Timothy Lea - Confessions of a Travelling Salesman

‘And what did they do, dad?’

‘Bugger all, Timmy. They said they’d had a number of complaints about this model and were referring them back to the makers. Blooming nice, isn’t it? I’m having to ponce about in your mother’s smalls while the bloody Wonder Washer is sitting there loaded to the gills. I look pretty closely before I cross the road I can tell you. Get run over in this lot and –’

But I have tuned out dad’s voice. ‘Wonder Washer’. The name is not unknown to me. A big advertising campaign has been running featuring the machine and a bunch of birds dressed up in see-through nighties. They feed the Wonder Washer clothes in the middle of a Greek Temple. It all seemed a bit barmy to me but maybe women like it.

‘Who made it, dad?’

‘Load of shysters called HomeClean Products. Blimey, but I wouldn’t half mind getting my hands on them. I’ve tried ringing them up but nobody answers the ’phone.’

‘Do you know what the number is, dad?’

‘Of course I do, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to ring them, would I? Don’t be stupid, Timmy.’

‘I mean the number of the machine, dad?’

‘Oh, that. FU 2, I should think. No, that’s one thing I haven’t looked for.’

But it doesn’t take me long to find out what the number is. I go through a pile of magazines in the lounge and there, underneath a headline saying “The Greeks did not have a word for washing so gentle, so fast”, is a picture of the Wonder Washer with two birds kneeling in front of it holding out clothes as if offering gifts. In very small lettering underneath the illustration it says SM 42 HB. I do not have to overtax my tiny mind to realise that HB stands for ‘House Beautiful’, the name of the magazine, and SM 42 is the number of the ill-fated washing machine, source of discomfort to both Snooks and my mum and dad. This information, it occurs to me, may well serve to grease my passage through the HomeClean Training Scheme should I be selected for it. (I ought to have phrased that better, but you know what I mean.)

Sure enough, a letter telling me to report to Knuttley Hall arrives a couple of days later and Sid tells me to forget about the rest of the interviews.

‘Frankly, Timmo,’ he says with a note of grudging admiration creeping into his voice, ‘I’m surprised you landed that one. They’re normally very fussy about who they take.’

I have not told Sid about the Wonder Washer, so I accept his cack-handed compliment without comment.

One person who does express interest in my impending departure is the lovely Miss Stokely. She comes up to me after supper on the evening before my departure and touches my forearm lightly.

‘I’m sorry to hear you’re leaving us,’ she says, tugging down her jumper so that her breasts swell forward in a more than friendly fashion. ‘We haven’t had much to do with each other, have we?’

‘No,’ I say, noticing how my voice becomes posher when I am talking to her. ‘I haven’t been in need of your services, have I? It’s a pity, because I would like to have had a go with your—er vibrator.’ Miss Stokely notices my discomfiture.

‘It is a name that causes some people embarrassment. I suppose one tends to think of it in another context?’ She stares into my face and I feel myself blushing. I really am a berk sometimes. ‘Oh, dear,’ she says. ‘I hope I haven’t shocked you?’

I don’t think she hopes anything of the sort. In fact I think she is trying to come the old soldier so she can establish some kind of female mastery over me. Some birds are like that. They try and reverse the roles so that they are doing all the masculine stuff – nudge, nudge, wink, wink – that kind of thing, while you are expected to fill in the gaps in the conversation. This is all very well until they suddenly holler ‘O.K. buster, you’re on’, and wait for the action. Some of them have had to wait a long time. I am an old fashioned boy at heart, and I like to feel that I am calling the shots.

‘I’m pretty unshockable, Miss Stokely,’ I say in a voice borrowed from an old Humphrey Bogart movie. ‘I turn pink every year about this time.’

‘I did promise you a go, didn’t I?’ purrs Miss S. ‘Do you want to take me up on it before you disappear? You’ll feel marvellously relaxed.’

‘I have to do it in the nude, don’t I?’

‘That’s the best way, but you can wear a dressing gown if you like. You must have a hot bath first. That’s the only stipulation.’

I am not sure I fancy a stipulation, but I decide not to let on about it.

‘I’ll come down to your—er, office, then.’

‘Yes. Give me half an hour, will you? I’ve got a bit of paper work to tie up.’

So I whip upstairs, have a bath and try and wash the boot polish stains off the cuff of my white towelling dressing gown. I make a lousy job of it but it does not matter because I hit on the bright idea of turning the whole thing inside out. I mean, raised seams are very fashionable these days, aren’t they?

‘Why have you got your dressing gown on inside out?’ says Miss Stokely when I present myself, pink and expectant, at her office.

‘Oh, so I have,’ I say, ‘how stupid of me. I snatched it off the peg without looking.’

It does not escape my notice that Miss Stokely herself is sporting a towelling robe not unlike those worn by judo experts. Maybe she plans to loosen me up with a few throws.

‘Are you going to have a go?’ I ask her.

‘I might well give myself ten minutes before turning in,’ she says. ‘It’s deliciously enervating. Now, if you’re ready, hop up on the couch and I’ll start you off.’

Considering that the bed is in three parts it is surprising how comfortable it is and I lie on my back trying to stop my dressing gown from falling open and look at Alma Stokely’s breasts nestling inside her robe. A very sexy lady, that, and she has me at her mercy.

‘All right? Are you ready? Now, relax completely.’ She presses a button and ripples start running through my body. I feel as if I am going down a bumpy roller coaster track without a carriage, or floating on wooden waves.

‘Relax!’ My hand is still protectively holding the front of my robe and Alma removes it. ‘Let it dangle,’ she orders, referring to my hand.

‘But –’ I can feel my dressing gown slipping open to reveal my action man kit.

‘It doesn’t matter. Relax.’

But I cannot relax. Something about the motion of the vibrator and Miss Stokely’s shapely presence is making Percy anything but relaxed. I send down a hand to tidy up but it is intercepted by Miss Stokely.

‘You’re finding it difficult, aren’t you?’ she says.

‘Yes,’ I gulp. ‘You’d better stop the thing. I don’t seem to be in the mood.’

Miss Stokely releases my hand but her fingers do not move towards the button. Instead I am conscious of them closing gently round the root of my problem.

‘Don’t worry,’ she murmurs. ‘This is by no means an unusual occurrence. It happens even with very old men.’ Gently, and in time with the movement of the bed she runs her fingers up and down my model lighthouse from its base to the flashing globe at the top. After a few moments of this treatment I feel like a Roman candle just before the blue touch paper burns away. My state of mind obviously communicates itself to Miss Stokely.

‘It doesn’t seem to be doing any good, does it?’ she says coyly.

‘It depends what you mean by good,’ I say. Her lips are lurking temptingly above mine and it occurs to me that this is the time for actions to take over from words. I slide my fingers gently inside her gown and feel the weight of her breasts in my hand like a grapefruit on a piece of elastic. She makes a contented noise which I smother with my friendly mouth and I slip my arm round her waist and pull her onto the bed. Luckily (intentionally?) it is big enough for two and we lie side by side pulling apart each other’s clothing like kids unwrapping Christmas presents.