“And what has brought you here after all these years?” she asked me.
“I was wondering if …,” I began in accordance with my script, my throat parched. But the prepared words of my request for a loan wouldn’t come.
“I was wondering if I might be able to find out something about this side of my family,” I said instead, feeling the tension within me subside.
“You did, did you?” she chided gently. “You’ve taken an awful long time to get round to it, haven’t you? But better late than never, I suppose.”
From the window I could see that bushes and trees were obscuring the view the occupants of the neighbouring houses would have of the back garden. This was living in the city graciously, without being hemmed in too much and overlooked. If only there could have been something equally gracious about my reason for being here, I thought guiltily.
“Well, there’s a good place to start,” she said, in answer to my question about my family, pointing to a small picture hanging beside a standard lamp in a nearby corner of the room.
“Go on,” she coxed. Move the lamp back and have a look.”
The picture was of a middle-aged man with dark reddish hair and beard.
“It’s an original,” she said.
“Is it someone I should know?”
“That’s your great great grandfather,” she told me. “You’re not unlike him, even without the beard.”
“Do you think so?” I asked enthusiastically, intrigued by the observation.
“In fact, you’re very like him,” she confirmed, her eyes going rapidly from my face to the picture and back again a few times. “You’re a Grant all right, at least to look at. There’s no doubt about it.”
I smiled self-consciously, delighted by her affirmation.
Could this refined old lady really have robbed me of an inheritance? I asked myself. Did the version of events given to me over the years by Aunt Grace really paint an accurate picture of what had happened? Had my Great Aunt Bethea alone got what I should have at least had a small share of? I felt, now that I was here with her, that it didn’t seem likely. It wasn’t as if I had had a claim to the throne, anyway. I had only been second or third in line. Grace had been making too much out of my position perched, by her way of it, on a branch quite high up on the family tree. I was also perched quite low down too. It depended on how you looked at it, or who you were.
“And what about your career?” she asked me, leaning forward in her chair a little.
“I’m in Fire Protection. I sell fire extinguishers.”
“Fire extinguishers?” she repeated, looking at me strangely for a moment. “Well I could do with a fire extinguisher. Can you get discounts for people you know?” she asked, surprising me with her worldliness.
“I’ll get you one at cost price,” I told her, glad of the opportunity to express the warm family feeling that was welling up inside me. I felt really pleased that after so many years of separation from the family whose name I bore, I was now actually sitting in the very house in which my father had been brought up. If only I had had a better reason for being here.
We looked over as the door opened, and watched the trolley being wheeled in and come to rest between us.
“This is Anne,” she said, introducing the elderly lady. “Anne, this is John. Anne’s in charge of the house,” she told me. “John’s my great nephew,” she said to her.
I sat sipping my tea, listening intently to her descriptions of my grandparents, and other close relatives most whom I had never heard of. I had no intention of asking her for the money, not right now. I didn’t want anything to change between us, to spoil the feeling that I had of once more being part of my father’s family.
Later, as I made my way down the driveway, having promised to return with the fire extinguisher, I knew that asking her for the money on my next visit, wasn’t going to be any easier. She was no longer a distant family figure, but an old lady I liked and was glad to be related to. I wanted her to like me in return and who, apart from a disreputable moneylender, would think much of someone asking them for a loan, to repay a loan.
chapter eleven
‘What was I doing here’, I asked myself, sitting outside these shops again? Shops were places you went into to buy something, not to sell something, especially not a fire extinguisher, and not on an afternoon like this, with the rain pouring down and the prospect of losing your job hanging over your head.
As a boy, I had never known what I wanted to be when I grew up but now, somewhat later on in life, I at least knew what I definitely did not want to be, and this was it.
I didn’t feel like a salesman. I felt more like an actor in a long-running play. I knew my lines backward but I would still have to work flat out to give them a convincing ring.
But what else could I do? Another period of unemployment, this time without any savings to cushion my fall, would be really and truly the end of the line.
It was the first time I had ever felt quite so bad. I had nothing left to give. I couldn’t bring myself to get out of the car. What was the point? These shopkeepers weren’t going to be any different from the ones I had visited yesterday.
I sat for a while nursing my despair, but not yet feeling I was beyond the reach of that self-help I had so often fallen back on in the past. Somewhere in the Book Collection there were bound to be men whose example I could surely follow, men who had had their backs to the wall just like me.
But which ones? I had to be careful in making a choice like this if I wasn’t to be merely some crackpot trying to turn his dreams into reality.
It was an event rather than a personality that first came to mind. Wasn’t my situation a bit like the one the Germans were in during their attack on Russia in the Second World War? Even if I did make a sale and win a tactical victory, worthy of the many achieved early on by the Germans in Operation Barbarossa, what good would it do? They had grossly underestimated the vast distances they had had to cover and the strength of their opponent. My offensive, like theirs, would probably grind to a halt. Tomorrow, there would be the same reluctance to get out of the car, the same likelihood that the sale might not come until I had reached the last shop, that it might not come at all.
But what about the actual people, rather than the events, in the Book Collection? What had they done when they were in a situation like this? I thought of Hitler staring at a painting of Frederick the Great, while the Russian tanks approached his Bunker. I thought of Churchill thinking of his distant relative, the famous Duke of Marlborough. But I had to do better than this, for the only picture I had ever stared at for any length of time was the one on the Sales Office wall, and a shallow river with ducks on it would hardly provide me with the inspiration I needed.
It looked for a while as if the Book Collection was going to let me down and it was all I had, at that point, to keep me from sinking into the abyss. My flask was empty, and my legs were getting into a cramp, when at last the idea came to me.
I thought again of that great battlefield in Russia where the German armies in Operation Barbarossa had made their initial advance, just like I had done as I had travelled down that row of shops. Like me they had covered a lot of ground but, also like me, they had been swallowed up by the enormity of their task. Surely, they had been sorely in need of a change of plan?
Which was what I needed, too, I realised, and I wasn’t going to leave it too late, like they had. To get me properly started, therefore, I took a leaf out of another book. Sent to help the French stop Hitler in the same World War, Lord Gort the Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force had gone against his orders and the defeatist flow and moved two divisions over to the left of the battlefield in time to save his army, and almost certainly his country too, from defeat.
Directing my energies at shopkeepers, I could see now, was wrong. I was learning from history, I thought excitedly. T
he maximum effort cold calling required would at the best bring only minimal results, a series of mere tactical victories. What I needed wasn’t just a change of direction, it was a completely new strategy.
*
I lifted the Directory from the shelf and laid it before me on the desk. If I could make telephone contact with the right people in some of these big companies then maybe I could turn the whole thing around.
I knew I would have to put all I had into this and enthused by my mood swing I began to devise my plan of campaign. It didn’t matter if I was in danger of letting my imagination run away with me, it was the result that counted. I wasn’t having delusions of grandeur either. I knew I wasn’t as imposing as Hitler or Churchill. But I felt confident that even someone of lesser stamp, like myself, would be able to carry out what I now had in mind.
Ready for action I dialled the first number in the Directory of Big Companies, deciding to adopt the no-nonsense approach of a lesser-ranked Company Commander.
“Cairns Décor. How can I help you?”
“Could you tell me the name of the person in your company who is responsible for Fire Protection? I asked.
“Fire Protection?”
“Yes, extinguishers etc,” I explained, in the confident tone of someone to be reckoned with.
“John Summers,” she said, not cutting me off, but instantly telling me what I wanted to know, signifying that I had achieved what had been my first, clearly-defined objective. I had identified my target. Nothing much, it would seem, but I knew better.
“Thank you very much for your help, I stated, replacing the receiver.
Tight-lipped and more in control of myself than I had been for a long time I sat for a while contemplating the success of my imaginative approach. As I was about to move to the next stage I saw a way whereby the operation I was conducting might be given an even better chance of success. I felt free to indulge myself yet further.
Taking command of a submarine I saw the Directory as my chart, whilst the telephone, by transforming sound into sight, became my periscope.
I knew Admiral Doenitz, in the Book Collection, had required his U Boats to carry out in training sixty-six surface and sixty-six submerged attacks, before they even fired their first torpedo. But I also knew I would have to manage without all this, and anyway, he had been on the losing side.
“John Summers please,” I asked, having dialled the same number again after a suitable period of time had elapsed. By asking for ‘John’ on this occasion rather than ‘Mister’, she would be likely to think I knew the man, raise the boom, and put me through. A sound tactic. That is, if I really did know better.
“John Summers,” said a voice. It had worked. I had got through.
“Hello, Mr Summers. John Grant from Barton Fire Protection here.”
“Who?”
The voice was that of a middle-aged man, his tone suggesting, as I hoped mine did too, that he was someone to be reckoned with. Contact had been made.
“Barton Fire, Mr Summers. Could you possibly tell me when you usually review your contract for the annual servicing of your fire extinguishers” I asked, so that I could set my sights.
“Next month, actually.”
“Would it be possible for us to get the opportunity of quoting for the work? We should be able to make savings for you,” I said to him, feeling a little bit as if I was pleading for my life. And ‘savings’ – one of the best weapons I had on board.
“We’re always looking for savings,” came the welcome reply.
“Could I drop in sometime in the near future and have a quick look at your equipment? Before I make up the quote, I mean,” I pleaded yet further.
“You can indeed,” I heard, feeling that I had just scored a hit.
But I would still have to be careful, I knew. ‘Dropping in’ to see him didn’t mean I had sunk anything. He could still stay afloat by not being there in person when I called, leaving me with no more than the opportunity of sending in a written quote. This would be miles off target. I would have to pin him down.
“If I call in to see you on Monday, would that be okay?”
“Next Monday …?”
“Any day next week Mr Summers.”
“Monday should be all right. Say about two.”
“Two’s fine. I look forward to meeting you, Mr Summers, and thank you very much for your courtesy. I’ll send you a short letter, with some Company literature, etc.” I told him in heartfelt relief at my success and in a tone of voice filled with gratitude.
“Excellent,” came the final confirmation.
Having repeated the process with all twenty of the companies on the first page of the directory, I felt pleased with the three direct hits I’d scored. I lowered the periscope and decided to let the submarine sail itself for a while, as I assessed the overall effects of the operation.
Although I hadn’t sold anything yet, an appointment with the right person at the right time was a long way down the road to success. The commission I might have earned from cold calling on shops, if I had been able to sustain the effort, was nothing to what I could make from these big companies, with their often several hundred extinguishers needing serviced and replaced throughout the year. If I could pull this off then my whole situation was bound to take a turn for the better.
My optimism, and the self-confidence it gave rise to, were soon bolstered by yet another passage from the Book Collection. There were three kinds of officer, I had read, those who were industrious and stupid, who should be got rid of; those who were clever and industrious, who were suitable for the top staff jobs; and those who were clever and lazy, ideally suited for the very top jobs of all.
It was a great pity, I felt, that Sears, who should be got rid of, was in the first group while I myself, suitable for the very top job, was officially at the bottom.
I really needed these sales appointments. Cold calling on shops wasn’t an option. If I couldn’t break into these big companies then there was no way I was going to avoid the huge financial iceberg that lay directly in my path.
I maybe had more in common with the submariner than I thought. I had to get it right. I had to do a good job. For both of us, the consequences of failure would be disastrous. But I wasn’t going to fail, lose my house, lose my job. I was going to be a salesman, a real salesman.
chapter twelve
If a house that had been lived in for many years could almost be thought to have a personality, endearing itself to its owners, could such a house also communicate in some way with subsequent generations, who had never lived in it. As I followed Bethea into a room on the other side of the hallway I saw that the fireplace was huge, made of wood and marble, and that there was extensive wooden panelling on the walls. These weren’t things that I was used to and yet I felt at home, not like someone who had come to borrow money or to deliver a fire extinguisher at cost price.
“And how long has this house been in the family?” I asked, looking about me but trying not to stare at things as if I was at an exhibition. “My mother once told me about it,” I added.
“It belonged to your great great grandfather, actually. To my grandfather.”
“As far back as that?” I gasped.
“Your mother was a fine woman,” she then said, taking up my mention of her. “I suppose you would get the books.”
“You mean the Collection. I certainly did,” I told her, assuming that she meant the contents of the boxes I had found in the attic and feeling surprised that she knew about them.
“And are you a reader, too?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You’ve got readers on both sides of your family, so that’s not a surprise,” she told me, with an approving nod. “And do you paint or anything?”
“Paint? You mean like an artist? No, I’m afraid not,” I stated, wondering why she had asked, and feelin
g that I had just owned up to something.
“You don’t. You’re just a reader. Well a lot of these books originally belonged to your father,” she informed me, as if revealing a secret. “The classics, like Dickens, and the Short Story collections, would be your mother’s all right, but the heavier ones, history, etc., they would be your father’s.”
“So my father was a reader too, was he?”
“A great reader, even more than your mother,” she affirmed.
“So that’s who I take it off,” I replied, pleased that one of my two lone indulgences now carried a genetic stamp of approval.
“And how is your Aunt Grace?” she asked, as if she had read my thoughts. Grace only read the Bible, I certainly hadn’t taken after her.
“Fine. Well, she’s in residential care. But fine.”
“I suppose she’ll have filled you in on all the gory details about us,” she continued, with a knowing smile.
“No. Not really,” I lied.
“I suppose she’s still religious.”
I wasn’t happy with this definition. It was ‘religious’ people who had crucified Christ, according to the Pastor, and Grace certainly wasn’t a hypocrite, or a moral snob, or anything like that. Grace was the real thing, not perfect, but sincere in her beliefs and in her actions too.
“Yes,” I replied. “Still a great churchgoer, when she can manage.”
“And you?” Bethea asked.
“Well, in a way,” I said hesitantly, anxious to avoid the complexity of an honest answer.
“There’s something I have to get from Anne,” she said, unexpectedly getting to her feet, and leaving me to continue alone with my thoughts.
If I was ‘in a way’ getting to be a bit like Grace in my beliefs then I certainly didn’t go the whole way with her, although the fact that ‘God was still on the throne’, as she put it, and wreaked vengeance on the nations by way of famines, floods and pestilence had at various times made me sit up and think. Tsunamis, famines and epidemics, in the news every other day, certainly lent strength to her argument even if they didn’t prove anything. But I had never allowed things like this to affect me too much and her warning about their relevance to my ‘unregenerate’ state had been something I was able to live with. What the Pastor had to say on this subject was proving to be a bit more challenging. But that was another matter.
Am I Being Followed? Page 9