No Place in the Sun (3 page)

Tom dropped a couple of coins into the vending machine, but nothing happened. He thumped it angrily and swore. Walter stepped up beside him and caressed the reject button; the cup rattled into the holder and the coffee trickled down, filling the room with its rich aroma.

Walter spoke quietly. ‘Keep the cool, don’t sweat the small stuff. If the place goes under, we get a few quid and we move somewhere else. That’s life, son, don’t worry about it.’

Tom shrugged his shoulders; maybe it was time to think about a move. For now though, there was a list of appliances to shift, and the chance of a few extra quid on the guarantee racket. Time to face his public. He stirred the sugar into his coffee and kicked his way through the swing doors, clicking on the lights as he passed the bank of switches. Walter threw the main switch to turn on the rows of television sets on the back wall, and Andrew pressed his thumb on the button that opened the shutters. The store was coming alive, wakening from its Sunday slumber. Milton’s was open for business.

Tom rapped on the steel door with a coin. It was early, time for a coffee before the store opened, and a chance to read the paper in a bit of comfort. The look on Walter’s face caused him to stop short.

‘What’s up?’

Walter shook his head. ‘Go in and ask Andy. He’s not in his usual sunny form I can tell you.’

In the small canteen it was clear that all was not well with Andrew. He sat at the end of the table, and he had been crying. His usually cheery face was streaked with tears and he looked older than his thirty years.

‘What’s up, Andy?’

For once, Tom avoided the temptation to give his colleague a ribbing. This looked a lot worse than the usual saga of one of Andrew’s boyfriends moving out and leaving him lost for a few days until he found a replacement. He felt sorry for the poor bugger really, despite being the first to pull his leg on these occasions. Andrew was a harmless enough fellow, living for his clubbing and his flamboyant social life, and he enlivened the tea breaks with his jokes and banter.

Andrew sniffled noisily. ‘He is marrying a woman! She’s a lot younger than him too, bloody gold-digger.’ He started to sob uncontrollably.

Tom put a protective arm around his shoulders. He figured that one of Andy’s boyfriends had gone straight, and he could understand how that could upset the poor fellow. ‘Never mind, lots more fishes in the sea and all that.’

Andrew’s sobbing got worse; Tom found it hard to understand the words that escaped between the sobs. ‘No, no, not that, uncle bloody Maurice, he met a young bitch, getting married. Selling the place and going to Spain.’ He slumped over the table with his head in his hands.

Walter put three cups of coffee on the table. ‘Looks like we’re going to be out of a job, son. Seems like the old lad found himself a new woman and he’s selling out to a British outfit.’

‘No way, he isn’t, is he?’ Tom looked at Andrew for confirmation of what he was hearing.

Andrew took a couple of swallows of the coffee and seemed to calm himself. His voice steadied.

‘He asked me to come round this morning for breakfast and he told me everything, I knew he’d been seeing the woman from the golf club but I thought he was just fond of a bit of company.’

Tom was starting to get the picture. ‘Old Milton has a woman?’

Andrew nodded and sniffled again. ‘He’ll have a closing down sale starting tomorrow, he’s already sold the store and the warehouse and they are going to retire to Marbella and play bloody golf.’ He started to sob. ‘She put him up to this, bloody bitch, I know she did, he was happy working in the business.’

The enormity of what was happening began to sink in, Tom looked at Walter. ‘So we’re on the fucking road so. Just what I need with a car loan and the fucking bills I have.’

Walter shrugged his shoulders. ‘I have a mortgage and a wife and child; I need this like a hole in the head, but I’m not going to panic about it. You and I will always get other jobs, son; anyone who can sell as well as us can sell ourselves to another employer. We’re the best, Tom. We’ll be ok. I feel sorry for our friend here though, he has lost a lot more than a poxy job.’

Tom stopped and thought, it was true, poor Andrew had just seen his inheritance disappear over the hill to the Costa del Sol. There wasn’t much future for him; he had only survived up to now because of his uncle’s patronage. Being the boss’s nephew could have its downside.

He put an arm around Andrew’s shoulder. ‘Cheer up Andy’ he said, with as much conviction as he could muster,‘there’s always work for good men.’

Andrew’s sniffling continued long after they had moved out to the shop and opened the shutters to start another week. They would have to sell a few kettles today; the usually chirpy Andrew was in no state to stand behind the smalls counter for a while.

The day started well, they each collared a couple of good sales with very little effort, then things quietened down and they drifted over to the couch in the television viewing area.

Walter turned down the sound on the sports channel. ‘So, what do you think? Should we walk away and get other jobs right now, or hang on to the bitter end?’

Tom sighed. ‘I don’t know, in one way I feel like getting out of here now, but then again there could be an easy bundle of commission here with the closing-down sale, and we must be due redundancy or something. He must have got millions for this place, so it’s not like he’s short or anything.’

‘I reckon there’ll be damn all redundancy. I think it’s only paid on the basic, not the commission, and you can be sure that Milton won’t kill himself that way. I mean, he has no reason to be generous or anything, he won’t need us again and why should he give us anything over and above what he has to?’

Tom hadn’t thought of it that way, but as usual Walter was right. Milton would try to get out of this whole deal with as much money as possible, same as always, and there was no point in having big expectations. The old bastard hadn’t even bothered to tell them himself about the closedown, just left it to poor old Andy to break the news.

Walter gestured back towards the canteen; Andrew hadn’t emerged all morning. ‘Jesus I feel really sorry for poor old fairycakes, imaging getting a kick in the hole like that. He always thought he was the heir apparent, who would have thought that the old guy would have a bit of life left in him? The curse of the Viagra generation.’

The younger man shook his head. ‘I never would have figured Milton as having an interest in women. I mean his wife must be ten years dead and he never talked about women or anything, just golf and money; that was all I ever heard him on about anyway.’

Walter was suddenly angry. ‘Fuck Milton. I’m more concerned about myself, and you should be too. I reckon that if another job comes up I’m off, I’m not waiting round for this place to empty out, it would be too bloody depressing.’

Tom didn’t know what to do, being faced with losing his job was a shock. ‘I suppose that’s the way to go, but it’s hard to call it. Depends on what’s on the table I suppose, if he’s offering a lot of money I’d stay on, otherwise I’ll go to the best offer I can get.’

A young woman walked in and started to mooch around the cooker section. Tom got reluctantly to his feet and walked over to intercept her. ‘Good morning, madam, can I help you?’

‘Just looking, thanks.’

Tom turned and walked back to the couch; any other time and he would have persisted and tried to get a sale, but today he just wasn’t in the humour.

Walter was smiling again. ‘Losing your touch, son. Not like you to let one off like that!’

Tom sighed; it might be time to start looking around right enough.

Milton appeared just before closing time, all business as usual and looking at his watch pointedly as Tom rolled down the shutter a couple of minutes before six. The old bastard would never change, make you listen to his spiel on your own time and not waste a second of selling time.

Old habits die hard, thought Tom to himself, as he walked back to the canteen to hear what was happening.

The boss was his usual brusque self. ‘Well, Andrew told you the bad news?’

They nodded silently.

‘I had no choice really, since those people moved in we were just pushing water up a hill. You guys are the best in the business, but we can’t compete with their buying power.’

He outlined what would happen next, the morning paper would have a big advertising spread and they would try to clear all the stock from the warehouse and then from the shop floor in about two weeks. On the last few days they would have further reductions on the display stock for take-away customers only.

‘There will come a point where the remaining stock will be worth less than the cost of staying open for two days. At that point we’ll close the door and leave it there. Everyone clear on all that?’

Tom couldn’t wait to ask a few questions. ‘What about us? Do we get a severance payment of some kind?’

‘Tom, Tom, always thinking about the money.’ Milton was his usual sarcastic self.

‘Hang on now.’ Walter came to Tom’s aid, ‘that’s what has us all here. What about the money, what have you in mind?’

‘Well, you will get your full month’s basic, along with any residual commissions and you get statutory redundancy on top of all that. That goes without saying; don’t I always pay you for what you do? Have I ever left any of you short?’

Tom was angry; they were being pushed out without an extra penny, after the effort they had made for the old bastard. ‘It’s not fucking good enough.’

Milton reddened; he wasn’t used to being spoken to like that. ‘Mind your tone, young fellow’ he said angrily.

Walter moved in to calm things down. He spoke quietly. ‘I agree with Tom. To be fair, we could leave now and you would have to shift a warehouse full of stock on your own, and you know that you need us to do it. We need to be looking after our own interests, to find another job and all that, so if you want our continued loyalty you will need to make a reasonable gesture or I’m out of here, for one.’

‘Me too.’ Tom backed up his friend.

Milton sat back and folded his arms defiantly. ‘Andrew and I can sell the stock. We don’t need you two if that’s what you want to do. I can give you your money in the morning and you can go, I really don’t mind.’

Andrew sniffled in the corner and said nothing, but his demeanour spoke volumes. He hated his uncle at that moment; Andrew wouldn’t be killing himself to sell a warehouse full of cookers and fridges.

Milton was angry and flustered; he got up and walked around the small room. Walter stood up too, not wanting to give him any psychological advantage. Eventually the older man sat down and calmed a little.

‘Ok, ok, fair enough, you need to be given some recognition for hanging on to the finish. I propose a loyalty bonus of a thousand each on the day we close the doors. How is that, that’s very fair isn’t it?’

Walter held his hand up to stop Tom from saying anything. ‘Make it two grand each, and pay us our salary and redundancy and all our commissions the week before, at the end of the month, then you have a deal.’

He looked at Tom for confirmation; Tom nodded assent.

Milton shook his head. ‘I can’t possibly. It isn’t in it, you know; small margins on most of this stuff, lads. Be fair now.’

The two salesmen sat with arms folded, saying nothing.

‘Ok, ok. I’ll pay you all that’s due at the end of the month, then the two thousand on the following Friday when we close.’

Tom sat forward. ‘Or on Thursday if we sell out by then?’

‘Of course. Goes without saying. Are you coming, Andrew?’

Walter walked to the car park with Tom. ‘He’ll never pay us the two grand on the last day. That’s why I wanted our normal money and the redundancy paid the week before. As soon as I get that, I’m fucking gone. He’ll leave us short, I know the bastard too well.’

Tom was surprised. ‘To be fair, he never left us short a penny, ever.’

‘Of course he didn’t, he wanted us to come back the next week, but this is a different kettle of fish. I’m looking around, starting right now, and I advise you to do the same.’

Tom drove home slowly, Walter might be right, but at the same time the old guy had made a deal in front of three people, surely he would stick to that? Walter was probably right, it was time to put the CV together and see what was out there.