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The Knights Came Riding

By Jim Nicolson

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Jim Nicolson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-3802-9

Chapter One

Boredom and dissatisfaction with his job and lifestyle had been steadily building for months. And the moment that this particular client rejected the advertising agency's proposed advertising campaign was the moment that Seumas McKinnon's unrest and dissatisfaction peaked. It was also the moment when he decided, unequivocally, to give up copywriting and the whole business of advertising; though momentarily, he wondered if, yet again, he was running away.

He and his art director and business partner, Libby Byrne, had worked frantically for two months to prepare the entire creative package. Included were TV and radio scripts, copy for magazine advertisements, and, of course, storyboards and visuals. Not to mention carefully written creative strategies as well as detailed quotes for all creative work, plus production.

"I'm sorry, but I can't buy it," the client's product manager had emphasized with a shake of his head while carefully avoiding their eyes.

Seumas quickly looked at the other faces seated around the agency's matte-varnished, Tasmanian oak boardroom table. Libby's blue eyes, framed by her unruly mass of ginger hair, couldn't hide their mixture of annoyance and disappointment, while the three agency suits, namely account manager, media director, and account director, were all looking suitably concerned.

Seumas returned his attention to John Smith, the late-twenties, pinstripe-suited product manager. Clearly, it was inexperience that had prevented the young man from giving himself room to move. Therefore, it made sense, Seumas decided, to try to save as much of the campaign as was possible, rather than enthusiastically run through its merits once more.

"It would be helpful, John," he suggested easily, "if you could identify those parts that you don't like. Then we can rework them before making the final presentation to you and your marketing manager."

"There's nothing I can put my finger on, Seumas," John Smith defensively said. "It's just that this campaign doesn't grab me."

"But it does meet all your advertising objectives, doesn't it?" Libby pointed out quite sharply.

"Of course. But like I said, the campaign doesn't grab me."

Seumas smiled warmly at the young man. "It would help us," he said, "if you could verbalize just why the campaign doesn't grab you."

Seumas immediately saw that John Smith was feeling trapped when he looked helplessly at his account manager for support, who, in turn, looked at his account director.

"I tell you what," the account director quickly suggested, "why don't we all take a day or so to think things over? Then we'll get together again and decide where we go from there. Okay?"

"Suits me," John Smith said, looking relieved. He quickly rose from his chair.

After he'd left the room, Seumas addressed the three seated suits. "Look," he said, "it's up to you guys to save as much of this creative as you can, because we all know there's nothing wrong with it. In the meantime, maybe you should get another creative team to come up with a different approach?" He turned to Tim Jones, the account director. "That's unless you can have a quiet word in the marketing manager's ear, Tim? You know, sort of tell him, over lunch, his clueless product manager is hell-bent on torpedoing a creative platform that's got bloody years of mileage in it and could win this product another 4 or 5 per cent of market share."

"Are you sure about that, Seu?"

"Isn't that what the research suggests?"

"Okay, I'll see what I can do."

Seumas turned to Libby with a grin. She couldn't work out why he was looking so happy and regarded him questioningly.

"Let's go, Lib," he said. "And if you're interested, I'm offering to buy you lunch at The Olive Tree."

"God," she groaned, "it'll be more wake than lunch, the way all our stuff lead ballooned."

"Nonsense," he cheerfully said. "It didn't go over like a lead balloon. It just went right over the silly young prick's head. That's what really happened."

"Yeah?"

"Besides, I have great faith in Tim's powers of subtle persuasion."

"Is that so?" Tim rejoined with raised eyebrows. "Okay, see you guys later."

"See you, fellers," Seumas said. "And see you at The Olive Tree, Lib."

* * *

Seumas thought about his relationship with Libby while driving to The Olive Tree. It'd been a successful, working relationship and had lasted some twenty-eight years. He grinned to himself. Anyway, he rationalized, occasionally tumbling into bed with Libby hardly constituted an affair. Besides, it'd mostly occurred following the very long and ecstatic celebratory lunches, in which they'd indulged after having won yet another large and very financially rewarding creative pitch.

He was very aware that Libby was comfortably married to solid, easygoing Darren and that she appreciated that he was a devoted single parent. But what he'd never told her was that he still couldn't come to terms with the fact that he'd lost both of his wives while both were still in their twenties.

Now as he navigated his immaculately restored, dark-green 1967 E-Type Jaguar through lunchtime traffic, he couldn't help wondering if those afternoons that he and Libby had spent in bed were her way of binding him closer to her. But he'd never told her that, long ago, he'd come to the conclusion that he had to be cursed as far as marriage was concerned. He grimaced involuntarily. Yes, he angrily remembered, first that sod of a grim reaper had engineered the clot on her lung that had claimed his beloved Narelle, and on the day that she'd given birth too. Then that same rotten bastard had heartlessly returned to grab his second wife. Of course, it had to be that stinking reaper who'd forced lovely, sweet-faced Kath to swerve wildly, at speed, in order to avoid the cow, which had been standing in the middle of a dirt road. She'd lost control and had slammed into a roadside tree.

After all these years, he still felt emotional as he recalled that Kath, his fiercely loyal, mixed-descent lady, had been killed instantly, as had his stepson, little Winston, as well as Paul and James, the twins that he and Narelle had adopted. And the only reason that Alasdair hadn't been in the car was that Kath had sensibly left him at home because he'd contracted a nasty dose of croup. And for the umpteenth time, Seumas cursed the fact that Australia's tropical and sparsely populated Northern Territory had always been a land without fences.

Then just as he'd fled Sydney, after Narelle's death, so too he'd fled the Northern Territory with Alasdair, following the funeral for Kath, young Winston, and James and Paul. It'd been raining that day, and he'd thought, whilst shaking with grief, that even the sky couldn't stop crying.

Of course, he reminded himself, there was no way that he could've returned to Sydney. It contained too many ghosts. Instead, he had taken his six-year-old son to Melbourne and had settled down to being a single parent.

He'd felt comfortable in Melbourne, well-nigh upon arrival. And he'd soon discovered that Melbourne's most desirable dwellings were those that'd been built along the eastern and western shorelines of its massive Port Phillip Bay, which had a surface area of some 745 square miles. Accordingly, he'd promptly bought a three-bedroom flat that overlooked the beach at bay side St Kilda. And he'd soon discovered that Port Phillip Bay was a magnet for all manner of boating enthusiasts—recreational as well as...