Confessions of a Travelling Salesman

by Timothy Lea

  As I lie there getting more and more worked up it occurs to me that nothing will be lost by nipping next door and asking for a hot water bottle, or a glass of water, or the telephone number of the local chinese laundry, or anything. Maybe I will be able to convert her to an appreciation of my own vastly superior charms, or maybe she will reckon that anything is better than nothing – I mean, it is a philosophy I have followed myself with considerable success.

  I am just swinging my feet off the bed when I hear Rita coming upstairs and the sound of Sid’s door opening. Immediately the bedsprings next door break into full squeak and Mrs. R. opens her door. As that opens so Sid’s closes and I hear Rita being asked what time she would like to be called in the morning. Rita reminds mum that she has already said, and mum goes back to bed again. I give it another five minutes and then, just as I am about to chance my arm again, I hear Sid’s door opening. This time the squeaking of the springs next door is very subdued and, at first, I do not think that Mrs. R. is getting out of bed. But she is. I hear Sidney yelp in terror as her door is suddenly thrown open.

  ‘Looking for something, Mr. Noggett?’ The voice is husky and has more promises in it than a Party Political Broadcast.

  ‘The bathroom, Mrs. Runcorn.’

  ‘That’s still on the landing.’

  ‘Oh yes. I must have turned the wrong way.’

  ‘Don’t do that, Mr. Noggett.’

  ‘No. No, I won’t. Good night, Mrs. Runcorn.’

  ‘Good night, Mr. Noggett. You know where I am if you need anything.’

  ‘Er—yes. Thank you.’

  Blimey! Sid must really have a dose of the hots for Miss Runcorn if he is going to turn down a cast iron certainty like mum. Just as well though. The sound of Sid bashing out Ravel’s Bolero on Mrs. R.’s bedsprings while I fretted next door would be enough to make me look round for a new hobby.

  I listen attentively but there are no more interesting noises and the next thing I hear is an alarm going off. The day of the Noggett Nugget launch has arrived.

  After breakfast Sid goes off to lead the girls on a major onslaught on the larger dealers and I find myself outside number fifty-eight Roberts Road. I choose fifty-eight because it is the last house in the street, it has just started to rain and I have to start somewhere.

  ‘Good morning,’ I say when the door opens, ‘I wonder if I could steal a few moments of your time. I’m conducting a survey into electrical appliances in the home and I would like to ask you a few questions about the products you own.’

  ‘You what?’ says the woman suspiciously. I repeat the question three times before she shakes her head. ‘My husband wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘But –’ No good. The door has been closed in my face.

  At the next house there is no answer yet I sense that there is someone at home. After prolonged jabs at the doorbell, I sink to my haunches and push open the letter box flap. Staring back at me are a pair of eyes. They are arranged side by side like yours or mine but I find the experience disconcerting. It is like a corpse winking at you. I jump back in surprise and when I next look the eyes have gone.

  ‘What are you frightened of?’ I shout through the letterbox. ‘I know you’re in there!’ A feeling that I am behaving in a slightly berk-like fashion is reinforced when I turn round to find the milkman looking down at me.

  ‘I thought I smelt burning,’ I say weakly.

  ‘I wish I could, lad. They’re boogers in there when it comes to paying for owt,’ he says. ‘I think they’ve dug a tunnel out to the back alley. That door hasn’t been opened since Armistice Day.’

  At the next house there is no answer and at the next a small child tells me that Uncle Jack is helping mummy with the plumbing and that she can’t come. The noises in the background tend to disprove this statement but I don’t say anything. You can’t really, can you?

  It occurs to me that I have made four calls and not got my Nugget out of its reinforced cardboard box. A slight feeling of panic begins to grip me. At this rate we will not be able to afford the price of Mrs. Runcorn’s coal cellar. I quicken my step towards the next call and decide to change my tactics.

  The house in question has been knocked about a bit and boasts a very big sitting-room window of almost shop-like proportions. An obvious challenge for the Nugget in its role as window cleaner extraordinary. I will forget about the phoney appliance survey lead-in and go straight for the U.S.P. (Unique Selling Proposition, what else?).

  ‘Good morning, madam miss,’ I say tumbling the words after each other to prevent interruption. ‘I was walking down the street and my eye was immediately taken by your house. Remarkable architecture. Very elegant, stands out like a sore – like a beacon. Beautiful. All that light. Must be a boon. But – I can see you have a problem keeping those windows spotless. Now, it so happens that I have here the product that your house might have been built for – The Noggett Nugget. It’s not just a window cleaner. It’s a vacuum cleaner, floor polisher, carpet shampooer and – should you ever require it – it actually unblocks drains. Remarkable I am certain you will agree. “Ah, hah,” I can hear you saying, “but does it come from a reputable manufacturer?” The answer, most certainly is “yes”. Klamikazi has been a household word in Japan since time immoral and we all know the reputation the Japanese have for manufacturing skills, don’t we? I don’t want you to take my word for it. I would like you to have the opportunity of seeing this product in action for yourself. When you have done that I am certain that you will agree that you cannot afford to be without one.’

  ‘Come in,’ says the woman. She peers out into the street and as I turn round I see half a dozen curtains dropping back into place. ‘They’ve got minds like sewers around here,’ says my prospective customer. ‘Just because my husband is away a lot they reckon – you know – eh?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say hurriedly. She is wearing a frilly housecoat which makes her tits look like a couple of easter eggs in a presentation basket but I do not care about that at the moment. I need a sale. ‘Stores away anywhere,’ I say, tapping the carton. ‘When you see what’s inside this lot you wouldn’t believe that so much equipment could be tucked away in such a small space.’

  ‘O-o-oh!’ she says, ‘you’re whetting my appetite.’

  ‘Excellent,’ I say, ‘where would you—let’s go in here.’ I open the sitting room door and quickly start assembling, the Nugget. The packaging has got a bit rain-sodden and is beginning to fall apart but provided I keep talking everything should be alright. ‘I think that one of the things that is going to amaze you is the way everything is so easy to assemble,’ I say, casually unscrewing the drain cleaner which I have mistakenly connected to the suction nozzle. ‘I am certain you will agree too that the attractive grey colour is ideal in that it does not show up scuff marks and is restful to the eye, unlike the harsh blinding colours you can find on some other products.’

  ‘Do you want to take your jacket off?’ says the woman.

  ‘Thank you, madam. Now, there we are. Everything fixed up. That didn’t take long, did it?’

  ‘You’ve played a lot of sport in your time, haven’t you?’

  ‘Er, yes. I used to play a bit of soccer and rugby netball. Now let’s –’

  ‘I thought so. You’ve got an athlete’s body, haven’t you?’

  ‘If you say so, thanks. Now watch carefully. We’ll have a dry run first so you can get a feel of the action. What’s the matter?’

  ‘The things you say,’ she says, suppressing a contrived giggle. ‘You should listen to yourself. A girl could get the wrong idea about what you were trying to sell.’

  ‘Ho, ho,’ I say, ‘we don’t want that, do we? Now watch carefully.’ It has occurred to me, rather late in the day, that I have never seen the window cleaning feature demonstrated, and I am going by what I remember reading in the product leaflet. Since this was written in Japanese my knowledge is a bit sketchy.

  ‘Could I buy one of these on the never never?’
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  ‘Oh, I’m certain we could arrange very advantageous Hire Purchase terms.’

  ‘Would you come round and pick up the instalments?’

  ‘No,’ I say firmly, ‘I don’t think so.’

  This is the kind of bird you want to meet at about half past three when you have completed ten successful calls, not when you are still struggling for your first tickle.

  ‘You’ve got some muscles on you, haven’t you?’

  I am holding the Nugget against the sheet glass and she runs a finger over one of my biceps and pouts her lips at me.

  ‘You have a choice of either “up-down” or “circular” rhythm,’ I explain, clearing my throat. ‘We recommend that you start with the circular to spread the lather and then finish off with a spot of – and then change to the up-down control to finish off. It’s important not to use too much lather but I’ll show you that in a minute.’

  ‘Gr-e-e-at’ says the bird, ‘and it does so many other things, doesn’t it? I can almost afford to get rid of my husband.’

  ‘You’re going to need him to pay for it,’ I say jokily. ‘Now, here we go.’

  I flick the switch and POW! The end of the extension arm shoots out like Henry Cooper’s left jab and the pane shatters into a hundred fragments. Like all great tragedies, it takes a little time for a full realisation of what has happened to come home to me. Not so the neighbours. Curtains are being pulled back as if a giant gust of wind has blown down the street. Frilly tits looks from the shattered pane to the Nugget.

  ‘Does it mend windows?’ she says.

  It is nearly two o’clock by the time I have finished putting in a new pane of glass and I am not looking forward to my meeting with Sid which was arranged for an hour earlier. He is not going to be pleased when he hears that I have not sold a solitary Nugget and have run up a bill for five pounds at the local glazier’s. As it happens he has other things on his mind.

  ‘Typical,’ he says, when I meet him slumped over a cup of cha in the railway buffet, ‘blooming typical. Only somebody with my luck would pick a bloke who was taken prisoner in Singapore for his first call. You should have seen his face when he saw Happy Spirit.’

  ‘He didn’t like her, Sid?’

  ‘Didn’t like her? I wouldn’t have spoken to your mother like that. All she did was offer him a sunflower.’

  ‘It sounds a nice idea.’

  ‘I thought so, Timmo. A graceful expression of friendship. Better than giving him an ever-clean, plastic hanky for his breast pocket.’

  ‘Much better, Sidney.’

  ‘And then he has to go for her like that.’

  ‘Very unnecessary.’

  ‘I thought so. I had every sympathy with the girl.’

  ‘Yes, Sid.’

  ‘I mean, I would have acted like that myself if I had been her.’

  ‘Like what, Sid?’

  ‘She threw him over the colour television sets.’

  ‘Oh dear. So there was a bit of trouble, was there?’

  ‘You could put it like that, Timmo. The rest of the girls were outside ready to march in singing the Nugget Jingle and –’

  ‘Wait a minute, Sid. “The Nugget Jingle”?’

  ‘Yes. Didn’t I tell you about that? I thought we needed a theme song that would help bridge the gap between Britain and Japan and put over what the Nugget is all about. It will be very good if we ever get on telly, too.’

  ‘Who wrote it, Sid?’

  ‘Well, I did actually.’ And to the tune of Rule Britannia, Sidney sings:

  ‘Buy a Nugget,

  It really does the job,

  It scours and cleans and sucks

  and blows,

  While the kettle’s on the hob.’

  It is a few moments before I can say anything.

  ‘That’s it, is it?’

  ‘That’s the first verse.’ Sidney studies my face. ‘It’s not easy to find something to rhyme with “job”.’

  ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘I think the bit about the kettle makes it homely. I think women will like that.’

  ‘They should do, Sidney. It’s certainly got a very patriotic melody.’

  ‘I’m glad you noticed that. The second verse isn’t quite as good:

  If it’s dirty

  Or merely slightly soiled –’

  ‘Yes, yes, Sidney,’ I say hurriedly, ‘but what happened about the dealer?’

  ‘Oh yes. Well, the girls got a bit teuchy when the bloke told Happy Spirit what she could do with her sunflower and there was a bit of unpleasantness.’

  ‘Oh dear. Nothing serious I hope?’

  ‘Not too bad. The police soon got it under control – once the second van load had arrived, that is.’

  ‘Took a bit of stopping, did it?’

  ‘Just a little. I thought the fire hoses were unnecessary myself but I suppose you can’t blame people for not taking chances.’

  ‘Girls alright, are they?’

  ‘Ours are. One or two of the assistants had minor sprains and that kind of thing. None of them were detained.’

  ‘Oh good. So it was nothing too serious?’

  ‘We’ll know after the hearing tomorrow.’

  ‘The hearing?!’

  ‘About eleven o’clock, the bloke thought they would be on.’

  ‘“They”? You mean the Daughters of the Cherry Blossom?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Arrested?!’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And you haven’t sold anything either?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Oh, my gawd!’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  With the Nippons in the nick, Sid comes out on the road in the afternoon and by close of play we have sold one Nugget between us.

  ‘At this rate, Sid,’ I tell him on the way back to Canal Street, ‘it’s going to take us fifty-four years to sell the other nineteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine, and I don’t fancy myself as a seventy-six year old cleaner salesman.’

  ‘I don’t fancy you as a twenty-two year old ponce,’ snarls Sidney, who is smarting because it was me who sold the cleaner, ‘now belt up!’

  Luckily Mrs. Runcorn is a warm, worldly Sid-crazed woman, who knows how to distribute tea and sympathy and she soon diagnoses our problem.

  ‘Had a bad day, did you, boys?’ she says. ‘Never mind. They call this place the salesman’s graveyard. I’ve seen grown men sobbing their hearts out in front of the telly.’

  ‘That’s not what you –’ I begin.

  ‘Shut up,’ says Sid.

  ‘Exactly what line of business are you in?’ inquires Mrs. R.

  ‘Cleaners. The Noggett Nugget,’ I say, ‘named after him.’

  ‘Ooh, really! I should be honoured then. It’s funny you should be selling cleaners. I was only saying to Rita yesterday that we needed a new one. Yours is good, is it?’

  I look at Sidney and Sidney looks at me. ‘It’s Japanese,’ he says eventually, ‘a multi-purpose machine. It does a lot of things.’

  ‘A lot of things,’ I echo.

  ‘I might be interested in one of those,’ says Mrs. R. brightly. ‘Can I see one?’

  I get out the demonstration model which is looking a bit the worse for wear after all the lugging about it has had to endure and plug it in. I am taking no chances and have not connected up any of the fancy features.

  ‘It’s a good little vacuum cleaner,’ I say. ‘Watch.’

  But unfortunately Mrs. Runcorn cannot watch. When I press the switch there is a blinding flash and all the lights go out. Not only the lights in the house but in the house next door and outside in the street. When we feel our way to a window we find that the whole street is in darkness.

  ‘It must have got wet,’ I say weakly.

  ‘If the bleeding Japs had had that thing in the war, it would have taken more than Errol Flynn to save us,’ says Sid. ‘By the cringe, but I’m right up to here with it.’

  ‘Never mind boys,�
�� says Mrs. R. good-naturedly, ‘I’ve got some candles. We’ll phone up the electricity board. They’ll soon have it on again.’

  But they don’t soon have it on again and when Rita comes home the four of us eat our supper by candlelight. Very romantic it is too with the soft glow of the candles almost matching the gleam that comes into Sidney’s eyes every time he looks at Rita. She seems to be responding and as the evening progresses I reckon that Sid could take his pick of mum or daughter. Would that I could consider myself so lucky but for once in my life – well, not once, say about three hundred times – neither bird seems to respond to my animal magnetism. Strange, isn’t it? Watch it! I heard that.

  Without the telly there is very little else for the four of us to do on such a slender acquaintance and around half past nine we take our candles and retire to bed. Depressed by the events of the day I am badly in need of a spot of nooky to cheer me up, but my chances of getting it seem fainter than Lord Longford being arrested for sniffing little girls’ bicycle seats.

  In such circumstances, the native cunning of the Leas comes to the foreskin and I assemble a master plan to ensure myself a fifty percent share of the flesh-fodder available. It is unlikely that either of the ladies will keep their candles alight for long after retiring and this fact can easily be checked by peeping through their keyholes. Sidney is lusting for Rita and will direct his person in that direction whilst Mrs. R. will be waiting for any sound of movement so that she can leap out and snaffle him for herself or, at least, play the bitch in the manger and stop him getting to Rita. If I can arrive outside Sidney’s room without being heard and then make sufficient noise to arouse Mrs. R., it is likely that she will bustle out without lighting her candle and surrender to my arms in the belief that I am Sidney. It is worth a try anyway. In my present mood anything short of a chloroform pad is worth a try.