When one of her readers wanted to launch her into politics, Elspeth McLean laughed like a drain. Then she thought of all the good reasons why not.
If I had known how to, or what it really meant, I am sure I would have laughed like a drain.
It is hard to remember now, but I am confident laughter of some description did bubble to the surface.
Whatever sort of laughter it was, I hope it was not derisive.
In books that always sounds particularly nasty, as if it should be accompanied by a health warning.
The laughter was prompted by one of my readers suggesting she was mounting a campaign to launch me into politics.
I love my readers (all of them are probably holding a political campaign meeting in a Portaloo as I write).
I share author Barbara Kingsolver's gratitude to readers in "Postcards from the imaginary mom" (a charming piece about a book tour experience) when she says, "heaven knows, I would do anything for them - probably scrub their kitchen floors if they asked".
My readers possibly know too much about my housekeeping abilities to take me up on that, but the sentiment remains.
The reader, in this instance, had engaged me in a lively discussion about local politics of the day, if I recall it correctly, before making her announcement.
Nothing has come of her threat, I am happy to say.
Why would anyone want to be an MP?
Is it desperation to be noticed? There's small chance of that if you are a backbench MP which, if we are honest, is the lot of most of them.
If it is desire to change the world, then that is probably just as misguided, given the compromises and back-scratching required to get many things done.
Should we settle instead for local government politics? Being a mayor might have its moments, but what if we became so self-important we were compelled to write about a shag we may or may not have had back in the 1980s with someone now well known?
It's cringe-making stuff.
Whose late teens and early 20s behaviour would stand up to scrutiny from Outraged of Owaka , Miffed of Milton, Affronted of Alexandra, Indignant of Invercargill or similar?
And what about later on?
My offspring have already threatened to write a book about my awful parenting. Why encourage that, or the concerns of some child I may have spoken harshly to at playcentre on a sleep-deprived day when someone expected me to tidy up the puzzles, knowing full well I couldn't do them? My sins would be too many to catalogue.
Accordingly, I would like to be able to say that I am not a political animal.
But I am, whether I want to be or not.
Tell me some bad news.
If you are a dear friend of many years, tell me you have a life-threatening illness and watch my reaction.
First I will swear.
Then I will become fatuous, guarded.
I won't do what I want to do which is stamp my feet and yell that it is unfair.
I won't be presidential either, standing tall, impeccably groomed with shoulder pads in place, loudly decreeing that you can't be sick because I simply won't allow it.
Laws will be passed against it.
I will gabble.
I will ask questions and not listen to the answers.
When I hear you will have to be isolated for treatment, I will comment on how boring that will be.
Why? Why will I say that when what I should say is that such illness is an awfully lonely business and that anticipating your loneliness saddens me beyond words?Then, I will find myself asking you how to spell your condition.
You will carefully spell it and I will carefully write it down.
You will suggest I might want to look it up.
I won't.
I will carry my scribble around with me for days and look at it in disbelief.
I will feel useless and removed and, like a political candidate who knows the lolly scramble bag has just a few discarded wrappers and at the last minute wildly promises anything for the electorate, no matter how meaningless, I will make you a comfort cake.
These nut-topped fruitcakes depend on what is in my cupboards.
There is no recipe and comedian Lenny Henry would rightly describe them as small windowless buildings.
Regardless of how they turn out, they are packaged and delivered with love, and advice to the recipient to throw them at something or someone if they feel it would help.
Unlike Marie Antoinette, I will know letting you eat cake is not the answer, and may actually be bad for your health, but the politician in me will cherish some foolish hope that even a pointless gesture is better than no gesture at all.
There's no comfort in realising that politicians and I may be only polls apart, after all.
