As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.
Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.
For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1
These are the memories of our time together…
This is Chester. We both agree that summer has come early.
But that’s about all we can agree on. I’m going to start calling him a cranky cat.
For the last week or so the temperature has been hovering in the low 30-degree Celcius mark, and we have been subjected to the constant aroma of smoke from bushfires raging north and south of us.
Normally, the hot weather doesn’t arrive until after the middle of November, and then the temperatures are around 30 degrees with moderate humidity.
Now, it is hot, with Sunday being about 36 degrees Celcius, and not a day to venture outside the airconditioning.
And, that’s where the cranky cat and I disagree.
He likes to sit at the back door and collect the breeze that flows from the front door to the back door and hates it when I run the airconditioning because I have the doors closed.
When that happens, he comes into the office and sits on the table next to the printer with his angry face on.
I figure using the printer might disturb his protest, but it doesn’t.
And to ignore him is at your own peril because, after a few minutes of silent protest, he comes over and starts pushing keys on the keyboard.
One day I expect he will type ‘you are a very bad servant’ for that I am.
50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.
They all start with –
A picture paints … well, as many words as you like. For instance:
And, the story:
Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?
Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave. Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.
But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision. She needed the opportunity to spread her wings. It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.
She was in a rut. Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.
It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper. I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.
And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere. Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication. It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.
So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock. We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.
It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one. Starting the following Monday.
Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.
I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.
What surprised her was my reaction. None.
I simply asked where who, and when.
A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.
A week.
It was all the time I had left with her.
I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.
She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.
Is that all you want to know?
I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.
There’s not much to ask, I said. You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place, and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.
Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would. And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.
One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.
So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.
Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology. It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you. I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.
Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.
I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me, you can make cabinets anywhere.
I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job. It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.
Then the only question left was, what do we do now?
Go shopping for suitcases. Bags to pack, and places to go.
Getting on the roller coaster is easy. On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.
What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.
Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.
There was no question of going with her to New York. Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back. After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.
Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever. I remember standing there, watching the taxi go. It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.
So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.
People coming, people going.
Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was. Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.
As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.
Like all the hotels we’re staying in, it has an impressive foyer. You walk in and you think on appearances it’s going to be 5 stars, and not the 3 and a half rating on trip advisor.
Pity then that it all goes downhill from there.
We have a corner room and no bathroom.
Have you ever stayed in a hotel that has rooms with no bathroom? Yes, it’s a first for us too. Still, this is China and I suspect if you complain there’s always a worse room to put you in.
For us, it’s just going to be an amusing situation we’d bear and give it a one-star rating on TripAdvisor for the hotel.
And just a word of warning, if you decide to book the hotel directly make sure you don’t get a corner room.
At least everything else was reasonably ok. Ok, not so much, the safe doesn’t work.
This doesn’t augur well for the rest of the tour in this particular place.
Before we leave, some photos of our room, and the lack of a bathroom.
Separate doors for shower and toilet, and on the other side of the passage, the washbasin
Feng Shui seems to have been forgotten when planning this room.
The next morning we discover that other rooms do have bathrooms but they’re small. Some have neither tissues or toilet paper, another has a faulty power socket and cannot recharge the phone, and I’m sure there are other problems.
All in all, it seemed very odd to have the toilet and shower on one side, and the wash basin on the other side of the passage.
With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.
That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.
He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.
I kept my eyes down. He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup. I stepped to the other side and so did he. It was one of those situations. Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.
Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic. I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone. I shrugged and looked at my watch. It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.
Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.
At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’. I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light. As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.
A yellow car stopped inches from me.
It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.
Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car. It was that sort of car. I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on. The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.
My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.
At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.
At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring. I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road. I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.
At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.
I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did. There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me. It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.
Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me. As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.
Now my imagination was playing tricks.
It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.
In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter. I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.
I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in. I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.
So there are words on paper, and three times I’ve tried to fix it, or, perhaps just make it sound better because reading it in my head, there’s too little background and too many questions.
The flow of the story isn’t working for me, so I guess it’s time to sit down and work out what it is I’m trying to say.
The notion that our main character, Graham, is a loser seems to shine through, and that’s not what I’m trying to portray him as. No, far from it, it’s been a lifetime of bad choices that have put him where he is, and he knows it.
So, in part, this is about owning your mistakes, and it’s my job to make him come across as a hero in waiting. There’s good in him, perhaps too much, but there is also that attitude that led to all those bad choices, the one that can get him into trouble, and a sort of intransigence inherited from his father, that has more or less got him ostracised from the family.
I want this character to be a chop off the old block, both of whom are the type not to back down, not to say sorry, and, to quote a rather apt allegory, would cut their nose off to spite their face.
Graham’s intransigence led to his refusal to follow his father into business, refusal to go to University despite having the necessary qualifications, and just to round out the defiance, his choice of women whom he knew would meet with family disapproval.
And these factors, over a period of time, saw him bounce from a low-paying job to jobs with no prospects, and a string of failed relationships, until this moment in time, where he was basically on his own, working the graveyard shift as a security guard. The sort of job where qualifications weren’t looked for and workmates looked like and probably were ex-cons.
There are a few more details like the older brother, Jackson, politician and schemer, the same as his father before him (the seat was passed down through the family), like the younger sister who is a highly successful surgeon, married into immense wealth. His brother had been less successful in the marital stakes but what he lacked in a wife was more than made up with a string of highly eligible and beautiful women.
And, no, he doesn’t resent the fact they’re rich, or that his parents were, too, just that they treated him with contempt.
It was almost five years since the last time he had seen any of them, that last time he attended the family Christmas in Martha’s Vineyard, the ‘Stockdale Residence’ an ostentatious sprawling fifty-room mansion that, in a drunken rage, he’s tried to burn down.
Once again, he had not received an invitation to the next, due in a few days, and it was not entirely unexpected.
Graham has his faults, but that even, five years ago, had pulled him off the road to self-destruction, helped along by a year stint in jail where he learned a great many lessons about life itself, and survival.
The four years since?
A lot of regrets, and a lot of repentance. Life after jail was a lot worse than life trying to defy the family and the system. There were two roads he could have gone down, and thankfully for him, it was not the wrong one.
So, he’s back on the path, a whole lot wiser, a whole lot tougher.
That might not have been exactly what I was thinking for him over the first three attempts. I don’t think any character really begins to shine until halfway through, as you find him meeting various challenges in ways even you, as the writer, find quite unexpected.
Is that the end result of being a pantser over being a planner?
I don’t think, even as a planner, you can create a character that’s not going to change, or even surprise you, as the story evolves.
And somehow I don’t think I’m about to change from one to the other.
John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums. Looking for new opportunities, prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.
Suddenly he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.
If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favor for him in Rome.
At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.
That ‘favor’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follow.
Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
Where is Boggs
…
It was getting to the point where I couldn’t remember the last time I saw Boggs.
I’d dropped by his place and found his mother having a cup of coffee before heading off to her day job. Boggs, she said, had gone off somewhere, these days he didn’t tell her what he was doing, and wouldn’t be back for an hour or so.
But, seeing me, she stopped cleaning and invited me in for coffee, and a chat. I knew it was going to be about what Boggs was doing, rather than what he was supposed to be doing, getting a job.
“Ever since he found his father’s papers in a box in the attic, he’s become obsessed with the treasure. There is no treasure, there never was, only in his father’s imagination. Anything to keep him from having a proper job. It was always about easy money, him and that layabout brother of his Rico.”
“What’s happened to Rico?”
I had meant to ask the sheriff, but he hadn’t dropped by to see my mother lately, and there’s been no news in the paper.
“He’s being indicted for murder. He didn’t do it, or so he says. I knew he was a criminal, but I didn’t think he was capable of murdering anyone. Seems I was wrong. We can’t afford a lawyer and the person the court has appointed to represent him is not very good.”
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think Rico killed him either.”
“Who was he, this man on his boat?”
“An archaeologist. Someone who knew about treasure, though I’m not sure it’s the treasure Boggs is looking for, more about some coins that were found in the ocean off the coast. I think that discovery put a fire under the other treasure story, you know, coins falling out of the chests as they were being brought ashore.”
“You should tell Benny this.”
“He won’t believe me. Do you know anything that his father might have known and told you about?”
“It’s all he ever went on about, especially when he had too much to drink, how it was going to make us rich and we’d live in a large house with servants. Look where it got us?”
Not in a large house with servants.
“The maps?”
“He drew them himself. Told me he had a commission from old man Cossatino to create treasure maps for the fools who believed there was treasure buried somewhere on the coast. They were all different.”
“Was there an original map that he based all the others on?”
She shook her head. “No. Though he did say one time that he’d seen a map out at the Cossatino’s place in Patterson’s Reach, up on the wall that looked old. Probably just a piece of artwork because they had a lot of paintings and artwork on the walls. Knowing the Cossatino’s, they probably invested the first map themselves.”
“Boggs said he had an original, found it in his father’s stuff.”
“A copy of a copy most likely. I don’t think Al knew what was real and what was not in the end. He stopped talking to me about it because, by that time, I’d had enough of his obsession and told him to get a real job.”
“What happened to him, do you know?”
“The last I remember was that he told me this time he’d worked out where the treasure was buried, what he called the ‘X marks the spot’ moment. I ignored him, because there had been dozens before that with no results, and by that time we were defaulting on everything, I was working two jobs, and just too tired to care. We argued, he stormed out and that was the last I saw of him.”
“Lenny reckoned he went down the hotel and started bragging about having found where the treasure was.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time. As far as the investigation into his disappearance went, he was seen leaving with two men in suits who had arrived in town earlier that day, asking for him. They said they were reporters doing a story on the possibility pirates from the Caribbean had buried treasure along the Florida coastline, and that he was something of an expert. He would have fallen for that flattery hook line and sinker. After that, nothing. Because he’s not officially dead, I can’t even get a death payout from the insurance company, so here we are.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s not your fault. I’m just glad he has a friend like you that cares. He’s never really got over his father’s disappearance, not the idea that cursed treasure exists. But he doesn’t listen to me, nor you, I guess, so all I can do is hope he finally comes to his senses eventually. Now, I have to go to work. If you find him, tell him to come home.”
David is a man troubled by a past he is trying to forget.
Susan is rebelling against a life of privilege and an exasperated mother who holds a secret that will determine her daughter’s destiny.
They are two people brought together by chance. Or was it?
When Susan discovers her mother’s secret, she goes in search of the truth that has been hidden from her since the day she was born.
When David realizes her absence is more than the usual cooling off after another heated argument, he finds himself being slowly drawn back into his former world of deceit and lies.
Then, back with his former employers, David quickly discovers nothing is what it seems as he embarks on a dangerous mission to find Susan before he loses her forever.
I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.
The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.
But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.
Chasing leads, maybe
…
Darkness fell in a noticeably short time, and we left the pub at about six. In the hour so we have been there I’d been keeping a close eye on the comings and goings, and in particular, if O’Connell came in, or someone else that might look like him.
He hadn’t, nor had any mythical family members. Well, it had been a long shot.
Jennifer hadn’t volunteered anything more to the conversation and sat working her way through a piece of fried fish and a bowl of chips. Neither had looked appetizing. I would have bet she’d have the chicken, but I was wrong, and probably it wasn’t going to be the first time.
“Do you have a gun?”
It was after ten minutes of silence. It worried me that she didn’t ask how far it was or how long it would take. And then, out of nowhere, the gun question.
“No. Why would I have a gun.?”
“We were issued with weapons. I still have mine.”
“Did you bring it with you?”
“No. Like I told you, I didn’t think I was still working for the Department. They didn’t ask for it back, so I didn’t give it to them.”
“Or the identities?”
“No. It was odd though; they didn’t ask about them either.”
“Maybe they were going to wait a while and then ask you back.”
This was a weird conversation to be having. By this time we were in Peaslake Lane, and not far from the house I pulled over to the side of the road, under a tree.
The houses were set back in a rural setting. Between the darkness and the undergrowth, the chances were we could get to the house without being seen. From where I was sitting, no windows or doors were visible.
I made sure the car’s internal light didn’t go on the moment the door was open.
“Are you bringing your cell phone?”
“Why. I’m not envisaging having to call anyone, nor am I expecting a call.”
I shrugged, and slipped mine into a pocket where I could easily reach it I needed to.
I got out of the car, and she followed. She left he bag in the car. The first sign of training kicking in; eave all un-necessary baggage behind. Perhaps having a gun might have been a good option if we ran into trouble.
Oddly enough, now that I thought about it, Monica hadn’t asked for mine back either, but it was sitting at home in a safe, along with the five other identities Severin had issued each of us with.
I locked the car, equally as silent and invisible as she joined me.
“Which house?”
“Three along. Follow me and keep your eyes and ears peeled.”
I didn’t have to tell her, but it didn’t hurt to emphasize the importance of stealth. There were people home in other houses, lights in windows just discernible through the trees, one house a window without a curtain, a view into the dining room, but there was no one at the table.
If we were visiting them, perhaps we’d be in time for dinner.
The house we were looking for was in darkness from our approach.
“You keep an eye open this side, and I’ll go around the other, then come back. I’ll see if there’s an easy entry point.”
“What if someone is home?”
“Doesn’t look like it from here, and I’ll be surprised if there is.”
A moment later she had disappeared into the shrub line and I was heading across the front of the house, heading for the other side. I kept well away from the front door, just in case there was a motion light, or worse, a motion detector that might set off a silent alarm.
But, that might already have happened, and if it had, no one had made a move inside.
Down the side was walls and windows, no doors or French doors leading out into the garden. None of the windows were at a decent height for us to clamber through, and if we had to, it was going to be difficult.
I continued on, around the back, where there was more success. French doors leading onto a patio, and then the lawn. In the corner was a greenhouse, and next to that a rose garden. Or at least that was what both looked like in the dark.
The moon, for the moment, was hidden by dark clouds.
Perhaps it would rain, though it had not been in the forecast, but, this was England, and it could rain at any time, especially when you didn’t want or need it. There was no light, or motion sensor over the French doors, so I crossed the patio and looked through the doors.
I had expected curtains, but these hadn’t been completely drawn. No large light or lamp on, but there were indicator lights, several red and one a particularly bright blue, casting a rather long shadow over furniture and what looked to be a carpet square.
Out of curiosity, I tried the door.
It was open.
Then I had the blind panic moment of thinking it might be alarmed.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 