The three girls sitting opposite can’t take their eyes off us. Eventually it becomes too much for one of them (the pretty one) and she saunters over and shyly introduces herself. To Mark, of course, not to the rest of us. Mark smiles and shakes her hand, and that’s all it takes for the other two to rush over, pen and napkin poised for an autograph, mobile phones at the ready for the inevitable photograph. ‘We really miss you,’ gushes one of them. She even grabs his hand. ‘You should sooo never have quit. You should be the PM, not her.’ The other two giggle in agreement. Mark smiles bashfully and gives a dismissive wave of his over-sized hand. ‘Naah,’ he says in his unmistakable Werriwa drawl, ‘I had my crack at it.’
•••
An evening with Mark Latham is an enlightening affair. The pub he has chosen is the Kirribilli Hotel in Tory-town, only a stone’s throw from the large house on the harbour he nearly got to call home.
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