May Contain Traces of Magic (2 page)

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Can't I, SatNav?'

‘Of course you can.'

He frowned, changed down to overtake a cyclist, and said, ‘Yes, well, it's easy for you to say. You've never met old Mr Stetchkin.'

‘Tell me about him.'

He grinned, and turned off the CD player. ‘Oh God, where do I begin? Right, then, for a start he's seventy if he's a day, bald with little bits of white fluff over his ears like cotton wool, stupid little tufty white beard—'

‘He sounds rather sweet, actually.'

Bitter laugh. ‘I don't think so,' he said. ‘He's one of those miserable, nit-picking types, never satisfied, nothing's ever right, won't ever listen to what you've got to say, reckons he knows it all, you really wouldn't—'

‘After three hundred yards,' SatNav interrupted, ‘turn right. And perhaps,' she went on, ‘if he's been in the business for a long time and he's still going, maybe he does know it all. Or at least quite a lot of it.'

He was going to laugh derisively, but he didn't. ‘It's a good business, Stetchkins,' he said thoughtfully. ‘They've always done well, even in the recession. There's not many that can say that.'

‘Now turn right,' SatNav said. ‘So perhaps Mr Stetchkin's got good reason to think he knows it all.'

‘Maybe.'

‘I'd have thought someone like that would be quite proud of his experience.'

He frowned. ‘Go on.'

‘Oh, I was just thinking, after all those years in the trade, he must have heard every pitch there is, over and over again, till he's sick of hearing them all. People trying really hard to sell him things, I mean.'

‘I suppose so,' he said. ‘But that's not helping me, is it?'

‘After six hundred yards, take the second exit. If I was Mr Stetchkin,' SatNav said, ‘I wouldn't want some young rep coming into my shop and trying to shove some new product up my nose, telling me how wonderful it is. No, if there's a new line I might be interested in, I'd want to look at it carefully, see if it's any good and make my own decision. Don't you think?'

‘Fine,' he replied huffily. ‘That's me out of a job, then.'

‘Not at all. Your job is to bring the merchandise to the customers' attention.'

‘That's one way of looking at it,' he said sarcastically. ‘Only I wouldn't last very long if all I . . .'

‘Take the second exit.'

‘What? Oh, shit, right.'

‘Personally,' SatNav went on, ‘if it was me, I'd start off just taking down the reorders, let him do all the talking to begin with, and then I'd say something like—'

‘Like?'

‘I'm thinking, please wait. Something like, “I don't know if you've got a moment, Mr Stetchkin, but I'd quite like your opinion of this new line we're bringing out”; and then you hand it to him and take a step back, and don't say anything until he's finished looking at it—'

 

‘That's not bad,' Mr Stetchkin said.

Oink, he thought. ‘You think it's OK?' he said.

Mr Stetchkin nodded. ‘It's quite good,' he said. ‘Neat. Well thought out. Good value for money.'

He frowned, like she'd told him to, and tried to sound slightly worried. ‘You don't think the packaging's a bit, well, loud—?'

Mr Stetchkin shook his head. ‘No, not really. Nice bright colours, catches the eye.'

‘But isn't it a bit on the dear side? For what it is, I mean.'

Mr Stetchkin thought about that for a moment. ‘I don't think so,' he said. ‘Customers know they get what they pay for. If it was any cheaper, it'd send the wrong message. You wouldn't expect to get anything like this worth having for nine ninety-nine.'

‘That's true,' he said, as though reluctantly conceding the point. ‘And you think the way it folds up at the back is all right? I was a little concerned people might think it's a bit, well, fiddly.'

Mr Stetchkin gave him a patronising smile. ‘Hardly,' he said. ‘Look, I can do it with one hand, see?' And he folded it up easily, as though he'd been practising for a week. ‘No, I have to say, I really like this - What did you say the code was?'

He made a show of looking at his book. ‘BB27K,' he said.

‘Yes, thank you.' Mr Stetchkin handed him back the sample, and nodded. ‘I'll take ten dozen.'

‘I
think
we may be able to - Just let me check.' He looked back at the book and saw that it was upside down. Luckily, Mr Stetchkin hadn't noticed. ‘Yes, we can let you have ten dozen, just about. Usual rate?'

Mr Stetchkin nodded again, and for a moment the shop seemed to flicker, because Mr Stetchkin
always
screwed you to the floor over discounts. ‘Now then,' Mr Stetchkin went on, ‘I'd like another six dozen of the DW6, and this time, tell them I don't want to find any of them with the seals broken, I think I may have mentioned this before—'

 

‘It was amazing,' he said. ‘Ten dozen. He took ten dozen, and—'

‘At the end of the road, turn left.'

‘Yes, I
know
, I've been here before. Now all I've got to do is shift three dozen more and I've made my target, and I'm pretty sure I can get rid of two dozen on the Valmet brothers, which just leaves one, and I'm home free.'

‘That's marvellous. I knew you could do it.'

He was grinning again. But, he thought, why the hell not? Nobody else would've said that to him. ‘I reckon we've done a good day's work today,' he said. ‘You and me.'

No reply; but that was fair enough, it was a straight stretch of road. He sat back in his seat and tapped the wheel a few times, beating out the rhythm from one of the tracks he'd played earlier; catchy tune, he wondered who it was by.

‘Excuse me.'

‘Mm?'

‘Only,' she said, ‘I was wondering.'

‘Yes?'

‘This BB—'

‘BB27K?'

‘That's it, yes. Only . . .' Brief hesitation, like she was about to take a slight liberty. ‘What is it? I mean, what does it actually do?'

He smiled. ‘It's the latest thing,' he said. ‘Kettering's mad about it, really pushing it. Hence the bloody enormous target.'

‘Yes, but—'

His smile widened. ‘It's a portable folding parking space,' he said. ‘It comes in a little plastic wallet, and you take it out and unfold it and lay it down on the road, and it expands into a space big enough to take anything up to a small minibus. When you're ready to leave, you just pick it up and put it away and off you go. Even works on double yellows. I'm going to see if I can nick one for myself, it'll make my life so much—'

‘That's a really good idea,' she said.

‘Invented by Professor Cornelius Van Spee of Leiden,' he recited, ‘a by-product of research into—'

‘Wasn't he the one who went mad and tried to blow up the planet?'

He shrugged. ‘Search me,' he replied. ‘I just sell them. Or try to,' he added. ‘And, thanks to you . . .'

‘Not at all,' she said. ‘You were the one who made the sale. I just—'

‘Should I be turning right here?'

‘What? Oh, yes, sorry.'

‘No problem,' he said, turning the wheel. ‘And then it's right at the crossroads, isn't it?'

‘Yes. I mean, at the end of the road, turn right. Sorry.'

‘That's OK.' He slid the gear lever into fourth. ‘What were you telling me just now about Professor Van Spee?'

‘Well,' SatNav replied, ‘if he's the one I'm thinking of, he tried to create a pocket universe. There was a lot of trouble about it, at the time.'

He frowned. ‘That's no big deal,' he said. ‘I mean, we do those: the JH88C. Get away from it all in a world of your own for only two-nine-nine ninety-nine. We sell a lot of them.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘But this one actually
worked.
'

‘Ah.' He thought for a moment, then said, ‘Hang on, though. The JH88C works. Any rate, I've never had any sent back, so they must be all right.'

Slight pause; then she said, ‘The JH88C creates an interdimensional bubble capable of supporting one adult human for up to forty-eight hours at a time, while the inbuilt matter/energy transfiguration unit allows limited holographic imaging for a strictly limited range of pre-programmed fantasy activities. Van Spee's version was permanent, and you could do anything you liked in there.'

‘Really?' He raised his eyebrows. ‘Cool.'

‘Cool,' she agreed, ‘except that it did all sorts of horrible things to the real world. But he didn't care about that. Not a nice man.'

‘Obviously.' He thought for a moment, then said, ‘You know a lot about it—'

‘For a SatNav, you mean?' She didn't say it nastily or anything, but he got the message. ‘I don't just do quickest-way-from-A-to-B, you know.'

‘That's for sure,' he said. ‘You know, I went to this launch meeting about the JH88C, and they told us all about it and the points we should be stressing to customers and all that, but they didn't say anything about interdimensional bubbles or blowing up planets.'

‘Didn't want to overload you with stuff you didn't need to know, presumably.'

‘I guess so.' Pause; thought. ‘But
you
know—'

‘After six hundred yards, take the first exit.'

So he did; and a sociopath in a Daf sixteen-wheeler tried to carve him up on the inside, which provoked him into the use of intemperate language, and after that he'd forgotten what they'd been talking about; and soon afterwards they turned into Frobisher Way, and she said, ‘You have now arrived at your destination,' and he parked the car and went in to the office.

‘Oh, it's you,' said Julie on reception. ‘You're late.'

‘Am I?'

She nodded. ‘He's waiting for you,' she said. ‘In the small interview room.'

‘Ah,' he said. ‘Lucky me.'

As he trudged slowly through the industrial Axminster, he ran through a short list of possibilities. Get rid of the most unlikely ones first: he's pleased with me, he wants to give me a pay rise, he wants to promote me. Yes indeed; and the pig now boarding at gate number six is the 17:09 scheduled flight to Mogadishu. Rather more probable: he's pissed off at me, he's really pissed off at me, he's really seriously pissed off at me—

He knocked on the door, waited for the familiar grunt, and went in. At the far end of the room, his huge pink face reflected in the highly polished table top, sat Mr Burnoz, area manager; not a pleasant sight, but not so bad if you're expecting it. Opposite him was some scraggy kid in glasses.

‘You wanted to see me, Mr—'

‘Come in, sit down.' Mr Burnoz turned his head and smiled at the scraggy kid. Female, he noted, more than a passing resemblance to a weasel. ‘Angela, I'd like you to meet Chris Popham, one of our sales reps. Chris, this is Angela -' some surname he didn't catch ‘- who's joining us for a month as part of her degree course.' Burnoz smiled hugely, as if he was trying to catch the sun in his teeth. ‘Angela's taking advantage of our sponsored graduate-intake programme. Ultimately we're hoping she'll be joining us at Kettering, meanwhile we're giving her this opportunity to get some front-line hands-on experience in basic marketing.'

A chill sensation, like a column of frozen ants climbing up his leg. ‘That's great,' Chris said through a fixed smile. ‘How do I—?'

‘We thought it'd be a really good idea if Angela sat in with you while you do your rounds for the next six weeks,' said Mr Burnoz, cheerful as a game-show host, oblivious as an ice-breaker grinding through permafrost. ‘You can show her what it's really like in the trenches, so to speak, the raw, bloody cut and thrust of modern marketing. Not something you can get a feel of from books or sitting in front of a computer screen, I'm sure you'll agree. I know Angela's really looking forward to it.'

In which case, Chris thought, never under any circumstances play poker with this child for money, since she clearly guards her emotions like a dragon on a pile of gold.

‘Absolutely,' he heard himself croak. ‘Great idea.'

‘Splendid,' said Mr Burnoz, as the scraggy kid shifted her head a fraction to the left and gave him a look that would've separated paint. ‘In that case, why don't you pick her up outside the building here at, what, let's say six-fifteen tomorrow morning, and you can take it from there.'

Chris hoped he'd managed not to let the pain show in his face. ‘All right, then,' he said. ‘I'll look forward to it.'

The raw, bloody cut and thrust of modern marketing. That was, he told himself as he slouched back across the pure-wool tundra, one way of describing it. But offloading a trainee - and not just a trainee: a graduate trainee, a graduate bloody trainee who hadn't even graduated yet, a
kid -
on him was a refinement of cruelty he wouldn't have thought anybody, even Mr Burnoz, was capable of. It was heartless, it was vicious, savage, inhuman and unnatural; furthermore, he was at least ninety-nine-point-nine-eight per cent sure that Mr Burnoz hadn't meant it that way. Far from it. Somebody - Kettering, presumably - had sent Mr Burnoz a memo saying
offload this skinny kid on one of your reps
, and Mr Burnoz had chosen him at random, or because he'd seen his name on a report or an expenses claim at some point recently, and had recalled it when faced with the chore of placing the trainee . . . Arguably, that was worse. Which would you rather be: the martyr on the lonely gallows, or the hedgehog squashed flat by the artic whose driver hadn't even seen you?