Shh... it's a secret

I have a confession to make. It’s a big one; you might not like it. In fact, you might not like me—it’s that bad. You know how we’ve been hanging out for a while, spending some time together …? It’s just that, well, I’ve met someone else. And we’re in love. Well, I am. It was an accident, I never meant this to happen … really, you’ve got to believe me.


It’s not my fault, he’s just everything I’ve ever looked for in a man: charming, funny, erudite … rich. There’s just one problem.

His politics.

Dear reader, I have abandoned you and everything we stood for, because quite simply, I am in love. Rapturously, mind-blowingly, heart-thumpingly in love. With Malcolm Turnbull. I don’t know how it happened. I mean, I love Kevin. I do. I just don’t love him, if you know what I mean. But Malcolm; Malcolm leaves me breathless, giggling like a schoolgirl into my twinset and pearls.


There’s just something about Malcolm; maybe it’s the hair, maybe it’s those rounded vowels, maybe it’s the way he made even the word ‘battler’ sound like it’s dripping with luscious blue blood. I really don’t know, but what I do know is that if there’s any more TV coverage of this particular silver fox, I may have to toss out my leftist sympathies for good.


So what’s a girl to do? If the situation were reversed, I know exactly how things would go. Malcolm would burst through my study door. His hair would be tousled; he would look wretched, tormented. He would possibly be wearing breeches. He would look deep into my eyes and say, through gritted teeth, “In vain have I struggled. It will not do. You must allow me to tell you how much I ardently admire and … love you”.


Upon seeing his magnificent grounds at Double Bay, or wherever it is he lives, and after much ideological foreplay, I would relent. I would ascend to position of stratospheric power and influence to prove that class is no barrier to success in Australia. And he, under the influence of my socialist tendencies, would give away his money to the poor. Well, not all of it; or, at least, not enough to make a difference to us, anyway.


It'd make a great book, eh?


As things stand, however, I don’t have much ammunition on my side. I can’t afford my health insurance, see, so my bright eyes have a bit of a squint these days; with my ill-fitting clothes I’m probably not quite handsome enough to tempt him; I could perhaps get my maid to cook him a seductive meal of tofu, but it might be a little bland, as fresh veg is kind of costly right now. At the very least it will be by candlelight (this will help save on utilities, too).


It kills me to say this, Mal, but it’s just not meant to be. I love you, I do, but you’re living, as I once read in a particularly bad Tolstoy translation, ‘in cloud-cuckoo land’. This doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. I’d do anything for you, really, you have to believe me. You can have my heart, you can have my soul, you can have my body, you can even, tempter that you are, have my self-respect. But my life’s darling, heart of my heart, source of all meaning in my world; it pains me to say this, but you can never, ever, have my vote.

xox