31st Of February Read online

  “And you are sold on it?”

  Reverton paused at the door and grinned, man to man, not director to executive. “Not necessary. If VV’s sold on it we’re all sold on it.” The door closed. His steps faded along the corridor.

  What was wrong with the desk? Blotter, letters, engagement pad, calendar, he thought, calendar. The calendar was made of brass, and you turned the small and inconvenient knobs at the back of it to alter the day of the week, the date, and the month. Anderson stared at the calendar and then looked at his morning paper. The paper said Monday, February 25, 1949. The top slot in the calendar said Monday, the slot to the right said February. The slot to the left said 4. It was simple enough.

  The calendar was showing a wrong date. But Monday, February 4, was a very special wrong date. It was the date on which Anderson’s wife had died.

  The house telephone rang. A plummy voice said: “This is Mr Pile. Can you – h’m – spare me a few minutes?”

  “Right away, Mr Pile.” Mr Pile was another director.

  He sat staring at the calendar, then picked it up and turned the knob so that it showed a correct date. Then he got up and walked further down the corridor, away from the directors’ offices, to a large room where half a dozen girls sat in front of typewriters. He stopped before one of them. Her name was Jean Lightley, and she was Anderson’s secretary. She was a plain girl of about nineteen, who wore horn-rimmed spectacles and had a great fund of embarrassment. She said with a slight gasp: “Oh, Mr Anderson, did you get the messages?”

  “Yes, thanks.” He said casually: “Jean, did you change my calendar this morning?”

  “Why, I always do, Mr Anderson.”

  “And what’s the date today?”

  “Today, Mr Anderson?” She gasped again. “Monday the twenty-fifth.”

  “Quite sure that’s what you changed it to this morning?” She nodded, beyond speech, and he turned away, out of the room and back along the corridor to the square landing where the three doors bore the names of the three directors. Anderson knocked on the door which said in gold letters L E G PILE and opened it without waiting for a reply. He said “Good morning” to a small man in his early sixties who sat behind an enormous desk.

  Mr Pile wore a plain dark grey suit of an old-fashioned cut, a decorous striped tie and rimless pince-nez. He was looking at some papers and said “Good morning” without raising his head. Anderson remained standing in front of the desk. In Reverton’s room he would have sat down without being asked. In Vincent’s the chairs would have been covered with magazines, which Vincent would have thrown on the floor. But Pile was one of the elder statesmen of advertising, a man who believed in emphasizing social and administrative distinctions. However important an executive might be, he was less important than a director. In Mr Pile’s room an executive stood up until he was told to sit down, and it was perhaps thirty seconds before Mr Pile looked up from his extensive study of the papers on his desk and said in a surprised tone:

  “Sit down, Anderson.” Then Anderson sat down. Mr Pile stared at him, a little wizened old man with small, hard eyes behind the rimless pince-nez. Below the hard shell of his exterior was a layer of soft, warm shyness and embarrassment. And below the shyness, Anderson guessed, was solid rock. Now he seemed to have difficulty in forming his words.

  “Did you – have a pleasant week end, Anderson?”

  “Quite, thank you.”

  “Did you – spend any time in the garden?”

  “My flat is in town,” Anderson said. He had conducted this conversation many times, in half a dozen variations. Which would it be this time, he wondered – the Beauty of Getting Away from It All or Town Mouse and Country Mouse? As Pile talked behind the immense desk in the sombre room the electric desk lamp flashed ever so often upon his rimless spectacles, so that the eyes behind them were almost invisible.

  “…so that in some ways,” he was saying, “the country cousin, ignorant and foolish as he may be in the way of the world, has an advantage over the – ah – more sophisticated town mouse. But I mustn’t push my little joke too far. All we advertising men are town mice, are we not?” Anderson covertly looked at his watch. “Are you an admirer of the immortal Walt? I refer,” Mr Pile said with a slight cough, “to Disney, not Whitman.”

  Wasn’t this preamble more than usually lengthy? Was there a slight uneasiness behind the pince-nez? “I admire the early films very much,” Anderson said, and added: “I’m due for a conference with Mr Vincent in a few minutes.”

  Mr Pile regarded him, apparently sightlessly. “You know of – ah – Sir Malcolm Buntz?” Anderson nodded. Sir Malcolm Buntz was a director of South Eastern Laboratories, one of the firm’s largest accounts. “Sir Malcolm has a nephew who contemplates –” Mr Pile coughed – “a career in advertising.” Anderson said nothing. “He is. I am sure, an amiable young man, but amiability is not, as I remarked to Sir Malcolm, the sole, or perhaps the chief, requisite for a successful career in advertising. Sir Malcolm, however, has been insistent.” He sighed to indicate the degree of Sir Malcolm’s insistence. “And it is difficult to refuse him. In short, the young man is coming here to serve a brief apprenticeship. I have agreed with Mr Vincent and Mr Reverton that he shall begin it under your watchful eye in the Copy Department.”

  “We’re very busy.”

  “So much the better. It will be a baptism of – ah – fire for him. Let me have a report on him, and do not,” Mr Pile smiled with wintry shyness, “spare Sir Malcolm’s feelings.”

  “When does he begin?”

  “He begins this – ah – morning,” Mr Pile said. Light shone on his pince-nez. “His name is Greatorex.”

  2

  Reverton and Anderson sat in armchairs in VV’s room. Wyvern, head of the Art Department, a thin dyspeptic man who wore a sports jacket and dirty grey trousers, sat staring out of the window into the street. The time was twenty to eleven. Wyvern said suddenly: “Here he is.”

  There was a commotion outside, and then a little man rushed into the room. “Boys, boys, I’m sorry,” he said. “But wait a minute. This’ll kill you. Just wait a minute, that’s all I ask.” He flung on to the floor a briefcase stuffed with magazines and papers, whisked off hat scarf and overcoat, and darted out of the room again. There was the sound of a lavatory flushing, and then he was back. “Well,” he said. “Well. What’s all this on my desk? Books, magazines, papers, nothing but junk.” He threw a handful of art magazines to the floor and beamed round at them. His hair stood on end and his thick eyebrows stuck out. “I suppose Rev’s told you two boys what this is all about?”

  Placidly puffing at his pipe, Reverton said: “Only hints, VV. I thought you’d like to explain.”

  “Well,” said VV, delighted. He uttered an indistinct exclamation, and darted at a bell push. A girl appeared. VV smacked his hand on the desk. “My hot milk and my tablets, Miss Jones.” The girl vanished. VV sat back in his chair and looked round at them as though they were an audience of three hundred, instead of three. “There’s one thing,” he said, “that every one of us has done this morning. Do you know what it is? Not only every one of us in this room, but every man in these offices.” His hands fluttered, his triangular gnome-like face shone with pleasure. “It’s not what you’re thinking, Jack my boy,” he said, pointing at Wyvern, whose face gave no indication that he was thinking anything. “We don’t do that every morning – not even the biggest rams among us.”

  Reverton took his pipe out of his mouth. “There are no statistics on that, VV.”

  “Statistics? We’ve got the whole history of the human race.” He rocked with laughter. “And we don’t all evacuate every morning either, unfortunately. What do we do, then?” Miss Jones returned with a glass of milk and three green tablets which she placed at his side. He waved them away impatiently. When she had gone out he repeated: “What do we do?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I’ll tell you, gentlemen. We shave.”

  Reverton went on blowing smoke from his
pipe. Wyvern continued to look out of the window. Anderson sat forward, looking, he hoped, keenly interested. In his mind he saw the calendar which said MONDAY, 4 FEBRUARY. What did it mean? VV jumped up and began to walk up and down the room among the piles of Scope, Verve, Vogue and Printers’ Ink on the floor.

  “Every morning homo sapiens crawls out of his warm bed, stretches, faces a mirror and assaults his face with cold steel for anything from five to thirty-five minutes. He cuts and scrapes and hacks away, fighting the unending battle against the growth of Nature. Every morning he gains a victory – but at what a price. Bits of sticking plaster, after-shave lotion, cooling powder – he calls them all into play; he has a row with his wife and catches the eight-fifteen feeling very much the worse for wear.” VV’s voice, which had risen to a pitch of histrionic excitement, changed suddenly to a mellifluous cooing. “Now supposing we had a means of eliminating this daily torture, supposing we could say ‘Hey Presto’ and find ourselves shaved – wouldn’t that be the greatest boon ever brought to twentieth-century man?” He stood for a moment with one band stretched before him, and then slowly lowered it. “Boys,” he said solemnly, “this is something big. Really big. This is something more than just another advertising account. It’s a national benefit.” He sat down, put one of the green pills on his tongue, and sipped the milk.

  Wyvern shifted in his chair. Anderson looked down at his legs. He had for the moment the extraordinary impression that the lower part of his body was separated from the upper half. Suppose that was really so? Suppose that the foot, the whole leg, failed to obey the instructions telegraphed from the brain. Suppose that one telegraphed such a message now, and suddenly his right foot flickered on the carpet as though moved by a tic. He watched its performance dispassionately.

  “Better get down to cases,” said Reverton. “I’ve got it all down here in outline, VV. shall I give it to them?” Drinking his milk, swallowing his tablets, glancing from one to the other of them, VV nodded. “All right then. This is a new product, absolutely unmarketed. It’s extracted from the tgojumba tree which grows in Central Africa, refined and specially processed.”

  “The what?” said Wyvern.

  “The tgojumba tree.”

  “Any relation to the miraculous yam-yam you find on the shores of Coromandel?”

  “I know, I know,” said Reverton. “It’s funny. Maybe it isn’t the tgojumba tree; maybe it’s simply a laboratory product. We’ll have to know that – they mustn’t think they can do any wool-pulling with their advertising agents. But the important thing is that it works. You use it almost exactly as you use a brushless shaving cream – except that it’s razorless as well as brushless. Smear it on your face, leave it on for a minute, wipe it off, and your face is perfectly smooth and stays smooth the whole day.”

  “No five-o’clock shadow?” said Wyvern.

  “No five-o’clock shadow,” Reverton said solemnly. “That’s the product. Now, here’s the set-up as far as this agency is concerned. Manufacture is beginning in South Africa and it’s planned to market the product simultaneously here and over there. Negotiations are going on now in the States and on the Continent. Our first job is to suggest a name for the product. At present it’s just called Preparation Number One, but the name the manufacturing company suggests is Nu-Shave. Both VV and I think that stinks. Next, we’ve got to think how we’re going to handle a campaign, which may start by the end of this year. The sky’s the limit for the South African company, Multi-African Products, who’re making the stuff. We’ve got to decide where we’re going to pack our biggest punch. Press, cinema, posters – we’ve got a revolutionary product to advertise, and if we can find revolutionary means so much the better.” Reverton stuck his pipe back in his mouth, and then took it out again. “One more thing, Andy and JW, VV’s called this preliminary conference to start you thinking. He’ll handle the account from the creative side. I shall deal with administration. You’ll be responsible for copy ideas, Andy, and you, and JW for what comes out of the studio. Your boys are bound to know about it. Enthuse them, but tell them to keep it under their hats.” Reverton stuck his pipe back, apparently for good. VV swallowed the last of the green pills, got up and stood with his hands behind his back, staring at Anderson and Wyvern. “Any ideas, boys? How does it seem?”

  Sucking his pipe, Reverton said delightedly: “Hold on now, VV; give the boys a chance to think.”

  Anderson thought it was time he said something. “The end of this year means it’s not all that urgent.”

  VV wheeled and confronted him, genial but admonitory. “It is urgent. I want it treated as urgent. I want the sparks to fly. I want creation, boys, and no damned nine months’ gestation, either.” Like a little dynamo he moved between the three seated figures.

  Wyvern said in a discontented croak: “Does the stuff exist?”

  Like a conjurer, Reverton produced from his pocket a small brownish jar, and passed it round. The label said PREPARATION NUMBER 1; the top screwed off to reveal a white paste. Wyvern and Anderson looked at it curiously, and then Anderson said: “Has anyone tried it?”

  “This very morning.” Reverton tilted a perfectly smooth face for inspection, “Worked like a charm. On, off, beard gone.”

  “Nu-Shave,” Anderson said thoughtfully. “You know, there could be worse names.”

  “Or Razorless,” Wyvern suggested. “Might be something in Razorless:

  Pa and grandpa both bless

  The day they changed to Razorless.”

  VV’s fist struck the desk. We’re in for it now, Anderson thought; he’s got a scheme hatched out already. The little figure behind the desk was bristling with annoyance, but when he spoke he was not annoyed, but histrionically grieved, humorously disappointed. “You’re not thinking right, boys.” The fist unclenched and cupped his chin. “This isn’t a product for humour. You don’t sell a revolution with humour.”

  It’s foolish to contradict, it’s foolish to question, Anderson thought, as his foot moved to make circles and crosses in the air. But he wants just a little opposition perhaps. He said, with the right mixture of protest and conciliation: “But other shaving devices have been sold on humour, VV. We don’t need to talk about tossing our razors over the windmill, but surely there’s a case for being lighthearted. After all, it’s an occasion for celebration.”

  VV’s fine hands fluttered in the air, his voice beat like an incantation, his eyes stared straight ahead of him, like the eyes of a man in a trance. “This is the way I see it, boys. Shaving is one of the acts which bind us to a world of ritual, the world that each of us secretly detests. The alarm clock, the toothbrush, the razor, the railway timetable – they’re all part of the pattern that makes up the mechanical life of modern man. Take a thousand jigsaw pieces, fit them together every day and our lives are the result. But what we are doing is to take away one of those pieces. There’s a hole in the jigsaw, the pattern’s not complete. Through that hole modern man can catch a glimpse of freedom. It may be a small thing in itself, but my word, it’s a wonderful symbol.

  “Now, I want you to think in those terms, boys. Forget that you’re advertising men and remember that you’re human beings. We don’t want humour here; we want humanity. I can see one headline that says just FREEDOM FROM SHAVING. That’s the essential, simple human story.” VV’s voice had dropped to a low, reverent note. “The whole day’s changed – no more family quarrels now Dad’s in a good temper every morning. I can see another heading that says I THREW AWAY MY RAZOR – and the story there is the symbolism of it; that it’s the finest thing he ever did. I can see a sweet little girlie writing in her diary HAPPY DAYS BEGAN LAST FRIDAY. I can see a little boy saying DADDY HAS TIME TO SAY ‘GOOD MORNING’ NOW.

  VV’s voice changed again. Reverence disappeared, and an easy conversational tone took it’s place. “I’m just thinking aloud, you know. This is general direction, nothing more. I don’t want to interfere with you boys. Think it out for yourselves. There’s always anot
her way of doing it. But don’t miss the wood for the trees. There’s a great human story here. Don’t miss it through trying to be clever or scientific or funny. And don’t get bogged in detail. The great thing is the tone. Once we’ve got that the details will arrange themselves.” He had talked himself into a good temper. He stood up and beamed at Wyvern. “And don’t try to find out about the tgojumba tree, JW, so that you can draw it. Look for the secrets of the human heart instead. Go to it boys.”

  The audience was over.

  Outside the door Wyvern said: “Now we know it all. God has spoken. I need a drink at lunch. You?” Anderson nodded. “See you in the Stag,” Wyvern said and shambled away down the corridor. His gait was equally unsteady, whether he was sober or (as was often the case) drunk. Anderson started to walk after him and then turned back and re-entered the room he had just left. The effect of his entrance seemed to him extraordinary. Reverton was bending over VV’s desk, the heads of two men were close together, almost touching. As he came in they almost sprang – it seemed to Anderson – apart. More than that, it was Anderson’s impression that the two heads close together had worn expressions that were perfectly serious, and even sombre; but now, when they looked up, Reverton’s face was set in his characteristic self-deprecatory grin, and VV looked eagerly amiable. Was the change, then, nothing more than a trick of light, or had their expressions been adjusted deliberately to receive him? He stood for a moment, while both men looked at him inquiringly.

  “It’s about Greatorex.” VV looked mystified. Anderson said with a kind of exaggerated self-conscious humour: “The nephew of Sir Malcolm Buntz, you know.”

  Reverton’s mouth had clamped hard on his pipe. He took it out to say: “Lad who fancies he wants to be an advertising man. You remember LEG. wanted to put him through the mill here and it was agreed he should start in Copy.”