Month: May 2024

“What Sets Us Apart”, a mystery with a twist

David is a man troubled by a past he is trying to forget.

Susan is rebelling against a life of privilege and an exasperated mother who holds a secret that will determine her daughter’s destiny.

They are two people brought together by chance. Or was it?

When Susan discovers her mother’s secret, she goes in search of the truth that has been hidden from her since the day she was born.

When David realizes her absence is more than the usual cooling off after another heated argument, he finds himself being slowly drawn back into his former world of deceit and lies.

Then, back with his former employers, David quickly discovers nothing is what it seems as he embarks on a dangerous mission to find Susan before he loses her forever.

Find the kindle version on Amazon here:  http://amzn.to/2Eryfth

whatsetscover

In a word: Quick

Go get your stuff and be quick about it.

I’ve tried on many occasion to be quick, but it’s like my shoes have lead soles, or it’s like walking through water.

Perhaps I should just stop finding excuses and admit it’s old age and I am slowing down!

I’m guessing that in using the expressing the quick and the dead, I’ve got one foot in the grave.

But when you use the word quick it generally means moving fast or doing something at a rapid rate.

It could also refer to someone who picks up knowledge rapidly, that is to say, that boy is quick, maybe quick as a flash.

I’ve been cut to the quick. An interesting expression which basically means you’ve been hurt very badly.

It also makes reference to the more sensitive side to us, hence the above expression.

It has a more literal meaning, referring to the quick, under your fingernails, and you know how much that hurts when you cut the nail too short, or remove the nail from the quick.

And like most of us, I’ve been caught more than once in metaphorical quicksand.

It doesn’t pay to go near or test out what real quicksand is, but if you have to, make sure you tie yourself to an anchored rope first.

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

People have a way of surprising you… – A short story

Last days were supposed to be joyous, the end of your working life and the start of the rest of your life.

I’d spent the last 35 years working for the company, navigating through three buyouts, five name changes, and three restructures. I was surprised I was still employed after the last, only two years before.

But, here I was, sitting in the divisional manager’s office, my office for one more day, with my successor, Jerry, and best friend, sitting on the other side.

“Last day, what are you thinking?” He asked casually.

It might have been early, but we both had a glass of scotch, a sin l e malt I’d kept aside for an important occasion and this seemed like one.

I picked up the glass and surveyed the contents, giving myself a few moments to consider an answer to what could be a difficult question. To be honest, the thinking had started on the subway on the way in, when I should have been working on the crossword, but instead, I was lamenting the fact that the next chapter of my life would be without Ellen.

We would have been married, coincidently, 43 years ago today, had she been alive. Unfortunately, she had died suddenly about four months ago, after a long battle with cancer.

And I still hadn’t had time to process it. Truth is, it had been work that kept me together, and I was worried about what was going to happen when it would no longer there.

To a certain extent, I was still on autopilot, her death coming in the middle of a major disaster concerning the company, one that had finally, and successfully, been brought to a conclusion with favorable results for everyone.

But what was I thinking right then, at that precise moment in time? Not something he would want to hear, so I made the necessary adjustment. “That I’m basically leaving you a clean slate, so don’t screw it up.”

I could see that was not what he wanted to hear.

He decided to take a different tack. “What have you got planned for the first day of retirement.”

He knew about Ellen and had been there for me, above and beyond what could have been expected from anyone. I owed him more than a platitude.

“Sleep in, probably, but I’m going to be fighting that body clock. It’s going to be difficult after so many years getting up the same time, rail hail or shine. But we had plans to go away for a few months, you know, the trip of a lifetime, then move. Ellen wanted to go back home for a while, now, I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”

“Then perhaps you should, or at the very least, go home for a while. You said you both come from there; who knows, being back among family might just be what you need.”

It was something I had been thinking about and had been issued an open-ended invitation from her parents to come and stay for as long as I wanted, one that I was seriously considering.

But, before I could tell him that, the phone rang.

Never a dull day…
The day went quickly, and as much as it was expected I’d hand over anything that happened to my successor, I couldn’t quite let go. There was the proverbial storm in a teacup, but it was a good opportunity to watch the man who was taking over in action. He had a great teacher, even if I said so myself.

But it was the end of the day and the moment I had been dreading. I’d asked the personnel manager not to make a big deal out of my departure, and that I didn’t want the usual sendoff, where everyone in the office came and I would find myself at a loss of words and feel like I had to speak to a lot of people I didn’t really know.

There were only about a dozen that I really knew, a dozen that had survived the layoffs and restructuring, and although there were others, I didn’t have anything to do with them. My last job took me out of the office more than being there, and so many of the other people were from offices scattered all up and down the east coast.

I’d mostly said my goodbyes to them on the last quarterly visit. Sixteen offices, fifty-odd employees who were as much friends as they were staff who worked for me. There had been small dinners and heartfelt moments.

This I was hoping would be the same.

Jerry had been charged with the responsibility of getting me to the presentation; they called it a presentation because I had no doubt there would be a presentation of some sort. I had told the CEO a handshake and a couple of drinks would suffice, and he just congenially nodded.

Jerry had taken the manager’s chair and I was sitting on the other side of the table. We’d finished off the last of the single malt, and dirt was time to go. I closed the door to the office for the last time, and we walked along the passage towards the dining room. It was a perk I’d fought hard to keep during the last restructure when the money men were trying to cut costs.

It was one of the few battles I won.

He opened the door and stood to one side, and ushered me through.

It was a very large space, usually filled with tables, chairs, and diners. Now it was filled with people, leaving a passageway from the door to a podium that had been set up in front of the servery, where a large curtain stretched across the width of the building with the company logo displayed on it.

There were 2,300 people who worked in this office and another 700 from the regional offices. By the look of the crowd, every single one of them was there.

It took fifteen minutes to get from the door to the podium. Faces of people I’d seen every day, faces I’d seen a few times a year, and faces I’d never seen before. On the podium there was a dozen more, faces I’d only seen in the Annual Accounts document, except for the General Manager and the CEO.

“You will be pleased to know everyone here wanted to come and bid you farewell,” the General Manager said.

“Everyone? Why?”

“Well, I’ve learned a lot about this company and its people over the last week, and frankly, people have a way of surprising you. And given the impact you have had on each and every one of them, I’m not surprised. So much so, they wanted to give you something to remember them by.”

A nod of the head and the curtains were pulled back, and behind them was an original 1968 XJ6 Jaguar, fully restored, a very familiar XJ6. The car had belonged to Helen and I had to sell it to help pay the medical bills. It had been a gut-wrenching experience, coming at a time when everything that was happened to her almost overwhelmed me.

“Jerry told us about this particular car, so all of your friends thought, as a fitting memory to you and of her, that we should find it and restore it. Everyone here contributed. It is our gift to you for everything you have done for us.”

So much for the usual sendoff…

—-

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

The fourth attempt, let’s look at the main character

So there are words on paper, and three times I’ve tried to fix it, or, perhaps just make it sound better because reading it in my head, there’s too little background and too many questions.

The flow of the story isn’t working for me, so I guess it’s time to sit down and work out what it is I’m trying to say.

The notion that our main character, Graham, is a loser seems to shine through, and that’s not what I’m trying to portray him as.  No, far from it, it’s been a lifetime of bad choices that have put him where he is, and he knows it.

So, in part, this is about owning your mistakes, and it’s my job to make him come across as a hero in waiting.  There’s good in him, perhaps too much, but there is also that attitude that led to all those bad choices, the one that can get him into trouble, and a sort of intransigence inherited from his father, that has more or less got him ostracised from the family. 

I want this character to be a chop off the old block, both of whom are the type not to back down, not to say sorry, and, to quote a rather apt allegory, would cut their nose off to spite their face.

Graham’s intransigence led to his refusal to follow his father into business, refusal to go to University despite having the necessary qualifications, and just to round out the defiance, his choice of women whom he knew would meet with family disapproval.

And these factors, over a period of time, saw him bounce from a low-paying job to jobs with no prospects, and a string of failed relationships, until this moment in time, where he was basically on his own, working the graveyard shift as a security guard.  The sort of job where qualifications weren’t looked for and workmates looked like and probably were ex-cons.

There are a few more details like the older brother, Jackson, politician and schemer, the same as his father before him (the seat was passed down through the family), like the younger sister who is a highly successful surgeon, married into immense wealth.  His brother had been less successful in the marital stakes but what he lacked in a wife was more than made up with a string of highly eligible and beautiful women.

And, no, he doesn’t resent the fact they’re rich, or that his parents were, too, just that they treated him with contempt.

It was almost five years since the last time he had seen any of them, that last time he attended the family Christmas in Martha’s Vineyard, the ‘Stockdale Residence’ an ostentatious sprawling fifty-room mansion that, in a drunken rage, he’s tried to burn down.

Once again, he had not received an invitation to the next, due in a few days, and it was not entirely unexpected.

Graham has his faults, but that even, five years ago, had pulled him off the road to self-destruction, helped along by a year stint in jail where he learned a great many lessons about life itself, and survival.

The four years since?

A lot of regrets, and a lot of repentance.  Life after jail was a lot worse than life trying to defy the family and the system.  There were two roads he could have gone down, and thankfully for him, it was not the wrong one.

So, he’s back on the path, a whole lot wiser, a whole lot tougher.

That might not have been exactly what I was thinking for him over the first three attempts.  I don’t think any character really begins to shine until halfway through, as you find him meeting various challenges in ways even you, as the writer, find quite unexpected.

Is that the end result of being a pantser over being a planner?

I don’t think, even as a planner, you can create a character that’s not going to change, or even surprise you, as the story evolves.

And somehow I don’t think I’m about to change from one to the other.

Well, not completely.

But there’s more, and no, it’s not steak knives!

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 13

Our first contact didn’t go so well

…

As soon as I stepped off the shuttle in the cargo bay, the third officer was waiting for me.

“The captain asked me to escort you up to his day room.”

Unusual. The captain could have just called me on the private communicator if there was a need for secrecy, if that was what this was.

“Any reason why he would send you?”

“Didn’t want you getting lost, sir.”

I knew I should not have admitted to him that I had got a little confused finding my way around, but that was because the dockyard people had blocked off several passageways.

“No. I guess not.”

The Third was a man of little humour, and particularly didn’t think any of my jokes were funny. On station, he was all serious and unamused.

Now, he had his serious face on, and I thought it best not to ask what to expect.

He took a different route to the bridge than what I would have taken, a much shorter and more direct route. It was obvious he had studied the plans of the ship and knew it backwards. I on the other hand, was not that prepared, but it meant I would have to.

He went as far as the door to the day room, and left me there. I didn’t need to announce myself, the doors just opened, whisper quiet, showing me the room I could expect one day when I got my own ship.

Or at the very least, I could dream.

The doors closed behind me, and I walked forward into the room proper, and first saw the captain sitting at his desk, and then a figure standing beside and back a step, behind him.

There was a weapon in his hand, but it was by his side.

And something else I noticed, the figure looked just like the three I’d seen on the other ship.

The captain saw me looking at him.

“This is the captain from the vessel that just arrived as those assailants on the cargo ship were ‘rescued’.

He, or she, looked human under the clothes and helmet, but could be almost anything.

“Does he…”

“Speak our language, yes, and a lot of others. And he would like our help.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021

A score to settle – The Second Editor’s draft – Day 15

The time has come to work on the second draft for the editor, taking into account all of the suggested changes, and there are quite a few. So much for thinking I could put in an almost flawless manuscript.

…

It’s halfway, but it doesn’t feel like it in terms of getting the story done. It’s certainly more than halfway in terms of getting words on paper.

The problem is, at this point, I should be reasonably happy with not only the progress but the quality of the story.

The thing is, I’m going to bed completely dissatisfied with the direction it’s going, and the characters. Of course, this is usual, I always have misgivings about everything while deep in the throes of getting the initial story down.

I know I/m not going to have a masterpiece in the first draft, but that still doesn’t mean I can’t have high expectations.

Maybe I need to take a step back.

Maybe I need to go back over some of the writing and see what it is that’s making me doubt myself.

Any other time, I would put it to one side and work on something else, let the story go round and round in my head until it works itself out. That sometimes takes months, and there’s a reason why some books take a year, or more, to write.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the time.

It’s going to be an uneasy sleep, if I get any.

Searching for locations: The Castello di Brolio, Gaiole in Chianti, Tuscany, Italy

The castle is located in the southern Chianti Classico countryside and has been there for over ten centuries, and owned by the Ricasoli family since 1141.

Like any good castle, it has strong defences, and I was looking for a moat and drawbridge, but it looks like the moat has become a lawn.

The very high walls in places no doubt were built to keep the enemy out

The castle has been destroyed and rebuilt many times over the last 900 years.  It was part of the Florentine defences, and withstood, and succumbed to many battles with Siena, which is only 20 km away.  More recently, it still bears the scars of artillery fire and bombing in WW2.

The room at the top of this tower would have an excellent view of the countryside.

Here you can see the old and the new, the red brick part of the rebuilding in the 1800’s in the style of an English Manor

We did not get to see where that archway led.

Nor what was behind door number one at the top of these stairs.  Rest assured, many, many years ago someone wearing armour would have made the climb.   It would not pass current occupational health and safety these days with a number of stairs before a landing.

Cappella di San Jacopo.  Its foundations were laid in 1348.

Renovated in 1867-1869, it has a gabled façade preceded by a double stone staircase.  The interior, with a crypt where the members of the Ricasoli family are buried, has a nave divided into three spans with cross vaults.

The 1,200 hectares of the property include 240 hectares of vineyards and 26 of olive groves, in the commune of Gaiole.

What a difference a day makes

Yesterday the dark clouds were swirling overhead, and there was an air of impending doom all around.

Much like those few hours before a storm is about to hit, one of those really big ones with very loud thunder that feels like it’s over your roof and not moving, and, a short time later, the deafening sound of torrential rain.

You know the feeling, you could cut the air with a knife.

I’ve been in that state of mind for some time now, but yesterday something changed.

It wasn’t the internet, that was still as dreadful as ever, despite the assurances we get that we will have the best internet in the world.  The best joke, I think they mean, after spending $50 billion on it, I had better speeds on my 300 baud modem 20 odd years ago.

Sorry, I had to have another whinge about it.  Politicians are such liars.

No, it was not something I could put my finger on.

But…

What was it?

I found I could write again.

Well, I could always write, but it was a matter of forcing myself to sit down and do like it was a chore I really didn’t want to do.   And how easy it was to get sidetracked in social media.

Not today.

Today I simply looked at the writing I wanted to do, and it all came to me, without having to stare at the blank screen before the words would come, and then find myself deleting them over and over.  Yesterday, writing 500 words really meant writing 5,000 crappy words and continually revising.

Today I could write 5,000 words and it was all good.

Let’s hope it continues into tomorrow.

 

Skeletons in the closet, and doppelgangers

A story called “Mistaken Identity”

…

How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect it.

In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.

I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.

Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.

There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.

Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.

It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.

For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.

It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!

And a great idea for a story.

That story is called ‘Mistaken Identity’.