Omega (10) "Don't you know!" exclaimed Anna, raising her eyebrows. "Golly! You Suburban people are so jolly ignorant. It's Chairman Rupert, the leader of the Illicit Party and president of his own country which he's renamed - modestly I'm sure! - as the Illiberal Socialist Republic of Rupert." "The Damnable imposture of the Marsupial!" Sir George assented. "How can a classless four-thumbed Animal like him claim so much self-importance that he should name an entire country after himself. Even I haven't arrogated my power and influence to the extent of renaming my land the Sir George Estate, but there are those for whom pride knows no bounds!" "So, what do you think of the General Election?" Anna wondered. "Are you going to vote Illicit? Or have you got better options?" "Are you an Illicitist, young lady? Are you one of those who want to merge this proud nation with the Illicit Republic and replace Her Maphrodite by a eucalyptus-eating mammal?" "Goodness, no! As if I jolly well would. But everywhere you go there are more and more people switching their allegiance to the Illicit Party. It's like some sort of fashion." "Simon Peter Wept! For an antipodean dictator!" "I think it might be to do with general disenchantment with the established parties. After all, it's the only major party that doesn't name itself after a colour..." "And what's so Damnably wrong with that! It's the way parties have always been identified, and I see no Godly reason why this proud tradition should not continue. But, you're right, my dear, there is great disenchantment. And can you blame the people when there are candidates such as these standing for election." He gestured a long spindly forelimb at a poster featuring a very sincere looking ant above the slogan The Red Party - Working for the People. "These scum who claim to represent the interests of the poor, downtrodden and the workers. All they wish to do is replace the rule of Law and Order, enshrined by status and tradition, by nothing better than the rule of the mob. They would see this nation run by ants and termites. They would destroy art, enslave the aristocracy in concentration camps and thoroughly ruin the nation's economy. It is not only self-interest which decides my opposition to these peasants, but also concern for the interests of industry. Capital would flee these shores were the Red Party to gain power and it would be an unparalleled disaster for all those who have worked so hard to make this nation great." "Would you support the Green Party, then?" Anna asked. "They are little better than the Reds! Perhaps they have some ideas I agree with, preserving many of the traditions of our nation, but all they would do is reverse the thrust of Progress. They would demand unacceptable restrictions on industry. Profits would plummet, economic growth would be stifled, capital would flee, and we would all have to become vegetarians." "What about this lot, then?" Anna indicated a poster featuring a very heroic figure looking into the far distance carrying a sword with blood dripping from its blade. The poster was mostly composed of bold black lines on a dark blue background, with the slogan The Voice of Reason. "Do you think the Black Party are the ones you'd support?" "They are no more the Voice of Reason than the Red Party. In fact, the two are equally Damned, I believe, because they both wish to subvert the natural Social Order. They are a Party which takes good honourable policies and perverts them with a doctrine of hatred and xenophobia. They would also replace Her Maphrodite by a Damned president and would frighten off capital as assuredly as the Red Party. They have some very strange opinions regarding insects. Their wooing of the arachnid vote is extremely worrying: I wouldn't like a hairy eight-legged individual telling me what to do." Sir George gestured at two other posters high above the shops on a hoarding. One featured nothing more than a blank space, with the words Vote White - You Know It Makes Sense. The other featured a mixture of apparently contented arthropods over the slogan Continuity, Tradition, Happiness, and by the side was a box with a blue tick in it. "The White Party have never stood for anything I have disagreed with. Nor have they stood for anything I have ever really believed in at all passionately. But as always my vote will go to the Blue Party." He pointed a forelimb at the poster of contented citizens. "It is the Blue Party which most assuredly represents the Voice of Reason, and it is to them I have donated party funds and it is they who, God Willing! will triumph in the General Election and at last this nation will be steered gently and firmly to the betterment of industry, commerce and greater weal." Anna smiled and made no comment. She addressed me. "So you know nothing about the Illicit Party at all." I creased my forehead. "I'm afraid so." "I'm no expert, but I've got friends who are jolly interested in it. Mostly because they oppose it. The name Illicit is a kind of contraction of Illiberal Socialist, I believe." "Damnable socialists like the Red Party!" snorted Sir George. "How can any right-thinking individual support a party associated with socialism?" "I don't know that they are any more socialist than the flipping National Socialists, but it's their name and I suppose it explains some of their appeal for the working classes. But the party is one which has grown very popular in a very short time. Five years ago, no one had even heard of the Illicit Party or Chairman Rupert. Now the party is one of the biggest in the country." "The Damned bounder Rupert has lied his way to power and influence in a way that even Machiavelli would find dishonourable. In his own country, he has made his way from the leader of just one of countless fringe parties to becoming its dictator. The people there must be of the damned to endorse him." "I'm sure his rise to fame had something to do with the blinking mess his country was in. Far worse than this country..." "That would be Damnably hard to believe! This, so-called Chairman, Rupert takes power by devious and fiendish means, and then suppresses all free discussion and imprisons anyone who's ever disagreed with him..." "I don't know what his does in his own country, but some of the tales of book-burning, concentration camps, forced labour, purges, pogroms and persecution ... It sounds flipping horrid! And he looks such a harmless creature. You wouldn't blooming imagine that such a cute looking koala could be the author of anything like that!" "Nothing you Damned mammals do surprises me!" Sir George strode on, and we again had to nearly run to keep up with his long elegant strides. "Just look at the marsupial! He wears a hat like Napoleon, a collarless dark suit, and shakes his Damned paws about like some insane lunatic." "I've heard his political addresses are very inspiring," commented Anna, "but I've never met anyone who could give me a good explanation as to what Illiberal Socialist policies actually are." "Isn't that just like the White Party?" I asked. "There's nothing remotely sinister about the White Party. Nobody could object to better street-lighting, more public libraries or wider car-parking spaces. But the Illicit Party have some jolly odd ideas on a whole host of things, and a lot of them seem to contradict each other..." "He seems too Damnably fond of mites and spiders, I woot. But he does have some progressive views regarding Art..." "You mean the Art you like. A lot of Artists have had to emigrate from the blinking Illicit Republic..." "...Coming over here with their Damned decadent and amoral work. The Art he encourages is at least inspirational." "He is jolly keen on his own image, though," Anna commented. "If you like huge statues, paintings or posters of Chairman Rupert looking heroic, then the Illicit Republic is the place to be. He has even had arches modelled from his furry limbs, castle ramparts modelled on his tufty ears and his head is on all the currency." "He has certainly stimulated the economy of his country..." "...Only at the expense of the trades unions," countered Anna. "He has been very kind to businessmen - slashing taxes and lavish with state subsidies - but he's not been very kind to women, the poor, the unemployed and, I gather, to what was left of the Aristocracy..." "His Damnable treatment of his social betters is an international scandal," agreed Sir George. "He exiled all the princes, dukes and barons of his country and confiscated all their wealth, so that he could finance his grandiose schemes..." "It was jolly popular with the natives..." remarked Anna untactfully. Sir George declined to comment. "The Illicit Party are getting to be jolly popular in this country too. There are already several Illicit Party town and village councils. I imagine they're fairly popular in Endon as well..." "Mostly with the Damnable Arachnids!" snorted Sir George. "I have little doubt that good sense and reason will prevail and this borough will reject the swine. I would not have thought it likely that the citizens of Endon would surrender sovereignty to a mere pouched mammal!" The tunnel widened as Sir George led Anna and me along past the shops, houses and office blocks lining our way and the ceiling now arching high above us. It was generally busier as insects ran back and forth on their business. Termites pedalled by on specially designed bicycles. A small trolley was pulled along by four disgruntled cockroaches. A spider sat in an enormous web high above us as houseflies, the size of dogs, flew gingerly by. A tiger moth swooped down and brushed Anna with its dusty wings before gliding off into the distance. Anna was not amused as she brushed off the dust that had scattered over her. "Uughh! I think some of it's got into my mouth!" she cursed, rubbing the back of her hand over her thick lips. "Some of these insects are utterly disgusting!" Sir George laughed at Anna's discomfort. "God's Wounds! Don't think that the people of Endon aren't similarly disgusted by you endoskeletal, furry bipeds." "All I can say," countered Anna, "is that I'm glad that not everywhere is like Endon." We arrived at another junction of tunnels by which there was a large subterranean lake in which mermaids were frolicking with water boatmen and caddis flies. The gleam of neon tubes reflected off the water's still surface, on which floated enormous waterlilies while immense reeds towered overhead. Sir George escorted us to a car ferry which took us gently across the dark waters to some more tunnels on the other side. Anna and I leaned over the ferry's side to look at the dragonflies swooping above in the distant heights of the reeds, while Sir George chatted amiably with the ferry's skipper, a moderately bulky green beetle. "I don't think I'm so enamoured by all these creepy-crawlies!" Anna confided to me as the ferry ploughed through the dark viscous waters. "I mean, Sir George is alright. But his funny face and those eyes! You don't know where to jolly well look! And you can't be sure where he's looking either. I'm dying to get away from here to more human company." "So you're returning to Lambdeth?" "You can come too, if you like," Anna offered. "It's a lot more fun than Endon and I'm sure I can show you many more interesting things than you'll ever find with all these scaly monsters. It's quite an arty place, what with the University and all the students. And it's got at least as much history as this place... Oooh! Look!" She pointed at a couple of mermaids jumping in and out of the water in the near distance. They then disappeared under the surface and totally out of sight. "I'm not sure..." I said dubiously, not wishing to offend Sir George who was waving at us cheerfully with one of his arms. He strode towards us, holding his top hat in two of his other arms. "We're very close to the Station," he announced. "You can see it there on the shore." And there indeed, just by a quay where some boats were gently bobbing in the quite still water, was the entrance to another tunnel with timetables, maps and posters outside and the words Endon Central over the top of the doorway. There was a general buzz of activity with insects sitting by their baggage, some selling their wares and a few brawny cockroaches and spiders waiting with rickshaws. The ferry finally docked on the shore, and we disembarked. There was a train for Lambdeth leaving within minutes at 11 o'clock, and so Anna rushed away rather swiftly to ensure she wouldn't miss it. The next one wasn't due for another six hours. As a result of her haste, Sir George and I didn't have the opportunity to give her more than the most peremptory of goodbyes. She briefly kissed me on the cheek, assured me that we'd probably meet again, and rushed through to the platform in a flurry of black skin and white clothes. She waved at us from the platform, as she jumped onto the modern and very rapid train standing there. Sir George sighed as we turned away and headed down a tunnel past more shops. "That woman is Damned impudent, don't you think, young man? If she were a grasshopper I don't think I could have stood for it at all, but as a human being, I'm really not able to correct her. Women are necessary evils, I believe. It is their duty to serve us men in their dual rôles as providers of domestic comfort and sexual pleasure, and beyond that it is best they stray as little as possible. I know that my views on the natural subservience of the weaker sex are unlikely to find much favour with the modern miss, such as your dark-hued friend, but they are nonetheless sincerely felt. Don't you find the futile attempts of females such as she to stand up for herself in the face of the undeniable superiority of our gender rather touching?" A female grasshopper in a long dress whose train was supported by two ladybirds happened to be walking towards us. Sir George halted and bowed low with a sweep of his top hat as she passed by, one of her forelimbs waving a fan in front of her face, and using the others to keep her dress from trailing on the cigarette-butt strewn floor. He righted himself after she had gone by. "Naturally, I believe in gallantry, as well," Sir George assented. "Just as it is the rôle of the stronger sex to provide and protect, the woman's is to accept, with becoming demureness, her position to support the male in his industry. A woman is to be useful as well as decorative: and the service they best provide is, of course, in the generation of children. I have sown my seed widely, I confess, and there are many batches of eggs which I can claim to have inseminated, but my ambition, and that of all good Christians is to sire offspring to the best of women and to provide the best for my inheritance.
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