Death of a Salesperson

by Robert Barnard

  The birth of her little boy was a great joy. He had a thick mop of black hair, even at birth, and as he grew up Jeremy, her Jeremy, used to say (how she wished he wouldn’t): ‘I don’t know where my lad got that thick black hair from, because we’re both so fair—and thin and sparse with it.’ Jeremy adored the determined little boy, and often said: ‘He’s not going to spend his life in boring old insurance. You can see he hasn’t the temperament for it.’

  The name of the other Jeremy Fortescue often came up. He married again, he was nominated for an Oscar, he was arrested for brawling and breaking up a bar in Scotland somewhere. He seemed, still, to carry danger around with him. And of course in the Fortescue home the name was something of a joke, as it always had been. It came up when Janice’s mother came to dinner with them, on their tenth wedding anniversary. She was a decidedly elderly lady now, and reminiscent, and after they had toasted the marriage and were waiting for the lady help (hired specially) to announce dinner, Janice’s mother said:

  ‘What a happy and successful marriage it has been! And to think I was so shocked when Janice told me about the engagement. What was it I called that other wretched Jeremy Fortescue? A fornicator, a child-molester and a drunkard!’

  ‘And a murderer,’ added Janice silently, hugging to herself her strong-willed, hairy child.

  SISTERS

  The light burned late that evening in Virginia McBride’s office on the sixth floor. The Humanities Building was set apart from the other blocks—from Administration, from Physics, from the Social Sciences. It was surrounded by walkways and casual trees and shrubs, as if the humanities were delicate plants, to be sheltered and cosseted. So the light could be seen from the rest of the University, a pilot beacon surrounded by pitch blackness. Not that anyone much was around to notice. People mostly went home at five at the University of Borrowdale, West Dakota. And the light in Virginia McBride’s office often burned late.

  Virginia drew a firm line under the last words she had written, and screwed a half-smoked cigarette to extinction in her already overflowing ashtray. Finished. Ready for delivery tomorrow, at the Conference. Virginia liked giving reports to large assemblies, liked hearing her clear, forceful, indignant voice ringing round a hall, liked seeing the rows on rows of passionate female faces gazing up at her. The Ninth National Delegate Conference on Women’s History, to be held in Chicago, would be the high-spot of her year, the largest, most prestigious assembly she would address.

  The discovery of Women’s History had been a godsend to Virginia. Till then she had toiled in the doldrums of trade statistics from nineteenth-century Boston, though in the ’sixties she had dabbled in Black Studies and even taught a couple of courses, faute de nègres. But this was something much more exciting. Here was a whole new area—half the population ignored by historians, slighted by contemporary chroniclers—and one in which she suffered none of the humiliating disabilities which compromised her usefulness in the field of Black Studies. So untapped was this field, so sparse the information on even quite important aspects of it, that it left infinite room for conjecture, wild assertion, unbridled indignation.

  Virginia thrived on indignation. She organized it. She got together little groups, merged them into larger groups, and orchestrated their indignations. Feminism was essentially, for her, a Trade Union of professional women advancing their own and each other’s careers. She got scholarships and grants for her friends and disciples, and they got Visiting Professorships and distinguished guest lecturing spots for her.

  Luckily the kids had left home early. The youngest, Alexander, had been shipped back East to his father after that unfortunate letter to the local paper. Then she’d been alone, free to pursue her professional career, free to pursue the various causes that made demands on her leisure time—the Pressure for Equal Standing group, for example, which had among other worthy trail-blazing enterprises brought such effective pressure to bear on the local symphony orchestra to give equal time to women composers that they had revolutionized its concert programme, and emptied the concert hall. Virginia, hating to be closed in, opened the window of her office and gazed out over the campus, her church and her battleground, with a grim smile on her face. Yes, life was full for Virginia.

  • • •

  The light burned late, too, in the secretaries’ office on the other side of the Humanities Building. Susan Cox sat behind a spectacularly clean desk and talked into the phone.

  ‘What am I doing? Twiddling my thumbs, that’s what I’m doing. My desk is so hygienic you could eat off it. All I’m doing is sitting around waiting for this report that’s got to be typed . . . Yes, I’ll see you at eight-thirty. Nothing’s going to keep me away. I’m really looking forward to the party afterwards—great that it’s Saturday tomorrow . . . Just get Madam Associate Professor McBride’s report typed and I’ll be off home to change . . . Hey, I think that’s her.’

  And she banged down the phone and sat by her pristine desk, the typewriter uncovered, ready for action.

  Virginia McBride came swinging into the room, all sensible suit and sensible shoes, all short hair-do and thick-rimmed glasses. Well preserved she was, like a pickled damson. Could easily be a no-nonsense thirty-five, though in fact she was ten years older than that.

  ‘Here it is,’ she said, slapping a sheaf of papers down on the desk. ‘I’ll pick it up for proof-reading in an hour.’

  Susan picked up the sheaf and cleared her throat at the departing square-set back.

  ‘Er, Professor McBride . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m afraid I shan’t be able to get this finished tonight.’ Virginia swung round, but Susan held her ground, leafing through the wodge of paper. ‘There must be fifteen pages or more to type here. I have to be gone by seven-thirty—seven forty-five at the very latest. Of course I’ll do as much as I can.’

  Virginia McBride looked at her steadily.

  ‘I don’t think you quite understand the position, Miss Cox,’ she said, her voice slightly raised, as if talking to a backward child. ‘Professor Lindgren must have explained to you that someone had to be here this evening to type my report for Chicago.’

  ‘Professor Lindgren asked one of us to stay back to type it. All the others said no. I said I’d stay till seven-thirty. I have plans for the rest of the evening.’

  ‘Then I’m afraid you’ll just have to revise your plans.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, Professor McBride.’

  Virginia McBride came back towards the desk and bared her teeth in an alligator smile.

  ‘You need this job, don’t you, Susan?’

  Susan Cox flinched at the Christian name. Christian names always went with threats for Virginia McBride. But, oh yes, in her position she needed the job. And Virginia McBride had Professor Lindgren well and truly under her thumb.

  ‘I like it here,’ said Susan cautiously.

  ‘Well then,’ said Virginia, the smile widening still more ferociously. ‘I suggest you get down to that report.’

  ‘Professor McBride, I have a date at eight-thirty.’

  ‘Then you’ll just have to cancel it, won’t you, Susan?’

  • • •

  Virginia McBride closed the door of the secretaries’ office firmly behind her and marched down the corridor. Susan Cox had already been put completely out of her mind. It was Virginia’s great strength that she could concentrate totally on the matter in hand, ignore side issues. There was to be an evening meeting tomorrow in Chicago after the main session—an exclusive, ticket-only, gin-and-tonic affair where many of her ex-students, colleagues and professional cronies would be getting together for self-help and mutual congratulation. They would certainly expect a little impromptu address from her. Something inspirational.

  ‘The history of women which we here are beginning to write,’ she improvised to herself, ‘is one of suppression, of a domination authorized by State and Church, and more terrible in its effects than any of the right- and left-wi
ng tyrannies we have known in our lifetime. The denial to women of an independent existence, the untrammelled assertion of male authority, the suppression of all feelings of sisterhood in that half of the pop—’

  She clicked her tongue with annoyance. The cleaner had gone into her room and was busy with bucket and mop.

  ‘I’m afraid I’m still working here,’ she said, walking in over the wet floor.

  ‘Won’t be a minute,’ said Mrs Makowski, mopping up.

  ‘I’m sorry, you’ll have to come back later,’ said Virginia, sitting down at her desk and opening up a new packet of cigarettes.

  ‘This is the last office on the sixth,’ said Mrs Makowski, her hands on her sturdy peasant hips. ‘If I go down to the fifth this one won’t be cleaned till Monday night.’

  ‘I shall most certainly expect to find it clean when I get in Monday morning,’ said Virginia, calmly settling down to make some notes for her impromptu address. ‘If it weren’t, I would naturally send a note to Administration. It’s up to you, isn’t it?’

  Mrs Makowski bit her lips, as if sewing them together to prevent words escaping, but she went out into the corridor.

  • • •

  ‘Darling, I know. Do you think I’m not mad too? But so long as I want this job that bitch has the upper hand.’

  Susan wondered whether her boyfriend would propose on the spot: would say ‘Chuck up the job and marry me.’ She was a divorcee of twenty-eight, living with her mother and a daughter of three. Life wasn’t easy. If he proposed, would she accept? Simon was an artist. He had a gallery showing tonight and a party afterwards. She’d been looking forward to it for weeks. And quite apart from that, she’d be letting him down.

  Simon did not propose.

  ‘Look, I’ll be there for the party,’ Susan said, relying on her power to soothe him down once she was there. ‘The quicker I’m through with this, the sooner I get there.’

  She put down the receiver and went back to her manuscript. Virginia’s writing was a mess. What was this? ‘Women are beginning to seige—’ no—‘seize the opportunities . . .’

  Some women, thought Susan bitterly.

  • • •

  Virginia McBride went down to the Common Room on the fifth floor to make herself a cup of coffee. Luckily the kettle was on and steaming, so she poured it over the instant coffee in her cup and sat at one of the tables skimming through the local paper. She had stopped taking it since her son had written that protest letter about how children were used as unpaid domestic slaves. Another of the cleaners came in, Mrs O’Hare, a fat old thing with a foul Irish temper. She took the lid off the kettle and peered inside.

  ‘Here, that was for my cup of tea,’ she said.

  ‘Plenty more water in the tap,’ said Virginia, and she crumpled up the paper and went along to the office.

  ‘I’ll proof-read what you’ve done,’ she said, taking up the crisp white sheets. ‘That will save time and suit us both, won’t it, Susan?’

  She showed her fillings again and sat informally on a table. Susan Cox went on typing. My God, what a slave-driver, she thought. No wonder your bloody children fled the nest. If that letter in the paper was anything to go by, they were nothing but unpaid labour. More like the cotton plantations of old Virginia than a home.

  ‘Well, the first page will have to be done again, for a start,’ said Virginia, coolly swinging her heels as she read on.

  Susan typed a whole line in capitals.

  • • •

  At a quarter to nine it was at last finished. Virginia took her script up to her room, closed the window, put her coat around her shoulders, locked her office door and marched along the grey linoleumed corridor floor. Home, bath, straight to bed, with the alarm to wake her at three. What a time to catch a plane! Still, Virginia prided herself on her ability to keep up with a demanding schedule. A Professional Woman had to be able to, in this day and age. She walked towards the stairs, then changed her mind and went to the lift. It was an awful lift. Virginia hated enclosed spaces of any kind, and if someone pressed the button for this one just before it got to the third floor it jammed. In the daytime she would never take it, but luckily it was evening, and nobody much was about. It would save a few minutes. Virginia walked into the lift.

  • • •

  Mrs Makowski and Mrs O’Hare stood jawing by the lift as Susan Cox came out of the office and locked it.

  ‘Through at last?’ they asked sympathetically. ‘She ought to be skinned alive, that one.’

  ‘I’ve missed the showing,’ said Susan miserably. ‘My boyfriend had a showing of his pictures, and I’ve missed it. The party doesn’t start till ten. I suppose I’ll just go home and put my glad rags on. I feel like death.’

  The lift light showed at the sixth floor, and the machinery began making little coughing noises, preparatory to starting. As it descended, Virginia McBride saw through the slit in the door the three women around the lift shaft, and they saw her. On an impulse Mrs O’Hare strode forward and, judging her moment precisely, pressed the button just as the lift was approaching the third floor. They heard it stop suddenly with a jerk.

  ‘Oh my God!’ said Susan. ‘You shouldn’t have done that. She gets claustrophobia.’

  ‘I know,’ said Mrs O’Hare.

  Little stuttering noises came from the lift shaft.

  ‘She’s pressing the emergency button,’ said Mrs Makowski.

  ‘She treats me like dirt,’ said Susan from nothing. ‘And I am not dirt.’

  ‘We’re none of us her dirt,’ said Mrs O’Hare. ‘The caretaker’s off sick until Monday.’

  ‘She’ll get hysterical,’ said Susan. ‘She always does, even if the building’s full of people.’

  To confirm her words, shouting started coming from the shaft.

  ‘It’s that claustrophobia thing,’ said Mrs O’Hare, nodding her head grimly.

  There came another shout, and another, then suddenly a howl, half human, grotesque, followed by another till it became continuous. The little shaft echoed with cries and sobs and moans, rising to a hideous intensity.

  ‘Did you say till Monday?’ asked Mrs Makowski.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mrs O’Hare. ‘It’s his arthritis. We’re the last ones in the building.’

  They stood around, the little group of women, listening to the animal sounds of terror and outrage coming from the lift shaft.

  ‘I could do with a cup of tea,’ said Mrs Makowski.

  ‘Tea?’ said Susan. ‘That’s an awfully typical women’s drink, don’t you think? I could do with something stronger.’

  ‘She keeps a bottle of bourbon in her room,’ said Mrs Makowski.

  ‘Kept,’ said Susan.

  ‘Come on, sisters,’ said Mrs Makowski, waving her skeleton key. ‘Let’s go have us a slug.’

  THE INJURED PARTY

  Derek Mattingley was unsure of the appropriate behaviour for a man whose ex-wife has just died. No doubt one of the with-it etiquette books had a section on it. Luckily mourning itself has practically passed away, so delicate questions of full or half-mourning did not present themselves. A sober suit was all that could be expected, and as a Lloyd’s broker Derek wore a sober suit every day of his life. Similarly with his behaviour, which in working hours was habitually tinged with gravity, so that he had no difficulty in shaking his head sadly when anyone brought the subject up, or in offering remarks like: ‘It’s Gavin I feel sorry for: only two years married.’ With closer friends he ventured: ‘I often wondered whether she was entirely well when she was married to me.’ Then he would dismiss the matter with another shake of the head: ‘It’s a sad business.’

  Inwardly, of course, he was over the moon with delight.

  He had been married to Anne-Marie for seven years. She had cooked well, both for him and for the little dinner-parties which Derek rather went in for. She had looked decorative at the cocktail-parties they regularly threw, had turned eyes in the stalls at Covent Garden, or at Chiche
ster, where they sometimes drove to take in a play at festival time. Sometimes on holiday—Sardinia, as often as not, or the dear old South of France, which Derek always said you still couldn’t beat—she had looked perfectly stunning. Derek regarded her as an undoubted asset.

  Which had made her announcement that she was leaving him such a hideous blow. It was all so damned unexpected. She had said she was just an adjunct to his business career. Well, why hadn’t she complained before? And why had she made no bones about living off the proceeds of that business career? She said he had no interest in her as a person. Good heavens, what nonsense! He’d married her, hadn’t he? How could she say he wasn’t interested in her as a person?

  But the worst was to come.

  ‘Doesn’t it mean anything,’ he had demanded, ‘that we’ve had seven years together, day and night?’

  ‘Are you referring to bed?’ she had asked. ‘Well, there was never much of interest in that department, was there?’

  They were words from which Derek Mattingley flinched, as if struck. What had been wrong with their sex? It had seemed perfectly all right to him. What had she been expecting that he hadn’t given her? And where had she formed her standards of comparison?

  Part of the answer to that last question soon became obvious. She was leaving him, she said, for Gavin Hobhouse.

  Derek really had to sit down and think who Gavin Hobhouse was. He barely knew the man, though it was true he had been to dinner. That was when Derek had thought he might be useful in the matter of National and Regional shares, but he hadn’t responded to his prompting—in fact, he had hardly said a word all evening.