Campaign Ruby Part 19

He looked me up and down. 'Thongs.' He disappeared behind his counter.

'I beg your pardon?' I steeled myself to slap him before he popped up with a pair of flip-flops bearing the Australian flag. 'They're magnificent,' I said, stepping out of my melting pumps onto the union jack and southern cross.

'Now, we don't have much by way of ladies wear, but I do have some s.h.i.+rts.' He presented me with a pile of plastic-wrapped T-s.h.i.+rts, including a canary-yellow vest with x.x.xX Queensland Australia emblazoned on it in red block letters.

'Is this supposed to be some sort of p.o.r.nographic reference?'

'That's Fourex,' he belly laughed.

I was still blank.

'Beer. You tourists crack me up.'

I emerged from his shop wearing a billowing yellow x.x.xX vest as a belted mini dress, aviator sungla.s.ses and by far the most comfortable pair of shoes I'd ever owned. It wasn't my most flattering ensemble, particularly as the yellow didn't do much for my deathly pale skin tone, but I couldn't have cared less. As I approached the hire car, Maddy honked the horn and Di managed to wolf-whistle through her raucous laughter as she photographed me with her BlackBerry.

'Oh yes,' I said, 'mock the tourist.'

'You spaz,' said Maddy. 'There's a clothes shop just around the corner!'

Spaz?

She connected her iPod to the car and put on some Dixie Chicks.

'So, how far away is this property?' I asked Maddy once we were on the road.

'About ninety minutes south of here, give or take a few.'

'Won't we be in New South Wales by then?'

'Not even close, sweet girl. This great state has almost two million square kilometres.'

'In miles?'

'Dunno,' said Di, holding her phone to the sky to find a signal, 'but the UK is about a quarter of a million.'

'The seat of Rafter alone is bigger than the UK,' said Maddy.

It was unfathomable. 'What's this candidate's name?'

'Felicia Lunardi,' said a straight-faced Di. 'I s.h.i.+t you not.'

An unfortunate name for someone about to face national ridicule for spotting aliens in western Queensland, I thought, before allowing the highway to rock me to sleep.

'Roo,' said Maddy, stirring me, 'we're almost there.'

It was just past eleven, and even with the air-conditioning at sixteen degrees, the car windows were hot to the touch. We pulled over at a large homestead where a tall, muscular woman in a long denim skirt and collared s.h.i.+rt came to welcome us with a sideways wave which I later realised was not a local greeting but a routine fly-clearing motion.

'You're from Max Masters' office?'

'That's us,' said Di, with two tiny flies above her lip. 'I'm Di, and these are my colleagues Maddy and Roo.'

I'd already danced the dirt drive towards her shaded verandah to escape the heat and hundreds of flies that seemed to be using my back as an insect airport.

'Don't mind Roo,' said Maddy, 'she's a Brit.'

'Very pleased to meet you all,' she said, staring at my mini-dress. 'I'm Felicia, but everyone calls me Flick. Con's just made some pikelets and a jug of cordial, so why don't you come inside and have some morning tea.'

We followed her into a huge country kitchen where a mustachioed man in an ap.r.o.n was spooning jam and cream onto perfectly formed drop scones. 'My husband, Con,' said Flick. 'Con, meet Di, Maddy and Roo.'

'Sit down and tuck in while the pikelets are still warm,' he said. The table was cluttered with piles of FLICK LUNARDI FOR RAFTER paraphernalia.

'Sorry for the mess,' said Con. 'We're in the middle of folding and stuffing postal vote information.'

'Now,' said Flick, pouring us each a gla.s.s of orange squash, 'what are you all doing here?'

Di took the floor. 'The thing is, the party found your blog.'

'So what?' said Flick. Con hung his head.

'Well, it's a little...unconventional,' Di said gently. 'The other side knows about it so it's only a matter of time before it's public knowledge.'

'Let me get this straight,' said Flick, raising her voice. 'You guys came all the way out here because you've seen a blog linked to my campaign office IP address about other life out there. You think I'm a fruitloop.'

That's it in a nutsh.e.l.l, said my head.

'Yes,' said Di.

Flick rocked back on a st.u.r.dy chair. 'I'm the first proper local candidate the party has had out here for years. We're working our b.u.ms off trying to improve this margin, with little or no help from you lot, and now you come up here to tell me I mightn't be good enough for this seat?'

Di appeared unfazed.

'Let me tell you something, flossy,' thundered Flick. 'The people who will go to the ballot box in this electorate know who I am. They don't give a s.h.i.+t about Max Masters and Gabrielle Brennan-they want to send a local to Canberra. I've worked too b.l.o.o.d.y hard on this campaign, driving and sometimes flying tens of thousands of kilometres for a cup of tea, waiting weeks for a new photocopier, running a federal election campaign from a b.l.o.o.d.y dial-up modem-'

'Tell 'em, darl,' interrupted Con.

She looked at him intently.

'It's okay,' he said. 'You tell 'em or I will.'

She shook her head.

'It's my blog,' said Con.

'Don't, love,' said Flick. 'You don't have to do this.'

'Yes, I do, sweetheart.' He turned to us. 'It's my blog- Flick's covering for me.'

Di sighed, relieved.

'I've taken long service leave from the mine to work on the campaign,' Con explained. 'Sometimes when we're at the campaign office I use the internet there. Rings of Love is my username.'

'Would you be willing to say that on the record?'

'No, he would not,' said Flick.

'Sure,' said Con.

I took the last bite of my third delicious drop scone.

'Why don't we meet you at the launch,' said Di. 'Call me when you've made a decision about how you want to handle this.'

The function room at the weatherboard pub smelled like beer, salt, chalk and air-conditioning, with a hint of nicotine still lingering from before the ban. Three coin-operated billiards tables had been pushed aside to make room for the campaign launch. Maddy and I unstacked a tower of plastic orange chairs and tested the microphone while Di briefed Mick O'Donoghue. He had arrived half an hour before the launch. 'It's been an absolute b.l.o.o.d.y stinker today, hasn't it?' said the tanned octogenarian in an almost indecipherable Australian accent. 'Dry as a dead dingo's donger.'

'Donger?' I whispered to Maddy. She laughed.

'Silly b.u.g.g.e.r,' said Mick, when Di told him about Con's sightings. 'Imagine if I'd gone blurting out all my thoughts on a public noticeboard in my day. So, what's the game plan?'

'There's a whole bunch of gallery who have turned up to hear you speak,' said Di. 'The sitting member has been backgrounding on the blog, which for all they know is Flick's. I've drawn up a few lines for you to look over in case you're asked about it.'

He spotted his reflection in a framed photograph of Her Majesty circa 1976 and licked three wrinkly brown fingers to smooth down his remaining silver hair. If I hadn't seen him do that, I'd have let him borrow the comb in my Toolkit.

'Which journos are coming?'

'All the local press,' said Di. 'The Queenslander, a junior bloke from the Herald and one of the TV guys who's been travelling with the national campaign.'

'Who?'

'I don't know if you'll know him,' said Di. 'His name's Oscar Franklin.'

My tower of chairs toppled and crashed.

The former prime minister stared at me. 'Oscar,' he said, 'the looker.'

'I need to go to the motel and change before the launch,' I told Maddy.

'They're about to arrive. There's no time.'

'I can't let anyone see me like this. It'd be unprofessional.'

My head threatened to disown me. You look like a tattooed banana.

'You look fine,' lied Maddy. 'Anyway, you and I have to distribute the press release for Di. She doesn't want the gallery to know she's micromanaging this; otherwise, they'll sense we're antic.i.p.ating disaster.'

I ducked into the loo behind the lectern and tipped my Toolkit into the sink.

Nothing in there is going to disguise the fact that you're wearing a promotional beer vest and flip-flops to a press conference.

'n.o.body likes a naysayer,' I snapped, digging through my stash for instant remedies. My right hand spritzed my pits with perfumed antiperspirant. My left attacked my knotty hair with a comb. I gargled mouthwash, blotted greasy skin, added las.h.i.+ngs of mascara to the existing coat and plastered nude gloss to my lips.

Ten minutes later, I burst out of the bathroom. 'Ta da!' I twirled on the spot.

Maddy's eyebrows were so raised they had almost crossed her hairline. The empty function room I had only just left was still quiet but now full. Most of the thirty-five orange seats had bottoms in them, including Oscar's very cute one in the front row. Cameras rolled. Sound technicians smirked. I glanced sideways to see Flick and Mick at the lectern in front of Her Majesty and the Australian flag. Mick cleared his throat. The microphone screeched.

Ruby, if I could self-decapitate right now, roll out the door of this ghastly h.e.l.lhole and hitchhike back to Melbourne Airport at the mercy of a 25-stone lorry driver called Kev, I would-even if Kev was a yodeller.

'Terribly sorry.' I shrunk into the stifling silence.

Oscar patted the empty seat beside him. I sank onto it and hung my head. 'Nice wife-beater,' he whispered.

Wife-beater?

My BlackBerry buzzed.

Ruby, Please call me as soon as launch is over.

Regards Luke Harley Chief of Staff Leader of the Opposition 'This isn't live, is it?' I whispered to Oscar at the end of Mick's speech.

He nodded.

'Why? It's a teeny-tiny campaign launch in the middle of nowhere.'

He handed me a breaking news story. PM SLAMS OPPOSITION FOR 'ET' CANDIDATE.

'b.a.l.l.s.'

Photographers and cameramen moved towards the lectern where Mick was shaking Flick's hand. There was applause from campaign supporters as Flick moved to centre stage.

'I'm happy to take a few questions now,' she said.

'Mrs Lunardi,' said Oscar, 'there are reports of an internet blog called Rings of Love originating from your campaign office. The blog appears to be about crop circles and extraterrestrial life in western Queensland. Is it yours?'

'No, it's not.'

'Well, whose is it?'

She paused. 'I am lucky enough to have a huge number of volunteer staff who work hard to see our party elected nationally and, of course, in the seat of Rafter. They tell me they want to put a local back in Canberra for Rafter. I was born and raised in western Queensland and have lived here all my life. My husband, Con, has worked in Isa as a mining engineer for twenty years. Since I was twenty I've been a nurse for the Royal Flying Doctor Service from Normanton to Longreach and everywhere in between-'

'Do you think crop circles are messages from life on Saturn?'

'No, I don't. Now if you don't mind, I've got work to do. Thank you all for coming.' She took Con by the hand and walked out. The cameras and questions followed.

I went to the verandah, where a man wearing the same vest as me was having a smoke.

'What the f.u.c.k, Roo?' said Luke when I dialled his number.

'I'm truly sorry, Luke. I left an empty room to go to the bathroom and came back ten minutes later to find it full of people.'

'Felicia's launch was due to start at four. So, at four, when you'd finished in the bathroom, did you happen to think to yourself, "Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't burst through the doors and scream 'ta da' like a b.l.o.o.d.y stripper jumping out of a dirty old man's birthday cake"?'