by Sam Holden
'Perfectly all right,' I said breezily as we shook hands. I wished I had the balls to give him a bollocking, but you can only give bollockings from positions of strength, and my balls aren't big enough (yet) to make me feel strong.
'Bit of a cock-up by my secretary,' he said. That old one.
'Typical,' I replied, rolling my eyes in faux-empathetic exasperation.
'Anyway, let's go upstairs and meet the team and you can give us a little presentation of how you see it, and then we can have a powwow.'
I gulped inwardly as I wheeled Daisy to the bottom of the stairs, where I indicated that Dom might help me carry her up in her buggy.
'So sorry, of course. No kids of my own!'
'Can we go home now?' asked Peter as we climbed the stairs.
'Not now,' I hissed.
'But I'm tired,' he moaned and then started to lie down.
'C'mon, get up!'
I paused, and Daisy and her buggy sort of hovered dangerously in mid-air halfway up the stairs.
'I said, get up!'
Peter pretended that he had fallen asleep, a trick that he is employing far too frequently these days.
'If you don't get up, I shall leave you there!'
This time, he somehow knew my threat was empty.
'Peter!'
I glanced at Dom, who was clearly uncomfortable, not just at the lack of discipline, but also at the somewhat precarious position he found himself in.
'PETER!'
No move, the little sod.
'All right, you stay there while I get Daisy up the stairs.'
Dom and I manhandled Sleeping Beauty and her buggy to the top, where we set her down gently, but evidently not gently enough for madame. She woke up, looked around and started squealing 'Mummy!' at the top of her voice.
'It's OK Daisy,' I pleaded. 'Daddy's here.'
'Mummy!'
I closed my eyes, wishing all this away. Here I was, supposedly about to set myself up as the perfect dad, the Wonderhubby, and I couldn't get my own children up a flight of stairs without one of them having a tantrum, and the other one having a strop. (There is a subtle difference between the two – some 80 decibels.) The only place I wanted to be right there and then was on a sunlit golf course with Nigel, looking forward to a few sly pints afterwards.
'I'm sorry about this,' I said to Dom, 'they're, um, not normally this bad.'
Dom nodded unconvincingly. I left Daisy with him and went back down to pick up Peter, who moaned as I half-dragged, half-carried him up. Daisy's noise didn't abate, and as we approached the main open-plan office, about a dozen sets of eyes looked up from their iMacs to see 75 per cent of the Holden family burst in. I pulled a sort of comedy grimace.
'You'd better come in here,' said Dom, indicating his office. There was a slightly tetchy note in his voice, which made me think that he too would rather be on his equivalent of a golf course. He steered us in, and then shut the door. Peter and Daisy were still moaning and stropping, although the volume had decreased.
'I want to watch TV!' Peter demanded.
In the corner of the office was a massive flatscreen.
'TV! TV! TV!' chanted Daisy, whose little face lit up at the prospect.
I looked at Dom.
'Can you get CBeebies on that?'
Dom picked up the remote control.
'We can probably get Iranian CBeebies on this.'
In a few seconds the children were muted, sitting on a huge leather sofa, sucking their thumbs and watching Bob the Builder.
'Phew!' I said.
Dom just raised his eyebrows.
'Perhaps we should have the meeting somewhere else.'
'It seems wrong to kick you out of your office.'
'Not at all – I think it's for the best.'
I picked up my laptop bag and Dom showed me into a conference room. There was a projector into which I plugged my laptop, and within a few minutes I started to flick through my presentation. By the time Dom came back with a couple of colleagues the screen was showing my first slide, which read 'Wonderhubby – Applying the Strategies of Management Consultancy to the Challenges of the 21st Century Domestic Environment'.
'Snappy stuff!' said Dom as he sat down.
'This is Emma,' he continued, 'and this too is Emma.'
'Hi,' said the Emmas in unison.
'This Emma is head of programme development,' Dom explained, 'and this Emma is head of programme acquisition.'
'Is there a difference?' I asked, slightly too aggressively.
'A huge amount,' said the Emmas. In unison. No kidding.
'Anyway,' said Dom, folding his arms. 'Tell us all about Wonderhubby. It's caused quite a stir, I can tell you.'
The Emmas nodded. Bollocks, I thought.
'Really?' I went.
'Really.'
I coughed. I strained my ears, listening for any nonsense coming from Dom's office, but at this stage, the TV was still working its magic. Oh, how I love the television. The best invention ever. If the stuff on it was any better, I'd be happy to leave them in front of it all day.
'Well, if it's OK with you,' I began, 'I'd like to give you a small presentation, outlining how I see the project, and its core aims and targets, and then fleshing out its narrative.'
The Emmas let out a slight giggle.
'What's the matter?' I asked.
'Nothing.'
'Um,' went Dom, slightly hesitant, 'you don't need to, er, talk like a management consultant to us. Save it for the programme.'
'Oh,' I said, unaware that I was in full consultant mode. The thing was, it was all coming back far too easily, all those 'bullshit bingo' words and phrases that to management consultants are meat and drink, or rather carnivorous consumable and digestible fluid.
'No problem,' I continued, a little unsure of what to say next. Try and talk like a human being, I said to myself, which would be hard when I considered what was coming on the next slide.
I clicked the mouse. Up it came. A whole load of crap that I had written the day before. This one was headlined 'Aims', and featured a load of bullet-pointed sub-headings.
Workplace/Domestic Synthesis
Cross-Comparison of Strategic Performance Tools
The Contrasting Dynamic of Humour-Based Scenarios
Entertainment Yield
Optimising Childcare Solution Packages
Personality-driven Focus and Acquisition
I took a deep breath. Would they go for it, I wondered? What were they thinking? The faces of Dom and the Emmas told me all I needed to know. Their lips were all sort of puffed out, trying to contain 'church laugh'.
'I know you think this is funny,' I said, 'But I assure you this is all workaday stuff for us management consultants.'
'Gosh,' said Development Emma.
'OK,' said Acquisition Emma.
'Keep going,' said Dom, 'I love it.'
'You do?'
'I think it's great. It's the type of bullsh— I mean, the type of approach that will make the programme, um, fresh and entertaining.'
'You think so?'
'Oh yes.'
Encouraged, I continued. I spoke in general terms for the first five minutes, outlining how successful I had been in adapting my skills as a consultant to the home, and how it had reaped such enormous rewards in terms of the children's behaviour and their development. I just had to hope that the frequent raised eyebrows were signs of encouragement rather than of cynicism.
'My approach,' I said, 'will be in four stages. First, qualitative and quantitative evaluation. I will enter into the clients' homes, and establish where the problems lie. Secondly, I shall process-consult them, and draw up a framework in which we can go forward together. The third stage will be rollout-stroke-implementation, and this will clearly be the crux of the programme. The fourth and final stage will be appraisal and reevaluation, in which we employ some of the same functions in stage one in order to establish quantitative and qualitative performance differentials . . .'
Dom cleared his throat.
'Yes?' I asked.
'Um, doesn't this just, um . . .'
He was struggling to be polite.
'. . . um, mean that you're going to go there, tell them what to do, and then leave, come back, and see how they've done?'
I chewed over his words. I thought a bold response was called for.
'Yes,' I said. 'In essence.'
'So all management consultancy really is, is telling people what to do.'
More chewing.
'Not quite that simple.'
Now it was Acquisition Emma's turn to pipe up.
'What I don't get,' she said, 'is how this is different from any of the other nanny-style remake programmes.'
I was ready for this.
'Aha, I'm glad you asked me this.'
'You are?'
'Yes. Because there's an enormous difference. Huge. Massive. A gulf, even. As big as the Gulf of Finland.'
'Finland?'
'Yes. I went there for a stag weekend, and it's a very big gulf. Very big indeed.'
'OK,' said Acquisition Emma, cautiously.
'A big difference,' I said.
'Which is?' asked Dom.
'Methodology. Implementation. Solution processes.'
'Can you be a little more precise?' asked Development Emma.
'Of course,' I said.
A brief silence while I wracked my rusty brain. The problem about being a househusband for so long is that I'm sure part of my brain has gone numb, atrophied.
'I shall be using all the techniques of management consultancy in the home, and that's the crucial difference.'
'But what techniques are they exactly?' asked Dom. 'I mean, what if a child is not eating his food? What would be the management-consultant approach as opposed to the normal approach?'
I briefly thought back to the water debacle with Daisy, and tried to expunge it from my mind.
'Well,' I started, 'as one would do in a management consultancy environment, we would seek to establish the cause for non-take-up. This could be for any number of reasons – pricing, inadequate marketing, little perceived need for the goods or service and so on . . .'
'Sorry to interrupt,' interrupted Development Emma. 'We are talking about food here.'
'I was coming to that,' I said, narrowing my eyes, trying to look hard. She didn't look that intimidated, to be honest.
'Anyway, I was saying, there could be any number of reasons, so the first thing to do is to evaluate what they might be, and then implement a range of solutions that will facilitate a take-up of the goods or service – in this case, say, baked beans. Is that clear?'
'Um . . .'
'Er . . .'
'But . . .'
'Good!' I said, clapping my hands together, 'I'm glad you're still with me!'
For the next few minutes I worked my way through the rest of the slides, talking as quickly as I could just in case Peter and Daisy suddenly decided that watching TV wasn't the best activity in the world. By the time I had finished, Dom and the Emmas were sitting there motionless. They must have been impressed.
'So, what do you think?' I asked.
'It's different,' said the Emmas, in unison again.
'That's the idea.'
Dom made a funny sort of frown.
'I'm still not clear on the tone of the programme,' he said. 'I mean, would we play this for laughs, or would it be deadly serious?'
'Deadly serious, I would have thought.'
'Hmmm.'
'I mean, these will be real children,' I said, 'real families we will be dealing with. We can't just take the piss.'
'Hmmm.'
Dom was being annoyingly non-committal with his 'hmmms'.
There was a knock on the door, and in walked a somewhat frazzled-looking middle-aged woman who had the air 'sensible person' sprayed all over her. She looked at me with an expression of dread on her face.
'Er, Sam?'
'Yes.'
'Your children, they're um, well, you'd better come and see.'
I raced out the door, trying to look calm. What had they done? Vandalised the office? Urinated against Dom's desk? Puked on the carpet? Scribbled on the walls?
The answer was all of the above. I noticed the puke first, then the graffiti, followed by the pee, before my eyes rested on a lamp that had fallen over 'all by itself Daddy' and smashed into the enormous billion-pound flatscreen.
I didn't know where to begin. I thought about scooping them up and running out the door, but that was clearly not an option. Behind me, the Emmas gasped and Dom let out a dry chuckle.
'You know what I think,' he said. 'We should definitely make a programme.'
I turned round.
'You're joking,' I said, looking into his eyes to gauge some sort of irony.
'No,' he replied sincerely. 'I think TV is ready for the Holden Children Programme.'
'Well, not your TV,' I said, my somewhat feeble witticism masking my discombobulation. Did he REALLY want to make Wonderhubby?
To tell the truth, on the journey home (predictably hellish) I grew even more confused. I couldn't work out whether Dom was taking the piss, and whether I was going to be one of those people who was abused by the TV, misrepresented, etc. But as soon as I think about the potential dosh (minus the cost of one expensive television) all those thoughts are dispelled.
Will discuss with Sally over the weekend. I think I know what she'll think.
Sunday 3 February
My suspicions were right. Sally thinks it's a crap idea. It was clear she didn't really want to talk about it, so I dropped the subject, which I thought was rather mature of me, or perhaps indicated that we've now been married long enough to know what's worth discussing, and what's not.
Monday 4 February
Email from Dom, outlining the structure of the show – pretty much as I had explained, so some of my presentation must have gone in. It appears that he is being genuine. I still can't quite believe his enthusiasm. However, he wrote that just because they'd bought into it, it didn't mean that the TV stations would. They pitched hundreds of ideas per year, and only a handful got made, so I wasn't to get my hopes up.
Still, I can't help but think of fame and fortune. I'm doing my best to mask my excitement from Sally, not least because she is having an even more crap time at work. Every time she gets home, she seems even more exhausted than she did the night before. This evening she looked terrible (not so terrible as to look unfanciable, but just really really tired).
As we ate supper, I asked her what the matter was. She gave that familiar I-can't-tell-you sigh.
'I know it's all Top Secret,' I said as I carved into our (perfectly cooked) lamb chops, 'but it seems as though you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.'
At that, Sally's shoulders literally fell, and she sighed again.
'Is everybody at work like you?' I asked.
'How do you mean?'
'You know – tired.'
'Pretty much. But more just us in Central Asia.'
'I know you don't want to tell me, but I can only assume that something nasty's brewing, and I'll also assume that it's terrorists with dirty bombs or nukes or something and that you're doing your best to stop it. And I know this sounds silly, but it really does seem to be getting you down, getting you down to the extent that you almost seem depressed.'
Sally shook her head as she put down her knife and fork. The lamb chop – again, I must stress, perfectly cooked – remained largely untouched.
'I don't think I'm depressed,' she argued. 'But it is very stressful. I obviously can't say whether you're right or not, but if we fuck things up, then a lot of people could get hurt in a very nasty way. And it's up to us and the Americans to stop it all happening. And part of the problem is that the Americans think we've fucked up, and we think they've fucked up, and so there's a lot of crap flying around between us, crap that's getting in the way of us doing our fucking jobs and stopping what it i
s we're trying to stop.'
I'd never heard Sally so uncouth. I rather liked it.
'And is your neck on the line if it all goes wrong?'
I briefly marvelled at my mixed metaphor.
'In a way, it doesn't matter about my neck,' she replied. 'Small beer compared to what would have happened if things had got to the stage where my neck was for the chop.'
'How much longer is this going to go on for?'
'I have no idea,' she said.
She got up, went to the fridge, and extracted a bottle of Chablis.
'How long is a piece of string, huh?' I asked.
'Exactly.'
She rummaged around the drawer for the corkscrew and then proceeded to cut the foil around the top of the bottle. I watched her, inwardly remarking that it was always me who opened wine, probably because I'm more of a dipso. Sally's lack of practice soon became evident.
'Here,' I said, 'let me do it.'
'I can bloody do it myself,' she snapped.
'OK, OK.'
She couldn't, because the cork broke in half as she half-wrenched, half-twisted it out the bottle.
'Fuck!'
'It doesn't matter,' I said, 'it's perfectly salvageable.'
She handed the bottle to me.
'You see,' she said, 'I'm shit at everything.'
'That's not true. You can't extrapolate any supposed inadequacies from the dodgy cork on a bottle of Chablis.'
'It's symbolic.'
'No it's not,' I insisted. 'You'll be believing in astrology next.'
'Perhaps I should,' she said, and then a smile crossed her face. In a few seconds, the evening newspaper had been extracted from her handbag and she was flicking through for the horoscopes.
'Here we go,' she said. 'Taurus. That's me. "Although you have been having some work troubles recently, the rise of Saturn in your constellation will mean they will soon come to an end. In the meantime, you must ensure that you keep a calm head, and show others that your strong will and determination can see you through bad times as well as good." '
Sally looked up, triumphantly.
'Wow,' I went. 'Pretty accurate for a load of dross.'
'I'll say. Perhaps there's something in it after all.'
I snorted.
'All right,' said Sally, 'let's read Leo then.'