Aunt Grace’s concern for my spiritual welfare went back as far as I could remember, coming to the boil now and again, as on one occasion when my large bony hands had been drawn to her attention by my piano teacher and given as a reason for my lack of progress. Bony hands just like these, apparently, and the pair of strong shoulders that I had too, were once possessed by her uncle who, unruly as a boy, had gone on to become an equally unruly boxer, both inside and outside the ring.
I had uncertain feelings about facts like this. Was I to feel ashamed, like Grace, that my great great uncle had been inclined to fight outside the ring, as well as in it, or proud that I could, like him, deliver a very heavy punch when I had to. I preferred the latter, for my large bony hands, more suited to delivering blows than they were to playing the piano, had proved quite useful from time to time.
But, apart from the fact that this had put me in the top ten in playground brawls, and in the bottom ten of those likely to be bullied, I felt her fears, that I might be in possession of a rogue gene, were groundless. I was quite good-natured, much more than I was quite good at fighting, and quite good at avoiding challenges rather than facing up to them. Surely my love of Chopin, usually played on CD by somebody else of course, and my compulsion to read history books, made it unlikely I would follow in the boxer’s footsteps, inside or outside the ring.
“A strong-minded woman, your Aunt Grace,” Bethea pronounced, as she came back into the room, carrying a parcel of some sort. “Nothing like your mother. But then close relatives often aren’t like each other, are they? I’m nothing like my father, your great grandfather, or your father for that matter. Couldn’t paint to save my life.”
“Paint?”
“In oils mainly. But in water-colours too, of course.”
“My father was an artist?”
“Oh yes, didn’t you know?”
“I’d heard he was good at drawing.”
“He certainly was. Took it off my father. Your father didn’t make money at it, or anything like that, but he definitely had some of the talent. Do you have any interest in the subject?”
“Well, there’s a picture I look at,” I began, “but I couldn’t even draw a bottle in the art class at school,” I told her, taking refuge in a forthright reply.
“Never mind. A gift is a gift. You don’t earn it, and it’s not your fault if you don’t have it. But you should know about your great grandfather,” she added. “I’m surprised that no one has ever told you.”
“Really good, was he?”
“Gold medal at the Paris Salon – when he was 28, and again when he was 48. I’ll say he was good,” she said with enthusiasm. “So that’s something for you to be proud of. I suppose you’ve only heard the bad things about this side of your family.”
I wished she hadn’t come back to this again. I felt a little ashamed now, at my willingness to believe that my father’s family weren’t up to much. That my Aunt Grace had disapproved of them, and that I had gone along with her for so long, didn’t say much for me, or for that matter, the human race in general. But this is what people did, allowing important matters to lie unaddressed because of the opinions of others and because doing nothing was so easy.
And it wasn’t just people who did this. Whole nations had done it too. Wasn’t that what America had done in her isolationist policy towards Europe before World War II? According to the Book Collection, in her anxiety to avoid war American Isolationism had helped nourish conditions abroad in which her own ultimate safety could only be secured by the greatest war effort in her history. She certainly wasn’t subscribing to it now, and Britain wasn’t either. But a lot of people seemed to have missed the point. And I had, too, up to now, but what had the cost been to me of adopting such an attitude?
‘Let them be. You’re better off without them’, was what my Aunt Grace had said about my father’s side of the family. For years I had obeyed this injunction without ever challenging it. Her point of view had had that down-to-earth ring about it, the kind that appealed to the hard-hearted, to moral cowards, to gullible people, and of course to lazy people, such as myself. That Aunt Grace could have been wrong, of course sincerely wrong, about all this was something that at long last was beginning to dawn on me.
“I’ve not heard only bad things, exactly” I finally answered, evasively.
“But not exactly good ones either?”
“I suppose not,” I said slowly, hovering on the brink of a confrontation that I wished to avoid. Having at last got in touch with her, after suppressing my interest for so long, I wasn’t going to throw it all away on an impulsive need to say something, especially since I had begun to call my Aunt Grace’s attitude towards her into question. Bethea had come into possession of my great grandfather’s money because she had been the oldest child, and the only one who had reached adulthood when he died. I had always known this but I could see it differently now. This didn’t make me a victim, as Grace would have it, I was more like a casualty.
Grace was wrong to say that my father’s share of my grandfather’s money should have come to me for, in the strictly legal sense, he had never had a share. He had however had various amounts of money over the years as a helping hand from Bethea and for all anyone knew it could have added up to quite a lot. He had certainly had had an inheritance of some sort.
To say that Bethea had withheld money from my mother after my father’s early death didn’t hold up either. Exactly what money had she been due? My father hadn’t, strictly speaking, inherited anything that should have been passed on to her. And even Grace had admitted that Bethea had offered some kind of help, so she couldn’t have been all that bad.
“I don’t suppose Grace told you about the Food Importers.” Bethea said to me in a challenging tone of voice.
“I didn’t think you even knew I worked in a Food Importers,” I exclaimed.
“Never knew?” she protested. “How do you think you got there in the first place?”
“Sorry,” I replied, genuinely puzzled.
“The present owner’s family were friends of ours. Didn’t you know that, either?”
“I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning it.”
“If it hadn’t been for your Aunt Grace’s attitude we could have done a lot more for you in that place too. And I don’t expect she told you that we paid your school fees?”
“I suppose I’d be too young,” I answered, taken aback, unable to think of anything meaningful to say.
If the main purpose of my visit had been to ask for money, then where I fitted into my father’s family now seemed much more important. They hadn’t forgotten about me, after all, and now that I thought about it, how could my Aunt Grace have afforded my school fees, anyway? And hadn’t there been a mantle of protection over me at the Food Importers, before the old boss, a son of the founder, had retired? The other side of my family didn’t belong to the other side, after all. But where would I belong if I asked Bethea for money? I couldn’t do it now.
“I’ve brought you the extinguisher. It’s in the car,” I told her cheerfully.
When I returned, the tea trolley had appeared and, as she filled the cups, I took the extinguisher from its carton and displayed it on my lap.
“I’ve got something for you, too,” she said, reaching for the parcel that lay propped up against the side of the trolley. But first, take your tea and as many cakes and buns as you like.”
I guessed from the shape of the object outlined within the thick brown paper in which it was wrapped that the parcel contained a picture. But would it be a print or an original? A print would be all right, but an original could be something much more than that.
It would hardly be a print, I concluded, my spirits soaring. Surely Bethea would only have originals since the artist had been her father. That he had won the Gold Medal at the Paris Salon when everybody knew that so many now world famous artists h
ad almost been thrown out of the place surely meant the picture would be worth something. Things were beginning to look up.
chapter thirteen
“So you do fire extinguishers,” the man said, as he greeted me in the foyer. “I’m the MD in here. Shall we discuss things in the my office.”
He looked capable and energetic, and I hoped I looked as good to him. This was more than just a sales appointment, it was where I was going to meet with success or failure in my final attempt to get on top of the job.
Following him down a long corridor, I spotted a Fire Exit sign which lacked the required illustration of a running man on it and, better still, I saw through an open door a computer room, on the wall of which hung a Dry Powder extinguisher, whose emissions, I knew, could damage the equipment as much as a fire could. Those were technical titbits I could keep up my sleeve for later use, I muttered to myself.
“Thank you for seeing me, Mr Summers,” I began, as I settled in front of the desk of this well-dressed, middle-aged man who, although he didn’t look like he posed a threat, nevertheless had the power to dash my hopes, to foil my plans, to turn me into a failure, although that wasn’t going to happen, I told myself.
“Is this how you people usually get business? You know, by phoning people?” he asked informally, sounding genuinely interested.
“Quite often, Mr Summers, but we do a lot of advertising in the big directories, too,” I informed him, in an authoritative tone of voice.
“Well, what can you do for me?” he asked pleasantly, sitting back in his chair and folding his arms across his chest.
This sounded like a good start, although I knew that it wasn’t. He had wrong-footed me with a question, the specific answer to which I didn’t know. How could I? I had assured him on the phone that I could deal with all of his fire protection requirements, without knowing what they were. I had brought this on myself therefore. That it was the name of the game, and that there was only so much you could say in an initial telephone call like that, didn’t excuse the lapse. I should have found out more.
“We can supply you with all the equipment you are likely to need, Mr Summers,” I told him, “and we can provide you with a very high level of service, too.”
I had done it again. Another pitiful generality. I very quickly had to do better, I told myself anxiously.
“And how do you know exactly what I need?” he asked, the expression on his face indicating neither approval nor disapproval of my dismal overture. Maybe I was being too hard on myself.
But my sales prospect was certainly doing much better than I was. He should have been the salesman, not me. His questions had been the right ones, from his point of view, and my answers had been the wrong ones, from my point of view. I was steering the conversation into oblivion. I had to say something meaningful, and with my very next breath.
“Fire Protection is a bit of a racket,” I said, overdoing it and realising almost at once that my remark might sound as if I was making a confession.
“It is?” he asked, looking at me intently as if expecting a further revelation, just as I had feared.
“But not with us,” I added hastily. “With Bartons, you can be sure of getting a fair deal.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Much of the work that is done in Fire Protection is unnecessary,” I told him, deciding to stick with this controversial idea. After all, I wasn’t a surgeon or a concert pianist. A blatant mistake was maybe something I could turn to my advantage.
“With us you’ll get a fair deal, Mr Summers. I can assure you of that. We don’t just want you to be a customer, we want you to stay a customer,” I told him, falling back on the words I was inclined to use with the shopkeepers. “And we know you won’t stay with us unless you’re absolutely sure we’re doing a good job, at the right price, and that we can be trusted,” I added breathlessly, hoping this would move things to the next stage.
“And how many extinguishers do you have?” I asked him, almost panting, persuading myself that things might, in spite of the bad start, be going according to plan. But wasn’t that what Field Marshal Haig, Commander in Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, had often claimed in the First World War when his armies were being decimated? On the other hand, Field Marshal Montgomery in the Second World War had often been accused of doing something similar although he, unlike Haig, had usually won the battle. I tried to remain optimistic. Hadn’t both these men, in the end, been recipients of the victor’s crown.
“I have, say, about five hundred extinguishers, he replied hesitantly. “And we have quite a few fire hoses, too. A delicate operation.”
This was the kind of thing I had been hoping for – a possible way ahead. Not his hesitancy over the number of extinguishers. But delicate? A delicate operation!
We specialise in Health and Safety matters,” I pronounced, in the sombre tone of voice I felt appropriate to this more elevated aspect of the work.
“I’m interested in that.”
“It’s the main feature of our service,” I said, exaggerating, feeling I was making progress at last. “We employ a man especially for it.”
“Interesting.”
I believed him. I was definitely on the right lines.
“He’d be at your service in an advisory capacity,” I added.
“Look … eh, John. If you can do a quick calculation on what you would charge for doing these servicing operations,” he said, handing me a typewritten list, “maybe we can take things a bit further.”
As I looked down at the paper, he handed me a second sheet which I saw was an invoice from his current supplier of fire equipment. It was a gift, showing me the prices I would have to beat. He was making it easy for me.
I could see it all quite clearly now, almost as if it had come straight out of the Sale Manual. I had identified his need. There was a lot of paint in this place and a lot of paint could mean a big fire, and a big fire could mean a lot of insurance. This man had to have just the right models in just the right place. They had to be very well maintained. And he had to have written evidence of it. He had to have the right safety signs, too. And he had to be able to extinguish a fire, as soon as it started, with the very best of equipment. That I should have realised all this before was academic. I had found out in time. If anything went wrong in this place then my sales prospect would take the fall. This was it. He had to cover his back.
And he had come to the right person. Or, rather, the right person had come to him. I had opened up this sales opportunity, and I was going to close it.
“We can more or less take the sting out of all these things Mr Summers,” I told him reassuringly.
I could ease his anxiety about health and safety, about insurance and fire protection in general, and I could help him look good about it. Price wasn’t the main issue, this was.
“I’ll get our man to come in and do a survey for you. That’s if you decide to go with us, of course, and he’ll point out anything needing put right. He’ll do it all for you, absolutely everything, with all the necessary paperwork submitted to you for your approval, of course.”
“Sounds good,” came the words I wanted to hear.
“As for price,” I continued in a casual tone as I saw his gaze fall questioningly on the invoice. “If I can reduce your annual bill by a nominal sum, say 5%, and still provide these extra services would that sound all right?”
“It would and …”
“You’ll be fully compliant with all the recent fire regulations. We’ll take the whole thing off your hands completely,” I repeated yet again. “We will, of course, make sure you are in complete control.”
“Look John,” the Managing Director said, getting up from his desk to where I was seated holding the invoice. “I’m having hassle with all these Health and Safety Regulations, and the fire extinguisher people we’re using aren’t up to the job.
Our warehouses are packed with inflammables, and the insurance people aren’t happy with our present arrangements.”
I’m not in the least bit surprised,” I said in a sympathetic tone, pleased that the faith I had placed in my intuitive perception had been vindicated and, additionally, that I had been given the opportunity to deliver my technical titbits with what I felt to be an artistic flourish. “I noticed a dry powder extinguisher in the computer room,” I told him. “If you ever have to use it, it’ll ruin every computer it touches. The correct fire extinguisher for that kind of fire risk is a CO2 – the discharge will evaporate,” I stated.
“I wouldn’t have a clue about that” he said with deference.
“And the Fire Exit sign, halfway down the corridor, is non compliant with British Standards, too. It doesn’t have an illustration of a running man on it. It’s almost worse than having no sign at all,” I said, feeling good that I had managed to work my wavering efforts up into such a satisfactory climax.
“Is that right?” he stated, in an even more deferential tone of voice, as he ran his hand down the prices on the invoice.
“And you can reduce these prices?” he asked. “By 5%?”
“Certainly,” I announced, looking him firmly in the eye.
“And you can sort this fire protection mess out for me while I’m busy trying to be the Managing Director of this place?” he asked, delighting me with the intimacy of his words.
“I can, Mr Summers,” I stated solemnly.
I watched feverishly as he walked back round his desk at which he sat for a moment, looking down, avoiding my eyes.
I would be landing this contract by what I felt was a very slick piece of salesmanship, I told myself, still a little shakily, since he hadn’t signed anything. Not knowing at first what his requirements actually were, I had ridden this out, kept a clear head, and as soon as I had sensed his real need, had brought maximum force to bear on it. I had been a staff officer on the phone and a company commander in the field, all rolled into one. This had been a maximum effort. I had pulled it off. I had what it takes.
Am I Being Followed? Page 10