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Tosca.
    ‘Literal translation, excrement,’ Tosca barked.
    Leo didn’t like to ask what excrement was, all he knew was that it didn’t sound very nice.

5
    The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, Bill Brazier, were having a pre-cabinet meeting in Jack’s sitting room at Number Ten Downing Street. Brazier had requested the meeting, telling Jack’s Private Secretary that he needed to see the Prime Minister urgently. Brazier was a corpulent man whose tailor had told him recently that the price of his bespoke suits would have to ‘be adjusted due to the extra volume of cloth required’. He sat on the sofa, panting from the stairs, while the Prime Minister prowled round the room fidgeting with various objects as he passed.
    ‘So, what’s so urgent?’ Jack asked, touching the gilt frame of a painting of Oliver Cromwell, which hung over the fireplace.
    ‘Boy English,’ said Brazier.
    ‘I know almost nothing about him,’ said Jack.
    Brazier said, ‘That’s because you take no bloody interest in anything much lately.’
    ‘I’m tired,’ said Jack. ‘Thirteen years is a long time.’
    Brazier scowled and said, ‘Well, unless you get your bloody finger out, Boy English’ll be moving his dainty arse on to this bloody sofa before Christmas.’
    ‘What do we know about him?’ asked Jack.
    ‘He’s a toff lite,’ said Bill Brazier. ‘Eton, Oxford, hisdad owns half of Devon, and his wife knows her way round an artichoke.’
    Jack said, ‘Hardly toff lite.’
    Brazier said, ‘Yeah, but him and his missus have both had their belly buttons pierced and are in the darts team at their local pub.’
    ‘How is he on fox-hunting?’
    ‘Abstained.’
    ‘National Health Service?’
    ‘Clued up, worked as a porter for three months, donated his wages to bloody Amnesty International!’
    Jack laughed. ‘And he’s still a Tory boy?’
    Brazier said, ‘Since yesterday, he’s the leader of the New Conservatives, says he wants less government, thinks people should be allowed to smoke themselves into an early grave if they want to. Says it will save the National Health Service money in the long run. Wants to ditch the Human Rights Act.’
    ‘What’s he like on the monarchy?’
    ‘He wants to bring them back.’
    ‘All of ’em? Princes and all?’
    ‘Immediate family. Queen, the Duke, kids, Charles, Camilla, William, Harry.’
    ‘He’s on a loser, Bill. The people will never stand for that. It’d be like voting to bring back boy chimney sweeps or the poll tax, they belong to another age.’
    Bill said, ‘My own wife would be made up if the Royals came back. She’s partial to a bit of pomp and ceremony.’
    ‘You should take her out more,’ said Jack. ‘How’s the Stepladder Bill doing?’
    Bill Brazier took great satisfaction in saying, ‘Badly,Jack, I doubt if it’ll get past the committee stage. Folk like their stepladders, they don’t want to call in a qualified operator every time they paint a ceiling or change a bleedin’ light bulb.’
    ‘No,’ said Jack, bitterly. ‘They want to fall off their bloody ladders and break their bloody necks, and arms, and legs, and collar bones, and give themselves concussion, then demand an ambulance and a bloody hospital bed, and sick pay, and physiotherapy.’
    Bill Brazier said, ‘You can’t legislate for every eventuality, Jack. People must be allowed to fall off stepladders. You’d legislate against death if you could…’
    ‘I would,’ said Jack, who since a boy had been afraid of the nothingness, the black abyss that death represented. Men were supposed to think about sex every ten seconds, weren’t they? Well, he thought about death. ‘So, do you reckon that Boy English is a serious contender, Bill?’
    ‘I reckon he is,’ answered Bill. ‘He’s just agreed to pay fifteen thousand quid to have his teeth seen to, and according to my wife – who’s a connoisseur of these things – he’s got lovely hair, and kind eyes and he relaxes by