Who's Afraid of Mr Wolfe? (5 page)

By seven o’clock they were in need of further inspiration, and as the mini-fridge had been ransacked long ago, they set out for the Side of Beef, next door. A twenty-first-century reconstruction of what a traditional London pub
should look like, it had become a kind of informal annexe to the agency. From time to time, particularly when the Creative Department was celebrating the winning of a big account, the more ‘collectable’ items in the pub would find their way into the agency and then have to be tactfully returned. Ellie herself had not been above liberating a toasting fork and a stone hot-water bottle one particularly boozy night. She noticed that the brewery wasn’t taking any chances with the old metal advertising hoardings for long-vanished products: they were all bolted to the walls.

The pub was packed at this time of night, and looking around, Ellie knew that this particular watering hole would make a great setting for a nature programme. Here were all the different social and feeding groups of the agency at play. The media buyers exchanged the odd word with the creatives; the creatives sneered at the suits; the suits patronised the administrative staff. It was nearly impossible for anybody to transcend these barriers, except for Rachel. She moved between the groups like some exotic gazelle, gloriously uncool and unfailingly sexy. To Ellie’s knowledge, Rachel had slept with roughly one-third of the male members of the agency, regardless of whether they collected the post or schmoozed clients. Ellie caught her eye, waved and then steered a path towards the little group of writers, designers and studio jocks that was her natural habitat.

‘Peronis all round?’ Lesley asked, and clicked off in her high heels to buy the drinks.

A large girl with dreadlocks touched Ellie’s arm. ‘How’s it going?’ she said.

‘All right, I think, Juliette. How about you? You ready for tomorrow?’

Juliette wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, if I can keep Mike under control, we’ll be fine. You’re a little bit hyper about it all, aren’t you, Mike?’ She jabbed a blond-haired guy next to her in the ribs.

‘Well, our idea’s brilliant,’ he said, and then leaned across Juliette until his face was close to Ellie’s. ‘Tell you what … we’ll show you ours if you show us yours.’ Ellie guessed Mike had been in the pub a while.

‘Ignore him, Ellie,’ Juliette said, and pulled Mike back into his seat. ‘You know the rules, Mike – nobody tells anyone anything about their concepts before the pitch. Hugo’s the only one who knows what we’re all doing.’

Mike mouthed a ‘sorry’ at Ellie, but Juliette wasn’t finished with him.

‘Honestly, when am I ever going to get you house-trained? If you’re not trying to hump every woman in the agency, you’re bouncing all over people in an effort to get information out of them.’ She lowered her voice and nodded towards a table over on the other side of the bar, where two sour-faced men dressed in black were nursing their beers. ‘I caught him earlier trying to cosy
up to Jon and Zak. They sent him back with his tail between his legs.’

Ellie made a face: she’d had enough of thinking about tails for one day.

Lesley returned from the bar and handed round the drinks. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘The pitch tomorrow and Mike’s unfortunate habit of trying to hump every woman in the agency,’ Ellie explained.

‘He hasn’t tried to hump me yet,’ Lesley said.

Mike shot her a cheeky grin. ‘Well, I might be dumb, but I’m not bleedin’ suicidal.’

There was laughter and then they moved on to other topics: how much they all distrusted Hugo; why the cappuccino machine never worked; what that woman in Media Planning was doing wearing her hair like that; and, of course, Jack Wolfe. As if on cue, he walked into the pub. There was a discernible ripple of excitement and Ellie saw Rachel stop purring at an account executive and manoeuvre herself into Jack’s sightline.

‘Ahhh, look at Rachel,’ Mike said. ‘It’s like poetry in motion.’ Rachel wove her way towards Jack and moved in close to smoulder up at him. ‘You’ve got to give her marks for trying,’ Mike went on. ‘It doesn’t seem to be getting her anywhere, but she keeps on giving it a go.’

They continued to observe Rachel’s efforts until Jack gracefully extricated himself and moved off to talk to Alec, the financial director.

‘Well, I don’t blame her,’ Juliette said. ‘I mean, who wouldn’t want to try and bag Jack?’

‘If she mentions Heathcliff, please kill me,’ Ellie said to Lesley out of the corner of her mouth.

Juliette stumbled on, ‘You know, with Jack … well, don’t you think there’s something a bit … unevolved about him? Like he might be quite capable of stalking you and bringing you down …’ Juliette’s voice trailed off.

Ellie shook her head sadly. It was spreading, and to Juliette too. Engaged, singer in a choir, dutiful daughter.

‘Well, he did punch someone once,’ said a voice behind Ellie, and they turned to see Rachel. She had a smug smile on her face, as she always did when she had a nugget of information that she knew would be fallen on with glee. ‘Someone made an improper suggestion to Mrs MacEndry, so he punched them.’

‘Mrs MacEndry?’ Ellie said in disbelief. ‘Jack’s secretary Mrs MacEndry?’

‘It’s true,’ protested Rachel. ‘Jack is very protective of Mrs MacEndry and this client said something insulting and so Jack took him to one side and punched him. Broke his nose. It was all hushed up.’

They sat there processing that news. Mrs MacEndry had worked for Jack for years, and when he moved agency, she always moved with him. When Ellie had first met her, with her grey hair and sensible clothes, it had been hard to believe that she really was Jack’s secretary. Once or twice
rumours had circulated that she was actually Jack’s mother.

‘I wish I was Mrs MacEndry,’ Rachel said with a wistful look towards Jack, and then drifted off to lean provocatively against a wall.

Jack’s defence of Mrs MacEndry forced Ellie to concede that maybe there were some good things about him. Moments later she had changed her mind again, as Mike steered the conversation round to Jack’s love life.

‘He’s seeing that skinny bird from the Frogmortons agency.’

Juliette made a little ‘tsk’ noise. ‘Woman, not bird … and you might need to narrow that down a bit, Mike. You need to have an eating disorder on your CV just to get an interview there.’

‘Nah, that can’t be right,’ Lesley said, taking a swig from her drink. ‘The one at Frogmortons is a redhead, but that bloke in Media Planning said he’d seen Jack entangled with a very blonde blonde. The one whose father owns those Sushi Max bars.’

Rachel’s voice dipped back into the conversation. ‘It’s both. I know someone who’s related to his cleaning lady and it’s definitely both. Big secret.’

‘Lucky bugger,’ Mike said.

Ellie was appalled. ‘He’s carrying on like an old-fashioned potentate with his harem.’

‘Oh God, that’s some image,’ Juliette said with a little hiccup.

Ellie looked around the table incredulously. ‘Oh, come on. You’ve got to be kidding. You know women got the vote, don’t you?’

‘I’d give it up for one good seeing-to from Jack.’ Juliette clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘God, you don’t think he heard me, do you?’

Jack was listening intently to Alec, his face impassive and his body completely still.

‘Well, I hope you have more luck than I’m having,’ Rachel said, tossing her hair peevishly.

Mike moved a little closer to her. ‘Don’t worry, baby,’ he said, snaking an arm round her waist. ‘He probably doesn’t like mixing work and pleasure. I, however, do not have the same problem.’

He was puckering up to land a kiss on Rachel’s cheek when she wriggled free of his arm. ‘Nice try, puppy boy, but even I don’t go for creatives.’ She gave him a hefty push and everyone except Mike burst out laughing. It wasn’t just the crushed look of disappointment on Mike’s face, it was the look on Rachel’s, as though having any kind of sexual congress with a creative was akin to going to bed with a warthog.

Rachel stalked away to join a group of account executives and the rest of them made fun of Mike until they sensed he’d had enough and bought him a compensatory
drink. Ellie put her arm round him and told him not to take Rachel’s rejection personally; she had her eye on bigger game.

After that they had another round of drinks, gossiped some more, groaned at how much more arrogant Gavin would be when he came back, and then decided to call it a night. They all had a big day tomorrow.

Outside, London was cold and glittering and noisy, the traffic still grinding its tortuous way home. Ellie sniffed the air and felt the restless excitement in it. She never got tired of coming out into the lights and thinking that anything, anything would be possible. It was what had drawn her to London and what, despite all the other irritations of living there, made her miss it whenever she was away.

They said their goodbyes, and when Ellie gave Lesley a big hug, Mike said in a rush, ‘You two, you don’t ever … do you?’

‘No,’ they said in unison, and smacked him round the head.

By 11 a.m. the next day Jack was slowly simmering. Was this the best this bloody agency could do? They were halfway through the first pitch and he felt as if he’d seen it a hundred times before. Smiling women discussing how their lives had been transformed by their panty liners. Then, surprise, surprise, one of the women caught the eye
of a passing bloke and ended up trotting off down the street with him, her white-trouser-clad backside swaying appealingly, no doubt. It was bland; it was unimaginative; it was indistinguishable from anything else that was out there. In short, what the client probably wanted, but not what they needed.

Jack made a point of looking at his watch and then stared hard at the guy dressed in the red T-shirt who was still talking. What was his name? Jon? Jon without a frigging ‘h’?

Well, Jon was about to discover that missing consonants out of your name didn’t make you a good creative. Jack tuned in to a few more seconds of the tripe about the happy women and swivelled slightly in his chair to look at Jon’s partner. Ah, the famous Zak. Earning twice as much as the others and producing half the stuff. Living off past glories. Cocky-looking too. Just sitting back and letting his partner do all the hard work.

Jack caught Zak’s eye. Well, that had solved that – the guy didn’t look so cocksure now.

Jon blathered on for a bit longer and then there was silence in the room. Jack let it stretch out for a while as he searched for something to say that would sum up what he thought of Jon and Zak’s creative treatment.

Yeah, he had it: ‘Give me bloody strength.’ He watched them crumple in their seats. Now they didn’t look so super-cool; more like schoolboys waiting to be caned.

A sweating Hugo lumbered to his feet to introduce Juliette and Mike. Jack put his elbows on the desk and rested his chin in his hands. They made an interesting combination, these next two, but was it a combination that worked? Jack had sensed a bit of tension between them already. Perhaps Mike, fresh out of college, was a bit too impetuous for his partner. Good designer, though, and she was a good enough writer.

Mike stood up and launched straight into the pitch. He was rattling along so quickly that Jack had to concentrate hard to make out what he was saying, and his arms were all over the place. Jack saw Juliette reach out and tug at the back of Mike’s jeans. When he turned round, she gave him a searing look. ‘Slow down,’ she mouthed. Yeah, that was it – he was too bouncy, like a big Labrador, and she hadn’t got him trained yet. Still, with a little time they might come good.

Jack focused on what Mike was saying and then caught sight of the first storyboard that he was holding. Utterly unbelievable. They were about to be treated to a heart-warming conversation between a mother and daughter about panty liners. Like that wasn’t going to make every young girl watching the ad curl her toes in embarrassment. Jack knew what his sisters would think of the approach. By now they’d be making retching noises and chucking things at the telly.

A few minutes later and Jack could feel himself coming
to the boil. What the hell was wrong with this agency that it could take so many bright, creative people and turn them into drones? That slacker Gavin was probably at the bottom of it. He never came up with a fresh idea, so why should they? Well, Mr Cool had a nice surprise waiting for him when he got home unless he pulled his finger out sharpish.

Jack cast a sour look at Juliette and Mike again. At least they were having a go at selling the idea, rubbish though it was. Juliette’s dreadlocks were bouncing around as she got into her stride. Trouble was, you could see from their faces that they didn’t really believe what they were saying. They should be standing up fighting for it, getting him emotionally involved. At this point he couldn’t care less if they were winding up or winding down.

Finally, Jack presumed they’d finished. He watched as Juliette sat down abruptly and then, when Mike continued to stand, she reached across and pulled him down into his seat.

It was no good Juliette turning her big, brown eyes on him like that. There were people earning a pittance back in his old agency in Manchester who could run rings round her and her partner. They had more energy, more hunger, more everything. He turned a stone-making gaze on them and uttered one word: ‘Unbelievable.’

Swivelling his chair, he turned to face the third team. Great, the wise-cracking, scruffy Pre-Raphaelite who might
have a bit of an issue with authority, and the scary, trendy lesbian. Like a couple of mismatched bookends. Tall and curvy meets short and stick-thin. Mind you, the lesbian was doing that nervous jittery thing with her leg, so perhaps she wasn’t that sure of herself. Not a good start. Not guaranteed to inspire confidence. Jack gave a yawn, but for courtesy’s sake did it with his mouth closed.

Hugo got sluggishly to his feet and pulled a face. ‘And now Ellie and Lesley,’ he said, as if announcing the arrival of Black Death to the village.

When Hugo sat back down, Ellie swore that once the pitch was finished, she would see whether pigs really could fly. What a tepid little vote of confidence that introduction had been. Right now, though, she had to focus on selling their idea. She rubbed her sweaty palms down her jeans and tried to find any drop of saliva that might still be in her mouth.