Great British Ladies went out of business just when I needed them to fail. This is the luck of the patriot and I am a patriot.
You see the postman had delivered a letter that morning from The Ministry of War informing me that they were rebranding as ‘The Ministry of Peace’. Policies, staff and the objective of a total and crushing victory over the internal enemy remained unchanged.
Five minutes later a second postman appeared to deliver a second letter, this one from The Ministry of Peace. I was now in charge of “Seizing whatever retail goods I deemed expedient to the war effort“.
I can not recall a prouder morning in all my life. The envelope was of exceptional British quality. The paper thick and velvety. I held it for a minute, not wanting to damage its perfection. Its completeness.
“Open it Mark,” my wife urged, “don’t just stand there, gaping like a goldfish.”
“I’m not gaping woman,” I gasped. “I’m controlling my breathing. It’s a well known special services technique.”
“Would you like me to open it for you?” she offered her hand.
I handed the envelope to her. It would do our marriage good for her to see that right at the beginning of my service I was already advancing. Would she be able to cope with my meteoritic rise? Time would tell.
“It’s a lovely envelope,” she cooed. “It feels like velvet. Oh look it says ‘On Her Majesty’s Service’ at the top and there’s a little drawing of the Prime Minister’s current wife. That’s a nice touch.”
The Churchill radio burst into music. Elgar’s ‘Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1‘. A better choice of song for the ceremony I could not have chosen.
“Open it,” I whispered.
My wife nodded and picked up a paring knife to cut open the envelope.
“Carefully.”
“Oh, I’ll be ever so careful,” she said with a mad grin. “I don’t want to cut myself in the excitement.”
“No! Be careful not to damage the letter! You will heal. The letter can’t.”
She furrowed her brow a moment and made a little slashing motion through the air. The Churchill got louder.
Then she cut the envelope’s throat in a single swipe. I gasped. If the letter had been hurt I did’t know what I would do.
I took the envelope from her.
“Oi! Don’t snatch! I could have had your finger off!”
I slipped the letter out of its sleeve and held it, still folded over.
“Would you like me to read it for you?”
I handed it over and she unfolded it. It was like a light shone from the paper across her face.
“There’s gold lettering at the top. Look.”
I could not look. I closed my eyes and listened to Elgar. In the distance I could hear a dog yelping. Nearby a window smashed and a woman began screaming obscenities. The Churchill raised its voice again to compensate. The choir was starting in with ‘Land of hope and glory…‘. I was ecstatic. I felt I was vibrating. It was as if a battalion of angels in Union Flag waistcoats had arrived to sing.
It meant my wife had to shout out the letter’s contents.
“Private Martin French,” she bellowed, “you are empowered by The People’s Government to take what you want from [enter town name here] shops at will.”
She paused. I presumed because she was also carried away by Elgar. I looked at her heaving bosom and imagined…
“Just imagine it,” she shouted. “They couldn’t even get your name right.”
I confess I felt powerful and no minor clerical error would deflate me.
“I wonder why they didn’t write Raylee in the letter too? Just enter town name here?”
I took the letter and placed it on the kitchen table. I would not hear another word against it.
“Won’t the shopkeepers be left out of pocket?” my wife wondered.
“I will issue them with official receipts,” I hollered.
“What? I can’t hear you over Churchill!”
“When the enemy is defeated,” I shouted as loud as I could, “I am sure the shopkeepers will be rewarded for their contributions!”
“But most of the shops barely have anything to sell as it is!” She was red in the fact with the effort to be heard.
Our Churchill’s volume increased again and again. We were now in a shouting match with the wireless we would never win. I put my finger to my lips and shushed my wife. Once we had been quiet for a bit the Churchill calmed down.
“Then they won’t notice much difference, will they?” I whispered. She frowned and gave me one of those lingering looks that looked judgemental, but was obviously not.
“Let’s have our breakfast and after I’ll take you to window shop at Great British Ladies. You might see something you fancy inside?”
She nodded and we set about breakfast, the letter in the middle of the table, beaming its approval at my military career.
Breakfast finished I took Mrs French to Great British Ladies. Mr Jelly was inside, surrounded by the failure Brussels had forced on him. A regiment of naked plastic mannequins stood about him. Their morale evaporated. Heads missing or downcast. Arms hanging at their sides. It was no wonder the wily Continentals were able to undermine the enterprise.
“Why isn’t Mr Jelly having a closing down sale?” my naive wife asked.
Mr Jelly began to sob, all wobbly jowls and heaving chest. He had combed his hair over but it was now so thin his beetroot dome was pulsating. He held a clothes hanger and abruptly began to beat it against his forehead.
“Oh dear. Should we do something?”
“He can beat himself without our help,” I replied. Although I was of a mind to go inside and give him assistance.
He wasn’t half giving himself a proper thrashing.
“This is not patriotic behaviour,” I muttered.
“Please don’t report him.”
My wife cast about anxiously, but there was no one else watching. A few people were coming this way, but Mr Jelly was making such a racket now they smartly about faced or veered off in various directions. He was fortunate. He was almost certainly in the act of committing a crime. Blitz spirit must be on display in times of adversary. And it was a time of adversary all the time.
“A closing down sale would cheer him up,” my wife said. “Let’s go in and buy something.”
“There’s no need for that. We can just take whatever we want on behalf of The Ministry of Peace. I’ll be having those mannequins.”
“You mean the Ministry of War.”
“No. They’ve had a rebrand. Remember the letter?”
“How could I forget? They got your name wrong!”
I had a sudden urge to pinch her hard. It took a lot of effort to resist. I didn’t want to make a show of things in public.
We carried on watching Mr Jelly. He flung the coat hanger away and began to slap himself. He was a suspiciously plump man. His jowls wobbled hilariously as he beat himself.
“It is against the law for small businesses to advertise failure,” I reminded my wife. “Great British businesses do not fail.”
“Get Business Done!” I shouted in exasperation. It did not help. I wondered if Mr Jelly would soon find himself publicly shamed?
Then Mrs French did the maddest thing. She stepped up to the windows and rapped on them with her knuckles.
“Mr Jelly!”
He didn’t notice so she knocked even harder. Inside the store he paused and slowly turned to look at us. Such a face on him. He was quite mad. But my insane wife just waved and smiled. He returned her smile, but I can’t say it was a convincing grin.
“The least he could do is stand up straight,” I said. If this was the measure of the average man in Brexitannia we would have an uphill slog in the war.
“I went to school with old Jelly,” she said.
“He was a right little monkey. He loved nothing better than to serenade the girls. He can’t sing to save himself. But he does a good impersonation of an opera singer. Once he fell to his knees at my feet and”
“That’s enough of that,” I silenced her. Mr Jelly was clearly a subversive from a young age. I wouldn’t have rumours spreading that my wife kept his company. “Someone may hear.”
My nutty missus now started waving at him. I was at a loss to know which of them was madder.
“I think we need to keep moving,” I took Mrs French by the elbow and urged her away.
“Perhaps we should ask him back for dinner? He’s looking awfully skinny for him. I wonder if Mrs Jelly is feeding him right?”
“I saw her foraging for wild potatoes and garlic in Batters Lane just this morning,” I lied.
“That’s funny. She’s allergic to garlic. Allergic to all the alliums.”
“She was wearing gardening gloves.”
“Goodness. Where would they have come by such an extravagance as gardening gloves? You wore out my last pair building the barricade and Mrs Jelly is swanning about Raylee with her own still? I don’t recall seeing her drilling the school children in the latest patriotic songs. Well.”
That was more like it.
“Do you know I am going to get another new uniform?” I changed the subject.
“Next you will be telling me Mrs Jelly’s got hold of a piglet. Some people get all the luck!”
“Cardinal Bogg discovered an entire warehouse of TA catering corp uniforms. Good as new. The People’s Army is to wear them with pride. Raylee will get its share.”
“But you’re not in the catering corp? You said you were drafted into counter intelligence on account of your IQ? But you’d be serving with the regulars because you were on a secret mission and needed to disguise yourself in the field.”
“It’s all true.” I walked a little faster.
“I’ve been saving some scrap material to patch my best knickers. I’ll make you a real army badge for you to celebrate your importance.”
We passed a billboard next that was receiving a bold new poster.
“The High Street is Strong!” It proclaimed and, “Small and Medium Sized Great British Businesses are BOOMING!”
“Look at that!” I cried. “Well done boys! Keep morale high!”
My wife looked at it, and appeared confused.
“Why don’t you ever see any adverts for actual businesses these days?” she wondered OUT LOUD.
“I think it’s time we queued at the food market and hurried home for lunch” I replied, urging her forward at greater speed. I often wondered if she was off her rocker. Today was one of those days.
At the food market we secured a turnip. It was a beast. We would roast half and boil half and make a meal of it.
Later that evening, after we had eaten our dinner, I said I needed to “walk off the turnip” and snuck back to look again at ‘Great British Ladies’. The ladies of Raylee may have no more use for Great British Ladies, but I did. Especially the plastic ones.
Behind the windows the next recruits for the war effort waited in the same positions as earlier. Right now they were just mannequins, but soon they would be transformed into the Patriotic Raylee Civilian Defence Militia. They would stand guard on the defensive barricade when I was gone.
I slept well that night.
“I will handpick the sentries myself,” I told my wife the next morning, as we broke our fast on a tin of baked bins. Baked beans! Who would have thought it? I wanted to count every bean.
“Aren’t we lucky Mark?” my wife said as she heated the tin up. “Mrs Jelly left them with a note this morning asking us not to tell anyone about Mr Jelly beating himself in public.”
“We are indeed fortunate. It’s a funny old world isn’t it?”
I bet the Jelly’s had a stash of tinned goods was under a loose floorboard, under a rug, in their living room. Imperishable goods squirrelled away. They had lacked belief in British sovereignty. Well they believed now!
“I’ll pick the cream of the crop from Great British Ladies,” I promised, as the smell of beans filled the air. My mouth was watering. “No amputees. No headless ones. Just the able bodied plastic patriots.”
My wife stopped stirring the beans for a moment and gave me a searching look.
“Yes my love, I’ll bring one home for you. As promised.”
The mannequins would be dressed out like soldiers. They would protect Raylee when the men of the town marched to war. Anyone looking at the town from a distance would see a company of men on guard and assume hundreds more were stationed in the town. That would show Brussels!
“When are you marching again?”
“In forty eight hours.”
Finally the hour was drawing near. London would fall. We had orders to join up with several other regiments in Surrey and await the arrival of Field Marshall Gave.
“I am marching to greatness,” I whispered.
“We can put the last of the Worcestershire Sauce Substitute on the beans if you like?”
I had no doubts about my destiny.
“Here we go,” my loyal wife set the plates of beans on the table. “You’ll need your strength.”
Our Churchill crackled into life as we ate. It was ‘Thought for the Day’. The Prime Minister or one of his ministers always had something to say.
“Great Britain has concluded the latest rounds of negotiations on the Australian trade deal!” Ah, it was Captain Trust today.
“Soon we will receive the first shipments of Vegemite and Tim Tams! Which is funny in a way. Many used to scoff at the thought of eating Vegemite, but now is the perfect time to start. You might not always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might just find you get what you need.”
As she finished talking The Rolling Stones’ song with those words started to play.
“Shouldn’t they be playing an Australian song?” my innocent wife asked.
“It is a Great British trade deal so an indigenous British song is more appropriate,” I replied. “I’ve lost count of the number of times the Australian Trade Deal has been announced. It always makes me smile.”
After breakfast I went to Great British Ladies and informed Mr Jelly I was enlisting the mannequins.
“Any ones I want I will raise the right arm of with a flat palmed salute. You will deliver them to the barricade.”
He just looked at me forlornly and said, “I was hoping to exchange them for some rice.”
I bet he was. As if it wasn’t enough for him to fail his country in business now he was trying to hold back supplies vital to the war effort.
“Perhaps you’d fancy a big EU flag brand on your cheek?” I asked, with a smile.
Then he smiled quietly (heaven only knows why!) at some private musing, clicked his heels together and saluted with a raised and flattened palm.
“Don’t get shot old boy,” he said.
“You’re a dummy.” I hit back so fast he was lost for words.
He just collapsed into giggles. It was little wonder Mr Jelly had failed at business.