To Catch a Creeper (14 page)

‘Declan?’ I quiver nervously. ‘Declan?’

No reply. Suddenly the key’s pushed through and falls with a clang to the floor.

The door unlocks and slowly creaks open.

‘Aaah!’ I scream a piercing scream.

‘Aaaah!’ Rosa screams an even longer piercing scream back and turns to look behind her. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

‘What’s the matter?’ My heart’s thumping like Peter Rabbit confronted by Mr McGregor, with Mr Tod the fox in tow. ‘You’ve just sneaked up on me. That’s the sodding matter.’

‘I didn’t sneak up on you. I just thought I’d surprise you.’ She looks ever so slightly hurt. ‘I thought I’d be a
nice
surprise. A
good
surprise. Where’s everybody else?’

‘I’ve sent them out. I’ve stuff to do.’

‘What stuff?’

I quickly flick my screen from the RNW file to Josh’s gingerbread list.

‘Just cooking stuff.’

‘Cooking stuff, yeah.’ She glances at the monitor.

Skittles

Writing gel

Pink icing

Fizzy strawberry laces

Marshmallows

Jelly snakes

Jelly babies

Gingerbread house

‘Sounds yummy. So,’ she grabs a chair and sits down next to me, ‘how’s work going?’

‘Cup of tea, biscuit?’

‘I can wait.’

‘Wine, sherry?’

‘I’m not drinking.’

‘Anyway how are you? You look well. Is baby well?’

‘I take it everything’s not going great.’

‘Hey let’s not talk about
me
, Rosa. Let’s talk about
you
. Placenta behaving itself?’

‘Cathy,’ she places her hand over my mouth, ‘you’re going ostrich again, aren’t you?’

‘Going ostrich? What do you mean?’ I mumble behind her hand as my head starts to droop.

She takes her hand away.

‘Sure you don’t want a cuppa?’ I add meekly.

‘Yes I do want a cuppa, Cathy, but I won’t be moving from this spot until you tell me how the RNW presentation is going?’

‘Great guns.’

‘And my father’s a blunderbuss. I bumped into Henrietta. She told me your campaign’s a complete no-runner, that you’ve not got anything worthwhile and that you’ve less than a week to go.’

‘A night you mean.’ Bugger Henrietta. Why does she have to work near Rosa? I
knew
it was never right to introduce friends.

‘What?’ Her jaw drops to the carpet.

‘Oh Rosa, I’m so sorry, but I’ve completely messed up. And now if you do change your mind about work after giving birth and decide being at home with a baby is the loneliest most miserable place in the entire planet and that your loving fiancé might take advantage of the situation and turn into a control freak demanding to know why a melon pip is on the floor a month after the melon was eaten, it might be too late. And call me Sensitive Sally if you will, but–’

‘Stop! Stop! Did you say a
night? One night
?’

I shake my head. ‘We have to bring it forward and I stupidly said I was ready and prepared. And Turks stupidly believed me.’

‘Right, let’s sort it out.’

‘No, I can’t. I can’t let you help me. Alec–’

‘Alec what?’

‘Nothing. He just didn’t want you bothered, that’s all. Don’t tell him I said. He was only being protective. It was rather sweet.’

‘Cathy, it’s up to me how much I want to be bothered, and I’ll say one thing. It would bother me a darn sight more if you messed up this campaign. So let’s get started.’

‘But…you should really be in bed.’

‘Oh bed, shmed. I may be preggers but I’m not sick.’

‘But you are. That’s the point. At least your placenta is.’

‘Well only slightly. To be honest I’m bored witless. I need something to get my choppers into.’ She gnashes her teeth up and down as an example.

‘But it’s almost seven o’clock.’

‘So? We’ll work until midnight if we have to.’ Rosa’s kind beautiful face turns to one of determination and steel. ‘Come on, hurry. What have you got so far?’

I click onto the RNW file and grimace while she reads, which to be honest doesn’t take her very long.

‘Eco Friendly Car…and Advertisement. Four words. That’s all you have?’

‘I-I suppose.’ I chew rapidly at my lip.

‘From
how
many weeks of work?’

‘Quite a few,’ I say quietly.

‘Right,’ she rolls up her sleeves, ‘well, like I said. We’re going to get this thing done if it bloody well kills us.’

***

She’s like a power hungry dictator ordering me about, standing over me while I research the internet, finding out backgrounds of people, products and competitors. A1, B2 clients. Every now and then going, ‘Come on, Cathy, think. How would you do this? How does this sound? What does this car mean to you? How do you feel about global warming?’

Not only that, she’s commandeered Declan’s laptop from downstairs and is busy writing notes on what I’ve found. Putting it into PowerPoint and some other fancy program that I can’t quite get to grips with.

‘Nails,’ I say at one point.

‘Nails?’

‘Imagine this…’ I circle my arm clockwise. ‘Kind of back to front but still. People fighting around the King who lies dead in the centre of the battlefield.’

‘Dead in the centre? Or dead centre?’

‘Dead in the centre. Stay with me. So the King is killed. Back to skirmish, horse falls, soldier gets shot… Back again, the horse galloping along, Soldier alive now, perched on his back, playing a trombone.’

‘A trombone? Don’t you mean a trumpet?’

‘Whatever. Camera pans on the horse’s loose shoe, then back again. Next scene, the blacksmith hammering in the nails, but he hasn’t got enough. He looks high, he looks low. His palm to his brow.’

‘This is meant to be a short commercial?’

‘Well, we can speed up that part. Then a voiceover goes…’ I drop a few octaves to imitate a deep gruff man’s voice. ‘All for the want of a nail. RNW’s nails. Don’t settle for anything less.’ I smile. ‘Da da.’

‘Very good,’ Rosa claps slowly, ‘if RNW’s new car was a nail – which it isn’t. Now get on with it!’

An hour and three-quarters later, fingertips burning hot from typing so much, we’ve got a rough mock-up. Not brilliant, bit rough round the edges, but with some fine tweaking it might just pass muster.

‘Right,’ Rosa says finally, standing up and stretching out her arms, ‘that’s it. Call Henrietta. Gather everyone together.’

‘Where?’

‘Here, there, wherever. We need a focus group and we need it now!’

Chapter 13

I stand up and clear my throat. ‘Friends, Romans and countrymen. Fetch me a beer.’ Look, it’s past midnight, I’ve been working solidly for five hours. I deserve a few bevvies.

‘Get yer knickers off!’ Isobel shouts.

Everyone turns to look at her.

We’re at Henrietta’s house. The nearest meeting point everyone could congregate to at short notice.

‘I was just practising my heckling. You never know what these people are going to be like.’

‘Hardly think Cathy’s going to striptease.’ Henrietta beams before adding with a wicked glint in her eye. ‘Mind you…’

‘Shut up, H.’ I fire a warning shot over her gelled up hair. She’s had it cut again, very short, but it looks nice, modern, especially with the bright ginger rinse running through it.

‘Bit more to the left, you’re blocking the screen.’ Janet beckons me away.

‘This car is special…’ I move an inch to the left, and begin my patter, ‘Really really special. Why?’ I pause, for precisely four seconds as Rosa instructed and then carry on. ‘Because,’ I give my lips, chin and cheek a quick lick, checking for unwanted crumbs, ‘it…

***

An hour later.

‘And worst of all–’

‘Go on,’ says everyone in unison.

Rosa’s holding court relaying her latest discovery from her pregnancy manual. She’s only been out with the WOWs once before and that was back when they were called the TTMs. Not that she’s not invited or anything, just that before she met Alec she worked all hours and timings didn’t fit and since she’s been going out with him, she’s hardly wanted to leave his side.

‘They say I’ve got to give up sex.’

I almost choke. ‘You, sex? Give up?’

‘That’s what my Consultant says.’

‘That’s terrible.’ Henrietta says it as if it’s the most miserable thing in the whole world.

‘That’s bad?’ Isobel’s been married to Larry a long time. And their love life’s down the pan. He’s always pressurising her for nookie, doesn’t seem to get into his thick counsellor’s skull, that if he lay off chasing her round the marital bed, she might, just might, turn around and start chasing him. ‘I’d be bloody relieved.’

Rosa yawns. ‘So you think you’ve got the presentation all off pat, Cathy?’

‘I hope so. I mean, you guys have helped such a lot and…’ I can’t say anymore, I’m beginning to choke up.

‘You’ll be fine,’ says Isobel.

‘Yeah,’ adds Janet gruffly.

‘Don’t you think,’ Henrietta turns to Rosa, ‘that it’s an awful lot for Cathy’s boss to expect her to pitch for a massive new account all on her own. She’s only been working at that place a matter of months and she knows eff all about the industry.’

‘I guess. And I’m unsure myself why Turks gave it to her,’ Rosa says thoughtfully. ‘But he tends to use his instincts a lot. Maybe he just,’ she smiles over at me, ‘believes in you.’

‘God, I wish somebody believed in me,’ says Isobel.

‘I believe in you,’ Janet says gruffly again, patting her hand.

We all sigh.

‘Maybe we should christen ourselves the EDs now?’ suggests Isobel.

‘Why?’ asks Henrietta.

‘Because we meet every day. Both Tuesday and Wednesday.’

‘But not on Thursday, Friday, weekends or Mondays,’ Janet interjects.

‘Unless we bump into each other in Budgens or Go-Buys,’ adds Isobel.

‘And of course I see Cathy all the time at school things,’ Henrietta explains to Janet. ‘What with my Lauren and her Josh being in the same class.’

‘Better still, how about the TAWs?’ suggests Isobel. ‘Tuesdays and Wednesdays.’

‘But this is a one-off isn’t it?’ Janet looks confused while Henrietta’s standing on the doorstep looking skyward, obviously trying desperately to come up with initials of her own.

We all say our goodbyes, Henrietta closes the door and I’m about to follow everyone down the street, when Isobel gently tugs at the back of my jacket. ‘Just want to speak to Cath in private.’ She waves the others forward. ‘Go ahead. We won’t be a moment.’

‘Sounds ominous?’ I say.

‘It might be.’ Isobel looks very grave. ‘I’ve been talking to Larry.’

Rosa and Janet are striding fifty yards in front like they’re leading a marching band.

‘Don’t tell me,’ I guess, ‘you’ve finally plucked up the courage to tell him to do his fair share round the house.’

‘No. Not that,’ she pauses. ‘I’ve been talking to him about
you
.’

‘Oh?’

‘Or rather Declan.’

‘Oh. Oh! Oh!!’ Now I’m looking very grave. Extremely grave. If he ever found out…

‘Don’t worry. Larry’s ever so discreet. Counsellors’ Code of Ethics and all that.’

‘Counsellors’ Code of Ethics, you must be joking! They feed on this stuff. They have meetings to discuss their juiciest clients. They get off on it, it’s practically pornographic. I watched this documentary–’

‘Relax, my love, I didn’t even give him a name. I just said a friend of mine has this husband who’s been acting rather bizarrely. Anyway, I told him the symptoms. Sleepless nights, pacing the floor in the early hours, Darwin-obsessed behaviour, dropping to knees etc. and he reckons it sounds like…’ She holds my hand and gives it a sympathetic squeeze. ‘I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but…Larry thinks Declan could be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.’

‘You’re joking!’

‘Not a joking matter.’ She puts a comforting arm around my shoulder. ‘Quite common apparently. Well more common than people admit, but sometimes a combination of events trigger it off. Divorce, depression…’

‘Dearth of money, dismal weather, dark winter nights…’

‘Not just things beginning with D, Cathy.’ She puts a brake on my train of thought. ‘But also issues like unemployment, illness, lingering viruses. Obviously this colleague’s death–’

Death. D again. ‘And the trip to the museum.’

‘Trip to the museum? Well, I guess if he was heading that way, it might have unbalanced him a little.’

‘A little? He doesn’t stop going on about it. Evolution this, Galapagos that, miniature bacteria the other. There I was thinking I was just having a lovely surprise evening out. God, we pay for it all in the end, don’t we just!’

‘Anyway, I asked Larry what advice he could give “my friend” and he said,“Just tell her to support him as much as she can. If he wants to talk, listen. If he wants to sleep, tuck him in. If he wants to bark, give him a bone.” In other words, keep the pressure off. Don’t add to his load.’

***

‘What did Isobel want?’ Rosa questions me as we get into her car.

‘Nothing really, only you know. Good luck and all that.’ I’d love to confide in her, but I think I’ve ladled enough on her plate tonight. ‘Oh, Rosa, how come you’re so great at all this public speaking lark and I’m so crap?’

‘You’re not crap. You were fine right up until the time you spilt your drink down your shirt, but obviously that won’t happen tomorrow. Anyways it’s different for me. I’ve been doing this kind of thing for yonks. Plus I went on that public speaking course.’

‘I don’t remember you doing that?’

‘Between my pottery and writing analysis workshop.’

‘And before your hunkum bunkum.’

‘Hunkum bunkum?’

‘The one where they made you clasp your hands together and you couldn’t undo them.’

‘I couldn’t. I really couldn’t. Wasn’t hunkum bunkum.’

‘And what was the one where you started going all loud on me?’

‘Assertive training. And then I did the dowsing thing after that.’

‘Yeah, I remember you came in with your rods while I was having a bath, you were yelling Eureka! Eureka!’

We both laugh. She brings the car to a stop and I realise we’re back at my house. ‘Thanks so
so
much for tonight,’ I say hugging her goodbye. ‘I don’t deserve you as a best friend.’