A short story by Craig Cormick
Oh shit! It can't be. Robert-Bloody-Menzies! He looks just like Robert-Bloody-Menzies. Right down to the eyebrows and turned up collar. I stare real hard, but try not to look like I'm staring.
You know what it's like when you're sitting on the bus and someone comes on and you're staring at them and they turn and look at you and you want to look like you're not staring at them really, but they've seen you looking and you can't break eye contact. Bummer.
Once a really weirdo hopped on and caught me staring at him and I like tried to look right past him and then saw that was pissing him off and so I suddenly tilted my head back and pretended I was putting my contact lens in.
Yeah, okay, I didn't really do that, but it's a good story. The bus would've been too bumpy for putting lenses in really, but Robert-Bloody-Menzies isn't a story. He's really there and he's got his eyes fixed on me and so I look out the window real quick like as he starts making his way down the aisle.
He's lurching a little bit as he walks, like maybe he's a bit pissed, or maybe he's just not used to being on a bus — I mean, I bet Ming never rode the 333 in his life. It would've been limos and chauffeurs the whole time. Which makes me think, if he really is Robert-Bloody-Menzies, or at least the ghost of Robert-Bloody-Menzies, since he's been dead for years and years and years, then why is he on a bus? And why is he staring so hard at me as he wobbles down the aisle?
But I'm not sure I really want to know the answer, so I look hard out of the window and say to myself, "Please God, don't let him sit next to me, please God don't let him sit next to me, pleaseGoddon'tlethimsitnexttome!"
But of course he does! As if a voice had suddenly boomed down from Heaven, "Sit next to him!"
Thanks, God! Another one I owe you. He squeezes into the seat and he's pretty big with a fat arse, like you'd expect Robert-Bloody-Menzies to have, and I have to push right up against the window to avoid touching him. The glass is cold as ice, but he's probably a lot colder.
He turns his head and looks at me, and so I dig down into my bag and try to find something to keep me occupied. You know, the bus rule, never look at anybody who is minding their own business. Reading. Doing a crossword. Looking out the window. It's like the elevator rule. Never look at anyone. Only look at the floor numbers. As if they are the most significant and amazing things in the world.
I wish I had a copy of Green Left Weekly, or Marx or something. That would put him off. But all I can find is a Phantom Comic and a brochure one of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Civic has given me.
The brochure is always good value. I've used it a few times to avoid having anybody sit next to me at rush hour. I hold it up in front of me and can see that he has started reading it over my shoulder. Then I think that maybe the Phantom is safer. Perhaps all those dusky faces of the Bandar pygmies will insult him enough to go and sit somewhere else.
I hold the Phantom Comic up real close, like I'm short-sighted, and I try to ignore him. I hope he knows the bus rules.
And then I think, what the hell is Robert-Bloody-Menzies doing wandering around Canberra? I remember reading once that he'd been really fond of Canberra, so I guess it made sense that if he came back he was going to wander around here. But what is he doing on this bus? Sitting next to me?
Maybe the sheer trauma of coming back to earth has sort of addled his thinking. I mean addled it more than it probably was in his last years. Or maybe he had once turfed some poor old Celtic pensioner out of her granny flat and she'd put a curse on him to wander the earth forever as a bagman, riding the 333 for eternity.
But no, I thought, that couldn't be right. Somebody would recognise him sooner or later. Robert Menzies wandering around was about as recognisable as Gough Whitlam wandering around.
Except of course you could reasonably expect to see Gough still wandering around. My girlfriend reckoned she once saw him in a coffee shop in Civic, but nobody else was there to witness it. That was the famous people rule. You only ever saw famous people when there was nobody with you to verify it. And if somebody is with you, then you only get to see the Wiggles or somebody.
I turn the page of my Phantom Comic, to make it look like I am really reading it and I think about old Robert Gordon sitting there next to me. Somebody has to be told. You can't just let the ghost of Robert Menzies wander around the streets or ride buses and things.
Maybe there is an agency in the government which looks after this kind of thing. I mean there are millions of sightings of Elvis each year, so why not Robert-Bloody-Menzies? But if there was such an agency, it had probably been shut down in the last round of government cuts.
Which makes me think of ringing up the Liberal Party and telling them I know where Robert Gordon Menzies is. But maybe that wasn't such a good idea, as they'd probably make him prime minister again. Sure he's dead and his mind seems to be a bit addled, but he couldn't be much worse than what they have going at the moment.
This is quite a problem. What would the Phantom do, I wondered. Punch him out and ride off into the jungle? I wonder if I've made a mistake. What if it isn't really Robert-Bloody-Menzies at all? Just somebody who looks like him.
I peep over the top of my comic at him. He is still staring fixedly at me. Those big dark eyebrows pointing accusingly at me. His mouth a thin grim line. It is Robert-Bloody-Menzies all right. No doubt about it now. None at all. And he is staring at me as if I am sitting in his favourite chair in the Commonwealth Club.
There is only thing for it. I stand up quickly and say, "Excuse me, my stop!" And squeeze past him before he can say anything. I hit the stop button and lurch up to the front of the bus.
There is a bus stop up ahead. It's not my stop, but it's pretty close and I don't mind the walk home if it gets me off the bus. When the door opens I'm out and I hit the ground running. Well, walking quickly really. I'm not much into running actually. When I was younger, sure, but I haven't been that young for a while.
But as I'm walking away I see the bus isn't moving off. I turn back and see a large figure ambling down the aisle towards the front door. Guess who? Robert-Bloody-Menzies of course. He staggers down the steps and looks at me.
I turn and walk away as quickly as I can, without actually looking like I'm walking away as quickly as I can. You know, the walking away rule.
So it's a couple of hundred metres to my flat and I reckon anyone with a gut as big as his couldn't walk more than half that without having to stop for CPR, so I'm pretty safe. But as I reach my door I turn and look back and there he is, about 50 metres behind me. Strolling along like he's in a parade.
Oh shit, I mumble, looking for my key. And of course I can't find it. The key rule. It can never be found when you're being pursued by a mad killer, a debt collector or the ghost of a former primer minister. By the time I find it, he's almost reached my place and I open the door and then slam it really really hard, just so he'll get the hint.
I go to the front room and kneel down in front of the window there. I slowly raise my head and peep out the venetians. Two big black eyebrows are peeping back in at me. Shitshitshitshitshit! I duck back down to the floor and crawl back into the hallway on my stomach.
Then the doorbell rings. What'll I do? What'llIdo? What'llIdo? I could phone for help. What would I say? Robert-Bloody-Menzies is knocking at my door. Who would I ring? The police? The Social Democrats? Gotta come up with a better idea than that.
The doorbell rings again. He's going to stand there all day and night and day and night ringing if I don't get rid of him. And my girlfriend is supposed to be coming over later. That'd really cruel things there, wouldn't it, having the ghost of Robert-Bloody-Menzies on my doorstep.
I couldn't just open the door and say "Piss off!" and slam it again, like I did to the Mormons and the born-again new age network marketers and all that. You couldn't say that to a prime minister. Even a dead one. Although, if John Howard came door knocking, I suppose I would.
Then I have a brilliant idea. Really brilliant. I'll tell him I'm Arthur Calwell's son. No, even better, I'll tell him I'm a communist. Fully paid up party member. He'll have a bloody fit. Head off down the street like he's seen a — well — like he's seen a ghost.
The doorbell rings again. I stand up and grasp the handle. One, two, three. Swing it open. I stare at those dark accusing eyebrows and I can't decide if I'm Arthur Calwell's son or a communist.
"Hello", he says, in a thick European accent. "I'm from the Jehovah's Witnesses." He doesn't sound a thing like Robert-Bloody-Menzies. Whatever he sounded like. "I couldn't help noticing you had one of our publications on the bus", he says.
"Thank Christ!", I say with a smile.
"Can I come in?", he asks.
"Piss off!", I say, and slam the door.