Who's Afraid of Mr Wolfe? (9 page)

But there were a couple of other tricky things to be tackled, particularly with Ellie. He was mulling over the best way of handling those when there was a discreet little cough and he turned round to see Lydia MacEndry in the doorway, her notepad in her hand.

‘Sorry to disturb you, but Ellie’s been on the phone. She said she’s sorry it’s such short notice, but something’s cropped up that means Lesley can’t make the meeting this morning. Ellie wonders if you could rearrange it?’

Lydia’s face told Jack that there was more, probably not good.

‘And did she give any idea of what this “something”
was?’ he said, knowing it would involve yet another of Gavin’s cock-ups.

‘Well,’ Lydia said hesitantly, ‘it seems to involve Gavin having given a verbal brief to a freelance illustrator for that Stagshaw Engineering job before he went away that turns out to have been … well … not particularly clear. The poor illustrator has arrived with his work and it’s not going to do at all. He and Lesley have gone back to his studio to try and salvage something from the mess before the client meeting, which is’ – Lydia checked her notepad and concluded, regretfully – ‘in two days’ time.’

Jack lowered his head and tried to remember that it was not fair to shoot the messenger, particularly when that messenger was Lydia, but it took most of his self-control to stop himself from bellowing that he was fed up with Gavin already and even more fed up of having to chase around after him with a mop and bucket clearing up his mess.

Lydia had moved closer to his desk and so he raised his head again.

‘Can I get you anything, Jack?’ she said in what he knew was her kindest, most mothering voice.

‘No,’ he said, mustering a smile. ‘Not unless you can bring me Gavin’s head on a plate.’

‘I can do coffee and some paracetamol instead?’

He let her bring him both, not even bothering to wonder how she knew he had a headache. Lydia always seemed
to know what was going on in his brain. He’d have found that intensely worrying with any other woman, but it was one of the things he liked about her.

‘And the meeting?’ she said as she handed over the tablets. ‘Shall I have a look in your diary for a new date?’

Jack suddenly realised that this particular Gavin cloud could have a silver lining. Talking to Ellie on her own might be easier than doing it in front of Lesley.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Tell Ellie to come down anyway.’

After Lydia had gone, he applied himself once more to thinking about the things he needed to cover with Ellie. For a start, he rarely saw her outside the Creative Department; her profile was so low she was practically flat-lining. She made no attempt to get to know the clients socially and didn’t try to hide that she regarded most of the account executives as barely above slugs in the food chain. He could give her examples of that behaviour so that she wouldn’t be able to wriggle out of seeing that he had a point. Which just left the much more thorny issue of the way she dressed. No wonder Hetherington had thought she was a student.

How to broach that subject?

Jack stared at his desk as if he could get some inspiration from the blotter and pens. He looked at the pictures on the walls, uniformly splashy and bright. He even glanced at his jacket, hanging on the back of the door, and at the large blood-red sofa with its curved back and stupid little
chrome legs that annoyed him every time he saw them because he wished he’d picked the blond-wood ones. No, none of these things were giving him the slightest clue about what to say to Ellie.

Perhaps he’d leave the clothes thing for another day. Have a casual word when he knew her better, not bring it up now when they were still all pissed off about yesterday.

But those rumpled shirts she seemed to live in were hideous. Didn’t do anything for her at all. He didn’t expect her to walk around like Rachel, but with those things on, she might as well be wearing an invisibility cloak.

He wondered why that irritated him so much.

When Ellie arrived, he saw her look down at the desk and then blush. He wasn’t quite sure what that was all about. And when he tried to establish any kind of eye contact, she avoided it. He felt vaguely put out that she wouldn’t look at him.

‘Sorry about the thing with Lesley,’ she mumbled.

He tried not to stare at the way she had screwed her hair up on top of her head and secured it with a pencil, or how one of her baseball boots was fraying at the toe.

He opened his mouth to start his little speech about her getting to grips with demographics and markets, and found it came out as, ‘Ellie, are you happy just being a copywriter?’ He saw her eyes widen.

‘Just?’ she said, and sounded confused.

Jack wondered why the hell he had leaped in so abruptly,
but decided that he might as well carry on. ‘You’ve never had ambitions to be a senior copywriter or a creative director?’

‘Well …’

‘Or are you content treading water like you are now?’

She stared at him. ‘That’s very direct. Am I treading water?’

‘I’d say you are. Doesn’t it annoy you when you see other, less talented people running ahead of you?’

‘Well … yes … but—’

‘People like Gavin, for example.’

Damn, he hadn’t meant to say that. It was an open secret that he didn’t think much of Gavin’s abilities, but blurting that out in front of one of Gavin’s staff wasn’t on. He watched Ellie attempt to put a non-committal look on her face.

Jack tried another angle. ‘You’re a good writer, Ellie. You have great ideas. So what’s holding you back? Lack of ambition? Fear?’ A little line creased Ellie’s forehead and he saw her shift in her seat.

After a pause she said, ‘That’s not how I see it, Jack. I’m quite satisfied with how things are going.’

‘Really? You’re happy with how far you’ve got in the years you’ve been working?’ Jack’s brain was now telling him to back right off, and Ellie was looking at him with an expression that suggested she was unsettled by the way the meeting was unfolding.

Tough. He stared back at her. Big eyes, generous mouth, generous … Jack whipped his eyes back up to Ellie’s face and hoped she hadn’t noticed the lapse.

‘Well, the question is, Ellie,’ he said quickly, ‘are you really happy, or are you complacent? Could it be that you’re so deep inside your comfort zone that you don’t realise you’re falling behind the pack?’

Ellie laughed out loud. ‘That’s a tortuous set of mixed metaphors.’

Any intention he might have had to go gently with her died at that point. He didn’t pay her to pick holes in the way he spoke. That look on her face reminded him of Mrs Amehurst when she used to tear his essays apart in front of the rest of Year 10. There was no way he was bloody well having that. He’d noticed that tendency to backchat before, like the other morning in Cavello’s.

He swivelled his chair and concentrated on the London skyline again until his anger died down. He didn’t care that it made him look like a cut-price Bond villain. When he turned back to face Ellie, he expected her to look embarrassed or even sorry.

The cheeky mare was smiling.

‘I am actually trying to help you here,’ he snapped, and wondered how in a few minutes he had managed to veer so badly off script and she had managed to wind him up so effectively.

Time to stop fannying about and tell her straight.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘the point I am making is that if you upped your game, there is no limit to what you could achieve. I’m trying to point this out to you in case one day you decide that you want more than a crappy little office with some blow-up toys.’

He heard Ellie take a breath as if she was going to interrupt. She could forget that.

‘For a start, you need to be a bit more visible. Mix outside your feeding group. Try not to make it quite so obvious that you hold the suits in such contempt. If you bothered to find out what they do, as opposed to what your prejudices have made you decide they do, you might have a bit more respect for them. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re all on the same side.’

Jack realised that as he had been talking, he had been jabbing the air with his finger. Damn it, in the space of one meeting he’d become the kind of guy who jabbed his finger at people who worked for him.

Ellie appeared to be gnawing her bottom lip from the inside.

He pulled his gaze away from her mouth.

‘And perhaps …’ Jack tailed off, everything telling him that he should not say what he was going to say next ‘… perhaps you ought to think about why Hetherington mistook you for a student.’ Jack relaxed. That had come out OK. Not too direct, not too personal. Definitely no hint of sexual harassment. If the woman had any sense, she’d
take the hint about smartening up a bit and they could move on.

‘What exactly do you mean by that?’ Ellie said, looking affronted.

Great. No hint-taking there, then.

‘Are you trying to make some kind of personal comment about the way I dress?’ There was a definite edge to Ellie’s voice.

Jack couldn’t stop himself. Despite visions of industrial tribunals swimming before him, he made a show of studying what she was wearing and then raised his hand in a kind of ‘What can I say?’ gesture. He saw her eyes flash at him before she gave her clothes a surreptitious check.

Well, that proved his point. She couldn’t even remember what she had on. Probably dressed in the dark and hoped for the best.

He let her stew a bit and then decided now might be the time to get back to his planned speech, take some heat out of the confrontation. He slowed himself down, started on about the need for her to familiarise herself with the business side of things.

‘We’ll get Hugo to give you a couple of sessions on—’

‘Why bother?’ Ellie said. ‘Why bother? Tell you what, I’ll become a clone and wear the usual black creative uniform.’

‘No, that’s not what—’

‘Or how about a tight skirt and some cleavage?’

Jack stood up. That was it. She could wear sackcloth and ashes for all he bloody cared and spend her entire life writing the small print on mortgage adverts. He wasn’t being made out to be some kind of sexist pig.

‘I think we’ve got as far as we’re going to, Eleanor,’ he said in a level tone, and then noticed with horror that she seemed to be crying. Not the really sobby kind of crying, but the gulping and wet eyes kind. Jack sat back down and pretended to look at some papers on his desk.

This was a nightmare. What century was she living in? Did she expect him to pass her a handkerchief and rub her back? Perhaps it was all put on. He took a look. No, she was really fighting to stay under control; he could see her swallowing over and over again. He fiddled with a paperclip. Didn’t she know you had to be tough to be in advertising?

He gave her a few minutes and then glanced at her again. Now her hair was coming down, escaping in mad curls.

Perhaps he had been a bit harsh with the clothes thing. Zak wandered about looking like he hadn’t washed in weeks, and there were plenty of other scruffy, successful creatives out there. If she wanted to keep going around like a bag lady, then it was up to her.

He couldn’t help being hacked off about it, though. Why bury all that brightness so deep that nobody could see it?

As the sniffing and swallowing dried up, he searched for something to say to get her out of his office.

‘Ellie,’ he said in a gentler tone than he’d used so far, ‘you’re good. You understand that our job is all about getting our clients noticed and selling more of their products. You’re not in it to massage your own ego. These are all excellent things. But in an image-driven business it’s important to convey a positive message about yourself and about the agency.’

He saw her look up. There were tears on her face and he couldn’t quite put his finger on how that made him feel.

‘Look,’ he went on, ‘I appreciate it’s difficult being a woman in this business … well, any business. You get judged on all sorts of things men don’t get judged on. It’s tough, but that’s how it is.’ He lowered his voice even further, like he was dealing with a skittish foal. ‘In an ideal world, people should be able to see through your clothes to the real Eleanor beneath.’

It was only when he saw Ellie’s eyes widen in shock that he realised what he’d said. A blush reddened her skin.

Now he’d managed to humiliate her on top of everything else.

She stood up abruptly. ‘Can I go now, Mr Wolfe?’ she said. ‘Or did you want to humiliate me some more?’ She wouldn’t even look at him.

Jack sat there after she’d gone, not sure what had happened or why he hadn’t slapped her down for that last bit of cheek. Probably because he felt that she’d had a point.

He had to be thankful there had been nobody in the office with a hidden camera. They’d be showing that particular film to illustrate exactly how not to handle your staff.

She’d started it, though. How was it possible for one woman to be so touchy about everything? She’d gone out of her way to take offence. A less spiky woman would have sat there and nodded. And that crying was completely out of order. Did he have room in the agency for a cry-baby? Even a bright one?

He fumed for a bit longer and then remembered what he had said about seeing through Ellie’s clothes to the real her beneath. An image of Ellie wearing a pair of high heels and only that beautiful golden underwear shimmered into his mind and refused to budge. Yeah, well, she might have her good points, two in particular, but he wasn’t in the habit of touching up his employees. Even if he had been, there were plenty of non-scruffy, non-weepy women above her on the list.

Jack tried to concentrate on the papers in front of him, but he was still half furious and half aroused when it was time to go and meet Sophie or Leonora or whichever one of them he was ruddy well meant to be seeing tonight.

*

Ellie had stayed right out of Jack’s way after that.

And now here she was in another office with another man in a strop. She was having distinct feelings of déjàvu, but at least Lesley was bearing some of the brunt of it this time.

Gavin flicked an imaginary hair off his immaculate trousers and looked down his nose at the two of them. Underneath his perfect tan he was going red and blotchy. He lifted up one of the storyboards from the singing-knickers idea as if it were contaminated waste and turned it round in his hands.