After a night of fitful sleep, where Mrs Miggins’ dreams
were haunted by visions of ghostly postmen and King Charles chasing after her
wielding an axe and a box of sage and onion stuffing, she is woken by what
sounds like distant thunder. It is barely light outside, and when she peers
through the curtains, she sees the gates to Buckingham Palace have been opened
and a large BBC van is trundling through the parade ground.
‘They’re HERE!’ shouts Kenneth the Phantomime, bursting into
Miggins’ boudoir and twirling a pirouette in his silk dressing gown and leather
slipperettes with sheepskin trim. ‘Today is the first day of my new and highly
successful glittering show-biz career!’
Mrs Miggins slumps back onto her pillow. All her life she
has been in charge of everything because it makes her feel safe and negates the
element of surprise, because surprise always freaks her out. And, as her old
mother hen used to say, ‘If you want a job doing properly, better put a Miggins
at the helm.’ But now she is beginning to think that the time has come to
release her inner control freak into the wild and hope it gets taken down and
eaten by hyenas. Let people keep their own problems, she thinks. Stop trying to
fix everything.
‘Come ON!’ shouts Kenneth, exiting the room on a pas de
deux. ‘Today is NOT the day for lounging around in bed.’
Downstairs in the breakfast room, Mrs Pumphrey is grilling
Mrs Poo for more information about her great-great-great grandhen, the Grand
Duchess Yekaterina of Polovitska.
‘And I thought you had an alternative idea for the Christmas
cards,’ she adds, helping herself to three sausages and smashing them together
between two hot slices of fried bread in order to make a cholesterol-laden
sandwich, because if you’re going to have a sandwich, make it a killer one.
‘I did,’ says Mrs Poo. ‘My idea was to create the biggest
Christmas card in the world using collage, stand it on the parade ground at the
front of the Palace and write ‘Merry Christmas to Everyone in the United
Kingdom’ in it.’
Mrs Pumphrey eyes her over the top of the sandwich.
‘Cheapskate,’ she says.
‘It was going to play ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ by Slade,’
says Mrs Poo.
‘Still cheapskate,’ says Mrs Pumphrey. ‘If you’re going to
send Christmas cards to everyone, it has to be cards in the plural and not a
single one to cover all.’
‘That’s what great-great-great grandhen Duchess Yekaterina
said,’ sighs Mrs Poo. ‘She said if you believe in magic, it will happen, just
before she pushed me out of the door of the Arts and Crafts room and told me to
let her and the kikimoras get on with the job in hand.’
‘What are kikimoras?’ says Mrs Pumphrey, applying a liberal
dose of ketchup to her sandwich because she read somewhere that tomatoes can cut
through the fat content of anything and, therefore, protect the arteries from
furring up. (This is probably an urban myth but Mrs Pumphrey finds it convenient
for her diet.)
‘Female house spirits, apparently,’ says Mrs Poo.
‘Buckingham Palace is awash with them. They can be bad or good, depending on
the behaviour of the home-owner. Luckily, the ones here are good. I did promise
them some ginger biscuits on completion of the work, though. Just in case.’
‘Very wise,’ nods Mrs Pumphrey. ‘You probably want to keep
all your kikimoras on side.’
Kenneth the Phantomime bursts into the breakfast room. ‘This
is it!’ he says. ‘This is my big day! It’s like the whole of my life has been
leading up to this moment.’
‘You’re only standing in for King Charles,’ says Mrs
Miggins, who has followed him downstairs. ‘It’s hardly a Royal Command
Performance at the London Palladium, is it?’
‘Only standing in for the King?’ says Kenneth. ‘Only?? Have
you no idea where this gig could lead me? How many doors it could open? I’ve
basically become a Royal Command Artiste.’
‘No,’ says Mrs Miggins. ‘I have no idea, nor interest for
that matter. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I shall go and let the BBC in before
they start recording an impromptu outside broadcast on the state of the
guttering.’
‘And I shall go and prepare for my grand performance,’ says
Kenneth, sweeping from the room.
A couple of hours later, the BBC unit has taken over the
drawing room. There are cables everywhere, and cameras, lights, microphones,
and amongst it all is the director, a stern-looking woman who looks like she
could do with a few good dinners and a Vicar of Dibley box set to put a smile
on her face.
‘This is Mademoiselle Kissed,’ says the Head of Lighting,
who is aptly named Flash Bulb. ‘We are very lucky to have her on the team this
year. She comes highly recommended from a very prestigious film company in
France.’
‘Let’s not stand on ceremony, Monsieur Bulb,’ says
Mademoiselle Kissed. ‘Please, call me Anna.’
‘Anna Kissed?’ says Mrs Miggins.
‘Oui,’ says Anna. ‘Is zat une probleme?’
‘No…non…pas de tout,’ says Miggins, thinking it probably
isn’t, despite her spidey-sense telling her otherwise.
‘Good!’ says Anna. ‘Now, when will ‘is Royal Majesty King
Charles be joining us? We want to make use of zis beautiful light.’
‘He’ll be joining us in ten minutes,’ says Mrs Miggins, who
is starting to feel anxious about this whole Artificial Imitation thing. But it
is too late to back out now. Deep breath, fingers crossed and all that.
‘Now,’ continues Anna, ‘what I ‘ave in mind zis year is
something a leetle different, oui? I ‘ave watched your Royal Christmas Day
speeches and zey are somewhat…’ow do you say? – ah yes – trés boring. All ze
sitting around and talking about ze past year is no good. Your Breetish
citizens want to ‘ear about ze progression of ze future, oui?’
‘I’m not sure they do,’ ventures Mrs Miggins. ‘The British
are very fond of tradition. They like the Christmas Day speech because it is
the same every year – the reassuring face of the Monarch sharing memories of
the past year with a nice undercurrent of peace, goodwill and cheeriness to
all…’
‘NON!’ says Anna. ‘Excusez-moi, I mean, non. Zis year we
will offer you little Breetish people something more exciting…’
‘The British don’t like exciting…’ says Mrs Miggins.
‘…and inspirational for ze future,’ continues Anna, riding
roughshod over Mrs Miggins’ protestations. ‘Something more in keeping with les Francais,
oui? Something more ‘Liberté, Egalité, Franternité’ n’est ce pas?’
‘I’m really not sure…’ says Mrs Miggins.
‘Ah!’ says Anna, looking over Miggins’ shoulder (or rather
where Miggins’ shoulder would have been if hens had shoulders). ‘Voila! Your
Majesty! It is an honour to meet you!’
And through the door of the drawing room enters Kenneth the
Phantomime, looking, walking and sounding scarily like King Charles.
‘I say,’ he says, ‘awfully good to meet you, too. Enchanté, Mademoiselle. Now, where do you want me? Over here, by the Christmas tree? Or
sitting at my desk, maybe?’
‘Here we go,’ mutters Mrs Miggins beneath her breath.
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