Victor Mallinson said, “Redouble.”
Naumann was in agony. He thought for a wild moment of staging a rescue operation with his five small spades, but abandoned the notion. Such attempts were nearly always futile. He said, “No bid.”
His next headache was finding a card to lead.
In normal circumstances this would have been no problem at all. When your partner has bid a suit twice, and doubled a subsequent no-trump contract by his opponents, he is announcing that his own suit is long, solid and unbreakable. He is not advising you to lead it. He is ordering you to do so.
And yet – and yet – unless both his opponents were raving mad, they must have guards in the suit. Mallinson particularly. And since he was sitting over Oliver, a club lead might be quite fatal. It might present the opposition with four or five tricks in the suit. And each redoubled, vulnerable overtrick was going to cost them four hundred points, or two solid pounds in cash.
But if this was the true picture, then Oliver was mad. It really boiled down to a question of which of the two men he trusted.
A spade if he trusted Mallinson; a club if he trusted Oliver. Coming out of an agonizing trance he laid down a small club.
Monsieur Sermoulin exposed his hand. Mallinson said, “Thank you very much indeed, partner,” and selected the king of clubs. Oliver topped it with the ace. He had no option. It was the only club in his hand. He then proceeded to play out the ace, king and queen and four other small diamonds.
“Eight tricks to us,” said Oliver. “That makes you four down, vulnerable, doubled and redoubled. Twenty-two hundred.”
“Never try it again,” said Naumann. “My nerves won’t stand it.”
Monsieur Sermoulin had said, “Nicely done. I saw exactly the same coup executed by an Italian at Venice three years ago, but on that occasion it was even more gratifying for I was playing with him.”
Mallinson said nothing. He had lost his temper. He lost the next two games as well.
Oliver was reflecting, with pleasure, on all these things as he walked back to Lamb’s Conduit Street; and the seventeen pound notes which he had extracted from Victor Mallinson was the smallest part of the sum total of his satisfaction.
It had been, as the Frenchman had suggested, a whiskery old coup; the concealing of one suit by bidding another, the luring of one’s opponents into a no-trump contract, the provocative double. But it needed correct timing and, above all, it needed exactly the right sort of opponent. An egotist. A man cunning enough to set traps for you but too self-satisfied to perceive that you might be setting the same traps for him. “In short,” said Oliver aloud, “a clever player who is not quite as clever as he thinks he is.”
This observation was answered by the flinging open of the door of a car standing at the kerb just ahead of him, and a girl’s voice which said, “You’re wrong about that.”
“Come back and don’t be a fool,” said a man’s voice, thickly.
“I’m not going to be mauled about by you,” said the girl, “and what’s more, I’m not going to let you drive the car any farther. You’re drunk.”
“If you don’t want to drive you can bloody well walk.”
“I’d rather walk than finish up dead.”
“Stupid bitch.”
“That’s no way,” said Oliver, “to talk to a lady.”
“What the bloody hell’s it got to do with you?”
“Nothing at all,” said Oliver. “That’s what makes it such fun.” He opened the car door, twisted his hands into the driver’s collar, braced one foot against the car and pulled.
The driver was half out of the car before he realized what was happening, then he grabbed the steering wheel and started to bellow.
Oliver half turned, still holding his collar, and yanked him over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, straightening up as he did so. The extra leverage was effective. The man came out and as Oliver loosed his hold, slithered over his shoulder and on to the pavement. On the way down his head bounced off the lamppost.
“I say,” said Oliver. “I do hope I haven’t killed him.”
“I don’t care if you have,” said the girl.
They examined the man. Blood was trickling from a deep black cut over his right eye.
“That’s all right,” said Oliver, “if he’s bleeding he can’t be dead. Let’s make him comfortable, shall we?” He dragged the man across the pavement and propped him up in a sitting position against the low wall. As an afterthought he got a rug from the back of the car and tucked it round the man, who was starting to mutter.
“He’ll have a hell of a head in the morning,” said Oliver. “Now. Where can I drive you to?”
“It’s his car,” said the girl doubtfully. “I live in Kensington.”
“Fine,” said Oliver. “I’ll drive you home and bring the car back. He may be stirring by then. Unless, of course, a policeman comes by, in which case he won’t be stirring, he’ll be in stir. Joke.”
He had had time to look at the girl by now. She was worth looking at. Taller than average, she had the current model-girl look which had been invented by David Bailey, and had swept the country, along with the clothes his girls modelled; the elongated thoroughbred, compounded of good bones, large eyes and a lower lip turned down like a sheet on a well-made bed. Her hair formed a thick, square helmet round her face. The street lamps made it impossible to be precise about the colour but he thought it was reddish.
“Well – all right,” she said. “If you think you can drive it. It’s a sports car of sorts.”
“I know this model well,” said Oliver. “I drove my first one when I was thirteen.”
By the time they got to Hyde Park Corner he had found out that the girl’s name was Philippa, that after leaving school she had taken a shorthand and typing course, had got a job in a lawyer’s office, which she loathed, and had been angling for a post as secretary to a television executive.
“That lout you left on the pavement pretended he could fix it for me. He said he had pull.”
“He looked as if he had just enough pull to get a cork out of a bottle,” said Oliver. The girl laughed for the first time that night. She had nice teeth.
By the time they were turning into Kensington Church Street, Oliver had returned the compliment and told her something about himself. She was an easy girl to talk to.
She lived in a cul-de-sac off Camden Hill, in a house which had been converted into five maisonettes. There were five names beside the bells on the door.
“Just for the record,” said Oliver, “which are you?”
“I’m the one at the top,” said the girl.
“It must be a lovely view,” said Oliver. “Good night, and sleep well.”
He climbed back into the car, turned it neatly and drove off. The girl stood on the doorstep looking after him. As the car reached the corner a hand came out and waved. She waved back.
“We-e-ll,” she said to herself. “Lovely view. That’s quite a new gambit. I thought, just for a moment, he was going to suggest we might go up together and admire it. From my bedroom window perhaps.”
6
“The way I see it,” said Wibberley, “we need a series of twelve half-pages in colour in the better-class monthly glossies – with perhaps an option, subject to penalty, to break at six. The first one to appear in the month before D-day, step up the campaign in the last fortnight with a regular spot in the weeklies, and turn on the heat in the last week with the dailies. After D-day we cut right back on the newspapers and start in with a weekly television quickie and then just keep things simmering with placard advertising, bus and underground, free displays and handouts in the shops, and maybe a short film for the local advertising circuits.”
“I like that,” said Bargulder. “I tell my clients always, ‘Don’t run before you can walk. Do your promotion in the good, old-fashioned way in the papers and magazines. Once your product is really selling you can puff it along with television and films.’ What’s the budget?
”
“For the initial campaign, twenty thousand.”
“That’s good,” said Bargulder. “Very good. I like the name too. Tendresse.” He scribbled on the pad in front of him. “We’ll get our clever little Hungarian to do some sketches for us. I see it with the tails of the s’s coming right back under the word, almost to the beginning.”
“Something like this?” Wibberley laid a slip of paper on the desk. “I got Dino to rough it out for me.”
“Yes. Yes. I like that very much. You can tell Dino from me. Now – who are we picking for the lead?”
He meant, as Wibberley well understood, which of the many models who were prepared to sell their faces, or celebrities who were prepared to sell their names, was going to be the subliminal image of the new product, the Tendresse type.
“We had a difference of opinion over that,” said Wibberley. “I thought we’d be aiming to make most of our sales in the lower middle-class bracket and we ought to ask the agencies for a sweet little face – not fluffy. You know, a touch of character – slightly retroussé nose, big mouth, perhaps a couple of freckles.”
“What you were looking for,” said Bargulder, “is the girl that every middle-class mother would hope her own daughter would turn out to be, and that the mother would give anything to be, herself, once again.”
“Exactly,” said Wibberley. “But I couldn’t get it across to Nugent. He says that when it comes to scent, all women are snobs. He’s after something right out of the top drawer. Black velvet, diamonds, false eyelashes and a title.”
“It’s a point of view.”
“You don’t think perhaps that we ought to try to persuade him to see it our way? I’m not at all sure he’s not making a mistake about this.”
“My dear Derek,” said Bargulder, and it was a sign of the highest favour that he should even remember, let alone use, an employee’s Christian name. “Never try to change a client’s mind. We are here to interpret his wishes. That is our sole function.”
“All the same,” said Wibberley, “I think he’s wrong. He’s twenty years out of date. People don’t imitate duchesses now. They laugh at them.”
“You mustn’t allow yourself to get personally involved in this, Derek.”
“But I am involved, sir. It’s my biggest assignment to date. Easily my biggest. If it goes wrong I’m the one who’s going to carry the can.”
“No such thing. The agency stands behind every member of its staff. Bear that in mind.” He got up and laid a fatherly hand on the young man’s shoulder. It was a benediction and a dismissal.
Victor Mallinson said to his secretary, “What would you say was the nicest smell in the world, Jennie?”
“Fish and chips.”
“An agreeable taste, if you like that sort of thing. Not really a nice smell. Burned fat.”
It was one of the reasons she liked working for Mr Mallinson. He always talked about interesting things in a sensible way. Yesterday it had been an argument about modern art in which he had got the better of that odious Mr Crake. The day before it had been preference shares, when Mr Crake had won.
Jennie had been brought up in a rough home, where you got belted if you stepped out of line, where culture had been the television set and conversation a shouting match. She hadn’t been unhappy, but it had been a revelation to her that another sort of world existed. Another sort of man too. All her early friends had been girls. If any male person outside the family showed an interest in you, they had one reason, and differed only in the seriousness of their intentions and the skill of their technique. Mr Mallinson wasn’t like that at all. She thought he was probably a bit of a pansy really, but not an obvious one. He didn’t talk in an affected voice or wear peculiar clothes. Most of the time he behaved in a sensible, grown-up way, but there were moments, when he was being opposed or obstructed, when he could be childish. She found then that she could laugh at him and like him at the same time.
Since he was being serious about this, she had better be serious too. She said, “I’ve always sort of liked the smell of burning leaves.”
“I don’t think we could call a new scent Burning Leaves.”
“What about Bonfire, then?”
“That’s not bad. In fact, it’s nearly right. It would do for a man’s product. It won’t quite do for girls. It’s got to suggest – oh, a nice simple feminine girl without too many airs and graces.”
“But with a bit of chick,” said Mr Crake, joining in.
“The nicest girl I know,” said Jennie, “is the girl who lives in the flat below mine. She’s simple, and feminine. Her name’s Lucy.”
Mr Crake murmured, “I love Lucy,” several times to himself.
“Nearly,” said Mallinson, “but not quite. Simple and girlish, yes.”
“But not enough chick.”
“Lucy, Luanda, Lucilla, Lucille. What about Lucille?”
“I like that,” said Jennie.
“Not bad,” said Mr Crake.
“Check it,” said Mallinson. “If it’s available, I think it’s what we want. We’ll have to see what Hendrik Pedersen thinks of it.”
“If you’re selling something,” said Oliver, “it seems to me that the main thing you’ve got to decide is who you’re selling it to. In other words, which class you’re aiming at. Upper, middle or lower. Right?”
“It’s simpler than that,” said Wibberley. “For a start, you can cut out the lower classes. They’ve got more spending money than they used to have, agreed, but still not enough to push a luxury product. And as for the upper class, they’re a dead loss. They don’t read advertisements.”
“My grandmother,” said Dumbo, “who is definitely upper class, spends most mornings reading advertisements and most afternoons buying the goods which have caught her eye. She’s got the largest known collection of unread encyclopaedias, unused trusses and uneaten breakfast foods.”
“Don’t take any notice of him, Wibbers,” said Oliver. “Go on with what you were saying. What classes does a professional huckster like you recognize?”
“For advertisers there are two, and two only. The upper middle class and the lower middle class. You must make your mind up quite clearly from the start which you’re aiming at.”
“Why not sell to both?” said Harrap.
“If you aimed at both you’d hit neither, because the approach is completely different. The UMC likes solid worth. Nothing flashy, nothing risky. Twenty shillings’ worth for a pound. It’s been brought up to believe the old fallacy that you get what you pay for. That an article which costs two pounds will be twice as valuable as one which only costs one pound. If you’re aiming to sell to them, you confine yourself to plain statements about how reliable and durable the thing is, and it’s a top selling point if you can add that it’s been sold, unchanged, for a hundred and twenty years.”
“It doesn’t sound a very hopeful line for scent,” said Oliver. “What about the LMC?”
“The thing to remember is that they’re much more adventurous. You give them colour, superlatives, free gift coupons and severely reduced prices.”
“I don’t think we can compete in that field either,” said Oliver.
“It’s where most of the money is.”
“Maybe,” said Oliver. His mouth was settling into a line of obstinacy which Dumbo recognized. “But I don’t think we want to go for them straight away. What I think we ought do – following your own line of reasoning, Wibbers – is to start by selling Tendresse to your upper-middles. Get it established, get the name known. Then reverse the process. Step up the advertising, reduce the prices and go after the lower-middles. The one thing we’ve got to avoid is any suggestion that it’s a cheap scent. What do you think, Wilfred?”
“Sounds sensible to me,” said Harrap.
“I agree,” said Dumbo.
“All right,” said Oliver. “We’re all agreed.”
Wibberley looked, for a moment, as if he wanted to say something, but before he could get roun
d to it Oliver had swept on. “The next point, I take it, is how are we going to sell? What line are we going to take? The high road or the low road?”
“I’m not sure that I follow you,” said Dumbo.
“This is something I’ve quarrelled with Wibbers a good deal about.” Oliver accompanied this with a friendly grin which robbed the words of their sting. “There are two quite different approaches. Either you can try to persuade your purchaser that Tendresse is what the girl next door is using. That it’s what makes Jean so popular at the tennis club dance.”
“A blooming English rose,” said Harrap, “as a substitute for a decadent French lily.”
“That’s the idea. Or else you can shoot high and tell them that this is what the film star smothers herself in before appearing at the Grand Charity premiere, and the duke smells behind the duchess’ ear when he dances the cotillion with her at the Hunt Ball.”
“Which line do you fancy?” said Dumbo, cautiously.
“Me? I’d go for snobbery every time.”
“It’s a nice point,” said Harrap. He considered it carefully as if it was a question of dismantling a particularly tricky fuse. “Is the strongest urge in human nature to be like the crowd and do what everyone else is doing, or is it to better oneself and ape the class above?”
“I’ll back snobbery,” said Dumbo.
“Maybe,” said Harrap. “I gather our adviser doesn’t agree with us.”
Wibberley looked embarrassed. In fact, he was as sure as he could be that Oliver was backing the wrong horse. Instinct and experience told him so. What Oliver had said might have been true twenty years ago, but people nowadays didn’t think like that. The war had shaken them up and thrown them together. They were more independent and, unconsciously, a lot more Americanized. You didn’t sell them anything now by throwing duchesses at them, you antagonized them. He thought of all this and then he thought of Simon Bargulder’s injunction.
He said rather weakly, “I’m not here to persuade you, you know. Just to interpret your wishes.”
“Fine,” said Oliver. “Now let’s get down to details.”
The Dust and the Heat Page 13