Howard Jacobson: Pussy

Women’s magazines carried out polls of their readers. Ninety per cent of women in the lower ranks of society approved the Prince’s action and said they wouldn’t have minded in the least had he done it to them. It reminded some of them, fondly, of being woed by their husbands. Fracassus tweeted that the ten percent who disapproved were probably dogs. But he took no notice of any other figures. The people had spoken. The people were his people. And he was their man. Great support,he tweeted.

Sojjourner could fuck off.

‘Unless you want to go on judging beauty pageants,’ Professor Probrius advised, ‘it might be time to think of moving on.’

Fracassus wasn’t sure what Probrius had against him judging further beauty pageants.

‘I don’t think it’s what your father had in mind for you.’

‘He wanted me to see the world. I’m seeing it.’

But then he grew bored himself. There weren’t that many beauty pageants to judge. Could that have been because there weren’t that many beauties in Plasentza? ‘Blame liberal democracy,’ Dr Cobalt told him. ‘The women here value things other than their appearance.’

Fracassus screwed up his face. ‘What other things?’

‘Intellectual development, careers, charitable causes, growing old gracefully.’

‘Is that possible?’ Fracassus asked.

‘Intellectual development?’

‘Growing old gracefully. I think women can be too old.’

‘Too old for what?’

‘Being a woman.’

Don’t tweet that, Your Highness, Probrius advised.

Lacking the energy for a fight, Fracassus agreed. He had grown listless again. He sat in his room watching television. The world was talking about him but he wasn’t talking about the world. There was nothing for him to do. He would have liked to build a casino or a chamber of horrors while he had time on his hands, but Plasentza had building regulations that Urbs-Ludus did not. He missed Spravchik. He missed women. He couldn’t remember when he had last stood next to a woman who was taller than him. Probrius was right about liberal democracy and beauty – the more you got of the former, the less you got of the latter.

‘What we could really do with,’ he said one evening after dinner, ‘is another bomb.’

And then, in a manner of speaking, one dropped.

Mortality spares no one, let him build higher than a kite can fly. The Grand Duke fell ill.

It felt, to the people of Urbs-Ludus, like a sign. The Grand Duke was ill because the state was ill.

‘Your father needs you,’ Professor Probrius said. ‘It’s time to say your goodbyes and leave.’

A sadness descended on Fracassus. He realised he had no friends to say goodbye to. ‘What have I achieved here?’ he thought aloud. ‘I haven’t built a casino. I haven’t wrestled. I haven’t had much in the way of pussy.’ ( In fact he hadn’t had any pussy but didn’t want to admit that to himself.) ‘The people love me, but I don’t love them.’

He had heard there was a thing called depression. Could it be…?

It was Dr Cobalt he turned to in matters of feeling. ‘It’s the lull before the storm, your Highness,’ she told him.

‘I’m not asking about the weather,’ Fracassus said. ‘I’m asking about me.’

‘It’s the lull before your storm.’

Fracassus hated metaphors, without knowing what they were, almost as much as he hated foreign languages. ‘What storm?’

Dr Cobalt, who had not had a great year herself, turned the screw. ‘The éclat that’s waiting for you when you return.’

What was waiting for Prince Fracassus on his return can be briefly stated. A dying father. A distraught mother. A flustered Palace. A restive populace. The possibility of war – for when trouble struck one of the Republics the others were unable to resist the opportunity to attack it. Air that had grown filthier in the time Fracassus had been away, though no more remarked upon than in the time he was there. Ditto, substituting heat for filth, the climate. A hunger for change. A dread of change. A virulent mutual distrust that pitted citizen against citizen. A passion for saying ‘Love you’ and appending smiley faces to messages expressive only of hate. Technological advance that had so far outstripped any human use for it that people were sending high definition images of their faeces to imaginary acquaintances on the moon and watching others doing the same on screens they at all times carried in the palms of their hands. A belief in the free market of goods and ideas that concealed a profound reluctance to trade freely in either. A delight in what was gaudy that concealed a contempt for the wealth that made the gaudy possible. A contempt for weath that concealed a veneration for it. A sense, that is to say, of universal futility and despair for which – and here was the part that interested the Prince – the only antidote was him.

Fra-Ca-Sus!

The Republic was waiting for him.

All the Republics were waiting for him.

The Grand Duke received Professor Probrius in the Grand Boudoir. The room was decorated in the Grand Duchess’s taste and so had fairies riding dragons on the walls and, to please her husband, dragons eating fairies on the ceiling. The mattress was fashioned to resemble a gold ingot and for all Probrius knew was a gold ingot. The duvet bore the Origen crest.

Professor Probrius made his deepest bow. ‘I am sorry to see Your Highness brought low,’ he said, ‘but I trust the return of your beloved son will go some way to restoring your health. I believe you will find him much changed and ready for whatever you expect of him.’

The Grand Duke raised a frail hand. ‘How the world loves a braggart,’ he said in a frail voice.

‘I hope you are not dissatisfied with the progress of his education, Professor Probrius said. ‘It goes without saying that neither I nor Dr Cobalt consider it to be finished.’

‘We are more than happy,’ the Grand Duke said. ‘There are qualities of which my dear wife would have liked to see more. And others of which she would have liked to see less. But I confess myself satisfied. We entrusted a rough buffoon to your hands, and you have brought us back a polished one.’

Professor Probrius bowed again. ‘And now, Your Highness?’

‘And now the boy takes over from me as head of the House of Origen, and must prepare himself for the great leap forward. I confess it is all happening sooner than I anticipated and would like. He is young still. But my illness together with the appeal his youth evidently exerts combine to give this inevitability. History awaits us, Professor. There are already people below who, finally but fully cognizant of his gifts, are anxious to meet him and discuss how we proceed from here. The significance of this meeting, from their point of view and from ours, cannot be overstated; but time, I fear, is not on anyone’s side. The streets are angry. We must proceed quickly. I am not strong enough myself to sit in on let alone superintend the discussions. I feel confident that your attendance will keep Fracassus focussed and ensure no liberties are taken with him. I have not seen the Prince since his return. I am weak and frankly find his company exhausting. He is said to have my eyes but I never did much like them. He is with his mother at the moment. Those in whose hands the destiny of the Prince and the House of Origen depend are in the Council Chamber on the ninetieth floor. Perhaps you will be so good as to repair there at once. Take Dr Cobalt with you. You have proved a formidable team. I will have the Prince join you presently, if he can tear himself from the bosom of his mother. He was suckled until his fourth year, you know. I put the formation of his character down to that.’