Free The Big Ask by Shane Maloney

white,’ she said. ‘But apart from the fact that they glow in the dark, they almost look better than the originals.’
    I tried them out on her gourmet experiment, a tagine d’agneau a la Morocco. It melted in the mouth, for which I was grateful. Apart from the thrashing it had copped in the Metro toilet, my cavity had taken a fair buffeting from Dr Freycinet’s tubby fingers and shiny appliances.
    â€˜How come this stew’s got apricots in it, Mum?’ said Tarquin.
    After dinner, the children watched television while the adults sat around the kitchen table, chewing the cabernet sauvignon. Faye, cat on her lap, took up a recurrent theme. ‘You know what you need, Murray?’ she said. ‘A woman.’
    The next morning I got a call from one.

Her name was Lyndal Luscombe and she was my successor as Angelo’s electorate officer. She had a husky voice, a throaty laugh and she gave great telephone.
    I was lingering over breakfast in the pale sunshine that was filtering through my kitchen window when she rang. I’d slept late and woken to a succession of minor miracles. My head was clear. My mouth felt almost normal. There was nothing in the papers about the tonnage levy. The sun was shining and I was considering how I might fritter away the rest of the day, make the most of the unseasonably fine weather.
    â€˜Hello Murray,’ she said. ‘It’s Lyndal.’
    â€˜Murray’s not here,’ I said. ‘He died of a broken heart. The woman he loves left him for another.’
    â€˜Really?’ she said. ‘The way I understand it, he dithered around, never declared his intentions, left his play too late. She had no idea about his true feelings.’
    â€˜He didn’t think it was right to make a pass at a professional colleague,’ I said. ‘He’s a very proper person.’
    â€˜As well as being dead?’
    â€˜Only from the waist down,’ I said. ‘And the sound of your voice has fixed that. To what do I owe the pleasure, Lyndal?’
    â€˜The usual,’ she said. ‘Our lord and master.’
    Lyndal had been running Agnelli’s constituency office in Melbourne Upper for the previous three years, the reward for some highly effective voter-profiling work for the state secretariat. She was a psychology graduate, a one-time crisis counsellor whose experience with the depressed and suicidal amply qualified her to run a local Labor Party office. And, usually, to deal with our boss.
    â€˜He’s cutting the ribbon at the opening of our new community cultural centre today,’ she said. ‘When I rang this morning to brief him, he interrogated me about threats to his preselection. Went right off the deep end, reckoned somebody was plotting against him, wanted me to draw up a list of potential traitors. I think he’s flipping out, Murray, and I’d really like your advice. Any chance you can come out to this wing-ding today?’
    It seemed I’d found a place to do my frittering. And I couldn’t think of anybody I’d rather fritter with. ‘Can you hold on a moment?’ I said.
    I put the phone down and went to the bathroom mirror. My lips were still a little crusty and my frontal fangs glowed several shades brighter than their next-door neighbours, but I was not unsuitable for general exhibition. I picked up the phone again. ‘Will Nick be there?’ I said.
    Nick Simons was Lyndal’s designated other, the man who’d snaffled her, struck first while I had hesitated.
    â€˜That’s for you to find out,’ she said.
    Half an hour later, I was dolled up in my best Country Road casuals, boarding the Number 11 tram to Preston.
    Out I rode, out beyond the cafes and terraces of Fitzroy. Out across the Merri Creek, dredged now of its industrial effluent, home again to the migrating eel, green with young eucalypts and threaded with bike paths. Out past the Greek Orthodox monastery,