Missy - Ties a man to a traintrack

After that carefully calculated outburst, the cries to make him transport minister had only grown in intensity. Bobo didn’t intend to take the job, of course, but the talk of it made sorting out contracts for his various ventures much more easy.

But why was he tied to a train track? Bobo gave up trying to scratch his nose and pondered his situation. The train track was not comfortable, but his surroundings were idyllic. What a lovely bit of unspoilt countryside to put a train line through. ‘God’s own country,’ he thought.

***

Why, he could see a figure wandering towards him across a meadow. Now, if it had been a stag-do then she’d have made a very odd kissogram – dressed up in flowing plum skirts, poking at the daisies with her parasol. Mind you, she was probably the director of the advert. They let women do all sorts of things these days. And very splendidly they did them too.

The woman stopped, seemed to notice him for the first time, and acted with pantomime surprise at discovering him. Bobo laughed along.

‘Hallooo there!’ he called to her. ‘How am I doing? Hope I’m not being too hopelessly dreadful.’ Always good to come across as eager to please. People liked that.

‘Oh no,’ the woman replied. ‘You’re doing a simply lovely job … of being a victim.’ She hopped over a low fence and slid down the narrow embankment onto the line. As she did so she said, ‘Wheeeeee.’

***

Bobo wriggled in his bonds. ‘I say, Mrs B – now’s the time to untie me. You did promise, after all.’

Bobo’s wife raised an eyebrow. ‘I think you’ll find I made no promises – a trick I learned from you, hubby dearest. And now that I’ve married you, a little document I recently had notarised by your slightly depleted and traumatised team of lawyers says – in big, BIG capitals – that I have all your money. If I let you off that track I’d only have you following me around trying to tell me not to spend it all on taxidermy and candyfloss.’

***

It was a fine summer’s day and the richest woman in England and the vicar picked their way through the daisies up the bank. ‘You know,’ said Mrs Braithwaite, ‘how do you fancy being Archbishop of Canterbury?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. The present one’s about to have a scuba-diving accident. Poor lamb can’t swim. Utterly tragic.’

The Reverend Colquhoun burst out laughing. The two of them walked away through a meadow that was all that was pleasant about summer.

Behind them, Bobo Braithwaite screamed and screamed louder as one of his newest, fastest, and sharpest-wheeled trains whizzed along the line …

***

The Missy Chronicles: Dismemberment