Confessions of a Travelling Salesman

‘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.

‘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.

‘Are you getting used to the rhythm now?’ she breathes.

‘I think so,’ I gasp, and it is a fact that the rotating up and down motion is becoming almost pleasant.

‘Let your body respond,’ she murmurs, ‘that’s the way to get the best out of it.’ Regular readers will have little difficulty in imagining the first response that suggests itself to my fevered body and I am on my hands and knees before you can say ‘Circus Boy’. It is rather like kneeling on a moving rocking horse but in my present mood I would be able to harness myself to Alma Stokely’s pulsating body on top of a tank landing craft in a force nine gale. With a mutual squeak of gratitude we find ourselves joined together by more than a common belief in the future of the British Empire and bounce about like a couple of pebbles on a conveyor belt.

‘Rhythm, rhythm!’ squeaks Alma, binding me close to her with protective hands and, as I grit my teeth and think of England, I do begin to find some repetitive motion in the movement of the thing.

Once Alma has detected that I am firmly in the saddle, I notice that her hand slips down to the switch beside the couch and suddenly the rocking motion becomes more pronounced.

‘Relax,’ she murmurs, ‘this thing will do all the work.’

She is not kidding. In fact the vibrator is doing rather more work than I want it to. I am all for labour saving gadgets but you can have too much of a good thing. As I feel a dangerous surge of lust threatening to tidal wave through my loins, I drop my hand and feel for the switch. If I can slow the machine down I will be able to restrain my natural impulse.

But, alas! In my eagerness I only succeed in turning the switch the wrong way and the bed suddenly becomes a bucking bronco. While I cling on for dear life (i.e. mine), the bed responds by trying to touch its toes and emits a high-pitched whining noise.

‘Stop it! Stop it!’ I howl, and I am not referring to anything that Miss Stokely is dishing out.

‘I can’t,’ pants Miss Stokely. ‘It must be jammed. U-r-r-r-gh!’

I brush aside her fumbling fingers and wrench at the control savagely. So savagely that it comes away in my hand. The strength of a Lea in an emergency is as the strength of ten.

‘Oh my Gawd!’ The bed is now throwing a fit and the noise is enough to wake the dead. If not the dead, some of those approaching that condition. As I fight to prevent myself from being hurled to the floor, I am aware that a host of senior citizens are hunched in the doorway drinking in the spectacle.

Ker–plung!!! Suddenly there is a noise like a spring snapping free of its mooring and the next thing I know I am lying under Miss Stokely’s swivel chair at the other end of the room. I raise my head as Miss Stokely’s pink body subsides with the wreckage of the bed. There is a long drawn out whirring noise which ends in a desperate, dying wheeze.

I think it comes from the bed.

CHAPTER TWO

I am not sorry to leave the Super Cromby, the atmosphere being a trifle icy after my little session with Alma. Doctor Carboy, particularly, is very narky but though he says it is because of the damage to his equipment, I know it is really because he is not overchuffed about me having it away with his bit of crackling. Sid, too, is tight-lipped for the same reason. Ever since Rosie moved in to cramp his style, he has been very dog in the mangerish about my excursions into nookyland.

Another source of irritation has been provided by one of the old geezers who was watching us on the job. He has had a stroke – excitement I suppose – and Carboy is trying to blame me for that. All in all, I reckon I am well out of the blooming place.

Knuttley Hall is very impressive. All lawns, gravel and ivy, and it is difficult to think of it in connection with HomeClean Products. Difficult that is if you fail to see the bleeding great hoarding by the gates: ‘HomeClean Products, home on the range!’

I report to a ferret-faced bloke behind a desk in the hall who calls me ‘Mr. Lea’ and looks me up and down as if measuring me for a coffin. He directs me to my room and informs me that HomeClean’s Chief Training Officer will be addressing us before the evening meal at seven o’clock. This gentleman is about fifty years old and looks as if the last person he loved was his mother many years before. His voice is totally expressionless and he drones on for half an hour about ‘Finest Company in the world … wonderful export record … first rate products … unparalleled opportunities for advancement … hard work … satisfaction … hard work …’ I try and pay attention but after about ten minutes it is all I can do to keep my eyes open. I try and keep awake by concentrating on my fellow trainees. Most of them are about my age and a few of the keener ones take notes. On the whole they seem to favour the short back and sides and earnest expression and I am certain they have a great future behind them.

One thing that is disturbing me is the lack of birds in the place. We have been told that we will not be let out for three weeks and that we will only be allowed in the bar on Saturday nights. Dish out a see-through haircut and I might as well be in a monastery.

After supper, which is of the brown windsor, fish fingers, peas and mashed potato variety – e.g. first-rate compared with anything my mum ever dishes up, we are divided into syndicates and start learning about the HomeClean product range. I have been expecting a spot of early shut eye on the first night, so evening classes do little to raise my spirits above knee-level.

The bloke who takes us is called Brian Belfry and has one of the worst-fitting sets of false gnashers I have ever seen bouncing round his cake-hole. He also starts off every sentence by saying ‘I am certain you will agree …’ so that I become bleeding determined not to agree with him on principle. In the days that follow I learn that this is a ‘key selling phrase’. The idea is to get the customer nodding along with you right from the off. Regardless of what the product is, you wag your head up and down and say that you are certain that the customer will agree that its clean, simple lines and clasically elegant styling, combined with its tastefully chosen colour scheme, will blend harmoniously with any kitchen setting. While the customer, who is too good mannered to suggest that you must be joking, digests this, you bash on to explain that the product has forty-seven unique features and has undergone one hundred and twenty-three different tests before leaving the factory. By this time the customer should be on his hands and knees begging to be allowed to buy one, but if there is any sign of wavering, now is the moment to remind him that your product is the only one on the market with multiflibinite gunge nurglers. You point out casually that products not possessed of m.g.n. have been known to fall apart after three weeks or explode with distressing loss of life and limb. If the poor sap has still not signed on the dotted line, you remind him of the unique HomeClean easy payments plan (no other manufacturer charges such high interest rates), HomeClean’s unique after-sales service plan (most other manufacturers don’t make you pay for both spare parts and labour during the guarantee period), or HomeClean’s unique trade-in terms (most manufacturers will offer you more than two pounds for your old washer when you buy a spanking new one costing well over a hundred quid).

The most important thing to remember is that you must close the sale with a positive proposition, e.g. ‘If you do not buy this product I will beat you to death with it.’ If the customer is bigger than you, then less dynamic, but equally effective methods are available. ‘Well, Mr. Prospect, I am certain that you will agree that this wonderful, life-enriching product is remarkable value at only ninety-nine pounds, ninety-nine new pence, and if you sign here I will have one rushed to you as soon as the strike in our Baluchistan factory is over.’ Or, even better, give the poor sucker an option. ‘Right, Mr. Prospect. Would you rather pay for this wonderful product in cash or with our easy deferred payments plan?’ In this way the poor mut has blurted out one of the alternatives before he realises that he hated the sight of the product in the first place.

This business of prospect participation is taken very seriously by our instructor, genial Brian Belfry, whose easy smile conceals a streak of ruthlessness which makes Attila the Hun seem like an eleventh century Beverly Nicholls. He stresses that the prospect should be encouraged to contribute to the dialogue so that he does not feel he is being pressurised into making a purchase. The kind of contributory phrases a salesman likes to hear are – ‘Yes’, ‘of course’, ‘naturally’, ‘I’ll take six, please’, and so on. Hence the ‘I am certain you will agree’ bit. In this way the prospect is nodding all the way to the guillotine.

But supposing a prospect raises an objection? Hear him out. The shrewd salesman can always turn an objection into a product advantage: ‘Yes, I know, Mr. Snotty. The Scrubamatic does not have castors like other washing machines, but that’s what we call our Stability Factor or S.F. for short. Independent tests at the Cumbach Research Laboratories – I have the figures back at the office if you would like to see them – have proved conclusively that there is a danger of unmoored machines running wild and destroying kitchens, and even whole housing estates – I expect you remember the Neasden disaster of ‘69? Now, I’m not saying a word against our competitors’ products, many of them are absolutely first rate machines, but if I had kiddies in the house’ – etc., etc.

It’s a doddle, isn’t it? Note the subtle reference to competitive products. ‘Never knock a competitor’ is one of HomeClean’s ‘Golden Precepts’, but what it really means is, never do so too openly. In the hands of the skilled salesman no competitor is safe. ‘Of course, Madam, the Hotchkiss Wash Wizard is a marvellous product, there’s no getting away from it. But there are one or two little things that I personally am a trifle wary about – but that’s probably just me being over-fussy, I suppose. I mean, I know it’s supposed to be an advantage that you can’t open the door once the wash cycle has started, but I think that if I ever looked up and saw my little pekinese …’

All this bullshit is lovingly chronicled in the ‘HomeClean Salesman’s Manual’, which we are told not to lose sight of on pain of death. At HomeClean everything except the number of sheets of toilet paper to use is written down somewhere.

As I have said before, I find that most of the chat sends me off to sleep faster than if I was a customer, and the bits of the course I like best are when we have to practise selling to each other. Most of our contact will be with electrical dealers, so two of us stump out in front of the rest of the class and with Belfry dashing down disconcerting notes on his pad, one of us plays the dealer and the other the HomeClean salesman.

H.C.S. ‘Good morning, Mr. Dealer.’

D. ‘Good morning. Please sit down.’

H.C.S. ‘Thank you, Mr. Dealer. I hope I find you and your family well. Children are a mixed blessing, aren’t they, but where would we be without them?’

D. ‘Yes.’

H.C.S. ‘Well, I mustn’t take up too much of your valuable time. But – (leans forward aggressively) – I have some very exciting news which I thought you would like to hear.’