The Girl at the Bus-Stop Read online

  The builder bloke stopped washing his car for a few moments to watch Rudge watching him. Rudge turned away and moved off at a quick pace for two house widths, before slowing down again. He looked ahead and saw one of his neighbours, Mr Potter, acknowledge him with a half-hearted wave.

  His name probably wasn’t Potter, but ever since Rudge had lived there all he ever saw him do was potter about in the front garden. He seemed to fill his days touching up the masonry paint on the rendered bungalow, re-pointing the brickwork of the garden wall, clipping his privet hedge or painting his wrought iron gates with multiple coats of black Hammerite. He seemed to occupy his time with anything that would keep him from having to go inside his home. He couldn’t have been more than sixty, but he looked like a cadaver in a cardigan.

  Today he was in the process of renewing the fence panels on the border between his and the neighbour’s drive. It didn’t seem that long ago that Rudge had witnessed him putting the old ones up.

  ‘Just changing the fence panels,’ Potter explained unnecessarily, ‘we’ve had shiplap time and time again over the years, so we’re getting a bit fed up of it. We thought we’d go for close boarded this time. It’ll make a nice change.’

  Rudge nodded curtly and smiled politely before continuing towards home.

  ‘What sort of brain-dead imbecile gets fed up with the style of their fence panels?’ Rudge asked a horrible-looking flat-faced fluffy cat sitting on a garden wall, ‘Did he and Mrs Potter spend hours browsing through Which Fence Panel magazine before making a conscious decision to waste hundreds of pounds for the sake of it?’

  The cat jumped down on to the pavement and sprayed a short stream of piss against a rhododendron bush before strutting off with its tail in the air. A few minutes later Rudge reached his unremarkable and unloved semi-detached house, stepping on to the empty and uneven tarmac drive and up to the tatty front door.

  As he put the key in the Yale lock he looked across at his own fence panels, realising as if for the first time what a terrible state they were in. Some sections were dry and splintered, whilst others had gaping holes where the knots had dropped out. The whole ensemble hadn’t seen a coat of creosote or wood preservative in the fifteen years they’d lived in the property. The wooden fence posts were rotten at the bases and looked decidedly wobbly, like a child’s baby teeth ready to come out with the gentlest of tugs.

  He thought about dashing back to Mr Potter and asking him if he could have his cast-off shiplap panels, which weren’t even old enough yet to have faded. But then he’d have to fit them himself, and buy new posts. Before that of course he’d need to dig out the old ones, excavate the concrete they’d been planted in, mix up new concrete and buy a spirit level.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he said before turning the key.

  As he pushed hard against the warped door, a small cloud of white paint flakes floated down on to the cracked concrete step. Once inside the porch, Rudge stooped down to retrieve the two letters from the morning’s post and seven hand-delivered takeaway menus, before stepping through the inner door and into the drab hall.

  One of the envelopes had ‘Council Tax Reminder’ emblazoned on the front to spoil the surprise, whilst the other was a large A4 envelope in Rudge’s own handwriting. He didn’t need to open this one either. He knew that it was the returned three chapters of the manuscript for his latest science-fiction novel.

  It would undoubtedly be accompanied by the usual stock rejection slip, giving Rudge absolutely no indication whatsoever of why it had failed to impress the literary agent. He stared at the worn carpet as he removed his jacket, calculating something in his head for a few moments before dropping the tired garment on to the floor.

  ‘Ninety nine bloody novels I’ve written and this must be my one thousandth rejection letter,’ he shouted. ‘Bunch of cunts, the lot of them.’

  He hurled the envelope across the hall and it hit the far wall, splitting open like a badly stitched wound. It dislodged the framed water colour print of Thomas Hardy’s Dorset cottage, before landing safely on the reproduction Georgian Chinese miniature chaise longue telephone seat.

  Rudge was relieved that he wife wasn’t at home to share this added disappointment to his dire day. Her decision to visit her sister at her new bungalow in Salisbury had been well-timed. She would only have gone on at him for wasting his time writing silly stories that nobody wanted to read. This was usually followed by a feeble attempt to convince him that his efforts would be better focussed on finding a better job, and doing a bit of DIY in his spare time like ‘normal’ husbands.

  Silly stories indeed, his latest effort had taken weeks of burning the midnight oil in his shed-cum-office. He’d been more than satisfied with the draft manuscript as not many writers approached science-fiction with such originality and humanity. Having his main character as a woman with young children refusing to curtail her career as an astronaut to bring them up properly, certainly gave it a contemporary flavour. Indeed, Wife on Mars would even have appealed to readers who had previously steered clear of the genre.

  He consoled himself in the knowledge that literary agents wouldn’t know good writing if it jumped up and bit them on the arse. That is in the unlikely event of a bona fide agent reading his work in the first place. The decision to reject it had probably rested solely in the hands of a part-time nineteen year old under-graduate English literature student from Moscow, with a bias against anything not penned by Joyce, Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn or Russell Brand.

  She was far too busy working on her dissertation to bother reading any of the submitted work piling up on her desk. She probably picked the ones to go through to her gullible boss by selecting alternate coloured envelopes; one white, one buff, one Jiffy bag. The fucking idle bitch.

  In the kitchen Rudge started to make tea, but changed his mind and opened a chilled bottle of Lithuanian Liebfraumilch instead. He slugged a mouthful straight from the bottle, and with an expression like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle, he spat it out into the sink. Screwing the top back on tightly, he put it safely back in the fridge and switched the electric kettle back on.

  ‘These agents and publishers are only interested in is making a quick buck,’ he said angrily to the tea bag jar, ‘usually from failed Big Brother contestants and Z-list celebrities. If you’ve been on the telly and can name five vegetables you most resemble, it’s clearly enough for the bastards to invest in a team of ghost-writers to cobble together an autobiography. It’ll be full of fictional anecdotes to make a dull and uneventful life marginally less so, and be published in thirty languages around the known world. Then there’s the serialisation in a tabloid newspaper, a TV docusoap to bore the arse of even the thickest of lowest common denominator viewers and a DVD released in time for Christmas.’

  After Rudge’s spleen had warmed slightly he sat on a stool sipping his tea and gazed out of the grimy window on to the horticultural disaster of a rear garden. He could see the top of a ginger tail belonging to next door’s cat, picking its way across the overgrown lawn looking for a fresh place to deposit its excrement. Unusually, Rudge had neither the energy nor the will to open the back door and throw something at it.

  Rudge had always liked cats, but not this one. He’d tried to befriend the animal when it first started coming into the garden, but it wasn’t having any of it. After trying to stroke him on the head, the beast’s claws popped out like miniature flick-knives, stripping much of the flesh from his fingers.

  When Mrs Rudge had made it clear that she didn’t want children, Rudge had often thought about adopting a homeless cat or dog. Until of course his wife had informed him that this was never going to happen, and so any hope of fulfilling the second of three ambitions in his life had been cruelly dashed.

  He sighed audibly and made a quick mental list of the jobs he’d have to do to make the garden more of a ‘feature’. With a non-functioning Flymo, a spade with a rotten handle and a prong-less rake he knew he wouldn’t make much progress.

  The telephone rang to interrupt his thoughtful good intentions. Assuming it was his wife calling to check-up on him, he ran through to the hall at breakneck speed to answer it before the answering machine kicked in.

  ‘Is this Mr Ridge?’ a voice from the Indian sub-continent enquired.

  ‘Rudge,’ he replied suspiciously, ‘who is this?’

  ‘Are you completely happy with the amount you pay for you gas and electric bills, Mr Ridge?’ the voice said. ‘Have you considered the savings you could make by switching energy prow-iders?’

  ‘I think of little else,’ Rudge replied, ‘but as my energy bills have only increased by thirty per cent in the past eight months, I’d be perfectly happy to pay double. It’s an absolute bargain, now if you don’t mind I have to go and chop up some furniture to light a fire with, goodbye.’

  Rudge had only just shuffled back to the kitchen when the telephone rang again. He did a quick about-turn, and grabbed the receiver.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Is this Mr Badge?’ a voice from the Indian sub-continent enquired.

  ‘Rudge,’ he replied, suspiciously.

  ‘Are you completely happy with the amount you pay for you mobile ‘phone tariff, Mr Badge?’ the voice said chirpily. ‘Have you considered the savings you could make by switching prow-iders?’

  ‘Yes, but I am English, so paying over the odds for everything is just second-nature. But, hey, thanks for your concern, goodbye,’ he said, replacing the receiver gently.

  After sitting down to enjoy a second mug of tea, Rudge started to feel on edge. In anticipation of a ‘phone call from his wife he just couldn’t relax. Until she’d called he couldn’t do anything, otherwise if he went out to his shed to do some writing he wouldn’t hear the telephone, and if he decided to have a relaxing bath or simply just go to bed early, she was bound to interrupt him.

  He thought about ringing her instead and getting it over with, but then she’d only detect guilt in his voice and start interrogating him. Afterwards she would probably remember some instruction or other she’d forgotten to give him and ring back anyway, probably just as he was about to sink into the hot foaming bath water.

  Chapter 2 – A Good Year for the Raspberries

  Later that evening, Rudge was slumped on the sofa in the living-room clutching an empty bottle of vodka as he slowly came to his senses. He was disappointed to discover that he was no longer in the Dorchester Hotel picking up Best Sci-Fi Writer of the Year Award from a beautiful young actress from Star Trek, wearing a low cut black sequinned backless evening gown.

  Why Rudge was wearing such a garment was a complete mystery to him, the answer no doubt lurking deep within his sub-conscious. He vaguely remembered choosing a pair of Cartier diamond ear rings beforehand. They had been loaned to him by the bloke who played Darth Vader in the original Star Wars movie, who had to miss the event to attend a Green Cross Code reunion dinner in Bristol.

  With his head feeling like a parcel of broken glass, Rudge eased himself gently into a sitting position on the lumpy sofa. He sat bolt upright to allow his lower back time to recover from being twisted so unnaturally during his impromptu slumber. In front of him the coffee table was littered with empty spirit bottles and a solitary crushed Coca Cola can. Having been through the sideboard to find some rum to go with the Coke, he’d ended up finishing off all the dribs and drabs of spirits left over from the previous Christmas, and the one before that.

  The television was still on and Rudge stared at it wondering what time it was. He glanced up at the mantelpiece and screwed his eyes to get a better focus on the face of the reproduction Georgian brass effect battery-operated Chinese carriage clock. Unless one of the hands had dropped off, he eventually worked out that it must be midnight. He’d been there since the closing credits of Coronation Street, but couldn’t recall anything after that.

  Skipping dinner in favour of getting stuck into everything from Bacardi to a souvenir bottle of Bavarian Schnapps had not been planned. He’d wanted to shut out the pain of his book being rejected again, and not being a regular drinker its impact had been swift and merciless. His bladder sent an urgent message to his brain stating in no uncertain terms that if Rudge didn’t get to the toilet quickly, he was liable to piss himself.

  After flushing the toilet he washed his hands vigorously, and splashed cold water on his face before stumbling out of the downstairs lavatory and back into the living-room. He noticed that there was at least four inches of scotch left in a half bottle of Grant’s he’d overlooked. He poured out a generous measure into his cloudy and sticky glass and took a large slug, wincing at the taste and smacking his lips.

  He was bored, and pressed the buttons on his TV’s remote control wondering if random channel selection would be a good way of choosing his lottery numbers. He stopped channel hopping and quickly moved back one or two. He could not believe the images staring back at him from the screen, and thought perhaps that his Freeview box had inadvertently picked up a porn channel. It was the only rational explanation.

  A naked young woman was bent over a table, whilst an attractive older women dressed in a red latex suit caned her. Another woman attached clamps to the young lady’s nipples, and tugged at the attached wires whilst hurling obscenities at her.

  Rudge turned up the volume and listened to the nasal tones of the female American narrator. She was explaining that the nude woman was a successful New York lawyer, and twice a week she paid the two dominant women to abuse her in this way. After a busy day in court she found it the best possible way to unwind.

  ‘Good grief,’ slurred Rudge into his glass when the advertisement break cut in, ‘what ever happened to a couple pints after work and a game of darts?’

  When the programme resumed it showed a middle-aged man with his pixelated head bowed, standing naked in front of a rather formidable-looking fat woman. She was clad in a black leather basque and thigh length boots, and was lecturing him on how useless he was as a human being.

  ‘And there was me thinking you’d gone to your sister’s in Salisbury for the weekend?’ Rudge blurted out, chuckling.

  As the woman continued belittling the man, she occasionally lashed out at his bottom with what looked to Rudge like a table tennis bat. Eventually she led him by a chain attached to his pixelated penis over to a wooden trunk, where a younger woman appeared in shot dressed in a leather G-string and a cup-less bra. She bound the man’s wrists tightly behind his back, and secured a leather gimp mask over his head, which had zipped openings for the nose and mouth.

  Once she was happy with the fitting she pulled both zips closed. A few seconds later the man started to panic and jerk his head around. She patted his bottom gently before unfastening both zips, and he desperately sucked in air until his breathing calmed down. Both women then eased him into the trunk, where he lay down on his back. The fat woman leaned in to secure the mouth zip before closing the lid and locking it.

  ‘This is Michael,’ the narrator explained, ‘by day he’s the CEO of an international oil company, but after the boardroom he gets down to bawdy business in Mistress Alex’s boudoir. He comes here three evenings a week, and sometimes straight from the golf course at the weekend. As a powerful executive he’s the last person you’d expect to voluntarily go through this kinda ordeal, but this is only the half of it. We’re not allowed to show you what else Alex and her partner put him through, but I can tell you this much, you’ll never grate cheese over your home made pizza again without thinking about Michael.’

  Rudge shook his head and smiled before slugging down the remainder of the Grant’s. He spotted a small bottle of Malibu lurking behind an unopened box of dates in the open sideboard, grabbed it and eagerly poured out a huge measure into the glass.

  The next subject on the programme was ex-professional American football player, Chuck. A beautiful young and naked Dominatrix was instructing him on how to clean her toilet bowl with his tongue. Off-camera his squeals of delight could be heard, and the narrator explained that Miss Ingrid was now defecating on Chuck’s face as he lay on the bathroom floor masturbating.

  The final ‘star’ of the documentary was Kitty, a forty year old bank clerk. She saved a large portion of her modest salary for a special treat once a month. She would travel to the luxurious home of a young couple and pay them to scream abuse at her, as she cleaned their house naked. If she failed to meet their exacting standards of domestic cleanliness she was soundly spanked. Her initial shrieks of protest quickly gave way to moans of orgasm, as the couple took it in turns to slap her buttocks.

  Rudge started to nod off, and soon entered the twilight world between hearing someone talking on the television and sleep kicking in. Momentarily he thought he was kneeling alongside Kitty, helping her to scrub the couple’s patio with a toothbrush. When the programme’s credits had finished rolling, the adverts came on at a greatly increased volume and jarred Rudge back into the land of the living.

  After finishing the last of the Malibu, Rudge felt incredibly thirsty and staggered through to the kitchen. He made himself some tea, and retrieved a crumpled packet of cigarettes from his trouser pocket. His wife had banned smoking inside the house on the day she’d given up the habit, so Rudge stepped outside and found sanctuary inside the shed, which had doubled as his study for years. He booted-up his laptop and lit a cigarette, sucking gratefully on the tip as if his life depended on it.