Storyboard (20 page)

She helped him gently out of bed, to clean him up, and change the sheets. When she had wiped the vomit off his hand, and the calamine off with it, she could see the blisters quite clearly. Terrifyingly, ridiculously, they reminded her of the pictures she had seen of Japanese children after Hiroshima.

*

“What about a drink, eh? I expect we can all do with it, after so much talk. What are you having?”
Unnecessary
question. They always had the same. Peter would have a dry sherry, Dave would have lager, the three Agency people would have gin and tonic (which was beginning to come back into fashion after its
displacement
for a while by Campari and soda) and Arnold would refuse a drink, and would make some sort of harmless joke about it.

“Lager for me, please.”

“I think … I’ll have …” (long pause: then, with a note of discovery) “a dry sherry.”

“Tio Pepe, monsieur?”

“Why not?”

“And for you, Arnold?”

“Nothing just now, thanks. When you get to my age, you’re afraid of falling asleep in the afternoon.” Arnold was forty-five.

Polite amusement from the Agency. “Don’t know about that. You drank
me
under the table at the
Salesman’s
Conference last year; I’m not ashamed to admit it,” from P.A. “Wouldn’t blame you if you did, with some of the stuff we Agency people make you listen to,” from Keith.

Equally polite disclaimers from Hoppness. The word “lucid” used several times, the words “most interesting” once. Arrival of the pre-lunch drinks. “Well…. Cheers!” “Cheers!” “Cheers!” all round. “Suppose we ought to be thinking about what we’re going to eat.” Attentive waiters with menus. Serious attention given to menus. Head Waiter offers invariable suggestion, “Smoked salmon?
Pâté
de
foie
? Scampi?” The Head Waiter has lived through many expense-account
luncheons
, and knows what is eaten. Decision of Peter Pope to confound the Head Waiter. He orders Vichysoise. Head Waiter is not noticeably confounded, but Peter’s stock goes up for sophistication. Dave orders a prawn cocktaiL. P.A. persuades Arnold to whitebait. Whitebait considered more sophisticated than Vichysoise. Keith and Tony play conventionally safe with smoked salmon, and receive a smile from the Head Waiter.

“And to follow, messieurs!”

Absolute unanimity on Lobster Thermidor. Keith makes a joke—such unanimity rare in client meetings; he wishes it would always extend to the advertising. A short but significant silence, while Hoppness decide whether this is funny. Dave says seriously that some of their most valuable creative work together has come out of an initial disagreement over details. All put on their thinking faces, and admit that Dave is right. Tony makes a joke in the Hoppness idiom; he says that, on
consideration
, he feels safe in making the claim that Dave has a
superlative degree of rightness. Joke is applauded. Arnold suggests that Tony has now added brightness to rightness. Applause becomes hilarity. Peter’s Vichysoise arrives, and is discovered to be hot.

Hot Vichysoise unknown in Luton. Waiter
apologizes
; the weather in December is so cold…. Peter graciously consents to eat hot Vichysoise. Hot Vichysoise not half bad.

Keith has passed the Wine List to P.A., who has deferred to Arnold’s own experience, who has passed the List back to P.A. Hock has been chosen, and is sipped in silence before the arrival of Lobster Thermidor. Peter, whose wife has been reading it up in
The
Queen
draws attention to the pale green colour of the wine, and remarks that he can taste the shape of the grapes. Each one long and green and flat on top and perfect, he says—the true Beerenauslese. Tony, going from one success to another, asks if that’s fact or opinion. Laughter. Keith says, “I’m afraid that, except on
occasional
outings like this, wine of this sort is right out of my class. But when my wife and I lived in Barnes, we used to be real experts on the under-ten-and-sixpenny wines, from Spanish burgundy to rosé.” Peter falls silent. Dave says, “Oh, I don’t know. There’s nothing like a good rosé,” and Keith remembers that, when last Dave
entertained
him to dinner, rose was served. He has said the wrong thing twice in one client lunch, and that lunch not one-third over, and wonders whether he is losing his grip. P.A. takes charge of the conversation. They speak of used cars and what they have seen on
television
. They decline the Tray. They decline brandy. They accept black coffee and cigars. Soon they will return to the Agency.

Stephen didn’t know her. He didn’t know her. Didn’t know her at all. He just lay there, and didn’t seem to know who she was.

It was past two o’clock. The doctor hadn’t phoned, and he certainly hadn’t called, because Sylvia hadn’t been out. You’d think that he’d at least phone to say he was coming. Of course, in winter they were kept very busy.

He didn’t know her. He hadn’t been to sleep—not properly to sleep; he might have dozed off for a
moment
. She hadn’t been out of the room, except to get herself a cup of tea. “It’s mummy, darling,” she said. “Say something. It’s mummy. Don’t be frightened. Say something to mummy.” And he lay there, looking up at her, his brow hot, his face flushed, those terrible,
horrible
blisters on his neck, and he didn’t seem to know who she was at all. “Want…. Want….” he said, but it was not Sylvia he wanted. She did not know, could not tell what he wanted.

She had to do something. Take his temperature. If only it were somewhere near normal, she would know that there could be nothing seriously wrong. Why didn’t the doctor come? She shook the thermometer, shook the mercury in it right down, and put it in his mouth. His mouth was slack. “Close, darling; close your mouth now,” she said, but he took no notice. Could she leave it there, lodged insecurely under his tongue? Christ! If he should bite it! Clumsily, afraid to hold it between her fingers in case this in some way affected the reading, she let the top of the thermometer rest on her wrist.

A moment longer, to be sure. And take it out. And look at it. There was not enough light by the bed. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t find the line of mercury. She held it up to the light by the window, revolving it to
find the mark, twisting it, moving it in the light. She must be calm and steady and … and clinical. There! The line of mercury glittered in the light, and she could quite clearly see the reading. Only there was something wrong. She had done it wrong. The reading was a hundred and three degrees.

But this was dangerous! Two people were inside her, fighting. One said, “Children’s temperatures go up and down at the slightest thing.” The other said, “A hundred and three degrees! And the blisters!” She couldn’t wait now for the doctor to come. She had been waiting too long already. Stephen must go to hospital. He must go at once for treatment. She would phone, and they would send an ambulance. He would be quite well in no time when they had got him to hospital, when they had given him the treatment. They had facilities there, doctors there in dozens, lotions more cooling than
calamine
there. What would she tell, what now could she possibly tell Keith? That it was all her fault, that she had once wanted to push Stephen under a bus, that if it hadn’t been for Stephen, Stevie, his Stevie, she would still have her job, and Keith would be home in the
evenings
, and they would never quarrel, and she would not be tired or have headaches, but they would be loving together always, loving and close? She had never ever wanted to kill Stephen, never wished him harm. The hospital would send an ambulance, and it would rush through the quiet streets, clanging its bell, and men in white would help her and not blame her, and know what to do. They would take Stephen away, away out of her responsibility, and make him better.

He didn’t know her. Quickly. The search through the telephone book. The dialling. The ringing tone. A voice. How did
she
know whom she wanted? Entries….
Admissions
….
Emergency…. Anyone to help. A different voice. Then she herself, her own voice, explaining, stumbling a little but keeping a tight, tight check on the panic she felt, gaining detachment and even confidence as she continued, telling what had happened, his
temperature
of a hundred and three, that he didn’t, when last she spoke to him, seem to know who she was.

“Has the doctor seen him?”

“I’ve telephoned. He wasn’t in. They said they’d give him the message.”

“On his rounds, I expect. He’s bound to come and see you.”

“But if I wait … Can’t you send an ambulance? It would be so much quicker.”

“Not really, I’m afraid. Not until your own doctor’s seen him. If he decides the child needs hospitalization, he’ll phone us, and we’ll send an ambulance at once. It’s a rule, you see.”

“A rule?”

“If you brought him to us on your own, we’d have to take him in. A case can’t be sent back, naturally. But we need a request from your doctor to send an ambulance to you. I’d really advise you to wait until the doctor sees him. If he couldn’t come, he’d have let you know, so he’s bound to call soon.”

“I see….” She put the phone down. Perhaps she was behaving unreasonably. Other people, other
children
had temperatures as high as that, and it hadn’t … What was the number she had to phone? She’d made a note of it somewhere. But she couldn’t find the telephone number given to her by the Answer Service. She dialled the old number, waiting for the mechanical, heartless voice, ready to take down the number again. She was not even impatient any more. She wanted now
only physical things; her finger in the holes of the
telephone
dial, the bakelite receiver against her ear, the
prrr!
prrr!
of the ringing tone, little physical things she could feel and hear to send their signals to a mind that needed the reassurance of familiarity. The ringing tone went on too long; a machine would have answered
before
this. And, in fact, it was the doctor’s wife who answered.

“Mrs. Harrison? It’s Sylvia Bates here. Mrs.
Harrison
, I’m terribly worried …”

It was more than a voice taking messages. It was a kind voice. How wonderful that people were kind! Yes, the doctor had received her message. Yes, he was on his rounds now. Yes, he would certainly call. He was bound to arrive soon. No, she didn’t think Stephen ought to have any more Anadin. No drugs of any kind. Just quiet. Rest and quiet. Until the doctor came.

*

Dave said, “Now, let’s see where we come out on this. First of all, there’s this claim the Agency wishes us to make for the product. ‘Natural Beauty’. I think that we on this side of the table would agree that it is both a meaningful and a distinctive claim, and there’s no
reason
productwise why we shouldn’t make it. Of course we’ll have to check with Chemicals, but I think we could safely make this claim. I’m a little worried that it isn’t a superlative claim, but we’d probably agree with Keith there that, ‘Product X gives you the
Most
Natural Beauty’ wouldn’t be any stronger since it implies that other products might also give you Natural Beauty of some sort, and the same objection is valid for the competitive, comparative claim, ‘More Natural Beauty than any other soap can give’. I’m not sure that, on Company side, we’d take Keith’s point that beauty isn’t
quantitative; that sounds like a point of opinion to me. In our experience any end-result is quantitative. But still, all things considered, we’d agree that ‘Natural Beauty’ is meaningful to women, original and
distinctive
. Right?”

“Right,” Said Peter.

Keith thought, If only they’d stop calling it ‘
Product
X’ and start calling it ‘Water Nymph’, I’d be happier.

“So much for the claim itself. Now we come to the expression of the claim in terms of advertising. Now, we don’t want to dictate advertising to the Agency; that isn’t our policy as a Company. I’ll freely admit that we were all a little startled by the advertising at first, but Keith has brought me round anyway to agreeing with him that there really is a strong case for doing something different here, and I like the very warm emotional
feeling
the Agency has put into this advertising. I think the artwork here, what we’ve been calling the ‘Two Faces of Eve’ treatment of the end-result is extremely
attractive
, and so is the warmth we find in the television
commercial
. I don’t think there’s any doubt that we’ve got the beginnings of something worthwhile here, and the points we’ve been discussing are really only detailed matters of execution. I think we’d all accept the Agency’s recommendations in principle, wouldn’t you, Arnold?”

“Yes, I would, Dave. I’ve been very impressed by the Agency’s work. It represents a real breakthrough, in my opinion. Congratulations all round.”

Warily, “Thank you, Arnold.”

Dave said, “So there just are these detailed points, Keith. I think we’d better leave the copy and
storyboards
with you, because I don’t propose we should make the alterations on the table. You’ll want time
to think about them, and then maybe come back with some fresh suggestions of your own. But if we could see revisions on these lines, and talk about them and then again at our next meeting …?”

“What were the lines again, Dave?”

“One!” Tony turned to a clean sheet on his pad, and began to note the points as Dave enumerated them. “The incorporation into television of a visual
demonstration
of the product in use, coupled with some sort of verbal mention of the ingredient story. That needn’t be detailed in any way. There’s no need to make any specific reference to the glycerine and lanolin base, for instance; not at this stage. Just the number of exclusive ingredients in the product, and some sort of specific reference in competitive terms like—oh, ‘more exclusive ingredients than any other soap you can buy’. Two! The addition of some sort of end-result shot, showing the user of the product in an up-grade social context like a night-club. Three! A verbal mention only—we don’t want to hound you on this, and we certainly don’t want to inhibit the feeling that we all value so highly—so a verbal mention only on television of the fact that
Product
X leaves no ring round the bowl. And include that in press copy too, of course. You might think of some sort of special panel in the press advertisement, unless you feel that might be adding too many elements. Four! Keep the young mother in the television by all means. We’ll go along with your thinking on that, at least until research shows otherwise. But cut any visual reference to the daughter. I mean, as Peter pointed out, if you show a specific son or daughter, you run the risk of
non-identification
by women who have children of a different sex. We want to keep this thing as general as we can. Five! A male voice over, not a female voice, in the
television
.
We all noticed how low the word count was, Keith. No doubt there’s good reason for that. Women speak more slowly than men, and you’re right to play it safe. But I think you’ll find your problem’s solved there if you change the woman’s voice to a man’s voice, and you’ll find you can get more words in. And that’s all.”