Willy, Molly, Mandy, and Brooke.

The morning after the election.

“Can you guys hear me?”, said Nicola, feeling her body shrink into the corner of the sofa.

She moved her head, which for some reason turned incredibly slowly. Her eyes took even longer to follow.

A man was sitting at the far end of the sofa with one foot resting on the seat between them. He had taken his shoe off and his woolly sock had a hole that most of his big toe was visible through. She looked at his toe closely. It was bigger than hers. Then she moved her eyes up to his face. He smiled at her and then laughed, causing his round cheeks to wobble, his eyes twinkled at her.

She thought that’s Shane Jones. Why has he taken his shoe off? Should I take mine off? Is this a protocol I’m supposed to follow?

“You alright girly?”, he said. “The grand KU MA RA of the north brings only the finest kaimoana and puha. Looks like you had too much puha”, he laughed loudly.

He sounded like a monster to Nicola, and she shrank further into the couch.

Someone put a warm clammy hand on her shoulder, she looked up with some effort. Christopher was grinning down at her, “I see you’ve been smoking the peace pipe with New Zealand First, very good, very good. Maybe grab something to eat, the others have just arrived and we’re about to start the policy negotiations.”

He winked at Shane, “guess I owe you a hundred bucks, how’d you get her to say yes?”

“I told her it was purely ceremonial”, he replied, then roared with laughter again.

Nicola moved her tongue around her mouth, it was very dry. She looked around the room. Chris’ wife Amanda was welcoming the ACT representatives. David was wearing an enormous fur coat and a top hat, he looked like Scrooge McDuck had become a pimp. He waved Amanda away saying he’d keep the coat.

Next Brooke entered and embraced Amanda surprisingly affectionately. “Your house is amazing”, said Brooke before making the victory sign in the directions of the others. “Right at this moment I love you all, let’s never lose this feeling.”

David and Brooke had come directly from the viaduct where they’d been celebrating the election results all night. Brooke had partied hard, she figured it’d be the last chance for a while, and right then she could do anything she wanted - Jesus she just won Tamaki for Christ’s sake.

David on the other hand was coked up to the eyeballs, a wee gift from the Taxpayer’s Union. Because you didn’t think anyone could be that much of a jerk unaided, did you?

At this point I should probably say this story is satire. Allegedly. OK, back to our story.

Winston called out to Amanda to bring him an ashtray. She sheepishly replied that it was a non smoking house. So he said, “all right then, pot plant it is. I mean for an ashtray, not Jones’ potty bloody puha.”

He stubbed out his large cigar on the bonsai tree sitting on the coffee table and lit a cigarette.

Across the room Brooke shrieked “Stop! Don’t do that to the poor tree. I can hear it screaming. I used to be a Green you know, and I’m a vegan.”

Winston laughed, and then looked very serious. “Right all the men into the dining room”, he said. “Hang on a minute”, said Christopher, “I’m in charge here, I’ll be setting the agenda, won’t I Nikki?”

“Whose gender?” said Nicola, suddenly realising they were talking to her. God, Winston wasn’t actually serious about all that gender bullshit before the election, was he?

Winston stood up and walked in the direction of the dining room, “c’mon all the men, I’m not negotiating with any women after last time. Shake it up.”

The men followed Winston and Brooke sat down where Shane’s foot had been, next to Nicola. She purred at her “aren’t we fabulous?” and looked Nicola in the eye. “Can I tell you something?” Nicola nodded. “You look like you’re wasted. Are you?”

Nicola thought about it for a moment, she thought Brooke must have meant she was wasted in here while those idiots smoked their cigars and drank their whisky next door deciding the fate of the nation. “Yes, I am, that’s very perceptive, how did you know?”

“Are you kidding? Your eyes are so red you look like one of those photos from the 1980s old people have. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care. I had a little something too.” She pulled her hand out of her pocket and opened it, revealing a bright assortment of tablets.

“What are they?”

“Mollys”

“I didn’t know you had kids”, said Nicola, grabbing three tablets and eating them quickly.

“Ugh they don’t taste like the fizzy fruits my kids get from the dairy, what brand are these. You should get some better ones for Molly.”

“Nikki Baby, I don’t have kids, there’s no little girl. Molly is a name for MDMA. You know like ecstasy.”

“Oh shit oh shit oh shit, I’m already high as a kite from bloody Shane Jones’ weed. How long before they kick in, and what’s going to happen to me?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never taken more than two in a night, you should really start with a half a one. Look nothing bad is going to happen, you’re not going to start seeing purple monsters coming after you. You’ll feel a tremendous love and caring for others, and you’ll probably want to bang them.”

“So you mean like being in the Greens?”

“Kind of, although you might get a bit touchy feely for them, they’re pretty big on personal space. Which you really won’t be, in about 20 minutes.”

“This is a disaster I’m about to negotiate the direction of the next government. I can’t be full of empathy and all loved up. How long will this last?”

“Well normally about four hours, but you’ve taken three, so who knows? I gave one to Mandy on the way in, I told her it was an EQ enhancer. She said I looked fabulous and asked to join in. Then when I showed her them she necked one before I could ask if she’d ever tried them before.”

The the women beckoned for Amanda to join them and she sat in the corner where Shane Jones had been sitting. Just then Jones reappeared, rushing over to them beaming.

“We’ve got our first agreement”, he panted. “Just need the thumbs up from the ladies. We’ve decided to make Cannabis legal and tax the heck out of it. But the major selling point is that Northland, the mighty mighty north, will have the sole rights to grow legal weed in this country. Not only that but we’re going into the export business, the company is already set up. What do you reckon?”

Nicola felt a sudden wave of euphoria. “So we could use this extra tax from selling weed, gosh that’ll be hundred of millions a year, to fill the gap if some of our revenue projections fell a bit short.”

Shane’s kind face grinned at her, she’d never noticed how beautiful his smile was before. “Ha Ha - yeah Chris said you’d be pleased to have the extra revenue, said something about you saying you’d resign if there wasn’t enough. You didn’t do that did you Nikki?”

Nicola nodded. She wondered how his stubbly cheek would feel and reached up and stroked it with her fingers. “Yes”, she said. “The answer is yes.” Then she laughed, “maybe we should’ve asked James and Marama.”

Shane grimaced “Winston is struggling enough with Seymour as it is, jesus that guy could use a toke to calm down, he’s acting like a dictator in there. Putting James Shaw in the room would not help! Still excellent news, that’ll get the ‘nefs off the couch eh.”

Nicola frowned “Shane, are you related to the people who own this cannabis company?”

Shane relied sheepishly, “We’re all related up North eh. Forget your pakeha ways.”

Brooke leaned over and whispered something in Nicola’s ear. The words, and the warm breath, in her ear felt fantastic. She felt her whole skeleton relax.

Nicola said “tell em it’s all ok, but they have to do the same for MDMA too”. Brooke whispered more then Nicola added “and the manufacturing plant has to be in the Tamaki electorate.”

Shane looked concerned, “Well Winnie will agree, cos he wants this deal for the North. David will agree cos he’s a libertarian, so why would he care? But what about Christopher’s missus? I heard she’s pretty straight, and he always lets her guide him.”

“Do you mean her?” Said Nicola pointing at Amanda, who was behind him dancing vigorously, gyrating to music that wasn’t playing. “I think she’ll be ok. Right, you go and tell the boys and Brooke and I are going to have a little dance with Mandy.”

Two hours later, when the gentleman emerged from their negotiations, they found the three women singing Karaoke. Brooke had the microphone and was serenading Amanda with a song.

Winston recognised it and laughed with genuine joy. “Ahh you young whippersnappers aren’t so bad, here let old blue eyes show you how this one goes.”

He took the microphone and our happy group all sang together, swaying to the music, until there was a knock at the door.

“That’ll be the media”, said Christopher. “Jessica and Jenna are here to talk about our governing arrangements, I told them we’d have it all done by lunchtime.”

“Stuff and Nonsense, make them wait a few weeks” said Winston, as he hit the chorus with gusto.

Sing along, I’m sure you all know this one.