Something Wholesale (14 page)

Two lifts operated between the Stockroom floor and the Main
Hall. There was no public staircase. If Miss McTush had already begun her descent then we would pass one another like ships at night time in a narrow channel. On the other hand it was too dangerous to wait for her below. At any moment Mrs McHaggart might emerge from the Stockroom.

There was an interminable wait for the lift. The liftman seemed to have died on one of the upper floors. When it finally arrived I was conveyed straightway to the third floor where a reception was in progress. As a result I arrived too late in the Main Hall.

‘There she goes,’ said the Head Porter in the cheerful voice which human beings reserve for one another’s misfortunes. I had a momentary glimpse of a sturdy, fur-coated figure entering the lift which I had just got out of.

‘I must get to the Stockroom before she does,’ I said. ‘It’s a matter of life or death.’

He was not the Head Porter of the North British Hotel for nothing. The door of the lift was already shut. Before I could say another word he had crossed the hall and was pressing one of the buttons.

‘You’ve got two minutes,’ he said. ‘Go through that door and follow the staircase down through the kitchens. You’re old Mr Newby’s son, aren’t you? He was always up to this kind of caper.’

I descended the stairs three steps at a time. It was like going down into the bowels of a battleship. At the moment when Miss McTush emerged from the lift in all her panoply I, too, arrived in the corridor.

‘Miss McTush? ‘I said. ‘My name’s Newby.’

She started to tell me about the lift.

‘I wonder if you would mind coming upstairs for a few minutes,’ I said. ‘Mrs Mc … Mr Wilkins has a customer who is taking rather a long time to put her order down. She’s just finishing. We could have some coffee in the lounge.’

‘I’ve had my coffee,’ said Miss McTush.

‘Would you care for a drink?’

‘I never drink when I’m working,’ said Miss McTush. She was regarding me with a humorous eye. ‘But I know when I’m not wanted. We’ll sit in the lounge until Mr Wilkins has finished with Mrs McHaggart.’

In a few minutes Mr Wilkins appeared.

‘I’m sorry we had to delay you, Miss McTush,’ he said, bending over her hand. ‘I had a country customer who took a long time to put down her order.’

While Miss McTush was being shown the collection there was a knock at the door. Fortunately Mr Wilkins had bolted it. It was Mrs McHaggart. ‘I think I left my gloves here,’ she said, trying to dart past me into the Stockroom.

‘Here they are, Mr Newby,’ said Mr Wilkins. I had never seen him move so fast. ‘Nice to see you again, Mrs McHaggart,’ beaming over my shoulder. ‘I am looking forward to our luncheon immensely.’

It had been arranged that Mr Wilkins should take Mrs McHaggart to lunch whilst I should deal with Miss McTush and Mrs McHavers. Mr Wilkins was to have the North British Hotel while I was to use the George Hotel, which was half a mile away. It was impossible to include Mrs McRobbie in these complex arrangements. She was to be regarded as a separate problem and given lunch on Tuesday. As it happened she failed to turn up for her appointment. It seemed a fool-proof arrangement, but we had reckoned without the devilish ingenuity of Mrs McHaggart. At twelve-forty-five I set off with Mrs McHavers and Miss McTush for the George Hotel. In the ten minutes which they allowed themselves to powder their noses I managed to shave and change my shirt. Although I was now more or less presentable, emotionally I was exhausted. The childish evasions of the morning,
following upon a night without sleep, had left me in a light-headed condition. At the hotel we went straight to the table. My guests, unburdened of the cares of buying, made themselves agreeable. They drank gin and tonics. To my relief they both ordered a nourishing meal without succumbing to the temptation of choosing those items on the menu which are listed according to their availability without any mention of price. I relaxed. Soon I found that, just like my father, I too was telling little jokes. The waiters began to look apprehensively at our table.

We were eating our shrimp and lobster cocktails when, to my horror I saw Mrs McHaggart enter the restaurant. Stumping up behind her was Mr Wilkins. She made straight for our table. I rose to my feet with my mouth full of sea-food.

‘Ah, Mr Newby,’ she said, ignoring my guests. ‘This is a surprise. Mr Willukins, you should have told me that Mr Newby was having a party. I wouldn’t have come.’

Mr Wilkins said nothing. He had the air of a man on the way to the scaffold who has been halted in order to be given a stirrup cup.

‘Won’t you join us?’ I said. ‘I’m sure that Mrs McHavers and Miss McTush will be delighted.’

‘If you insist,’ said Mrs McHaggart. ‘I think it would be very nice. Don’t you, Mr Willukins?’

‘Rather heavy going, Mr Eric,’ said Mr Wilkins as we stood outside the hotel watching three separate Rolls-Royce taxis as they carried our guests about their lawful occasions.

‘Not really a success.’

‘Disastrous.’

‘Why did you bring Mrs McHaggart to the George when you said you were going to give her lunch at the North British?’

‘We were just going into the restaurant when she noticed a manufacturer with whom she was not on good terms whom she
wished to avoid. The next thing we were in a taxi on the way here. I don’t think she saw anyone at all. I think she made him up.’

‘Do you think she’ll cancel the order?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Wilkins. ‘In all the years I’ve been coming to Edinburgh I’ve never known anything like this before. Your father and I had some narrow shaves but nothing like this.’

He managed to make it sound as though the whole thing was directly attributable to me. ‘We’d better get back to the N.B.,’ he said. ‘We’ve got Miss Wilkie of McNoons of Perth in ten minutes.’

At the hotel there was a message awaiting us from Miss Wilkie. A mourning order of unparalleled proportions was engaging her attention in Perth. Would Thursday do?

‘She must think that we live here,’ said Mr Wilkins. ‘But all the same I’d like to get my teeth into that mourning order.’ It was an unseemly metaphor.

He spent the next hour in telephoning to remote parts of Scotland in an endeavour to inveigle Buyers to visit us. The formula was invariable. According to Mr Wilkins putting through personal calls to Buyers were useless. After costly delays the Buyer would be brought to the telephone. Thereafter the conversation was punctuated at three-minute intervals by costly peeps.

‘Hallo,’ he said, ‘Wilkins here of Lane and Newby of London. Good afternoon, Miss Pettigrew … Delightful to hear your voice. PEEP, PEEP, PEEP … I’m speaking from the North British Hotel, Edinburgh … I trust that you are in good health … Oh, I’m sorry to hear that … Most unfortunate … It must be very painful … You’ve been working too hard. PEEP, PEEP, PEEP … Yes, all well … Marvellous for his age … Miss Pettigrew, I thought perhaps you might like to run over here tomorrow. (The vision of Miss Pettigrew setting off from Stirling
in a blizzard dressed in running shorts was irresistible.) ‘We’re showing some very nice coats and costumes—’

‘And dresses,’ I hissed. ‘Tell her about the dresses.’

‘And dresses,’ said Mr Wilkins, obediently, but with less enthusiasm, … ‘Yes, I know you thought they were expensive, but that was some years ago. I think that it was in 1938 that I last had the pleasure of serving you … PEEP, PEEP, PEEP … Of course, the handwriting’s changed. Young Mr Newby’s with us now. He’s gingering us up.’ Mr Wilkins laughed, rather unpleasantly, I thought … ‘I’ll contact you the next time we’re in Edinburgh … Perhaps you might like us to bring a few things to Stirling … Good-bye, Miss Pettigrew … PEEP, PEEP, PEEP … Delightful to hear from you.’

After the awful night to which Mr Wilkins had condemned me I was in no mood to be merciful. ‘Tell me,’ I said as he ran his pencil through the last of these forlorn hopes. ‘Have we ever done any business at all with these people you’ve been telephoning? It seems a waste of money to me.’

‘Mr Eric, in this business one must never neglect an opportunity. One must keep in touch,’ he said, with a complete lack of conviction.

‘But what’s the good of keeping in touch with people who don’t want to be kept in touch with?’

‘Huh, Huh, Huh!’ said Mr Wilkins. ‘You’re just like your father, Mr Eric. He always enjoyed a joke when he was on the journey.’

Miss Reekie proved to be every bit as awful as Mr Wilkins had said she would be. We spent four hours showing her the collection. ‘Showing’ was a misnomer. She worked over it like a rag-picker on a rubbish dump. At the end of this time, filled to the brim with tea, boiled eggs and whisky she had whittled down the collection, some hundred items, to three coats, two suits and one dress. Even then she was undecided.

‘You boys must be tired of me,’ she said. ‘I know I’m a difficult old faggot.’

‘Not at all, Miss Reekie,’ said Mr Wilkins, managing a ghastly grin. ‘At Lane and Newby’s we also serve who only stand and wait.’

It was better than I could have managed after four hours with Miss Reekie. All I wanted her to do was to go away. In the end she bought nothing but offered to come back the next day. There were no takers. She came all the same.

‘I think we deserve a drink, Mr Eric,’ said Mr Wilkins when Miss Reekie had departed. ‘I’ll treat you to the finest glass of beer in Scotland.’

I thought so too. I had a raging thirst. The only way in which we had been able to show our disapproval of her had been by total abstention. Now I was too far gone to quibble over the word treat as used by Mr Wilkins. Without a word I followed him.

In the downstairs bar of the North British Hotel, a place which no longer exists, we drank William Younger’s Heavy Gravity in company with other commercials recovering from an awful day. After what I had been through in the last twenty-four hours it seemed like heaven. Women were not admitted. No one spoke except to order more. The Barmaid was an elderly lady who was a fanatic about her beer although she had never tasted it.

‘Ay, it’s guid beer, real guid beer and for why?’ she demanded, resting her arms on the bar. ‘Because I keep the pipes clean. Clean pipes, that’s the secret.’

After four pints of Heavy Gravity neither Mr Wilkins nor I cared whether the pipes were clean or not and after sharing a packet of cashew nuts we decided to go to bed.

For some impenetrable reason Mr Wilkins had booked a double room. It could not have been for the reasons of economy because the price was exactly double that of a single one.

The chambermaid had laid out my pyjamas and dressing-gown
on the bed and hung my spare suit on one of the cupboards. Only Mr Wilkins’ minute suitcase which was locked had resisted her efforts.

I was longing to see what he carried inside it. I did not have to wait long. With surprising swiftness he took off his boots and hung his suit over a chair. He then removed his shirt, revealing a complete suit of thick, long, woollen underwear. Opening his suitcase he removed from it his shaving things, a toothbrush and a pair of flannel pyjamas which he proceeded to put on over his underclothes. Inside the suitcase there remained nothing but a spare stiff collar. The journey was due to last ten days. I was more impressed than I dared to say.

‘Would you like to bath first?’ I said. ‘I’m in no hurry.’

But I was too late. Mr Wilkins had already removed his teeth. His reply was incomprehensible. Even as he spoke he fell asleep and although I got up several times and turned him over all through the night he snored stertorously like a man in apoplexy.

The following day was no less exacting. I spent most of the morning trying to interest Miss Cameron of Robertsons in my productions. She was the one who had been Mrs McHaggart’s best friend until Mrs McHaggart had pirated her dresses and jackets. It was useless, the iron had entered her soul. In the afternoon Miss Reekie came back and ordered a dress and Mrs McHaggart and Miss McTush sent their assistants to cut down their orders.

On Wednesday afternoon we left for Glasgow. At Edinburgh Mr Wilkins had taken orders for several thousand pounds. Mine totalled nine hundred. Most of the orders were for Mrs Ribble’s crêpe dinner dresses.

‘Not too bad for the first time, Mr Eric,’ said Mr Wilkins. ‘At least you’ve covered your expenses.’ He was seated opposite me in a Third-Class Smoker. All pretence at luxury had been abandoned.

This was cold comfort to me. Besides I did not understand what Mr Wilkins meant when he spoke of ‘covering my expenses’. So far I had paid for everything: taxis, the lunch at the George, two lugubrious evenings of beer drinking and the tremendous bill at the North British which included Miss Reekie’s potations – I had also done all the tipping. My money was evaporating at an alarming rate. I was not only covering my own expenses but Mr Wilkins’ as well. I resolved to speak to him about it.

I was about to do so when the train entered a tunnel and speech became impossible. When it emerged the view from the window was so apocalyptical that I forgot all about it. I looked out on a waste land filled with stagnant pools and the remains of bicycles. From the top of a muddy hillock a band of urchins were about to launch a pram on a muddy version of the Cresta Run. As the train went past the pram began to move downhill. In it there was a large placid-looking baby, sitting bolt upright. It seemed quite unimpressed. On the hill behind there was a large Victorian Cemetery.