GRISELDA IN DISGUISE

The site has been down for a couple of days, so I'm slowly slipping behind my self-imposed disciple of an episode a day. It keeps the little grey cells working...

“It’s bloo… it’s cold up here!” spluttered an increasingly shivering and dangerously shaking (bearing in mind where he was, behind an old witch on her broomstick) Bumptious Tiddles as the cold air of altitude bit into his flesh and threatened him with a severe dose of hypothermia for the second time since they’d left the comfort and snuggly warmth of Swanspottle only yesterday morning.

“Have no fear!” cackled Griselda who seemed to be immune from the cold, “look down there!”

She pointed with one hand, taking it off her broomstick, which made it wobble alarmingly in mid air. Bumptious grabbed on firmly with both hands before gazing in the direction the old hag was pointing.

With a foaming wake behind it, a gigantic cruiser ship was ploughing a steady course going ever westwards like a sedate yet mobile island adrift in all that blue. Even from a distance they could hear the rhythm of a dance orchestra and, spookily, the aroma of good wine and strong whisky tainting the air with the fragrance of luxury.

“What it is?” asked a shivering Bumpy.

“It’s our lift across the Atlantic,” cackled the old witch, “you just do as I tell you, mind you, and we’ll have a great deal of comfort and not have to put one bit of effort into it. I’ve been on ships like this before. All we have to do is look the part and nobody will know anything other than we’re completely legal passengers who’ve paid far too much for the privilege of being fattened up in restaurants and bars while the floating palace eases its way through storm and gale alike! Much easier than riding on a broomstick through all weathers, and I did hear back there on the pirate dinghy that there’s rough weather ahead.”

Bumpy shuddered. “How do we get away with it?” he asked plaintively. He was, after all, a politician who didn’t mind getting away with murder if necessary, but as long as nobody found out. The last thing a politician wants is having his name besmirched by facts and actual truth.

“That’s easy!” cackled Griselda, “have you any idea how many people there are on that boat? I mean, Bumpy, look at it! It’s a monster of a vehicle with thousands all gorging themselves and drinking their livers away, none of them giving a single thought for the charming young thing in a mini-dress who’s dancing with the dour and dismal politician to the sound of Chubby Checker twisting yet again...”

“Oh no...” sighed Bumptious, but he was truly torn between the desire to keep as far away from a dance floor as his uncoordinated legs could manage and getting warm whilst simultaneously feeding his increasing hunger for something, anything, solid. The fragrance of fish and chips from the pirate ship had caused a huge hole in his stomach to develop in an instant, and it hadn’t gone away.

“Come on, then, me boy! Down we go!” squawked Griselda, and with a practised twitch of her experienced knobbly bottom the broomstick began to glide gracefully downwards.

“Such joy,” she breathed, and Bumptious had to agree with her as the warmer air of a lower altitude combined with a decrease in speed through it made him feel suddenly warmer and caused his teeth to stop chattering like a group of monkeys beating out the coconut tango.

In less time than it had taken for them to complete the Swanspottle journey to the Crowne and Anchor they arrived and hovered above a deserted aft deck of the gigantic vessel. The rich smells of an international cuisine, combining exotic curries with bangers and mash and tagliatelle and all manner of sweet things, including strawberry jelly laced with sherry filled Bumpy’s nostrils and he almost swooned as he recalled political parties (that is, the celebration kind of party rather than the purely political sort) in which he’d smooched with the wives of his elders and betters even though he was gay.

Sacrifices, he always told himself, had to be made for the furtherance of Self.

Griselda settled the broomstick with spectacular gentility in a deserted spot and grinned at her political companion.

“Now for a metamorphosis,” she murmured, “now is the time for me to fit in.”

And she murmured something quietly to herself, something he couldn’t quite catch but which sounded other-worldly, as she concealed the broomstick in the shadows of a corner where the sun would never shine. But it wasn’t the muttering (which he couldn’t understand) but the way her ragged and spiky old self morphed with almost unbelievable beauty into her niece. And the clothes changed along with the flesh until she stood before him like a twenty-something goddess dressed in nearly nothing, but still wearing enough to satisfy most demands for modesty … just about.

“You … you’re her!” he gabbled. He had, of course, always believed that the young and precocious goddess had been Griselda’s actual niece. He had never associated the young flesh and white teeth, the sparkling eyes and delicious legs, with the actual old lady. And the clothing … old hags like Griselda didn’t ever wear tiny skirts like that! They didn’t allow the casual observer to note the length of their legs and the way they were practically perfect whilst getting the very odd glimpse of shiny white underwear.

“Of course I am,” she said in her niecey voice, a gentle purr, a twinkling little laugh, a young vibrato.

“But how…?” he stammered.

“I never did quite understand it, Bumpy-boy,” she said, “it’s just something I’m good at. Something that comes naturally. Now let me see what I can do about you because you’ve got to fit in too … your suit’s in quite a mess now that you’re out of that cold wind, you poor little mite! So I’d best attend to it.”

“I’m all right!”

“Firstly, let’s get rid of some of the pompous politician’s vibes, darling…” and with a mumble and a murmur the most extraordinary sensation flooded through Bumptious’s body. He felt a fluttering on his face as a day’s whiskers sprouted to become designer stubble, and a feeling akin to the gentle touch of angels’ fingers ran up and down his back as his posture underwent a realigning tweak. And, mercy me, he almost cried out, his podgy stomach drew in to itself and became a mighty six pack with a sensation he never wanted to go away. His suit, then, it redesigned itself and the trouser component of it changed into the most outrageously coloured Bermuda shorts whilst the jacket loosened and turned from boring old right-wing worsted into linen and hung from his shoulders quite loosely.

“That’s better, daarling...” she laughed, and then pulled back. “I could quite fancy you now! But I say, who’s this coming?” she asked.

A man was sauntering along towards them and when he came within only a few yards from where they were standing he stopped dead.

“Bumpy? Is that you, old friend?” he asked, his voice shocked, “I didn’t know you were on this trip!”

“Sailor John...” stammered Bumptious, “My dearest old friend! I thought you couldn’t go to sea on account of not having sea legs?”

“Oh, I got over that!” laughed the man called Sailor John, “I trained myself in a pedalo on the Grand Union Canal last summer! Now I can sail the seven seas with any man. But hey! Haven’t you changed your ways too! Who’s the delightful piece of totty you’re about to drape over yourself like an ermine coat?”

“Do you mean me?” asked Griselda, and Bumptious knew what was about to happen. Griselda, he was quite certain, would never accept that she was in any way totty.

And it happened.

Within mere moments Sailor John doubled in the kind of pain only men can understand, and was holding his groin as though if he didn’t something important might fall off.

“You shouldn’t have called her totty,” sighed Bumptious, “you really shouldn’t, Sailor John...”

© Peter Rogerson 05.02.18