by Bill Purnell
I’d lost my job last week, and this morning the rain didn’t let me forget. I’d sold my car a month earlier just to pay for basics; the dealer gave me two thousand. It was worth more, but I’d never been a good haggler.
The rain was pouring, and I had to watch my step because water was pooling in the uneven pavement where tiles were damaged. I imagined I looked like a contestant leaping across hovering plates to reach a finish line, but the only reward I’d receive was dry shoes.
I reached the safety of the shelter, closed and shook my umbrella dry, and looked at my watch. The bus should be ten minutes.
“Good,” I said aloud to myself.
“Good morning,” replied a nasal voice from my right.
“No, just good. I mean, I just meant it was good. The bus. Here soon, you see, I was talking to myself,” I said quietly.
“Well, good morning anyway,” he repeated. “Just say good morning,” he said, not in an aggressive way, but in a manner that made me feel I had to respond.
He was a fairly short man, about my age, in his sixties. He wore a tweed suit which looked quite old-fashioned. Round, thick-lensed spectacles sat on his nose, enlarging his bright blue eyes in his round red face. This, in turn, was topped with a grey flat cap, and tufts of white hair sprung from either side. He wore a wide smile with bright white teeth, the front two of which sported a gap, the perfect width for a pound coin to slot between. He held a leather briefcase in one hand and, under his arm, an Agatha Christie book. He looked dripping with sweat, although that could’ve been the rain. I hoped I hadn’t got him wet when I shook my umbrella out. He held out his chubby hand, uninvited, which felt odd.
“Peter,” he said. “Peter Pempsey.” His hand hovered awkwardly, waiting for mine, the smile on his face increasing the awkwardness. The sooner I shook it, the sooner this encounter would be over. I clutched his damp hand.
“Jack, nice to meet you,” I said.
He talked about various things, which confirmed to me I didn’t like the man. In just ten minutes of waiting for the bus, I’d learned that he didn’t like vegetarian food products that tried to imitate meat, referring to themselves as things like sausages and burgers with no right. In his view, vegetables were invading the meat space, and he didn’t like it. He believed that all bus drivers were idiots and that too many women had tricked their way into the workforce.
With intense relief, the bus finally pulled up, and I jumped on and tapped my card to pay the fare.
“Sorry, mate, cash only,” said the bus driver sympathetically.
“See what I mean?” came Peter’s nasal voice from behind me. The bus driver rolled his eyes as though he’d experienced Peter before.
“Go on, Jack, go and sit down, I’ll get this, mate,” said Peter. I was not his mate. I’d only just met this strange man, but he said it loudly enough that everyone on the bus now knew I was. I shuffled halfway along the bus and sat down on the only seats available. Peter sat next to me.
The bus trundled through London, the rain on the window obscuring the commuters, reminding me of an old Renoir painting. I’d been blocking out Peter’s voice, but without me responding or disagreeing with him, everyone on the bus had probably assumed my views were in line with his.
Peter interrupted my thoughts with a slightly raised voice.
“He’s really good, you know,” he said, tapping on the cover of the Agatha Christie paperback.
I looked down at it, confused.
“Agatha Christie?” I said. “You know he’s a she, don’t you?”
He let out a laugh, a short, sharp shout, as he playfully nudged me in the ribs.
“Good one,” he whispered sideways, covering his mouth as if we were the only participants privy to this inside joke.
He continued revealing his views on various subjects as I tried to switch off. At one point in the journey, I noticed Peter had quietened. He turned to me and said quietly, “Do you like me?” Of course I found him unbearable and incredibly irritating, but, if truth be told, I liked very few people, and I couldn’t see any reason to tell him the truth; after all, I’d never see him again.
“Yes, of course I do.”
He narrowed his eyes and examined me, searching for deception.
I was beyond uncomfortable. I hated social situations. I wanted the world to swallow me up right now. It was at this point that I realised I had missed my stop. “Tickets, please,” came a droll voice.
I handed my ticket to the conductor.
“I’m sorry, sir, this only covers you to Harrow Corner.” He looked at me disapprovingly, and I looked at Peter. The conductor issued me with a twenty-five-pound fine, and Peter, to my surprise, leapt to my rescue, paying the fine on my behalf. “You’ve got a good mate there,” said the conductor before walking on.
This riled me. Even when he’s doing something nice, it’s annoying. He’s paying my fine, but he bought an invalid ticket, and now he acts like some kind of hero. And the
conductor thinks I’m the irresponsible one. I shouldn’t have disliked this man as much as I did, but he just got under my skin.
I couldn’t be around Peter for one more second. I pushed past him and hurriedly leapt off the bus.
I don’t think the job interview went very well. Meeting that strange man on the bus seemed to agitate my brain. My mind went blank when they’d asked me, “What do you feel you could bring to the company?” I just sat there, frozen. Every response I thought of felt silly, and I reasoned it would be better to say nothing than to say something stupid.
I arrived home and felt relief consume me as I stepped inside. I reinforced this with the cosy familiarity of a cup of tea, sat in my armchair, and switched the television on. It was three o’clock by now, just in time for Countdown. As the commercials played through prior to the start of the show, I found myself absentmindedly staring out the large front window.
As I sipped my hot tea, I saw something that unsettled me. On the other side of the road, I saw that unmistakable red face, that pound-slot tooth-gap smile, as he briskly walked past, head turned toward me. In a moment, he’d gone. I ran up to the window and pressed my face against it, attempting to confirm my sighting, but I couldn’t see him. He must’ve walked too far up the road or turned down Cherry Blossom Avenue. Had I imagined it? What was he doing peering inside my house? He might be up to something. I sat back down, thinking about this man, but eventually calmed down.
I’d stopped by the local supermarket earlier to pick up some ingredients. Now was the time to treat myself and I’d decided to bake some fruit cake. My mother used to bake it, and I’d inherited her recipe. She was a fantastic baker and we were close, she recently passed. Baking is a precise, scientific discipline, and she was good at it. Her career needed discipline, it was related to physics or astronomy; I was never quite sure. She plotted things in space, and I’d often see her using her telescope and running back and forth between it and her laptop, notepad in hand, pen like a horse bit between her teeth. Her fruit cake always seemed to make things right.
I started combining all the ingredients in a mixing bowl as I looked out on the back garden, admiring the birds. The smell of orange peel, cinnamon, mixed spice, and brown sugar filled the kitchen. On balance, I wasn’t too worried about securing another job; I had some money put away and decided I could spend some time doing what I wanted before the financial situation got dire. I had time.
I turned the oven on and began preparing a tin for the cake mixture. Once it was in, I set the timer and sat at the kitchen table with another cup of tea to read the morning paper. After about twenty minutes, the beeping from the oven pulled me away from the paper. I remembered the aroma being stronger when I’d baked the fruit cake previously, but I supposed I’d receive the full aroma when I opened the door.
As I approached the oven, I noticed the indicator lights were off and the whirring of the fan had ceased. I was extremely disappointed when my suspicions were confirmed on
opening the oven door. A flat, half-risen fruit cake sat in the tin. It had cooked long enough to form a skin on the surface and congeal the mixture underneath, but not long enough to rise. It was ruined. I took it out and threw it angrily in the sink with a crash. Even the oven didn’t work anymore.
I sat at the kitchen table, deflated. It troubled me that this incident had affected me so much. I realised I literally had my head in my hands. After pulling myself together, I checked the fuse and various other possible reasons for the malfunction. Eventually I called an electrician.
“Pempseys! How can I help?” came a chirpy voice from the handset.
“Hi, I think my oven’s broken. I was wondering when you could get an electrician over to take a look?” I said. “I’ve just put some fruit cake in, my mother’s recipe, the smell is to—”
“Next Friday? One o’clock. It’s the earliest we can do, I’m afraid,” she interrupted. “Could you not do any sooner? I—”
“No can do, I’m afraid. Can I take your address, Mr…?”
“Jack Tonbridge, 20 Oak Hill Road.”
I heard some muffled whispering. I strained to hear what was being said but couldn’t. It went on a little too long for someone just checking a schedule.
“Hello?” I said after a wait. “Hello!” I exclaimed a little louder.
“Oh, hello, Mr Tonbridge. Good news, we can get someone over this very evening! How would that suit you?” the chirpy voice said.
“Oh.” I was a little shocked at the sudden change in availability but jumped at the chance. “Ok, that sounds great, see you soon,” I replied, and replaced the handset. It was beginning to get dark when the doorbell rang and I made my way down the hall. Through the frosted glass of my front door, I could see a red face. Was I going mad? This couldn’t be that man—how would he know where I lived? I would open the door and laugh at the panic that was coursing through me. It’s not going to be him. When I opened the door, all I could see of the man’s head was his flat cap. He was looking at the ground, smearing a grey stain on my doorstep with his shoe. A tinge of tobacco hung in the air.
“Pempseys! Peter Pempsey, I’ve come to look at—” His flat cap lifted, revealing his red face, and he paused when his eyes met mine. “Oh my God! Jack! It’s you! I can’t believe it!” he exclaimed, hugging me and holding me tight.
I didn’t invite him in, and he didn’t physically push his way in either, but the end result was the same. His demeanour falsely suggested that he’d known me for years. I don’t know what audience he thought he was performing for, but there was only him and me on my doorstep. After the friendly hug, I felt unable to rebuff him. This man I detested had now invaded my home.
Peter walked ahead of me, down the hall and through to the kitchen, immediately lowering himself onto his haunches in front of the oven. He tapped a few dials with his fat fingers, clanged about inside the body of the oven for a while, head inside, then, after seeming to conclude his initial assessment, withdrew. He rose to his feet, shook his head, and scratched it while sucking in air between his front two teeth, creating a slight whistle. I looked at him expectantly.
It was at this point that I began to feel a power dynamic reveal itself. I was desperate to taste my mother’s fruit cake, and Peter was holding the keys to that particular door. He raised his head slowly and looked at me directly. I felt like a specimen; it was as though he was observing me.
“You ran off the bus,” he said coldly, with an unstable crack as he cleared his throat. His complexion deepened a shade to near crimson and he waited for my response, fiddling with his fingers that rested on his paunch. The silence was awkward and, to be honest, I felt uneasy.
“I was late for my interview, Peter, I nearly missed it,” I said, laughing to try and lighten the atmosphere.
“Oh!” Peter’s face immediately relaxed. The smile returned. “Oh, I thought you didn’t like me. Well, I know you said you did but… Oh well, anyway, about this oven.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, and waved my hand as if to brush the misunderstanding away. If he thought I didn’t like him, why did he hug me so emphatically at the front door, I thought. Something didn’t add up with this man.
“Fancy a cup of tea?” I asked.
“Milk, if you have it?” he replied.
A few moments later we were both sitting at the kitchen table with two cups of tea. “Umm, Jack?” He paused, as if struggling with some decision. “I said milk, sorry. I only drink milk. It’s weird, I know. Actually, don’t worry, I don’t want to put—” Before he could finish his sentence, I’d leapt from my seat and swiped his mug from the table.
“No, no, it’s no problem.”
A few moments later, I’d rectified the situation and, for a while, I seemed to forget how much this man irritated me. He admired my garden, the plants within, and seemed quite knowledgeable about birds, advising me on the best ways to attract my favourite species. “Aliens,” he said, very much out of the blue.
“Sorry?” I replied.
“You’d be surprised, you know. They’re here, right now, you know.”
My brain began to work hard again. Couldn’t we go back to the subject of the birds and plants of my garden? How should I respond? ‘Are they?’ Would that sound like a lie? ‘Oh yes, I know.’ I couldn’t say that either, could I? I just didn’t know how to respond.
I decided the best course of action was to raise the mug of tea to my lips, hide behind it, take a big slurp and use it as a social shield. I nodded agreeably.
“You can’t see them, Jack. I saw a programme about it, you know. Most of them are stuck here. Very weird pathways back. Just want to get home. It must be hard, you know, being so far away.”
By this point I’d decided I needed to respond with more than just nodding. “Oh dear, yes, I know, that must be awful.” I watched Peter. I felt quite sorry for him in that moment. He looked lonely. If I was honest, we were both lonely: sitting in a kitchen, a cheap overhead lamp illuminating us in what was now a dark garden beyond the window. He looked quite lost, deep in his thoughts, staring blankly into his mug.
Snapping back to the present, he suddenly exclaimed, “Right! Let’s fix that oven!” Around nine, I was in the front room, the television on, but I couldn’t have told you what I was watching; I was distracted by the noises coming from the kitchen. Nothing too alarming, the kind of noises you’d expect to hear from an electrician fixing an oven, but the man was an oddball, I didn’t trust him, and I sat in my armchair anxiously listening. After a while, I’d noticed it had gone silent in there. I hadn’t heard a peep in about ten minutes and it concerned me more than the noise. What was he doing? I walked tentatively along the hall to the kitchen and saw it empty. The back door was open and I presumed he was having a cigarette out the back. I walked to the door to call out his name and ask him if he wanted another drink, but stopped myself before I reached the door.
I could hear footsteps on concrete. They weren’t moving but sounded stationary. Through the kitchen window I could see Peter in the centre of the garden, in the centre of a concrete circle I had paved for Mother. He was lit brightly by the security lamp, spinning around in a clockwise direction, his arms spread out, eyes fixed skyward. I immediately crouched, trying to hide from view. There was something about his spinning. I didn’t want him to see me watching him; it seemed private. He was spinning at an unusually fast pace and it looked quite difficult to perform. I gradually backed away, my thighs aching now, keeping low until I was back in my armchair. Within about twenty minutes, the normal clangs and bangs returned. I shook my head in bewilderment as I tried to focus on the television.
Tired, I started to wonder how long it took to fix an oven. I looked at my watch. It read ten thirty. Surely this was late for any tradesman. I needed the toilet, so I climbed the stairs to the bathroom. On the way, I noticed Peter still working on the oven. He must be finished soon.
As I used the toilet, the small window, which sat ajar, allowed me a view of my garden. The cool night air on my face helped to wake me a little. I stared into the dark and was enjoying the sensation until I saw Peter urinating on the flower bed.
I’m not sure if it was because I was tired, because the oven had broken, or because the most irritating man I’d ever met was in my house and now in my back garden pissing on my fucking flowers, the begonias of all things. I started to feel angry.
I finished up. I’d dribbled on the seat but didn’t care; this was more important. Grabbing the door handle, it didn’t open. I unbolted it, and flew from the room. I hurriedly descended the stairs, spinning on my heels at the bottom, along the hall and into the kitchen, prepared to burst into the garden and finally give him a piece of my mind. The rage never had a chance to show, because as I entered the kitchen, Peter was packing tools into his case. He looked up, smiled, and disarmed me with the words,
“All done, mate, good as new.”
“Oh, th-that’s good,” I stumbled. “How much do I owe you?” I replied, dreading the response.
“Well. Sit down, Jack, I need to talk to you,” his reply put me on edge. His expression had changed. What was he going to say? I’ve had enough of this, I thought. Was he going to charge me a ridiculous sum? Try and cuckoo me, take over my house and live here forever, blackmail me? For what? What could he blackmail me with? I should’ve said something, why don’t I stand up for myself?
I was working myself into a state, and Peter could obviously see it.
“No, no, don’t worry, Jack, I can do it free of charge. I just need to stay until midnight, that’s all. Sit down, please.” He gestured to the chair with open hand. “Please, Jack, sit.”
Peter seemed different now, more serious, with more authority. I did as I was told, and sat down at the kitchen table. Peter sat opposite.
“I need to stay until midnight,” he said. “After that, I’ll go and you’ll never see me again. I need to return home tonight.”
“Okay, you can stay till then,” I paused, thinking carefully about my next words. “But by midnight, you’ve got to go, Peter,” I said. I wasn’t sure what was going on inside Peter’s head, but suffering one more hour with him to secure a lifetime without him seemed worth it to me.
“Of course, I’ll be gone, and no charge for the work, it’s been my pleasure.” Peter paused and looked up at me before continuing. “You know, one day, I was walking in my garden, and I came across an injured bird, sparrow I think. I’m not sure what happened but I took it inside to care for it.” I nodded a response and smiled. “I found a cardboard box, and placed the bird inside, but the little bird got frightened. I went to the garden and gathered some small twigs and dry leaves. I got a second box and painted the inside blue, like the sky. I feathered the box with the twigs and dry leaves and the bird seemed much happier when I transferred it. All creatures are a bit like that.” Peter looked over to the sink where my ruined cake still sat. “Your cake, for example, I can tell it means a lot to you, now your oven is working, you can have some tonight.”
“Yes, I think I will, Peter, thank you.” He nodded in agreement.
“Pathways can be in odd places, you know, Jack. Doors that don’t look like doors. Ovens, cupboards, bus stops.” I couldn’t understand what he was talking about again but nodded knowingly, secretly checking the time, willing midnight to arrive quicker. I made
another cup of tea and warmed up some milk for Peter. We sat there for a while not really saying much, just waiting. I noticed the Agatha Christie paperback sitting on the kitchen table.
“How are you enjoying it?” I asked, nodding to the book.
“Yes, he’s very good, isn’t he?” replied Peter.
“You know Agatha Christie is a woman?” I said, and Peter looked confused. “Oh! I thought you were joking before but, oh yes, I suppose that makes sense, yes. Agatha, it’s a woman’s name, isn’t it? Why did I…?” Peter shook his head in self-disbelief, and laughed under his breath.
“Right, I’d better get going,” said Peter, and I looked at my watch. Eleven fifty-five. Peter shook my hand. “Now, don’t try to stop me. This may seem a little odd to you, but I know what I’m doing, and I promise you, I’ll be gone.”
Peter walked over to the oven and opened its door. He removed the shelves, then his own shoes, lowered himself to the cavity of the oven and proceeded to climb inside. It wasn’t a huge oven and it took what looked to me to be some skilled contortionism to get himself inside. I half rose from my seat to stop him but didn’t want to get involved in whatever this was. He gave a little wave and a smile before slamming the oven door behind him. I sat there in silence, dumbfounded. I was sitting in my kitchen with a madman in my oven. Tentatively, I called out.
“Peter, are you okay?” There was no response. I looked at the oven; it was off, thank God. I walked over to the oven and tapped on the door gently.
“Peter?” I said again. I walked back to the kitchen table and sat there. I think he needed professional help. I looked down at his shoes, and they looked sad. I was going to help him. I looked at my watch and it was just past midnight. I rose from the kitchen table and walked over to the oven, pulling open its door. To my surprise, it was empty. I felt around the inside for loose panels, escape tunnels and the like, but it was just my oven. I stood in my kitchen for the next fifteen minutes, confused. I tried to picture him squeezing out the back somehow, escaping into an adjoining cupboard, waiting to jump out and scare me, but there was nowhere to hide.
Eventually, I decided to take Peter’s advice and mixed the ingredients for the fruit cake together once again, lined the tin and preheated the oven. This time I did so with a little more trepidation, knowing that Peter had been in there moments earlier. I put the cake in to bake. Within one hour, I’d succeeded in doing what I’d tried to do earlier in the day. The spicy aroma of my mother’s fruit cake filled the kitchen, and I sat there with a cup of tea, wonderful memories of her, and that cake. The oven hummed softly, ordinary again, as if nothing unusual had ever happened. Had Peter existed? Had I gone mad, did any of that happen?
I looked at the closed door of the oven and wondered what, if anything, it was now connected to.
I took a bite of warm cake, enjoyed the taste as it settled, and glanced up at the stars beyond the dark glass. I wondered where Peter was. Somewhere between the bulbs in my overhead lamp and those distant pinpricks of light, there were pathways I would never see and doors I would never recognise. This one had just happened to look like an oven.
© Bill Purnell 2026
I have collaborated with my wife Madeleine Swann and we have had Letters from our Dreams published, a collection of 40 short stories, 20 each. I studied fine art painting in the late 90’s but have recently ventured into writing fiction. I have no real expertise surrounding ovens, or astronomy, although I do like to bake a good fruit cake.
