QUILPS AND A STALKING HORSE

Quilps my well be on his way up/ The powers that be seem to need him...

The Prime Minister was troubled, and for good reason.

She had suggested to the proprietors of a couple of the best selling newspapers in the country that they print her opinion, which, off the top of her head, was that things in the country can only get better if anyone protesting in any way against her policies was silenced.

She had meant something along the lines by using the word silenced that they were offered the comfort of brief spells in prison in order to rethink their objections to what, in her mind, was only common sense, but it was heralded in the two most popular papers as a return to capital punishment, which they approved of, and possibly even a meeting with the hangman. Someone even suggested that the firing squad might be an effective silencer.

And the apparent misunderstanding of her simple statement led to a wave of protests from left, right and centre, and the members of her cabinet began resigning one at the time saying that they couldn’t work under a leadership with such draconian views, and this continued until she was very much on her own and, in the end, had to resign.

It really wasn’t fair. Her husband told her as much. How, he asked the fresh air on their own doorstep when a microphone was pushed into his face, how can any government function if the feet are being continually kicked from under it (metaphorically) by dissidents?

By what right, he said on another occasion, are people allowed to have opinions that differ from the official line?

He was probably and unwittingly her worst enemy!

Now, the particular political party in power had a system whereby its membership chose their leader, and that leader became the new Prime Minister, and although the syetm was patently unfair, it was the one that has been in place since time immemorial, or almost that long.

And it was amid the gossip and confusion of not having a man or woman in power that a senior and very old and honourably resigned member from the cabinet approached Indigo Quilps in a very secretive way.

“This is a mess,” grunted that senior ex-minister (resigned).

Quilps nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly. It was a mess, almost as big as the one he’d escaped from by the skin of his own skin following the serious (but thankfully withdrawn) accusation made by one Melissa Townbridge over the proximity of the palm of his hand to her thigh.

He was glad that word of the incident had apparently very nearly completely faded away from the lexicon of any indiscretions he might have been guilty of and delighted that the young woman had won a scholarship to a prestigious college even though she had never applied, but then, that is the way of corruption, though probably not as bad as having your thigh soothed by a top-hatted loon.

“I’m glad they saw sense,” continued the wrinkled and extremely old ex-minister, Sir Benjamin Goulle.

“Pardon?” Indigo asked, not detecting a thread in those few words that made much sense.

“The police, you know, a worrying affair no doubt, don’t you know.. Was it a lovely thigh? Smooth and gorgeous with just a touch os softness to it? I’ve always been fond of a lady’s legs, particularly the thigh. They’re kind of beckoning, don’t you know? Tempting even to an old fart like me, and I invited a bevy of them to my seventieth!”

“It was nothing at all,” muttered Indigo. “Absolutely didn’t happen, though the lady did climb onto the hot bonnet of my car to have a few words with me.”

“Delicious,” perved Sir Benjamin Goulle, “there’s nothing more delicious than a warm thigh. Any thigh, for that matter, even my own when I wear shorts. I do enjoy wearing a nice pair of shorts, don’t you?”

“Not at all!” snapped Indigo, picturing himself in shorts and not liking what came to mind, shorts accompanied by his tallest top hot. “Incongruous,” he added.

“Oh dear,” grunted Sir Benjamin, “well each to his own, each to his own. But that isn’t why I’ve tracked you down. Not indeed. I wanted to discuss horses. Especially of the stalking kind.”

Indigo Quilps was lost. He’d heard the term Stalking Horse, knew it had something to do with devious behaviour, but wasn’t quite sure what it really meant.

“I’ve never been to the races,” he said, shaking his head, “never had the time, if you know what I mean?”

Sir Benjamin giggled. It looked and sounded incongruous. Here he was, a gnarled and wrinkled old man with a giggle that sounded very much as if a ten yeay old girl was expressing amusement. In the end he raise done hand and spluttered, “my fault, old thing, my fault. I forget that you young ‘uns are a different generation to us old timers! No, a stalking horse is a brave fellow who tests the water, so to speak, who puts himself in a race he’s bound to lose. Now I’ve got a list of four fellows, well, one of them’s a bird but I still call them fellows, who’s in the race to be the next leader and hence the next P.M. Now, we all want Jeffrey to win, you know, Jeffrey Coastall, but reckon it might help him if someone else joined the race, so to speak. Someone a bit like him, so that when you get voted out he’ll pick up the fellow’s supporters. And you’re the fellow to do it.”

For a moment Indigo was stunned. Someone with a reputation for planning had sought him out! And decided he might pave the way for Jeffrey Coastall, who he didn’t know but had heard of.

But what was there in it for him?

Better find out. “What’s in it for me?” he asked.

“Good fellow!” roared Sir Benjamin, “we knew you’d be up for it. A place in the cabinet will be yours if we win. Oh yes, maybe even a knighthood!”

Quilps was quite taken by the word knighthood. He rather fancied being Sir Indigo. It had a ring to it, and if he found himself in a tricky situation like the silly one with the girl on his bonnet, then a mention of his honour would most probably be enough to get him out of it.

“So we’ll put your name in the ring,” almost shouted Sir Benjamin. “And I’ll send a couple of tarts with glorious thghs to you, eh? I’ll pay ‘em. You keep your purse tightly shut and get an eyeful of some of the finest thighs in Christendom!”

Then he giggled again, the same girly giggle, and Quilps rather suspected that he didn’t like the man at all.

© Peter Rogerson, 07.08.22

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