national novel writing month (chapter two, unedited- for a 50,000 word novel written in one month

Chapter Two

Ms Carpenter

"Ms Carpenter Joe exclaimed, happily as he entered the reception area, to be greeted by a satisfying scowl, satisfying for him that is. Ms Carpenter got up, picked up her rather large level arch file, and followed him into the interview room.

"I've been here for 15 minutes, and I wanted to see Peter, where is he?

"He's not available at the moment, you really need to make an appointment to see any of us, but I can squeeze you in for a few minutes Joe had no other appointments, but he liked to say things that were guaranteed to annoy her.

"Well you'll have to do then she said insultingly, or show she thought, Joe got a kick out of her attempts to insult him, they washed all over him, made him euphoric, and slightly horny. She wasn't bad looking actually, Joe often mentally undressed her, even though he knew she would be a complete nightmare to go out with, and he would be sacked if he crossed the line. He knew she would definitely dob him in, if they had shared fluids, not that he would, share fluids, well maybe he'd sip from a can of her coke, but that was his limit. He snapped back into action as she smiled, thinking she'd insulted him, rather than provoke him into a naughty fantasy about taking
her from behind as she made him a cup of coffee. So how can I help you, Ms Carpenter?

" I want you to write to my neighbour and tell her that she cannot come into the garden without my permission

"It's a shared garden, Ms Carpenter

"But I have put a lot of work into it, and she has only been there 5 minutes

She was Mrs Dragonfly, and her husband, they had been there two years. They had taken over from a sweet old lady who had been totally terrified of Ms Carpenter and rarely ventured into the garden. Ms Carpenter was on Joe's mental shit list for this. He was looking forward tothe time when new legislation came in, which ruled that for one day a year, you could say anything you wanted to anyone without any comebacks. He would be round to see her at 6.00am, bang on her door, wake the late sleeping nightmare up, and have a 3 hour rant about how she should really get a fucking life, get a fucking job, and stop harassing sweet old ladies and staff. She
had a habit of ranting at staff, but had limited her interaction with Joe to the odd sarcastic comment.

"She has been there 2 years, and it's a shared garden, and you two will have to work together, as we will not be writing letters to her or to you about what we consider to be trivial matters

"I want to see your boss

"He will say the same thing, his boss will say the same thing, and her boss will say it as well

"I don't care I want to see him

Joe mentally sighed but was secretly pleased, as the prize cunt was terrified of her, and of most tenants to be honest. Joe made the arrangements, it would give Peter a nice surprise when he returned from his fucking strategy meeting, last thing on a Friday afternoon.,Despite his seniority, he had not yet learnt to put fictitious appointments in his dairy on a Friday afternoon, to prevent this sort of thing occurring, and Joe would continue to make them at 4.00pm until the fucker learnt.

Joe showed Ms Carpenter out, and noted to his intense pleasure that it was pissing down and she didn't have an umbrella, or even a hood. He watched her sprint to the bus stop and miss the bus, and stand at the uncovered bus stop. Someone is smiling on me from up high he thought as he nipped out for another smoke break.

As he sparked up, his thoughts went back to another shared garden, well his mate's garden, when they were kids, it was a their whole world. They played cricket, football, and tennis in there, mostly just the two of them, in a very small garden. They also played each other's records, made tapes of their favourite songs of the year, even recorded their own songs on a tape machine, really fucking awful songs, but a joy to do. Lance, whatever happened to lance? He knew of course, because Lance was still sporadically a part of his life. Their futures once looked the same, grammar school, good universities. But then Joe's passionate lack of ambition meant they had lived totally different lives. At 40, Lance was a MP, in a safe northern seat, a junior minister in the government, something in education. He was married to a city banker, had 3 lovely kids, 2 were at boarding schools and one about to go to university.He had met his city banker at university, and they married shortly after graduation. They moved to London and now lived in Fulham. At 40, Joe was not a junior minister, was not married to a city banker, did not have 3 lovely children, and did not have any children. He did not live in Fulham, was not married, nor did he thing he ever would get married. The only lucky thing he had somehow managed to do was buy a flat when they were stupidly cheap, he had a 3 bedroom garden flat in Stoke Newington, and had rented out rooms for a while to pay the mortgage, but found living with other people tiresome. Apart from a 3 year period when he had domestic bliss, and the year when the relationship with Donna was collapsing, he lived alone, with his cat, his play station, his wide screen TV, his pinball table, his PC, his stereo, his dvds, he could do what he liked, when he liked.