Muriel's Reign (11 page)

Muriel drowned in a whirligig of time, motion and noise – her head nibbled at by a series of different sounds. The much-planned evening had taken place and she walked home, across the yard, with Peter and Monopoly.

It was all still there – nibbling at her head.

Sonia, accompanied by Peter, standing on tiptoe, eyes raised as she carolled harshly ‘Oh! For one of those hours of madness …’ as if she had need to summon a single second of her own insanity.

Hugh, throat cleared and face set as he fingered his flute ready to perform an unaccompanied piece by Debussy. Hitherto, Muriel had believed that it was impossible to play a flute badly but Hugh’s performance, possibly due to his fingers being on the fat side, put paid to that belief as he inhaled air from the crowded room where patient parishioners sat to listen with curiosity. Marco, starting to sway, mouthing the words, ‘Good blow job, Pa.’

Judge Jack, tipsy and gazed at by Phyllis who had, earlier, found a drawer filled with his dead wife’s trinkets – all of which she wore – singing ‘Danny Boy’ with tuneless gusto. Marco, a lively conductor, introducing
the head teacher who held a huge collection of children’s exercise books from which she read extracts.

Performance after performance.

Lizzie searching for gratitude each time she passed the Twiglets round.

Flavia, dressed from top to toe in sequinned rubber, distributing pamphlets that told of Stretchable Chic and future exhibits.

By far the most popular act, though, was Tommy Tiddler’s impersonation of the Queen Mother (he had found a friend from the pub to look after Cleopatra and Pee-Pee for the evening) – although some did not know where to look.

He made a dramatic entry from behind an improvised curtain and was draped in a patchwork quilt of many pale colours.

It was held together on one shoulder by a gold brooch engraved with two lesbians engaged in something oral. His hair was powdered white and held in a net. Face powdered too and a sweet, gracious smile sat engraved on his lips. He walked slowly and majestically waving one hand stiffly and turning his head from side to side so as to give pleasure to each person in the audience.

Clapping. Cheering. Delilah, doubtful about the lack of reverence for royalty but grateful for the ticket money that helped rebuild the church tower.

Muriel, drowning still, but a part, at last, of the community, the church and of village life.

Courtyard crossed, she went to bed with Peter who whispered, ‘Brilliant. Let’s do it every year.’

Muriel Pulls It Off
is a comic romp about a mid-fifty-year-old woman who, having been rather lost in her London life, suddenly and out of the blue inherits a marvellous Elizabethan manor house in Lincolnshire from a lunatic old man to whom she is vaguely related.

Muriel goes to live there but is constantly dogged by her London friends : feckless son and daughter-in-law, old drunk lover, a pretender to the inheritance and Princess Matilda – youngest and invented daughter of George VI and the Queen Mother – who insists on bringing ‘Mummy’ and other bits of Greek royalty with her. Our heroine has huge difficulty fitting this in with ghastly old retainers, and the local vicar and his wife Delilah. She is also lumbered with her ex-husband’s dog – which she dislikes – and is in love with her ex-husband’s brother, who is blind. Her ex-husband turns up to share in the spoils when he hears of her inheritance (he is a disgraced MP). There’s also Miss Crunthard, ex-royal governess. The royal family had a penchant for the dishing out of nicknames and King George VI was unable to pronounce his ‘r’s – thus she is always known as ‘Cunty’. Royals didn’t see anyting wrong but courtiers found it embarrassing. However, all ends happily thanks to Princess Matilda’s rank.

‘Susanna is the mistress of what the Surrealists called “Black Humour”, the queen of deliberate outrage and offensive scandal. Here, she is in top mischievous form. Her characters, real or invented, most often both, will limp out of the pages bleeding, maimed and furious’
GEORGE
MELLY

ISBN : 1-905147-24-4

Grey is the new black – old is the new young.

Contributors:

Anthony Blond, Arabella Boxer, Melvyn Bragg, Georgia Campbell, Alexander Chancellor, George Christie, Maureen Cleave, Isabel Colegate, Jilly Cooper, Polly Devlin, Deborah Devonshire, Lindy Dufferin, Dame Edna Everage, Julian Fane, Desmond Fitzgerald, Christopher Gibbs, Colin Glenconner, Jonathan Guinness, Maggi Hambling, Selina Hastings, Drue Heinz, Min Hogg, Hugh Honour, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Angela Huth, Francis King, Lucinda Lambton, Kenneth Jay Lane, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Anthony Little, Roddy Llewellyn, Rupert Loewenstein, Candida Lycett Green, Deborah MacMillan, George Melly, John Julius Norwich, David Plante, Jeffrey Smart, John Stefanidis, David Tang, Teresa Waugh, Natalie Wheen, Peregrine Worsthorne – and many more.

‘Light, gossipy, upbeat. Based on a well-heeled, well-connected circle of friends and relations … good, stout-hearted stuff, in aid of a good cause’
ANNE CHISHOLM
,
Spectator

‘I never think about age, which is probably why I have remained spookily youthful. I stay young because I pick up the Gift of Life and run with it – in heels’
DAME EDNA EVERAGE

ISBN: 1-905147-09-0