draped an arm about my shoulders and said: “You had to get it off your chest and now let me say ... I’m prepared to offer compensation ...”
‘ “Reparation is more like it,” I ground out.
‘ “If you wish it to be so ...”
‘ “In full.”
‘ “Completely and utterly.”
‘He smiled and I scowled back in disbelief. “Government needs good men such as yourself,” he stated, as he escorted me to the door. There we shook hands to seal the bargain, whatever it was. I was to go to Canberra where many government departments still remained in those days ...
‘Well, that is that. Quite a bit about Jackamara too. A visit to, to his run-down mission home; an account of an Aboriginal story as from his own lips, and his extricating me from what might have been a nasty situation. You can see from this that my account is valuable and we must settle the worth of its value. There is more to come, and I feel that certain, certain facets of the man should be brought out. I did establish a relationship with your Detective Inspector Dr Watson Holmes Jackamara and this must be of worth to you.
‘Why, you ask? Cause, well, you know, then, it was, was, I had been set up and with him keeping tabs on me. And, and this set-up continued and your Detective Inspector Jackamara was there to witness my further humiliation. True indeed. And now he is a doctor and what am I but a lowly clerk. Where is the justice in that, I ask you, where? Now, switch off the tape-recorder. I insist. We must discuss the terms and conditions as well as the payment for further sessions. I refuse to continue, sir, without such sureties ...’
SESSION TWO
‘Did I hear you say something about six of one and half-adozen of the other? Well, did you, and what are you inferring, sir? Have you been in touch with Jackamara and is this his, his opinion about me? Look, I have found these old photographs taken during my election campaign. Examine them. See, here I am among your people. I, I support you. I was stouter then, wasn’t I? Much stronger. Now too thin, too thin. You know power inflates, loss of power deflates. It’s a poison draining the flesh from the bones, just like that Gyinggi woman Jackamara went on about. I needed, needed support. I was the only candidate who went to your people and listened to their grievances. I went and sat with him and his people and listened to their troubles. Did my opponent ever mention land rights once during his campaign? No, a resounding, no! And then, there is another thing which must be considered—his part in my downfall! If I were an Aborigine, I would never consider joining the police force. I feel that to be an Aborigine is to be without the system, to be, sir, an outlaw. How could a member of your race become not only a policeman, but a respected member of the Queensland Police and thus a part of the establishment, of the very forces that deny justice to the Aborigines? Then, how thick was he with those powers, especially those that caused my downfall? These are the things which you must examine in your narrative, and not only examine, but come to conclusions about. A question should be: was it really my fault that I was so soundly defeated? You murmur about the ineptitude of my campaign, and I shout about a plot, a plot! Yes, a plot and he was part of that plot. Can you deny it? Listen, mate, I knew the ways of the Queensland Police Force at that time, and no matter whether a policeman was black or white or brindle, he was still part of the whole rotten set-up. He came out all right, didn’t he, didn’t he? Just like all the others, and next we’ll find him a knight too. Sir Jacky of the Tribe of Judas.
‘What, you want me to get to what you’re paying me for? Am I boring you, mate? Too tedious for you, or is it truths striking home, eh? Listen, if you had been through the things I have, you wouldn’t be so smug. Don’t worry about the tape. It is on. A truth detector, isn’t it? Well, I’ve finished with that farce of an election and at the part where the PM is about to offer me a job. I am to see him in three days’ time and so I go to the scene of some of my greatest coups in real estate, not to work, but to relax in a resort there. In fact, and this again is in the strictest confidence ... No, keep the tape on. It’s all relevant, relevant!
‘I did come out of the election with a little spare cash, not enough to pay off my debts, but enough for a few months in Surfers’. Well, enough of that. I was happily ensconced in the Xanadu Resort when I ran into an old acquaintance who invited me to a select party at the home of one of Queensland’s most prominent socialites. On the spur of the moment I decided to attend. Why? Depression, the absence of a hangover, the need to seek diversion? It definitely wasn’t with the object of meeting a woman, for Lady George only invited the ugliest and oldest and richest of the females who had made the Coast their burying ground. Her imagination did not descend to the demimonde, or even to single women. So why did I decide to go? My anger at the PM had for the moment died down. I felt disgust at myself, at others and with everything. On the trucked-in clean sand of the artificial beach at Xanadu, I sank into a torpor and let the sun daze me into apathy while I waited for rain to match my mood. To think that once I had made a large killing from part of the land on which the resort sweltered. Now I actually smelt the corruption of the deals from the oil smeared over the naked breasts of the female bathers. Such beauty could be bought by a glance, or a word of admiration from the right sort of bloke. The wrong sort had to use money, fame or power and now I possessed precious little of these.
‘I admit it, mate, all I had going for me was that tenuous connection with the PM. I was desperate, get me! And so I used the sun, the smooth water and the pure, well-swept sand to dull my mind. Sometimes I thought about my old school chum luxuriating in his sense of triumph. This too had been an old stamping ground of his and in fact he still retained a financial interest in the resort. Well, he had promised, but had he raised my hopes only to prepare to dash them? It was difficult to see why he would go in to bat for me. After all he was a political animal, and now in the heady rush of electoral victory coupled with the final declaration of Brisbane as the legal federal capital of Australia, he could let everything slide for a year or so. Then, I knew that my old school chum might find it extremely difficult to procure me an official, remunerative position in the higher echelons of the government service where I could recoup my fortune as well as pay off my creditors. It was difficult to imagine this after my electoral debacle; but for a moment, a long minute, I lay back on that pure sand imagining myself as the head of