CHAPTER 1
IT PROBABLY SAYS GOOD THINGS about modern Britain—or maybe just about modern Liverpool—that when I was growing up, I got way less shit for being gay than I got for being named after a hobbit. And while I’m glad my classmates weren’t homophobic, the hobbit thing did hack me off a little, especially because the hobbit I was named after wasn’t even one of the weird ones. If I’d been called Meriadoc or Fatty Bolger that’d have been one thing, but my name was Sam. Still is Sam, really. But my full legal name is Samwise Eoin Becker and so every time I started a new class, on the first day, the teacher would be reading the register and they’d call out “Samwise” and I’d have to say, “here miss” and that’d be it from then on. It didn’t help that the first set of movies came out just as I was starting primary school and the second set hit just as I was starting my GCSEs, so I had jokes about second breakfast and hairy feet from the age of five until I was eighteen.
Still, you’ve got to laugh, don’t you? My dad taught me that. And it’s probably the most useful thing I’ve ever learned.
For example:
“Hey, Ban,” yells one of my employees. He knows what I’m really called, but this is Amjad, and Amjad is even nerdier than my mam and so once he found out I’d been named after a hobbit he
thought it was hilarious to refer to me by Sam’s original Westron name from the appendices that he apparently knew off the top of his head. And I let him get away with it because at least it was an original bit, “they’re going to need you in bedding.”
I love my team. Not love love, obviously. More tolerate bemusedly. But the phrase they’re going to need you in bedding inspires a feeling so far from confidence I might almost call it concern. “Why?” I ask.
The only answer Amjad gives is the only answer I need. “Brian.”
So I give a small internal fuck and head over to the afflicted department. Bedding’s half the store so I’ve got quite a wide area to search, but Brian has a way of creating a little zone of chaos around himself so I’m not terribly worried about finding him.
And find him I do. He’s standing next to the Country Living Hamsterley mattress, which with its double layered calico pocket springs, hand-teased soft natural fibres of lambswool and mohair, and one hundred percent natural Belgian damask, is one of the most luxurious, most expensive, and—importantly—most not-tobe-trusted-around-Brian mattresses in the store.
He’s looking flustered. He’s also holding an extremely ominous mug.
“Please,” I tell him as soon as I’m close enough to be heard without shouting, “please for the love of everything tell me you did not just spill tea on the Country Living Hamsterley mattress with the double layered calico pocket springs and the hand-teased natural fibres.”
“No,” he says, “I didn’t.”
And like I muppet, I let myself feel relieved.
“I spilled coffee on it,” he explains.
It’s not the detail I should pick up on. It’s really not. “I didn’t think you drank coffee.”
“I don’t.” He’s doing his best to look apologetic. “But I thought Claire might want one so I was bringing a mug through to the office just in case and, well, here we are.”
So many details to address. And so little time. “And you picked a path straight past the most expensive mattress in the store because…?”
“Well, I thought I should steer clear of the Flaxby Nature’s Finest 9450 Pillow Top on account of what happened last week.”
The fact that I hadn’t been aware of anything at all happening last week as regarded the Flaxby Nature’s Finest 9450 Pillow Top probably said not-entirely-great things about me as a manager. “Should I ask?”
“Well, I was having a jam sandwich—”
“You got jam on the Flaxby Nature’s Finest 9450 Pillow Top?”
Brian nods, sheepishly. “It’s fine though, I got Tiffany to help me flip it over, so it doesn’t show.”
Once again, I make the mistake of feeling relieved. Then the bits of my brain that are professionally required to know how beds work start talking to each other. “Hang on Brian, you can’t flip a pillow top mattress. Because it’s got a pillow top. On the top.”
“Ooh.” Brian winces a way you ideally never want a man in charge of two grands’ worth of mattress to wince.
I decide that the pillow top issue can wait. “Well, I suppose we can at least flip this one. Come on.”
Flipping the mattress is hard work but at least it’s simple work and, once I’ve reminded him to put the bloody mug down, Brian can handle it with something approaching competence. We heave it up onto one side, pivot it about the middle, and lay it down nicely on the frame that’s being used to display it.
Then I step back and check it looks okay, and I see another large, brown stain spread right across the middle.
“Ah,” says Brian, “now that one is tea.”
I’m heading back from bedding, trying to work out how to replace not one but two display models of high-end mattresses, when Claire, my assistant manager, sticks her head out of the office door and yells, “His Royal Dickishness is on the phone” the entire length of the store. Which she follows with, “And don’t worry, I’ve got him muted.”
“That just means,” I yell back, “that you can’t hear him, not that he can’t hear you.”
“Well, balls.”
One of these days I’m going to have to do something about Claire’s habit of calling our boss His Royal Dickishess. And also about her habit of shouting swear words across the showroom. And also, for that matter, about Brian just, y’know, in general.
Though I’m guessing that right now His Royal Dickishness is going to care more about the swearing.
I’m guessing right.
“So”—Jonathan Forest’s slightly too-polished accent glides down the phone line and into my ears—“this isn’t what I was originally calling you about but why the hell is your assistant manager calling me a His Royal Dickishness in front of what sounded like the whole shop?”
There’s no way to cover for this, but I try anyway for Claire’s sake. “It’s affectionate?”
“How’s it affectionate?”
“It’s a northern thing. Y’know, like when you’ve got a mate you call y’bastard.”
“I lived in the north for sixteen years,” says Jonathan Forest—he likes to bring that up because it makes him sound more working class even though he’s a rich fucker who only gives a fuck about other rich fuckers. “And I never had a mate I called y’bastard.”
Privately, I think he’d probably never had a mate. “I’m just saying it’s how folk talk.”
“Even so, bastard,” he says bastard with a short a like a normal person, even if everything else he says sounds like one of the shitter royals, “has a very different connotation to dickish.”
“It’s the same principle,” I try. It sounds weak even to me.
“Okay.” I’m pretty sure Jonathan Forest isn’t actually a robot, but I almost hear his brain click as he moves on. “While this isn’t what I wanted to talk about, it’s very much connected to it.”
Oh fuck, he knows I call him a dick as well. We all call him a dick because he’s a dick. The way I see it, if you didn’t want people calling you a dick, you shouldn’t be a dick. “Is it?” I ask, trying not to sound too much like he’s just caught me wanking.
“Splashes & Snuggles has three branches now and a fourth opening next year. The Croydon branch is performing as I expect it to. The Leeds branch is performing as I expect it to. The Sheffield branch, decidedly, is not.”
Probably not the time to tell him one of my employees just wrecked four grand’s worth of mattress with a tea run. “In what way exactly are we not performing as you expect us to?”
“You’re over budget and under target. And, frankly, I’m a bit concerned you don’t already know that.”
Oh why does this dick have to be such a dick. Yes, we are technically a bit over budget what with all the stock Brian has trashed, and yes, we are technically a bit under target but that’s because his targets are bollocks. “I know what the figures are, Jonathan. But we’re a new store, it’s a competitive area, and we’re getting pretty close.”
“I didn’t hire you to get pretty close.” Somehow he manages to sneer just with his voice. “I hired you to meet the goals I give you, and if you can’t, I’ll find someone who can.”
Part of me really wants to say “fine, do that”. This job’s not
worth putting up with this kind of crap. Except it’s not just my job we’re talking about. If I go then Jonathan Forest replaces me with somebody who’ll give him his precious fucking “targets” and then what’ll happen to Claire and Amjad and Brian and the rest of them?
So I don’t push back. Instead, I try to walk that line between promising results I won’t deliver and giving him an excuse to replace me with someone who will. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
“I’ve already worked something out.” He gives the tiniest, tiniest pause and then his tone softens just faintly. “I don’t want to let you go, Sam. I think you’ve got it in you to be a really good manager.”
You patronising shit. As far as I’m concerned, I’m already a good manager. Or at least as good a manager as you can expect in a second-rate bed-and-bath showroom in a competitive area with a team full of Brians.
Claire is holding up a piece of paper. It says, Is he being a dick?
I mouth yes obviously back at her, and she holds up another piece of paper saying sorry I can’t read lips.
Normally this would be fine, but normally I’m not trying to work out whether I’m at risk of losing my job. I wave at her to get her to stop. She doesn’t. And there’s no way she was ever going to, but I like to pretend I’m in charge sometimes.
“…so that’s why,” Jonathan’s saying when I can focus on him again, “I want you to come to Croydon tomorrow so you can see how I do things.”
Tomorrow is Friday. My least favourite day for going to London. My favourite day for going to London is never. “We’re actually quite busy what with the run up to Christmas.”
“I’m sure Claire can handle it. She seems to have a lot of time on her hands. Certainly she has enough time to invent ‘affectionate’ nicknames for me.”
Looks like patronising shit is still where we are. “Claire is a valued member of the team and…”
Now Claire is brandishing an elaborate and lovingly rendered picture of a giant cock and balls.
“…and…and…”
She adds ball hairs.
“…makes an important contribution to morale.”
“Then,” Jonathan snaps, “I’m sure she can cope without you for a day. This isn’t a request, Samwise.”
I just about manage not to make a noise, but I physically cringe. I know it’s my name, but nobody’s ever used it except my mam, and I don’t want to be thinking about her right now. “Please don’t call me that.”
“The point is, Sam, I’m your boss and you’re coming to Croydon tomorrow. The company will reimburse your travel.”
He hangs up before I can say anything else. Which, at this point, is probably for the best.
“Are you all right?” Claire has put down the dick pic, which is what you might call a small mercy.
I sink into my chair and sit on my hands to stop them shaking. “Yeah. He’s just such a…such a…”
“Dick?”
“Such a dick.”
“Do you want to”—and now she’s giving me the sort of concerned look you should never get from somebody whose paycheques you sign—“talk about it?”
“He just gets to me, and I can never tell if he’s evil or if he doesn’t know or if he doesn’t care, or which would be worst.”
She thinks about it for a moment. “He’s evil.”
“I have to go to Croydon tomorrow.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I thought he was going to fire you.”
“He still might,” I point out.
“That’s not very likely. To drag someone all the way from Leeds to Croydon just so you can fire them, you’d have to be a complete—oh.”
“Yeah, it’s not looking good, is it?”
Another pause. Claire runs a hand through her platinum blonde hair and looks at me like I’ve got brown sauce on my face and she doesn’t know how to tell me. “I’m trying to come up with something comforting here but you’re totally fucked.”
“I know. But”—I do my best to pull myself together, to pretend this isn’t affecting me—“what can you do? You can’t stop a dick from being a dick. Will yez be okay to look after the place tomorrow?”
“Love, it’s a bed and bath superstore, not a nuclear submarine.”
“Yes, but Brian’s opening up.”
“Then we’re screwed.” Now Jonathan’s off the phone, Claire’s looking more serious. Maybe because she heard enough of my end of the conversation to know we’re in a serious situation. “You know,” she says, “if Jonathan’s getting on your case about numbers, you might really need to look at letting Brian go.”
I can’t believe she’s saying it. I mean I can, because she is, and because she’s said it before, but still. “Brian’s one of us.”
“He’s the worst Customer Advisor I’ve ever worked with, and I worked with Chel.”
That’s harsh words. “Chel punched a child.”
“A very annoying child. And she didn’t cost us money.”
“Technically,” nothing good ever follows technically, “everybody costs us money.”
She’s not looking in the mood. “Amjad told me what happened with the Country Living Hamsterley. And it wasn’t the first time.”
“Oh come on, he’s spilled a few things on a few mattresses.”
“Five since June. And he ripped the seat off a VitrA Sento
rimless while he was trying to show a customer how durable it was.”
I’ve backed myself into a defending Brian corner and now I can’t get out. “Toilet seats are easy to replace. Besides, Brian needs this job. It’s just him and his nan, and he’s the only one can cover the bills.”
“I know,” Claire gives me a sympathetic look, which she doesn’t do very often, possibly because she doesn’t very often think I deserve sympathy. “But if Jonathan’s out for blood, and you can either save him or me, honestly Sam I’d rather you saved me.”
I want to tell her it won’t come to that. But I can’t. I can just hope like fuck that Jonathan Forest will be reasonable. Which, thinking about it, means that we are definitely screwed.