types always bring out the peasant in me. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s a vibrator,’ she says. ‘They use them a lot in the German clinics.’ That’s news to me but I don’t say anything. ‘Excellent for winkling out the wrinkles on your dorsals.’ Well, it takes all sorts, doesn’t it?
‘How does it work?’
She presses a button in the side of the thing and all three surfaces start shuddering and shaking in different directions.
‘To gain maximum benefit you should take a hot bath and lie on it in the nude.’
The way some of the moving parts are nearly smacking against each other makes me think that if you did not watch your angle of dangle you could have a nasty accident.
‘Would you like to try it?’ Miss Stokely’s eyes are leaning on my crutch again. ‘It’s safer if you lie on something.’ She looks me straight in the mince pies and lowers her eyelids fractionally and for the life of me I don’t think she is referring to a thick bath towel.
Unfortunately I never have the chance to find out because I hear the sound of a couple of large red hands being rubbed together and Carboy stalks into the room.
‘Well, if it isn’t Timothy Lea,’ he says. ‘And if it isn’t, so much the better. No good looking longingly at that, Lea. You’ll have to wait a few years before you’re eligible for a spot of Egyptian P.T. on that little number.’ This just shows how wrong he can be but I don’t know that ’til later.
I have been looking forward to getting back to the smoke for my HomeClean interview and it is a bit of a disappointment to find that I have to report to one of those places which is so far out on the tube that you can never remember having heard of the station before. Down Railway Cuttings and through the industrial estate and I am face to face with a man in a peaked cap who looks as if he showed people round concentration camps while they were still in operation. When I tell him why I am there his lip curls contemptuously and he is on the point of directing me to the Sales Office when a large lorry pulls up outside the gate house.
‘Got another load of SM 42’s, mate,’ sings out the driver, ‘where do you want ’em?’ The bloke on the gate shoots me a worried glance and I imagine that this must be the code number of some new product. Very exciting, isn’t it? Oh well, maybe you should have bought an Alistair McLean?
I pad round to the reception at Home Sales, and the bird there is peeling faster than the walls. She must have been on a walking tour of the Sahara Desert and left her suntan cream at home. It is surprising at a place called HomeClean that the reception area should look like a rest home for spiders; not a bit like the flash interior of Funfrall Enterprises. Still, when you think what a load of conmen they were, maybe this is a good thing.
‘We’re running rather behind schedule,’ says the receptionist coldly. ‘If you take a seat over there I’ll call you when Mr. Snooks is free.’ I am not very happy about Mr. Snooks and when I eventually see him my fears are justified. He has very thick rimless glasses, a green bow tie and a haircut that would make a gooseberry feel like screaming Lord Sutch.
‘Sit down quickly,’ he says. At least, that is what I think he says. I leap into a chair before it occurs to me that he might have said ‘Quigley’. Snooks is obviously surprised by the speed at which I have moved, especially as it has succeeded in knocking his vase of artificial flowers all over his blotter. This would not be so bad except that the vase has real water in it.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I thought you said “Quickly”.’
‘Said what quickly?’
‘Said that I was to sit down quickly.’
Snooks looks at me blankly. ‘I said “sit down, Quigley”.’
‘Yes, I realise that now. Sorry about your blotter. Can I do anything? I’ve got a hankie here.’ Snooks looks at me warily.
‘No, no. It doesn’t matter. Sit down Quig – just sit down. Now tell me, what first –’
I feel I have to put the poor bastard right.
‘The name is Lea,’ I say, ‘not Quigley, Lea.’ Snooks looks as if he could kill me.
‘Why didn’t you say that in the first place?’
‘Because I thought you said “quickly”. You see, if my name was Quigley I wouldn’t have thought you said “quickly”. Being Lea it is easier to confuse –’ Do you ever get that feeling that nothing you can do or say is going to make a person think of you as being less than a complete berk even though you are totally in the right? A glance into Snooks’ mush tells me that I am in that situation now. My voice fades away and I try a nervous smile. Snooks does not seem to like that either.
‘As I was trying to say,’ he continues, ‘looking at your record I see that you have done a number of jobs, none of them directly associated with selling. What is it that has suddenly made you decide to become a salesman?’ I am ready for that one.
‘All my jobs have brought me into contact with people, and —’ I try one of those little smiles that Snooks does not seem to like – ‘I’ve found that when it is necessary to persuade them to do something, I have been quite good at it.’ Snooks looks at me as if he reckons I could not persuade him to pour a bucket of water over himself if he was on fire.
‘Getting on with people is a very important part of the job,’ he says, mopping his blotter, ‘but there is more to it than that. You have to inspire confidence with your appearance,’ he winces at the length of my hair, ‘know your products backwards, and to enthuse your customers with their performance.’ I nod as if every word he has said is already engraved on my heart. ‘What makes you want to join HomeClean?’
‘Because of your reputation,’ I grovel. ‘I know that you are an organisation which prides itself on the strength of its selling operation and I wanted to join the best.’
‘And our products,’ Snooks sucks in a mouthful of air. ‘The finest on the market – a complete range of domestic appliances, made to the highest specifications by British Craftsmen.’
‘All made in Britain, are they?’ I say, because I remember that Mum’s HomeClean toaster had ‘Made in Italy’ on the side of it. They must like their toast well done over there because I never saw a bit come out of it that was not like thin charcoal.
Snooks clears his throat. ‘Virtually all,’ he says. ‘We do import one or two items from the Continent and our Commonwealth affiliates.’
‘Hong Kong?’ I say, brightly. Snooks winces.
‘Australia,’ he says. ‘Haven’t you heard of the Kangiwash?’ I nod deceitfully. ‘Our record of new product development is second to none,’ he continues, proudly. ‘Our new vacuum cleaner is sweeping all before it.’ He pauses for me to enjoy the joke.
‘Oh, yes,’ I say eagerly. ‘And then there are your SM 42’s.’ I reckon that repeating this bit of information I picked up at the gate is going to show what a switched on bloke I am but Snooks’ face registers horror.
‘SM 42’s?’
I nod brightly.
‘You know about the SM 42’s?’ There is a hint of fear in his voice.
I am just about to tell him how I know when a thought stops me. My interview so far has not been one of the all time greats and Snooks seems to get an attack of the vapours every time I mention the words SM 42. Maybe I can turn these simple letters and numerals to my advantage.
‘I know,’ I say, leaning forward and fixing him with a steely eye. ‘And I very much want to join your training scheme.’
Snooks thumbs through the papers on his desk nervously,
‘Acceptance for the scheme is no guarantee of employment,’ he says. ‘You have to satisfy our instructors at Knuttley Hall and spend a period in