Agency

In Which the True, Forgotten Nature of Woman is Exploited to Sell Pain Relief

the following week at Janus-Klein

The Atrabax team sat stone-faced along one side of the imposing boardroom table. The room bore evidence that these people had been sitting in this room for hours already, enduring back to back agency presentations. By the window, Starbucks traveller boxes dripped on the carpet. Stir sticks, empty cups and muffin wrappers cluttered the centre of the long table. Notepads were turned to fresh white pages and pens sat ready.

Berry entered the room first, attempting with the enthusiasm of his handshake alone to reinvigorate the energy of the four suited men at the table. He went down the row, shaking each hand, making eye contact and remembering each name.

"Roland, good to see you! Charles, hello. Suneel, great tie! Thierry, some really exciting work to share with you today."

As is customary, the rest of the agency team followed behind in a confusion of handshakes and business cards, demonstrating a high-pitched happiness to be there that was entirely faked by all parties. Except for Niall, who entered the room and took the seat closest to the screen without handshakes or introductions. The nearest thing to an introduction he ever doled out was a magnanimous smile and a cat-like stretch of the arms to indicate complete comfort in the moment. Creative genius shouldn't ever look too eager, was his theory.

"Well. Great," said Berry, opening the floor. "We expect it's been a long day for all of you, but we're excited to show some of our early thinking around the Atrabax : Mother's Day brief. For those of you who haven't met him — I'm delighted that Niall Flannery could join us today — he's one of the agency's top creative men — that is, I mean, people and it isn't often that he'll come out to meet with — to present his thinking — I mean, it's wonderful that he was able to join us because he's very expensive. Haha." Berry straightened his tie uncomfortably.

Niall nodded his head and waited through Berry's fumbling introduction of the rest of the team. Margot, Martin and David all sat primly to the left of Niall, each hoping to god they were only there to provide the illusion of numbers. Clients wanted to see that their project was important to the Agency. There had even been some debate about bringing Shanti in order to ensure they would outnumber the Atrabax team, but, in the end, it seemed too possible that Shanti would break out in nervous chanting during the presentation, so they'd left her behind.

Berry had painstakingly prepared a Powerpoint deck, using the rigorous requirements laid out in the original RFP. He made small talk while trying to connect his laptop to the large screen at the front of the room. He tried one of the snaking cords that slithered from the centre of the boardroom table and tapped at his keyboard. The presentation screen remained dark. He tried another cord, concern beginning to wet his underarms. This was always a moment of great tension. Would technology be with you or against you? The answer relied, it seemed, entirely on the goodwill of fairies because no amount of experience, not even the usual sequence of keystrokes and remote button pressings could guarantee success. His forehead started to glisten with the effort of filling the air with meaningful banter while grappling with the free will of technology.

"I don't think..." Berry stammered, finally. "I'm not sure if..."

"Ach," spat Niall, taking the moment over. "Let's never mind the screen anyway. Sure, we didn't come all this way to read some bullet points on a slide. Isn't that right?" he smiled broadly now, warming up. Niall stood abruptly, his roll-y chair spinning off behind him noisily.

"Now. Let's get on with what we're all here for. You're looking at me, waiting to hear how we'll see about your wee pills getting into the medicine cupboards of mothers all across the country. Well, we have some ideas to that end, sure enough. But," he held his hand up, stopping dramatically, waiting until he had all eyes on him. "That's not where a thing like this begins. No, gentlemen. A thing like this begins, like all of us, in the bloody, squalling, red-faced, battleground of CHILDBIRTH."