Free The Marmalade Files by Steve Lewis & Chris Uhlmann Page B

women forging a close bond over an average three-course meal. Dame Pattie had delighted in recalling her role in lobbying her husband to ensure the capital got the attention it deserved. After struggling to push her granddaughter’s pram over a dirt track from the Lodge to a nearby shopping centre, she’d greeted her husband’s arrival home that evening with, ‘Bob, you have to do something about this town.’
    But of all the stories Dame Pattie told that night, the one that moved Scott was an anecdote about the former Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley. Apparently, his direct phone line was once just one digit different from the butcher’s at Manuka. Sometimes the phone would ring, the Prime Minister would answer and on the other end would be a woman with her order. Chifley would dutifully write it down and ring it through to the butcher.
    It sounded like a beautiful piece of mythology but Scott wanted to believe it. The relationship between Chifley and Sir Robert was certainly no myth. Dame Pattie said they enjoyed a great friendship and would often meet for a chat behind the Speaker’s chair during parliamentary sittings.
    Dame Pattie grew wistful as she recalled the exact moment when Menzies was told of Chifley’s death during a State Ball in the King’s Hall of Old Parliament House. He had closed down the evening with a solemn declaration of loss for his old friend.
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    Years later and now working in government, Scott was musing that cross-party friendships were much rarer these days when she heard a familiar voice.
    â€˜Minister, you must be lost. The Hyatt is on the other side of Parliament House.’
    Scott knew who Toohey was, of course. The tall Victorian had been a player in Federal politics for years. He had been a junior Minister in the Keating Government and had held a number of senior shadow ministries since. He was well liked and well regarded, considered a decent man by both sides of politics. But all agreed he lacked the venom needed to take leadership.
    â€˜Well, now it is clear that I’m slumming it,’ Scott responded. ‘But it’s too late to move.’
    â€˜See you about.’ And he sauntered off.
    And see him about she did. The Embassy’s staff played a long-running in-joke on them, rooming the two political up-and-comers next to each other whenever they were both in Canberra. Many a time, Scott would be fumbling with her room keys closeto midnight when Toohey’s familiar silhouette would come striding down the hall towards her.
    â€˜Night, Minister,’ he would say. ‘Hope that dreadful policy of yours doesn’t keep you awake.’
    Finally, forced to sit next to each other on a flight from Darwin to Melbourne, they started to chat properly. About the absurdity of the parliamentary lifestyle. About how much they missed their families. About the tribulations and humiliations of being a public figure.
    In the final sitting week before the 2007 campaign was announced, Scott and Toohey had arrived at the Embassy at the same time.
    â€˜Well, it won’t be long now; Howard has to announce soon,’ Toohey said.
    Scott agreed. ‘Then it will be six weeks of hell before we’re creamed.’
    â€˜Sounds like a reason to celebrate to me. How about a drink?’
    Scott hesitated for a moment. ‘Okay, but not here. And not somewhere we’ll be seen.’
    â€˜I know a place in Woden,’ said Toohey. ‘Most Federal MPs wouldn’t even know it’s a Canberra suburb. But you’re buying because you’re loaded.’
    â€˜Lead on,’ she said.

1982
    A gentle rain tapped on her umbrella, the first sign of impending winter. It fell softly on the ocean of people silently sweeping by on their bicycles. Young, alone and giddy with excitement, her first venture onto the streets of Peking was a dream come true.
    For as long as she could remember she had wanted to stand here, to soak up the