Heliopolis

by James Scudamore

  There were no barriers between me and Melissa. Nor was there any sense that the pleasures we enjoyed on the farm belonged to her more than they did to me. You might think, though, that some sense of propriety would have made our friendship embarrassing for Zé and Rebecca, or for my mother. It didn’t. I think the Minister and his wife liked the fact that their daughter had a companion waiting there in the queue to entertain her for the weekend. In letting them continue unimpeded with their entertaining, it was a service as valuable as Silvio’s gardening, or my mother’s skill in the kitchen. I did sometimes feel guilty about abandoning my mother, especially when things were busy—during the visit of a special guest, perhaps, or, in the days when he was in government, when some initiative of Zé’s had met with public or official approval. At these busy times, I might see my mother hard at work, and leave Melissa to help her carry heaving dishes of food to the table for lunch.

  ‘You aren’t paid to do it like I am,’ she would say. ‘Go and play with Melissa. You can help me during the week, when she’s not here.’

  It was during one such weekend that I burst into the kitchen with a loaded water pistol in pursuit of Melissa and found my mother resting uncomfortably against the draining board, with a male guest standing strangely close. He was a regular visitor; Melissa and I laughed often about the stink he gave off when returning from one of his sessions with Zé on the tennis court. He hadn’t filled out to the extent that he has now, but his belly was already as round as a bowling ball, and he wore a chunky Rolex that was too big for his wrist. As I clattered inside and the door hit the wall, he stepped swiftly away from my mother and turned to me with his hands up.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ he said, wide-eyed, putting his hands in the air to reveal sweat patches the size of fried eggs under his arms. His blue shirt lifted in the process, revealing an oblong section of hairy brown belly that protruded between his belt and the shirt as if being forced through a letter box.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, used to apologising whenever I burst in on my mother during work hours. She had tapped me round the head with ladles and spoons for less—and once, when I skipped school, with a copper saucepan that was the first thing to hand. I expected some sort of stinging blow now, but this time she did not even look at me. She kept her eyes on the man, who was beginning to look nervous.

  ‘That’s OK. Go on, get out of here,’ she said.

  I left the room, quietly puzzled. I knew all too well that tight-lipped look of fury, but her words had shown me that, for once, it wasn’t directed at me. As I ambled into the yard outside, Melissa directed at me the full force of her pump-action water cannon, so the incident went to the back of my mind. But I remembered it later that day when I saw Oscar Cascavel sitting in a corner, rubbing a nasty saucepan mark on the side of his face.

  CRAB LINGUINE

  Before we start this briefing I want a two-minute update from one of you on where we are with chocolate cereal.’ Oscar is stressed. Someone higher up the corporate ladder has been bullying him and we’ll pay the price. He will want to stay here, rebooting the confidence that crashed during the ear chewing he’s just received, and he’ll believe that the positive outcome of the session will hinge on the hours we devote to it, which means we could be here some time.

  ‘Who wants to fill me in?’ he says, dancing around nervously, like a boxer.

  ‘Well,’ I say. ‘They didn’t give us much room for manoeuvre. It’s a kids’ product, as you know. In order to fit in with the Global Brand Template we have to incorporate the concepts of “play” and “fun.” We also have to mention chocolate.’

  ‘OK. Where did you come out?’

  ‘Our starting point was Playful, Chocolatey Fun. Then we looked into Fun, Playful Chocolate. Neither of those seemed to take us into new territory. I think we’re all pleased with where we are now.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘The Playful Way To Make Your World More Chocolatey.’

  Oscar pauses dramatically on his way round the room, screwing his eyes up and repeating the expression silently to himself. Behind him, the teeth of a vicious graffitied cat are closing around a cowering mouse. Beside it, in small letters, is scrawled, I don’t want any more cheese. I just want to get out of the trap.

  ‘That’s bold, cutting out “fun” altogether,’ says Cascavel. ‘Think they’ll allow it?’

  ‘We’re giving it a try.’

  ‘Good work. Now,’ he says, ‘to the business of the day. We have a new pro bono brief.’

  He pushes a button on the keypad in front of him, and automatic shutters descend to black out the windows. The screen on the wall flashes into life, to reveal a high-resolution photograph of a favela, shacks and cells intermingling as they tumble shockingly down a steep incline of red earth.

  ‘It’s not often that a brief arrives on my desk that makes me think, This is revolutionary,’ Oscar goes on, pacing in the gloom and making shapes with his hands that are meant to communicate inspiration. ‘We’re only marketeers, after all. But this one is different. What’s more, in spite of the fact that it will be work for which the agency will not charge a fee, it has the potential to open up more untapped markets than any piece of communication in our history. It’s not just going to benefit the client in question—it’s going to benefit every one of our existing clients.’

  He pauses behind my chair. Not being able to see him makes me uneasy. His hands clap down hard on my shoulders.

  ‘Tell them, Ludo.’

  I squirm out from under his sweaty palms. ‘Sorry Oscar—I have no idea what this is.’

  ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘I’m amazed. The client from whom we received this brief is a consortium composed mostly of members of your family.’

  People round the table laugh.

  ‘Never heard of it,’ I say. ‘I haven’t seen much of the family lately. Apart from my sister.’

  ‘The brief is not from Melissa, lovely as she is,’ says Oscar. ‘It’s from someone else. With characteristic generosity, your father has come up with a striking new initiative. He plans to open a chain of subsidised supermarkets in the hearts of each of our largest favelas.’

  He clicks another button, and the screen is filled with a logo similar to the MaxiMarket one, though in more garish colours, and larger. More childlike. It reads, MaxiBudget.

  ‘I am sure that I’m not the only one who detects the influence of your mother here,’ he says, continuing to address me.

  ‘Rebecca is my adoptive mother.’

  ‘Of course. It was—’ He breaks off, and stares at the wall. ‘It was a great shame about your mother. She gave pleasure to many people.’

  ‘Thank you, Oscar.’

  The moment of humanity disappears as quickly as it came. Feeling awkward, he scrabbles to recover his position by turning to flippancy. ‘For one thing, she would have been useful to us on this brief. We could have pulled together a little focus group.’

  I can cope with the remark, but I wish he wouldn’t give me all this special attention. There are six other people round the table, and the way he speaks to me—in spite of what he’s saying—is only going to reinforce the general perception that I did nothing to earn my job here.

  ‘Ludo’s adoptive mother, Rebecca Fischer Carnicelli,’ he goes on, ‘has always acted as her husband’s conscience, and the MaxiBudget initiative is to be launched in partnership with her charity, the Uproot Foundation, of which Ludo was an early beneficiary. Am I right?’

  ‘More or less,’ I mutter.

  ‘But on to the brief,’ says Oscar. He clicks the pad on his desk again, and we cut to a grubby child pawing at the window of a brightly lit produce counter heaving with bounty. The pineapples look stunning. The papayas emit tropical sunshine. The bananas make you want to burst out laughing.

  ‘See this child?’ asks Oscar, in a faintly aggressive way. He waits until someone says ‘yes,’ in a small voice.

  He pauses, g
azing at what would be a view of the infinite, yellow city were it not for the blinds. He takes a deep breath, before spinning round to face the room.

  ‘We are going to feed this child,’ he says, high on how sensational his words are. ‘I don’t need to tell any of you what a big idea this is. This girl—look at her again—represents a section of society that is marginalised, and consequently it’s a group we have never been able to reach. Through MaxiBudget, we will not only acknowledge them and offer them affordable food, we will open a dialogue. These people are a giant untapped market. They are just waiting for their chance to rise up and consume. And the MaxiBudget stores will be . . . training grounds, if you like, for these consumers of the future. Training grounds. That’s great. Somebody write that down.’

  The next slide he clicks to details the new corporate identity for the MaxiBudget chain. I am as familiar with the MaxiMarket equivalent as I am with my mother’s face, with the layout of the paving slabs round the pool on the farm. All through my childhood, this image held sway—it was on every notepad on which my mother made a shopping list, and every pen she wrote with. An impressionistic stick cartoon of an open-armed figure embracing the shining MaxiMarket logo, drenched in its sunbeams. It was on the stationery I took to school, on the clothes I wore—I suppose it was what rescued me. Without that godlike presence, there would have been no farm, no helicopter to get there, and no need for a full-time cook.

  And here it is entering my life again, albeit in strange, altered form. The same sunbeams emanate from a similar logo, except that it’s not just one figure embracing the glow but a faux-naïf image of an entire family, huddled together for safety. What’s more, where the stick man in the original MaxiMarket logo looked sleek and cool, this family has somehow been drawn in such a way that they look emaciated. (Is it my imagination, or is there something of the Holocaust about them?) And they are, of course, not so realistic that you should ever question whether they’re black or white. That’s a minefield of which MaxiMarket likes to steer clear.

  Oscar has lit an acrid cigarette, and is basking in the light of the screen. ‘As you should know, some supermarket chains already operate in the larger favelas, but never before has a commercial brand gone into partnership with a charity in such a committed fashion, and never before has a household brand sought so openly to associate itself with those who do not, in theory at least, own their homes. The middle classes have this wariness of favelas, imagining them to be little more than hotbeds of drug crime and disease. And in some ways, they’re right. But not everyone born in a favela is a criminal. Most are trying to live normal lives, but their neighbourhood prohibits it. Take Ludo here. He’s a charming young man, a go-getting businessperson. There’s nothing scary about him! He’s so beautiful that sometimes I just want to fuck him.’

  There’s a murmur of obsequious laughter underpinned by a note of disgust that Oscar could never discern. If it weren’t for outbursts like this, I think people would resent the special attention I get from him. As it is, I get sympathy for being the object of his peculiar fascination. People know, because I’ve told them, that much of it is to do with my mother—and Oscar’s continued bafflement at how I have somehow managed to rise out of the station into which I was born.

  He’s still talking. ‘And that’s my point. Attitudes are changing. People like Ludo are on the up. The favelas are the beating heart of the samba, of the capoeira, of God knows what else. These days, it sometimes feels as if they are the heart of everything. And this is what I want you all to think about when developing this campaign. Try to find something that captures the spontaneity of these people. Their joie de vivre. Has anyone taken the time to look out of their window during a traffic jam lately? It’s like Carnival out there.’

  ‘That’s not spontaneity, it’s desperation,’ I say.

  ‘Whichever term you prefer, Ludo, you’re the wordsmith. My point is that this should be a colourful, joyous campaign. Something that will resonate. First thoughts by tomorrow please. And I don’t need to tell you, Ludo, that I am expecting particularly great things from you, with your insight into this world.’

  ‘As you know, Oscar, I grew up on a farm,’ I say.

  ‘I know, but . . . before that. You know what I mean.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘What I mean is that you, of all people, should throw yourself into this one. See if you can spend some time in one of these places. Meet the people. Go on one of those tours, perhaps. Get reacquainted.’

  Someone pipes up. ‘So all of this is pro bono work? It’s unusual for us to be doing this much for free.’

  ‘Here’s the clever part,’ says Oscar. ‘In return for providing all the communication for the MaxiBudget chain for nothing, our agency will receive exclusive rights to promote our brands in every one of the new stores. Which means that only our clients will have access to this new market. And that’s work we can charge the full rate for. The thing pays for itself!’

  Now a genuine laugh splashes round the room. A knowing, indulgent one.

  He holds up a hand, acknowledging the laugh, and halting it. ‘Seriously, guys. At the moment these people buy their produce from the man with a dirty wheelbarrow who runs along at the end of their road. Their meat, when they can afford it, is often carved up in the street and rarely refrigerated. Sometimes, they even work on a bartering basis: meat in exchange for favours. It’s immensely unsophisticated. When MaxiBudget launches they will have the opportunity to buy from a clean retail unit right there in their community. Just like the rest of us.’

  ‘Where does that leave the guy with the dirty wheelbarrow?’ I say.

  ‘If you’re going to be clever, Ludo, then I’ll fire you right now and you can go back to the gutter with your relatives.’

  There’s a shocked silence. Oscar licks his lips, where tiny white marks of dried saliva have accumulated. He clears his throat.

  ‘Sorry. But you were way off the point. Right,’ he says, turning on the room and plunging the end of his cigarette into the plate of pastries on the table. ‘Class dismissed. I want something interesting on this by tomorrow afternoon. We have the client coming in to discuss it, and I want you all buzzing with fresh ideas.’

  ‘Who is the client?’ I ask, nervously.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s not Mamãe or Papai—adoptive—they’ve hired a new guy, just for this. Now, get lost, all of you. I don’t want to see any of your faces until we have something special on this. Ludo, please stay.’

  The others file out. One of them gives me a sympathetic look at the door.

  ‘You know, your problem isn’t that you don’t do the work,’ he says when the door has closed. He’s standing with his back to me as if he were surveying the view, even though the blinds are still down. ‘It’s that you don’t look as if you’re doing the work. If you don’t start behaving more professionally, then people who walk the walk better than you will start to surpass you. At that point, it won’t matter who your father is. Do you understand?’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Sort yourself out, will you? Make me proud. And here.’ He gets an envelope out of his pocket and slides it across the table towards me. ‘Expenses for your evening with the Australian. Show him a good time, OK?’

  I return to my office to find the red light on my phone blinking, and press the button expecting another instalment of whispered hate mail. But it’s only something work related. Perhaps my enemy is getting bored.

  I should try to get home before going to the hotel. This shirt has been on my back for two days, and can’t take another evening’s onslaught from my toxic body. But Ernesto returns tonight, and I need to see Melissa again before he does. I have to keep her topped up—to remind her of me one last time before he reclaims her attention. If I leave her alone in his company for long enough, her life might seem simple again, and she will forget there was ever anyone other than her constant, gigantic husband.

  Thankfully, the office is fitted out with a bathroom
and a fresh supply of shirts—we are a service industry, and are equipped for unforeseen entertaining—so I shower and slip on the least offensive item in the cupboard. The shirt has been cheaply laundered: when I slide it out of its wrapper it smells of a sickly, chemical agent, and the material makes my skin crawl when I put it on. I swear if I had the money I would send my clothes to be laundered in Paris, like the old Amazon rubber barons.

  I open Oscar’s envelope to find a bundle of currency, and a small ziplock plastic bag of white powder. I tap some of it on to my tongue, which immediately numbs to the root. Oscar will never explicitly allude to this arrangement, but I know what I have to do.

  I dial Melissa’s number.

  ‘What do you want?’ she says.

  ‘I need to see you,’ I say.

  ‘You can’t. Ernesto’s back. Anyway, you saw me this morning.’

  ‘He’s there now?’

  ‘He went to the university.’

  ‘At this time?’

  ‘He has something big on tomorrow. Ludo, I have to go.’

  ‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes,’ I say, putting the phone down before she can protest.

  I leave my car at the office and take a cab to Melissa’s. During the journey the new shirt begins to irritate my skin so much that I can’t sit still. By the time I have arrived at her chrome tower, I am ready to tear it off. Tonight the guards wave me on up.

  ‘You shouldn’t still have a key to this place,’ says Melissa, as I open the front door.