The Polluted Line

These were the points of shame; the entire public debate polluted with negativity, hostility, lies in the old format. There wasn't going to be any salvation, any way back. The public discourse had been entirely corrupted. His brain kept flitting across the extra domains of information it had acquired; the maps that showed him where his friend Don lived; the telephone number; all of it.

And oddly, he could see a list of all the numbers Don had called over the past six weeks; although there were patterns in the numbers. He could see, he didn't know how; that he had trouble with his plumbing a fortnight ago and called both his landlord and an emergency plumber; that he had been robbed and had to replace all his credit cards. But something inside him told him more; that one of those numbers held the key.

But who's side was he on? That's what he wanted to know.

Any progress? his boss asked yet again.

And he shook his head again; lying, again.

Partly because he couldn't explain how he knew what he knew. And partly because he kept glimpsing the full depth of Austin's bastardy; the callous disregard for those who had appeared before him; the sounds of children crying, daddy, daddy. And he was unconvinced the world was not a better place without him.

The thought kept recurring: should he tell someone the implant wasn't working? Should he go back to the doctors? Should he just let the chasms that kept opening up take their course? He didn't know, he just really didn't know.

THE BIGGER STORY:

THE AGE:

A bugger of a sorry life

Jewel Topsfield
November 10, 2007


WHEN Jackie Kelly decided to quit her seat of Lindsay in Sydney's western suburbs, the home of the mythical Howard battler, she famously declared politics was a "bugger of a life".

John Howard was probably inclined to agree after he courageously, some might say foolishly, visited the mortgage-belt electorate in the same week he declared he was sorry — but was not apologising — for a rate rise, and then blamed the other mob for playing word games. Quizzed ad nauseum about when sorry did not mean sorry, Mr Howard clarified on radio that he was the Prime Minister and not an English teacher.

He then dropped in on working-class Lindsay, held by a precarious 3 per cent by Ms Kelly, who came to symbolise the Coalition's success in winning seats considered Labor territory.

Mr Howard visited a fencing factory, where everyone was apparently loving workplace agreements, before braving the uncharted territory of Penrith shopping plaza.

There was chaos and carnage. The Prime Minister was mobbed by shoppers, demanding handshakes, kisses, photos — and to know what he was going to do about interest rates and climate change. One woman was knocked out cold by a rampaging soundie in the thick of the media scrum.