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

is not fair to say that. But he does do gas at us, and it is bad and makes your eyes wet.’

Ms. West was mouthing the word ‘No’, but I ignored her.

‘I want us all to share the bad things our monster has done. Don’t be scared. Desert Storm is lots of people fighting a bad man, and we are lots of people too. So please put your hand up if Pete has stolen your custard or punched your arm or pulled your hair or scared you with bad words or done some urine on your shoes when you weren’t looking.’

I waited. The audience was silent, unmoving. I heroically fought the impulse to fill the silence. I waited a beat longer. And then, thrillingly, half of my peers declared their victimisation. I now owned the room.

‘Sometimes storms scare us. I get scared by storms sometimes, and dogs get scared all the time — you can hear them cry because they think God is yelling at them. But don’t be scared. Do you know that storms can clean things like streets? They can blow bad things away. I guess now I’m thinking that they can blow good things away too, like fences or small animals. But they can blow rubbish away, and we can be a good storm that cleans the bad smell because it is bad to have urine at you.’

‘Toby, you have one minute.’

‘I will make a longer lunch for us and better food in the canteen, and I will start a petition for stopping poisoned rain and opium shipments. Also, I think we can do pen pals with the radioactive children in Chernobyl, because they want friends. I have heaps more ideas and you can ask me about them. Thank you.’

The crowd went mad. They began chanting my name. Ms. West was right — Pete’s authority was hollow. But she had badly underestimated the depth of their hatred. This wasn’t a debate. It was a coup. I was facilitating mass catharsis. So long as I gave voice to Pete’s victims, so long as I humiliated him, I could propose whatever I liked. Shorter lunch breaks, worse food. It didn’t matter. What mattered was his scalp, and I was the boy to help them take it.

This discovery was accidental, but that didn’t dilute my exhilaration. The noise was so thick I thought I could surf it — all the way to the glittering shore of school captain. Surely, in just over a week, I’d arrive there. And once I did, the world’s industrial polluters and heroin makers would have to look out.

But then the Bessie stuff happened.

Even as a child, I never really understood the Bessie thing. I suppose I felt some pride that Perth held the world’s only moray eel then breeding in captivity, but it seemed like a pretty tenuous and obscure thing to hang a city’s pride on. Even more obscure — but of infinite fascination to the city — was the species’ capacity for sequential sex-changes.

Images of Bessie the Hermaphrodite Eel were ubiquitous. She was on T-shirts, bumper stickers, billboards. In the city’s mall stood a statue of Bessie balancing five beachballs on her tail, and after it was harmlessly wreathed in toilet paper, laws were passed mandating five years imprisonment for the statue’s ‘defacement’.

I suspect the popularity of Bessie began as provincial insecurity. A highly self-conscious quirkiness, performed for the indifferent citizens of bigger cities. See how charmingly eccentric we are, smug denizens of the East? But it got out of hand. What began as an ironic, performative admiration gradually morphed into a frighteningly sincere devotion. Bessie became the city’s sacred totem, a mix of Don Bradman and the Turin Shroud.

And three days before the school election, my father killed her.

That afternoon, our classroom’s speaker crackled. ‘Beloved staff and children,’ the principal said, ‘it is my mournful duty to inform you that Bessie — our Bessie — has died in an aviation incident. Teachers, given the historic importance of this moment, you may turn your televisions on if you believe the news broadcasts won’t be too painful or provocative. Children, we are putting on extra chaplains if you need someone to speak to. Please be kind to each other.’

An aviation incident? Why was Bessie on a plane? Was Bessie flying the plane? Maybe Bessie was exceptional? My thoughts were broken by the wailing of peers. Then our teacher’s.

The facts, as determined by the state coroner some months later, were these: on a bright Wednesday afternoon, Geoffrey Ruskin sat behind the controls of his Cessna Skylark awaiting clearance. He was an experienced pilot, but never in his 4,000 hours had he shared the cockpit with his wife — that is, until their 50th wedding anniversary. The flight was his gift to her.

My father gave Ruskin clearance. The weather was ideal, and the couple flew some circuits over the river. It had taken a while, but husband and wife were finally up there together — contemplating fresh vistas of their city and, just maybe, their wedding vows.

Then Geoffrey’s heart stopped.

The Skylark has a dual instrument panel, which meant Dorothy didn’t have to dislodge her limp husband from the controls. They were right in front her — she just needed to know how to use them. From the control tower, it was my father’s job to teach her. The following transcript was released by the coroner:

GEORGE BEAVERBROOK: My dear girl, we’re going to look after your husband, but first we need to get you both down.

DOROTHY RUSKIN: Okay.

BEAVERBROOK: I need you to straighten up a little — just gently bring the yoke down to your left.

RUSKIN: Okay.

BEAVERBROOK: Perfect. Now, we want to bring the plane down slowly — you’ll see in the distance a green field.

RUSKIN: But that’s near the zoo.

BEAVERBROOK: Does that matter?

RUSKIN: I don’t want to jeopardise Bessie.

BEAVERBROOK: It’s an old landing strip, my dear. It’s perfect.

RUSKIN: It’s too close to Bessie.

BEAVERBROOK: Dorothy?

RUSKIN: Yes?

BEAVERBROOK: You’ve never flown a plane before.

RUSKIN: That’s correct.

BEAVERBROOK: So an eel