The Speechwriter, Martin McKenzie-Murray [distant reading TXT] 📗

I shrugged off my depression, and soon the young politician emerged. I would ensure that no other child’s soul would be played with so frivolously. With my soiled copy of Churchill’s speeches beside me, I prepared my gloriously mutinous remarks.

I worked for the rest of the summer. On a major speech and handmade pamphlets. On enunciation and posture. Before my bedroom mirror, I rehearsed gestures. I’d read that Demosthenes, to overcome his stammer, practised his speeches with a mouthful of pebbles before the roar of the ocean. I used gobstoppers and commercial radio, but quit after choking. I barely left my room. My parents never knew that my project was an energetic renunciation of their fraud. My parents knew nothing.

School resumed. On the first day, I brought my wooden platform. The speech cards were secured in my shirt pocket. I was confident both that I had mastered the arguments and that I’d developed the self-possession that would aid their reception. I would be focused, fierce, articulate.

But when the bell rang for recess, and I planted my soapbox at the edge of the busy quadrangle, I realised my problem. It was noisy. Very noisy. How was I supposed to compete with the squeals and blissful engagement of those playing cricket and four-square?

The answer came when I stepped upon my wooden box — and it splintered dramatically. I fell harshly to the bitumen, one of my feet captured by the jagged wreck of wood. For all of my intellectual preparation, I had failed to test the integrity of my platform.*

[* Garry didn’t seem to notice this casual witticism, so I pointed it out. ‘It’s a play on words, mate,’ I told him.

‘Shut the fuck up, Toby.’]

But I had their attention, and suddenly squeals were replaced with laughter. After I dislodged my foot from the mess of timber, I stood and removed my cards from my pocket. I surveyed the audience proudly, as if nothing had happened. As if I had been born for no reason but to seize this one moment. Then Pete hurled a tangelo at my dick, and I fell to the ground again.

Surely Churchill never had to deal with this. But as I writhed on the bitumen, I was grateful for the audience. The volume of laughter now suggested that the whole school was watching, and when the nausea subsided, I stood again. We, the children, had been taken for fools — and now they would all hear the truth. If genital bruising was the cost of their attention, then so be it.

I cleared my throat.

I have made cookies for him, but they were eaten by Father. I have poured milk for him, but it was drunk by Mother. Father Christmas does not exist. It is all a lie. The laugh, and the naughty list, and the big telescope so he can always watch us — lies. The walking stick that is one big candy cane is another lie. There are so many lies.

The reindeer and how they teased Rudolph — that is a lie. The Santa at the shops, who said you could sit on his lap and tell him your dreams — he is a lie. He is just a normal man called Dave who is paid money to lie to children. I hope the job is worth it, Dave. I hope the money is heaps.

I asked Father how does Santa come when we have no chimney? And I was scared that he couldn’t come to visit us, but Father said he would leave the front door open with a note, and then I was more scared because I thought a gunman would just walk in and take my presents and milk. Why would Father say this and make me scared?

I am sorry to share this bad news. But there have been bruises done in our minds and we can make the bruises better by telling the truth. We should not be scared because adults lie to us, and some pretend to be magic and have beards.

I’d thought about this moment all summer. Not the delivery of the speech, but the space after. What would happen when I finished? I’d practised gracefully returning the cards to my pocket, and I’d rehearsed a cool, implacable stare as the audience trembled with their new reality. But what I thought about most was their response. I figured it could go one of two ways: rapturous assent, or contemplative silence. I was prepared for either outcome.

I stood proudly, pretending to stare above their heads towards the mountaintop, but really keeping a nervous, peripheral eye on Pete. For a while, nothing happened. Contemplative silence it was. That was understandable — my peers would have to painfully reconcile this new truth with their old reality. And perhaps some would briefly resent me for this. I was prepared for that. The truth could be intolerable.

But then: a thunderous eruption of laughter. It didn’t compare to the previous laughter, inspired by my pratfall and dick-blow. This was unlike anything I’d ever heard. It was alive, berserk, merciless. It possessed several octaves. It dissolved them. They regressed to a delirious primitivism. Some fell to their knees. Teachers clasped their mouths. It was difficult to maintain composure, and I began nervously looking around.

It took me a while to realise that I’d caused this mass possession. This should have been immediately obvious, but my earnestness was an effective shield against plain conclusions. What I couldn’t understand was why. It took ten minutes for the audience to rediscover their tongues and tell me.

‘You believed in Santa!’ Juliet yelled, tears streaming down her face.

‘He believed in Santa!’ someone else yelled, inspiring another lengthy collective paroxysm.

‘Toby,’ a teacher said. ‘No one in this yard has believed in Father Christmas for years. You’re very late to the party, I’m sorry.’

They all knew. All of them. But how? And when? At home, I made a small bonfire in the yard and torched my speech and pamphlets. As I lay in bed that night,