Corporate Bodies

by Simon Brett

  Seb Ormond was dressed in a dark suit with a discreet stripe, a shirt with an even more discreet stripe, and a tie the discretion of whose stripe would have qualified it for the Diplomatic Service. On the station platform he melted into the crowd – just another executive commuter. Only the fact that he was catching a morning train out of St Pancras rather than arriving on one coming in might have raised any suspicion about his identity.

  ‘Seb’s Management today,’ Will Parton explained unnecessarily. ‘Ken Colebourne’s decided that he wants to demonstrate Delmoleen’s egalitarianism, so we’re going to have an executive mucking in with the riff-raff in the canteen.’

  ‘And none of the real executives’d do it?’ asked Charles.

  ‘Good heavens, no. None of them’d be seen dead in the canteen. Anyway, this executive has to talk.’

  ‘Aren’t the Delmoleen employees who see this video going to think it odd that they don’t recognise any of the people in it?’

  ‘Not that odd. It’s quite a big company. Stenley Curton’s not the only site. Anyway, I sometimes wonder whether anyone ever will see the video.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, Ken Colebourne seems pretty ambivalent about it – don’t know that he ever thought it was that great an idea. Reading between the lines, I reckon it’s something Brian Tressider foisted on to him and now Brian’s abroad, not breathing down his neck all the time, Ken’s losing interest. He’s of the old school . . . “never had videos in our time and it didn’t do us any harm . . .” you know the sort.’

  Charles nodded. ‘But they’re not going to cancel the production?’

  ‘Oh no, contract with Parton Parcel’s all sewn up. The thing’ll get made – they’re committed to that. Just may never get shown.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Still, that hardly matters to any of us, does it?’

  They all agreed that, so long as they got paid, it couldn’t have mattered less.

  Seb Ormond was happy to share his experience of corporate work with Charles – indeed, it would have been hard to prevent him from doing so.

  ‘Thing you’ve got to do is get the clothes right, Charles. Go up for an interview in the wrong kit and you may as well forget it.’

  ‘Yes, I’d heard that.’

  ‘So you got to be sure you’ve been properly briefed. I went up for one where they were looking for an Estate Manager, and my bloody agent told me it was an Estate Agent. As you can imagine – total disaster!’

  ‘Do you do most of this stuff through your agent?’ asked Charles, once again feeling rather guilty.

  ‘No, I fix the bulk of it myself, but because I do so much, the agent does get enquiries.’

  Charles felt marginally less guilty.

  ‘So you’ve got to sort out the basic wardrobe.’ Seb Ormond looked across at Charles who, although fairly confident he would once again be given the overalls, had dressed in his ‘Trevor’ costume. ‘Of course, I don’t do many blue collar roles . . .’

  ‘No. Well, obviously . . .’ And it was obvious. Seb Ormond’s patrician features and greying hair had ‘Management’ stamped all over them.

  ‘So the basic wardrobe I have is what I think of as the Managing Director’s suit, the Sales Manager’s suit, the Bank Manager’s suit, and the Ad Agency suit.’

  ‘And these are all different?’

  ‘You better believe it, Charles.’

  ‘Can I ask which suit you’re wearing today . . .?’

  ‘Today’s Sales Manager.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘Back in the old days I got most of my basic wardrobe off tellies I did.’

  ‘What, buying them at the end of the series?’

  Seb Ormond nodded. The practice they referred to was common among actors. At the beginning of a television series, running characters would be taken shopping by the Wardrobe Department to kit out the part they were playing, and at the end there was an arrangement whereby these clothes, frequently much more costly than the actor could have run to in normal circumstances, were sold to him at a very reduced rate.

  Charles could identify the productions which had dressed a lot of his actor friends, particularly in really expensive items like leather jackets. And of course actresses playing characters with designer tastes had a field day.

  Charles himself had done less well out of this system than others in his profession. This was partly because he rarely got running parts and, when he did, they tended not to be people who dressed in his style. Recent forays into television would have netted him the blazer and trousers of a golf club barman or the uniform of a 1930s police sergeant, neither of which he felt was quite ‘Charles Paris’.

  ‘Now, of course,’ Seb went on, ‘I buy my own clothes.’ He responded to Charles’s quizzical look. ‘Well, it is quite a while since I did ordinary telly. And fashions do change, you know. Can’t turn up as an MD in a suit whose cut’s five years out of date, can you?’

  ‘Ah, no,’ agreed Charles Paris, whose one suit had recently celebrated its Silver Jubilee. He avoided the sardonic eye of Will Parton who had seen the garment in question.

  What Seb Ormond was saying gave Charles a strange sense of déja vu. It reminded him of old actor-laddies he had heard reminiscing about repertory theatre in the twenties and thirties. ‘In those days, of course,’ they would ramble on, ‘you had to have your own basic costumes. Dinner suit was essential, and a grey pinstripe, and tweeds as well. Otherwise you didn’t get the job. No Wardrobe Department to provide that sort of stuff in those days. And, my God, the hours you’d work! Be playing one show at night, rehearsing the next following morning, learning lines for a third . . .

  He was brought back to the present by the unsurprising fact that Seb Ormond was still talking. ‘Some characters you get asked to do, of course, need a touch of fine tuning on the costume front. I mean, easy enough to choose the right suit, but shirt and tie may need a bit of thought. I did a GP last week.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Basic Bank Manager’s suit, shirt with slightly frayed collar and hospital tie that was just a little bit greasy. Worked a treat. Shall I tell you how well it worked?’

  ‘Go on,’ Charles fed obligingly.

  ‘The Medical Advisor on the film, who really was a GP, turned up in the identical costume.’

  ‘I say. Well done.’

  ‘Wasn’t bad, though I say it myself.’ Seb Ormond smiled with modest self-congratulation. ‘Buggers, medical ones, though.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well, a good few of them are for drug companies. You have to remember these great long names of chemical formulas and what-have-you. Real killers, some of those. Investment and insurance aren’t much fun, either – lot of that stuff reads like absolute garbage. Just have to learn it by rote, as you would a foreign language, and hope to God you’ve got the pronunciation right. I must say, learning Beckett or Stoppard’s a doddle compared to some of the scripts you get given on the corporates.’

  ‘Haven’t given you anything difficult today,’ said Will Parton smugly.

  ‘Oh no, today’s a real treat from the script point of view. Do it standing on my head. Nice words, Will.’

  The writer, whose great play remained resolutely unwritten, preened himself at this compliment on his Delmoleen dialogue.

  Seb Ormond evidently enjoyed the centre stage position and held on to it. ‘Actually, funny thing on that medical video the other week. As I say, I was meant to be a GP and it was actually shot in a real GP’s surgery. The way it goes . . . I have a patient in there, I have to go to a filing cabinet, get out his records and say, “Well, I’m sorry, Mr Whatever, the current treatment doesn’t seem to be working. What I recommend . . .” etc. Get halfway through it, look down at the file and see the notes have DIED printed across them in large letters. Now I never corpse, but I’m afraid that just got to me – pissing myself with laughter I was.

  ‘OK, I sober up, go for Take Two – pick up another file – exactly the sa
me thing. DIED it says. I break up again. Turns out the entire cabinet was full of files of dead people. Couldn’t have live ones, you see – breach of medical confidentiality.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Charles. ‘Right.’

  ‘You done a lot of corporate stuff, have you?’ Seb Ormond asked magnanimously, maybe opening up the conversation for Charles to bring in a few anecdotes of his own.

  ‘No. Lot of theatre, of course.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Seb Ormond dismissively.

  The camera caused quite a stir in the canteen. The Parton Parcel crew had started work early, catching the last of the breakfast and the first of the tea-break trade, but nonetheless their presence prompted a lot of jockeying for position at adjacent tables by staff who wanted to be in shot.

  Charles was yet again amazed at the potency of television and its ability to cloud the judgement. The chance of appearing on a screen, in whatever context, could turn the heads of people who in every other respect seemed to be completely sane. What else could explain the recurrent phenomenon of ordinary members of the public actually volunteering for the ritual humiliation of television game shows?

  This thought also prompted Charles to wonder how much taking part in the Delmoleen video had meant to the late Dayna Richman; and how much she would have been prepared to do to ensure that she did get into it.

  The morning’s filming was straightforward, and the atmosphere more relaxed than it had been in the warehouse. Work on the video was not disrupting production in any way, and the impassive women dispensing tea and coffee from their urns showed no signs of resentment (or of anything else, come to that). No officious Canteen Manager was on hand to monitor the shooting, and Ken Colebourne, who was vaguely keeping an eye on things, seemed to be in a genial mood.

  Charles and Seb Ormond delivered their lines with professional exactness, and Griff Merricks, exuding his customary negative charisma, was easily satisfied with what they did. The whole shoot was wrapped by noon, just as the canteen started to fill with early lunchers.

  Will Parton looked at his watch. ‘Executive dining room then, is it, Ken?’

  ‘Well, yes, sure.’

  The writer grinned smugly across at his friend. ‘Oh dear, not improperly dressed again, are we, Charles?’

  ‘Surely I’ll be all right? If I keep the overalls on. These overalls are a darned sight smarter than any suit I possess.’

  ‘That, Charles, is a comment on your suits rather than on the overalls.’

  ‘Ha, bloody ha, Will.’ Charles appealed to the Marketing Director. ‘It doesn’t really matter whether I’m in a suit or not for the Executive dining room, does it?’

  But he had underestimated the hieratic structure of a company like Delmoleen. Ken Colebourne grimaced awkwardly. ‘I’m afraid it isn’t really possible, Charles. I mean, obviously, nothing personal, but there might be other people having lunch there who thought you were actually on the work-force and getting some kind of extra privilege. Wouldn’t look good.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Charles, crestfallen.

  Will gave him a patronising pat on the arm. ‘Never mind. Who’s the lucky boy? I notice the canteen’s got Irish Stew on the menu today.’

  ‘Thanks a bundle.’

  Ken Colebourne didn’t know how seriously to take this banter, but recognised a potential social problem. ‘Erm, sorry. It’s not that I want to appear inhospitable or anything . . .’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it.

  But the Marketing Director did worry about it. This challenge to his diplomatic skills had taken on a disproportionate importance for him. He coloured and looked awkward. ‘I really am sorry, Charles.’

  ‘Don’t be. It’s no problem.’

  ‘No, but I . . . Look . . .’ A solution presented itself. ‘Tell you what, rest of you go off to the Executive dining room – I’ll stay here and have lunch with Charles.’

  ‘You don’t have to. I’m fine.’

  But, having satisfactorily negotiated his way out of the awkwardness, Ken Colebourne would brook no opposition to his plans. He went to one of the internal phones to ensure the video party’s welcome in the Executive dining room, and then joined Charles in the queue for canteen lunch.

  Resisting the seductions of the Irish Stew, Charles opted for Steak and Kidney Pie. To follow, he once again went for the Jam Roly-Poly, a delicacy that wasn’t often on offer in the pubs and restaurants he frequented. As his portion – a whorl of sponge veined with vermilion jam – was dolloped into a bowl, he was forcibly reminded of the dish’s schoolboy nickname, ‘Dead Man’s Leg’.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Ken Colebourne when they had found a free formica-topped table and embarked on their first course, ‘I find it quite a relief to eat in here sometimes. You can only take so much of posh, I reckon.’

  Though this was undoubtedly said in part to alleviate the pain of Charles’s exclusion from executive dining, the Marketing Director did sound as if he meant what he said.

  ‘So you come in here often, do you?’

  ‘Every now and then.’

  ‘Oh, you should have been in the video – an authentic member of Management who actually eats in here. Could have done Seb Ormond out of a job.’

  Ken Colebourne recoiled at the idea. ‘No, thank you. Do anything rather than stand up and talk more than I have to. Sales conference is nearly four months away and already I wake up nights sweating about the presentation I got to do them. I know it’s part of modern management – communicating, packaging yourself, packaging your ideas – but I must say I wouldn’t mind winding the clock back a few years on all that stuff. I mean, the Sales Manager I used to work for in the sixties, only communication technique he used was telling us all to get our bloody fingers out. And it worked.’

  ‘So you started as a salesman, did you?’

  ‘Well, no, got promoted to salesman. Out of school I was a runner in the warehouse.’

  ‘On the forklifts?’

  ‘Didn’t have many of those when I started. Used trolleys. Scurried back and forth along the stacks, picking up the stock by hand, then loading it on to the lorries.’

  ‘Was it fun?’

  ‘Well, the work was bloody boring, but then most work is, isn’t it? Good bunch of lads, though, we had some laughs. Spent all our spare time playing football – that’s all we thought about, really. That and the birds, of course.’

  ‘You sound as if you’d like to be back there.’

  ‘Well . . .’ The Marketing Director sighed. ‘Lot of ways things were much simpler then. Minute you walked out of the building you stopped thinking about work – didn’t think about it much while you was doing it, come to that.’

  ‘Whereas now . . .’

  ‘Yeah. Whereas now . . .’ The simple repetition adequately expressed his change of circumstances.

  ‘Responsibilities . . .’ Charles prompted.

  ‘You can say that again. And new management techniques, and training programmes, and brainstorming sessions, and management consultants, and bloody videos and . . .’

  ‘It sometimes seems to me,’ Charles suggested cautiously, ‘that there’s a kind of connection between how badly business is going and the amount of training that gets done.’

  ‘Too right. These days, when the product isn’t selling, they don’t put more effort into selling it, just more effort into training people how to sell it.’

  ‘And are Delmoleen products not selling?’

  Ken Colebourne shrugged. ‘It’s tough everywhere. Country’s on the edge of recession, if it hasn’t actually already tipped over. No, it’s always been tough – just the way people try to deal with the problem changes.’

  His tone left little doubt that he preferred the old solutions to those currently being offered.

  ‘And I don’t care much for the new style of management that’s come in,’ he continued. ‘Back in the old days you knew people, you had friends, you thrashed things out over a few beers. Now it’s all so im
personal . . . Sit there at endless meetings sipping Perrier, listening to all this jargon and bullshit . . . I feel like a fish out of water most of the time. Not really my scene, modern management.’

  ‘Still, you’ve done all right,’ said Charles reassuringly. ‘Warehouse runner to Marketing Director – that’s a pretty good progression, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Ken Coleboume agreed wearily. ‘Always the way in business – only way up is to move away from what you’re good at. I’ve been in my current job seven years. That’s a long time for this kind of work. Don’t know how much longer I’ll keep it.’

  ‘Are you under threat then?’

  ‘Everyone’s under threat these days. Marketing’s the sort of department that can easily get clobbered. You know, management changes . . .’

  ‘Mm.’ Charles had a sudden thought. ‘Did Brian Tressider come up the same way as you?’

  ‘What makes you ask that?’

  ‘I don’t know. The way you and he behave together . . . sort of suggests you go back a long way.’

  ‘Well, you’re right. We were at school together, here in Stenley Curton. Both joined Delmoleen on the same day. Alan Hibbert came in round that time too. Of course, Brian was the one who was always going on to great things.’

  ‘You’ve done all right yourself.’ Charles repeated the reassurance.

  ‘Yes. He looks after his own, Brian.’

  There were volumes of subtext in this sentence. Charles read in it Ken Colebourne’s basic insecurity, his distrust of his own abilities, his fear that he had risen through the ranks of Delmoleen on the coat-tails of his more successful friend.

  ‘Doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who’d let sentiment stand in his way if he didn’t think someone was pulling their weight.’

  ‘No. No, I suppose not.’ But Ken Colebourne didn’t sound as if he believed it, more as if he was trying to convince himself.

  ‘Unusual these days, isn’t it, for a company to have many in management like you two, who’ve come up through the ranks . . .?’

  ‘Very unusual. And getting more unusual by the day. The business school graduates are taking over everywhere.’ He grimaced his opinion of this development. ‘No, Delmoleen is unusual. Lot of people still here I’ve known virtually since I started.’