I had been taking it for granted that Guy would be able to bring Cressida around—pull something out of the bag as he always did. The thought of him begging her not to change the magazine that thousands of readers loved and her ignoring him was horrible.
“You should have told me,” I said after we had disappointed an elderly lady who asked if we knew the way to the baboons. “I know you’re the Editor and in charge, but I’m always here for moral support if nothing else. Every time she’s come up with something awful, I’ve just thought that somehow you’d talk her out of it.”
“So did I, to start with,” said Guy. “But I underestimated her. My fault. I need to brace up. Perhaps an ice cream would help.”
“War on,” I reminded him, pleased he was having a go at levity. “But what was Lord Overton thinking when he left it all to her? He wouldn’t have wanted this, would he?”
“God, no,” said Guy. “He could have packed in Woman’s Friend years ago if he’d wanted, especially when it was in the doldrums and losing money for all those years. But he didn’t. It was one of the few things he was sentimental about. Lady Overton liked it, so on we went while he propped us up.”
“Are you sure you can’t speak to her?” I asked. “How about writing?”
Guy shook his head. “Lady Overton’s just lost her husband of fifty-five years, and she believes that I will look after Cressida and, I assume, Woman’s Friend. What would I say? Dear Lady Overton, So sorry I’ve let you down, but can you help me stop your uncontrollable niece?” He shook his head. “I can’t do that. The alternative of course is to appeal to their son—the new Lord. The man who once referred to our magazine as ‘that rag full of bellyaching and bloomers.’ ”
I winced. “Did he really?”
“Oh yes. I might have been friends with his brother, but Johnny Overton couldn’t give a fig. In fact, that’s probably our answer as to why his father left Woman’s Friend to the Egg. Johnny wouldn’t care if we went under tomorrow.” Guy bit his lip and stared over to the top of the aviary. “Dammit, now that I say that, it does make sense.”
For several long moments we sat in silence, until finally Guy spoke. “I can’t apologise enough for lumping all this on you on your day out.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, trying to be hearty, “we’re giving Bunty and Harold lots of time on their own. They’ll probably be engaged by the time we get to the antelopes.”
“Good man,” said Guy. “No point hanging about.”
“Are you absolutely sure the new Lord Overton won’t listen?” I asked. A large exotic bird screeched dramatically. This was an odd place to be having a serious conversation.
Guy narrowed his eyes as he thought. “I know he won’t care. Doug Hemmings at The Chronicle says Overton thinks his cousin Mrs. Porter will lose interest by Christmas.” He reached into his pocket for his cigarettes. “Apparently she’s never stuck at anything in her life.”
Douglas Hemmings was one of the senior editors on Launceston’s Evening Chronicle and was so famous for having his ears to the ground that he was known in press circles as The Bloodhound.
“But that’s great,” I said, astonished that Guy hadn’t mentioned it. “All we have to do is wait, and then when she gets bored and leaves us to it, we can change everything back. We’ll carry on doing all the work, Mrs. Porter will get lots of lovely profit without doing anything, and everyone will be happy. It’ll be a rotten seven months until Christmas, but if we can stick it out, then it’ll be worth it. Why didn’t you say this before?”
A cheer went up from the crowd as a zookeeper shouted out that he needed some volunteers. A wave of hope flooded over me.
“Well?” I prompted. “Isn’t this good? Why are you still looking low?”
“Because if Mrs. Porter continues to make all the changes she’s planned, in seven months’ time there won’t be a magazine to save,” said Guy, now looking at me intensely. “Emmy, you know how many other magazines our readers and advertisers could move to. You’ve said yourself that the complaints have already started. We don’t have until Christmas. If we don’t do something well before then, Woman’s Friend won’t exist.”
I tried to think on my feet. “Righto,” I said, refusing to accept defeat. “How about this: if Mrs. Porter is likely to lose interest by Christmas, why don’t we hurry things up?”
It would have been easier to sound inspirational if I wasn’t now battling against a flock of honking penguins, but as Guy raised a not entirely despondent eyebrow, I pushed on.
“We can try to put her off before it’s too late,” I explained. “Let’s look at what we know.” I felt like a detective as I started counting off things on my fingers. “She likes all the snazzy, glamorous things, she wants to show off to her friends, she certainly wants to make money… but she’s not interested in what publishing actually involves and she gets bored at the drop of a hat. So,” I concluded, “why don’t we introduce Mrs. Porter to Important Publishing Things she’ll think are terribly dull? If she wants to go to the Ministry, let’s take her to one of their most unexciting meetings. She adores having lunch, so let’s invite some of the most, well, least interesting people we know.” Now I was picking up speed. “What about an hour or two with Herbie Garson from the printers? Herbie once made Mrs. Mahoney actually watch paint dry while he talked to her about ink. She said after three hours she was seriously considering throwing herself into the vat. My point is, the more Mrs. Porter sees, the more uninterested she’ll become. And then she might leave us alone.”
Guy looked thoughtful. “Hmm. We’d have to work out how to stop losing readers at the same time,” he said, half to himself.
Now I spoke more slowly. It was little more than a germ of an idea, and I was working it out as I spoke. “Just after the Blitz, when I hadn’t been at Woman’s Friend very long, the Editress of one of our biggest competitors did a sort of plea in her column directly to the readers. I’ve never forgotten it. They’d been bombed out, but not mentioned it to the readers, so some of them had had to wait ages for their letters to be answered. People had got really cross and complained. Anyway, the Editress wrote an apology in the magazine and explained that they’d been having a pretty steep time of things but that they were all very sorry and it wouldn’t happen again. I asked Monica about it once. She said the complaints dried up overnight and readers actually wrote in to thank them for their honesty. Guy, even if we only have half the magazine we used to, they’re still our readers. We’re still their friend. We’ll just have to try harder.”
Guy stared across to the aviary again. “So, are you saying we apologise to the readers?” he said. “The Egg will go crackers.”
“Sort of,” I said. “Obviously we can’t say, ‘Sorry, we’ve gone a bit mad,’ but we could talk to them. If Cressida won’t let us print their letters, let’s write back to more of them instead. We could print something like, We’re sorry, but due to space, we can’t feature as many letters in the magazine as we’d like, but please keep writing and we’ll write back. And even if she cuts down Woman’s Friend to Friend, we can still pass on readers’ views to the various Government departments—Housing, Employment, Pensions—you know, as we always do. It’ll be hard work, but we can try,” I said. “The only thing I can’t work out is helping people who can’t tell us their address, and that’s awful. But at least this is something. At least we’ll be showing we still care.” I looked at Guy hopefully.
“All right,” said Guy slowly. “And meanwhile I’ll keep trying to rein in Mrs. Porter.”
“That’s right. We’ll protect as much of the old Woman’s Friend as we can so we still actually sell copies and make her money. The main aim being she realises she can go back to doing nothing while we do all the work and she gets even richer.”
“A three-point approach,” said Guy. He was now pacing around the bench, as if he was in a board meeting. “One: ensure publishing is crashingly dull to put CP off the job. Two: protect as much of the original magazine as we can. Three: ensure readers know we’re still listening and aiming to help, potentially increasingly directly.”
He threw his cigarette on the ground and squashed it out with his foot. I had to smile. No wonder Guy was in charge. He’d taken my waffle and put it into something that actually resembled a plan.
“Well, when you put it like that,” I said, “do you think we might have a chance?”
He looked a hundred times more positive than before. “We might. We need to think it through properly, but I think you’ve got something here. Running a magazine is all A Bit Mis, but we’re the dullards who enjoy it, so just leave it to us. Yes, I like it.”
“Hurrah!” I replied. “Here’s to being a dullard. Now will you please promise me you’re not going to give up?”
“Would I?” said Guy, smiling broadly. He had stopped pacing around and again offered me his arm. “Come on,” he said. “I’m rather keen to see a gnu.”
It was extraordinary how having a tiny glimmer of hope lifted our spirits. When George came running up to tell us we were missing out on all the best animals, Guy and I put work to one side and very happily joined in. Guy found his gnu, Stan learned how to keep goats, and Marg was able to win in the one-upmanship stakes over the infamous Belinda as Bunty had brought her camera and took a very good photograph of her outside the newly reopened aquarium. George spent his pocket money on a book explaining how to build your own fish tank, and Harold immediately promised that he would help. Best of all, Bunty was beginning to look the happiest I had seen her in years.
As we all headed to the bus stop to make our way home, tired and with noses now red from the sun, everyone agreed that the only thing that would have made it better would have been if Thelma had been there too. I had the feeling that after she had listened to a full re-enactment of the day by the children, my friend would feel as if she had been there every step of the way.
When Guy and I returned to the office on Monday, it was with a new optimism. We were also aware that we couldn’t possibly try to launch a covert campaign without the rest of the Woman’s Friend team—or at least those who we knew and trusted.
With Mrs. Porter as usual unable to face the “beastly horror” of returning from the country on a Monday, things were made even easier when Mr. Elliot called in poorly. (“That’ll be the rabies taking hold,” said Mrs. Mahoney.) When Mrs. Pye had to go out on a Very Important Research Trip to Fortnum & Mason, Guy called an emergency team meeting.
If I had had any doubts that my on-the-spot ideas were too wobbly to try out, they disappeared immediately. Everyone, it seemed, was keen as mustard to give them a go.
“I’m in,” said Mrs. Mahoney straight off. “I’ll call Herbie Garson and ask him about lunch.”
“I don’t mind typing up more letters to the readers,” said Miss Peters. “Mrs. Shaw and I are both very fast.”
“There won’t be Minutes from this meeting, will there?” asked Mr. Newton nervously.
“Absolutely not,” said Guy.
“In that case,” continued Mr. Newton, “if I may speak entirely off the record, I know some rather robust advertising agency people. A meeting with them might be useful. They’re dreadful.”
“Excellent,” said Guy. “Although we do run the risk Mrs. Porter will think they’re top hole.”
“I’ve been working on some cover designs,” said Mr. Brand, reaching for his portfolio case. “I think they may help maintain a certain level of happiness.”
We all gathered round to see a series of utterly lovely illustrations. Six entirely different but enormously attractive women, all with different hair colours, styles, clothes, and occupations, and all somehow looking like idealised versions of Mrs. Porter.
“Good God, Mr. Brand, you’re a genius,” said Guy.
“They’ll go down a storm,” I grinned.
Ever modest, Mr. Brand deflected the praise. “You’re very kind,” he said. “I’m just glad if they are of help. I think Miss Lake has come up with a jolly good plan.”
“Hear! Hear!” said Mr. Newton boldly.
“Thank you,” I said. “Guy and I did it together. I know it’s a long shot.”
“But it’s all we’ve got,” said Mrs. Mahoney and Guy at the same time, which made everyone laugh.
“Excellent,” said Guy. “Well done, everyone. Remember, not a word outside this room. Operation It’s All We’ve Got is a go.”
Ten minutes later, I had made the first step.
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