Sucked In by Shane Maloney

Author:Shane Maloney [Maloney, Shane]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Book, ebook
ISBN: 9781921776182
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2010-05-15T22:00:00+00:00

By seven o’clock it was down to the hard core.

Somnolent, we sprawled among the ravaged platters, devastated dips and knackered plastic glassware. Helen Wright had taken off her shoes and propped her stockinged feet on a stackable vinyl chair. Sivan toyed with a bottle of raki, unscrewing the cap, thinking about it, then sealing it back up. Ayisha began clearing up. Mike Kyriakis told her not to bother, the cleaners would take care of it in the morning. Sam Aboud, the administrator of the Meadow Heights Community Health Centre, managed to scavenge enough sachets of Nescafe to make a round of coffees.

Darkness had fallen outside. One of the fluorescent ceiling lights spluttered sporadically. Mike took the Australian flag from its stand and poked the tube with the pole. It hummed, plinked and expired.

There were a couple of other lingerers, faces I knew less well, their names slightly out of range. A young psephologist with an attempted beard, one of Charlie’s part-timers, sat on the floor with his knees cradled in his arms. One of Mike Kyriakis’ council confreres, an official with the printing industry union. He’d souvenired one of Charlie’s campaign posters, rolled it up like a telescope and was trying to focus down the tube.

We were all somewhat oiled, but I was probably the worst offender, flopped in an armchair and sinking gently into the west.

‘I’ve done my sums,’ said Mike, dragging a chair into the circle and dropping into it with an air of finality. ‘And I gotta say, I’m more tempted than ever to put my hand up for Charlie’s old seat. I reckon he’d want me to, too. What do you say, Helen, how about seconding me? And Sam, you too? Between the lot of you, I reckon there’s just about enough signatures for the nomination form.’ He gave the flagpole a slow wave. ‘It’ll be a glorious defeat. Gallipoli all over again.’

Sivan languidly returned the wave with his bottle of raki. ‘Didn’t we win that one?’

Mike was warming to his theme. ‘I’ve got no illusions about my chances, but I reckon I can make those know-it-alls in Canberra sit up and take notice.’

He’d been though the membership rolls with a fine tooth comb, and he’d come up with a strategy.

‘Everybody’s been stacking branches for years, right? And both sides have about equal numbers, right? But it’s like the nuclear balance. It only works if it isn’t tested in practice. As long as they’ve got the numbers on paper, they never need to actually mobilise them. All they need in any vote is enough to make a symbolic showing. So next Saturday, come the plebiscite of local members, there’ll probably be a turn-out of less than fifty percent of the eligible voters, right?’

The question was rhetorical. We settled further into our seats and let him answer it.

‘If I can round up three hundred surprise punters, which I think might just be do-able, I really put the cat among the pigeons.’

He paused pregnantly, awaiting a reaction. Eventually Ayisha obliged with the obvious questions.

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