It is not the first time that George has heard the phrase ‘post-war’. It had been used throughout the war, especially when people began to think that they might actually win and that the war, which some predicted might go on for years, if not decades, might actually end. He hears the phrase dropped often around the office now, especially by journalists who not so much pride themselves on, as define themselves by, the ready use of such phrases. They slip from their tongues with ease, these phrases. As though … and George is staring at the face of the newspaper’s editor (leaning back in his chair, eyes briefly on the ceiling) … as though certain people are custodians (however chosen) of the new phrases that are continually entering the language, and it is through them that phrases such as ‘post-war’ reach people such as George, and through George enter the talk of the general population until soon everybody is using them as though they always were. All of which is leading George to speculate upon the origin of the phrase, for it must have been first used by somebody, sometime. But as the questions of who, why, where and when pass through his mind, George tells himself to concentrate because the editor is talking to him.
He is outlining plans for a new weekly magazine that the paper will soon publish. An old, weekly magazine for country readers has died a natural death and this will replace it. He has used the phrase ‘post-war’ because the magazine will capture the spirit of this new world. All its excitement, its sense of possibility. New horizons. Change. And here the editor looks directly at George. For the world has changed. The bombs and shells of the war didn’t just blow away old buildings, they blew away the old ways too. And, whether we like it or not, we’re entering a new world, with new ways, new phrases and new magazines. Magazines such as this one, the plans for which he is outlining to George. It will, he suggests, be called something in keeping with the spirit of the times. Something like, and his eyes roll back towards the ceiling, ‘Horizon’. And the editor ponders this for a moment as though he has just spoken it for the first time (which he probably has) and gives a satisfied grunt.
It is a confirmation, and an indication to George (who is wondering why he has been called in), of how things do and will continue to work in this place. On the hop. Someone gazes briefly upward for inspiration, the word ‘Horizon’ appears, and a title is born for a magazine that may very well have been dreamt up in the same way. And while George is contemplating all of this, he is still no clearer in his mind as to why he has been called into the editor’s office and why the editor should take so long telling him of the plans for this magazine that will be the face of the new world.
It is then that the editor tells George in a casual but calculated way that he wants him to be the editor of this new magazine. George, who has been at the paper for less than a year and couldn’t even type when he arrived. Not everybody agreed with the choice, he adds, but what’s an editor if he’s not going to follow his instincts? Yes, he says, presumably summarising objections that have already been aired by others, George is young. He is new to the job. And he’s never edited anything in his brief newspaper life. But it is precisely because he is young that the editor has chosen him. The rest, he informs George, will follow. It can be learnt. But you can’t learn youth. You’ve either got it or you haven’t. And George has it. And this post-war world will be a young world. What’s more, George reads. Has a university degree. And there is a large part of this editor — in his early fifties — that is sufficiently old world, old fashioned enough to respect this (although George, in his brief time at the paper, has learnt to keep quiet about that, as, indeed, he has learnt to keep quiet about his ambitions to become a writer).
The editor, looking at his watch, tells George that he doesn’t have to decide right away. Adds that George quite possibly has plans to leave the country as soon as he can, like everybody else (which is possibly another reason why George has been asked because there is a mounting feeling that a whole generation will emigrate and slip through the country’s fingers the moment there are boats to sail in), but if he wants it the job is his, just let him know in a few days.
And with that, and with George saying very little, the meeting is over. George returns to his desk, and, with the hammering of typewriter keys all around him, tries to concentrate on what he was doing before his appointment with the editor. A hardback publication, Mr Hemingway’s short stories, sits face up on the desk. There are new books on the desk as well, by new writers, for this new world. They constitute the future he has always imagined for himself. And whenever he imagined himself in the future it was always as the solitary writer. Now this, which he had never imagined or considered a possibility, for the newspaper was always just something along the way. Part of his plans, but only part. And so that small pile of books stares back at him inquiringly, and a silent question now hangs in the air, which he would contemplate if only the noise of the place would let him.