CHAPTER 4
Fatima’s Café is my favourite place to go between parliament sessions.
It’s the kind of place that trendy people call ‘a hidden gem’ to excuse the furnishings.
The taupe chairs are the stackable type, with vinyl cushioning that’s cracked at the edges after a lifetime of providing bum comfort.
The specials are scrawled by Fatima herself on an old whiteboard that hangs near the entrance.
The walls are dotted with old Blu Tack stains, and when you throw in the halogen strip-lighting, the effect is eerily reminiscent of a psych ward. I find it quite soothing.
I’m about to order the lamb pie when I hear a growl in my ear.
‘Go for the pie, Millsy.’
Ugh. I spin around and find myself face-to-face with the devil, otherwise known as Archie Cohen.
‘The salad, please,’ I say to the lady behind the counter. (Archie is always finding innovative ways to ruin my day.)
‘Remember that time you won the hotdog-eating contest?’ Archie says, as I tap my card on the payWave machine.
‘No,’ I reply tersely.
‘It’s burned in my memory,’ sighs Archie. ‘I think of it at least once a month.’
Archie loves to bring up anecdotes from our past like some kind of horrible Facebook-memory machine.
He forgets that we were never even friends at uni.
He was a demi-god jock and I was a regular mortal, and thus he was way too cool to talk to me.
He only deigns to speak to me now because I’m his gateway to Boss.
‘Archibald, I have no recollection whatsoever of any hotdog-eating event. You should get yourself checked for early-onset dementia.’
Archie chuckles and turns to the cashier.
‘I’ll grab the pie, please, and a green juice.
’ The waitress smiles at him way too encouragingly and he grins back.
As per usual, he’s wearing a suit that is too small for his body.
He always looks as though he’s about to burst out of his clothes like the Hulk.
I would never verbalise this though, because he’d probably take it as a compliment.
‘That was pretty boring,’ comments Archie, tilting his head back towards Parliament House. ‘I thought Nancy Miller might at least fire some parting shots, go down with guns blazing.’
Away from the camera Archie’s voice has a buoyant lilt, as if he’s on the verge of exploding with laughter at his own wit.
‘What are you talking about?’ I say crossly.
‘Didn’t you see the polls? Everyone’s sick of her. They’re sick of the party. Especially after your Pools in Schools debacle last weekend. The only reason she’d get re-elected is because she’s the nicest person in politics.’
I scoff. ‘That’s what she wants you to believe.’
‘Compared with your boss, Miller could win a Nobel Prize for likeability.’
‘Boss is completely likeable,’ I retort. ‘It’s just that most people don’t realise because he gets lumped in with all the other middle-aged white men in politics. He’s a victim of homogeneity.’
Archie arches an eyebrow. ‘That must be so hard for him.’
I smile because I quite enjoy it when Archie resorts to sarcasm. It means I’ve frustrated him, which is a daily goal of mine.
‘Anyway, those Newspoll stats aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on,’ I say.
Archie cocks his head. ‘Is that you or the boss talking, Millsy?’
My smile fades instantly. How does Archie know Boss said that? It’s infuriating. He always seems to know everything. It’s why his biceps are so big. They’re full of secrets.
I stride off with my pre-made salad to my regular spot by the window and I’m about to start eating when an oversized body sits down opposite me as if he were invited.
‘So what scoops can you give me, Millsy?’ Archie sprawls his lunch across the table and lounges back in his chair.
I spear a chunk of pumpkin. ‘What makes you think I have any scoops, Archibald?’
Calling Archie ‘Archibald’ brings me infinite joy. I’m pretty sure he hates it because it makes him sound like a toffee-nosed private-school boy. The fact he actually did go to a private school (thanks to a rugby scholarship) makes the nickname all the more satisfying.
Archie drapes his arm over the empty chair beside him and his fingers start drumming the frame.
Off-air, he’s a fidgeter—the type of guy who compulsively rips beer coasters into tiny shreds.
I’d put it down to sexual frustration but that doesn’t check out.
From what he tells me, Archie has an abnormally satisfying sex life.
‘Millsy, you know the party is going to need some strong headlines if they’re going to have any chance of winning, so I’m pretty confident you’ll have a few good stories up your sleeve. Especially since you’re such a pro.’
‘Why thank you, Archibald,’ I say sweetly, my eyes like daggers. This is a game we’re used to playing. We each pretend we’re the picture of civility, but we both know that as soon as the other’s back is turned, we’ll have the machetes out ready to strike.
Boss hates Archie because Archie seems to target him.
Archie hates Boss because he reckons he’s a wanker (and to this I’d say: Boss is not a wanker, but takes one to know one).
I hate Archie on behalf of Boss, and also because Archie’s a smug-faced bonehead; and Archie hates me because I protect Boss.
All in all, the hate balances out like a perfect mathematical equation.
I swallow a mouthful of salad and clear my throat. ‘If I have any good announcements coming up, you’ll find out about them when I send the media alert to you and every other journalist in the state. This election campaign, we’re not playing games. We’re working for the people of New South Wales.’
Archie snorts into his green juice. ‘You sound like such a tosser when you quote your own media releases.’
‘Must have been a good line if you can remember it so clearly,’ I retort.
Archie smirks. ‘I remember everything you say.’
‘Whereas I, on the other hand, go to great lengths to ignore you. Sometimes when you’re talking I recite the national anthem in my head.’ It’s not even a lie.
Archie grins because he’s annoying. ‘Have you heard I’ve left Channel Five?’
‘No!’ I exclaim. Immediately, a tiny conga-line of munchkins in my head starts singing, Ding-dong! The witch is dead.
‘I’m going freelance,’ he says.
‘What? Why?’ Political broadcast journalists don’t freelance. They’re tied to their networks like prize pooches, permitted to yap and prance around but never allowed to bite the hand that feeds them.
Archie shrugs. ‘I thought I may as well give it a shot. I’d had some calls from a few networks and I figured, rather than deciding on one, I might as well work for all of them. It means I can do some print journalism too and choose my hours a bit more.’
I gulp down another piece of pumpkin, the cogs in my mind starting to whir as I grasp the implications of what he’s just said.
Archie’s career’s not dead! It’s alive! In the worst possible way!
If I thought it was bad that he had a whole commercial network behind him, what’s it going to be like when he’s everywhere?
Archie stands up, slurping the last of his green juice. ‘Call me,’ he says.
I grip my fork harder and amp up the sugar in my voice. ‘I won’t!’ I sing.
‘You need to!’ Archie sings back with a wicked glint in his eyes. He waves and heads back across the road as I scowl into my salad and bring up the polling websites on my phone. The numbers are worse than I thought.
With a sinking thud in my stomach, I realise Archie is right. I do have to call him. If we’re going to win this election, we will need all the coverage we can get—even if it’s from the devil himself.