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resigned!”
    â€œSweetheart, what did you expect? I believe your story and I’m sure the Post believes it. But they back the Government, they back the war. They couldn’t print subversive stuff like yours. It would be like asking Old Jack Pack to vote Labour.” John Pack was the fifth generation of the family that owned the Post. “Go and ask them for your job back, tell ‘em you had second thoughts.”
    â€œGod Almighty, how can you suggest such a thing? I’m not a bloody politician, I can’t compromise like you—”
    He was not hurt by her remark, he had been too long in politics to be wounded by insults. The fun of politics for him was the insults; they were part of the masochism. Or so he said with the belly-laugh.
    â€œSweetheart, things like you describe happen in all wars.” He had not fought in World War Two. He had been in Parliament then, in his first term; he had also had a bad back, a heritage of his days as a sheep-shearer, and the army had rejected him. There were times when he regretted he had not gone to the war: he still dreamed of being a real hero, more than just a warrior with words. There had been snide remarks by Government members during the Vietnam debates about his never having seen a shot fired in anger, and those insults had hurt. “I remember an incident in New Guinea during World War Two. I heard about it, but none of us ever bothered to check it because it put our fellers in a bad light. They were supposed to have bayoneted something like a hundred wounded Japs rather than take them prisoner. They could have shot them, but they preferred to bayonet them. That was hushed up because God was supposed to be on our side and no Aussie mum wanted to be told her son was a murderer.”
    She was prepared to believe anything about men: she was blind with rage and frustration. It was men who had killed her story. “That was over twenty years ago, before I was born. You men have always been fighting dirty wars . . . This is now, the war that’s going on right now !”
    He could see it was pointless arguing with her. He, like most politicians, knew when an argument was lost. “All right. What are you going to do, then?”
    They were in the house where she had been born, in Coogee, looking down towards the beach. Her mother, feeling secure in suburbia, had never wanted to leave here, at least not unless she could move back to the even better security of the bush. Her father, safe in a Labour seat (when he had been a Member of the House and not yet in the Senate), had always said he would never desert the voters who had given him his start. He ignored the fact that, as time went on, a lot of his voters prospered, moved to more affluent districts and began to vote for the other party. The house had none of the flamboyance of Sylvester: it was like Brigid Spearfield, solid, modest, a small fortress against the sins and temptations of a larger world. Not that much sin and temptation passed up and down the streets of Coogee.
    â€œI’m going to London.” Where sin and temptation abounded, but that was not the reason for her going.
    That surprised him. He had always supposed that she would want to stay close to home, to be comforted and supported. She was a radical like himself, of course, but radicalism in women never lasted. “Oh . . . well, I guess it’s a good idea to see as much as you can before you marry and settle down. You want an introduction to anyone? Harold Wilson? He’d know someone in Fleet Street.”
    â€œNo, Dad. I want to do it on my own.” Before I marry and settle down, but she didn’t add that, afraid of the bitter sarcasm on her tongue.
    â€œWell, I suppose so. I did.”
    â€œNo, you didn’t. You had Mum.”
    He had the grace to look ashamed. “Do you think I’ve forgotten? Well, good luck, sweetheart. I hope the Poms appreciate you. How long will you be