Bob of Small End (81 page)

“
Come
and see me if you want one like that,” said Charles.

“
I might
do that but don’t hold your breath. I can’t buy a car right
now.”

There was a
letter from Maria waiting for him when he got home that afternoon.
He took it to the kitchen, put the kettle on for a cup of tea, sat
in a chair and opened it. Two pages. Maria wrote that she was busy
arranging trips and working overtime several nights that week.
‘Everybody wants a holiday’ she wrote and added, ‘Organising
complex trips is more interesting than handling simple ones. I’m
looking forward to seeing you. Less than a month now. Are you
looking forward to it? You told me you’re very busy, do you have
time to think of me? Love to you, Maria’.

Bob sat there
and dreamed. How nice it would be if he and Maria could be on
holiday all the time. It didn’t matter where, just being with her
was all that mattered. They could be in Small End or in Lagos; six
months here and six months there. That would be wonderful. He
wondered how much money it would take to do that and if it would
interest Maria. Maybe, in less than a year, he’d be able to retire
and do what he wanted.

Bob stopped at
Joe’s farm on the way to work Tuesday morning. Jane was in the
kitchen and he told her that Ken wouldn’t have the time to teach
this year. “He says he might, sometime next year.”

“
Did he
say what he’d do with the parlour?” she asked.

“
Yes. He
doesn’t plan to use it and we like Joe’s idea of looking for
someone to rent it. I prefer to use my shop if I’m designing new
toys. So could you see if you could find someone to rent it? We’ll
continue to pay the rent until you do.”

“
Sure.
I’ll tell the committee about it, they might know of someone.
There’s lots of people moving here. Most are looking for jobs but
some have small businesses. I’ll put a notice on the community
board saying that there’s a workshop to rent. In fact I think we
should have a separate notice board especially for that kind of
information.”

“
Rose
might not like that. You’d be taking business away from
her.”

“
Well
I’ll speak to her about it. She might not mind though, it can’t be
a big money-generator.”

Two young
women were leaving the Centre’s office when Bob arrived. Ken told
him that they’d seen the BBC documentary and had hoped there would
be jobs there. Ken told them there weren’t and he took their names
and phone numbers in case some one left.

“
Salisbury Boxes phoned, our pasteboards are ready. Can you
collect them? Bert or Gerry could do it but I’d rather they kept
working, they’re in the rotation-sequence.”

“
Sure,
I’d be glad to. Anything else you need?”

“
Talk to
Lori, she might know of something.”

He found Lori
in the shop doing the odd-job stuff he had been doing yesterday
morning.

“
No,
it’s just the boxes we need.”

“
No
deliveries to make?”

“
No. I
guess everyone’s calling We-have-it.”

“
So
you’re not getting any phone calls asking for toys?”

“
No, not
now. None.”

“
Ah,
well, we’ll find out what’s happening when Dave Posser calls. See
you later then.”

It felt a
little strange driving to Salisbury in a big empty van. He enjoyed
its faster pick up and also the fact that he didn’t have to be
constantly thinking about where the next shop was.

“
Hello
Bob. Glad to see you again. I didn’t know who’d be collecting the
pasteboards. How are you doing?”

“
I’m
fine Bill. How are you and Dan?”

“
Great.
Lots of work here. You must be getting a lot too, judging from the
number of boxes you are buying.”

“
Yes
we’re doing well. Did you see us on TV?”

“
No, but
I heard about it. A BBC production on Sunday evening, wasn’t it?
Dan asked me if I saw it yesterday. He said it was interesting to
find out how you had started and developed so quickly. Ken must be
quite a go getter. Dan said that he was the one who explained how
the production line worked.”

“
Yes.
It’s all due to Ken. I would still be selling directly to a few
shops if he hadn’t turned up.”

“
Well I
expect you’ll be selling to lots more now; people all over England
will have seen it and will want to buy them. You’ll need a lot more
vans.”

“
No, a
wholesaler delivers now. He has hundreds of vans.”

“
Oh
good. Well, I’ll help you load. Are you backed to the loading
door?”

“
Yes.”

Twenty minutes
later Bob had signed the receipts and was back in the drivers seat.
‘I’ll have lunch in the river pub,’ he decided. He found it,
ordered fish and chips and ate them slowly, taking his time and
enjoying the rest. He drove back to Small End, thinking it was a
good life when there wasn’t a lot of work to do or deadlines to
meet.

During supper
he remembered the signs he was going to make for the new workshop.
‘Plywood would be best, painted white with black.’ After washing
the dishes and tidying the kitchen he found some thick ply, cut it
to size and coated each piece with outdoor white and left them to
dry.

Dave Posser
called first thing Wednesday morning and asked for five hundred of
each set. He told Lori that several retailers had said their
customers had found out about the toys because they’d seen the BBC
show.

“
Most of
the others would have come from your retailers. From now on I
expect we’ll be getting a lot of requests. The BBC production was a
big bonus for you. I hope you’ve got plenty in stock.”

“
We
have,” said Lori. “About four thousand of each.”

“
Okay.
That should be enough. Can you deliver before noon?”

“
Yes.
They’ll be there.”

Lori told Ken
and Bob what Dave had said. Bob told them he’d drive and Lori and
Craig helped him load the van.

The trip
to
We-Have-It
was pleasant
for it was another fine summer’s day. The guard recognised the van
and let him in. He reversed into one of the bays and a man unloaded
the toys and gave him the signed receipt. He moved his van to the
side of the yard then walked to Dave’s office. Dave was on the
phone but beckoned him in and pointed to a chair. A minute later he
hung-up.

“
Were
you expecting that?” asked Dave.

“
An
order for five hundred of each? No, although I suppose something
like that was likely to happen sometime.”

“
It’ll
continue for a week or two I expect. After that it’ll depend on
word of mouth. Unless you’re on TV again. That was a bit of luck,
wasn’t it?”

“
Yes it
certainly was. Want to have lunch with me to celebrate?”

“
No I
can’t Bob. Too busy. Maybe in a month’s time, after the holiday
season; things will be easier then.”

“
Yes,
same with me. It’s the tourists who mostly buy the toys. When
they’ve gone sales drop off.”

“
Same
for gifts, china, clocks and so on. Oh, excuse me, I’ll have to
take that,” and he picked up the phone.

Bob got up,
smiled, waved his hand and left the office. Another chance to have
a pub lunch. Now I wonder if there’s a pub by a river near
Basingstoke. He drove around and asked a couple of people. One
suggested Old Basing but Bob didn’t find one. So he chose a
nice-looking road house, one that had room for his van and ordered
a curry.

He helped pack
boxes when he returned, cooked a salmon steak for supper then
bathed, put on a nice shirt and a tie and, at seven, walked over to
the Community Centre and joined about a dozen people who were
standing at the back of the hall. He knew three or four but simply
smiled at them. About five past seven one of the ladies in the
group walked to the stage, turned around and said, “Hello everyone.
My name is Jenny Painter. I’m your dance teacher. I’ve taught
dancing for several years and am glad to do it again in Small End.
The first thing I have to do is find out how well you already dance
and I can best do that by watching you. We’ll start with a waltz. I
see we have eleven people. Can you all choose a partner and I’ll
dance with whoever’s not got one. Two women dancing together is
fine. I see we only have three men. Now don’t worry if you don’t
know anybody, you’ll quickly get to know each other as we dance.
That’s one of the reasons dancing’s so popular.”

She pressed a
button on the tape machine and the sounds of Victor Sylvester’s
ballroom orchestra playing a slow waltz filled the room. One of the
ladies walked to Bob and asked him if he would dance with her.

“
I’d
love to. Thanks for asking. But I don’t dance very
well.”

“
Nor do
I. That’s why I’m here. My name is Sue. What’s yours?”

“
Bob.
Bob Barns.”

“
Aren’t
you one of the owners of
Small End Wooden
Toys
? I saw you on the BBC documentary
Sunday.”

“
Yes I
am. What did you think of the show?”

“
What
you were doing in the shop was very interesting but so were the
shots of the village. My husband works with one of the construction
companies and we’ve just moved here so I don’t know much about
Small End.”

Jenny and her
partner moved towards them and she said, “you’re both doing quite
well. Can you show me some other steps?”

“
No,
sorry, Jenny. What we’re doing is about all I know,” said
Bob.

“
Okay,”
and she danced her partner to another couple and watched them until
the music finished. “Okay. Now crowd around and watch me. There are
a couple of turns only two of you are using so the rest of us will
learn them. We’ll learn the first one now. Bob, would you be my
partner? Okay, now watch us, then try doing the steps by yourself.
And do rise-and-fall with the beat, many of you didn’t do that very
well.”

The two hours
passed quickly, much quicker than Bob had thought they would and he
decided to return next week. ‘I’ll go to the Saturday adult dances
too,’ he told himself, as he walked back to his house. ‘I wonder if
Maria likes dancing, I hope she does.’

Bob
spent much of Thursday helping in the shop and thinking about how
he’d spend his time once the shop was mostly running itself. He’d
like to do the deliveries to
We-Have-It.
He’d spend the rest of the time in
his workshop, designing and making new toys, and, perhaps, taking
more holidays. With Maria, if she could take the time. This kept
his mind busy, for he really didn’t like working in a factory,
which is what the shop had become now. Thinking about the future
rather than the present helped the time to pass more
quickly.

Diane told Ken
and Bob as they were all eating lunch in the tea room that all the
newcomers would like to go to the pub everyone went to last time.
“Everybody said the place was great. Could we go there?”

“
For
sure,” replied Ken. “I was just thinking that everybody had
forgotten about the month’s lunches.”

“
Not
me,” said Luke.

“
Then,
Lori, book a table for us, please.”

“
All
right, but it’s likely to rain tomorrow and if it does we won’t be
on the patio like we were last time. I’ll book it for one o’clock,
not twelve-thirty like before. We had to rush to get there at
twelve thirty and that spoiled it a bit.”

After lunch
Lori told Bob that she’d finished copying all the data from the old
computer to the new one. “Now you can learn how to use a
computer.”

“
I’ll do
that at home, Lori, not here.”

“
Then
I’ll number each plug and socket. Plug one goes into socket one,
and so on. That way you can’t make any mistakes. Most of the plugs
will only fit into their own socket anyway, so you won’t have any
troubles.”

“
Thanks.”

“
I’ll
bring you some of my old games. Play those and you’ll quickly
become used to what the computer can do and how to handle the
mouse.”

“
What do
I do if anything goes wrong?”

“
Don’t
worry about that. Tell me if it happens, I’ll tell you what to do
then.”

“
All
right.”

He drove his
car to the shop Friday morning, ready to take a group to the pub
and so he could carry the computer and the washing home afterwards.
He expected to spend the morning working in the shop but Dave
Posser phoned as he was asking Lori how many toys they had in
stock.

“
I need
another load of toys,” Dave told Lori. “A thousand farm sets, eight
hundred village and six hundred trains. Can you get them to me by
lunch time?” She told him they could and repeated the numbers to
Bob. He hung up the overall he’d just put on and they loaded the
van. Bob set off, driving as quickly as he could but rain slowed
the traffic and it was twelve-thirty before he got back to Small
End. Lori, Craig and Alan were standing at the door.

“
We were
getting worried Bob. Everything okay?” said Alan.

“
Sorry,
I couldn’t drive any faster. The roads were a slippery and everyone
was going slower. I’ll just get the overalls then we can
go.”