THE GENERAL ELECTION

Looking at an election from two very opposite perspectives....

1. THE MANOR

Lord Snootynose Ponselby-Griffin leered across the table at his gorgeous wife, admiring the hawkish tilt of her nose and the way she disported herself in a strapless nightie as she sucked the caviare out of her breakfast croissant.

“Are you going into town today, my love?” he asked, but he didn’t mean either town or love because she never went anywhere near any town when she was out, but lazed in the bar and on the courts of the tennis club where she pranced about in the shortest tennis skirt ever crocheted, flashed the sauciest lace since the seventies and made noises clearly related to those made when a horse was neighing. And as for love, he’d never loved anyone bar himself since the day he was born and he certainly didn’t love Lady Gibbon Ponselby-Griffin because both he and she knew that theirs was the best ever marriage, one of convenience. Love didn’t get in the way to spoil things.

“I might porp out,” she replied. “Are you going to vote for Cyril? It’s election day, you know.”

“Of course I know, my love,” he grunted, “and I’ll give Cyril Righting my mark on my way to my club.”

“I’ll give it to him too, if I porp out,” she said icily. She loved speaking icily even when it wasn’t strictly necessary.

“He’ll get in anyway,” oinked Snootynose, “he’s bound to. He always does, the plebs can’t be bothered to slip out and put their marks against anyone else so he’s bound to win.”

Lady Gibbon burst into a discordant trill of pseudo-mirth and slurped the last of her caviare before sinking her pearly teeth into the crisp croissant.

“Good old Cyril,” she ended by just about pronouncing, “he says he’s going to privatise meat and suggests we might invest because the returns are bound to be yummy!”

“Already have,” grinned Snootynose, wiping a bead of Earl Grey Tea from the end of his nose. “See you tonight, my love, and if you’re good I might try naughties with you for a change.”

“And if you’re good I might let you,” she responded with a strangled gurgle, knowing that she woldn’t.

2. 2, COALMARSH LANE.

Bert Smith chewed the last piece of crust from his untoasted toast and smiled adoringly at Rosa, his wife of twenty-seven years.

“I love you,” he croaked, and spat a globule of coal dust into the direction of the sink. It missed and plopped onto the floor.

“Leave it, darling,” she said, “the dog’ll get it. It’ll do him good.”

“Woof,” agreed Rusty, a small wire-haired terrier with shining eyes.

“I’m off to the yard, then,” mumbled Bert.

“Happen yer’ll vote for the election on the way?” asked Rosa.

“I’m late already, lass, and they’ll dock me half a week’s wages and strap me to the pumpin’ line if I don’t get in on time, so no, I won’t have time. Happen I’ll call in tonight on me way home.”

“I’ll see if I’ve got time to put my cross against Hickup’s name,” sighed Rosa, “though I’ll be hard pushed for time, a bit like you. It’s going to be a long day for me, scrubbin’ the loo seats at th’ Manor. The sods make me use a toothbrush an’ they’ve got above a dozen loos!”

“Just see if you can find a minute,” grunted Bert, “and mayhap I’ll do the same.”

“And tonight I’ll show you just why I reckon you’re special, Bert?” she trilled.

“And mayhap I’ll do the same,” grinned Bert.

3. THE POLLING STATION

Lord Snootynose Ponselby-Griffin was on the verge of climbing out of his Rolls and tiptoeing into the school hall, which had been converted into a polling station for the day, when Bert Smith, doffing his soiled cloth cap in his direction and with more dust on his face than a commercial vacuum cleaner could handle barged past, not quite seeing that anyone else was anywhere near because all that dust was affecting his vision.

“Urgh!” slurped Lord Snootynose, “what filth! Get out of my way, you grubby little creature!”

“Sorry m’lord. Gotta vote,” replied Bert, and he rushed into the polling station, cast his vote and then stood admiring a child’s drawing of Coalmarsh Lane whilst the clerk decided time was up and closed the station.

“Well, it won’t matter,” grizzled Lord Snootynose, still standing by his car door outside the station. “It’ll be a landslide anyway.”

4. THE MANOR

“I’m home, my love,” bellowed Lord Snootynoase Ponselby-Griffin, pinching the under-maid’s bottom as he slid past her into the withdrawing room.

“I couldn’t make it, beloved,” she snooted. “I did porp out but there was that woman who cleans our lavatories going in to vote and I don’t like to be seen in the same room as that sort.”

“You poor little love,” guzzled Lord Snootynose, undoing his trousers.

“Not tonight,” she replied, “I can’t help it. All I can think of is toilets.”

“Fair enough, my love,” he replied, reattaching his trousers to his studded braces and brushing a careless hand through his receding locks.

“Maybe next week,” she told him.

“Then I’ll porp into the little room,” he replied, “with my magazine.”

5. THE RESULT.

“We did it!” whooped Alan Hickup, “We did it!”

There had been five recounts, but there could be no doubt about it.

Alan Hickup had won by a single vote.

It would be him and him alone who would be representing the constituency in Parliament for the next five years.

“Which way is it to the job centre?” Cyril Rightwing was heard to ask, tears in his eyes.

Meanwhile, the Ponselby-Griffins overslept yet again and for no good reason, and Bert, for once, was ten minutes early for his shift down the yard. Oh, and Rosa was unusually flushed as she made her way, toothbrush in hand, towards the Manor, singing a lilting little love-song as she went.

© Peter Rogerson 15.05.17