CHAPTER TWO
– A SHED LOAD OF SHITE –
The idea was quite simple really.
Fred was surprised nobody had thought of it before. Oh there were many of a similar kind on offer in many stores. The variety was quite large in fact.
They came in black, red, green, orange, blue, fucsia and red in transparent tubes, in single units or as a gift pack. There was even a Halloween gift pack. Yet another offered horror-themed toilet paper that Puts You on the Edge of Your Seat, a position that Fred considered unwise. One distributor described his array as the sexiest on earth and invited customers to spread the message by alerting their friends. Fred could just see people writing on Twitter or on their Facebook pages alerts along the lines of “you wouldn’t believe the fantastic deal I have discovered. It’s ….”
The ingenuity of the manufacturers did not end there. There was one for millionaires, one with crosswords, others that were monogrammed, one that for some reason glowed in the dark, another that somehow would appeal more to Europeans than anyone else though why that should be so escaped Fred. The one that bothered him the most was that which offered wit, wisdom and wickedly funny stuff. But still he could find nothing that seriously challenged his idea.
The first thing he did was run it by some friends in his office. All said he was crazy and that it was a hair-brained idea that would never catch on. So he raised it with others who also advised him to drop it. Finally he asked his girlfriend what she thought. He should probably have approached her first but he had banked on getting the support of others before taking the idea to her and proposing how to proceed to the next and subsequent steps. That would be where the cost element came in.
“You’re joking, right?” she said.
“No,” said Fred as firmly as he could. “I reckon it’s a great idea. Why wouldn’t it work?”
They were in the kitchen of the flat they shared and she was busy making a spicy blended soup to be served with a spinach and tomato salad.
“Because nobody would be interested. Why would they? It’s just not what people do.”
“Of course it is,” said Fred. “Everyone at some time or other has to spend time just sitting.”
“That’s why most people keep a magazine or a newspaper beside them.”
“Yes. So why not a book?”
His girlfriend put the knife down on the bench and wiped her hands on her apron. “Of course a book,” she said.
“Well?”
“I mean a real book.”
“What’s the difference?”
His girlfriend dropped her head and then raised it and looked him straight in the eyes. “Are you really saying that people would rather read that way than normally?”
Fred stood his ground. “I think so,” he answered. “And there is even a further upside to it.”
With her exasperation rising his girlfriend sighed: “Go on tell me then. What’s the added upside?”
Fred held his breath before answering. This was the crux of his idea. This was the aspect that would make it or break it. If he was wrong with this then his whole idea would be just as his friend and others had told him: A ridiculous waste of time.
Finally he spoke. “Here it is in a nutshell. We print books, novels, on toilet rolls right? People will buy the rolls and when going to the toilet they’ll read the stories. They’ll be able to select the type of novel they want to read. No more old newspapers or magazines cluttering the floor. Everyone will have exactly the novel they want to read. And of course it’ll be cheaper than the actual book. It’s simple. It’s great.”
His girlfriend remained silent so Fred went on with an attempt at levity by way of encouragement: “Just imagine,” he said. “You could have Gone With The Wind, The Accident, The Agony and the Ecstasy, Don’t Look Back, Bombs Away, Goldfinger.”
His girlfriend kept looking at him. She did not smile. She slightly bent one knee and placed her hands on her hips. Fred had seen the manoeuvre many times and knew what was coming. “Haven’t you overlooked one important thing,” she said. Her eyes had narrowed. “Something that would kill off your idea at the very start?”
“What’s that?”
Now she did smile. “Put yourself in the position of sitting on the toilet reading your favourite novel. Great. Then when you come back next time I will have been in there in the meantime. And what have I done?” Her smile widened. “I’ll have used some of the paper. I’ll have flushed away the bit that you would have been reading the next time you went to the toilet.”
She nodded triumphantly. “Well?”
Now Fred smiled at his girlfriend. “Exactly,” he said. “That’s the added upside. Every time that happens you have to go out and buy more toilet rolls. So you can pick up where you left off. And that means more money. It’s brilliant. The more people crap, the more they have to buy. And that means more money for you and me. It’s money for old rope, or a shed load of cash for old shite.”
Up to this point Fred’s life had been what could genuinely be described as absolutely normal. In other words there had been nothing startling or exciting that he could recall or point to and say that it was an event or a happening he would remember fondly, or otherwise, until his dying day.
Normal.
His life had been extraordinarily un-extraordinary.
Born in Hull. Attended the local primary school. Read English literature at Hull University. Supported, and still supporter of, Hull City Football Club. Resident of Hull until the age of nineteen.
Normal.
Even his work experience was ordinary.
When Fred left university with a degree his expectations were reasonably high. He expected that with a degree to his name he could reasonably expect to find a reasonably good job. But reason is not always what it is cracked up to be and Fred quickly realised that his degree was insufficient to guarantee him a job of his choice. Indeed, every choice he made in the first six months of graduating came to nothing. He sent dozens of applications, received many formal rejections, and was ignored by even more. The Hull business world apparently had not learned of Fred’s educational achievements and worse seemed not to be that interested in filling in its knowledge gap.
Famous Hullensians there were in the past, including William Wilberforce, Amy Johnson, actors John Alderton and Maureen Lipman, the poet Philip Larkin and of course the former Deputy Prime Minister and now Lord John Prescott. But the name Fred Nurk was not tripping off the tongues of human resource managers in sectors where he sought employment.
Expectation turned to dismay.
And his disposition did not improve when he finally did find work.
“Congratulations,” said his mother and tapped Fred on the shoulder. A mother’s love and encouragement she believed was very important, even if it was directed at semi-failure which is what Fred’s father thought of the job he had finally secured.
“Selling shirts,” he murmured. “Three years at university and thousands of pounds later and you end up selling shirts in Whitefriargate. Congratulations?”
“Praise where praise is due,” admonished his mother. “It’s taken months to get this and whether it’s in Whitefriargate or King Edward Street or Carr Lane it doesn’t matter. It’s work which pays. Everyone needs shirts so it’s a secure job.”
“Everyone needs shirts.” His father was unimpressed. As he walked out of the room he tossed over his shoulder. “What’s wrong with aiming higher at the likes of companies doing what they can for the planet with wind farms, or that place where they’re experimenting with turning waste into energy? They must also need expensive English literature graduates.”
Fred had approached both. Both had ignored him, probably because such companies had little or no need for English literature.
But he stuck with the shirts for three full months before deciding he could not stand it any longer. Standing behind a counter for hours on end. Mind numbing conversations with colleagues who had struggled with elementary education and got their jobs purely, he guessed, because their employer recognised their limited ambition and therefore could count on their undemanding income expectations. And customers who were more concerned with the cost of a shirt than whether it suited them or was of the right quality. It bothered him that their expectations also were limited.
When he made the mistake of commenting on this to another older man in the shirt section of the store the response he got was sharp.
“You’re a bloody snob that’s all,” said the man who had been employed by the store for more than twenty years and had manned the shirt counter for half that time. “You probably think your shit doesn’t stink.”
From that moment on Fred subconsciously counted the days he turned up for work in the morning five days a week. Sixty-seven days later he packed it in.
As he left that evening the other shirt counter attendant called after him: “Good riddance Nurk. Too big for your own shoes you are.”
“Just as well I was in shirts and not shoes then,” Fred shot back.
He resolved there and then to escape from Hull and move south to the capital.
His mother cried and suggested he return home if he did not find what he wanted in the first month, and his father expressed the fervent wish that he would find work commensurate with the amount of money already outlaid on his education and which in addition left a little over to allow him to pay off some of the outstanding loan he had accrued during his three years at the University of Hull.
So in total the farewell he received when he had left the attractively named East Riding of Yorkshire and the dull sounding city of his birth and early life had been anything but friendly or encouraging.
The welcome he received when he landed in London was very different indeed.
The first person he met was the girlfriend who now told him she thought his big plan was ill conceived and stupid.
As he was getting off the train from Hull at King’s Cross station he tripped on the bottom step and fell headlong into her, knocking her to the ground and sending her suitcase skidding along the platform. Many apologies later and when they realised they had both come from the north with dreams of success in the big smoke of London, added to the fact that neither had any idea really where they were going to stay, they discussed options over a beer in a nearby pub. This resulted in their joining forces, stayed in separate rooms in a bed and breakfast establishment three blocks away for the following three nights, and then because they found they got on rather well, they tracked down a small one bedroom flat in the same area which they moved into.
Now some months later, both gainfully employed, they were reasonably content with their arrangement. The flat was small but adequate. Their combined incomes permitted them to live a normal if not extravagant lifestyle. And the sex was pleasant.
They had their disagreements of course, but nothing serious. Until now.
“You might think it’s clever, a shed load of shite and all that, but don’t forget that whatever you decide to do will affect me as well.” His girlfriend was not to be put off so easily.
“Well, I’ll do it all on my own then,” Fred replied. “You won’t be affected.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I will be. When this grand business plan of yours fails, as I’m sure it will because the idea of printing books on toilet paper is just so silly, you’ll get all bitter and twisted and life here will become hell.”
“It won’t. Because this is going to work. I’ll make sure it does.”
“And I say it’s madness.”
“We’ll see won’t we?”
“Yes we will.”
And that was the cold atmospheric end of that.