15. MARMADUKE’S FURTHER TROUBLES

Marmaduke's further reprimand from the PM

It had been a busy term in Parliament and Marmaduke felt duty bound to go our of his way to behave as well as he could. He’d been warned by the Prime Minister himself and he knew how the party detested what were referred to as loose cannons. So he made sure that he didn’t sit where the PM might see him every time he opened his eyes.

The very ideas that he might lose the aura of respectability that he thought he had cultured for himself, as well as the salary of a member of parliament were enough to warn him to tread most delicately when anywhere near the centre of power.

So it was a couple of months before he actually returned home, instead of staying in his shared flat close to the City.

He wasn’t over keen on the two men he shared with because they weren’t sensible politicians but juniors in the banking industry, waiting to claw their way to the top of the tree where money in unbelievable amounts was there for the taking if you were brave enough to take it. Marmaduke wasn’t interested, he merely wanted somewhere to rest his head at night close enough to Wesminster for him not to lose too much time travelling between the two.

Having returned home he thought he really ought to take a peek at his son. He will have grown by now, he thought, he’d be a big lad by now. Do they start walking at two months? He hadn’t a clue but rather thought they had to go through the crawling stage first. Might he have done that? Two months is quite a long time, after all. Such was his ignorance of child development

Dragona brought Claude round to his near-mansion to see him. She had another man with her, one who looked to Marmaduke like a mixed-race teenager, and he was wearing a red tie, so Marmaduke ignored him.

Baby Claude was smiling. He actually smiled at the young man, Earl Gardic. And that young gentleman smiled back and murmured a few encouraging words like “Baby smiley, coo,coo, coo!”

Imbecile, thought Marmaduke, though he had enough good manners not to let the whole word escape audibly, and merely muttered “Imby” under his breath.

“What was that, Marmaduke?” asked his already estranged wife.

Marmaduke, who was staring at the baby and forming all sorts of theories that may or may not have had anything to do with the real world, murmured imby handsome…

He’d not been there an hour and was preparing to leave when he cornered Dragona in her kitchen.

“So this is it,” he almost snarled, forgetting for a moment that he was a gentleman talking to his own wife.

“You mean, me and Earl?” she asked.

“Is that the scallywag’s name? Earl, as if he was a gentleman with royal titles and entitled to look at our baby. Or is it ours. I mean, you’ve only got to look at his darkish complexion. Claude looks very much as though your new boyfriend could be his father, doesn’t he? I mean, with the colour of his skin? They make a good match, Claude and your so-called Earl! And so I expect you’re going to claim off me as the kid’s legitimate father when it’s obvious that I’m not!”

“What are you suggesting, Marmaduke?”

“Well, look at the pair of them, the big one cooing at the little one! And you know perfectly well what I believe should happen to unwelcome immigrants, and if you don’t you can’t have been listening to what I’ve had to say on the subject. They should all be rounded up and sent back to where they belong!”

“You mean, where they were born?” asked Dragona, scowling.

“Where else! There’s no room here for them, and they’re taking the jobs from honest natives! And the homes. Look at the number of homeless we have to provide for! I was discussing this with the Prime Minister only the other day!”

He hadn’t been, but Marmaduke, as my have been gathered, had a very political relationship with the truth.

“But Earl was born here,” smiled Dragona, knowing she must make an honest point before the truth became muddied by her husband’s prejudices, “his father was born here as well, if you must know. Their ancestors arrived in this town after the Government of the late forties put out appeals for men or women of the commonwealth but who lived in their own countries to come here because the country needed them. This country begged them to come.”

“I meant that your Earl must have done things with you, unmentionable things, and you’re saying it was me! You’re claiming that I fathered your b*****d son when it was that lump of filth cooing at him in the front room who did the deed!”

“Who are you calling a lump of filth?” asked Earl from the doorway where he’d been standing waiting to bid farewell to their guest and overhearing what Marmaduke had been saying.

Marmaduke spluttered a meaningless reply, then added, “she was my wife and you were doing filthy things like that with her! The boy must be your blood, not mine!”

“My, you are all of what your lovely wife said you were, and a whole lot more,” grated Earl, “I suggest we get out of your house and seek forgiveness somewhere else!”

“I want a paternity test!” snapped Marmaduke, “I know that there is such a thing, and it’ll prove who Claude’s real father is! Blood is thicker than water, you know!” he concluded irrelevantly as he walked out of the back door forgetting that he was in his own home, and straight into a wooden gate he’d forgotten about because he’d not been looking where he was going anyway.

It was while he was at his solicitor’s office discussing the issue of his wife’s obvious infidelity with a dark-skinned man of dubious morality that he received a call on his mobile phone.

It was from the Prime Minister’s office, and the great man’ssecretary demanded that he call on his boss at his soonest convenience, or even earlier, and certainly before that afternoon’s parliamentary session.

He had no choice. He was already in the Prime Minister’s bad books from his failure to warn Sid about the shooting, and here he was, being summoned like a schoolboy to the Headmaster’s frightening office, expecting a dose of the cane for some misdemeanour he knew nothing about. He shuddered and set out, driving as quickly as he could

When he arrived in Downing Street it was almost lunch time, but he was shown into the great man’s office anyway.

“You’ve done it now, Lauderdale!” the PM snapped, not giving the man in front of him a chance to learn what the reprimand was all about.

“I’ve done what, sir?” he asked.

“You have insulted the son of one of my dearest friends! You do know Earl Gardic, I presume? The son of Lord Gardic? Of Midshire county?”

“You mean the scallywag who had an affair with my wife, my own wife, mark you, and left her with child which they subsequently tried to say I was responsible for?” he asked. “I’m afraid that I did say a few things on the matter, but wouldn’t you, sir, if the same thing were to happen to you?”

The prime Minister rubbed his nose with one hand and stared at Marmaduke.

“But it hasn’t happened to me, young fellow,” he said in the tome of voice that suggested that the words young fellow were meant to be an insult. “I keep my todger in my pants!” he added, a piece of information that wasn’t exactly factual or relevant.

Marmaduke had no idea what he meant by the word todger, so was unable to find a suitable reply along the lines that it wasn’t he who’d fathered his so-called son, but the young relative of the Prime Minister’s dearest friend.

So he stood there, stuttering and open mouthed, and the Prime Minister said, quite plainly, that he, personally, would make sure that at the forthcoming General Election he’d make sure that no Lauderdales were on the list. His parliamentary career could be looked on as over for all time.

Then Marmaduke, convinced that he was totally beyond reproach himself, almost staggered through the Downing Street door and onto the pavement where a news reporter was waiting to interview anyone of interest who might be on his way out of the building.

© Peter Rogerson, 01.06,22

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