Better Than This (19 page)

I waited. I could sense the ‘but’ that was coming. And I was right.

“But you may as well know that we won’t be going with Carpe Diem,” he said.

Despite everything, the shock of this pronouncement was total. The very air seemed to waver, then was still. I stared dumbly, feeling sick. A faint hope surfaced. Any second I’d wake up, but this was no dream. “I don’t understand,” I managed to say eventually.

“I guess the least I can do is give you some kind of reason,” Sam allowed, his tone softening fractionally now that the worst part was done. He gestured to a seat, and without thinking I sank into it and he sat opposite me. He folded his large hands in front of him, and I stared at his knuckles, noticing for the first time the liver spots on the backs of his hands. His skin was gnarled and weathered like old wood.

“You may know we have plans to release a new product to replace Home Finance.”

“I heard something about it,” I agreed, wondering what that had to do with anything.

“What you may not know is that product is the reason Morgan Industries bought my company. They’ve spent a lot of money developing it, and a lot more is going to be spent launching it to the market place. Right from the start I’ve been under pressure from some people in Morgan Industries to stay with KCM. It was felt a small agency like yours might not be up to a project of this size and importance.”

I thought of the guy Morris. Was Sam telling me that a decision had been made over his head? But I saw right away that didn’t ring true. Something had altered in Sam himself, in his attitude towards me. He fixed me with his intelligent penetrating gaze and I had the feeling he knew what I was thinking.

“Frankly, Nick, I’m very disappointed in you,” he said. “I believed yours was the best company for the job. I fought for you. But it turns out there were certain things I wasn’t aware of.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Isn’t it true that you’ve lost some clients lately?”

All at once I detected the shadow of Larry Dexter lurking somewhere in all this “We’ve lost one or two,” I admitted. “That happens with any agency. People come and go. Relationships change.”

“True. But that isn’t the case here is it?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “The fact is I already talked to some of those clients you lost. I heard things that disturbed me.” His craggy eyebrows bunched over his eyes.

“Let me guess, Jerry Parker.”

“It doesn’t matter who. The fact is there’s a lot of money at stake here, a lot more than you probably realize. Morgan Industries paid forty million dollars for my company, but that’s only the start. There’s too much at stake to risk having our advertising business handled by a firm that might prove to be unreliable. The people I talked to told me things that frankly unsettled me. They said they could never get hold of you. They complained you were late with briefing submissions, you missed meetings or arrived late, turned in second-rate campaign proposals. And this wasn’t just from one person. It came as quite a shock to me if you want to know the truth.”

This last sentence was delivered with solemn moral weight and I saw that in Sam’s eye deceit was my true crime here. I didn’t know what to say. Strictly speaking it was all true.

“I understand you’re also having some financial problems,” he went on. “That alone changes our position. We simply couldn’t afford the risk of working with somebody who might not even be around next week.”

I wondered how Dexter had found out about that, but when I thought about it I saw it wouldn’t have been hard. People who worked for us must have had an idea. Office rumours start circulating over drinks in some bar where other advertising people hang out. Nothing stays secret for long.

It struck me that the work we’d done to win the Spectrum account was the very reason for our downfall. With a little help from Dexter. I wondered briefly whether Sam might change his mind if he knew the bank had agreed to support us if we had his account, but I saw it was too late. Sam would never trust me again. I could only manage a wry twisted smile at the irony.

“I can see you’re amused,” Sam said affronted. “In that case I don’t believe we have anything more to discuss.”

He rose to his feet and strode from the room without another word and Bev went hurrying in his wake. For a long time I sat there, waiting for the world to cave in the way I thought it surely would. Finally, though, I stood up and finished packing up, and Phil showed me back to reception where we shook hands. He shrugged helplessly.

“Sorry it worked out this way.”

“Me too,” I said.

With leaden steps I went back outside and stood in the parking lot blinking in the Californian sunshine, the light reflecting in brilliant shards off the ranks of expensive cars that so embodied the pursuit of the American dream.

Part Two

I heard the phone ringing through a veil of sleep and a sizable hangover so I turned over and pulled the pillow over my head and pressed it to my ears. In a little while the ringing stopped, and when I took away the pillow I could hear Sally’s muffled voice speaking from downstairs. A minute later she appeared in our bedroom.

“Somebody wants to speak to you,” she said.

“Who is it?”

“I didn’t get his name. Gary I think, something like that?”

Reluctantly I sat up. The room was dim, but I could tell from the gauzy light beyond the curtains it was late. “What time is it?” I asked.

“Eleven-thirty,” Sally said. She went to the wall and plugged in the phone I’d disconnected the night before. “What shall I tell him?”

“Tell whoever it is I’m not here.”

Sally gave me a look that signalled both slight reproach and understanding at the same time. “You can’t shut yourself away, Nick.”

I had tried though. For the past four days I had taken to my bed, only rising to get drunk again. To her credit Sally had allowed me the space to wallow. I came home early on the Friday having broken the news to Marcus right after my meeting with Spectrum. Sally had listened while I told her what happened, and hadn’t said I told you so, not even with a look, and she hadn’t tried to stop me when I broke open the scotch, and

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neither had she complained over the last four days, perhaps understanding that I needed this time to myself. But now she was gently telling me I couldn’t stay drunk for ever and I knew she was right. I sighed and held out my hand.

She gave me the phone and then bent to kiss my cheek. “It isn’t the end of the world. Come down afterwards, I’ll make some coffee.”

What to do without Sally. She said it wasn’t the end of the world, but if that was so, why did I feel as if it was? I picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Nick. I thought I’d call and offer my commiserations.”

“Dexter,” I said, heavy with disbelief.

“Too bad about Spectrum. I warned you this one was out of your league.”

My grip tightened on the phone. I imagined him sitting somewhere wearing that familiar mocking smile, dressed and shaved, savouring his moment of triumph. I caught sight of my own unshaven and red-eyed reflection in the mirror, my hair sticking out, my shoulders slumped in weariness and defeat. For a moment I felt the return of the vivid anger I’d dwelt on during my bouts of drinking.

“You sonofabitch!”

He laughed. “I didn’t think you would take it so badly, Nick. Business is business after all. In fact, to show there’s no hard feelings I wanted you to know there’s a job here for you at KCM any time you want it.”

“Fuck you, Dexter!” I started to hang up but he must have expected that.

“Starting salary a hundred and fifty thousand,” he said quickly.

Despite myself I paused. “You’re serious aren’t you? You really mean it?”

“Like I said, Nick, business is business. You’re good. One of the best. Why should I wait for some other company to snap you up. That wouldn’t be smart. One fifty, Nick. And that’s just for starters. You can choose your car, generous expense account, health plan, and a bonus system on top. You could make two hundred thousand in your first year.”

I thought I must be dreaming. The idea of working for Dexter was surreal, but not as surreal as the fact that he thought he could tempt me, even with what was undoubtedly a top flight offer.

“Forget it,” I told him.

“Don’t be so hasty,” he said, talking fast. “If half of what I’ve heard is true Carpe Diem is finished. You lose it all, Nick. Everything. Not just your company, but your car, your house, the works. Think about it. You’re upset now, but the offer stays open. Call me.”

When hell freezes over, I thought as I slammed the receiver down. I stared at myself, groggy, bleary eyed, my head pounding and my mouth tasting like I’d chewed sand mixed with tar. I was stupefied by Dexter’s call. It wasn’t until I was under the hot jets of the shower that I began to feel vaguely revived and it started to make any kind of sense. Of course Dexter wanted me to go and work for him. He would probably even put me in charge of the Spectrum account in time, to rub my nose in it. It was a power trip for him. He simply wanted the kick of controlling me. I had a quick vision of years hence when Dexter was running the whole company and I would still be in the same job he’d make certain I never got promoted from. When I was all washed up and burnt out he’d call me into his huge plush office so he could have the pleasure of firing me, face to face. The more I thought about it the madder I got. I think it was that call that rescued me from a continued descent into self-pitying hell and which made me start thinking for the first time about fighting back.

“Who was on the phone?” Sally asked when I appeared downstairs.

“Nobody important,” I said.

She looked me over, noting with approval the shaved jaw, the clean shirt and trousers. “That’s better. How’s the head?”

“Fine,” I lied, to which she frowned in disbelief.

“Have some aspirin anyway.”

I took them gratefully and swallowed them with my coffee. We sat down at the bench and Sally studied me with a serious look.

“So, how do you really feel?”

I knew she wasn’t referring to the state of my hangover. “The truth? Terrible. I really didn’t think we could lose.”

“Marcus has been calling,” Sally said hesitantly.

“How does he sound?”

“About what you’d expect.”

I figured that was a nice way of saying how the hell do you think he feels when you just ruined him, cost him everything he’s ever worked for?

“He was asking after you though,” she added. “There’s a meeting scheduled with your accountant on Wednesday. He wanted to know if you’d be there.”

“What day is it today?” I asked, glancing automatically at the calendar.

“Tuesday.”

“Christ,” I said, and put my cup down, overcome by a sudden heaviness, which I was beginning to recognize as the weight of despair. The brief fighting optimism I’d experienced in the shower began to rapidly evaporate in the face of reality.

“It’ll be okay, Nick,” Sally said. She came and wrapped her arms around me and for a while I lay my head against her breast wanting to be held and comforted, to have someone murmur that everything would be fine when my world was coming down around my ears. I thought of Dexter’s offer, and my eye fell on a baby magazine on a chair. For some reason a fragment of my childhood appeared like a flickering home movie in my mind. I saw myself riding a bike along a pavement in the sun in the street where we had lived. My dad ran along beside me, steadying me and then as I gathered pace he let me go and stood panting as I rode on two wheels for the first time. I remembered that day. His shouts of encouragement as I sped along the road, feeling the first real taste of freedom and the breeze in my five-year-old hair.

“You’re on your own now, Nick,” he called after me. “You’re on your own.”

In the morning I left for the office at seven-thirty, which was too late. The midweek traffic was heavy. On Monday everybody begins the week with a burst of enthusiastic energy and the freeways are busy from five in the morning, though the traffic flows easily because the peak is spread over a longer period, but by Wednesday the enthusiasm has waned and people are again sick of their jobs and their boss, having to get up in the morning. They’ve had an argument with their partner and the kids are driving them crazy. Midweek the traffic peaks later because everyone leaves home as late as possible, and they’re caught in a slow moving crawl that makes everyone irritable. By Thursday people are considering quitting, selling the house and moving to a beach somewhere where they will live on fish and coconuts. The traffic doesn’t move at all. By the time they get to work they’re running late and for the rest of the day they feel like they’re playing catch-up. The pressure builds. More people get fired or quit their jobs on Thursdays than any other day of the week. By Friday, however, everyone is in a good mood again because they’re looking forward to the weekend and the traffic flows from before dawn. People want to get to the office early so they can have a long lunch or a few drinks at the end of the day to get the weekend off to a great start. By Sunday it’s a disaster. It’s the worse day for domestic meltdowns because everyone is starting to dread the week ahead. The weekend everyone was so looking forward to seems to have passed by without them having done any of the things they really wanted to, which was to sit down and put up their feet with a cold beer or a glass of wine, to watch some sports, or read a magazine or a book in peace and solitude. Have a little time to themselves. Instead they spent the entire weekend ferrying the kids from one sports activity to another, or else taking them and their friends to the mall or the movies and in between times there’s the shopping to be done, the lawn to mow, that door to fix that’s been sticking for six months now, meals to prepare, and invariably some unexpected expense occurs that brings home the realization that no matter how hard they work for the rest of their lives they’re never going to have any money to buy that

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little boat or convertible or whatever it is they always wanted, and frustration sets in until it explodes in a torrent of recrimination and abuse towards their partner BECAUSE THAT PERSON HAS RUINED THEIR