The Oxford Set
It was a reasonably pleasant June evening, and some of the residents of the Waeringshire village of Kington gathered in the village hall for a unique question and answer session, with the candidates vying to be their next Member of Parliament.
Harold Perceville, the Conservative candidate and current MP, was trying desperately hard to cling onto his seat that he won at the last election a year after leaving Oxford.
At twenty-seven years old, he was by far the youngest of the crop of politicians in the room, but that didn’t necessarily give him an advantage.
He knew his party was at risk of being eradicated by the Labour Party, but he wouldn’t let himself be washed away by the incoming red tsunami, mainly not to disappoint his father.
The first hour of the event went as planned, with Harold trying to convince the audience that he was the only actual “people’s candidate” despite being a member of the aristocracy and living in quite a substantial country house someway out of the village. The UKIP candidate tried to cram in the words “woke” and “politically correct” as many times as possible in a single sentence.
But then, everyone heard some slow, deep, deliberate footsteps coming from the other side of the hall.
Silence fell on the room, followed by some hushed whispers from some of the more troubled in the audience.
”What on earth was that?” Said the Labour candidate.
“Relax, everyone, it was probably just the boiler,” the UKIP candidate said. “Now then, as I was saying, the biggest threat to this country is not climate change of nuclear Armageddon; it’s political correctness.”
The door at the room’s far end swung open by itself, slamming shut very loudly.
The audience began screaming in panic, flailing in wild terror.
”It’s the ruddy protesters again,” the Reform candidate said.
Harold knew precisely what it was, and he wasn’t scared.
He slowly rose from his seat, his face serene and unemotional, and took control of the room.
”Silence!” he said, calling his constituents to heal.
“We are in the presence of an otherworldly being.”
Inaudible whispers filled the room.
”Are you seriously suggesting there’s a ghost in here?” The Lib Dem candidate said.
“Yes,” Harold said. “There is nothing to fear. Just let it be.”
The audience did as their MPs said, and they sat down.
”If I haven’t done enough to teach you not to fear the dead during my five-year tenure, I can assure you I will within the next five years, should you lend me your vote.”
“In which case, vote Labour,” said the Labour candidate.
A wave of laughter went around the crowd. Harold quietly grumbled to himself.
The candidates tried to keep calm and carry on for the rest of the evening, but no one could shake off the sense of an invisible force in the room.
So much so that Harold suddenly stopped a debate about the pothole problem in Chinewrde and Sucham because he felt the unquiet spirit was trying to communicate with him.
”Could someone please get a chair for our guest? They wish to listen in and want to rest their aching limbs.”
One of the stewards quickly brought out a chair and placed it next to the front row.
”Ladies and gentlemen, your MP has just offered a chair to a ghost.”
There was a roar of loud laughter from Harold’s constituents.
”They have every right to be here as the rest of you,” Harold said. “This is their constituency, too.”
”Ghosts aren’t able to vote, though, are they?” A member of the audience asked.
”Not at this present moment, no. But they can still listen to what we have to say. And who knows, perhaps I will change the voting eligibility rules once elected.”
“Vote Conservative; vote for a madman,” the UKIP candidate said.
“I think they knew that already,” the Reform candidate said.
The two men shared a chuckle before the evening continued.
The atmosphere was lighter in the room after the invisible visitor had got the seat he so desperately required.
They even moved their seat closer to the front of the stage, the sound of the chair dragging across the floor easily heard by everyone.
“There is a paranormal crisis in this country,” the UKIP candidate said, “and we will end it by putting a stop to mass immigration!”
An underwhelming cheer came from a small group of people in the far left-hand corner of the room.
”Are you out of your mind?” Harold said.
“Not as much as you are,” the UKIP candidate said.
Suddenly, someone in the audience threw a chair at him. He survived the attack unscathed, but there was a frantic search to see who threw it.
It was the ghost.
There was a loud shriek, and the ghost threw more objects at the audience and the election candidates.
The ghost had had enough, and it was lashing out.
The audience got up, screaming, and ran out of the hall.
The doors slammed loudly, and the election hopefuls were alone in an empty room.
They enjoyed the blissful silence for a moment.
”Well, I think that was a moderate success,” the Labour candidate said, getting up from his seat. “Good luck in the election, gentlemen.”
With that, he walked out of the room.
Eventually, the other candidates followed suit, leaving an empty village hall in pitch darkness.
Well, apart from the ghost.
“How’d it go, sugah?” Harold’s wife, Thelma, told him once he’d returned to the safe confines of Perceville Hall.
”Good, I think,” Harold said, sipping a glass of wine. “I’m quietly confident about the election.”
“Even with the polls the way they are?” Thelma said.
“Yes,” Harold said.
They heard the sound of heavy footsteps and slamming doors coming from the long gallery, the Perceville’s resident spectre.
”You have Monty’s full support and mine,” Thelma said.
”Good to know,” Harold said before finishing the dregs of his wine and easing himself out of his armchair.
“I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day, and I wish to rest.”
Harold slowly left the cavernous great hall towards his bedroom.
Thelma was left alone for a moment.
She heard Monty skulking about in the long gallery before deciding to join her husband and hit the hay.
Harold Perceville tried his best to get a good night’s sleep, but he couldn’t until the election was over and he was done with it.
He knew that this time next week, he could very well be just another aristocrat. Nevertheless, he tried to forget it.
The thought of serving just one term as an MP following a landslide first election victory didn’t bear thinking about.
The Robinsonverse 