Communications Gap

Communications gap

The Majority Leader of the House of Representatives was possessed of remarkably simian features. A bane to him, it was a boon to his cartoonists. Peanuts, bananas (particularly) and tree-swinging featured large in his opponents’ descriptions of his political beliefs and private behaviour. Nevertheless, he was the boss (almost), although of a government with but a precarious majority. So when he changed into an ape during an all-night sitting it caused considerable sensation. To his Party it was a sign, to the Press, manna from heaven. The Opposition denounced it as trickery.

Trickery it was, and on a global scale, with the Australian PM as usual a minor player. He stood rather tentatively on the Front Bench, hairy toes cautiously gripping the green leather, and, to the ears of the Chamber, gibbered.

Unlike some other countries, Australia did not yet televise every Parliamentary proceeding, so he was not immediately seen and heard across the length and breadth of the nation. Many, of course, would have defied anyone to distinguish anything the ape said from the leader of the country’s usual output. Amazingly, though, the Press, far from rushing to the phone and holding the front page, held, to a journo, its breath, its horses and, subsequently, its peace.

Veterans, each and every one of them, they had cut their reporting teeth and won their serious-comment spurs at great Australian Parliamentary occasions such as the 1975 sacking of the then Prime Minister by a Governor-General who invoked—horror of horrors—Emergency Powers. Then there was a continuum of boredom interspersed with bouts of incomprehensible political fireworks.

Prime Ministers came and went under the jaundiced eyes of the Press Gallery and there wasn’t much in the way of politicians’ shenanigans that passed them by. Now it was different. As the ape PM slipped to the floor of the House and beckoned the Treasurer - effectively his second-in-command - to follow, a sort of hush descended. A stasis held the gathering. Reporters, caught in an agonising dilemma between reporting and goggling, dropped their notebooks, their voices and, for a few precious instants, their all-encompassing cynicism.

The Treasurer and the PM were political allies—not friends, you understand, just allies—whose mutual regard had become strained, predominantly as a result of the deft hatchet-job done by the PM in taking over the party leadership just before a cliffhanger election. The job of Treasurer had been a sort of consolation prize, more substantial bribes now being out of fashion. But not such a consolation as this was the Treasurer’s wild thought as he watched the PM approach. Let the bastard wriggle out of this one!

The ape approached the Speaker’s chair, paused and made a slight but undoubtedly simian bow. Then, swinging its body between arms knuckled on the floor, leapt square into the Treasurer’s arms. Its lips gently nuzzled his ear and the PM’s voice, soft yet distinct, whispered.

‘This could be the greatest coup in the history of politics!’

‘What!’

‘Hold me, fool! Haven’t you seen a chimp before?’

‘What the Hell’s happening?’

‘Don’t you worry about it; wait until the news comes in from abroad....Now, carry me out to your room. Gently!...Smile!...Bow to the House!...Come on, man, everything’s under control.’

At this he flicked his head at the Speaker to follow them.

In the security of the Speaker’s robing-room the PM hopped nimbly on to a side table, thence to make an experimental half-swing on the chandelier. Dropping to the floor, he assumed an ape-like posture and cast a quizzical eye at the Treasurer.

‘I see we can still converse.’

‘Now look here...’

‘No, Hugh, you look into the mirror; you’ll see why we can still talk. Actually, it rather suits you. You always were a bit of a stuffed shirt...’

Icy apprehension gripped the Treasurer. And yet, ‘icy’ seemed apt. Slowly he turned to his reflection. A fully-grown King Penguin, displaying such horror as its limited facial muscles would allow, returned his panic-stricken gaze.

The Speaker had disappeared.

‘He’s down there,’ the PM nodded at the floor, ‘he’s become an ant. Or is that a cockroach?’ He started to giggle. ‘And although that lot there,’ he cocked a (still-opposed) thumb towards the Chamber, ‘might not have changed appearance they certainly can’t discuss anything. They’re all speaking animal!’

The penguin bent his head to the door, whence issued a cacophony of roars, grunts and whistles. The PM bounced up and down, gleefully shaking his hands above his head. ‘Excellent, excellent—you see, my fellow countryman, we’re the only ones in the House who can talk to each other. The rest are babbling, more than usual. Biblical, isn’t it?’

‘But why...?’

‘It’s power, power. I can bring the House back to its senses whenever I choose. As they recover they will be totally receptive to what I say—sort of post-hypnotic. Any motion can be passed, nem con. Even the Opposition will vote for me!’

‘But why animals? And why me?’

The PM tapped his retroussé nose. ‘Come, surely you can deduce that! If not, just accept that the External Agency arranging all this wanted it that way. And I’m offering you a partnership in this venture because, well, because I feel I owe you.’

Worse and worse, thought the penguin miserably.

Now the chimpanzee took on a statesmanlike expression. ‘As I said, UK, China and the US are party to the affair and plans have been laid; merely wait a few hours and you will see world domination.’

For he knew the same scenario was being played out simultaneously in London, Beijing and Washington.

But the sitting at Westminster was attended by pathetically few MPs, most of whom were asleep during the vital minutes that the PM took on even more the appearance of… what? It was going to be a major effort to make something out of a nonentity and the resulting animal was, well, nondescript. The susurration that drifted through the Chamber was as an interrupted dream, rather than alert amazement.

The Chinese gathering had armed guards as well as Party seniors. When the President and his vice-President adopted the appearance of fairly active dragons they were promptly shot by their phlegmatic uniformed comrades, the loyal guards, who had been trained for action not communication.

In Washington the transformation whereby the President and his closest aides turned into eagles never got off the ground. Americans, particularly politicians, have seen everything so they simply refused to believe their eyes.

Faced with such sophistication, and having lost three out of four, the External Agency promptly withdrew, reinstating the status quo. Normality, accompanied by a permanent memory gap of a few minutes, returned to everyone. Everyone except, that is, the Australian PM and his Speaker, who of course were out of the Chamber when the restoring breath swept through. They retained their animal shape but lost the power of speech as it transferred back to the House.

The ape and the penguin were eventually found suitable accommodation in Sydney’s Taronga Zoo where the Treasurer, in his penguin brain, considered the fact that they were placed in adjoining enclosures yet another grudge to be held against his erstwhile Prime Minister.