29. Three Days Later

What Ho Proles!

I emerged from my bedroom three days later, a Neanderthal in all but dressing gown, aching in every joint, and with a headache pounding like some primitive tribal types doing overtime on their trampolines. Treading carefully so as to prevent my head from attempting any more back flips with double twists, I made my way to the bathroom where I hoped to improve what small compass of the world remained within my ability to change. I was not prepared for such a bleak outlook.

The face that greeted me in the bathroom mirror looked ten years old than the one I’d seen there only days earlier. Tragedy had robbed the face of all its optimism and I looked not unlike Captain Ahab without his Dramamine. I looked like a shrunken head in a museum display telling the tale of failed Tory ambition. I looked like the ghost of elections past. I looked, in short, like a man suffering the very worst example of a hangover.

Three days of beard surrounded a mouth that tasted fresh only if by fresh we mean resembling a bag of mints taken straight from a pig farmer’s pocket after a day spent manhandling manure around his lower field. My eyes were dead to the world and the hollow sensation in the put of my stomach reminded me of my loss.

Better men than I may be able to sum up what it means to lose an animal in so traumatic a manner. Let me direct you to your Thomas Gray where I believe you’ll find some words written about a cat that went head first into a bowl of goldfish. It is a grisly tale matching anything put out by Stephen King and has the added advantage of rhyme and brevity to get you through it. Indeed, as I shaved my face, I pondered whether I should not myself pen a verse or two, in the manner of Gray, to mark the passing of a great Tory duck. I could get no further than the first verse.

'Twas on a windy runway’s side,
Where Britain’s prolish army spied
Flights of vintage aircraft wing,
Demurest of the quacking kind,
The pensive Mullins, inspired,
To fly into the big round sucking thing.

It may lack Gray’s turn of phrase but I believe in this modern age of free verse, its measured meter has a gravitas you don’t find in your Ted Hughes, Carol Anne Duffy, nor even Pam Ayres. It expresses a deep understanding of the harsh winds of fate that can run up a man’s back and even Gray could not have suffered the scorn that bit Yours Truly once Mr. Mullins got sniffed into that aircraft’s engine. His death had become a national joke and his last flight captured on a thousand video cameras, posted to the internet, seen on all the news channels.

The previous afternoon I’d taken a somewhat sharp rebuke from one of Michael Howard’s men inside Central Office, the thrust of whose argument seemed to be that the sight of a Tory throwing a duck into the intake of a jet engine was rather a poor show for both the party and the country. Little good did it do me when I mentioned that it was British engine that vapourised Mr. Mullins, and that it was a testament to British engineering that barely a scratch was to be found on the fateful turbines.

‘We don’t care if you found the beak whistling Rule Britannia,’ came the rather terse reply. ‘Michael doesn’t want to see any more business about C---- N----. We can win this election while losing that seat and, to be honest with you Murgatroid, we’re wondering if it wouldn’t better for us in the long run if we stopped supporting your campaign.’

They had a point, I suppose. Say what you want about Gray’s cat: it wasn’t put on Youtube or written about in The Sun with barely a word said about the dangers of yon ‘lofty vase’s side’.

A wash, a shave, and a scrubbing of the enamel brought me back round to something approaching aristocracy and I felt more like my old self, rid of the lingering effects of the alcohol that had served me so well. Drink had kept me numb to the news headlines but now I needed feeding with something. Michael Howard’s faith in Murgatroid had been dented and I began to wonder what kind of victory could hammer out the ding in his bodywork.

Carrying this thought as a way of adding a little boost to my spirits, I plonked myself down on the sofa in the drawing room and wrapped my dressing gown tighter around my body. A flick of the remote brought up the news channel and I looked with some sense of satisfaction that my face had disappeared from the political backdrop of the election coverage.

‘You’ve still not decided to get dressed then?’

I didn’t need to turn around. Melvin Jenkins’ rasping wheeze is as much a giveaway as his voice.

‘I still need a few words of encouragement to prevent me from climbing back under the duvet,’ I told him, chirpier than I’d been but still in little mood for his sarcasm.

He lumbered around the room and took the armchair by the window. For a moment or two, I was struck by the man’s size. In three days he seemed to have added even more pounds to his not inconsiderable number of stone.

‘Had lunch yet?’ I asked.

He held up his hand. It held a small plastic tub with a leg of chicken trapped inside. I could only be thankful he wasn’t eating duck.

‘You don’t mind?’ he asked, as he undid his airtight container.

‘Why should I mind?’

He shrugged. ‘Missed my breakfast,’ he explained, though I knew it for a lie. On the slender side of sobriety I might have been but I still recognise the lies of gluttons when I hear them.

‘Do you mind if I watch the news?’ I asked, turning up the volume to cover the sound of his chewing the white meat.

‘Be my guest,’ he replied, directing me with the leg. ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you to get back up to speed with the news.’

‘Have you now?’

‘Wanted to come and tell you myself, only Larry wouldn’t let me come to see you. I told him that they wanted to interview you.’

‘Who wants to interview me?’

‘The BBC. They want to follow you for a day on the campaign.’

My heart sank. It could mean only one thing.

‘I suppose they mentioned ducks,’ I sighed.

‘No. That’s just it,’ he said. ‘They want to give you a chance to set the record straight. I told them it would be a great opportunity for you to deflate the myths that surround you.’

I looked at my media consultant and wondered if my myths were the only thing that needed deflating.

‘And what did Larry say?’

I had to wait for the reply as Melvin made his way around a fleshy joint.

‘The thing is,’ he said, slurping on a finger, ‘after your duck got sucked into that engine, we need to put a positive spin on it.’

‘Do we indeed?’

‘Oh, without a doubt,’ he said, his eyes consuming the remains the chicken before his mouth had even got a chance. ‘A dead duck is serving nobody, so we need to make it pay.’

It was all a bit much for YT, and my blood was on the boil.

‘Make it pay?’ I asked, though clenched teeth.

‘There’s nothing wrong with publicity. That’s what I always told Rosa.’

‘Did you, now?’

‘All the time. Which is why I think it’s about time you got yourself out meeting people. You shake take the BBC’s offer and have a camera crew follow you around. Show them what a normal chap you really are, and not this cruel duck killer.’

‘Duck killer!’

‘There words, not mine,’ said the man chewing into the leg of a poor innocent chicken.

‘You want be to be shadowed by a camera crew so they can capture the next disaster to befall my life?’

He looked at me, seemingly a bit dazed by my lack of enthusiasm.

‘Jacob,’ he said, ‘you have to win this election. Moping over Mr. Mullins is not going to turn liquefied duck back into the chop we all knew and loved.’

‘Chop?’

‘Pardon?’

‘You said chop.’

‘Did I? I’m sure I said chap.’

‘You most certainly did say chop.’

‘Slip of the tongue.’

It was about all I could take.

‘A slip indeed,’ I cried. ‘Only because you always wanted to see Mr. Mullins served with a nice mint sauce.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ he replied. You note, I hope, that he did not deny it.

‘Get out!’ I cried, pulling a slipper from my foot and aiming it at him. ‘Get out and take all your food with you. I’m not for moving, I tell you! I quit.’ And with that, I hurled the slipper with the full force of a well honed cricketing arm. It caught Melvin on the bridge of his nose and he fell back on the chair, which proceeded to topped over and knock over a rather nice mid-Victorian grandfather clock standing behind it.

The crash shook the house and soon the room was packed with inquisitive souls wondering why I was murmuring to myself, wrapped in a bathrobe but with only one slipper on my foot, and why Melvin Jenkins was on his back, unable to get up yet still trying to finish off half a drumstick.