The Pillow Fight Read Online Free PDF

at the ‘consultative’ level, for somewhat pedestrian copy.
    Joel dodged an early drunk at the next street corner. ‘And I’d like you to call on Sliemeck’s for me.’
    ‘Why, especially?’
    ‘It’s a big firm, as you know. They’re thinking of making a change, in our direction. But Sliemeck hasn’t quite made up his mind.’
    I laughed again. ‘I’m really getting too old to sell my body for a real-estate account.’
    ‘Just show it in profile, dear.’
    I felt good that afternoon in Johannesburg, walking down Commissioner Street with Joel Sachs. Later, in the air-conditioned office, we did ninety minutes of concentrated, detailed work that made me feel better still. If there was a nicer way of being a woman, I hadn’t discovered it yet, and I didn’t need to.

 
     
Chapter Two
     
    The Marlborough was not the best hotel south of the Sahara, but it was a good one, and, for party purposes, nearly ideal. The management were inclined to be sad that they were not supplying the food that evening, but they bowed to Fraternelli’s undoubted eminence – the more so as it would save them a lot of trouble, and they would make a minor fortune anyway out of the bar, the flowers and the hire of two rooms big enough to accommodate 350 people. Between five o’clock and six, I had all the flowers changed, from mainly pink to mainly yellow; initiated a good stiff row about the servants’ uniforms, some of which were less than spotless; and drove Fraternelli quietly round the bend with a rush of complaints. But by six o’clock we were ready for the rush, and by seven o’clock the rush was on.
    By and large, South African parties were all the same; you gave people lots to drink, enough to eat, and let them do whatever they wished. If they were actors, they wanted to slander or hug each other; if they were socialites, they wanted to be seen and to be photographed; if they were writers they wanted to talk about their books – past, present, and to be. Painters got drunk and argued; lesbians got drunk and cried; business men got drunk and made passes; newspapermen got drunk. By seven o’clock, all these people were doing all these things, in circumstances which Kate Marais Advertising had tried to make as nearly perfect as possible.
    To begin with, I was kept busy, greeting people I hadn’t seen for three months; introducing the minority of characters who didn’t know each other, pointing out to the photographers the people I wanted for my column, and the old old faces not worth the cost of a flash bulb, even at wholesale prices; and seeing that the genuinely shy guests (of whom there were still a few left in the world) didn’t get stuck in a corner by themselves, with an empty glass and a vase of flowers to stare at. Then the incoming tide slacked off, and I started to make the rounds, and thus to enjoy myself.
    I talked to my Johannesburg editor, Francis Kellaway, a small, monosyllabic, foxy man who liked to think of himself as my employer, with the power of life and death, fame and ignominy, clasped within his hot little hand.
    ‘Wonderful party, Kate,’ he proclaimed, rocking slightly. ‘As usual.’
    ‘Thank you, Francis.’
    ‘About your column.’
    ‘M’m?’
    ‘I’m really very satisfied.’
    ‘Me too.’
    ‘Except for one thing.’
    ‘Oh, dear!’
    ‘Tends to run a bit short. After editing. Think you ought to watch that.’
    But I wasn’t in the mood for Napoleonic editors, on this or any other evening. ‘My dear Francis,’ I said, ‘if the column runs short after you’ve finished with your little blue pencil, that’s because half the interesting people in South Africa seem to be on your shit-list.’
    He blinked. ‘My what list?’
    ‘You heard …’
    ‘I can assure you–’ he began.
    ‘Save it, Francis,’ I reassured him. ‘It’s your newspaper, and if you’ve banned forever any mention of Jack Cotterell–’ I took just one example, though a good one; Jack had been