Staying Alive

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to pass on my very best wishes to everyone at your end of the Axis of Evil.

Yours et cetera…

Job done.

I close my eyes.

No, Niall, I’m not going to sleep. I’m concentrating deeply on your exciting proposal to spend 5.2 million giving the lucky citizens of Benelux no less than fifteen opportunities to hear a voice-over promise a sensously silky taste adventure (in Dutch, Flemish and French).

Never mind how I’d like to die. What will surely kill me is terminal cynicism.

12.36 p.m.

The meeting finally breaks up.

I grab a bottle of mineral water from the middle of the table and take a swig, washing down the three aspirin that I’ve placed on my tongue. My glands are up like feisty walnuts and I feel rough, much worse than yesterday. I shouldn’t be here.

Niall stands up and announces lunch. My cue to scurry ahead to reception and organise the taxis. Before I leave the room he grabs my arm. ‘You won’t be joining us at the trough today,’ he hisses. ‘I’d like you to spend your lunch hour going through every invoice you’ve issued over the last twelve months. The rest of the board and I would like to know just how many of our clients you’ve wrongly billed.’

It was a mistake, Niall. An accident. Slightly less than three thou-sand pounds demanded of the wrong client. Nobody died, for God’s sake.

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘That’s exactly what I was planning to do.’

12.41 p.m.

‘You look peaky, babe. Not up to the lunch?’ Jakki says with concern (at least thirty per cent of it sincere) as I arrive at my desk. She has me down as suffering from hypochondria, but it’s nothing so serious—just a touch of flu.

‘It’s not that. Niall’s put me on punishment duties.’

‘Jeez, it was only an invoice. Nobody died. He sends out the wrong ones all the time.’

‘Yes, but he does it deliberately. Did you know that Schenker was billed for the new boardroom table? Thirteen grand. He bunged it on the budget for their last commercial. He even put the agency mark-up on it.’

‘At least you weren’t ripping anyone off.’

‘More fool me, Jakki. If I’d been ripping someone off I’d have probably got a rise…Anyway, I need to go through a year’s worth of billing now.’

‘I’ll give you a hand.’

‘You don’t have to do that.’

And she doesn’t. As secretary to four other account supervisors besides me she has enough bum-numbing rubbish to deal with.

‘I don’t mind. You’ll be doing me a favour. If I go out I’ll only end up buying a double cheese and sardine melt and something with triple-choc in its name. No bloody willpower.’

I let her pull up a chair next to mine. She could do with losing a little weight.

2.09 p.m.

‘Well, I can’t find anything,’ I say.

‘Hmm,’ Jakki murmurs. She lost interest some time ago. She’s still sitting beside me, but now she’s looking at the pictures in Italian Vogue.

‘The independent Murray Colin Commission hereby concludes its investigation into the administrative record of Murray Colin, and hereby finds that Murray Colin has billed impeccably.’

‘Hmm,’ says Jakki.

‘That was one too many herebys, wasn’t it?’

‘Uh-huh…What do you think I’d look like in this?’ She holds up a picture of a model who’s thinner than the paper she’s printed on. She’s wearing two squares of chiffon, each the size of a pocket tissue.

‘Gorgeous,’ I say.

‘Who am I trying to kid? I’d look like Mrs Blobby. God, I can’t hold out any longer,’ she announces, standing up and pulling on her coat. ‘I’ve got to get food. Want anything?’

‘You could get me a Mars.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Yeah. Hang on, I’ll give you some money.’ I stand up and reach into my trouser pocket. I freeze as my hand touches something—it isn’t loose change.

‘What’s up?’ Jakki asks.

‘Nothing…Nothing at all. You go. Forget the Mars.’

Well, I’m not going to tell her I’ve just found a lump, am I?

three: fifteen weeks, four days and an indeterminate number of hours (#ulink_d92d0111-ceeb-5f67-84cc-59a7ed916d44)

tuesday 4 november / 7.44 p.m.

At least, I think it’s a lump.

I stand in front of the long mirror in my bedroom and lower my trousers and underpants. I unbutton my shirt and lift the tails out to my sides to reveal myself in seminaked glory. Nothing glorious about it, actually. My body is thoroughly average. No flab to speak of, but no corrugated sheet of abdominal muscles either. Just a gently bowed curve of stomach descending to an untidy clump of mid-brown hair. Every once in a while I consider shaving it off. Nothing to do with vanity. No, the thought appeals to my sense of neatness. But…shaved pubes. There’s something pervy about that. A bit porn star. And I can’t stomach the idea of being knocked down by a car, getting rushed to Aamp;E and the medics discovering that I groom down there.

Doctor: Take a look at this, nurse.

Nurse: My God, a depilator. Is he a porn star?

Doctor: What’s it say on his admission form?

Nurse: Advertising executive.

Doctor: He’s most likely just your run-of-the-mill pervert.

Nurse: Shall I call social services?

Doctor: We’d best be sure first. I mean, he could be a pro cyclist. I understand they shave. Something to do with aero dynamics, apparently.