Paddy Bostock - Chosen

It was Maurice who took charge of the situation, calling Jeremy to join him as he sauntered to the garden gate and waved cheerily at the prime minister as she continued marching towards the Shepherd’s Hut.

“You wave too. And point at your hat,” he whispered to Jeremy, who was wearing a black felt tricorn from Barry’s thespian store upon which, going for levity, Maurice had inscribed in red letters, HI THERE, I’M THE BONKERS BANKER.

Jeremy chuckled and did as instructed while Maurice continued to wave, and also to call words of welcome. Sadly to no avail however, since unable from birth to tell a joke from a jam sandwich, Clarissa sensed the piss being taken, continued marching, and instructed her armed policepersons to arrest “these treasonous buffoons” on the spot.

Which was silly of her, because rarely though he had been obliged to employ his martial arts skills, Maurice was left with no other option but to resuscitate them as the policepersons advanced towards him and Jeremy cocking their pistols and hissing: “Hands in the air and don’t move.” What was he supposed to do, stand there and wait to be arrested when all he’d been trying to do was play nice?

Sighing therefore, he dived headfirst over the garden gate to make himself a thinner target, scrambled back to his feet… and the rest was a foregone conclusion. All it took while the policepersons were preoccupied loosing off futile bullets into nearby trees was a flying double reverse taekwondo Dwi Huryeo Chagi (spinning hook kick) and both officers were flat on their backs mewling softly. All Maurice then needed to do was pick up their weapons, tuck them into his belt gunslinger-style and shrug apologetically at Clarissa, who was peering boss-eyed at her fallen defenders.

“Sorry for kicking the lady cop, Prime Minister. Not my normal practice to kick ladies,” said Maurice, “but this one was pointing a pistol at me.”

PC Sian O’Brady mewled slightly louder as if in corroboration.

“Don’t worry about her… or her friend here,” Maurice continued, prodding PC Joe “Charlie” Chaplin with the toe of his shoe. “They’ll be fine in a minute, although they will, of course, need to be stripped of any other unpleasant equipment they may be carrying and tied up. But they’ll be fed and watered.”

“Ug,” said Clarissa, for a fleeting second turning her head to the pilot of the Puma HC2 for assistance.

But Harry “The Whirlybird” Warburton, staring through his windscreen at the mayhem Maurice had just unleashed, shrank back in his seat. Far beyond his remit or pay grade was it to mess with trained killers the likes of which he’d just witnessed. Harry’s job was to fly choppers and mightily relieved he was when the call came through from RAF HQ that his “bird” was needed pronto at a riot in Lewes East Sussex where groups of dangerous-looking, albeit elderly, ex-hippies were marching around town threatening civic disorder and screaming Lenn- on ! Lenn- on , right -on! while burning effigies of both the madman in the White House and the one in the Kremlin, even though it wasn’t Guy Fawkes Night when Lewesians normally burn effigies of people they loathe.

Yes, folks, Yuri’s promised diffusion of Maurice’s Beatlemania teaser, never mind its creator’s own distribution, had already hit the first of its manifold future nerves. Strange it should have been in the sleepy town of Lewes that residents reacted so fast, but such are the facts of the matter. Who knows how the World Wide Web works?

Any way, off Harry flew. Elderly ex-hippies he reckoned he could frighten away with dive-bombing tactics any day of the week.

“Bugger,” Clarissa was saying as Maurice, now with Dame Muriel at his side, strolled over, proffered a hand for shaking, and said, “There there, Prime Minister, don’t worry. Every little thing is going to be all right.”

“I’ll see to it, ma’am,” said Jeremy, doffing his HI THERE, I’M THE BONKERS BANKER tricorn and bowing from the waist.

At which Clarissa fainted and had to be helped back onto her spindly legs by her ex-Girton College rival, Dame Muriel, who, while hoisting her up in a full nelson, whispered in her ear, “ Plus ça change, ma chère, plus c’est la même chose , n’est ce pas ?”

But what with the supply of blood to her brain having been even further reduced than normal and not speaking any language other than English, for which she had been repeatedly ridiculed by European leaders, as usual Clarissa missed the point. Like levity, irony had never been one of her strong suits, particularly when it was in French.

It was Barry who came out to pick up the pieces and offer a little hospitality.

“Cup of tea, Prime Minister?” he said. “And a crumpet to go with it, perhaps?”

At which one of Clarissa’s glazed eyes squeezed open a fraction.

“Mmm, yummy,” she managed to mumble.

Idly while Maggie and Dennis were out tying PCs O’Brady and Chaplin to trees and Julie was coaxing Clarissa back to something akin to consciousness with tea and crumpets, Maurice flicked about on Barry’s elderly laptop for any early indications of responses to his Internet Lennon teaser. And his eyes widened at what he saw.

“Look at this ,” he said, finger-hooking Dame Muriel, Barry and Jeremy to look over his shoulder, then scrolling through the thousands of hits.

“Hey, hey, slow down , would you?” said Dame Muriel. You know how irritating super-scrolling can be. Or a person riffling papers before your eyes and expecting you to digest the contents through hyper osmosis.

“Sorry,” said Maurice, going back to the top.

“Perhaps just a brief résumé?” said Barry.

So Maurice picked out the effigy-burning incident in Lewes, and then the jerky video from St Petersburg showing pro-Lennon marches outside the IRA’s supposedly secret underground offices and police spraying protesters with tear gas.

“Who could have thought it?” he said. “But there are more.”

The “more” included similar demonstrations from places as far flung geographically and ideologically as Novosibirsk and San Francisco, which would have taken Maurice the rest of the day to list, so he didn’t. Just let us say hamlets, towns and cities from practically every continent were represented.

“Wow,” said Jeremy.

“And all this even before we’ve released our final product, when one hopes to stir up yet further interest,” Maurice was saying as Maggie and Dennis returned from tying policepersons to trees—a task Dennis had particularly enjoyed—and Clarissa finally began to respond to Julie’s ministrations, albeit rudely.

“Where am I and who’re you ?” she said, knocking the teacup from Julie’s hands, springing onto her pogo stick legs and peering about.

“Excuse me,” said Dame Muriel to Maurice. “A certain lady looks as though she needs to be taught some manners,” she added before marching over to Clarissa and telling her to sit down and shut up if she knew what was good for her.

“Don’t worry, love,” I can handle it,” said Julie. “I’ve got an auntie just like her.”

“Only your auntie isn’t a prime minister.”

“No. There is that to it.”

“What kind of a madhouse is this?” squawked Clarissa. “And what are you doing here anyway, Muriel?”

“My job, Clarissa. Now sit down .”

“Your job ? Your job is to protect national security, which does not include sequestering a dangerous madman, who…”

“You need as a cover story to deflect attention from your fumbling attempts to govern a country?”