Hiroshima Sunset

by John Kelly

The sign on the double doors read BLM Publishing Pty. Limited and identified a small publishing house in the leafy eastern suburbs of the city. The initials stood for, Balwyn, Lester and Merricks, the names of the three partners in the company, but George Balwyn, the only active member of the trio always preferred George Balwyn and Associates. It was an example of this self-made millionaire, entrepreneur, turned philanthropist having his moment of superiority; a moment propelled by his own sense of importance and his perception that his partners were irrelevant in the day-to-day running of the business. The staff members closest to him agreed but were not persuaded with the suggested change of name. BLM was a respected name in the publishing industry, a name they had helped promote. To them, such a change would suggest their devoted efforts would be reduced to the superfluous. To most of them, George was self-assured and generous but also inclined to indulge in hubris; a man with incredible self-confidence, possessing astute judgement, and he knew it. He was also inclined toward the mysterious, never really explaining his intentions beyond what was necessary. To his staff, or at least those who knew him well, the latter explanation correctly identified the man who paid their salaries, but whom they found at the best of times odd, and when things weren't going so well, bordering on the eccentric. He had a good eye and ear for the right book though, and perhaps there was some truth in his attitude toward his inactive partners. They had helped finance the company, but took no active role beyond that. George also had a good eye and ear for finding the right people to work for him. He head-hunted his two most senior executives and gave them authority to head-hunt the people they thought would be star performers. And they did.

  George grew up on a farm at Lillico, near Warragul in Victoria, where his parents struggled to keep food on the table. Childhood memories remained steadfast. Images of his father raising cattle and working the fields from five in the morning till nine at night were vivid. For days on end his only contact a wave across the field in the morning as he left for school and a wave on his return in the afternoon. In the distance, a man on a tractor returned the gesture, to reassure the boy that all was well. At night George listened to stories about the war and the part his father played in winning the peace. The war, his father used to say, made him old before his time. George was aware from a very young age that circumstances were harsh. It infused within him, an intense desire to make good, to succeed in life, to help his parents overcome and conquer the unforgiving landscape. Perhaps it was these early childhood experiences that helped mould his determination to first make good and then where the opportunity presented itself, improve the lot of the less fortunate.

  His mother never smiled. George often felt that she was disconnected, not quite living in the present; always there, always caring, nurturing, but so serious, so intense and detached from the here and now. George's early observations of his surroundings, the bleakness of the countryside, and the severity of life on the land did not endear him to follow in his father's footsteps. Farming would not, he thought, be the catalyst for achieving his goals. He showed unusual promise at school and won a scholarship to University, graduating with a degree in Arts/Law. After a succession of jobs here and there, mostly associated with journalism, he joined the Farmer's Daily, a small regional newspaper in eastern Victoria. In due course he became senior editor but left the paper after twenty years to start his own publishing business. He had an unusual flair for knowing what people liked to read and a talent for finding authors to write the kind of stories that would attract and stimulate the market. But he shied away from the idea of an autobiography, or commissioning anyone else to write about him. He felt uncomfortable when the subject arose from time to time. There were matters about his childhood, his parents, that would remain private; secrets that would remain so. The tabloid press were always showing an interest as were the glossy magazine editors with their paparazzi photographs on the front cover and some trivial story of how he walked from his apartment each morning to the local newsagent to pick up the morning paper. Riveting stuff! Now fifty-eight, and slightly overweight, he was in good health, gliding through middle-age gracefully. He never married. There was never enough time, he thought, never the opportunity, or if it came, he never recognized it as such. His parents had long since sold off the farm to the co-operatives, holding on to the house and a few acres, and living off the proceeds in retirement. George was a regular visitor. He had the means to set them up comfortably in the town, but they preferred to remain on the land, in the house where he grew up. He wondered why, but never pressed them. They seemed content, and that, to him, was sufficient. His life was very different from theirs and he would not want anyone to try and change his, therefore, he had no desire to change theirs.

  But now, his mother was gravely ill, struck down with Alzheimer's disease and spending what were her final days in a nursing home. George drove back to the farm at Lillico each weekend and together with his father they kept her company as she lay, staring toward the ceiling of her comfortable but staid room, occasionally uttering words that had no meaning and struggling to recognize who was in her room. Each Sunday night he returned to Melbourne, exhausted from the weight of concern he shared with his father. Then, each Monday morning he returned to his office attending to the pressing matters of business.

  As one passed through the front doors of BLM, into a deserted foyer and up a short spiral staircase, the relentless publicity machine that drives the industry rolled out its wares. The walls boldly displayed giant framed posters of the company's best selling novels and autobiographies, matched with glossy photographs of the novelists and non-fiction writers under contract. At the top of the stairs the impressive literary merchandising and decor continued against a light blue backdrop all the way to the reception desk ten metres away where Sarah Whelan sat surrounded by a pile of newspapers still to be circulated around the office. At her feet lay a small collection of packages, mostly unsolicited manuscripts that would never be read, while around her telephone switchboard, tiny little notes adhered here and there, constantly reminded her of all the outstanding matters needing attention. She was on the phone trying to organize a rescue mission. Sometime, during the night, an inventive and aspiring graffiti artist, had gained access to the building and cleverly spray-painted the word 'bolshevist' across the foyer wall. As benign as the addition was, the artistic standard did not meet with management's approval and the painters had been called to have it removed. 'Balwyn, Lester and Merricks' were, after all, a publishing house with a fair-minded reputation. One could tolerate the odd eccentric academic demanding a retraction now and again, or a disgruntled author whose manuscript had been rejected, but to compound the infringement with graffiti on the front door was an offence that could not be tolerated under any circumstances.

  While Sarah Whelan was at her desk fingering her way through the yellow pages, down below, George Balwyn slipped into the building quietly. Dressed in his usual impeccable style, his grey hair adding a certain elegance to his dapper appearance, he took note of the graffiti splashed across the foyer wall, grinned with mild amusement and disappeared through a partly concealed door at the back of the spiral staircase; a door that was always locked; a door for which, only George held a key. The staff thought it was a storeroom but were never sure. No one, it seems, had ever set foot inside. They were curious about what was behind the locked door, the mystery door, as they referred to it. When things were not all smooth sailing, when George was in one of his moods, that's where he would go; disappearing for an hour or so, then re-appearing as if nothing happened. Nobody had ever seen behind the door, let alone entered. As time passed, the myth surrounding the mystery door developed its own momentum, helped by an ample contribution from curious staff members who devised anything from a secret meeting place with spies, to a love-nest with a famous personality. George knew of the interest his staff held for the mystery door and did nothing to dispel their curiosity. But when his senior editor Janet Ryan came to him with a proposal to send Amanda Blackbu
rn to Japan, it wasn't his astute judgement or his eye for a good story that prompted him to agree. It was something else, and the reason could be explained behind the mystery door, in the contents of a secret file locked away securely in a safe.

  In the senior editor's office on the first floor, directly above the defiled foyer, three people rested comfortably in swish, dark blue leather lounge chairs, around a glass coffee table away from the editor's desk, away from what might otherwise be interpreted as a business meeting. In fact it was a business meeting but one that required a more relaxed, and layback approach to the work at hand. Outside, muffled traffic noises could be heard while senior editor Janet Ryan was supervising her two junior editors. Janet was thirty-three, a former senior journalist at the 'Farmers Daily' who followed George Balwyn out the door when he offered her the opportunity to work with him in publishing. She was very attractive, very good at her job, and about to be married to a lawyer with political aspirations. The two junior editors Janet had called to the meeting were Amanda Blackburn and Martin Quist, and the three of them were working through their latest project. It was a novel about love won, lost and won back again in the noisy confusion of life and Janet wanted them to join her for an update and a reading. Amanda had recently re-joined the workforce after twenty-five years the dutiful mother and housewife. Martin was the young up-and-comer, keen, alert, ready for anything, determined not to allow the mature- aged lady with whom he was working to outshine him. As the three of them sat around the table, Martin continued reading.

  '??It was five o' clock in the morning and he lay there, his mind focussed on the speckle of light that began to edge its way underneath the closed curtain toward the bed. It crept forward like a wave slowly edging forth, unstoppable, determined to remind him the night was disappearing, the day beginning. There was no sound, save the low murmur or was it the humming of Margretta still sleeping soundly. Soon, he relished, she would be brought out of her blissful repose, her dream, if she was having one, all of it about to be interrupted as he ran his hand over her buttocks, around her hip, her stomach and up yet further till he touched the softness of her breast, and she too would stir and slowly realize she was back in the land of the conscious. All in all, not a bad way for her to be brought out of it, but poor him. He had been lying there for the past two hours, wanting to sleep, waiting to sleep when sleep would not come. Poor him!'

  'This is crap', Martin said, looking up from the manuscript and removing his glasses as if to indicate he would read no more. 'Is this the best the author can do?' he asked. 'What's wrong with it?' Amanda asked, feeling quite miffed. It was she who had recommended the manuscript for consideration. 'It is lovely. It has sensitivity, realism. It's what happens when you wake up,' she said defensively. 'It's what might happen when you wake up and your husband gropes you, but all that crap about speckles of light under the curtain? Gimme a break!' 'My husband does not grope me for your information,' Amanda snapped back. 'We are separated.' 'I thought it was nice,' Janet said, in support of Amanda. 'Martin, you live alone. You're not qualified to comment. Anyway it's only one paragraph. Let's finish the chapter before we get hung up over one tiny mode of expression. Read some more please Martin.' Martin rolled his eyes in disbelief, but took up from where he left off, if not without a touch of the dramatic.

  '?..She stirred as he expected. It was as if a mental time-clock had activated itself from somewhere inside her brain moments before the clock itself would sing its depressing ditty and shatter the silence. She slapped her hand across the top of the clock shutting off the alarm and lay there motionless. At the same time their cat, Kaz, with a K, short for Cazaly with a C, and so named after the footballer, for her capacity to leap to extraordinary heights squealed as it sat impatiently at the front door desperate to empty its bladder upon the orange eucalypt at the bottom of the garden?.'

  'There see? That's lovely,' Amanda interrupted. 'Anyone who has a cat will relate to that immediately and feel the warmth generated by the way the scene is described.' 'What! No cat door?' Martin asked sarcastically. 'Can't she afford a bloody cat door?' 'It's all in the plot, thickhead,' Amanda fired back. 'Okay that's enough,' Janet began. 'Amanda, I asked Martin to act as a sort of devil's advocate here, just to see how savage a reviewer might behave, although I didn't expect him to act like a pedantic little ass. Don't take this personally. I think it's good to see the negative side.' 'But the negative is so subjective Janet. If we allowed the subjective to rule our decisions we would never publish anything.' 'I once sat through a reading where the senior editor queried every phrase, wanted to change one character's sex and thought that sugar diabetes was a Greek wrestler,' Martin said, offering a small concession. 'I thought they were all like that until I came here,' he added. 'We don't allow the subjective to rule us Amanda,' Janet replied, ignoring Martin's comments about senior editors. 'That's why we have these sessions to overcome our individual subjective natures in favour of a consensus. That's how we come to a measured decision; one that's balanced.'

  Amanda could see the logic. She was simply annoyed at Martin who seemed to take delight in being aggressive. She was relatively new to the world of corporate publishing, still trying to establish her credentials as an editor. She had already established herself as a writer, self-publishing two books. It was her books that helped win her this job. Such audacity! Self-publishing your own books! Fancy anyone having the temerity to spend three years sweating away at a labour of love, writing a book and then, when finding that no mainstream publisher would bother to read it, deciding to self-publish. The bloody cheek of it! Such impertinence! Amanda had been through all of that. It was such a revelation but also an exciting learning curve. Nothing good comes easily, she realized. If it's worth anything at all, it will be born of pain and disappointment. 'Don't take this personally,' Martin said. 'This is how we do things around here.' Amanda's sensitive nature had got the better of her. She had exposed her fragile emotions. Not a good start in a world where a display of emotion can be seized upon and devoured with all the precision of vultures in a feeding frenzy. All the more galling because the person who had elevated her emotions to the surface hadn't done anything of note; certainly not write a book. 'Perhaps I over-reacted,' she conceded. Another mistake! Never apologise! It's a sign of weakness and the circling vultures will use it as an invitation to land at a time of their own choosing. 'Still, when you look at the situation objectively, my reactions are just as important,' Amanda proposed, assertively. 'How so?' Martin asked, hoping for a slip-up. 'They counter and stabilize excessive negativity,' she added cleverly. Well done! That shut him up, the prick! Martin did not respond. He wasn't sure if he had been trumped and while tempted to test the new editor further, thought better of it. 'Okay let's take a break for morning tea and start back again at ten-thirty,' Janet Ryan said, aware of Martin's tendency to niggle a new-comer. 'I'd like to have a look at chapter five and get your views on whether it needs some re-structuring.'

  Amanda breathed a sigh of relief. All things considered, the meeting had gone well. It was her first editing job with the firm and this book was her first big test. Not that she thought her reputation was on the line. Not much! She may have been an author in her own right, but she was smart enough to realize that mainstream publishers were not overly impressed with the nerve that self-publishers displayed. To them she was a minor but nevertheless threatening distraction to them; rather like the fly that keeps buzzing around one's head refusing to go away. Annoying, not critical, but still looked upon with tentative misgivings. It was a little unnerving.

  'Amanda, can I have a quick word with you in private before you go?' Janet asked. 'Sure,' Amanda answered, taking a quick side-glance at Martin as if to suggest that a private audience with the senior editor gave her the edge over her protagonist. 'Martin, perhaps you could check to see if Sarah has arranged with some painters to remove that piece of graffiti from downstairs when you go to morning tea. George will have a fit if it's still there when he comes in
.'

  A few moments later the two ladies were alone and an eerie silence swept across the open office as several of the staff headed for the sandwich bar around the corner.

  'I had an unusual phone call this morning,' Janet began.

  'What about?' Amanda asked innocently. 'A man called. He said his name was Quentin Avers. Do you know him at all?' Janet asked. 'No. Not by that name anyway,' Amanda replied. 'He had an unusual request. He said he wanted someone to tell his story. He said he had read your book, 'Coming to Terms'. He said he liked the way you told the story of the old man, and he asked if he could commission you to write his story. Are you sure you don't know him?' Amanda was stunned. Someone from out of the blue had sought her out to write a story? How far had she come in such a short time? She, who only five years ago was but a shadow of her present confident, sophisticated self; once so easily intimidated, full of self-doubt, always seeking the approval of her husband before taking a bold step. And now she was actually being sought after.

  'No Janet. The name means nothing to me.'

  'Okay,' Janet replied. 'I just wanted to make sure this wasn't a back-door job. Forgive me but it wouldn't be the first time someone in the industry conveniently arranged for a friend to appear with a book proposal.'

  'Really,' Amanda answered, struggling to absorb Janet's words.

  'Yes,' Janet replied, 'it happens. Anyhow, I told him that we didn't do unsolicited autobiographies, but he persisted. He said he had a story to tell and that at the very least we should listen to what he has to say. He insisted however, that he would only talk to you.'

  'I certainly don't know anyone by that name,' Amanda replied.

  'I suggested to him that he put his request to us in writing, giving a brief description of the nature of the story, but he said no, he would only talk to you and offered to pay for one hour of your time.'

  'I'm not sure if I should meet a total stranger under those circumstances,' Amanda said.

  Despite her new found poise, Amanda was still cautious. Five years ago, she was a woman with an appalling lack of self-confidence, haunted by self-doubt, unable to present with any flair, unable to convince herself she could even attempt, let alone achieve simple challenges. She was a highly conservative woman, slow to change and anything slightly complex frightened her; like electronic banking, PIN numbers and computers. The thought of a machine telling her what to do was too confronting. Preparing an evening meal and driving a car were difficult enough. When the children became self-sufficient, able to take care of themselves, her husband, James, suggested once that she make herself available for volunteer work at the local hospital. She recoiled at the very thought of it, gripped by her lack of self-belief, a fear of failure and what people might think. Unemployed, unskilled and now relieved of the burden of child care, Amanda felt incapable of venturing out into the big wide world for fear it had all passed her by.

  'Well, I'll leave it up to you. Have a think about it and get back to me sometime today. I have the man's number. If you are uncertain about meeting him, you can bring him here, otherwise I suggest a place out in the open, in broad daylight, where there are plenty of people around,' Janet said. Amanda thought the matter through.

  Five years ago, she would have run to her husband and lay the responsibility of deciding on him. That would have been the easy way out and the safest. In those days, Amanda felt threatened outside the confines of her house and family, thinking that a new world order had assembled in her absence and laid down instructions designed specifically to dissuade engagement with the mature-aged worker. In reality the opposite was true, but Amanda's mind-set had solid foundations, built up over all those years of self-doubt. As her son and daughter constantly demonstrated their skills in the new technological age in previously unheard-of subjects such as Information Technology, Multimedia and Information Systems, Performing Arts, Business Finance, Creative and Fine Arts, she wondered whatever happened to History, Geography, and English Literature? Had they been consigned to the back-blocks of intellectual development? Where did good-old Algebra and Geometry fit into the new scheme of things? Were they too, buried somewhere in the new maths or absorbed into something more in keeping with the super technological space and cyber age? And so, with a continuing sense of inferiority, carrying a bucket-load of fears, relying on an outward display of bravado that was not only obvious to anyone she engaged with, but which exposed her fragile nature to prospective employers, Amanda hung her head, waved the white flag and simply stopped trying. That was five years ago; before a stunning discovery brought about a monumental change.

  As she absorbed Janet's news, she realized her initial doubts were the legacy of her old life. 'Of course I will see him,' she answered boldly. 'You set the meeting up if you like. I'm at your disposal,' she added confidently. 'Great,' Janet replied. 'I'll call him back and arrange for the two of you to meet.'

  2.