Something Wholesale (13 page)

There was little to occupy us at King’s Cross. Mr Wilkins had talked me into arriving long before the time of departure on the grounds that there were certain formalities to be gone through with the luggage and that these might take some time. In fact the only formality was that of weighing it and this was speedily dispensed with when, at Mr Wilkins’ suggestion, I gave the man in charge of the machine a ten-shilling note. Now we stood
shivering in the icy wind that howled down the platform. From time to time we were enveloped in clouds of acrid smoke; men with hammers passed, tapping the wheels of other trains, extracting from them a melancholy note. It was like a scene in
Anna Karenina
. I was angry with Mr Wilkins. It seemed a bad beginning to our venture; but worse was to follow.

The Night Scot pulled in at last. The long line of sleeping cars with the attendants standing in the lighted doorways was redolent of warmth and comfort. I was looking forward to the journey. For years I had travelled in nothing more sumptuous than freight cars and cattle trucks. The last time I had travelled on the Night Scot was in 1940. I had pleasant memories of it: the clean drugget on the floor; the bed-clothes turned down neatly; the spare blanket; the multiplicity of reading lights and ventilators; the little velvet cushion to save one’s pocket watch from shock; the train itself thundering through the Borders in the first faint light of the morning; the hot tea and biscuits brought by the attendant half an hour before it got in to Waverley.

As the train came to a standstill I asked Mr Wilkins which coach we were to occupy.

‘It’s at the far end,’ he said.

At the very end there was a single coach of ordinary, non-sleeping compartments, First Class and Third. The porter took our luggage, Mr Wilkins’ diminutive suit-case that was like a sardine tin with a handle and my own bulging zip bag, and made for a Third-Class Smoker. He placed Mr Wilkins’ case on the rack above a window seat with its back to the engine and my own at the opposite end of the compartment next to the corridor facing the engine. All the seats were reserved.

Mr Wilkins had prudently vanished. He was supervising the loading of the heavy baggage. By the time he returned the compartment was beginning to fill up. I noticed that everyone was carrying
rugs and wearing heavy overcoats. I had brought a raincoat. My father had advised me to do so. ‘You don’t want to clutter yourself up with a greatcoat at your age,’ he said.

‘I thought you’d booked sleepers?’ I said to Mr Wilkins.

Mr Wilkins said nothing.

‘Do you realise that we shall be sitting in this compartment for more than eight hours? It’ll be absolute hell.’

Mr Wilkins still said nothing. He gave me a basilisk stare.

‘You might at least have got me a window seat. This is the worst place in the whole damn compartment.’ By now I was really angry. Our companions were beginning to take an interest in what I was saying. I was forced to lower my voice. ‘What the hell’s the idea?’ I hissed.

‘Saving expenses,’ said Mr Wilkins.

I set off down the train to find a sleeper. The whole of the first car was reserved for the Ministry of Fuel and Power. Although the train was due to leave in a few minutes it was still entirely empty.

‘They’re joining at Grantham,’ said the attendant. ‘And there’s a waiting list as long as your arm. There’s been a war you know.’ He was not as helpful as the attendant I remembered on my last trip in the Night Scot.

According to the lists that were posted up at the door of each coach, the rest of the train seemed to be occupied by Lieutenant-Commanders Royal Navy, Members of Parliament and members of the Wholesale, natty little men in herring-bone overcoats and silk shirts who were now beginning to arrive, trotting up the platform dwarfed by model girls in next season’s coats who towered above them. Whatever these manufacturers were going to show would certainly not be ‘in the hand’.

The First-Class compartments in the other half of our carriage were less crowded. Most of them had only three occupants, but
they were already engaged in constructing makeshift couches for the night. To join them would simply create the conditions which already existed in our own compartment.

The journey was a nightmare. Of the five people in the compartment two were drunk, the others were very merry. The drunks argued acrimoniously in undertones. At intervals they refreshed themselves with British wine. The three merry ones were Poles, who played an interminable and noisy variant of Snap on an upturned suit-case.

As soon as the train left King’s Cross Mr Wilkins prepared himself for bed. He took off his bowler hat, removed his teeth and his front collar stud, both of which he placed in his waistcoat pocket, loosened his bootlaces and fell instantly into a deep sleep.

Except for Mr Wilkins and myself the other occupants of the compartment were in a state of ferment throughout the night. Between them they formed an almost constant procession to the lavatory. As, one by one, they went out, leaving the door open, they trod heavily on my feet. To begin with I shut it, but no sooner had I done so than they returned and the whole process was repeated in reverse.

The train stopped twice during the night – at Grantham and at Newcastle. At intervals a collector arrived to clip the tickets. As Mr Wilkins had somehow contrived to give me his ticket as well as my own he was able to sleep undisturbed. The two men who had drunk too much had also omitted to purchase tickets and as they had no money there was a great deal of taking of names and addresses. (They were in fact in the wrong train, having intended to travel to Manchester from Euston.) The one who was my neighbour and who spent the night lying partly on top of me, endeavoured to borrow the fare.

After Grantham, the compartment, which up to then had been stifling hot, became very cold. The smoke from innumerable
cigarettes hung in the gelid air. There was no way of extinguishing the lights even if one had dared to do so. I had nothing to read except the
Evening Standard
and I had read it whilst waiting for the train at King’s Cross.

For all its proud name the Night Scot was an hour late at Edinburgh. With some difficulty I woke Mr Wilkins. At first I thought that he was dead. His mouth was wide open in a ghastly grin which I associated with rigor-mortis; but suddenly he came-to, put his teeth back, adjusted his collar stud and replaced his bowler hat.

‘I trust that you slept well, Mr Eric,’ he said, shamelessly. ‘We’ve got a heavy day in front of us.’

A porter from the hotel was on the platform to meet us.

‘You’re in Number Five, Mr Willukins. Your usual,’ he said, touching his cap. ‘I’ll look after the skips.’

The way to the Station Hotel led through a maze of grubby passages, flanked by large chocolate-coloured photographs of Scottish scenery, all of which looked as if they had been exposed in a steady drizzle. Soon we found ourselves in a part of the hotel not normally seen by the public where we met scullions from the kitchens on errands with covered buckets.

We were welcomed by a senior porter with an air of authority and shiny, quick eyes, like a bird’s.

‘You’re in Number Five, Mr Willukins,’ he said – and to me, ‘How is Mr Newby – I haven’t seen him since the war – and Mrs Newby? I remember they used to have a big sitting-room upstairs. Times change. He was a fine man, Mr Newby.’ He made it sound like a dirge.

In spite of the warmth of the welcome it was difficult to be enraptured by the room to which we were now escorted.

Stockroom Number Five was a tall, narrow room illuminated by a fifty-watt bulb. The decorations had once been beige but the efforts to clean them had resulted in the walls becoming one great
smear. The only furniture was a number of cane chairs and two trestle tables which were covered with white sheets that had been neatly patched. The effect was of a mortuary or a place where members of the Reformed Church might pray together before proceeding to England by train.

In addition to these rudimentary furnishings there was a telephone that had once been black and which was now the colour of old bones, and a dog-eared telephone book on which a succession of commercial travellers, made desperate by the inadequacies of the telephone system, had doodled frenziedly as they waited for calls to Kilmarnock and Galashiels that never came through. The view from the window, which was surprisingly clean, took in the roof of the Waverley Station and one span of the North Bridge. At intervals the entire prospect was blotted out by clouds of smoke.

‘I thought we were having a sitting-room,’ I said. I felt too wretched to show any spirit.

‘All the sitting-rooms were booked,’ said Mr Wilkins. ‘Besides …’

‘It saves expense!’

‘Let’s have breakfast,’ said Mr Wilkins.

‘What about a bath and shave?’

‘Time’s getting on.’ He took a gold watch from his pocket. ‘Half past eight. Our first appointment’s at nine-thirty and we have to unpack.’

In spite of not having shaved his face was as smooth as butter. Mine resembled a gooseberry.

Breakfast was like a slow-motion film of a ritual. At intervals rather smelly waitresses brought food, but with none of the supporting things that makes breakfast possible. Butter arrived without toast; porridge without milk; tea without sugar. In obedience to some defunct regulation there was only one bowl of sugar to four tables, every few minutes it disappeared
completely.
^*
Other commercials seemed better served – they munched lugubriously, immersed in their
Expresses
and
Daily Mails
– a few like ourselves gazed in the direction of the kitchens or half-rose in their seats in an extremity of despair.

By the time we had finished breakfast it was ten past nine. In twenty minutes the first customer was due to arrive.

There was no time to wash or shave. We raced to the Stockroom. To me it seemed inconceivable that one night in a cabin trunk could have wreaked such havoc upon dresses that had been packed with such care. Mrs Ribble’s crêpes looked as though they had been used for the purpose of garrotting someone. Even the woollen dresses looked as though they had been trampled underfoot as I hung them on the rails which had been provided by the stockroom porter. Only Mr Wilkins’ coats and suits, heavy, tailored garments, had escaped unscathed. By this time I was used to Mr Wilkins’ monopoly of good fortune. He seemed to bear a charmed life.

‘Now, Mr Eric,’ said Mr Wilkins, ‘this is the programme for today.’

It was now nine-twenty-seven. He handed me a sheet of hotel writing paper, part of a large supply which he had filched on the way to breakfast, on which he had drawn up a time-table:

  9–30    Mrs McHaggart, Robertsons, Edinburgh

10–30    MrsMcHavers, Lookies, Dundee

11–00    Miss McTush, Campbells, Edinburgh

11–45    Mrs McRobbie, Alexander McGregor, Edinburgh

  2–30    Miss Wilkie, McNoons of Perth

  4–30    Miss Reekie, Madame Vera, Edinburgh

To me it seemed more like a gathering of the clans in some rainswept glen than an assignation to buy dresses in the subbasement of a Railway Hotel.

In the three minutes that remained to us before the arrival of Mrs McHaggart, Mr Wilkins briefed me on their idiosyncrasies. Just as a last-minute revision outside the examination hall is useless so Mr Wilkins’ brilliant summing-up only increased my confusion.

‘Mrs McHaggart is a good Buyer but she doesn’t like us to serve any of the other stores in Princes Street. Of course we do – it wouldn’t be worth coming here otherwise – and she knows it. The women here know everything,’ he said, gloomily. ‘You can’t keep anything from them. They all have friends and relatives in one another’s shops.

‘What we have to do is to get Mrs McHaggart’s order down on paper. If it’s good enough then we don’t show the things she’s chosen to Miss McTush. They’re enemies. If we get a poor order from Mrs McHaggart then we show everything to Miss McTush and change the styles. Miss McTush knows we do this so we can’t change them very much. Mrs McRobbie is the same as Mrs McHaggart and Miss McTush. She’s in Princes Street too. The important thing is to keep the three of them from meeting. If they do at least one of them won’t give us an order; that’s why I’ve put in Mrs McHavers between Mrs McHaggart and Miss McTush, because she comes from Dundee. Miss McTush doesn’t really mind what Mrs McHaggart and Mrs McRobbie buy as long as she gets her delivery before they do. In fact we deliver to them all at the same time – we don’t dare do otherwise – so Miss McTush is just as difficult as the others. Mrs McHaggart only buys Coats and Suits and two-pieces. She’s not supposed to buy two-pieces but she does. That’s why we don’t see Miss Cameron, the Dress Buyer. Miss McTush buys everything. Mrs McRobbie buys
everything. Miss Reekie can buy anything but usually she buys nothing. She’s a most difficult woman. I call her “The Old Stinker”,’ said Mr Wilkins, ‘on account of her name being Reekie. I usually take Miss McTush and Mrs McHavers out to lunch together because Mrs McHavers comes from Dundee. On Tuesday I take Mrs McHaggart. First thing on Tuesday morning I call on the ones who haven’t given us an appointment. With luck we see some of them in the afternoon or on Wednesday morning. We usually manage to get off to Glasgow on Wednesday afternoon for an appointment in the evening.’

‘Don’t you give Mrs McRobbie lunch?’

‘She’s got an ulcer. She never eats lunch. I like Mrs McRobbie,’ said Mr Wilkins.

‘What about the evenings?’

‘If you want to take Buyers out in the evening, Mr Eric, that’s your affair,’ said Mr Wilkins. ‘Personally I drink beer.’

As he said this there was a murmuring sound outside the door and Mrs McHaggart appeared. We were off.

Mrs McHaggart was tall and thin. She wore an air of preternatural gloom that was accentuated by a small drip on the end of her nose. In all the years that I was to know Mrs McHaggart the drop never actually dripped but always remained suspended. She was dressed in claret-coloured tweed and a fur of a kind that was unknown to me, made perhaps from the skins of animals trapped north of the Highland Line, over which hung an aura compounded of moth-balls and Parma Violets. She asked after my parents in a kind way, but her manner of doing so suggested that they were either dead or on the point of dying. In this way she resembled the Stockroom Porter.

To give Mr Wilkins full play for his undoubted powers in dealing with a customer such as Mrs McHaggart I ordered coffee and biscuits from room-service on the telephone – itself no mean feat
– whilst she enumerated a list of her acquaintances who were also on the point of dissolution.

‘Well, Mr Willukins, I suppose I’m the first,’ said Mrs McHaggart with a faint air of menace, as she nibbled a biscuit and sipped her coffee.

‘As always, the first, Mrs McHaggart,’ said Mr Wilkins, rising gallantly to the bait. ‘
Nulli Secundus
. Second to None.’

‘I expect you have a very full day,’ said Mrs McHaggart remorselessly. ‘You have so many customers, have you not, Mr Willukins?’

‘We have a good number of customers, Mrs McHaggart.’

‘All in Edinburgh, I suppose?’

‘I am happy to say that we have a large country connection, Mrs McHaggart,’ said Mr Wilkins, evading her, I thought, superbly. ‘In fact I think you know Mrs McHavers of Lookies of Dundee. She will be arriving quite soon.’ He fished out his massive gold hunter and looked at it with an air of pantomime. ‘To be precise at half past ten – in twenty minutes’ time.’

‘Then you’ll be in no hurry for me,’ said Mrs McHaggart. ‘I don’t want to be in her way. There’s a special customer of mine coming into the shop at half past ten. I think I’ll slip back and see to her. I can come back here later. If you’re busy, Mr Willukins, Mr Newby will look after me. Will you not, Mr Newby? About eleven-thirty.’ Triumphantly she rose to go.

I was gibbering with apprehension. If Mrs McHaggart returned at eleven-thirty the disastrous conjunction with Miss McTush might occur. She would certainly meet Mrs McRobbie at eleven forty-five.

It was Mr Wilkins who saved the situation, at least temporarily.

‘Mrs McHaggart,’ he said. ‘I think that it is only fair to tell you that this is the first time that Mr Eric has shown a collection. I think he might find it a little difficult, that is why I suggest that
you make your selection now. Perhaps you will allow me to show you some of our productions.’

Without explaining why it would be difficult for me he unhooked a coat from the rail and cast it before her with an air that was both gallant and at the same time obsequious. The coat was powder blue with a fox collar – one of our more ‘dressy’ productions. I only hoped the floor was clean. At this moment Mr Wilkins seemed to me a curious mixture of Sir Walter Raleigh and Uriah Heep.

‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ he said.

Mrs McHaggart was baulked. ‘Very well,’ she said. First round to Mr Wilkins.

I helped Mr Wilkins with his coats by opening the pattern book for Mrs McHaggart, but all the time I was thinking of my dresses. What would happen if nobody bought them? What sort of woman was Mrs McHavers? It was true that my father had spent a lot of time telling me about her, but now I was so confused that I was no longer capable of telling a McHavers from a McTush.

Mrs McHavers was a few minutes late for her appointment. This was unfortunate as it gave Mrs McHaggart the excuse to reduce her rate of striking. It was obvious that she was as intent on discovering the identity of the customer who was arriving at eleven o’clock as we were on preventing her.

Mrs McHavers turned out to be large and fat and happy. She wore a remarkable hat, a red velvet bonnet with a cairngorm embedded in it, a stone so enormous that it would have been more at home on the landing of a geological museum than stuck in a hat. She didn’t care about the McTushes, the McHaggarts or the McRobbies. It was easy for her to be broad-minded in Dundee. If she too had been from Edinburgh she would have been just like the rest.

‘How’s business at Robertson’s?’ she shouted across the room
to Mrs McHaggart in a voice that made her wince. ‘Everyone tells me that you’ve been having a difficult time.’

It was obvious that Mrs McHaggart did not take this at all well.

‘That’s the trouble with Edinburgh,’ Mrs McHavers said in a loud aside. ‘They all live on investments. Afraid to get their hands dirty. Now in Dundee we’re not doing too badly in spite of Jute being in a terrible way.’ And then: ‘Well, let’s get on with it, Mr Newby. No good moaning over the dead.’

I showed her my little collection. ‘Bit different, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Different handwriting. Well, what are you waiting for, Mr Newby? Don’t you want an order?’

I was so nervous that I could hardly write. Worse still I had forgotten the code in which the prices were written on the tickets.

‘Here, let me do it,’ said Mrs McHavers, seizing the order book.

In fifteen minutes the whole order was written down. I had had to improvise the prices as we went along. On some dresses I had grossly overcharged; on others the result was a greatly reduced margin of profit. Overall the result was about right. It was a good order.

‘I’ll be back at the hotel at twelve-thirty,’ she said as I escorted her to the lift. ‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll find my own way out. You’d better get back to the Stockroom and get rid of Mrs McHaggart, otherwise there’ll be trouble.’

It was now five minutes to eleven. In the Stockroom Mr Wilkins was still writing down Mrs McHaggart’s order. There were still four coats to go.

At any moment Miss McTush might appear.

At two minutes to eleven Mr Wilkins’ head appeared, dramatically, in a gap in the rail of coats.

‘Main Hall! Miss McTush. Head her off!’ he said in a stage whisper.