The Terrible Privacy Of Maxwell Sim (11 page)

‘What it’s leading to,’ said Lindsay, leaning forward slightly, and lowering her voice to a near-whisper, ‘is almost certainly up to you.’

Her gaze met mine for a brief, charged moment. I was still trying to think of a suitable reply when her mobile rang. She glanced at the screen.

‘My husband,’ she said. ‘Excuse me for a minute, will you?’

She stood up to take the call and wandered over to the other side of the room. I heard her say, ‘Hello, honey, how’s tricks?’, and then Trevor came over with the drinks.

‘One pint of Carlsberg for your good self,’ he said. ‘They serve it good and cold here, I must say. Cheers.’ We both took long draughts, and then he asked me about my Australian trip, and we talked about that for a while. ‘It’s done you good, I reckon,’ Trevor told me. ‘You’re looking much better than I thought you would.’

I was grateful to him for saying this, but before I’d had the chance to thank him he had changed the subject.

‘What do you think of Lindsay, then?’ he asked.

‘She seems very nice.’

‘She’s more than that. She’s fantastic. The best in the business.’

I nodded, but after a moment or two felt compelled to ask: ‘The best
what
in the business, exactly?’

‘Didn’t I tell you? Lindsay’s our PR Officer. She reports to me, as Head of Marketing and Strategy, and runs all our campaigns. And her latest –’ Trevor actually put down his glass of lager now, and looked to the left and right, as if there might be industrial spies from a rival company seated at the adjacent tables ‘– her latest is an absolute beauty. A copper-bottomed, one hundred per cent corker. It’s going to send us … up there.’ He raised his hand towards the ceiling, apparently meaning to signify an ascent into the stratosphere.

‘Sorry about that, chaps,’ Lindsay now said, returning to our table. ‘Spot of bother with the other half. Pissed off that I’m not there to cook his dinner for him, even though I already told him I was coming here tonight. Haven’t managed to drag him beyond the caveman stage yet, unfortunately.’

‘I was just telling Max,’ Trevor said, ‘that you have come up with an absolute peach of a campaign for the IP 009.’

‘The IP 009?’ I queried.

Trevor picked up the toothbrush from the table. ‘This gorgeous specimen here,’ he cooed, regarding it lovingly. ‘Number nine in our Interproximal range, and the undisputed jewel in the crown of the Guest catalogue.’

The design of the handle and the texture of the wood reminded me of the first brush Trevor had shown me, although this was clearly a superior version. ‘Is it made by the same people?’ I asked.

‘Actually, no,’ he said. ‘This is an import from Switzerland. Unfortunately this is beyond the range of any British manufacturer at the moment. They could probably manage the handle, but this –’ he indicated the detachable head ‘– is where the real genius lies. You can put on three different brushes: one for ordinary cleaning, one for routine interdental work, and this one, which we are claiming is the longest and most far-reaching interproximal brush currently available in the UK.
Fifteen millimetres
of flexible but hard-wearing nylon-polyester blend, engineered by Swiss craftsmen with incredible skill so that it can rotate on three different fulcrums to any angle you care to mention. This brush will reach
anywhere
in your mouth – absolutely anywhere – without you having to contort and gurn in front of the mirror. It will even get plaque out from the gingival crevice between the second and third upper molars, which as anyone involved in dentistry will tell you is the Holy Grail of oral hygiene. We are
hugely
proud of this product, and this is why we’re going to launch it next month, with a massive fanfare, at the British Dental Trade Association Showcase at the NEC. For which purpose, Lindsay here has come up with a wonderful new slogan, which sums up not only this product, but the whole ethos of Guest Toothbrushes, in a phrase which is simple, elegant and to the point. Lindsay?’ He glanced across at her expectantly, and jerked his head. ‘Go on. Tell him.’

Lindsay smiled modestly. ‘It’s nothing special, really. Only Trevor seems to be quite taken with it. OK, here goes.’ She closed her eyes, and took a breath. ‘
WE REACH FURTHEST
.’

There was a short silence, while this phrase was allowed to hang in the air. We all sat there for a while, savouring it, as if it were a fine wine which released its secrets on to our palettes only gradually.

‘That’s …
good
,’ I said at last. ‘I like that. That has a certain … Well, I don’t quite know what.’

‘
Je ne sais quoi
?’ suggested Trevor.

‘Yes – that’s it.’

‘There’s more,’ Trevor said. ‘You don’t know the half of it yet. Lindsay’s playing her cards far too close to her chest. Come on, Lindsay, tell him about the campaign. Tell him about your masterstroke.’

‘OK.’

Lindsay reached into her handbag and took out an impossibly compact and glossy white notebook computer. Within seconds of her touching the spacebar it had shimmered into life, and she was on the first page of a PowerPoint presentation. The illustration appeared to show a map of the British Isles.

‘Now the thing is, Max, we already have a great product here, and we already have a powerful slogan. In a slightly more relaxed economic environment, that would usually be enough. But the way things are at the moment, we have to try a little bit harder. That’s my job, essentially: that’s what a PR person does. You’ve got to get hold of the package, which could be as dull as an old tin box, and you’ve got to dress it up, make it a bit Christmassy, so that it appears attractive.’

‘Find a gimmick, you mean.’

‘Well …’ Lindsay looked doubtful. ‘I don’t really care for that word.’

‘Me neither,’ said Trevor.

‘What I was looking for,’ said Lindsay, ‘was a way of taking that phrase – “
We Reach Furthest
” – and getting even more mileage out of it. Pushing it as far as it would go. Let’s face it, oral hygiene is a hard sell. What we have here is an amazing toothbrush – a revolutionary toothbrush – but it’s not easy to get people to see it that way. For most people, a toothbrush is a toothbrush is a toothbrush. It’s an object. A useful object, definitely. But still – people aren’t interested in objects. If you want to sell something, you have to
dramatize
it. You have to turn it into a story. What’s more, if what you’re trying to sell is the best of its kind, you have to give it the best kind of story. You have to do it justice. Now, what do
you
think is the best kind of story, Max?’

I wasn’t expecting this. ‘Boy meets girl?’ I said, hopefully.

‘Not bad. That’s certainly one of the best. But try to think of something a bit more archetypal than that. Think of the
Odyssey
. Think of King Arthur and the Holy Grail. Think of
Lord of the Rings.
’

Now I was stuck. I hadn’t read the
Odyssey
or
Lord of the Rings
, and King Arthur and the Holy Grail made me think of Monty Python.

‘The
quest
,’ Lindsay said at last, when it became clear that I didn’t know the answer. ‘The journey. The voyage of discovery.’ She pointed at the screen of her laptop, indicating, in turn, four red crosses that had been marked at various points on the edges of her map. ‘Do you know what these are, Max? These are the four extreme inhabited points of the United Kingdom. The settlements that are further north, south, east and west than any others. Here we are – look! Unst, in the Shetland Islands, to the north of Scotland. St Agnes, one of the Scilly Isles, off the coast of Cornwall. Manger Beg, in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. And Lowestoft, at the very eastern tip of Suffolk in England. We’ve done our research and we’ve established that none of our rivals, none of the big corporations, have managed to get a foothold in those places. Some of them, yes – but not all four. But supposing we did? Supposing we were able to claim, at next month’s showcase, that we were the only company whose products were on sale in each of those locations? Do you know what that would give us the right to say?’

Trevor and Lindsay both looked at me, leaning forward in their chairs, breathless with anticipation. I glanced from one to the other. Simultaneously, their mouths started to form the first word, the beginning of the slogan they were willing me to pronounce. It looked like a ‘w’ sound.

‘“
W … W … We … ?
”’ I began, interrogatively, and when they both responded with an eager nod, my confidence mounted and I was able to complete the phrase: ‘“
We reach furthest!
”’

Trevor sat back and spread his hands, with the proudest of smiles beaming from his fleshy, good-natured face. ‘Simple, isn’t it? Simple, but beautiful. The IP 009 reaches furthest, and
the company itself
reaches furthest. Product and distributor working together in perfect synergy.’

He began to tell me more about the campaign that they had in mind. A team of four salesmen would set off in their cars, at noon on the same Monday morning, from the company’s office in Reading. They would each take with them a box full of samples, and a digital video camera, so that they could keep video diaries of their journeys. They would set off in four different directions, each heading for one of the extreme points of the United Kingdom. There would be a prize for the first salesman to arrive back at the office after reaching his destination (although this was really a foregone conclusion, since Lowestoft was so much closer than the others) but essentially they would be encouraged to take as long as they wanted, within reason. The company had allowed for five nights’ hotel expenses, and the real object was to make the video diaries as interesting as possible: when the sales team returned, their footage would be cut together in time for the Dental Trade Association fair and made into a twenty-minute film to be looped continuously on a video monitor at the Guest Toothbrushes stand.

‘Sounds fantastic,’ I agreed.

‘It will be,’ said Trevor. ‘It’s going to blow people away. Can you imagine the impact of that film? A radical breakthrough in toothbrush design, coupled with breathtaking shots of the British countryside at its wildest and most remote. I’m creaming my trousers just thinking about it. The only thing is … We still have one problem. We’re a man short.’

He looked at me, and at last the penny started to drop.

‘Guest Toothbrushes,’ Lindsay explained, ‘is a small organization. That’s Alan’s vision, and that’s how he wants to keep it. There are just ten of us, and there’s only one man on the sales team.’

‘David Webster’s his name,’ said Trevor. ‘Excellent guy. First rate rep. He’s going to do the Northern Ireland leg for us.’

‘What about the others?’

‘Well, a couple of us are going to muck in. I’ll be going down to the Scillies, and our accounts honcho will be heading off to Lowestoft for a couple of days. But as far as Shetland is concerned, we need to buy someone in for the week. Someone with sales experience, obviously, and someone who isn’t working at the moment. Which is why, Maxwell, my old chum –’ (He laid a friendly hand on my knee) ‘– my thoughts turned immediately to you.’

I looked from Trevor to Lindsay, and back again to Trevor. His eyes were eager and appealing, like a spaniel puppy begging to be taken for a walk. Lindsay’s eyes, cobalt blue, were trained on me more steadily; behind their unmoving lucidity I felt I could detect something else, something keener and more urgent; a real hunger – a desperate hunger, it seemed – for my agreement and cooperation. I could not unravel the complex of motives behind this gaze, but still, there was something fearsomely compelling about it.

‘I don’t have a very reliable car,’ I said.

Trevor laughed. A relaxed laugh, as if relieved that this was the only obstacle. ‘We’re hiring four cars, especially for the occasion. Four identical black Toyota Priuses. Have you ever driven one?’

I shook my head.

‘Beautiful cars, Max. Beautiful. A pleasure to drive.’

‘The Toyota Prius,’ Lindsay added, more earnestly, ‘sits perfectly with the ethos we’re trying to promote at Guest. It’s a hybrid vehicle, which means that it runs on a combination of unleaded petrol and electric power, and the two power sources are permanently kept in the most efficient relationship by an onboard computer. It’s sleek, modern and radically innovative. And fantastic for the environment, of course.’

‘Just like our toothbrushes,’ said Trevor. ‘In fact you could say that the Prius is almost a sort of … toothbrush on wheels. Don’t you think, Lindsay?’

Lindsay thought about this. ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘No, you’re right. Scrub that idea.’ He laid his hand on my knee again. ‘So, Max, what do you think?’

‘I don’t know, Trev … It’s been so long since I went on the road. When were you thinking of?’

‘We kick off a week on Monday. And we’ll pay you a flat fee of 1K, which when you look at it
pro rata
is pretty bloody generous. You’re not working at the shop these days, are you?’