11 A Very Important Man

BOB SKELLINGTON’S REMAINS, Part 11

The Prime Minister was sitting in his office, one foot up on a stool to ease the throbbing of a pulsing gout attack, and sucking his thumb vigorously.

He was as contented as any man suffering from gout can be, and the thumb-sucking proved it. For as long as he could remember he had known that this office, indeed this chair in this office, would be his. As a schoolboy he had boasted about it when he wasn’t being friendly to junior boys by kicking them. So in order to achieve his proper place in the world he had fought and lied and deceived his way into this very office, and that gave him a huge sense of contentment.

He brushed one hand through his hair until it drifted into an untidy halo above his head, and sighed into his glass, Scotch Malt, which warmed him several times before it hit his bladder and seemed the most appropriate beverage for so important a man as he knew that he was.

He was about to recharge said glass when there was a tap on his window, which made his rested foot jump because nobody except a window cleaner could reach that window, and the Downing Street windows were cleaned quite automatically, he didn’t know how but was aware that they were.

He looked out again, and sighed. He knew that face. That woman hovering inches from the glass. Old and haggard as she was, he was scared of her. And the worst thing was there she was on the outside of his window and her knew how she was staying there in such a comfortable way. She would be sitting astride one of those old-fashioned besom broomsticks and she would be cackling.

“Go away!” he bellowed, and that set the baby in another room off squawking, and he groaned. He wanted life to be simple because he could only ever hope to be in control if life was simple, and crying babies complicated things. And what’s more, the appearance of that old witch complicated things even more.

“Go away!” he bellowed for a second time, and that ancient hooked-nose head shook vigorously and grinned at him.

“Open up,” she ordered. And that was what he had to do before a sneaky television camera spying on him noticed her and zoomed in, forcing a tatty young reporter to ask who on Earth she was and start an awkward debate. So he knew that he had to open up and see what the crone, the hag, wanted. It would be something she considered to be important even if he thought it arrant nonsense, which he usually did when she put in one of her appearances.

So lifting his aching foot from the stool he limped over to the window, slid it open and watched as she flew, skirts billowing out mightily, with supreme control into his office.

“This is my office!” he blustered, not quite sure what he should be saying to her, so he came out with something obvious.

“Only because you stole it,” she grinned, “Oh Chucky, how I’ve missed our little chats.”

“Don’t call me that!” he exploded, putting his thinning hair to the test by vigorously exercising its follicles with an ultra-nervous hand.

“Now then Chucky, think of your blood pressure,” she chided, “we can’t have a prime minister dropping dead for no good reason actually in his office whilst discussing high matters with a chick like me,” she added.

“What do you want then?” he asked, knowing that her answer was likely to be the very last thing he wanted to hear.

“There are two police women on their way here, Chucky,” she said, “two wonderful intelligent females with a question they need to ask you.”

“I didn’t do it!” he blustered in response, “you must know I didn’t. I’m totally innocent. It must have been the dodgy bloke next door. Or the one across town. Yes, that’s got to be it. He did it. I knew he was a swine when I appointed him to the cabinet. Be good, I begged him, don’t try any of those cute schoolboy tricks we played on some of the Masters when they weren’t looking… But did he take any notice? I don’t think he understands the meaning of self-discipline…”

“It’s nothing like that,” grinned Griselda Entwhistle, for it was she, but she didn’t intend to be any more explicit than that just yet because she enjoyed watching him squirming. “Fascinating as your schoolboy pranks were, we’d best leave them in your adolescence and pay attention to today.” she added meaningfully.

“I know the money wasn’t really mine but I thought it only right to reward one of my chums with a nice juicy contract which would see him through the bad times…” groaned the Prime Minister, “it’s one of the privileges of office… you must know that because you sat in this chair once upon a time… how did you manage that trick, anyway? High office at your age and without the privilege of a public school education?”

“That doesn’t matter, Chucky. Now listen to me before the two police ladies get here. “Do you remember Bob Skellington?”

“The intellectual who knew the right way to treat the plebs? The young genius who wanted everyone not born here to go back to where they came from?” stammered the Prime Minister, getting all flustered again.

“That’s the man. And you believe he was right, Prime Minister?”

“Of course he was! We need to return to the days of the British Empire when everyone knew his place and that place was somewhere men like me never trod because we’re born to be superior to paupers! And foreigners … they should be forced to go back to the land of their birth and toil in steamy factories until they die in their forties…”

“Where were you born, Prime Minister?” grinned Griselda mischievously.

“Well, I’m different, of course! Normal rules and laws don’t apply to me because I’m the Prime Minister and ruler of all I survey!”

“You poor deluded creature,” sighed Griselda, “but to business. What do you remember of Bob Skellington?”

“He was a turncoat! He said one thing and then wrote a tawdry pamphlet dissing it! After all, it was he who suggested that we bring back stoning the peasants for criminal behavior. He said it was a humane form of execution and gave the peasants valuable exercise while they did the stoning. He said just about everything done by none-millionaires should be a capital offence, like snogging, being naughty and having babies.”

“And you agreed with that, Prime Minister?”

“Well, he could be a bit extreme, I suppose, but basically he was an all round good egg with a brilliant mind. I wonder what happened to him?”

“Well, the two police women will be bound to ask you that and I think I hear their car approaching already. They can’t be much more than a mile away.”

“You must have better ears than mine then, witch!” he growled.

“Now then, Prime Minster, where are your manners? But of course I have. After all, don’t I have magic in my finger tips and aren’t you going to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth when the ladies get here?”

“Er … I daren’t do that. Not the whole truth. It might make me seem a tad self-orientated.” he squirmed.

She grinned mischievously. “Do your best,” she murmured, “I think I can hear them at the door.”

© Peter Rogerson 10.02.21