For Once In My Life

Chapter 1

Merrion Square, in the heart of Georgian Dublin, was by far the most lovely area of this beautiful city. It was the first day of June and the square was at its resplendent best on this Friday afternoon: the trees in the park at the centre were in their full green glory, the flower beds a haze of colour, the playground full of children squealing, the benches filled with office workers, their faces to the sun, their coffee photo cups and sandwiches beside them.

High above the square, in a conference room on the top floor of advertising company Mulligan O’Leary, Kitty O’Sullivan glanced down at the verdant oasis below. Beside her, Alex was in full flow, pitching to the Department of Health a potential new fitness campaign for children. Kitty watched as hand-holding children, from the small Montessori which occupied one of the houses, dressed in boaters and striped shirts, snaked their way across the centre of the square. People were picnicking on the grass, sandwiches bought from the cool basement café. There was a fiddle player in the shade of a cherry tree, the sun dappling grass around him, the music wafting heavenward, all the way to Kitty.

She was finding it hard to keep her mind on work and mainly thinking of Dave and how he didn’t seem content with his life. Just that morning, he had been lying in bed, as Kitty had raced around getting dressed, tidying the house quickly, because she knew that Dave wouldn’t bother, when he had announced he was unhappy and wanted to find a new job.

‘Unhappy?’ she’d queried, momentarily taken off balance.

He’d nodded. Or rather his nose, which poked out from the duvet, had moved up and down, which she’d taken to be a sign of acquiescence. Was he depressed or just down in the dumps?

Dave hadn’t been his old self for a long time and had retreated into early middle age, the grumpy young man who didn’t like socialising or having any kind of fun. He’d lost his father three years earlier which understandably had only compounded his decline. He needed something to get his mojo back and Kitty had begun to wonder if they needed to make a more definite kind of commitment. Would getting married be something that might help him feel more secure?

Kitty tuned back in to the conference room. Alex was still talking confidently, explaining their idea for the Hop To It campaign. She was the chief copywriter in their team, and Kitty was her junior. Kitty had worked at Mulligan O’Leary for the last five years, her skills lay in the honing of an idea and its essence, finding the perfect word and the sentence that would bring it to life, and she was quite content that Alex took the lead, being so much better at public speaking than she was.

Alex was tall, cool and queenly, her hair cut in a bob almost as sharp as her cheekbones, with heavy, perfect make-up and not a hair out of place. Kitty was smaller, blonde with straight shoulder-length hair, her suits a slightly more high-street version of Alex’s, but a softer face, blue eyes and small features. She was pretty to Alex’s beauty.

On the other side of Alex sat their newish team leader, Mary Rose, who was still on her three-month probation. She nodded along, interested in everything Alex said, as though this was her first time hearing it all. Hughie, their graphic designer, was sitting on the other side of Kitty. He caught her eye and with only the slightest twitch of his eyebrow nearly made her laugh.

In front of them were three grey-suited, sour-faced members of the Department of Health, one with a polished dome of a head which reflected the light from the large windows. The brief had been to encourage children to exercise and Hop To It was to be brought to all the junior schools in the country, linking up with sports days and summer camps. The mascot was a rabbit called Floppy Hopper – a character drawn by Hughie.

‘Hop To It,’ said Alex, managing to smile at everyone, ‘will therefore be a perfect way to encourage children to move more and leave their phones behind.’

Kitty thought again of Dave, how things weren’t working and what she could do to make a change. They’d been together for five years, but since his father had died, he hadn’t been himself. Or perhaps he hadn’t been himself before then. But whenever it was, she was finding it harder and harder to remember the lovely Dave from their early days. Then, he’d been sweet and fun, and although never outgoing or remotely gregarious, he had suited Kitty. Having someone to look after made her feel wanted and needed, and she felt nothing but affection for him. She planned to bring happiness from sadness, tidiness from disarray. Marriage, she thought, might bring him back to where he had been, and wasn’t getting married the ultimate relationship tidying-up? He was in a life slump, dealing with the fact that he wasn’t achieving all those ambitions he’d once reeled off when they had first met: his own company; a certain salary; his own house with gravel driveway. He’d been derailed and perhaps getting married would give him a solidity that would power him out of his slump. Kitty loved Dave and was determined to do whatever it took to make him happy… or at least happier.

Alex turned to Kitty and smiled. ‘I’m just going to hand you over to Kitty, who will take you through how we believe the roll-out in schools should go.’

Kitty felt her stomach turn over with a lurch of nausea. Standing up and speaking had never become any easier over the years and she much preferred to let others take the lead and the limelight. Creating order in life, from words and sentences to tidying and cleaning, was what she loved, and standing up in front of people was her very definition of chaos. When things were tidy, she felt safe and secure.

Kitty got to her feet, somehow managed to smile and began speaking. Even though she knew their pitch was good, she felt exposed and silly.

Two of the Department of Health team were nodding encouragingly, but the shiny-headed man was looking unimpressed, his arms folded across his chest, his nose scrunched sceptically.

‘It’s a campaign which will make children feel they are part of a club,’ Kitty said. ‘And with the tokens and reward chart, they will want to run faster, for longer, jump higher, skip or even rollerblade even more.’ Her voice sounded ridiculous. High and tinny, nothing like Alex’s low, confident tones. ‘Thank you for listening,’ she ended. ‘Any questions?’

The two encouraging Department of Health bods nodded.

‘I love it,’ said one. ‘I like Hoppy…’

‘Floppy,’ said Hugh.

‘Oh, so do I,’ said the other.

But the man with the crossed arms shook his shiny head. ‘It’s missing something…’ he said, a finger to his lips.

‘Missing something?’ Alex said as though to clarify that is what was said rather than asking what was missing.

‘Yeah…’ The man sat back in his chair, as though relaxing into the problem. ‘I’m not sure what it is, but something is missing.’

Alex leaned into the table. ‘We can work on it,’ she said, smilingly. ‘We can refine and re-present.’

The man looked at her. ‘I don’t know what it is,’ he said. ‘But it just doesn’t grab me.’

Alex looked over at Kitty, her face utterly blank, but Kitty knew she was devastated. If he didn’t like it, then they hadn’t won the pitch. The campaign would go to one of their rivals. The problem was, Kitty agreed with him. Something was missing, and to be honest, there was always something missing, but that was normal. Kitty never produced a piece of work which she thought of as perfect. She had learned to just accept that she would never be 100 per cent happy with a pitch. She was a perfectionist by nature, but she had realised over the years that work and relationships would never be as easy to control as the inside of her wardrobe, which was perfectly organised, or her food cupboard with its alphabetised spices.

Later when all the goodbyes and handshaking were done and the Department of Health team had left, Kitty, Alex, Mary Rose and Hughie made their way back to their office.

Alex was almost incredulous as she sat at her desk. ‘He didn’t like it…’

‘Only one of them didn’t like it,’ said Mary Rose. ‘The other two did.’

‘But…’ Alex seemed unable to compute what had just happened. Just the previous month, she had won Gold at the Irish Advertising Awards – her third such prize. She wasn’t used to losing. ‘He said something was missing.’

‘Maybe some people can’t see a good campaign when it is presented to them,’ said Alex. ‘We worked on that for six weeks… and I thought it was good.’

‘I think it was a good pitch,’ went on Kitty. ‘And they loved Floppy…’ She smiled over at Hughie.

‘He could have been cuter, though,’ said Hughie, adjusting his hair. ‘I think the bow tie was a little too small…’

Mary Rose smiled at them. ‘Let’s see if we can use this as a learning experience, yes? Let’s crack on and win the next one?’ She paused, perching on the edge of Kitty’s desk. ‘And it’s a big one. Right… drum roll… Hughie?’

Hughie drummed two pencils on his desktop. ‘Brings me back to school orchestra,’ he said. ‘I was percussion. Until, of course, Cathal McGooly had a meltdown and got his mam up the school and said that if he was not given the drums, then he was going to have anxiety.’ Hughie shrugged. ‘And that is how I ended up on the xylophone. Just one tune a year, the bells just before “Silent Night”. Still haven’t got over it.’

‘Very touching,’ said Alex. ‘But irrelevant to the fact we just lost a pitch. Something missing,’ she muttered, looking over at Kitty again. ‘What on earth did he mean?’

That was the problem, Kitty thought. Wasn’t there always something missing and you just had to find it and fix it? Like the problem with her and Dave. Marriage was missing, and it would fix everything.

‘Right,’ Mary Rose continued, ‘Mr Mulligan has emailed to say that we have been asked to pitch for a brand-new international campaign. We have exactly three weeks to work on it. And…’ She paused for effect. ‘The client is Welcome Ireland.’

There was a gasp from Hughie, and even Alex looked interested.

‘I knew that would get you all excited,’ said Mary Rose. ‘It’s a huge international tourist campaign, in every territory. We have to sell Ireland to the rest of the world. We’re up against Jacinta Boyle and her team from DNG and Louella Murphy and her team from Elevation. They are both brilliant teams… we know that but this is a massive opportunity for us. Think you can do it?’

‘If we can work out what was missing last time,’ said Alex, ‘then we might have a chance.’