There’s something to be said for a story that starts like a James Bond movie, throwing you straight in the deep end, a perfect way of getting to know the main character, David, or is that Alistair?
A retired spy, well not so much a spy as a retired errand boy, David’s rather wry description of his talents, and a woman that most men would give their left arm for, not exactly the ideal couple, but there is a spark in a meeting that may or may not have been a setup.
But as the story progressed, the question I kept asking myself was why he’d bother.
And, page after unrelenting page, you find out.
Susan is exactly the sort of woman to pique his interest. Then, inexplicably, she disappears. That might have been the end to it, but Prendergast, that shadowy enigma, David’s ex-boss who loves playing games with real people, gives him an ultimatum, find her or come back to work.
Nothing like an offer that’s a double-edged sword!
A dragon for a mother, a sister he didn’t know about, Susan’s BFF who is not what she seems or a friend indeed, and Susan’s father who, up till David meets her, couldn’t be less interested, his nemesis proves to be the impossible dream, and he’s always just that one step behind.
When the rollercoaster finally came to a halt, and I could start breathing again, it was an ending that was completely unexpected.
The first stop is at a Jade Museum to learn the history of jade. In Chinese, jade is pronounced as “Yu” and it has a history in China of at least four thousand years. On the way there, we are given a story about one of the guide’s relatives who had a jade bracelet, and how it saved her from countless catastrophes. It is, quite literally ‘the’ good luck charm. Chinese gamblers are known to have small pieces of jade in their hands when visiting the casinos, for good luck. I’m not sure anything could provide a gambler with any sort of luck given how the odds are always slanted towards the house.
At any rate, this is neither the time of the place to debunk a ‘well-known fact’.
On arrival, our guide hands us over to a local guide, a real staff member, and she begins with a discussion on jade while we watch a single worker working on an intricate piece, what looks to be a globe within a globe, sorry, there are two workers, and the second is working on a dragon.
At the end of the passage that passes by the workers, and before you enter the main showroom, you are dazzled by the ship and is nothing short of magnificent.
Then it’s into a small room just off the main showroom where we are taken through the colors, and the carving process in the various stages, without really being told how the magic happens.
Then it’s out into the main showroom where the sales are made, and before dispersing to look at the jade collection, she briefly tells us how to tell real and fake jade, and she does the usual trick of getting one of the tour group to model a piece.
Looks good, let’s move on. To bigger and better examples.
What interested me, other than the small zodiac signs and other smallish pieces on the ‘promotion’ table, was the jade bangle our tour guide told us about on the bus. If anyone needs one, it is my other half, with all the medical issues and her sometimes clumsiness, two particular maladies this object is supposed to prevent. Jade to the Chinese is Diamonds to westerners, and the jade bangle is often handed down to the females of the family from generation to generation, often as an engagement present, to be worn on the left hand, the one closest to the heart.
There are literally thousands of them, but, they have to be specially fitted to your wrist because if it’s too large, you might lose it if it slips off and I didn’t think it could be too small. Nor is it cheap, and needing a larger size, it is reasonably expensive. But it is jadeite, the more expensive of the types of jade, and it can only appreciate in value, not that we are interested in the monetary value, it’s more the good luck aspect.
We could use some of that.
But, just to touch on something that can be the bugbear of traveling overseas, is the subject of happy houses, a better name for toilets, and has become a recurrent theme on this tour. It’s better than blurting out the word toilet and it seems there can be some not so happy houses given that the toilets in China are usually squat rather than sit, even for women. And apparently, everyone has an unhappy house story, particularly the women, and generally in having to squat over a pit. Why is this a discussion point, it seems the jade factory had what we have come to call happy, happy houses which have more proper toilets, and a stop here before going on the great wall was recommended, as the ‘happy house’ at the wall is deemed to be not such a happy house.
Not even this dragon was within my price range. Thank heaven they had smaller more affordable models. The object of having a dragon, large or small, is that it should be placed inside the main door to the house so that money can come in.
It also seems that stuffing the dragon’s mouth with money is also good luck. We passed on doing that.
After spending a small fortune, there was a bonus, free Chinese tea. Apparently, we will be coming back, after the Great Wall visit, to have lunch upstairs.
What happens when your past finally catches up with you?
…
Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.
Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment Will’s life slowly starts to unravel and it’s obvious to him it’s time to move on.
This time, however, there is more at stake.
Will has broken his number one rule, don’t get involved.
With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.
But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved there is going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.
This book has been written for some time and the manuscript was sitting in a box with half a dozen others gathering dust and not quite as complete, so this month it is going to get the makeover, a first draft for the editor.
And so it begins…
…
I’m getting behind
…
Not only does the reality of life get in the way of writing, but so do plot holes, and I guess this is why, in this sort of writing situation, it doesn’t pay to go back and read over some of what’s written unless you have to, which now I do.
I have.
And now wish I hadn’t. It’s a point where I feel like I’m getting bogged down.
The purpose of the exercise is to move forward, and I’m trying to, but the fact is, my subconscious was working overnight and pointed out a problem.
Why couldn’t I just wake up and imagine I was a No 1 bestselling author?
I tried to leave it alone, but it wasn’t going to happen. I had to fix it before going on.
It added a few hundred words, so now it’s back to burning the midnight oil yet again so that this part reads the way its supposed to.
I knew there was a reason why I didn’t like editing!
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 on her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, and 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 like 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 was 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, which 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, 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. In the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by a slow climb to the top. It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, but 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 the new job, the last thing she want was a reminder of what she left behind. New friends new life.
We packed her bags, threw out everything she didn’t want, a few trips to the op shop with stuff 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 were a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.
Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of planes departing, 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 to 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.
Everyone loves a drink, and that interesting expression, ‘what’s your poison’ often resonates at a bar when among friends.
The thing is, we are supposed to know what our friends drink, me, for instance, I like beer, preferably in a bottle and not local mass-produced brew if I can avoid it.
But, some like white wine, no preference to type, some like cocktails like a Manhattan, or a Long Island Iced Tea, very dangerous if made correctly which quite often it isn’t, or champagne, the real thing not just leftover wine carbonated and given a name like ‘sparkling …’ something.
Every now and then we need to have more than one drink, and that desire is fuelled by our emotions. A celebration, it’s two or three, just enough to allow the euphoria to seep in. A tragedy of any sort means more than a few, usually prefixed with a statement like, ‘I need to get hammered’, but not literally.
Perhaps that’s why it’s called drowning our sorrows.
Of course, there are other meanings for the word ‘drink’ and often poets, and romance novelists will refer to a phrase such as ‘drink in…’ where it may refer to a loving gaze or a look of adulation. You could also, at a stretch, drink in the sight of a magnificent landscape.
Then, at the end of that drinking session, good or bad, where you may have had the opportunity to drink in looks or locations, you might, if you didn’t play your cards right, get thrown in the drink.
Not in the glass, that’s a bit small, but it means a much larger body of water such as a pool, a lake, or the ocean.
And lastly, but probably not the only context for the word ‘drink’, it could be said you were ‘driven to drink’, and I don’t mean by another drinker to the hotel, bar, restaurant or party.
Driven to drink means you blame someone else for your recently acquired desire to drink as much as you can so that it blots out something or someone.
I’m officially blaming my dog for my drinking problem. He drove me to drink.
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 solace after disappointment, turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
He suddenly realizes 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.
I was going to say ‘Captain’s log supplemental’ and add a stardate, but the analogy might get lost because not everyone is a Star Trekker.
Needless to say, there’s always more to say about an event, especially when the mind is casting about for ideas to add or enhance a story.
It comes down to, does art imitate life, or does life imitate art? It’s an interesting question because, in this instance, art will be imitating, to a certain extent, life.
Perhaps what is lost in the telling is the inability of newly divorced people in working out where the boundaries are, whether or not they are entitled to know about the other person’s private life, and how that will make them feel.
I’m guessing when a marriage breaks down, there’s always a cause, and while the word amicable gets bandied around a lot, it’s said, but quite often not meant.
Does mummy have a boyfriend?
Does daddy have a girlfriend?
What generally happens is the children are the only ones who know what’s really happening to each of the parents, because they get transported between the two, as neither parent would want to be seen stopping the other from seeing them/
Of course, where the children are grown up and leading their own lives, the situation should be a lot easier.
But, where does this fit in with the story I hear you asking.
Marriages fall apart for many reasons. In the story, Bill acknowledges that it is largely his fault, and one suspects it’s probably an undiagnosed case of PTSD that back in the sixties and seventies was not really understood.
It led to both he and Ellen leading individual but separate lives whilst keeping up appearances for the sake of their children. There’s no doubting who brought them up, Ellen, and who had the greater influence over them, although, for the sake of this story, both couldn’t wait to leave home and live somewhere else.
They do, and together. They are not married and do not have children. They were not the cause of the breakup, and fortunately, neither of the girls blame one or the other parent.
But that doesn’t mean, over the years, that either parent hasn’t tried to use them to glean information about the other. It is how Bill discovered, some time ago, that Ellen had ‘a special friend’.
Yet, neither of the daughters have seen him, and not surprisingly, he had made sure that Bill has never seen him. It’s for a particular reason, one that will become obvious later in the story. It is, I think, a rather clever twist.
Also, Ellen is not a bad person and certainly wasn’t bad to Bill, perhaps more long-suffering. She did stay with him for a long time, mainly for the children, but also because she genuinely cared for Bill.
And Bill had not had another woman friend, not until he discovers his feelings towards Jennifer and even then, he keeps that to himself, even when he really doesn’t have to.
Probably one of the hardest things for a first-time author is not so much the writing but what is needed after the book is written.
You need a good description. Short, sharp, incisive!
There’s a ream of advice out there, I’ve read it all, and, still, I got it wrong.
I wanted simplistic, a short description to give the reader a taste of what’s in store, and let the story speak for itself.
No.
Apparently, a good cover will attract the reader to the book.
When I tendered my books on various sites to advertise them, sites such as Goodreads, and ThirdScribe, all was well with what I had done.
Then I submitted my books to a third site and they rejected the books because the covers were too simplistic and the descriptions mundane, and wouldn’t post them.
Wow.
There’s a huge blow to the ego., and just the sort of reaction that would make a writer think twice about even bothering to continue.
But…
Perhaps the person who wrote that critique was being cruel to be kind.
At any rate, I am changing the covers, and rewording the descriptions.
Will it be a case of ‘what a difference a cover makes’?
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 with 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…
——
SS Standartenfuhrer Wilhelm Schmidt and his men were looking forward to some rest and recreation, after they completed one small but vitally important job for the Reichsfuhrer: retrieve a traitor named Meyer and bring him back to Berlin so an example could be made of him to deter others.
A simple job, several days at best, very much a holiday in itself after several long years in various campaigns.
He always wanted to visit Italy and particularly Tuscany, and they would be staying in a castle, with, he had been told, a very refined wine cellar.
He had also been told there was a possibility that the column might be attacked on its way to the castle, and he had all of his men on high alert. He was almost disappointed nothing happened. He didn’t think it would. Few resistance fighters would hardly go up against the might of a panzer, and his crack troops.
He’d said as much to the castle commander, a double agent by the name of Wallace, known as British to the British and German to the high command. Schmidt had no interest in double agents, or agents of any kind, along with the intelligence services or the Gestapo for that matter. He was here for the traitor and then gone.
They made it without incident, the main gates opened for their arrival, then closed after the panzer and trucks were parked inside.
Wallace was waiting for him.
Salutes, then, “No trouble along the way?”
“No. Should there be? I know we were warned, but all we saw were war-weary Italian women and children, and a few old men.”
“The resistance is out there, led by an Englishman by the name of Atherton. I wouldn’t underestimate him and the few resistance left.”
Schmidt thought Wallace looked rattled, a man at the end of his tether. He’d seen quite a few like him, too long at the front, jumping at shadows.
“It won’t be a problem. I’ll send out a squad of 10 and they’ll mop up anyone left. They’re probably hiding in the woods, or, if they saw the tank, shaking in their boots. Chances are they will have left if they had any sense.”
Wallace hated arrogance, and Schmidt had it in spades. There would be little point telling him that this wasn’t a battlefield, but guerilla warfare against an enemy on their home ground. The fact Jackerby had not come back, or Fernando and his men told him Atherton was picking them off, one by one, if they left the castle.
If Schmidt wanted to go wandering around outside, that was his choice. Wallace was staying inside and waiting until they mounted an attack. Or for them to realise it was going to be a stalemate. He was now no longer interested in Meyer, that was Schmidt’s problem.
Schmidt selected 9 soldiers and put his second in command in charge of them with very specific orders. If anything, other than one of their men moved, shoot it. He did not want prisoners.
The rest of the men were sent to the makeshift barracks, a building that was used as a chapel not far from where the tank and trucks were parked. The rest of the castle’s men were also there, except for those on guard duty on the ramparts, and in the cellars where there were entrances from outside.
Not that anyone could get through the iron gates that were currently locked. Atherton and whomever he had with him would not be gaining entrance to the castle from below, and those on the ramparts would pick them off long before they reached the main gate, or the walls.
At strategic points on the rampart, machine guns had been set up, and a box or two of hand grenades were available. Wallace was fairly confident there was nowhere where Atherton could gain access, despite his clandestine exploration of the castle when he first arrived.
Wallace personally checked the sentry points and alertness of the guards.
Then he went down to the cellar and the gate where the soldiers involved in what was now called ‘operation mop-up’ were waiting for darkness to fall before leaving.
Wallace came down to see them leave, not surprised by the buoyed spirits and camaraderie of men who had been working together for a long time. He envied them. With the sort of work he and the few members of his team did, there was no time for any bonding, and each lived with the fact that they could not really trust anyone, even those they worked with.
Then, in a matter of minutes, in almost silence, they were gone, and the gate was locked. With any luck, the area would be cleared of resistance and locked down in preparation for the arrival of Meyer. His handler would be captured and would inform them of the pipeline further up the chain of command, and then he could put an end to the traitors escaping.
With any luck, he might still get back to Germany as a hero.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 