‘You entirely miss the point,’ Hopsack said. ‘I am the idealized, never-never rural version of what they secretly would like to look like. It doesn’t matter that the clothes I wear are not ones they would know how to access or could afford to buy even if they did. Sartorially, Caleb Hopsack is their shadow self. Sure it’s a joke. But it’s a joke they get. I bare my cigarette stained teeth at them and remind them of a horse. They come muttering to my meetings and remind me of bags of hay. We despise one another. This is the age of the ironising of the archetype. I have a beer pot with my name on it in every public house in the Duchy but the Plebs know I prefer Scotch. They need Caleb Hopsack to be ordinary and a toff at the same time.’
‘So which are you?’
‘What sort of question is that? Have I not said that this is the age of the ironizing of the archetype. Maybe I am the one, maybe I’m the other, maybe I’m both.’
He was just the person, the Grand Duke thought – maybe just the three people – to oversee his son’s Twitter page.
With the Grand Duke’s permission, Caleb Hopsack would begin by building up interest in Fracassus on his own Twitter page. It would help gain momentum, he said, if Caleb Hopsack were to be filmed chatting to the Prince on the inside of the golden gates. Perhaps the Prince would be so good as to put his arm around Hopsack’s shoulder, shake hands with him, kiss him on both cheeks, and then, to the camera, give the double thumb of Internet approval. Whereupon Hopsack would open wide his famous reticulated mouth and gulp down the admiration of his followers like a shark swallowing down scampi. This would go directly on to YouTube, innumerable links to which Caleb Hopsack would tweet around the world.
The Grand Duke expressed surprise that the leader of the Ordinary Little People’s Party would want to show himself – forgive the expression – jerking off on extraordinary big people.
‘If you will forgive my expression, Your Majesty,’ Hopsack said, ‘you are harping on a broken string. Size is no longer relative to itself. Today, thanks in no small measure to Caleb Hopsack, things are not what they were yesterday. Everything’s in the wash. Tomorrow, everything will be in the tumble dryer. Big/small, grand/common – these simple identities are over. By next year, you’ll be more common than we are.’
Time was moving too quickly for the Grand Duke. ‘Who’s “we”?’
‘The common people.’
‘And what will the common people be then?’
‘The aristocracy.’
‘Leaving you where?’
‘Still leading the party.’
Mesmerised by Caleb Hopsack’s tailoring, and frightened by how wide he could open his mouth, Fracassus acceeded to his every request. After his encounter with the Weatherman he had developed a taste for upside down talk. ‘I’m delighted to meet you,’ he told Hopsack when the cameras began to roll. ‘Unless I’m not.’
‘Cut!’ Hopsack cried. ‘I think that’s a bit too unnuanced.’
Fortunately, Professor Probrius had taken Fracassus through nuance the day before. ‘From Latin nubes, meaning cloud,’ Fracassus said with some consciousness of erudition. There was a self-satisfaction about Caleb Hopsack that made Fracassus want to hit him. He was glad he had knowledge to do it with. On the other hand he admired him. ‘I can, if you’d prefer,’ he went on, ‘be more cloudier.’
‘Well let’s not overdo it,’ Hopsack said. ‘This is Twitter.’
For the next take Hopsack asked for them to be filmed inside the Golden Gates. He thought it would further their common cause to give the impression that they were in his Palace and that the Prince had called on him. ‘And… action!’ he called, leaning against the Golden Gates and occasionally rubbing fingerprints off them with a check handkerchief. The two men began to talk about their special relationship.
Over the following weeks Caleb Hopsack tweeted praise for the Prince’s dynamism, generosity, thoughtfulness, integrity, potential suitability for high office, however high that office should be. He was a good guy. Incredibly focussed. Hopsack’s tweets had an air of vacant authority about them. I am confident that such and such is the case, he would say. He did not expect to be contradicted or questioned. His confidence was an imprimatur of truth. If he tweeted that the Prince was a special person then the Prince was a special person. His recommendation was enough.
Two or three months later, with Caleb Hopsack at his shoulder, Fracassus began to tweet for himself. His first attempts evinced an uncomplicated charm—
Nov 11:
Nice today, he wrote. And then, emboldened—
Nov 12:
Not so nice as yesterday. Cheeseburger for lunch.
Nov 13:
My mother still nagging me about reading so my father buys me a comic. The Prince by Mantovani.
Nov 14:
On page 1 of The Prince by Mantovani.
Nov 15:
Cheeseburger for dinner.
Nov 16:
On Page 2 of The Prince by Mantovani.
Nov 17:
My eyes hurt.
Nov 18:
Still on page 2 of The Prince by Mantovani.
Nov 19:
Demo outside Palace. Placards say WE WELCOME REFUGEES. I say shoot them.
Nov 20:
Love it that thick morons reacted angrily to my shooting suggestion. What’s wrong with these people? I was joking.
Nov 21:
Given up reading Mantovani’s The Prince.
‘Not bad, but now let’s step the pace up a bit,’ Caleb Hopsack said. ‘Let’s address an issue. Perhaps you could mention me.’
Fracassus did as he was bidden.
Lunch with Caleb Hopsack. He paid. Classy gesture from an incredibly classy guy.
Followed by,
Other diners incredibly interested to see us together. So gratifying.
Followed by,
Waiter said his wife committed suicide a year ago this day. Hopsack added 5% to tip. Incredibly moving.
Followed by,
Walked into demo against Miss Universe Pageant. No wonder. Women marchers looked like pigs.
Followed by,
Hopsack promising ordinary people he’ll get migration numbers down to minus zero if elected. Every confidence he’ll deliver.
Followed by,
The idea that Caleb Hopsack is migrationist is almost laughable.
‘And don’t forget,’ Hopsack told him, ‘that you can retweet.’
‘Retweet what?’
‘Well my tweets to you for a start.’
Fracassus turned up for his weekly cheeseburger dinner with his parents wearing a green and ochre window-pane check tweed jacket with three vents and waxed mustard corduroy trousers.
‘Go back to your room this minute and change,’ his mother told him.
‘I may have started him too soon,’ the Grand Duke conceded. ‘The boy might be eighteen but he is still impressionable.’
‘I did warn you this was bound to happen the minute he met a real person. Have I not been saying for years that all the television he watches has numbed his capacity for interpersonal relationships?’