CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Clare used to march against Australia’s involvement in Vietnam. She used to dream about moving to Alice Springs to help the less fortunate.
But her staunch military father insisted she settle down with a good rugby player who had a future as a white goods retailer.
She was introduced to her now husband, Brett, at a rare women-friendly Tattersall’s club event – just after finishing a degree in social work that she was never allowed to make use of.
Four kids and a ten-year-long affair between Brett and his mistress later, she now spends her evenings listening to her husband make fun of Albanese’s lisp.
Between his venomous alcohol-fuelled rants, and social outings with similarly classist couples that she’s been told are her friends, Clare’s life is a only held together by a blend of shiraz and valium.
Her husband despises the social justice causes that he believes are responsible for his businesses failures – which forced him into the humiliation of living off an inheritance.
Brett’s hero-worship of Peter Dutton, and his emotionally draining racial and misogyny-charged comments are taking a toll on Clare’s quality of life.
Sometimes she wonders where that lovely gay boy she held hands with during a march against university fees ended up. Sometimes she wonders what it would be like to eat Lebanese food.
However, deep in this hamster-wheel of imposed mental illness and TV channel surfing – an ember still glows.
Because today Clare voted for Nicolette Boelle – and her husband can’t do anything about it.
The local Liberal branch members, the women at the golf club, the dimwitted real estate agents that her daughters are dating. None of them know.
“It’s was a real rush” she says.
“In that one moment I was taken back to the halls of unibar, dancing with my top off. I witnessed Brett being savagely beaten by a handsome Aboriginal warrior – I saw gay couples kissing in the street”
Clare stands up and unbuttons her blouse.
“Not in my name, Peter Dutton!” she scowls, as she lights up her first Peter Stuyvesent in thirty years.
Her phone ringing non-stop as Brett calls her to demand she tell him where the fuck she is and why he can’t smell any dinner in the oven – Clare is hooning through the city in his collector convertible that she has never been allowed to touch before.
She’s blaring Fleetwood Mac. She’s waving at council workers.
She’s driving off into the sunset towards the Lebanese restaurants and she might not come back.
