Naive Psychologist

Adelaide knew what it was to lose.

She had lost every race she had ever run, every swim she had ever swum. She had missed out on law. She couldn’t find a job.

But her defeats were confined to her own small world. She had never lost on the international stage. Adelaide looked out the kitchen window and tried to imagine how Leyton Hewitt must feel. Knocked out of the Australian Open. In front of his home crowd.

Adelaide was no fan of Leyton Hewitt. She preferred a man who kept his cool. Still and all the same, Adelaide wished him no harm.

‘Go Ley-Ley,’ she said to herself. She shook her head and she did not smile.

She started stacking the breakfast dishes away. She hoped that people would not be too harsh. He had done his best, she thought. Still and all the same, Adelaide knew the realities of life.

Nobody likes a loser and people can be cruel.

Adelaide was getting old.

She had seen the statistics and now she had seen the proof. Jimmy Barnes was coming back to play on Australia Day. At a family concert.

Jimmy Barnes was playing at a concert for families.

Adelaide could only assume that a family concert would be alcohol free.

Adelaide rubbed at the skin on her cheeks, looked down at the skin on her hands. She went to the mirror and made herself smile.

She had seen the statistics and now she had seen the proof. Adelaide was ageing.

It was the same thing as getting old.

These are funny times, thought Adelaide.

It was funny that Mike Rann was calling for the Legislative Council to be abolished. And it got even funnier when Adelaide heard Chris Schacht talking about it on her ABC just yesterday. Nick Xenophon should run for a House of Assembly seat, Chris Schacht said. I strongly believe the Legislative Council should be abolished, he said (or something remarkably along those lines, she couldn’t be sure of his exact words without checking the transcript, a budget item she simply couldn’t justify). And that was funny too, because Adelaide was sure Chris Schacht used to be a Senator. And wasn’t the Senate an Upper House too? Weren’t the Senate and the Legislative Council modelled on the same thing?

Adelaide took a sip of her coffee, put the cup back down. She had to agree that the Legislative Council was a touch broken. It was possibly harbouring people who weren’t pulling their weight. But can’t we fix it? Adelaide wondered. Instead of just chucking the whole thing out, can’t we fix it and make it into something that promotes representative democracy?

Adelaide scratched at her elbow as she thought. She took a bite of her lemon slice.

When Adelaide went – briefly, tentatively – to explore the world, she had lived in New Zealand where they had kindly given her the vote although she wasn’t a citizen and never intended to become one. And it was a good time to be voting too, because they were having a referendum on a new voting system.

Under this new system, as Adelaide’s rusty brain remembered it, you kind of got a couple of votes. You voted for your seat, then you voted from a list of people, and the ones on the list who got the most votes went and sat in parliament alongside the members who held a particular seat.

It led, some people suggested, to a more diverse and representative parliament.

It seemed to Adelaide, that in these politically homogeneous times such a system might just work here. It would let a disenchanted electorate pick and choose from people a bit more. It meant you didn’t have to vote quite so much along whole-of-party lines. It meant voters didn’t have to give implicit endorsement to policies they didn’t necessarily support. It meant small parties and independents (like Nick Xenophon) might have more chance of getting up.

Adelaide looked around before she took another piece of lemon slice. Such a system would probably appeal to a man like Mike Rann, who had the vision to appoint his cabinet from a range of political sources. Perhaps he would use the safety of his likely majority to explore such a thing.

Adelaide was ruminating on all this when it occurred to her that there was already such a system in place.

It was the Upper House.

Perhaps, thought Adelaide, if Messrs Rann and Schacht wanted to continue their discussion of the abolition of the Legislative Council they could look to Mike Rann’s former homeland. Maybe they could reform the South Australian parliamentary system. Maybe South Australia could lead the world in democractic processes, unleashing a whole new wave of widespread political engagement.

Adelaide scratched at her elbow some more then she shook her head (Adelaide shook her head a lot). Goodness knows, thought Adelaide, someone, somewhere needs to do it. She brushed the crumbs from the table, picked up her coffee cup, took it to the sink, then looked at her watch.

I’d better get cracking, she thought. Eleven o’clock already and there was still the ironing to do.

‘If you don’t deadhead those roses you won’t get any more blooms.’ If she had said it once, Adelaide had said it a thousand times. They had a lovely lot of icebergs (roses, not lettuces) in their garden, if only her husband could drag himself away from the cricket to keep them maintained.

Not that Adelaide minded doing it for herself. Oh, no. It was lovely to spend a summer evening in the front garden clipping at the roses and nodding to the evening joggers as they passed by. They didn’t smile so much these days, Adelaide thought. And they all had ipods in their ears. Adelaide shook her head. She was old enough to know that progress couldn’t be stopped. If they wanted to deafen themselves then what business was it of hers?

But she didn’t have time for the roses this week. The tomatoes were coming in.

It seemed like they had to be tied a bit more every night. The ripe ones had to be picked. The water had to be kept up. Especially in this heat.

And soon there would be enough for making the sauce.

‘I won’t use so many cloves this year,’ Adelaide said to her husband. She wasn’t surprised that he didn’t answer, but she had thought that he might. He had been complaining about the cloves all year. It was one of those experiments gone wrong.

‘I might make some jars of pasta sauce,’ she said. ‘There’s a woman at work, her mum’s Italian, she said she’ll give me the family recipe.’ Adelaide patted at her hair as she spoke. It was quite a coup. Sophia didn’t give her recipe to just anyone.

‘Bugger,’ her husband said. ‘Ponting’s out.’

‘On the other hand,’ said Adelaide. ‘I quite like cloves.’ She smiled as they went to the commercial break.

‘Well,’ thought Adelaide when she flicked to page three. ‘Isn’t that a fine piece of journalism.’

‘Listen to this,’ she said to her husband who was yet to have his shower. ‘It says here in The Advertiser that Angeline Jolie is having Brad Pitt’s baby. Well, that is very important news, isn’t it? I can’t think why it’s on page three and not page one.’

‘They probably just made it up,’ Adelaide’s husband said, pulling the cord on his dressing gown just a little bit too tight.

‘Oh, no,’ said Adelaide, ‘they didn’t. They got it off the internet. Apparently, Angeline told a charity worker, who told U.S. magazine People who put it on their website for The Advertiser journalist to find.’

Quoting someone who is quoting someone who is quoting someone. Fine journalism indeed, thought Adelaide.

Adelaide had swum laps in the North Adelaide Aquatic Centre when she was at uni. She was doing a BA, so activity wasn’t really her thing, but sometimes she joined the achievers – physios with ponytails and med students with stethoscopes – just to be sociable. Just to see what balance was all about.

She wouldn’t swim there now of course. It was a disgrace, people said and everyone agreed. Fancy a city like Adelaide with no competition-competent swimming arena. If the airport didn’t kill their reputation that swimming pool certainly would.

At playgroup, Adelaide had heard about the Burnside swimming pool. It was great for toddlers and they served good coffee, so everyone said. But Adelaide would never know for herself. She didn’t have the thighs for that arena.

So Adelaide satisfied herself with the once-closed, now-open Unley Swimming Pool. During the holidays she took the kids and they swam there every day for a week.

They were dreamy, summery days. Until someone stole their kickboards. The ones Adelaide had picked up at the sales. Just left them for a moment she had. In a bag in the carpark while she ducked down to the bakery to get a loaf of bread for lunch. And then she’d come back and they were gone. She probably shouldn’t have left them, Adelaide knew.

Still and all the same. Stealing little kids kickboards! Not very Adelaide, thought Adelaide.

Adelaide had just returned from her walk. She was trying to shed a few kilos and now was as good a time to start as anytime would ever be.

On her return, she had just one thing to say.

“No more *****king agapanthus. Please. They are the ugliest plants in the universe and they are especially ugly when they’re starting to wilt.’

Adelaide was passionate, but she knew no one was listening.

Adelaide was disappointed.

She had blinked over the Christmas break and missed Nick Xenophon’s stint on radio station 5AA. What a pity to miss him, Adelaide thought. He has a lovely voice, Nick Xenophon does.

There was a lot to admire in Mr Xenophon, Adelaide thought. He brought much-needed life and spice to South Australian politics. And even though he was a single issue independent, he often made good contributions to robust political debate.

She was a bit uncomfortable with the idea, nonetheless. A sitting MP with his own radio programme just a few months out from an election? It obviously wasn’t wrong, Adelaide thought. It wasn’t a secret, after all.

But something about it niggled at Adelaide.

Adelaide knew that on 18 March 2006, Mike Rann would win the election.

Except, thought Adelaide, if the summer threw one final hot, hot day on 17 March.

Despite the best official advice that air conditioners should not be used on hot days, everyone would put their air-conditioners on. Electricity usage would peak, half the state would lose its power for hours, freezers would defrost and the final few schnapper from the Christmas trip would be ruined.

In that event, the electorate would punish the ALP at the polls. The state would be plunged back into the un-lawful and dis-orderly days.

Even though it was the Libs who privatised the electricity in the first place and it would never have crossed the ALP’s mind to do such a thing.

The electorate was a fickle beast, and Adelaide was afraid.