‘Well, thanks very much for lunch,’ said Joe as they walked out of the door of the Garrick Club. ‘I think I’ve got everything I need now. Would you object to my talking to Tabitha?’
‘No, not at all. About the Lady, you mean? It’s very important, Joe, that you do make it clear that all these people are only signing up provisionally. And the search for the Lady is a very good publicity stunt. I still haven’t got the go-ahead from the backers. If it comes through while you’re writing the article, I’ll let you know. How long can I have?’
‘Oh – about a week,’ said Joe. ‘Maybe two. They’ll be subbing it for a day or so as well. We can always drop a sentence in. Look, I’m going along to Moss Bros. Have to hire a penguin suit for some do. My last one’s dropped to pieces. Thanks again.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Piers. ‘I want to order a new hunting coat.’
‘Do you hunt?’ said Joe, surprised. Piers didn’t seem tough enough or insensitive enough to enjoy such an activity.
‘Sometimes, yes. I don’t exactly like it, but I don’t want the neighbours in Berkshire thinking I’m a weekend woofter.’ He laughed just slightly too long.
Joe looked at him thoughtfully. He was an odd mixture this man: the light charm of manner, the intense seriousness and steely attention he gave his work – and clearly immense physical courage. Joe would have been deprived of food and water for a week before going on to the hunting field. And the courage extended to his attitude to his work: he would attempt any obstacle, storm any citadel if he believed truly it was right. It must have been a tough decision to play Romeo at his age, to risk critical derision, and the possible loss of public esteem – but he had done it. He might be no nicer than Joe had imagined – but he was certainly more interesting.
Coming out of the door of Moss Bros as they turned into it was Chloe. She was looking very pretty, in a dusty pink angora shift, but she was clearly flustered.
‘Darling!’ said Joe. ‘What on earth are you doing here? Your mother’s not making you wear a DJ to the ball as well, is she?’
‘No,’ said Chloe, ‘but we have to produce some uniformed waiters next week at a huge dance, and Mrs Brownlowe sent me in to reserve some jackets.’
‘I see. Piers, you’ve met Chloe, haven’t you?’
‘Indeed I have,’ said Piers, bowing slightly over Chloe’s hand, and smiling into her eyes. ‘We met under rather – exciting circumstances, did we not, Miss Hunterton?’
Chloe blushed.
‘And what are you doing getting jackets for waiters, Miss Hunterton?’
‘Oh, it’s for my work,’ said Chloe. She still appeared paralysed with unease.
Joe took pity on her, explained what she did.
‘How charming,’ said Piers Windsor. ‘Do you ever do business lunches, anything like that?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Chloe, ‘that’s one of our main things.’
‘Well, I could find that very useful. My agent is always giving lunches, and we are always being let down by caterers. Do you have a card or anything like that?’
‘I – think so,’ said Chloe, rummaging in her bag and producing a rather crumbled, dirty card. ‘I’m sorry, this is all I can find.’
‘Thank you. I may well call on you.’
‘Well – good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go,’ said Chloe. ‘Goodbye, Mr Windsor. Goodbye, Joe.’
‘Charming,’ said Piers Windsor, looking after her as she disappeared down the street. ‘Simply charming.’
‘Yes, she is,’ said Joe and wondered why he felt such a strong sense of unease.
Tabitha added very little to his knowledge of Piers (except by confirming without saying anything at all that she clearly considered him to be homosexual). She added very little to his knowledge of anything except herself. She was beautiful, sexy, funny and entirely self-absorbed. Joe found her very attractive, and they had an extremely long lunch at the Caprice (at her instigation); it cost him a great deal of money as he was refused entry in his rather shabby sports jacket and baggy flannels and had to hurtle into Simpsons and buy a new suit. Well, it had a bit of class, and it would impress the famous Miss Levine. He decided it had been well worth it, as they emerged rather unsteadily into the sunshine at quarter past four.
‘That was such fun,’ said Tabitha. ‘I didn’t think I’d enjoy it nearly so much. Can I just say one thing though? You’re really nice and really fun and really sexy, but I think I preferred you in your frayed jeans to that rather spivvy suit.’
‘Thanks,’ said Joe.
He was quite pleased with his article, although he felt it was a touch empty. He had thought it very fair to Piers without being sycophantic, but the lawyers phoned him and said there were a couple of sentences which they felt dodgy and asked him to rewrite; amazed, Joe said in what way were they dodgy?
The lawyers said he implied, albeit with infinite subtlety, that Piers was a homosexual, and that it just might be actionable; Joe, still more amazed, said he had intended to imply nothing of the kind. Reading the piece again, though, he could see what they meant; he rewrote the offending sentences carefully, reflecting that he might not have established that Piers Windsor had been in Hollywood with Brendan FitzPatrick, but that he was certainly likely to have had intimate knowledge of his sexual inclinations if he had been. He thanked God he had absolutely nothing that he need report to Fleur, and added a small thankful postscript to the prayer to the effect that Piers had now left his life for good.
1965–6
‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to make some changes,’ said Mick diMaggio.
His expression as he looked at Fleur was sombre; she felt very sick suddenly. Obviously she was going to be fired. Nigel would have said something; someone else would have said something; or maybe they’d found out she’d left early that night in August to go the Beatles concert at the Shea Stadium; or, no, Poppy would have reported her for borrowing five dollars from petty cash the night she was working late and missed the bank. That was definitely it. Bitch. That was a really lousy thing to do; she’d put it back straight away next morning. Poppy was supposed to be her friend. She met Mick’s eyes very steadily; best to go down fighting.
‘Suzy is leaving,’ he said. ‘Very sadly. For an extremely unimportant job at Bates. Copy Group Head. What a waste.’ He shook his head, his eyes mournful. ‘Well, you see, I need to replace her. And I thought I’d put Hank Barr in her job. Which would leave me a junior copywriter short. And I thought you might like to do a copy test. We’re impressed with you, Fleur. We’d like to see you progress.’
‘Shit,’ said Fleur. She couldn’t help it. Her language was always very bad when she was excited. ‘Shit.’
‘I’m afraid,’ said Mick, ‘you’ll have to do better than that.’
Fleur passed the copy test; she hoped very much it wasn’t all because of Nigel Silk, that he might have told Mick to give her a job, to buy her off. She didn’t think so: for Mick to appoint a creative person he had no time for would have been akin to – well, to Dior working with Crimplene rather than silk.
She hardly ever saw Nigel these days; apart from an anguished, quiet ‘are you all right’ several weeks after Serena had found her, and she had delivered her pregnancy note, and she had been forced to say, with great reluctance that yes, she was all right, he had avoided her with great skill. Fleur was relieved; she had feared reprisals, and she felt in any case, and despite herself, hurt. The very least he owed her, she felt, was a little honesty, and possibly even an apology. Well, she had quite a few mementoes from the relationship; the Gladstone and the watch would see her through a very long time, and the cashmeres would come in pretty useful too. The whole episode had merely served to reinforce her view of men as selfish, dishonest egocentrics. There were exceptions of course: her father, Joe, and quite possibly Mick; otherwise, forget it. She had
better things to think about than love in any case. Her career. Which looked like it was on its way.
The first copyline of hers that appeared in the press was only a tiny ad in health sections of the mass-circulation women’s magazines, but it was hers and it was unchanged. She felt as if she had posters up all over New York. It was for a cure for premenstrual fluid retention called Pre-P; it was not a glamorous product, even Fleur had to admit, but she didn’t care.
‘Take Pre-P,’ she wrote, ‘and feel all-over tension just draining away.’
‘That’s very good, Fleur,’ said Mick. ‘I like it. Is that really how it feels?’ He was endlessly fascinated by the mechanics of the female body; nothing made him happier than an in-depth discussion on the menstrual cycle, or hormonal changes affecting the libido.
‘Well – yes. Yes, of course it is,’ said Fleur, ‘that’s why I wrote it.’
‘Well, it’s a good line. And a good concept. Clever girl.’
A few weeks later she had got her really big break: working as assistant copywriter on a new account, T. & J. Stores. T. & J. was a small chain of grocery stores, looking for a new strong image; Fleur’s immediate boss, Hank Barr, had been set to work on it; he had already put three strategies up to Mick who had turned them all down. Hank, who was anyway feeling insecure, was in despair; he had failed in his last two projects as well, and he could see his future at Silk diMaggio, as well as his dreams of a new agency called Hank Barr Associates, vanishing into nothingness if he did not come up with something soon. Fleur, who was fond of Hank (probably because he was tall and gangly and reminded her of Joe), found him at his desk with his head in his hands one lunch-time, and said would he like to talk to her about it. Hanks said no, not really, although he appreciated her sympathy, and then proceeded to talk about it for some time
‘Mick said give the thing a personality,’ he said. ‘I’ve been down the efficient road, the good-to-your-pocketbook road, even tried the “we stock more than you’d believe” road. Mick quite liked that, but Nigel said that wasn’t strategy, and since then I’ve been going in a downward spiral.’
Fleur looked at him thoughtfully. She had learnt a lot just listening to Nigel in the studio overlooking the river; and she knew exactly what he meant about strategy. Nobody would want a store just because it was efficient or even economical: they all tried to be that. It had to have a real personality, one that would be remembered. There must be something they could find, something different about it: even that it was untidier than anywhere else. ‘The answer’s in the product,’ Nigel had said. ‘It’s always there, if you look hard enough.’ Hank obviously hadn’t looked hard enough.
‘I have it,’ said Fleur. She felt quite sick she was so excited.
Hank looked at her slightly warily. ‘Have what?’
‘The strategy. Maybe even the copyline. For T. & J.’
‘You do? Well, I certainly need it. Mick was on my back all yesterday afternoon.’
‘Well, we can get him off it. Listen. “The store that’s smaller than it looks.”’
‘What? Fleur, that doesn’t sound very clever to me.’
‘Well you’re dumb then,’ said Fleur impatiently. ‘Hank, I spent yesterday afternoon in a T. & J. and this woman came in and the man told her her little boy had been going too fast on his skateboard and she said he was doing the job of a small neighbourhood shop.’
‘Well?’ said Hank, looking at her blankly.
‘Well – can’t you see how exciting that is? A real concept. It gives T. & J. a story to tell. Behind the supermarket façade there’s still a real old-fashioned store. It’s pure Norman Rockwell stuff, Hank, you must see that.’
Hank looked at her thoughtfully. Then he suddenly picked up his pen and started scribbling. ‘Fleur, you just might have given me an idea. Get me a coffee, will you?’
‘Don’t mention it,’ said Fleur, slamming out of the room.
The presentation was fixed for a week later. Four of T. & J.’s big guns were coming in: Mick diMaggio would be there, Nigel Silk would be there, Hank would be there, Bobby Wilson, the executive on the account, would be there, and Fleur would be there in her capacity as Hank’s assistant. She was excited, nervous; she spent hours the night before working out what to wear. She finally settled on a black suit she had just bought, with a short slightly flared skirt and a grey cashmere sweater, one of the trophies from her liaison with Nigel. She liked wearing the clothes he had given her in meetings; it discomfited him, made him slightly nervous. She always wore the Gucci watch as well. It was revenge of a kind: small, but meaningful. One day, she told herself, one day she would have a larger one.
She sat listening to Mick as he did the presentation in a state of near awe. It was like being at the movies, the theatre; she wanted him never to stop.
‘Personality,’ he said. ‘It’s so indefinable, isn’t it? We all want it. To have that quality that makes people remember you, notice you, know you’re there. I certainly want that.’
As if he didn’t, thought Fleur, sitting staring at him transfixed.
‘Certainly every company wants it. Every company dreams of being the next Hathaway, the next Schweppes, the next Volkswagen. And you know why? Yeah, of course you do. Not just to have their profits, although that’d be nice. But also to have people say, oh yeah, I know about those shirts, they’re great, but do I have to wear the eye-patch, and sure, I’d love a drink, with you-know-who, and gee, I’d certainly like to own the car that gets the snowplough driver to work. That is a seriously good ambition, isn’t it? To have a share in the national psyche, to be a household name, to mean something to almost everybody. That’d be something. That’d be fame. That’d be a kind of an immortality. Well, we think you can have that with your stores. We have that strong a concept for you. Something that’s going to get a hold of people’s imaginations, send them scuttling into your stores, going out of their way to get to one. Go with this one, and you’ll say goodbye to anonymity for ever. Hank, would you like to take over from here.’
Hank took over from there. He presented Fleur’s thinking, Fleur’s concept, Fleur’s copyline; T. & J., after an initial resistance, bought it. Silk diMaggio got the account. Hank Barr took everyone out and got them drunk.
Fleur was sitting at her desk late that night, wounded almost beyond endurance at the fact that Hank had not so much as given a nod of recognition in her direction, when Mick diMaggio came back, gave her a hug and told her to dry her eyes.
‘I think Hank behaved more than a little shabbily today, and when his euphoria has worn off I intend to tell him so. You have to remember he is fairly untalented. It makes people very insecure. He was one of my mistakes, I’m afraid. You, on the other hand, have a great deal of talent – and a nice way with the clients as well. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before, Fleur. I wrongly and rather unimaginatively thought you were tough enough to take it. Now dry your eyes, I have a proposition to put to you. I want someone of the right sex and in the right age range to work on the Juliana account. Obviously we are a large team already, but with this youth cult raging, I really think your input could be valuable. I’m not promising you the autumn campaign, mind you: just a say in things here and there. How would you like that?’
‘Shit!’ said Fleur. It was all she could manage, she was so astounded and excited.
‘You’ll have to come up with something better than that, darling,’ said Mick, standing up and grinning down at her. ‘We have a big meeting with Julian Morell next Monday, mostly to discuss spring promotions. Come to that, and wear that most distractingly short skirt you wore today. Julian likes beautiful young ladies.’
Fleur thought Julian Morell was the most exciting man she had met in her entire life. He was upper-class English, she realized, being just slightly aware of such a quality, with all Nigel’s sophistication, his charm, his patently well-bred assuranc
e, but with a warmth, a sensuousness that Nigel entirely lacked. He was tall and slim, with dark hair and very dark eyes, and when she was introduced to him as the latest recruit to the Juliana team, he took her hand and bowed over it very slightly and said, ‘How delightful, and how valuable I am sure you are going to be,’ and the eyes were warm and probing and somehow inviting, all at the same time. Fleur would have allowed herself to fantasize over him quite extensively had she not known of his extremely well-documented and colourful private life: divorced from his first wife, running an on-off relationship with the dauntingly beautiful Camilla North, who was the creative director of his company, and linked endlessly with a long succession of the models who appeared in his advertisements. He was a wonderful client (‘They’re rare, darling, as you know,’ Mick said) and a great bonus in her life.
Working on the Juliana account occupied a great deal of her time; as with all cosmetic companies, there were launches of products right through the year, and the team were constantly being sent early samples of products to try, to become familiar with, to comment on, to work with. She had started on it in November, when there were major summer campaigns planned, colours for the following autumn being discussed, fragrances being developed for the Christmas after that. She met Camilla and once she had got over her early terror, came not exactly to like her, but to respect her. Camilla was beautiful, red-haired, immensely elegant, stick-thin and always the same: icy cool, gracious, totally in control – and enormously talented.
‘She is our biggest danger,’ said Mick. ‘One of these days, she’s going to leave Julian, and set up on her own, and then we shall lose the account.’
‘Surely not,’ said Fleur. ‘She’s not an advertising person. She’s – well, a cosmetic person. Isn’t she?’
AN Outrageous Affair Page 32