James looks out of the boardroom window and down onto the lights of Charlotte Street below. The restaurants are starting to fill with post-work revellers. Leaves are turning to shades of rust and dust and the air looks crisper, even though James can’t actually feel it through the floor-to-ceiling window. His closest friend and partner Dominic is talking to their new clients, Sebastian and Duncan from Fisher + Whyman, two serious-looking men in three-piece suits, who are dressed far too smartly to be talking about pubic hair. Since the summer, when Dominic talked a mean pitch and James won them over with his creative vision, they can do little wrong in Sebastian and Duncan from Fisher + Whyman’s eyes. They can do little wrong as far as Jeremy Laws, their boss at the MFDD global advertising agency is concerned either. Winning the Femme campaign brings Fisher + Whyman, one of the world’s biggest health and well-being consumer goods producers, into the MFDD client list, and if the campaign they pitched is as successful as they promised, James and Dominic’s career trajectory will soar.
James and Dominic have been a great partnership since they met at university in Leeds. Despite physical and verbal clumsiness, Dominic was always a charmer: talking the talk in the union bar, getting them out of scrapes in pubs, negotiating free drinks in the curry house, dreaming up straplines and slogans on their advertising course while James diligently sourced pictures or shot his own for them to use on undergraduate projects.
Kitty moved up from Kent to Leeds to be with James and study microbiology, not wanting to break off their fledgling high-school romance, and she warmed to Dominic as much as James had. A softly shaped swarthy boy with Hobbit-like feet but a warm honest charm to his ineloquence. A talker, a seller, a player, always true to his word. James marvelled at how Dominic believed in everything he did, how he would get as passionate about pet food as he did about the charity campaigns they worked on.
A long way from Leeds, Dominic and James are an award-winning advertising dream team, coming up with campaigns that bring a tear to any steely brand manager’s eye, let alone the housewives who hoped the hungry dog found its way home, the old widow would find love again or the priest would be reunited with his favourite whisky. And Dominic is fiercely loyal to his art director best friend. When rival advertising agencies tried to poach Dominic, as the more vocal half of the partnership, the better networker at conferences and creative festivals, he wouldn’t go anywhere without James. Quieter, more considerate, unable to bullshit.
‘James?’ urges Dominic. ‘What do you think?’
Dominic only ever calls James ‘James’ in front of clients, which snaps him back into the room.
He had been lost in a daydream, looking at the effects of the light from the sinking sun over Charlotte Street. Wondering how Monet managed to capture sunset on the Thames when it was so fleeting. Wondering what the burritos taste like in the new cantina down the road. Wondering why Kitty hasn’t spoken to him for fifty-two hours.
‘I think we need to ask a woman,’ James replies, without looking away from the window. ‘What do we know about it?’
Sebastian and Duncan are taken aback.
‘Well, you gave us the impression you knew a lot about what women think, how you see them connecting with Femme,’ says Duncan with one eye narrower than the other. A first crack appearing in the love-in.
‘Of course we do!’ says Dominic. ‘James just believes in authenticity. We need to consult the Femme woman at every step of the way, and that’s why we have this brilliant focus group on board.’ Dominic rubs his eyes to conceal his exasperation. ‘I tell you what, we’ll put it to them this evening and get back to you with next steps.’
‘This evening? It’s not your wives and mothers is it?’ winces Sebastian half-jokingly as he peels his suit jacket from the back of his chair to signal the end of the meeting.
‘Of course not!’ says Dominic, pulling his notebook towards him like a security blanket.
‘We have a focus group, a panel of experts: consumers, mothers, students, friends, journalists, who are always keen to feed back to us when we put it to the market. We’ll email the women tonight and will have feedback with you by 3 p.m. tomorrow. Sound good?’
Sebastian and Duncan stand and shake Dominic’s thick hand. James, torn from an otherworldly gaze, stands and holds out his.
‘Sorry,’ James stumbles, pushing the bridge of his black rectangular glasses back up his nose. ‘Yes, we’ll put it to panel. Great to see you two again.’
Dominic walks Sebastian and Duncan to the lifts by reception and heads back to the boardroom, where James is sitting in his chair, spinning around in it for no particular reason.
‘You all right, Millsy?’
‘Yep.’
But James isn’t all right. The glass wall onto Charlotte Street feels unusually restrictive today. He doesn’t feel the passion for depilatory products that Dominic clearly does. He didn’t feel as excited as Dominic did when they collected their pet food campaign award in a buzzy auditorium in Cannes back in June. Despite the pool parties and the yachts and the forums and the fun, this year’s annual advertising awards frenzy just felt chaotic and exhausting and competitive and James wanted to be back in London, packing up the flat with Kitty. But Dominic is loyal to James and James is loyal to Dominic, so they both put on their tuxes and celebrated their achievement. They are a team.
‘Coming for a drink with the focus group?’ asks Dominic.
‘Who, Josie?’
‘Yeah!’ laughs Dominic, a pudgy smile lighting up drooping, bear-like eyes.
James laughs. He almost believed in this panel of women, waiting for a call from Dominic to ask them whether hair-free armpits or a hair-free bikini line is more important to them.
‘No thanks. I’m going to head back to Hazelworth, got to pick up my camera on the way.’ James’s beloved SLR sits in a repair shop on Tottenham Court Road. It has been there, sad and unloved and lonely, since Kitty threw it down the stairs three weeks ago. She cried. She said she was sorry. She said she didn’t know why she had done it, but cement-grey eyes turned black at the point which she let go of it. ‘Give Josie my love.’