by Trevor Veale
“You and your family must return to Melloria tomorrow,” he said. “We only have five more weeks before Election Day and the government has allowed us hardly any campaign funds. Most of our money comes from rattling the collection box, so our campaign will have to be lean and mean. Remember also, that once you step onto Mellorian soil you become an ordinary citizen – without titles – and that goes for your wife too!”
“Must I bring all the family?” Godfrey asked. He could not envisage baby Angus and his nurse traipsing around the campaign hustings.
“Your wife should come, as Mrs Letitia Gorm she would make an excellent First Lady, just as you will make an excellent President Godfrey Gorm. And your sons and daughter-in-law… You know, I think Dawna is going to be our ace-in-the-hole!”
He sat back and beamed, while Godfrey boggled at the task of putting Catheter and Dawna together on an election platform. They were barely on speaking terms and both wanted a divorce. It felt like the recipe for a disaster.
Up in his room, calling Lucinda’s number on his cell, Catheter was seized by a frenzy of sexual desire. He wanted Lucinda to come to Bulimia and spend every night with him. He lay on his bed and stared at the November rain, filled with a happiness as mysterious as the view through the dribbling window panes. If she could just come and be with him, here where he felt safe, his happiness would be complete. She could set up a new horse-training school and let her staff manage the old one, which was probably struggling in crappy old Melloria.
The call was answered. Lucinda’s voice, reaching into his ear like jets of warm water, was telling him “He seems to have lots of energy.”
“Oh…” he mumbled, half drunk on the sweet sound.
“Do you think he’s like Angus?” she asked.
“He?”
“I know he’s a boy,” Lucinda said confidently.
“In what way like Angus?” he asked, suddenly remembering that Angus was already exhibiting the signs of Attention Deficit Disorder – the curse of the Gorms.
“Handsome of course.”
“Maybe,” he said, his mind still dwelling on the ADD which male members of his family were prone to.
“Or an intellectual like his father?”
“Ha! I hope not,” he replied, drawn back to the present. “He could do worse, I suppose…”
“Maybe he’ll be like Anton?”
“Good God!” he said. “If he turns out like my brother, I’ll disown him!”
“Anyway, he might take after the women in our families,” Lucinda went on. “He might turn out to be like your mother or mine – “
Catheter groaned and begged her to stop. The latest flight of Lucinda’s fancy was too taxing.
He started blowing kisses. “Let’s go to sleep,” he mumbled.
“All right, Poopsy, goodnight.” And she was gone.
He switched off his lamp and lay in the dark, his eyes open. I never expected to be as happy as this, he told himself. But how long will it last? I’m the one who’ll be expected to take over when Dad conks out. Saddled with the cares of his future role, he dropped off.
He was awakened in the early hours by the sound of his wife retching. He got out of bed, put on his dressing gown and went to the bathroom door. He listened until the sound of puking was replaced by that of a toilet flushing. All at once he felt a strange rage bubbling up, making him flush like a strawberry, and when Dawna emerged he confronted her, his arms folded and his manner hot and quarrelsome.
“So this is how you keep so slim!” he spluttered. “The times you’ve made me look a fool at the dinner table, begging you not to eat so much – and all the time you had this sneaky letout!”
Dawna flinched under his withering onslaught, but felt her own irritation mounting. “And you never suspected? My oh my, the heir to the throne of Melloria doesn’t know his wife brings up her dinner every night! Wait till that gets in the papers.”
“You’re sick, you know that? You need hospital treatment!”
“You’re just a pathetic creep!”
“You’re a painted trollop flaunting yourself at every passing gigolo!”
Outside, two servants in the corridor listened to the voices climbing higher in fury.
“What about your mistress? She should start going to church now she’s got a baby on the way!”
“You’re overwrought. Mummy was right about that.”
“Oh, mummy’s always right!”
“You don’t seem to know what you want, that’ what’s so annoying.”
“Do you know what you want?”
“Yes, I do. I want a woman who loves me.”
“This marriage is such a joke – I’m not a moron, you know. You go on calling her every night, yet you don’t make any effort to get a divorce.”
“Why don’t you just go off to Hollywood?”
“I don’t see why I should be the one to go – she’s the intruder.”
“Your mood swings are driving me crazy!” was what the servants heard just before the clunk of something heavy hitting something solid made them spring back from the door.
The door burst open and Catheter stalked out, a livid bruise around his left eye and cheek.
Dawna followed a few seconds later, in a white silk wrap, her lips quivering. She glanced at Catheter’s injured face, then she fled down the corridor.
“Your eye looks black, Your Highness – you should slap a steak on it!” one of the servants said.
Catheter felt his jaw.
“I think I should see Mummy,” he gasped, and took off down the corridor toward his mother’s room.
The servants followed at a discrete distance and were able to catch snatches of the conversation between Catheter and his mother behind the door.
“She’s so inaccessible.”
“She certainly frustrates one beyond endurance.”
“Her tofu-eating, smoothie-drinking, I-Ching throwing drives me up the wall!”
Chapter 50
Return To Melloria
His spat with Dawna was the last straw for Catheter, who decided that if his wife was going to accompany his parents and younger brother to Melloria to fight the election, then he was going to stay in Bulimia with his son. Consequently, the plane extruding its complement of people at Karl Marx Airport contained only four members of the Gorm family. Wearing only plain apparel as befitting the common citizens that they now were, Godfrey emerged in a chalk pinstripe suit, Letitia in a long tweed coat and a brown bandanna, Anton, looking vaguely military in a mottled camouflage jacket and jeans, and Dawna in a tailored worsted suit and flat shoes.
The four returning ex-royals slowly left the terminal, lugging heavy suitcases and found themselves on an unfamiliar street. The once sleepy boulevard was bustling with people in shabby clothes trying to sell things. Carts pulled by donkeys rattled past, their contents mostly onions or turnips, and itinerant peddlers lined the sidewalk, their paltry wares spread out on dirty blankets.
My God, Letitia thought, this part of West City used to be so refined.
They walked along the curb, staring in wonder at kitchenware carved from wood and bundles of donkeyhair stuffing for mattresses. A man making metal bowls squatted on the pavement and pounded away, his pinging hammer searing their ears. An old peasant woman with a weathered face sat beside a dozen moldy apples crying piteously to anyone who gave her the briefest of glances.
“Welcome to the People’s Republic of Melloria!” Archbishop Lepager said, catching up with them and flagging down a cab. He had been sorting out their visas and slipping bribes to uniformed officials. “To the cathedral!” he said, after they’d all piled in. The driver looked bemused.
“The big stone building in Revolution Square,” Lepager prompted. “The one with towers and a cross on top.” Godfrey looked at Letitia in dismay.
“My God, so this is what the country has come to!”
When they got out in front of the cathedral, they all gaped at its dilapidation. The medieval pi
le with its flying buttresses, its richly-decorated windows, and soaring façade, now looked scarred and pockmarked like an old prizefighter. They climbed the steps to the triple-arched doorway and saw a small metal plaque beside the entrance. It said RELIGION IS THE OPIUM OF THE MASSES.
The archbishop turned and gave the others a painful smile. “More of the People’s Party handiwork,” he said.
He pushed the handle on the heavy oak door and they stepped through into a dark, gritty-floored nave that was almost unrecognizable. It had been stripped bare and was very dusty. Staring up at the high-vaulted ceiling, Letitia saw sparrows twittering about. Many of the stained-glass windows were broken and pigeons cooed from the ledges. The bleak emptiness of the nave and transept startled her: no pews, altar panels or curtains remained. The only stick of furniture that had not been removed, she noted with irony, was the damned eagle lectern! She cursed it afresh, as well as the stupid People’s Party workers who had left it behind. Its dusty eyes still glared insolently at her, tracking her and the others as they walked toward the transept.
“Is your campaign HQ in here, archbishop?”
Godfrey’s voice bounced unpleasantly around the nave.
“Call me Larry, please – actually it’s upstairs.”
The archbishop took them up a narrow stone stairway at the side of the transept to a small office, its desk cluttered with papers, a phone and a fax machine. A laptop and printer stood on a side table.
“”Why don’t you ladies sit down,” Lepager said. He indicated two chairs.
Letitia and Dawna sat while the men stood, and they all watched Lepager leaf through his pile of faxes and computer printouts.
“I’m just checking to see how we’re doing in the opinion polls,” he said. “Then I’ll call up the campaignmobile.”
The campaignmobile?” they all said.
“It’s the vehicle you’ll all be riding in during your election cavalcades,” Lepager replied to their bafflement.
“I thought we were only doing one election rally per night,” Letitia said. “What’s all this cavalcade business?”
“A cavalcade is a necessary warm-up for a rally,” Lepager said, still immersed in his pile of faxes. He looked up. “It whets the appetites of the voters to see the candidate and his family parading along their streets, handing out goodies and election leaflets.”
An hour later, just as the day was slipping into the haziness of dusk with the November afternoon closing in, the presidential candidate and his family stood on the curb outside the cathedral staring at their vehicle. The campaignmobile was a yellow-and-black striped stretch convertible, with the emblem of the Church Party on its side panels and a banner proclaiming GODFREY GORM FOR PRESIDENT across its hood. An overpowering PA system played syrupy Mellorian folk music and Simpkins, the driver, stood proudly beside it.
Archbishop Lepager had come out to see them off, and was brandishing a map in Godfrey’s face.
“This is the route of your cavalcade,” he said, “though strictly speaking it’s only a mini-cavalcade because we can only afford one vehicle. The campaignmobile is equipped with an elevated platform, where the rear seat has been taken out, and two or three people can stand up and wave to the crowd. Bombproof glass, that will also deflect bullets, has been fitted to each side of the back, so you won’t be exposed to danger – ”
“Are we really in that much danger?” Letitia said, alarmed.
“Only if we take a wrong turn and end up in Slobodia!” Anton joked, winking at Simpkins.
Simpkins ignored the dig. “It’ll be an honor to convey Your Maj – er, your good selves,” he said.
Looking doubtfully at him and each other, the four campaigners climbed into the campaignmobile and waved to the archbishop as they rolled away. As they passed through streets of residential dwellings, people began peering at them from open doors and windows. Children cheered and ran along beside them while Dawna, getting into the swing of the parade, started leaning out and passing bags of candy tied to sticks with little Church Party flags. Once they had eaten the candy, the children shouted and waved the flags in the hope of getting more.
Thy swung into a major thoroughfare, and a large black police car blocked their way. The campaignmobile stopped, and Letitia smiled fixedly at the unsmiling officer who stood beside his car.
“I’m sorry, citizen, you’ll have to turn back,” he said. “You’re not allowed to pass.”
“Pray tell me why not?” Letitia replied.
Dawna got out of the vehicle and began passing out more candy and flags to the crowd of children.
“You don’t have a parade permit,” the policeman said.
Dawna paused from her distribution and turned her elegant face toward the officer. “Don’t you know me?” she said.
Stiff with embarrassment, the officer wilted in front of his smirking fellow officers in the car. He bowed and clicked his heels.
Indeed I do, Your Highness.”
Dawna smiled. “Oh dear, I don’t want to get you into trouble,” she said, “using a title that’s been abolished.”
The officer reddened, and several of his colleagues laughed out loud.
“You can call me Dawna,” she added, “and I have some treats for you.”
She handed him a few bags of candy. “Now will you please allow us to pass?”
The officer wavered. He went back to the car to consult with the others, and Dawna looked inside her tote bag for some signed photographs.
“These are for your families.” She gave the photos to the officer and his colleagues. With a shrug, he waved the campaignmobile on. As the car drove away, there were muffled cheers from the surrounding buildings.
At each new street the children rushed forward, shouting and waving. A few adults approached he vehicle, just to touch Dawna, and were given campaign leaflets. Letitia, Godfrey and Dawna stood in the back of the car waving, while the old sentimental folksongs rolled out in earsplitting waves.
Anton sat in the middle of the car, supposedly navigating, their ultimate destination being the rally venue, which was a large church hall in South City. As the crowds grew larger, and the shouts louder, Godfrey decided to address the throng with a bullhorn and his amplified voice rang out:
“Ladies and gentlemen of Melloria,” he boomed, “it is a great pleasure to come here and meet you. I sincerely hope I’ll see you at tonight’s big rally! There will be talks, entertainment, refreshments, a blessing from your archbishop and dozens of door prizes. The first hundred people through the door will receive a signed photo of my daughter-in-law!”
The crowd roared and surged forward, and Godfrey signaled to Simpkins to start moving a little faster. As soon as they were clear of the milling masses they picked up speed and continued at a good clip until they reached the hall where the rally was to be held.
They made an impressive sight as thy swept into the large room which had been set up for the speech. They’d all changed out of their traveling clothes, Godfrey and Anton in dark-suited elegance and Letitia in a surprising diamante dress. Dawna wore a blue dress of watered silk and was looking, Letitia thought, inexcusably enchanting. Cameras whirred and flashed, and the crowd of newshounds chattered and squirmed. International newspaper and TV reporters packed the first three rows.
Godfrey proceeded down the aisle through the cheering crowds, waving vigorously, smiling for the cameras and touching Letitia’s arm every time they passed a baby in the crowd, to remind her to give one of her dazzling smiles. Climbing onto the platform he and the others joined the archbishop, who waited for the whistles and shouts to die down. There was a splendid fanfare of bugles from a troop of boy scouts behind the podium, and then the archbishop stepped forward.
“I am Archbishop Larry Lepager, as I expect you know,” he told the audience. “It is my pleasure to introduce a man who has braved detention, exile and terrible humiliation to come here to rescue his beloved country. Without further ado, let me present to you your future p
resident, Godfrey Gorm!”
Screams, whistles and boos met this introduction, signaling that there were some People’s Party members in the audience. Godfrey waved until his arms were tired, and then the boy scouts were instructed to blare out their bugles again.
“My fellow Mellorians, I bring you news of great joy!” Godfrey began. “For the first time ever, you will have the chance to vote for a crowned monarch as your first president. As you know, I never abdicated the crown – it was forcibly taken from me, without legality or proper consultation. The thugs who removed the people’s king from his throne and locked him, his wife and two sons in a mental home now hope you’ll vote for them in December and let them stay in power forever!”
He paused to allow the crowd to digest his words. There were murmurs of agreement as well as a few shouts of derision.
“Mr Slamil wants you to elect him as your first president. So that he can inflict more months, nay years, of unremitting poverty, toil and misery on you and your families. Excessive government bureaucracy, mass unemployment, high taxes and rampant inflation– that’s what you have to look forward to under the People’s Party rule! And, as I know from painful personal experience, the Slobodians are just waiting for this dreadful regime to collapse before they attack us! My fellow Mellorians, I beg you to restore the Mellorian crown to its rightful head – my own – on behalf of you, my loyal subjects, once you elect me as your president!”
Letitia looked at the audience, many of whom were exchanging puzzled frowns, and felt a shiver of unease. She leaned toward Godfrey.
“I think your speech has a few too many mixed messages, Dear,” she whispered.
Godfrey grunted and turned back to the audience.
“However, my first task is to show Mr Slamil and his gang that the real party of the people is this one, and that is why I am asking you to choose me as your democratically-elected president.”
This improved statement produced prolonged applause, and Godfrey took the opportunity to pour out some water from a carafe on the podium, wishing it were brandy. He took a few swallows before continuing.