This is a rotunda at Newfarm Park in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
We were here a week or so ago to attend an open wedding in the park, in fact, under one of the majestic Moreton Bay Fig trees which is shaped much like an umbrella.
Weddings are conducted in the rotunda only if it is wet.
So, my first inclination is to write a story about a wedding that doesn’t quite go to plan, which I venture to say would be quite a few.
The one I attended had a few hiccups along the way, the odd bout of nerves, and a little tension from the lack of planning, or a practice.
But, in the end, all is well
Our story though will be slightly different. I have always wanted to attend a wedding where:
-The bride or groom or both didn’t turn up
-The celebrant got lost
-Someone had an objection when asked I’d someone had any reason why the wedding shouldn’t take place and the reason
-A fight breaks out between the bride and groom’s families, though that’s usually at the reception after when more alcohol has been consumed and feelings are running high.
-The bride or groom, at the last second, says ‘I don’t’.
But if it’s not a wedding, I’d use it as a meeting place for two old lovers who had made a pact seventy years before, no matter what happened, and if they were still alive, they’d meet there.
How much water would there have been under that bridge?
And conversely, two new acquaintances, in a stolen moment, decide to run away together and meet at the rotunda before leaving … only one of the siblings told their parents.
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. Our standoff continues.
I can tell he’s not happy because when he’s going down the passage and I’m going in the opposite direction, he changes sides.
Instead of coming over to see what food he’s getting, he waits in another room. That is fine by me because it takes a little longer to find out he’s not in an eating mood.
And come to think of it, he no longer climbs up on the table when we’re having fish. I’ve told him more than once that eating off someone else’s plate is just not good manners.
Perhaps I should not be so concerned he’s not talking to me, because he’s almost become the cat I’ve always wanted.
What’s that expression, cut your nose off to spite your face.
But, it isn’t going to last. This morning when I go down to the library, which is just a fancy name for my writing room, he’s sitting on top of my closed laptop.
I never used to close it but the last time I cleaned it I found cat hair, an allegation he vehemently denied and tried to tell me it the dog we used to have.
I didn’t bother telling him the laptop is new, and the dog’s been gone for 12 years.
I ask him to move.
He yawns and makes himself more comfortable.
He still hasn’t realized that all I have to do is pick him up, and move him, which I do.
I sit down to start work, he jumps up on the table and gives me that ‘I dare you to do that again’ look, and I stare back with the ‘do you really want to do this’ look.
The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.
…
At least the helicopter pilot hadn’t hit the fuel tanks or any of the control wires.
Because of the holes in the fuselage, we couldn’t fly any higher than between two and five thousand feet or go as fast as Davies would like, but the plane settled into a routine and got us where we wanted to go.
Just a few miles from the base, fuel almost exhausted, we got a fighter escort.
At first, I thought the base commander thought we were an unidentified flying object, mainly because something else had been hit, our communications. We couldn’t tell the base we were coming, and they only had the Colonel’s transmission of an approximate arrival time, much earlier than the actual time we were supposed to arrive.
On the ground, we were met with fire trucks, and a military escort, with weapons that could take out a mouse at one thousand yards. Just in case we were terrorists, I suppose.
We were parked in a bay away from the main terminal area and had to wait for a half-hour before we were met by Lallo. Monroe’s comment, that he was probably finishing his lunch which would be more important than meeting us, had kept us waiting.
The two abductees were the first to leave the aircraft, then Shurl’s body was removed after the doctor certified he was dead.
Then the rest of us were allowed to leave the aircraft. A bus was waiting, and everyone bar Monroe and I had boarded and been taken away. Under guard. Perhaps their service had not mitigated their prison sentences. I didn’t ask Lallo why; I’d probably not get the truth anyway.
“Good job,” he said, after watching the bus depart. “Pity, it wasn’t done right the first time.”
A compliment followed by disparagement.
“Next time you can do the job yourself,” Monroe said. “And until you’ve been in the field and actually got shot at, you’d do well to keep that trap of yours shut.”
“May I …”
“…remind me you’re my superior officer? No. I’m sure that status won’t last much longer. I’m applying for a transfer.”
He looked at me. “What about you?”
“Nothing to say, except I don’t blame her. Now, since all you’ve done is prove to me you’re an idiot, I’ll take my leave.”
In the distance I could see a large American car, the sort that proliferated in the 1950s and 1960s before petrol prices were a problem, cutting across the runway at speed. Was it the owner of the DC3 coming to see the damage?
No. When it got closer I could see Bamfield, cigar in mouth, beaming. I suppose no one felt they had the authority to tell him not to.
The car stopped behind Lallo’s jeep and Bamfield got out, then leaned against the driver’s side door and looked at us over the roof.
“James, Monroe. Still alive I see. Pity about the plane; I know the chap who owns it. He’s going to be pissed when he sees the cannon holes. What happened?”
“Bad guys,” Monroe said.
“Of course. Get in, I’ll give you a ride back to the terminal. We can talk on the way.”
Neither of us moved. If Monroe wasn’t going to suffer fools gladly, neither was I.
“Well…”
“I’d rather walk,” I said.
“We’d rather walk, sir.” With a heavy emphasis on the ‘sir’.
“Look, you did a great job, minimal losses, and we got two assets back. Everyone is happy. But, we have a small problem down in South America…”
This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.
And so it begins…
…
What is the truth?
…
When I first started writing this story, I had an idea in mind where it would lead.
All I knew was that by the end of the story, a person who thought he knew what was right or wrong, would discover that the concept of right and wrong was just a matter of who told you what was right, even if it was wrong.
After all, he was on the right side, and doing good often meant doing anything and everything to ensure the bad buys didn’t win.
You know, the ends justify the means.
What if the one person you thought was on the side of truth and justice, was simply someone who wanted wealth and power and didn’t care how it was achieved?
The first draft of this story saw the main character, our protagonist, get sent on a mission that was compromised before it started. What he thought was a mentor, and killed in action, and only just avoiding the same fate himself, was later portrayed as anything but the honourable man he thought he was.
It was meant to be a glimpse into the smile and mirrors world where nothing is as it seems.
In editing, the story seemed to take on a new life, and the true meaning of what the Enemy Within is about starts to come through.
The Golden Mask Dynasty Show was located at the OCT Theatre in Beijing’s Happy Valley.
The theatre was quite full and the seats we had were directly behind the VIP area; as our guide told us, we had the best seats in the house.
The play has 20 different dance scenes that depict war, royal banquets, and romance. There are eight chapters and over 200 actors, and throughout the performance we were entertained by dancers, acrobats, costumes, lighting, and acoustics.
The story:
It is of romantic legend and historical memories, the Golden Mask Queen leads her army in defeating the invading Blue Mask King’s army, and afterwards the lands return to a leisurely pastoral life until the Queen forges a ‘mysterious tree’. When the tree has grown, the Queen has a grand celebration, and releases the captured Blue soldiers, much to the admiration of the Blue Mask King. This is followed by monstrous floods, and to save her people, and on the advice from the ‘mysterious tree’, the Queen sacrifices herself to save her people. The Queen then turns into a golden sunbird flying in the sky blessing the people and that of the dynasty.
Billed as the best live show in China, described as a large scale dramatic musical, “The Golden Mask Dynasty” it lived up to its reputation and was thoroughly enjoyed by all.
It was not just singing dancing and acrobatics, it had a story and it was told so that language and cultural issues aside, it worked. There was a narration of the story running beside the stage, but it was hard to divide attention between what was happening, and what was being related.
Then came the peacock dance, with live peacocks
And this was followed by a waterfall, well, I don’t think anyone in that audience could believe what they were seeing.
I know I was both astonished and in awe of the performance.
What a way to finish off our first day in Beijing.
Oh, sorry, that high was dented slightly when we had to go back to our room.
So, today’s seeming straightforward news event that didn’t make the front page, nor the next three, is about the death of a man and a woman who had just begun dating, their bodies being found in an ordinary suburban house.
The police received a call regarding their welfare and upon visiting the house, found the man and woman lying side by side on the floor, deceased.
The police were not treating the deaths as suspicious.
So …
What if …
The first thing that leaps off the page is the fact the police are not treating the deaths as suspicious.
That’s exactly the moment that investigators should be looking at the situation a little more closely because, in our scenario, the scene has a staged look about it, and on the surface, it appears to be a simple case of a dual drug overdose.
Firstly, the friends of the two were not aware they were ‘doing drugs’ and if they were, lying on the floor at home was the last place it would happen.
No drugs were found in the house, and the sniffer dogs could find no trace of any except on the bodies.
Secondly, in the upstairs office, a laptop computer was missing, only the cable and mouse were still sitting on the table. Curiously both their cell phones were missing, but nothing else. Between them, they had about 500 pounds, which meant, if there was foul play, the perpetrator had very specific items to take.
Nothing else was disturbed.
Thirdly, a quick examination of the bodies showed the woman had bruising to her neck, a sign that someone had held her in a choke hold perhaps, but the coroner would have a closer look.
Fourthly, a simple check on the names comes back with an access denied flag on the male.
That, as far as Detective Chief Inspector Barnes was concerned, was enough to change the investigation from death by misadventure, to a suspicious, possible murder.
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.
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.
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.
This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.
And so it begins…
…
What is the truth?
…
When I first started writing this story, I had an idea in mind where it would lead.
All I knew was that by the end of the story, a person who thought he knew what was right or wrong, would discover that the concept of right and wrong was just a matter of who told you what was right, even if it was wrong.
After all, he was on the right side, and doing good often meant doing anything and everything to ensure the bad buys didn’t win.
You know, the ends justify the means.
What if the one person you thought was on the side of truth and justice, was simply someone who wanted wealth and power and didn’t care how it was achieved?
The first draft of this story saw the main character, our protagonist, get sent on a mission that was compromised before it started. What he thought was a mentor, and killed in action, and only just avoiding the same fate himself, was later portrayed as anything but the honourable man he thought he was.
It was meant to be a glimpse into the smile and mirrors world where nothing is as it seems.
In editing, the story seemed to take on a new life, and the true meaning of what the Enemy Within is about starts to come through.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 