GRISELDA ZOOMS OFF

I've decided that all good things must end, so this story has. In the past month or so I've presented you with 26 chapters, one for each letter of the alphabet..

Now was the end of the road. Now what had started as an unidentified flying object smashing into a hamlet outside Brumpton Town had been returned to what it ought to have been and all was well, or as well as it had ever been, which wasn’t always that well. But what life is?

Now was the completion of rebuilding that lane-cum-road through Swanspottle so that it had about it the look of age and decay that it had enjoyed before the flying object struck. The buildings even had the same leaky draughts, the same truncated chimneys, the same cracked tiles and, in one or two caes, the same rodents scurrying through the same thatch.

Now was the time for the grizzled old Griselda Entwhistle to put her feet up, sigh and congratulate herself on a job well done.

But she didn’t do that. It wasn’t in her nature to put her feet up.

Instead she arranged a party, a great big boozy party in the function room of The Crowne and Anchor.

Dozens of locals were there. Tom Copley had his own corner that everyone steered clear of on the off (or on) chance that he might vomit. The McMudd sisters, all three of them, were doing their best to seduce anyone in trousers, and there was laughter a-plenty and jollity all round.

Even the Prime Minister was there. She rather felt she had to go because her big mate from across the pond had suggested he might turn up too and she daren’t do anything that might be seen by him as any kind of insult. And because she was there and because Griselda was feeling mischievous she held a gurning* competition, and because she wanted everything to seem perfectly okay she made sure the Prime Minister won it.

The amazing thing is that victory was without any special help from her. The Prime Minister could gurn, all right! She was a apst mistress at the art. Her gurns were unbeatable.

The Prime Minister’s colleague from across the pond, the American President, did come. He was in a flamboyant mood and spent most of his time explaining to one and all the there was no finer woman on planet Earth than Griselda Entwhistle, with the certain exception of her niece who was a delight in every possible way and who he’d like to get to know better, and it would be one up for her if he did because he was the most influential man on the planet and he could do a her more than a bit of good. He might even be able to give her a leg up, he said with a knowing wink at Bumptious Tiddles. His brains and her beauty were a winner, he knew that.

And Bumptious Tiddles was also there, with his boyfriend Sailor John who had given up his life on the surging seas in favour of an easier life on land where there was less chance to suffer from seasickness. That easier life, of course, had a great deal to do with the Bumptious trousers, of which no more later.

Sir Alan Sugar turned up. He, for those who are not used to British culture, established the firm that bore his initials in its name and became famous for producing the first really multi-purpose home computer. But that wasn’t his main claim to fame. You see, he hosted a television extravaganza called The Apprentice in Britain, and was curious to meet others who may have enjoyed the same fame in other lands.

It was noted by one and all that however hard he might try, the American President completely failed to attract Sir Alan’s attention, but that didn’t matter because, during an interlude during which Griselda was absent, her niece filled in for her, and the president was overcome with boundless joy.

And her niece attracted a great deal of enthusiastic attention, possibly because of her choice of a tiny cotton and polyester dress that exposed a maximum amount of her splendidly shaped legs and even the tantalizing curve of her equally splendid backside, but failing those qualities the attraction was most certainly because of the way her eyes sparkled when she spoke to the President.

“Who’s that trollop?” asked the British Prime Minister, forgetting that the gurning competition was over and producing a gurn of such hideous proportions that small children who weren’t there but who lived within range of its spiteful beauty as it warped time and space were heard to weep in their sleep.

“That? The girl? Oh, it’s Griselda’s niece,” replied Sergeant Lockemup (who was there and had something to do with security). “The President quite likes her, which makes him some sort of b*****d,” he added.

“What a dreadful thing to suggest!” moaned the Prime Minister.

“Well, it might,” he murmured, diluting his own rage for the sake of expediency and because Griselda’s niece had winked at him.

“See you afterwards,” the wink said.

He winked back. “I can’t wait!” replied the wink.

The Mayor of Brumpton appeared before the end. He was famous for his long holidays at public expense and the way he closed public amenities in order to finance them. The British Prime Minister thoroughly approved of him and told everyone in no uncertain terms that he was an all-round good egg, which earned him fewer friends and a great number of new enemies. In fact, before he left at the end of the party he discovered that someone had slashed the mayoral car’s tyres and he had to walk home to Brumpton because, spookily, no taxis were available. He never forgot that walk and instigated a night bus service between Swanspottle and Brumpton.

Griselda returned shortly after her niece departed for the night claiming that she had a headache and needed the comfort of her boudoir with the curtains closed and the light off. Sergeant Lockemup nodded, smiled, and whispered later as she left.

And so there was Griselda who returned almost instantly.

She tapped a spoon on a glass and broke the glass, so she tapped a spoon on a second glass, and the gathering stopped muttering and giggling and murmuring, and became silent.

“So friends,” she cackled, “the job is done! The task is over! The homes that were demolished by a friendly flying object have been rebuilt and everything is just about what it was like before. Even those who lost their lives in the disaster have somehow managed to learn to breathe again. Coffins have risen to the surface of the church cemetery and the Reverend Daisy Duchess has found peace and solace in an asylum for the mentally unstable where there’s a quantity waiting for her. The church roof still leaks, the beer in this establishment is still diluted nine times out of ten and I’m off!”

And waiting no longer, having said all that needed to be said, she strode out of the party, mounted her second best broomstick which she’d left parked outside, and zoomed off, with Sergeant Lockemup clinging on behind, a sloppy grin on his face.

Which means it’s the end of the story.

© Peter Rogerson 05.03.18

*Gurning (or girning) … the pulling of extremely grotesque faces, often with the mouth stretched abnormally.