The search goes on. The names are more exotics, the décor sometimes outrageous, and the girls from interesting to not so interesting.
It certainly isn’t cheap, but Radly said it wouldn’t be.
All of the women in charge either knew Radly, or the Turk, some with displeasure, others, well maybe it was all displeasure. They were forcibly taken over, and it would make a good subplot to have them all simmering over the take-back plan.
Perhaps that could be part of the end. It just means that Michelle has to take care of him, and by now I’ve decided that she will be if she can get the help and the means.
Originally, I considered a simple solution, Henry comes along, finds her, and they escape after rescuing two of her friends, and helping bring about the Turk’s downfall.
It just occurred to me that there should be a subplot involving police detectives, coming at the problem from a different aspect, and the two should meet.
Oops, that means a bit of backtracking and a small rewrite.
Now, she’s going to take the Turk and Felix down.
It might also mean I have to go back to the start, and flesh out a little more of Micelle’s background, leading up to, and why she ended up in Morganville.
Ugh!
Oh, and handing out a photo of her might just raise a little unwanted attention. We shall see…
“Go to Newark airport, go to the United booking desk and give them your name. Take proof of identity. Pack for five days, light.”
It was going to be, supposedly, a magical mystery tour. I read in a travel magazine, that a company offered five-day inclusive trips to anywhere. You do not get the destination, just what to take. Then, just be prepared for anything.
I paid the money and waited, until last evening when the email came.
I was ready.
When I presented my credentials as requested, I found myself going to Venice, Italy, a place I had never been before.
When I looked it up, it said it took about 10 hours to get there with one stop in between. Enough time to read up on the many places to go and see, though according to the instructions, everything had been arranged in advance.
I could also take the time to brush up on my schoolboy Italian.
When I got off the plane at Marco Polo Airport, in Venice, it was mid-morning, but an hour or so was lost going through immigration and customs. A water taxi was waiting to take me to a hotel where I would receive further instructions. I was hoping it would be on or overlooking the Grand Canal.
At the airport, I wondered if there was going to be anyone else on this trip, or whether I would be doing it alone. I’d read sometimes likeminded people were put together for a shared experience.
We had to agree and then fill out an extensive profile so they could appropriately match people. Sometimes, people joined at different times along the way, you just never knew what was going to happen.
That random unpredictability was just what I needed having just gone through a breakup after a long period of peacefulness and stability, and frankly, I would not have chosen this type of tour if I had not.
It was a pleasant half hour or so winding our way across open, choppy, stretches of water, then through the canals, having paid the driver extra to take a long route. I’d not been to Venice before, but I had read about it, and while some of the negative comments were true, it didn’t diminish the place in my eyes.
And the hotel, on its own island overlooking the main canal, was stylish and elegant, and my room was exactly where I’d hoped it would be. I think I spent the next hour just looking out at the city, and the boats going by, like a freeway, a never-ending stream of traffic.
A knock on the door interrupted what might have been described as a dream, by one of the concierge staff delivering an envelope with my name on it.
The note said,
“Take the hotel Vaporetto to St Mark’s Square and go to the first restaurant on the left as you walk away from the Doges Palace. Your reservation is for table 38, at 20:30 hours..”
All meals were included, each dinner at a notable restaurant in the town or city you spent the night or nights. I had already taken the time to wander around St Mark’s and look at the shops, mostly high-end, except for one, a confectionary store, next to a souvenir store.
That was a pleasant few hours working out what I would take home for various family members.
I also noted the many little alleyways that led away from the square, and if I had time the next morning I might explore. A gondola ride was also on the bucket list.
When I arrived and announced myself, I was taken to table 38. I was not the first, another traveller, a woman about my age, mid-thirties was sitting, with a drink in front of her.
She observed my arrival and approach, and it was a little strange. It looked like this was going to be not a solo expedition. “Ace Adventurer?” she asked.
“Not so sure about Ace, but adventurous, maybe.”
“I know how you feel. I was not sure what to expect?”
“Beautiful scenery, great Italian food, hopefully, and good company to share it with.”
The waiter asked if I would like a drink, and I selected an Italian beer. This was going to be a beer, and wine odyssey. I was one of those when in Rome, types.
“You like to travel?” There was a brief, awkward silence, so she opened the conversation with what was a safe question.
“Yes. Though I didn’t get many opportunities before this, because of work, and my wife’s illness. She passed recently, and I figured it was time to get out of the house and do something positive.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
To me, the moment I said it, I sounded like a lame duck, and had to wonder why I did.”
After fifteen minutes the waiter returned with menus. It appears we were going to be the only two. Interesting concept.
Selecting items off the menu, we learnt about each other, that we could both read, and speak, after a fashion, Italian. Immediately it became a thing to only speak Italian from that point.
We liked the same food, and almost ordered the same items. We liked the same wine, but she did not drink beer.
She liked photography, but more professionally than me, and her camera was worth more than my car. Me, I was happy with my cell phone. We drove the same type of car, liked to go to the same places, and she too had suffered a recent bereavement.
It was as if the tour company had found me a perfect match.
We were staying in different hotels and parted company at the restaurant. I was not going to suggest we wander along the canal front, she seemed tired. We were both staying, having not received the next instructions, so we left it with a perhaps we might see each other again in the morning.
If it was meant to be.
It wasn’t one of those I could have danced all night moments, but it was different, and I was glad not to be wallowing like I would have if I had not made an effort to get away. It certainly made the visit to Venice a highlight.
The next morning there was an envelope under the door, I was thinking it was a note from the hotel about checking out, but instead, it was a questionnaire, short and to the point.
“Would you prefer, a) continue alone, b) continue with Ms Bainford, or c) someone else?”
I selected b) but added a provision, only if she wished to continue with me, and then took it back to reception.
After a leisurely breakfast, I caught the Vaporetto to the other side of the canal, near a church, and then wandered back towards St Marks, had pizza for lunch in a quaint little restaurant outside yet another church, before exploring one of the alleyways going off the square, reportedly leading to the train station.
It was not far from the station I came across Lesley sitting at a café having coffee and watching the world go past. She smiled when she saw me.
“Lost?” she asked when I sat down.
‘No, well, at least I don’t think I am. You see a railway station around here?”
She pointed further along the lane. “That way. I think. I have been lost, but fortunately, I found a nice resident who knew the way. Divine coffee, you should get a cup.”
I did.
We both watched the world go by in companionable silence, until she asked, “Do you know where you’re going next?”
“No. I was surprised I was not moving on today.”
“Perhaps they thought we needed to soak in the aesthetic beauty Venice has to offer. Pity it’s not when the Carnival of Venice is on, dressing up and wearing a mask. It sounds like fun.”
“You could always come back. When is it?”
“February. I might just do that, it’s not as if I have anything or anyone that prevents me from doing anything.”
She stood and held out her hand. “Shall we roam aimlessly and soak in the aesthetic beauty? Let the alleys take us where they may.”
I took her hand in mine and stood. “Why not?”
The afternoon was a blur, dinner sublime, parting sad.
We both know instinctively that this could and probably would end, and the spell was broken when we parted, again at the restaurant. There were words to be said, but it was too soon, and enough ambiguity to part almost content, but with that little longing that it might continue.
I found an envelope on the desk in my room when I returned.
“Your next stop will be Florence, a city that is waiting for you to explore. Take the Italo Treno from Venice station to Florence, the ticket, with a seat assignment, is enclosed. You are booked at the Hotel Brunelleschi. Enjoy!”
It made no mention of travelling companions or anything else, but then, it was just my travel arrangements.
I checked out the flowing morning and took a water taxi to the railway station. I was glad I was travelling light, the station was crowded and it took a few minutes to find the train.
It was one of my hobbies, the methods of travel, whether it was trains, planes, trams, ships, ferries, or boats, all were fascinating in their own way.
This was a bullet train, similar to those in France, Japan, and China.
It was a relief to have a booked seat and business class. I expected no less.
I found the carriage and then the compartment. And then a surprise.
Lesley.
“Florence?” she asked.
“Florence. Did you …”
“Tick a certain box. I did. Please, sit. We have much to talk about.”
I’ve been investigating, another word, perhaps, for research!
On how to become an overnight success.
It’s a mistake, I know, because everyone is different, everyone has their own way of doing things, and success comes for different people in different ways, quite often not able to be replicated by others.
What’s the expression, you had to be there.
I read success stories, I read what these people did to get 1,000 extra Twitter followers in a day, a week, or five minutes, sold thousands of copies of their books in a month, from absolutely nothing, and/or have the formula for success.
All you have to do is part with, hang on, yesterday it was $495.00, but today only, just for you, it’s $69.95.
Read the fine print, this might not work for you. And, generally, who reads the fine print.
I read about other authors using book promotion services, yes we had 250,000 twitter followers just aching to buy you book.
Read the fine print, it depends on a whole lot of factors whether it sells or not. You could be ‘lucky’. Most authors are not.
What’s the answer?
I think it’s at the bottom of the abyss, where I’m in free-fall heading rapidly towards.
If I happen to find the answer and become ultra successful, I’ll be happy to share it for nothing. It’s not going to affect my sales, not once I’m established.
It’s just taking that first step.
Perhaps I need to believe that hard word and perseverance will work.
I’m also sure there are 101 ways to taking that first step, and someone out there knows one, or two, and someone else, knows another. It’s just finding those people who do know, and who are willing to share, not for $495, not for $69.95, but because they want to do it to help others.
And maybe, just maybe, all those who gain the benefit their wisdom will buy their books.
Hang on, perhaps that’s number one on the list of 101 ….
This is the moon, unexpectedly observable in the late afternoon.
For me, the moon provided inspiration for an episodic story I have entitled, for now, ‘I always wanted to see the planets’.
It’s about a freighter captain who gets a gig as First Officer on an exploratory starship, who by a series of inexplicable events gets promoted to captain, and has to navigate not only the outer reaches of space, but new species.
But in the back of my mind there is that expression ‘shoot for the moon’, which could mean almost anything.
It could mean going for the unobtainable, whether it be a job, or the partner of your dreams. Failing can be heartbreak. Success might mean you’d be ‘over the moon’.
Them there’s travelling to moon, perhaps the next logical step for regular people, heading off the spend a week on a moon base hotel. I’m not sure what we would see out there in space; Perhaps a UFO?
Fictionalised, a moon base might just be the meeting place for various species, and being the mystery writer I am, what if there was a murder?
Before I called, I had one question for the second officer; where were we heading. The answer was not surprising, Uranus.
The next question was why the alien pirate had told us. The first answer that came to mind, we would never get there in time, that is, he had a much faster ship than us.
Us humans were going to have to get a lot savvier in a hurry.
I had a special channel to call in space command if anything went wrong. As the Admiral had said, he didn’t want our mistakes to be front-page news.
This was not a mistake, but it was news that might start riots. A lot of people had been against going out into the universe to explore.
My first attempt to raise him failed. It was when I realised it would be around 3am where he was, and hardly at his console waiting for me to call him.
But, 10 minutes later, he was calling me.
‘I take it this is about Vanderhoven and Myers.”
Again, it took a moment to remember that the ground crew could monitor everyone on the ship, a precaution because we were heading where no human had been before.
“We were boarded by an alien who transported onto and off the ship the same was transport inanimate objects. He purported to be chasing after the pirates who stole the plutonium fuel rods bound for Venus, and was asking for our help in chasing down the perpetrators. It was a ruse to keep us occupied while his men were looking for Myers.”
“They stole plutonium?”
Again, not my first question. “I think the first revelation might be the more significant, that there are other life forms out there.”
“And hostile?”
“I don’t think they plan to attack Earth sir, because according to this alien, they have had people on our planet since before the second world war.”
“And you believe him?”
“Do we know of any rogue earth-based people who could secretly put together a ship vastly superior to this one, which is supposedly the best we’ve ever had?”
His silence told me there wasn’t, not that he’d probably tell me if there was, but his expression spoke volumes. He also looked deep in thought.
Then, “In the absence of the captain, you’re it. I’ll confirm it within the next few hours. Do you know where they’ve gone?”
“I believe so. One of Uranus’s moons, Coronis.”
“That’s nothing but ice.”
“Maybe. Well, know more when we get there.”
OK. I want a more detailed report of the incident in two hours. Something you should be aware of, your ship is capable of an SSPD factor of 10, not 4. We were not going to tell anyone until after the shakedown. I’ll talk to the Engineer, and he’ll get back to you when it can be implemented. Keep me informed.”
The screen went dead.
As number one I was responsible for making the Captain look good. As captain, I was now responsible for a priceless ship and all 2,223 souls aboard.
Too much, too soon.
But before I had time to consider it, the scene officer was back.
And it’s very hard to process what I feel about it.
Have I ever considered what it might be like to live until I was 98 years old? Would I have hoped that mind and body fit enough to know what is going on, that I might reach the age of 100?
I’m nearly 69, and still with reasonable mobility and clarity of mind. It’s possible.
Sadly, for my father, it’s not. Having contracted COVID at the nursing home where he was living, he has been in a battle to survive. Over the last three weeks, it’s been a journey of ups and downs.
This morning, at 6:11 am, he died.
It’s is supposed to be a moment of sadness, mourning the loss of a family member, especially since he was my father.
Unfortunately, although I do feel a sense of sadness, it is not a moment that causes intense grief. It might have been, had he not embarked on a path that put a wedge between us, and equally sadly, had not spoken in nearly 8 years because of it.
Yes, bridges could have been mended, but as the saying goes, it takes two to tango.
I guess, in the hours since this morning, I’ve had time to reflect. In those years since our last meeting, a very bitter and acrimonious argument, I made an effort to find out more about him, his life, and perhaps reasons why he became the man he was.
It would be easy to blame the war. After all, so many men came back broken. Back then, no one knew about PTSD, and after hearing some of the stories of what it was like in New Guinea, added to malaria while he was there, and for a long time off and on after he returned home, it’s not surprising there were demons.
it would be easy to say that he was a man from a particular era, brought up in a world where men were the boss, that women were supposed to stay at home and look after the man, the house, and the children, in that order. And do as they’re told, or else…
It would be easy to say that in the days he was a child growing up, the cycle of domestic violence would have been part of his life, a life that he would not know wasn’t the norm, not like now.
It would be easy to say that if he knew he was my mother’s second choice, that she would always love the first man in her life, and that she would not look after the house, and care less about the children, though she might have cared for him once, that disappeared long before we children understood.
But it was what it was.
The cycle of domestic violence stopped with us children. The cycle of vicious discipline stopped with me. I did not perpetrate any of that on my family, and that had paid forward my children’s behavior towards theirs.
At a funeral, we always look to bring out the good points of their lives, not the bad. In those first 20 years at home, it had its moments, but the mind, in its infinite wisdom, tends to close off those memories and look back on the good memories, afternoons at the football or cricket, the tent holidays at Easter, and Christmas when we weren’t painting the house, school holidays with our friends building cubby houses out of whatever we could scrounge from nearby building sites.
At times he was larger than life, starting a Worker’s Club for ordinary people, and a junior Football League to give boys between 6 and 14 a place to go rather than become idle adolescents.
There’s still a story to be told about his life, one we are still finding out like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the fact he was a projectionist before the war, the fact he became a cook just before he joined the army, he was a soldier in the war, as a cook and a gun layer, a somewhat odd combination, the fact he went to England, and Europe, after the war, and was engaged to be married to an English girl, the fact he worked at the Snowy River Hydro-Electric scheme as a projectionist after the war, how he met my mother (so very Dolly Levi – ish), and how his relations with his family were fractured, almost beyond repair. It explains why we never saw any of his relatives.
It’s a story my brother and I will no doubt explore for many years to come.
Now, at 98, his innings is over.
Perhaps now he will be in a better place and find the happiness he so long searched for but never quite found in this lifetime.
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.
…
After a night with Nadia
…
Was it a revelation to discover there was a side to Nadia that I would never have suspected? All those years of being terrified of her, and her brother, had hidden it, from me and probably a lot of others.
Perhaps she hadn’t known any better, and that time away from her parents and family had opened her eyes to another world, one where you didn’t have to be the scariest person in the room.
I was going to wait until she went to sleep, but she asked me to join her on the top of the bed and then snuggled into my back. At first, I was terrified, of what, I was not sure, but after a while, realizing I was not going to get away at a reasonable hour, I relaxed, and overcome with tiredness, fell asleep.
When I woke, she was on the other side of the bed, changed out of her clothes and into demure pajamas. Had she been waiting for me to wake?
“You have a contented look about you when you’re asleep,” she said. She was facing me, awake but a certain weariness had come over her.
“My father used to call it the sleep of the just. I never quite knew what that meant. I try not to have dreams or nightmares. Please tell me you haven’t lain there watching me. That would be far too creepy.”
“Just for a bit. I’m not used to being with a man, even if there’s nothing happening. Which is good, by the way. I want us to remain friends, and soon as something else starts, that’s where it all ends..”
Obviously, she had been thinking about stuff, like all girls seem to do, making a simple friendship into something a lot more complicated, and the last thing I needed was complicated. Or Vince knocking on my door.
“I’ve got a few hours before I have to go to work, and I was going to visit a few churches.”
“Why?”
“It might help to track down the Ormiston relations and see what they’ve got to say about the treasure.”
She sat up, a more serious expression taking over. “You think there’s more to the story.”
“What story?”
“Well, it’s obvious you know about Boggs’s grandfather and old man Ormiston, the chap who owned all the land from the mountains to the sea, at one point in time. It’s where we bought our property at Patterson’s Reach. It’s a dump of a place that smells because of oil shale and gas leaks. There’s a fault line through the middle of it and makes all the land near it unsellable. The people who negotiated the deal with Ormiston were cheated, or so it goes, so there’s no love lost between the families.”
Interesting, and probably why Patterson’s Reach was an undeveloped backwater. No residential or commercial zoning.
“Good to know, and definitely a reason to stay away.”
“You want coffee?” She asked, changing the subject. “I had some sent up earlier.”
Which sent an alarm bell off in my head. What if the room service person saw me in her room? It wouldn’t take much for him to tell her father, or worse, Vince.
“He didn’t see you if that’s what you’re thinking.”
My mother said I had an expressive face.
“We have to keep this thing, whatever we have, under wraps, otherwise Bogg’s might get upset, and at the moment he’s not very happy with me.”
“Because of me?”
“Partly, but more because I have to work, and I’m no longer at his beck and call.”
“Then you’d better get up so we can trawl the churches. I could do with a religious refresher. We’re Roman Catholic by the way, and my father doesn’t believe in mixed marriages.”
“I’m not converting, nor are we getting married.”
“Pity. I reckon I’d make a good wife.” And then she laughed. “You should see your face.”
Right. Sometimes it was hard to know when she was joking. But just the same, it would never work.
I shrugged. “You could do a little better than a warehouse clerk.”
“Sometimes it’s not what you are, but how you make a person feel, and right now, I feel happy. But, as you say, I could do a lot better.”
Oddly, after hearing that, I felt a little disappointed.
“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.
When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.
From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.
There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.
Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.
Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?
Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?
Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?
“Go to Newark airport, go to the United booking desk and give them your name. Take proof of identity. Pack for five days, light.”
It was going to be, supposedly, a magical mystery tour. I read in a travel magazine, that a company offered five-day inclusive trips to anywhere. You do not get the destination, just what to take. Then, just be prepared for anything.
I paid the money and waited, until last evening when the email came.
I was ready.
When I presented my credentials as requested, I found myself going to Venice, Italy, a place I had never been before.
When I looked it up, it said it took about 10 hours to get there with one stop in between. Enough time to read up on the many places to go and see, though according to the instructions, everything had been arranged in advance.
I could also take the time to brush up on my schoolboy Italian.
When I got off the plane at Marco Polo Airport, in Venice, it was mid-morning, but an hour or so was lost going through immigration and customs. A water taxi was waiting to take me to a hotel where I would receive further instructions. I was hoping it would be on or overlooking the Grand Canal.
At the airport, I wondered if there was going to be anyone else on this trip, or whether I would be doing it alone. I’d read sometimes likeminded people were put together for a shared experience.
We had to agree and then fill out an extensive profile so they could appropriately match people. Sometimes, people joined at different times along the way, you just never knew what was going to happen.
That random unpredictability was just what I needed having just gone through a breakup after a long period of peacefulness and stability, and frankly, I would not have chosen this type of tour if I had not.
It was a pleasant half hour or so winding our way across open, choppy, stretches of water, then through the canals, having paid the driver extra to take a long route. I’d not been to Venice before, but I had read about it, and while some of the negative comments were true, it didn’t diminish the place in my eyes.
And the hotel, on its own island overlooking the main canal, was stylish and elegant, and my room was exactly where I’d hoped it would be. I think I spent the next hour just looking out at the city, and the boats going by, like a freeway, a never-ending stream of traffic.
A knock on the door interrupted what might have been described as a dream, by one of the concierge staff delivering an envelope with my name on it.
The note said,
“Take the hotel Vaporetto to St Mark’s Square and go to the first restaurant on the left as you walk away from the Doges Palace. Your reservation is for table 38, at 20:30 hours..”
All meals were included, each dinner at a notable restaurant in the town or city you spent the night or nights. I had already taken the time to wander around St Mark’s and look at the shops, mostly high-end, except for one, a confectionary store, next to a souvenir store.
That was a pleasant few hours working out what I would take home for various family members.
I also noted the many little alleyways that led away from the square, and if I had time the next morning I might explore. A gondola ride was also on the bucket list.
When I arrived and announced myself, I was taken to table 38. I was not the first, another traveller, a woman about my age, mid-thirties was sitting, with a drink in front of her.
She observed my arrival and approach, and it was a little strange. It looked like this was going to be not a solo expedition. “Ace Adventurer?” she asked.
“Not so sure about Ace, but adventurous, maybe.”
“I know how you feel. I was not sure what to expect?”
“Beautiful scenery, great Italian food, hopefully, and good company to share it with.”
The waiter asked if I would like a drink, and I selected an Italian beer. This was going to be a beer, and wine odyssey. I was one of those when in Rome, types.
“You like to travel?” There was a brief, awkward silence, so she opened the conversation with what was a safe question.
“Yes. Though I didn’t get many opportunities before this, because of work, and my wife’s illness. She passed recently, and I figured it was time to get out of the house and do something positive.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
To me, the moment I said it, I sounded like a lame duck, and had to wonder why I did.”
After fifteen minutes the waiter returned with menus. It appears we were going to be the only two. Interesting concept.
Selecting items off the menu, we learnt about each other, that we could both read, and speak, after a fashion, Italian. Immediately it became a thing to only speak Italian from that point.
We liked the same food, and almost ordered the same items. We liked the same wine, but she did not drink beer.
She liked photography, but more professionally than me, and her camera was worth more than my car. Me, I was happy with my cell phone. We drove the same type of car, liked to go to the same places, and she too had suffered a recent bereavement.
It was as if the tour company had found me a perfect match.
We were staying in different hotels and parted company at the restaurant. I was not going to suggest we wander along the canal front, she seemed tired. We were both staying, having not received the next instructions, so we left it with a perhaps we might see each other again in the morning.
If it was meant to be.
It wasn’t one of those I could have danced all night moments, but it was different, and I was glad not to be wallowing like I would have if I had not made an effort to get away. It certainly made the visit to Venice a highlight.
The next morning there was an envelope under the door, I was thinking it was a note from the hotel about checking out, but instead, it was a questionnaire, short and to the point.
“Would you prefer, a) continue alone, b) continue with Ms Bainford, or c) someone else?”
I selected b) but added a provision, only if she wished to continue with me, and then took it back to reception.
After a leisurely breakfast, I caught the Vaporetto to the other side of the canal, near a church, and then wandered back towards St Marks, had pizza for lunch in a quaint little restaurant outside yet another church, before exploring one of the alleyways going off the square, reportedly leading to the train station.
It was not far from the station I came across Lesley sitting at a café having coffee and watching the world go past. She smiled when she saw me.
“Lost?” she asked when I sat down.
‘No, well, at least I don’t think I am. You see a railway station around here?”
She pointed further along the lane. “That way. I think. I have been lost, but fortunately, I found a nice resident who knew the way. Divine coffee, you should get a cup.”
I did.
We both watched the world go by in companionable silence, until she asked, “Do you know where you’re going next?”
“No. I was surprised I was not moving on today.”
“Perhaps they thought we needed to soak in the aesthetic beauty Venice has to offer. Pity it’s not when the Carnival of Venice is on, dressing up and wearing a mask. It sounds like fun.”
“You could always come back. When is it?”
“February. I might just do that, it’s not as if I have anything or anyone that prevents me from doing anything.”
She stood and held out her hand. “Shall we roam aimlessly and soak in the aesthetic beauty? Let the alleys take us where they may.”
I took her hand in mine and stood. “Why not?”
The afternoon was a blur, dinner sublime, parting sad.
We both know instinctively that this could and probably would end, and the spell was broken when we parted, again at the restaurant. There were words to be said, but it was too soon, and enough ambiguity to part almost content, but with that little longing that it might continue.
I found an envelope on the desk in my room when I returned.
“Your next stop will be Florence, a city that is waiting for you to explore. Take the Italo Treno from Venice station to Florence, the ticket, with a seat assignment, is enclosed. You are booked at the Hotel Brunelleschi. Enjoy!”
It made no mention of travelling companions or anything else, but then, it was just my travel arrangements.
I checked out the flowing morning and took a water taxi to the railway station. I was glad I was travelling light, the station was crowded and it took a few minutes to find the train.
It was one of my hobbies, the methods of travel, whether it was trains, planes, trams, ships, ferries, or boats, all were fascinating in their own way.
This was a bullet train, similar to those in France, Japan, and China.
It was a relief to have a booked seat and business class. I expected no less.
I found the carriage and then the compartment. And then a surprise.
Lesley.
“Florence?” she asked.
“Florence. Did you …”
“Tick a certain box. I did. Please, sit. We have much to talk about.”
It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.
John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.
So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?
That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.
What should have been a high turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point every thing goes to hell in a handbasket.
He suddenly realises his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.
The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.
All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 