To Catch a Creeper (3 page)

‘Incredi-Bread, Incredi-Plus and Mega-Incredi.’ The voiceover booms out. ‘Your children won’t notice the change. But everyone else will.’

‘Brilliant!’ Turks says when it ends. ‘Good job, Gurlet. Feedback?’

‘Yeah, baby,’ someone cries. ‘Where can I get a slice?’

‘Come on, guys. This is a massive campaign. I need critiques. Any problems, I want them ironed out before we present to the clients.’

There’s a murmur of ‘great’, ‘terrific’, ‘fantastic’, ‘fab’. Gurlet looks pleased.

‘Cathy,’ Turks fixes on me, ‘you’ve got kids. You must have made a million packed lunches?’

‘Um…yeah…s-s-sure.’ I suddenly develop a stutter.

‘So? What do you think?’

What do I think? I gulp. I think everyone’s staring at me like a pack of hungry wolves scenting a wounded deer. That’s what I think. I feel my cheeks explode in a mass of red blotches and turn to Rosa. She gives me a go-for-it-girl smile, but it doesn’t help. I’m on my own. ‘Stand up so we can see you. We want your ideas.’

My knees are shaking so violently I’m afraid I might collapse and end up slithering on the floor like a beached mermaid. I rise to my feet and stick my hands on the table to steady myself as I try gathering my wits, but it’s no good, they’re all racing in opposite directions.

‘Well…um…I don’t know…Ideas? Right. Hmm. Well maybe…maybe in the last scene they could all be singing, “Don’t worry ’bout a thing”.’ I didn’t even know I was going to say it until it popped out.

Gurlet raises his eyeballs skywards, Turks looks baffled and Vicious Vivien is smirking.

‘Bob Marley. Reggae,’ I explain. ‘Just an idea, since you’ve got the little Rasta kids. Or “Oh I’m go-ing to Barbados, Oh sun-ny Caribbean sea”. And I really like the name, Gradual Brown. Really hip.’ They love to think things are hip here. ‘But in a Generation X kind of way…er, perhaps.’

Lewis snorts. Other people are grinning, some more openly than others. Rosa’s jaw is hanging in a southward direction.

‘What on earth does she mean?’ Turks asks Lewis with a puzzled expression.

‘I think Cathy’s under the impression that eating Gradual Brown will turn your creamy fat couchies into reefer-smoking Rastafarians,’ Lewis titters. ‘Great trick if you can manage it, Gurlet.’

‘What?’ Turks stares at the screen, then laughs. And laughs. Everyone else joins in, lolling about holding their stomachs and retrieving tissues from handbags, pockets and cuffs. Still I’m not confident all the looks coming my way are friendly. Gurlet’s certainly aren’t.

I grab the chance to collapse back in my chair and Rosa squeezes my hand. ‘Was I OK?’ I ask quietly.

‘Spot on,’ she replies with a curious look on her face.

‘Fucking ridiculous!’ Gurlet blasts. ‘What the hell does she know about…?’

‘Bugger me, no, Cathy’s right.’ Turks is wiping his eyes now, mouth open. ‘Hey, Gurlet, why not endow them all with dreadlocks and a big bamboo while you’re at it?’

‘Not a bad idea,’ I whisper to Rosa, who’s busy doodling a foetus on her notepad. ‘They could limbo dance under it.’

‘Cathy,’ she sniggers, ‘a big bamboo is what they call a willy in Jamaica.’

‘Trust you to know willies of the world,’ I nudge her arm, relieved the focus is finally off me.

‘Don’t tell me you’re about to present our clients with a campaign that suggests their bread’s gonna turn us gradually black?’ Luckily, Turks is still on at Gurlet so he doesn’t notice us heads down, biting our lips, trying hard to keep our faces straight and shoulders from shaking. ‘Solve the nation’s health problems and end racial tension all in one.’

Gurlet presses a button and removes the disc, looking huffy. ‘Obviously the visuals are rough. And, with all due respect to Cathy,’ he gives me a daggers look, ‘she’s hardly experienced enough to grasp the bigger picture. Maybe the concepts of hip and cool are foreign to her…’

‘But buying bread isn’t, is it?’ Turks slaps him on the back. ‘Don’t you see, Gurlet, Cathy’s our secret weapon, Mrs Average Housewife. The hand that rocks the cradle, buys the groceries and actually spreads the darn sandwiches. Unappreciated, unnoticed, invisible – but the crucial force in the marketplace, isn’t that so, Viv?’

He’s right, I inwardly reflect, I’m rarely appreciated, seldom noticed, often invisible. Even in my prime I could stand at a bar for hours, waiting for drinks and waving fivers while all were served around me. Younger and Wilding’s secret weapon. I puff with pride.

‘Absolutely.’ Vivien nods her head in agreement and smiles at me. ‘Cathy’s our eye into all those overweight frumpy women that the rest of us rarely notice unless their kids are squalling.’

Wait a minute! That doesn’t sound so great. My ego deflates faster than one of Richard Branson’s air balloons, as she waxes on.

‘The voice of the middle-aged don’t-know-how-to-be’s even if it was handed to them on a plate, trudging through our supermarkets, desperately trying to find something to throw down their children’s necks so they can get back to watching the latest reality show. Sorry, I agree with Turks. The clients’ll never go for it. They’re pretty conservative themselves.’

I definitely don’t like this. I’m almost under the table, head ducking into my shoulders against numerous pairs of staring eyes.

‘Exactly,’ says Turks. ‘It’s a no go, Gurlet, I’m afraid. See if you can come up with a version of hip that doesn’t fit into some stereotypical image of our ethnic society. Last thing we need is the racial equality commission hounding us.’ He shudders. ‘We could end up accused of regressing the black movement forty years. Meeting over, everyone.’

***

There’s a heavy silence between Rosa and me as we wait until last before leaving the conference room. I’m not risking running into Gurlet.

Then, ‘I think that went quite well,’ she says in a fake normal voice.

‘Oh God, I didn’t…I wasn’t…I thought it was a good campaign. Honestly. Really colourful. And clever. I was just trying to say something halfway intelligent. And now Gurlet probably thinks I scuppered it on purpose. The way he dug those pointy eyes into mine.’

‘Who cares?’ she shrugs. ‘He’s a total tosser, anyway. Do him good to get taken down a peg. And Turks was obviously impressed with what you said.’

She leads me along the corridor, keeping up the reassuring chatter, though as far as I’m concerned it could be the Green Mile with me heading for old sparkie and Rosa shouting, ‘Dead Man Walking!’ so people have the decency not to stare.

‘I really did think they were Rastafarians,’ I try to explain as we turn the corner towards our office. ‘What an idiot. And then I almost died when Vicious Viv got stuck in.
All those cracks about moronic housewives watching reality shows. Do you think she was having a go at me?’

‘Of course not,’ Rosa says dismissively, before a glint enters her eyes. ‘Although I’d like to stick her on a reality show – something with big hairy rats in.’

‘Yeah and she’d have to eat them all and everyone at home would be calling out, “Go on, Vicious Viv” as a long pink tail slithers down her neck. “Go on.” And Viv…’

I stop as Rosa elbows me in the ribs. Vivien’s standing inches away leaning against the water dispenser and by the scowl on her face she’s heard every word.

Chapter 3

For the first time since I started at Younger and Wilding, I feel like I’m escaping as I climb the spiral stairs of the double-decker bus. What a day!

As we reach the familiar boundaries of Crouch End I breathe a great big sigh of relief.

London, N8. West of Wood Green, east of Golders Green, south of Muswell Hill, north of Archway. Residents like it here because a) we don’t have a tube station, so we’re kind of an isolated pocket and b) everyone knows each other in one way or another. Hang around a few months and it’s almost impossible to walk down the Broadway without being accosted by someone you know from playgroup, Montessori, YMCA, Pilates, primary schools, etc. It’s like you’re a star, but of course, you’re not because everyone in Crouch End’s the same.

***

After picking up Josh and Sophie, I arrive home to be greeted on the second from bottom stair by another pile of cat vomit.

Great. Truly great.

I hold my left arm out as a barrier. ‘Wide berth, guys.’

‘Not again!’ Sophie says in disgust.

‘Yukkee da!’ exclaims Josh.

As I drop my little package of puke into the wheelie bin, I spot the elderly Mrs Baker outside her back door in the company of a tall thin man with a shock of white curly hair and an exasperated-looking woman in her late fifties, who I recognise from moving in day as her daughter, Eleanor. Also known as Mrs Baker. They both married Bakers apparently. Not bakers as in bread makers, just bakers as in Mr Baker, though I’m told not related. The man and the young Mrs Baker, Eleanor, are talking earnestly while staring up at the old Mrs Baker’s top floor windows.

‘Mother,’ I hear her say, ‘I really don’t think–’

‘You can never be too careful,’ the older Mrs Baker’s emphatic. ‘Isn’t that correct, Mr Shannon? Here, this lady will tell you.’ She catches sight of me sneaking back to my house and waves me over. ‘She almost got killed. Drug addicts, mass murderers, you name it. She was only saying this morning.’

‘Oh,’ I reluctantly amble across to them, ‘I don’t believe I said mass murderers. Although there was those bodies found in Cranley…’ I stop as I catch Eleanor’s shrivelling glance. Is it my imagination or does she seem a teeny bit hostile?

‘Most of our customers find–’ the man in the uniform starts before Eleanor butts in.

‘It’ll make the property look ridiculous, Mother. Like Wormwood Scrubs.’

‘I really think one of our top of the line alarm systems–’ he starts again.

‘Not to mention the value plummeting,’ Eleanor once more interrupts. ‘When you come to sell it.’

‘Mr Shannon here is going to place some nice white bars on all my windows. Won’t that be sensible, Mrs O’Farrell?’ Now it’s Mrs Baker’s turn to talk over her daughter.

‘Er, maybe, yes. Shannon’s?’ I scrutinise the man’s green uniform. ‘You’re putting up bars? Why?’

He smiles and shakes my hand. ‘Keith Shannon. Shannon Securities. Fitters of burglar alarms, home or office video systems, wall safes. All your security needs. We’re trying to persuade Mrs Baker here that no-one uses bars these days. Wouldn’t even know
where to look for them myself.’ He rolls his eyes at me, then across at Eleanor, making it pretty obvious that we’re dealing with a batty old lady. ‘Most of our clients are extremely satisfied with a top-notch alarm system. We can trigger all the entry points; have them wired straight to the police station. Someone so much as cracks a window, the cops’ll be on your doorstep.’

‘And just an alarm sign is enough to stop most would-be intruders, isn’t it?’ Eleanor looks from Mr Shannon to me and back again, rallying support.

‘Great deterrent,’ I agree enthusiastically.

‘But not as effective as bars, eh?’ Unfortunately Mrs Baker, the elder, is also rallying support.

Oh God. I glance from one set of stubborn eyes to the other, then back again, not knowing which one to pin my colours to, when thankfully my mobile starts ringing.

‘Sorry, er, I have to take this.’ I quickly walk towards the road, out of earshot.

‘Good day?’ It’s Declan.

‘Good day to you, Bruce. How’s it hanging?’ I attempt an Australian drawl, which goes a bit South African at the end.

‘It’s hanging fine,’ he tries an East Coast American twang, but it comes out more Liverpudlian. ‘But what I meant was, did you have a good day at the office?’

I can tell he’s smiling.

‘Terrific.’ I lie. ‘You?’

In the background I hear Mrs Baker and her daughter have resumed their squabbling. I walk another ten paces forward.

‘Not wonderful. That’s why I’m ringing. I’ve a couple of things needing sorting so won’t make dinner. Meeting with senior executives and all that.’

‘Oh, OK.’ I’m mildly disappointed, but can’t get too distraught. After all, first time in ages he’s been late back and considering how overworked he used to be. ‘Well see you when I see you, I guess. I’ll leave something on the stove.’

‘Thanks. Better go. They’re buzzing me.’

‘And you’ve neighbours right on your doorstep you can call on too,’ Eleanor’s saying as I head back towards them all.

‘Neighbours,’ Mrs Baker’s expression oozes contempt. ‘Fat lot of good that is when they’re criminals themselves.’

‘No, no, you’ve got it wrong,’ I try and placate her. ‘The person who attacked me wasn’t a criminal. Just insane. I never even pressed charges.’

Mrs Baker folds her arms smugly as if I’ve just added fifty points to her scorecard. ‘You see!’ she says defiantly. ‘Bars, I said, and bars it is.’

‘Mother!’ This time there’s no ambivalence about the look Eleanor gives me. You’d almost think I’m to blame for this whole argument.

‘Oh well, I’m sure you’ll sort it out.’ I back away, just as the front door opens. At the top of her lungs Sophie yells down the front path. ‘Mum-ee. Mum-eee. Tic-Tac’s done diarrhoea in the bath.’

I get a barrage of what-kind-of-a-family-is-this looks before everyone turns their backs on me.

‘Cats!’ I shrug in explanation but no-one’s listening. The argument’s in full flood again.

No. Not what you’d call a perfect day.

***

Now which do I press? I’m staring at my keyboard trying to choose between the little England flag and the Alt button. It’s the next afternoon and we’re hard at work. Rosa
trying her mightiest to research the best position to give birth in, me trying my mightiest to put yesterday’s faux pas behind me.

I eeny meeny between the two keys, press the winner and a message flashes up on my screen.

‘Shit! Shit! Rosa, help! I’ve done it again! I’ve committed an illegal abortion!’

Rosa drops the papers she’s holding and rushes over to my desk. ‘Cath, calm down. And it’s not an
abortion
. It’s an
operation
. And we shouldn’t really say the “A” word in front of the little one, should we?’

‘Oh, but he/she’s not formed ears yet, has he?’

‘God I’m not sure. I’ll better check.’ She scrambles amongst the box files on her desk which are hiding a multitude of baby books, leaflets, magazines with graphic illustrations. And I mean
graphic
. ‘I need to know anyway because Alec bought me a Beethoven CD yesterday. We’re going to play it to him/her every morning. Helps the brain develop.’