Howard Jacobson - Pussy

The Grand Duke expressed surprise that the leader of the Ordinary Little People’s Party would want to show himself – forgive the expression – jerking off on extraordinary big people.

‘If you will forgive my expression, Your Majesty,’ Hopsack said, ‘you are harping on a broken string. Size is no longer relative to itself. Today, thanks in no small measure to Caleb Hopsack, things are not what they were yesterday. Everything’s in the wash. Tomorrow, everything will be in the tumble dryer. Big/small, grand/common – these simple identities are over. By next year, you’ll be more common than we are.’

Time was moving too quickly for the Grand Duke. ‘Who’s “we”?’

‘The common people.’

‘And what will the common people be then?’

‘The aristocracy.’

‘Leaving you where?’

‘Still leading the party.’

Mesmerised by Caleb Hopsack’s tailoring, and frightened by how wide he could open his mouth, Fracassus acceeded to his every request. After his encounter with the Weatherman he had developed a taste for upside down talk. ‘I’m delighted to meet you,’ he told Hopsack when the cameras began to roll. ‘Unless I’m not.’

‘Cut!’ Hopsack cried. ‘I think that’s a bit too unnuanced.’

Fortunately, Professor Probrius had taken Fracassus through nuance the day before. ‘From Latin nubes, meaning cloud,’ Fracassus said with some consciousness of erudition. There was a self-satisfaction about Caleb Hopsack that made Fracassus want to hit him. He was glad he had knowledge to do it with. On the other hand he admired him. ‘I can, if you’d prefer,’ he went on, ‘be more cloudier.’

‘Well let’s not overdo it,’ Hopsack said. ‘This is Twitter.’

For the next take Hopsack asked for them to be filmed inside the Golden Gates. He thought it would further their common cause to give the impression that they were in his Palace and that the Prince had called on him . ‘And… action!’ he called, leaning against the Golden Gates and occasionally rubbing fingerprints off them with a check handkerchief. The two men began to talk about their special relationship.

Over the following weeks Caleb Hopsack tweeted praise for the Prince’s dynamism, generosity, thoughtfulness, integrity, potential suitability for high office, however high that office should be. He was a good guy. Incredibly focussed. Hopsack’s tweets had an air of vacant authority about them. I am confident that such and such is the case, he would say. He did not expect to be contradicted or questioned. His confidence was an imprimatur of truth. If he tweeted that the Prince was a special person then the Prince was a special person. His recommendation was enough.

Two or three months later, with Caleb Hopsack at his shoulder, Fracassus began to tweet for himself. His first attempts evinced an uncomplicated charm—

Nov 11:

Nice today, he wrote. And then, emboldened—

Nov 12:

Not so nice as yesterday. Cheeseburger for lunch.

Nov 13:

My mother still nagging me about reading so my father buys me a comic. The Prince by Mantovani.

Nov 14:

On page 1 of The Prince by Mantovani.

Nov 15:

Cheeseburger for dinner.

Nov 16:

On Page 2 of The Prince by Mantovani.

Nov 17:

My eyes hurt.

Nov 18:

Still on page 2 of The Prince by Mantovani.

Nov 19:

Demo outside Palace. Placards say WE WELCOME REFUGEES. I say shoot them.

Nov 20:

Love it that thick morons reacted angrily to my shooting suggestion. What’s wrong with these people? I was joking.

Nov 21:

Given up reading Mantovani’s The Prince.

‘Not bad, but now let’s step the pace up a bit,’ Caleb Hopsack said. ‘Let’s address an issue. Perhaps you could mention me.’

Fracassus did as he was bidden.

Lunch with Caleb Hopsack. He paid. Classy gesture from an incredibly classy guy.

Followed by,

Other diners incredibly interested to see us together. So gratifying.

Followed by,

Waiter said his wife committed suicide a year ago this day. Hopsack added 5% to tip. Incredibly moving.

Followed by,

Walked into demo against Miss Universe Pageant. No wonder. Women marchers looked like pigs.

Followed by,

Hopsack promising ordinary people he’ll get migration numbers down to minus zero if elected. Every confidence he’ll deliver.

Followed by,

The idea that Caleb Hopsack is migrationist is almost laughable.

‘And don’t forget,’ Hopsack told him, ‘that you can retweet.’

‘Retweet what?’

‘Well my tweets to you for a start.’

Fracassus turned up for his weekly cheeseburger dinner with his parents wearing a green and ochre window-pane check tweed jacket with three vents and waxed mustard corduroy trousers.

‘Go back to your room this minute and change,’ his mother told him.

‘I may have started him too soon,’ the Grand Duke conceded. ‘The boy might be eighteen but he is still impressionable.’

‘I did warn you this was bound to happen the minute he met a real person. Have I not been saying for years that all the television he watches has numbed his capacity for interpersonal relationships?’

‘You can’t blame television. At least he’s his own self when he’s being Nero. Maybe I should get him a bigger screen.’

‘That just puts the problem off for another year.’

‘There’s no time like the future,’ the Grand Duke said.

‘I say deal with it now.’

‘And get him to do what with his time instead? Read about wizards?’

‘Help you to rip the wires out of the palace for a start.’

‘For the thousandth time – there are no wires. It’s all done by electromagnetic waves.’

‘Rip the electromagnetic waves out then. They’re brain-cancer forming, anyway.’

‘There’s no proof of that.’

‘Our son’s the proof of that.’

‘I have a better idea. He’s eighteen. You know what he needs…’

‘Renzo, he might as well be eight.’

‘You still know what he needs…’

The Grand Duchess turned her face away.

Later that very evening Prince Fracassus was sitting with his father in the latter’s favourite gentlemen’s club. No one asked questions about Fracassus’s age.

If the evening saw Fracassus bobbing on uncharted waters, the morning saw him landed on a tropic isle.

He was used to waking with an erection and attributed it to the hours he’d just passed in his own company. But this morning he awoke to an unaccustomed sensation: when he looked at his erection he thought of someone else.

Great boner, he tweeted. Must be love.

‘After all that talk about prostitutes,’ Professor Probrius laughed, ‘you’d think he’d know how to find one.’

Dr Cobalt gently demurred. ‘You could say that’s to his credit.’

‘The Grand Duke is said to be distraught.’

‘Why distraught? You can’t be telling me he had his heart set on his son settling down with a prostitute.’

‘I don’t know about “settling down”. But whatever he had his heart set on, Fracassius has apparently broken it now.’