by Ryan O'Neill
Harkaway wrote for four hours a day, five days a week, spending the rest of her time maintaining the property and taking long walks in the rainforest that bordered it. Once a month she drove into Gloucester to stock up on food and supplies. Apart from that, she had no contact with the outside world; she did not own a radio, telephone or television, and her nearest neighbours lived miles away. In June 1962 she completed her novel, a roman à clef called Parade of the Harlequins. The story’s protagonist is Blythe Walker, a striking young debutante who strives to escape the suffocating influence of her family, and to avoid being snared by the attractive tricksters, or “harlequins”, of the world. By the end of the novel Blythe has been betrayed by everyone she loves, and the final scene shows her walking fully clothed into the surf at Bondi. Harkaway submitted the novel to Sydney publishers Berkeley & Hunt in February 1963, where it came to the attention of Robert Bush, then a junior editor. Bush felt the book showed some talent, if little originality, and believed that it might sell due to the prevailing vogue for stories featuring alienated young people. He wrote to Harkaway that he was interested in her book, but emphasised that it required substantial rewriting. The satirical depictions of lightly fictionalised Canberra and Sydney society figures were well done, but the protagonist, Blythe Walker, was problematic, being more of a cipher than a character. Harkaway responded by asking if she could see Bush to discuss his suggestions, and in June 1963 she caught the train to Sydney, where she met the editor at a restaurant near the Berkeley & Hunt offices.
Bush arrived at the restaurant with Harkaway’s manuscript, each page marked with suggested changes and deletions in his preferred purple ink. In his autobiography, Bastard Title, written decades later, Bush recalled his initial encounter with Helen Harkaway:
I realised then the truth behind the clichés I had spent the last week ferreting out of Parade of the Harlequins. When I first saw Helen Harkaway, peering at the small print of the menu and frowning with concentration, I stopped in my tracks. My heart skipped a beat. The blood rushed to my face. I was thunderstruck. It was love at first sight.
Bush, who was fast developing a reputation for the thoroughness and stringency of his editing, was helpless against Harkaway, unable to contradict her when she calmly stated that she had decided the manuscript would be published as it stood. By the end of their lunch, Bush had promised Harkaway absolute control over every aspect of the book, from the cover design to the layout, typography, blurb and advertising campaign. Even Berkeley & Hunt’s top-selling writer, Claudia Gunn, was never granted such authority. Harkaway remained in Sydney while Bush prepared her novel for publication. He told no one at Berkeley & Hunt that he had ceded so much power to an unknown writer, and it has been suggested that he diverted resources and money away from some of his other authors to help publicise Parade of the Harlequins. By August, Bush was fretting that his lies would be found out, and that it could cost him his job. He went to Harkaway’s hotel to tell her he was going to confess everything to Claude Berkeley. As he was about to leave, Harkaway pushed him against the wall and kissed him. Although he was later to describe their sexual relations as “like making love to a hardback book”, Bush continued to sleep with Harkaway at every opportunity over the next six months, while she used him as a proxy to oversee her book’s publication. Bush never told Claude Berkeley what he had done.
Harkaway was convinced that her novel would cause a scandal and perhaps even trigger court cases for libel, featuring as it did unflattering and barely disguised pen portraits of the many famous politicians, sportsmen and society figures she had been introduced to by her parents. Parade of the Harlequins was published in February 1964, a month after Harkaway had retreated once again to her farm in the Barrington Tops, where she intended to remain until the storm had passed. On publication day, Harkaway wrote to Bush to tell him that their personal relationship was over, although she had no objections to his continuing as her editor, if he promised not to bother her with “all that grunting and sweating” again. In his autobiography Bush once again resorted to clichés to describe his feelings at receiving Harkaway’s letter: “My heart was broken. I was absolutely devastated. But then, I burned for revenge.”
Parade of the Harlequins sold poorly, despite Berkeley & Hunt’s costly advertising campaign, and received almost no attention in the press. The one review of the book, in the North Sydney Advocate, consisted of only six words, “A flawed but promising first novel.” Before Bush could compose himself to reply to Harkaway’s letter ending their relationship, he received three more missives from her demanding to know about the latest sales numbers, the reviews, and if any public figure had yet condemned the novel. Bush waited a week, then sent Harkaway a letter telling her the wonderful news: Parade of the Harlequins was a smash hit. The reviews could not have been any more favourable if he had written them himself. Furthermore, questions about the novel had been asked in parliament, with more than one MP demanding that it be banned. A crowd of reporters were besieging the offices of Berkeley & Hunt even as he wrote, baying for an interview with the author of the cause célèbre of 1964.
Harkaway had no reason to doubt Bush, especially after receiving a package from him containing press clippings from dozens of journals and newspapers. Bush had written these effusive reviews, then had the art department mock up the clippings in the precise style of the Antipodean, Overground and others. He even sent her numerous fan letters, written in different hands, from Harkaway’s readers, telling her how the book had changed their lives forever. While Harkaway was well pleased with the stir her book had caused, she still abhorred personal publicity, and instructed Bush to refuse on her behalf all requests for interviews. She also asked that no more fan mail be sent to her, gratifying as it was. She did not have time to respond to the trickle of letters, which had no doubt by now become a flood.
Three weeks after Parade of the Harlequins was published, the National Parks and Wildlife Service opened a new walking track that skirted the edge of Harkaway’s property. The track was poorly signposted, and lost bushwalkers would often wander onto Harkaway’s land, sometimes approaching the house to ask their way. Harkaway was not fooled; she knew that they must be reporters in disguise. She refused to open her door to such people. If they approached her while she was checking the letterbox at her gate she would rush past them, covering her face with her hands and muttering, “No comment!” To deter these pests Harkaway put up large “No Trespassing” signs around her property, as well as hiring a handyman from Gloucester to fix razor wire along her fence line. Her excursions to town became more infrequent; in 1964 she made the two-hour round trip only five times. Once, outside a shop on the main street, a man handed her a leaflet advertising the next Gloucester Show. Before he could say anything, Harkaway had signed his leaflet, thrust it back at him, and walked brusquely away. The attention was unbearable, she wrote to Bush, and was distracting her from her new work, a collection of short stories.
Having always been retiring, Harkaway now became a recluse. The only contact she had with the outside world was with Bush. The tone of her letters to him suggests she had no idea how severely she had hurt him. Bush, never of a forgiving nature, took a sadistic pleasure in maintaining the illusion of Harkaway’s success. He continued to send her reviews he had written himself as well as inflated royalty statements; knowing how careless she was with money, he correctly foresaw that she would never bank the cheques he sent. Events also conspired to convince Harkaway of her literary fame when she became embroiled in the disappearance of the prime minister, Harold Holt.
On 17 December 1967 Holt had gone to Cheviot beach near Portsea, Victoria. Despite the dangerously heavy surf and the protests of his friends, he insisted on going for a swim. Soon he was lost to view; his body was never recovered. In the days after his disappearance, the public was obsessed with any information relating to the prime minister’s last hours, no matter how trivial. On 21 December the Daily Trumpet revealed that at the time of his death, Holt
had been halfway through a little-known novel called Parade of the Harlequins by Helen Harkaway, “a sexy story about a lusty lovely”. A reporter from the newspaper contacted Berkeley & Hunt, and Bush supplied him with Harkaway’s address. Since she had no telephone, the reporter drove to the Barrington Tops to get a comment from the writer about her minor connection with Holt’s disappearance. The gates of the Harkaway property were locked and topped with razor wire, but the reporter decided to wait, having travelled all the way from Sydney. He was fortunate in having chosen one of the rare days when Harkaway was going into Gloucester, and within a short time the writer appeared in her filthy ute. As she opened the gates, the reporter introduced himself and asked her for her thoughts on her novel being the last book the prime minster had read before his disappearance and possible suicide. Harkaway was horrified. She had not known of Holt’s vanishing, and thought the reporter was blaming Parade of the Harlequins for Holt’s taking his own life. She shut the gates, got into her ute and raced back up the road to her house, but not before the reporter had snapped a photograph.
The resulting article, “Holt Hottie Harkaway Hurries Homeward”, appeared in the Daily Trumpet with accompanying picture on 28 December 1967. By coincidence Harkaway was in town that day, and the woman who worked at the post office showed her the paper. Harkaway fled, and was not seen in Gloucester again for five months. In mid-1968 she wrote to Bush to tell him that she had completed her short-story collection and another novel; she had been about to send them to him, but the furore over Parade of the Harlequins had so revolted her that she had decided not to publish anything for the time being. Harkaway had persuaded herself that the novel had played a part in the death of Harold Holt, and demanded that Berkeley & Hunt suppress it. The novel had been out of print for years, but Bush wrote to assure her that they had removed it from bookshops, despite the protests of her devoted readership. Harkaway wrote back thanking Bush for his swift action. This was the last he was to hear from her for over a decade.
In 1969 the 300-acre property adjacent to Harkaway’s was purchased by Rand Washington, who intended to establish a religious commune there. A month later, Washington’s wife, Joyce, introduced herself to Harkaway when the two ran into each other on the fence line of their properties. Joyce Washington was one of the few people to gain Harkaway’s friendship, perhaps because, as Harkaway learned in passing, Joyce had written for many of the pulp magazines Harkaway had so enjoyed reading as a little girl. Through Joyce, Harkaway was introduced to Rand (whom she found captivating) and to the tenets of Transvoidism. Harkaway donated a significant amount of money to the cause, becoming the only one of Washington’s followers to attain the third level of Transvoidism. The sudden death of Joyce Washington in a car crash in May 1970 marked the end of Harkaway’s involvement with the cult. After the collapse of Transvoidism in 1974, Harkaway purchased Washington’s property to ensure she would never have near neighbours again.
In 1976 Harkaway was dragged into the spotlight once more, when it came to her attention that the experimental writer Arthur ruhtrA had appropriated her Parade of the Harlequins, retaining two-thirds of the original text and interlacing it with long chapters of “erotica”. The resulting “composite novel”, The Coming of the Harlequins, had been released by New Dimensions earlier that year. Harkaway retained the Sydney law firm Bolton & Todd and took ruhtrA to court, claiming breach of copyright. ruhtrA, representing himself, argued that no one had even heard of the original novel, and moreover his additions had immeasurably improved the book. Harkaway was present throughout the proceedings, but to her great relief was not called to give testimony. ruhtrA was ordered to pay Harkaway two thousand dollars and costs.
Three years after the ruhtrA affair, Harkaway received an invitation from Berkeley & Hunt to a dinner in honour of Alexander Fernsby, generally considered to be Australia’s greatest living novelist, who had recently returned to his homeland after a lengthy self-imposed exile. Harkaway had long enjoyed Fernsby’s work and decided to attend, leaving the Gloucester area for the first time in seventeen years. The dinner took place in late May 1980 at a restaurant on Circular Quay. Harkaway, fearing she would be recognised, showed up wearing a headscarf and dark glasses. Bush introduced Harkaway to his wife, Lydia McGinnis, and although Harkway spoke civilly, Bush noted her utter self-absorption was intact; she did not notice that he now walked with a limp and used a cane. Bush had invited Harkaway because he had grown tired of the trick he had played on her. He thought that if she went unrecognised at the dinner, she would gradually come to realise that Parade of the Harlequins had not been the success he had convinced her it was. Bush observed her as she met other writers and publishers who expressed nothing more than ordinary politeness when they heard her name. He could see Harkaway becoming unsettled as the evening wore on.
After dinner, Alexander Fernsby gave a brilliant speech to the hundred and fifty guests before moving from table to table with Bush. When they reached Harkaway’s table, before Bush could introduce them, Fernsby astounded everyone by kissing Harkaway’s hand and saying, “Why, it’s the stunning Helen Harkaway, of course.” When Bush’s wife made to take a photo of the encounter, Harkaway, ever protective of her privacy, slapped Fernsby on the cheek and stormed out of the restaurant. Later, when Bush questioned Fernsby, it emerged that Fernsby did not know Harkaway was a writer; he had recognised her because he had often seen her in the library of the Australian National University in 1961, when he was carrying out research for what would become his novel Donkey Hotel (1965). Fernsby had never forgotten the beautiful young woman, although she had spurned the note he had left on her desk.
Harkaway did not contact Bush again until 1982, and then only to complain about a request for an autograph she had received from “some forward girl called Deverall”. Bush did not reply to this letter, nor to others that Harkaway sent him querying foreign publication contracts or reminding him that film rights to her novel must never be sold. In 1989, enmeshed in scandal over his late wife’s suicide, Bush resigned from Berkeley & Hunt; he died the following February. Harkaway learned of his death two months later, when her letters to him were returned. She continued to write to Berkeley & Hunt, but Bush had destroyed all files relating to Parade of the Harlequins, and her former publisher told Harkaway they could provide no further information about her book. Despite this annoyance, Harkaway’s solitary life continued as before. She walked at least eight miles each day, carefully avoiding the journalists who continued to pose as bushwalkers. Once back home, she would write for four hours. Every six or seven weeks she would stock up on supplies at the same half-dozen shops in Gloucester she had patronised since 1962, exchanging small talk with the shop owners. Although she was now in her early fifties, she could pass for a forty-year-old; she still turned mens’ heads, in spite of her large, thick, ugly glasses. Occasionally she would write to Berkeley & Hunt to tell them she had finished another novel but was not quite ready to publish it. She received no replies.
On 25 May 1993 Stephen Pennington, the biographer of Alexander Fernsby, arrived in Gloucester. The dogged Pennington was then working on the sixth volume of Fernsby’s biography and was seeking information about Fernsby’s celebration dinner in 1980, when Harkaway had cuffed the famous author. Pennington’s research had revealed that Harkaway was also a writer, although he had never heard of her. Out of curiosity, after weeks of searching, he had managed to procure a copy of her book. It was not much easier to locate her property. The Gloucester locals had become fond of the eccentric woman and, knowing how much she hated attention, refused to tell Pennington where she lived. When he finally arrived at the entrance to the Harkaway property, Pennington ignored the signs warning him against trespassing. The old padlock on the rusty gates gave way at a push and Pennington, without a four-wheel drive, walked up the long, steep, potholed road to the ramshackle farmhouse, dragging his briefcase with him.
When he knocked on the front door there was no answer, but he thought he heard a fa
int voice from inside. Pennington opened the door and went down a dim hallway to a small bedroom, where he found a delirious woman, burning with a fever, lying in filthy clothes across the bed. Pennington dropped his case and rushed to her side. From her ramblings, Pennington understood that a morning ago, or perhaps two, Harkaway had been out walking in the rainforest when she had dropped her glasses. While searching for them she had fallen down a ravine, breaking both her legs. It had taken her a full day to drag herself back to the house through heavy rain. She had been too exhausted, and her legs too badly injured, to drive her car anywhere. Pennington gave her some water and aspirin and tried to make her comfortable, but she was terribly weak and sick. After a frantic search, he realised there was no telephone in the house. Pennington explained to the woman that he was going for help and would return at once. She smiled but said nothing. Pennington, unfit and infirm as he was, limped back to his car and drove for twenty minutes to the nearest neighbour, where he was able to call for an ambulance. When he returned to the Harkaway house, Helen Harkaway was dead. Beside her, on the floor, was the copy of Parade of the Harlequins that had fallen from Pennington’s briefcase. It was only that night, as he lay in bed in a Gloucester hotel room, that Pennington realised she had signed it.
Helen Harkaway left six novels and a short-story collection in the care of her Sydney lawyers and literary executors, Bolton & Todd, with instructions that they be published at intervals one hundred and one years after her death. The first of these books, a sequel to Parade of the Harlequins, is expected to appear in May 2094.