[Total word count:30,077]
“You’ve done a good job on these, Fletch,” said Kevin Johnson, “The only trouble is, I still don’t understand what the fuck is going on.”
“Kevin,” I replied carefully, “I hope you don’t mind if I mention that I’d rather you didn’t call me ‘Fletch’? I’d prefer to be called John.”
“Sorry,” he replied, raising his eyebrows, “I only meant to be friendly,”
“I know,” I said, “I just don’t like the idea that somewhere in your mind I’m bracketed together with Ronnie Barker and Slade prison.”
Kevin snorted and smiled.
“Fair enough,” he said, “’John’ it is then. But anyway, what’s happening to Pipenta?”
Pipenta, gentle reader is the product whose sales figures I had spent so much fruitless time analysing. We stared at a bar chart.
“See, it’s sort of OK, but there’s nothing happening,” said Kevin, always a man to pinpoint an issue with laser-like clarity.
“The problem is, it’s got winter seasonality.” I said, decisively.
“What?”
“Winter seasonality. Everything else in the market peaks in summer, right? So we’ve always taken that as a given. All our promotional effort happens in April and May. But the thing is, Pipenta naturally peaks in December. We’re promoting at the wrong time of year, and all we succeed in doing is flattening out the natural seasonal peak. Look, compared to everything else, Pipenta shows no seasonality at all.”
“Go on,” said Kevin, paying careful attention.
“If you look at the market overall, we’re getting around a six per cent share by volume – a bit better by value because…”
“…it’s a premium product.” said Kevin, happily.
“Yes. But if you look at December alone for the last three years, Pipenta’s getting 30 per cent. It’s actually the second biggest in the market at that time – we’ve never noticed because the actual sales in December are so small. The thing is, Pipenta is a spicier, hotter product than the rest: I don’t think people perceive it the same way as the others: I reckon it appeals to people more when the weather is cold. What we need to do is switch our main promotional push to October and November: I think if we did that you’d see a massive winter peak, and we’d take a bigger annual share. And think about it. we’d steal a march on the others: instead of competing for shelf space when they’re all fighting it out, we’d leave them to it and hit the retailers when no-one else is really bothering. We could get them to treat it as normal that they clear the other brands off the shelves in September and re-stock with seven flavours of Pipenta instead.”
“Well done, there, Fl… John,” said Kevin, “That makes sense, it makes sense. It all fits, it could be true. Trouble is, we’d have to take a bit of a punt on it, wouldn’t we? I mean, if this is right, it could be an absolute breakthrough. But you can’t really prove it without trying it, can you? What if it turns out that it’s not winter seasonality; what if it turned out that Pipenta is just a bit crap?”
“I think we could make a good case,” I said, “There’s always the option of setting up some supplementary research. But we wouldn’t be spending all that much anyway, would we? There isn’t all that much promotion for Pipenta anyway.”
“No, but see, if you’re right, we want to hit that winter period with everything, first time, as hard as we can. Not just a usual lacklustre half-page in The Grocer. We’d do some television in a target region, ideally. And never mind that, we’d have to gear up production big time in the autumn. That can cost you if you get it wrong.”
“Wow. Do you think we could swing a big push like that?”
“I don’t know, but if you’re right I’d want to. And you’d better be right, I’m telling you?”
“Because…?”
“Because I’m going to take the credit for it if you are,” he replied with a vulpine grin. “I’m going put this one up at the management meeting.”
“Great!” I said, and very largely meant it. I picked up the charts, shuffled them into line and turned to go.
“You’d better run me up a presentation,” said Kevin, “Put a lot of the detailed figures in – I won’t use them, probably, but you never know. I’ll need time to run through it so it’ll have to be ready first thing tomorrow. You weren’t doing anything tonight, were you?”
“No sweat,” I said, calmly. I had foreseen this, gentle reader: I had spent most of the day ‘running up’ the presentation in advance, before I sprung my theory on Kevin. But I wasn’t going to give it to him now – he’d want to change it all round. I’d give it to him at ten o’clock tomorrow morning (me looking hassled and tired) too late for any changes if he wanted to prepare beforehand.
At home alone that evening, I contemplated ringing Julie, but decided to let things lie a bit longer. We had had a truly tremendous row. At first I was on the back foot, taken by surprise over the bottle thing; but then I began to get annoyed all over again, and in the end I left and came back here. This morning, it all seemed pretty stupid, but there’s a sort of a limit to how quickly you can back-pedal from some of these things. I was ready to back-pedal though, gentle reader: I had caved in internally. Although outwardly Faletcher was maintaining a fine show of defiance, inwardly he had already conceded that he was just going to have to become the damned bottle-collector after all. Just not quite yet.
One good thing was that I had a clear evening to forge ahead with Wenham. I took out the old laptop and a strange reluctance sort of welled up and over me. It’s not that I couldn’t think of what to write; it’s not that I’m too tired or distracted. I just do not want to do it. I don’t want to. Do not want. But I must.
As I sat irresolute, the phone rang. Julie?
“Hello?” said a voice, “It’s Tom. You fancy a pint tonight? A few of us are going to get together in the Angel. Just a drink and a bit of mutual support.”
“Thanks,” I said, “A drink and a bit of mutual support sounds pretty good to me, but I’ve really got to catch up a few thousand words more.”
“Bring the laptop with you,” he suggested, “Several people are doing that. There’s wi-fi and everything.”
“Oh, what the hell. OK then.” I conceded. I might as well be unproductive in a pub as unproductive on my own, after all.
The Angel is a nice pub, a sort of modern reinterpretation of an old-fashioned London pub, with wooden panelling and brass all over, but wallpaper and furnishings slightly lighter and jazzier than a genuinely old place would have. Half-a-dozen serious ales on tap, but since we were probably in for something of a session, I wouldn’t be venturing on anything too strong.
The ’wrimo people were not hard to spot: they’d commandeered a sort of alcove at one end. Tom saw me approaching, and waved. I had taken the precaution of getting myself a pint already; the convention of the round did not seem to be much observed on these occasions.
“How are you?” I said as I sat down on a stool, “How’s the word count?”
“Oh, thirty-five thousand,” he said, “But it’s no good.”
“Why not? That sounds pretty good to me.”
“Well, the thing is, it all comes from an intensive burst on the first weekend. I was up to 29,000 by the end of the first week, but really I’ve got nowhere ever since. I really need some new methods of murder for the Monkey to use – you remember?”
“Yes, I remember the gist. You can’t have run out of murder methods, surely?”
Tom wrinkled up his face in distress.
“It’s not that I’ve run out, exactly,” he said, “It’s just that everything I write seems so bloody stupid, do you know what I mean? I wrote out this long screed on the first day, just churning it out, you know, in a kind of fever of creation or whatever, and I thought I was doing really well. But now I read it and it’s just… well. Every sentence I have a character say just seems unreal, not what any live human being could ever possibly say, you know? And now, when I sit down, the same feeling comes over me; all the murders seems like something made up by an eight-year old. I know they’re not meant to be taken seriously, and I know it doesn’t really matter, but it just creates this kind of barrier, you know what I mean?”
He did look really worried. I’d never thought Tom really cared about the writing, except as an excuse for going down the pub – but it seemed he did after all.
“Don’t panic though,” I said, “If you’ve got thirty-five thousand words under your belt, you’re ahead of the game. You can afford to slow down for a while.”
“Yeah…”he said resignedly.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned. It was Miss Mouse.
“I know this is a bit of a cheek,” she said, “But you were so helpful the other time. I’ve been writing the end section of ‘Lady Muck’ – would you mind if I read some of it to you?”
“No, OK.” I said, and Tom raised his hand in a gesture of acquiescence. Mouse pulled up a stool and sat down.
“OK, so my MC is now a rich old lady, and she’s out for a walk, OK?”
As she strolled along the footpath, Mary considered, thought about what her daughter had said. It was true that her daughter was made in her own likeness, was an assertive, successful woman, was well-dressed and well-spoken, had a business empire of her own making. Her son was an artist, was an unsuccessful one too, was a waster of money, was a drinker, was a failure really, did always depend on her for money and help. Yet in her heart of hearts she could not deny, could not gainsay, what her daughter had said, the accusation. She loved both her children, loved them unconditionally, loved them with a burning fire, and yet James was always special, was the apple of her eye, no matter what he might do.
Yet she could never tell her daughter the truth, which she now for the first time acknowledged to herself. She loved James because he was not the offspring of Edward her husband, as was her daughter, but instead the product of that cherished, mad, strange fling, that episode of passion, with Jimmy: and it had always been Jimmy she really loved. Through their lives his Socialism and her socialising had driven them apart, had caused furious quarrels, had led to many bad words and bad feelings. But the strength of their quarrels flowed from the strength of their doomed love.
As she approached the underpass by the ring road, Mary heard voices shouting beneath the ground. She hesitated, but not for long, for it seemed someone was in need of help, urgent help, help to save their lives, perhaps, and she could not stand by. Descending into the stinking tunnel, lit by one dirty, flickering strip light, she saw three youths kicking what seemed to be a bundle of rags on the floor, but it was a man. A down-and-out, a tramp, wrapped in an old brown coat, had fallen victim to the vicious youths, had been knocked to the ground and was being kicked. For just a moment, Mary felt fear: should she retreat, should she go back, should she seek the assistance of the police, should she retire to safety?
But that was not for her. She had no hope of driving the violent youths off with blows, with physical retaliation, but she summoned all the authority, all the natural command which her life had given her, and in a loud voice, a commanding voice, she spoke out.
“Leave that man alone!” she said.
The youths looked up from their vicious work perturbed and puzzled. They stared at her for a moment, and for a moment the issue hung in the balance, for a moment it seemed they might turn on her. But the moment passed, and so did they.
Mary approached the old tramp and bent over him. He wore a flat cap, and as he raised it she lifted her hand to her mouth in shock.
“Jimmy!” she said, “Well! I never thought you would end up dossing in some underpass. What are you doing here?”
“I’m not dossing anywhere, woman!” exclaimed Jimmy angrily, and she noticed for the first time that his brown coat was clean, he wore a white shirt and his old tie, his old red tie, so dear to him.
“I’ve moved into the old folks place up the road,” he said, indignantly, “It’s a decent place, apart from being full of stupid old women. Like you. What the hell are you doing here, if it comes to that?”
“Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy!” she said. “Oh Jimmy!”
She helped him to his feet and took his arm.
“Come back to my place and have a cup of tea, Jimmy,” she said, “We have a lot to catch up on.”
“Good!” I said, enthusiastically, “I liked the bit about his socialism and her socialising.”
“Is that the end of the story?” asked Tom, “You’ve finished already?”
“No, far from it,” said Mouse, “All I’ve got is about a thousand words of the beginning, five thousand describing her fling with Jimmy, and a thousand words of the end. I’m relying on a real concentrated burst next week. I’m really going to go for it.”
“Amen to that,” said Tom, morosely.
