Beatitude, newly arrived from South Africa, painted a black man,
christened by his Boer masters with the Biblical name Abel.
A green bird watched, and wondered what had happened to his feline pal, Mastophio, nicknamed by Sister Miles-Morton, of Ealing Abbey, who was a fan of that old pop star Tom Jones,
a patron of her order of Immaculate Mary.
The old nun, after a series of miracles – turning cannabis
weed into carrot juice, getting politicians to tell the truth – was
rumoured to possess Godly gifts, like teaching a parakeet to talk,
and was busy teaching him Jones’ chart hit, What’s New Pussycat?
Beatitude drew her portrait, watched by the mysterious cat,
whom she fell in love with, annoying that bird who aped a parrot.
The artist had left South Africa, much to the chagrin of childhood suitor, Jacobus,
who sobbed, ‘I was going to show her off as Capetown’s most beautiful bride.
‘Yes,’ a pal said, ‘she was expelled for opposing apartheid, and what’s more,
left with a handsome young man.’
Jacobus’s hackles rose, but he was told, ‘Oh, don’t worry, he ‘bats for the other side,
and even poses as her naked art model!’
Meanwhile, in England the woman herself was holding a banner,
proclaiming ‘Protect the fox!’, as hounds and horses gathered to
chase that persecuted animal at an anti-hunt protest.
A policeman approached, with a public-order demand to move on,
not expecting any trouble, from little Beatitude and her camp ‘friend’ Abel.
Only to land on his bottom, a very embarrassed chief constable for,
the camp black man had proved more than able.
Alas, this feisty pair were deported to their homeland, expecting to be imprisoned,
a prospect which alarmed Jacobus who,
as he looked across at the notorious prison on Robben Island,
saw what looked like an elderly nun, illuminated in a beam of moonlight,
who cried, ‘Turn away from your past, young man, and fight for what’s right.’
A week later Beatitude was lying in the arms of his sweetheart,
in the independent country of Lesotho.
How she – and her modelling companion – got there is officially a mystery,
but I can reveal it, if you’ll keep a secret: Jacobus used
a contact in SAAF (South African Airforce),
and the plane carrying the deported pair was diverted north.
Shortly after the pair were descending through the mist over Lesotho’s Mount Thabana Ntlenyana,
at the end of a parachute.
Beatitude was welcomed by Jacobus, accompanied by nuns from the Lesothian branch
of Mary Immaculate, who’d sheltered this repentant sinner,
clad in a sister’s habit to confound watching spies.
Beatitude welcomed him with a kiss, after she’d stopped laughing
at his unlikely disguise.
However, he was insanely jealous of good-looking Abel, but his envy died,
when the black man donned a dress, in tribute to that world-famous but controversial singer,
Marge Mildenna, currently touring South Africa.
‘What would my Bible-thumping father think?’ Mused Jacobus,
then concluded, ‘Oh, never mind him, he’s such a Boer!’
Beatitude passed the time painting photographs of Mastophio,
the little pal she’d met back in England, delighting the children.
‘Can we see her?’ they cried.
‘Maybe, for she’s a magical cat – if you dream about her, who knows what you’ll see.’
‘Alas,’ she mused, ‘if only it were true,’ remembering those days in the shadow of Ealing Abbey,
painting and listening to Sister Miles-Morton sing, ‘What’s up, or new, fussy cat?’
or something like that.
So she prayed to the only spiritual guide she knew, an old nun, rumoured to possess godly gifts.
Back in Ealing Abbey, Sister Mile-Morton cuddled a cat she’d christened Mastophio,
saying ‘Your mistress is waiting for you, as are the children of Lesotho.’
Falling asleep that night, Beatitude dreamt she saw her favourite feline hide aboard
a package-holiday plane as ‘on-board baggage’, to land on the island of Tenerife.
After enrolling as ratcatcher on a fishing smack, she arrived in Morocco.
Travelling south, in the train of a elephant-hunting expedition,
the crafty cat was adopted as a good-luck pet.
These seekers of tusk woke expecting a profitable slaughter, only to wonder what had happened to their rifle bolts,
the absence of which left their weapons useless.
While the little one responsible for this theft was welcomed by an
elephant-worshipping tribe, The Tuskers, who, glad they didn’t have to
fight those poachers with spears, chanted, ‘She stopped the bad men,
whose murderous efforts proved fruitless.
So, all praise this elephant-saving, little thief.’
They were joined in chorus by a herd of hippopotami, but the object of their praise simply jumped on a hippo,
who deposited her on a passing pleasure craft, and she slipped over the border into Lesotho.
Beatitude, painting in the sunset from her homely cave, looking up in astonishment to see the policeman who,
in England, had been upended by her gay companion,the man responsible for deportation.
‘Guess who I found?’ he announced, and presented her love, the cute cat, asking,
‘Can I join you in painting Abel, for he’s the most handsome of models?’
‘Yes!’ cried the object of his affection, ‘Oh, you are brave!’
‘Yes,’ and, as my wife long suspected, ‘I’m also queer!’
Then as a green bird appeared, the artist cried, ‘Oh, have you flown all the way here?’
‘Yes, he did,’ agreed Sister Miles-Morton of Ealing Abbey, who appeared as in a vision.
‘Oh, what did you spring from, am I seeing things?’
‘I’m giving singing lessons to that naughty pop star, Marge Mildenna,
you know, who sang about being a virgin?
‘I persuaded her to come here to redeem herself in the eyes of the lord and serenade the children.
‘Oh,’ commented the bird, ‘that’s ironic, you being a nun!’
‘It wasn’t hard, I told her Tom Jones was here too, doing a charity concert for the dispossessed.
She’s always been a fan, being half Welsh.’
So, Marge, Tom and Sister Miles-Morton joined a parakeet, to sing ‘What’s New Pussycat?’
The bird asked, ‘What do you think, oh fantastic feline?’
But all he got was a sleepy Miaow, as Beatitude carried on with her lovely dream.
