What was Mrs Macbeth shrieking about now? There is nothing held back. It is awe inspiring to witness her in full flight; awe inspiring or simply terrifying especially if you happen to become the focus of her strident ire. Even as I write this I remember one of her ex-husbands telling me how he used to try to keep the kitchen knives hidden. Since those days he’s disappeared into somewhere east of Germany. Was it Poland or the Ukraine? I never heard the full story. There were those who claimed to know but it amounted to little more than rumour. Those of us who are unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time are simply trapped for the duration. She’s a one person Metropolitan Police force well able to kettle a roomful of innocent bystanders for hours. Hard luck if you want a piss. You should have thought of that earlier.
Foolishly I put my hand up to ask her a question and in her surprise at this intrusion she momentarily softens and I see that it’s not Mrs Macbeth at all – it’s our old friend Pinky Cameron in drag and oh, isn’t he excited, full of extra pink fun and games and trying so hard to be taken seriously and of course she’s* terrified that her husband of only a few short months will betray her.
‘Where’s your husband?’ I shout and you can see his poor mind trying to get to grip with exactly who he is and what he was shrieking about only a few minutes ago. But he’s lost it in a senior moment – forty being the new eighty these days. I blame the excesses of consumerism myself.
‘Oh you mean Perky Clegg?’
‘Yes, we want Perky’, we all roar. There is something of the feeling in the air that there is this unconscious force welling up in our midst and at any moment we will call for a double hog roast.
‘Get that oven fired up, Jimmy, we want it good and hot for this pair.’
There are murmurs from the back row, it’s where the sentimentalists usually sit.
‘Poor little piggies, surely they’re too young for the oven.’
But I think hunger might be the winner in this debate. Sentimentality works well enough on a full stomach but when you’ve been kettled for seven hours in freezing conditions even the vegetarians will turn a blind eye to their principles for long enough to wolf down thickly cut roast hog in half a baguette. I’ll have another one of those please, and officers do come along and join us, it was good do, wasn’t it. How would you score it? A draw? Or would you be generous enough to see it that we won?
Oh do stop shrieking, Pinkie, it was only a joke. Right guys? It was a joke, yeah?
* Gender is such a complex business that I hope I will be forgiven for a certain confusion as to the exact sexual identity of Mrs Macbeth aka Pinky Cameron. Added to which I have no wish to enter into the mirrored madness of his/her desires.