QUILPS PLANS HIS MAIDEN SPEECH

Touches on the colour of underwear

The Prime Minister fixed her eyes in Indigo Quilps, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all because there was something about those eyes, some shallow depth that made him think of goldfish, the sort he won in a plastic bag years ago at the fair when Matron had taken him for some fun, and which would hardly be expected to survive the short walk home, not after he had that fun anyway.

“You’re to make a maiden speech,” she said, “it’s traditional. And you must set out your own hopes for the future. Happy hopes, mind you, and hopes that fit in with the policies of the party. No going off at a tangent, Mr Quilps, and no wearing of that ridiculous hat in Parliament.”

He didn’t like that. Is this, he asked himself, going to be his first big row with the leader of his party? He had ideas for that, ideas that put him in the seat she was sitting in at the moment, with that same blotter in front of him and maybe the odd toy, maybe a Newton’s Cradle or something intelligent like that, for him to twiddle with when he was lost for anything to think of.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “can’t do, I’m afraid. Aren’t there laws that support the right of individuals to sport particular styles and hats for religious purposes? To support deeply held beliefs? I believe, madame Prime Minister, that you sport a brassiere under your rather plain blouse? Would you like it if some bigwig came along and condemned it as ridiculous?”

“What are you on about, man?” she responded without apparently giving her answer so much as a minuscule amount of thought, “my bra’s my own affair and nothing to do with you!”.

He thought rapidly, though not quite so rapidly as his leader had seemingly thought.

“Madame,” he began, blinking at her and tapping the floor with his cane, “I am founder chief of the Brumpton Victorian Society, BVS for short. And the rules of my society are that my head must be covered by a topper at all times unless I’m in bed. It would be plainly impossible if I was prostate, er, I mean prostrate, of course. But at all other times I am expected to sport this hat, or an even taller one on some special occasions.”

The Prime Minister hadn’t got where she was by being easily deceived, and she got the feeling that this new Member was deceiving her now.

“Poppycock,” she said.

“Ah,” he smiled at her, “we rejected that décor, the hanging of poppies on our you-know-what. We’re more careful about our language than Prime Ministers are, it seems, but then, we’ve a lot to learn. But the BVS is a serious attempt at returning our society to the high standards and values enjoyed by our nineteenth century predecessors. Workhouses for the poor, prison of the idle or dissolute, and, of course, immeasurable wealth for those who rule the roost. It seems a fair enough set of policies to me. What do you think?”

Her goldfish eyes showed signs of smiling, and she nodded her head.

“I agree down to the last full stop, but you mustn’t tell the plebs about it,” she said, and the eye smile spread down to her mouth and dissolved her firm lips into a watery sort of joy.

“But they agree!” he told her, recognising the outbreak of happiness on her face as a personal victory for himself. “Explaining the details of my policies, especially with regard to workhouses and punishment, was one factor that won me the seat! You see, there’s not a pleb on this planet who sees himself, or herself if I may use gender terms, as a pleb. It’s other people who are the plebs and they want to see them rightly punished for idleness and ineptitude. So they voted for me. And now that I’m in power they probably expect to see me clamping down on the lazy and dissolute. It’s the natural order of things.”

“I see,” she murmured, “and for all that you require to wear that rather silly hat?”

He scowled at her. “Be careful what words you use to describe by titfer,” he complained, “it is certainly not rather silly! Think of all the great men in the past who wore a garment such as the one that is currently adorning my head!”

“You’ll be talking in Latin soon,” she growled, “because there was a time when the well to do spoke in that tongue if they wanted to impress each other and confuse the peasantry. But we don’t now. At least, not many of us.”

“At meetings of the BVS it is occasionally permissable for the odd word of Latin to break into our debates,” replied Quilps drily.

“I’ll give some thought to the sartorial matter of headgear,” she said, “now tell me, Mr Quilps, what is to be the substance of your maiden speech?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” he said, smiling again, “rodents.”

The prime Minister almost shot up out of her seat. “Rodents?” she asked, “you mean rats and mouses?”

“Mice,” he corrected her, “and yes, but of the human variety, “let me tell you about the Brumpton Laundry Emporium, or the BLE for short.”

“Laundry?” she asked, “what have laundries got to do with politics?”

“Quite a lot, madame,” he told her, making sure that his hat was as high on his head without falling off as it could possibly be. “You see, ever since the age of Queen Victoria herself the BLE has attended to the clothing of the inhabitants of Brumpton, and there have been no causes for complaint. Until now, that is. The workers there have been made aware that the profit margin is really praiseworthy in that the owner, a Mrs Penticost receives a huge bonus thousands of pounds it seems, and they don’t like it. They think they should at least earn the minimum wage, whatever that may be…”

“And?” asked the Prime Minister.

“They’re rats!” almost exploded Indigo Quilps, “they would eat the caviar out of her hand if they could! They would drain her lake of champagne and guzzle it all down without so much as a bye-you-leave or thank-you!”

“And?” asked the Prime Minister.

“They’re threatening to go on strike!” squeaked Mr Quilps, “and that’s to be the substance of my maiden speech! I will suggest that a special prison be built and that they all, every man and woman in the BLE, be locked up in it and the key thrown away! I mean, striking and just because some swine let on that Mrs Penticost has had a gold-plated bathroom suite installed while they have to visit food banks!”

“Who would do such a thing?” twittered the Prime Minister.

“Oh, I know that one! She was my main opposition in the bye-election and she believes in bloody socialism, of all evil things! Eva Curry her name is, and I want to see her body stretched over a plank, and hear her screaming in agony!”

“Good man,” smiled the Prime Minister.

“And I know the colour of her knickers,” nodded Indigo Quilps.

“Red I should think,” sighed the Prime Minister, “the devils always wear red underwear.”

© Peter Rogerson, 30.07.22

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