Blaze

by Di Morrissey

  ‘Over? Over?’ shouted Lorraine in uncontrolled anger. ‘Who the hell do you think you are to talk like that? What’s over?’

  ‘Your job,’ replied Ali in an icy tone.

  ‘You’re crazy. Get out.’

  ‘Crazy. Hardly an appropriate word for you to invoke at this point,’ said Ali, with irony that again hit the target and caused the fevered eyes to flash alarmingly. ‘Nina and the Baron have something big in store for me, Lorraine. I’ve been given the nod, if you take my meaning. Only a few hours ago. And when I’m in charge around here, there’ll be no accommodation of junkies.’

  ‘Get out!’ screamed Lorraine. ‘Get out.’

  Ali had left without looking back, slamming the door with such force that the noise had echoed up the corridor and caused the last of the staff waiting for the elevator to look over their shoulders in surprise.

  Friday, 8 p.m.

  Nina still found it hard to grasp. The call had come from the building’s head of security just over an hour ago.

  Her hands started to shake as she dressed for the dinner that the Baron had insisted must go ahead, despite the tragic circumstances.

  It was only now, when it was too late, and she was struggling to come to terms with the terrible events of that day that Nina realised she hadn’t tried hard enough. She hadn’t paid enough attention to Lorraine’s hurt and personal pain. She had been too focused on her own life events and this evening’s formal recognition of her sixtieth birthday.

  Her mind went back to her breakfast meeting with Lorraine when she’d broken the news to her that she wasn’t being reappointed editor of Blaze.

  The possibility of losing her beloved job, and with it her place in New York society – for Lorraine had no doubts about the consequences – had been Lorraine’s worst-case scenario for months now, a situation she had too often contemplated after a drink or three.

  ‘Lorraine, I’d give anything to change this, but I can’t. You are not being reappointed as editor of Blaze. It’s a board decision with the Baron, as chairman, in agreement. They want an editor with a different, fresh approach to attract a younger audience. You’ll be taking over a new position as special projects editor. Your appointment will be announced with due ceremony and you’ll be able to carve a niche for yourself there.’

  ‘Appointment! You mean, dis-appointment . . . dismissal is what I call it, being shoved aside is as good as being out,’ Lorraine had said bitterly.

  Try as she did, Nina had found it impossible to convince Lorraine that she was not obsolete, that there could be a role for her in the reorganisation of the staff. She could still hear her own attempt to rationalise the situation. ‘Lorraine, we are both in the same boat. A new generation of journalists want to take over the oars . . . and the helm. Remember what it was like to be young, impatient and ambitious. Remember how we came by our breaks.’

  ‘We waited our turn! We learned from the bottom up. An inexperienced editor! Never, never in our day.’

  ‘Our day has gone, Lorraine. Today is for girls like your daughter, and our bright girls on the staff like Ali.’ Nina was trying to be gentle. Or was she also trying to convince herself?

  ‘Not so!’ cried Lorraine. ‘My days aren’t over. I still have so much to do and give and teach. Yet, goddamn it, here I am being pushed aside professionally and even my own daughter wants to take off and leave me.’

  ‘Lorraine, Miche is not leaving you. She has to sort out her own dreams.’

  ‘Listen, Nina, I’m going to need her now more than ever. At least do this for me. At least try one more time to talk Miche out of this mad idea of going to Australia. Suddenly the most important thing to her seems to be a part of her life that was so brief that she doesn’t even remember it.’

  ‘Lorraine, her links to Australia are tenuous, a father she never knew, and possibly won’t like if she does meet him. He did abandon her, after all. But there is still a connection with a country that she knows nothing about. It’s only natural that she’s curious. Let her work it out of her system,’ said Nina.

  As she uttered the cliché, a deep illumination flashed through Nina’s mind. Suddenly Nina saw the need behind her goddaughter’s drive to find her roots. It was an insight into her own need, which shook her soul, but she pushed it to one side as she sought to calm her distressed, now ex-editor.

  ‘I worry about Miche. Nina, I don’t want her to be like Ali.’

  Nina had fumbled for the right words to say. She didn’t want to be disloyal to a senior member of staff, but Lorraine was a personal friend, Miche was her goddaughter. ‘Lorraine, Ali doesn’t always handle situations as sensitively as she could, she’s so ambitious, but she has a right to chase her own dreams.’

  ‘I know Miche has to find her own way, but she doesn’t understand my needs, especially right now.’ Lorraine gulped her drink. ‘What’s going to become of me, Nina?’

  ‘You have to pull yourself through this, Lorraine. You don’t have a lot of choice and you have to stop holding on to Miche and let her go.’

  Lorraine was terse. ‘You may be the boss, Nina, and I can’t fight the board, but none of you really knows what I’m dealing with.’ Her voice was strained and it seemed to Nina she sounded irrational. It was the whisky talking again.

  Nina rose. ‘Lorraine, sleep on it. Let’s talk again.’ There was no criticism, no judgement in her voice. Just the concerned tones of a friend, who also had other issues to deal with.

  Lorraine had waved an arm. ‘Forget it, pal. I’ll pull my act together.’ She attempted a wan smile. ‘If you can’t dump on friends, who can you . . . ?’

  Nina fumbled with the clasp on her necklace. She couldn’t stop imagining what Lorraine must have felt in those moments of stepping off the balcony and through the dark door of death.

  There had been frantic phone calls to try to control the media coverage so the details would be confined as much as possible to Triton’s morning paper, the New York Gazette. At least that way it would cause the least damage.

  Bud Stein, after catching the lift upstairs to Nina’s private apartments, arrived exasperated. ‘Nina, how do we downplay this? The other papers and radio and TV are going to beat it up once they know it was suicide.’ He’d listened to Nina’s rapid suggestion of how she wanted the New York Gazette to report the incident and sighed, ‘Okay, Nina, we’ll try. Yes, we’ll talk about how successful she was. Yes, we’ll use a nice photo. No, we won’t mention she might have been drinking. No, we won’t mention the daughter. So, can you give us a brief statement, at least?’

  The Baron had called her as soon as he’d heard. ‘Nina, dearest, this is terrible. So very sad. Please, I know you’re probably blaming yourself, but . . .’

  ‘I do blame myself, Oscar. I knew she was unhappy, and obviously removing her from the editor’s position was the final straw. Oh, that poor child. Poor Miche.’

  ‘Nina, I don’t wish to seem insensitive, but . . . this evening . . . you must be there. It is for you, and people have come from around the globe to share it. It’s too late to cancel. The guests will already be on their way here. Be strong, my dear. We must go through with the dinner.’

  Nina had taken a deep breath. ‘I understand. I’ve asked that the news be kept as quiet as possible until the morning. The police are cooperating and not releasing any but the most basic details until the morning media call.’

  ‘Nina, we will mark your birthday tonight but we will not refer to any celebration. I think it best we make no reference to this unfortunate incident.’

  A shiver went through Nina. A woman’s most desperate act, driven by a sense of inadequacy, loss and anger, fuelled by booze and pills, was reduced to ‘an unfortunate incident’. She ached for Lorraine. If only she had been more aware of the extent of her friend’s desperation – but what could she have done? Now, there was Miche, Lorraine’s daughter and Nina’s goddaughter to think about. What lay in store for her?

  TAKE TWO . . .

  The m
etal grille clicked. A cold, hard sound that for a moment sent a shiver through the woman whose hand still curled around the forged iron. A picture, a fragment of memory, a sensation, flashed into her consciousness. A light that blinked on, then off. The flashes – subliminal pictures from her past – had been coming more regularly. Ever since her mother, Clara, had died. The images were blurry, unrecognisable. Yet there was the nagging knowledge she knew where and what they meant. Then, like a film speeding up, the still-life flashes changed from out-of-focus black and white to a faint sepia, then to full colour. A tantalising glimpse, and they were gone.

  Nina Jansous knew she couldn’t share this. She was perceived as always being so sure, so in control. And deep down was the notion people might think it a sign of advancing years. While it was impossible to hide her age, she had always taken pride in acting and looking as youthful as she felt.

  What was pulling her back to this time and place of unresolved questions? She wished she could switch off this mysterious projector in her mind. Or that a clue to these visions would appear.

  Taking a deep breath, Nina lifted her head, pressed the brass button marked Private and stepped back in the small elevator, inhaling the rich smell of oiled wood that also permeated the two eyrie penthouse apartments on the sixtieth floor of the Triton skyscraper. In the softly lit interior of the gilded baroque birdcage, she glanced at the rosewood inlaid mirror.

  The laughing face of her mother rippled into focus. Clara, wearing a frivolous and extravagantly decorated hat, was posing as if for the cover of a magazine.

  Nina was back in that moment – a teenager, home from the beach smelling of sea, salt dry on her skin, the pinkness of too much sun already showing on her cheeks and nose, sharing her mother’s delight in the finished hat.

  Nina closed her eyes, feeling the senses of the girl she’d been. How she loved the surf and the sun. Australia. It was always connected in her mind with the ocean. How long ago it was.

  Nina opened her eyes as the lift stopped. She turned as the outside door of the elevator was pulled open and Baron Triton extended his hand.

  ‘Nina, ma chérie. How beautiful you look. As always.’ He bent his head, his silver moustache brushing her hand.

  ‘Oscar. Tu es très charmant. Comme toujours.’ Nina gave a wan smile.

  The distinguished and celebrated Baron tucked her arm in his and patted her hand abstractedly. ‘I understand how you are feeling. We must help the daughter. I’m told she doesn’t have any close relatives.’

  ‘That’s kind of you. I’ve made a statement for the press. I will have to speak to the staff. Maybe I should change my plans . . .’

  ‘Nina. You can’t go back now. You have taken this step, it is not like you to back away from a commitment.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘Unless you have changed your mind . . . about me?’

  Nina shook her head, but returned the pressure of his hand as he led her along the Aubusson carpet to his fifty-ninth floor reception rooms where the murmur of voices mingled with Mozart played by a string quartet.

  To Nina, the corridor suddenly seemed to telescope, the doors at the far end receding, the walls leaning in towards her on either side. Their steps were silent. If it hadn’t been for the Baron’s arm, his hand resting on hers, her knees might have buckled. It wasn’t nerves, it wasn’t even the shock of Lorraine’s death, it was the pushing inside her chest, her heart, her head, longing to be free, to be young and challenged. To live with wonderment, to feel as she had when she’d first started Blaze in Australia as a young widow.

  She felt like there was a miniature volcano inside her chest, ready to explode. Soon she would have to heed the pressure of her long-buried emotions. Like Miche, her childhood was calling her. For Nina, it was her early childhood in a strange country, for she barely remembered Croatia, before her mother had fled with her to Australia.

  For Miche, it was the unknown part of her life – her Australian father who had disappeared from New York, leaving no imprint on her heart or in her memory. Miche wanted to find answers in Australia.

  Nina had discussed Miche’s plans with her and was convinced the young woman was mature enough to face whatever the searching for her father would bring.

  Breaking the news of Lorraine’s tragic death to Miche was, Nina thought, the hardest task she’d ever performed. Over the telephone first, she’d organised Miche’s best friend to be there when she’d made the dreadful call. Miche had first refused to believe that her mother could intentionally take her life, that she would desert her, and she’d tried to insist it must have been an accident. Then, after the initial shock had passed, Miche had impulsively and bitterly reiterated her determination to leave America.

  ‘Are you sure in your heart that this isn’t a matter of taking flight, Miche, dearest? You know you take the same fears and tears with you when you run,’ Nina had said gently.

  Miche was adamant. ‘I’m going. I don’t know where to start, but there’s nothing to keep me here in New York.’

  It had touched Nina’s heart to hear the bitter twist to the young girl’s grief. At twenty-two, Miche should be carefree and reckless, shaking coconut trees and tilting at windmills. Nina became practical. ‘Very well. I’m going to be in Europe in a few months. Why don’t we meet in Paris? That will give you time to wrap up things here. I’ll treat you to a little holiday, a rest, and then we’ll organise your travel to Sydney from there.’

  Finally, Nina had been able to talk Miche round. Miche had agreed to stay the night with her friend’s parents who, Nina knew, would comfort and care for the distraught child until she could join her in the morning.

  Pulling herself back to the here-and-now, Nina turned her head to one side to confront the pictures hanging along the corridor. They were elaborately framed covers of Blaze magazines from all the fashion capitals of the globe – Paris, Rome, London, Tokyo, New York – many of them announcing groundbreaking issues from the seventies to the present. The stylish, sometimes startling cover designs and images were now classics. On the other wall were photographs featured in the magazines – celebrity interviews, news exclusives, exotic fashion spreads, magnificent gardens, elegant homes – each with the stamp of famed photographers noted for their innovative approach and visual impact. Class and glamour were the hallmark of Blaze magazine as created by Nina. In recent years, the magazine had evolved to include current affairs as Blaze strode the world stage.

  It had been an interesting journey from the first edition started by Nina in Australia more than two decades before. Within two years, Blaze had become Australia’s top magazine. A year after that she had agreed to move the magazine to New York in partnership with Baron Triton and start Blaze USA.

  The tall, polished timber doors were opened by the butler as Baron Oscar Von Triton loosened her arm from his, stepped back and Nina made her entrance.

  There was warm applause as hushed murmurs sprang to lips.

  ‘She’s beautiful. How does she do it?’

  ‘Money, darling. And good genes.’

  The invitations had described it as an occasion to celebrate Nina Jansous’ birthday and it was no secret she’d reached sixty. She’d been profiled in the media for too many years to keep secrets. It was also to be the occasion for an important announcement. In the gentle hum of office gossip had been speculation that Nina and the Baron might take this opportunity to announce a personal liaison. With their adjoining penthouses on the sixtieth floor, many thought Nina had been his mistress for years. But no one ever whispered she’d held the reins of Blaze solely because of this. Her talent and acumen were unchallenged. She had created Blaze and she had come to epitomise all the magazine stood for – beauty, strength, intelligence and daring.

  After the war, Oscar Triton had been made a Baron in his homeland of Belgium for services to his country by financing the underground resistance fighters against the Nazis. His fortune had been accumulated by his grandfather who’d started tobacco plantations and factories in Haiti and t
he Belgian Congo. During World War II, the Baron had regularly, and very discreetly, alerted the underground when a truck filled with tradeable commodities would take a certain route. The goods would be hijacked by friendly forces and sold on the black market to raise money for the resistance.

  After the war, Oscar had opened emerald and ruby mines in the Belgian Congo and diversified into industrial plants and printing companies. Printing and publishing had been a means of spreading his business interests outside Europe until, by the 1970s, he had quietly bought into or taken over enough small media enterprises through Europe and Asia to form one of the largest newspaper, magazine and associated printing companies in the world.

  He had chosen to remain in the background, an unknown, until a clash between warring super moguls in America and Britain had given him an opportunity to slip between them, steal the prize and seal the deal. The price he’d paid for these US and British media outlets meant he could no longer slide back into obscurity. Once outed as a major media player, he had managed his public persona through a screen of protecting attendants, keeping his private life above scrutiny, to become un homme mystérieux. Triton was a high-profile company. The man behind it was low key and discreet.

  *

  Nina wore a deep violet velvet gown that was almost as black as her eyes, and on her shoulder perched her trademark, an art nouveau diamond dragonfly pin – the motif that alighted daintily on the masthead of every issue of Blaze. She moved amongst the guests, a peck on the cheek, a gentle embrace, a warm handshake, a kissing of champagne glasses. Her throaty laugh, her voice with its strange mixture of European cadence and a hint of sun-toughened Australian vowels, charmed everyone who spoke with her. Her beauty, her intelligence and grace, fascinated anyone within her orbit.