Max Ernst: The Blessed Virgin Chastising the Infant Jesus

Harry  

“Harry

“Harry, Come here Harry NOW!”

Oh god what have I done?

“Harry, I said get here NOW!” 

“Gran please, please what is going on?”

The fear inside my gut is twisting turning twisting my bowels, I feel a cold sweat rising..

I hear the yap of a small dog, a sure sign of Gran getting closer. 

“HARRY!”    

Oh fuck ….What has come out …

Perhaps more to the point, what have I been caught doing this time. 

“HARRY, IF I HAVE TO COME AND GET YOU. YOU WILL REGRET IT!”

Even in a place this size there is nowhere left to hide, she’s like an eighty year old terminator.  That bloody yapping dog is trying to drag me back to its master like a hunting hound from hell.. 

“On my way Gran.”

I know where she is now, getting ready to watch Count Down with Gramps.  Chocolate Hob Knob, small dogs looking smug at her feet. Gramps beside her saying how much he misses Carol bloody Vorderman.

To spoil this daily ritual would be almost like voting for a republic.

The growling fiend from hell is nipping at my feet, chasing me to Gran’s private chambers.  As I walk my heavy steps send echo’s back across to a time before the constant barrage of the media age.

At last the doors to her private chambers appear, as they do the fear in my gut now twists again. They open as if by magic, the small fiend from hell runs back to its master.

The light flowing from the tall windows blinds me for just a second, as my eyes adjust I hear Gramps voice low and forceful, not so much a voice more a force of nature. A clock chimes three times loudly in the back ground, but no chairs are drawn close to the TV.

“At last Harry, what has taken you so long?”

Grans face has sadness etched in its lines.

Strewn across the table is a collection of papers with bold headlines.

Gramps’ voice now loud and clear brings me back fully to the present.

“You daft pillock, how did you let this happen?”

Before I can ask what he means, granny passes the papers. The picture says it all, but the headlines are so much worse.

Harry’s barefaced cheek, another reads Welsh Rarebit the last in the Sun says Bot Chop..

Granny takes my hand gently and looking into my eyes tells me she and gramps have been talking and have made a decision as regards to my future.

“Harry, sorry but this is the last time, we cannot afford any more scandals.” Grans voice now calm and gentle speaks of how much those words cost her.

“After all the trouble with Andrew we had hoped you would have learnt to be at least a little more discreet, but being smacked on your bare arse by your security guard  dressed as the Madonna is several steps too far.”

Now Gramps speaks with a calm voice. “Harry with William and Kate’s baby Kyle born the succession is now secure. So it would be best to avoid any further risk to this family by removing you.”

Before I can make a sound Gramps continues, “Your regiment is going to be posted to Afghanistan next week, but you will not be coming back.

Before I can speak gran with tears in her eyes reaches across and kisses me goodbye; as she does I feel the tiny prick of a needle, slowly I slump to the floor. The last thing I hear is Gramps saying. “That after his bloody mother you think he would have known better.”