Blaze (11 page)

‘All I'm asking is that you consider what we plan to do in light of this discourse. We are about glamour, yes, but we're not backing away from the serious either.'

‘
New Yorker
and
Vanity Fair
also manage to tackle the meaty stuff and they've managed to succeed in the most difficult market in the world,' said Bevan Lean. ‘And look at the new mags that try to copy that success. Along with the buzz, they slap in a lot of solid meat. Australia's history of quality magazines hasn't had a healthy run lately. Advertisers here are used to putting their money into what they call the fast-food mags, the read-it-on-the run popular rags, even though the circulations have dropped.'

‘That's because they've had no alternative, no promise of better returns. A few years ago, if someone had asked you to invest money in selling bottles of water to Australian consumers, would you have done it?' asked Nina.

The group burst out laughing. ‘So
Blaze
is going to be a gourmet hamburger with spring water on the side?' declared Bevan Lean. ‘Healthy, filling and tasty with a sparkle.'

‘And an affordable meal, don't forget,' responded Nina.

‘Can't we cut to the chase, Nina? We're anxious to know more about who's actually going to head up the hunt,' said Campbell Gordon, chief of one of the biggest electronic companies in Australia.

Nina looked at the five men and two women representing a cache of international companies at the table. ‘I don't want to steal the new editor's thunder. She is very capable, exceedingly clever and has a terrific track record. I will tell you this much, she's young. This generation doesn't want to hang around and wait to move up the line, they find their target and make things happen. At Triton, we have had to sit up and take notice. I think it's time others did, wouldn't you agree?'

Nina had accepted the shift in ageism in magazines. Young, bright and pushy versus over-forty, experienced and baby-boomer idealistic. She enjoyed seeing young women make their mark, but not at the expense of a generation of women who still had much to offer. It was difficult to make them cooperate as a team because each threatened the other. She tried to set an example, but when something like the death of Lorraine happened, the generational split shifted once again. Sometimes Nina felt overseeing the staff of a magazine – men and women – was like peering down a microscope at amoebae that divided and doubled, clinging to one another and then breaking apart on the glassy slide of magazine media.

‘I have a thirty-year-old woman on our board. Wouldn't have happened even a few years back,' said Bevan Lean, interrupting her thoughts. ‘Some of the old codgers find her difficult. By that, I mean the fact she is where she is, and that she has opinions that she defends quite spiritedly. Others assume she's there because the government has made an issue of gender representation.'

‘A woman on the board can be a token,' said Nina. ‘Not that our two lady guests here today are that by any means. But I think you have to agree that most major boards still do not include women, especially young women. I also wonder about a few of the women who are on boards. Is it because of their ability or because it puts the board in a positive light?'

While the two women nodded in agreement, none of the five men present answered, so Nina deftly turned the questioning over to her guests, inviting them to update her on their own fields of interest, and the present and future problems and directions of the community and the country. In the course of the conversation, they shared information in a loose, off-the-record chat that none of them would construe as gossip. Nina found this helpful in filling in the background of local personalities, politicians and their agendas.

In the following days, Nina paid official visits to the Prime Minister, leaders of the other major political parties, CEOs of the country's key corporations, bankers and lobby groups. She talked to women's lobby groups, Greens Party MPs, conservation people, mining bosses, heritage minders, the Reconciliation Committee and an adolescence foundation.

With news that the world's most famous magazine, founded in Australia, was being re-launched in Sydney, Nina found community and corporate groups knocking on her door. The fact that she was keen to meet people and listen to their ideas created a sense of excitement and expectation. Among those hoping the magazine would support their cause were women's preventative health organisations, arts bodies, children's rights movements, women's affirmative action groups, and animals' rights activists who made appointments with the former editor's secretary, Belinda, to meet Nina Jansous.

Belinda had never had to deal with such a string of luminaries and was somewhat awestruck. Always first in line were the advertising agencies sussing out the page and position rates, along with value-added incentive deals. They were also curious on behalf of their clients who'd heard of the fabulous returns to be made from the various
Blaze
publications abroad.

Nina included representatives of these groups in her round of lunches, then politely and firmly advised the agencies that briefings with the advertising manager and the finance controller would be taking place with the new editor on her arrival in Sydney.

Privately, Nina found it frustrating not to dive in and immediately involve herself with the nitty-gritty, but as publisher and editor-in-chief that was not her role. When Ali was in place and the first issue off to the printers, Nina would temporarily step out of the picture.

Many assumed she was tired and needed to recharge her batteries. Nina had never taken more than two weeks break before. No one knew something was troubling Nina – something that even Nina had only recently identified as her ‘little volcano'.

The increasing flashbacks and powerful dreams had concerned Nina so much that, once back in Sydney, she had sought the advice of Doctor Richard Leitch, a retired psychologist friend of her late husband, Paul Jansous.

After several quiet dinners at his home, they'd sat in his study and talked about her thoughts and emotions. Gradually she had come to realise it was a combination of circumstances that were contributing to her feeling so unsettled.

Living back in Australia was one. Based in New York, apart from making fleeting trips to Australia to visit her mother, Nina's focus was devoted to work issues. Now, on a regular basis, she was confronting places, people and memories of her life growing up in Sydney before
Blaze.
It occurred to her that her life was divided into compartments – her early childhood in Croatia, growing up in Australia, a career and marriage, and then
Blaze.
And
Blaze
had been the major and most demanding chunk of her life. It
was
her life. Now her mother had died and she had turned sixty. The combination was unsettling.

Then had come the death of Lorraine, and Miche's need to come to Australia and find her father. In a talk together before Nina left New York, Miche had confided that it was more than a desire to meet and find out what her father was like.

‘Nina, since losing Mom, I've felt so adrift. I have no family here and we've never kept in touch. You're my family, as are all Mom's friends on
Blaze
here in New York. This is the only place I've ever lived. I'm half-Australian and I still want to know what that means. I'm not a whole person till I explore that. It's just a need to come to terms with what and who makes me the person I am . . . or want to be.'

Nina had agreed with Miche. And then she'd begun to think along similar lines. She also had lost her mother. But she hadn't wanted to burden the young woman with her sorrow. For Nina, there was a lifetime of loving memory. For Miche, only bitterness. Time was all that could mend Miche's pain, time would recall the sweet times she'd spent growing up with her adoring mother.

Maybe it was because of Miche's words, or maybe it was something to do with age, but Nina found herself thinking more and more about her roots, her heritage, her childhood. Her mother, Clara, had always refused to talk about Croatia.

‘Nina darling, it's gone, it's over. There is nothing there any more for us. This is our home. Australia. This is a good place. Good for you. Forget everything from before.'

Nina had little to forget. Her knowledge of her mother and father's country was sketchy.

But when Clara fell ill and knew she was not going to recover, she had begun to talk to Nina about her homeland, her parents. She never mentioned Nina's father. He'd died so young, Nina had so little time with him, he didn't seem to come to the foreground of Clara's memories. But in her sedated state in the hospital bed, she was back in Croatia with her parents and little Nina.

During Nina's final weekend visit to her in Sydney, Clara had grasped Nina's hand, mumbling a disjointed story that made little sense to Nina.

‘The tree in the garden at Papa's house. You remember the tree, Nina? Seven big steps left when you look at the house. That's where it is, darling.'

‘Where what is? What are you talking about, Mama?' Nina stroked her hand, paying little attention.

‘Important papers . . . many things. Find them, Nina. Before it is too late. I was too afraid to go back . . . you must . . .' Clara's eyes closed and her breath came in shallow, short bursts.

Nina tightened her grip on the still elegant, white hand with the pink oval nails and lace of blue veins. ‘Mama?'

Clara opened her eyes and gave Nina a penetrating look, a fierceness with such a depth that it startled her. Then Clara's face softened, her eyes filled with love for the beautiful woman who was her daughter and had been her closest friend for most of her life. A sweet smile that hovered for a moment and then she closed her eyes, her hand fell slack in Nina's and she slipped quietly into peace.

Months had passed since Clara's death and the questions that still haunted Nina could not be answered.

Doctor Leitch had listened as Nina talked through these thoughts. ‘So Nina, do you want to find answers? Or leave the past to rest? You have a choice.'

It hadn't hit Nina that she could resolve the dilemma of her feelings by simply making a decision to return to Yugoslavia. What would she find? What was she looking for? The fragments of her own memories didn't match the wars, the refugees, the harsh weather and the deprivation she saw in the media. As she allowed herself to think back, certain incidents, oblique comments from Clara, and the knowledge they had fled postwar Yugoslavia to come to Australia leaving the rest of the family behind, made her realise what a time of danger and sacrifice it had been. But her memories were mostly those of an adored child, cosseted in the wealth of doting grandparents.

The memories, the vague questions, Clara's enigmatic last words could not be ignored. It was time for her, like young Miche, to visit the country of her past. While there was no question in Nina's heart where she belonged, it was time to bridge the parts of her life she'd kept separate from each other.

She made arrangements to go to Europe for her holiday with Miche in Paris, with the deliberate plan of visiting Croatia next . . . To go back to her mother's home that had sheltered Clara from birth to motherhood and so swiftly through widowhood. Nina's soldier father was an enigma, a shadow, a cypher. Clara had dominated Nina's life and yet here she was at sixty wondering where had she come from, and what or who, remained?

Manny Golan and Fran Hirshcombe met Ali at Sydney Airport and whisked her by limousine to the Observatory Hotel and into a penthouse suite that looked over the city. Despite her growing apprehension at coming back to the land of her birth after so many years, Ali was impressed. She felt secure in this aviary of luxury. There were dark red roses from Nina and a handwritten note suggesting lunch the following day.

When her colleagues left, Ali looked around the luxurious suite with the trappings of welcoming flowers, complimentary fruit, chocolates and champagne from the management, the million-dollar view. Would she be so feted if they knew who she really was? How vastly different this setting was from that of her Australian childhood. And, for the first time in a long time, the horror of the night when her life had changed swept over her. It was a memory she thought she had buried. The fear of being back in Australia, for the first time since she'd left to go to America as a young girl, made her stomach twist and she felt she might gag. But a swift look around the luxury of her surroundings reassured her. Ali gave a hollow laugh and reached for the bottle of champagne in the ice bucket. Well, no one was going to know. She had been deliberate and thorough in obscuring her past. Tomorrow the business pages of the morning newspapers would carry the announcement of her appointment, with background details of the latest financial success of
Blaze
magazines worldwide but, at her request, there would be very little about herself. The media handout included a posed portrait with Manhattan's skyline in the background taken by one of
Blaze USA
's top photographers.

The past, she was confident, was behind her. The future was within her grasp. She would not be seeking answers to old questions that had plagued her as a young woman. She had buried, ignored and overcome the events that had changed her life when she was ten. There was only going forward and upwards, as she'd always planned.

Ice settling in a champagne bucket, the muted sound of traffic below the elegant rooms, the soft music from the CD player, the valet exiting quietly with murmured wishes to enjoy her stay. These were sounds that mattered. The hidden cries of a bewildered young girl had been silenced long ago.

Nina had carefully considered where to take Ali – plush, up-market dining at Banc or Forty-One? Machiavelli's or Otto? She decided on superb seafood at Catalina's on the water at Rose Bay. The day was so sparkling, so Sydney.

The fish was freshly caught, the waiters young, charming and attentive and the old pelican with the damaged foot flew down, as it did every day, to the restaurant balcony, limping with exaggeration until fed fish by the maître d.