And what if she said no?
Not only that, I still had a bucket load of cheap vodka sloshing around dangerously in my system. It was more sensible to wait a while. Get something into my empty stomach. Sharpen my act up a bit.
The reasons for not calling were pouring out of me. In the end I convinced myself to play for time.
On the corner of Peter Street was a well-tended sandwich bar and, as I read through the menu, dreams of deep filled BLTs and strong cups of tea filled my mind and deepened my appetite. I was about to head inside when two men waddled out and stopped on the edge of the pavement behind me.
‘…our guy knows someone in the cabinet and apparently the PM is crapping himself,’ the plumper of the two said.
‘Really? Why this time?’
‘Keep this under your hat, but my man says that MI5 has written proof the PM was warned about this operation over six months ago, and that he deliberately stalled on it. Played it down, apparently. Accused the intelligence of being iffy. You know, all the usual claptrap.’
‘And why would he do that?’
‘You tell me, old chap. Why would he? Some people are saying he was told to ignore it.’
‘Told to? By whom?’
‘By good old Uncle Sam, who else? Oh, here we go, look lively.’
The stream of taxis and couriers broke for a second and the two men toddled across the road. Their conversation sounded too good to miss and so I dropped in behind them. The white crusts and bacon rind would have to wait. A cigarette would stave off my stomach’s nip.
‘Let me get this right,’ the companion said once we were on the other side of the street. ‘Your contact is saying that the Americans insisted we allow a terrorist attack to occur on British soil? That’s totally preposterous. Why would the government possibly do that?’
‘Think about it, you can’t conduct a war unless there’s an enemy. The President needs to have an attack every so often in order to justify keeping troops in the Middle East. He needs to retain control of that oil somehow.’
‘Oh how wonderful,’ his companion wheezed.
‘Isn’t it?
‘So are they any closer to actually finding the bugger that did it yet?’
The other shook his head. ‘Apparently not, and that’s what’s causing all the commotion. The PM’s putting pressure on MI5 for a scapegoat. He needs a public execution, someone the great unwashed can spit at in the street. It’s his only real chance of diverting the attention away from himself.’
‘But surely the public won’t fall for that?’
‘Won’t they? I think you’re giving them more credit than they deserve. The British public is just as ignorant as every other developed nation. It’ll swallow anything that’s put in front of it, especially if it comes in a nice, bright, official wrapper.’
‘Well, what about the independent government enquiry?’
The other man laughed. ‘There’s an oxymoron if ever I heard one. If the PM gets backed into a corner and is forced to resign, the likelihood is that there will never be an enquiry. The blood lust will be satisfied and this whole mess will get swept under the carpet.’
‘And what if he doesn’t resign?’
‘In that situation the government usually gets some judge who’s waiting for a peerage to fudge a report together. That buys them eighteen months – by which time the public have forgotten about the whole matter and most of the cabinet are in different jobs. But that won’t happen this time. The PM is far too exposed and with MI5 about to–’
‘Hold on, we’re here,’ the companion said, suddenly stopping outside a stylish lounge bar. I was listening to their conversation so intently I almost ploughed into the back of them.
When I drew back I saw they were looking up at a perfectly groomed woman holding a clipboard. With her long blonde hair, thin hips and tailored suit, I imagined that was how air stewardesses used to look – back when the cost of flying kept the average tosser on terra firma.
‘Hi, there,’ she said, her celery clippers beaming.
‘Hi, we’re here for the press conference. I’m Tony Brewster from The Dynamic Manager,’ the plump man said proudly.
‘And I’m Phil Hammonds of Business Now.’ The girl looked down at her list and drew a couple of exaggerated ticks.
‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ she said, her smile never wavering. ‘White and Hurst welcome you to The Lounge. Do have a good afternoon.’
The two of them stepped up and disappeared into the bar, leaving me gazing up into her cloudless sky blues.
‘And you are?’
‘Er, yeah, my name’s Felix Shill.’ I could feel the skin of my lips straining from the smile.
‘And you’re from?’
Good question.
‘Ah, over there at… erm… Postmodern Leadership for the 22nd Century.’
I heard stifled laughter from a group of people now queued up behind me. Fortunately my stewardess was too concerned with her list to notice.
‘If I’m on there, then it’ll most likely be at the bottom,’ I said, pointing to her clipboard. ‘You see it’s Tony – that old bugger Tone – he called my office about thirty minutes ago, asked me to drop everything in Islington and get my proverbial over here pronto. Said this event was critical to the next edition. Main story, no less.’
‘Really?’ my stewardess said, sounding remarkably impressed. ‘The main story, that’s excellent. Well, I suppose you’d better go in then, Mr. Shill. White and Hurst welcome you to The Lounge.’
I thanked her and brushed past, making sure I sucked in a good lungful of her floral perfume.
Tucked away inside I found the type of bar I usually avoid: a sanctuary of chic infused with self-importance. With its mottled thrush egg walls, charcoal floors, and cubic leather tables, the Lounge is a place where style didn’t just take precedent over substance, it gang raped it while snorting amyl nitrate. One glance over the coiffured crowd was enough to tell me that the overt pretension was exactly what drew its most faithful devotees.
I made my way across the room and perched against the chrome bar, doing my best to look anonymous whilst at the same time feeling quite smug at having blagged my way in. The Champagne on offer was particularly good, and after dousing myself for half an hour I was quite looking forward to drowning one or two more. But then Anton Pressman honed into view. Bastard spoiled everything.
If I were to guess then I would say that we were the same age. However, his well-tamed bush and russet skin made him look much healthier. Much more competent.
The fitted suit, salmon shirt, silk tie with matching gold pin and cufflinks; every part of him had been meticulously chosen to convey superiority. Control. Anton Pressman was the personification of privilege. He was also everything I despised about business rolled into one shiny slick sack of shit.
Watching him, my jaw clenched so tight I worried I might split my teeth down the middle. I wanted to stove his fucking head in.
You probably think my reaction was a bit extreme, right? After all, I’d only just seen the guy. We’d not even spoken. So how could I possibly feel such an adverse reaction? Let me explain something to you.
Do you know how to tell if you hate someone? I mean really hate someone? Detest another person’s existence so much that you can feel it, like a warm ache of a pain anchored in the gut of your stomach? Do you know how to tell if you hate someone that much?
It’s quite simple, really. You watch them eat.
That’s it. That’s all there is to it. That’s the acid test. You only have to watch them eating.
Know why?
Well, you see, when you object to another living organism on such a base level, there is something about watching it sustain itself that your body can’t help objecting to physically. It’s a primordial reaction. A dormant instinct left over from our predatory past. In the wild, if an animal doesn’t eat, it grows weak. Let it starve long enough and eventually a predator will pick it off. That’s why, when you gen
uinely loathe another’s existence, you can’t stand to see them take any kind of nourishment.
And how do I know this to be true?
Because that’s how I felt when I first saw Pressman.
He was standing among a chattering crowd of gray and black suits, thrusting opinions onto a group of similarly horn-rimmed pinstripes. With his top lip seemingly pinned to his nose, his gums were permanently on show, and he kept his mouth open when he spoke, allowing the whole room to see the prawn and avocado crepe smacking around inside. To make the spectacle even more disgusting, whenever he made what he felt was a particularly pertinent point, Pressman would wave an impassioned finger and shoot specs of food out at the people standing nearby.
It was sickening to witness. However, Pressman saw no need to temper his manners because he was blissfully unaware of the barrage. Unaware because his eyes were closed in pious self-worship, as though he were reading this, his latest lecture, from inside his eyelids.
I had no idea what he was talking about. I hadn’t even heard the guy’s voice, yet I wanted to flatten his skull so badly I couldn’t swallow.
In hindsight I should’ve ignored him. Walked away. But the fact that so many others were prepared to tolerate such behaviour made me curious about the nature of their discussion. So, with my fists rolled tightly in my pockets, I wandered closer until I was perched on the edge of Pressman’s little clique, just outside of his range of fire.
As it turned out I was in for a disappointment. He was spouting nothing more than the usual self-aggrandizing management rhetoric to a bunch of sycophantic consultants, and apart from a particularly transparent pitch for business from one member of the group, they dutifully listened.
It was the kind of ‘master and servant/bitch and butch’ situation I’ve been forced to suffer far too many times in the past, but since Pressman’s wasn’t paying for my subservience (and I could no longer trust myself to remain calm while I was near him), I decided to leave.
I turned back towards the bar. As I did so something drew my attention. A nearby section of the crowd parted to allow a young kid through. He was balancing a plate that was unfashionably overloaded with appetizers in one hand and three half empty, dripping flutes in the other.
‘Erm, I’ve got your lunch here, Mr. Pressman, sir,’ he said, barging his way into the circle. If he had been referring to the drinks then I might’ve been impressed.
At first Pressman seemed shocked that someone would dare to interrupt him. Once he realized the source of the disturbance, his manner altered.
‘Well, what would you like me to do about it?’ he barked. ‘Set it on that table over there,’
The youngster nodded obediently, allowing Pressman to return to his sermon. But when the boy returned to his side, he found it impossible to continue.
‘I say,’ he said, looking down at his fidgety shadow, ‘why don’t you go and… oh, I don’t know… why don’t you go and network with the other trainees or something?’
‘I would, but there aren’t any,’ the kid replied feebly.
‘Well, then I propose that you toddle off elsewhere. You can see that I’m busy here.’ Pressman tilted his head back and waved a hand with all the pomposity of a colonialist.
The kid slunk off, but like a pining dog he managed only a few yards before he stopped and looked anxiously back.
‘New apprentice, Mr. Pressman?’ one of the chinless wonders asked.
‘Yes, unfortunately. I was given him by HR as part of some public relations initiative that they’re running with a local Polytechnic. He’s an utter bloody horror, not even an MBA. Don’t you worry though, it’s only temporary. I’ll send him back next week.’ Pressman sneered proudly, pleased that the kid was still within earshot.
‘Would you believe,’ he continued, ‘that he had the nerve to come to me with a strategic proposal the other day. Can you even comprehend it? He’s only been with us for five minutes and he thinks he can come to me with ideas! Little oik has ideas above his station.’
‘Was his proposal any good?’ someone asked.
Pressman twitched, giving the impression he was literally ducking the question.
‘I told him to reappraise it and to make sure that it incorporated the required level of granularity.’ He let out a snort. ‘And do you know what he had the gall to say to me then?’
His disciples shook their head in unison.
‘He asked me what I meant! Can you believe that? He didn’t even know what granularity was!’ Pressman opened his mouth and guffawed, sharing the crepe caked roof of his mouth with us once more. Following his example everyone inside the circle burst into laughter. The youngster bowed his head in shame.
I nudged into the circle and waited calmly for the laughter to die down. Then, just as Pressman was about to speak again, I made my move.
‘Those management buzzwords really are a complete load of fucking bollocks though, aren’t they?’ I said.
My use of language was deliberate. It was totally out of place in their conversation and brought the laughter to an abrupt halt.
Clearly annoyed that the energy had been taken out of his audience, Pressman turned in my direction and tilted his head so he could view me along the length of his considerable nose.
‘Pardon me?’ he said.
‘Oh, I think you heard, Monkey Boy.’
Pressman twitched again. ‘Buzzwords? What buzzwords are you referring to, by chance?’
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. Granularity? Come on, mate, do me a favour. It’s hardly surprising the poor lad’s confused. He doesn’t know whether he’s working in a business or a fucking bakery.’
Pressman stiffened when one of his entourage began to laugh. I shot out another jab.
‘Here’s an idea. Next time, rather than being a sanctimonious twat, why not simply ask the lad to provide you with more detail? Or would that not make you sound important enough?’
More stifled laughter. Pressman glanced at his companions and then at me. He was losing face.
‘And you are?’ he said, the patronising smirk slowly returning to his face.
‘That’s for you to find out, mate. After all, you’re the one throwing the party.’
‘Yes, well, when I require your advice on best practice, rest assured, I’ll seek it out. Until then, kindly keep any views that you might have to yours–’
‘Listen, son,’ I said, nodding at the youngster, ‘let me give you some free advice. Do yourself a big one and get away from this phony. He’s obviously got no idea how to accomplish anything in an honest business, otherwise he wouldn’t be trying to hide behind the flowery bullshit.’
One of the more loyal pinstripes took exception to this.
‘Oh?’ she said, glancing at Pressman for approval, ‘and how does modern business really work? Please, regale and enlighten us – in the vernacular of a layman, naturally.’
Her suggestion was popular. I nodded and grabbed another flute from a passing waitress. Once my gills were wet, I replied.
‘Well, let me start by saying that I’m impressed you’ve asked. It takes a lot of bravery to admit your weaknesses, so well done. You’ve all just taken the first step to becoming better managers.’
I could see from their stony expressions that my sarcasm was having the desired effect.
‘Let me start by saying that in business today there’s a real difference between surviving and thriving. In order to merely survive, employees need to reconcile themselves with the fact that the work they do today will mean absolutely nothing in twelve months’ time. Absolutely nothing. Most jobs are a meaningless façade, borne out of routine, and produce work that is either ignored, never seen, or a plain waste of time. Sadly most people only realise this when they’ve lost the will to effect any change in their lives, and by then they just want to make sure that there’s enough money in their pension fund to cover the bill for incontinency pads.’
Someone guffawed. Pressman yawned loudly. I
continued.
‘However, in order to actually thrive in modern business you need to be prepared to put all that to one side and make a few sacrifices. To start with, you should be prepared to lose touch with your family. You will no longer have time for them, and the sooner your wife and kids become strangers the better it is for your career. Speaking of ruined childhoods, you can forget all about those friends that you grew up with too, because you won’t have the energy for socialising anymore. And while you’re at it, have a word with your local doctor about removing your conscience as well. Better to get that out of the way as early as possible. You won’t have the strength to wrestle with it when you’re older.’
‘Oh, please,’ someone exclaimed.
‘I know all this might sound like a tall order,’ I said, flapping down the protest. ‘But don’t worry, I’ve found a really easy way to help carry it out. What you do is remove all of the mirrors and reflective surfaces from your everyday life. That way you avoid ever having to look yourself in the eye.’ I gave them my most syrupy smile.
‘But I’m preaching to the converted here really, aren’t I? Just one look at your dress sense and I can see that you’ve done that already.’
There was a long, silent, collective intake of breath. No one looked at me.
‘Well, I must say,’ Pressman said eventually, ‘that was a particularly edifying insight. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.’
The rest of the group welcomed the opportunity to express their discomfort, joining in the laughter a little too passionately.
‘Yes,’ said another, ‘a totally new paradigm in business thinking. Maybe you should try and get it published.’
I drained my glass.
‘You know, that’s not such a bad idea. In my experience, by applying those techniques, a person with very little actual ability can go all the way to the top. And even if they don’t quite make it, it seems to be the perfect grounding for a successful career in management consultancy.’
The jeering abruptly ceased. Several of the group exchanged glances.
‘And what’s wrong with a career in consulting?’ a rather butch looking brunette asked. Her thick eyebrows almost covered her eyes. ‘The readership of my journal is almost entirely made up of management consultants.’
Felix Shill Deserves to Die Page 9