Peter Corris - The January Zone

‘What’re you for?’ I looked out the window and saw Magda from the health food store weaving a sinuous path along the street. She was carrying a bundle and she held it high which caused the upper part of her body to be still while the rest moved. Almost every man in the street turned to look at her.

‘What’m I for? Peace!’

‘And motherhood?’ Magda went into a shop. I wondered if she and the stringy-haired, sallow-faced individual had any children. It seemed unlikely; they were like members of different species.

January drained his glass and made another drink, stronger. ‘Cynicism’s cheap, Cliff. I’ve got concrete proposals and that Committee’s exactly the right place to air them. It’s the perfect forum.’

I finished my beer and crumpled the can. ‘Have you checked with the Minister and the party, and your constituents? I’d have thought you were committed to the bases at least, probably to a fair bit of the rest as well.’

He cleared his throat. ‘Doesn’t have to be as tight as all that. We’re talking about…ideas.’

‘You want me to come to America to help protect your ideas?’

‘They’re good ones.’

‘But you can’t tell me what they are?’

‘No. I’ll tell you this, Helen’d approve of them.’

‘Oh, great. I’ll give her a ring and tell her I’m going to Washington to deflect bullets in defence of ideas she…’

‘Bullets?’

‘Look, Peter. I don’t know who planted the bomb here but the more I listen to you the more possibilities open up. It could be any one of a dozen loonies who write to you; you say it could be the spooks; the cops say they could pin it on me if they want to. It’s madness. Why don’t you develop an interest in something safe-like flat tax? Everyone wants it and no one wants to do anything about it.’

‘No. What’s that about the police?’

‘Forget it. How big a wheel is Karen Weiner’s husband?’

‘Very big. He’s head of a sort of think tank the other side listens to. He could move into a senior Parliamentary job with them any time he wanted to.’

‘Terrific. He could be another candidate for mad bomber.’

January shook his head. ‘No, he doesn’t know…’

‘Sez you. The only good news I’ve heard for your side lately is that the cops and the press still think you’re a sexual butterfly. For now, that is.’

January sat up straight in his chair. He ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head as though getting rid of all negative thoughts. When he looked at me again there was a steady confidence in his eyes and a firmness to his chin that no camera could fail to catch. He reached out and pulled some papers towards him. ‘You’re wrong, Cliff. This Washington opportunity’s the really good news- for me and everyone else-and I’m not going to let some nutter bugger it up.’ He dropped his gaze, scribbled a signature at the foot of a page, and then gave me the full candlepower look. ‘I want your help. Are you in or out?’

I pushed off from the wall. It sounds strange but there was an energy in him that seemed communicable. That was part of it; I also saw him as a man who had more problems than I did.

‘I’m in,’ I said.

Gary took the call from Sammy Weiss around tour o’clock and passed it over to me.

‘Hardy?’ Weiss said, ‘are you the pizza man or aren’t you?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Are you going to deliver?’

‘Sammy, you’re going to have to stop this. If you write that sort of crap no one’ll understand outside of Manhattan.’

‘They’ll understand. Now, I…’

‘Don’t say you got me to do lunch with Tobin-I’ll hang up.’

‘Okay, okay, but you got together and talked, right?’

‘It wasn’t much fun.’

‘He gets worse when you get to know him. But you owe me one now and I want to call it in.’

I sighed. ‘Okay, Sammy. Anything to shut you up. What is it?’

‘There’s a press conference in January’s office in half an hour, I understand.’

‘I wouldn’t call it a conference. He’s got an announcement to make.’

‘I wanna be there. You okay it.’

I thought about it for a second. I couldn’t see the harm; Trudi had said some of the party flacks and apparatchiks would be along so there’d be worse than Sammy Weiss present.

‘All right, Sammy. But behave yourself.’

‘I’ll be the quiet guy in the corner with the mineral water.’

‘You’d better be.’

I hung up and watched the office get ready to party. They seemed to know how to do it, how to move what to where to provide space and surfaces for bottles and glasses.

Trudi handed me a pre-party paper cup of wine. ‘Smooth operation,’ I said.

‘Goes with the territory.’

‘Don’t you start. I’ve got Sammy Weiss talking pure Brooklyn or Bronx or something to me. He’s coming, by the way.’

She shrugged. ‘We’ll survive it. That’s what you have to tell yourself before these things. And we might as well get used to the Yank chat. I take it you’re coming along?’

‘Yep. Be cold in Washington, won’t it?’

‘Very. What’ve you got on after this is over?’

I looked down at her. The thin eyebrow line was seductive. I wanted to run my finger along it. Her skin was smooth with just enough light wrinkles and lines to make her features more interesting. ‘If Peter doesn’t want me I’m not doing anything.’

‘He won’t want you. Our job is to get the journos pissed and cover him while he gets away for a tete-a-tete with Karen. When they’re blotto and he’s gone, we’re on our own time.’

I didn’t want to commit myself. ‘What d’you think of Karen Weiner, Trudi?’

‘Let’s talk later.’

‘Fine. Yes.’ Why kid myself? I was committed.

The cameras and the lights arrived first. The technicians seemed oblivious of being in a place where gelignite had been detonated not long back; maybe they were used to it. They whipped through their jobs smoothly and efficiently and transformed the office into a movie set. The reporters trooped in soon after, Sammy Weiss among them. The more cluey ones poked around for signs of damage; they grabbed drinks, threw another down and grabbed fresh ones. A mixed batch; seven men and five women; some old, some young. I examined them carefully out of habit but none looked odd or suspicious. A couple were half-stewed already; Weiss was steady but tense.

January read a short statement about his invitation and his delighted acceptance. The cameras hummed and the mikes bristled in front of him as he perched on a desk. He managed to look and sound humble, proud, deeply fearful for the future but intelligently optimistic.

The first question came from a bald sceptic with a short grey beard.

‘What’re you going to say that’s new, Minister?’

‘If I tell you now it won’t be new when I say it. The Opposition’ll pinch it.’

He got some laughs on that. The greybeard’s camera crew got him looking doubly sceptical and he was through for the day. The others took their turn:

‘Are you opposed to US bases on Australian soil?’

‘Absolutely, as presently operated.’

‘Where should the French conduct their tests?’

‘In the Louvre-have you ever seen the bloody awful paintings they’ve got there?’

‘What’s the best way to combat terrorism?’

‘Make the world less terrifying.’

And so on. January was well aware that they wouldn’t use it all so he reserved his best shots for certain questions. Some of his responses were virtually meaningless, others very sharp. He looked uncomfortable only once, when a reporter asked him if the Prime Minister was abreast of developments.