At the end of 1988 it was good to be working in a business - UK salaries had risen by an average of 8% during the last year - and even better to be young and living life to the full. Not that youth guaranteed happiness. It certainly didn't for the reptiles on The Business. One of James' first acts when he got back to the office after ActionPlay™ was to give them all their marching orders. "They needed the boot," was his laconic comment when Bernice asked him why.
In retrospect she could see quite clearly why, independently of the fact that they were probably useless as salesmen (they were male to a man): they did not fit in with Slide's Way. Within a day or two of the others departing, James had started installing his new team. These turned out to be very young, very pretty airheads with skirts that made the PR girls' attire look positively nun-like. They all had tomboyish names like Caz, Jules, Jac and Stevie which added yet further to their highly salacious air.
When Bernice tackled James on these appointments later, she found his reply less than satisfactory.
"Well, look at this way. If I find them attractive, it is almost certain that the clients will - well, the male ones. And once sex enters the business equation, common sense tends to leave it."
She had to admit that however much she might disapprove of the means, the ends were certainly being achieved. Almost overnight the advertising situation was transformed. The January issue was originally down for 60 ad pages, revised back to 50 following Bob Percival's pitiful earlier attempts. James punched through this, and by the third week of selling already had 75 pages and had asked for another 25 to be allocated to him. One hundred ad pages: Bernice couldn't believe it. And yet ironically much of Slide's success was down to her.
Though a cynical realist he was also an excellent judge of both people and products. He knew that The Business's editorial content was good and getting better. Believing this himself, he was able, through a variety of normal and abnormal techniques, to get his 'girls' as he called them to believe utterly in the magazine - and in him - and so be prepared to use any means necessary to sell pages. Which they now proceeded to do, and no mistaking.
Bernice also had to concede that James and his team had established far closer links with the editorial staff. There was now a constant to-ing and fro-ing between the two offices as flatplans were changed and pages swapped around. There was even information exchange as his girls brought in all kinds of juicy gossip and rumours gathered while out on the road 'entertaining' clients.
Martin, needless to say, was absolutely delighted by James' vindication of his appointment, salary and unorthodox methods. As for the latter, Martin tried to close his eyes, his more moral part rather shocked, but his more businesslike other half content to reap the rewards. James was actually beating plan now, and Martin had the pleasant task of continually revising upwards his estimates for revenue and hence overall profit. As a result he was something of a blue-eyed boy with Charles at the moment, and was therefore feeling relaxed and good about things.
One of Martin's more endearing traits was that when he felt good he wanted everyone else to feel good too. And so despite some initial resistance on the part of Charles, he got him to agree to a generous £1000 bonus for the whole editorial team (£500 for the secretary). Ads were already doing very nicely with their new bonus scheme introduced by James. After all, the company was reporting record profits, the market was booming, so they could afford it once in a while for special work, he argued. Always keen to heighten the effect of his announcements, Martin kept the news of the bonus secret until the day of the big office Christmas party, one of the main fixtures in the company calendar, looked forward to with a mixture of excitement and fear by many.
He was feeling particularly benevolent when he called Bernice in to tell her the good news because the first copies of the January issue had come in earlier that week, and they showed clearly the Slide Effect: the magazine was far fatter than before, full of glossy ads, and the general improvement in overall tone quite marked.
As Bernice went along to his office her head was full of Christmas schedules for the February issue. Because both the typesetters and printers were closing down over the Christmas period they would work on the issue immediately after the break. Which meant that absolutely everything had to be finished their end before Christmas. With Christmas Day falling on a Sunday, the statutory holidays made it easy to take off two weeks at a stretch, so at least some of her team would have a well-earned rest during this period. With these thoughts passing through her mind she barely noticed the publisher next door to Martin with his head in his hands, moaning softly.
"Bernice," said Martin even more friendly than ever, "good to see you, come in, come in."
Hallo, she thought, what new job is he going to lumber me with now?
"As you know, I - we - all of us here at Wright's are delighted with the way The Business is coming along. And so I'm delighted too to be able to express that er, delight, a little more concretely than usual." He paused for effect: "I've requested and I'm pleased to say been given some bonuses for you and your team."
Bernice's face brightened at the news. She had meant to ask Martin for just such a bonus, but had kept putting it off while she dealt with various minor crises. She felt slightly guilty that Martin had beaten her to it. "Thanks a lot, Martin," she said, "I know they'll appreciate that. They certainly deserve it." How much? she wondered.
"They certainly do," he replied. "Now, I've arranged for £1000 to be added to their December pay cheques next week - except for yourself, of course - I'm pleased to say you'll be getting £1500 - oh, yes and £500 for your secretary."
Her face dropped after a smile had been growing. "Why doesn't Janice get the same as everyone else?"
Martin was flummoxed: what was the problem?
"But this quite normal, for secretaries to receive slightly less than other staff..." he continued.
"Slightly? It's half, Martin, and it's unfair. Janice works just as hard as the rest of us - and God knows needs the money more." She was aware how little Janice was paid - just £8,000 - and the fact that she never seemed to have any money for herself, for new clothes, for decent makeup: she always looked slightly tarty, Bernice had to admit. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became, until she was almost oblivious to the fact that Martin was talking about giving quite a large sum to the editorial office.
"Look, if it's a problem, take the extra bloody five hundred from my money and give to Janice."
Martin wondered whether he would ever understand this headstrong woman. Here he was, offering her a considerable bonus for her team, and even more for herself, and she gets het up about what was perfectly normal company practice. She still had a lot to learn about Wright's. However, for the sake of £500 it was not worth antagonising her. He recognised that the growing success of The Business had brought Bernice to the notice of quite a lot of people both within and outside the company. He didn't want her in a frame of mind to get seduced by an offer of another post. Besides, he thought to himself as he reconciled himself to being more generous, her salary is hardly exorbitant. Unlike James'....
"OK, Bernice, let's not argue over this. I hear what you are saying. I'll arrange for Janice to get £1000 too, OK?"
"Thanks Martin," she said, grateful but not really able to show it at the moment. "Is it OK if tell the team?" she asked.
"Sure, sure, " he said, "go ahead." His mood had been ruined now, and he was glad when she left to pass on the improved good news.
The atmosphere in the office was already good: the official results of the reader survey in the first issue had come through recently, confirming that what they were doing was pretty much what the readers wanted - even though Tim did caution them about placing too much reliance on what he called dismissively a 'skewed sample'. As he explained: "the trouble with reader surveys is that the only readers likely to bother responding are those who enjoy the magazine - it's their way of saying thanks; and if you think about it, it's actually the people who don't like the magazine we want to hear from, so that we can respond to the criticisms - but they don't bother to reply..."
Another paradox of marketing, Bernice reflected.
Bernice's announcement of the bonus made the team's mood better still. In honour of this unlooked-for benevolence Chris immediately dubbed Martin their 'Sugar-Daddy'. Needless to say, this was never used to his face in case he took offence, though had he known he would actually have been delighted by the implied passage it offered into their private world. Once again, the nominal advantage of his rank worked against him. The mood in the office was surprisingly good given that all the copy and production cycles had been shortened to accommodate Christmas: but things were running well, and everyone was looking forward to some time off, finally - and to the Christmas party, about which they'd heard so much within Wright's.
The party was being held, as usual, in the main function room of the local hotel that had been built a few years back to cater for anybody crazy enough to want to visit sunny downtown Southdon. This year's promised to be rather better than previous ones in that their discos had been fixed up - and sometimes even run - by Bob Percival, never one to let a dodgy business opportunity slip, even though apparently incapable of filling a normal post.
This year things were being handled by Cristina, Martin's secretary, an unusual candidate for the job, but one who had put herself forward largely so that she could have an excuse for dancing with Martin, and perhaps even impressing him with her organisational ability, though in fact she had no need to do this since he was already perfectly convinced of her talents in this sphere. Unfortunately, he was impressed by her as a secretary, not as anything else, simply because the thought had never entered his head. His current mild obsession with Bernice did not help matters.
Traditionally everybody turned up, at least for a while, in a kind of symbolic if rather artificial affirmation of the company as one big happy family that would get together to let its hair down from time to time. Even God himself, the Chief Executive, had been known to 'drop in' as if he had descended from Mount Olympus (one of the names for his top floor eyrie) and had an urgent meeting back up there with the other lesser gods later on. Obviously, being a god, he was not expected to boogie. Managing Directors such as Charles were expected to stay longer, and might, very occasionally be tempted to display a little hip wiggling for the edification of the crowd. Publishers, on the other hand, were obliged to stay most of the night, dancing with all and sundry to show that they were one of the people, and to imbibe large quantities of alcohol. This was somehow supposed to affirm their solidarity with the workers, and was strongly encouraged by their staff in the hope that they would commit some gross indiscretion that could be used against them later on.
Things began around six o'clock, with those who needed to get home to families making their token appearance and drinking their token toast. The older generation arrived around seven, the publishers around eight - most were still desperately working on the final revisions to the plans which had to be submitted definitively before the New Year - together with the serious party-goers who had already popped over to the Dog and Duck to 'get in the mood.'
The editorial team went along about eight-thirty due to pressure of work. Pete left almost immediately, as did George. The rest of them grabbed what remained of the food and drink and ensconced themselves in a group of tables and chairs.
As the publishers were dragged out on to the dance floor - or as the night wore on, did the dragging - Bernice felt good. Here she was, into issue three - or was it four? - of a magazine that was launched under ridiculous circumstances, now burgeoning under its new, dynamic and slightly dubious ad manager - to be seen working his way round the hall, chatting up women, engaging the men effortlessly in conversation - surrounded by most of her dearly beloved team: what more could she want? Well, quite a lot more, she thought, like a social life and maybe even a love life. She watched all of the gyrating couples in front of her, envying them for a moment the simplicity of their desires, the uncluttered nature of their lives. She wondered whether she cared too much for The Business and not enough for her own business. She idly pondered on the possibilities for her life, for tonight.
"Penny for your thoughts," asked Chris as if divining them already.
"Oh - nothing, really, just thinking about the past, about the future..." she said evasively.
"Talking of which," said Chris, as if on cue, "we have reason to believe that you have a birthday coming up."
"Oh, have I?" asked Bernice rather stupidly, having forgotten about such trivial personal matters recently. Though only as far as concerned herself: everyone else's birthday (apart from Kate's, which remained one of life's deep mysteries since Bernice felt it would have been 'improper' to find out from Kate's personnel file) was marked in her diary to make sure that she remembered to buy them the canonical cream cakes, by now something of an office institution. Unfortunately Yasmeen's would be during the Christmas break and Wob's - which perhaps unsurprisingly was on February 29 - would not strictly speaking be for another three years, though the cakes might well turn up before then.
"Well, you can hardly have forgotten such an easy date as 1st January, can you?" said Kate. Yes, Bernice thought, born with the 1960s we were. My, how time flies.
"So we've got together and bought you a few things - nothing special, so don't get too excited," warned Chris.
Along with the other presents, including some honey - 'for our Queen Bee' - a bottle of Turkish wine and an old ear trumpet - "for really listening with" - there was what looked like a card. Except that it wasn't. It was a magazine - one that they had produced specially for her.
Called The Bossiness, it was a launch issue devoted to one main theme: Bernice. After an editorial that was a perfect parody of her own worst stylistic habits there followed a 'case study': a day in the life of a typical zany editorial office required to launch a new magazine in nine day's time. It was hilariously funny, being at once a witty compressed history of everything they had gone through and at the same time capturing everyone in a few sentences.
"But this is wonderful," said Bernice, tears streaming down her face from the uncontrollable laughter The Bossiness had provoked. "But who wrote it all?"
"It was a collaboration," said Chris quickly.
"Not really," said Yasmeen, ever one to give credit where it was due. "Chris wrote most of it - he did all of the case study - we made a few suggestions." And you did the editorial, guessed Bernice correctly.
"But it's so good - Chris, you should really become a writer," she said jokingly, without thinking, and then saw that Chris was hurt by what he saw as latent sarcasm.
"I'm sorry, that wasn't funny," and she leant across and kissed him, glad of the pretext. "Thanks Chris - I mean it, it's lovely." And then she kissed everyone else, but not quite in the same way. And she realised that this was only the second time she had kissed them, which seemed ridiculous. She resolved to do it more often.
Thereafter they talked about their work, the past, the Christmas holiday, next year. The party was down to the hardcore revellers by now, and decision time was coming: whether to stay and join in, or to move on.
For Wobs, there was no choice: he had a gig tonight, and his T-shirt seemed to reflect this: 'Head Peebles' it said, and showed a pair of dancing feet. When he invited everyone else as his guests, Yasmeen was enthusiastic, and Kate and Terence seemed interested too. Bernice took a chance.
"I'd love to, but I think I'll just watch Martin making a fool of himself on the dance-floor a little longer, then I really need to call it a day," she said, hoping that her gaffe had not ruined everything.
"Er, me too," said Chris, bless 'im.
"Right then," said Kate rather too quickly, "shall we leave these old fogies then, and go?" It was a little early for Wobs, but this time even he knew that they should leave. He could show his guests the sound system if nothing else. So he and Kate, Terence and Yasmeen bid the other two goodbye, and wished them a nice weekend amid laughter and farewell kisses.
Once they had gone, Bernice again apologised for her stupid remark, but Chris assured her he was not offended. They then talked about his writing, and about future developments, and then passed naturally to talking more personally about their aspirations, hopes and fears. This time the barrier of rank, of nominal places in nominal hierarchies seemed to have melted away. Now they just spoke as two people who were mutually attracted. They talked about important things, and about trivial things, and eventually they decided that it was time to leave the revellers, and to go 'somewhere quieter' unspecified but mutually assumed to be Bernice's flat.
As they left they were oblivious of the other interesting pairings that were taking place at this traditional feast of unreason. As well as editors and reporters, there were a brace of ad managers and reptiles to be seen in deep discussions, though not Mr Slide: as it later transpired, he had already established extremely close working relationships with his girls - notably in the 'working weekends' he took with them in turn, and sometimes even simultaneously. And there were even a few publishers flirting with secretaries, though not, alas, Martin with poor Cristina, despite her hard work and despite the shadowy dance they had shared all-too briefly. Luckily she decided to go home before things had finished, content to let everything go to wrack and ruin for all she cared. In doing so she spared herself what would have been to her the even more distressing sight of Martin later lurching unsteadily out of the door with the striking and ever-smiling Becky in tow.
