Sisterly Love is a serialized novel. To savor the full narrative experience, start at the beginning and work through the chapters in order. You can find chapters on the Home page or in the Archive.
CHAPTER 26
Summer’s phone trilled; her forehead crumpled into a frown. She glanced at the screen and sent the unknown number to voicemail, then silenced the device and returned to the briefing note she had been working on. Eleven months had passed since the P.M. set the date for the referendum, and the plebiscite was now just twelve weeks away. Summer looked at her watch: two hours until Question Time. She lowered her head and returned to the document she was reading.
The issue she was prepping for the P.M. dealt with an event that had occurred during yesterday’s Question Time. A minister on the other side of the House—an older, seasoned politician—threatened to cross the floor and vote with the Government after his own leader had, in his opinion, gone too far in his attack on women. The minister had been passionate in his conviction, breathlessly speaking of virtuousness, and of his three daughters, before accusing the Leader of the Opposition—who he had earlier described as “a good man”—of being “perilously close to undermining womanhood.” He went on to share his ideal of the natural characteristics of a woman (supportive … collaborative … productive—etcetera, etcetera.) and the media, with an ear to dissent, had played this up with talk of sexism and misogyny. The sentiment carried over into this morning’s public opinion polls, which suggested that the Opposition was at risk of losing an already slim margin, and seeing an opportunity for the P.M., Summer had seized on these data.
It was thirty minutes before she played back the message. She listened to it twice, the second time standing at her window with her forehead pressed to the pane, a hand cupped over her mouth. She slid her phone into her pocket, taking her eyes beyond the parking lot to the row of eucalypts; the evergreens seemed reverent in their deathly stillness. She glanced at her watch then returned to her desk where she took out a pen and a clean sheet of paper.
Dear P.M.,
You may recall our discussion about Kate Poole, the young woman from Gilgandra who attended last year’s demonstration and whose family withdrew their support for her after she came out as a lesbian. I have just now learned from her mother, Margaret Poole, that Kate has died. I understand that it was suicide. This is devastating news. But given the shift in public sentiment today, I felt it pertinent to let you know straight away.
Summer.
Summer slipped the note, together with her brief, into a purple folder then left her office. At the side door of the Chamber, she waited for the whip to approach the Table, turning away only after her communication had been safely delivered to the P.M.
She weaved back through the Parliamentary corridors as an apparition, the lightness in her step masking the heaviness in her heart. When she pushed into the P.M.’s private kitchen, Frankie looked up from her chopping board.
“Crikey!” she exclaimed. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Summer began to sob.
Frankie made her some tea and put sugar in it.
“You need to maintain your energy,” she said, pressing the mug into Summer’s hands.
She pulled out a stool and sitting down beside her asked, “Can I hear the message?”
Summer placed her phone on the countertop and pressed the play button. Peg’s voice burst through the tinny speaker; there was no misconstruing her rage.
“Summer O’Flynn. This is Margaret Poole. Your business card with your private number was in a carton of my daughter’s belongings, returned to me by the police. I’m sure you know that Kate has taken her life. What I want to know is what you were doing with my daughter? Don’t you think you’ve done enough to our family? You come into people’s lives and leave disaster and ruin in your wake. I hope you rot in hell!”
Tears rolled down Summer’s cheeks as her grief emerged in anguished sobs. An old cavity deep within claimed a little bit more as she mourned for herself and then for Kate: the alienation, the isolation, and the loneliness that had been Kate’s companion in life and at her end.
After a while, Frankie stood and went into the P.M.’s office. She returned moments later with a heavy-duty binder, which she laid before Summer.
“I know you don’t want to hear this,” said Frankie, “but life goes on... including and especially yours.”
Summer nodded and tried to pull herself together.
“If you can’t do it for yourself,” Frankie said, “do it for Kate.”
Summer nodded again, “Nana Laurel would agree with you,” she said in a whisper.
“You cannot afford to buy into that woman’s guilt,” said Frankie, laying an open palm on the folder and sliding it toward Summer. “This is a sample of last month’s correspondence to the P.M. You can see for yourself that she’s held responsible for every little misfortune in the lives of people she has never met. Some Australians think she should apologize to them for the state of their lives; others think that she should pay them money they lost; many want her to resign her Office. An alarming number of people tell her she should be dead. Some even tell her they plan to kill her. Do you think she could do her job if she took these things to heart?”
Summer leafed through the letters.
On the television screen the static image of the House of Representatives suddenly disappeared and the words “The House is in session,” came on the screen.
“It’s starting,” said Frankie.
Summer took the remote control and unmuted the sound as the camera zoomed in on the Member for Guernsey, who was standing three rows behind the Leader of the Opposition.
“Mr. Speaker,” the Member for Guernsey boomed. “My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister tells us that young women don’t want careers in politics because politics is too violent. But has she considered that this political environment or, to use the Prime Minister’s description, this “boy’s club,” is in fact an incarnation of the natural order? And does she realize that those sensible young women who were polled both know and accept their place in that order?”
The camera pulled back, and the Leader of the Opposition could be seen pushing back into his chair. He rested his ankle on his knee and folded his arms, then smirked expectantly at the P.M.
Someone on the Government side yelled, “If natural order had anything to do with it mate, you’d still be an amoeba!”
The Government side cheered and applauded.
The Speaker called for order.
The P.M. held the Leader of the Opposition’s gaze as she approached the microphone.
“Mr. Speaker, I say to the Leader of the Opposition that people who live in glasshouses shouldn’t throw stones.”
The Government side cheered.
“The fact is,” the P.M. continued, “that the Member for Guernsey is terrified of a Yes vote because a Yes vote would lead to mutual respect: the melting pot might finally melt, and that, Mr. Speaker, is a terrifying prospect for this un-Australian Australian. God forbid! He would have to take fifty per cent of the population seriously.”
The Leader of the Opposition rolled his eyes. “Shut up girly,” he mouthed at the P.M.
The P.M. paused.
“She didn’t like that,” said Frankie.
“Mr. Speaker,” said the P.M. “I will not be silenced by this man; this man who demands tolerance of his intolerance.”
The Leader of the Opposition shifted in his chair, then looked at his watch.
“That’s right, look at your watch,” said the P.M. “Australia sees you are bored. Bored by the endless requests for equality, bored by the underclasses. This man is bored, Mr. Speaker, because he has no idea what it means to be marginalized, to be ignored. This man does not know what it feels like to go through life justifying his existence.”
The P.M. set aside the purple folder.
“What’s she up to?” Summer asked.
Frankie shrugged.
“But Kate Poole knew, Mr. Speaker,” the P.M. continued. “Kate, just twenty-three years old, an ordinary Australian who wanted to be free to construct her life in her own way—just as each and every honorable member in this chamber is free to do. Kate’s way of life hurt no one, but violent opinion sent Kate to despair, and recently, Mr. Speaker, she reached her nadir. Kate Poole is no longer with us.”
The Leader of the Opposition held open his palms as though to say, don’t blame me, I didn’t kill her.
“The Leader of the Opposition might well wash his hands of responsibility,” the P.M. continued. “He might say: ‘It’s only one life’ and we would not be surprised to hear such rhetoric from him. But Kate, like too many young Australians, did not feel that she belonged in this country. Kate Poole felt tricked because she was tricked. Tricked by the double standard that gives with one hand and takes away with the other. Kate trusted what she had been raised to believe: that the fairness this nation is predicated upon was available to her. Yes, learned members of the Opposition, shaking your heads, I expect you are probably right; Kate held fast to an illusion, a girlish, naive idea that, as an Australian woman, she was entitled to acceptance. You can imagine her shock when she came out as a lesbian and was instantly made invisible by the nation she calls home. Invisibility, Mr. Speaker. That special brand of torment reserved for women and girls who fail to conform. To be excluded is unbearable but to be deemed invisible is deadly.”
“Jesus Christ,” Frankie exclaimed.
Summer’s phone suddenly trilled with an unknown number. She sent the call to voicemail.
“This is incredible,” said Summer.
The House was silent. The Leader of the Opposition looked pale.
“Honorable members,” the P.M. continued. “We are not one big happy family and we are never likely to be, but that does not mean we cannot and should not think and act like human beings when it comes to acknowledging our differences and learning to live alongside each other. Everyone deserves the integrity of particularity. And so I say, Mr. Speaker, Australia does not want this separatism that the Leader of the Opposition is determined to create. Australia says YES to the referendum and NO to the Leader of the Opposition.”
Summer’s phone trilled again. This time she answered it.
“Nana Laurel!... Isn’t she amazing?... Yes, it came from her heart, but... I might have had a small hand in it,” Summer admitted.
On the TV, the Leader of the Opposition was repairing to his chair after delivering a brief response.
“What did he say?” Summer asked Frankie, returning to the bench.
“Noted.”
“That’s it?”
“What else could he say over the thunderous applause?”
Summer’s phone trilled, again with an unknown number.
“This’ll be Peg,” she said, bracing herself.
Frankie gave her the thumbs up as she answered the call.
“Rose! This is a surprise. Don’t tell me you’ve been watching Question Time too?”
Summer ended the call and turned to Frankie.
“My sister’s in trouble,” she said.