21. Another 15 Minutes of Fame

What Ho Proles!

Just as Larry ‘Bomber’ Harris promised, Larry ‘Bomber’ Harris delivered. The nation’s press came calling the next day; bandwagoned to their glassy eyeballs, hot with breaking news, and desperate to be bitten by sound. Proving himself a dab hand in his new role as media coordinator, Melvin Jenkins soon had the networks organised like a crescent of crisps around the edge of a very large plate at the centre of which sat, naturally, an ample serving of duck.
It allowed me to spend the entire morning posing with Mr. Mullins on the back lawn and occasionally getting him to bless us all with a quack on cue. This isn’t half as difficult as it sounds, though anyone who may have cared to inspect his lower regions around lunchtime might have discovered a curious thinning of his rear-facing feathers.

After doing some entertaining little segments for both the BBC and ITN lunchtime news, I gave the cable and satellite channels chance to coax a performance out of me throughout the afternoon. I can’t say I minded any of this at all, but then again, I can also assure you that my own rear facing feathers were all in tact. Any politician will tell you that they relish the chance to put their point of view to the gentlemen of Fleet Street, though even Mr. Mullins’ patience was tested by an interviewer from a popular show on the BBC’s children’s channel who insisted on conducting the interview dressed as a large purple rhinoceros. You must take my word on it but purple rhinoceroses appear to be the natural enemy of the duck. As Mr. Mullins grew more agitated the questions grew more banal. In the end, I had to inform the poor dolt that her interviewing technique was at the best infantile, but most likely just idiotic in the extreme. I withdrew the participation of my duck and had her thrown from the estate while she was still in costume. I don’t know about you but the presence of a purple rhinoceros demeans the very tradition of democratic elections.

My only other concern about the morning was that I had rarely been asked very much about anything. Anything, that is, except the duck, my thoughts about the duck, duck issues, life with a duck, ducks in the workplace, duck rights, duck moods, and the food, music, and hobbies most enjoyed by ducks. Even the chap from Sky News seemed less interested in my views on Europe than whether I ate foie gras.

‘I really don’t see what different it makes,’ I told him rather snappily but he just carried on preening himself in front of his mirror as a cameraman plastered Vaseline on the camera lens ready to film the cut away shots of our interview.

‘Look here, my love,’ said the reporter, ‘I’m only here for the duck. I couldn’t care less about your policies.’ He looked up over the mirror part way through applying his mascara. ‘Unless, of course, there are some policies to do with ducks that you haven’t told me about...’

I chose to dignify that question through silence.

After that, the day went from one interview to another and it was only after my ten fifty five appearance with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight that Mr. Mullins and I could kick off our flippers and relax.

I was sitting on the wall of the flowed bed on the small patio at the back of the Hall, gazing out on the night with a heavy glass of brandy in my hand. Mr. Mullins sat in a heap in the middle of the lawn and was being fussed over by Samantha Spoon who had formed an unlikely relationship with the bird. Except for myself, this Spoon was the only member of the household that Mr. Mullins didn’t attack on sight. I secretly commended him for his choice.

‘I thought the day went rather well,’ I said to her somewhat as a cue to bring the chit together with the chat.

‘I thought Paxman gave you a rather rough time,’ she replied, though keeping her back to me as she tried to backcomb Mullin’s remaining rear facing feathers.

‘Oh, Jeremy and I are old friends,’ I said. ‘His bark is much worse than his bite.’

‘Didn’t he call you a “publicity seeking gutter hound”?’

‘He didn’t call me anything of the sort,’ I protested. ‘He compared me to “publicity seeking gutter hound” which is quite different... And he did it in such an affectionate way.’

Spoon was right though. I was worried that, after a day spent in front of the cameras, my most important interview hadn’t gone all that well. I’d been accused of copying a Labour councillor in London whose lizards are supposed to be much more photogenic. I reconciled myself with a particularly large sip of my brandy and wondered how the day would affect my standing in the polls.

‘Do you ever think how odd all this is?’ I asked, back from my mental wandering.

‘Odd is as odd does,’ Spoon replied rather cryptically. I had a mind to let the conversation finish there only I’m one of those poor fools who cannot let an ambiguity rest. Rhetorical questions have been known to make me apoplectic.

‘Explain yourself,’ I said, finally giving in to my curiosity.

She paused from wiping down Mr. Mullins’s bill and turned to face me. She was sitting cross legged on the grass and had thrown her long blond locks over her shoulder to reveal more of an attractive face that reminded me of an old girlfriend and a terrible time we’d both had with a policeman and his bicycle outside Boothby Pagnall.

‘I said odd is as odd does,’ she repeated, ‘which I guess is my way of saying that I think wanting to become a politician is pretty out of the ordinary. A duck doesn’t seem that strange when you look at it like that. Cyril has done some pretty odd things in the name of the party. I suppose he told you about the time he made me throw those sausages to David Blunkett’s guide dog?’

‘He has taken great delight in recalling that anecdote on a number of occasions,’ I assured her.

‘The sausages get more heroic with each telling. But that’s so very typical of Cyril.’

‘I don’t know why he gets so passionate about politics,’ she said. ‘I think it’s just a bit of fun.’
I hate to disagree with anybody so attractive but sometimes it’s just necessary.

‘You fail to realise that Cyril’s highest ambition is to change the nation’s attitude towards underwear. I would imagine there’s very little he wouldn’t do to accomplish that goal and I sometimes fear for the man. He’s really dabbling in a form of terrorism.’

At that moment, a curse came from the shrubs at the side of the house and a figure leapt out and started to wave a hand about as though an acre of skin had been taken from knuckle.

‘Cyril?’ I guessed.

‘It’s only me,’ said a voice I didn’t recognise. The figure moved out into the light and I saw it was Colonel Duncan Cropper, our expert in electronic surveillance and guerrilla warfare.

‘Well, what you doing hiding back there?’ I asked.

He held up a small box with a bulbous probe. ‘Bugs,’ he said.

‘Bugs? You mean insects?’

‘Not quite,’ he answered and proceeded to scratch his ginger tash with three fingers of his right hand in that overt way that some men have when they are far too proud of their nasal hedgerow. I thought it quite the debonair touch until I noticed that he only had three fingers on his right hand. He must have recognised the look on my face.

‘Lost it on South Georgia,’ he said holding up the hand as though to wiggle an imaginary little finger. ‘Argie mine went off. Didn’t feel a thing. Oddest business though. Finger ended up twenty feed away. Poked the sergeant major in the eye. Poor chap traumatised. They couldn’t risk removing the finger for fear of damaging an optic nerve. Terrible business. But on the bright side, he now has the oddest bit of shrapnel.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ I said and wondered if I should recount the tale of my Great Grand Uncle Hector P. Murgatroid who lost his right lobe of manhood to the Boars, but since it hadn’t poked anybody’s eye out, I thought it a tale not worth telling.

‘You can never be sure who’s using electronic bugs,’ the Colonel explained as he looked up at the wall. ‘I’ll be doing a sweep like this every evening, especially when there have been so many strangers hanging around the place. Don’t know who’s listening in on our conversations.’

‘Indeed you don’t,’ I said, giving Ms. Spoon a knowing wink.

The Colonel looked like he was about to reply when there was a sudden braying of hounds from down towards the main gates. At once, Mr. Mullins hopped onto his feet to gave a rather desperate quack before waddling off.

‘What’s that?’ asked Ms. Spoon, taking much longer to jump to her feet.

‘Sound like dogs,’ said Cropper.

Drink addles my brain.

‘Dogs!’ I cried and dropped my glass into the flowerbed and leapt after my precious Tory duck.
I’ve mentioned it on more than one occasion that the estate is guarded by some of the country’s fiercest guard dogs who have the run of the grounds at night. They are looked after by My Man’s wife, down at the gatehouse lodge. Somebody must have failed to inform her that with the TV cameras only leaving gone eleven, we’d be knocking around the place later than usual.
It took three attempts to catch Mr. Mullins and then only after Ms. Spoon had thrown herself at the poor befuddled creature and trapped his legs.

Cropper, in the meantime, had made it to the patio doors where he was fumbling with the bolt. He had one half of the doors shut by the time Ms. Spoon and I carried Mr. Mullins in. There had not been a moment to lose. Seconds later, we heard the sound of scampering Dobermans drawing near. Cropper had the last bolt in place by the time the hounds’ noses bounced off the glass.

‘That was close!’ I gasped, dropping Mr. Mullins who went flapping across the room.

Ms. Spoon slipped to the floor, wiping her brow as she gazed at the dogs, snarling beyond the windows. Her hand when it came away from her face seemed to have left a puzzled look behind.

‘That’s odd,’ she said, peering outside. ‘It would appear that your dogs are wearing rubber bands.’

I didn’t like to explain, or at least, not until we’d got a drink or two inside her. There really are some facts in this world that are best faced on the other side of sober.