Friend of the Family

Amy found herself blushing. ‘Yes, it’s a bugbear of mine.’

Marv nodded. ‘I thought at the time, she’s smart. Wrong, but smart.’

‘Wrong?’

‘Oh, I agree with you that we need some way of funding long-term investigative journalism, if only to hold government or wrinkly old media moguls like me to account. But I disagree that the internet is killing magazines.’

Amy raised her eyebrows. ‘You mean we’re killing ourselves?’

Marv smiled. ‘See? I was right, you’re smart.’

‘Mr Schultz, this is exactly what I wanted to talk about. I’m applying for the Mode editor’s job in London and I had a preliminary chat with Douglas Proctor. But I wasn’t honest with him about what I thought the magazine needed. I talked about SEO and e-retailing, Snapchat and corporate partnerships. What I didn’t talk about was the magazine itself. Mode hasn’t just lost its way. It’s stuck in its ways. It’s dull and predictable. There are no surprises any more, the interviews are bland, and PR-regulated fashion shoots are there to please the advertisers not the readers. Everything feels like a curated advertorial. Where’s the wit and the wonder, the fun and the fabulousness? We need to go back to the beginning and remember why people got excited and passionate about magazines in the first place, not spend all our time thinking about the method of distribution. We’ve all become too distracted by that. Too distracted by the future of digital, rather than thinking about legacy.’

‘So what are you saying? That Mode, our flagship title, stinks?’

It was time to throw her chips in.

‘I’m saying if you make a shitty product, don’t be surprised when no one wants it.’

She turned to face him more directly, glad that the back seat was expansive so she had some room to move.

‘If magazines were giving people what they wanted, people would still buy them. As it is, what is the point of throwing resources at digital and events when our core brand, our magazine, is the weakest thing about us?’

‘Old-fashioned thinking, Amy.’

She wasn’t going to back down. ‘Old-fashioned maybe, but I believe it’s the future. Right now, one magazine does a party page, everyone has to have a party page. Some website has a million hits from pictures of celebrities falling over in the street, suddenly every magazine copies it. Nothing’s new, nothing’s original or confident or bold. It’s no wonder people are going to the internet instead. They will carry on doing so until we make our magazines amazing again. And when we do, people will want to buy into the brand in every form. We can sell them clothes off the page, turn features into TV or web shows, get them to come to our events. Not to mention ads and sponsorship.’ She held up a finger. ‘But that only works if you get the core product – the magazine – right.’

‘And I happen to agree with you.’

‘You do?’ she said, eyes wide.

He nodded. The car had stopped and he opened the door. ‘Daniel will give you a lift to wherever you want to go.’

‘I can put a world-class magazine together, Mr Schultz. Let me show you my vision.’ She tried to hide the desperation in her voice, but she knew it was the only way of getting her application back on track.

‘The only thing I want to see right now is my coffee machine,’ he said with a good-natured smile.

Amy felt her heart sink.

‘But I am in Europe next week. Let me get my secretary to contact you and see what we can do.’

Chapter 27

&n

bsp; In forty-eight hours in Manhattan, Amy had seen six shows, been to four parties, had lunch with Michael Kors and lost track of time in American Girl buying a doll for Tilly.

She’d got hardly any sleep on the red-eye flight, but as the plane touched down at Heathrow, she realised how glad she was to be back, even if she was going straight into the office. Her conversation with Marv Schultz had made her feel as if she was back in control, even if it was at the wheel of a car with its brakes cut.

She glanced at her watch as she dashed through customs, eyes peeled for the car that was going to take her into work. Waving at the driver holding a hand-written sign marked ‘Shepherd’, she pulled her mobile out of her pocket and called home, aware that it was 8.30 and Tilly would soon be off to school.

Her heart jumped when her daughter answered the landline.

‘Tilly, honey. How are you?’ she said, a broad smile spreading across her face.

‘I can’t wait to see you, Mummy.’

Amy laughed. ‘I’ve got you something nice from New York.’