Something Wholesale (15 page)

Another minute and we arrived in Glasgow.

The hotel in Glasgow seemed less forbidding than the North British in Edinburgh. The terrible smells of kitchen were less pronounced. We also had a sitting-room on one of the upper floors, one which Lane and Newby had occupied regularly for more than forty years. Even Mr Wilkins could not very well demur as there were no stockrooms. To my relief I managed to get a single room – after a night on a train with Mr Wilkins and two more listening to him snoring in Edinburgh I was exhausted.

At six o’clock we had an appointment with the Misses McAndrew. They were sisters who came from a town on the Borders where they had built up a remarkable business among the upper classes. McAndrew’s was one of the few accounts from which it was possible to get a better order for dresses than for
coats and it had been drummed into me by everyone concerned that failure to do so was tantamount to disaster. ‘That’s just the thing for McAndrew’s!’ my mother used to say when some particularly simple dress appeared from the model workroom and she would send them a sketch of it together with some patterns. Sometimes she used to get an order but more often a letter would arrive which indicated in no uncertain terms that the dress did not come up to the McAndrew standard.

‘We are
most disappointed
with the sketch you have sent us of the wool dress “Gun Club” ’wrote one or other of the Misses McAndrew (it was impossible to tell which from the letter as their literary style was identical). ‘It seems to us that you are not
au fait
with the requirements of our ladies. They do not want
mass-produced
garments. Please
do not
send us any further sketches or patterns unless you are convinced that they are really suitable. At the moment you are involving us in considerable
postal expenditure
and all to no purpose.’

The Misses McAndrew were unlike any other Buyers I had ever seen. They gave the impression that they had never stooped to anything as low as commerce. They were very quiet ladies with silver hair, beautifully dressed in rare tweeds and minimal quantities of excellent fur. They arrived on the first stroke of six and without delay settled down to work.

After ten minutes it was obvious that things were not going well. As I showed dress after dress with the Misses McAndrew looking grimly at them the quietness which I had first remarked in them as a lady-like quality now seemed to assume a more sinister significance.

‘No, Mr Newby!’

‘Not that, Mr Newby!’

‘Our ladies would not wear such a garment, Mr Newby!’

‘No, Mr Newby!’

‘That is not at all the kind of thing we require, Mr Newby!’

Sometimes they said nothing at all but simply looked in eloquent silence.

I felt my nerve going. I was in the presence of twin intelligences of a sort that I had never before encountered. Intelligence that was linked with a highly developed and individual sense of style. Even now when I was showing them all the wrong things, I knew what they wanted – the difficulty was to provide it.

‘Now this,’ I said, holding up the last dress in the collection that I dared to show them, a wool georgette in a washed out shade of green that everyone else had bought, ‘is the sort of thing …’

‘No, Mr Newby!’

Together they rose to their feet adjusting their pieces of sable.

‘Lovely, aren’t they?’ said Mr Wilkins, choosing this inopportune moment to come forward and put his foot in it.

Both sisters gave him a withering look.

‘Mr Willukins,’ said the younger of the two who looked even more deceptively gentle than the other, ‘How often do we have to tell you that our customers are not the sort who wear wool georgette.’ She made it sound as though some stigma might result from contact with the stuff.

‘For the most part they spend their time in outdoor pursuits. They need fine checks for indoors and really thick tweeds for the hills.’

There was not a moment to lose. It was obvious that she was pronouncing a funeral oration over my collection. I picked up one of Mr Wilkins’ swatches of suit patterns. They were fine saxonies intended for men’s suits and because of this they were three times as expensive as the materials I would normally have used for such a purpose.

‘That’s what we want, Mr Newby,’ one of them said, instantly. ‘Now all we need are three simple styles in which they can be made.’

I took the three simplest styles in the collection and said that they would be even more simple. I managed to convince them that what they would get would be little more than tubes of material with four holes in them. I also said that they would be very expensive, which was true.

‘To our customers,’ the elder Miss McAndrew said. ‘Expense is a secondary consideration. The important thing, Mr Newby, is satisfaction. Satisfaction and quality.’

‘We could also have the dresses made with jackets. Like that,’ she indicated one of Mr Wilkins’ suits, ‘but no padding in the shoulders.’

‘And horn buttons,’ said her sister.

‘Horn buttons and leather belts for the dresses. The belts must be of the finest quality. We want none of your
Wholesale Belts
.’

‘Two-pieces,’ said Mr Wilkins, waking up suddenly. ‘I do the two-pieces.’

‘They are too dressed-up for our ladies, Mr Wilkins,’ one of them said firmly. ‘They require them for shooting.’

For a moment I had an insane desire to ask what.

‘This is the kind of material we need,’ she went on, looking through a swatch of twenty-one-ounce tweeds intended for gamekeepers. ‘For our ladies to wear on the hills. With horn buttons. Providing that they do not cost more than thirty guineas you can write the order. You can confirm the price to us later. And remember – no padding in the shoulders.’

It was the biggest order I had had. They ordered the saxony dresses in three different styles and six different colours. They also ordered the two-pieces in a number of permutations of colour and style. I calculated that two thicknesses of the twenty-ounce
tweed would be almost bullet-proof. Perhaps that was what the Misses McAndrew intended.

Made amicable by having found what they wanted they then proceeded to order a surprisingly large number of black chiffon dinner dresses.

One of these dresses was so expensive that so far I had only succeeded in selling one to Miss Reekie and then only by agreeing to let her have the model at a reduced price. In fact I had already decided to withdraw it from the collection. Although extremely elegant its effect seemed to be too sepulchral for the wholesale.

It was an extraordinary order – the combination of the heavy tweeds and the funereally graceful chiffons. When not engaged in killing things the McAndrews’ customers seemed to spend their evening dining in a family vault.

When the McAndrews had gone Mr Wilkins tried to persuade me that this order would more properly be executed by his department, but the memory of the railway journey, the double room, the expenses, was fresh in my mind and I hardened my heart. It was already pretty hard.

I countered by asking him about the expenses.

‘I’m getting very short of money. Either you’ll have to give me some or else you’ll have to pay from now on; at least until we leave Glasgow.’

‘I haven’t got any to spare,’ he said.

‘But you haven’t spent anything yet.’

‘There are certain expenses,’ he said, mysteriously. ‘Besides, we have to keep separate accounts. I suggest that you send for some more.’

Arguing with Mr Wilkins I found difficulty in deciding whether I was dealing with a diabolical intelligence or with an idiot.

‘I know we have to keep separate accounts but the money all
comes from the same source and we’ve been given it for the same purpose. It doesn’t belong to us.’

‘I like to keep it separate,’ said Mr Wilkins.

‘Well, what do you think I’ve been doing up to now. I’ve been paying for everything.’

‘I thought you wanted to pay. After all, Mr Eric, it’s all the same in the end whoever puts it down.’

By now I was furious.

‘Why don’t you want to put down your expenses?’ I shouted. ‘Dammit, tell me!’

I made so much noise that there was a hammering on the wall and a voice said ‘Quiet!’

Mr Wilkins said nothing. His face was shiny.

The thought of Miss Gatling waiting to pounce on me when I returned to Great Marlborough Street made me desperate.

‘Mr Wilkins,’ I said. ‘If you don’t put up the money for our expenses I shall telephone Miss Gatling and tell her that you refuse to pay your share.’

For the second time in my acquaintance with Mr Wilkins a trace of emotion showed itself on the smooth expanse of his face. It was impossible to say what the emotion was but it twitched.

‘Will five pounds be any help?’ he said.

‘No!’ I handed him a sheet of paper on which I had written down our joint expenses.

‘I don’t think all these expenses were necessary,’ he said after looking at it intently for some time. ‘Besides, I thought you were treating me to the beer.’

‘It was you who asked me in the first place. You can perfectly well put it down as “dinner”. If you choose to drink your dinner instead of eating it nobody’s going to question that.’

In the end after much grumbling Mr Wilkins paid his share; but afterwards he always insisted on each of us paying for our
own drinks. This proved a great nuisance. The waiters got in a fearful mess with the change and because neither I nor Mr Wilkins were prepared to tip for one another they often failed to get anything at all.

For the rest of the week we did rather badly in Glasgow. Originally we had planned to leave on Saturday morning but as a result of one of Mr Wilkins’ more than usually ill-timed telephone calls a customer from Ayr decided to visit us on Saturday afternoon. She never appeared and as a result we found ourselves marooned in Glasgow for the week-end.

All Saturday and all Sunday it rained in torrents. In such weather, equipped with nothing but a business suit it was impossible to go into the country. On Saturday evening we went to the pictures. On Sunday morning, returning to my room after a late breakfast, I met the occupant of the next sitting-room, the man who had shouted ‘Quiet’ when we had been quarrelling over our expenses. He was one of the manufacturers whom I had first seen on the platform at King’s Cross. Since then I had seen him often. Each time one of our customers arrived at our door or was on the point of leaving he too opened his door to see what he was missing.

Now he was standing outside on the landing smoking a cigar. On the door of his sitting-room was a crudely lettered placard.

Sweetie-Pie Models (1946) Ltd.

Wholesale Couture and Export

Director. Harry Goldfinch

Great Portland Street.

Until this moment Mr Goldfinch had only glared at me. Now he adopted a more ingratiating approach. For him too, the Sabbath was a day of rest. Perhaps, like me, he was lonely and far from home.

‘My name’s Goldfinch,’ he said, superfluously. ‘Everyone calls me Harry.’ We shook hands.

‘What a terrible place and a terrible weather. And I have to stay in this dump. And do you know why? Because my customer stood me up. She came here Friday. Saw the stuff. Had some drinks. Dinner at the Central. Nice big dinner. Then she was going to come back here and put her order down. Came back from powdering her nose to say she’d have to come in Monday morning or she’d miss her train. Train to where? You know what that was? An excuse to spend the week-end with her boy friend in Glasgow. You know what he is? An agent! Here in Glasgow, Tink-a-Bell Gowns. What can you do with a woman like that, I ask you?’ Mr Goldfinch opened his arms in a gesture of despair. ‘Any rate here I am. I don’t know what Mrs Goldfinch will say when I get back,’ he went on. ‘She made a terrible fuss on the telephone when I told her I wouldn’t be back – mostly on account of the girl.

‘You see I’ve got a model girl,’ he said, confidentially. ‘You must have one for a high-class business like this. The money I’ve spent on that girl! Couldn’t spell her own name when I took her on. Now she runs me ragged.’ He rolled his ‘r’s’ impressively. ‘And there’s nothing in it for me. I tell you that. All I know is I miss my round of golf. I miss my bridge and I’m in trouble with Mrs Goldfinch and her mother and all this is costing me a lot of money.’

The strain of being in business and at the same time not doing any was obviously too much for Mr Goldfinch. ‘Would you like to see the stuff?’ he said, suddenly. ‘It’s all right, I know what you’re thinking,’ he went on, waving his cigar deprecatingly. ‘We’re not likely to get in one another’s way. You see we do a very high-class trade.’

I followed him into the sitting-room. I had never seen so many dresses in my life. There were hundreds of them all jammed
together on rails – cotton dresses, rayon dresses, silk dresses – all in fearful colours.

A tall girl with red hair and a neck like a giraffe’s was sitting on a sofa with her legs tucked under her. Without make-up she was a dreadful sight. Nevertheless I found her more agreeable to look at than Mr Wilkins, of whom I was beginning to tire. In a corner Mr Goldfinch had rigged up a small portable bar on which stood a number of bottles. As he switched on the light it too lit up, illuminating a slogan ‘Try My Sweetie-Pie!’