‘Oh,’ said Shane, frowning. ‘What, you’re in training?’
Nelson turned to look at him, and the expression of disappointment on his lover’s face made him realize that he didn’t want to tell him the truth.
‘Yes, that’s it,’ he agreed. ‘I’m in training. So I’m not supposed to call myself an actual policeman yet. I’m a trainee policeman.’
‘Semantics,’ said Shane, kissing him on the forehead. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re the real deal.’
BLUE TICK
From the privacy of her bedroom, Elizabeth passed a very pleasant hour abusing complete strangers on Twitter.
She started with some easy targets – vegans, cat owners, Joe Wicks – before moving on to contestants from the quiz show Pointless. An actress who’d been nominated for an Academy Award in the mid-nineties was castigated for her weight gain, while representatives of charities devoted to helping sufferers of anorexia were chastised for their own trim figures, which, she told them, was giving out entirely the wrong message. She trolled a few footballers and their wives, along with pop stars, backbench politicians and lesser-known members of the US Congress. Her own father was subjected to a string of insults, as was her aunt in Los Angeles. Pope Francis’s fashion sense was criticized, as was Rami Malek’s face and Heather Mills’s one remaining leg.
With no one of any interest taking her bait, she grew bored and decided to pick on herself.
@ElizCleverley Got hit on today by a woman who thought I might bat for her team. It’s actually quite flattering! She said I had beautiful skin.
Switching back, she tweeted an instant reply:
@TruthIsASword What a disgusting thing to post! Some women like men. Some women like women. Get over it! It’s not worth tweeting about.
Outraged by her own response, she countered with:
@ElizCleverley Just remember, it’s Adam and Eve. Not Adam and Steve.
There was simply no way that she was going to allow such a Neanderthal comeback to go unchallenged, however, and so quickly responded:
@TruthIsASword The Bible? Seriously? It’s 2021, bi-atch. If you feel such antagonism towards lesbians, maybe you’re in the closet yourself? Ever thought of that?
And that was when the shit really hit the fan. Elizabeth did not allow anyone, not even herself, to call her names.
@ElizCleverley I don’t feel antagonism, it was just a light-hearted tweet, that’s all. (Although I am str8.)
@TruthIsASword Protesting too much? Threatened mebbe?
@ElizCleverley Not threatened. Just don’t like being accused of something that’s not true.
@TruthIsASword Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.
@ElizCleverley Sounds like you’ve tried it enough for both of us.
@TruthIsASword No, I like guys, actually. I just don’t choose to spend my time condemning others for the choices they’ve made in their lives.
@ElizCleverley Choices? CHOICES? It’s not a choice, it’s how you were born!!
@TruthIsASword That was just a mistake. You know what I meant.
@ElizCleverley You’re the one who said it. You think lesbianism is a CHOICE? Hate crime hate crime hate crime.
@TruthIsASword I’m not even going to waste my time replying to that. Grow up. Be better. Do better.
@ElizCleverley You just did reply, bitch.
@TruthIsASword Only to say that I won’t.
@ElizCleverley Seriously, have you nothing better to do with your time than argue with me on Twitter?
@TruthIsASword Lots. But this was such a wonderful opportunity for you to learn, and yet you’re not willing to. Why is that? Calm down, btw.
@ElizCleverley You have no emotional effect on me whatsoever so there’s no need to tell me to calm down.
@TruthIsASword Oh, please. I can hear you crying from here. You ok, hun?
@ElizCleverley What you hear is the sound of me laughing. AT YOU. Cos you’re so pathetic.
@TruthIsASword And yet I have more than 100k followers and you have … oh wait … 6,329.
@ElizCleverley Anyone can get followers by being hateful. That’s why Donald Trump had so many.
@TruthIsASword I blocked Donald Trump even before Twitter cancelled him. I told him that I wouldn’t engage with someone who has such a history of misogyny.
@ElizCleverley I’m sure he hasn’t got over the trauma.
@TruthIsASword It’s called speaking TRUTH to POWER.
@ElizCleverley Oh, fuck off.
@TruthIsASword You fuck off.
@ElizCleverley No, you fuck off.
At which point she threw the phone down on the bed, infuriated with the conversation. Some people, she realized, were just too stupid to argue with.
Later, washed, dressed and pleasingly scented, she ate breakfast alongside Ustym Karmaliuk, who was digging into his morning supply of After Eights, and glanced at the replies that were flowing in, and noticed, for the first time, that her account @ElizCleverley had been granted a much-desired blue tick, indicating that she was now considered a person of importance, someone to whom the world should pay attention. Both her parents had received blue ticks years ago, and she’d been longing for one ever since. Indeed, back in the days of her failed sex tape, it had been one of her goals, but it had never materialized. Somehow, without even letting her know, a random person in Twitter headquarters had decided that she was at last worthy.
She let out a scream of delight, entranced by the changes that appeared on her dashboard. Not only could she see her regular notifications but there was now an extra panel alongside it revealing messages and replies sent only by other blue-ticked people. She was in. She had made it. In celebration, she took two After Eights from their slip cases and popped them in her mouth, ignoring the outraged expression on the tortoise’s face.
From the newly established @ElizCleverley she wrote the following:
@ElizCleverley Wow, just realized that I have a blue tick! How long has that been there? Didn’t even notice until now!
She watched as the congratulatory tweets began to pour in. There was nothing like a little #HumbleBrag to get the day off to a good start. To celebrate, she switched back to @TruthIsASword and tweeted:
@TruthIsASword There’s something about @BorisJohnson ’s face that makes me want to attack it with a machete.
And, within a few minutes, this latest post had been liked almost eight thousand times. Perhaps, she thought, it wouldn’t be long before @TruthIsASword got a blue tick too. Now that would be a real triumph.
THE THIN END OF THE WEDGE
The Director-General of the BBC, Lord Wilfred Husbery, arrived in a wheelchair, having broken his ankle in a skiing accident in Hintertux over the previous weekend, where he’d been holidaying with a minor Kennedy, a Spice Girl and a former adviser to Vladimir Putin.
‘I’m actually an excellent skier,’ he declared as he wheeled himself behind his desk, which sounded unlikely, as he must have weighed more than 300 pounds and looked more likely to sink through the snow than glide across it. ‘I might have been an Olympian if my father hadn’t insisted that I go into the House of Lords. It was a rogue piece of ice that took me down.’
‘And how does that happen exactly?’ asked George, looking around at the artwork on the walls of the office, which included the incongruous juxtaposition of a Jeff Koons with a Gainsborough, along with a portrait of the Two Ronnies in the style of Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe. To his left sat Ben Bimbaum, wearing a shirt and tie for the first time since his confirmation twelve years earlier, while to his right, Margaret Roberts was hovering slightly above her chair, as if she hoped to make a quick exit.