Jack pays his respects (by Graham Blakey)Jack had visited this house with his family nearly every Christmas of his childhood, at the invitation of Lord and Lady Pelham, his parents' friends and comrades at Oxford. Ralph Pelham had died six months previously while Jack was lecturing at Berkeley.
Caroline Pelham called from the hall, 'Indian, Earl Grey, Lapsang Souchong?'
'Indian, please.'
She shouted to old Biddy in the kitchen, 'Thé ordinaire.'
'Dad said the commemoration was wonderful.'
'Wonderful! Half the aristocracy were there, of course - chinless idiots. The miners' choir was magnificent. I'd sent them a generous cheque, and arranged a charabanc to bring them over. Put them and their wives up here. What memories of helping in the canteen during the strike in 84! Strange food - bloody fantastic people! They adored Ralphie! Remember how you played with the miners' urchins? What fun!'
Fun? Like the Christmases chez Pelham: endless hours deriding Heath; mocking Thatcher; berating the US; lambasting Israel; lauding the USSR; extolling the working class; deifying Benn.
Biddy hobbled in with a huge tray on which stood a Georgian silver tea service bearing the Pelham crest, fine china, and home-made cakes. She put the tray down, bobbed and left.
'That old family junk!' Caroline said, eyeing the gleaming silver, 'But scrummy Biddy-cakes!'
She poured. It was Earl Grey. Furious, she went to the kitchen.
Jack could hear Biddy stuttering out an apology.
He stood up and looked accusingly at himself in a huge gilded mirror, and mouthed, 'You stupid brain-washed fraud.'
[The short short story comp is announced and explained here.]