Month: April 2024

Searching for locations: A typical diner, New York

We decided to have lunch in a traditional Diner.

On an early morning walk, I discovered the Brooklyn Diner, a small restaurant tucked away in a street not far from Columbus Circle, perhaps a piece of history from the American past.

After all, if you’re going to take in the sights, sounds, and food of a country what better way to do it than visiting what was once a tradition.

This one was called the Brooklyn Diner.  It had a combination of booths and counter sit down, though the latter was not a very big space, so we opted for a booth.

The object of going to a Diner is the fact they serve traditional American food, which when you get past the hot dogs and hamburgers and fries, takes the form of turkey and chicken pot pies among a variety of other choices.

Still looking for a perfectly cooked turkey, something I’ve never been able to do myself, I opted for the Teadition Turkey Lunch, which the menu invitingly said was cooked especially at the diner and was succulent.  I couldn’t wait.

We also ordered a hamburger, yes, yet another, and a chicken pot pie, on the basis the last one I had in Toronto was absolutely delicious (and cooked the same way since the mid-1930s)

While waiting we got to look at a slice of history belonging to another great American tradition, Baseball, a painting on the wall of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets field, long since gone from their home.

The Turnkey lunch looked like this

which didn’t seem to be much, and had this odd pasta slice on the plate, but the turkey was amazing and lived up to the menu description.

The Chicken Pot Pie looked like this

And looked a lot larger in reality than the photo shows.

But, sadly while it was not bad, it was a little dry, and could possibly do with using the more succulent thigh part of the chicken.

All of this was washed down by Long Island Ice Teas and Brooklyn Lager.

AS for the Diner experience, it’s definitely a 10 out of 10 for me.

NANOWRIMO – April 2024 – “The One That Got Away” – Day 16

A series of encounters

…

Agatha must have realised that her life was in danger, whether she expected her condition would worsen, sending her back to the hospital, or whether she was dying, that was clear enough in the letter she left behind, but that letter also had a fairly detailed rundown on everyone in the organisation, every suspicion she had, and what she and Howard were planning to do about it.

It was perhaps the most frightening document he had ever read, and with each succeeding paragraph, page, character, situation, and fear, he was able to slip into her shoes and feel the pain, anguish, and disappointment filtering through, and her feelings became his motivation.

This is the plan:

Meet the press.  Well, no, that wasn’t on the plan, but someone called a press conference, and he decided to crash it.

He had hoped meeting the General, one of the causes of her angst, would be later after he had time to prepare, but it wasn’t to be.  He’d met formidable commanding officer once before, and had heard far more about him, and perhaps had been at the end of an order or two if not directly, but he was also privy to scuttlebutt, and if rumours were true…

It doesn’t go well.

He does meet the impertinent reporter again with an interesting surprise attached.

There’s the other office, another PA, and yes it’s a test of patience he wasn’t expecting, but he did have some information on her that smooths the encounter.

And, so it goes, the usual grist to the mill…

…

Words today, 1,730, for a total of 26,667

An excerpt from “If Only” – a work in progress

Investigation of crimes doesn’t always go according to plan, nor does the perpetrator get either found or punished.

That was particularly true in my case.  The murderer was incredibly careful in not leaving any evidence behind, to the extent that the police could not rule out whether it was a male or a female.

At one stage the police thought I had murdered my own wife though how I could be on a train at the time of the murder was beyond me.  I had witnesses and a cast-iron alibi.

The officer in charge was Detective First Grade Gabrielle Walters.  She came to me on the day after the murder seeking answers to the usual questions like, when was the last time you saw your wife, did you argue, the neighbors reckon there were heated discussions the day before.

Routine was the word she used.

Her fellow detective was a surly piece of work whose intention was to get answers or, more likely, a confession by any or all means possible.  I could sense the raging violence within him.  Fortunately, common sense prevailed.

Over the course of the next few weeks, once I’d been cleared of committing the crime, Gabrielle made a point of keeping me informed of the progress.

After three months the updates were more sporadic, and when, for lack of progress, it became a cold case, communication ceased.

But it was not the last I saw of Gabrielle.

The shock of finding Vanessa was more devastating than the fact she was now gone, and those images lived on in the same nightmare that came to visit me every night when I closed my eyes.

For months I was barely functioning, to the extent I had all but lost my job, and quite a few friends, particularly those who were more attached to Vanessa rather than me.

They didn’t understand how it could affect me so much, and since it had not happened to them, my tart replies of ‘you wouldn’t understand’ were met with equally short retorts.  Some questioned my sanity, even, for a time, so did I.

No one, it seemed, could understand what it was like, no one except Gabrielle.

She was by her own admission, damaged goods, having been the victim of a similar incident, a boyfriend who turned out to be an awfully bad boy.  Her story varied only in she had been made to witness his execution.  Her nightmare, in reliving that moment in time, was how she was still alive and, to this day, had no idea why she’d been spared.

It was a story she told me one night, some months after the investigation had been scaled down.  I was still looking for the bottom of a bottle and an emotional mess.  Perhaps it struck a resonance with her; she’d been there and managed to come out the other side.

What happened become our secret, a once-only night together that meant a great deal to me, and by mutual agreement, it was not spoken of again.  It was as if she knew exactly what was required to set me on the path to recovery.

And it had.

Since then, we saw each about once a month in a cafe.   I had been surprised to hear from her again shortly after that eventful night when she called to set it up, ostensibly for her to provide me with any updates on the case, but perhaps we had, after that unspoken night, formed a closer bond than either of us wanted to admit.

We generally talked for hours over wine, then dinner and coffee.  It took a while for me to realize that all she had was her work, personal relationships were nigh on impossible in a job that left little or no spare time for anything else.

She’d always said that if I had any questions or problems about the case, or if there was anything that might come to me that might be relevant, even after all this time, all I had to do was call her.

I wondered if this text message was in that category.  I was certain it would interest the police and I had no doubt they could trace the message’s origin, but there was that tiny degree of doubt, about whether or not I could trust her to tell me what the message meant.

I reached for the phone then put it back down again.  I’d think about it and decide tomorrow.

© Charles Heath 2018-2020

Searching for locations: New York from a different perspective

It is an amazing coincidence that both times we have flown into New York, it is the day after the worst snow storms.

The first time, we were delayed out of Los Angeles and waited for hours before the plane left.  We had a free lunch and our first introduction to American hamburgers and chips.  Wow!

I had thought we had left enough time with connections to make it in time for New Year’s Eve, like four to five hours before.  As it turned out, we arrived in New York at 10:30, and thanks to continual updating with our limousine service, he was there to take us to the hotel.

The landing was rough, the plane swaying all over the place and many of the passengers were sick.  Blankets were in short supply!

We made it to the hotel, despite snow, traffic, and the inevitable problems associated with NYE in New York, with enough time to throw our baggage in the room, put on our anti cold clothes, and get out onto the streets.

We could not go to Times Square but finished up at Central Park with thousands of others, in time to see the ball drop on a big screen, exchange new year’s greetings, and see the fireworks.

Then, as luck would have it, we were able to get an authentic New York hotdog, just before the police moved the vendor on, and our night was complete.

The second time we were the last plane out of Los Angeles to New York.  After waiting and waiting, we boarded, and then started circling the airport waiting for takeoff permission.  We stopped once to refuel, and then the pilot decided we were leaving.

This time we took our eldest granddaughter, who was 9 at the time, and she thought it was an adventure.  It was.

When we landed, we were directed to an older part of the airport, a disused terminal.  We were not the only plane to land, at about one in the morning, but one of about four.  The terminal building filled very quickly, and we were all waiting for baggage.  The baggage belts broke so there were a lot of porters bring the baggage in by hand.

One part of the terminal was just a sea of bags.  To find ours our granddaughter, who, while waiting, sat on top of the cabin baggage playing her DSI until the announcement our bags were available, walked across the top of the bags till she found them.  Thankfully no one was really looking in her direction.

Once again we kept our limousine service updated, and, once we knew what terminal we were at, he came to pick us up.  This time we arrived some days before NYE, so there was not so much of a rush.  We got to the hotel about 3:30 in the morning, checked in, and then went over the road to an all-night diner where we ordered hamburgers and chips.

And a Dr. Pepper.

‘What Sets Us Apart’ – A beta readers view

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.

I’ve been told there’s a sequel in the works.

Bring it on!

…

The book can be purchased here:  http://amzn.to/2Eryfth

…

Mistaken Identity – The Final Editor’s Draft – Day 10

This book has finally reached the Final Editor’s draft, so this month it is going to get the last revision, and a reread for the beta readers.

…

One third of the month is gone and this writing job is not getting any easier.

The notion that we can sit down and over 30 days, we can write a 50,000-word novel would be, to some, a preposterous notion.

For me, it is not. I have done it for three years in a row, and even without having a plan.

This one has a plan, but that plan only sometimes stretches to a day or two ahead, depending on how I’m going.

Today, it had been hard going because I set time aside to just sit down and write it, but you all know how fickle that can be. Devote time, and the words don’t come, have no time and try scratching in between a lot of other jobs, and the words are flowing.

It is annoying to say the least.

Bit, for today, Jack has discovered he does, indeed, have a doppelganger, and that he is related, which explains the uncanny likeness. Of course, he has been followed to the island, and run to ground in a park where the two meet face to face. Oh, and the doppelganger has a name, Jacob.

It could have got ugly, but Maryanne is there, though Jack is still not sure why, and her presence averts what could have been an ugly showdown,

Instead, some words of advice. Jack must ask his mother for the answers.

A fine time for Jack to discover that his mother has been lying to him for his whole life.

But, of course, any attempt to get her on the phone is proving difficult.

And it might mean the end of his holiday.

Our Jack is not a happy man.

Yes, word-wise we have reached the halfway mark, but story-wise, it appears it will take a little longer.

More tomorrow.

The story behind the story: A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers

To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.

But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continue on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.

That, I think is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much idea of where it’s going as the reader does.

It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years.  Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?

My private detective, Harry Walthenson

I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mold of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Phillip Marlow, but he’s not.

But, I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modelled Harry and his office on it.  Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.

Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life.  I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.

Then there’s the title, like

The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I imagine that back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello

The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister.  And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.

But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.

Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brother’s Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then went the way of the others.

Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and at the editor for the last.

I have high hopes of publishing it in early 2021.  It even has a cover.

PIWalthJones1

In a word: Green

Of course, it is a colour, one used for traffic lights, grass, and a lot of different shades.

It’s made up of blue and yellow, adjusting the amounts of each to get the shade you want.

I once had a dark green suit.

I don’t have any green emeralds.

When you get a green light, it means to go ahead, or just go, in traffic, or for the starting of a project

And a green run on the ski fields denotes the easiest run – just about my level!

Green with envy, yes, though I’m not sure why they picked green for envy

In England especially, green is a patch of grassy land, usually in the middle of a village

A green worker is one that is new to the job, and usually gets all the rotten jobs

Then there is the biggest money-spinner of all time: going green, which means eco-friendly.

I have only one question, why is it to go ‘green’ is to charge far more than normal

Oh, and by the way, political parties that are eco-centric are usually called the greens

And, these are the same people who chain themselves to trees, deterring bulldozers

The blue sea is really green, believe it or not!

An excerpt from “The Devil You Don’t”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2Xyh1ow

…

By the time I returned to the Savoie, the rain had finally stopped, and there was a streak of blue sky to offer some hope the day would improve.

The ship was not crowded, the possibility of bad weather perhaps holding back potential passengers.  Of those I saw, a number of them would be aboard for the lunch by Phillippe Chevrier.  I thought about it, but the Concierge had told me about several restaurants in Yvoire and had given me a hand-drawn map of the village.  I think he came from the area because he spoke with the pride and knowledge of a resident.

I was looking down from the upper deck observing the last of the boarding passengers when I saw a woman, notable for her red coat and matching shoes, making a last-minute dash to get on board just before the gangway was removed.  In fact, her ungainly manner of boarding had also captured a few of the other passenger’s attention.  Now they would have something else to talk about, other than the possibility of further rain.

I saw her smile at the deckhand, but he did not smile back.  He was not impressed with her bravado, perhaps because of possible injury.  He looked at her ticket then nodded dismissively, and went back to his duties in getting the ship underway.  I was going to check the departure time, but I, like the other passengers, had my attention diverted to the woman in red.

From what I could see there was something about her.  It struck me when the light caught her as she turned to look down the deck, giving me a perfect profile.  I was going to say she looked foreign, but here, as in almost anywhere in Europe, that described just about everyone.  Perhaps I was just comparing her to Phillipa, so definitively British, whereas this woman was very definitely not.

She was perhaps in her 30’s, slim or perhaps the word I’d use was lissom, and had the look and manner of a model.  I say that because Phillipa had dragged me to most of the showings, whether in Milan, Rome, New York, London, or Paris.  The clothes were familiar, and in the back of my mind, I had a feeling I’d seen her before.

Or perhaps, to me, all models looked the same.

She looked up in my direction, and before I could divert my eyes, she locked on.  I could feel her gaze boring into me, and then it was gone as if she had been looking straight through me.  I remained out on deck as the ship got underway, watching her disappear inside the cabin.  My curiosity was piqued, so I decided to keep an eye out for her.

I could feel the coolness of the air as the ship picked up speed, not that it was going to be very fast.  With stops, the trip would take nearly two hours to get to my destination.  It would turn back almost immediately, but I was going to stay until the evening when it returned at about half eight.  It would give me enough time to sample the local fare, and take a tour of the medieval village.

Few other passengers ventured out on the deck, most staying inside or going to lunch.  After a short time, I came back down to the main deck and headed forward.  I wanted to clear my head by concentrating on the movement of the vessel through the water, breathing in the crisp, clean air, and let the peacefulness of the surroundings envelope me.

It didn’t work.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before I started thinking about why things hadn’t worked, and what part I played in it.  And the usual question that came to mind when something didn’t work out.  What was wrong with me?

I usually blamed it on my upbringing.

I had one of those so-called privileged lives, a nanny till I was old enough to go to boarding school, then sent to the best schools in the land.  There I learned everything I needed to be the son of a Duke, or, as my father called it in one of his lighter moments, nobility in waiting.

Had this been five or six hundred years ago, I would need to have sword and jousting skills, or if it had been a few hundred years later a keen military mind.  If nothing else I could ride a horse, and go on hunts, or did until they became not the thing to do.

I learned six languages, and everything I needed to become a diplomat in the far-flung British Empire, except the Empire had become the Commonwealth, and then, when no-one was looking, Britain’s influence in the world finally disappeared.  I was a man without a cause, without a vocation, and no place to go.

Computers were the new vogue and I had an aptitude for programming.  I guess that went hand in hand with mathematics, which although I hated the subject, I excelled in.  Both I and another noble outcast used to toss ideas around in school, but when it came to the end of our education, he chose to enter the public service, and I took a few of those ideas we had mulled over and turned them into a company.

About a year ago, I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse.  There were so many zeroes on the end of it I just said yes, put the money into a very grateful bank, and was still trying to come to terms with it.

Sadly, I still had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life.  My parents had asked me to come back home and help manage the estate, and I did for a few weeks.  It was as long as it took for my parents to drive me insane.

Back in the city, I spent a few months looking for a mundane job, but there were very few that suited the qualifications I had, and the rest, I think I intimidated the interviewer simply because of who I was.  In that time I’d also featured on the cover of the Economist, and through my well-meaning accountant, started involving myself with various charities, earning the title ‘philanthropist’.

And despite all of this exposure, even making one of those ubiquitous ‘eligible bachelor’ lists, I still could not find ‘the one’, the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.  Phillipa seemed to fit the bill, but in time she proved to be a troubled soul with ‘Daddy’ issues.  I knew that in building a relationship compromise was necessary, but with her, in the end, everything was a compromise and what had happened was always going to be the end result.

It was perhaps a by-product of the whole nobility thing.  There was a certain expectation I had to fulfill, to my peers, contemporaries, parents and family, and those who either liked or hated what it represented.  The problem was, I didn’t feel like I belonged.  Not like my friend from schooldays, and now obscure acquaintance, Sebastian.  He had been elevated to his Dukedom early when his father died when he was in his twenties.  He had managed to fade from the limelight and was rarely mentioned either in the papers or the gossip columns.  He was one of the lucky ones.

I had managed to keep a similarly low profile until I met Phillipa.  From that moment, my obscurity disappeared.  It was, I could see now, part of a plan put in place by Phillipa’s father, a man who hogged the limelight with his daughter, to raise the profile of the family name and through it their businesses.  He was nothing if not the consummate self-advertisement.

Perhaps I was supposed to be the last piece of the puzzle, the attachment to the establishment, that link with a class of people he would not normally get in the front door.  There was nothing refined about him or his family, and more than once I’d noticed my contemporaries cringe at the mention of his name, or any reference of my association with him.

Yet could I truthfully say I really wanted to go back to the obscurity I had before Phillipa?  For all her faults, there were times when she had been fun to be with, particularly when I first met her when she had a certain air of unpredictability.  That had slowly disappeared as she became part of her father’s plan for the future.  She just failed to see how much he was using her.

Or perhaps, over time, I had become cynical.

I thought about calling her.  It was one of those moments of weakness when I felt alone, more alone than usual.

I diverted my attention back to my surroundings and the shoreline.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman in the red coat, making a move.  The red coat was like a beacon, a sort of fire engine red.  It was not the sort of coat most of the women I knew would wear, but on her, it looked terrific.  In fact, her sublime beauty was the one other attribute that was distinctly noticeable, along with the fact her hair was short, rather than long, and jet black.

I had to wrench my attention away from her.

A few minutes later several other passengers came out of the cabin for a walk around the deck, perhaps to get some exercise, perhaps checking up on me, or perhaps I was being paranoid.  I waited till they passed on their way forward, and I turned and headed aft.

I watched the wake sluicing out from under the stern for a few minutes, before retracing my steps to the front of the ship and there I stood against the railing, watching the bow carve its way through the water.  It was almost mesmerizing.  There, I emptied my mind of thoughts about Phillipa, and thoughts about the woman in the red coat.

Until a female voice behind me said, “Having a bad day?”

I started, caught by surprise, and slowly turned.  The woman in the red coat had somehow got very close me without my realizing it.  How did she do that?  I was so surprised I couldn’t answer immediately.

“I do hope you are not contemplating jumping.  I hear the water is very cold.”

Closer up, I could see what I’d missed when I saw her on the main deck.  There was a slight hint of Chinese, or Oriental, in her particularly around the eyes, and of her hair which was jet black.  An ancestor twice or more removed had left their mark, not in a dominant way, but more subtle, and easily missed except from a very short distance away, like now.

Other than that, she was quite possibly Eastern European, perhaps Russian, though that covered a lot of territory.  The incongruity of it was that she spoke with an American accent, and fluent enough for me to believe English was her first language.

Usually, I could ‘read’ people, but she was a clean slate.  Her expression was one of amusement, but with cold eyes.  My first thought, then, was to be careful.

“No.  Not yet.”  I coughed to clear my throat because I could hardly speak.  And blushed, because that was what I did when confronted by a woman, beautiful or otherwise.

The amusement gave way to a hint of a smile that brightened her demeanor as a little warmth reached her eyes.  “So that’s a maybe.  Should I change into my lifesaving gear, just in case?”

It conjured up a rather interesting image in my mind until I reluctantly dismissed it.

“Perhaps I should move away from the edge,” I said, moving sideways until I was back on the main deck, a few feet further away.  Her eyes had followed me, and when I stopped she turned to face me again.  She did not move closer.

I realized then she had removed her beret and it was in her left side coat pocket.  “Thanks for your concern …?”

“Zoe.”

“Thanks for your concern, Zoe.  By the way, my name is John.”

She smiled again, perhaps in an attempt to put me at ease.  “I saw you earlier, you looked so sad, I thought …”

“I might throw myself overboard?”

“An idiotic notion I admit, but it is better to be safe than sorry.”

Then she tilted her head to one side then the other, looking intently at me.  “You seem to be familiar.  Do I know you?”

I tried to think of where I may have seen her before, but all I could remember was what I’d thought earlier when I first saw her; she was a model and had been at one of the showings.  If she was, it would be more likely she would remember Phillipa, not me.  Phillipa always had to sit in the front row.

“Probably not.”  I also didn’t mention the fact she may have seen my picture in the society pages of several tabloid newspapers because she didn’t look the sort of woman who needed a daily dose of the comings and goings, and, more often than not, scandal associated with so-called celebrities.

She gave me a look, one that told me she had just realized who I was.  “Yes, I remember now.  You made the front cover of the Economist.  You sold your company for a small fortune.”

Of course.  She was not the first who had recognized me from that cover.  It had raised my profile considerably, but not the Sternhaven’s.  That article had not mentioned Phillipa or her family.  I suspect Grandmother had something to do with that, and it was, now I thought about it, another nail in the coffin that was my relationship with Phillipa.

“I wouldn’t say it was a fortune, small or otherwise, just fortunate.”  Each time, I found myself playing down the wealth aspect of the business deal.

“Perhaps then, as the journalist wrote, you were lucky.  It is not, I think, a good time for internet-based companies.”

The latter statement was an interesting fact, one she read in the Financial Times which had made that exact comment recently.

“But I am boring you.”  She smiled again.  “I should be minding my own business and leaving you to your thoughts.  I am sorry.”

She turned to leave and took a few steps towards the main cabin.

“You’re not boring me,” I said, thinking I was letting my paranoia get the better of me.  It had been Sebastian on learning of my good fortune, who had warned me against ‘a certain element here and abroad’ whose sole aim would be to separate me from my money.  He was not very subtle when he described their methods.

But I knew he was right.  I should have let her walk away.

She stopped and turned around.  “You seem nothing like the man I read about in the Economist.”

A sudden and awful thought popped into my head.  Those words were part of a very familiar opening gambit.  “Are you a reporter?”

I was not sure if she looked surprised, or amused.  “Do I look like one?”

I silently cursed myself for speaking before thinking, and then immediately ignored my own admonishment.  “People rarely look like what they are.”

I saw the subtle shake of the head and expected her to take her leave.  Instead she astonished me.

“I fear we have got off on the wrong foot.  To be honest, I’m not usually this forward, but you seemed like you needed cheering up when probably the opposite is true.  Aside from the fact this excursion was probably a bad idea.  And,” she added with a little shrug, “perhaps I talk too much.”

I was not sure what I thought of her after that extraordinary admission. It was not something I would do, but it was an interesting way to approach someone and have them ignoring their natural instinct.  I would let Sebastian whisper in my ear for a little longer and see where this was going.

“Oddly enough, I was thinking the same thing.  I was supposed to be traveling with my prospective bride.  I think you can imagine how that turned out.”

“She’s not here?”

“No.”

“She’s in the cabin?”  Her eyes strayed in that direction for a moment then came back to me.  She seemed surprised I might be traveling with someone.

“No.  She is back in England, and the wedding is off.  So is the relationship.  She dumped me by text.”

OK, why was I sharing this humiliating piece of information with her?  I still couldn’t be sure she was not a reporter.

She motioned to an empty seat, back from the edge.  No walking the plank today.  She moved towards it and sat down.  She showed no signs of being cold, nor interested in the breeze upsetting her hair.  Phillipa would be having a tantrum about now, being kept outside, and freaking out over what the breeze might be doing to her appearance.

I wondered, if only for a few seconds if she used this approach with anyone else.  I guess I was a little different, a seemingly rich businessman alone on a ferry on Lake Geneva, contemplating the way his life had gone so completely off track.

She watched as I sat at the other end of the bench, leaving about a yard between us.  After I leaned back and made myself as comfortable as I could, she said, “I have also experienced something similar, though not by text message.  It is difficult, the first few days.”

“I saw it coming.”

“I did not.”  She frowned, a sort of lifeless expression taking over, perhaps brought on by the memory of what had happened to her.  “But it is done, and I moved on.  Was she the love of your life?”

OK, that was unexpected.

When I didn’t answer, she said, “I am sorry.  Sometimes I ask personal questions without realizing what I’m doing.  It is none of my business.”  She shivered.  “Perhaps we should go back inside.”

She stood, and held out her hand.  Should I take it and be drawn into her web?  I thought of Sebastian.  What would he do in this situation?

I took her hand in mine and let her pull me gently to my feet.  “Wise choice,” she said, looking up at the sky.

It just started to rain.

…

© Charles Heath 2015-2023

newdevilcvr6

A to Z Blog Challenge – April 2024 – M is for Meet By Chance

…

It was a bad day when Mac appeared.

Mac was the supervisor of everyone on the floor, and he only came down for one of two reasons, to tell us that we had not met the performance statistics for the month, or he was here to retire someone.

It was an in-joke that when they spoke about retiring an employee, what it really meant was they were being fired.

We knew the performance statistics for our section were spot on, so someone was getting fired. 

All eyes followed him from the moment he stepped out of the elevator, and then as he walked slowly across the floor, sometimes stopping just to see the expression on that person’s face before moving on.

Today, he stopped twice until he reached my station.  Then he stopped and looked at me

My first thought.  I’d done nothing wrong.  I’d been there the longest and knew how to do the work blindfolded, so why?

“Clear your station, collect your stuff, and follow me.”

Had he not said ‘collect your stuff’, I would not be worried.  Now I was, trying to think of what it was that had caused my demise.  The only thing I could think of was the anonymous suggestion I’d dropped in the box, one that would improve production and make life easier for us.

It only took a few minutes to stow the materials and take the machine out of service for the night.  Another team would come later to check or repair it for the next day, if required.  Machine downtime was practically non-existent.

Five minutes after he arrived, we were crossing the floor back to the elevator lobby.  From there, we would ascent three floors to the administration level where HR was and where the paperwork would be waiting.

It was pointless asking him why.  He would only say they never confided in him; he was simply doing what he was told.  Nor would he say anything more. He was literally a man of few words.

The elevator doors closed, and the old car slowly crawled up the shaft.  It was the original elevator from the early 1900s and a relic from the past, much like everything in the factory.

The owner did not like change, nor did he like the new trend in furniture making, stuff that came out of cardboard boxes.  Stuff, he raged at one staff meeting that would fall over in a breeze.

They would never make that stuff, not even over his dead body.

Well, perhaps everything was relative.  The old man had died, and the son was looking to sell, never interested in furniture, making or selling it.  Nobody would be making or selling anything over his dead body.

The elevator made it, and the doors creaked open.

We marched up the corridor to the office at the end, the one that said ‘Production Manager’ and below that, practically faded away, George Bendon, the man who held that position 65 years ago.

He opened the door and motioned for me to pass.  He was obviously not waiting around to hear the news.  Would he miss me, I doubt it.

A man was looking out the window with his back to me, and the form looked familiar.  When the door closed, he turned around.

The boss’s son, William.  His second, perhaps third, visit to the factory.

We were friends once when his father all but adopted me when my parents died.  He grew up and shunned all ties with people not in his class, I grew up resenting everyone and everything to do with his world.

“James.”

“Mr. Reynolds.”

“You can call me William.  I’ve got over being a ponce.”  He smiled wanly.  “I’ve managed to burn more bridges than you’ve crossed, I dare say, James.”

He sat, I sat.  The office hadn’t been used in a while, and there was a thin film of dust on the desk.  It smelled musty from lack of use or more because the whole place had been around for about 120 years.  It had always belonged to a Renolds.

“Am I being discharged?”  Might as well get to the point.

“Is that what you think?”

“Why else would you send the hangman?”

“Is that what you lot call Mac.”  He looked thoughtful for a moment.  “Of course, you do.  I bet that was you’re doing.”

Guilty.

“I said to my father a long time ago that giving you a university education was a mistake.  He said, and I’ll remember this to my dying day James, said, “he’ll make far better use of it, even if he doesn’t, than you ever will and do.  The bastard was right, of course.  I spent my time chasing girls rather than learning anything useful.  I thought the old man would live forever.  Nearly did.

“So, when a suggestion turned up in the box, the first in 31 years, by the way, it was easy to guess who wrote it.  Perfect English and technically sound.  No one else in this place could, not even if I included what is laughingly known as management.”

I should have guessed.  People knew how to do their bit, but not much else.  They were never interested in teaching multi-tasking.  The old man believes that if a man stuck to the one task, he would be perfect every time.

It didn’t help when that one man went missing, or worse, died.

“You always were the one to make a long speech about nothing.  It’s why you were the perfect politician.”

He spent 15 years in parliament, but a change in government saw him tossed out in the last election. Now he was looking for something to do.

“Still got the flair for being direct, James.”

I shook my head.  He’d grown fat and lazy and never really had to work a day in his life.

“Life’s too short to spend it waffling William.”

“Direct.  OK.  My sister wants to keep this place afloat.  I want to sell it and head for the hills.  She’s more annoying than you are.” He took an envelope out of his coat pocket and put it on the table.  “A return first class to Singapore, and a week’s stay in a posh hotel.  There’s spending money, enough to buy some practical clothes.  I would like you to go to the Furniture Manufacturers Symposium or whatever it is and float your idea.  If they think it’ll work, we’ll give it a go.  Myself, I don’t think you’ll get anyone to agree, it’s all stuff in cardboard boxes these days, but there is a hotel chain that likes our stuff and a contract worth tens of millions.  If we can halve our costs.  Up for the challenge?”

“Not being discharged.”

“No.  But if this doesn’t work, it might be the end.”

“Challenge accepted.” At least no one could say I didn’t try.

It was not the first time I’d been out of the country, but it was the first time to be so far from home.

It was hot, really hot, and it was the humidity that hit the hardest.  It was fine inside the hotel, and it was a lot more upmarket than I was used to staying in.

That’s why I looked a little lost looking for the breakfast room.

“It’s like a miniature city in this place, isn’t it?”

I turned to see a woman perhaps my age, dressed for summer, with that summery air about her.

“You look lost,” she added.

“Breakfast room.  I mean, who has a room entirely devoted to one meal.  And how many different types of food could there be?”

She smiled.  “Far too many, I assure you.  Whatever happened to toast and marmalade, rice bubbles with milk and sugar, and a decent cup of Twining’s English breakfast tea?”

She just described my perfect breakfast, the one introduced to me by Williams’ father.

“Too many indeed.”

“Then follow me.  I went exploring last night when I arrived.  They wouldn’t let my elephant come too, so I had to walk.  Dammed inconvenient of them, but I guess I’m going to have to move with the times.”

I gave her the ocne up and down. Eccentric? Yes.  Quite mad?  Perhaps she may have been out in the sun too long.  She was definitely English, and I suspect good fun.  Far too jolly for me. And, although I had no idea why it crossed my mind, she was out of my league.

“I’m sure you have better things to do?”

She looked around.  “No.  I have to eat; you have to eat.” She shrugged.  “This way.”

I followed her into a large room that obviously doubled as a restaurant for the rest of the day.  There were three in the hotel.  Three.

We gave our room numbers to the man in an immaculate white suit at the door, and a waitress magically summoned us to a table, believing we were together. 

She did not abandon me, and for some odd reason, the idea of eating alone was not something I wanted to do.

“Let’s explore the food choices.  Be prepared to have your taste buds tested.”

It was a pleasant half hour, and despite the huge range of breakfast items that might be worth trying another day, we both ended up with rice bubbles with milk and sugar, toast and marmalade and Twining’s English Breakfast tea, no sugar or milk.

She told me her name was Josephine Benoit.  She didn’t say why she was in Singapore, so I thought she was just passing through on the way to another adventure.  With or without elephants.

I gave her my name and said I was an engineer without adding it was relayed to furniture manufacturers.  It sounded lame.  It was probably the first time I felt ashamed of what I did.

Other than that, It was an interesting conversation about everything and nothing, and when we parted outside the entrance, I thought it would be the last time I’d see her.

The convention centre was huge, and there were furniture manufacturers from all over the world, but the biggest exhibits were those who created the self-assembled furniture in a box.

What I disliked about it was the disposability factor.  It was not made to last, and the wood was not wood, just some manufactured board with a veneer coating. And if it was cracked or not assembled correctly, a simple glass of water could ruin it in a matter of days. 

Our furniture was made from real timber, not that there was a lot of it left in the world because a lot of the older trees had been cut down and nearly all the rest were protected in national parks.  It’s why sourcing raw materials was getting harder, why house frames were made out of metal, and why wood chips were in such large demand rather than the effort of cutting planks.

After the boxed furniture came the plastic innovators.  Plastic furniture had come a long way from those awful basic chairs in the beginning, the sort that almost gave Mr Reynolds a heart attack, not only because they were horrendous, it was the reality that people preferred cheap over quality.

I guess somewhere along the line, we failed to realise that while people were earning more, their disposable income was going into holidays and cars and the house itself with very little left for everything else.  It’s why boxed furniture was so well regarded.  It was cheap and expedient.

Reynolds was part of a world that no longer existed.  People liked the idea of beautiful furniture, the sort we made, they just couldn’t afford it.

And the thing was, those same people would spend the same, if not more, on leather-based suites, which was probably the only reason why we were still in business.  Our leather lounge range was the best in the world.  But economic times were hard, sales were down, and recovery of any sort was a long way off.

So, finding people in similar situations, but having their factories in lower-income countries making their furniture a lot less expensive, I spoke to those I thought might be interested.  The idea I had was to get the components made by these overseas factories, using real wood, and assembling the pieces ourselves back home.  It would take a considerable slice off the end price without compromising the quality.

The problem. The overseas manufacturers wanted to do it all, turning it into upmarket box furniture, or charging a fee for piecework and a premium for sourcing real timber.  On top of the shipping, we would be no better off.  And the quality, while reasonably good, was way below our standard.

What I saw on display looked good from a distance but close up, I could see it was built to a price.  Looking good and being good were two entirely different things.

“You look lost.”

A female voice, and when I turned, I saw it was Josephine.

I resisted the urge to ask, ‘What are you doing here’   and instead said, “What a pleasant surprise to see you here.”

“There’s only so much you can do with an elephant.  Thought I come and look at the latest and greatest furniture.  Someone said there was an exhibition, and I had nothing to do for a few hours.  This is hardly where I’d expect to see an engineer.  Shouldn’t you be building bridges or skyscrapers?”

“I did consider building a car that runs on water.”

“Well, aren’t you the dark horse in the race?  I’ll deduce from that you have an interest in furniture?”

“I help make it.  Good stuff, not this rubbish.”

“Those are fighting words, James.  People here would take issue with that description of their wares.”

“Are you one of them?”  I guessed I’d better see which side of the fence she sat on before I burned a bridge.

“Me?  No, I agree with you, but we have to move with the times.”

“Do we?”

She shrugged.  “Let’s go to the bar. You can ply me with Singapore Slings, and I’ll tell you about my adventures.  You look like you need a distraction.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2024

…