Buch lesen: «Confessions of a Travelling Salesman»

CHAPTER ONE

Phew! I will remember that afternoon with the wives of the Old Rottingfestrian Rugby Club if I live to be thirty-two. Talk about knackered! Sidney was coming apart at the seams like a dock-struck banana and I had about as much snap, crackle and pop as a piece of wet confetti. Those women were insatiable, or to put it in another way: that is just what they wanted you to do – put it in another way.

Of course, it is all very understandable, isn’t it? I mean, if your old man went off every Saturday afternoon and ended up with fifteen other blokes all putting their arms round each other and pushing, you might feel the desire for a bit of a rough and tumble yourself.

I have a theory that the birds who fancy rugby players go a bundle on all the muscles, but reckon they can put them to better use than chasing a squashed soccer ball round a muddy field. When they find that the chaps still prefer snuggling down with each other amongst the cowpats while they are expected to cut piles of corn beef sandwiches or refill the milk jugs, it is not surprising that they begin to think longingly of a couple of balls dropping lazily between their own uprights.

This was certainly the case with the Old Rottingfestrian ladies whose speed into the loose mauls would have been the envy of their better halves. I have not seen such lack of inhibition since Aunty Flo filled her knickers with crisps and danced the hokey-cokey at the British Legion Ladies’ Night – the last she ever went to.

When we creep away from this scene of sexual carnage, I can see that Sidney is not only exhausted but well-choked.

‘Not to worry, Sid,’ I say cheerfully, ‘it was a lousy chandelier, anyway.’

‘That’s not the point,’ he grunts. ‘Someone might have done themselves a serious injury.’

‘You stood more chance of injury yourself when that bird started thumbing through her “Perfumed Garden” for new ideas. I told you that position was for pregnant hunchbacks.’

‘Probably why you see so few of them about. Blimey – I thought I had bits of that chandelier wedged in my backbone.’

‘At least you discovered it was plastic, Sid.’ Sid looks at me a bit narky. ‘I mean the chandelier, Sid.’

For those of you who have not had the pleasure before, I had better say that my name is Timothy Lea and that Sidney Noggett is my brother-in-law and part-owner of the Cromby Hotel, or Super Cromby as it will be known when the banging stops. Details can be found in a smashing book (‘once I put it down I could not pick it up again’ – Harold Wilson), available from all top class bookstalls and entitled ‘Confessions from a Hotel’. And, talking of books and bookstalls, don’t you think it is time you dug into your pocket and bought this one? The man by the cash register is beginning to look at you a bit old-fashioned like. It gets better, honest it does.

Anyway, back to the plot: Sidney is part owner because Miss (‘call me Queen of the Boozers’) Ruperts came into the mazuma that bought the property company that owned the sites on either side of the Cromby – still with me? Good! She is advised by one Doctor Walter Carboy, whose main medical experience seems to have been in the area of curing wallet fatness. I have a constant fear that they might get spliced and really put the screws on Sidney but he reckons that Doctor ‘Conman’ Carboy already has a few wives scattered about and only needs one more for the police to start hollering ‘Bingo!’.

Despite not getting lumbered with Miss Ruperts’ hand and regions adjacent, Carboy still has considerable influence over the old soak and has voted himself onto the Board of the Company which is to run the Super Cromby. The only thing he has not been able to change is Miss Ruperts’ intention of restricting the clientele to geriatrics. These are not, as you might think, German fast bowlers but old people.

Now, I have nothing against old people, my old mum and dad being a bit that way inclined, but they do slow things up a bit. Also, as Sidney has pointed out in the past, they need special attention, and the more specialists there are about, the less likely Sid and I are to be two of them. In addition, people with qualifications and experience come expensive. All in all, Sid and I stand to lose out all over the shop once the Cromby becomes a glorified old people’s home and I know that the matter is beginning to prey on Sid’s mind. I know because he keeps rabbiting on about it.

‘Timmo,’ he says, ‘I don’t fancy this geriatric lark.’

‘I’m with you, Sid. I mean, I fancy a mature bird but this is ridiculous.’

‘I wasn’t just thinking about the fringe benefits, Timmo. In fact I wasn’t just thinking about being kept awake at night by the squeak of bathchairs. It’s this whole hotel business that’s getting me down.’

‘I know how you feel Sid. It’s so static isn’t it?’

‘Exactly, Timmo. And what’s more, I get fed up with being in the same place the whole time. You know what I mean, don’t you? When you’ve done a bit of window cleaning, driving instructing, and been whipped round the Med a couple of times, you get used to a change of scene.’

Sid is dead right there. In the hotel business the only novelty about the job is the faces of the birds you wake up on. You can reckon on half your female customers trying to get you into bed as surely as night follows day. Of course, I am not complaining about this. I fancy a bit of the other as much as the next man – oops, sorry vicar! – and I know that a lot of the reason for Sid being so narky is that wifey – my sister Rosie – has decided to come down and make the Cromby her permanent abode. This is cramping Sid’s style with the ladies a little more than somewhat. Rosie is great with another infant Noggett and reckons that the Hoverton ozone is just what she and her travelling companion need. Hoverton is the name of the oil slick with buildings that taxes the last ounce of inspiration from the British Travel Association’s copy-writers. And I am not kidding about the oil. Last year most of our customers were pilchards waiting to move into bigger tins.

But back to my conversation with Sidney.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he says. This is disturbing news because every time Sid thinks it costs me money or causes me pain – sometimes both.

‘Really, Sid?’ I say, trying to sound wary but enthusiastic, very difficult it is, too.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Let’s face it. This place is going to run itself from now on. With Carboy and five hundred senior citizens queuing up for the best deckchairs, there’s nothing here for us.’

‘What was there here for me in the old days?’ I ask. Well, one likes to know, doesn’t one?

‘Nothing settled,’ says Sid cautiously. ‘But I did say that if we expanded I would see you all right.’

‘But we’re not going to expand?’

‘Not in the hotel business, no. I don’t mind being nice to people occasionally, but all the time, that’s different. They get on your nerves, don’t they? Our, I mean, my stake in this place is protected whether I stay here or not, so I reckon that I can afford to expand my interest into other fields.’

‘Such as, Sid?’

‘Well, like I said, Timmo. I’ve been thinking.’

‘You did say that, Sidney.’

‘And it occurred to me that all the training I had when I was with Funfrall was about flogging things. It suits my particular temperament too. I mean, I like people enough to be able to sell them something, but when they come back and say it doesn’t work I’ve gone off them enough to be able to tell them to beat it.’

‘You’re very lucky, Sid. What are you going to sell?’

‘I haven’t decided yet. I want to give the matter some very serious consideration. We don’t want to go out there with just any old rubbish.’

‘We?’

‘You want to come in with me, don’t you?’ Sid’s voice does a nice job at the amazed betrayal level. ‘This could be it, mate. This could be the big one.’

‘I’ve heard you say that before, Sid. If you got me a job as a shark trainer you’d be telling me how marvellous it was.’

A little green pound sign lights up behind Sidney’s eyes.

‘Hey, wait a minute. That’s not bad, Timmo. All these dolphinariums springing up all over the place. If we smeared you with some kind of repellent –’

‘Forget it, Sid. You’re not getting me playing “Please Sir” with a tankful of sharks.’

‘I’d take care of all the insurance.’

‘Forget it! Come on, Sid, do you have a proposition or don’t you?’

‘Of course I do. Have a bit of faith. What I suggest is this. I’ll stay here and look for the right product – I’ve put out a few feelers already – and you can go out and get your sales training.’

‘“Sales training”? What am I going to do then? Oh, wait a minute, don’t tell me, I know. I’m going to be bloody sales rep., aren’t I? And you’re going to sit back here on your arse bawling me out because I havn’t sold enough of the stuff’.

The expression on Sid’s face suggests that he has been caused physical pain. ‘Don’t say that word.’

‘What? “Arse”?’

‘“Sales rep.”! You call anyone a rep. and they’ll chuck in their cards immediately. You have to give the job stature. The very least you can be is an Area Manager.’

‘That sounds quite important.’

‘That’s exactly what it’s meant to sound. It’s like packets of detergent. The smallest one is always called “Jumbo size”. But that’s enough from me. You’ll be learning all about that when you do your training.’

‘Do I have to be trained, Sid. Can’t I pick it up as I go along? Surely you could train me?’

‘I could, Timmo, and very good it would be though I say so myself, but I want to be able to concentrate on finding the right product. Something that fills a housewife’s needs.’

‘We’ll be selling to women, will we, Sid?’

‘I think that’s what we’re best at, Timmo.’

‘And where am I going to get this training?’

‘Very important question, Timmo. Luckily, I anticipated your enthusiasm for this new career opportunity and I wrote off to a number of our larger companies who run training schemes for salesmen.’

‘That’s very thoughtful of you, Sid. But, I thought I was going to work for you.’

‘You are, Timmo. Once you have completed your training, and I have found the right product, you will resign and join MagiNog.’

‘MagiNog? Blimey! It sounds a bit underhand, Sid. I mean, taking all their training and then pissing off to join you.’

‘It’s a fact of business life, Timmo. It could happen to anyone. One day, when we’re a household word, it will be happening to us.’

‘I don’t see MagiNog as a household word somehow, Sid.’

‘Don’t worry about it, Timmo. You concentrate on spelling your name right on the application forms.’

I must say you have to give Sid full marks for effort. In the next few days a sackful of envelopes arrive with my humble name picked out by electric typewriter, and I plough through sheets of application forms. Previous jobs, exam results, army service, hobbies, interests.

‘Put down everything you’ve done,’ says Sid cheerfully. ‘It’s all evidence of your experience at meeting people. That’s very important in selling.’

Another couple of weeks go by and I get three letters from different firms asking me to report for an interview. Sidney is well chuffed because one of these comes from HomeClean Products who he reckons can sell vaginal deodorants to skunks.

I view my forthcoming change of career with mixed feelings. The Cromby is beginning to fill up with cantankerous old fogies but at the same time, there are a few additions to the staff who definitely justify more than a quick spot of eyeball bashing. One in particular is Miss Alma Stokely, our new physiotherapist, or, as Sid scornfully puts it, a masseuse with ‘O’ levels. Sid is a bit narky because he reckons that Alma owes her position to a special relationship with Doctor Carboy. I don’t know about special – any kind of relationship with Alma would suit me down to the ground – or any other handy flat surface. She is one of the cool, lady-like ones you catch shooting crafty glances at the front of your jeans. She wears tight cashmere sweaters and fiddles with her felt pen when she is talking to you. I reckon she is trying to fight an irresistible desire to rip my y-fronts off, but then I feel that about a lot of women – and have the scratches on my wrists to prove it.

The day before my interview in London I look through the door of her office and there is this bleeding great couch taking up half the room. It is in three separate pieces, and I am puzzling put how it works when the lovely Alma glides up behind me.

‘I see you’re gazing at my new toy,’ she purrs.

‘Er, yes, Miss Stokely,’ I mumble, because the twinset and pearls types always bring out the peasant in me. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s a vibrator,’ she says. ‘They use them a lot in the German clinics.’ That’s news to me but I don’t say anything. ‘Excellent for winkling out the wrinkles on your dorsals.’ Well, it takes all sorts, doesn’t it?

‘How does it work?’

She presses a button in the side of the thing and all three surfaces start shuddering and shaking in different directions.

‘To gain maximum benefit you should take a hot bath and lie on it in the nude.’

The way some of the moving parts are nearly smacking against each other makes me think that if you did not watch your angle of dangle you could have a nasty accident.

‘Would you like to try it?’ Miss Stokely’s eyes are leaning on my crutch again. ‘It’s safer if you lie on something.’ She looks me straight in the mince pies and lowers her eyelids fractionally and for the life of me I don’t think she is referring to a thick bath towel.

Unfortunately I never have the chance to find out because I hear the sound of a couple of large red hands being rubbed together and Carboy stalks into the room.

‘Well, if it isn’t Timothy Lea,’ he says. ‘And if it isn’t, so much the better. No good looking longingly at that, Lea. You’ll have to wait a few years before you’re eligible for a spot of Egyptian P.T. on that little number.’ This just shows how wrong he can be but I don’t know that ’til later.

I have been looking forward to getting back to the smoke for my HomeClean interview and it is a bit of a disappointment to find that I have to report to one of those places which is so far out on the tube that you can never remember having heard of the station before. Down Railway Cuttings and through the industrial estate and I am face to face with a man in a peaked cap who looks as if he showed people round concentration camps while they were still in operation. When I tell him why I am there his lip curls contemptuously and he is on the point of directing me to the Sales Office when a large lorry pulls up outside the gate house.

‘Got another load of SM 42’s, mate,’ sings out the driver, ‘where do you want ’em?’ The bloke on the gate shoots me a worried glance and I imagine that this must be the code number of some new product. Very exciting, isn’t it? Oh well, maybe you should have bought an Alistair McLean?

I pad round to the reception at Home Sales, and the bird there is peeling faster than the walls. She must have been on a walking tour of the Sahara Desert and left her suntan cream at home. It is surprising at a place called HomeClean that the reception area should look like a rest home for spiders; not a bit like the flash interior of Funfrall Enterprises. Still, when you think what a load of conmen they were, maybe this is a good thing.

‘We’re running rather behind schedule,’ says the receptionist coldly. ‘If you take a seat over there I’ll call you when Mr. Snooks is free.’ I am not very happy about Mr. Snooks and when I eventually see him my fears are justified. He has very thick rimless glasses, a green bow tie and a haircut that would make a gooseberry feel like screaming Lord Sutch.

‘Sit down quickly,’ he says. At least, that is what I think he says. I leap into a chair before it occurs to me that he might have said ‘Quigley’. Snooks is obviously surprised by the speed at which I have moved, especially as it has succeeded in knocking his vase of artificial flowers all over his blotter. This would not be so bad except that the vase has real water in it.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I thought you said “Quickly”.’

‘Said what quickly?’

‘Said that I was to sit down quickly.’

Snooks looks at me blankly. ‘I said “sit down, Quigley”.’

‘Yes, I realise that now. Sorry about your blotter. Can I do anything? I’ve got a hankie here.’ Snooks looks at me warily.

‘No, no. It doesn’t matter. Sit down Quig – just sit down. Now tell me, what first –’

I feel I have to put the poor bastard right.

‘The name is Lea,’ I say, ‘not Quigley, Lea.’ Snooks looks as if he could kill me.

‘Why didn’t you say that in the first place?’

‘Because I thought you said “quickly”. You see, if my name was Quigley I wouldn’t have thought you said “quickly”. Being Lea it is easier to confuse –’ Do you ever get that feeling that nothing you can do or say is going to make a person think of you as being less than a complete berk even though you are totally in the right? A glance into Snooks’ mush tells me that I am in that situation now. My voice fades away and I try a nervous smile. Snooks does not seem to like that either.

‘As I was trying to say,’ he continues, ‘looking at your record I see that you have done a number of jobs, none of them directly associated with selling. What is it that has suddenly made you decide to become a salesman?’ I am ready for that one.

‘All my jobs have brought me into contact with people, and —’ I try one of those little smiles that Snooks does not seem to like – ‘I’ve found that when it is necessary to persuade them to do something, I have been quite good at it.’ Snooks looks at me as if he reckons I could not persuade him to pour a bucket of water over himself if he was on fire.

‘Getting on with people is a very important part of the job,’ he says, mopping his blotter, ‘but there is more to it than that. You have to inspire confidence with your appearance,’ he winces at the length of my hair, ‘know your products backwards, and to enthuse your customers with their performance.’ I nod as if every word he has said is already engraved on my heart. ‘What makes you want to join HomeClean?’

‘Because of your reputation,’ I grovel. ‘I know that you are an organisation which prides itself on the strength of its selling operation and I wanted to join the best.’

‘And our products,’ Snooks sucks in a mouthful of air. ‘The finest on the market – a complete range of domestic appliances, made to the highest specifications by British Craftsmen.’

‘All made in Britain, are they?’ I say, because I remember that Mum’s HomeClean toaster had ‘Made in Italy’ on the side of it. They must like their toast well done over there because I never saw a bit come out of it that was not like thin charcoal.

Snooks clears his throat. ‘Virtually all,’ he says. ‘We do import one or two items from the Continent and our Commonwealth affiliates.’

‘Hong Kong?’ I say, brightly. Snooks winces.

‘Australia,’ he says. ‘Haven’t you heard of the Kangiwash?’ I nod deceitfully. ‘Our record of new product development is second to none,’ he continues, proudly. ‘Our new vacuum cleaner is sweeping all before it.’ He pauses for me to enjoy the joke.

‘Oh, yes,’ I say eagerly. ‘And then there are your SM 42’s.’ I reckon that repeating this bit of information I picked up at the gate is going to show what a switched on bloke I am but Snooks’ face registers horror.

‘SM 42’s?’

I nod brightly.

‘You know about the SM 42’s?’ There is a hint of fear in his voice.

I am just about to tell him how I know when a thought stops me. My interview so far has not been one of the all time greats and Snooks seems to get an attack of the vapours every time I mention the words SM 42. Maybe I can turn these simple letters and numerals to my advantage.

‘I know,’ I say, leaning forward and fixing him with a steely eye. ‘And I very much want to join your training scheme.’

Snooks thumbs through the papers on his desk nervously,

‘Acceptance for the scheme is no guarantee of employment,’ he says. ‘You have to satisfy our instructors at Knuttley Hall and spend a period in the field during which you will be on parole.’

‘I am confident I can come up to the standard you require,’ I say with dignity. I search for his eyes again but they are not available.

‘You will be hearing from us in due course,’ he says. ‘Your past record certainly suggests that you have many of the qualities we are looking for. Tell me,’ he tries to appear casual, ‘how did you come to hear about the—er SM 42’s?’ He drops his voice when he says ‘SM 42’ as if he fears the room may be bugged.

‘I’d rather not reveal the source of my information at this stage,’ I say, rising to my feet with a languid grace which succeeds in jarring his flowers on to the blotter again. ‘Let’s just say it was from someone not too far away from here,’ I raise an eyebrow knowingly and Snooks practically ruptures himself getting the door open.

‘I think we will be able to find a place for you,’ he says conspiratorially, barely stopping himself from squeezing my arm. ‘In fact, I’m certain we will.’

It is therefore in a mood approaching the chuffed that I return to Hoverton because I reckon that my simple Lea cunning has ensured a place in the HomeClean Training Scheme. My spirits begin to droop a little when I find that not only Rosie and Jason, but Mum and Dad have descended upon the Cromby. Being the kind of stupid old bleeder that he is, Dad does not feel at home with the rest of the senior citizens clogging up the joint, but regards them almost as I do.

‘What are all these old geezers doing here?’ he says, when I meet him hunched up over a pint of light ale in the hotel bar. ‘It makes me all depressed looking at their miserable faces. Where’s all the young crackling then? The birds with no bras and mini skirts?’

‘Dad, please!’ I can’t bear him when he goes on like that. It’s disgusting, isn’t it? Give him a few beers and he behaves exactly like me. ‘It’s all part of the new policy, dad,’ I tell him. ‘Sidney’s trying to cater more for old people.’ Dad laughs scornfully.

‘Your precious Sidney never catered for anybody except himself. Think of the years he used to sponge off us –’

‘Yes, yes, dad,’ I say hurriedly, because I have been down this road many times before. ‘Mum alright? Still doing the Yoga?’

‘No, thank Gawd. She tried standing on her head in bed one day and shoved her toe up an empty light socket. Blimey! You should have heard her. She bounced off all four walls before she touched the floor again.’

‘Very nasty, dad. So she doesn’t have any hobbies at the moment?’

‘Only bleeding moaning, as usual. I even bought her a bloody washing machine and she’s binding about that!’

‘Straight up, dad.’

‘Straight up, son. Ninety-seven quid the bleeding thing cost me and first time out it jams with all my smalls inside it. Do you know, Timmy, I’m having to wear some of your mother’s undergarments at the moment. Good job she’s the shape she is. I rang up the shop and I said “Do you know, all my pants and vests are stuck in your bleeding machine. What are you going to do about it? It’s Thursday and I want a change”.’

‘And what did they do, dad?’

‘Bugger all, Timmy. They said they’d had a number of complaints about this model and were referring them back to the makers. Blooming nice, isn’t it? I’m having to ponce about in your mother’s smalls while the bloody Wonder Washer is sitting there loaded to the gills. I look pretty closely before I cross the road I can tell you. Get run over in this lot and –’

But I have tuned out dad’s voice. ‘Wonder Washer’. The name is not unknown to me. A big advertising campaign has been running featuring the machine and a bunch of birds dressed up in see-through nighties. They feed the Wonder Washer clothes in the middle of a Greek Temple. It all seemed a bit barmy to me but maybe women like it.

‘Who made it, dad?’

‘Load of shysters called HomeClean Products. Blimey, but I wouldn’t half mind getting my hands on them. I’ve tried ringing them up but nobody answers the ’phone.’

‘Do you know what the number is, dad?’

‘Of course I do, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to ring them, would I? Don’t be stupid, Timmy.’

‘I mean the number of the machine, dad?’

‘Oh, that. FU 2, I should think. No, that’s one thing I haven’t looked for.’

But it doesn’t take me long to find out what the number is. I go through a pile of magazines in the lounge and there, underneath a headline saying “The Greeks did not have a word for washing so gentle, so fast”, is a picture of the Wonder Washer with two birds kneeling in front of it holding out clothes as if offering gifts. In very small lettering underneath the illustration it says SM 42 HB. I do not have to overtax my tiny mind to realise that HB stands for ‘House Beautiful’, the name of the magazine, and SM 42 is the number of the ill-fated washing machine, source of discomfort to both Snooks and my mum and dad. This information, it occurs to me, may well serve to grease my passage through the HomeClean Training Scheme should I be selected for it. (I ought to have phrased that better, but you know what I mean.)