Dismantle

Dismantle

  by

  Michael J. McDonald

  * * * * *

  Cover Photograph by Dora Pete (porah @ stock.xchng)

  Dismantle

  Copyright 2012 by Michael J. McDonald

  Sunday September 3rd

  3.27am

  A week is a long time in politics. Sure it is. Look what happened to Jesus in a week.

  Seems like a lifetime between now and my destination, though. Next Monday night, the polls will be in, and all this rising in the middle of the night like a damn vampire will be over. They'll hopefully stop slathering my face in that gritty pale makeup too, once I actually get the job and don't have to look pretty for the cameras. Sometimes I wish it was tomorrow, that I could wake up after switching my brain off for all those cringe-worthy interviews with sharp women in scratchy polyester suits just trying to sting me with the right question. I doubt they'd notice the difference, the staff rehearsed me so well I could answer in my sleep. Couldn't dress in my sleep, of course, still got to get that style down. They won't let me wear black every day. This is all so tiring, calculating every motion, constructing every smile, just to make sure no bloody journalist can come along and tell everyone that psychologists say people who have the same number of creases in their face that I do are 42 per cent more likely to crash a train. I know what's coming, but I go on anyway. If we don't win this election, the country will slide further into the toilet.

  4.25am

  The make-up's on. They put on an extra layer this time, to hide the bags under my eyes, and I received a stern talking to by my aide for staying up so late reading. It's not my job to read, apparently. Must remember to remind Rachel just who might be the next Prime Minister of this country. I need coffee to wake up.

  4.29am

  When I'm in charge, men in make-up will be allowed to drink their coffee, smudges be damned!

  4.44am

  In the car. Why is it whenever I look at a clock in the car, the digits are all the same? Must mean something, but thank goodness there aren't more than 60 minutes an hour or some readings might make me paranoid. I can just about keep my croissant down (it was stale too, not even the bakers are awake to make new ones yet) as we run through sheets of my most basic points and run over a lot of potholes. The fact sleep is drawing my eyes together and it's still dark outside doesn't help, so I ask Rachel to read them out to me. How she managed to wake up and dress perfectly at an even earlier hour than me is a mystery. Perhaps she should be the Prime Minister and organise the country.

  5.00am

  At the television studio. In more make-up. Not a happy MP.

  6.19am

  Good interview. I was lucky, it's a magazine show and they mostly wanted to talk about down-to-earth things like my wife. Made me look very reasonable to both sides. I talked of my love and devotion to my wife, and that appeals to the conservative voters who are worried about the moral slide of Britain. Yet I let that discussion of traditional married life slide itself, spilling into topics that are a little cheeky, to show the liberals I'm not a boring old stuffed shirt. Rachel is pleased, but worries I may have exerted a little too much effort for an audience consisting of all the 34 other people who are actually up watching TV at 6 on a Sunday morning.

  7.02am

  A hearty, proper breakfast that was made today, and onwards we go to Birmingham, my constituency. Another media opportunity, opening a stand for the local football team. Note to Rachel: get me the name of the local football team. I hope the welcome is a little more flattering than the last time I was there; some people weren't too happy that I hadn't vocally condemned council plans to legalise prostitution on a 200 yard stretch of road. Dry cleaners charge a lot these days, don't they?

  6.14pm

  Astonishing. You would've thought I was opening the gates to heaven with the raucous welcome waiting for me. There were so many fans standing on the ground, they might well manage to fill that stadium someday. I was cheered with every step along a path of soft striped scarves they had thrown onto the gangway cleared for me. When I cut the ribbon you'd think they had won the world cup. I don't quite see how one can become so excited by cutting a ribbon in front of a building that has actually been in use for two months already, but I suppose that's the mystery of 'official' opening ceremonies.

  9.25pm

  Time for bed. I've not been in bed this early on a Sunday since I was at school, and my stomach bubbles with the same trepidation of the day to come as it did then. Public speaking tomorrow. Best not yawn at the podium.

  Monday September 4th

  5.59am

  That terrifying song by Sonny and Cher is on the radio, it's cold outside and I've woken up with that far too familiar feeling of half my mind being left somewhere deep in the mattress. Just when I think I'm living (or reliving) in Groundhog Day, Rachel bangs on the room door to remind me the hotel will be serving breakfast in 34 seconds. Good. Maybe I'll be able to get food poisoning and escape this bloody speech. Telling a bunch of nurses at St. Mungo's hospital what a wonderful job they are doing despite the ineptitude of the current government? How cloying can it get? But the benefits can't be denied: everyone wants a better health service and everyone knows it's not going to happen, so I can support it whilst promising nothing. No-one believes promises anymore, so when they sit down tonight and get told what I really meant on Newsnight, they'll appreciate that I didn't insult their intelligence.

  6.12am

  Orange juice and gritty clumps of wheat in a bowl of milky water is not my idea of breakfast, but my aide insists that keeping in shape keeps me attractive to voters. My argument that voters like to see someone who likes a doughnut and a beer with the rest of them holds no water. Apparently the UK is not Texas.

  3.35pm

  Speech went well. I got a standing ovation, and a hospital cleaning lady made a rather flattering remark about my thighs. Perhaps Rachel was right. Got a message as soon as I left the stage; my wife called. She's not happy I didn't phone her this morning before leaving the hotel. She wouldn't be happy if I phoned at 6 in the morning either. I've long perceived trying not to annoy her as a microcosm of an election campaign. It's a knife-edge, and I'm in my awkward duffel coat mum would make me wear to school every winter.

  7.06pm

  Benefit night. One of several, really. Hobnobbing with all the rich and famous, the politicians and the puppeteers. I'm embarrassed to admit that I have no idea what charity we're raising money for. There's a guy in a wheelchair who I thought might've explained it but it turns out he's a professor of physics or something. When I asked him why we're here, his computer voice just said “I'm working on it.” I'll ask again later.

  7.24pm

  Thank God for Rachel. So many people have thrown names and handshakes at me, I don't think even my palmtop has room for it all. Fortunately she's always there to pick up their card and hide it in some magical place where she will never lose it. They don't even get the corners turned up or the paper cracked like everything does after 3 seconds in my pocket. Meet a stuffed shirt with a blue handkerchief in his breast pocket who seems more interested in my aide than myself.

  11.38pm

  I can't recall for the life of me if I've met this person before. Must find Rachel.

  Tuesday 5th September

  00.12am

  The party's winding down since they're out of wine. Turns out it was a Christian Coalition function, with the aim to raise awareness of modern society's erosion of Christian principles in a civil context. There was some debate about the origins of the universe as well. After, they showed us slides of graveyards in Flanders, great fields of white crosses, followed by more contemporary memorials, which were basically chunks of metal and
stone calling themselves abstract art. Disgraceful. No-one wants to commit themselves to representing everyone. I've said it before in my press releases, we can't raise another generation of neutrals, believing in nothing, afraid to take a point of view for stepping on someone else's. You'd think it was a sin to die a Christian now. Religion is the new pornography. That's a good line, I should use it at the function on Thursday. Oh well, time for bed.

  Thursday 7th September

  7.43pm

  So this is the last hoorah. The last big fundraiser before I have to go out amongst the people over the weekend. Rachel is putting the finishing touches to my wardrobe.

  7.52pm

  My wife phoned. Apparently there are rumblings on the news about me being too conservative. The Party is uneasy over my association with media magnates with Papal Knighthoods. Honestly. These people print topless schoolgirls in their newspapers and I'm too conservative for hanging around with them and pledging that my government would see school discipline rise to a level of days gone by. I even joked they might find themselves running out of sensational stories for their papers.

  8.01pm

  We're late, and very lucky the press wasn't waiting outside the elevator to see Rachel stuffing my shirt into my trousers. The doors just swished open to give the lobby a view of me in my stylish (so I'm told) suit and my ravishing redheaded aide wiggling her hand around to adjust something below my belt. She could have got me in real trouble. Feeling very fortunate.

  9.34pm

  Supper is a bust. I had forgotten how boring editors can be. Made a rousing speech, though, sitting at the centre of the table and breaking bread with the rich and influential, telling them I hoped they would remember me when I go to number 10. How many other prime ministers were friends of the press until they actually got the job? Of course they insisted not a one of them would stab me in the back and publish dubious stories, and hopefully so long as I can stop them being sued by other celebrities they'll leave me alone.

  10.07pm

  Went for some air. Lovely garden they have here. Rachel is out here too, taking a break from networking. She looks cold, so I give her my jacket.

  10.09pm

  Rachel is telling me a fascinating story about the lonely world of politics. No true friends, just stepping stones. No trust, just pant-shitting gambles. No life, just an endless cycle of functions without any fun. It's all work and no play. Wife calls. I let it go to message.

  10.13pm

  Poor Rachel, she's crying, with those big brown eyes. I risk a hug. Papparrazzi aren't likely to be skulking in the bushes in the back garden of a man owning a half dozen newspapers. The kiss was unexpected.

  10.18pm

  Wife calls. Someone hears a phone ringing in a bedroom and goes to pick it up. Gets an eyeful of MP and redhead. And the walls come tumbling down.

  Friday 8th September

  Too Early

  Haven't slept a bloody wink. Dawn cracks and the news buzzes onto the television in a sparse hotel room. I'm ahead of 50 deaths in Iraq and a typhoon in Cuba. Sex sells.

  6.27am

  I should've taken breakfast in my room. First editions litter the breakfast bar, my gray face streaked in ink across them, my hand up to blot out what I can of the camera. Of course I was surrounded by them by the time I got to the porch. They've got plenty of better shots, but none so juicy.

  7.10am

  A half hour shower couldn't wash the gritty feeling of guilt away from my gut, or streak the swirl of shame from my head. The phone has been quiet. My wife will know by now.

  7.13am

  Splitting the curtains open, I am assaulted by a lightning storm of flashbulbs, sending me into darkness. I wish it were a media circus outside, but this is far worse. They've gathered for an execution, swarming with a gleeful air of vultures ready to pick clean the bones. I say nothing; it's too late, it will only be another thread in the tapestry, a line sewn into a newspaper article that has damned me from the headline. The rest of the text is just decoration.

  7.25am

  I head down to the desk to check out, pay my bill, and be on my way. Putting it on my MP's expenses account may be pushing it, so I slip out my Visa when Rachel clacks her way over to the front desk in expensive heels. A wry smile crosses the lips of the sleepy lady tapping away slowly at her computer. Rachel pays cash, from a huge wad weighing down her handbag, and slips behind me and out the door, into a waiting car. A man in a suit with a blue handkerchief helps her in with a smile before closing the door. The car smoothly rolls through the crowd of press and drones away up the street.

  7.28am

  Finally the computer verifies my card and I am free to go. Aside from the wall of sharks outside, camera clicks sounding like gnashing teeth. Protesters have shown up now, with placards proclaiming me a hypocrite for that anti-gay marriage remark I made 6 weeks ago on a TV show broadcast at 2 in the morning. Some of them chant about practicing what one preaches. I wonder if they take that into account on any other day of the week.

  8.01am

  Having wrestled my way along the street to the carpark through a sea of humanity, scorn and questions flying at me from all directions, I take a seat as the driver rolls onwards. In the car is a man assigned by the party to take over my schedule, Rachel having been dismissed summarily. No doubt she will find gainful employment elsewhere. His name is Simon, and he informs me with good cheer that only a politician or their lackey could pull off at this time of the morning that I am being redirected to London to face the Party.

  11.09am

  Long trip. Sore bum.

  12.02pm

  Lunch is a cardboard sandwich and a coke from a petrol station. It's too risky to go to a service station for something hot, we might not get out of the carpark until the next election.

  2.45pm

  Parliament is a cold building. The stones are cruelly solid, locking me into my fate as I take each slow, heart-rending step into the chamber. This is the end. Considering the short notice, a surprising number of MPs have gathered to hunch in their benches overlooking the pit. I thirst, slurping up a bitter lemonade from the table, as we await the Speaker.

  3.00pm

  I resign. For the good of my Party, that they may find an electable leader, and for the nation, that they may yet achieve the ideals I could not hold onto for them. May my brothers know that I did not desert them, though they crucified me for the voters.