I Am Ella, Buy Me

by Joan Ellis

  ‘I don’t need you. Copywriters are queuing up to work for me.’

  ‘Not good ones,’ I mutter.

  I want to tell him where to shove his job but as he has already ‘worked his arse off’ that’s not an option. The days of walking out of one agency and straight into another are long gone. Everyone, no matter how unhappy, is clinging on to their jobs right now. If I leave CBA I may as well hand the keys to my flat back to the building society and tell Mum I won’t be able to help her anymore. No matter how much I despise Peter, I have to put up and shut-up until something better comes along. The problem is I can’t include the High-Pro campaign, my best work to date, in my portfolio now Peter has officially bagged it.

  There’s no copyright on an idea in this industry and there’s no union so there’s no hope of me getting justice. Besides, Adland is a small world and Peter is big mates with some big names; I can’t afford to upset anyone.

  Now, to add insult to injury, my face looks like a rotten cabbage; Alan Ferguson won’t give me a second glance.

  I call Adam but get his answer machine. So I do the next best thing and take up my favourite seat in the patisserie on Old Compton Street, the one with the best view of the cakes in the window. I am so uneasy on the eye, I put tourists off their choux buns which means I have no trouble keeping the table to myself. Greedily, I tuck into my croissant. As if it’s not baked with enough butter, I lavish more on top. A pot of shiny strawberry jam also demands I open it; I squish a generous spoonful inside. My mouth is still sore. I lean awkwardly to one side, open my lips wide and, like a snake consuming an egg, insert the pastry and bite down. Jam oozes and drops onto my plate, flakes of croissant attach themselves like fly-paper, to my face.

  ‘Hello, Ella.’

  Alan Ferguson is watching me as he waits to be served. I am horrified he even recognises me looking the way I do. Of all the patisseries, in all the towns, he walks into mine. He looks divine, smiling while trying to catch the eye of the dark-haired Italian waitress arranging her rum-babas into neat rows with a pair of silver tongs. When she sees him, she beams. Silly girl, he wants a coffee, not your hand in marriage, I think watching her fiddling with the fronds of hair at her temple. She turns away to prepare his cappuccino and to show off her pert bottom. How can anyone work in a cake shop and not have a bum the consistency of clotted cream? Making a tremendous show of twisting silver knobs and handles, she stands back as steam bursts from the machine’s every orifice. Using a thin silver tube, she magically turns cold milk into steaming white foam. You’re making coffee not art, I think, watching him watch her. She pours fresh coffee into the Styrofoam cup and carefully spoons frothed milk on top before pressing the lid down. Taking a biro from her apron pocket, she scrawls a phone number, which I jealously assume is hers, on the side. As he takes the drink, he whispers something in her ear. Then, he walks over, sits down and points sympathetically at my face.

  There are times when I long to talk to him. This isn’t one of them. My face needs to heal. My hair needs styling. My legs need waxing. My body needs exercising. I need to look good enough for Alan Ferguson.

  Just then, the waitress sashays over, deliberately brushing a perfectly taut thigh against his arm. He grins as she wafts past him into the kitchen before saying,

  ‘Hear High-Pro went well. Wish I’d been there.’

  ‘So do I.’

  The story has already acquired all the hallmarks of an advertising legend. Agency in danger of dying on its arse in urgent need of resuscitation and ageing Creative Director desperate to prove himself one last time presents someone else’s idea as his own at the eleventh hour to win a million pound account.

  ‘Did you see the concept?’ asks Alan.

  ‘See it? It’s my idea,’ I tell him. I feel the heat in my cheeks.

  ‘At least, the agency won’t go under now,’ he says softly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The board was about to call the receivers in.’

  ‘Peter never said. Then again, he’s not going to admit bringing the agency to its knees. The place has been bankrolling him for months. If he could have got away with charging his jacuzzi to the company, he would.’

  But Alan is not listening. He is mesmerised by the waitress as she passes, holding a tray of perfectly domed coffee eclairs under her perfectly domed breasts.

  I didn’t think this day could get much worse. But the script that is my life, says it always will.

  On the pretext of giving my table a quick wipe-over, the waitress leans across Alan allowing her bust to lightly brush the Formica surface. I keep forgetting only one side of my mouth works and when I speak, I snarl. My lips twitch. Alan must be having a job resisting me. Then the waitress whips off her pinny, the man of my dreams has is now centre stage in my worst nightmare. I can only watch, as he heads for the door, hand in hand with another woman. It’s game over. I am no match for her with her honey, honed limbs and Mardi Gras smile but it still hurts. Like hell.

  Think of the devil and he shall appear.

  ‘Ella!’ Peter yells across the tables. ‘High-Pro. You. Me.’

  Clearly, he is now so busy he can only speak in monosyllables. As usual he’s making no sense.

  ‘Taxi. Reception. Seven thirty.’

  Obviously, he doesn’t want to waste his breath on me.

  I wander along the length of Shaftesbury Avenue, thinking about Alan, mulling over what might have been and trying to shut down the images of his paramour having her wily way with him. To be honest, we were never really together but there was an attraction, admittedly more on my part than his. I try to distract myself, looking at what’s on at the theatres and reading the reviews posted outside. But my mind returns time and time again to mull over what Alan said about the agency being on Skid Row.

  Peter owes me. Big time. But try as I might, I can’t dispel the gnawing doubt that although my idea won the day, Peter will ensure I lose out.

  Chapter seven

  Keep the client happy

  Peter sits in silence as the cab sweeps along Shaftesbury Avenue towards the restaurant in Mayfair, fluffing up his hair in the driver’s rear view mirror. I am too angry to speak. Even the cabbie knows better than to talk.

  When we arrive, Mike appears to have started without us. He raises his glass in his podgy hand, the skin stretched uncomfortably over his fat fingers. He stands up, swaying unsteadily, like a puppet on a string but the effort proves too great and he collapses back down onto his seat.

  ‘Hi guys, what are you drinking?’ he asks expansively which strikes me as odd given we are the ones footing the bill. No wonder the agency is on the brink of bankruptcy.

  ‘G and T for me and whatever the little lady wants,’ Peter tells him through a plastic smile.

  ‘Kir Royale,’ I say automatically.

  If the geese are on the sauce, so is this gander. With the evening shaping up to be as a disaster, I’ll take my pleasures where I can.

  Mike clicks his fingers at the waiter. In contrast, the young man is polite and attentive, pulling out my chair and placing a starched white napkin the size of a tablecloth on my lap. I smile at him, trying to convey, ‘Sorry about the jerk.’

  Much gets lost in translation because he asks, ‘Yes, madam, I will bring you some water.’

  ‘Water? This is a celebration. Shampoo all round,’ declares Mike expansively, waving his hands across the table and knocking over his glass.

  Clearly, we have some catching up to do. Not least to learn a whole new vocabulary.

  ‘Good to see you again, Mike’ says Peter.

  He sounds so sincere. It’s a gift, I’ll give him that.

  ‘You were awesome this afternoon, Peter. KO’d had nothing on you. Zero. Zilch. You are my man.’

  There are few things more toe-curling than a rotund, middle-aged man from suburbia trying to sound cool. Thankfully, the waiter arrives with our drinks and saves Mike’s life. I was about to stab him with my butter knife.

  �
�Cheers, Mike. Here’s to you,’ says Peter as if they are life-long friends.

  ‘You are not going to believe this, Pete,’ says Mike falling under his spell.

  ‘Steven Winter had no presentation. No work to show me, not even the tiniest ‘ickle ad.’

  Did Mike really just say ‘ickle’?

  I down my Kir Royale to drown them out.

  ‘To be honest, it doesn’t surprise me,’ says Peter swirling the round the ice in his glass before taking a mouthful. ‘Steven Winter worked for me for a while but I had to let him go, just not up to the job. I’d heard he’d started to turn things around but I guess he couldn’t hack it.’

  ‘Forget him. This is your night, Pete. Congratulations! You’ve just won High-Pro! Here’s to you, champ!’

  Mike gets up and lunges across the table, locking his arms around Peter in a clumsy bear hug. It lasts for longer than is strictly necessary. Thankfully, the waiter leaps forward with three fresh glasses and pours the champagne.

  ‘Here’s to you, Mike,’ says Peter raising his glass and intimating to me to do the same.

  I don’t need any encouragement.

  ‘Just doing my job,’ says Peter like some sort of hero.

  I catch his eye. Not a flicker of remorse, the thief is happy to steal my thunder. Suddenly, I am eight-years-old again and back at school. Never one to do things by halves, I had been off for months with measles and whooping cough. When I eventually returned, pale and wan, I had to take part in the annual prize-giving rehearsal where the teachers were using the previous year’s winners as a guide. My name was called three times: Best composition. Best poem. Best writer.

  After it was all over, I asked if I could please have my prizes.

  ‘No, Ella. You may not,’ the head-mistress told me.‘ You weren’t here. We gave your book tokens to someone else.’

  ‘But that’s not fair. I was ill and couldn’t come.’

  She turned away to talk to another pupil as tears pricked the back of my eyes. I wanted to cry but I had to be brave. I ran home and told Mum but she couldn’t fight her own battles, let alone mine. I would have to learn to stand up for myself.

  Now, Peter orders a bottle of Sancerre and two bottles of Chateauneuf- du-Pape as I study the menu. Monkfish in a saffron reduction sounds interesting. How different from the frozen, boil-in-the-bag cod Mum and I lived off. Peter wants the sea-bass. It’s his favourite. But not to be out- done by macho Mike’s rare fillet of beef, he orders steak tartare - raw minced beefsteak, topped with an egg yolk which is about as alpha-male as you can get in Mayfair.

  ‘CBA is very excited about working with you,’ says Peter, snapping the menu shut with one hand and smoothing back his hair with the other.

  ‘Likewise! Here’s to a long and happy marriage!’ says Mike.

  I’ll give it six months and hope Peter has a good divorce lawyer.

  This place is a renowned celebrity haunt. Bored and frustrated, I look around hoping to see someone famous, an actress or a model dining on a designer lettuce leaf. I don’t recognise anyone. Peter and Mike talk at length about their respective cars and houses. It seems the client’s Morgan trumps Peter’s Porsche. But Peter’s Highgate postcode beats Mike’s Morden. Peter knows it’s smarter to let the client win and omits to mention his heated indoor pool.

  Mercifully, our waiter reappears with our meals, three large white plates of beautifully presented food. But the portions are so small they look more like appetisers than main courses. Mine consists of small but perfectly cooked cubes of monkfish arranged not on a skewer but on a toothpick. Half a baby tomato is concealed underneath a bonsai basil leaf. It takes me mere moments to finish. If Adam was here we would have polished this lot off, then have nipped to the nearest fish and chip shop for some real food. I am tempted by the home-baked bread. Most people ignore it as if it’s a sin to even glance in its carbohydrate-laden direction. Not me, I select a chunk of dark brown wholemeal studded with walnuts and sultanas and smother it in unsalted butter. Folded over several times it’s small enough to squash into my mouth as fast as I can. Just as I am about to start chewing, Peter notices my empty plate.

  ‘How was your fish, Ella?’ he asks pretending to care to impress Mike.

  My mouth is too full to speak. I could spit the lot into my napkin but Mike is watching me. I swallow hard but the lump catches in my throat. I take a mouthful of wine to try and force it down. My eyes are watering. I am sweating. Breathe. Must get out. Can’t open door. Push? Pull? Choking. Door opens. Squat on the pavement and wretch it up like an alley cat having a fur ball. Marmalade would be proud of me. Immediately, I feel fine but the effort makes my nose run and eyes stream.

  I go back in and take a serviette from an unoccupied table and wipe my mouth. I drop it into an ice bucket as I pass. When I arrive back at the table, Peter and Mike are lolling in their chairs, clutching half-drunk glasses of wine, barely aware I’m alive let alone that I almost died. Peter has hardly touched his meal and has pushed his plate to one side. Mike is still greedily forking in mouthfuls of raw beef.

  ‘Fancy a sticky?’ Peter asks me, pointing to the long list of liqueurs on the menu.

  I was hoping for a panna cotta accompanied by fresh raspberry puree or a dark chocolate mousse laced with rum but sadly, we seem to have skipped pudding and three large glasses of Armagnac appear instead.

  ‘Here’s to CBA and High-Pro, the winning team!’ says Peter warming the brandy balloon in his hands.

  ‘And it’s handy to have a girl on board. They know all about this stuff, don’t they, Pete?’ says Mike.

  Enough. Not only has Peter stolen my work but he has deprived me of the opportunity to capitalise on it. This could have been the making of me. I could have used it to launch a brilliant career and taken centre stage as Creative Director of my own agency. As it stands, I’ve been reduced to a walk-on part.

  ‘I don’t use High-Pro. Then again I didn’t drive when I won awards on a car account either. It’s about being creative. Men already work on perfume accounts. They’ll be advertising tampons next.’

  The drinks, by-passing my virtually empty stomach, have shot to my head and are now doing all the talking. The client looks uneasy. Peter looks unhinged.

  ‘Woh! I hear you,’ says Mike throwing his napkin onto the table.

  A corner of the serviette pierces the uneaten dome of Peter’s egg. I watch as the once-pristine white linen turns a fatty yellow.

  ‘Reel her in, Peter.’

  ‘Apologise to Mike,’ orders Peter. ‘You’re supposed to be a writer; you know the difference between ‘assertive’ and ‘aggressive’, don’t you?’

  Why is it that guys who stand up for themselves are deemed ‘assertive’ but when girls do the same they are ‘aggressive’? I remember Mum trying to stick up for herself but was easily cowed by Dad. She would attempt to say her piece but he would tell her if she didn’t shut up he would buy her a plaster for her mouth. I remember laughing when he said it. Then I saw Mum’s face and stopped. She was crushed. Hurt to the core. Sadly, by the time she found the strength to walk away, she had no voice. I had to speak up for both of us, battling with the landlord to install an inside toilet, taking on shop assistants who tried to short-change her and fighting anyone who said a word against her. I was ten-years-old.

  Now the word ‘sorry’ sticks in my throat every bit as stubbornly as the lump of bread. But again, it all comes back to one thing, money. It’s always the money.

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Mike,’ I say.

  It’s another one of Josh’s favourites. Contrived and convoluted, he uses it to absolve himself of any wrong-doing and to put the blame squarely on the other person. The difference is when Josh says it, it works.

  ‘Ella,’ fumes Peter.

  ‘It’s okay, Peter, at least I know I’m in safe hands with you,’ says Mike pointedly.

  The vein in Peter’s neck is throbbing. I am transfixed by it. Suddenly, he clicks his fingers. When the
waiter brings the bill, Peter throws down the company plastic. When we get outside, the weather seems to have been pre-ordered to match the mood. It’s raining. Pouring. A black cab pulls up with its light on. Mike gets in and leans out of the window.

  ‘Next time, Pete. Leave the little woman at home, eh?’

  ‘No problem, Mike. Next time I’ll bring the girls.’

  They both laugh. Peter and I stand on the kerbside and wave him off, like a married couple saying goodbye to a long lost friend. Once he is out of sight, we start arguing, like a married couple.

  ‘Happy now? You could’ve cost us the account,’ shouts Peter jabbing his finger in my face, rain running in rivulets off his lapels.

  Another taxi arrives. For the second time this evening, opening the door defeats me. Peter takes charge and I clamber in. To my horror, he gets in beside me. I like to forget he only lives down the road from me. I squash myself into the corner of the seat, rest my head on the cool window and close my eyes. When I open them, Peter watching me. He slides closer. The driver makes a sharp turn enabling Peter to put his hand on my thigh as an excuse to steady himself. He gives my leg a squeeze. The driver pulls up outside the agency.