the session was only booked for an hour and he was being paid for it. Thirty-five quid basic, with possible repeats.
So, with his voice lowered an octave to recapture the coldy quality of his Victorian solicitor, Charles gave every possible reading of the lines. He hit each word in turn to satisfy Farrow. BLAND soothes away the day. Bland SOOTHES away the day. Bland soothes AWAY the day. Bland… It did seem a rather pointless exercise for a grown man.
Within half an hour all possible inflections of the lines had been recorded and Charles went from the studio into the control cubicle Farrow was still not happy. After some deliberation, he pronounced, ‘I think it may not be the actor’s fault this time.’ Charles found that charming. ‘No, I think it’s the copy that’s wrong.’
Hugo’s voice was extremely reasonable as he replied. ‘But you have already passed the copy as suitable for the television commercials, and I thought the idea was to keep the two the same.’
‘If so, the idea was wrong,’ said Farrow accusingly.
‘Well, it was your bloody idea,’ Hugo suddenly snapped.
Farrow looked at him in amazement, as if he must have misheard. In times when there was so much competition for big accounts, no member of an agency would dare to disagree with a client. After a pause, he continued as though Hugo had not spoken. ‘I’m afraid you advised us wrongly on that. The radio campaign must be entirely rethought. I can see it’s easy for you to use the same copy but I’m not the sort of man to take short cuts. I care about this product arid I’m looking for a campaign that’s going to be both effective from the sales point of view and also artistically satisfying.’
This was too much for Hugo. ‘Christ, now I’ve heard it all. Artistically satisfying — what the hell do you know what’s artistically satisfying? I’ve listened to enough crap from you and all the other jumped-up little commercial travellers who try to tell me how to do my job. Stick to what you’re good at — peddling pap to the masses — and leave me to get on with what I’m good at — making advertising.’
There was a long pause. Mr. Farrow collected together his papers and put them in his briefcase. Had he left the room in silence, it could have been a dignified exit. But he let it down by trying an exit line. ‘More powerful men than you, Mr. Mecken, have tried to beat me and failed.’
This delivered in his nasal London whine was suddenly unaccountably funny, and Charles and Hugo both erupted with laughter almost before the door had closed behind the aggrieved Brand Manager.
Hugo’s laughter was a short, nervous burst and when it had passed, he looked ghastly, drained of colour. ‘Oh shit I shouldn’t have done it. I’ll have to go after him and apologize. I wasn’t thinking — or I was thinking about other things. I just snapped.’
He rose to leave: Suddenly Charles was worried about him, he couldn’t forget their drunken conversation on the Saturday night. The outburst against Farrow had sounded like an overdue expression of home truths, but now he wondered if it had been a more fundamental breakdown of control.
Hugo stood dazed for a moment and then started for the door. ‘I’ve booked a table at the Trattoria for twelve-thirty. See you there. I’ll get along as soon as I can.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Charles walked round Soho until it was time to go to the restaurant for another expense account meal. He gave Hugo’s name and was shown to a table where there were already two young men.
One he recognized as Ian Compton, a bright copy-writer of about twenty-four who was under Hugo at Mills Brown Mazzini. He was wearing a double-breasted gangster-striped suit over a pale blue T-shirt. Around his neck hung a selection of leather thongs, one for a biro, one for a packet of Gauloise, one for a Cricket lighter and others whose function was not immediately apparent. His lapels bristled with badges, gollies, teddy bears, a spilling tomato ketchup bottle and similar trendy kitsch.
The other was more soberly dressed in a dark jacket and open-necked brown shirt. ‘Diccon, this is Charles Paris. I told you about him.’ Ian’s tone implied that what he had told hadn’t been wholly enthusiastic. ‘This is Diccon Hudson.’
‘Hello.’ The name rang a bell. Charles had heard Diccon spoken of as one of the few who made a very good living exclusively from voice-over work.
Diccon looked at him appraisingly. Not rudely, just with great interest, sizing him up professionally. ‘So you’re the guy who got the Mr. Bland campaign.’
“Fraid so,’ said Charles inanely.
‘Oh, don’t apologize. You win some, you lose some.’ So Diccon had been one of his rivals for the job. Intuition told him that he was facing lan Compton’s candidate.
‘Who’s your agent?’ asked Diccon suddenly.
‘Maurice Skellern.’
‘Never heard of him.’ Was there a hint of relief in the voice? ‘You want a specialist voice-over agent if you’re going to get anywhere in this business.’
‘Where’s the old man?’ asked Ian, as Charles ordered a Scotch.
‘Hugo? Oh, he’s… he’ll be along shortly.’ Charles felt it prudent to keep quiet about the scene with Farrow.
It was Diccon’s turn for a sudden question. ‘Do you know Charlotte?’
‘Hugo’s wife? Yes.’
‘How is she?’ The inquiry was poised midway between solicitude and insolence.
‘Fine.’ Not the moment to share her anxieties of the Saturday night. ‘You know her well?’
‘Used to. Before she got married. Drama school together. Used to go around with her.’ There was a shading of sexual bravado in his tone. ‘Quite cut up when she went into the geriatric ward, I was.’
Charles ignored the implied rudeness. ‘But now you’ve managed to forgive Hugo?’
Diccon looked at him very straight. ‘Well, he’s work, isn’t he, love?’
At that moment the subject of their conversation arrived. He was deathly pale. It was impossible to guess at the outcome of his interview with Mr. Farrow. He was in need of a drink. ‘Got a lot of catching up to do. Marcello, vodka and Campari for me, please. And the same again for the others.’
Hugo started drinking as if he were trying to catch up on a whole lifetime. He became very jovial, swapping flip dialogue, scandal and crude anecdotes with the two young men in a way that was jarringly out of character. Charles didn’t like the sight of Hugo being one of the boys. And he didn’t like the way the two young men were responding to it either. Hugo didn’t seem to notice the covert smiles that passed between Ian and Diccon, or the hint of mockery in their tones as they spoke to him. It was not just at home that Hugo had problems.
As the drink got through, he became increasingly like a salesman in a dirty joke. At one point he leaned nudgingly across to Diccon. ‘What do you say to that bit over there? Chick by the wine rack, eh? Lovely pair of tits.’
‘Not bad.’ Diccon gave a superior smile. He knew Hugo was making a fool of himself and was enjoying every minute of it.
‘That’s what women should be like,’ Hugo went on in drunken man-of-the-world style. ‘Nice firm’ little tits. Don’t let ’em have children. Never have children. Not worth the effort. Little buggers don’t give a damn about you and look what they do to their mothers — make ’em bloody sag, ruin their figures, stop ’em being sexy. That’s what women should be about — they’re meant just to give you a bloody good time in bed, that’s all.’
They had reached the coffee stage. Charles looked round desperately for a waiter to come and bring a bill. He couldn’t bear to see Hugo destroying himself much longer.
Diccon Hudson leaned across the table and said to Hugo in a very sincere voice, ‘So 1 take it you and Charlotte won’t be starting a family?’
‘No chance. I’ve been through all that and it doesn’t work.’
So you’ve managed to persuade her to go on the Pill. Funny, she always used to be against the idea.’
Diccon’s ambiguous indiscretion had been quite deliberate, but Hugo didn’t rise to it. ‘Huh,’ he snorted, ‘there are other ways, you know. We didn’t have any Pills in our young days, but we managed, didn’t we Charles? Eh, we managed.’
