Art Pact 98


"A full-frontal assault," Henni says, holding her hands out as if she has a pistol in one hand and is steadying her aim with the other, "on the youth market." She mimes pulling the pin out of a grenade with her teeth, then lobbing the imaginary explosive over the boardroom table. I imagine it bouncing once off the lip of the table's painfully shiny polished mahogany surface, leaving a scratch that the furniture restorers would be called in to deal with immediately. Then it would fly through the open door, coming to rest in the little space outside the boardroom where the coffee machine is. Two temps are blown to smithereens. They can't be repaired or restored. They'd simply be replaced by the agency.

Henni is standing still again - as still as she ever gets, of course. Her hands are on her hips, defiant, and she shifts her weight from leg to leg every few seconds so that her arse cheeks dance side to side beneath the edge of her tailored jacket. She looks like a model at the end of a runway, and I half expect her to turn around and strut back towards the whiteboard, where she would no doubt vanish only to reappear thirty seconds later in some less believable outfit.

"Very interesting," Marshall drawls. He is holding a pen, which he waves around as though stirring the air with it. He sees me watching him - of course, like everyone, my attention is drawn to his languid speech. His tongue protrudes from the side of his mouth, as though it were some loathsome parasite taking the air, then is drawn across the line between his lips. "I wonder what the advertisers would say about it, though."

This is Marshall's catch-all system for burying ideas he does not favour - like a blowhard TV christian complaining about some sitcom sacrilege by pointing out that the writers wouldn't be that rude about muslims. Later on, Marshall can claim with a straight face that he liked the idea himself, it just wasn't what the advertisers were looking for. You can't blame him, of course, for their timid conservative ways. That's just the reality of the world we work in. It's bullshit, of course, but it works for him, and I can see that there's no need for him to change a system that has been so successful in putting an end to any innovation that he dislikes. He's finely honed this tool so that it requires little work from him, and avoidance of extra work is Marshall's unholy grail.

I can see that Henni knows this too. She takes a step back with her right foot, crosses her arms to show that she's not intimidated by Marshall and neither is she open to his comment. She fixes him with a stare, and says through gritted teeth:

"I think that they would welcome a new market segment, one that isn't so cynical about new ideas, one that is up and coming."

That's Henni's buzz-phrase, "up and coming". She's said it five times already, like a prayer to the gods of commerce. It's been that way for a year, ever since the Baldstown conference, the words rolling off her tongue in her polished but still accented English: "Up and car-ming." She has been staring straight into Marshall's eyes for five seconds of silence, and when she looks away again to take in the rest of her audience it is so sudden a movement that it is as though something has snapped. Whether inside Henni or Marshall, it is difficult to tell.

My phone vibrates in my pocket - on silent, but just loud enough with the thing's ridiculous buzzer that Anderson (next to me) can hear it. He turns for a moment, frowns at me. Phones are verboten in the boardroom, but I am for this week at least untouchable, free to flout any rules short of storming up to the head of the room and mooning the assembled worthies. I raise my eyebrows, a gesture which I intend to be ambiguous, and Anderson turns back to the confrontation. I slip the phone out of my pocket and look down to see that my inspiration about mooning people was obviously some sort of psychic premonition or message from the morphic field or whatever other bollocks my brother might be spouting this week: I have been sent a picture of somebody's arse. Whether this is good or bad I can't tell, the lighting in the picture is so terrible that it might be an excellent picture of a terrible arse or a terrible picture of an excellent arse. The number is anonymous, and I wonder whether it is someone in the room who has sent it. Henni has her arms crossed, so it isn't her - Marshall doesn't know how to operate any feature on his phone more complicated than dialling a number (he can't even use the speed dial). It could be Anderson in some complicated double-bluff, but it seems unlikely.

Keeping my face neutral, I look up again as apathetically as though I've just been sent a text about an investment opportunity in Nigeria or a two-for-one subscription to my local gym. I look at Henni first, then let my gaze drift around the room as if I were waiting for someone else to ask a question.

"Robert," Henni says, skewering me with a glance. "What do you have to say about this? You're golden with Carlyle at the moment, give us your opinion."

It's bold of her. I wince with irritation, partly at being called away from my search for the phantom texter, partly at her blunt assertion of my favoured status (and particularly the words "at the moment", and their correct but unwelcome implication that the situation is far from permanent, indeed is strictly limited).

"I suppose we do need to open up a new market," I say. This is uncontroversial. "I don't know if this is the one, though."

She is clearly unsatisfied with my wishy-washy answer, which is understandable. My phone buzzes again, and since it is still in my hand I risk a quick glance down. Another arse, a different one.

"Well," says Henni. "Well."

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