1. MARMADUKE LAUDERDALE, MP.

A ficitios MPs journey through life to the Afterlife

It had been a long climb up to Saint Peter’s gate (I know there’s no such thing in the real universe, but in this piece I’m looking into the contents of Marmaduke Lauderdale’s septic brain where there it does exist), and Marmaduke was exhausted and wanted to lie down on something soft and cuddly until he got his breath back.

“It’s no good,” Saint Peter told him, “you’re dead, so breath doesn't matter, and anyway there’s no air of any kind up here. This is the Afterlife, chum, and you’d better get used to it. Now stand up!”

Marmaduke slowly (for effect rather than because he had to) rose to his feet.

“I’ve come to Heaven,” he said loftily, “I think you’ll find I’m due, where I can take a well deserved place among the heavenly throng.”

At that Saint Peter consulted a list and shook his head, possibly sadly, who can tell whether a saint is happy or sad?

“You’re not mentioned here,” he said, “so let’s have a resume of your life for starters, make sure you qualify, and all that. So let me see… you were born…”

“I never tell the truth there,” interrupted Marmaduke, “I usually knock a few years off in order to seem more vital and exciting than I suppose I am…”

“You were born” continued Saint Peter, frowning at the interruption, “at home, attended by three midwives and a couple of surgeons, paid for by you father, pre-NHS, so it cost quite a lot.”

“He could afford it,” snorted Marmaduke, “I inherited his dosh, so I know how much he had. And he paid no tax on anything!”.

Saint Peter frowned, then continued “As a baby you were well nigh bog standard, though a bit slow to learn to talk on account of your inate low intelligence…”

“Now hey there, fellow! I’m as bright as a spark plug! I even joined MENSA!”

“Only you cheated,” harrumphed Saint Peter, “you got your butler to do the entry test, disguised as you. He passed, you would have failed when it came to the bit about writing your name.”

“So I used my intelligence to avoid failure,” snarled Marmaduke, and Saint Peter sneered.

“But first, your nursery education. Let me see,” Saint Peter ruffled the pages, “your parents employed a retired college lecturer, a Mrs Ivy Brainbox, to supervise your earliest education. She lasted two days and left, because you pooed into her handbag.”

“That was the right thing for me to do,” explained Marmaduke, “she was an old sourpuss and a b***h, and I didn’t like her.”

“She was followed by Doctor Ivan Slinky,” continued Sant Peter, “and he lasted a few weeks before being discharged for exposing himself in front of you, though he did explain that it had all been your idea and that you would get your father to spread terrible rumours about him if he didn’t.”

“That was clever of me. Only four years old and up to that kind of gag!” grinned Marmaduke.

“So your nursery education was as great a failure as any nursery education could be,” growled Saint Peter, shaking his head, “so let’s go to your primary education at Ludovic’s Private Academy for the Education of Numbskulls.” He grinned when he said that, “apparently your parents were aware of your intellectual shortcomings and had you incarcerated in that establishment during term time, where they thought you would most benefit from the methods used by Professor Ludovic.”

“It was a nasty place, that,” groaned Marmaduke, “they used to hurt me if I couldn’t do my two times table. They used a stick on my bottom! Think of that, for a moment. On my bottom and it’s soft sweetness! Mind you, it prepared me for my future vwhen I called on a Miss Whiplash when I was in town and felt lonely!”

“But you never quite mastered the two times table,” sighed Saint Peter, “tell me, off the top of your head, what is ten times two?”

Marmaduke curled his lips. “Thirty one, of course,” he replied.

“See what I mean? So your primary education was a failure,” murmured the Saint sadly, “it ill-prepared you for the expensive public school you were obliged to attend on a residential basis.”

“You mean, where I had to share a dormitory with other boys,” groaned Marmaduke, “the memory of those years gives me shivers! Some of them were positive bullies! They poured water over me when I was in bed, and the nurse slapped me for wetting myself when it was them who had wetted me! And worse! They made me create a paper plane and see if it flew all the way across the lawn outside, and if it didn’t I had to give them all the tuck mummy had sent me.”

“Tell me about your history lessons?” asked Saint Peter, enjoying this part of Marmaduke’s story.

“If I have to. They were unhappy days for me and I got punished every single lesson because I couldn’t remember the order of the Tudor monarchs. I mean, what does it matter now? They’re all long dead and buried.”

“You may have a point there,” agreed Saint Peter, “though I don’t know about the dead part. None of them came this way.”

“My fingers stung every time Professor Sadist caned me,” muttered Marmaduke, “and there was nothing I could do to stop it bar learning the order those blasted monarchs reigned, and I couldn’t do that.”

“Because you didn’t try,” nodded Saint Peter, “instead, when you should have been doing your vital homework you wandered off into the village to play with some of the village girls.”

“They were better than the boys that I had to live with,” snarled Marmaduke, “at least they let me feel them.”

“That’s enough of that kind of recollection! So we’ll move on to university. You went there, of course, they wanted you to go to Oxford but you proved yourself to be not bright enough, so you were sent to one of the so called red brick universities, where you studied the Tudor Monarchs.”

“That was Professor Sadist’s joke, and I hated it, but in the end daddy bought me a degree by offering the university a nuclear physics laboratory for free.”

“It didn’t last long,” mentioned Saint Peter, “you blew it up.”

“How was I to know that King Henry the eighth didn’t know that uranium was dangerous?” almost exploded Marmaduke.

“So we’ll move on to your post-education life. You were awarded a first class honours degree and enjoyed parading round your family estate dressed in your cap and gown. It was there where you bumped into the head chef’s daughter and put her with child,” Saint Peter reminded him, shaking his head.

“It was all her fault,” snarled Marmaduke, “how was I now that what we did together would have that effect? Anyway, daddy did the right thing, married us after letting it be known that she was of royal stock.”

“By tracing her ancestry back to Ethelred the Unready,” pointed out the Saint, “most people can find somone royal in the ancestry if they go back far enough.”

“So what? After all it made her blood the bluer!” snapped Marmaduke.

“Anyway, once your nuptials were over you were obliged to enter politics,” continued a rather bored Saint Peter.

“Daddy said it was my best chance of getting fame and fortune and if I played my cards right I might soon become Prime Minister and have all the glory that position brings to a man. So I joined the local party…”

“Conservative party…” nodded Saint Peter.

“Well, it was in my blood! I joined them, bought quite a lot of rounds at the club bar until I had enough friends who’d elect me as candidate, bought more things for the peasants so that they’d like me enough to vote for me, and by a narrow margin got elected.”

“But you let yourself down in your maiden speech to Parliament,” pointed out the inquisitor Saint.

“I know. I addressed the Prime Minister as Henry Tudor. I got muddled. I never could get me head round Kings and Prime Ministers. Anyway, it was all taken as a joke and I reckon I got away with it.”

“So you rose through the ranks…”

“You’ve no idea how much it cost me even though the Westminster bars are subsidised by the proletariat,” muttered Marmaduke, “I bought so much booze I could have, as they say, floated a battle-something in it. But I did reach cabinet rank.”

“Quite, it was where the Prime Minister followed the maxim about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer” agreed a now smiling Saint, “and then?”

“I suppose I had one drink too many, and some swine laced my whiskey with something nasty and, well, it tasted okay, but here I am!”

“At the gate to Heaven.”

“So can I come in?”

“You, who’ve lied and cheated your way through life and who’s only excuse is thick ignorance?”

“Now be fair…”

“I am! And can you come in to Paradise? Of course not! There’s another room for you, down stairs, with all your mates from the past I can’t remember how many thousand years. And the Tudors… they’re there for their sins, to help you learn who came after who in the family! Look: over there where the smoke’s rising up from below… off you go and thanks for all the jokes!”

© Peter Rogerson 18.05.22

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Reviews

[Wild Rose]

Mmm Thanks for a good laugh
You sail close to the wind with this
But their again > You are a sailer - Hm - you own the ship - must be an admiral
Lord Peter 'Admiral of the fleet'

House of Lords for you milad - don't snore too loudly

[Peter Rogerson]

And I sail close to the wind...? You mean, they snore? Such elevated souls whi reckon they understand the rest of us?