Ma Cherie Amour - Encore! Encore!

Chapter 14.

Antonio and Cherie, having breakfasted, discuss the genre of the political memoir. Unbeknownst to them, Baron Brown has set spies to work within their household ...

‘Your interminable diary!’ Cherie threw my Smythson journal across the room. I flinched, fearing for the rare African Ostrich leather. Would I be able to buff the scuffs occasioned by its sudden exodus?

“Listen to me, Antonio.” She was a woman on fire - although, I hasten to add, not literally - her dark eyes blazing with passion, that wide, scarlet-lipped mouth quivering with indignation. “You are straying into dangerous territory. What if the Baron were to hear of this?”

“I have not the slightest fear of him! I have taken lessons in literary technique from a Mr. Trollope.” I strode across the polished walnut floor, retrieved my journal and placed it on the rosewood armoire.

Cherie’s embonpoint shivered like a milk pudding above the strictures of her corset, but I noted with some relief that her mouth was less tremulous.

I gazed towards the Houses of Parliament, visible had not the heavy, tapestried curtains been left unopened by Ann, our idle chit of a parlourmaid. “Yes. Trollope has instructed me in the art of writing a Roman á Clef. I shall be describing real life, behind a façade of fiction.”

Cherie plucked a bonbon from a Meissen dish and nibbled at the sugared crust, the crystals coating her little, pink tongue like a small snake caught in snow.

My speech quickened in my heartfelt excitement. “But, Cherie, my book shall be different from the traditional political memoir. Most such memoirs are, I have found, rather easy to put down.” I examined my fingernails modestly. Yesterday’s manicure was bearing up well. “So what you will read here is not a conventional description of who I met or what I did.”

“Thank Heavens for that!” Cherie threw herself, somewhat dramatically, onto the velvet chaise longue. Her pansy-printed taffeta gown floated like the petals of a delicate flower around her voluptuous curves. “Shall you write about me, my love?”

I blew her a kiss. “How could one not? You shall have more mentions than Petros and McAllister put together!”

My mood was exuberant, and a heady giddiness fuelled my generosity.

I stood in front of the magnificent marble fireplace. The coals burned merrily, my posterior glowing as I warmed to my theme. “In my books,” I said, reaching for a thin porcelain cup of Indian Breakfast tea, “there is a range of events and dates. Other politicians are absent from it, not because they don’t matter, but because my aim was to write not as a historian, like Herodotus, Tacitus or even Gibbon, but rather as a leader."

“A leader?” Cherie raised a quizzical eyebrow, the coquettish effect of which brought a slight but pleasurable tremor to my breeches.

I girded myself. “There have been plenty of accounts – and no doubt there will be dozens more – of the history of my ten years as prime minister, and numerous people could write them – shall we say? – passably well -”

My train of thought was broken as ma Cherie choked back a sob.

“O! That dreadful book by that dreadful man!”

I rushed towards her, knelt at her feet and clasped her hands. They trembled like distraught doves in my manly grip.

A single tear formed a silvery track down her porcelain cheek. “He said dreadful things about me, Antonio!”

“Which one, my sweet?"

I thought of the countless blackguards who had sworn friendship then betrayed us. The bearded chap with the dog; Lepre-Scott, the opera singer from the Far North whose vulgar calling card bore the legend Lepre-Scott, The Voice That Can Clear Fog. So many, so many ...

“Carole!”

A shadow of a wince flitted across my youthfully smooth brow. Cherie had recovered her composure and was calling for the new lady’s maid. No matter the money spent on elocution and tutors, one could take the girl out of Bootle but –

“Yes, ‘um.” The accent of The Colonies grated coarsely on my ear.

Carole stood before her mistress. She was a good girl, with an honest expression; a maid to be trusted, one who would not run tittle-tattling to the guttersnipes who frequented the sordid alehouses of Fleet Street.

“Carole.” Although still on my knees, I had an air of absolute authority. “Please arrange hot water for your mistress to bathe. That will be all.” I dismissed her formally, but with a kindly glimmer in my strikingly blue eyes.

I turned back to Cherie. “Let us continue our discussion of my meagre literary efforts. There is only one person who can write an account of what it is to be the human – singular not plural – being at the centre of history."

“Moi?” Cherie blushed fetchingly. Her gentle laugh like the trickle of a mountain stream through tiny quartz pebbles.

“No, my darling, little ninny. Me."

To be continued

Ma Cherie Amour - part 2

The story so far.



Having sated his love - like an animal - with the object of his adoration, Cherie, our hero, Antonio, sips a whisky and remembers times past.

Chapter 13

Where had it all gone wrong? I dismissed the butler for the evening, laid my first edition copy of I,Claudius down on the occasional gilt table and gazed into my stiff whisky glass. The years melted away ...

A chill November night. We had dined at Grand Vita, an establishment frequented by actresses, dancing girls, dressers, usherettes and other theatrical types. Outside, heavy rain softened the orange glow of the gas lamps. Hansom cabs splashed past us, the horses blackly sleek with water, the drivers perched atop their conveyances like little waterproofed molehills, sharp white noses peeking like beaks from under the brims of sou’westers.

“Come, Baron Brown, shelter beneath my umbrella. Walk with me a while.” I offered my arm with its pristine white-gloved hand.

The Baron, an imposing figure in a long, tweed cape which reached almost to the hem of his dress kilt, stood head and shoulders above the others. He prodded me with his silver-topped ebony cane.

“Aye, it’s a generous offer, Antonio, but I’m gaein’ in this direction,” he growled in that rough, manly baritone I was to grow so fond and then so frightened of.

He gestured vaguely, somewhere towards the left, where the wide, well-paved streets petered into alleyways with stinking gutters. What devilish scheme was he concocting?

“I’m the leader and you’re not! If we go my way,” I wheedled, using all the considerable charm at my disposal, “and head in a more central direction with perhaps a few right turns, we’ll almost arrive where you’d like to –“

The door to Grand Vita banged open. A sudden pool of light; laughter, the clatter of silverware, the pungent odour of eels en croute. Harriet, a pretty young thing with a sullen mouth, lately employed as the understudy to the Scottish King at The Duke’s, swayed and hitched up her stays. She broke wind loudly, giggled and returned whence she'd came.

I turned back to the Baron. He had gone, his hulking bulk merging with the dark shadows. And I was left alone, with my umbrella sheltering just my own slim and athletically erect frame, a disappointed yet private relief etched across my face...

I was startled from my reverie by my valet, Campbell McAllister, and my Camp Aide, Petros Mendlesohn.

Mendlesohn was shaking me awake, his grip surprisingly firm. “Lord Antonio! Wake up, Sir!”

His speech was indistinct, muted by the hideous clanking of McAllister’s huge balls.

“Please put them away, Campbell,” I murmured, covering my piercing blue eyes with a delicate hand. “Why have you dressed for dinner so early? I have asked you not to wear full regalia in my personal quarters. It is too, too unseemly.”

He produced a great quantity of linen handkerchief from the bottomless depths of his pocket, spat and then polished his balls lovingly. “But it’s a great honour, my Lord Antonio, awarded for services to the Pawnbroker Industry.”

I sighed. If only ma Cherie was here with me. She was a rock – as in Ignatius not Blackpool - to me, strong when I was weak, determined when I was tempted to fall over. One steely glance from her and –

But, thankfully, the good-natured, simple man was unpinning the medals from his chest.

Petros edged closer, his breath hot against my ear. He hissed softly, like a snake with a puncture.

“Antonio, the State Banquet for the Texan oilman. There is a problem. The new Chef, Monsieur Picquelles, he has eaten all the pies!”

I slumped in my beautifully carved mahogany chair. Do they really suppose I don't care, don't feel, don't regret with every fibre of my being the loss of those pies? To be indifferent to that would be inhuman, emotionally warped -

What flavour where the pies? What is Baron Brown up to? Who is the Texan Oilman and will Monsieur Picquelles eat him, too?

To be continued