‘Thomas Playford will be making what’s promised to be an important statement at eleven o’clock this morning,’ said Jim West, a political reporter. Groans went up around the room.
‘I’m not interested,’ said Frank, ‘unless he’s going to announce his resignation. If it’s the usual photo call and public relations exercise, producing more bogus figures about what he’s supposed to have achieved for the local community, relegate it to a single column on page eleven. Sport, Harry?’
A rather overweight man, seated in the corner opposite Townsend, blinked and turned to a young associate who sat behind him. The young man whispered in his ear.
‘Oh, yes,’ the sports editor said. ‘Some time today the selectors will be announcing our team for the first Test against England, starting on Thursday.’
‘Are there likely to be any Adelaide lads in the side?’
Townsend sat through the hour-long conference but didn’t say anything, despite feeling that several questions had been left unanswered. When the conference finally broke up, he waited until all the journalists had left before he handed Frank the notes he had written earlier in the back of the taxi. The editor glanced at the scribbled figures, and promised he would study them more carefully just as soon as he had a minute. Without thinking, he deposited them in his out tray.
‘Do drop in whenever you want to catch up on anything, Keith,’ he said. ‘My door is always open.’ Townsend nodded. As he turned to leave, Frank added, ‘You know, your father and I always had a good working relationship. Until quite recently he used to fly over from Melbourne to see me at least once a month.’
Townsend smiled and closed the editor’s door quietly behind him. He walked back through the tapping typewriters, and took the lift to the top floor.
He felt a shiver as he entered his father’s office, conscious for the first time that he would never have the chance to prove to him that he would be a worthy successor. He glanced around the room, his eyes settling on the picture of his mother on the corner of the desk. He smiled at the thought that she was the one person who need have no fear of being replaced in the near future.
He heard a little cough, and turned round to find Miss Bunting standing by the door. She had served as his father’s secretary for the past thirty-seven years. As a child Townsend had often heard his mother describe Bunty as ‘a wee slip of a girl.’ He doubted if she was five feet tall, even if you measured to the top of her neatly tied bun. He had never seen her hair done in any other way, and Bunty certainly made no concession to fashion. Her straight skirt and sensible cardigan allowed only a glimpse of her ankles and neck, she wore no jewelry, and apparently no one had ever told her about nylons. ‘Welcome home, Mr. Keith,’ she said, her Scottish accent undiminished by nearly forty years of living in Adelaide. ‘I’ve just been getting things in order, so that everything would be ready for your return. I am of course due for retirement soon, but will quite understand if you want to bring in someone new to replace me before then.’
Townsend felt that she must have rehearsed every word of that little speech, and had been determined to deliver it before he had a chance to say anything. He smiled at her. ‘I shall not be looking for anyone to replace you, Miss Bunting.’ He had no idea what her first name was, only that his father called her ‘Bunty.’ ‘The one change I would appreciate is if you went back to calling me Keith.’
She smiled. ‘Where would you like to begin?’
‘I’ll spend the rest of the day going over the files, then I’ll start first thing tomorrow morning.’
Bunty looked as if she wanted to say something, but bit her lip. ‘Will first thing mean the same as it did for your father?’ she asked innocently.
‘I’m afraid it will,’ replied Townsend with a grin.
Townsend was back at the Gazette by seven the following morning. He took the lift to the second floor, and walked around the empty desks of the advertising and small ads department. Even with nobody around, he could sense the floor was inefficiently run. Papers were strewn all over desks, files had been left open, and several lights had obviously been burning all through the night. He began to realize just how long his father must have been away from the office.
The first employee strolled in at ten past nine.
‘Who are you?’ asked Townsend, as she walked across the room.
‘Ruth,’ she said. ‘And who are you?’
‘I’m Keith Townsend.’
‘Oh, yes, Sir Graham’s son,’ she said flatly, and walked over to her desk.
‘Who runs this department?’ asked Townsend.
‘Mr. Harris,’ she replied, sitting down and taking a compact out of her bag.
‘And when can I expect to see him?’
‘Oh, he usually gets in around nine-thirty, ten.’
‘Does he?’ said Townsend. ‘And which is his office?’ The young woman pointed across the floor to the far corner of the room.
Mr. Harris appeared in his office at 9:47, by which time Townsend had been through most of his files. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ were Harris’s first words when he found Townsend sitting behind his desk, studying a sheaf of papers.
‘Waiting for you,’ said Townsend. ‘I don’t expect my advertising manager to be strolling in just before ten o’clock.’
‘Nobody who works for a newspaper starts work much before ten. Even the tea boy knows that,’ said Harris.
‘When I was the tea boy on the Daily Express, Lord Beaverbrook was sitting at his desk by eight o’clock every morning.’
‘But I rarely get away before six in the evening,’ Harris protested.
‘A decent journalist rarely gets home before eight, and the back-bench staff should consider themselves lucky if they’re away much before midnight. Starting tomorrow, you and I will meet in my office every morning at eight-thirty, and the rest of your staff will be at their desks by nine. If anyone can’t manage that, they can start studying the Situations Vacant column on the back page of the paper. Do I make myself clear?’
Harris pursed his lips and nodded.
‘Good. The first thing I want from you is a budget for the next three months, with a clear breakdown of how our line prices compare with the Messenger. I want it on my desk by the time I come in tomorrow.’ He rose from Harris’s chair.
‘It may not be possible to have all those figures ready for you by this time tomorrow,’ protested Harris.
‘In that case, you can start studying the Situations Vacant column as well,’ said Townsend. ‘But not in my time.’
He strode out, leaving Harris shaking, and took the lift up one floor to the circulation department, where he wasn’t surprised to encounter exactly the same laissez-faire attitude. An hour later he left that department with more than one of them shaking, though he had to admit that a young man from Brisbane called Mel Carter, who had recently been appointed as the department’s deputy manager, had impressed him.
Frank Bailey was surprised to see ‘young Keith’ back in the office so soon, and even more surprised when he returned to his place on the window ledge for the morning conference. Bailey was relieved that Townsend didn’t offer any opinions, but couldn’t help noticing that he was continuously taking notes.
By the time Townsend reached his own office, it was eleven o’clock. He immediately set about going through his mail with Miss Bunting. She had laid it all out on his desk in separate files with different-colored markers, the purpose of which, she explained, was to make sure that he dealt with the real priorities when he was running short of time.