Nobody True (4 page)

But still, the growing-up years are always influenced by your parents and home background, so Mother’s insistence on privacy where all things personal were concerned stuck with me. By the time I was twelve, I couldn’t even tell her things; I’d learned from her to keep my thoughts and emotions to myself and I think, ultimately, she was kind of pleased about that herself—other people’s emotions (yes, even her son’s) could be a “rotten nuisance”. She was complex: she wanted me to love her and be her “best friend in all the wide world”, but she’d been too badly hurt by my father’s desertion to trust any other man, perhaps even any other person; she didn’t really want to hear my troubles or concerns, because that always brought her back to the real world, and the real world had let her down badly. I can admit it now, and I half-knew it then: Mother was a little screwy. If I did upset her by, say, coming home late, or deliberately disobeying her wishes (I can’t say orders, because she was never strong enough to give orders as such—they were always suggestions and sometimes pleadings, rather than dictates), she would regale me with the sins of my father, how he’d left us, been untrue to both of us, run off with some floozy, didn’t care if we starved to death, or were put out on the streets. Eventually, I closed my mind to all this, but even so, the guilt somehow transferred itself to me.

There I go getting off the point. The thing of it is, I’d learned from an early age to keep personal matters to myself, initially because that was the way Mother wanted it, and ultimately, perhaps inevitably, I became embarrassed about life with Mother. In some ways it worked well for me when I reached my older teens, because the girls seem to like that slight air of mystery that hung on me like a dark cloak, made me seem deeper that probably I was. It was something I used to my advantage anyway.

So, enough of all that. I’ve still uncomfortable about our mother-son relationship, but it just might help explain why I kept quiet about the OBEs. I’d learned to keep such things to myself.

Another reason was that I was scared of being laughed at. Or misunderstood, thought to be out of my skull. The pragmatic side of my nature also figured: easier for me to put the experiences down to lurid dreaming, no matter how real they seemed to be. By talking about them, I was admitting their fundamental reality to myself and, frankly, they were a distraction I didn’t need in my life. Besides, the OBEs were infrequent enough not to be a problem.

One more reason, and I think this was as important as the others in its way. Say you were a friend of mine—or, maybe even more significantly, a girlfriend of mine—and I told you I could travel invisibly sometimes, mostly at night when my body was totally relaxed, that my mind could leave my body to go on excursions. Say I told you that and you didn’t think I was totally crazy, you half-believed me. How would you feel about me being able to spy on you at any time, that I could be watching you in your most private moments? You wouldn’t like the idea. In fact, I don’t think you’d ever trust me again. Everyone needs their privacy, their own space. It’s what makes us civilized.

Now and again, I felt the overwhelming need to confide in a close friend or special girl, but common sense always prevailed, something—call it instinct, if you like—always shut me up before I said too much. Later, even marriage could not persuade me to disclose my little secret; maybe I’d kept it to myself so long it had become unimportant.

In truth though, it was never an issue.

7

Something else for you to consider:

You’re physically near to someone, a person you love more than any other in the world, more than life itself. That person is about to be murdered.

That person you love so much is helpless.

And so are you, even though you’re present at the scene and you’re free to move around. You cannot protect your loved one no matter how hard you try.

You have to watch as death slowly, and oh so painfully, begins to claim its victim.

8

My name is—was—James True. Anyone who knew me called me Jim: James was just for passports and tax returns. I was pretty average, five-eleven tall, slimmish, good mid-brown hair, blue eyes, not bad-looking. Like I said, average, quite ordinary. I did have a lively imagination though, which was just as well given the career choice I’d made at an early age.

I dreamt a lot. I don’t mean daydreams, reveries; I mean sleep dreams. Always lucid, full colour, Dolby sound. Reality dreams, but not too logical. Busy, wear-you-down dreams. The medical profession deny the possibility, but often I wake mornings more exhausted than when I’ve gone to sleep. Hard day’s night, and all that. I always figured I was putting in another seven or eight hours’ labour when I slumbered.

Content was anything from fantasy to mundane everyday stuff. Usually a fair bit of angst in most of them. I’d lose something, couldn’t quite reach something, would be placed in an embarrassing situation—you know the kind: in a crowded room or at a bus stop wearing only my vest. Nothing abnormal though, nothing any different from the dreams of other dreamers; it was their lucidity, I suppose, that made them special plus the fact that I could always remember them. I’ve no idea if any had particular significance, because I rarely tried to analyse them. Except for one that was recurring.

In this dream, which came maybe once or twice a year, I could kind of fly. I say kind of, because it was more like long floating hops: I could rise from the ground, sometimes high over buildings, or zoom along several feet above the surface, pushing myself off with my hands every fifty yards or so, gaining altitude whenever it was necessary to rise above people or obstructions. I always thought that these particular dreams were informing me that I was a dreamer, that I had high expectations, perhaps wanted to break away from reality, aspired to things that could only be fantasy, that my own pragmatism, which was tempered by the realities of life itself, unfailingly brought me back down to earth—literally, in the dreams. The way I saw it this was no bad thing. It meant I was grounded. And that was a plus in my eventual profession, where the ideal was advanced—the best soap powder, the finest lager, the greatest value—all of which claims had to stay within the realms of possibility and true to the advertising standards code (I admit that often—no, most times—we pushed those selling virtues to the limit, but we never quite lied).

I soon got over my motorbike accident at seventeen—the hairline skull fracture had been caused by my crash helmet having been dented by the edge of the kerb, but it was one of those lucky fractures (if such a break could ever be deemed lucky) that cause no pressure on the brain and it healed itself within weeks. No surgery was required. Headaches for a few weeks afterwards were the only penalty, and mercifully even these were not severe. My broken leg took longer to mend and I hobbled into college on crutches for a couple of months, but there were no long-lasting effects, no permanent limp, just those periodic twinges.

Because my bike was wrecked I had to stick to London Transport after that, despite high fares and shit services. At least Mother was relieved. It was a drain on my cash, but it only made me take on more evening and weekend work. In fact, day college became a bit of a rest period until my principal hauled me into his office and threatened expulsion if I didn’t get my act together again. Fortunately, one of my flatmates was given the money by his father to buy a second-hand car, which turned out to be an old American army Jeep that we all loved—it might have been cold in winter, because it had no canvas top, but boy, the Jeep gave us great kudos at the college when we rode in together. Despite its lack of comfort, it was babe bait, and we took full advantage.

After completing the three-year course and gaining my national diploma in design, I started looking for a job in advertising. It took me a year of living on social security, hawking my work round one agency after another (same excuse always: come back when you’ve had more experience. So how the hell do you gain experience if nobody’s willing to take you on?). Anyway, I finally struck lucky—if you could call it that—by getting a job with a finished art studio and minor agency. I started as a paint-pot washer, coffee maker, errand runner, art filer—all this after three years art school training—but I was glad to be employed and I made the most of it. It took a while to work my way up to the drawing board, but once there, my training finally kicked in. It was a cheapskate company though and once I felt I’d gained the initially elusive and hard-earned experience, I moved on to a big advertising agency.

Employed at first as a typographer because I’d exaggerated my qualifications a little, I quickly worked my way up to art director on some pretty big accounts. I was used to the work ethic, you see; all those years working through art college as well as evenings and weekends had instilled in me a discipline that could only be for the good. I enjoyed hard work and now, when it was bringing with it substantial financial reward, I found my enthusiasm for the job was even greater. You’re under great pressure in advertising because of its high turnover of fresh ideas, campaigns and ads always wanted yesterday, constant meetings both internal and with clients, briefings from clients, your own briefings to photographers, artists and commercials directors and producers. Long working weekends again, late nights too. Then there’s the social side of the business. Smart, attractive girls, intelligent colleagues, long, boozy lunches balanced out with long and sober bouts of overtime. Add the humour. There’s a lot of humour in advertising, a lot of wit, much of it against the client, although they could never be aware of that. And to top it all, there are the politics. Outside politics itself, the advertising game must be the most political business of all. Unless you can avoid it, it’s dog-eat-dog, all inspired by vanity and insecurity in equal doses, envy, ambition, suspicion, and the quest for money and power.

I always tried to steer clear of it, mainly because it was all too time-consuming and petty; but that didn’t mean I didn’t have to watch my back. Some knives were pretty lethal. The two good things I had going for me were ability (to get on with the work) and talent.

Lucky happenstance brought me in contact with a dream copywriter. Oliver Guinane was brilliant with words and ideas, totally secure in himself, and he loved to work as a team. We were around the same age, had the same enthusiasm for the job, agreed on what was “in”, what was “out”, and what was plain garbage. Best of all, we admired and appreciated each other’s flair for the job.

I’m not sure that in the correct order of things I would have chosen Oliver as a best buddy—he was a little bit brash for me and didn’t always treat everyone as an equal; but he had many other qualities that more than made up for the, well, the deficiencies. Oliver was generous to a fault, had great charm and wit, frequently produced wonderful copy and ideas, and was unselfish with the latter; he also had great energy. With his handsome face, light-brown eyes and full reddish-brown hair that curled around his ears and over his brow, he was also a female magnet, much like that old Jeep, which often meant that I could leave him to the chat-lines while I played the quiet interesting one. Occasionally we’d switch and I’d take on the gregarious role, but Oliver could never stay quiet and interesting for long; his natural boisterousness—and vanity—would eventually take over. He was no good playing stooge. Didn’t matter though, we were a great team both professionally and socially.

We had good times together and through our teamwork we produced some memorable campaigns for accounts as diverse as banking and hair products, alcohol and automobiles. Our reputation grew, as did our salaries, and soon we were being headhunted by other reputable agencies.

We only moved twice though, once to J. Walter Thompson, then to Saatchi & Saatchi, as it was then called. After that, with quite a bit of soul-searching, some sleepless nights and earnest debates (with Oliver as the prime mover in this new and risky plan), we took the plunge and started up our own outfit.

We were lucky. The economy was healthy, house prices were booming, and a lot of money was coming in from abroad. Bank managers (as they still were at the time) were not quite throwing money at businessmen who wanted to expand or start up new companies but, encouraged by their own banking grandees, were generous towards new ventures that had legs. Oliver and I gave a polished presentation to our friendly city bank manager, as if we were pitching for a new account, with my copywriter doing most of the talking while I showed some of our better award-winning work (yep, we were that good) and the manager bought it all.

We approached an excellent account director we knew from another agency and poached a good fresh junior copywriter and art director from Saatchi’s. Oliver had a girlfriend at that time (foolishly, I’d introduced her to him at the old agency) who was a rep for a high-blown and high-priced photographer whose food and product stills were as good as his people work. She was a clever, beautiful brunette, fashionable, and keen with big brown eyes and a slim, leggy body most women would die for and most men would kill for. Her name was Andrea Dodds and eventually I married her. But now’s not the time to go into that. We hired Andrea to be our office manager and second to Sydney Presswell, our financial manager and third partner, who looked alter the business side of things (he was the account director we picked up from another agency). She was presentable, good at handling clients (I used to be one of her clients), and stood no bullshit. Did I say she was beautiful? Well, she was—and still is.

We took on just one secretary, Lynda, to begin with, who also acted as receptionist and telephone operator; a run-around junior, a young kid named Raymond who aspired to be an art director, but who’d had no art school training; a typographer called Peter and the young creative team I mentioned, Paul and Mark. Finding the right premises wasn’t that easy, but after a lot of searching and a lot of rejections, we stumbled upon premises with two vacant floors slap in the middle of Covent Garden. It had just come on the market and it was pricey—actually, too pricey for us—but we knew instantly it was exactly what we were looking for.