DUDLEY’S CAREER IN CABBAGES
In memory of two great friends
“Duds” 1940-2016
“Mitzi” 1944-2017
Dudley Brian Eastman is a gregarious bear of a guy, few vices, easy going, has a simple tits-and-bums and pie-in-the-face sense of humour, pretty handy about the house, tends to coast a bit when he can, does a good barbie. Which is why he’s always been a damn good salesman. Everyone calls him Duds. He’s coming up to sixty.
Mitzi is a decorator. She has a leaning towards spending money on furniture and curtains and floor tiles and face wrinkle removal. The spots on her arms. And shoes. More money on shoes than Duds wants to know about. But Duds is a happy-wife-happy-life kind of a guy and they can afford it now because he’s been a steady salesman with the same engineering components company since he was twenty-one and the Senior Accounts exec for the last ten. And Mitzi’s been in part time employment ever since the kids were set up and off their hands.
They met at a dance when they were still bright-eyed kids. Full of teen hormones. He was from the brickworks and stinking pugholes of the inner western suburbs where there was never enough of anything except pubs and broken families. She was a marching girl who lived in the toffy parklands belt and had great legs and Duds appreciated great legs but he reckoned Mitzi and her great legs were way out of his league. But he persisted. They’ve managed to keep dancing around each other now for nearly forty years, through some good times and some really shitty times. So a few pairs of shoes are her reward after a lifetime of slog. Duds loves to see her happy.
Duds always believed he’d finish his working life as State Manager. Because he’d earned it. Mitzi thought so too. She could see them entertaining the visiting Japanese and German parts manufacturers and their classy wives. She already had the house, tastefully decorated with brilliant views of the sea and the city from the deck. She was ready. And Duds was proud of her and her excellent sense of style because he had none.
So they were waiting. Ready. For their day. For when the current State Manager decided to hang up his clogs and go fishing. And pass the baton to Duds. Because he’d earned it. By faithful service. By doing the bits of the State Manager’s job that the guy didn’t want to do any more because he was only waiting for the moment his financial adviser said it was time. Did it by going to places he hated and kissing overseas supplier backsides and doing the karaoke in the wee small hours when he would’ve rather been in bed. At home.
But it wasn’t so bad when they could at last afford to have Mitzi travel with him and carry a heap of his entertaining load.
Mitzi always did his packing. Up till recently. Did it because he was a bloke and was hopeless at packing but Mitzi instinctively knew how right clothes and good overseas impressions went together. But he said it was because she was good at it and really enjoyed doing it. Which was some distance from the truth.
But thereby hangs a small tale. Retold often at Dud’s expense.
Dud’s one big shortcoming – other than his laidbackness - was that he was born without a sense of tact. Tact and timing. It seemed to get worse when they began travelling together.
About twenty minutes into their trip it’d start. He’d pull stuff out of his suitcase and ask her why in Godsname had she packed this particular coat when she knew he hated wearing it because it never fitted right across his shoulders. Or she’d put in the wrong undies. Or too many. Or not enough. And his socks were too hot or too cold and he’d have to hit the Ginza or Alexanderplatz or Oxford Street to buy some decent ones and he hated shopping.
Mitzi is a fairly abiding girl. Up to a point. They were in Sheffield. Duds pulled out a shirt and – knowing Duds he probably thought this was constructive criticism that would really help her next time – made the point that this shirt didn’t go with anything else in his kit. She should have packed the blue one. For Mitzi it was a shirt too far.
Right! That’s IT Dudley! You can pack your OWN effen suitcase next time!!
Yeah? Well I WILL! At least then I’ll be sure I’ve got all my right stuff, woman!!
Right! You’re packing it yourself!!
Right!
Right!
So the whole suitcase-packing subject became taboo. Never mentioned again. For the whole trip. Even after they got home. Until the next was looming. Mitzi was looking forward to it but Duds was sick of being the mug for the boss yet again. Mitzi gently reminded him. About his packing vow. But just the once.
What? Look, you worry about your own stuff.
Yes, well don’t forget...
Geez, stop your bloody nagging.
So - nothing more said. For the whole month up to departure morning.
It was eight o’clock. The cab was waiting. Mitzi dragged her suitcase out to the front door. Duds (like the total idiot he can be sometimes) asks...
Are we only taking one case between us this time?
No, this is mine. You’re packing your own remember?
That’s when Mitzi coined that classic comment that has since gone down into folklore... “Geezuz, you never seen a fat man move so fast!”
Duds had that suitcase packed in a fraction under ninety seconds, with undies and shirts and the entire contents of drawers flying through the air at a goodly rate of knots and even though he had seven ties and no hankies and he ran out of socks before he got to Singapore not a word was ever said about wrong kit.
Other than that, life was still pretty good. He could put up with anything. Because everyone could see the State manager’s attitude to work was fading fast and Duds was a shoe-in. Yep, still pretty good.
Except for Auntie Mavey.
Mitzi’s Auntie Mavey was on her last legs, had no kids, was worth a good few bob, and Mitzi was her favourite niece. They were prepared to cater to her whims as she shuffled into the twilight. Steadfastly refusing all the way to go into any sort of a Care Plan because Duds and Mitzi were her Care Plan. But by this time Auntie Mavey was starting to seriously lose the plot.
Duds would get home about six after a hard day out on the hustings, selling selling selling, want nothing more than a scotch and his tea and a shower. A bit of peace and quiet. Auntie Mavey would ring up. A couple of nights a week. It’d go something like this.
I need you to duck down the street and get me some mustard.
What?!
Mustard. I need some mustard.
When?
Now. I haven’t got any.
What do y’want mustard for?!
To go on my hot dog.
Hot dog?! What hot dog? You don’t have any hot dogs!
Well you can pick some up for me when you’re getting the mustard...
It was all starting to get Duds and Mitzi a touch frayed at the edges. But then the State Manager finally decided. Two weeks from now I’m going fishing, he told his senior staff. Head Office will be appointing my replacement. Duds had no problem with that. He was totally confident. There wasn’t any other contenders. In his State Branch. And besides, hadn’t he been assured by the State Manager he was the obvious choice. Even the CEO at Head Office had hinted at it a couple of times a year or so back, when he’d breezed through, pumping up the troops.
So Duds and Mitzi put on a celebratory dinner party, pulled out all stops like a practice run. Basked in the glow of his imminent and hardwon success with all their mates. Took the phone off the hook.
They appointed a whiz kid twenty years younger than Duds, been with the company for six years, had a degree in something that made Dud’s 1962 model Fitter & Turner’s Certificate from the British Tube Mills look pale in comparison. Even though Duds knew the job and the business inside-out and the customers loved him.
He was crushed. He had no Plan ‘B’.
Mitzi is a fairly patient and enduring girl. Also up to a point. But she was crushed too, actually cried. Cried for the injustice to Duds as much as for her own dreams of entertaining bigwigs from foreign lands. In her lovely home.
Then she went quiet. Dangerously quiet. Duds should’ve read the signs. He went off to work the next day and tried to get on with being a good salesman and a good company man while Mitzi rang up the CEO at Head Office and gave him a significant serve. Poured a serious bunch of venom down the phoneline until it was all out of her system but when she cooled down she didn’t mention it to Duds. It was the State Manager who filled him in.
Geez, your missus is a bit of a firebrand, eh?
What?
Yep, really gave the chief what for! By all accounts.
Duds wasn’t the quickest thinker God ever created but the boss hardly needed to elaborate. He steamed home intending to give Mitzi a major blast over what you can and can’t do in the world of business but it sort of fell flat. Not because she cried all over again, but because he was damn proud of her. And yep, because what she’d said really needed saying by someone. Mostly by Duds.
They made the mistake of going to a party the next Sunday afternoon, both of them feeling pretty filthy with the world. It was at Frank’s place. Frank was one of Dud’s best mates, a third generation Italian with a big market gardening operation out north on the rich black-soil flats. Frank and Duds had been mates ever since they were kids together down amongst the social calamity that was their childhood.
He pointedly told Mitzi she’d be driving home. Knew she wouldn’t object because – well, because she owed him one. Over the boss.
At the time Frank was in the throes of a messy wrestling match with the labour Unions and with water rights and with red tape fucking bureaucrats in his own words and was looking as stressed to the eyeballs as Duds. But he was Italian and he was always up for a good time anyway.
They started on lambrusco while they compared grievances over the barbie plate, moved on to lashings of Coonawarra Cab-Shiraz with their steaks, the Johnny Walker came out to go with dessert, and they wrapped it up with a long cheese-plate session and a couple of bottles of Stanton & Killeen’s Rutherglen Muscat.
They were steaming.
Loud and matey.
Talking cubic rubbish.
They reckoned all the barsteds of the world could get bloody-well stuffed. Yep, bloody-well stuffed. The barsteds. That’s when Duds raised his glass and announced that he was gunna bloody-well quit his shitty job and his ungrateful bloody company and find somethin’ worthwhile to bloody-well do. With his life. Frank agreed. All them barsteds are jus’ barsteds Duds. I reckon ya should come an’ work f’ me. We’d be great together. All them barsteds can get stuffed.
What? – geez thad’s a GREAT idea! Right, that’s what I’m gunna do. Work f’ you mate. Hey Mitz, I’m goin’ t’ work with Frank. Termorra mornin’. Me an’ Frank. What’ll ya’ want me t’ start on Frank?
Frank studied the inside of his glass for a while. Looking for the answer. Cuttin’ ... cabbages. Yep, cabbages. Me cabbages a reddy t’ go. I’ll needya t’ cut cabbages. Fucken union fuckers can get fucked. I’ll use me mate. You ‘n me Duds. Cuttin’ me cabberjuz. Zat orright?
Orright?! Geez yeah mate. Cabberjuz’d be great. I c’n cut a bloody cabbidge as good as enny body. What ... y’know ... time?
Time? ... time’s ‘bout ... geez I dunno ... Gina, whassa time? Duds needs t’ know ... geez, who cares what the time is Duds?
Not the time you fugwit ... the TIME ... in the mornin’ ... t’ start ... cuttin’ ya ... y’know ... cabberjuz?
Awww ... the time! Uz six ay em orright ... orright f’ you mate?
Geez yeah. Six a-bloody clock ... on the dot ... ‘ll be there ... rarin’.
And they shook hands on it, punched each other’s shoulders and opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate and clunked their glasses together and toasted the cabberjuz and shook hands again. They talked total gibberish for another hour then Mitzi poured what was left of Duds into the car, drove him home. On the way he stirred just the once, mumbled ‘sigz a clock’ and ‘cabberjuz’ and ‘doan f’get t’ wake...’ before sliding away into that blissful oblivion where all worldly things are only as whispers on the wind.
Monday morning. Five o’clock.
Mitzi shook him loose. He peered out from the covers and his eyes were like over-ripe strawberries.
Whaaa...?
It’s time Dudley.
Time? What time?
It’s five o’clock.
Whaaa...?
Five o’clock. Like you told me.
Whaaa...?
You’re starting at six, remember?
Whaaa...?
You’re starting your new career today, at Frank’s.
Whaaa...?
You and Frank remember? Last night. You start working for him this morning. At six o’clock. Cutting cabbages or something.
Whaaa...?
And you’ll have to email your boss too I suppose, with your resignation. Not sure when you’ll be able to go in and clean out your desk.
What the HELL a you TALKIN’ about?!
You and Frank, last night - well, this morning about two really – you shook hands on it. Your new career. In cabbages. You cleaned up a bottle of champagne over the deal. Did everything short of kissing each other on both cheeks.
Geezuz woman you’re making all this up!
God’s honest truth, Dudley.
Dud’s brain isn’t at it’s best at five a.m. Especially when a percussion band is playing in his head and there’s rocks in his bloodstream, but he could at least see the look on Mitzi’s face. Didn’t have a clue what it was saying but knew she was seriously taking the piss. He rolled over and said something about eight o’clock.
And that was the end of Duds’ cabbage career. But it was really the end of his sales career as well. He kept up the act for about a year, the façade of caring when he didn’t any more, of being loyal when he wasn’t any more, until one day Mitzi found him parked down at the beach and staring out to sea, and he confessed he’d been doing it off and on for a few weeks, and knew it was time. Even though his own money boffin was telling him it was about three years too soon.
It was Auntie Mavey who saved them. By finally popping off and leaving them a really messy house but a tidy sum. A lot of it in hundred dollar notes wrapped in newspaper and stashed in every nook and cranny in the house. It was like a treasure hunt. Tax free.
So Duds pulled the pin, and they went travelling. Anywhere they chose. Just for themselves. Duds always packing his own suitcase.
© T. R. Edmonds 2018
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