Blaze

by Di Morrissey

  ‘If we drop it, what do we lead with instead?’ challenged Ali.

  ‘Miche’s story on Sally Shaw from Paris.’ Larissa mentally crossed her fingers hoping Miche had a story.

  Ali didn’t answer immediately, and it seemed to Larissa she was sifting through other options and couldn’t come up with a suitable alternative. Finally, she shrugged. ‘Okay. I’ll talk to her. Call Donald Heavney, the photographer, and confirm we want him in Paris ASAP.’

  Larissa nodded and began gathering up her papers. Ali gave her deputy a slight smile. ‘It’d better be better than good, or young Miche won’t ever work for me again. Nina or no Nina.’

  Larissa was saved from answering. Reg Craven loomed in the doorway so she slipped past him and headed to her office.

  ‘Fantastic news. I’ve sold a spread to the film distributors of Dixon Landers’ movies. Plus tickets to the premiere of his next film.’

  ‘Forget it. We canned the story.’

  Reg choked. ‘What! You can bloody well resurrect it then. We don’t go back and say no deal to these kinda people. Advertising pays for this magazine, and pays your salary!’ He raised his voice and pulled his red-framed glasses off, shaking them at Ali. ‘Editorial is there to stick on the back of ads. Get your priorities right!’

  Ali stayed calm, her voice steely. ‘I have just reminded Larissa of the ethics embraced by Triton and I will now remind you. Blaze and Triton do not accept freebie or contra deals. This whole business has been tacky and unethical. We don’t want to be seen as buying stories. Once we set a precedent for doing deals like this our credibility is shot.’

  Reg Craven gaped at Ali, speechless for a moment, then managed, ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since I say so.’

  ‘Advertising has as much say in this as editorial,’ said Reg, a slow red flush creeping up his neck. A warning sign to those who knew him.

  ‘Do you want to take it further?’ Ali had her gloves off.

  ‘Listen, you pseudo-Yankee bitch. You might think you know it all, but what works in New York doesn’t necessarily work here. We’ve always done deals. It’s how the publishing business works. Same as all the media. Advertising rules, okay? Without us, you and your magazine don’t exist!’

  Ali flinched but held her ground. ‘Clients aren’t going to buy space in a crap magazine. And that’s what you seem to know best – crap. Lift your game, forget the footy pubs and lunches with topless waitresses. I know your type, Reg, and that’s not what Blaze is about.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ The remark about the topless lunch club had hit home. He’d recently lunched too long, and he’d become drunk and loud and made a pass at one of the waitresses. Next day it had been written up by the town’s raciest columnist, April Showers, causing Blaze some embarrassment.

  They eyeballed each other for a moment before Ali lifted the phone. ‘Do you want to speak to Jacques Triton and Manny Golan or shall I?’

  Reg Craven leaned across Ali’s desk, his club jacket falling open to reveal a paunch and red plaid braces. ‘Don’t cross me again. You might be able to kick around the birds and blokes on this floor, but never forget – without advertising, you’re nothing.’ He thrust a finger towards the ceiling where the sales representatives of Blaze worked from the floor above.

  Ali stood. ‘I have an appointment. Don’t sweat, Reg. We’re replacing Dixon Landers with a better story.’

  Reg Craven stomped from Ali’s office and she sank back into her chair. Suddenly she felt shaky.

  Belinda stuck her head in the door. ‘Coffee?’ she asked in a sympathetic tone.

  ‘No, haven’t the time. I have an appointment.’ Ali made no effort to thank Belinda, who must have heard Reg shouting. She picked up her bag and brushed past Belinda.

  As the gentle ping marked the elevator doors closing behind Ali, Belinda looked in the editor’s diary. There was no appointment marked.

  Ali walked fast, but with no direction. Half an hour later she was sitting on a bench in Hyde Park watching the birds peck around the Archibald Fountain. Her mobile rang and she debated for a moment, then answered it.

  ‘Miss Gruber, it’s John O’Donnell’s secretary. He apologises for the short notice, but he is unexpectedly free for dinner this evening. And, as he is going overseas tomorrow, he wondered if you might like to join him?’

  Ali smiled as she accepted and listened to the details of where to meet the newly widowed powerbroker.

  TAKE EIGHT . . .

  Nina’s rented sedan headed through the fields of Bassigny, a bright red dot in a misty lilac landscape. She opened the sunroof and the balmy air, smelling of freshly tilled earth, reminded her how countries, places, houses, all had their own smell. She turned onto a small road that wound over a one-lane bridge into the walled village of Langres and spotting a café, parked and crossed the street.

  Three old men sat in a row at the outdoor tables, heads low over folded newspapers, brows furrowed, deep in concentration like schoolboys in an examination room. A woman and a boy eating ice-cream were the café’s only other customers. Nina put her head in the doorway where the smell of coffee and baking was intoxicating. The proprietor, wiping his hands on his long white apron, waved at her to be seated.

  *

  Refreshed from her café au lait and croque monsieur, Nina walked up the street, savouring the fact this small village appeared to be unchanged from a hundred years ago, even though it was only a few kilometres from bustling Dijon.

  Pausing at a larger bistro, she read the menu fluttering outside and realised she could no doubt enjoy the finest Provençal cooking if she ate here. Too bad she’d just eaten bread and melted cheese. For the first time she wished she had someone with her. Up until now, she’d been relishing the freedom and spontaneity of travelling through France wherever the whim took her. Enjoying a superb meal was always better in company.

  As she crossed the road to go back to her car, a community notice board covered with posters and handwritten announcements caught her eye. One poster had a dramatic image on it of a falcon on a woman’s arm. The bird glared at the camera, its talons gripping the leather glove that emerged from a red velvet sleeve slashed with fur and gold that gave an impression of medieval grandeur. While the image was arresting, it was a name that leapt out at Nina, causing her to feel unsteady – Lucien Artiem. Preview release of his new masterpiece, Bridal Crown. Scanning the details in French of the screening of the first in a trilogy of films from the esteemed auteur, what shook Nina was the final line on the poster. In person. Thursday and Friday evening. Cinema Dijon.

  Dijon was a short drive away, she could be there and make the screening. And in that short distance she would travel back forty years.

  It was high summer in Sydney and twenty-year-old Nina had just graduated from In Home and Garden to the Australian Women’s Weekly. She had finished her cadetship and was writing feature articles, as well as the occasional fashion piece for Betty Keep, the fashion editor. Nina was popular among the female hierarchy, each taking a special interest in her career and all predicting the lovely young woman would ‘go far’. Fleet Street was mentioned quietly. Occasionally Mrs Keep used Nina to model for the magazine and took her to meet the couturiers who created the clothes for the fashionable set who appeared in the Weekly’s social pages. To the fashion editor’s initial surprise, most of the top dressmakers knew Nina through Clara.

  Mrs Keep asked to meet her mother, was entranced with Clara and wrote about the wonderful milliner with photos of Nina modelling her mother’s hats.

  This brought Clara more work than she could manage and with her new prestige, she raised her prices and began saving a nest egg for Nina.

  Nina decided to extend her writing away from the fashion world and she began taking an interest in the cinema. With girlfriends from work, she regularly visited the small movie houses on the edge of the city that showed foreign films, and she became a keen reader of a movie magazine published by the owner of the Savoy cinema. When he as
ked Nina if she’d like to review a film once a month, she accepted with delight, writing under the name of Emily Grace.

  And so ‘Emily’ had met Lucien Artiem, a young French film-maker who was living in Australia for six months and studying with Franco Paquot, a European cinematographer who had fled Hungary after the war and settled in Sydney. Franco had taken on a few students and Lucien was considered a star pupil. He had made several films of his own as a learning exercise and was determined to become a director of photography.

  When Nina discovered that one of Franco’s films was being screened she went along to interview him. And it was there she met Lucien. He was twenty-three, she was about to turn twenty-one.

  He was sitting in the small studio Franco used for students. It was set up for filming commercials for cinema and the new medium of television. Lucien worked for a newsreel company, filming in Sydney and the bush, the special events, accidents or offbeat humorous segments, which were shown in the newsreel theatrettes or the big theatres as a support to the feature films. Whenever he had free time, Lucien sat with Franco, taking movie cameras to pieces and reassembling them and learning about lighting techniques, which Franco told him was the key to being a top director of photography.

  While waiting for Franco, Nina was ushered into the studio where Lucien was framing a close-up shot.

  She introduced herself – ‘I’m actually Nina, not Emily’ – and asked what he was doing.

  ‘An experiment. I want to film a dragonfly taking off from this daisy.’

  Nina gave him an incredulous look. ‘You can direct dragonflies?’

  ‘Through a camera, you can command or create the universe,’ he said flippantly.

  Nina was fascinated. She watched as he went to the freezer of an old refrigerator and took out a jar containing a large dragonfly.

  ‘Is it dead?’

  ‘No, sleeping. Well, a sort of coma.’ He looked at Nina. ‘May I?’ And before she could answer, he tweaked a strand of her hair. Carefully he glued one end to the leg of the dragonfly, the other end he pasted to a table. Then he placed the unconscious insect on the petal of the daisy. Looking through the camera, he made several adjustments. ‘I’ve set the exposure to the length of your hair and framed the shot to that distance. Poor little bugger won’t be able to fly out of shot. Now, a couple of clouds before it wakes up.’

  Nina watched as he turned on a chugging smoke machine and a small fan that blew puffs of smoke across the blue background. Then, as he went back behind the camera, the dragonfly began to stir. Nina heard the button on the camera click and the motor begin to whirr.

  The dragonfly unfolded its wings, fluttered them, looked around to orient itself and, gaining its bearings, gracefully lifted off, its wonderful wings glimmering in the studio light. It flew in a small circle, then aimed for heaven, only to find it was tethered to earth by Nina’s hair. The camera rolled as the dragonfly plunged and spun and circled before landing once more on the daisy to reassess the situation.

  ‘Oh, that’s so cruel. Let it go,’ cried Nina.

  Lucien turned to her in surprise. ‘Why? It’s not in pain. Confused, maybe. It looks brilliant through the lens, it’s flying against a summer sky with little clouds.’

  ‘No it’s not. Let it go,’ said Nina angrily.

  Lucien shrugged. ‘It’s an experiment.’ He turned off the camera, broke the thread of hair and lifted the dragonfly, which suddenly sprang free, flew at Nina and landed on her shoulder. She looked at its large pop eyes and burst out laughing. Lucien cupped his hand around the insect.

  ‘Come with me.’ Together they went outside and he opened his hand. The dragonfly, feeling the warmth of sun, the vibration of the air, lifted lightly and then dipped and dived in a small dance before it flew away. Lucien turned to Nina. ‘Happy now?’

  Nina found it difficult to express how she felt about that moment when the shimmering insect had danced against the sunlight. ‘I’ll never feel the same about dragonflies again. They are meant to be free spirits. Thanks for letting it go.’

  Lucien was tempted to say something else but gave a smile. ‘That’s okay. I have my shot.’

  Nina frowned. ‘Is that all you think about?’

  They were interrupted by Franco and she disappeared to do the interview without speaking to Lucien again.

  Two days later, a card arrived at her office with an exquisite watercolour painting of a dragonfly. He’d written, ‘I will never forget the dragonfly alighting on your shoulder . . . Like it, you are immortalised for me as a creature of poise and delicacy. I hope I see you again.’

  They did indeed see each other again – at the opening of Franco’s film in Sydney. And so began a friendship that quickly blossomed into a deep attraction.

  Lucien was Nina’s first true love and Lucien loved her deeply in return. But not enough to hold him to her. After four months, his visa ran out and he had an offer to return to France and work as a camera assistant on a Truffaut film. At the same time, Nina was offered a promotion at the Weekly. The clash of careers was heart-breaking. But neither was prepared to walk away from the path they’d chosen. They compromised, promising to stay in touch, to visit and ‘see what happened’.

  Nina turned onto the Lyons Road. She’d planned to drive through Dijon anyway . . . but should she stay on this evening and see the film and Lucien? The thought of him resurrected so many memories. He’d become famous as a film-maker – an auteur, writing, directing and photographing his appealing, quirky art house films. He had been labelled Europe’s answer to America’s Woody Allen and John Sayles, but serious cinema critics put him in a league with the masters he admired – François Truffaut, John Cassavetes, Jean-Luc Godard and Ingmar Bergman.

  In the early years after they’d parted, she’d followed his career at a distance. But she’d heard little of him for ages. They had seen each other once in those early years, but even now her heart ached thinking about it, and she pushed the memory from her mind.

  Instead, as her career progressed, she’d met the handsome, older, Doctor Paul Jansous at a dinner party. He was quietly humorous, gentle and caring. It was comforting to have a protector, a man who adored her, a wealthy man who could give her the best in life. He’d courted her and quite soon they’d married. It was a stable if stolid pairing, but Nina was unprepared for the shock of becoming a widow in her early thirties when her husband had collapsed with a heart attack while playing tennis.

  In time her thoughts had turned to Lucien, but just as he knew little of her personal situation, so she knew little of his. In the end, she’d decided against disturbing his life by contacting him. Instead, Baron Oscar Von Triton had stepped in to fill the gap in her life with the offer to buy Blaze, the magazine that she’d started and made her so successful in Australia. She was ready for a new challenge so she had persuaded him instead to go into partnership and launch Blaze in America.

  As she had so often through her life, Nina decided to let her instinct decide what she should do, what was best, when the moment arrived. She drove on along the Lyons Road through the sunny afternoon.

  *

  Belinda sat opposite Ali’s desk in a straight-backed chair taking notes. She felt like a secretary out of a fifties B-grade movie with Ali playing Joan Crawford.

  ‘And send a further staff memo that invitations to commercial promotional events are to be vetted by me.’

  Belinda glanced up in surprise, then resumed scribbling as best she could without the knowledge of shorthand. For all Ali’s high-tech leanings, her inter-office communication was outmoded. It seemed another way of keeping herself above the rest of the staff and reaffirming her authority.

  Tony Cox, the young travel editor, was first to query the edict.

  ‘Ali, I have an offer to go to Guyana – it’s starting to become something of an eco-adventure holiday destination. A number of young Australians out there are setting up tourist operations. There’d be a lot of interesting stories from a part of the Americas
that’s written about by the freelancers whose stories we buy. I’m wondering what you think . . . with regards to this.’ He fanned the air with her last memo.

  ‘We have axed a story on Heron Island off our own shores, why would we involve ourselves in the expense of going to South America? Especially as it is company policy not to accept any free contra deals,’ she answered airily.

  Tony spoke patiently, not wanting to rile his editor, but finding it hard not to lose his temper. ‘It’s a form of advertising for the client, interesting copy for us. So long as we say this trip was paid for by so and so, readers can make their own judgement as to how biased the coverage may be.’

  ‘Not every reader makes that leap,’ said Ali blithely. ‘So what’s being paid for?’

  ‘Air, accommodation, internal stuff. Travel infrastructure in Guyana is still a bit . . . loose.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like the sort of place our readers would want to visit. They’d be more into up-market safari stuff.’

  Tony decided to save the details of the delights of the former British Guiana. ‘Advertising thinks it’s an excellent idea.’

  ‘Reg Craven doesn’t have the say on what we cover just because he can sell a couple of ads. I don’t imagine too many five-star hotels are in Guyana. We have to maintain a certain standard of quality of advertisers. If this was going to bring in a lot of money or a lot of kudos without compromising us . . .’ Ali paused, then added, ‘we have to be very careful about protecting our credibility.’