SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS

By

William Norris

© William Norris, 2009

This is a work of fiction.

Any resemblance to any

person, living or dead, is purely coincidental

CHAPTER ONE

The Prime Minister was naked. Standing on tip-toe, his ankles crossed, he stretched out his arms and held the pose, admiring himself in the full-length mirror across the room.

"I don't think that's quite right, dear," said his wife, wrapping her fluffy negligée around her as she munched on a chocolate biscuit. "I mean, shouldn't you have something wrapped round your, er, middle? That's the way I've always seen it in the paintings."

"Victorian prudery," he snorted. "This has to be the way it really was. You don't think the Romans would have passed up the chance of full frontal exposure, do you?"

"Well, I just don't think it's very nice, that's all. I mean, I'm used to the sight of your willy, but do you think the public is ready for it just yet?"

"What's wrong with my willy?" The Prime Minister's tone was indignant. He glanced down at the offending member where it rested limply in its curly nest. "You've never complained about it before. You certainly didn't complain about it last night." He smirked.

"I'm not complaining about it now, dear." She struggled to find the words that could avert the threatening argument. Men were always so sensitive about this sort of thing. "It's a perfectly good willy, and I've always been very grateful for his attentions. It's just that it seems a little undignified to put him on public display. I mean, people might laugh."

The Prime Minister dropped his arms and uncrossed his feet. His shoulders and calves were beginning to hurt like hell. "God damn it, woman, I'm not on public display. I'm in our bedroom. All I'm doing is practising the pose that that fellow Lucien Freud wants for his portrait of me."

"Oh, I see. I thought you were just role-playing again." She nibbled her biscuit and watched as his hands began their characteristic little dance. "Why do you think he wants you in that particular pose?"

"Why? I should have thought that was obvious, even to you." He could, she thought, be extraordinarily offensive without even trying. "He sees me as the saviour of the nation, crucified by the media. It's an allegory, that's what it is. An allegory."

"I see, dear. So he's not really suggesting that you're the risen Christ? I mean, some people have said…."

"Of course not!" The hands were now at full twitch. "I'm not responsible for what people say about me. Just because I have this saintly aura; this incredible propensity for telling the truth and shaming the devil; this undeniable urge to go into every church, any church, that I happen to be passing, doesn't mean I'm divine. I mean, I want to make this perfectly clear, I do not claim to be the son of God."

"No, dear. I never thought you were."

"You don't have to be so emphatic about it. I mean, y'know, a lot of people are saying it. And they must have some reason for thinking something like that, I mean, apart from what they read in the newspapers. Perhaps I should talk to that new Archbishop; make it perfectly clear to him that it's all a lot of nonsense got up by the media."

"I don't think that's a very good idea, dear." The First Lady was busily engaged in brushing biscuit crumbs from the duvet. "He doesn't like you very much, and I'm sure he doesn't think you're the Son of God. Judging from his last sermon, he has a very different idea of your origins."

"Oh ha, bloody ha. You don't have to remind me that I made a mistake appointing that bearded bastard. It was all your fault for having the kids brought up as Catholics - I felt I had to redress the balance and get someone who didn't believe in smells and bells for a change. How was I to know that the Welsh windbag wouldn't believe in me, either?"

The First Lady decided to change the subject. "Do put your dressing gown on, dear; you'll catch your death of cold. When does Lucien Freud want you to sit for this painting?"

"We haven't fixed a date yet. He wants me to find two suitable figures for the rest of the tableau."

"The rest of the tableau? You mean he's going to paint the whole crucifixion scene?"

"That's right. Says it's symbolic, or some such nonsense. Wants me to choose a pair of cabinet colleagues to share the experience."

"Who are you going to ask?"

"That's a bit of a problem. Jack Hay would do it like a shot - anything to get an interview on Today, explaining how we hung shoulder-to-shoulder - but it’s Gordon I really want. Christ, I'd like to see that bastard nailed to a cross for real."

"I wish you wouldn't blaspheme in the bedroom, dear. I'll have to sprinkle the place with holy water, and you know how expensive that is since the Chancellor subjected it to VAT."

"Another reason to crucify the bastard." The Prime Minister began to struggle into his underpants, tripping over the hearthrug as he managed to get both feet into one leg-hole and dragging the duvet from the bed as he reached out to save his balance. Somehow the mere thought of his Chancellor made him lose all co-ordination. One of the three telephones on his bedside table began to ring.

"Which one was that?" He lifted each hand-set in turn, finally getting an answer at the third attempt. "Bland", he barked. "Oh, it's you.." He listened a moment, then held out the receiver to his wife. "It's Derry. Wants to know why you're not in court this morning."

"Oh, my God!" There was a flurry of confusion as she flung aside the tangled bedclothes and grabbed the telephone. "Derry, sweetest, I'm so, sooo, sorry. We were up with young Leonard half the night and I'm afraid I overslept…."

"Liar," breathed the Prime Minister.

She listened for a moment, her face growing redder. "I see," she said finally, "well if that's the way you want to play it, Lord Chancellor, I'll see you in the Court of Appeal." She slammed down the receiver. "Would you believe the nerve of that man. Just because I couldn't get to court on time…and I had a perfectly good excuse….he's had the case dismissed. My junior was there. He could have handled it perfectly well, but no, your clever-clogs Chancellor argues that since I'm not in court we're clearly not interested in proceeding, and the cretinous old fool of a judge agrees with him."

"Which case was that?"

She rounded on him, eyes blazing. "You know bloody well which case it was. And if you hadn't kept me up half the night because you over-dosed on Viagra, I'd have been there to prosecute it."

"Sorry, 'fraid you've got me. I honestly can't remember." God, he loved her when she was angry. Those terrifying eyes; the hair shaken back from the noble forehead. How on earth had that Socialist idiot of a father managed to sire a creature like this?

"Baines vs Regina. Now do you remember? My client is suing your government for a fundamental breach of his human rights."

"Oh, that one." The hands were in full flutter once more. "I'm sorry, love, but you spend so much time suing me that I tend to lose count. Isn't Baines the fellow who had his 'phone tapped by MI5 because he was ordering too much cous-cous from the local takeaway?"

"Yes, and it's an utter scandal. Your security people think they can ride roughshod over the human rights of anyone they please. Well, I'm here to make sure they don't get away with it."

"I think the problem is that you were here, and not there, if you see what I mean." The Prime Minister giggled nervously at his own joke, then ducked as a hairbrush flew across the bedroom.

"I'll have you know, Tony Bland, that if it wasn't for all the work I put in defending people against your minions, this family wouldn't be able to afford one flat in Bristol, let alone two."

"All right, I'm grateful. But just you remember that if it wasn't for my policies you wouldn't be getting all that work. Anyway, don't I seem to remember that when Special Branch raided this man Baines' flat they found ten pounds of Semtex, an AK47, and a telephone number for Osama bin Laden?"

"Planted," she said firmly.

"What, all of it?"

"All of it."

"If you say so, love." The Prime Minister sighed. He was irresistibly reminded of those lines from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland:

"In my youth, said the old man, I studied the law

And argued each case with my wife.

The muscular strength which it gave to my jaw

Has lasted the rest of my life."

His own jaw had long ago given up the unequal struggle. Indeed, he sometimes wondered how the hell they managed to hold the marriage together when she was forever fighting his legislation in the courts. Q.C., in the mind of Her Majesty's First Lord of the Treasury, stood for "Querulous Cunt." But he would never have dared to say so.

"And I tell you this, Tony…" She was not about to be put off by soothing platitudes. "If you don't tell that fascist Home Secretary of yours to stop trampling over the civil liberties of honest citizens like Mr. Baines, you can forget all about any repetitions of last night's little macho exercise." She swept into the bathroom before he could think of a suitable reply.

Oh Christ, he murmured to himself, we're going to get the Lysistrata act now. Why the hell did I have to marry a woman who reads Aristophanes in bed?

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