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he ascended to the leadership of the Liberal Party, he had a personal trainer and was being groomed immaculately by experts. So he passes. And the raw stench of power, of course, is better than any plastic surgery.
    ‘I’ve ordered you some coffee,’ he said.
    ‘A drink would be better.’
    ‘You’ve had enough already.’
    I fell into a chair, disgusted. A more self-righteous man I have never met. And he had no reason to be self-righteous—not considering the opinion polls around that time. Bernard was a Prime Minister in trouble. True, the Liberal Party had been in power for so long it seemed the country had forgotten how to vote for anyone else—but most of that had been with John Howard, the man of steel himself, at the helm. Bernard was the second leader since Howard’s departure, and the gloss was wearing thin. The various wars overseas were a mess, Australian troops were dying in droves, car bombs were exploding on home soil, and the economy was in free fall. My brother’s personal approval rating was the lowest ever of any sitting PM, and on a two-party preferred basis, Labor was leading by nearly twenty points. But if Bernard was worried, he didn’t show it. He seemed a little tired, perhaps, and a little stressed, but emotions of any kind were not his strong suit.
    ‘The family in town?’ I asked him.
    ‘No.’
    I hadn’t seen his wife, or his two adult children, in years. For that matter, I hadn’t seen much lately of
my
three ex-wives, or my own three children, either.
    We made small talk for a while. Awkwardly, because we had nothing whatever in common. But eventually I said, ‘So what did you want me for?’
    ‘You have to sign these.’ He slid some papers across the desk to me. ‘It’s the final settlement of Mum’s will,’ he told me, as I read.
    Our mother had died six months before—our father having preceded her by several years. There was nothing all that special to deal with, regarding the estate. Just the old family house and some investments. Bernard and I had both been named as executors, but I’d left it up to Bernard to arrange. When it came to dreary legal stuff, he was the expert.
    ‘There’s a cheque there, too,’ he said.
    I took up a pen and scribbled my signature. ‘You could have mailed this to me,’ I said, when I was done.
    ‘I thought we should finish this in person.’
    There was something about the way he said ‘finish’ that caught my attention. ‘Finish what?’
    ‘Us. This deal you seem to think you and I have.’
    I was smiling. Bernard tried this on every few years. ‘C’mon. It’s just been two brothers helping each other out, hasn’t it?’
    ‘When have
you
ever helped
me
out?’
    And he had me there. ‘Doing you damage, am I?’
    ‘You always have.’
    ‘So why the fuss now? What, you’re gonna lose the next election and suddenly you think it’s due to me?’
    ‘I’m not worried about the next election.’
    ‘You bloody well
should
be.’
    But even that bounced off him. ‘You’re on your own from here on in, that’s all I’m saying. No more cashing in on my position. If I hear that you’re telling people you have my special confidence, then I’m going to contact them myself and tell them that I give you no backing whatsoever.’ He tapped the documents. ‘Mum and Dad—they always asked me not to stand in your way. So as a favour to them, I didn’t. But they’re both gone, finally, so enough.’
    ‘Sounds like you couldn’t wait for them to die.’
    ‘That’s a disgraceful accusation.’
    ‘Christ, everything is a disgraceful accusation to you, Bernard.’
    ‘It is when it’s not true.’
    ‘Nothing is ever true, either, when it comes to you. You even tried to deny it that time I caught you wanking in the back shed. Dick in your fucking hand.’
    A dead smile broke out on his face, and from there I probably would have received the usual lecture about responsibility and hard work and so on, and that would have been