Corporate Bodies (23 page)

A weariness filled him. What was the point, after all? Assuming what now seemed almost certain – that the Marketing Director had arranged the accident that killed Dayna Richman – what possible good would be served by bringing the man to justice for his crime?

All that that could achieve would be to deprive his dying wife of the comfort of a loving husband's presence during her last months.

And, weighing the moral claims of Patricia Coleboume against those of the late Dayna Richman . . . well, there wasn't much contest, really.

Charles felt low and depressed. He needed to talk to someone to reassure him. Frances? He glanced across towards the telephones. But no, it was term-time. Frances would still be at school, being responsible and headmistressly.

He caught the eye of Heather Routledge, who was still glued to the receiver. She raised her eyebrows in a despairing mime of the impossibility of getting off the phone.

‘Charles. We need your help.'

It was Brian Tressider, tall, vigorous, reassuring. No one seeing him could have suspected the tragic deficiency that had blighted his married life.

‘Yes? What can I do for you?'

‘Look, Ken Colebourne's wife's ill –'

‘I know. I heard from Brenda.'

‘Right. Well, he's got to stay with her for the moment. But the thing is . . .' The Managing Director consulted his watch. ‘Ken was about to do his marketing spiel for the sales force . . .'

‘Oh. Yes.'

‘You know how to use that autocue, don't you, Charles?'

The bulk of the presentation went fine. Charles hadn't been concentrating when Ken had rehearsed the day before, but he was enough of a professional to read a script unseen with a fair degree of competence.

And, though this time he was operating the slides himself, their cues were all clearly marked on the script that appeared magically on his invisible lectern. He held the control in his right hand and just clicked its button at the appropriate moment. He could see each new slide reflected in the glass of the control box at the back of the conference auditorium, and thereby check that he wasn't going out of sequence.

Of course, he didn't get much reaction, but then he hadn't expected much. Ken Colebourne's script didn't contain many jokes and, after the hilarity of the ‘Green' song-and-dance act, the sales force were saving their laughter for Nicky Rules' cabaret later on.

It was very near the end of the presentation, when Charles was beginning to feel confident – perhaps even a little careless – that things started to come unstuck.

‘And we still stand by the principles which made the company successful when it started,' he read from the autocue. ‘We take pride in those principles. Everyone who works for Delmoleen knows that all our products are made by the most modern manufacturing methods . . .'

Nonchalantly, Charles pressed the control in his hand. It didn't seem to click. Hastily he pressed it again, and was surprised by a huge laugh from the audience.

He tried covertly to turn round. On the screen he could see the slide of the children in front of their rusty Caribbean hut and broken-down tractor. It didn't give the impression of ‘the most modern manufacturing methods'. He had managed to get himself one slide out of synch.

Oh God, no. He could feel sweat trickling down his back as he pressed on through the script, desperately trying to regain control.

‘They know the same high quality Delmoleen goods are sold all over the world . . . They know what the public think of Delmoleen.'

In the panic, his thumb slipped on the button. It clicked again. Reflected in the glass of the control box, he could see the screen with its screaming newspaper headline: “‘THEY'RE RUBBISH! I'LL NEVER TOUCH ANYTHING THEY MANUFACTURE AGAIN!” SAYS BOTULISM BOY'S HEARTBREAK MOTHER.'

Once again the audience roared. They thought the ‘Green' presentation was all they were going to get in the way of laughs that afternoon. This was a bonus.

Sweat prickled at Charles's temples. ‘They know,' he floundered doggedly on, ‘that the public trust the guarantee of hygiene that only comes from Delmoleen – and not from other companies I could mention. And they know that Delmoleen goods are sold at a price that's more than competitive. So they begin to understand what being a part of the Delmoleen family is really worth.'

Again his finger slipped on the control. The slide of bedtime drinks appeared, but all the cartons seemed to recede into background behind the huge sign reading ‘98p'. The audience's hilarity grew.

Head down and run for the line, thought Charles. Just get through it as quickly as possible.

‘And, in these environmentally-conscious times,' he gabbled, ‘they know that Delmoleen products are only made from the freshest of organically-grown natural ingredients. Yes, Delmoleen cares. Delmoleen is like a family. And I want to show you what sort of people are part of the Delmoleen family.'

Surely that was the final cue, wasn't it? He gave a despairing click on the control.

The screen behind him filled with a picture of vegetables.

The massed salesmen roared in uncontrollable hysteria.

Nicky Rules' cabaret was going to have to be bloody good to be funnier than this lot.

OF COURSE Brian Tressider brought them round. He was a natural communicator, and he even managed to give the impression that the farce of Charles Paris's presentation had been in some way deliberate. He charmed the sales force into a circle of complicity. He motivated them. He made them feel excited – and even privileged – to work for Delmoleen. It was a great performance.

At the end he presented Daryl Fletcher with his Fiesta, which stood in gleaming splendour on a podium at the back of the stage. The Top Salesman, grinning hugely, made some derisively disparaging remarks about his rivals, before taking the keys and posing for cameras in the driving seat of his prize, with his Managing Director standing paternally beside him.

Daryl looked triumphant, but a little weary. Maybe his participation in his wife's plans for the day had taken it out of him.

And from the pride with which he surveyed his Fiesta, no one would have guessed he intended to trade it in as soon as possible and spend the money on more cosmetic surgery for his precious Cortina.

Charles had not expected to encounter Ken Colebourne again that evening, and was surprised to see the Marketing Director hurrying through the crowded bar towards him just before the banquet started. Ken was neatly dressed in dinner suit and black tie. That was the rule for the Top Table, though the assembled salesmen were expected to wear what invitations, for some reason, always call ‘lounge suits'.

‘How's Patricia?' asked Charles.

‘Better, thank you. She's even insisting on coming to the banquet.'

‘That's good news, isn't it?'

Ken Colebourne looked uncertain. ‘I hope so. She says she feels fine, but it's always difficult to know with her. She might just be doing it out of loyalty. Anyway, she's not going to sit on the Top Table. She'll be on a side one near the door, so if she does have to leave, she can do so with the minimum of fuss.'

‘Oh. Right.'

The Marketing Director hesitated. ‘About what we were discussing earlier . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘You got to keep quiet about it.'

‘I will. I said I would.'

Charles suddenly felt the voluminous lapels of his jacket seized as Ken Colebourne's face was thrust close to his. He could smell the staleness of whisky on the man's breath. ‘You'd better!' the voice hissed. ‘If I find out you've breathed a word about it to anyone, I'll bloody well kill you!'

Charles Paris realised, with a little shiver, that such a threat, from someone who'd done what Ken Colebourne had done, had to be taken seriously.

The banquet was more fun than he'd anticipated. The food was the predictable cardboard, but there was plenty of wine and the company was good. Charles sat with Will Parton, the Fletchers and a group of other rowdy salesmen and wives.

Since they had now discharged their obligations to the conference, the
Parton Parcel
team felt justified in getting quite drunk. Their contribution had been a success . . . well, probably a success. True, there was a slight question mark over the
‘Green, “Green” – Del – mo – leen'
routine, but . . . No, it had been good, really good . . .

The more drinks they had, the more good they convinced themselves it had been, and they started to spin lucrative fantasies of all the new assignments
Parton Parcel
would take on, as the company rapidly cornered the market in corporate work.

Daryl and Shelley Fletcher also gave good value. He was flushed with success and alcohol, and she was flushed with something, too. Mercifully, Daryl was kept off the subject of custom cars as he engaged with his colleagues in a ribald exchange of jokes, to which Shelley contributed with many a throaty chuckle. She was a fine example for the success of the Equal Opportunity campaign, demonstrating a mind at least as filthy as any of the men's.

The atmosphere of the evening had about it a blokeishness of the kind Charles usually despised, but, well . . . once in a while it didn't hurt . . .

He looked round the crowded banqueting hall. At one of the side tables he could see Heather Routledge sitting beside Alan Hibbert. Neither seemed to be enjoying their perk of being invited to the sales conference that much. They exchanged the odd word, but maybe they had exhausted all their mutual topics of conversation, working day by day in the warehouse at Stenley Curton.

At another side table, Charles could see Patricia Colebourne. She had been sat with a suitably mature group of salesmen and wives, but conversation didn't seem to be flowing there either. Nor was she eating, just pushing the food round her plate with a fork.

She looked ghastly. Now almost transparently thin, her skin had an unearthly sheen and her body swayed slightly as if she might faint again at any moment.

Only the dogged set of her mouth showed the strength of will that was holding her together. She was determined to support her man. However ill she felt, she would not allow anything to keep her away from Ken's big night.

Charles glanced up at her husband on the raised Top Table. He looked stressed and sweaty, as he tried to concentrate on what the satin-tuxedoed smoothie beside him was saying.

This character Charles recognised to be Nicky Rules. Though the game-show that had made this minor comedian into a national figure was not the kind of programme Charles watched, the man's profile was now so high that it was impossible not to recognise him. The sharp nose and beady eyes were a regular fixture on hoardings and magazine covers all over the country.

Nicky Rules was
big
. It was quite a feather in Ken Colebourne's cap to have booked him for the conference – however much Delmoleen had had to pay for the privilege. And, having heard the scale of money that even minor celebrities commanded for corporate appearances, Charles knew that Nicky Rules' fee would have been astronomical – certainly more for that one night than most of the salesmen present earned in a year.

Still, he was the right name to get. Daryl and Shelley Fletcher were very impressed. They loved his show. ‘He's so rude, Chowss,' Shelley kept saying gleefully, ‘so bloody rude to everyone. I wonder who he's going to get his knife into tonight . . .?'

Nicky Rules had certainly done his homework.

He prided himself on tailoring his material to his audience. It wasn't that he came up with new jokes. By no means. Most of his jokes that night were of pensionable age, but each had been very carefully adapted to the Delmoleen set-up.

He started predictably enough. ‘I was just talking to Brian, your Managing Director, about this conference. I asked him how many salesmen worked for Delmoleen. He said, “About half of them.”'

The insulted salesmen roared their appreciation, confirming the old truth that audiences like jokes they recognise.

‘Not of course that Brian himself has a problem about working. Never does anything else, does he? You know, he puts in such long hours in the office that on the rare occasions when he does get home, Brenda doesn't recognise him. Last time he walked into his house – and we're talking only six months ago – she called the police, said she got a prowler.'

This wasn't particularly funny, but it got the laughs. There was a kind of sycophantic recognition that the famous comedian had taken the trouble to find out about Delmoleen.

Nicky Rules knew how far he could go. Jokes about Brian Tressider being a workaholic were fine – in fact quite flattering. They bolstered his image, at the same time showing how sportingly he could take a joke against himself. But the comedian didn't risk any lines of a more personal nature against the Managing Director, certainly nothing that might hold him up to ridicule.

With other members of the management he was less charitable. He seemed to know who the safe butts were.

He homed in on the ethnic origins of the Product Manager for Beverages. ‘Paul Taggart's not really mean, you know. Mind you, couple of years back, he won a fortnight's holiday for two in the Seychelles. Left his wife at home and went by himself – twice!'

The Product Manager for Biscuits and Cereals did not escape unscathed either. ‘Of course, Robin Pritchard went to business school, didn't he? Doesn't actually make him any more efficient, but at least he understands
why
he's inefficient!'

The butt of the joke smiled indulgently at this joshing.

‘Did you know that he came to Delmoleen from an electrical goods company? Very high up the management he was there – used to go round selling vacuum cleaners!'

Robin Pritchard looked less amused by this.

‘Went round to one lady's house, threw some dirt on the floor, said, “I have so much faith in my product that, if it doesn't clean up every speck of that dirt, I'll eat it off the carpet myself.” Woman says, “Here's a spoon. We haven't got any electricity!”'