Plender Read Online Free Page A
letters. It’d give me something to do until Gurney got back.
It didn’t take long to discard the male and female pro stuff, or the stuff from the nutters. Just as long as it took for the percolator to boil. I got up and switched it off and poured myself a cup and sat down again and began to sift the mail for answers to the ads. I’d put in myself. There’d been two of them: ATTRACTIVE YORKSHIRE MISS (20) WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM MATURE MALE DISCIPLINARIAN FOR THE FUN OF IT: ALL GEAR NEEDED FOR BIZARRE FUN. MY PLACE OR YOURS. GENUINE FIRST AD. NON-PROFESSIONAL. NO REMUNERATION REQUIRED; DISCIPLINE HAS ITS OWN REWARD.
The other one was: GOOD LOOKING BLOND YOUNG MAN (23) NEEDS OLDER GENTLEMAN TO DISCIPLINE HIM. CORRECTION WILL BE NEEDED AS I AM COMPLETELY INEXPERIENCED. MY SUBMISSIVE NATURE, SHYNESS, ETC., CAN BE YOURS FOR CORRECTING. YORKS. ANON.
There were twenty-four replies for the first ad and seven for the second. Of these, six were from Leeds, six from Doncaster, three from Halifax, two from Barnsley, two from Scunthorpe, two from Grimsby, one from Scarborough, and one from Harrogate. The remainder were from towns or small villages, mainly places I’d never heard of. I made a list of the names and addresses which they’d so trustingly supplied and put them in my secretary’s in-tray for her to begin on when she came in on Monday.
Her job was to find out who they were by checking electoral roles, credit files, company lists, business directories, street directories, etc. All she thought she was doing was finding out their credit-worthiness for H.P. companies. Well, in a sense, she was. Except that the H.P. company was me. When she’d told me what I wanted to know, the few names that remained from the original list would go on file and a few days later these select correspondents would receive replies to their letters suggesting dates and times and places. Then I would sit back and wait for the braver of the remaining correspondents to commit themselves to action.
After I’d made out the list of names I went through the remaining unsolicited letters, the ones I hadn’t slung out, the ones containing drafts of ads to be placed in the magazine. There was one that might bear checking out: WEALTHY EDUCATED EXECUTIVE, 50, UNDERSTANDING, EASY MANNER, SENSE OF HUMOUR, SEEKS INVITATION TO VIEW ENTHUSIASTIC AMATEUR FRIENDLY COUPLE/S. HIS VISIT WOULD COMBINE DISCRETION WITH CHAMPAGNE AND COULD MEAN USEFUL WEEKLY INCOME. PHOTO WITH DETAILS APPRECIATED. DISTANCE UP TO TWO HUNDRED MILES ROTHERHAM. (YORKS).
I read it again. Sounded as though it might be right up Andrea’s street. Her and Les would be ideal to follow that one up. I filed the letter and got up and walked over to the window again. The rain was still belting down but the sparse lights across the river were still visible. I turned my head slightly and looked farther down the river, farther inland my eyes searching the blackness for the small collection of lights that mapped out my home town. They were so far away and so faint that at first I couldn’t see them: it was always the same when the weather was bad. Then I saw them and I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t been able to see them before. I wondered what was going on over there right at this minute, what it was like right now. I hadn’t been back in ten years. I hadn’t wanted to. But just occasionally I wondered. Sometimes I thought I’d like to go back there and splash the cash and let them all see how well I’d done, give them something to chew on, something that they wouldn’t like swallowing, the fact that Brian Plender, against all prediction, had made it.
I saw the reflection of the light on my desk wink on in the black window before me so I stopped thinking about all that and went back to my desk and pressed the button. Eventually the green light above the door came on and I pressed the other button and Gurney came into the room.
“Well, that’s that,” he said.
“What
It didn’t take long to discard the male and female pro stuff, or the stuff from the nutters. Just as long as it took for the percolator to boil. I got up and switched it off and poured myself a cup and sat down again and began to sift the mail for answers to the ads. I’d put in myself. There’d been two of them: ATTRACTIVE YORKSHIRE MISS (20) WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM MATURE MALE DISCIPLINARIAN FOR THE FUN OF IT: ALL GEAR NEEDED FOR BIZARRE FUN. MY PLACE OR YOURS. GENUINE FIRST AD. NON-PROFESSIONAL. NO REMUNERATION REQUIRED; DISCIPLINE HAS ITS OWN REWARD.
The other one was: GOOD LOOKING BLOND YOUNG MAN (23) NEEDS OLDER GENTLEMAN TO DISCIPLINE HIM. CORRECTION WILL BE NEEDED AS I AM COMPLETELY INEXPERIENCED. MY SUBMISSIVE NATURE, SHYNESS, ETC., CAN BE YOURS FOR CORRECTING. YORKS. ANON.
There were twenty-four replies for the first ad and seven for the second. Of these, six were from Leeds, six from Doncaster, three from Halifax, two from Barnsley, two from Scunthorpe, two from Grimsby, one from Scarborough, and one from Harrogate. The remainder were from towns or small villages, mainly places I’d never heard of. I made a list of the names and addresses which they’d so trustingly supplied and put them in my secretary’s in-tray for her to begin on when she came in on Monday.
Her job was to find out who they were by checking electoral roles, credit files, company lists, business directories, street directories, etc. All she thought she was doing was finding out their credit-worthiness for H.P. companies. Well, in a sense, she was. Except that the H.P. company was me. When she’d told me what I wanted to know, the few names that remained from the original list would go on file and a few days later these select correspondents would receive replies to their letters suggesting dates and times and places. Then I would sit back and wait for the braver of the remaining correspondents to commit themselves to action.
After I’d made out the list of names I went through the remaining unsolicited letters, the ones I hadn’t slung out, the ones containing drafts of ads to be placed in the magazine. There was one that might bear checking out: WEALTHY EDUCATED EXECUTIVE, 50, UNDERSTANDING, EASY MANNER, SENSE OF HUMOUR, SEEKS INVITATION TO VIEW ENTHUSIASTIC AMATEUR FRIENDLY COUPLE/S. HIS VISIT WOULD COMBINE DISCRETION WITH CHAMPAGNE AND COULD MEAN USEFUL WEEKLY INCOME. PHOTO WITH DETAILS APPRECIATED. DISTANCE UP TO TWO HUNDRED MILES ROTHERHAM. (YORKS).
I read it again. Sounded as though it might be right up Andrea’s street. Her and Les would be ideal to follow that one up. I filed the letter and got up and walked over to the window again. The rain was still belting down but the sparse lights across the river were still visible. I turned my head slightly and looked farther down the river, farther inland my eyes searching the blackness for the small collection of lights that mapped out my home town. They were so far away and so faint that at first I couldn’t see them: it was always the same when the weather was bad. Then I saw them and I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t been able to see them before. I wondered what was going on over there right at this minute, what it was like right now. I hadn’t been back in ten years. I hadn’t wanted to. But just occasionally I wondered. Sometimes I thought I’d like to go back there and splash the cash and let them all see how well I’d done, give them something to chew on, something that they wouldn’t like swallowing, the fact that Brian Plender, against all prediction, had made it.
I saw the reflection of the light on my desk wink on in the black window before me so I stopped thinking about all that and went back to my desk and pressed the button. Eventually the green light above the door came on and I pressed the other button and Gurney came into the room.
“Well, that’s that,” he said.
“What
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