I was not sure what I was expecting to see when we first arrived at the Fairmont Hotel at Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada.
I’d seen endless photographs both in Winter and in Summer, and the problem with photos is that they never quite prepare you for reality.
That’s not to say that our first impression was of incredible scenery, it was of the front door if it could be called that, where we pulled up in the car, and then, if the sub-zero temperatures, a mad rush to get the baggage out, and get into the warmth of the foyer, which was almost the size of several football fields, and then some.
Check-in was quick and easy, and then to our room on the first floor. I had hoped to be higher up but, being a corner room, when we got there, the views could not be more majestic.
I could not believe there were people who were willing to take a sleigh ride in the minus degree temperatures. Don’t let the sunny aspect fool you, it’s freezing cold, literally, outside.
The lake had frozen over, and a closer look showed there was a skating rink an ice castle, and a hockey rink as well. People were skating, and walking over the frozen surface of the lake.
No skating, or walking, on thin ice here.
Venturing outside into the cold, you have to be rugged up, and definitely, have both a hat and gloves. It was minus six degrees.
There’s this amazing hotel, just like you would see in the movies
A frozen lake where you’re half expecting to open up and a huge spaceship, or something else, come out
Mountainsides to climb, but only if you are stark staring mad. And, of course, if you don’t freeze to death before you get there.
Our room, believe it or not, is on the extreme right-hand side, just above the first roofline.
Tomorrow we will venture further out onto the lake.
If nothing had happened to Agatha, then the General would have walked away, his reputation and bankability intact.
Perhaps his biggest problem, one of many, was that he was a friend of Agatha’s father. Perhaps Agatha’s father’s biggest problem was his ego, and the fact his daughter was smarter than he would ever give her credit for.
The General had a secret, and as we all know, secrets are the hardest things to be kept. Someone knows, someone always knows, and that person cannot be trusted with secrets, cannot trust themselves with secrets.
Have you ever tried to keep a secret? It’s nigh on impossible.
Some people can. Unfortunately, none in this story can. But the problem is they are not willing to share, but will eventually because they have a momentary aberration, or it just comes out in normal conversation.
People can’t hold those sorts of secrets, not when it concerns someone as important as the General/. Someone else must be told so it doesn’t feel like they’re the only one holding down the most important and incredible fact in the world.
Pity then that Michael knows the friend of a friend of a friend who has a relative, that has that secret.
This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.
See below for an excerpt from the book…
Coming soon!
An excerpt from the book:
When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.
Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.
It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.
Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.
But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.
His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.
At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.
For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.
Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.
Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.
Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.
It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.
It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.
Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.
Except, of course, when it came to Harry.
He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.
So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.
There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.
So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.
There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.
She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.
Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.
Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.
Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.
Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.
Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.
The flight from Newark via Air Canada to Vancouver is about 5:30pm so we are slated to be picked up by the limousine at about 2:30.
We have to be out of our room by 11am so we decided the day before that on our last day in New York we’d go to the Times Square red lobster. It gives us about three hours to get there, eat, and get back.
It’s always fun packing bags the day you leave, so most of the hard work was done earlier. This time it’s particularly a trial because we have so much stuff to fit into a small space, and weight considerations are always paramount because of the 23kg limit.
Outside is has gone from minus four to minus two in the two hours before we leave the hotel at 11:30, but that’s not so much of a problem because we have a long walk from 56th street to 41st street to warm us up.
At least today it’s not as cold, as it has been previously.
At Red Lobster it’s not difficult to make a decision on what to have, the mix-and-match special, with Lobster alfredo, filet mignon, and parrot island coconut shrimp, with Walt’s special, though what that will remain a surprise until it is served.
To drink, it was the Blue moon beer, wheat type.
For appetizers, we had scones that are supposedly bread but to me are dipped in garlic butter and baked like a scone. Australian style. They are absolutely delicious.
There is an expression a one-drink screamer and we’ve got one, but the truth is the drinks are very lethal. Pure alcohol and ice with a touch of soda.
The meals at this Red Lobster are definitely better than those we had in Vancouver, except for the pasta with lobster I had which was little more than a tasteless congealed mess after it reached the table. This did not detract from the deliciously cooked and served seafood that accompanied it.
All in all, after such a great lunch and the thought of having to walk ten blocks the decision was unanimous to get a cab which took us back to the hotel by a rather interesting, if not exactly the most direct, route. I think the driver guessed we were tourists.
We are picked up at the hotel by a driver in a large Toyota which had enough space for 3 passengers and all our bags. The driver was chatty and being foreign, preferred soccer to the other traditional American sport. Don’t ask me how the conversation turned to sports, but we may have mentioned we went to the ice hockey.
At Newark airport, all I have room for is a glass of burned beer, whatever that means, though it has an odd taste, and a Samuel Adams 76 special which was rather tasty.
Today we are flying in a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with a maximum of 298 passengers in three classes.
It looks very new even though it is about 6 months old. It has seating of 3 x 3 x 3, and we are in row 19, just behind the premium economy cabin, and the closest to the front of the plane of all the Air Canada flights.
Engine startup is loud at the lower revolutions with the vibration going through the airframe. Like all planes, the flaps being extended, it is very noisy. All of the vibrations go away when the engines are up to speed. On take off the engines at max are not as noisy as other planes and are relatively quiet. It will be interesting to see what the landing is like.
In-flight when not experiencing turbulence the ride is very smooth and reasonably quiet which is better than the other planes with seeming continuous engine whining and the flow of air past the fuselage.
The seats are comfortable but still just a little small and the middle passenger can be tightly squeezed in if the two on either side are larger than normal. The seats fully recline but the seatback is not completely in your face, and bearable when you recline your own seat.
There are several seats by the toilets that would be terrible on a long-distance flight because the passenger inevitably comes very close to the seat when entering and leaving. As for the toilets, they are larger than any of the other aeroplanes, and so too, coincidentally, are the windows.
The plane also makes the same amount of noise when it lands so I’m failing to see what’s so good about it. I’ve also been in an Airbus A350 and those planes are nothing to write home about either.
I suspect the only advantage of having planes is for airlines. Fewer costs and more sardined passengers.
It’s something else I can write off my bucket list.
When we arrive back in Vancouver it’s the same reasonably simple process to get through immigration.
Outside our driver is waiting and this time we have an Escalade picking us up. A very large SUV that fits us all and our luggage.
But…
We were lucky because we were supposed to be picked up in a sedan and the baggage would not have fitted which would have involved one of us taking a cab with the extra luggage.
He was in the neighbourhood and picked up the call. His advice, called the service and request a bigger car and pay the difference. We did. It was going to cost another 20 dollars.
As for the hotel, what is it with hotels and late-night arrivals? We get in, the check-in was smooth, we get to the room. Very large with a separate bedroom. But only a sofa bed.
It was not a desirable option, not before 24 hours in relatively squashed plane seats, so it necessitated a change of rooms to one a bit smaller, but a corner room with a reasonable view, and two proper beds.
Late night, need rest, but we have free breakfast so there will be no tarrying the next morning. We have to be down by 9am being Sunday.
Besides, we have a mission. There is a toys-are-us nearby and it does have the toy we want. All we need to find is a cab.
There was something about this one that resonated with me.
This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.
I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.
For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.
For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.
For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.
Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.
When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.
But is it all the truth?
What would we do in similar circumstances?
Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.
And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.
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.
…
Jack’s mother is missing, well, not technically missing, but dumping the package and disappearing seemed a very close equivalent.
Maryanne has finally dropped the pretence and told Jack the truth, she is working with the authorities (but will not tell him who exactly they are) and that she is only interested in the diary, which everyone now assumes was in the package.
Who does it belong to? That will be revealed soon.
Failing her mission, Maryanne tells Jack she’s been taken off the case, and when Jack tells her is going after Jacob, she decides to tag along, perhaps for his protection.
Looking like Jacob, and going to look for him has some irony attached to it, and it would not be unreasonable to assume Jack is about to find himself in some very hot water, from good people and bad alike.
Then, if that isn’t enough on his plate, McCallister, the reputed owner of the diary, and Jacob’s father, and probably likely his, calls. He wants the diary back, or Jack’s mother will be harmed.
The search is now not for Jacob, but for his mother.
With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction. He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.
That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.
He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.
I kept my eyes down. He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup. I stepped to the other side and so did he. It was one of those situations. Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.
Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic. I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone. I shrugged and looked at my watch. It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.
Wait, or walk? I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station. What the hell, I needed the exercise.
At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’. I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light. As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.
A yellow car stopped inches from me.
It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini. I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.
Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car. It was that sort of car. I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him. I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on. The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.
My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter. Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.
At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure. I was no longer in a hurry.
At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot. A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring. I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road. I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.
At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar. It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.
I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did. There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me. It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.
Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me. As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.
Now my imagination was playing tricks.
It could not be the same man. He was going in a different direction.
In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter. I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.
I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in. I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.
Here is another of those three letter words that can have so many meanings that it is nigh on impossible to pin it down.
You have to use it in a sentence which all but explains it.
For instance,
A pad might be a writing pad, or a note pad, something on which you can write, notes, stories, anything really, even doodles.
Cats, dogs, a lot of animals have padded feet. I’d say, for a cat, those pads would be like shock absorbers.
You can pad an expense account with false expenditure in an accounting sense, I’m sure a lot of people are tempted to do so.
I know places, where a single man might live, is called a bachelor pad. So many men like to think they may have one, but it takes money to buy the accouterments of seduction.
Then there’s a medical dressing, a square of gauze called a pad, usually absorbent and soaked in disinfectant to help protect and repair a wound.
Shoulder pads, for broader shoulders
KInee pads, for when crashing off a bike
Shin pads for soccer, and ice hockey players
A helipad which is for helicopter landings and takeoffs, much the same as a launch pad for rockets. Unfortunately, rockets do not generally have a tendency to land, not unless they are bombs, like the V1 and V2 rockets of WW2.
It could also be someone walking around a house in socks, the man stealthily approached the thief, padding silently in his socks so he wouldn’t be heard.
And lastly,
A place for frogs to hang out, ie, the flat leaves of a water Lilly.
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:
It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.
The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.
He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.
The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent. We were following the car he was in, from a discrete distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.
There was nowhere for him to go.
The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road were now on. Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.
Where was he going?
“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter. He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.
“What?”
“I think he’s made us.”
“How?”
“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing. Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain. He’s just sped up.”
“How far away?”
“A half-mile. We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”
It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”
“Step on it. Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”
Easy to say, not so easy to do. The road was treacherous, and in places just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three thousand footfall down the mountainside.
Good thing then I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.
Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster. We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.
Or so we thought.
Coming quickly around another corner we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.
“What the hell…” Aland muttered.
I was out of the car, and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility. The car was empty, and no indication where he went.
Certainly not up the road. It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit. Up the mountainside from here, or down.
I looked up. Nothing.
Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”
Then where did he go?
Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.
“Sorry,” he said quite calmly. “Had to go if you know what I mean.”
I’d lost him.
It was as simple as that.
I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.
I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.
It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.
Christmas was a time of surprises, some of them not always pleasant. In fact, I don’t think I could remember one that was what I expected, and I had a very low level of expectation.
And, being that magical time of the year, once again, I had received my gilt-edged invitation to come visit my parents. What filled me with trepidation was the address.
They had this knack of finding places, anywhere in the world, that were, well, different.
Last year, it was a haunted Scottish castle. The year before, they had found a dilapidated mansion in Louisiana that was once a slave owner’s residence and hadn’t been lived in for years.
This year?
A recently refurbished three-story mansion that once belonged to a railway magnate, had been a boarding school, then a bed and breakfast, and now was a billionaire’s retreat.
It was also rented out for those times the billionaire wasn’t there, which apparently was most of the time, a fact my parents seized on and most likely the reason why they took the place for Christmas.
It was going to be fun; snow, Santa and his sled, and the quaint celebrations of the small town nearby, a town which I don’t think would be quite ready for the eccentrics that made up the family members.
Good thing, then, I only had to see them once a year.
Eleanor had her bags packed, and we were waiting for the driver to pick her up and take her to the airport. She, too, was going home for Christmas, only she had sane parents who lived in a normal town in a normal house and did normal things.
We had been together for a few months, and it was still a work in progress, getting used to a life living with someone else. After so long on my own, it was a big adjustment. She had just come off a bad breakup, and we were taking it slow.
I knew the last thing needed was her to meet my parents, and although the subject of family came up, more than once, I told her she was better off not knowing them. I told her, when she asked, to think of the Addams Family and then multiply it by a hundred.
As I said, early days. This girl was big on the sanctity of family.
Just before the arrival time of her driver, there was a phone call. If it was me, I would not have answered it because it had ‘ominous’ written all over it.
She answered, listened for a minute, said a few words, and then hung up.
“They’re snowed in, worst blizzards in a century. No one in or out for a week, maybe more. Change of plans. I’ll be coming with you.”
I considered objecting but inevitably knew two things were going to happen, no matter what I said. The first, that snippet in the paper’s star sign forecast, “unsettling news will cause a deep rift in a relationship” was as true as it was going to get, and the second, come New Year’s Day, I would be single again, though that was an optimistic assessment.
I just shook my head. By the calendar, there were, at best, twelve days left, and I had better make the most of them.
On the plane, I tried to give her a rundown of the family members. They were, to outsiders, very different to those who didn’t know them and those who did wisely kept their distance.
It’s why I worked and lived on the other side of the country, and overseas whenever there was an opportunity. But, sometimes, I had to go and see them. This was one of those occasions. It was a matter of getting in and getting out as fast as possible. By myself, it would be easy, with Eleanor, it would be impossible.
Only once before had I taken a girlfriend with me, the first time, and I vowed after that, never again.
I started with my father. Inherited a fortune and kept it, unlike a lot of people who inherited fortunes and lost them. He was brilliant but completely crazy. He wears crazy coloured suits, dressed as a clown because he once wanted to be a circus clown, even running away as a child.
He was always interested in what I was doing with my life, and endlessly disappointed I was not married like my two brothers and sister. His over-enthusiastic ministrations on that occasion were enough to never bring another.
Eleanor didn’t seem fazed.
Next was my mother, who once worked briefly at a circus as a trapeze artist. I never quite got the story of how my parents met, only that she was over the top with everything she did. That was makeup, clothes, speech, and flamboyance. She made entrances and then commandeered the floor, extinguishing every other light in the room.
She regularly was in a story about her or something she was doing, so I was always up to date. The latest project was a cancer wing at a hospital somewhere in Africa.
Leo, brother number one, the heir apparent, was a lazy indolent ass if ever there was one, who treated me very badly as a child and got away with it. He was the chosen one who could do no wrong.
His wife, Maisie, was a mouse, and sought as little time with him as possible, making it what I would have called a marriage of convenience. He often forgot he was married and featured with some socialite or starlet in the news or in what we called the ‘scandal sheets’.
I asked her once why she stayed, and the non-answer told me. Some people could sacrifice a lot for a life that could hardly be imagined. It was not every day you could mingle with royalty.
A word of warning, Leo would try his darnedest to take her off me. He always had, and another reason why I didn’t bring anyone.
Younger brother Tom didn’t care about anything and just did his own thing. He was an amazing painter, and one of his murals graced my lounge room wall.
The youngest sister, Francine, aspired to be a trapeze artist like her mother and actually got an audition at a circus but fell. There was a safety net, but somehow, it collapsed on one side when she landed, spilling her onto the ground and ending any aspirations. Now she had a slight limp, and a chip on her shoulder, but was my closest ally.
That relationship was forged over the six months I stayed with her in the hospital while the doctors put her back together. I gave her the nickname Humpy Dumpty, which in hindsight was in very poor taste, but she loved it.
There were eccentric aunts and uncles, some of whom were egregious, some innocuous, others not so much, but I just avoided them. By the time we touched down at the airport, if you could call it that, she knew as much about my family as I wanted to.
It was no surprise that Francine was at the airport with a card that said World’s Best Brother in that calligraphy hand that looked amazing.
So was the smile, and her general demeanour that for a long time had been sad.
Eleanor recognised her before I did.
Then I got the biggest hug, and right after that, Eleanor got one almost as big. What she whispered in Eleanor’s ear I couldn’t hear, but the smile said it was probably about me.
“Just when I was beginning to think all of his family were crazies,” Eleanor said.
“We are. Just some less so. Did he tell you about the last time he brought a friend?”
“Only that it went badly.”
“‘And then some. Just keep away from Leo. He’s a serial pest. The rest, well, I’ll make sure I’m with you at all times, and everything should be fine.”
Eleanor looked at me with a face that I recognised as ‘what have you got me into’. I shrugged. “Maybe being stuck in a blizzard had its advantages.”
“No. It had to be done. If we are going to spend the rest of our lives together, it is best to get it over and done with.”
Francine gave me the look. “Who is this girl, and where did you find her?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Good. Log fires and hot chocolate will never be the same.”
Of course, it was 20 questions plus another 200 during the drive to the mansion, another of those reputed to have a lot of paranormal activity, also famous for being used as a film set.
How my father discovered this little-known fact outside the film and paranormal investigators’ world was beyond me, but not unexpected.
“You’re going to love it. Footsteps on the creaky stairs, noises from the attic, we’ve had a couple of blood-curdling screams.”
Turning off the road and onto the driveway, the arch formed by overhanging trees made it darker than usual, and with a noticeable change in atmosphere.
I shivered, half expecting to see a couple of headless ghosts crossing in front of us. Then we came out into a clearing and the house before us bathed in sunshine.
“Well, there’s something I haven’t seen before. Usually, it’s dark and dismal with snow falling. Today was one of the few days we’ve been able to get up the driveway. The gods must know you were coming, Alex.”
She stopped just short of the portico, and we got out. It was freezing cold, sun out or not.
“Is it going to be the usual circus?” I asked.
That circus, it was tradition that the visitors already there would line up to greet the new arrivals. No one was spared the meet and greet session, which was why I’d left it as late as possible to arrive.
I had warned her of what to expect, and again, I was surprised it didn’t seem to faze her.
“Leave the bags. We’ve got house staff to help. Dad took the all-inclusive package.”
“Including the fright night show?” Eleanor chose that moment to show she had a sense of humour.
“Especially the fright night show.” Francine laughed. Perhaps it was a joke of sorts passed in whispers earlier.
I braced myself. This was going to get ugly very quickly.
Just past the hallway and where the building opened out into a very large entertaining area, perhaps the size of a ballroom, the family were spread out in a line, parents first, children and their children, uncles, aunts, and finally special guests. There were about thirty in all, and I could see we were the last to arrive. Francine stayed with Eleanor.
My father decided to play it reasonably straight, having a matching Christmas jumper with my mother, the sort no sane person would wear.
It was one of those traditions, and I was sure there was one waiting for me in our room. Francine didn’t wear one, but Leo and Tom would have to.
He ignored me and looked straight at Eleanor. “I’m glad to see my son has finally decided to bring one of his friends. How are you?”
“Why do you ask? Do you think I’m ill?”
It was not a response he expected, nor I.
“No. It’s just a normal response when you greet someone.”
“Your son told me you and everyone else are anything but normal. I hope you haven’t changed just to please me.”
He looked confused. Finally, some who was not afraid to speak their mind. And to me, it was a surprise that she would be what I would have said, annoyed.
“We are normal people, I assure you,” he said.
I shook my head. “This isn’t going to be a very long visit, Dad, so don’t spare the horses.”
“Why, are you not staying for Christmas day?” My mother decided to chime in.
“After the last time, what do you expect. I doubt much has changed in ten years. I expect that by the time I get to Leo and punch his lights out, you’ll be asking me to leave.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that.”
“Perhaps, then I suggest you talk to your favourite son. The one I really feel sorry for is Tom. He has to endure the bastard all year round.”
I could see Tom skulking in line, but there was no sign of Leo. Probably he forgot I was arriving and was trying to make out with one of the staff. Maisie was there, waiting, anxiously looking for her miscreant husband.
“Well, even if you are not pleased to see us, we are pleased to see you. We would like it to be more than once a year though, now you have a friend.”
“It remains to be seen if she still is at the end of this circus.”
I felt an elbow in the ribs and looked to see that it was Eleanor, not Francine. “Play nice, Alex. I can stick up for myself.”
As we stepped sideways to greet Maisie, Leo came dashing in looking dishevelled, then slowed and smoothed out the wrinkles before stopping in front of Eleanor.
Leo at his best worst self. Maisie groaned.
“Well, what have we here, Alex?” he gushed.
All smiles, he reached out to give her a hug. She stepped back slightly and said, “You would be well advised not to invade my private space, Leo.”
He stopped almost crashing into her. “I’m sorry.” The urbane affable mantle slipped slightly at the rejection, but if I knew anything about him, it was just a minor setback, a challenge to be overcome. “You are Alex’s friend?”
“Girlfriend, yes. Alex’s girlfriend, are you that stupid that I need to spell it out slowly for you so you can understand me.” She said the last words very slowly like she was talking to the village idiot.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Francine grinning like a Cheshire cat.
The whole group had stopped what they were doing, and all eyes were now focused on Leo. He was used to being the centre of attention, but not like this.
“I am not stupid.”
“Fine. Let’s run with that. Who am I?”
“You are Alex’s girlfriend.” He said it quietly.
“Louder, much Louder, Leo. Who am I?”
“You are Alex’s girlfriend.”
“I am.” She looked up and down the line. “Everyone get that?”
She had their unfettered attention. It was a side of her I’d not seen, but it was one I liked. I was hoping to punch Leo’s lights out, but this had kyboshed my moment. She had them all in the palm of her hand.
Everyone nodded.
Then it was back to Leo. “Whoever you were schmoozing before you arrived late, late, I might add to greet your brother, was just simply rude. It’s not the sort of behaviour I would expect from a brother-in-law, so from today, it stops. You can now tell everyone and, particularly, your wife that you will no longer be sleeping with other women.”
“I was…”
“Are you going to add liar to the list of your misdemeanours, Leo?”
She had that look of a woman who didn’t like men who lied or slept around, and I’m guessing that had something to do with her last breakup.
“No.”
“Then…”
He made his apology and promise. It was the biggest humiliation I’d seen him take. I doubted whether it would have any impact on his behaviour, but it was a highlight, nonetheless.
She came back to where I was standing next to my mother, who had been astonished more than anything else.
She looked my hand in hers and I looked at both my father and mother.
“Despite what either of you might think, Alex is not a failure. If you’re looking for utter failures, try Leo. You have spent far too much time pandering to a complete idiot, and in the process, you have ignored the three other children in your lives. I expect this will be the year you address that issue. Yes?”
They got a disapproving glare in their direction, so they agreed. Loud enough that everyone could hear.
“Excellent. Now let’s get on with this meet and greet.”
I saw the meaningful look between Francine and Eleanor and just put two and two together. Eleanor knew far too much about my family for her to pick that up from my briefing, so there was only one other explanation.
“When did you and Francine first meet?”
She smiled. “What gave it away?”
“I belatedly realised the hug at the airport was a little more effusive than a first meeting?”
“It was the first time we met in person, not the first time we talked. She called, I answered your phone, and we clicked. You’re her hero, you know, and would do anything for you. She wanted to shoot Leo, and I had to talk her out of it.”
“I want to kill him too.”
“I know. Now you won’t have to go needlessly to jail over a worthless piece of shit.”
“He won’t change you know.”
“He will. There’s a clause in the will that drives the inheritance. Maisie has filed for divorce, and if it goes through, he’s no longer the heir.”
“Who is?”
“You. But it won’t come to that. Unless he really is that stupid. So let’s not dwell on that loathsome creature. There are so many eccentrics and so little time. Who is that guy that looks like Uncle Fester?”
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 