The Powers of Love

For months it was one of the biggest mysteries on Parliament Hill: Who was the lucky bastard getting a legover with Julie McCarthy?

Julie, of course, is the gorgeous and much-lusted-after bar manager at Brixton’s, favoured Sparks Street pissoir for Ottawa politicos, particularly Knee Dippers.

For the past decade, MPs, support sluggos and media hacks have gathered every Wednesday at the Sparks Street pub. It’s been Brixton’s biggest night of the week, and the ring-master is McCarthy, a political junkie who doubles as a yoga instructor for many of the same politicos, and hobnobs with them at Hill functions like the Press Gallery dinner. She keeps the Brixton’s crowd well-oiled, tucking $600-$700 a night in tips into her admirable embonpoint.

And so it came as a colossal shock last spring when Julie’s many male admirers noted that she was heavy with child. She’d been trying to keep her pregnancy a secret, but soon speculation about the identity of the mystery father went from a nod and a wink to gob-smacked incredulity.

Not Tim Powers! Say it ain’t so! Not the Summa Strategies spinmeister, Tory apologist, Power & Politics panelist and cauliflower-eared ruggerbum. Shurely shomebody elsh?!

Alas, the lucky stiff was indeed Powers, who sought to keep the pregnancy top secret because, well, er, he had to prepare a strategy to deal with the media.

The spin went like this: Although Tim, an avid trampolinist, wasn’t the marrying kind, he would, of course, be a doting father; fully supportive of Julie and their wee bairn.

But since Julie gave birth, Frank hears the rigours of fatherhood have proven more onerous than tight-fisted Timmy had anticipated, and co-parenting is, in the words of one mutual friend, “not the most amicable.”

Julie has lawyered up and it looks like Tim may find closing out this particular bar tab passing pricey.