‘You won’t recognise yourself when Amanda makes you a director of her company. It’ll be a whole new start.’
‘Oh, I’d just love to be working with Amanda. I’d love to be just like her. When the time is right I’ll have a job in Dexon Green, buying up properties and turning them around like she’s doing. One of these days Amanda will tell me I’m ready for it.’
‘What’s this fundraising for anyway?’
‘It’s for a boat. John’s father’s boat. He was a well-known sailor. He won a lot of races in the boat and it needs refurbishing.’
‘A boat. All this for a boat. You couldn’t call that charity. An old boat needing refurbishment.’
‘It is charity.’ Hluk. ‘It’s a good cause.’ She hands a glass of champagne to a man in a mustard linen suit, who neglects to say thank you. It’s an awful waste when a person with money has poor taste, throwing cash and cheques at undeserving causes and wearing mustard-coloured linen suits. It’s only Dublin people who do be carrying on like that, I’ve realised.
‘I think I’ll head on, Maeve.’
‘You’re leaving?’
‘I’m not feeling well. It came on me all of a sudden.’
Maeve considers what I’ve said. Her expression softens. ‘Alright. I’m sorry about Amanda. She’s normally very friendly. I don’t know what got into her.’
It takes an age to get home to the apartment. I’ve to take a train and a sticky damp bus, and I become increasingly despondent with every passing minute. It was a pure waste of an evening, not to mention the full hour spent earlier on doing the wing-tipped eyeliner. And I’m not one bit impressed with Amanda Dowling. She doesn’t strike me as the altruistic sort. She never introduced Maeve to anyone all evening, like she was ashamed of her or something.
The pursuit of the dream alone is no good. It doesn’t work. It’s only anguish. I remember the white ball of fire under my ribs, the excitement of all that was to come. I used to think my imagination would end up taking me places, but instead I’m like the girl that fate forgot.
I’m sitting on the toilet seat and looking in my mouth with a compact mirror. The dentist says I have two wisdom teeth requiring immediate extraction. I can overhear Nuala and Norma consulting with one another in the kitchen. ‘We’ll give her a break from the rent so she can get her teeth done,’ Nuala says in a loud whisper. ‘Daddy won’t mind. He won’t even notice.’
‘How will she learn the hard lesson if we do that?’
‘We must overlook all that and do the right thing.’
‘Do you not think it’s getting a bit old, all this talk and notions about films. If she had a right job she’d have health insurance along with it.’
‘Never mind all that. This is an emergency. We can surely forego the two months’ rent.’
‘There’s plenty of smart, sensible girls who’d only love that room, who’d be only delighted to pay the rent on time and in full. You’re too soft, Nuala.’
‘Katie’s our friend. She needs our help. The teeth must be dealt with.’
‘Let you be the one who deals with the fallout. Let you be the one who explains it to Daddy if he rings up asking. I don’t know how she’ll get on the property ladder or anything with the way she’s going. Do you know, I think she likes being poor. Doesn’t it suit her now to be poor.’
I spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day on the couch in the apartment with a mouth full of cotton padding. Nuala gets the early bus back to Dublin on Saint Stephen’s Day with a block of frozen turkey soup for me, but it isn’t the same sucking up Christmas turkey through a straw.
Mammy rings. ‘Where did you get the money for the teeth?’
‘I hadth the money.’
‘You should have asked us. We’re not in the poorhouse yet, you know.’
Nuala’s back in work the first week of January. ‘Sit down, sit down, sit down,’ she says excitedly, patting the cushion.
‘What is it?’
‘My remit’s after changing in work. I’ll be doing media recruitment from now on. I’ll be able to help you get a job.’
‘What sort of a job?’
‘I need someone for an entry-level role in an agency. An advertising agency. Will you do it? Do you think you’d like it? I’ll tell them you’re the best candidate on the books.’ Advertising is all stories, pictures and words. I could manage that, I think. Coming up with ideas and being paid for it. And I could badly do with the money. I swore I’d pay back the two months’ rent to Nuala and Norma after having the wisdom teeth taken out.
‘Would they take on the likes of me?’
‘Of course they’d take on the likes of you. Why wouldn’t they? You’d be well able for it.’
‘Go on and put me forward for it, so. What have I got to lose.’ I give her the most enthusiastic heartfelt hug I’ve ever given anyone in my whole life, and I feel her shaking with laughter underneath. ‘Have I ever told you you’re unreal, Nuala.’ This could be something. This could really be something.
‘This calls for a hot chocolate,’ Norma declares.
‘This calls for Pinot Grigio,’ insists Nuala.
‘It’s only Tuesday,’ Norma says. ‘You’d better make mine a spritzer.’
Despite her best intentions, Norma gets tipsy on the spritzers. When Nuala leaves the room to use the toilet, Norma leans over, looks at me screwy-eyed and says, ‘I feel like you’re only watching us for stories. You’re only listening to us to get stories out of us. Why don’t you own up to it?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She’s some wagon.
There’s all sorts of mental gymnastics to contend with, working at the agency. My brain is firing off every second of the day with trying to keep up. It’s a whole new departure, getting to grips with the jargon, learning how to follow the planning charts. Knowing when to say something and when to say nothing.
According to Mervin Magee, advertising isn’t a career but a way of life. Mervin Magee has a flat nose, dyed black hair sculpted into a ridge and a ripple of fat at the back of his head. He wears tight jeans, his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, a complicated-looking chrome watch with multiple dials and hands whirring around inside it, and a signet ring jammed on his fat baby finger.
Mervin Magee doesn’t have a single thought without relaying it to an audience. He summons us to the boardroom, and it all gets a bit Jim Jones; client calls go unanswered, fresh emails stack high, and we sit tight as he blusters ad infinitum about advertising trends, predictions for the future of the industry and, more often than not, the pitch that got away. I’m only a month in and I’ve heard the anecdote three times. ‘I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you all about a little pitch we were invited to back in the day. We were a small outfit. Out on our own, doing cutting-edge stuff. Ambient. Experiential. We were getting noticed. I got a call out of the blue from Pete. We used to play rugby together. Pete was on top of the world. Heading up HighTail Airlines. He brought me in. He said, “Mervin. I want you guys to handle our brand. Full creative command.” I said, “Pete. I don’t know. I need to think about it.” Pete looked me in the eye. He said, “Mervin. I want you. I won’t trust anyone else.” I said, “Pete. I’m scared.” He said, “Mervin. This is the big time.” I said, “Pete. What do I need to do?” He said, “Mervin. Come and meet with the board. It’s just a formality. I’ve already made my decision.” I was all set. I went in. I met with the board. But Pete didn’t show. Pete was dead. Shellfish poisoning. Caribbean cruise. What do you think happened next?’
‘The board went traditional,’ answers Edwina, account director at Intuition 2.0. Edwina has a small frame, a head as round as a marble and thin hair. She has a bullhorn ring in her nose and wears ugly and expensive clothes: a cardigan that drags off the floor, a jumper shaped like a square, shoes with stacked rubber soles, a skirt that flares out and then tapers at the knee like a lantern. I’ve never seen her eat, and she only drinks a very specific pineapple-flavoured energy drink. She take
s great pleasure in sitting it out until late in the evening, long after the rest of the staff have guiltily slunk out the office door under her powerful, belittling glare.
‘That’s right. They went for some old fogey agency. Let me ask you. Where do you think HighTail Airlines are today?’
‘Bust. They went bust.’
‘That’s right. But what do you think might have happened if everything had gone according to plan?’
‘You would’ve become lazy. You would’ve become complacent.’
‘You’ve got it. Now tell me. Do you think I have any regrets?’
‘No,’ Edwina says firmly. ‘It made you who you are today.’
The day slides into evening. The lights in the surrounding buildings are switched off. People on the street are clutching convenience meals and yoga mats and making their way home, and the cleaner comes in and hoovers about our feet, but Mervin Magee is just getting warmed up. He’s sketching complicated spindle shapes and funnel diagrams on a whiteboard denoting what he likes to call ‘Weapons of Mass Disruption’.
My stomach growls forlornly. My bladder throbs. I’ve got pins and needles in my arse. At a guess, I have four hours of work to do before returning to the apartment. I’m going to be mad late again, and relying on another hodgepodge meal for sustenance: tinned tuna with a side of beans. Nuala and Norma will turn to look pitifully at me from the couch, three episodes deep into Sex and the City. ‘You look like shit,’ Norma will say. ‘You’re like one of those people over in Japan, working themselves to death.’
‘You poor créatúr,’ Nuala will say. ‘You’re working far too hard. You’re gone as thin as a rake. You’ll end up with rickets if you’re not careful.’ Nuala’s even bought me a pepper-spray canister for the late-night commute, and a small one on a key ring to put on my bunch of keys.
But haven’t I done well for myself. I’ve a story now that I never had before. If I’m to encounter an old neighbour in the street or someone I was at school with, I can tell them I’ve a job in advertising, and they’ll be taken aback. How did you get into that line of work? And if there’s a gathering of young people in Glenbruff and they happen to enquire about what so-and-so is doing, and what such-and-such is up to, and if I happen to come up in the conversation at all, people will learn that Katie Devane is up in Dublin and she’s doing well for herself.
Nuala’s skittish, checking her phone. ‘Are we ready to go? We’d better head.’
‘I just got here. Let me talk to your friend. At least say hi or whatever,’ says Luc. ‘Katie,’ he says to me. ‘How are you?’ He picks up a chair, spins it in his hands and sits with his chest against the back of it in his signature pose.
‘I’m very well, thanks. It’s nice to see you.’
‘You work in advertising now, right.’ He’s watching me carefully, as though he intends to sketch me from memory later on.
‘I got a job in an agency in town. I’m an account executive.’
‘I helped her get the job,’ Nuala interjects. ‘I told them she has a good eye.’ She hoicks her handbag over her shoulder and presses her elbow in against it.
‘A good eye. What is that?’
‘It means she’s a natural for putting pictures together,’ Nuala says frostily, eyeballing the pair of us from the kitchen doorway and tapping her foot.
‘I taught myself photography before I came up to Dublin. I must have hundreds of good photos taken.’
‘I’d like to see them. You think we could do that?’ Unless I’m sorely mistaken, Luc has a soft spot for me, and he’s doing a poor job of concealing it.
‘Next time, sure.’ I peep up at Nuala, and she has a tremendous sulk on her. ‘How are your illustrations coming along? Is there much freelance work for you?’
‘A little here and there. Not enough. But I’m just starting, right.’
‘It’ll get better. It’ll improve.’ Nuala looks like she could burst.
‘I’m just happy to do what I love. You know, people talk about sexual frustration. But they never talk about creative frustration, and it’s a real thing. It’s actually unhealthy for a creative person not to create. It makes us ill.’ It’s Nuala who’s the third wheel. It’s Nuala with nothing to add to this sort of a conversation. She goes down to her room under the pretence of searching for an umbrella.
‘Yeah. I totally get it.’ I do. ‘I think I’d go mad if I didn’t get to do creative things. It’s a part of who I am.’
Nuala returns promptly, stomping into the kitchen and holding up a flowery umbrella with bent spokes. ‘Now. Are we all set?’ Luc’s eyes drop to the floor. ‘I’ve often got caught in a shower waiting for the bus. You can’t be too careful,’ she says.
‘Well. Have a nice time. Are ye going to Electric Jake’s Basement?’
‘We’re going for a Chinese,’ snaps Nuala. Oof. Luc gives a backwards glance at me before himself and Nuala make to leave the apartment. The front door wallops shut with an almighty force, the picture frames rattle on the wall and the clothes horse slumps in the corner. Whatever about before, but Luc has a hold of me now. It’s clear he went home with the wrong girl on the night out, and doesn’t he know it himself too.
Mervin Magee stands by the window, gazing out at the cityscape by night as though he’s the suave lead in an aftershave advertisement. ‘How can we describe the attributes of a moisturising lotion without using the word “moisturising”?’
Edwina and Neil put on their best thinking faces. ‘Plumping,’ suggests Edwina.
‘Firming,’ says Neil. ‘Rejuvenating.’ Neil has poor posture and beady eyes, and resembles a prawn. He’s an account executive too, like myself, and he’s just completed the six-month probation. He looks altogether worn out. He has bags beneath his eyes, and bags beneath the bags.
‘No. Definitely none of those. Come on, people. It’s your job to be smarter than me.’ We continue in this excruciating vein until Mervin comes up with the correct answer himself, and we bear witness, held hostage to his inherent genius. ‘I’ve got it.’ He comes away from the window, presses his palms down on the boardroom table and takes in all of our faces. ‘The word is…“enlushing”.’
I know I’m better off saying nothing until I know the lay of the land, but it’s hard to contain myself. ‘I suppose I’m wondering why we can’t just say “moisturising”. I mean, “enlushing” isn’t a word. And everyone knows what “moisturising” means already. It’s like, why reinvent the wheel?’
Mervin glares at me as though I’m the shit smeared on his designer shoe. His face turns white, and I can see the terracotta-tinted concealer dabbed beneath his eyes. ‘It doesn’t have to be a word. I just made it up.’ I shrink down in my chair, my cheeks blazing and hot. ‘There’s a lesson in this for you, Katie. Creators get to bend the rules. Creators get to invent new words. It’s how language evolves.’
‘Yeah. I mean, originality is absolutely critical to this agency,’ Edwina says self-righteously, her eyes swivelling towards me. ‘If people aren’t willing to take risks, then we just won’t survive. It is that important.’
When we’re eventually released from the boardroom, I decide to go out for a coffee someplace, with the intention of returning to the agency afterwards to work on some reports. Bean & Gone is an independent coffee shop some thirty yards from the agency building, and I’ve walked past it several times but never been inside. Luc is deftly chalking up the specialty coffees on the board behind the register. ‘You work here,’ I bleat. He turns his face from the board and looks pleasantly surprised.
‘Hey. What are you doing here?’ He’s wearing a T-shirt with chic little holes scattered throughout, hinting at the tanned skin beneath.
‘This is so weird. I work really close by. Like just around the corner.’
He smiles and wipes the chalk from his hands on the barista apron slung around his hips. ‘What would you like?’
‘I’ll have an americano, please. To go.’
‘Milk and sugar?’
‘Yes. Please.’ There’s another guy strolling around and between the small round tables, collecting cups and saucers and stacking them precariously in the crook of his arm. He has a mostly shaved head with a nub of plait and he’s wearing a loud-coloured poncho made out of scratchy-looking woven material.
‘That’s Marco. He has the best weed, if you want to buy,’ Luc says, pressing the plastic lid down on the paper cup. ‘You should hang out here with us. After work.’
‘I work late.’
‘Us too,’ he says. ‘Marco and I have a lot of friends who come here at night. You’re welcome to join us.’ I hand him cash for the coffee, and Luc takes hold of my hand and closes it over.
‘On the house. Is that correct?’
‘Oh. Thanks,’ I say. ‘Thanks a lot. I’ll call in one of the days soon.’
‘Cool. Don’t forget. I want to see your photographs.’ He winks, turns his back and clanks about with the coffee machine.
‘Hello.’
‘Who is this?’ the voice demands in an American accent.
‘It’s Katie. Katie Devane. I’m the new account executive.’
‘I’m calling to speak with someone about the proposal. I tried to reach Mervin but it’s gone straight to voicemail.’ Mervin is gone to the gym, where he says he has his best ideas. ‘We’ve all sat around and had a conversation. I mean, everyone agrees that the artwork is great, but there’s this really strange word emblazoned on everything. I’ve tried looking it up in the dictionary and it’s not there. It’s not an actual word. I have to say, I’m super confused right now.’
‘Yes. “Enlushing”. Mervin came up with it.’
‘We hate it. It doesn’t make any sense, and it’s totally pretentious. We can’t launch a product off the back of a word that doesn’t exist. We’ll lose all credibility.’
‘Do you want it taken out?’
‘Without delay. It’s not working for us whatsoever.’
You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here Page 13