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‘That’s right,’ Cullen nodded. ‘Very commercially-minded.’
What Cullen didn’t say was that he was a very different character to Nathan. Far less well-known in Britain than his Anglophile sibling, images of Jacob Strauss from across the Atlantic were of a handsome athlete who lived the Starwear brand, and whose sporting talent worked in counterpoint to Nathan’s intellectual prowess.
Across the semi-darkness, Cullen studied Chris for a few moments before he said, a note of caution in his voice, ‘I don’t want to paint a misleading picture of what it’s like working here.’
Chris let the assumption pass.
‘You’d find Lombard very satisfying intellectually. But it’s also a lot of hard graft. People put in very long weeks – sixty to seventy hours is about average.’
Seventy hours was on the low side if any of the stories Chris had heard were true. Apparently one Lombard director had arrived at work one Monday morning and didn’t get home till the following Saturday afternoon. The few hours he’d slept each night had been on meeting room sofas – every day he’d sent his secretary out for a fresh shirt and underwear.
‘The reason Lombard is best,’ Cullen continued in an important tone, ‘is because we hire the very best people and every single one of us is utterly dedicated to our clients.’ He paused for emphasis. ‘But their dedication is well rewarded. Lombard salaries are more than double the average pay of other City consultancies. No one here over the age of thirty earns less than a hundred thousand, and most people over thirty-five take home more than twice that. Performance bonuses paid in December have been well above forty per cent of salary every year we’ve been in business. And once you’re a Board Director, which you could be after three years, shares are automatically allocated to you, free of charge. I believe in securing everyone a stakeholding, that way no one feels tempted to leave. And it’s not a nominal holding. The minimum amount allocated per person is point two five per cen
t of the equity per year. Lombard is currently valued at a hundred million.’
He could see from the look in Chris’s eyes that his interviewee was making the desired calculation, and gave him a moment before confirming, ‘Quarter of a million pounds. Per year. There isn’t a director here who isn’t a multi-millionaire.’
Despite himself, Chris couldn’t help being impressed. He’d known Lombard was a big payer, but had no idea it was on this scale. In seven years he could be a millionaire. By the age of forty he’d have enough money to retire.
Cullen had talked around the subject of money, but hadn’t got to the nub of it. Chris knew that was deliberate. On his way over here, when the idea of joining Lombard hadn’t seemed even remotely attractive, Chris had decided that if the subject of money arose, he was going to be coolly indifferent. He’d even come up with a put-down line: ‘I’d rather think about the job first,’ he was going to say, if invited to discuss terms and conditions. He’d certainly had no intention of bringing the subject up himself. But now, as Cullen asked him, ‘Any other questions?’ cool indifference just didn’t seem an option. The kinds of figures Cullen was talking about couldn’t be further removed from the modest wage from MIRA on which he’d never be comfortable, let alone rich. What’s more, he’d been taken completely unawares by the revelations about how his recent project for Starwear could lead to him working with Nathan Strauss directly. No doubt about it, the Lombard offer was a million miles away from what he’d expected.
And then there was the Cullen factor; Chris had been completely unprepared for his openness and enormous charm, even though he knew the PR man had all the skills of a modern-day Merlin, and knew exactly how to use them for his own ends. Chris found himself saying, ‘What kind of package are you offering?’
In the lengthening shadows of the Boardroom, Cullen seemed to relax back in his chair. ‘A basic of a hundred and twenty thousand. As I said, the bonus has never been less than forty per cent. I can’t promise what it will be in future years, but this year we’re targeting around fifty-five per cent.’
Chris did his best to conceal the rush of excitement sweeping through him. £120k. That was double his current salary. Possibly plus another sixty grand. MIRA paid no performance bonus. He’d known, in theory, that he was worth a lot more than MIRA was paying, but here it was, being offered to him on a plate. And a job he didn’t entirely dislike the sound of.
‘At your level,’ Cullen continued, ‘your company car would be a fully-fuelled BMW 7 series – top of the range. And Lombard would pay the equivalent of seventeen and a half per cent of your salary into a personal pension of your choosing.’
Chris nodded. Not even the Chairman of MIRA drove a prestige car. Getting this job would be like winning the lottery.
‘We look after people here,’ Cullen was continuing, ‘because we expect a lot from them. It’s important you’re sure you’d want to make the commitment.’
Chris nodded, aware that the tables had now ever-so-subtly turned. At which point Cullen said, ‘We find that our consultants who have settled home lives are happiest. You’re married?’
He asked it as though it were a given. Chris shook his head. He wasn’t even dating anybody at the moment – not that he could see what his private life had to do with Mike Cullen.
‘Seeing anyone?’
‘No one to speak of.’
Cullen nodded once, pursing his lips. ‘The long hours can be difficult—’
‘I don’t have any competing interests, if that’s what you mean,’ Chris told him in level tones, ‘and no skeletons in the cupboard.’
‘Fine.’ Cullen smiled. ‘I’m pleased that’s settled.’
He said the words, Chris couldn’t help noticing, with a sense of relieved finality.
In the days following his meeting with Cullen, there were times Chris wished he did have someone special to talk things through with. Not that he’d mulled over the Lombard offer all on his own. It was far too important for that. Using the high-level network of contacts he’d built up at MIRA – City analysts and business journalists, others who’d had dealings with Lombard and Starwear – he’d made some carefully placed enquiries. What came back confirmed his impressions. Lombard, a different agency altogether from the one that had been sold to Buchanan Communications several years earlier, was widely acknowledged for having the most impressive, blue-chip client list of any agency in Britain, and Mike Cullen was the colossus of financial PR. While its culture of invisibility was the source of some jesting inside the Square Mile, the agency was respected nonetheless. It had achieved its unique status purely on the basis of its reputation. As for Starwear, Nathan Strauss’s track record spoke for itself.
Chris realised that he was being made an offer with all the right credentials, all the stimulation he could hope for, and money beyond his most fanciful dreams. So what was the downside? Long hours. Stress. No longer being the big shot of the company. But wasn’t it time for a new challenge?
He’d had several more conversations with Cullen on the telephone, and another visit to the agency to meet potential colleagues over a drink. Then there was the final showdown at MIRA over a lucrative new survey he’d launched, from which he was denied any form of profit-share; he’d never forget the shock on his boss’s face when he told him he was resigning. There was frantic footwork in the days that followed, as fellow MIRA directors proposed radical changes to his remuneration package which, only a month before, would have left him ecstatic. But it was too late now. Chris had made up his mind and there was to be no turning back. Plus, he’d already persuaded his political polling team to join him in three months’ time – not that the MIRA Board members knew anything about that yet.
He’d also found a new home for himself. Visiting friends in Fulham for an early summer barbecue, he’d been passing an estate agent’s ‘Open House’ and had decided, on impulse, to have a look round. After his dark, basement studio in Islington, the Fulham place was magnificent. Large, spacious, light-filled rooms. A master bedroom with en-suite bathroom, and two spare rooms, one of which would convert to a bay-windowed study. But best of all, steps from the sitting room balcony led up to a sweeping roof terrace that looked directly out across the Hurlingham Club, with its manicured lawns and rolling parklands. The rhododendrons were in full, purple majesty, and around the perimeter of the gardens, pine trees swayed back and forth in the late-afternoon breeze. It was the kind of view that made you feel you were in the middle of the country.
Judith would love this, he found himself thinking involuntarily – before checking himself. She hadn’t been a part of his life for seven years, and he irritated himself by letting her haunt his thoughts. Their romance had blossomed at Oxford, and had continued when he’d moved down to London to start work. Intense though it had been at the time, and heartbroken though he was when it ended, it was all in the past. The very distant past, at that. Anyway, why did he keep going back in his mind to Judith? He’d had several relationships since, with wonderful, sassy, intelligent girls. There’d been breathless days and sultry nights since Judith, just as there would be again.
