Confessions of a Travelling Salesman Read online

  ‘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.)

  Sure enough, a letter telling me to report to Knuttley Hall arrives a couple of days later and Sid tells me to forget about the rest of the interviews.

  ‘Frankly, Timmo,’ he says with a note of grudging admiration creeping into his voice, ‘I’m surprised you landed that one. They’re normally very fussy about who they take.’

  I have not told Sid about the Wonder Washer, so I accept his cack-handed compliment without comment.

  One person who does express interest in my impending departure is the lovely Miss Stokely. She comes up to me after supper on the evening before my departure and touches my forearm lightly.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear you’re leaving us,’ she says, tugging down her jumper so that her breasts swell forward in a more than friendly fashion. ‘We haven’t had much to do with each other, have we?’

  ‘No,’ I say, noticing how my voice becomes posher when I am talking to her. ‘I haven’t been in need of your services, have I? It’s a pity, because I would like to have had a go with your—er vibrator.’ Miss Stokely notices my discomfiture.

  ‘It is a name that causes some people embarrassment. I suppose one tends to think of it in another context?’ She stares into my face and I feel myself blushing. I really am a berk sometimes. ‘Oh, dear,’ she says. ‘I hope I haven’t shocked you?’

  I don’t think she hopes anything of the sort. In fact I think she is trying to come the old soldier so she can establish some kind of female mastery over me. Some birds are like that. They try and reverse the roles so that they are doing all the masculine stuff – nudge, nudge, wink, wink – that kind of thing, while you are expected to fill in the gaps in the conversation. This is all very well until they suddenly holler ‘O.K. buster, you’re on’, and wait for the action. Some of them have had to wait a long time. I am an old fashioned boy at heart, and I like to feel that I am calling the shots.

  ‘I’m pretty unshockable, Miss Stokely,’ I say in a voice borrowed from an old Humphrey Bogart movie. ‘I turn pink every year about this time.’

  ‘I did promise you a go, didn’t I?’ purrs Miss S. ‘Do you want to take me up on it before you disappear? You’ll feel marvellously relaxed.’

  ‘I have to do it in the nude, don’t I?’

  ‘That’s the best way, but you can wear a dressing gown if you like. You must have a hot bath first. That’s the only stipulation.’

  I am not sure I fancy a stipulation, but I decide not to let on about it.

  ‘I’ll come down to your—er, office, then.’

  ‘Yes. Give me half an hour, will you? I’ve got a bit of paper work to tie up.’

  So I whip upstairs, have a bath and try and wash the boot polish stains off the cuff of my white towelling dressing gown. I make a lousy job of it but it does not matter because I hit on the bright idea of turning the whole thing inside out. I mean, raised seams are very fashionable these days, aren’t they?

  ‘Why have you got your dressing gown on inside out?’ says Miss Stokely when I present myself, pink and expectant, at her office.

  ‘Oh, so I have,’ I say, ‘how stupid of me. I snatched it off the peg without looking.’

  It does not escape my notice that Miss Stokely herself is sporting a towelling robe not unlike those worn by judo experts. Maybe she plans to loosen me up with a few throws.

  ‘Are you going to have a go?’ I ask her.

&nbs
p; ‘I might well give myself ten minutes before turning in,’ she says. ‘It’s deliciously enervating. Now, if you’re ready, hop up on the couch and I’ll start you off.’

  Considering that the bed is in three parts it is surprising how comfortable it is and I lie on my back trying to stop my dressing gown from falling open and look at Alma Stokely’s breasts nestling inside her robe. A very sexy lady, that, and she has me at her mercy.

  ‘All right? Are you ready? Now, relax completely.’ She presses a button and ripples start running through my body. I feel as if I am going down a bumpy roller coaster track without a carriage, or floating on wooden waves.

  ‘Relax!’ My hand is still protectively holding the front of my robe and Alma removes it. ‘Let it dangle,’ she orders, referring to my hand.

  ‘But –’ I can feel my dressing gown slipping open to reveal my action man kit.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Relax.’

  But I cannot relax. Something about the motion of the vibrator and Miss Stokely’s shapely presence is making Percy anything but relaxed. I send down a hand to tidy up but it is intercepted by Miss Stokely.

  ‘You’re finding it difficult, aren’t you?’ she says.

  ‘Yes,’ I gulp. ‘You’d better stop the thing. I don’t seem to be in the mood.’

  Miss Stokely releases my hand but her fingers do not move towards the button. Instead I am conscious of them closing gently round the root of my problem.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she murmurs. ‘This is by no means an unusual occurrence. It happens even with very old men.’ Gently, and in time with the movement of the bed she runs her fingers up and down my model lighthouse from its base to the flashing globe at the top. After a few moments of this treatment I feel like a Roman candle just before the blue touch paper burns away. My state of mind obviously communicates itself to Miss Stokely.

  ‘It doesn’t seem to be doing any good, does it?’ she says coyly.

  ‘It depends what you mean by good,’ I say. Her lips are lurking temptingly above mine and it occurs to me that this is the time for actions to take over from words. I slide my fingers gently inside her gown and feel the weight of her breasts in my hand like a grapefruit on a piece of elastic. She makes a contented noise which I smother with my friendly mouth and I slip my arm round her waist and pull her onto the bed. Luckily (intentionally?) it is big enough for two and we lie side by side pulling apart each other’s clothing like kids unwrapping Christmas presents.