Month: February 2023

In a word: bath

Everyone knows that Bath is a city in England where the rich and pampered used to ‘take the waters’, whatever that meant.  I’ve been to Bath and it has lots of terrace houses built in a crescent shape.

I’ve been to the baths, too, which is another use of the word bath, a place where you clean yourself, or just soak away the troubles of the day, usually with a glass or three of champagne.

Apparently, the Bath baths have been there since roman times, and having been there and seen how old they look, I can attest to that fact.

We had a bath before we had a shower, and these days, a bathtub is usually a garden bed full of flowers rather hand a body.

Being given a bath sometimes means that you were comprehensively beaten in a game, like football.

Throwing the baby out with the bath water, a rather quaint expression means nothing like it literally does but describes a wife or husband cleaning up a spouse’s space without due regard to what she or he might want to keep, that is throw everything out.

If you take a bath, yes, you might get wet, but in another sense, it might be when you take a large hit financially.  And, these days, it doesn’t take much for super funds to suddenly have negative growth.

A bathhouse could be a place where there might be a swimming pool, not just baths, where people gather.  A notable one was seen in the movie ‘Gorky Park’.

“One Last Look”, nothing is what it seems

A single event can have enormous consequences.

A single event driven by fate, after Ben told his wife Charlotte he would be late home one night, he left early, and by chance discovers his wife having dinner in their favourite restaurant with another man.

A single event where it could be said Ben was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Who was this man? Why was she having dinner with him?

A simple truth to explain the single event was all Ben required. Instead, Charlotte told him a lie.

A single event that forces Ben to question everything he thought he knew about his wife, and the people who are around her.

After a near-death experience and forced retirement into a world he is unfamiliar with, Ben finds himself once again drawn back into that life of lies, violence, and intrigue.

From London to a small village in Tuscany, little by little Ben discovers who the woman he married is, and the real reason why fate had brought them together.

It is available on Amazon here:  http://amzn.to/2CqUBcz

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to write a war story – Episode 19

For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.

Whilst I have always had a fascination in what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.

And, so, it continues…

 

Marina drove the truck slowly and carefully, without the benefit of headlights on a night that have become very dark when cloud cover moved in.  A good night to be out on foot, but not in a few tons of metal.

It seemed to take longer to go back to the old factory, if that was what it was, or it may have just been my imagination.  Certainly, it was rather tense in the cabin.

I wondered if what Chiara had said about not trusting me had made Marina have second thoughts of taking me back.  From where we were, I would have no idea where it was, and if she dropped me off, I could not find it again.

And that fear came true a few minutes later when she pulled off to the side of the road, near some trees, and stopped, turning off the engine.

The silence crept over us like a fog.

Such was the atmosphere I found myself whispering, “What’s wrong.”

“Lights.  Appearing briefly and disappearing.  Like someone is following us.”

She sat still for about five minutes, looking intently at the rear vision mirrors, and at times turning around to stare of the small window at the back of the cabin.

I did too, but I couldn’t see anything, nor had I, but I hadn’t thought to look in the rear vision mirrors because I thought we were safe.  How wrong I was, to assume that.  If there was one lesson I should learn from what I was doing, was that I should know what’s going on around me and that at no time could I ever believe I’m safe.  The moment I did and let my guard down, I would be dead.  I’d been told that in London, and in a relaxed moment, I’d forgotten it.  How many others had done the same and died?

A shake of her head, she got out of the truck, and quietly closed the door.  I did likewise and joined her at the rear.

“What’s happening?”

“I’m going to check back over the road, see if there’s anyone following us.  There have been too many instances of lights for it to be coincidental.”

“Since we left the church?”  In thinking that, it meant that either Chiara or Enrico may have inadvertently, or deliberately, told someone about the meeting.

I hope it’s just my imagination, but it was shortly after we left I saw the first light.”

“Could be a local farmer stumbling around at night.”

“It could, but no one is that silly to be caught out after dark.  There was a curfew, and most of us like to believe there still is.”

She looked back down the road, but all I could see was inky blackness.  The moon was still hidden by dark clouds above, and it looked like there was going to be rain.

“I’ll come with you.”

“You’d be better off staying here.  The last thing I need is a soldier stomping around in the dark.”

Thanks for the compliment, I thought.  “Then I’ll have to be quiet, and try not to stomp.”

Even in the darkness I could feel rather than see the scowl on her face.

“As you wish, but don’t get in my way, and don’t make me shoot you.”


Short and wiry, she was built for stealth and speed, unlike the bulky soldier I was.  Not that I was overfed and fat, but I was still a larger target than she was.  I could just see her outline in front of me, and she was moving very quietly.

I was trying very hard to emulate her.

Then I saw it.  A light going on briefly, then off, definitely in the direction we had just come from.

She had stopped and I nearly ran into her.

“You were right,” I said quietly.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t be.”

So had I.  The last thing we needed was trouble, trouble that would have to be eliminated.  She couldn’t have anyone else knowing about their hiding places, and meeting points.

A few minutes further along, we both heard a strange sound at the same time.

A wheel scraping against a fender?  There was no engine noise.  It became louder, then we saw what it was.  Someone riding a bicycle.  Close to the edge of the road so as to remain hidden from view because of the turns in the road, which would account for seeing the light at odd times.  At the front, there was a light that was taped to show only a thin slit of light.

I saw her look around, then take hold of a long branch that had recently fallen off one of the trees, pared it down, and then waited.  I could see what she was going to do.

When the bike came alongside, moving slowly because it was up a hill, and the rider was labouring hard, she poked the stick through the spokes of the front wheel, the rider just seeing her at the last moment, and not being able to avoid her.

The result was predictable, the rider went flying over the handlebars and crashed into the hard ground with a thud and a loud grunt.  

My role was to jump on the rider so he, or she, couldn’t escape.  Marina was right behind me and jammed a dirty rag in the persons mouth as I held them very tightly under me.

“Now what?”

This was not going to work for very long as the person under me was beginning to kick and thrash about.  In a few seconds, the gag would be spat out and the silence would be shattered.

I heard the gun before I saw it, a whooshing sound near my ear just before it hit the head of the captive, and suddenly there was no more movement or sound.

“A moment’s silence.”

We rolled the figure over, and looked at the face, just visible in the near darkness.  We had just been blessed with a shard of moonlight for a few seconds.

A man.

“You know him?” she asked.

Another look, just as the clouds shut off the light, and I thought so.

“One of the soldiers from the castle.  How would he know we were meeting at the church?”

“He might not.  Nor might he be following us, but just unlucky.”

“How so?”

“Chiara sometimes entertains men from the castle.  Part of our eyes and ears.  She was not part of the resistance when Fernando was in charge so they would just use her like any other enemy soldier would.”

“So this was a mistake.  If he doesn’t return, then they’ll get the wrong idea.”

“Unfortunately.  He has to be dealt with.”

“Killed?”

“No time to get squeamish on me.  He’s an enemy soldier.”

An enemy I preferred to be some distance away from before shooting to kill.  Up close and personal makes it so much harder.

“Come on.  Grab his shoulders.  There’s a gully over there, so we can make it look like he ran into a tree, tipped off the bike and hit his head on a rock.”

“Or a gun.”

“A few hits with a rock will fix that.  I’m sure there’s no one up there that can do autopsies on bodies.”

No, there wasn’t.  I just hoped I was not going to be the one that had to hit him.


Ten minutes later it was done.

We carried him to the gully, and at a suitable place laid the body as if it had landed off the bike and onto the rocks, where Marina picked up a large one and hit him several times with a lot of force the last making a sickening sound, and the blow that killed him.

I went back and collected the bicycle and staged it to meet the crash criteria, and then left.

For all intents and purposes, he had died falling off his bike after wandering off the road in the dark.

Both of us hoped it would not cause Chiara any trouble.

And, it was the first person I’d seen killed up close, and I doubted, in the coming days it would be the last.  It was not a sight I was going to forget in a hurry.

© Charles Heath 2019

Writing about writing a book – Day 5 continues – Those annoying people called characters

Whilst it is always an idea to sit down and write and keep going, not worrying too much about the narrative, there’s always the problem of ideas about characters, and relationships that come back and need to be addressed.

I have issues with Jennifer in that we will need to know something about her, and need a little backstory.

Jennifer is the second most important character in this novel and one that has more talents than what my main character, or anyone else for that matter, thinks she has.  Of course, that is deliberate on her part for a number of reasons that will be introduced at the appropriate time.

But, at the start, all we will have to work with, is the introduction provided by the narrator.

It may go something like this:

 

Jennifer Pennington Smythe was, as you might expect, very English, very reserved, and very private.  She was the definitive ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, and I was guilty, at first, of suspecting she had once been a schoolmistress due to the severity of dress, demeanor, and expression.

HR had sent her to me when I’d requested an IT Specialist, though of what particular discipline it was never divulged, neither by HR nor by her.  She arrived one morning, told me she was to ‘help resolve our technical difficulties’, moved into an office that had been used as a storeroom, and worked hard to prove her worthiness in the role.

My first attempt at conversation was rebuffed, the second met with a very cold stare.  Everyone, including me, learned very quickly that any other topic of conversation than work would be ignored.  At the time it suited me, there was trouble in paradise and I didn’t want anything more on my plate to deal with.

 

So, what is this trouble?

There are three distinct stages of this relationship between the two most important characters, and it is the actions of one of the protagonists that brings them together.  This particular protagonist, of course, is the main character’s wife, a woman that is on the periphery for the period the novel covers, but a little background will be needed at some point before we reach this part of the narrative.

This now means that I will have to put together a back story for Bill and his ex-wife Ellen, not too much yet but enough to explain the next part of the evolving relationship between Bill and Jennifer.

 

I’m sure this topic is going to raise it’s head again and again…

Searching for locations: Oreti Village – No two sunrises are the same – 2

Oreti Village, Pukawa Bay, North Island, New Zeland

On the southern tip of Lake Taupo

Our first morning there, a Saturday.  Winter.  Cold.  And a beautiful sunrise.

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This was taken from the balcony, overlooking the lake.

The sun is just creeping up over the horizon

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It gradually gets lighter, and then the sun breaks free of the low cloud

It lights up the balcony

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And the trees just beyond, a cascade of colorful ferns.

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It looks like it’s going to be a fine day, our first for this trip, and we will be heading to the mountains to see snow, for the first time for two of our granddaughters.

The cinema of my dreams – It all started in Venice – Episode 18

Observing the enemy

…

“She’s not talking,” the detective who had been trying to get answers to various questions, said, after coming out of the room, looking somewhat exasperated.

I’d been watching him spar with her, and her legal representative telling her that unless the police had concrete evidence, she need not answer any questions, except with a ‘No comment’.  Not once though did she ask to leave, which she could do at any time.

That was interesting.

“I’m not surprised.  Technically she’s done nothing wrong, yet.  Perhaps we need to ask some different questions.”

He sighed.  “Then, by all means, do so.  I’ve been told you know more about her connection to Larry Fortescue, a person we are very familiar with, but this is a connection we’re not fully across yet.  You are aware we found several crates in one of her warehouses with his name on them, one of which had several blocks of C4 in it.  She claims it’s not hers and has no idea who it got there, but not the fact she knows him in passing.”

Denying as one would expect that there was more to the relationship other the acquaintances, and appropriate for so-called rival crime bosses.

“You have to admit, though, it’s not the sort of stuff your average beauty products sales person would have lying around.”

Nominally, she called herself a beautician who runs a chain of so-called health clinics which made the perfect front for other more nefarious activities, allegedly.  No one had yet proved without a doubt anything else happened there.

“These days nothing would surprise me.  Some of the chemicals we also found could very easily be ingredients for bombs, but she had the permits, and it’s all accounted for.  This is the first time we’ve been able to pull her in.”

“A routine check, or a tip?”

“Actually, someone called the hotline to say that men who looked like terrorists in a white van were unloading crates in a suspicious manner.  I kid you not, that was what we were told.”

Men who looked like terrorists.

“Now that Larry is implicated, well be happy to share what we have.  He would be a far likelier owner of the explosive, and this is a rare mistake on his part to leave his name on the crate.  This is the first lead we have on how he keeps one step ahead of us, using others to hold his stuff and why we can never find it in his possession.  He’ll deny it’s his and that it’s one of his enemies setting him up.”

“We’ve been trying to find him.”

“He’s in Sorrento Italy visiting his mother, and no doubt combining business with pleasure.  It’s no coincidence she is there, he’s looking for me.”

“Then he’ll be out of luck then.  Thanks for the info, I’ll get our people onto tracking him down.  He also has a few questions to answer.”

I looked at the screen on which I had been viewing the interview, noted the smug expression, and the body language that said she thought she was untouchable.

In a sense, she had every right to believe that.  She hadn’t been on Rodby’s radar until she took up with Larry.  Larry was Rodby’s obsession, why I never found out, and knew better than to ask.  Both she and Larry were well known to the police, and both had managed to keep out of jail because they were careful, though Larry had been far more careless in his younger days.

And for a person who was firmly entrenched, but more or less invisible in the criminal landscape, joining with Larry was her biggest mistake.

Rodby had brought a file with him and I read it in the car on the way here and it was another very thorough deep dive into a woman who for all intents and purposes was nothing like who she portrayed in real life.

A woman with secrets she believed were still intact.

Secrets I could use to gain some leverage, not that I ever liked doing so because often it involved innocents caught up in a world, not of their choice.

But she chose to be a criminal, and there were always consequences, unintended or otherwise.

Enough thinking, it was time.

© Charles Heath 2022

“Strangers We’ve Become” – Countdown to publishing in 26 days

Your friends are not my friends

…

So, integration into the Featherington empire is not going according to plan.

Whose plan, it might be asked.

Instead of just settling into a life of luxury and being the plus one for a woman who simply needed a consort, David has the nagging feeling everything around him is not as it should be.

He could cite the pain-killing drugs sending him into a world of conspiracies and hallucinations, that not everything around him was suspicious.

Take, for instance, her new business partners, far too handsome for their own good, and why is Susan flirting so openly with them?

Then there are the three Russian maids.  See no evil, hear no evil, speak evil, if they’re maids, why did they look and act like Russian spies?

Perhaps an old friend might be able to clear that up for him/

And why does the old family Butler, the only authentic person, other than the housekeeper who truly is both British to the core, and as genuine as they get, whispering in David’s ear that the mistress has changed, and he is concerned/

On day one in the London residence, it doesn’t take long to realize the walls have both eyes and ears, and thus the game’s afoot.

Once more he finds himself back in the murky world of lies and deceit.

…

The worst part of it is that he has no tangible truth that anything is amiss, and truth be told, David just wants everything to go back to the way it was.

I was just getting started when…

You know how it goes, you just get into a writing rhythm when the phone rings and it’s another of those pesky scam calls.

Or in my case not one but three, so far.

The first, to do with the NBN, which is Australia’s laughable answer to world-class internet, and which is, in reality, a complete stuff up that cost us, the taxpayers, 50 billion dollars, and for nothing.

Most nights during the peak hours, you cannot continuously stream without breaks, pixelation, or just nothing at all.

World-class?  I’m afraid not.  Perhaps I should relocate to Romania where, I hear, the internet is much faster and more reliable.

Enough with the rant, the call this time regarding the NBN is a scam, where they try logging into your computer and stealing everything, including banking information, credit card information, and the rest of your life, if it’s possible.

I have no life so they would be badly disappointed.

The second scam call id for solar panels.  Yes, they are selling solar panels, but they are the junk no one else wants, years out of date, and then charge three times what they’re worth, even when you get the government rebate.

I’ve got solar panels already, so I don’t care.  I just put the phone on the other side of the desk and let them prattle on.  They get the message eventually.

The next is for raffle tickets.  It generally relates to some form of charity, in which the caller goes through the charity’s functions chapter and verse and then try to hit you up for ten tickets at a discounted price.

Sounds legit.  Yes, I’ve heard of the charity.  Yes, I know what it does.

But…

It’s not the real charity calling, bt some scammer trying to get your credit card details, along with that all-important 3 digit cvc number.

Not today Josephine, or whatever your name was.

I’ve got an app on my phone that tells me if the caller is a scammer, and this one had red lights flashing and a large red ‘fraud’ stamped across it.

An hour later, all thoughts are gone.

I suppose I better have some lunch and try again later.

In a word: Might

We might have to use some might to beat the mite.  Confused?

Might is force, so expending might is much the same as what Thor does with his hammer.

We might expend some force, we this might is a maybe.  You’re never quite sure when someone uses the word might, whether or not they will actually do it.

I might do a lot of things, but somehow I never seem to get around to actually doing them,

Of and just for the record, it’s the past tense of the word may.  You know, you may do something, or you might not.

You might also use the word might when being polite, which seems to be a rarity these days because everyone is terse, tense, and it a hurry.

So might I go to the movie will aways get a resounding no if it means you get home late at night.   And you’re only 10 years old.

I might be interested, but I don’t think so.  Let me think about it.  Which also means no.

Of course, if you’re slack in doing homework, you might want to try a little harder next time.

What might have been if only you tried harder?

Then there’s that little pest called a mite, though it goes by a lot of other names, one of which is everywhere, a termite.

Or a dust mite.

It also could be used slangily for a child in distress, that is, look at that poor little mite, he looks so tired.

Or another word for slightly, for example, the girl seemed a mite embarrassed.

Inspiration, Maybe – Volume Two

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.

Perhaps it was.

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

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