A Postcard from Lady P, Concerning the Summons to the Court of Q4

My dearest gentle reader,

Summer was a silken dream — parasols fluttered like butterflies, Prosecco spilled in rivulets down marble steps, and one’s only calculation was how many scoops of gelato a linen dress could conceal. The world was a languid lagoon of indulgence.

But autumn, that merciless bailiff, has kicked down the door. The alarm screeches like a scorned lover, children are bundled off to their scholastic workhouses, and we, pale and gasping, stagger into our offices to find the warrant nailed to the wall: “Q4 review preparations have begun.” Paradise is gone; welcome to debtor’s court.

First to plead is Lady Euphemia Optimist, tripping in with the serenity of a nun and the appetite of a gambler. She promises December will rain down contracts like confetti at a Roman orgy. Alas, when the time comes, her coffers contain little more than dust and a wilted ribbon.

Next drags forward Sir Basil Pessimist, as grey and flavourless as yesterday’s porridge. He confesses immediately, preferring the cane today to the axe tomorrow. A dreary figure, but curiously enviable — like a man who coughs up the poison rather than letting it curdle.

Then enters Madame Illusia, part courtesan, part conjuror, draped in accounts stitched together from quarters not yet born. She dazzles with numbers the way an actress dazzles with jewels — borrowed, and destined for repossession. The champagne flows, auditors faint, and January staggers in like a jilted creditor demanding payment.

And at the high bench sits Lord Hensley. A creature not of numbers but of survival, he glides through the tribunal like a cat in a dairy. He lifts not a ledger, only a brow, while others grovel and bleed. Their labour is his script, their downfall his alibi, their chaos his stage. At year’s end, when the bodies are cleared from the floor, Hensley alone remains immaculate — velvet unsmudged, claret unspilled, and reputation curiously enhanced.

Thus the spectacle repeats, year upon weary year: promises puffed like soufflés, collapsing like failed puddings, and punished with the inevitability of taxes. Autumn is no season at all but a sentence — a carnival of illusions where hope struts in lace and exits in shackles. And when the gavel falls and the dust settles, fear not: from my vantage in the gallery, lorgnette sharpened and fan unfurled, I shall continue to chronicle each absurd pirouette of this fiscal farce.

Yours, ever scandalised yet serenely superior,

Lady Pivotwell 🪶