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In a word: Incline

When you first think of this word, it is with a slippery slope in mind.

I’ve been on a few of those in my time.

And while we’re on the subject, those inclines measured in degrees are very important if you want a train to get up and down the side of a mountain.

For the train, that’s an incline plane, the point where traction alone won’t get the iron horse up the hill.

Did I say ‘Iron Horse’? Sorry, regressed there, back to the mid-1800s in the American West for a moment.

It’s not that important when it comes to trucks and cars, and less so if you like four-wheel driving; getting up near-vertical mountainsides often present a welcome challenge to the true enthusiast

But for the rest of us, not so much if you find yourself sliding in reverse uncontrollably into the bay. I’m sure it’s happened more than once.

Then…

Are you inclined to go?

A very different sort of incline, ie to be disposed towards an attitude or desire.

An inclination, maybe, not to go four-wheel driving?

There is another, probably more obscure use of the word incline, and that relates to an elevated geological formation. Not the sort of reference that crops up in everyday conversation at the coffee shop.

But, you never know. Try it next time you have coffee and see what happens.

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Writing about writing a book – Day 2

Hang about. Didn’t I read somewhere you need to plan your novel, create an outline setting the plot points, and flesh out the characters?

I’m sure it didn’t say, sit down and start writing!

Time to find a writing pad, and put my thinking cap on.

I make a list, what’s the story going to be about? Who’s going to be in it, at least at the start?

Like a newspaper story, I need a who, what, when, where, and how.

Right now.

I pick up the pen.

Character number one:

Computer nerd, ok, that’s a little close to the bone, a computer manager who is trying to be everything at once, and failing. Still me, but with a twist. Now, add a little mystery to him, and give him a secret, one that will only be revealed after a specific set of circumstance. Yes, I like that.

We’ll call him Bill, ex-regular army, a badly injured and repatriated soldier who was sent to fight a war in Vietnam, the result of which had made him, at times, unfit to live with.

He had a wife, which brings us to,

Character number two:

Ellen, Bill’s ex-wife, an army brat and a General’s daughter, and the result of one of those romances that met disapproval for so many reasons. It worked until Bill came back from the war, and from there it slowly disintegrated. There are two daughters, both by the time the novel begins, old enough to understand the ramifications of a divorce.

Character number three:

The man who is Bill’s immediate superior, the Services Department manager, a rather officious man who blindly follows orders, a man who takes pleasure in making others feel small and insignificant, and worst of all, takes the credit where none is due.

Oops, too much, that is my old boss. He’ll know immediately I’m parodying him. Tone it down, just a little, but more or less that’s him. Last name Benton. He will play a small role in the story.

Character number four:

Jennifer, the IT Department’s assistant manager, a woman who arrives in a shroud of mystery, and then, in time, to provide Bill with a shoulder to cry on when he and Ellen finally split, and perhaps something else later on.

Coming soon – “Strangers We’ve Become”, the sequel to “What Sets Us Apart”

Stranger’s We’ve Become, a sequel to What Sets Us Apart.

The blurb:

Is she or isn’t she, that is the question!

Susan has returned to David, but he is having difficulty dealing with the changes. Her time in captivity has changed her markedly, so much so that David decides to give her some time and space to re-adjust back into normal life.

But doubts about whether he chose the real Susan remain.

In the meantime, David has to deal with Susan’s new security chief, the discovery of her rebuilding a palace in Russia, evidence of an affair, and several attempts on his life. And, once again, David is drawn into another of Predergast’s games, one that could ultimately prove fatal.

From being reunited with the enigmatic Alisha, a strange visit to Susan’s country estate, to Russia and back, to a rescue mission in Nigeria, David soon discovers those whom he thought he could trust each has their own agenda, one that apparently doesn’t include him.

The Cover:

strangerscover9

Coming soon

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 131

Day 131 – When you get stuck in a scene

…

The Writer’s Block Breakthrough: Why Writing Nonsense is Your Secret Weapon

We’ve all been there. You’re deep into a scene, the momentum is building, and suddenly—thud. The cursor blinks at you with rhythmic, mocking indifference. You’ve hit a wall. Your characters have gone silent, the plot has evaporated, and you’re convinced that your creative well has officially run dry.

The instinct in that moment is to stop. You lean back, close your laptop, and decide to “wait for inspiration.”

Don’t do it.

Stopping is the death of flow. The longer you sit in the silence, the harder it becomes to jump back into the world you’ve built. If you find yourself stuck, here is the golden rule of professional writing: Write nonsense.

Embrace the “Placeholder Phase”

When you get stuck, your internal editor is usually to blame. That nagging voice in your head that says, “That’s not good enough,” or “This dialogue makes no sense.”

Silence that voice by giving it something to chew on. If you don’t know what your protagonist should say next, write: [They have a really intense argument here about the secret map, but I don’t know what the secret is yet, so they just yell about apples for a paragraph.]

Seriously. Write that.

By putting the “nonsense” on the page, you are tricking your brain. You are telling your subconscious that the scene isn’t finished—it’s just in a “drafting phase.” You are keeping the momentum alive. You are maintaining the rhythm of your writing habit.

Keep Moving at All Costs

Think of your story like a car. If you stop the engine every time you come to a challenging stretch of road, you’ll never reach your destination. If you keep idling, you’ll be ready to accelerate the moment the path clears.

When you write nonsense, you aren’t just filling space; you’re staying in the zone. You’re keeping the “writer’s muscles” warm. It’s much easier to turn “nonsense about apples” into “a gripping revelation about a map” when you are already sitting in the chair, typing away, than it is to start from a cold, blank page.

Trust the Process (It Will Come)

The magic of writing isn’t that we have all the answers from the start; it’s that we find them through the act of doing.

Often, those nonsense placeholders turn into something brilliant by sheer accident. Perhaps while writing about those absurd apples, you realise why your character is so desperate to hide the truth. You might stumble upon a perfect metaphor, a sudden character motivation, or a plot twist you hadn’t planned.

If you hadn’t kept moving, you never would have reached that discovery.

The Takeaway: Just Get Words on the Page

Perfection is the enemy of progress. You cannot edit a blank page, and you certainly cannot find inspiration by waiting for it to strike from the heavens.

So, next time you hit that dreaded wall:

Acknowledge the block.
Accept that the next few sentences might be utter garbage.
Write them anyway.

Get the words on the page. Keep the momentum moving. Trust that the story is in there, waiting for you to clear the path. Your future self—the one holding a finished draft—will thank you for it.

The story behind the story – Echoes from the Past

The novel ‘Echoes from the past’ started out as a short story I wrote about 30 years ago, titled ‘The birthday’.

My idea was to take a normal person out of their comfort zone and led on a short but very frightening journey to a place where a surprise birthday party had been arranged.

Thus the very large man with a scar and a red tie was created.

So was the friend with the limousine who worked as a pilot.

So were the two women, Wendy and Angelina, who were Flight Attendants that the pilot friend asked to join the conspiracy.

I was going to rework the short story, then about ten pages long, into something a little more.

And like all re-writes, especially those I have anything to do with, it turned into a novel.

There was motivation. I had told some colleagues at the place where I worked at the time that I liked writing, and they wanted a sample. I was going to give them the re-worked short story. Instead, I gave them ‘Echoes from the past’

Originally it was not set anywhere in particular.

But when considering a location, I had, at the time, recently been to New York in December, and visited Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a lot of New York itself. We were there for New Years, and it was an experience I’ll never forget.

One evening we were out late, and finished up in Brooklyn Heights, near the waterfront, and there was rain and snow, it was cold and wet, and there were apartment buildings shimmering in the street light, and I thought, this is the place where my main character will live.

It had a very spooky atmosphere, the sort where ghosts would not be unexpected. I felt more than one shiver go up and down my spine in the few minutes I was there.

I had taken notes, as I always do, of everywhere we went so I had a ready supply of locations I could use, changing the names in some cases.

Fifth Avenue near the Rockefeller center is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.

The original main character was a shy and man of few friends, hence not expecting the surprise party. I enhanced that shyness into purposely lonely because of an issue from his past that leaves him always looking over his shoulder and ready to move on at the slightest hint of trouble. No friends, no relationships, just a very low profile.

Then I thought, what if he breaks the cardinal rule, and begins a relationship?

But it is also as much an exploration of a damaged soul, as it is the search for a normal life, without having any idea what normal was, and how the understanding of one person can sometimes make all the difference in what we may think or feel.

And, of course, I wanted a happy ending.

Except for the bad guys.

Get it here: https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

newechocover5rs

The cinema of my dreams – I never wanted to go to Africa – Episode 22

Our hero knows he’s in serious trouble.

The problem is, there are familiar faces and the question of who is a friend and who is a foe is made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.

Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in.

…

Lallo was gone ten minutes, perhaps a specific amount of time that was supposed to make me sweat. It was warm in the ward so it wasn’t his presence or the questions that made me feel uncomfortable.

It was fear of the unknown.

If anything, it was more likely I’d be going to a black site rather than rest and recuperation in Germany. And apparently, over an operation, I had little or no knowledge of its inception or execution beyond being used for target practice.

Unless the army in its infinite wisdom was looking for a scapegoat, they’d tried pinning it on Treen, but he didn’t play ball, so now it was my turn. However, just to complicate that thought, why didn’t they just kill me on the ground when they had the chance?

Because they needed me alive.

My mind went back to that fateful operation.

I went over as many of the crew as I could remember. Ledgeman, Sergeant, explosives expert, he was with me until he was shot, caught in the crossfire, which now made me consider my first assessment of what has happened to him, that it might have been one of us who shot him, was the likely outcome.

Willies, a Corporal, also an explosives expert, sent with Mason, Gunnery Sergeant like me, who was providing cover for Willies.

Breen, Lieutenant, Leader, although it didn’t exactly appear to be the case, the more I thought about it, there seemed an undertone of indifference from the team towards its leader, one I should have picked up on. Informal command never worked when push came to shove.

Andrews, Cathcar, Edwards and Sycamore, regular soldiers with combat experience along for protection, Andrews and Sycamore were with us and had worked together before, their camaraderie didn’t extend to me, but they were professional soldiers.

Of all the people in that entire group, why did Treen survive? In putting the pieces together now in my mind, and if what I remembered was right, he should have been the first to die.

I mean, drugs and paranoia aside, that was the one single damning conclusion I could draw from events. If he had, then a lot of the others might have survived.

But time was up; Lallo was back, squirming in his seat, and armed with a different coloured notebook.

First question, “What was your opinion of Treen?”

Relevance? “Competent, but perhaps not truly in charge of his men.”

“How so?”

“I got the impression it was a case of familiarity breeds contempt.”

“You question his ability to command?”

“Just his style.”

Groups who worked together in close combat as a unit, from the top to the bottom, acquired a level of camaraderie that transcended rank. It was not supposed to, but it did. It was built on mutual respect and got to a point where everyone knew what they were doing without being asked, or ordered. I got the impression that had been the case for Treen and his team up till that operation. Perhaps the loss of one of the team had changed the dynamic.

“He’s there to lead, not be liked.”

“Then why ask me what I thought? You’d know what I meant by that if you were out on the front line and your life depended on your team. Something was not right.”

“How did you fit in,” he asked, with an emphasis on the word ‘fit’.

I didn’t, but I was not going to tell him that. In the end, I just didn’t trust them. You can get a measure of a man in that first meeting with or speaking with them, and they closed me out from the start.

“I had a job to do and I did it.”

And, it was probably the reason why I walked away.

…

The first case of PI Walthenson – “A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers”

This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

PIWalthJones1

An excerpt from the book:

When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.

Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.

It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.

Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.

But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.

His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.

At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.

For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.

Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.

Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.

Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.

It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.

It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.

Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.

So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.

There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.

So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.

There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.

She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.

Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.

Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.

Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.

Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.

Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.

…

The Cinema of My Dreams – It ended in Sorrento – Episode 44

So, how does Mrs Rodby know the Countess?

…

Her name was Isabella Agostini, but I suspect that was not her real name. I had stood to one side after we entered the solicitor’s rooms, and let her state why she was there.

I could have been wrong about her, but I had to admit if I wasn’t, she was quick on her feet. There was no doubt she knew who I was, not why I was there, and I had to state my business, which gave away information I preferred not to.

Now she knew why I was there, and that I was working with the countess, though I had to believe she already knew that too. The question was, were they using me to find the countess.

There were a half dozen chairs in that waiting room, and I chose to sit next to her. It surprised her, or I hope it did.

“You here for any particular reason,” I asked.

I did so only because I had to maintain that I-don’t-know-Italian thing. If I did, I’d know it was for a matter of making a will. I accompanied the question with a look of sincere interest.

“Legal stuff,” she said. It sounded quaint with her Italian accent which suddenly crept in.

Had I caught her off guard?

“You?” she asked, trying to make it sound like an offhand comment.

“Legal stuff, boring really. I’d rather be touring the Vatican, maybe I’ll get there later. Seen it?”

‘What?”

OK. She was losing interest in the small talk and had started looking at her cell phone.

“The Vatican?”

‘Yes. Big.” And went back to her phone, a sign the small talk was over.

Perhaps it was a sign. The solicitor, Benito, came out and called my name, gave the girl a dismissive look and motioned me to follow him.

Benito was one of those old, tired, family retainers, who had been doing the job for a hundred years, and looking forward to the next.

He obviously had a set of clients who paid well, because the rooms, not to mention the building, reeked money.

He was dressed in an expensive, but tired suit, and was slightly unkempt, part of an act, I thought, to keep people guessing as to his competence. The other lawyers, not his clients.

“The girl belong to you?”

“No. She followed me in. She says she’s here to see you about making a will.”

“Odd. She works for a private detective agency, and knowing the Burkehardt’s as I do, she’s probably working for them.

“How could they know I’m here?”

He shrugged. “They seem to know everything.

“Except where the countess is, so it stands to reason they would follow her associates and see if they lead them to her. Why the interest in the countess?”

“The damage she could do to their business.”

“You mean she’s not a good businesswoman?”

“Oh, I’m sure she could do that. It’s the other business.

“You mean the Burkehardt’s are criminals?”

“Not in so many words, and it would be a brave man to accuse them. But some of the business they do, on the side, is illegal. I’ve tried to tell the countess that it would be unwise to try and fulfil her late husband’s wishes, but she says it was his fervent wish she did.”

“What would she get if she walked away?”

“They offered her a house and an income. I believe it is a fair offer, but she seems reticent. It’s better than the alternative. They have judges who will deliver verdicts they want, and they will give her nothing.”

“Is she entitled to it?”

“According to the law, but there can be exceptions. They will use one of those exceptions. I can fight it, but even if we prove his intent she should inherit, it might not go our way. What is your interest in this matter? The countess has not mentioned you before today.”

“A friend of a friend. Mrs Rodby asked me if I could help her persuade the Burkehardt’s to honour their son’s will.”

“I’m not surprised Mrs Rodby is concerned. You do know she is the countess’s stepsister, don’t you.”

The 2am Rant: Is there a reason to get out of bed?

I sometimes wonder if there is.

Is that depression speaking, or am I just tired from all the late nights?

Unlike most writers, authors and bloggers I don’t have a day job. You could say it’s one of the benefits of getting old, this retirement thing, but after a while, not having a reason to get out of bed starts working on your subconscious.

The idea of having a job, and going to work, is a good reason to drag yourself out of bed every morning. And because of this, the idea of sleeping in takes on a whole new meaning.

You know, I’ll just lie here for a few more minutes, and then I’ll get up. Having turned off the alarm, the eyelids flutter, and before you know it, half an hour had passed, and you wake up in fright, knowing you’re going to be late.

In retirement, that doesn’t happen. There is no alarm, there is no guilty pleasure in spending those extra minutes in bed.

Of course, this tardiness, or lack of desire could be because I find I do my best writing in the dead of night, often not getting to bed before 2 a.m. Last night it was a little later because of a story I’m working on came to life with a new idea.

It had been stagnating because it’s part two and whilst I had an idea about where it was going to go, in the end, we’re off in a different direction, and the words flowed. You just don’t stop writing when you hit a vein.

But this isn’t always the case. This morning I have an excuse to stay in bed, but most others I don’t.

Perhaps I should find something else to do, something that will give me that same reason I used to have to get up every morning.

Or maybe I should be more organized in my retirement life, you know, set a schedule and do things according to a timetable. I was never one for being organized, but perhaps it’s time to start.

Just let me lie here for a few more minutes and think about that.

What I learned about writing – Let’s talk editing.

I’d rather not, but it’s a necessary part of the evolution of a story.

But, first, let’s get something quite clear right here, right now. I will NEVER use AI to “improve” my writing.

My writing is my own. It is me, imperfections and all. I reluctantly allow a grammar checker to correct my work, but the reason is to address the offensive misuse of punctuation and outdated grammatical conventions based on age-old rules that AI can’t alter.

Because that’s the problem with AI. It has its own set of rules and its own way of doing things, or more importantly, the creator’s way of doing things.

And it’s not simply because I watched Terminator and saw what could happen when machines get a mind of their own.

Or, sadly, the mind of the flawed human who created it. I’ll let you ruminate on what could happen with AI created by the wrong people. Of course, it opens a debate on who is or is not the wrong people, but that’s a topic for others to discuss.

So…

I write the story.

I re-read the story and make edits.

I re-read the story and made more edits.

I read the story and ensure that it reads properly and that there is continuity. Names are correct. All people belong in the story, and their roles play out.

I have forgotten people before.

Then comes the spell checker, which shouldn’t find anything.

Then, the punctuation checker, which shouldn’t find anything.

Then the grammar checker, and this is the doozy. There are usually between four and five hundred change requests, most quite simple and warranted, others a lot more complex and do not allow for writing style and people’s patterns of speech.

That takes the longest time to work through.

I actually run this checker a few times because it doesn’t pick everything up the first time.

Then, once that is done, I sent it off to the editor for one last read.

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 129/130

Days 129 and 130 – Writing Exercise

…

The thing about being no one and wanting to be someone is that you have to learn to be someone first.

My father had always been a con man.

It was odd to me that he would put in so much work in becoming that person to run the con; he never once realised he could be that person with a little extra effort.

All it took was the same amount of time he took to learn the role.

He had been an Accountant, a Doctor, an Engineer, a prospector, and a Chief Executive Officer, and performed it so accurately that he could have been a real one.

I asked him once why he just didn’t knuckle down and do the work.

No thrill in doing the same thing day in and day out.

That he was a con man meant that I would always be a con man too. I didn’t know any different. I didn’t know who my mother was; she had left a long time ago, when she discovered who my father was.

It must have hurt him because he would never talk about her, good or bad, just that it was a special time, and that he had me to remind him of her.

It was an interesting life, continually living a lie or sometimes a lot of lies. I got good at it, so good, I forgot who I really was.

Then, just before I turned eighteen, my father was killed by a nervous policeman. Of course, pretending he had a gun and that he would shoot didn’t help his cause. Or save him from dying from a fatal gunshot wound.

I was arrested. No one witnessed us together as I had been hiding, waiting to spring the trap. My father always said one day the cops would catch up with him.

Today was that day.

…

Getting arrested wasn’t the worst thing that happened to me that day.

Watching my father die was.

Had I not broken cover, I would have got away. Somehow it seemed wrong to leave him there, bleeding out on the cold, wet cobblestones alone.

It was also the second time I had cried. The first was when my mother left.

I stayed until they dragged me away, too me to the police station and locked me in a small, windowless room. The chair was hard, the table solid, and I was handcuffed to the table.

It was my first time in the interview room.

Next would be a cell, perhaps with a few gardened criminals, who would not treat me well. At least my father had taught me to defend myself.

I couldn’t get the start image of my father lying dead on the cobblestones. He hadn’t stood a chance.

Just when I was beginning to think they had forgotten me, the door opened, and a lady detective came in. She seemed surprised to see a boy.

My father said I had to grow up quickly, but I hadn’t. I read somewhere that teenagers should try to enjoy their youth because once it was gone, it was gone.

I didn’t feel as though I had anything. School had been little more than a detention centre, and books were stories of someone else’s life.

I felt sorry for the kids who wanted to be rocket scientists.

“James Pontville?” It was asked politely as if I didn’t look like that hardened criminal I was supposed to be.

Perhaps when I spoke…

“It is my name today.”

Her expression changed. Another smart-ass to deal with in a day filled with smart-asses.

She sat. A thin folder she was carrying landed on the desk. “Then enlighten me. What is the name you were originally given?”

Good question. “I have no idea. My father kept changing it so often, I have no idea.”

“How can you not know your real name? Are you trying to annoy me? If you are, this is not the time to do it.”

I thought about it, trying to remember what he used to call me, what my mother called me, but nothing was there. I couldn’t even remember what my mother looked like any more.

That hurt more than anything else.

“I’m not trying to annoy you. I just don’t know any more.”

“Where do you live?”

“Anywhere and everywhere. We had no house.” Not after the landlord tossed us out of the apartment, my father said rats wouldn’t live in it. That was a year back.

“Most recent place?”

“The old telephone exchange down on Bloom Street.”

“Where the junkies get off?”

“Beggars can’t be choosers. It was dry and warm enough. They don’t bother you if you don’t bother them.”

She opened the folder and looked at a sheet of paper. Arrest report?

“The dead guy, your father or someone else?”

The way she said it made my skin crawl. She was not the first to imply he was one of ‘them types’. “He was my father.”

“Not much of one getting himself killed.”

It would be useless to say he was protecting me. “He didn’t have a gun.”

“Unfortunate, but he had a choice.”

“Like we all have choices?” I hated the smugness in her tone. It was the same for anyone who had a place to go and knew where their next meal was coming from.

She gave me a look of pity. Or maybe it was just contempt.

“What were you doing there?”

“He was waiting for someone. He never really tells me what he’s doing. I just hide until it’s done.”

Best not to tell the truth. I needed less trouble, not more. I could see where this was going. I was going to end up in the System. It was, he had said, if I got a choice, better than jail.

“What did he usually do?”

“Sell stuff he stole.” I knew they’d find a watch on him. It was his. They didn’t need to know that.

“For what?”

“Food. Never enough for a room, or clean sheets, even a blanket.”

She made a note on the sheet. “Do you have any relatives? Somewhere you can go?”

I had a name and an address. A woman I had stayed with before, when he got taken away by the police. I didn’t know if she was an aunt or just a friend, but she was nice to me.

I dragged a piece of crumpled paper out of my pocket and gave it to her.

She wrote the details on her sheet and gave it back to me.

“Is this person your mother?”

“No. She lit out a long time ago.”

“Who is she?”

“A friend of my father’s. Stayed there the last time he was in jail. Been there a few times.”

“So if we take you there, she’ll know who you are?”

I hoped so. “Yes.”

She closed the file. “I’m giving you one chance. I see you again, it’s jail. OK?”

“OK. Thanks.”

…

A policeman took me in his car to the address on the piece of paper. It was an apartment on the third floor of a run-down apartment building with a nasty superintendent.

Maybe he was gone this time.

The policeman knocked on the door, and after a minute, Elsie, the lady’s name, opened the door, still on the latch.

It was that kind of neighbourhood.

“Yeah?” She had a raspy voice from an old, smoking habit. She had to give it up when cancer struck.

“You know this little scruff?”

She peered through the crack as the policeman dragged me into her view. “James?”

I nodded.

“Where’s your Dad?”

“Shot and killed.”

“You want him?” the policeman asked.

She opened the door. “Of course.” She stood to one side and let me pass.

“Make sure he doesn’t get into trouble.”

He stomped off down the passage. She looked up and down, then came in and closed the door.

“What happened?”

“Picked the wrong mark. It was a cop. Dad pretended he had a gun, and the cop shot him dead.”

Her face softened. “You poor dear. I’m sorry for your loss. What are you going to do?”

“I can’t stay here. Dad said you were struggling too.”

“We all are dearie. But you’re welcome to stay until you get sorted. We’ll manage. Your Dad left some money in case you came.”

Money. He gave me what we had for me to carry in a special pocket in my jacket. He said some of it was for her to look after me, if it came to that. I would give it to her later.

“Have you eaten?”

“Not today.”

“Then give me a few minutes, and I’ll make us some dinner. Have a chat. Tell me what you’ve been up to since the last time.”

…

My father may have been a con man, but I like to think he was a philosopher. He had a wide range of views on everything. He read a lot, magazines, newspapers and books

He said knowledge was everything, and had made sure I could read. The trouble was, I didn’t understand a lot of it.

That was the memory of him I had the next morning when I woke, in a small room, on a mattress that had a clean sheet and a blanket. I felt warm, warmer than I had for a while.

Sleeping in a derelict building wasn’t the best place to be when winter was coming.

A head came through the crack between the door and the wall. “Morning, sleepyhead. Coffee is on.”

Elise, Elsie’s daughter of about my age, had just got home from her job, working the graveyard shift at the hospital. Elsie would be gone, a cleaner at the same place.

The work was steady, they had uniforms and got meals while working during their shifts.

I dragged myself out of bed and out into the small dining area next to a smaller kitchen. The smell of coffee was amazing. It was, for me, a luxury.

She gave me a hug, affection I had not been given since my mother left. She was like the sister I never had.
“Mum told me about your Dad. I’m so sorry. It must have been terrible.”

I still hadn’t processed it, and it was just another bad thing among a hundred more, all piled on top of each other.

I shrugged. “It was inevitable. He had been lucky, if it could be said someone like him, or us for that matter, could be.”

“What are you going to do?”

She pottered about, making toast. The aromas from that kitchen were making me hungry. Any other day, I would have to put those pains aside.

“Don’t know. Get a job, I guess. Watching him die like that, I think it’s time I found a new way to live my life. Trouble is, I’ve got no education and no skills. My father often said I should go back to school, but it takes money, money we didn’t have.”

“Well, the only way that can happen is if you decide to make it happen. I remember your father telling me, back when I got busted for shoplifting, that I was the mistress of my own destiny. I thought he was a pompous ass, but he was right. You are the master of your own destiny. No one is going to pave the path in front of you. That’s your job.”

She put coffee and toast in front of me, and smiled. “I’m glad you came. It’s very nice to have a man about the house. The landlord and his creepy super have been hassling Mom.”

Elise needed to get some sleep. She was on the graveyard shift as a kitchen hand. Elsie was a cleaner. Before she disappeared into the small room, the one with the mattress on the floor for visitors and a bed for the daughter, she told me to go see Vinnie at the hospital. He would find me a job, no questions asked, and help with the paperwork.

My father said paperwork was the same for every businessman, and that he liked to work in a paperless office. He said it in a way that made me think he knew everything about running a business. Believable, sincere, and lies.

But the paperless meant I had no birth certificate or a thing called a SSN number, and without one if those, I didn’t exist.

Bonnie wasn’t surprised. He had forms. Lots of forms with long names and mysterious codes. He said often it was hard for people like me who didn’t have an address. Itinerant.

But he didn’t look down his nose at me. He knew Elsie and Elise. I think he liked Elise a lot. He said there was work if I wasn’t fussy. I said I wasn’t, so he gave me a uniform and told me to come back at 6am the next morning. Then he gave me twenty dollars and said it was for food and whatever else I might need.

…

Something else my father told me, among many that as he often said went in one ear and came out the other, people would often surprise you, but in a bad way, not a good.

If he were here now, I would tell him he was wrong.

Until one morning, Elsie and I got home from a graveyard shift, tired and cold. The snow had arrived, and the streets, early morning before the sun came up, were at their coldest; the building super was lurking.

Elise was right. He was creepy.

Elsie had no desire to talk to him, but he blocked her way.

I stayed back. I had met people like him. In a position of power, he was not afraid to use it. He had a son, a mirror image of his father, and I didn’t like the way he looked at Elise.

“Who’s your boyfriend. Bit young for you.” It was a sneer.

“My sister’s kid. She died and left me a child, not the fortune I was hoping for, so I could get out of this dump.”

“You can always leave.”

She laughed in a way that made my skin crawl. “Of course I can. I’m secretly a billionaire researching how the other half live.”

“Extra body staying, a hundred bucks a month rent increase.”

I knew enough to know that rents could only be fixed by the landlord, and in accordance with city regulations in places like this. This man was extorting her.

“You can’t do that,” she said.

“I can do anything I like. Of course, there are other ways to pay.”

I knew what he was intimating. Elsie was angry, but riling him wasn’t going to help.

“You got to the end of the week.” He leered at her as she went past, but put his hand back to block me.

“This is my domain, sonny. Don’t get any fancy ideas.”

My father said showing fear was a weakness that could be exploited. He had taught me this thing called the poker face, and one other, an expression that could cause fear.

I put it on and looked straight into his eyes.

“They should have told that to the last person who said that to me. You’ve got a boy, I’ve seen him skulking around like a rat looking for a pathetic human to bite. It’s your domain, sir, until it isn’t.”

Those eyes went from arrogant to fearful.

“Y-You threatening me?” Fear betrayed by the slight stutter.

“No.” I looked at his arm blocking my way. “Do you know what a dislocation feels like? I got one once, and it hurt like hell. Weakens the joint forever after, and one day, when you’re walking, or maybe pushed, down the stairs, you lose your grip. In a death trap like this place, that could be fatal. Just a friendly reminder, something you should be taking care of, as a Super.

“I can have you lot kicked out.”

“You could. But as I’m new at work they won’t give me the time off to come to your funerals. So, let’s agree to disagree and leave things where they are. We’ll talk to the landlord about the increase.”

He lost the staring match. My father said it was never about the loudest voice in the room, that I could be far scarier speaking just above a whisper and through clenched teeth as an effect.

Men like the super had the power if you gave it to them. I wasn’t going to. But he was going to be trouble.

“This isn’t over.” He moved his arm.

“No. But it will be. Sooner than you think.”

Then I smiled, that evil smile my father taught me, and patted him on the shoulder. “You’ve got a nice gig here. Don’t screw it up.”

I followed Elsie up the stairs, and she had the door open when I got there.

Once inside, she leaned against the door and sighed. “You shouldn’t have done that. Now it’s just going to bring trouble to our doorstep.”

“I’m sorry, but he was out of line. He had no right to demand money that isn’t his to demand. And that disgusting threat…”

“It’s not the worst.”

“Elise?”

“That kid of his. Calling him a rat is insulting to rats.”

“I’ll pay the extra if it comes to that. I owe you everything. But I will fix it. You don’t have to live in fear of people like him.”

…

A week later, there was a knock on the door, and I saw Elsie cringe. It was what she had been waiting for. Retribution.

She opened the door, and the landlord, in his five-hundred-dollar suit and Italian shoes, looked every bit the Lothario Elsie had described him.

The aftershave brought tears to my eyes, and I was ten feet away.

“Mrs Blake.”

Behind him was an enforcer. He was here to collect the monthly rent.

He looked past her at me, standing like a PFC on parade, waiting for the Master Sergeant to bark orders.

My father taught me the soldier’s stance. Attention, and at ease. To swell the chest out, to look like you’ve done ten tours of Afghanistan or Iraq and killed a million of the enemy single-handedly.

I saw the expression change. He had come here to lay down the law. Perhaps he might have revised that.

“May I come in?”

Elsie said he usually barged his way in.

She stood to one side.

I said, “Leave the goon outside.”

He was going to say something, the mouth opened and then closed. A nod in the goon’s direction, then he came in. Elsie closed the door.

“You serve?” He asked.

“I’ve done a lot of things I didn’t like.”

Never admit to anything, but out of respect to those who had, never take credit for something you didn’t do. My father had the utmost respect for those who lay down their life in the service of their country. That rubbed off on me.

“You staying long?” he asked me.

“As long as it is necessary. My aunt is a kind lady who helps even when it is difficult.”

He looked at her. “Greyson has apologised for causing you some distress. I believe he said there would be a rent increase. I think in this case it’s not necessary. You are an exemplary tenant, not like some in the building.”

She counted out the notes, a collection of worn notes, a bit like we all felt. He recounted them, thanked her, gave me a last look, and left.

She waited a minute, leaned against the door, then asked, “What did you do?”

I wanted to tell her I took the Super out the back and ripped his arm out of its socket, and if he approached Elsie again in such a manner, I would do something to him far worse, but that would sound brutal. I thought I might tell her that I found the son and told him that if Elise said she had been assaulted, I would come find him and cut his manhood off with a blunt knife, but that might offend her.

I went with a simpler explanation. “We had a friendly chat over a bottle of beer. I paid. I explained my circumstances, that the good Lord uplifted those who helped the helpers, and he understood. All men can be reasonable when they see the light.”

“How do you explain his visit to the hospital emergency department with a mangled shoulder?”

I forgot she worked in the hospital, and her reach might be in places like the Emergency room. I shrugged. “A man like that, I’m sure, has managed to upset people less understanding than we are.”

The crossed arms and the frown told me I was skating on very thin ice.

“Your dad said you did training for the National Guard.”

“That or juvenile detention. Might as well be the same thing. The instructor was bullying. Learned to defend myself against IEDs, though.”

She shook her head. “Thanks. I’ll leave it to the Good lord to decide whether you deserve to go to heaven or hell. Elise and I have Italian food on Thursdays once a month. You’re welcome to join us.”

“That would be greatly appreciated.”

…

Several months later, I dreamed of my mother. I was not sure how old I had been when she left, but it must have been before cognitive memories kicked in.

But even so, there were memories, like her perfume, her laugh, her smile, and the look in her eyes when she held me in her arms.

I wanted to think it had been very difficult for her to leave me behind, but I guess the horror of living with a liar and cheat like my father was far worse. But I never quite understood why she had kept me behind.

When I woke, there was an image of her, clear as day, in my mind, and the ache of missing her was very painful. It was like she was there, almost within reach.

Something had prompted these memories.

Elise had come home after the graveyard shift and made toast and coffee. She was humming to herself, a sign she was happy. I wondered if she had struck up a friendship with a nice boy; she had mentioned a few in the past, but we both knew our prospects were low.

Still, as Elsie would say, hope springs eternal.

And the frost and snow would soon abate into spring, and everything would come back to life. I was looking forward to the warmth.

My shift was going to start in the cancer ward, where I had spent the last week cleaning the floors until they gleamed. Of course, the tiles were tired and scuffed, but I did my best.

The head nurse in Ward A was a dragon, and she was always complaining that the cleaning should be at night. I actually agreed with her, given the daytime foot traffic. Patients, nurses, doctors, auxiliary staff, visitors. It was like rush hour on the subway.

But I had my instructions.

Nurse Bleeth, perpetually angry, came out of the elevator and sighed. She was not the dragon; she was an hour away from ending her early morning shift.

“Your boss is trying to irritate us; isn’t he?”

He had complained to the Superintendent that his workers were being impeded, and that it was not his fault that the management had decided to implement twice-daily cleaning.

His attitude was to make it fast; I maintained we had to do it properly. No one was going to win this battle.

Did I simply do the job, work around the obstacles, and couldn’t wait for breaks? Yes.

“I don’t make the rules.”

“No, but the people that do often forget it’s the small things that make this all work, and at the moment it’s not working. But it’s not my problem, I’m told. That’s a matter for Nurse Andrews.”

She was the dragon. It was amazing how little things suddenly turned into big problems.

“Make it quick as you can.” She smiled and carried on that harried sort of way, like she was expecting the sky would fall in.

If it had been the dragon, it probably would.

I’d just about finished the passageway and was about to go around the corner when a woman’s voice yelled out, “Don’t you dare speak to your father like that,” followed by a retort, “He’s not my father,” in that stricken tone that people used when the truth landed on them like a brick.

A youngish boy came bemusing out of the room not ten feet from me, and in such a blind hurry to escape, crashed into me, sending us both sprawling.

Two things I noticed in that split second before the crash: he had the look of a spoiled rich brat, and the second was that he looked exactly like me.

Only healthier and stronger.

While we tried to get off the floor, a woman came out of the room, saw the two of us and went over to him.

The other boy was on his feet. I used the rail to pull myself up. My arm hurt where I landed on it, totally unprepared. I turned to look at the woman, to admonish her over her child.

One look and I nearly fell down again. The nurse who had come from the station came over to see if we needed help. A doctor passing had stopped, seeing me almost faint.

It was not from the crash.

The perfume, the expression, the eyes.

And the boy. He was looking at me, then her, then back at me. “David?”

David? Was that my name from a very distant past? My brain was trying to process what I was seeing, what I was feeling, like there was a connection between us, which was impossible.

Then I passed out.

…

Searching for locations: The Lingering Gardens, Suzhou, China

The Lingering Garden

These gardens are very tightly put together and are interspersed with buildings that you can go in and look at as distinct from just looking in from the outside.

There are lots of paths that wind around interspersed with rocks which may or may not be sculpted, and equally interspersed with trees, bushes, and small plants. In the middle is a lake which usually has lotus plants in bloom, but they are not in season.