“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I have nothing to say.”
“But this school report does: ‘Young Mr Jupiter excels at Art, Biology and Arson.’ Seems the apple never falls far from the tree. Well, I hope you take after your mother’s side, Jupiter, or you’ll be tucked snug in a Laughing Jacket before you’re thirty. But, by the looks of this… it seems you’re halfway there already. Hey, Calamine! Are you sure this guy’s up to it?”
“Psychological assessments suggest he’s not mad. Just deluded and amoral. He’s also contradictory and prone to acts of dumb insolence.”
“Not too dumb, I see. You went to university.”
“I did, Sir.”
“And you studied… Hang on… I thought you were an army surgeon?”
“I was, Sir.”
“But you studied Veterinary science? Specialising in – what’s this? – ‘Pachyderms?’ What’s a pachyderm when it’s at home?”
“Elephants, Sir.”
“Why in Hell’s name would you want to specialise in elephants?”
“You have to specialise in something, Sir.”
“And does it help you in your everyday life?”
“Not yet, Sir, but there’s always hope, Sir.”
“And then you enlisted?”
“Not exactly.”
“Conscripted?”
“I was press-ganged, Sir. I got whacked on the back of the head with a bottle and woke up in a Tesco battalion during the Battle Of Newcastle. When they found out what I was, they sent me out patching up the war horses, the attack dogs and the carrier pigeons.”
“So how in Hell did you find yourself operating on soldiers?”
“We ran out of food, Sir. We ate all the animals. Well, I still had surgical experience so they gave me a couple of textbooks on human anatomy and set me to work on the squaddies.”
“So you’re not a qualified doctor?”
“I am, Sir. Just not a people doctor. Which is why I can’t get medical work in peacetime.”
“Ah!” Calamari exclaims. “I did wonder. I was thinking you’d been struck off. You know… wandering hands… that kind of thing.”
“No, Sir.”
“Speaking of which, you’re married aren’t you?”
“Yes, Sir. Just about.”
“But no children. Pansy are you?”
“No, Sir.”
“Sterile?”
“It’s a possibility, Sir. Most people are these days.”
“We can get that checked out,” says Calamine, sliding sarcasm beneath Calamari’s radar.
“Good. We need all the breeders we can get. Even peasants. Now it says here that you’re a Nazi sympathiser.”
“No, Sir!”
“Oh, I forgot. It’s not terribly politically correct these days, is it? You like to be called ‘fascists’.”
“No, Sir. I’m not a fascist.”
“But I was told specifically and I mean specifically that you were. You own several books on the Third Reich.”
“I own books on crocodiles but I’ve never chewed off an antelope’s face.”
“Jupiter!” Calamine barks. “‘Never chewed off an antelope’s face, Sir!’ is what I think you meant to say.”
Is he joking, I wonder, because I’m losing track here.
“Yes. Okay. Fine. Never chewed off an antelope’s face, Sir! Never laid an egg either. Not to my knowledge.”
“Well, that’s a shame because we were thinking about going in a Far Right direction and we wondered if you might be able to tell us how to go about it….Hah! Only joking. That was a joke. But, seriously, what’s your problem with fascism?”
“I’m not big on genocide, Sir.”
“Oh, I see. Not got a foreskin, have we?”
“I…”
“Sir!” Calamine interrupts, “If his genitals are an issue, I’m sure we can get them checked, too.”
“Fine,” says Calamari.
“And, if his foreskin is a problem, we may be able to provide a replacement.”
“Yes, that’s fine!” Calamari snaps. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not taking my seniority seriously?”
Suitably admonished, Calamine laughs into his hand. Calamari turns to me again.
“What are your political beliefs, Jupiter? Do you even vote?”
“Yes, Sir. Always.”
“Really? I mean, you surprise me. Tell me… who do you vote for?”
“Sorry to say, Sir, everybody except your lot, Sir!”
“Well, at least you’re honest…. Because we do keep records and I hate liars.”
“But I will be voting for the government in future, Sir.”
“That’s appreciated, Jupiter. But I’ll let you into a little secret, shall I? In all those years you were voting for everyone except the government, did anyone except the government ever win?”
“No, Sir. They… No, they didn’t.”
“Well, actually, Jupiter, they probably did. It’s just we took all their ballot forms, shredded them and fed them to pigs. Perhaps, not every year. Sometimes the turnout was so low we’d win with just a pair of mad old lesbians. But most years, I’d say, our elections were as crooked as a crackwhore’s labia.”
I’m cautious when I ask: “But surely that’s corruption, Sir? The same as lying? And you said you hate liars? And you made a kind of hand gesture like a gun, to imply you shoot them.”
“And I do. I strap them across the barrels of field artillery and blow them into the sky. But electoral fraud is different. By physically destroying opposition votes, we ensure a physically greater percentage of our own. Now argue semantics all you want, but a greater number of votes is a win in anyone’s book. And that’s not dishonest. More a kind of delayed action truth. And it doesn’t matter if we bend a few facts to get there.”
Well, that’s an ‘interesting’ philosophy, I’m thinking to myself, when along comes the history lesson:
“After all, it was Cicero, in 54 BC, who said, ‘Unchanging consistency of standpoint has never been considered a virtue in great statesmen. It is our aim, not our language, which must always be the same’. Don’t you agree?”
“Er…”
“And there’s a few more things you should know about this little democracy of ours.”
“Do you think this is prudent,” Calamine protests. “Only I…”
“Prudent my Aunt Fanny! He’s got this far, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, Sir but…”
“Yes-Sir-but-nothing, Calamine!” He takes a deep breath.
“Settle yourself in, Jupiter.” Calamine advise me. “Here comes the Gospel according to Saint Calamari.”
Calamari doesn’t hear. He’s addressing the invisible masses at some imaginary political rally:
“So perhaps it’s best if we start at the beginning: the systematic ruination of the country followed by The Great Separation, starvation and rioting. And how Mr Malmot, being an extremely senior military commander, assembles the shattered remnants of our armies and leads us against the Scots/Welsh coalition, tames the Gypsy warlords, subjugates Manchester, seals off the Cannibal Territories with the Longpig Blockade and establishes the Civilised Territories. You’d think we’d get some respect for that, wouldn’t you?”
Calamine yawns. Calamari turns purple.
“And what happens when we return?” he continues, positively frothing at the mouth. “The heroes?! The lads who went out there and put their lives on the line?! I’ll tell you, shall I?! We’re treated like scum. The liberal press despise us. People on the street, people we defended, spit on us and call us murderers. And we find the same wet mimsies who sold England down the river in the first place expecting to retake control!