Lights glided by, accompanied by the throb of an engine: a Port of London police boat. He slipped out of bed and padded through to his den, sat at his desk, which looked out over the river; then he flipped open the lid of his laptop and logged back on to Facebook. There was a notification: Your friend request has been accepted. Teresa Saunders is now your friend. And there was a message: Thanks for the friend request!
Yayyyyyy!
But he held off replying. Did not want to seem too keen. She might think him a bit of a saddo messaging her at 3.20 a.m.
He went back to bed and closed his eyes and wondered if she would come to him again. But all that came were images of MaximusBrek, the porridge of gladiators!
His slogan and he was proud of it.
He awoke at 6.15 a.m., a few minutes before his alarm was due to go off. Dawn had long broken and it was almost full light. He liked this time of year, early April. Spring was in the air. The nights were getting shorter. Maybe this spring he would fall in love. Perhaps with Teresa Saunders?
He sat in his black silk dressing gown in front of Daybreak on television, and ate his microwaved MaximusBrek. It tasted like molten plaster of Paris but, hey, he wasn’t going to tell the clients that. He would stride into the meeting bursting with energy, like an unleashed gladiator, and tell them how terrific this new food was. Especially for the below-the-line profits of the ad agency that paid his wages.
As he ate, angry Palestinians were shouting on the screen and holding up placards. He should have been thinking about his pitch at the meeting, but he couldn’t focus on that. All he could think about was the message he was going to send Teresa Saunders. Something original that would make her smile, that would make her think he was a really interesting guy to communicate with. Hell, he was one of the highest-paid advertising copywriters in London right now. He wrote hot slogans for hot products. So surely he could write one for the hottest product of all — himself.
He was thirty-two. Single. He had this cool pad. His charcoal Aston DBS. He kept himself and his bank balance in shape. But for the past eight months, since his last short-lived relationship, he slept every night in an empty bed.
He sent Teresa Saunders a message: Thanks for accepting my friend request… J
Then he got dressed and headed out to work, checking his iPhone at every red light he stopped at. Fresh emails popped up every few seconds. But to his disappointment, nothing from Teresa Saunders.
Come on, he chided himself. Focus. Concentrate! They sat round the black glass table in the stark white boardroom of Bresson, Carter, Olaff — the agency he worked for. Croissants and brioches lay on plates, alongside jugs of coffee and expensive mineral water. The four-strong team from the client, as well as his three agency colleagues, including his boss, Martin Willis, watched the presentation on the big screen. Then they were shown mock-ups of the TV campaign, the magazine campaign, the online campaign and the in-store point-of-sale artwork. He should have been watching too, but instead he kept glancing at his iPhone, surreptitiously cupped in his hands beneath the table.
‘Don’t you think, Jobe?’
Hearing his name brought him back to earth with a start. He looked up to see fourteen eyeballs fixed on him — several of them through stupidly trendy glasses. He went bright red. He stammered. ‘Um, well, yes,’ although he had, in truth, no idea what they were referring to. He felt their stares, and his face burned as if a corrosive acid had been poured over his skin.
‘Are you with us, Jobe?’ Willis said.
‘Totally.’ He began perspiring.
‘You have the floor,’ Willis said.
‘Yes, right. Um… ah… OK.’
The female, whose name he had forgotten, said helpfully, ‘We’re referring to the Twitter aspect of the campaign.’
‘Indeed,’ he said, waiting for the light-bulb moment. But it didn’t happen. So he took a stab in the dark. ‘My thinking is that all these tweets start appearing, from people who have eaten MaximusBrek, saying how much energy they suddenly have. Also, when anyone tweets that they’re on a diet, MaximusBrek starts following them. We kind of anthropomorphize it, so MaximusBrek becomes like a person out there in cyberspace, right, rather than just a brand.’
He was greeted with frowns and blank stares.
‘Diabetics,’ the female client said. ‘I thought we planned to target the two and a half million diabetics in the UK with the low glycaemic index of MaximusBrek.’
‘Absolutely!’ Jobe said, remembering suddenly. ‘Diabetics are a shoo-in. What we’re going to do is engage with the diabetic blog sites, as well as Twitter and Facebook. MaximusBrek is going to be the diabetic’s new best friend — types one and two! We’re going to make it the biggest breakfast cereal ever — first for this nation, and then we’ll break it out globally!’
Then he made the mistake of glancing down at his iPhone again. Hey Jobe, nice to ‘meet’ you! Just checked out your photos — you look a really cool guy! Tell me more about yourself.
After the meeting, Martin Willis asked him to come up to his office. Willis was in his early forties, with trim ginger hair, and was dressed in a traditional business suit and an expensive open-neck white shirt. He had a hard, blunt Yorkshire accent. ‘Who are you with, Jobe? The Woolwich?’
‘The Woolwich?’ Jobe frowned.
‘Yeah, the Woolwich? Are you with them? Because you sure as hell aren’t with us.’
‘I’m not quite with you.’
‘No, you’re sodding not. You’re not with anyone today; you’re on planet Zog. You on drugs or something? Not well?’
‘No — nothing… and I’m not unwell.’
‘You realize you almost lost us one of our biggest new clients this morning with your behaviour? Every time anyone asked you a question you were somewhere else.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘I don’t do sorry.’
Back home, Jobe typed: Hey Teresa, nice to ‘meet’ you too! Your reply got me a load of verbal from my boss a bit earlier! He seemed to think it was more important for me to concentrate on a meeting I was in than read your message. What a Philistine!
Anyway, about me: I’m single and I work in advertising. I live on Wapping Wharf, near Tower Bridge. I’d love to meet you properly J
He posted the message then switched on the television, mixed himself a large vodka martini, took one sip, then checked his laptop before settling down to watch television. Whatever was on, he didn’t care. He needed a large drink tonight after the bollocking from Martin Willis — and what annoyed him most about it was that Willis was right. His mind had been all over the place in a crucially important meeting. God, Teresa Saunders was messing with his head and they hadn’t even met yet!
Yet!
And there was a reply from her, already.
I’d love to meet you too J
He replied immediately.
When’s good for you?
She replied immediately too.
Tonight?
She was keen!
OK! What time and where?
There was a long delay, and then the message appeared.
10.35 p.m. Hampstead Heath. 51°56′ 47.251'' N 0°17′ 41.938'' W.
Jobe frowned for a moment, then grinned. Compass co-ordinates. Teresa Saunders was a piece of work! Smart girl. He liked challenges.
He typed back:
See u there!
The reply arrived: