“Move over Ned Kelly, there’s a new Australian story to be told and retold in multi-episode docudramas, a musical, a stage play and anime,” says legal writer HUGH SELBY. 

SOME readers may remember Akira Kurosawa’s film, telling the story of the rape of a woman and more through the widely differing accounts of four witnesses.

The “Rashomon effect” is how parties to an event will recall it in different, even contradictory ways, illustrating each perspective, rather than an objective truth.

Move over Ned Kelly and his gang, there is a new Australian story to be told and retold in multi-episode docudramas, a musical, a stage play, anime, and a series of large canvases to rival Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly series of 27 paintings. 

This last month there has been a telling of a story in a courtroom in Sydney, sufficiently entertaining that on some days more than 20,000 have followed it on YouTube.

I recall being told by my classics teacher that all great stories have a mix of sex, power and money. In the 60 years since, he has been proved right over and over again. This story hits the trifecta.

My chances of success with those who will commission the various “guaranteed financial success” retellings of the story are nil. I have but one chance and it is now, with you.

Some will say: “Stop now. This matter is before a court. Stay clear of contempt of that court and defamation”. Excellent advice.

So let us all be very clear. None of us was at those drinks, in the Uber, in Parliament House or present at any later conversations with politicians, political staffers, police, producers. The “truth” is something that we can never know. 

Unless the parties in that courtroom reach a settlement, it is left to the judge to exercise all his judicial qualities and knowledge to make decisions within the legal framework that reflect his close attention to all the evidence before him. Matters will, or will not, be proved on the balance of probabilities.

The true story, whatever it is, is not our focus. We are interested in how the story can be refashioned to entertain, to be a morality play, and to make money, in the months and years to come.

Who are our narrators? I have found a few who have been ignored by all and sundry to date. Here are their stories (not told in hope of any reward) following the chronology: our weekend Rashomon.

First, the two barstools on which the two key players sat while at the “after-work” drinks. That’s BI and B2 (but they are not bananas):

B1: Do you remember those two B2?

B2: I remember that she wore heels and was digging one or both into my cross stays. That’s when she wasn’t pressing down hard into my padding with your sitter leaning into her.

B1: Tobacco smoke was through his clothes. The cleaners had a fit trying to get the smell out of my padding. One of them was saying that it was like in the old days when the inside of car windows would get gummed up with the pollutants contained in the smoke.

B2: They reckon that where there’s smoke there’s fire. What do you think happened?

B1: Being short like you I can’t see anything above their hips. I don’t know where he went, or why, when he wasn’t sitting on me, or moving me around the floor so that you and I would be close, so close.

B2: I’m sure she didn’t move me. Other times I’ve travelled this floor space, here, there and everywhere. This time I was kept in the one spot, in the gloaming. Do you know why we’re now being kept in this dark storeroom?

B1: Sure do, we’re part of the collection for the annual charity auction. What your new owner pays will go to the “responsible drinking campaign”. In my case it’s going to “Quit and Live”. 

Second, the back Uber seat or “bus”, upon which the two sat as they went to Parliament House:

Heh, it’s pronounced ‘z’ as in buzz, not ‘s’ as in some cheap public bus, because my driver has gone all out to give his clients the best limo experience. 

That’s why there’s this neat console in the middle of my back that can be pushed back or laid down flat. It has a fake wood veneer sliding top. When you slide that open there are some little miniatures. You know, like “fresh breath spray”, “cool, cool mints” and those silver foil chocolate “kisses”. There’s even some make-up remover.

Some of the couples that sit on me use that stuff. Others are too into each other and themselves to even pull me down and slide the top. One of them will use the lap seatbelt in the middle rather than the lap sash on their side.

I could smell booze all over my surface, but it can’t have been too much because the driver refuses to take drunks. They barf all over me and the floor carpets. Cleaning up is a really big dent into driving time and income.

That reminds me of what a nuisance it is when lipstick gets left on the top of my back support, near the nicely moulded neck supports. It’s a devil to remove. Mind you, I’m not saying that any was left on this occasion.

A veteran back seat in one of the early official Daimlers told me how upset their driver got after some visiting dignitary left their rouge on their hide. Could they get it off? No chance. Their efforts made it worse, spreading this pink cloud over the white leather and into the stitching, like blood on a wet sheet.

Third, the lounge sofa in the Senator’s suite:

I’ve seen a lot of action in my time in this place, including the diplomatic, the conspiratorial and the passionate.

Every ministerial reshuffle I’m pushed and pulled along the corridors. Sometimes they treat me like a cheap, bare metal furniture trolley and load me with boxes of political bric a brac, and bottles of booze, opened and unopened.

The ministerial tables tell me that I’ve got a thick hide. I do, but I’m sensitive inside. I know when my springs are under too much strain, when I yearn for time alone.

But I quite like when the late afternoon sun or moonlight is streaming through the windows and I can feel pulsing energy. The corridor cat has a habit of climbing on top of those who take a short “power nap” and pushing firmly, repeatedly, with its front legs on their slowly rising and falling chest. Maybe that’s what I felt that night, the cat being active and all.

Fourth, that cat, Tobermory’s direct descendant. Ah, you don’t know the famous Tobermory, the genteel cat who learned to speak, and lived in an English country manor before World War I. His tragic story is told by Saki (HH Munro). 

All you need to know is that he heard and saw it all – the comings and goings of everyone. Once he revealed his secret, everyone – no matter what their indiscretions and animosities – had common cause to kill him. He died very soon thereafter.

Corridor cat has spoken through a trusted intermediary. Cat was there that night, chasing moonbeams in his corridor. Cat heard words coming from the ministerial suite. The door was closed. Alas, what he heard, and who said it is unclear.

He might have heard, “Shoo fly, don’t bother me”.

But it might have been, “Shoes and a fly don’t bother me”.

Or it might have been, “Shoot, lies don’t bother me”.

We’ll never know.