Inflatable Hugh

by Terry Ravenscroft

  Although Dengue Fever can be a very painful affliction most people fully recover from its effects within in a week. A very few die from it. Pugh did neither, but after four days lapsed into a coma. After a further week had passed all traces of the fever had gone but he was still comatose. He was to remain so for six weeks.

  The hospital doctor had suggested to Lorelei that if she were to play some of Pugh’s favourite music it might help to coax him out of the coma. However Lorelei wasn’t aware of Pugh’s musical tastes, or even if he had any, in fact she very much doubted if he liked any sort of music at all. She knew lots of music he didn’t like; that rap shite, that hip-hop shite, that girl band shite, that boy band shite, Leona fucking Lewis and Lady fucking Gaga, because whenever they’d come on the car radio he’d told her she could switch that crap off and right now unless she wanted to get out and walk. So in lieu of any favourite music Pugh might have had she played her own favourites. There had been no reaction from Pugh at all, except for the time she put a James Blunt CD on and he made a gurgling sound and one of his knees jerked.

  The doctor also told Lorelei that reading to Pugh might help. Perhaps if she read from his favourite books? As was the case with music she didn’t know his favourite books, or even if he had any. The only things she’d ever seen him reading were restaurant menus. She tried reading the menu from one of the local restaurants but gave up after five minutes as it was making her feel hungry. Thereafter she’d settled for reading him the Daily Mirror every day, or the Sun for a change.

  After checking on Pugh, the nurse left, and Lorelei picked up the newspaper and carried on where she’d left off. “Here we go again, Pughie. ‘During a quiet period at the Marylebone premises of Madame Tussauds waxworks yesterday ....’ ”

  Deep in the Land of Nod Pugh heard nothing.

  ****

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  “Are you sure?” said Wainwright, in disbelief.

  Arbuckle nodded. “Oh most definitely.”

  “But half the stock are females.”

  “I thought that chap....what was his name?....Arbuckle....I thought Arbuckle’s undersized sports bra idea had solved that problem?” said Arbuckle.

  “Well it could, but....” Wainwright stopped, still very doubtful about the whole business. “You’re quite sure about this, are you? I mean we’ve only just started production using the existing moulds.”

  “Dad was quite insistent,” said Arbuckle. “I only spoke to him this morning about it – he’s on a fact-finding mission to the Maldives you know – he said you’re to effect the change just as soon as is humanly possible.”

  Wainwright saw a snag. “But half the clothes we’ve purchased are for women.”

  Arbuckle was ready for this objection too. “Transvestites. Dad wants half the Virtual Passengers to be transvestites.” Arbuckle eyed Wainwright anxiously as the factory manager took in his words.

  During his time at An Hour In Bed Arbuckle had had little contact with Wainwright and the factory manager hadn’t recognised him when he’d presented himself, a few minutes earlier – the moustache, horn-rimmed spectacles and a ginger wig had seen to that. However acting wasn’t his strong suit and he wasn’t at all sure he’d be able to pull it off. So far it had all gone to plan but Wainwright was still looking far from convinced. “Your father didn’t say anything about this to me before he left,” the factory manager now said.

  Arbuckle gave a rueful smile and shook his head. “Dad can be a bit forgetful sometimes. It’s all the responsibility he has as Secretary of State for Transport, in addition to all the hours he has to put in here at An Hour In Bed. Busy, busy man my father.”

  Wainwright remained suspicious. “Actually I didn’t know Mr Pugh had a son.”

  “Oh yes, I’ve been working as Dad’s PPS ever since he took over at Transport.”

  “Well he never told me.”

  “Have you got a son, Mr Wainwright?”

  “As a matter of fact yes.”

  “You never told me.”

  “My son isn’t asking me to totally disrupt production.”

  It had taken Arbuckle two days to come up with a way to exact revenge on Pugh. His first thought had been to set fire to the factory again. It had worked once so why not twice? He reasoned however that Pugh might suspect who was behind it and return his revenge in spades. Pugh couldn’t have him booted out of university again but he could have him beaten up again, and he was still hurting from the last beating.

  One of the many ways he thought he might get back at Pugh was to desecrate the MP’s bronze bust that now stood in the entrance to the An Hour In Bed factory. Spray paint it or defecate on it or hack at it with an axe or something. But although that would have given him a certain satisfaction he recognised it for what it was, just a petty act of revenge and not worthy of him. And not severe enough. He wanted something more devastating.

  It was a clue in the Times crossword that finally gave him what he was looking for. Immediately after thinking about vandalizing Pugh’s bust Arbuckle had taken a break from his thoughts of revenge and turned to the crossword for a little light relief. 1 across was ‘Where Andrew Motion waxes lyrical? 6,8’. Arbuckle solved the clue in no longer time than it took to read it. ‘Madame Tussauds’.

  The answer brought memories of the waxworks flooding back; it had been years since he’d visited it, he was still a boy. He recalled the attractions there; the Chamber of Horrors; the stars of stage, screen and television; the famous politicians. And it gave him his idea.

  Now, in Wainwright’s office, with Wainwright still dithering, Arbuckle took the bull by the horns. He took an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket, took out a letter and placed it on the desk in front of Wainwright. The letter heading, produced on Arbuckle’s computer the night before, read ‘The Department of Transport’. In smaller lettering, underneath, were the words ‘From the Office of The Right Honourable Hugh Pugh, MP’. The short typewritten message below read ‘Wainwright. Do as my son Jeremy says reference the new moulds. Or you’ll have me to answer to when I get back.’ It was signed Hugh Pugh.

  Arbuckle was sure he’d got the tone of the letter right, it was written in the straightforward, bombastic, domineering way that Pugh always spoke. But he’d had to take a chance that Wainwright had never seen Pugh’s signature. Apparently he hadn’t, for having read the letter Wainwright nodded, and said: “Well if that’s what he wants, that’s what he wants I suppose.”

  Arbuckle smiled. “It is, Mr Wainwright. And I’ll be sure to let Dad know how co-operative you’ve been.”

  ****

  CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

  Six weeks to the day after going into a coma Pugh came out of it, to the sound of Lorelei’s voice on a tape recorder reading a four weeks old Daily Mirror.

  Lorelei herself was in Spain. Three weeks earlier she had flown the coop. The time she’d previously spent reading the newspaper was spent on even more beach time, but now without the forbidding figure of Pugh by her side. It had taken only the slightest encouragement from her to attract the Spaniard with the washboard stomach. He turned out to be a footballer, Jose Maria Oloroso, a creative midfielder with Real Zaragoza. It wasn’t very long before he was being creative with Lorelei’s midfield.

  Pugh found out that Lorelei had left him two days after he had left hospital and returned to the hotel where they’d been staying. She’d left a note, telling him she’d fallen for the creative midfielder, but not how creative he’d been. Pugh could have guessed. He wasn’t over bothered about Lorelei walking out of his life, it had been very nice having her to fuck whenever he felt like it, but a fuck was just a fuck after all. He was getting a bit fed up with her anyway and a change was overdue. Besides, he had more important things to think about, more important things to do. Such as getting back to England and spending some of the fortune that had been mounting up from the sales of Virtual Passengers all the time he’d been in a coma.

  Within an hour of regaining consc
iousness Pugh had put through a call to Wainwright at An Hour In Bed. Yes, they were back in full production. They couldn’t make Virtual Passengers fast enough. Sales were going through the roof.

  Pugh booked the first available flight back to London.

  Phil Good had returned to London twenty four hours earlier, following a two week trip to Washington to shore up Britain’s special relationship with the United States. The Prime Minister was not a happy man. The talks with President Sole had gone well – Sole had agreed to let Good carry on unconditionally sucking up to him – but in his absence things had not been going so well for him back in Britain. Things had gone so badly in fact, according to the phone call from the Deputy Prime Minister, that he’d been forced to cut short his visit a day early and return to Number 10 immediately.

  When Pugh arrived back in England it was close to midnight. As it was Slaithwaite’s day off he was forced to take a cab from Heathrow to London. When he was settled in the back of the cab the driver, with a cheeky grin on his face, asked him if he didn’t think it would be more appropriate if he sat alongside him in the front. Pugh had no time for cab drivers, especially cheeky ones, and asked him if he thought it would be more appropriate if he shut the fuck up and got on with his job. Perhaps if he hadn’t, perhaps if he’d asked the cabbie why it would be more appropriate if he sat in the front, and the cabbie had told him, it would have saved him from having the shock of his life the following day. But it wouldn’t have saved his neck.

  Before travelling up to the An Hour In Bed factory, where it was his intention to inspire his employees to produce Virtual Passengers in even greater quantities than they already were, Pugh had planned to call in at his office at the Department of Transport. However the Prime Minister’s secretary phoned him whilst he was still eating breakfast. Pugh was to get his arse round to 10 Downing Street faster than shit off a shovel. Those were the words she actually used. Pugh knew immediately that he was in trouble. It wasn’t the first time she’d said those words to Pugh. The first time she’d said them he had asked her who the hell she thought she was talking to. She had replied that she knew precisely who she was talking to and that Good had told her to use those words exactly.

  On this occasion he just asked her what sort of trouble he was in. She told him deep, deep shit sort of trouble, shit so deep he would be lucky if the top of his head poked out of it. He didn’t persist. Phil had probably told her to say that as well.

  Slaithwaite picked him up ten minutes later for the short drive to Downing Street. When being chauffeured Pugh occasionally sat in the front passenger seat. You got a better look at young girl’s bottoms in the front than you did in the back. With the prospect of facing a wrathful Phil he needed cheering up and the sight of a few pert young bottoms would fit the bill very nicely.

  On the way to Number 10 he thought he saw Slaithwaite glance at him with the same sort of silly grin the cab driver had on his face the night before. However he didn’t say anything, he was probably mistaken, a minute earlier he’d thought he’d seen Phil Good in the passenger seat of a Ford Fiesta, and there was no way that the Prime Minister would demean himself by travelling in such a modest car. Besides, it was travelling in the opposite direction to Number 10, and wasn’t the Prime Minister already there, waiting to give him a roasting about something or other?

  Pugh himself was at Number10 a few minutes later. On walking into the Prime Minister’s office he hadn’t known quite what to expect. He could have taken a guess, but a million guesses wouldn’t have got him even close.

  “Good morning, Prime Minister,” said Pugh, on entering. He always addressed Phil as Prime Minister when trouble loomed. “I got here just as soon as I could.”

  Good just sat and looked at him without saying anything. If Pugh had been a piece of shit, or a Conservative, the Prime Minister couldn’t have looked at him with more revulsion.

  Pugh broke the silence. “Er...what is it I can do for you, Phil....Prime Minister?”

  “Don’t you think you’ve done enough,” Good spat out, adding a generous layer of vehemence to the revulsion.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You fucking will be.”

  Good indicated the antique leather chesterfield against one of the walls. Pugh looked over at it. For a split second he thought Good had a twin brother. And that he himself had a twin sister. But only for a split second. Twin brothers and sisters aren’t made of rubber. One of the figures sat on the settee was the image of Good. The other looked very much like himself, but dressed in women’s clothes.

  “Fuck me,” said Pugh, his eyes almost popping out of his head.

  “I intend to.” Good flung an arm in the direction of the rubber twosome. “Look! You’ve made a fucking laughing stock out of me, Pugh.”

  Pugh didn’t really know what to say. He tried a conciliatory approach. “Yours is quite a good likeness, Prime Minister.”

  Good went berserk. “A good likeness? It’s the spitting fucking image of me!”

  Pugh made another attempt to mollify the Prime Minister by pointing out his own even worse circumstances. “At least yours isn’t dressed up as a woman.”

  “That one isn’t. Thousands of the buggers are.” He jabbed a finger at the Virtual Passengers. “Those fucking things are riding about in the passenger seats of cars all over the country. All over the fucking country, Pugh.”

  “Shit,” said Pugh.

  “You might well say shit. Jesus Christ, we didn’t stand much chance of being reelected before but we’ve got no fucking chance at all now.” Something suddenly dawned on him and set him off again. “My memoirs are going to look good now, aren’t they, by Christ are they. ‘Phil Good – the Rubber Years’.” He shook his head. “That’s if any publisher will want my memoirs now.” It reminded him of another mortal wound. “And what about the lecture circuit? Who the fuck is going to want to listen to me give a lecture now? You’ve fucking ruined me, Pugh, fucking ruined me.”

  Pugh opened his mouth to speak but Good beat him to it.

  “Fuck off out of my sight.”

  At that very moment Arbuckle was having a pre-breakfast quickie with Bouncy Beyonce. Seated side by side on the settee in his bedroom, as though watching the performance, were Virtual Passengers in the images of the Prime Minister and Hugh Pugh. They were souvenirs, or perhaps trophies, mementoes of Arbuckle’s revenge on Pugh. As he rolled off Bouncy Beyonce a minute later he caught sight of them. It bought a smile to his lips. It always did.

  When Arbuckle had come up with the idea of producing Virtual Passengers with the faces of Pugh and the Prime Minister he hadn’t for one moment thought it would be the ruin of Pugh. He’d simply been trying to put a spanner in the works until such time as Pugh found out about it and put a stop to it. More a dig in the ribs than a kick in the bollocks. As things turned out Pugh would have happily accepted a hundred kicks in the bollocks, and might even have agreed to castration with a rusty can lid, if only what had happened hadn’t happened. Pugh catching Dengue Fever and not returning to England for a further six weeks was a bonus. Along with the happy coincidence of Good leaving the country for America, the day before the new Virtual Passengers went on sale, it meant that thousands upon thousands of them had swamped the country by the time they’d returned to England. Even non-car drivers were buying them, just for a laugh.

  Arbuckle allowed himself another smile as he recalled the details. Once he’d hit on the idea the rest had been easy. Even the potentially difficult part of his plan, stealing the head of the waxwork figure of The Prime Minister at Madame Tussauds, had been achieved without any bother. He already had the head of Pugh, on the brass bust at the An Hour In Bed factory. He had been able to get into the factory with the key he still had from the time of the raid by VAST and knew how to make moulds from his time in the Head and Face Department. A piece of cake. Bob’s your uncle and Fanny’s your aunt. His smile grew broader. And he was Pugh’s daddy.

  ****

  EPILOGUE<
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  The day after Pugh’s return from the Maldives the Prime Minister dismissed him from his position as Secretary of State for Transport. Pugh tried everything to save his job apart from going down on his knees and begging. When all his pleas fell on deaf ears he went down on his knees and begged. When that failed he prostrated himself on the floor and begged. All to no avail.

  Although deeply disappointed Pugh was not immediately too concerned about his future. After all he would have the income from the inflatable rubber woman factory. The models had been changed back to the original designs and sales were still very healthy.

  However Good hadn’t finished with him yet. A month later he had the Sole Driver Act repealed, with immediate effect. A week after that a letter from Good’s solicitors arrived on his desk. It alleged that Pugh had defamed the character of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, by depicting his face on to what was to all intents and purposes an inflatable rubber woman, and that Good was going to sue him for every penny he’d got.

  By this time, with thousands and thousands of Virtual Passengers left on his hands, Pugh hadn’t got many pennies. Very soon after he had no pennies at all, plus a severe cash flow problem, when creditors started pressing him for the payment of bills and the Inland Revenue and VAT people sent final demands for the outstanding taxes that still hadn’t been paid.

  A month later, following further pressure from Good, Pugh was declared bankrupt and An Hour In Bed forced to close its doors. Two months later, at the general election, Pugh lost his seat.