Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures – Frank sees Donald Trump’s election bring about an unlikely alliance between wife and neighbour Henry
“If my old Dad, gentleman that he was, were still alive today, he would turn in his grave,” said neighbour Henry, scrambling his idioms. “Grabbing women’s bits?! You don’t have to be a bra-burning women’s libber to know it’s disgusting to be talking about grabbing women’s bits,” he continued, supportively he thought.
Wife, who had just returned from the women’s anti-Trump march, flashed Henry a grim smile and dumped her protest banner in the recycling bin – “Free Melania” on one side, “We shall overcomb” on the other. “You’ve spelt that wrong,” said Henry. “Don’t bother,” I whispered to wife, ushering her into the house, leaving Henry out in the cold.
Wife burst into tears. One pot of tea, a hug and a Tunnock’s tea cake later, she explained in fits and starts, still affected. “Little girls with a banner saying ‘Be nice’. Girl of four giving out little hearts. A happy young woman with learning difficulties, sporting pink hair and a wheelchair covered in ‘Love Trumps Hate’ stickers. Their whole lives ahead of them. What will the world come to now? After everything we’ve done. After everything we’ve won. All undone.”
Sobbed in solidarity
“Perhaps the new leader of the free world is all mouth and no trousers,” I ventured, instantly regretting the half-dressed image. Every hour on the hour for a week, the news contradicted me. Obama Care smashed; the Mexican Wall ordered; Muslims banned. Every day, wife and friend in New York emailed each other news of each fresh attack in what sounded like amplified Morse Code, then hugged each other virtually and sobbed in solidarity across the Atlantic on Skype. America First alright, just like the inaugural speech promised, except if you are a woman, disabled, African American, Muslim, Mexican, poor…
And then there were those images. Winston Churchill’s bust forced to look on while the President signed war-mongering, planet-wrecking, hateful order after executive order. Then May and Trump holding hands like newcomers in a Lonely Hearts club. That last image sucked all the air out of the sitting room and dried wife’s eyes instantly. “WTF! He wouldn’t dare hold Putin’s hand like that,” said wife, disgusted. “What an advert for world leadership! Appeasing sycophant seeks pawing, pusillanimous patriarch for special relationship,” she spat. I nodded vigorously in agreement, understanding little, only that wife was fully armed and back in the saddle.
Neighbour Henry invited himself in from the cold. “Not on my Nelly. Over my dead body. I’ve signed a petition to ban Trump’s state visit,” declared Henry, who had never signed a petition nor protested against the establishment in his life before. He handed wife her placard, the b in ‘We shall overcomb’ crossed out and replaced with an e. “We’ve got to stick together,” he said, brandishing his own freshly painted placard like an old hand. On one side it read ‘Trump stinks’, on the other ‘Free Winston Churchill’. “You’re one in a million Henry,” I said. Delighted, he contradicted me: “I am one in one million, eight hundred and ninety five thousand, one hundred and eighty three to be precise. And counting!”
