2.seven

“Now you try it.”

   Phil Kennedy thrusts the shoulder bag towards me and I take it.

   “Can you show me just one more time?” I ask, realising that Phil Kennedy and I will never be friends.

   “No,” says Phil. “It’s your turn to pitch me.”

   Apparently I need retraining and it’s even more soul destroying than doing it for real. He takes a few steps back in the crowded meeting room at Chariot and looks at me with fake enthusiasm. I hold the big bag of crap compact discs and take a tentative step forward.

   “Good morning,” I say with the dodgy smile I smile when I don’t have a genuine smile on me.

   “Good morning,” replies Phil, doing a strange twisting movement with his hands.

   “Sorry,” I say, “but why are you pretending to wring a chicken’s neck?”

   “I’m not,” says Phil, “I’m cleaning a pint glass. We’re in an East End boozer.”

   “Right,” I say. “I’m from a company called Chariot.”

   “Who?”

   “Chariot. We’re a marketing company and we’re doing a promotion in the area today.”

   “Get out of my pub.”

   “Righto.”

   “No, no,no…” sighs Phil Kennedy. “Remember what I said about turning negatives?”

   “…Yessss…”

   “No you don’t,” says Phil as he scratches his head. He’s right, I don’t. I silently ask myself for the hundred millionth time what the hell I think I’m doing working for a Direct Sales Company.

   “Look,” I say. “I’m sure I’ll be fine once we’re out on the street again–”

   “It’s field,” says Phil. “Not street.”

   “Well, whatever,” I say impatiently, “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

   “Don’t say I didn’t try to educate you,” says Phil Kennedy, wagging his finger at me.

   “I won’t Phil,” I say. Knob.

   “GOOD MORNING BOYS AND GIRLS!” shouts Pat Burridge suddenly from the centre of the meeting room. The forty-strong gathering of sales people immediately whips into a frenzy and assembles itself in a crowd before him. I get wedged between Habib and Selena as Pat Burridge strides back and forth like a television evangelist.

   “JUICY!” yells Pat Burridge. “What I want to talk about is attitude. Now that’s a word that in my dictionary is spelt with a capital A and ends with a kick up the arse. Juicy?”

   “JUICY!” everyone yells back. I mime it.

   “Attitude is what’s going to make sales at the end of the day. And what do sales make?”

   He suddenly points directly at my face. I swallow, “Prizes?”

   “MONEY!” yells Pat Burridge and holds his hands up.

   “MONEY!” yells everyone else. I mime it.

   “Juicy,” says Pat Burridge. “Because when you’re in the field, nine out of ten people you pitch are going to be negative. But every one in ten is going to be a positive. And that’s a scientifically proven law of averages. Juicy?”

   “JUICY!” yells everyone. I’m up to a whisper.

   “Now, I’m going to demonstrate, by way of a little role playing, how you can turn those negatives.”

   Ohh, not again…

   “So, I need two faces. Habib and you.”

   He nods at me and I follow Habib into the centre of the room.

   “Right,” says Pat Burridge, “you be a negative and Habib will demonstrate how easy it is to turn you into a positive.”

   Habib gets his merchandise bag and approaches me.

   “Good morning,” he says, flashing the ivories.

   “Morning,” I say lazily.

   “I’m from a company called Chariot.”

   “Are you selling stuff?”

   ”Well, we are doing a one-off promotion in the area today–”

   “So, you’re selling stuff.”

   “Yes, but–”

   “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY SHOP BEFORE I CUT YOUR NUTS OFF AND TURN THEM INTO CUFFLINKS YOU LOW LIFE PIECE OF SHIT.”

   Habib stops in his tracks, stunned by my negative response. The room is silent. Pat Burridge is looking around his nose at me. I turn to face the crowd and support from my pal Phil Kennedy but he simply stands there with a hand over his face.

   “Juicy?” I say.

   Apparently not.

2.six

“Murray isn’t seeing Dustbin Tits anymore,” I say, easing my aching feet into a bowl of cold water.

   “Really?” says Roper, hovering over the armchair with one hand between his legs. “Probably for the best.”

   I watch him from the comfort of my sofa, “What are you doing?”

   “Just making sure the gusset of my pants isn’t caught or wrapped around anything before I sit down,” he replies and drops slowly back into the seat. “That’s why I never go to the pictures.”

   “I’ve been to the pictures with you,” I say, drinking some red. “We saw Sirens together.”

   “Yeh,” says Roper, “but I went commando.”

   “Oh.”

   “Anyway,” he says, spreading his legs, “you can talk.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “Sitting there with your feet submerged in water.”

   “I’m none the wiser.”

   “I could never do that,” he sniffs, leaning forward to pick up his beer. “That’s why you’ve never seen me in the bath.”

   “Why would I have ever seen you in the bath?”

   “If my feet submerge in water they start to ache between the toes. Who knows what I would have done in the bad old days before showers.”

   “Peed on them, I expect.”

   Roper considers this, “Possibly…”

   I sigh and we drink in silence.

   “So how’s the new career going?” asks Roper after a couple of moments.

   “It isn’t,” I groan. “I honestly don’t know why I’m still doing it. It’s more soul destroying than a conversation with you.”

   “Commission only, eh?” Roper gives a sharp intake of breath. “How are you surviving on that?”

   “I’m not. I’m currently picking off the bones of my redundancy package.”

   “Pack it in, I would,” says Roper firmly.

   As if I’d take advice from him.

   “I’m going to give it another week. If I don’t start making some serious dough, then it’s down the road.”

   “That’s what I like to hear,” says Roper heartily and raising his glass. “Decisive action.”

   “Oh, shut up Roper. What would you know about decisive action?”

   “Well…”

   “Have you finished with Gussie yet?”

   “Well, no…”

   “Are you going to finish with her?”

   “I…it’s in the timing…”

   “So shut up.”

   This sales job is making me incredibly irritable. But it’s okay to be incredibly irritable with someone like Roper because he’s the kind of person who doesn’t register straight away when people have got the arsehole with him.

   I raise my glass.

   “To Gussie,” I say.

   Roper grins and leans forward with his beer and we clink, “To direct sales.”

   It’s a sad day when the only toast two people can come up with is for a girlfriend who has the personality of Vlad the Impaler and the body of an iron lung, and my dog’s cock of a job.

2.five

Somewhere in north-west London and my armpits are drowning in a rare British heatwave.  Roberto and Vicky are sitting in the front of the car talking excitedly about how they are going to clean-up today in sales so they can ‘ring the bell’ back at the office, an actual bell on the wall that announces to everyone else that they’ve hit their target.  It’s only my first week and I hate that bell. I loathe everything about this direct sales business I’ve wittingly gotten myself into but I’m still here doing it, slouching on the back seat of a Vauxhall Corsa listening to two young would-be entrepreneurs banging on about how lucky they are not to be confined to an office job.

   Vicky, who’s driving, calls back at me over the Enrique CD, “Feeling juiced about today?”

   “I’m practically soaking,” I say.

   Roberto turns round in his seat, his perfectly groomed mug gleaming confidently back at me.

   “I’m gonna make sure you smash it this afternoon, my friend,” he says. If he had spots they’d just slide off.

   “Great,” I say. “I so desperately want to ring that bell.”

   “How bad do you want it?” says Roberto with a clenched fist in the air.

   “So badly it makes me want to be physically sick,” I say.

   “My man,” says Roberto and turns back.

   “Here we are,” chimes Vicky and pulls over to the side of a leafy suburb.

   “Are there any shops around here?” I ask.

   “You’d be surprised where we find places to sell,” says Vicky. “Chances are we’ll come across a little precinct of shops or a business park that’s never even been touched by any sales company.”

   We all get out of the car and Roberto gets the merchandise bags from the boot.

   “Let’s split up,” he says.

   “Good idea,” says Vicky. She points back the way we came, “I’ll go down there.”

   “I’ll go this way,” says Roberto, pointing in the opposite direction.

   “Meet back here in two hours,” says Vicky. “Juice.”

   “Juice,” says Roberto.

   “Juice,” I say and then they both strut off with admirable determination. I stand there adrift for a couple of minutes until they are suited and booted specks on the horizon and then I survey my surroundings. A prosperous-looking avenue if ever I saw one. I put the bag over my shoulder and cross the road. My shirt sloshes around on my back as I daydream of towels and air-conditioning.  After about forty minutes I do indeed chance upon a small row of shops. Kudos to Vicky, she’ll definitely make a guest appearance in my next wet dream. The first business is an estate agency, who promptly tell me to “fuck off” as soon as I open my mouth. I’ve had a lot of that over the past week. The next place is a pet shop. I don’t get sworn at but I’m sure if I had feelings I’d probably cry my sorry arse out of there and go back to the stone I crawled out of earlier and duly rue the day I ever set foot in that establishment.

   The next place is closed down. Good, I think to myself.

   Just after that is an alleyway and then a florist. I sigh wearily to myself and then enter. I make immediate eye contact with the woman behind the counter.

   “Hello,” she says sweetly.

   “Hi,” I say.

   “How may I help?” she asks, “you wish to buy flowers?”

   “I’m actually from a music company,” I say.

   Her thick eyebrows raise slightly, “Music company?”

   “Yes,” I say, “we’re doing a promotion in the area today for businesses that play music.”

   “But I don’t play music here.”

   “Right. It’s just that we’ve finished for the day and we have some CDs left over so my boss told us to go and see if any other businesses wanted them. We’re doing really good deals on what we have left. What kind of music do you like?”

   “Me?” she says, placing a hand across her ample chest, “I don’t know…all kinds I suppose. What do you have?”

   “A bit of everything,” I say, taking the bag off my shoulder and placing it on the counter. She steps forward out of curiosity as I open it. She looks inside.

   “You have R and B?” she asks.

   “I think so…” I say and reach in for the three disc set of loathsome ‘flavas’.

   She takes it from me and looks at the back of the case.

   “You’ve probably seen it advertised on MTV,” I say.

   She nods because I nod.

   “Can I play it?” she asks.

   “Yeh,” I say. “Why not.”

   She disappears out the back and I take my jacket off. There’s a mirror behind some wreaths and I look at the ocean spreading across my back. I hear music begin and after a few seconds she reappears behind the counter.

   “Your shirt is soaking wet,” she says.

   “I know,” I say, “I must be working too hard.”

   “Would you like a towel?”

   I turn round, “That would be ace, thanks.”

   “Come around.”

   I follow her out the back and lean against the cutting table until she hands me a towel. I pull out my shirt and shove the towel up my back. She bobs slightly to the music and then turns to me.

   “That won’t work,” she says, walking slowly towards me, “take off your shirt.”

   I do as I’m told and she takes the towel off me and rubs it on my back, resulting in some interference in the pants area. Maybe if I ignore it, it will go away.

   “It’s been hot the last few days, hasn’t it?” she says.

   “Extraordinarily so,” I say.

   “I like this music,” she says softly as she runs the towel down my spine, “you like it too?”

   “I never listen to anything else.”

   “It’s lovers’ music.”

   “Lucky them.”

   A set of fingers slip into my waistband and slide round to the front. I tense at first but then decide to let whatever is about to happen happen. Yep, I think, there it is.

   Twenty minutes later I’m flat on my back on the cutting table breathing heavily with a hand over my mouth while the woman, whose name is Vedia, serves some customers. She comes back after a few minutes.

   “You need to go now,” she says. “This is my brother’s shop and he will be back soon.”

   I sit up and start dressing.

   “So,” I say, “do you want the R and B set? It’s only fifteen pounds.”

   She wrinkles her nose and puts her hair in a black scrunchy, “I don’t think so. I probably have most of these songs on my ipod. It was lovely meeting you, though.”

   She hands me the CD and I drop it in my case.

   “Don’t look so disappointed,” she says. “We had fun.”

   “Yes,” I say, “we had fun. But I need to go and make some money. My wine cellar is looking very under-nourished as of late.”

   She gives me a peck on the cheek and ushers me towards the back door and into the alley.

   “I hope you make your millions,” she says.

   “I will,” I say.

   “And when you do, think of me.”

   “I’ll say it with flowers,” I say and she closes the door.

   Another backstreet, another door in the face.