by Ian Hutson
Lady Kensington-Chelsea put her phone down and realised that she had been nibbling nervously on a Chihuahua. She threw the remains to the other dogs and they set upon it like six-inch tall wolves attacking Bambi. When she rose to leave the room to see if she could find Lord Kensington-Chelsea the little dogs all crept after her, like a string of loyal but poorly-stuffed novelty canines. Grr, yap-yap. Grr, yap-yap argh. They were walking as though their limbs were not entirely under their control. Mind you, that’s Chihuahuas for you. One might as well walk a rat on a piece of string as walk a Chihuahua if you ask me.
For some reason the curtains had not been drawn anywhere in the house, and Lady Kensington-Chelsea had to progress along the corridor with arms out-stretched and walking slowly and deliberately, so as not to bump into too much on her way. Blood-curdling screams could be heard in the distance which at least gave her a bearing on the location of the nursery wing and some reassurance that all was well and quite as normal there. It sounded comfortingly as though shots were being fired in the Butler’s Pantry too, somewhere down the servant’s staircase.
After just an hour or two of fumbling around the upper main corridor Lord and Lady Kensington-Chelsea met up, purely coincidentally at the top of the rather dramatic staircase that led down into the main hallway of Oldemonie House.
‘Argh. Splendid.’
‘Oh hello dear – we’ve found each other at long last. Brrrrgghh – it’s cool this morning.’
Sidney adjusted the toga he had cunningly fashioned out of his bedspread. It rode rather high to the front and clearly showed his three bed-socks and three sock-stays, while to the rear it gave the impression of a very elegant but heavy bridal train. It rather put Lady Kensington-Chelsea in mind of a cousin who was rumoured to keep a small horsehair mattress permanently strapped to her back in case she should meet some eligible title with not fewer than ten thousand acres in a shire and something un-mortgaged and well-maintained in Belgravia.
Lady Kensington-Chelsea herself looked resplendent in lush blue velvet kilt, two floral chamber-pots held to her breasts by pure suction, a standard-lamp fringe headband and, of course, her pre-lunch pearls. It wasn’t quite how her maids would have dressed her but for an emergency self-build it wasn’t at all bad. She looked Lord Kensington-Chelsea up and down with her good eye.
‘You look like a Roman senator from a poor district near the Scottish borders dear.’
‘Isn’t that a tautology?’
‘No dear, it’s a sort of velvet kilt, although it is a bit taut around the buttocks. I had to run the curtain hooks over a couple of ribs. Arrgh.’
‘Mmm. Breakfast. Neeeeeeed breakfast.’
‘B-b-b-b-rains. Brains. I’m so hungry I could eat monkey-brains.’
‘Toaaasst. Want toaasst.’
‘Maaaarrrggghh-malade. Want maaarrrggghhmalade.’
‘Tea too. Must have teaaaa.’
‘Daaarrrggh-jeeling. Daaarrrggh-jeeling.’
Their upper-lips stiffened at the mere thought of a decent and medicinal brew from the sub-continent and they realised that it was all getting very silly, very silly indeed.
‘Well I just hope that the dining table isn’t as broken as all of my clothes. There was absolutely nothing laid out ready for me and no-one there to get me into them if there had been.’
‘The dining table will work dear, it has worked for centuries. There’s no reason for it to stop now. It didn’t stop for the Cromwell, it won’t stop working just because of this crisis. I suppose that this is some sort of crisis?’
‘Crisis is rather a strong word m’dear – perhaps best to refer to it if refer to it we must as a disconvenience of some sort so as not to upset the servants, should we find any. So – the dining table. Of course, we have to find it before we can test your assertion in re its functionality my dear. Usually Thompson is here to walk me down. I should have paid more attention to where we were going all of those mornings.’
‘Well I know it begins with going down these stairs, that at least I am certain of. To be perfectly honest, the altitude has always quite given me the vapours and I’ve kept my eyes shut until now.’
Lord Kensington-Chelsea offered Lady Kensington-Chelsea his arm as they prepared to descend. She nibbled on it gratefully as they staggered down the sweeping staircase, leaning on one another, gnashing their teeth and appreciating afresh the lesser Titians and the minor Constable with the sun damage and the temporary frame.
With all of the grace of the most expensive and world-renowned public and finishing schools they strolled slowly and unsteadily – even uncertainly, through their domain, in search of a room that contained a working dining table. Libraries came and libraries went, grr, argh, along with a succession of stylised withdrawing rooms. Lord and Lady Kensington-Chelsea passed through the Chinese blue, a Chinese red, the Gothic, the Ladies’ comfortable, the Gentleman’s with billiards table and, finally, a room styled in the manner of the early ante period, it being simply a link between a music room and rooms of a more practical, dining nature.
‘Grr. Halleruddylujarrgh. Here at last m’dear.’
‘Argh. Argh. Argh we herrrgh for breakfast, luncheon or dinner darling? I’ve forgotten. Should we check the silverware on the sideboard or simply ring for service?’
‘Both, m’dearrgh. Me stomach thinks me throat’s been torn out.’
‘Indeed so. I confess that I could probably eat a fresh young footman without peeling it first. Aargh.’
Lord Kensington-Chelsea set off to tug at the bell-pull to one side of the fireplace. He had some difficulty in walking because a Labrador dog had attached itself to one of his ankles, and had to be dragged across the carpet like some canine ball and chain affair. Lady Kensington-Chelsea went to lift the lids on the silverware on the sideboard to see what delights lay beneath. She was hoping for hot kedgeree and fatty bacon and creamy scrambled fruit-of-the-living-hen’s-bottom. She found none, and admitted to herself a certain mild dissatisfaction.
It was a very sad state of affairs indeed, and quite injurious to the smooth running of the household. If the head is not fed, the body must necessarily suffer.
Presently-Harrison, a fresh young footman, appeared at the door to the dining room. He appeared to be suffering from a certain disablement of the unflustering glands and to have been pressed into service at short notice with a quite unsuitable family name for a footman.
Lady Kensington-Chelsea smiled, and licked her lips. ‘Argh. Presently-Harrison, you’re just what we need - breakfast. Or luncheon, or possibly dinner. Whatever it may be, you’ll do nicely.’
It is well-known that in the great houses one always serves oneself at breakfast. In such a time of crisis one may also forgive the abuse of the cutlery pecking order and certain other lapses in etiquette.
Presently, Parminter, who had only a single-barrelled name, appeared in the corner of the dining room and coughed communicatively. Cough, cough. Parminter spoke fluent Butler and several other useful below-stairs languages, and he spoke all of them with the most exquisite estuarial chill. Ordinarily all Parminter had to do was to fire his voice over the heads of his charges, so to speak, but on this occasion he was obliged to re-load and fire again. A cough-cough-raised-eyebrow-shuffle-nod from Parminter could clear a room of Dukes in seconds, while cough-cough-ahem-twitch -faraway-gaze had been known to interrupt the conception of future kings. For the nonce though his cough indicated simply “You rang, my lord, and I have answered even though at the moment I have many household tasks needing to be dealt with and all more important than any possible domestic whim of yours.”
Lord Kensington-Chelsea raised his bloodied snout from the footman’s cadaver.
‘Ah – Parminter, at last. I was beginning to think that we’d lost you. Harrison appears to have left us. Please give him excellent references and a fortnight in lieu.’
‘Very well my lord. I have suspected for some time that his heart just wasn’t in the job.’
Parminter wa
s quite correct. Harrison’s young heart was in Lady Kensington-Chelsea’s oesophagus, sliding down quite nicely thank you.
‘Now look here though, Parminter, Lady K-C and I have been stranded upstairs for days now, stark bollock deshabillee – has there been some sort of problem?’
Parminter looked uncomfortable, and nervously smoothed down his blood-splattered waistcoat, finding as he did so a remnant of warm housekeeper’s liver, dangling by a blood vessel snagged on his key-chain.
‘Indeed so, my lord, I fear that there has been...’ Parminter tailed off, communicating with a flare of the left nostril that he would be uncomfortable discussing the matter in front of her ladyship without her ladyship’s express permission to speak freely of distasteful matters.
Her Ladyship briefly raised the index and second fingers on her right hand by some fifteen or twenty degrees, thus indicating that her ladyship hadn’t survived twenty years of active service in the army including some fifteen as a Half-Colonel in the S.A.S. without discussing one or two distasteful matters and learning how to not require a soft landing ground and the swift nasal application of sweet tincture of ammonium carbonate. Parminter demurred but was silenced with a twitch of her ladyship’s cheekbone. He stiffened his back, looked to the horizon and gave such detail as he had.
‘My lord, it appears that there has been some sort of election.’
‘Election?’
‘Election.’
‘Popular vote thingy you mean? Damned unwashed scribblin’ pencil crosses on crumpled ballot sheets as though whoever is in the House is anythin’ to do with them?’
Poor Parminter looked as though he had just sniff-tested a vegan hen for egg binding only to discover that it had been a simple case of gaseous clench-buttock, unexpectedly explosively relieved by the mere mechanical motion of drumstick separation and the proximity of a nasal feature.
‘I fear so, my lord. Worse yet...’
Lady Kensington-Chelsea blenched in anticipation. Lord Kensington-Chelsea furrowed his brow.
‘The government majority was reduced?’
‘Far worse than that, my lord, far, far worse.’
‘A hung parliament?’
‘If only, my lord...’
Lady Kensington-Chelsea sat down, knees bent at ninety-degrees and back ramrod rigid. Only her expensive Swiss finishing school training allowed her to do this in an emergency without a chair anywhere nearby.
‘Oh no Parminter, you surely can’t mean that... no, I refuse to countenance it.’
‘The popular press, my lady, has announced that the forces of darkness have gained a clear majority in The House. They are terming it a “landslide”.’
‘Labour? A Labour government?’
‘Indeed so, my lord. I have always thought the very concept to be an oxymoron and in the few days since the election it appears that my assertion has been proven quite correct.’
‘Oh bugger’ released Lord Kensington-Chelsea, his emotions pushed beyond propriety.
‘Yes, my lord, I believe that is the Labour leader’s name.’
‘What? Are we now to reside under the purview of Prime Minister O’Bugger? Don’t tell me that he’s – forgive me dear, there’s no polite way to say this – a Patrick too?’
‘That is the rumour, my lord.’
‘Feck me’ expostulated her ladyship with unfocused eyes.
‘Indeed so, my lady. Prime Minister O’Bugger has already moved into Number Ten and has installed his Civil Partner in residence.’
‘And this “civil partner” of his, how is she called?’
‘Claude, my lord. The new Prime Minister’s civil partner is a gentleman, my lord – a gentleman of rather obvious French extraction.’
Despite having had no Swiss finishing school training his lordship attempted to join her ladyship in sitting upon an imaginary chair, ending up on the fringed Persian instead. He too was disinclined to notice his furniture-related faux pas. Oh God – “faux pas”! It had started already, the decline was afoot!
‘French, you say? FRENCH? Good gravy. An Irish Prime Minister, a Labour government and escargots vivants en gelee avec de la sauce à l'ail cru to be on the menu at Number Ten. French you say? No chance I suppose that he’s simply Swiss with a thick accent?’
‘...or even just Belgian?’ chimed in Lady K-C, with desperation.
‘No chance at all I am afraid, my lord, my lady.’ Parminter rearranged himself as though trying to prevent some sort of in-trouser accident of a seriously laundry-demanding nature. ‘I believe...’ he stuttered, ‘I believe that the couple refer to themselves as – European.’
‘Messrs oh bugger O’Reilly! European?What of Her Majesty, the Queen? How has Her Majesty taken the news?’
‘My contacts in the Palace indicate that Her Majesty has gone to Balmoral, my lord, to shoot things. My sources are of the opinion that Her Majesty will be shooting lots of things.’
Lady Kensington-Chelsea passed out cold. Lord Kensington-Chelsea simply assumed the facial expression of a Bulldog with hypertension that had been sitting in the tropical sun too long eating wasps. After a few moments he found that he had to lean heavily on the cherrywood sideboard. It was either that, or fall down again.
‘Parminter, I never thought that we should live to see this day. I placed my faith in the English Channel and have always assumed that it would protect us from such horrors. I see now that I was wrong. You’re being awfully brave, and you’re not telling us quite all, are you, Parminter? I see for myself the obvious corollary of these developments and I may be able to save you some discomfort. Is there now to be... socialism on this green and sceptred isle of ours?’
In using the term “ours” of course his lordship was not in fact joking, simply asserting the title of his legal deeds over eighty thousand acres of green and a couple of London boroughs of sceptred.
Parminter almost shed a tear. ‘There has developed among the population a certain hitherto unseen over-familiarity with something that the political pundits are terming the The Welfare State, yes my lord.’
‘Good gravy, Parminter! So, civilisation crumbles even after all our efforts to the contrary.’
‘I have thus far avoided mentioning to my lord, my lady, all. Still, if it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly. In tandem with these developments it appears that certain elements of the lower orders – the extremely lower orders – are now acting as fleas wagging the Establishment dog, if you will. The bankers, estate agents and some group calling themselves “no-win no-fee solicitors” are thriving, my lord, as though with a mind and a purpose of their own. One might imagine that the entire working class of the unfortunate county of Essex is now dressed in cheap off the shelf suit and tie and claiming commerce and all profit that lies within it. The City of London is not as it once was, my lord – it is acting... independently.’
Lord Kensington-Chelsea closed his eyes for a second as he absorbed the shock. Well, he closed one – the eyelid on the other having long since been nibbled away. ‘Ye gods and little fold-up bicycles, they’ll be trading on their own behalf before we know it.’
‘I fear so, my lord, I fear so. Rumour has it that the lower house opened itself, my lord, without waiting upon Her Majesty’s pleasure.’
‘Damned rebels and revolutionaries! We shan’t be able to put them to the gallows this time, Parminter, we needs must think of other ways.’
‘Indeed so, my lord, although there would be a certain irony splattered about Number Ten if some way could be found to import the attentions of Madam Guillotine.’
‘This is no joking matter, Parminter.’
‘I wasn’t joking, my lord.’
‘And what has been the effect upon the staff here, Parminter? Is there panic or hysteria? How are they facing these terrifying social developments?’
‘Not well, my lord. Half of the household is now on the The Benefits, and most of the remainder is on the The Three-Day Week. There’s a work-to-ru
le in the stables, the mains electricity and gas have been cut off of course and I estimate that the household suppliers have increased their average tariff by some two-hundred percent to cover something they have dubbed “inflation”.’
‘Inflation? Balloons?’
‘Prices, my lord.’
‘Yes, well I obviously know nothing of such tawdry matters, the running of the household is your affair. You must liaise as best you can with the accountants, Parminter. They’re due for another review visit next year, are they not?’
‘They are, my lord. There is one encouraging item, in that my lord’s petrol ration coupons arrived yesterday and I have had the five gallons for this month split between the Aston and the Rolls. Your lordship should be able to make it to the end of the estate driveway and back in either vehicle, just the once.’
Lord Kensington-Chelsea looked confused, more so than usual at breakfast or lunch or whatever it had been.
‘Ration coupons? Are we at war, Parminter?’
‘One would think so, my lord.’
‘The end of the driveway? Would that be wise during wartime?’
‘Yes, my lord – I thought my lord may wish to take a few pot-shots at the new pickets.’
‘Pickets? Picket fences?’
‘Flying pickets, my lord. Word has it that their placards are quite colourful, if less than fully literate.’
‘Placards?’
‘Yes, my lord, it seems that the pickets are expressing a desire to see the House of Lords abolished in favour of an elected second house. Some of the placards have gone so far as to question your lordship’s father’s part in the conception of your lordship, exaggerating the role played by one of your late father’s baboons from the estate zoological gardens.’
Lady Kensington-Chelsea suddenly grasped Parminter’s white-gloved hand, giving some clue to her ladyship’s desperation and terror.
‘Parminter – what is to become of us, Parminter? What are we to do? Might a baboon step in to help us again in some way do you think?’