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

distracted by my mother’s reading of Revelations, I wondered why my parents had never pierced my faith in Santa — and how it had escaped puncturing by anyone else.

I was humiliated, ashamed. For a while I wept, and not without pleasure. But my superpower was persistence. I’m unsure of its origin — perhaps a subconscious defiance of my father’s dismal resignation. All I can tell you is that my sense of purpose could (and did) survive severe humiliation.

So I dried my eyes and renewed my bedtime habit — reading the latest copy of Father’s Time. It was obvious from the magazine that the planet was gravely threatened, but that night I realised that it required my personal vigilance to halt its destruction. Time suggested acid rain and Asian drug cartels as priorities. I took notes.

One day, a year after the Christmas speech, our school chaplain, Ms. West, surprised me by asking for a meeting.

‘I’ve been watching you, Toby,’ she said.

‘You have?’

‘Do you believe in Christ, our Lord and Saviour?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘That’s okay, because He believes in you.’

‘He does?’

‘I can see it.’

‘How?’

‘He shines through you.’

‘He shines through me?’

‘It’s blinding.’

‘Is He shining right now?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘I can’t see it.’

‘It’s not something you see with your eyes,’ she said, smiling. ‘It’s something you see in here,’ and she touched her chest. ‘Toby, let me be frank. Your Christmas speech was a courageous beachhead in the repulsion of false idols. You were humiliated, but then most prophets are.’

‘But they already knew.’

‘No, Toby. They knew that Father Christmas was false, but they didn’t grasp your larger truth.’

‘What was my larger truth?’

‘That the confection is blasphemous. A cheap, unholy distraction from Him.’

‘I’m just not sure why adults lie to children.’

‘Because the Devil makes them.’

‘The Devil?’

‘He finds warm flesh to work through.’

‘Warm flesh?’

‘Mortals, Toby. Weak humans.’

‘And they do the Devil’s work?’

‘Wittingly or not.’

‘What kind of work?’

‘They undermine Christ, Toby.’

‘How?’

‘How can I count the ways? By fanning lust, by dividing us, and by denying servants of Christ their reserved car space.’

‘What?’

‘Toby, would you consider me a servant of Christ?’

‘I guess.’

‘So then would you consider a dedicated space in the teachers’ car park to be a fair recognition of that status?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘So do I. But the principal doesn’t see things that way, Toby. He’s removed mine. Said he had to “economise” — now there’s a word of the Devil.’

‘Why are you saying all this?’

‘You’re brave, Toby. And truthful. You glow with the light of Christ.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And you’re a brilliant speaker.’

‘I think a lot about rhetoric.’

‘I can tell.’ She paused. ‘Toby, nominations for school captain close in less than a week.’

‘I know.’

‘Have you thought about declaring?’

‘Not really.’

‘Can I ask why?’

‘I’m not popular enough, Ms.’

‘You’re afraid of losing?’

‘Yes.’

‘Toby, let me tell you something privately.’

‘Okay.’

‘There is currently only one nomination.’ This was confidential information, and I was thrilled it was being shared with me. ‘In all likelihood, the principal’s son will be elected unopposed.’

The principal’s son was Pete, the thug who had traumatised my junk with some high-velocity citrus. He was cruel, incurious, and smugly immune from the consequences of his barbarism. The thought of him becoming school captain made me sick.

‘Do you think I can win?’

‘Only if you nominate.’

‘Why me?’

‘I’ve already told you, Toby: you glow with the light of Christ. Pete reeks of the Devil.’

‘You think the Devil is inside him?’

‘There’s a very good chance.’

‘That does make sense. You know, he once threw a tangelo at my—’

‘Of course it makes sense. I can smell it as easily as I can see your golden rays.’

‘I still can’t see them.’

‘Will you run, Toby?’

Of course I’d thought about it. I’d dreamt of the captaincy. But this was a year earlier than I had planned. I wasn’t ready. I’d only progressed from eccentric pariah to harmless nonentity — definitely an improvement, but not a sufficient one to challenge for captain.

Then there was my age. The position was open to students in the oldest two grades, but was rarely won by a younger candidate. Pete was a year older. More importantly, he had the support of the family’s influential patriarch and ran a ruthless network of influence. In our school, he was effectively a Kennedy.

But then I thought of what Churchill wrote as a young man. I had copied the words and stuck them above my bedroom’s desk: ‘Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of oratory. He who enjoys it wields a power more durable than that of a great king.’

I’d spent many nights imagining myself wielding that power with wisdom and grace, as I cleansed the world of parental deceit and industrial chimneys.

As I considered Ms. West’s suggestion, I also thought of how Churchill overcame his own deficits. There were plenty. Fat, short, and stammering, he’d had to apply great will to become the hallowed speaker he was in later years. So why was I meekly deferring to my own deficit of popularity?

‘Okay,’ I said.

‘You’ll run?’

‘Yes.’

She smiled, and from her desk drawer she removed the nomination form.

‘We need a platform,’ she said.

‘Stopping Triads.’

‘The cartel?’

‘And acid rain.’

‘Toby, can I suggest you only include local issues? Better water fountains, longer recess breaks?’

‘But that’s small stuff.’

‘They’re popular and more realistic.’

‘What if Triads and acid rain are Devil things?’

‘Don’t complicate this, Toby.’

We can discuss my platform later, I thought. I signed the form.

The first candidate debate was a fortnight away. Ms. West offered to help prepare me — in fact, she insisted — but staff weren’t permitted to interfere or show favouritism, so we arranged to meet after school under the guise of spiritual counsel. It felt grubby, but Ms. West tried to quell my guilt by reminding me of Pete’s moral turpitude.*

[* Garry wonders what this word means and if its use is ‘absolutely fucken necessary’, and I’m wondering if the reader’s interest can survive all of his fucking interruptions. ‘You promised me I’d be involved in this book, Toby.’

‘You extorted the privilege from me.’

‘I don’t fucken see the difference, mate.’]

‘I know you want to run on an ambitious