‘What about it?’ she says, looking over the top of her magazine suspiciously.
‘It’s really good,’ I say. ‘I like the idea.’
‘Yeah. Cheers.’
‘It just occurred to me that it’s exactly the same idea I was talking about in that research group you were at … do you remember?’
‘Not really,’ she says.
‘You remember Jeff, that good-looking guy from Fletchers, who was sitting next to me?’
She shrugs.
‘Because he remembers that conversation too …’ I say.
‘All I remember is that you were quite pissed and you were coming out with all sorts of weird shit about pasta …’
‘And then you asked me about pesto …?’
‘I have no memory of that,’ she says, slowly turning the page of her magazine.
‘You did, Karly, you asked me about pesto.’
‘If you say so. Believe it or not, I don’t keep a diary of conversations I have with account people in the middle of research sessions that shouldn’t even be happening two weeks before a shoot.’
‘Fair enough,’ I say. ‘But actually you were writing something on your phone, do you not remember?’
‘No,’ she says.
‘You were. You were typing while I was talking to you. I remember because, believe it or not, most people don’t continuously type while other people are talking to them.’
‘Whatever you say,’ she shrugs.
‘You were writing some notes on your iPhone, weren’t you?’
‘Actually?’ she says angrily, putting her magazine down on the desk. ‘If you must know, I was texting Nick to tell him what a nightmare that session was.’
‘Yes, that’s quite right,’ I say, fury running through my veins. ‘So you were. But after you texted Nick telling him what a stupid bitch I was, you wrote some notes on your phone. And those notes were my exact words, and the exact words that are now on that script.’
I say nothing. I look her directly in the eye, hoping like mad that I’m not showing any fear.
‘What are you getting your knickers in a twist for anyway?’ she says finally, picking the magazine up from her desk again. ‘It’s not that big a deal. We take our inspiration from everywhere.’
I know that, Karly. But you do not take it from me.
Back at my desk and I only have to wait nineteen minutes before my phone rings. I’ve only just stopped shaking.
‘Martin Meddlar!’ I say. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’ Although we are both fully aware.
‘Have you got five minutes?’ he says, brightly.
‘Now?’ I say.
‘No time like the present …’ He hangs up.
I could not be readier.
‘I hear you had an interesting chat with Karly, who subsequently had an interesting chat with Robbie. I’m not sure how you came to know the contents of her iPhone but let’s put that to one side for now. Let’s focus on how we can help you at this point?’ he says.
‘Last week Berenice offered me a week’s placement in the creative department. But I’ve been thinking. And I’d like a slightly more generous offer than that, to reflect the fact that my idea is the basis of this new campaign.’
‘What were you thinking?’
‘Well, Fletchers pay you £100k a month as a retainer for creative resource. And we give them a half decent idea on average about once every three months, if they’re lucky – so I’d say my idea is worth around £300k.’
‘
Three hundred grand?
You can’t possibly think …’
‘Obviously I’m not expecting you to pay me anywhere near that amount. Because here you have lots of overheads, like those premium chocolate biscuits and so forth …’
‘Tell me you’ll settle for a month’s worth of biscuits …?’ he says, grinning at me.
‘I
shall
take a month’s worth of biscuits, seeing as you’ve offered – along with a fair payment for my idea. So how about a very modest five per cent of what Fletchers are paying for creative resource?’
He fixes me with a look that is part admiration, part lust, part surprise, and part fear.
‘I’m not convinced your idea is worth fifteen grand …’ he says finally, tapping his fingertips together slowly in front of his chin.
‘Well, I’m not really sure that spending fifty grand a year on white lilies for reception is worth it either,’ I say.
‘Is that really what we spend on flowers?’ he asks, looking appalled.
‘Berenice’s peonies cost another twenty …’
‘Well, ten grand is the going rate for the board’s bonus at Christmas,’ he says.
‘Actually it was fifteen grand last year. That’s what Steve Pearson was paid.’
He pauses. ‘I’m quite surprised you discuss these figures amongst yourselves.’
Yes, well Sam and I discussed it. After Sam looked up the finance files …
‘Fifteen grand is what I’ll be getting when you put me on the board this Christmas,’ I say. ‘But I would like my bonus and promotion now, I don’t want to wait till December.’
‘I think that’s not unreasonable,’ he says, looking relieved. ‘And this is on the understanding that we move forward with a clean slate.’
‘Absolutely,’ I say. ‘No point looking back. The future’s bright and all that.’
‘OK. We’ll look into getting you your bonus and promotion at month end,’ he says.
‘No, I meant I’d like them now, as in
now
now,’ I say. ‘I’d like my promotion signed off and a CHAPS payment today. I’m doing my Inspiration Hour on Friday and I’d be so much more
motivated
if the money was already in my account.’
He pauses to consider this. ‘I don’t know if finance can do a CHAPS payment mid-month …’
‘They managed to when Sandra Weston had to be paid off after her rather unfortunate difference of opinion with Karly. That was on the 12th of January. A Thursday, I believe … I’m sure these things are possible, with a little persuasion …’ I say.
‘You’re bloody good on detail, I’ll grant you that,’ he says, standing up with a half smile that’s verging on respect.
‘There’s one more small thing …’ I say. He hovers, not knowing whether to sit or stand.
‘And what would that be?’ he says.
‘I would like you to get Karly to apologise to me.’
His face falls. ‘Susie: I can get you the money. And at a push I can probably get you the biscuits. But there’s only so much I can do: you do realise I’m not Merlin?’
You know what? He’s right. I am being unreasonable. Because even if he did manage to make her apologise, she wouldn’t actually be sorry. She’d merely be sorry she’d been caught.
‘I just thought it was worth asking,’ I say, shrugging. ‘Right then – so you’ll authorise a CHAPS payment for me?’
‘It’ll be in your bank account by end of play,’ he says.
‘OK,’ I say, holding out my hand to him and smiling. ‘I think we have a deal.’
He smiles broadly back. ‘Why
haven’t
we promoted you earlier?’ he says. ‘I think you might have what it takes to go far.’
Oh I am going to go far, Martin. Very.
Watch me.
It is Friday. It is Happy Hour. And it is my turn to speak.
I thought long and hard about what music to play as I walked up to the podium. Sam suggested the theme tune from
Rocky
. I was thinking more like the Rolling Stones, ‘You
Can’t Always Get What You Want’. But in the end I decided to have nothing. The only words I have to say today are my own. And this won’t be a normal Happy Hour. I reckon it’ll be more like a Happy Four Minutes.
I stand with my speech on a scrap of paper in front of me and look out at my audience. A few faces I love, a few faces I don’t; most in between.
There are moments in life when I’ve thought: ‘I could change my world in a heartbeat. I’m driving at seventy miles an hour along the M1 and if I jerked this steering wheel five inches to the left, I’d crash. Five inches between me and a fiery death-ball.’
Or I could call up Jake and tell him ‘There are times when I literally ache from still missing you, so could you please change the past, and large parts of your personality so that we can be happy and I will never have to feel lonely again?’
I would never do either of those things because I’m not crazy, I don’t want to die. And even more than dying, I definitely don’t want to be rejected. And besides, I do understand that you can’t change the past and you can’t change other people.
So I have not been foolish, but I have not been brave at all either. I have stayed in the safe area, in the comfort zone for a long time now, in emotional limbo.
But there are moments in life where staying comfortable has become so uncomfortable that it’s not an option to keep your mouth shut any more. And I know, as I look at Berenice and Robbie and, for the first time in the front row, Sam too, that this is my moment. It is now or never.
I am on. The audience look at me, a few smiling, most already bored, fiddling with their apps. I can feel my heart beating in my chest, and a little voice in my head saying do it. Just do it. Not in a Nike way, like Robbie would think. Or in a JFDI way, like Devron would. But in a Polly way.
‘Hello everybody,’ I say, giving the microphone a gentle tap. ‘I hope your Friday’s been good. I hope your whole week has been good. Steve Pearson, how was your week?’
Steve looks up in surprise, mid sex-text – and says, ‘Yeah. Fine, cheers.’
‘I’m glad,’ I say. ‘It’s good to talk. Good to talk to each other. You sit next to me, I say good morning, hello, goodbye. It’s nice. Human. Rather than you emailing me from four desks along asking for a favour and then ignoring me when we pass in the corridor.’ I say this with a smile on my face – you can say anything you like when you’re smiling – people think you’re being jolly.
‘Today’s Happy Hour is just a few simple thoughts from me. We’ve all sat here over the years and listened to the great and good tell us lots of fascinating facts, and I thought I can’t really compete with that. Plus we do all know how to use Google by now. So I’ll just tell you a few things I’ve been thinking about recently.
‘When I was young, I fell in love with the Smash Martians. Do you remember them?’ There are a few smiles and nods in the audience from those old enough to remember.
‘These funny little talking aliens charmed the pants off people; they made us want to go out and buy powdered potatoes. I loved them so much they could probably have persuaded me to buy a powdered steak.’ Sam nods his encouragement from the front row.
‘And the reason those ads were so persuasive was because they had an idea in them. And they had charm, and they had wit.’ Robbie nods and Berenice allows herself a pinch of a smile.
‘But nowadays it seems we don’t have those sorts of ideas very often. We’re “inspired” by ideas that we “discover” on the internet. We “borrow” a new animation style from some kid in Idaho, or “pay homage” to a brilliant idea from a girl in Leeds, and just don’t quite get round to giving them credit. I’ve been working recently on a big pizza campaign for Fletchers. Berenice, when you briefed me, you said that the project would define me. It was called “The Truth”. It did really well.
‘Now we talk a lot about truth in this building. Getting
to the heart of the brand
. Being
the midwife of its soul
. But the truth is this: brands don’t have hearts, and they don’t have souls. People do. Well, some of them.
‘The truth is, I am not defined by a brief for a pizza. None of us here should be defined by our work, no matter how big the budget is. We are defined by how we treat other people. I’ve been at NMN for six years. When I joined I had hope, a bit of confidence, joy and some energy. I lost them in this place, maybe in the lush carpets, or in one of the giant lily vases in reception. But last weekend for the first time in about three years I found them again.’
I pause for a moment, feeling my heart pounding in my chest.
‘“The truth will set you free” apparently. You might have heard that quote before? It’s from the Bible, though I think you’ll find that Karly came up with it first. Well, the truth has set me free, in its own way.
‘Robbie, I have one thing I’ve been meaning to say to you for such a very long time: Leonardo Da Vinci did not paint the Sistine Chapel. It was Michel-bloody-Angelo. Michelangelo. He was a painter. Italian. And if you don’t believe me, look it up on Wikipedia.’ I take a deep breath and take my piece of paper from the podium and turn to go.
I hesitate for a moment and turn back.
‘Oh, and one more thing,’ I say. ‘I almost forgot!’ I take a deep breath and force myself to stay calm.
‘Robbie: you always said that you’re a huge fan of the killer end line. Well so am I. How’s about this for one? I quit.’
I walk out of the agency.
I head north and I keep walking.
I turn left and walk through Regent’s Park and then out past the long parade of perfect cream Nash Houses.
I take a right and then walk all the way up to the top of Primrose Hill and sit on a bench looking out over this beautiful grey city.
I almost cannot believe what I have done. But I have done it.
It is foolish and perhaps it is brave and perhaps it is insane. But whatever it turns out to be, at least I will have tried.
So come on then, life.
Let’s see what you’ve got for me.
As the minicab pulls up outside the Hilton on Park Lane I take Sam’s hand and give it a little squeeze. His fingers are strong, though mine are shaking.
I’m so nervous that I accidentally tip the driver the change from a twenty rather than a ten and only realise when I’m half way down the stairs to the Great Room reception area. Oh well – what goes around comes around. I suppose I’ve had a pretty good year on most fronts.
The lobby’s already bustling – gorgeous girls in sequins or one-shouldered numbers or tuxedo-style jackets, lots of perfectly groomed brows and highlighted cheekbones.
After much consideration I have opted for the purple dress I wore to Polly’s wedding. I admit, I dithered; it makes me think so much of that amazing night with Daniel. But it’s OK to think of Daniel a little bit. We can be friends. We are friends, from a distance. His life goes on and my life goes on and maybe one day his situation will change. And maybe if it does and if I’m single, and if we both feel like it, then maybe we’ll go for a drink. But that’s a lot of ifs and maybes. And one thing I have learned is that you cannot live your life in ifs and maybes … You cannot live it in week commencings. You live it right here. You live it now.