“It’s Rick Elliott, editor of PR Times.”
Bonnie said she’d take the call and went back to her office. “Bonnie. I’m just phoning for your reaction to the news.”
“About what?” she asked, mystified.
“The story that Nathan is going to set up a new consultancy with his son, Finian.”
*
“The silly old fool doesn’t have the energy,” Bonnie said.
“He might do it as a spoiling tactic,” Annabel suggested.
“And that idiot, Finian – he may have the energy, but he certainly doesn’t have the experience.”
“What about the two together?”
Bonnie didn’t answer. She was thinking hard. “Get a memo out to everybody in the firm. I want a contact programme to reassure every client. Tell them nothing has changed.” Annabel started to leave. “Have them pay special attention to those clients we haven’t spoken to for a while. There’s some lazy buggers in this place.”
Nine
Laslo Potter sat up in bed, as best he could. His collarbone jutted out of his transparent skin. His seemingly enormous head, too heavy for his shrunken neck to support, rested on a pillow.
Finian turned and left the room. It was too painful to look at the man. Cook was waiting for him. “He’s down to five stone.”
“The doctors have no idea what’s causing it,” said Linda, Potter’s wife. She too had lost a lot of weight, but this was due to worry.
“I wanted you to see what was happening for yourself.”
“It’s terrible,” said Finian.
“Finn. We need your help.”
“How?”
“To fight Norton-Hunter. The union executive has authorised me to take you on as publicity adviser.”
“Why don’t you go to an established PR firm? There are hundreds willing to take your money.”
“We trust you,” Cook said. “We don’t want some twit in a sharp suit and striped shirt who thinks collective action is everyone choosing to drink in the same wine bar.”
“I’m going back to writing.”
“The world of power and influence... without responsibility?” Cook said.
“That’s unfair.” Finian turned to Linda Potter. “I’m very sorry, but there’s nothing I can do.”
Cook was determined not to let it go. “Six months ago, that man completed both the London and New York marathons. Today, he doesn’t have the strength to walk to the bathroom.”
Finian moved to the door.
“Somebody did this to him and his mate. We know Norton-Hunter is involved...”
Finian closed the door behind him.
“But how?” Cook continued. He turned to Linda. “Don’t worry, love. We won’t give up on you. That’s a promise.”
*
Emma gave Finian’s hand a reassuring squeeze. The two of them had spent the last couple of hours going over the family’s financial position. It didn’t look good. Coupled with that, each time he tried to concentrate, the gruesome picture of Laslo Potter flashed before him.
“We’ll manage. We have before.” she said.
“I wonder if I’ll get a new job,” Finian said. “God, I feel so despondent.”
Finian told Emma about Cook’s offer. “Don’t take anything for the sake of it, darling. You’ve genuinely got to want to do it,” she told him.
Finian looked at the calculations he and Emma had done.
“Our savings won’t last for ever. The new car will have to go.”
“Perhaps we can pick up an old VW,” Emma said. She reached for a copy of the local paper. “There’s always pages of them in here.”
From the next room, where she had been watching television, came Kiki, their twelve-year-old daughter. She stood by Emma, who gave her a quick cuddle.
Emma raised a questioning eyebrow at Finian. He nodded at her, as if telling Emma to go ahead. “Kiki. You’re becoming an adult and there’s something we have to tell you.”
“You’re not getting a divorce?”
Finian and Emma laughed. “No, sweetheart. Since Daddy lost his job... well, we don’t have the same amount of money. It means that you might have to leave your new school.”
“Is that all?”
“Won’t you miss your friends?” Emma asked
“Not really. Most of them are too snobby anyway,” she said, and went back to the television. Finian realised that Kiki was growing up a lot faster than he’d imagined.
“Perhaps you could sell your shares in Kelloway and Bains,” Emma said.
“Who’d buy them? Bonnie?”
*
The long-held view of most people outside the business was that public relations revolved around buying lunch for drunken journalists. But those day were long gone. Except for Oscar Mason; he still stuck to the old ways. While Bonnie stuck to sparkling water, he drank three bottles of claret. Because of the state he was in, Bonnie wouldn’t allow him to go back to his office. Instead, she had Roger, her chauffeur, prop him up on the couch in her office.
Annabel thrust a dozen pieces of paper into Bonnie’s hand. “These are all clients who want to speak to you urgently. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing.”
“Later. Let’s get this one sorted first.”
“This is awfully good of you, Bonnie, but I really have to go.” Mason tried to stand up but his legs wouldn’t work as they should. He plopped back into his seat. “Bugger.”
“Stay there until you feel better,” Bonnie said.
“Can’t. My features editor’s expecting the story we talked about.”
“Don’t worry about that.” She called Annabel and told her to bring coffee.
Oscar Mason was the chief reporter for Shipping News, the main trade paper for both the passenger-cruising and cargo-carrying industry. Bonnie had thought that a well-placed piece in this influential publication would please Sir Perry Horton, chairman of one of the country’s largest shipping lines.
As Mason sipped from a cup, Bonnie left her office. She found Will by a photocopier.
“That speculative article you wrote the other day on cruising for the Horton Lines.”
“What about it?”
“Put Oscar Mason’s by-line on it and email it to me,” Bonnie said.
Back in her office she showed Mason the story. “If that’s okay with you, we’ll email it to your office right now.”
“What a sweetie you are, Bonnie,” Mason said, and sipped again from his cup. “I owe you one.”
“I know you do.” She took Annabel to one side. “Put him in a quiet office till he feels better. Then get Roger to take him to the station... in a cab. I don’t want him throwing up in my car.”
*
It wasn’t before four o’clock in the afternoon that Bonnie was able to start returning that day’s phone calls. The first was from Sir Perry Horton. She was pleased he’d called; she wanted to tell him about the Shipping News feature.
“Perry. Bonnie Kelloway. I was just going to phone you and...”
“This is not a social call. I’ve just heard what happened to Nathan. If he goes, so do I,” Horton said. “He’s the reason we employed your agency, and the only reason we stay.”
For the next half-hour Bonnie made or received more than a dozen calls. All were with clients complaining at the way Nathan had been treated and threatening to move if her father left.
Had she miscalculated? None of what was now happening had been planned. She thought Nathan would slip quietly into retirement and that the clients would quickly get used to the idea of him not being around. Bonnie was beginning to feel frightened. She had to regain the initiative.
She picked up her phone again and tapped in another number. “Dad. Bonnie. Look, I acted hastily... Blame it on the genes... Can I come and talk?”
*
Many years before, Nathan had acquired the lease to an elegant town house overlooking the east side of Regent’s Park, close to Cumberland Gate. Bonnie had been brought up in the hous
e, until her parents had parted.
The door was opened by Carol, the present Mrs Kelloway. The two women had never liked each other and Carol kept clear of Bonnie for the rest of her visit.
At the back of the house was a large conservatory, where Nathan worked when the weather was warm enough. He sat there in the sunshine, listening as Bonnie made her case.
“I was so angry at not having my contribution recognised.”
Nathan took a sachet of herb tea from his cup and pressed it dry; he had all but given up on coffee.
“To say I’m sorry sounds a bit limp – but I am.”
Nathan sipped the peppermint brew. Still he said nothing.
“We both want the same things – for Kelloway and Bains to succeed.”
“Funny way of showing it,” he said at last.
“We just go about things in a different way.” Bonnie got up and started to walk around. “The company still needs you. I realise that now,” she said. “I want you to return.”
“As chairman?”
“As president... for life.”
“What about Finn?”
“He stays out,” she said firmly. “He’ll be happier back in newspapers anyway.”
He knew this was true. It had been wrong to prise Finian away from journalism. Nathan could drag the whole thing out a lot longer. Pretend to give it thought, or insist that Finian got his job back. But in the end, he didn’t have the energy for a fight. His answer now, would be the same the next day or next week. “Very well. I agree.”
*
The next morning she knew she had won. Bonnie picked up her mobile phone and clock – and moved into Nathan’s office.
Bonnie spun round in Nathan’s chair. She saw Annabel watching her. “I’m sacking you as my personal assistant.”
“But...”
“And making you an account executive.”
“Bonnieeee.” Annabel grabbed her arm and kissed her cheek.
“Before you change, two final jobs. Cancel my father’s beloved training scheme. If we want anybody new, we’ll do what everybody else does, and steal them.”
“And the last one?”
“Get rid of this bloody desk.”
*
From the window of Jan Evans’s Canary Wharf office, Finian looked down at the great stretch of the River Thames beneath him. Jan, editor of the Morning Journal, was busy pecking away at her keyboard. Finian sat quietly opposite her while she finished typing.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, swinging away from the screen. “Something I just had to do.”
Finian was nervous. Their last meeting had not been the friendliest.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
“Could be better.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“The truth is... I’d like to come back. It was a terrible mistake to leave. Things haven’t worked out at all.”
“Finn, that’s a bit of a problem,” Evans said.
“I’m still one of the best reporters around.”
She shook her head. “That’s not the issue.”
“Still have all my contacts.”
“Sure you do,” she said. “Thing is, we’ve given your job to someone else.”
“I can switch beats,” he offered.
Evans came round to Finian’s side of the desk. She was a good-looking woman. Wonder why I never fancied her, he wondered.
“Let me be blunt. You’re already too old, Finn.”
Finian couldn’t believe what he had just heard.
*
It was two o’clock the next morning when Finian signed his name for the last time. In front of him were more than sixty letters to almost every national and provincial daily newspaper in the country – all appealing for a job.
Emma stood behind him and placed two comforting arms round his neck.
“I’m beginning to feel frightening. What will happen if none of these works?”
“Don’t be silly. Nobody with your experience is going to stay out of work for long.”
*
Bonnie was now the boss and would do what she wanted. First, she called in Robert Constantinou to redecorate – or as he called it, “oversee the rebirth” of – her office. If there was the business equivalent of a society interior designer, it was Constantinou.
After seeing the results of his work for the first time, Bonnie referred to him affectionately as “Con the Greek’. Others at Kelloway and Bains, when they learned how much the exercise had cost, called it “the Greek con”.
Using duck-egg-blue stained oak throughout, Constantinou created when he called a “media room”. Facing Bonnie’s desk was a bank of televisions, each tuned to a different channel, all with their sound off and subtitles on.
Behind her, Constantinou built a wall of racks to display newspapers and magazines. She took so many publications that one joker in the office remarked, “At Christmas, her newsagent gives her a present.”
The desk had no drawers. In future, other people would store papers for her, Constantinou insisted. Its top was a simple sheet of thick, polished glass, supported at each end by slabs of rough Welsh granite.
She had no plants in her office, no photographs of the family. Among the very few personal things she did allow herself was a small framed quotation she cribbed from a management book. It said:
“You must move quickly if you are to convey the image of determination and clarity that you need to establish your leadership.”
And that was exactly what Bonnie Kelloway intended to do.
Ten
Shortly before nine in the morning, “Raymond the Yank” appeared at Bonnie’s office door. When Bonnie learned that he was a graduate of one of the best West Coast business administration colleges, she immediately promoted him to her personal staff. A male PA fitted in with her ideas of the new order at Kelloway and Bains.
Central to her new control was what became known as “morning prayers”. Ostensibly it was the time when all department heads met to discuss that day’s business. But Bonnie used the occasion to monitor other things. Fingernails were checked. “Been gardening again, David?” she asked one transgressor. She complained that another man was getting fat, and someone else needed a haircut.
In turn, each department head was responsible for the appearance of his or her team. Heaven help anybody who was not following her new code. Anybody with dirty shoes was sent shame-faced to Raymond for the office shoe-cleaning kit.
In her post one day, Bonnie found a report prepared by a group of occupational psychologists, claiming that women failed to get to the top of business because their kind hearts held them back. “Sod that,” she said and sent copies to every female member of staff.
Annabel was the first to learn the lesson. She was attending a meeting as a newly promoted account executive. Around the table with Annabel were four young men, all no more senior than herself. Yet is was Annabel whom Nathan asked to fetch coffee for the group.
She left the room, but returned carrying just one cup for herself.
“Where’s everybody else’s?” Nathan asked.
“Same place I found mine.”
When Bonnie heard the story, she left a bottle of champagne on Annabel’s desk with a note saying “That’s my GIRL.”
*
Finian put an affectionate arm around his father’s shoulder. Nathan had changed; he had lost his bounce. His shave was not too good either. Scruffy tufts of beard remained on his chin and neck. And he looked like he was wearing gardening clothes.
“It’s all my fault,” Nathan said. “I feel so guilty.”
“Don’t blame yourself.”
The two men had agreed to meet in the pub a few minutes from the office.
“There’s only one person to blame,” Finian said. “How is my sister?”
“The whole thing’s gone to her head,” Nathan said and ordered a fresh round of drinks. “What are you going to do?”
“Trying for a job back in pa
pers. I’ve written to dozens.”
“If you want to keep your hand in, I’ll get you some freelance work,” Nathan said. “Start with this.” He placed an envelope on the bar. “It’s a charity. I’ve given them PR help for years. It doesn’t pay much, but it’s better than nothing.”
Finian opened the envelope and started reading.
“Bonnie’s always complained about it,” Nathan said. “They need a new appeals brochure.”
“Thanks, Dad. Every little helps.”
“Have you thought about starting your own PR consultancy?” Nathan asked.
Finian almost choked on his drink and Nathan had to beat him on his back to stop a coughing fit.
“You’ve already won a client and I know you can do it again.”
“I’ve had enough of public relations. I’m going back to journalism where I know what I’m doing – once I can find myself a job.”
“All the same, Finn. Do me a favour – think about it. I’ll give you all the help and advice you need.”
*
The office hadn’t changed in all those years. The desk where Finian had sat as a young reporter was still there. So was that uncomfortable chair.
Distribution Monthly, the trade magazine for part of the road-haulage industry, never did much more than break even and couldn’t afford to redecorate, let alone change offices.
Even Tony Greer, the editor, looked pretty much the same. “I was surprised to hear from you again, Finn.” He said. “Sorry that things have gone wrong.”
“Heard you were looking for new staff and thought I would drop you a line.”
“To be honest, we’re after someone with much less experience.”
“And cheaper,” Finian said.
“Yes. That too.”
“I did the job for three years...”
“Before going to the Morning Journal,” Greer said. “You’d be off again, as soon as something bigger and better came along.”
Finian knew he was right. It had been silly even to consider going back to a job he knew he was too good for a dozen years ago.
“Perhaps you might write the occasional freelance story for us.”
Bad Influence Page 6
