Confessions of a Travelling Salesman

by Timothy Lea

  ‘Pleeze,’ she says, ‘Mrs. Balfour eez not een.’ I reckon she must come from Spain to talk like that but it is not a subject I wish to discuss with her.

  ‘Will she be back soon?’ I ask.

  ‘I zinc zo.’

  ‘Good,’ I say, stepping over the threshold. ‘I may have some good news for her.’ I go into the spiel about lucky numbers which Spanish fly clearly does not understand and find my way to the kitchen so that I can check the electrical products. Once she sees me thus engaged Carmen begins to catch on and suddenly grabs hold of a toaster and a plug. Now it is my turn to work out what the hell she is talking about and after five minutes gesticulating, I get the message that she wants the toaster to, stand on a work surface with the flex going down to a socket at the base of the wall underneath. The Spanish bird must think that I am some kind of handy man and it occurs to me that it might not be a bad idea to do this little job so that the mistress of the house is appropriately grateful when she gets back. It should not be too difficult because there is a conveniently placed knot hole just next to where she wants the toaster and if I can tap this out it will be child’s play to feed through the flex and get everything fixed up. Move over, Barry Bucknall, your days are numbered!

  I rummage around until I find some tools and start trying to tap out the knot. Unfortunately it is shaped like a bung and so I will have to approach it from underneath. I disappear beneath the work surface and am lying there with my feet sticking out into the open when I hear Carmen’s voice.

  ‘I go out now,’ she says. ‘Mrs. Balfour vil be back zoon.’

  ‘O.K. Thanks,’ I shout and set to work trying to bash out the accursed knot. It is more difficult than I had anticipated because there are a lot of awkwardly placed pipes down there and it is not easy to get an uninterrupted swing with the hammer.

  I have been at it about five minutes when I hear the kitchen door opening. I imagine that it is the au pair returning and continue to grunt in the darkness. Then YEEOW! Something grabs hold of my balls and I jerk my head up so sharply that I crack it on one of the pipes and see enough stars to illuminate the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square. A woman screams and I wriggle out to see a handsome bint with copper-coloured hair that looks as if it has just come back from the hairdressers. She is standing with her hand held to her mouth in horror and her expression does not improve when she sees my face.

  ‘Oh!’ she squeaks, ‘I thought you were my husband!’

  I move my hand to my forehead and take it away sharply. By the cringe! The lump there could get me dates with unicorns.

  ‘Oh, your poor head. I am sorry. I’ve been on at my husband for weeks to fix up that toaster and I thought he’d got the message at last.’

  I shake my head and scramble to my feet. There is no doubt that I am feeling decidedly shaky.

  ‘Let me bathe it with something.’ I slump into a chair while the bird bustles around filling a bowl with warm water and fetching some cotton wool.

  ‘There now, is that better?’ I respond to her dabs with groans and decide that the lady has a beautiful arse.

  ‘Do you usually do things like that to your husband?’ I ask.

  ‘No, no. It’s never occurred to me before. It was just a little joke. I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘Good,’ I say. ‘I don’t think there are many blokes that could learn to love that being done to them.’

  ‘I’m just going to put the kettle on,’ she says. ‘Would you care for a cup?’

  ‘Ta, thanks very much.’ I look at her hair. ‘Are you going out this evening?’

  ‘No. I have my hair done every week. It’s habit really. My husband is away a lot of the time and it helps to pass the time. Tell me, what did you come here for?’

  But I never get around to answering that question. Mrs. Shapely-Arse has just switched off the cooker and is returning to the table with the kettle when—oops! She trips over the tool box and directs the steaming column of liquid towards my lap. I leap out of the way and catch my head a terrible crack on the cupboard door she has opened to get the teapot out.

  That does it! I am precious nearly out on my feet and reel back against the sink holding my head in my hands.

  ‘Oh dear. You poor thing. Come on, you’d better lie down. Oh dear, let me help you. I am so terribly sorry.’ She rambles on like this whilst helping me out into the hall and guiding my hand onto the banisters. ‘If you have a little lie down perhaps you’ll feel better. I’ll get you some aspirins in a moment.’

  She leads me upstairs and into a largish double bedroom. I slump down on the bed and she goes to a cupboard and gets out a blanket which she lays on top of me.

  ‘You stay there for a little while. Don’t move until you feel quite better.’ I try and nod but the pain makes me wince and she squeezes my arm reassuringly. ‘Don’t try and say anything. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Maybe it is my double injury or more likely it is the fact that I had a few beers at dinner time, but whatever it is, the next thing I remember is opening my eyes to the sight of Mrs. Shapely-Arse stepping out of her dress and popping it on a hanger. She is wearing a coffee coloured slip and she looks very desirable. She dives her hands under her slip to pull up her tights and I groan. Not with pain but because I find the sight affecting. My ministering angel hears the noise and speeds to the bed-side.

  ‘How do you feel?’ she says, sounding really worried. There she is, with her bristols bulging temptingly above me and her soft brown eyes full of compassion and I think: What the hell, what have I got to lose?

  Releasing a long, low groan suggestive of enormous suffering I close my eyes and stretch out my arms as if in a dream.

  ‘Oh my beautiful darling,’ I murmur. ‘At last you’ve come back to me.’ So saying I clamp my arms around her and pull her down onto my hungry lips. ‘Oh!’ is the best she can manage before my mouth shuts out all sound. She struggles for a moment and then goes limp. Perhaps this is what her mother told her to do: ‘Let him have his way dear, then roll out from under him when he falls asleep.’

  ‘Why did you leave me?’ I moan, ‘Why, why, why?’ I am careful never to give her a chance to answer and move my powerful fingers down to her delectable hind quarters with maximum speed. ‘It’s a dream,’ I murmur, ‘a wonderful, wonderful, dream.’

  You do not have to read a lot of detective novels to see what I am getting at. If I can persuade the bird that I am in some kind of besotted trance, then she may well consider that a spot of nooky might be therapeutic – or, as we say in Clapham, favourite. I am also trying to suggest to her that in my trance-like state I have no knowledge of what I am doing. She may therefore use me shamelessly without any fear that I will remember what happened afterwards. I am thus trying to appeal to her on a number of levels, all of them horizontal.

  ‘Seven years,’ I groan, ‘seven years without a woman’s touch. Oh, Margaret! To have you in my arms again.’

  Suddenly Mrs. Shapely-Arse is not in my arms again and for a moment I think I have blown it – if you will excuse the expression. Then, I hear the happy rustle of discarded clothing and something warm and soft presses against my body, something that is certainly not a polythene bag full of cooling tapioca.

  ‘You poor boy,’ murmurs a voice trembling with emotion, ‘you poor, poor, boy.’ Nimble fingers set to stripping my body of unwanted clothing and a light dust of kisses descends upon my exposed flesh. Romantic, isn’t it? Well, it’s more romantic than ‘With Rifle and Killing Jar through Southern Patagonia’.

  At last I am naked and then, fortunate me, wearing my new friend. What Bliss! Lying on top of me Mrs. Shapely-Arse moves to and fro with practiced and enthusiastic ease and I decide it is probably safe to open my eyes. I don’t want the poor girl to think I am slipping into a semi-coma which might lead to a full stop. I turn my head to one side and open my eyes.

  There, staring at me from the bedside table is a photograph of Brian Belfry. He is standing next to the lady wh
o is lying on top of me so that they have obviously met before. What a coincidence. I thought the au pair girl pronounced Balfour in a funny way. Stupid slut! They should not let them into the country unless they can speak English properly. I turn my head away from Belfry’s ugly mug and—EEK! There it is on the other side of the bed. For real! In the flesh!! All the way from Knuttley Hall to find me on the job with his old lady!!!

  ‘Brian!’

  ‘You –! !’ It is obvious that Belfry is trying to say something but the expression on his face suggests that the words are too frightened to come out of his mouth.

  ‘Listen, Mr. Belfry,’ I squeal, ‘I can explain everything.’

  The way his fists knot as he charges towards the bed suggests that he does not believe me.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘Blimey,’ says Sidney. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I had an accident,’ I say with all the dignity I can muster.

  ‘Accident? You look as if you had half a dozen.’

  ‘Well, in a manner of speaking, Sidney, that is more or less true. One thing did lead to another.’

  ‘Yeah, a bit of the other, knowing you. Come clean, Timmo. Some bloke caught you having a nibble at his spot of trouble, didn’t he? You don’t get marked like that in an ordinary punch-up.’

  Sid, of course, is dead right. He should be with the experience he has had. Old man Belfry went berserk and I felt really sorry for his missus. I remember seeing him catch her a terrible belt just after I had climbed out of the cucumber frame. How my own little courgette did not sustain a nasty injury I will never know. And thank goodness the palings of that fence were rotten otherwise I might have done myself some real damage. I will never forget that old lady’s face as I suddenly burst through into the alley, stark naked. You could see she was surprised. Luckily I had grabbed hold of some vegetable matter in my travels and was able to hold this in front of Percy as I backed away saying what a nice evening it was. By the cringe, but it is difficult running like that. I reckon those ancient Greeks only put on their fig leaves when they were having their sculptures done. Not that they had a lot to shout about. Most of them could have got by with a sprig of watercress.

  But, back to the plot. It is not necessary to enrol for a course of evening classes to work out that my career with HomeClean was at an end. Finito. No amount of muttering about SM 42’s was going to change that. The Company had probably launched about half a dozen product disasters since the Wonderwasher anyhow. No, it would have to be back to Hoverton and whatever Sidney had been able to get his hands on in the way of merchandise.

  ‘How did the training go then?’ he says. ‘You passed out all right, did you?’

  ‘In a bus queue, actually,’ I say, enjoying my own private joke. ‘No, I didn’t complete the course, Sid. I was—I mean, I resigned once I reckoned I could be more good to you back here.’

  ‘Very thoughtful of you,’ says Sid suspiciously. ‘You reckon you know the ropes now, do you?’

  ‘Oh yes. Of course, it’s always difficult to reconcile theory with practice, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yer what?’ says Sid.

  ‘I mean the way they teach you to do things isn’t always the way they seem to be done when you actually set out to do them. Still, I’m certain I can do a good job for you, Sidney. What have you got lined up?’

  Sidney’s eyes glisten with enthusiasm.

  ‘Something right up your street.’

  ‘A sex boutique?’ I say hopefully.

  ‘No! It’s in the same area you’ve been operating in.’

  ‘Electrical?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘A revolutionary new product –’

  ‘Do me a favour, Sid. I’ve heard it all before.’

  ‘But this really is revolutionary, Timmo. Imagine a product that vacuum’s carpets, cleans windows, shampoos rugs, polishes floors and unblocks drains.’

  ‘One product?’

  ‘One product, Timmo. Of course it has a few accessories you have to screw on and all that.’

  ‘Yeah, but does it do all these things properly, Sid? Usually the more things they do the worse they do them.’

  ‘Timmo, this isn’t some piece of rubbish you see tucked away down at the bottom of the Saturday bargain pages. I haven’t told you the half of it yet.’

  It is about this time that I start to get really worried. ‘Well, Sid?’

  ‘It’s made in Japan, Timmo!’

  ‘Blimey, I didn’t think they had carpets and windows and all that over there.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Timmo. You know their reputation for electrical wizardry. They can take anything to pieces and find out a way of making it better and cheaper. Think of transistors and those little telly sets and all that other stuff they do.’

  ‘It’s small, is it?’

  ‘No! It looks very much like an English model. Good thing too. We don’t want to be too oriental, it might put people off. If we can just say it’s made in Japan that will be enough to get them all believing it’s a bleeding technical miracle.’

  ‘And is it?’

  ‘Wait ’til Mr. Ishowi demonstrates it to you, Timmo. You’ll be amazed.’

  ‘How did you meet this geezer, Sidney?’

  ‘He fell into my lap. Apparently he was one of the few Japanese prisoners of war we ever captured – he didn’t really believe in Pearl Harbor and all that.’

  ‘Very understandable, Sid.’

  ‘Yes, well, for some reason they brought him over here and he married one of the cleaners at the War Office.’

  ‘She in the P.o.W. camp as well, was she?’

  ‘No, no. He had a special job at the War Office. Broadcasting or something like that. He wanted to bring all the suffering to an end quickly. He is a very sensitive sort of bloke.’

  ‘He sounds it, Sid. So what happened after he got married?’

  ‘That broke up, as did so many marriages about that time. It was the war, you know. Anyway, it left him with a deep love for this country and after he went back to Japan – many years later – he was very anxious to continue to do business with us.’

  ‘He manufactures this product, does he?’

  ‘Not exactly. I think he has an interest in the company but mainly he’s a kind of agent.’

  ‘What’s it called, Sid?’

  ‘We haven’t quite finalised that. At the moment it’s the Klamikazi Monsoonbreaker, but I think we can do better.’

  ‘I’m certain we can. What did you have in mind?’

  ‘Well, I was thinking of the Noggett Tristar.’

  ‘You must be joking.’

  ‘The Noggett de Luxe?’

  ‘Sidney!’

  We had exactly the same trouble when Sidney wanted to rename the Cromby. The cult of personality looms large in his legend. At least he seems to have forgotten about MagiNog.

  ‘You can’t bear the sound of my name, can you?’ he says sulkily.

  ‘It doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, Sidney,’ I tell him. ‘And frankly, I think it was a bit unfortunate that you got lumbered with it, let alone the poor old Damp Bog.’

  ‘Klamikazi!’ snarls Sid. ‘Well, what do you suggest?’

  ‘Why not something that suggests the technical wizardry that’s gone into it. The Nippamatic, maybe.’

  ‘Do me a favour! We don’t want anything that sounds too Japanese. Some people have got very long memories you know. You have to play this Jap thing very carefully. That’s why I thought of calling it the Noggett. It’s a very sturdy, British sort of name.’

  ‘Yeah, but, Sidney, I don’t want to be unkind, but it doesn’t exactly shriek class, does it? I mean, if it was the Noggett Silver Arrow or something like that –’

  ‘I know!’ shrieks Sidney. ‘The Noggett Nuggett!’

  Diabolical, isn’t it? But what can you do? After all, it is his money.

  ‘Well, it’s a thought,’ I say, reckoning on trying to talk him out of i
t later. ‘When am I going to see it?’

  ‘Right now, if you like,’ says Sidney. ‘I’ll see if Mr. Ishowi is in his room.’

  ‘Oh, he’s here, is he?’

  ‘Yes, didn’t I tell you? He’s showing a couple of his nieces some of his old haunts. Apparently there was a jungle training centre near here during the war when he used to help out.’

  While I digest this information, Sid pops off to see if he can locate Mr. Ishowi. I feel considerably relieved now I know we are dealing with a Japanese product. I mean, like Sidney says, they are so reliable and efficient, the Japs. And there is no doubt about the advanced technology of the products they make.

  I suppose it is stupid of me but I am expecting Mr. Ishowi to be wearing some kind of robe with a broad sash at the waist, and his hair in a pigtail. In fact he is small, which is no surprise, and wearing a lightweight suit with a tie almost as wide as he is, two-tone co-respondent shoes and a fat cigar.

  ‘Mr. Ishowi,’ says Sidney respectfully, ‘I’d like you to meet my Sales Manager, Mr. Timothy Lea.’

  ‘Arseholes,’ says Mr. Ishowi.

  Well! That’s not nice, is it? I may not be everybody’s cup of tea but there is no need to behave like that.

  ‘What do you mean, “arseholes”,’ I say indignantly, ‘you can’t –’

  ‘“Ah so”,’ interjects Sidney hurriedly. ‘That’s what Mr. Ishowi said: come, come, Timothy. Surely you’ve heard the expression before?’

  Now I come to think about it, Sidney is right. I must try and stop being so sensitive.

  ‘Oh yes, of course—er, sorry,’ I stammer. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mr. Ishowi. Sidney has been telling me all about the Tepid Toilet.’

  ‘Klamikazi!’ hisses Sidney. ‘For Gawd’s sake get with it, Timmy.’

  But Mr. Ishowi does not seem at all disturbed by my clumsiness.

  ‘Very good. Very good product,’ he beams, flashing a set of gold-plated gnashers that look like the radiator grill of Lady Docker’s Rolls. ‘You sell a million, I become a very rich man.’ The thought obviously causes him great amusement and he punctuates bursts of laughter with karate chops against my forearm. These blows are by no means light ones and I become conscious that a strange glint comes into Mr. Ishowi’s eyes once he starts getting into his swing. Sidney steps forward hurriedly.