Nobody True (7 page)

“I think we’ve a good chance of winning the account,” he went on, “particularly if they’re tired of the old staid bank advertising they’ve become used to and are looking for something fresher and more original.”

“And the takeover?”

“Merger,” Sydney persisted.

Oliver shrugged. “Whatever. It might be an extremely beneficial move.”

“You’d give up everything we’ve worked for?” I was beginning to simmer.

“It wouldn’t necessarily mean that, chum. Try seeing it from the north.”

I hated it when he called me chum, especially when it was coupled with the jargon.

“Sydney and I already more or less agreed it would be a smart way for us to expand.”

Ah, so Sydney and Oliver had already discussed the matter without me.

“Beside which,” Oliver put in, resting his elbows on the cushioned arms of his leather swivel chair and making a steeple under his chin with his fingers, “we three would each receive quite a large sum for the company.”

“That sounds like a buyout to me,” I said.

“Not at all. Financial remuneration for the partners would be merely part of the deal…”

There was a light tap on the door and it opened a little. Lynda, our receptionist/switchboard girl, poked her head through the gap. She looked directly at me.

“Phone call for you, Jim. Your wife.”

“Did you tell her I was in a meeting?”

“She said you’re always in a meeting.”

I couldn’t argue with that: over the last couple of years, my whole life seemed to revolve around meetings, which was frustrating for someone who wanted to work only on the drawing board. I knew Oliver felt the same as far as copywriting was concerned, but somehow he was better than me on such occasions, especially where clients were concerned. Ollie was also terrific at presentations and his social skills were excellent, whereas I tended to be too stiff and was hopeless at cosying up to the clients, particularly those I didn’t like.

“Ah, tell her I’ll ring back in a couple of minutes, will you?”

Lynda smiled and retreated, quietly drawing the door closed after her.

Ollie was looking at his wristwatch. “Look, Jim, I’ve got something on tonight so I have to get away,” he said, his foot stopping its tattoo on the carpet.

I breathed a loud sigh. “Okay with me,” I said. “But I still think we should take things one step at a time.”

“You think we should pitch though?” Sydney leaned forward over his desk again.

“You two would outvote me anyway, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh no, Jim,” said Oliver, standing up and brushing an imaginary crease from the knee of his trousers. “Also, I want to think on bedding down with Blake & Turnbrow myself. Let’s touch base again tomorrow morning when we’re fresher. I have to admit, though, right now I’m inclined to push the envelope. We could all benefit from a paradigm shift.”

I assumed Sydney understood the lingo; I did, just about.

“If we’re going for the new account we have to start work right away.” Despite the warning, there was no impatience in Sydney’s manner, nor in his grey eyes. There was only his usual impassiveness.

“We wouldn’t start on it tonight anyway,” said Oliver to Sydney. “Let’s sleep on it, okay?”

Sydney nodded and I got to my feet, still wondering if I’d been left out of the loop somewhere along the way. Ollie hadn’t seemed very surprised by either of the two propositions, nor by the possible linking between them. I followed my copywriter out of Sydney’s office back to the one we shared as the agency’s creative directors, Oliver switching on the light as we entered.

Moving behind my desk and picking up a long steel cutting rule that rested there, slapping the flat side against my open palm, a habit of mine when I was tense, I began to say, “We oughta talk…”

“Ring Andrea first, Jim,” he interrupted. “It might be something urgent.”

Reluctantly, I placed the heavy rule back on the desk and picked up my phone, pressing 9 for an outside line. We needed to discuss things, Ollie and I. I dialled my home number.

“Hello, please?”

It was Prim’s breathy little voice.

“Hey, squirt, it’s Daddy.”

“Daddy! Are you coming home now?”

I smiled as I thought of her standing in the sitting room, phone clutched in both hands, her curly hair kept away from her face with an Alice-band. Lush brown hair like her mother’s, a few shades lighter though, with a reddish hue when the sun lightened it; tawny brown eyes full of innocence and fun.

“Soon, Prim,” I told her.

“You got to, Daddy. You’re looking after me tonight. Don’t you ‘member?”

Uh-oh. Sure I remembered. Andrea was meeting two of her girlfriends this evening for a quietish girlie night out and I was the appointed childminder.

“Did you think I’d forgotten? Anything special you want to do?”

“Lots and lots. And cards.”

Seven years old and I’d already taught her how to gamble. Taught her to cheat a little too.

“No DVDs you want to watch?” I needed some thinking time tonight.

“Just games, please.”

I laughed. “Okay.” Plenty of time to think once I’d put her to bed. “Now run and get Mummy for me, will you?”

“Love you!”

She was gone and I pictured her running to the kitchen—she was of an age when kids are always in a hurry, rushing from one interest to the next. A snapshot view of her came to mind, a holiday photo, the sun directly behind her so that the curls around her face were orangey red, a halo of fire, her features softened even more because they were in light shadow, her brown eyes deepened so that they were like Andrea’s. I wanted to eat her.

“Jim?”

Andrea’s voice, low-pitched, even now seductive to me.

“Hi. You rang me,” I told her.

“You haven’t forgotten I’m out tonight.”

“No, I’ll be home in plenty of time.”

“No last-minute meetings. You know what you’re like.”

In truth, I did want to discuss Sydney’s proposal some more with him and Oliver, but maybe a breather would be useful at this point: I was getting just a bit rankled with this talk of a merger—it still sounded like a sell-out to me—and needed time to think on it to calm myself.

“I’ll be home within the hour,” I assured Andrea. “Where are you meeting the girls?” The dinner with two girlfriends of old was a bi-monthly get-together to yak and catch up on the latest gossip.

“San Lorenzo’s.”

I was impressed. “Hope you’re not paying.”

“We always go Dutch. You don’t mind, do you?”

Of course I didn’t; we both needed own-time every so often. “No, you have a good dinner, order the best on the menu.” She deserved it; I was always ringing home at the last moment to tell her I was going to be stuck in yet another meeting, or that I’d be working till late. “Tell you what, I’ll cover the whole bill. You can treat your friends.”

“No, Jim, that’s not necessary. I don’t want to start a precedent.”

“Up to you, but really, I don’t mind.”

“Thanks anyway. Prim’s already eaten, but can you fix something for yourself. There’s plenty of easy stuff in the fridge.”

“No prob. I’ll see you soon. Oh, and Andrea…?”

“Yes.”

“I need to talk to you later.”

I caught the faint rush of anxiety in her voice. “Is something wrong?” she asked.

“No, no. Just things going on here that I’d like your opinion on. Nothing that can’t wait till later.”

“Okay, Jim. I’ll see you soon, then?”

“Almost on my way. Bye for now.”

I replaced the receiver and sat at my desk for a while. Oliver had left the office during my telephone conversation and I was alone. People leaving for home were passing by the open door, some of them calling in a brief “G’night” on their way. Preoccupied, I waved a casual hand.

Something was making me uneasy and at the time I thought it was due to both the suggested merger and the pitch for the new account (which I didn’t think the agency was quite ready for).

Only much, much later did I realize I was intuitively troubled over something that had nothing to do with business.

But then, I’d understand a lot of things once I was dead.

11

The hotel was one we’d used before for brainstorming sessions. Rooms and service were top-grade and we’d hired a suite with two bedrooms, one for me, the second one, across the large lounge, for Oliver.

This was a week or so after my meeting with Oliver and Sydney in which we’d discussed the possibility of “merging” with a bigger advertising agency and whether or not to pitch for the British Allied Bank account. I’d reluctantly agreed to the latter, but the idea of amalgamating with Blake & Turnbrow—a sell-out as far as I was concerned—was still in abeyance. My partners knew my view, which was in the negative, but I guess they thought I’d come round eventually. They were wrong: I wouldn’t. I’d worked too bloody hard—we all had—building our own creative shop to let it be gobbled up by a rival agency, no matter how global and how many blue chip accounts it carried. I suppose ego came into it somewhere—I didn’t want to lose control of our company, which inevitably would happen despite Sydney’s assurances that it wouldn’t be the case.

The point of booking into the hotel for the weekend was to keep us away from telephones—unless we wanted to ring out—and all the other nuisance stuff of running a company. Also, and I’m not quite sure why this is true, getting away from our normal surroundings somehow led to fresher ideas; strange how a different environment can promote new concepts. As well as that, everything was on tap for us, room service ruled. We only had this one weekend to come up with a brand new press poster, and television campaign for the British Allied Bank, an advertising campaign with a budget of several million pounds.

The team was just Oliver and me, and I must admit that, despite my reservation about the account possibly being too big for us to handle, I had become more and more excited as the preceding week had worn on. It’s called the Buzz, and there’s nothing quite like it.

On this Saturday night, the second night of the weekend—we’d be working all day Sunday as well—the hotel room’s thick-carpeted floor was covered with sheets of thin layout paper, rough-scamp ideas on every leaf. And there were some good thoughts on those sheets, pithy copy lines with strong visuals, and I was pretty pleased with most of them.

But there was a problem. I wanted to go with the idea of humanizing the bank by simply informing the public that human beings were running the individual accounts, not computerized automatons, and all had names, families and other interests, but were experts in their particular fields of finance, always with the customer’s interest at heart. Oliver, however, wanted to try a much more grandiose approach, showing how grand and mighty the corporation was, how its network spread throughout the world, and how it employed superior specialists in all matters of finance. I saw the latter as far too anonymous for the ordinary people who would use the bank’s services; and Oliver saw my concept as too limited, even though I explained that the advertising would be good for bank staff as well as prospective customers, putting staff on a plateau, letting them know they were appreciated by their employers while still trying to hook new customers. We even argued over the media, because I wanted newspaper ads along with television whereas Ollie wanted to use glossy colour supplements, forty-eight-sheet posters and enormously expensive sixty-second commercials.

The answer, of course, was to split the budget on different campaigns, using the bank’s size and grandeur as an umbrella under which all aspects were covered, but neither of us saw that at the time. I think by that second night we were both too wired for compromise—literally, in Oliver’s case, as I was soon to find out.

What was missing was a mediator, a cool voice of reason that would argue both cases, then come up with a compromise solution suitable to both parties. That was the role Sydney usually played, but although he’d looked in on us earlier that day he’d long gone by now. If he could, he had told us, he would call in later when we’d both had the chance to cool off a bit.

But now it was almost 11 p.m. and I didn’t think he would return at this time of night. Probably wanted to catch us when we were refreshed the following day, Sunday.

I stared at the layouts scattered around me on wall-to-wall carpet and, whether it was sheer weariness or I’d been half-convinced by Oliver’s persuasive reasoning, I was about to give in. Too much time and energy was being wasted on useless yatter and not enough on getting the job done. I’d work up Ollie’s idea with visuals, then together we’d see how it would run as a TV commercial. Maybe we could show how huge the bank’s network was by showcasing real individuals… Anyway, that’s the way my thoughts were heading and I could just see the glimmer of a satisfactory solution up ahead and not too far away.

I heard the toilet flush and soon after the bathroom door opened, Oliver sweeping through. His shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows, his silk tie at half-mast, shirt collar unbuttoned.

“Right, let’s just harmonize on this fucking thing,” he said without looking at me. His voice was angry and, when he took the chair at the suite’s desk bureau, the toe of his shoe began its familiar drumbeat on the carpet.