“Afternoon, Keith. It’s Dan Hadley.”
“Good afternoon, Senator,” Keith replied. “I’m in a bit of a rush. Would it be possible for you to call me back this evening?”
“You won’t be in a rush when you’ve heard what I’ve got to tell you,” said the senator.
“I’m listening, Dan, but it will still have to be quick.”
“I’ve just put the phone down on the postmaster general. He tells me that Bob Menzies is willing to support the state’s request for a new commercial radio network. He’s also let slip that Hacker and Kenwright wouldn’t be in the running, as they already control their own networks. So this time you must be in with a fighting chance of picking it up.”
Keith sat down on the chair by the phone and listened to the senator’s proposed plan of campaign. Hadley was aware of the fact that Townsend had already made unsuccessful takeover bids for his rivals’ networks. Both approaches had been rebuffed, because Hacker was still angry not to have got his hands on the Chronicle, and as for Kenwright, he and Townsend were no longer on speaking terms.
Forty minutes later Townsend put the phone down and ran out, slamming the door behind him. The car was no longer there. He cursed as he walked back up the path and let himself into the house. But now that Susan had left without him, he decided he might as well carry out the senator’s first suggestion. He picked up the phone and dialed a number that would put him straight through to the editor’s desk.
“Yes,” said a voice that Townsend recognized from the single word.
“Bruce, what’s the subject of your leader for tomorrow’s paper?” he asked, without bothering to announce who it was.
“Why Sydney doesn’t need an opera house, but does need another bridge,” said Bruce.
“Scrap it,” said Townsend. “I’ll have two hundred words ready for you in an hour’s time.”
“What’s the theme, Keith?”
“I shall be telling our readers what a first class job Bob Menzies is doing as prime minister, and how foolish it would be to replace a statesman with some inexperienced, wet-behind-the-ears apparatchik.”
* * *
Townsend spent most of the next six months locked up in Canberra with Alan Rutledge as they prepared to launch the new paper. Everything ran late, from locating the offices to employing the best administrative staff and poaching the most experienced journalists. But Townsend’s biggest problem was making enough time to see Susan, because when he wasn’t in Canberra he was inevitably in Perth.
The Continent had been on the streets for just over a month, and his bank manager was beginning to remind him that its cash flow was only going one way—out. Susan told him that even at weekends, he was always going one way—back.
Townsend was in the newsroom talking to Alan Rutledge when the phone rang. The editor put his hand over the speaker and warned him that Susan was on the line.
“Oh, Christ, I’d forgotten. It’s her birthday, and we’re meant to be having lunch at her sister’s place in Sydney. Tell her I’m at the airport. Whatever you do, don’t let her know I’m still here.”
“Hi, Susan,” said Alan. “I’ve just been told that Keith left for the airport some time ago, so I guess he’s already on his way to Sydney.” He listened carefully to her reply. “Yes … Fine … OK … I will.” He put the phone down. “She says if you leave right away, you might just get to the airport in time to catch the 8:25.”
Townsend left Alan’s office without even saying goodbye, jumped into a delivery van and drove himself to the airport, where he had already spent most of the previous night. One of the problems he hadn’t considered when choosing Canberra as the paper’s base was how many days a week planes would be unable to take off because of fog. During the past four weeks he felt he had spent half his life checking the advance weather forecasts, and the other half standing on the runway, liberally dishing out cash to reluctant pilots, who were fast
becoming the most expensive newspaper delivery boys in the world.
He was pleased with the initial reception the Continent had received, and sales had quickly reached 200,000 copies. But the novelty of a national paper already seemed to be wearing off, and the figures were now dropping steadily. Alan Rutledge was delivering the paper Townsend had asked for, but the Continent wasn’t proving to be the paper the Australian people felt they needed.
For the second time that morning Townsend drove in to the airport carpark. But this time the sun was shining and the fog had lifted. The plane for Sydney took off on time, but it wasn’t the 8:25. The stewardess offered him a copy of the Continent, but only because every plane that left the capital was supplied with a free copy for every passenger. That way the circulation figures held above 200,000, and kept the advertisers happy.
He turned the pages of a paper he felt his father would have been proud of. It was the nearest thing Australia had to The Times. And it had something else in common with that distinguished broadsheet—it was losing money fast. Townsend already realized that if they were ever going to make a profit, he would have to take the paper downmarket. He wondered just how long Alan Rutledge would agree to remain as editor once he learned what he had in mind.
He continued to turn the pages until his eyes settled on a column headed “Forthcoming Events.” His marriage to Susan in six days’ time was being billed as “the wedding of the year.” Everyone who mattered would be attending, the paper predicted, other than the prime minister and Sir Somerset Kenwright. That was one day Keith would have to be in Sydney from morning to night, because he didn’t plan to be late for his own wedding.
He turned to the back page to check what was on the radio. Victoria were playing cricket against New South Wales, but none of the networks was covering the game, so he wouldn’t be able to follow it. After months of twisting arms, investing in causes he didn’t believe in and supporting politicians he despised, Townsend had failed to be awarded the franchise for the new network. He had sat in the visitors’ gallery of the House of Representatives to hear the postmaster general announce that the franchise had been awarded to a long-time supporter of the Liberal Party. Later that evening Senator Hadley had told Townsend that the prime minister had personally blocked his application. What with the drop in sales of the Continent, the money he had lost trying to secure the radio franchise, and his mother and Susan continually complaining about never seeing him, it wasn’t turning out to be a glorious year.
Once the plane had taxied to a halt at Kingsford-Smith airport, Townsend ran down the steps, across the tarmac, through the arrivals terminal and out on to the pavement to find Sam standing by the car, waiting for him. “What’s that?” asked Townsend, pointing to a large, smartly wrapped parcel on the back seat.
“It’s a birthday present for Susan. Heather thought you might not have been able to find anything suitable in Canberra.”
“God bless her,” said Townsend.
Although Heather had only been with him for four months, she was already proving a worthy successor to Bunty.