Kerra’s hackles stood stiffly. Darling was too much. There was no darling. She was no darling. She thought she’d made that clear to Alan, but the bloody man refused to believe it.
They stood before the glass-fronted notice board in the entry area of the former hotel. Your Instructors was the purpose of their discussion. The imbalance between male and female instructors was Alan’s point. In charge of hiring all of the instructors, Kerra had allowed the balance to swing to females. This was not good for several reasons, according to Alan. For marketing purposes, they needed an equal number of men and women offering instruction in the various activities and, if possible and what was highly desirable, they needed more male than female. They needed the males to be nicely built and good looking because, first of all, such men could serve as a feature to bring unmarried females to Adventures Unlimited and, second of all, Alan intended to use them in a video. He’d lined up a crew from Plymouth to take video footage, by the way, so whatever instructors Kerra came up with also needed to be onboard within three weeks. Or, he supposed?thinking aloud?perhaps they could actually use actors…no, stuntmen…yes, stuntmen could be very good in making the video, actually. The initial outlay would be higher because stuntmen no doubt had some sort of scale upon which they were paid, but it wouldn’t take as long to film them because they’d be professionals, so the final cost would likely not be as high. So…
He was absolutely maddening. Kerra wanted to argue with him, and she had been arguing, but he’d matched her point for point.
He said, “The publicity from that Mail on Sunday article helped us enormously, but that was seven months back, and we’re going to need to do more if we’re to begin heading in the direction of the black. We won’t be in the black of course, not this year and probably not next, but the point is, we have to chip away at debt. So everyone has to consider how best to get us out of the red.”
Red did it for her. Red held her between wanting to run and wanting to argue. She said, “I’m not refusing to hire men, Alan, if that’s what you’re implying. I can hardly be blamed if they’re not applying in droves to work here.”
“It’s not a question of blame,” he reassured her. “But, to be honest, I do wonder how aggressive you’re being in trying to recruit them.”
Not aggressive at all. She couldn’t be. But what was the point in telling him that?
She said, with the greatest courtesy she could manage, “Very well. I’ll start with the Watchman. How much can we spend on an advertisement for instructors?”
“Oh, we’ll need a much wider net than that,” Alan said, affably. “I doubt an ad in the Watchman would do us much good at all. We need to go national: advertisements placed in specialised magazines, at least one for each sport.” He studied the notice board where the pictures of the instructors were posted. Then he looked at Kerra. “You do see my point, don’t you, Kerra? We must consider them as an attraction. They’re more than merely instructors. They’re a reason to come to Adventures Unlimited. Like social directors on a cruise line.”
“‘Come to Adventures Unlimited for a Shag,’” Kerra said. “Yes. I’ve got the point well enough.”
“That’s the implication, naturally,” Alan said. “Sex sells. You know that.”
“It all gets reduced to sex in the end, doesn’t it?” Kerra said bitterly.
He gazed at the pictures again. He was either evaluating them or avoiding her. He said, “Well, yes. I suppose it does. That’s how life is.”