by Joel Willans
I nod and drop to my knees, though my mouth is too dry to eat. The woman shuffles past, swinging her fish. She waves it at me and I grin back. My mouth hurts with the strength of it. Even when a surf boy struts past, the smile doesn’t go away. I wait for the voice to tell me that I look like a prick, that the girl will think I’m a moron if I don’t stop grinning like a clown and say something to her. But she’s eating the cookie, and I’m still smiling, and the voice doesn’t say a single word.
The Cost of Advertising
I rummage through my wardrobe and pick out my sharpest suit. It’s single breasted, charcoal coloured with a slight retro feel. Next, I take a black shirt, chunky silver cufflinks and a black tie from Kenzo that cost seventy quid. Fashion is an essential component for every advertising salesman. A cool looks says, I’m a player, someone you want on your side. Of course, it’s not certain to swing a deal your way, nothing is, but it can sure tip the balance. And today, I need all the help I can get.
Once dressed, I study myself in the mirror. Too many long lunches and late nights have taken their toll. My eyes are puffy and my skin is blotchy. I rub moisturiser on the affected areas. My head is shaved a number three, which means no messing around with gel or wax or blow-drying. This gives me approximately ten extra minutes to manage my goatee. Some days I imagine what it would look like if I let the hair go wild and burst forth from my face like a modern day mountain man. When I’ve had a good month and a fat commission cheque, I picture myself with something akin to a Salvador Dalí moustache. But it’s all a dream. When you’re in my business, you don’t have the same leeway with facial hair as wandering woodsmen and eccentric artists.
Salla says I take my appearance too seriously. She says it’s only a job, but then she’s from Finland, where the only people who wear suits are bankers and insurance men. Plus, she’s got no idea I’m saving money to marry her in style. What she does know is how to knock up a fantastic breakfast. Unfortunately, last night she stayed at her place, so rather than eggs on toast and fresh orange, I start the day with a Marlboro Light and a biscuit Boost.
Outside, it feels as if the sun can’t be bothered. People march with their heads down. Cars belch and growl. Even though I sell advertising for Cool Car Lovers, the country’s second most popular car mag, I hate the way traffic clogs up the streets and fouls the air. I wonder if the single drivers, alone in their five-seater cars, feel any guilt because every single one of them is frowning.
Things are no different at the Underground station. When the tube arrives it’s so full of people it looks like an attempt at a Guinness world record. By the time I get to Oxford Street, one side of my suit is already crumpled. I’d smooth it down, but with only three minutes left before the clock strikes nine, I have to sprint through Soho. I arrive at my desk with my tie askew and sweat puddling behind my ears.
Darren looks at his watch.
‘Afternoon,’ he says. ‘Early morning workout at the gym?’
‘Very funny.’ I sit down, quickly unpack my bag and turn my computer on. ‘Is Miranda in yet?’
‘Haven’t heard her.’ Darren leans forward. ‘She was out on a bender last night, though. I saw her in Blue Lounge, then in the Doghouse. I left at one and she was still on the fizzy.’
‘Oh shit! She’s coming with me to see Tom Harcourt at Zoom today.’
Darren sucks his teeth. ‘What, the guy who’s banging the Sales Manager of Your Car?’
I nod. ‘Miranda wants to know why he’s put all BMW’s money in his girlfriend’s mag instead of ours.’
‘Well, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work that out.’
Before I can answer, I see Miranda striding towards me. She looks like she’s just stepped off a catwalk. Her hair is all done up in ringlets, she’s wearing a frilly white blouse, pantaloons and knee-high boots with dangerously pointed toes. If she had a rapier, you might mistake her for a female musketeer. Darren starts tapping on his computer.
I sit up straight and stick my chest out.
‘On flexitime, Eliot?’ she asks.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re late yet again.’
‘Maybe a fraction, depending upon which clock you look at.’
She glares at me with her mascara-ringed eyes. ‘This isn’t a game. You need to pick up the pace, otherwise you’ll have nothing to be late for.’
I’m tired of her threatening me, but nod nonetheless.
‘I expect you to be ready to go in half an hour,’ she says.
‘But the meeting’s not until ten.’
‘One,’ she says, holding up a finger tipped with a rose-red nail, ‘I am never late. Two, arriving early is a sign of professionalism. I’d hoped you’d have learnt that by now.’
I nod again. Seemingly satisfied with my response, she walks off.
‘Fuck me, you must have really pissed her off,’ Darren says. ‘What did you do?’
I’d like to share my theory with him, but what’s the point? Instead I shrug, and go for a wander to get my head clear. The office doesn’t help. It’s open plan and decorated with primary colours. Harsh neon light reflects off the glass walls of the meeting rooms. I’ve always assumed this combination is a result of some theory in interior design. Maybe it’s meant to increase productivity. If so, it doesn’t work for me. It feels as if I spend my day on the set of a Saturday morning children’s television show.
I start to get my stuff together for the meeting. When my bag is packed with circulation certificates, media packs, old issues of Cool Car Lovers, my phone, my laptop and my business cards, I make my way to reception. Miranda’s already there.
‘Where’s our taxi?’ she asks.
‘I thought we could walk.’
‘How very environmentally sound of you.’
I don’t bother replying. Instead, I go out into the street and hail a cab.
As we drive, sitting in silence, I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d have said yes to her at Darren’s birthday party. We’d taken over the downstairs of the Slug and Lettuce. It had been a fun night, with fizzy freely flowing thanks to commission cheque generosity and Miranda’s card behind the bar. I was quietly smoking a cigarette outside when she swanned up to me, and held out her hand.
‘Just what I need.’
I pulled open the packet and handed her one.
‘Light?’
I flicked open my Zippo. She wrapped her hands around mine and I noticed her pupils were the size of chocolate buttons.
‘Do you have a girlfriend, Eliot?’ she asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Living together?’
‘Not yet.’
‘How old is she?’
‘A couple of years younger.’
‘Ever tried a real woman?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Follow me around the corner and you’ll find out.’
I stood there staring at the space she’d inhabited, wondering whether she really meant it, or whether it was just coke talk. It didn’t matter. Miranda might be beautiful and she might be my boss, but even with half a bottle of champagne fizzing away at my rationality, I knew I could never do it. Not to Salla. Not to the only girl I’d ever truly loved. I didn’t go back to the party. Instead, I wandered through the streets hoping the episode would be forgotten in the morning. The next day Miranda called me into her office and, with a smile I thought meant I’d been forgiven, gave me the BMW account.
The memory makes me twitchy. The leather seat squeaks. Miranda tuts and carries on staring out the window. It’s a relief when the cabbie spins the wheel round in his meaty hands and we pull up in front of a tall Georgian town house with the words Zoom stretched across its entrance. Miranda leaves me to pay.
The person who did our office seems to have got his hands on Zoom’s reception, too. It feels as if I’m sitting in a rainbow. The walls are littered with adverts and framed certificates heralding the creative genius of the agency. Table football stands nex
t to the sofa. The coffee counter is a cloud shaped fish tank with a glass cover.
These are exactly the type of furnishings that advertising agencies always dazzle their clients with. The sad thing is that it works. The first time I ever went into an agency reception, I was blown away. I couldn’t believe how cool it was. It felt more like the chill out room of a club than an office. I remember thinking how lucky I was to work in such an exciting industry. This feeling lasted almost a year, until I met Salla. It was her who first suggested that advertising might not be as glamorous as I thought.
‘It’s all a bit of a waste, don’t you think?’ she said one night.
‘What do you mean?’
She rolled one lock of sunshine-coloured hair around her finger. ‘A waste of talent. All these artists and writers using their skills to persuade people to buy junk they don’t need.’
I laughed. ‘Another classic commie insight from Red Salla.’
She lobbed a cushion at me. ‘There’s nothing socialist about that. It’s just common sense.’
Despite my teasing, she got me thinking. She was good at that.
If she were with me now and could see Tom Harcourt emerging from behind a pink fluffy door wearing combat trousers and a T-shirt with the word ‘Talent’ splashed across the chest, she’d doubtless feel vindicated. I, on the other hand, just feel overdressed. Miranda stands up to present her cheek, which Tom dutifully air kisses. I reach out my hand.
‘How’s it going, fella?’ he says.
‘Brilliantly,’ I say.
‘Great. I’ve booked Jackson Pollock for us.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The Jackson Pollock room.’ He laughs, sounding like an excited pig. ‘Our meeting rooms are all named after the twentieth century’s greatest creatives. There’s the John Lennon, the Andy Warhol, the Virginia Woolf…’
‘Very clever,’ Miranda says.
‘Inspired,’ I say.
‘Inspiration is our business, fella.’
The Jackson Pollock room is, as you would expect, splattered. Even as I sit down, I feel a headache coming on. I can’t imagine a place more likely to cause migraines. Miranda takes a chair at the head of the table, I place myself between her and Tom. His cologne smells of marzipan. I notice he hasn’t shaved.
‘So, what’s happening with BMW,’ I say and pull out my laptop.
‘Oh please, not another PowerPoint,’ he says. ‘If I have to sit through another slideshow this week, my head will explode.’
‘It’d help me show you how our readership compares with BMW’s target group.’
‘I know everything there’s to know about your magazine’s readers.’
‘Well, then you’ll know it has a greater percentage of AB1 males than any other car magazine.’ I glance at Miranda, expecting her to lend some support. She says nothing.
‘Listen, fella, who was it that said statistics are nothing more than lies and damned lies?’
‘Pretty sure Mark Twain said something like that.’
Tom beamed. ‘So great minds do indeed think alike.’
‘We spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on our circulation.’
‘I’m sure you do, but I rely on gut feeling. It says Your Car provides the best vehicle for my client to reach their core audience.’
I want to shout that it also provides you with the best vehicle to get a fuck, on a regular basis, but I restrain myself. From the corner of my eye, I can see Miranda shaking her head. I decide to play my joker.
‘Perhaps we could discuss BMW’s contingency budget over lunch.’
‘Where do you have in mind?’
‘How does Jezzo’s sound?’
‘Right on, fella. There might be a tad left in the pot for special deals. I’ll just pop upstairs and grab my jacket.’
I’m amazed at the speed at which he leaves the room.
‘Brilliant. A textbook example of how to overcome an objection,’ Miranda says.
‘I had no choice.’
‘What do you mean you had no choice? Perhaps you could’ve tried selling some of the benefits of our magazine.’
‘You know his girlfriend works on Your Car.’
‘Don’t give me excuses, Eliot. You’ve already had a warning about your attitude. You have to get BMW back into Cool Car Lovers, simple as that.’
‘He says there might be something left in the pot.’
‘Let’s hope so for your sake.’
Tom bounces back into the room. He’s wearing a Parka jacket with a massive furry hood. It makes him look like a cross between a Britpop guitarist and an arctic explorer.
‘Have you called to book a table, fella?’
‘Good point,’ I say.
I pull out my iPhone with Union Jack cover, making sure Tom gets an eyeful, and flick through my address book.
‘You don’t happen to have their number, do you?’ I ask him.
‘Hang on, I’ll just check.’ He pulls out of a slick blue smartphone that looks like it’s been beamed from the future.
He sees me staring at it. ‘Pretty damn neat, hey? Nokia’s latest Lumia. Don’t know how I survived without it.’
‘Are they all blue?’
‘It’s cyan, fella. They come in a bundle of colours, but this goes with my eyes, don’t you think?’ He flutters his lashes and laughs.
Miranda laughs, too. I grin even though it hurts.
He holds the phone to his mouth and says Jezzo. It emits a call tone and I cringe as Tom asks for a table in the pricey downstairs restaurant rather than in the cheaper upstairs brasserie.
‘Job done,’ he says.
We squeeze into another cab. Miranda and Tom take the big seat and I’m left to perch on the little flip-down stool. Miranda throws the names of exotic holiday locations around like confetti. Tom is congratulating her on being such an adventurer while dropping in his own experiences of far-away places. I’d bet my next commission cheque that even if these two went away to a jungle in Borneo or a desert in Uzbekistan, they’d find a five star Sheraton to stay in.
‘Where are you jetting off to next, fella?’
‘Blackpool,’ I say. ‘I can’t get enough of the lights.’
‘Oh, right. Cool. You’re doing the northern thing?’
‘Yeah, I go every year. I don’t know what it is about the place that just keeps drawing me back. It just has this magical quality.’
Miranda is puckering her face at me, so I shut up. She knows that last year I went to Croatia and not Blackpool, because she was the one who gave me the time off. Tom is scratching his head. He seems lost for words. This makes me feel happier than I’ve felt all morning. When we arrive, I’m left to pay the cabbie again.
Jezzo’s is all glass, big lights, gold furnishings and noise. Miranda and Tom have already been taken to the table, so I wander over.
‘Can I help you, Sir?’ a waiter says in a voice that makes him sound as though he’s gay, but trying to be French.
‘I’m with them,’ I say.
He raises two perfectly plucked eyebrows. ‘Oh, I see. I thought Sir and Madam were a couple. Please take a seat, I will be with you in a moment.’
Miranda and Tom don’t even bother to acknowledge my arrival. As this is my final chance to win Tom over, I decide to throw caution to the wind and go for the most expensive dishes on offer. The trouble is, like most of the restaurants in Soho, Jezzo’s endorses the law of diminishing returns. The more you pay, the less food you get. Taken to its logical extremes, if I were to pay a thousand quid for a starter, I’d be served a crumb on a plate the size of a satellite dish. I wait until they’ve ordered their food and then bring up BMW again.
‘So, you were saying that BMW might have a bit tucked away for special deals.’
‘To be honest with you, fella, it’d have to be real special.’
‘We’ve got a luxury car supplement coming up next month, and between you and me, I suspect BMW will be getting some very good editorial coverage.’
‘I should hope so. They’re one of the world’s leading car brands.’
‘Which is exactly why they should be in one of the world’s leading car magazines.’
‘They are. Your Car.’
I look at Miranda. She is leaning back in her chair, arms crossed.
‘You and I both know that in terms of reputation, circulation and editorial coverage, Your Car can’t compare to Cool Car Lovers,’ I say.
He shrugs. ‘All good things come to an end.’
‘Listen, if I put together an attractive package for the next issue, would you be interested?’
‘Can’t guarantee it, fella, but I’ll take a look.’
The discussion comes to an end when the waiter asks me if I want to taste the wine. I say yes, but what I’d really like to do is pour it over Tom’s head. By just having a look, Tom might just as well have doffed a black cap and condemned my career and future happiness with Salla to the gallows.
I take a swig of the thick red liquid. It’s nice and fruity with a slight peppery taste. I know nothing about wines, so I’m not sure if this is how it’s meant to taste, but I tell the waiter it’s fine. He gives me a look that says, I know you’re a fraud. He must be used to that. At lunchtime, this place is full of suits on corporate lunches, living it up on other people’s cash. I watch as he fills Miranda’s glass. She makes no effort to stop him.
‘Thanks, fella,’ Tom says once his glass is full.
‘Joel,’ the waiter says.
‘Sorry, fella?’
‘My name’s Joel.’
‘Oh, right, nice one. I always thought that was a French girl’s name.’
‘It’s unisex.’
‘Lucky you,’ Tom says and winks.
The waiter looks confused and asks whether we’re ready to order. I stick with my original choice. Tom goes for the same while Miranda, telling us she’s got to look after her figure, has a rocket salad followed by baby chicken. Tom says her figure must be a pleasure to look after, which earns him a big smile. I make a toast to put an end to the sickening compliments. Tom downs half his glass in one and excuses himself to go to the gents.
‘So far, so bad,’ Miranda says.