Confessions of a Travelling Salesman

by Timothy Lea

  ‘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 o
f 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.’

  D. ‘Yes?’

  H.C.S. ‘Yes! You remember the outstanding success we shared with the HL427341/3362?’

  D. ‘The HomeClean Flatspin?’

  H.C.S. ‘Precisely! I am proud to announce an advance on even that great product, the HL427341/3363, the HomeClean Flatspin De Luxe! By a major marvel of British Craftsmanship and cheap Chinese labour, we have been able to raise the spin speed by a revolutionary seven point three nine per cent, whilst maintaining a price which gives you an even better margin than you had on the HL427341/3362.’

  D. (Deciding to give his part more scope) ‘But I only sold one of those.’

  H.C.S ‘Exactly! That, if I may say so, Mr. Dealer, was because you did not have an adequate display of the product. People were not aware that it was in the shop. Now, if you take advantage of our schedule G3 terms by buying a dozen of this remarkable new advance in spin-drying technology, and we move these colour television sets out of your window.’

  D. ‘But colour television sets are selling fantastically well at the moment.’

  H.C.S ‘Exactly! So why not develop two best-selling lines? You can’t afford not to be in on the ground floor of the drying boom you know. The Company is putting a tremendous amount of money behind this product. Full page advertisements in Exchange and Mart, colourful point of sale material –’

  D. (Convinced that he is not getting the most out of his part) ‘Yes, but is it really going to sell? This increase in spin speed, seven per cent – it doesn’t seem a lot to me.’

  H.C.S. ‘It’s equivalent to what two elephants can squeeze out of a wet bath towel after Britain’s strongest man has had a go. “The Jumbo Extra” – that’s what we call it in our advertising.’

  D. ‘Well, I don’t know.’

  H.C.S. (Closing fast) ‘Come, come, Mr. Dealer. It’s a first rate produce backed by first rate advertising. Let me put you down for a dozen and I’ll tell you what I’ll do. With every three I’ll give you two tickets for our “Dealer of the Month, free weekend at Skegness” Draw. Can’t be bad, can it? Nice Weekend at Skeggers. Now, do you want them delivered direct or routed through your wholesaler?’

  D. (Seeing it is nearly time for the coffee break) ‘Direct please.’

  H.C.S. (Also noticing the clock) ‘Excellent! Now, let me give you a hand to move those television sets out of the window.’

  Sounds no trouble at all, does it? But remember, this is only play acting. In real life it can be rather different.

  Being cooped up in Knuttley Hall all week is enough to drive anyone round the twist and by the time Saturday night comes and we are allowed to the bar, I am beginning to wonder if Sid’s idea is any better than most of the others I have got lumbered with. One reason that makes the bar so attractive is that it encloses the only bird in the place under sixty. On Monday when I glimpsed her through the open door she looked passable, on Tuesday she was quite a nice bit of stuff, on Wednesday she was a definite looker, on Thursday I couldn’t understand why the M.G.M. talent scouts were not camped outside the front door, and on Friday – well, on Friday night I had a very disturbing dream about her.

  What I also learn about this bird is that she is as game as a three-month-old pheasant. She has a flat on the premises and apparently all you have to do is hang around ’til the bar closes, help her put up the shutters and you are in like Flynn. She loves it!

  Comes Saturday night and I pour about half a gallon of after-shave lotion all over myself and slip on the trendiest gear I reckon I can get away with at HomeClean. Most of the other blokes on the course would have difficulty getting their ends away on a whore-house outing and the only competition I can see comes from a bunch of publishers’ sales managers who are using Knuttley Hall for some kind of training course. They look as if they have a few bob but I cannot see them causing me any trouble. Not very with it, most of them, and a bit on the old side. I can see them all settled down in front of the telly by ‘Match of the Day’ time.

  One poor old sod I really feel sorry for. He is the ‘Flying Officer Kite’ type with a droopy moustache and a faded double breasted blazer flapping over his paunch. He looks about as trendy as an old English sheepdog. There he is, tucked in close to the till with a double scotch in his hand and he has not got a hope in hell of getting near Mabel. Yes, that is the lady’s name – Mabel, and apparently very able with it. I gaze at her full, ripe breasts and begin to go weak at the knees. Just shows what five days without the company of a woman can do for you. And to think that when they carried me out of Alma Stokely’s office I never wanted to see one again.

  Mabel has her hair swept back and little golden wisps of curl frolic round her lug holes. I am becoming almost dewy eyed as I gaze at her. I imagine kissing her beauty spot and then settling on those warm, inviting lips –

  ‘Steady on, mate!’ The man beside me at the bar springs aside as I unconsciously rub my leg against his in time with my thoughts.

  ‘I’m sorry. I thought it was a bar stool.’

  ‘Oh yes. Well, you want to watch out.’ He nods his head at me as
if issuing a warning against producing any more evidence that I am a raving pouf. I really must get a grip on myself before I do something stupid.

  I move to the other end of the bar and order a scotch. This I decide, after the third one, is not a good idea because I drink them too fast. So I switch to pints of bitter, but this is an even worse idea because I keep having to go to the toilet and I reckon that this must lower my virility rating in Mabel’s eyes. Eventually I decide to have something I don’t like because I won’t drink it so fast and switch to brandy and ginger.

  By nine o’clock I realise I will have to watch myself because I am showing faint signs of becoming pissed – stubbing fags out in the crisps, that kind of thing. There are five of us at the bar including Ragged Tash and it occurs to me that all of them, with the obvious exception of R.T., have the same aim as myself. They are nursing their drinks and giving Mabel the whole eye-bashing treatment every time they order a new one. Only poor old R.T. calls Mabel m’dear’ and knocks back the scotch like they are giving it away.

  I play it cool with all the suave, man of the world, Jenny say quoits, that has made me the toast of Mecca ballrooms from Hammersmith to Purley. Nothing obvious, I just drag my mince pies across hers occasionally and nonchalantly run my finger round the rim of my glass as I fiddle with the beer mats. It is all copy book stuff.

  At about half past ten one of my rivals begins to turn green and hurries from the room not to return. That only leaves two serious contenders for Mabel’s hand and more private parts, A dark, thick-set, curly haired bloke called Gregson, and a real grease ball, smart alec, stuck with the monicker of Mountjoy.