Storyboard (17 page)

“Tell me about it, love, and then we’ll go to bed.”

“Oh, it’ll take all night.”

“Tell me about it in bed then. I’m not sleepy.”

Sophia was delighted that Ralph was so interested.

S
o in the morning, Keith and Sylvia would not have been speaking to one another, except that they had to keep up some sort of front before the child. That was a pity, because it took them two removes from
reconciliation
instead of only one. If it had not been for the necessity of the pretence, each of them would have sulked, waiting for the other to apologize. And if they had sulked for long enough (since silence only exists to be broken), Keith might have said, as he wanted to say, “I shouldn’t have talked to Donald without consulting you first. I’m sorry,” and Sylvia might have said, as she wanted to say, “I’m sorry I hit you.” As things were, they kept up a front, so that Stephen should not see his parents quarrel.

Keith didn’t feel like eating. Butterflies. But he had to eat his breakfast cereal, or Stephen wouldn’t have eaten his. “When are they coming in?” Sylvia asked, knowing the answer, because they always came in at ten, and Keith said, “Ten,” and added, “everything’s ready, though. I checked it all last night.”

Sylvia blew her nose, and Keith said, “I hope you’re not getting Stephen’s cold.”

“If I don’t, it’ll be the first time.”

“You won’t give mummy your cold, Stevie, will you?”

“Mummy always gets my colds.”

“Well, don’t boast about it. What are you going to do today?”

“Going to do my transfers.”

Transfers had replaced pollywockets in the cereal packet. There were two in each, and you could send sixpence in stamps and a packet top to the
manufacturers
, and get a Special Book for the set. “Well,
transfers
will keep you out of trouble, I suppose,” Keith said.

Sylvia said, “Not for long. There’s only two. I wish to goodness it weren’t raining, and he could go
outside
.”

“Not with his cold, dear.”

“All I’ve been doing this winter is boil hankies.”

“Send them to the laundry.”

“When they make you a director, I will.”

“He could use Kleenex.”

“Oh, Keith, you know what happens. Germy little bits of paper all over the house. Or else he leaves them somewhere, and uses his sleeve.”

Keith looked at the kitchen clock, and said, “Oh dear! I must rush.” Sylvia did not get up to come with him to the door; keeping up a front was one thing, but it would be ridiculous to pretend nothing had happened. “So long, Steve,” he said, and then, looking at his wife over the boy’s head, “Wish me luck.” Fishing! She had no patience with that sort of thing. Keith was always anxious before a Client Meeting, but he could hardly expect
her
to maintain the same pitch of anxiety every time. “Well, here I go,” he said. “I won’t kiss you,
darling
, or I’ll get Steve’s cold too.” And he went out into the hall.

Well, he would only fret if she didn’t wish him luck;
he was the breadwinner, after all. “Good luck, dear!” she called behind him, but Keith had already closed the door, and could not hear.

*

They had arrived from Luton by the early train. They had been greeted. They had been brought into the Meeting Room, where the tape recorder had already been set up, with a long lead on the tape so that it would not run off the spool when Keith wound it back for a replay. There were the lay-outs, one in colour and one in black and white, face down on the table. There was the storyboard, with three photostat copies, made at a cost of
£
2 10s. a photostat, so that the Hoppness people would not suffer the inconvenience of being made to crowd together, but could follow Keith’s
explanation
without moving from their places at the table. There were the typed sheets of press copy, the television scripts, all neat on white paper, typed and retyped
because
even erasures were not permitted on copy that was to be submitted to Client; each piece of copy had to be typed at a stretch without errors, and the typists would stay to do it until it was done.

Hoppness, Silch sat at one side of the table, and the Agency at the other. P.A. and his opposite number at Hoppness, Arnold Brady, the General Advertising Manager, were at the foot of the table, a little distance from their juniors. Of all his clients, P.A. liked Hoppness least. They called him “Pat” instead of P.A. He had often thought of resigning the account, except that to do so would have shifted the balance of power within the Agency.

Keith was at the head of the table, with Tony beside him. Dave Amber, the Advertising Manager for Water Nymph, the New Cosmetic Soap (if Hoppness would
agree to call it “Water Nymph”) sat opposite Keith. Next to him was his assistant, Peter Pope. Dave was twenty-six years old, Peter only twenty-three. They were all so young at Hoppness, and they all held second-class degrees in History or Economics, and they all dressed the same way, and talked the same way, and had the same sort of haircuts, and they were all married, and were all (Christian used to say) issued with the same contraceptives at the Hoppness Canteen. And here they were, three of them, looking at Keith and waiting for him to start the meeting.

“Play it
against
the advertising,” P.A. had told him. “It’s the only way with that lot. No gimmicks. Play it as safe and dull as you can. Begin with the strategy. Then, when they think they’re safe, spring it on them.” You could sell some clients with a display of enthusiasm and coloured charts. You could (P.A. could, at least) throw a single lay-out down on the table, and say, “There you are. That’s your next year’s advertising. Now let’s go and have a drink.” You could josh some clients, and gentle some, and blind some with tales of famous artists who were panting to work for them, but none of that would do for Hoppness, who measured everything against the strategy, and would discompose you by taking notes while you talked, distinguishing what was fact, and could be checked, from what was your opinion.

All opinions were alike to Hoppness; insofar as they had a philosophy, that was it. All opinions were of equal worth, and the worth was low. There were no experts in matters of opinion; in the private language of the
Hoppness
philosophy the word “opinion” was a tainted word, meaning something which was not a fact. You could tell Hoppness that housewives wanted a superlative
degree of whiteness in their heavy wash, and they would agree with you because Hoppness had done a research, and a significantly greater number of respondents had ticked the word “whitest” instead of the word “cleanest” in the questionnaire. You could tell them that those same housewives were more interested in the social and emotional contexts in which their wash would be seen than in the exact ingredients which went into the
powder
that washed it, and that washing clothes was just part of the whole complicated, harassing exciting,
fulfilling
business of making a home, bringing up children, being loved by one’s husband and moving with respect among neighbours, and they would smile politely and ignore the conclusions that followed from your
statement
, because what you were saying was not proved fact, but merely opinion. So Keith would have to begin by persuading Hoppness that this new advertising for Water Nymph (if they were going to call it “Water Nymph”) was not simply the expression of opinions within the Agency on how to sell the soap, but
incorporated
every point made in the typed and duplicated sheet of objectives agreed after weeks of conference
between
Hoppness and the Agency—the sheet which Dave had already taken from his brief-case, which lay in a blue folder in front of Peter, which Keith now held in his hand; the Strategy for Product X——or Water Nymph (if they would call it “Water Nymph”). The Strategy was always more important to Hoppness than any advertising. If you had got the Strategy right, they said, advertising would surely follow from it. It was always held by those who had worked on advertising with Hoppness, that if, by some mischance, they were visiting an agency and there were no advertising to show them, one had only to propose a revision in the
Strategy, and they would talk all day, and go away
congratulating
each other on a fruitful meeting.

So Keith would begin with the Strategy. He would review the Marketing Objectives:
“to achieve a substantial share of the high-quality, cosmetic soap field, specifically to attain an annual consumption equal to at least
75
per cent of this market
(
or
1.2
of
the
overall
toilet
soap
market
).
Marketing efforts generally should be directed against younger women of all classes, with a bias towards the urban centres of population.”
Then the Copy Strategy:
“Our aim is to establish an image for Product X of a high-quality cosmetic soap, suitable for use instead of, or in addition to, the normal cosmetic range used by women, and having a superlative end-result in terms of skin-care, though without any suggestion of actual medication.”
And then he would run over the list of footnotes in which each statement of aims was correlated with what was known by the Hoppness Research Unit of wants in this field.
“Reassurance as to quality may be obtained by specific mention of the expensive and exclusive ingredients of the new product. Details of performance in use will include a reassurance that no ring of scum is left in the bowl or bath, even in hard water areas.”
(A panel of younger women of all classes in the urban centre of Cardiff, asked if they would prefer a soap which left no ring round the washbowl, had answered, “Yes”.)

There wasn’t any mention in the advertising either of the exclusive ingredients or the ring which wasn’t left in the bowl, but P.A. had said, “Never mind. Go over it all anyway. It gives them confidence to hear it all again. At least they won’t think you’ve forgotten.” So Keith would go over it all again, and he would touch lightly on the Agency’s recommendation that Water Nymph (as he at least would call it) should be put out first in the London area, with advertising on television and in
the London evening papers, but he would be showing them a colour page anyway, he’d say, because of course they’d want to use the women’s magazines when the product was available nationally. Then he would show them some wrappers which Fidge had devised, using the name “Water Nymph”—since, although the Agency quite realized that Hoppness might wish to change the name eventually, a name of some sort had to be used, at least for the wrappers. And then he would show them the advertising. And then they would talk about it.

He cleared his throat, and glanced hesitantly down the table at P.A. Dave Amber, who had arranged his copy of the Strategy where he could read it easily, had zipped up his brief-case again, and placed it by his chair. Arnold Brady put both elbows on the table. P.A. gave Keith a little nod. “Well,” Keith said winningly, “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what our strategy for this product is,” and began to do so.

*

“Mummy, I want some water.”

“What?”

“Water.”

Stephen wanted some water for his transfers. There were only two. It was ridiculous to do them now. All that mess and clutter for two transfers! Sylvia said, “Why don’t you wait until you’ve got the lot? We’ll send for that book to stick them in.”

“I want to do them now.”

If only it weren’t raining, he could go outside, if only it weren’t too cold. If only it were Saturday, he could be taken to the Saturday Morning Cartoon Show at the local cinema, except that, if it were Saturday, Keith would be here to play with him anyway. When Sylvia had a cold (and she was certainly going to catch his; she
could feel it coming), all she wanted was quiet and a chance to go to bed. But a cold made Stephen more of a nuisance than he usually was. “Where are you going to stick them, then?” she said.

“On my hand. Roger’s brother’s a sailor. He’s got pictures all over his hands. He’s got ‘I love you’ and ‘Mother’, and he’s got ‘Kiss Me Do’ on his fingers, and——”

“Stephen, don’t be silly.”

“He has. He come——”

“Came.”

“Cehme.”

“Don’t put on that affected accent; it’s not at all funny. You can speak properly when you want to. Just talk English.”

“Can I have some water, then?”

“You’re not putting transfers on your hands, Stephen.”

“I want to!”

If only she weren’t so tired, she could be more patient with him. She gave the pan of boiling handkerchiefs a jab with a wooden stick, composed her face, and said, “Stevie, you don’t want transfers all over your hands. They’d never come off, darling; they really wouldn’t. Even when you’d got tired of them, they’d still be there for ever and ever, like that poor little girl with the red shoes; remember? You don’t want Daddy to come home and find you with transfers all over your hands.”

A silence while Stephen thought. Then he said, “I’ll get some paper, then.”

“Why not wait till we can buy the book?”

He went resolutely into the drawing-room, and she could hear him at her desk. He knew he wasn’t allowed at her desk. Perhaps she ought to follow him, catch his
shoulders, and firmly turn him the other way—but
anything
for peace and quiet. She had finished the dishes, and tidied up the drawing-room, and now there were the beds. She might lie down for a moment. “
Darling
, you know you’re not allowed in mummy’s desk,” she called. “Come back in here.” Stephen came back into the kitchen, with a piece of her best, blue
writing-paper
, with the address embossed at the top.

“Couldn’t you find anything else?”

He looked at her sulkily without replying.

“Oh, all right. You can have it.”

He put the sheet of paper flat on the kitchen table with his transfers, climbed on a chair, and began
studying
the instructions on the back of the cereal packet. “Can I have some water now?” he said.

Sylvia filled the chipped kitchen saucer with water from the tap, and set it on the table. He watched her, not helping. Then he dipped one finger into the water. “It’s
cold
,” he said.