Marianne Swatch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s<\/a> department. You go where you can get something done, in government. \u00c2\u00a0And he should know. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to retire in November, when they merge the Department of Stodge with MAF at long last, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had a good run. Been in government since 1969 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c rugby mate of his had said, come along, mate, desk in his office.<\/p>\nWinona nearly falls off her chair when Largeman shares a photo of himself from 1969, golden hair down to his collar, matching sideburns, jutting jaw and cheekbones balancing his jutting lapels. No wonder he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d left the vast sheep station where he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been brought up \u00e2\u20ac\u201c though, from the way he talked throughout his career, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d think he lived there part-time.<\/p>\n
His reminiscence rolls on. Even though he’d always been a Labour man, it had been cushy until Britain joined the EEU in 1973. And then there were the Muldoon years, the loss of the farm subsidies. He’d enjoyed the struggles, though. The Labour years had really been his apotheosis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Helen Clark, now there was a woman. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all been about getting money for the farmers, at the end of the day. Bringing it back to good old En Zed.<\/p>\n
Listening to him, Winona is wistful. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You should write your memoirs.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He swells up with pleasure even as he discounts her as a flatterer. But she is thinking of the difference between the jowly, mottled man before her and the stunner in the photo, and that something vital will go when the Largeman newsreel flaps to an end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If a broken-in cricket glove could speak, it would sound like Largeman, Winona\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s old-school-Kiwi uber-boss at the Department of Stodge. He has a baritone that evokes the plummy newsreel voiceovers of yore, slightly muffled, rumbling with deep, slightly indistinct amusement. He understands why she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s moving on. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll do grandly in Marianne Swatch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s department. You go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,22,31,15],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shortfic","tag-government","tag-jobs","tag-old-city","tag-winona"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsawellingtonlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}