The Ex-Prime Minister - Chapter Six by Andrew Crofts

This is the sixth episode in our monthly saga of power and incompetence

 

Becky had been watching the convoy of Land Rovers return from the bedroom window. The shooting party was deposited back at the house and made their way in to change for dinner.

“They’re back,” she said, without turning.

“Really? Crikey!” Teddy sprang out of bed, yanking his loudly striped pajamas back up as he stumbled his way out of the room.

There would have been a time when the sheer slapstick of his exit would have made her laugh, but today it merely made her sigh. The joke had grown so old. She sat down at her dressing table and took a long look at herself in the mirror. Her phone buzzed on the glass surface beside her elbow.

“Hi Darling,” she said once she had ascertained it was who she hoped. “Thanks for calling back.”

“I gather you’ve got Teddy and his latest squeeze down for the weekend,” Phillipa said.

Becky allowed a throaty chuckle to escape her. If anyone understood her predicament, it was the Prime Minister. “All part of Puppy’s latest masterplan, I think,” she said.

“What’s she like?”

“Nice looking. Obviously bright. I quite like her. Not sure what her agenda is though. What do you know about her?”

“Fliss has done a bit of digging. Seems she owns a lot of property. Started as an interior designer. Lots of Russian clients. Seems likely it’s their money which has paid for the properties.”

“Money laundering?”

“We have not ruled that out.”

“Interesting. I got the feeling one or two of the other guests recognized her.”

“That is also interesting. Let’s talk again after the weekend. Come for lunch?”

“That would be great. Got to go. They’re back from shooting.”

Puppy burst in as she hung up, padding across the room in stockinged feet to kiss the top of her head, his cheeks pink and glowing from the fresh air, his hair tousled from being trapped in a cap.

“Good day?” she asked.

“They all seem happy enough. Ding has asked if he can bring a girl down with him for dinner.”

“Oh Christ. How old is she? Is she legal?”

“Yes. He’s promised me she’s legal.”

“I’ll have to redo the seating plan.”

“You are a genius!” he said, kissing the top of her head again before disappearing into the bathroom for a shower.

 

When she saw Ursula coming into the room on Ding’s arm, Becky had a feeling someone might have been lying about her age, but at that moment it was not possible to ascertain whether the culprit was Ding, or the girl herself. She seemed to be brimming with an unusual amount of confidence for her youth, whatever age that might be, so perhaps that, Becky told herself, was why every pair of eyes in the room was now drinking in the sight of her. Assuming Ding wanted to talk to Teddy, Becky had told the caterers to put the girl between the two of them at dinner, so they could talk over her head, but now she saw her, she wondered if that might prove to be an error once Teddy had had a few drinks.

 

Teddy was operating his full “charming, diffident uncle” offensive as the meal started. “Tell me all about yourself, young Ursula,” he twinkled, licking his lips.

“Johnny tells me you are going to be on I’m a Celebrity,” Ursula dodged the request for information confidently. “I did it a couple of years ago. It’s really good fun, in a gross sort of way.”

“Who’s Johnny?”

“Me,” Ding reminded him.

“Ah, of course.” Teddy chuckled at his own foolishness. “I’m going on I’m a Celebrity, am I?”  

“They’re offering huge money and it will be a chance for the public to feel they have really got to know you.”

“Don’t they make contestants eat revolting things?” Teddy asked, chewing doubtfully on a mouthful of scallops.

“Johnny was telling me that you used to make boys eat live worms at school,” Ursula said, “Which sounds pretty gross. So, you’ll probably be okay.”

“It was a school tradition,” Teddy protested, sensing her disapproval. “A rite of passage. The old ‘wiggly worms’ initiation ceremony. Been going on since before Tom Brown was a twinkle in his father’s eye. Everyone had to do it, although some of them put up a fair old struggle.”

“That was where Teddy’s bulk was particularly useful,” Ding chipped in. “He would sit on them, so they couldn’t escape, giving the rest of us a chance to insert the little wigglers.”

“And hold their jaws shut still they swallowed,” Teddy took up the tale with obvious nostalgia, disguising the tiny stab of hurt he felt at the reminder that Ding saw him as “bulky”, even then.

“Small boys are grim little monsters,” Becky chimed in from the other side of the table.

“At least the celebrities are given the option of saying ‘no’,” Ursula pointed out. “You actually held them down and force-fed them.”

“If they’d been given that option, they would all have said no and yet another ancient tradition would soon have vanished,” Teddy protested.

“It’ll be a great opportunity for you to show what you are made of,” Ding brought the conversation back to the matter in hand. “And come out at the end a hero. Who knows? You might even win.”

“Bravo!” Teddy took a heavy swig of wine. “A bit of good old fashioned swashbuckling never hurt anyone’s reputation.”

“In Russia,” a man with a face like carved granite interjected, “we send our stars to Africa to survive among truly dangerous wild animals. That is a real test of courage.”   

 

At the end of dinner, no instructions were issued by the hosts, but the men still gravitated to the library and the women to the drawing room, as if the nineteenth century had never ended. Puppy handed round cigars, and only Ding declined.

The man with the face like granite sat himself down next to Teddy. “So,” he said, “taking a satisfied puff on his cigar, “you are going to do this thing? This celebrity thing?”

“I pretty much follow the advice of Puppy and Ding on this stuff,” Teddy admitted, “but it seems like a good way to keep myself in the minds and affections of the public. Got to keep myself amused till I get back into Downing Street.”

“Are you not writing a book?” Another Russian asked, accompanying the enquiry with a guffaw of laughter which suggested he did not think writing and reading were the sorts of activities real men should trouble themselves with.

“If I don’t write it then my reputation will be in the hands of historians,” Teddy twinkled, “and look what they did to Rasputin’s legacy.”

There was a moment of chilled silence as all the Russians thought through Teddy’s words, followed by a roar of laughter and a crash of back-slapping.

“Your Winston Churchill,” one of them added, “he knew how to make sure the history books treated him well!”

“Exactly!” Teddy waved his cigar happily in the air, pleased to have raised a laugh, comfortable to continue. “But most of the proletariat never read a book in their lives, so we have to get to them through the television screens.”

“And their phones,” Ding added from the far side of the room, where he was attempting to avoid the clouds of congenial cigar smoke by pretending to be showing an interest in some of the books on the shelves which stretched all the way to the nicotine-stained ceiling.

“You!” The man with the granite face snarled.

“Yes?” Ding turned to face him, holding a book open as if midway through reading a passage.

“Your girlfriend is very young, no?”

“And very beautiful,” another voice added.

“Does she have any friends she can introduce us to?”

The laughter was now so raucous that a distant echo of it even reached the drawing room.

“They seem happy,” Candy commented.

“They have drunk too much, as usual,” Becky sighed. “I dare say it is you they are talking about, and the girl.”

Ursula glanced over from where she had been trying to explain what an influencer was to an elderly Duchess, who appeared surprisingly interested.

“We have a big house,” the Duchess was saying, “which we have to open to the public. I believe we have a lot of followers on Facebook and Twitter.”

“There you are,” Ursula smiled charmingly, "you are already an influencer. You just need to monetize it. Cash-in on the Downton Abbey vibe.”

“One is very aware,” the Duchess replied, “that one could end up coming across like Barbara Cartland.”

“Who?” Ursula was genuinely intrigued.

“Google her,” the Duchess replied. “You will be amazed to find your generation isn’t the first to discover the dark arts of self-promotion. You are very sweet, dear,” she patted the girl’s hand, “I’m sure you are going to go far.” 

“Thank you.”

“May I give you some advice?”

“Of course, I would welcome it.”

“Use Johnny Piper to get introductions to better people, but don’t waste too much time on him. He is not a man of any solidity, if you know what I mean.”

“He seems to have the ear of Mr. Bear.”

“Teddy Bear, my dear, is another lightweight. A here-today-gone-tomorrow chancer, nothing but a sack of overweening ambition and appetites. Don’t hitch your wagon to that sort of shooting star, if you are hoping for longevity. They are just silly schoolboys playing at being grown-ups.”