GRISELDA VALUES BREAKFAST

Decisions regarding reparations for the demolition of part of Swanspottle are made at breakfast...

There was no other word for it: the Private Breakfast Room was plush. The main table was huge and set for two people, each at one end of something that was so long they would have to shout at each other if they wanted to converse. And somehow, sitting at one end of that table with a napkin tucked neatly into his collar under his chin, was the President who they’d left not so many minutes before sitting on his gold-plated toilet and confused by the manufacture of cleaning appliances.

Griselda and Bumptious zoomed in aboard the geriatric vacuum cleaner with its cord dangling and the plug rattling against the floor, but the President was chewing on something that generated slurping and salivating noises and didn’t hear them with his chair side-ways on to them and his eyes bulging as he took in the contours of an extremely attractive young waitress complete in her French maid’s costume.

“I tell you, I know kidneys when they’re cooked to a tee, and these are cooked to a tee,” he was saying to the startled waitress, a pert young thing who had obviously been selected for her own physical attributes and short skirts.

“Yes, sir,” she said demurely, tucking a breast back into the bra cup from which it had escaped while she was reaching for extra sausages on the serving table.

“And eggs, sunny side up,” he continued, oblivious of the air-borne intruders that were staring unbelievingly at the plate of breakfast he clearly intended to consume. “I know a good egg, sunny side up, and these are good eggs. You’ll have to tell the chef. Say I’m over the moon with his sunny-side eggs.”

“Yes sir,” she repeated, equally demurely whilst pulling her skirt down so that it had an evens chance of being lower than her underwear.

“You’re nothing but a greedy pig, and that plate’s a heart attack in the making!” interrupted Griselda in her best squawking voice.

“I’m sorry sir, I didn’t know...” stammered his waitress.

The President spun to one side and faced the two interlopers who were settling back on the ground.

“I don’t think much of this Hoover even if it was made in the UK,” continued Griselda, “if you got here before we did, and I was going flat out! Give me a good old besom broom any day!”

“What do you want now?” asked the President, “not contented with interrupting me on my loo you dared to interrupt me at breakfast, and in my book that’s unforgiveable!”

“Reparations,” Griselda told him, “you haven’t established reparations for the virtual demolition of Swanspottle on the south side of Brumpton. We can’t have powerful men like you destroying all the little man has, especially when that little man is me and has virtually nothing. And that missile you said was hardly friendly.”

“Reparations…?” stammered the President.

“And breakfast,” continued Griselda, her stomach rumbling almost louder than her voice. “My political companion and I require breakfast, so if you like we’ll join you. Those sausages look just the ticket, and I wouldn’t mind a few rashers of bacon.” She smiled at the confused waitress, who had somehow accidentally dislodged the other breast and was struggling to return it to what was obviously an inadequate harness. “Nip and tell the cook to crisp a few slices of bacon, unsmoked if you please, and best back,” she said cutely, and the young woman clumsily curtsied as she hurried out.

“I want the row of cottages, some of them as old as Tudor...” she began.

“Tudor? Where’s that?” stammered the President whilst part of his brain was obviously occupied by thoughts of how to get rid of this old woman before her bacon arrived because he suddenly had a yen for a few well-crisped rashers himself.

“It’s a when, not a where,” sighed Griselda, “from the sixteenth century, two of those cottages were, built when good king Henry of head-lopping fame and surplus wives was on the throne, and you can’t replace that with modern new-build houses that lack such amenities as outside loos and draughty doors. They need rebuilding brick by brick, and that takes craftsmen, and craftsmen cost money.”

“Then they should have been insured,” rumbled the President, “I make sure all my real estate is insured. It only makes sense, but then I’m the most sensible man you’ll ever meet and I take care of things like that automatically. Or a man does. I’ve got a man who does things like that.”

“They called it an act of God, and insurance won’t cover that,” pointed out Griselda.

“An act of God? Really? They think I’m God? Well I never, so perceptive of them, so beautifully perceptive,” beamed a suddenly happy President.

“And think of Thomas the Greek,” continued Griselda ignoring him as the underdressed waitress returned with a plate of crispy bacon.

“Who the Hell is Thomas the Greek? And what shithole of a country does he come from?”

“He’s a Brit,” Griselda told him, her eyes suddenly severe, “and I’d be obliged if you referred to my homeland as something rather sweeter that a shithole. Thomas the Greek never was and never will be from Greece but he likes to think he’s got Greek heritage. We tolerate it because although he waters his beer down when nobody’s looking he runs the only pub in Swanspottle and people need a watering hole, don’t they? Somewhere they can relax? A home from home for the severely alcoholic? And anyway, Greece is beautiful and ancient and oozing with history.”

“Well, it’s nothing to do with me,” shouted the President, “I never demolished those houses you’re on about...”

“Cottages,” corrected Griselda, munching on a tasty rasher and pouring herself a cup of coffee.

“You sent that missile over because you wanted to give a gift, something special to a young woman!” snapped Griselda.

“Not any young woman,” sighed the President, “but an extraordinary young woman… she wanted something special for Valentine’s day, a gift that meant the world to her, that cemented, as she put it, Us For Always…. But I misread the letters on my shirt cuff where I’d written Ufa and thought it said Ufo. So I sent her an Unidentified flying object to the address she gave me… It cost quite a lot of money, you know, missiles like that don’t come cheap even if they aren’t armed with a nuclear warhead… I thought I’d done what she wanted, the ravishing young beauty with the big you-know whats.”

“My niece, so careful what you say,” nodded Griselda. “A silly mistake yo have made, Mr President. And it caused an intolerable amount of damage. Now Mr Tiddles here...” she indicated Bumptious.

“Hey! Tiddles is my p***y!” put in the confused and confusing President, “and I love every inch of fur on his beautiful body...”

“It is also Parish Councillor Tiddles, my companion and representative of the people of Swanspottle,” insisted Griselda, “and he will accept a written note, signed by you, for reparations. Either that or something a lot worse will happen.

“Worse?” stammered the golden-headed president.

“Much worse,” nodded Griselda, “for if you don’t agree with reparations and the rebuilding of a row of ancient cottages complete with outside loos and original brickwork, you’ll get a visit from a truly scary person, and she’ll make you see sense.”

“Who?” stammered the President.

“We have a lady prime minister,” said Griselda gently, “and I have enough influence to make sure we send her to visit you...”

“No!” shouted the President, “Not her! I’ll do anything you want me to do, sign any agreement you think fit, but don’t send her!”

“Why not?” asked a surprised Bumptious.

“Because she holds hands!” almost wept the President, “and she’s got … she’s got horribly sticky fingers!”

© Peter Rogerson 27.02.18