It was Thatcher that opened the doors of places like this to people like me, and ever since then bad things have been happening to me almost daily. Now the world spins a cyclone and I pitch headlong into a linen draped table at the end of the room that digs me in the ribs. I keep my balance but only just, scattering Champagne glasses and bottles, and then land roundly on my ass at the feet of the tall blonde who has been studiously ignoring me all evening. She shrinks away. She has a heady, floral smell and I breathe it all in. Mark Butterfield grins and rubs his fist, his shoulders bunched meanly beneath his dinner jacket, whilst a chandelier winks pear shaped eyes at me from overhead. It’s a cartoon set. I half expect the chandelier to tumble down, accompanied by the blare of Hannah Barbera horns. That’s all folks. I blink around at roughly drawn characters seated at swathed tables. Somebody cheers. Oblivious cutlery chinks.
My jaw doesn’t fit right. Nothing fits right. The world outside my head screams and mutters like an out of tune radio. When I find my feet, I stumble at first, crunching shards of glass under my shoes.
Forwards: I will myself forwards but find myself snagged by hands clutching at my clothing. For some futile moments I heave and stagger like a mad cow, watched by anxious faces. I’m looking for an opening, screwing up my left eye to focus, trying to find somebody or something to hit.
Once, this could never have happened in Claridges but now they’ve let the Yobs in we’ll change it forever. For all I know there are fights in Claridges all the time. Thatcher gave us the license and the money to do this. They should never have allowed the yobs to get hold of money. But this is the eighties and now we all have money to burn. We’re all making hoofprints on a newly level playing field.
I straighten up, shaking off restraining hands, thrusting around with my elbows. ‘I’m all. I’m all right. I don’t wanna fight.’ And I don’t. Winded, with a fluttering in my chest I brush down the front of my dinner jacket wondering if that stain will come out, and aiming a glare at Mark. I don’t want to fight. I grip my chest. Is my heartbeat erratic? I should calm down. There are pills you can take, aren’t there? But then… what the hell? With new momentum I propel myself head down, knocking bodies aside left and right. Somebody screams. I think I land some useful punches before I’m hauled backwards, fists making erratic, contactless gestures.
Mark didn’t mean any harm, of course, and tomorrow we’ll be mates again, like always. After all, it’s a laugh, isn’t it?
Later a waiter with obsequious, hard-to-meet eyes, admonishes me in quiet a corner. I tell him I’m here to enjoy myself, and HE won’t stop me. Who’s paying?
I’m here because I’ve won an award. It’s no big deal: We’re all winners here tonight. Except the directors. And the wives, And they’re only here because WE’RE here.
I win awards all the time: usually it’s money or holidays. Once, it was a car. It’s the business I’m in, you see? Because I’m a salesman. I sell to anyone… I’d sell to you if you were here. What do you want to buy? Sign here.
I can see your interest fading. But don’t judge me too quickly: I’m not a bad man. Just a bloke who sells photocopiers for a living. When it comes down to it, we’re all just hustlers. We’re all hustling something.
And I think I perform a valuable service: That’s what I tell myself in the shaving mirror when I can be bothered to shave. Every business needs a copier these days. You probably use one yourself. Maybe it’s tucked away in a shameful small room off the corridor – a box-like machine with all kinds of angular unworkable protrusions. Often it carries a hand-written note that says ‘OUT OF ORDER’. They shouldn’t call them copiers since copying is what they hardly ever seem to do.
Now the drama is over I’m drinking Krug Champagne in my DJ by Christian Dior, wolfing hors d’oeuvres and waiting for the presentation dinner. Things don’t seem so bad do they? But let me fill you in on some of the bad things that have been happening..
‘Bill, this is Bruno Delaspino from the States.’ Richard Carlton looks immaculate as ever. His tanned face is clouded with a hint of disapproval.
Bruno Delaspino is a West Coast clone, about seven feet tall and broad as a prairie, nursing a glass of mineral water. ‘Bruno – Bill Hitchcock – the boys call him Wild Bill for, uhm, obvious reasons.’
‘Hi Bill.. Good to meet you. WILD Bill, huh..?’ He laughs and displays a row of perfect white teeth. ‘I guess you were living up to your name earlier. Who was the other guy? He a buddy?’ His big paw presses my own in a macho handshake, and I grip back as firmly as I can.
‘Nothing to worry about Bruno.’ interjects Richard. ‘High spirits. No harm done. See you later Bill.’ and with a perfunctory wave the American is steered away to safer company.
The Americans are here for the awards, showing the flag. I work for an American company, although the Americans leave us pretty much alone except for occasions like this. I’ve been to International Headquarters in Seattle. It’s as big and glossy as an out-of-town mall, with piped music in the corridors and a forest of foliage in reception. Our American patrons are affectionately known as ‘The Parents’.
My forehead is tight and moist. My jaw throbs. I shouldn’t drink any more. I take a leisurely swig from the Champagne bottle hanging at my side. No, I really shouldn’t, but the night is still young..
The blonde I told you about earlier stands alone in a corner, looking on. Looking at me, I think. I stroll towards her. Tall and slim, in a pale dress, and with the cutest.. do you think she’s my type? Do you think I’m hers? I decide to play it cool. I stop a few paces in front of her, and smile as nicely as I can. Then I say:
‘How do I get inside your knickers?’ because subtlety just isn’t my strongest talent.
The look. THAT look. You see it often enough when you look the way I do. It could be that fat men just don’t do it for her.
‘Why?’ she says, ‘There’s already one asshole in there.’ And with a SWEET smile she makes a motion with her arm, and my shirt front feels wet and sticky as the Champagne makes its way to form a damp line around my belt. Playing hard to get.. obviously she wants me.. don’t you think?
We take our seats in the main function room at candle-lit tables which form islands of blurred, rose-tinted light in a vast hall. Places have been allocated with florid pink place cards, and the tables are swathed in pink cloths. Squinting at the cards on my table I make some deft arrangements of my own, dealing the place cards like playing cards. Now where do you suppose that blonde is sitting? Panning the room with unsteady, TV vision I recognise few faces. Not so many winners in my branch this year.
A bread roll taps me on the forehead before scudding across the carpet and under the next table. Honest Harry sits three tables from me, and looks away, stony faced. In an exaggerated wide arc I bowl a granary roll in his direction. A waiter fields it expertly and discreetly slips it behind his back. Someone clears their throat deliberately. The company is seated. At the centre table the President of Xerox Inc. is waiting for me to take my seat, watching me with arched eyebrows.
‘Sorry.’ Stiffly I lower myself to where my seat should have been: except that there is only empty space, and I land in a lumpy heap. A few chuckles break out, but unscathed I find my chair at last and settle myself, as the President produces a sheaf of notes.
‘Now that we’re comfortable’ drawls the Yank, directing this comment at me, ‘I’d like to welcome y’all to the Xerox Quota Club presentation dinner. The salesmen here are the very cream of our salesforce.. and I believe that every one of you here tonight deserves a round of applause.’ He smiles broadly and raises his hands. ‘Give yourselves a round of applause, folks!’
Erratically at first, the clapping begins, then as a mock enthusiasm stirs the rowdier elements, it swells into a noisy crescendo, with whistling and table banging, and cat-calls. The applause lasts for several minutes, and renews itself unexpectedly more than once. The President looks disconcerted, and throws a fearful glance at Bruno. When silence is finally restored, he consults his notes, and draws a line through something or other with a glittering pen. With no further entreaties for audience participation, he runs through the agenda for tonight, wishes us a pleasant evening, then takes his seat.
Honest Harry burps. I yawn. A waiter tops up my glass with Champagne, and nothing much happens for twenty minutes or so. The food arrives, brought to me by a sleek, dark waitress in a very short skirt. You can more or less guess what happens next: I proposition her, she spills the soup in my lap and our pretty waitress is substituted for a smaller, rounder woman with hard grey eyes. Of course I proposition her too: on the question of women I have catholic tastes. After all, I can always drink them pretty.
I sense that my dinner companions disapprove of me. Well, I didn’t choose you Bernie and Beatrice and Ernie and.. I frown at the name-cards. I tried to choose but I couldn’t find any interesting ones so I just jumbled them up a bit. Bernie is typical of the NEW Xerox executive. He is holding forth with polite, business related conversation about the future of integrated systems and local area networks and.. and all that stuff. At a Quota Club dinner, would you believe! Well Bernie I’m not prepared to listen to all this shit. I tell him so. Does anyone know any good jokes? Bernie tells me that I am an anachronism. I tell him that I don’t understand anachronism, and what’s more if he calls me that again I’ll break his face. He doesn’t say a lot more after that, and shoots me uneasy glances over his dessert spoon.
They’re not wrong, though, the Bernies. The winds of change are blowing through the musical corridors of Xerox. The company wants to become RESPECTABLE. Some months ago they shipped in a bunch of senior people from Technowest, to salvage our ailing systems division and to pull Xerox kicking and screaming into the nineties which are almost upon us. We’re not just a copier company any more: we’re into Information Technology. It’s all bull in my opinion. Trendy strategies. We dinosaurs will still pack the punches in years to come. Anyway, if these guys are such hot shots why did Technowest go to the wall, that’s what I’d like to know? I’m safe enough, in my opinion, selling copiers. I sit here, chomping fillet steak and swigging good claret. Not bad for a.. what was it..? Anachronism.
Dinner over, the President is standing again, and I hear my name. Somebody mentioned my name..
‘..with a magnificent performance of 416% of planned revenue performance.. Wild Bill Hitchcock! Come on up Wild Bill!’
Bernie nudges me warily. ‘It’s you. You’re on.’
‘Yeah.’ So I find my feet with some difficulty to a round of applause, and pick my way through the tables. A bread roll barely misses my nose and lands harmlessly in a wine bucket.
‘Bill has been busy with the Prescient Insurance Group account which ordered EIGHT DF900’s and FOURTEEN DFS750’s in June alone!’
Guilty. I take the small, plump hand of Graham Watson, the UK managing director, who is dwarfed by the meaty American at his side, and accept a kind of crystal goblet. I shake it against my ear in wonderment. Where’s the money? What’s this crystal stuff all about? I say:
‘Where’s the money Graham?’ This is greeted with general laughter, and the old man reaches up to pat me paternally on the shoulder, oblivious.
‘Well done Bill.’ and as I make my way back to my seat the President takes up the pronouncements: ‘.. and from our happily re-vitalised systems division comes an outstanding 342% performance by Bernie Fox-Norton!’
I slump into my chair feeling deprived of something. The wine waiter brings me Champagne and I stop him before he tops up my glass.
‘Might as well get some use out of this… this…’ and I gesture towards the quart sized crystal goblet floundering for some suitable descriptive noun. ‘This!’ I finish emphatically.
So here they all are, the cream of Xerox UK parading their wives and girlfriends, trophies in their Chanel and YSL designer wear and glittering jewellery: testaments to their partners’ success. Where, you may ask, is my Trophy Partner tonight? You forget: I’ve been to these functions before and I know what they’re like.. I know what I’M like. What’s more, Zara also knows what I’m like, and how things are likely to turn out. So she stayed home.
I wanted her to come. I blew £600 on a new dress for her. At my age and with my weight I find it remarkable that she should choose to be with me at all, and not with someone younger and fitter and better looking. I’m not the only one who finds this remarkable: We’ve been together now for almost four years, but I still enjoy the spectacle of other guys when they see us together. ‘What’s a girl like you doing with an asshole like that?’ Really, this gives me a buzz.
Zara is everything I’m not: Young, slim, attractive, sophisticated. She’s also a good lay.
Zara though, is a source of some of the bad things which seem to be happening lately. On Wednesday for instance:
Zara sat up in bed, pulling the sheets around her, and announced:
‘Billy, I want to get married.’
‘Married..? To me?’ Clearly this was not the response she was expecting. She turned vigorously onto her side facing the wall, wresting what remained from the bedclothes from me and leaving me cold and exposed with shrivelled genitalia.
‘Of course to you! Who else?’
‘I just thought.. you know. It’s a bit of a shock. A surprise, I mean. That’s all.’ feeling rather feeble in my nakedness and trying in vain to recover some of the quilt. ‘Anyway aren’t you a bit, you know, young? Too young for that kind of commitment?’.
That was my trump card. It doesn’t sound very effective does it? How could I say that it was me that was too young?
‘I’m 24 Billy. Girls from my school married at 18. How can you possibly say I’m too young?’
‘Well I am then. I’M too young. It’s too soon.’
In a turmoil of sheets and quilt and flying down Zara then leapt from the bed taking the warm bedding with her and swinging her long tresses behind her. The quilt dropped at her back to reveal the smooth curve of her spine. Her face, as she turned to the side, was kind of puffy, her eyes glazed: Tears.
‘You’re 34 Billy. It’s time you grew up. Time you took us seriously.’ And with that she shut herself up in the spare room leaving me to rummage in the dirty linen basket for bedclothes.
I think I’m going to have to marry Zara. She wants to be respectable like her friends. Why does everybody want to be respectable these days? What do they have to feel so guilty about?
That’s another reason why I’m here tonight on my own. And she, I hope, is also on her own.
Presentations over, the venue has altered. The lights are low. Chris de Burgh is playing ‘The Lady in Red’, and couples are interlocked and swaying in the half light of the dance floor. By the time the band climbs arrives, I am pretty well steaming with booze and aggression – you should see me when I’m like this.. it’s when I’m at my best; my wittiest; my most eloquent. Some of the guys have showered and changed by now, but not me. I don’t want to lose that deeply entrenched feeling of being thoroughly pissed. My bow tie is unfastened and hangs like a ribbon around my open collar. There’s a secret to this – the bow I wore earlier, was a ready made one. The one I’m wearing now, was brought to wear unfastened. I can’t tie the real ones, can you? Can anyone? But I won’t have people knowing. It’s part of the Yob culture: we can’t be fussed to learn things so we cheat. We cheat at everything, even business. Especially business, but more of that later.
And now I’m dancing with the horniest woman in the room. Yes, I am, you’d be amazed. The band is a blues band and they’re playing a slow number. She’s wearing a long, body-hugging pale blue dress with a slit at the front, and no.. no , I can’t feel the ridge of knicker elastic. Whoops, now she’s moving my hands further up, to waist height. Not quite yet. I’m trying hard to focus my eyes but I really am shagged out. And who IS that guy in the white trousers giving me the third degree scowl. Well, he’s coming over. He doesn’t look much. Beneath me I can feel this girl writhing, and I know I’m going to score.. but instead she writhes right out from my embrace and I find myself looking up from the dance floor with a silly grin on my face. I realise now that it was only her support that kept me on my feet at all, and as I watch the long legs slip in and out of her slit dress, and the white trousered legs which walk alongside, I feel sure I’ve made an impression. I’ll know tomorrow.
Supported on my elbows then, in my crusty, stained suit, I sit amidst a blur of moving, shaking legs and bodies, and I feel the urge to grab a pair of ankles. I won’t, of course. Not till I get my second wind…
