Bob of Small End (7 page)

The boxes were
just big enough to hold his new, larger, farm set. He pasted the
label on the top of each box and fastened it shut with sellotape.
Now to see if Rose could sell them.

He took six of
the boxes to Tyne’s early Friday morning. His first set was still
in the corner of the window so he knew that hadn’t sold. Rose was
glad to see him.

“
I think
the other set didn’t sell because it’s too small for the animals I
put in the fields and next to the barn. Are these bigger
Bob?”

“
Take a
look Rose.”

She opened one
of the boxes and put the house, the barn and a piece of the hedge
on her counter top and stood a couple of cows next to them.

“
Just
right. The hedges are just the right size and a man or cow can walk
into the barn without hitting their heads.”

She picked up
a woman and stood her near the door to the house. “No problem with
the house either. Good.”

“
Yes,
the animals and people look as if they belong to the set now. Give
me the first farm set; I might make some smaller animals to suit it
later. Now, how many farms do you want?”

“
How
many have you got in the bag?”

“
There’s
six altogether.”

“
Then
I’ll take all of them. I’ll put one in the window though I don’t
expect any will sell before Easter. There aren’t many tourists now.
Oh yes. I called Jenny Wood earlier this week and asked her if
she’d like to sell your toys. She’s interested and would like to
see what you have. Do you know her shop? It’s called
Home and Holiday
.”

“
Oh yes
I do. It’s two doors from the Fox. I’ve been looking in it’s window
to see if they sold wooden toys. She’s got a good spot in town, my
toys might sell there. Thanks Rose. I’ll talk to her
tomorrow.”

“
Well,
good luck, Bob.”

Saturday
morning was cold and windy and he dressed warmly. He put the boxes
in a large plastic bag and walked to the bus stop. He was shivering
a bit when Jack drove up.

“
Hi Bob.
Guess what; Rose ‘as sold a farm set yesterday. An ol’ girl bought
it fer her grandson’s birthday. An’ she bought twenty or
there-a-bats animals as well. Rose’s real pleased.”

“
Oh
that’s great. I didn’t expect her to sell any this time of the
year. That’s very good news. Thanks for letting me know. Are you
going to Big End? I’m taking some sets to Jenny Wood’s
place.”

“
Naw,
sorry. Goin’ to t’cottage, t’one I jus’ bought. Some walls t’tear
out. Good luc’ wiv Jenny, Bob.”

The bus
eventually arrived and he hurried into its warmth and away from the
cold wind. As the bus made its way to Big End he thought what he
would tell Jenny. He dismounted near the Fox, walked to Jenny’s
shop, entered and asked the woman behind the counter if she was
Jenny.

“
No.
Jenny’s shopping. She’s looking for a new coat. It’s been so cold
these last few days. But she’ll be back in about half an hour, I
guess. Can I help?”

Bob told
her that he made wooden toys and wanted to know if
Home and Holiday
would sell
them.

“
Sorry.
I can’t make that kind of decision. You’ll have to see Jenny. Do
you want to wait here? There’s a chair in the corner.”

“
No. I
think I’ll have a coffee and visit the library for a while. Please
tell her my name, it’s Bob Barns. Rose Tyne in Small End told her
about me earlier this week. I’ll come back later.”

“
Okay.
My name’s Susan. Perhaps we will be seeing a lot of each other in
the future.”

Bob walked to
the coffee shop and bought the largest mug of coffee available. He
sat by the window and looked at the newspaper someone had left
behind. It was eighteen degrees in southern Portugal! To think that
he would be there in nine days. He dreamed of walking along the
beach in his shorts. Maybe even swimming in the ocean. Then he
suddenly thought of Claire. ‘I’ll probably never see her again.
She’ll probably living in Reading now. I hope she’s happy.’

At ten he
walked to the library, collected two of his favourite magazines and
sat down. It felt a little strange, for he hadn’t been there for
over a month. He skimmed through the first. It surprised him to
find that nothing interested him except for one small advertisement
he noticed near the back. It included three photographs of gnomes.
The blurb told him that they were painted and could stay in the
garden all through the winter. ‘I wonder how many he’s sold by
advertising in this magazine,’ Bob wondered. ‘Maybe I could sell
the farms by advertising them in the right kind of magazine. If I
did that I wouldn’t have to pay any commission and maybe I could
get the purchaser to pay the postage.’ He pulled out his note book
and made a note of the idea. Then he thought again, ‘Do I really
want to do that? What if I get a great many orders, I don’t want to
spend every day making toys. It would be much easier to go back to
doing what I used to do, just making a few and forget about having
a holiday each year. Maybe I’m doing the wrong thing after all.
Well, that’s something else I’d better think about when I’m in
Portugal.’

About
ten thirty he walked back to
Home and
Holiday
. Jenny was there, behind the
counter.

“
Hello
Bob. Rose told me all about you and how she had been selling your
trains the past three years. Can I look at one? Do you have any
here?”

“
No
sorry. I’ve started making farm sets and I’ve some in the bag. I’d
like to show you those.” Bob took a box out of the bag, opened it
and placed the house, barn, pigpen and some hedges on the
counter.

“
I see
that you’ve got the same kind of animals Rose has. Can you put some
of them next to these pieces.”

Jenny removed
a few animals from her shelf and put them in the field and next to
the barn.

“
They
look quite nice. Does Rose put animals in the farm?”

“
Yes. In
fact I gave her some of the sets yesterday and she sold one of them
and some animals the same day. The farm sells a few animals if
they’re displayed together.”

“
I like
that. So I’ll take some sets on consignment. Rose told me what she
sold them for and I’d take thirty percent. Is that
okay?”

“
Yes. Do
you ever sell at a lower commission?”

“
Sometimes, but only on items that sell quickly and easily. I
wouldn’t lower the rate for you until I found out how many I sold.
Let’s discuss that later. How many do you have in the
bag?”

“
Six.”

“
I’ll
take all of them. And if they sell as quickly as they did for Rose
I’ll soon be wanting more.”

“
I can
make more but I need time to make them. I’ll give you my phone
number.”

“
Thanks,
and I’ll give you a receipt for the sets.”

Well that was
easy Bob thought, as he walked out of the shop. He had wondered
what Jenny would be like and how she might receive him. He wasn’t
expecting to be turned away because Rose had said Jenny was
interested. ‘I should talk to more shop keepers but not until I
have something to show them.’ With his hands empty and the cold
wind still whistling, he went to the Fox. He’d have a drink and one
of their curries. That would be two meals out in the same day,
lunch and dinner. Well, he could afford it if his toys kept
selling.

On the bus
home he realised he should have some business cards to give
retailers. That would be much better than asking them to write down
his phone number. He’d ask Jack if he could make them, if not he’d
order some the next time he was in Big End.

The next week
Bob didn’t feel like building more sets; he wanted to wait until he
found out if Jenny sold any. Instead he drew diagrams of what he’d
put in a village set and in a zoo set. After a little while he
decided that a zoo set would be too similar to the farm set and put
the sketches in an envelope in case he needed them later. He tidied
his workshop and assembled fifty boxes, separating the tops and
bottoms of twenty five of the boxes Rose had bought for him; the
boxes would hold the houses, barns, pigpens and other parts of the
farm or village sets he’d probably be making in the future. Then he
cut and fitted four shelves on the wall beside the door and placed
the boxes there. There was room enough for another fifty boxes if
he ever built more than a dozen sets at a time.

Jane phoned
him on Tuesday to invite him to supper on Thursday night, saying it
was time they discussed the travel arrangements. Bob’s bottle of
wine was quickly finished with the steaks and Joe opened another.
They talked as they ate and continued afterwards as they drank
coffee. Joe told Bob that, as they had to meet the group at Gatwick
Airport at 9:30, they would leave about 7 to have plenty of time in
case there were traffic jams.

“
If we
get there too early we can have a coffee. Did you get your
passport?”

“
Yes, it
arrived three days ago. Just in time! I was becoming a bit worried
about it.”

“
How
about a suitcase, do you want to borrow one?” Jane
asked.

“
Oh. I
hadn’t thought about that. Er, yes please, I think I do. I’ve only
a small one. We’ve never needed a big one.”

“
Well we
have one you can borrow. It’s medium-sized, hopefully it’ll be big
enough. You should also bring a small carry-on bag. The flight
takes about three hours so you might like to have something to read
on the way.”

“
Okay.
I’ve a couple of books I got at Christmas.”

“
Keep
your sunglasses in the bag, we might need them when we arrive. Are
you going to take a bathing costume?”

“
Yes.”

“
Well
the water might be a bit too cold but it’s better to have it, in
case. How about travellers cheques, do you have any?”

“
I’ll
get some tomorrow. Do you think a hundred pounds worth will be
enough?”

“
It
mostly depends on if you are going to buy presents. We don’t buy
any so we take a hundred pounds; it’s for buying drinks or snacks
and we sometimes buy a meal in a restaurant. We don’t want to eat
all our meals with the group.”

“
Well in
that case I think fifty pounds would be enough for me.”

“
Oh, buy
a neck pouch at the travel agency to hold your passport. You can
keep some of your money in that too, if you want.”

“
All
right, I will.”

Chapter 3 Portugal

It was still
dark when Bob climbed into the station wagon Monday morning. He had
packed his suitcase Sunday and tied a strip of red cloth to the
handle so he could easily recognise his bag when they arrived in
Faro. He put the novels Sam had given him at Christmas in his
take-on bag together with a few sweets. Jane suggested that he suck
them during take-off and landing because they might help him
equalise the air pressure change and stop his ears from hurting. “I
use sweets but Joe doesn’t,” she said. “He just swallows and that
works well enough for him.” Bob said he’d try Joe’s way first to
see what happens. It was an exciting thought, to be flying through
and above the clouds. “I hope I have window seat,” he told her.

Joe parked the
station wagon in the long term parking lot at Gatwick and they took
a shuttle to their terminal and joined a small crowd whose suitcase
labels indicated that they would be on the same trip. Jane and Joe
chatted with a couple of them until their guide arrived. She
welcomed everybody, said her name was Charlotte and counted how
many were present. She then told them they couldn’t check-in yet
because there were four more people to come. Ten minutes later they
turned up and apologised to everyone. “Our bus was caught in a
traffic jam. We’ll catch an earlier one next time.”

Charlotte told
the group to take their baggage to the counter and check-in. Bob
stood immediately behind Joe and Jane and watched what they did.
When he gave his ticket and passport to the agent she asked him if
he wanted a window seat. “Yes please,” he replied. She then gave
him his boarding pass and stuck the ticket for his checked-in bag
on the back.

Charlotte was
flying with them and when everybody was ready she took them to the
boarding lounge. Forty-five minutes later Bob was staring at
Gatwick from the air. He recognised the main road they had driven
along that morning then clouds blocked his view, replaced a short
while later by bright sunlight. It was amazing to look at the white
fluffy shapes, occasionally catching glimpses of land far below
him. Shortly afterwards he saw the Channel, then Europe, lying
beneath their feet.

Disembarking
at Faro, going through Immigration and Customs and collecting
baggage was easy and quick, so quick that he had to review what
happened when he was on the coach to be sure that he remembered the
details for any future visit. Ninety minutes later they arrived at
their hotel in Lagos. He was happy to learn that it was close to
the centre of town. He would get up early each day and take a walk;
he wanted to see as much as he could and make the most of his first
time aboard.

The two week
holiday was a mixture of free- and coach-days, when they visited
other parts of Portugal. Their meals, when they were in Lagos, were
eaten in the hotel. Bob got a bit tired of that and several times
went with Joe and Jane, or with anther couple, to eat in the local
restaurants. First he ate fish and chips then he tried barbecued
sardines, having been told by a man who went there every year that
he should try them because they were wonderful. Bob liked them
immediately but he also tried several other seafood dishes. Fish,
cooked by any means, quickly became his favourite food and he
decided to cook it more often when he was home.