Confessions!

 I am a retired salesman now, and I suppose everyone likes to write down a few confessions about the things they did, the people they met, and the situations they somehow found themselves in during their working life. After years spent knocking on strangers’ doors, I certainly collected more than my fair share of stories.

I was in my late twenties during the 1980s, when selling double glazing was a good business to be in. There was money to be made if you had confidence, the gift of the gab and didn't mind having the occasional door slammed in your face. It was a different world then—no internet enquiries, no mobile phones and certainly no online quotations. You went out onto the streets, knocked on doors and persuaded people face-to-face.

I was born and raised in Cornwall but earned my living selling double glazing door-to-door across London. By then I had acquired all the quick-fire London banter of a seasoned doorstep salesman, although I had never lost my unmistakably Cornish accent. It made for an unusual combination: London expressions and cheeky sales patter delivered in the warm Cornish accent of home.

I dressed the part. A smart suit, polished shoes, crisp shirt and tie were practically the uniform of the trade. Mind you, by halfway through an afternoon of knocking on doors, my tie usually ended up slightly wonky. Under one arm I carried a battered sales folder stuffed with glossy brochures, price lists, quotations and diagrams showing customers why their perfectly serviceable old windows desperately needed replacing.

Selling double glazing taught me one thing very quickly: you weren't really selling windows. You were selling yourself.

If the person answering the door liked you, you had a chance. If you could get them laughing, you had an even better one. If they invited you inside and put the kettle on, you knew you were getting somewhere.

I had the gift of the gab and, I have to confess, a particular knack for charming the ladies. A smile, a cheeky remark and a little harmless flirting could sometimes get you through a doorway faster than any technical explanation about sealed units or heat loss.

One particular afternoon, I knocked on the door of a London terrace.

The lady who answered was in her forties and, as I would later discover, a spinster who had lived a fairly quiet and sheltered life. The first thing I noticed about her was something quite distinctive: she appeared to have virtually no neck. Her head seemed to sit almost directly upon her shoulders.

Years of doorstep selling had taught me to take people exactly as I found them, so I simply gave her my usual smile.

“Afternoon, love. Don’t panic—I’m not here to nick your telly. Double glazing.”

She stared at me for a moment.

“You don’t sound very London.”

“Cornwall originally.”

“Yet you talk like a Londoner.”

“That’s what this city does to you. Give it a few years and everyone starts saying ‘mate’ every third word.”

She laughed.

“There you go,” I said. “Haven’t sold you a window and I’ve already cheered you up. That’s service, that is.”

“I don’t need double glazing.”

“Course you don’t. Nobody ever does when I first knock. Funny that.”

“You’ve got an answer for everything.”

“I sell windows door-to-door in London, love. You either learn the patter or you’re back in Cornwall by Friday.”

Then she noticed my tie.

“Your tie’s wonky.”

I looked down.

“Is it? Blimey. Been walking around looking like that all day.”

“You don't look very professional.”

“Bit harsh. Suit’s all right.”

“Tie isn't.”

I attempted to straighten it.

“Better?”

“Worse.”

“Brilliant. Absolutely stitched me up there, haven’t you?”

She laughed again.

The guarded woman who had first opened the door was clearly beginning to enjoy herself. We carried on talking, and before long the double glazing had become almost irrelevant.

Eventually she surprised me.

“Would you like to come back this evening?” she asked.

I raised an eyebrow. “To discuss the windows?”

She smiled.

“For tea.”

Now, I'd received plenty of responses while selling door-to-door—yes, no, perhaps, come back when my husband's home, and occasionally something considerably less polite—but an invitation to return for tea that evening was a new one.

“Tea?” I repeated.

“Unless you've got somewhere better to be.”

“Well,” I said, giving my wonky tie another hopeless adjustment, “when you put it like that…”

So I accepted.

As I walked away from her house, sales folder tucked beneath my arm, I realised something rather important: I hadn't sold a single window.

But I had somehow acquired an evening appointment that had absolutely nothing to do with double glazing.

The Evening

When I returned that evening, there was no sales folder under my arm and, for once, no intention of talking about windows. She welcomed me inside, and the atmosphere was immediately different from our conversation on the doorstep.

The evening passed in a wonderfully relaxed fashion. We had tea at first, just as she'd promised, and talked about our lives. Without the pressure of making a sale, I found myself enjoying her company enormously. She seemed more relaxed too, laughing easily at my stories about Cornwall, London and some of the characters I'd encountered knocking on doors.

Later, the tea gave way to a bottle of red wine.

As the wine went down, our conversation became increasingly personal. The reserve she'd shown when we'd first met gradually disappeared. We sat close together, talking and laughing, and there was no mistaking the attraction developing between us.

After another glass of wine, she became unusually quiet.

“There’s something I ought to tell you,” she said.

I put my glass down.

“That sounds serious.”

She hesitated before looking directly at me.

“I've never been with a man.”

For once, even my salesman's gift of the gab deserted me.

“You mean…?”

She nodded.

“I’m a virgin.”

I hadn't expected that. She was in her forties, and until that moment I'd simply assumed she'd had relationships in the past.

She explained that she'd always been shy and rather sheltered. Opportunities had come and gone, and somehow that particular part of life had passed her by. It wasn't something she normally admitted to anyone.

Then she surprised me even more.

“I don't want to remain one forever,” she said quietly.

There was another pause.

“I'd like my first time to be with you.”

Whatever cheeky reply the twenty-something double-glazing salesman in me might normally have produced disappeared completely. This wasn't doorstep flirting anymore. She was trusting me with something intensely personal.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yes.”

We talked for quite some time, making certain that this was genuinely what she wanted and not simply the red wine talking. She was understandably nervous and began asking me what she was supposed to do.

That was when the evening took a rather comical turn.

Being a salesman accustomed to explaining things with brochures and sketches, I instinctively reached for a pen and a piece of paper.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Apparently,” I said, “I'm giving a presentation.”

“You're not going to draw diagrams?”

“Well, diagrams work for double glazing.”

She burst out laughing.

I attempted a few deliberately simple, non-explicit sketches to reassure her that there was no complicated formula to intimacy and that we could simply take things slowly and communicate with one another.

My artistic talents, however, were considerably less impressive than my salesmanship.

She examined one of my efforts.

“What is that supposed to be?”

I looked at it.

“I’m beginning to wish I'd brought the window brochure.”

She laughed so much that whatever tension remained seemed to disappear.

“You really are a salesman, aren't you?”

“Can't help myself. Give me a pen and I'll explain anything.”

The drawings were eventually pushed aside. Their practical usefulness had been questionable, but the laughter they produced had done far more to relax us than any serious explanation could have managed.

From there, the evening became quieter and more affectionate. The joking gave way to tenderness, and we took things slowly, with her setting the pace.

What had begun that afternoon as an unsuccessful attempt to sell a set of double-glazed windows had turned, in the space of a few hours, into one of the most unexpected and passionate evenings of my young life.

The Morning After

The following morning, after our night together, I gradually woke and reached across the bed, only to discover that her side was empty.

For a moment I wondered where she'd gone.

The house was quiet, but then I heard the unmistakable sounds of activity downstairs.

I got dressed and wandered down to investigate.

It transpired that she'd been awake for several hours. While I'd been fast asleep, recovering from the previous evening, she'd decided to get on with the domestic cleaning. By the time I appeared, she'd already been tidying, dusting and generally putting the house back in order.

I stood in the doorway, still looking half asleep.

“You've been up for hours?”

She carried on with what she was doing.

“Some of us have things to do.”

I looked around at the remarkably tidy room.

“Blimey. I thought after last night you might have fancied a lie-in.”

She gave me a knowing smile.

“I've had my lie-in.”

I glanced at the clock.

“At this hour? In Cornwall we'd still call this the middle of the night.”

That earned another smile.

There was something wonderfully ordinary about the scene. Only a few hours earlier we'd shared an intimate night together, yet here she was calmly getting on with the housework as though having a young Cornish double-glazing salesman asleep upstairs was the most natural thing in the world.

I looked towards the kitchen table. The wine glasses had disappeared, the bottle had been cleared away, and even my ridiculous diagrams from the night before had vanished.

“Where are my drawings?”

“In the bin.”

I stared at her in mock horror.

“You threw away my diagrams?”

“They weren't very good.”

“They were educational materials.”

“They were terrible.”

I couldn't argue with that.

And somewhere in the background was the sound I would forever associate with that peculiar morning: the hoover.

Looking Back

Looking back now, after all these years, it's funny what stays in the memory. I've forgotten countless doors I knocked on, hundreds of conversations and more double-glazing quotations than I could possibly count.

But that particular evening has never quite left me.

I remember the suspicious look when she first opened the door. I remember my wonky tie, her laughter and the unexpected invitation to return for tea.

I remember the bottle of red wine that helped the conversation flow. I remember her confession and the trust she placed in me. And I remember those ridiculous diagrams I drew in my hopeless attempt to explain the mysteries of lovemaking.

I remember the tenderness and passion of the night that followed, and waking the next morning to find an empty bed.

And, of course, I remember going downstairs to discover that while I'd been sleeping peacefully, she'd already been awake for hours, enthusiastically getting on with the domestic cleaning.

So whenever my mind wanders back to my days selling double glazing in 1980s London, that is one particular call I'll always remember:

the red wine, the diagrams and, of course, the hoovering.

I never did sell her any windows.

But more than forty years later, I can still remember the appointment.