Although the issue finally came out as planned on September 16, the launch party had been fixed for the following Friday. This was simple prudence on the part of Martin who knew that even critical first issues can slip a few days, and there would have been nothing worse than a launch party without the launch issue.
Already they had received letters from readers, praising, criticising, ranting, begging or simply saying 'hello', and the replies to the questionnaire enclosed with some of the first issue had also started flooding in, though these went straight to marketing to be stored prior to analysis. From time to time Bernice would wander across to the marketing department to dip into the overflowing boxes, and to get some immediate feedback on what readers thought and wanted. What began as a stern duty soon turned into a self-indulgent pleasure: almost without exception readers praised The Business as a truly different magazine, one that answered a long-felt but barely articulated need.
The choice of venue for the launch party was, as ever, problematic. Nowadays a basic reception at a hotel or in some other suitable hall would never have worked. The guests - prospective advertisers, their agencies, plus a few other dignitaries - would simply not have come. There had to be some special angle, some hook to pull them in. This meant that the marketing department spent days scouring the capital's landscape for suitable venues: one that was big enough, accessible, allowed guests to wander freely, and could cope with food and drink.
In the end Tiny Tim suggested the relatively new Theatre Museum in Covent Garden. It had the virtue of being unknown and yet stylish, was not just easy to get to but was actually in the heart of London's advertising community, and had its own catering facilities.
The structure of the launch was simple. People would arrive in the early evening after the museum had closed to the public, and receive their launch packs from Janice as they entered. Each came with an issue, background information, pictures of Charles, Martin and Bernice (who was rather photogenic as Martin noted when he received the proofs, wondering whether it would be going too far to frame her portrait and put it on his wall at home) and media pack. It also had their The Business tee-shirt (designed by Wobs in a spare moment, and worn by him that evening as a concession to the occasion's formality), car-sticker ('Readers of The Business do it in the office' - a rather feeble effort from marketing, this one), The Business balloons to take home for the children (with 'Expand your business with The Business' printed on them), The Business ties, scarves, pins and badges. Not that anybody was likely to wear or use many of these, but something along these lines was expected, and in any case magazine launches worked rather like the advertising they carried: by constant repetition of a simple message. Guests would also be given a glass of champagne to help them swallow the story they were about to be fed.
After inspecting the component parts of the pack and drinking some champagne the guests were encouraged to wander around the labyrinth-like construction of the museum, looking at the odd exhibit and generally relaxing. They would then move back to the entrance hall where food was being served and a couple of speeches - one by Charles and the other by Bernice - would be given. The guests would then be so impressed by all this - or so ran the implicit assumption - that they would immediately throng around Bob Percival and book copious quantities of advertising space. Or so Martin hoped, since he had no intention of going through the same sweat as the last issue again.
Bernice and her team were by now already deep into the second issue, there being no time for rest or respite in monthly journalism. In fact in some ways the pressure on a monthly or weekly magazine is worse than on a daily newspaper. Working on the latter journalists have no time to sit back and think: they must just bang out the words as fast as possible. On a monthly, by contrast, you are lulled into a sense of false security by the longer timescales, and so think more deeply, more expansively. It is only towards the end of the copy schedule that you realise that you too need to bang out words quickly - and rather more of them than on a daily. The Board - which Kate regularly brandished in the office - proved its value here, its physical presence acting as a constant reminder that deadlines were both real and inflexible.
They had also conducted a very thorough internal review of the first issue. Bernice asked everybody - including Janice - to read through the first copies that they brought back with them from the printers, and to mark on them any thoughts that occurred to them, good or bad. These were then gathered and then put together by Bernice as notes that formed the basis of a morning's discussion in the office. It was quite hard at first getting people to be honest in their criticisms of each other's work, but ultimately they recognised that their readers would be doing precisely the same anyway, so it would be better for them to pre-empt such criticism by getting the magazine right in the first place through such constructive discussions.
There had also been the second management meeting, rather less fraught than the first, at which the five participants had gone through the launch issue in great detail, dealing with problems and suggestions for further action as they arose. Bob Percival - now universally referred to as 'Fivepence' in the editorial office, thanks to another of Chris's nicknames - was nervous and defensive whenever any comments or questions were addressed to him. He clearly wished management meetings were once a decade rather than once a month.
As the team left Victoria station the afternoon of the launch party in what looked like a fleet of taxis about to set off on a bombing mission, Bernice was well-pleased with the way things were shaping up. Wobs had some good ideas for tightening up the design, and her writers were finally starting to settle into the rhythm of producing words, even if George had the old problem of not knowing where to start, and Dave of when to stop. Chris, meanwhile, seemed to be relaxing more, and she felt that she was getting to know him - and like him - more all the time. She recognised he would never be the world's greatest investigative reporter but he was fun to be with - and so provided some colour in her otherwise grey office life. And, well, he was so damn handsome too, as her body insisted on reminding her at all the wrong moments.
When they arrived at the Theatre Museum Bernice was relieved to find that everything had been set up by the museum staff and the relevant members of Wright's marketing department. She had been to the Theatre Museum before, but was intrigued to see how the entrance hall had been transformed with a few banners, flags and posters to turn it into a riot of propaganda for The Business. At the centre of it all was the mock-Grecian temple, painted to simulate the effect of pink marble. She rather approved of the classical theme; it fitted in well with her aspirations for the title.
She found Martin running around like a mother hen, clucking at everyone. She could tell he was nervous at the thought of his boss Charles being there. There were still many things that could go embarrassingly wrong for him during the event. While she left her team to have a quick look round the museum before the guests arrived (but no alcohol to be drunk - that was for later) she glanced at the notes she had made for her speech.
Although public speaking was in effect another kind of journalism, one where words are spoken and to an all-too visible audience, she knew that the rhetoric required was quite different, as was the rhythm and pacing. She hoped that she wouldn't dry up completely as she had seen so many others do at press conferences. It was strange, she mused, that no matter how powerful or important or even skilful people were in their own spheres of business, any one of them could be reduced to a gibbering idiot by the presence of an outside group of people listening to what they were saying. Perhaps it was simply a case of control: talking to your staff there was always the safety net of implicit power; in public you were on your own, back to the basics of a weak and isolated human being who would be judged before this new and possibly implacable jury.
Her mind was soon taken off such ruminations by the arrival of the first guests. These needed to be welcomed and generally coddled, and Bernice found herself reflecting wryly how roles had been reversed: usually it was her who was being wooed by others. She noted that while George and Dave were hanging back, Pete was forcing himself to make smalltalk and Yasmeen was moving well within the growing crowd. But it was Chris who was the real star: he seemed to be captivating those in his immediate vicinity, though she noticed with annoyance that rather too many of the younger, prettier female guests were gathered around him, laughing freely at his witticisms. Chris really felt that he was in his element, handing out drinks, drawing people into the conversation, listening earnestly to their replies, rounding things out with a quip - it was just like being President of the Union again. If only all of journalism could be this easy, he sighed to himself.
Martin too was busily working the lines, while she noted with disgust that Bob and his staff seemed to be content to stay talking with some of their cronies from the industry. For God's sake, she wanted to shout, you should be using this opportunity, not standing their drinking and smoking - he and the reptiles had no inhibitions about doing both there.
By now the entrance was filling up as people emerged from their cursory glance at the collection. In terms of numbers it seemed a reasonable turn-out, though she suspected quite a few were here just for the food and drinks, while others had probably come along simply to gain competitive information for other publishing houses they had close links with. Martin too was quite pleased with the numbers. For him appearance was just as important as the reality of the situation: if it looked like there was a good buzz here then Charles would be happy. And if Charles was happy so was Martin.
Charles certainly looked happy as he stood to the side of the Greek temple, but that might just have been because he was about the make a speech of welcome. Whereas Bernice rather dreaded making speeches, he revelled in them. Indeed, as he had become more of a political animal within the corporate hierarchy at Wright's, so he had found himself drawn more and more into the oratory of business politics and had soon reconciled himself to this role.
She and her team were also standing nearby, waiting for the signal that would mark the beginning of the formal part of the evening.
"Ah, scagliola," said Terence nodding towards the temple as he munched on one of the hors-d'oeuvres that had been offered to him by a waiter dressed as an Elizabethan nobleman.
"Really?" said Chris, "I thought it was smoked salmon," staring at his own half-eaten food.
Suddenly there where three heavy thumps of a mighty staff on the floor - a reproduction of the one used at the Comédie Française for hundreds of years to mark the beginning of a theatrical performance.
"Ladies and gentleman, pray silence" barked the Master of Ceremonies, who had been brought in specially for this moment, "I give you Charles Company Esquire of Wright's International Publishing." With a youthful bound Charles was in the centre of the temple, tanned and smiling, looking like some Greek god in a double-breasted suit - and with no notes for his speech noted Bernice with admiration.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "first of all, let me welcome you on behalf of Wright's International Publishing. We're truly delighted you could join us this evening in these splendid surroundings. I must confess that this is the first time that I have been here, and I must say that I'm impressed. But when I arrived here I was also struck by the fact that I had somehow missed out on this place before.
And that's really what this launch that we are here to celebrate tonight is all about. We at Wright's feel strongly that advertisers have simply missed out on a huge segment of the business sector. Until today, there has been no magazine that addresses the needs and understands the aspirations of the ordinary person working in a business in an office.
So what? I can hear the sceptics among you saying: We already reach the senior managers, why do we need to reach the rest? There are two parts to the answer. First, the senior managers are also part of the group we will reach. To be sure, they have their magazines as senior managers, but even they are not catered for as regards their own personal needs and aspirations as workers - yes, workers - with bosses, just like, well, just like you and me.
Secondly, there is the issue here of scale. You may, through some of your current advertising, reach senior managers, but we now offer you the chance to reach them and their staff - a huge market, with tremendous potential in terms of cost per thousand, reach and penetration.
I've talked long enough. You should all by now have received our media packs along with the first issue which I hope you'll read with profit and pleasure. I will conclude by hoping that you enjoy the rest of your evening with us here tonight, and that you will go on to exploit not just our exciting new launch - aptly called The Business - but also that huge, untapped market out there, waiting to be discovered, just as I discovered our venue tonight. And so it is with great pleasure that I ask you to raise your glasses to the launch of The Business, and to the start of a new voyage of discovery: The Business."
There was a muffled reply of "The Business" and sporadic applause. Bernice was impressed; it was a good pitch, and apart from the closing sentence, avoided all of the usual rhetoric and clichés that she had heard from Charles before. Perhaps it was only within the territory of their offices that he broke out into his tribal Wrightspeak?
But she had no more time to ponder this interesting question: she heard her name being shouted round the room by the Chief Barker. God, now for her speech.
"Er, Good evening ladies and gentlemen," she said, glancing at her notes jotted down on small filing cards, after she had stepped up to the Greek temple and replaced Charles there. He had moved gracefully aside, smiling that effortless smile of his that seemed to express a boundless confidence in both himself and her. She was grateful for that tiny but powerful token of support. She was conscious of a ripple of approval passing around the room, full mainly of young men, and not very liberated young men at that. It was a strange feeling, being appraised in that way - and not one that Bernice particularly relished: she was more used to being the appraiser, both as a probing journalist and as a manager of staff. "As you heard, my name's Bernice Stuart, and I have the privilege of being the editor of Wright's new magazine, The Business.
And it is a privilege, because as Charles has just said so eloquently" - was this fulsome praise necessary? she wondered even as she said it, as if watching and listening to herself from outside her body - "with The Business we are tackling a completely new market, or at least an old market in a new way. And this opportunity to reach a large number of people, to respond to their needs, is truly a privilege.
To give you a very quick sketch of what we are trying to do editorially, I'd like follow Charles' approach and draw on our venue for inspiration. Because it seems to me that business and the theatre have a lot in common. Both have plots in terms of the interaction of companies; they have characters, or rather people in business assume characters, playing roles, using various kinds of speeches - monologues, dialogues etc - to express themselves. And there are also various audiences - a company's staff, its senior management, customers, the outside world in general.
What we hope to do on The Business is to expose some of these plots, describe some of these characters and to analyse the speeches and their audience's reaction. In a word, we want to help people understand business: not the takeovers and mergers, nor the dizzy world of yuppie high finance - we all get enough of this fantasy elsewhere from the daily magazines we call newspapers. No: what we hope to do is to talk in everyday terms about the everyday reality of working in business in 1988. The Business - our business - is your business and everybody's business. Thank you very much."
There was again applause, probably slightly warmer than that for Charles, even though his speech had been far more fluent than hers. She was glad it was over.
"Well done," said Chris afterwards, "that was great." She wasn't so sure, but was grateful for the assurance all the same. In fact Chris did think it was great, partly because he knew that he could never do something similar. Even as President of the Union he had avoided speech-making at every occasion, claiming that they were too 'formal' and patronising, preferring instead 'one-on-one' contact - which was certainly true.
"Yes, well done, Bernice," echoed Martin, as honestly as Chris. He had asked Bernice to speak after Charles rather than himself because he knew that anything he said would pale beside Charles' polished performance. Bernice's speech had the virtue of a certain integrity, a sense of conviction which his could not have aspired to. But this did not worry him much at that moment. He had just congratulated Charles on his speech, who in turn had congratulated Martin on a splendid event - and on a 'truly impressive' launch. Some of his colleagues on the Board had been forced to eat their words in a rather delightful fashion he confided to Martin; he was grateful, and would show his gratitude in due course. So things looked pretty rosy, and Martin was feeling generally benevolent.
"So what are you all up to this evening?" he asked. "More celebrations, I'll bet?" he said, half hoping they might ask him along if there were some.
"Certainly bloody hope so," said Dave morosely. He hated these kind of public events where everyone was supposed to be on their best behaviour. He also resented Bernice's injunction against drinking. It was only the thought of their long-awaited party afterwards that had kept him going.
Martin ignored Dave's bad manners, and said: "Well, have a good time. Oh, yes, Bernice: if you want to send me the tab for your do - within reason, of course" the publisher's conscience added.
"Oh, right, thanks, Martin, we'll do that," said Bernice genuinely grateful. And as she saw Charles approach elegantly to add his own, quite sincere praise, she wondered how far Martin's offer meant they could go that evening.
