LITMIR.BIZ

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tell us to move on.

      ‘This could be the turning point,’ he says to me grimly, ‘remember the darkest hour is just before the dawn. By the way, talking about darkest hours, were you the bleeder who locked me in my room?’

      ‘Who, me, Sid? What would I want to do a thing like that for? I reckon it was Mrs. Runcorn herself. She fancied you rotten, you know, and was dead jealous of you getting across Rita.’

      ‘Yeah,’ Sid gazes dreamily into the distance. ‘It’s almost a disadvantage sometimes, pulling birds the way I do.’

      ‘Absolutely, Sid,’ I say admiringly. ‘You never said a truer word.’

      When the last photographer has escaped Sid takes the girls off for another onslaught on the trade and I start banging door knockers again. At half past eleven I sell my second Nugget and by three o’clock I have sold another one. It is not world shattering but at least it is twice as good as yesterday. I am therefore in reasonably good spirits when I decide to try my luck at a large block of council flats before calling it a day. I can cover a lot of families without walking too far and on the law of averages there must be one or two people inside those flats who need a cleaner.

      I get right to the top and am amazed how windy it is up there. Below me trails of smoke lie across the town and I can see a panorama of green moorland surrounding the blackened chimneys. I would needs wings before I could live up here.

      My first prospect says she does not need a cleaner and my next is an old lady who only wants to chat to someone. I can tell that the moment I see her, but I have a cup of tea with her and take her through the product feature by feature and I suppose it cheers her up a bit. I leave her saying that she will think about it and push on past three no-answers and a sad-voiced kid who tells me through the letter box that his mother is at work. I suppose a lot of the bints in the flats will be at work. Maybe I should have left it a bit later in the day before calling.

      The flats are built in the shape of an L and I come round a corner just in time to see a slim bird with long blonde hair trying to open the door of her flat while holding onto a large carton of groceries.

      ‘Can I help you?’ I say, tossing aside the loathsome Nugget and relieving her of her load before she can say no.

      ‘Ta very much.’ She looks me up and down. ‘You’re not from around here, are you?’

      ‘No, I’m from London.’

      ‘I thought so. It was your accent.’ I restrain myself from congratulating her. ‘What are you doing round here?’

      ‘I’m a salesman.’ It has taken me a little time to get used to the accent of Northern birds but now I find them almost attractive. A bit harsh but a nice contrast with what is underneath.

      ‘Welcome to the Windy City. What are you selling?’

      ‘Take me in out of the cold and I’ll show you.’ She is the kind of bird you know is going to start saying ‘yes’ before you have started asking the questions and she turns the key and leads the way into the flat.

      ‘O.K. Sir Galahad, but you’ll have to be a good salesman. On the money my old man gives me there’s not much left over for luxuries.’

      ‘The Noggett Nugget is not a luxury, madam,’ I purr, ‘it’s a necessity in any home.’

      ‘“The Nogget Nugget”? What a funny name.’ This is what everybody says but I am not going to tell her that.

      ‘A rose by any other name,’ I murmur.

      ‘Would what?’

      ‘Would what what?’

      ‘A rose by any –’

      ‘Oh, that! “would smell as sweet”.’

      ‘Oh.’ She nods vacantly. By the cringe but she is no Brain of Britain contestant, this one.

      I look round the room we are in and see plentiful evidence of an Irish influence. There are green china shamrocks in the spaces usually reserved for flying ducks and two sawn-off hockey sticks mounted above the electric fire which I take to be weapons used in hurling. If that was not enough there is a card on the mantelpiece inviting Mr. and Mrs. Seamus O’Hanrahan to a St. Patrick’s Night dance at the local town hall.

      ‘Your husband is Irish, is he?’ I ask.

      The lady of the house looks at me admiringly. ‘How did you know that? I’m not speaking with an Irish accent, am I?’

      ‘Oh, no.’

      ‘God forbid that I ever should.’

      ‘No. It was all the Irish emblems about the place. What does your husband do?’

      ‘He builds motorways.’

      ‘And you said you were short of housekeeping? Forgive me, but I thought you could make a lot of money working on the motorway.’

      ‘You can, and Seamus does. It’s just that not enough gets back to me and the children. He drinks too much and gambles what’s left.’

      I am beginning to feel that I could construct an identikit picture of Seamus O’Hanrahan without any difficulty. About six foot seven with hands like ditch delvers and a Desperate Dan stubble on his rocky chin which he uses for striking matches. He drinks his own weight of draught Guinness every night and flies into an uncontrollable rage if someone so much as offers his wife a crisp in the local boozer. Not the kind of bloke you would like to catch you pressing the curl out of his old lady’s pubics.

      ‘I suppose he is away quite a lot?’ I say just to be on the safe side.

      ‘Yes, thank God. If I had him round this place the whole time I’d go mad. He’s down at Bristol at the moment.’

      That seems far enough away. ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Let me show you what I’ve got in my little cardboard box.’

      I assemble the Nugget and, I must say, it is one of my best ever demonstrations. The product does not play up and sucks and blows strictly on cue. Mrs. O’Hanrahan, or Peggy as she tells me to call her, is obviously impressed.

      ‘I suppose it’s very expensive?’ she says.

      ‘How much would you think?’

      ‘About thirty pounds?’

      ‘A little more than that. Thirty-eight ninety-eight to be precise, but remember, that’s really five different cleaners you’re buying. It’s unbeatable value. I think your best bet is to pay for it on our unique extended credit plan.’

      In fact Sid is buying the cleaners for a figure not much in excess of five quid, so the profit margin is fairly respectable despite all the sheets of glass we seem to get through.

      ‘Isn’t there a chance of getting a little bit off?’ pouts Peggy waggling her tits at me. ‘Come on, be a sport.’

      ‘I can’t change the price but I might be able to offer you a trade-in,’ I say, trying to keep my mind on the business in hand. The trouble with me is that once I start scoring I go mad. A couple of birds last night, and a couple of Nuggets today and I am away.

      ‘What’s a trade-in?’ says Mrs. O’H. roguishly. ‘Do I have to trade you something?’

      ‘Yes. Have you got an old vacuum cleaner?’

      ‘I’ve only got a floor sweeper. Would that do?’

      ‘Sorry, no. It must be electrical.’

      ‘Oh dear. I must have something you’d like?’

      ‘I wouldn’t say no to a cup of tea.’

      ‘You’re on,’ she holds my glance for a second, ‘cheeky.’ When she has gone into the kitchen I gaze out of the window and look at the hundreds of little boxes on the other face of the building. Most of them have lace curtains up but one or two shameless occupiers allow the eye to wander in unchallenged.

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