We All Fall Down (10 page)

Taken aback by this unexpected interest in his personal life, Hugh was slow to respond. ‘She's well, thank you. Busy with our son.' He found it hard to know what to say.

‘She's one of us, isn't she? Not a Pom, I mean.' This was said as if he'd just discovered Hugh, being an Englishman married to an Australian, was possibly not quite as bad as he suspected.

‘You have a good memory.'

Russell shrugged as if to say it was no big deal, but Hugh could see that he thought it was. He was never at ease when Russell was chatty, when he acted out what he considered to be friendliness or, more likely, mateship. It was a camouflage. Behind that façade, the smile, the jokes, the slap on the back and the banter, lay the brutal, exploitative reality that was only hidden because it suited the managing director to keep it out of sight. He was the modern management man.

At that moment Lynne knocked on the door. She entered without waiting for a reply. ‘Jack's on the phone. Says he has to talk to you urgently.' She didn't look at Hugh, and behaved as if he wasn't even in the room. He never felt comfortable in her presence, never quite trusting her, always wondering what power she might still wield having once lain beneath the thrusting hips of the trouserless managing director.

‘Put him through.' Russell picked up the phone without any hint of an apology. Hugh remained sitting on the sofa trying to work out if their talk, their meeting, though he still had no clear idea what it was about, had now finished. After a few minutes, with the phone conversation seemingly not heading for an immediate conclusion, he moved forward to the edge of the couch. A moment later, he rose tentatively to his feet. Russell spotted the movement out of the corner of his eyes and, pointing at him with one hand and flicking his index finger downwards, twice, indicated that he should stay where he was. He could have been training a dog.
Stay!
Hugh sank back into his seat. He thought of the week ahead, of all the work he had to do. He wanted to clear his desk before the Easter break. He didn't have time to sit around Russell's office all morning.

At that moment Murray Wheeler entered the room. He was a rundown bear of a man. His clothes appeared to have been pulled out of the laundry basket and thrown on as he rushed down the street. If Hugh didn't know the man never touched alcohol now, he'd have suspected that he was suffering from a hangover. He sank into the sofa opposite Hugh as if it was the end of a long week, not the beginning of a fresh one. ‘Good weekend?' he growled.

‘Thanks, Murray. And you?'

Hugh liked Murray, despite the fact he didn't rate him as a group account director. There was a laconic, cynical air about the man that was appealing. He had the business in perspective, and was obviously not taken in by all the razzle-dazzle. Unlike Russell, Murray didn't believe his own publicity. Hugh also suspected that, although fond of Russell, Murray saw him quite objectively: he wasn't taken in by the self-aggrandisement.

While making a conscious effort not to look at the black matted, vividly white stomach flaunting itself between the struggling buttons of Murray's shirt, Hugh was concerned that Russell would say something about Murray not being at the meeting on Friday afternoon. But when the telephone conversation ended, it was obvious Russell had lost interest in both the meeting on Friday afternoon and Hugh's wife because he launched straight in with, ‘We know why we're here.'

Hugh didn't, but he chose to say nothing. Murray, on the other hand, allowed the smallest movement at the corners of his mouth to show that he did know. Only then did Hugh appreciate that he and Russell had been filling in time waiting for Murray to arrive, that there was a reason for his being summoned to the managing director's office before 9am. And it wasn't to be fired after all.

Russell was playing with his new iPhone. Without looking up, he said, ‘Our new creative director – you've met him, Murray – starts next week. And he's declared his lack of love for the new Bauer campaign. In fact he's described it as a crock of shit.' He closed his eyes as if overwhelmed by the new creative director's insight. ‘The long and the short of it is, he refuses to let it leave the agency with his name on it.'

Neither Murray nor Hugh said anything. From long experience, both men knew silence was always the safer option when dealing with Russell, certainly until one could ascertain where he stood on the issue at hand. Also, this was the first Hugh had heard about Fiona's replacement. She'd been right: Russell obviously did have someone lined up and ready to take over her position.

‘We've paid a lot of money to persuade Mr. Hogg to join us. He's a name creative director from a hot UK agency, and his number one priority is to raise our creative profile – whatever that means. That's what we're paying him for: to turn our crocks of shit into gold pencils – or wanky statuettes or whatever it is they hand out to creatives nowadays. Which means it's in our interests to give him free rein to come up with a new campaign, a better one. And, let's face it, that shouldn't – But let's not go there.'

At that point he leapt up from his chair, then promptly sat down again. Hugh was always of the opinion that he liked to perform such disconnected, inconsequential actions in order to show those who were with him just how youthful and spontaneous he was. But it could also possibly have been to illustrate some bizarre fantasy only he could ever fathom. Lynne brought in a tray of coffee, and left. They were expected to pour their own. Being the most junior person present, this task fell to Hugh.

‘The problem, as I see it, is that the client has already bought the previous campaign, done by Miss Bricknell, and loves it. Am I right?'

‘Not sure that he exactly loves it,' growled Murray, ‘but he bought it.'

The truth was that Murray would have little if any idea what the client thought of the campaign, the work having been created, presented and sold by Fiona and Hugh. Hugh treated the account as his own fiefdom, not for selfish reasons, but so that his two bosses wouldn't mess things up. However, the group account director liked to maintain the illusion that he knew what was going on. It was, after all, one of the many accounts he was nominally in charge of.

Russell, in the process of raising his coffee cup – which he held by its base rather than the handle, as if afraid of being thought effeminate – paused in mid-air. He looked at his two employees, not as if he believed they might have something worthwhile to say, but as if he was considering eating them and his only problem was to decide which one to devour first. This perception was reinforced by the fact he was continually moistening his lips with his tongue, perhaps with the expectation that he would find the meal especially tasty. ‘It's important, Murray. Does he love it or not?'

Murray Wheeler still sprawled at the end of the sofa like a boxer whose trainer has just thrown in the towel. His limbs were loose, his eyes half-closed, and his shoulders were at the same height as his head. He raised his half-closed, bloodshot eyes to the ceiling as if his mind was intent on ascending to a higher plane, and furrowed his forehead as if he was deep in thought. And he did all of this in silence, a silence that seemed interminable. Hugh'd seen this performance so many times before, he was no longer impressed. It simply meant Murray enjoyed having an audience and, like any good actor, appreciated the importance of the Pinteresque pause, of keeping his audience in suspense. The seconds ticked by …

Hugh, bored of waiting, said, ‘It strikes me as somewhat unprofessional to go back to Bauer with a new campaign, if I understand you right, Russell, if that's what you're suggesting.'

The managing director, wholly intent on studying Murray, waiting for him to descend back to earth and divulge his thoughts, was taken by surprise by Hugh's interruption. He turned to him, ‘Why?'

‘We presented Dieter with a campaign, and he's happy with it. So why are we suddenly changing our minds?'

Murray, scrambling back down from his lofty mental zone, said, ‘We're not changing our minds, Hugh. We're considering – possibly – giving Dieter another option. That's all. It strikes me, on the contrary, as being very professional.'

‘I reckon it'll look as if we don't know what we think. Worse, it could look as if we're treating the client like he's an idiot.'

Hugh hesitated to say, feeling it might almost be embarrassing to point out such a seismic shift, that he and Russell were probably in the process of lining up on opposing sides, and behind the advertising philosophies they didn't normally support. Although Russell was a follower of the non-creative, hard sell school of advertising, frequently making comments like, ‘Clients don't like clever-clever ideas' and, ‘the most creative thing those in the creative department ever do is fill in their expense forms,' it seems he'd suddenly hired a creative director from a top UK agency, who was therefore likely to be a follower of witty headlines, tongue-in-cheek commercials and advertising that takes the mickey out of the product or company it's promoting. Hugh guessed his managing director was now jumping on an imaginary bandwagon, possibly wanting to look good in front of his mates at barbecues (‘Oh Russell, so you did that advertising campaign! I just love those commercials!'), or possibly because he was tired of being considered a Philistine, the Babbitt of the advertising world, a charge frequently laid at his doorstep by critical media. Hugh, on the other hand, although a regular supporter of work that was creative, witty or clever, was not supporting it on this occasion. He was a pragmatist, as well as a good businessman. He knew his client and knew how far Dieter could be pushed. The Bauer client had agreed to Fiona's campaign, and for him, creatively, it had been a big step. He was unlikely to be ready to take another big step straight away, without a pause to catch his breath.

Murray was speaking: ‘It's not in Dieter's nature to wax lyrical about any campaign that's put before him. He's a fencesitter, Russ. He can be persuaded one way or the other.'

Hugh was annoyed with Murray, but realised it wouldn't be sensible to argue with him right now, in front of the managing director. He had to be careful. Murray had scarcely been involved in the last campaign, the one he was now busy ditching so as to stay onside with Russell, and Hugh knew he would avoid getting involved in any new campaign if that was what Russell decided was required. Not only was he lazy, but he'd wait and see how it went down with the client before deciding if he would jump on board and claim it as his own.

‘I'm against throwing out a campaign that's just been approved. It strikes me as crazy. It's asking for trouble. And I'm sorry, but I also disagree with you, Murray, when you say that Dieter doesn't love Fiona's campaign. I believe he does. He feels good about it. He also feels brave buying it.'

‘By his standards, he is,' growled Murray.

‘And that's exactly my point. We can only push him so far. Clients come to Alpha because they want a certain style of advertising: big product shots, prominent logos, possibly even a shot of the chairman or the factory. Dieter's no different.'

‘Becoming a little cynical in our old age, aren't we?'

‘That's the kind of advertising we believe in as an agency, surely, Russell? And that's the kind of advertising we produce. It's why we have the Bauer account, aren't I right? If Dieter wanted creative, trend-setting advertising, he'd give his account to some hot shop or other. I suggest the new creative director gets to know our client before pitching in with new work. Why not wait until next year to produce his own campaign for Bauer?'

Russell nodded, as if giving Hugh's argument some thought. He turned to Murray. ‘What do you reckon?'

‘I hear everything Hugh's saying, but I still agree with you.'

‘And what am I saying?'

‘I understand you to be saying that we have to move forward, that we should give Simon a go. See what he comes up with.'

‘I can't see that we have too much to lose.'

The three men lapsed into silence. Murray stirred sugar into his second cup of coffee. Hugh watched, almost mesmerised as Russell tapped his Mont Blanc pen on the coffee table, first one end, then the other, without pause. Finally, he spoke.

‘We need to push the envelope on this one, that's my feeling. Here's what we'll do. I want you to tell Dieter that the agency wants to see if it can produce an even better campaign for him. Don't damn the existing campaign, which we might still end up running. Emphasise that this extra work won't cost him a cent, even though it will –' Raising his eyes as if stating the obvious, before continuing, ‘And that we're only doing it because we want to make sure we've got it absolutely one hundred per cent right, and because we're out-and-out professionals. You know the kind of stuff.'

He stood up, but didn't move away from behind his desk. ‘In the meantime, I'll speak to Simon. We'll give him two weeks to come up with a new campaign, something he doesn't think is a crock of shit. We'll present the new campaign to the client, and Dieter will be free to make his choice. That should keep both parties happy.'

Hugh didn't believe this was the right way to run one of the agency's most prestigious pieces of business, certainly one of its oldest, but felt he'd done his best.

As they walked down the corridor together, Hugh made what he suspected would be a futile attempt to persuade Murray to talk to Dieter. But true to form, his boss pleaded pressure of work and told Hugh he had to go and see the German marketing director and sell him on the idea of a new campaign. It was likely Murray could see the landmines ahead and had no particular desire to put himself on the same path.

‘I think it would be better coming from you, Murray. He'll take the suggestion more seriously.'

‘Too much on my plate right now, Hugh.'