Month: July 2024

‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

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.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

“The Document” – the editor’s final draft – Day 10

This book has been sitting in the ‘to-be-done’ tray, so this month it is going to get the final revision.

And so it begins…

…

I’m getting behind

…

Not only does the reality of life get in the way of writing, but so do plot holes, and I guess this is why, in this sort of writing situation, it doesn’t pay to go back and read over some of what’s written unless you have to, which now I do.

I have.

And now wish I hadn’t. It’s a point where I feel like I’m getting bogged down.

The purpose of the exercise is to move forward, and I’m trying to, but the fact is, my subconscious was working overnight and pointed out a problem.

Why couldn’t I just wake up and imagine I was a No 1 bestselling author?

I tried to leave it alone, but it wasn’t going to happen. I had to fix it before going on.

It added a few hundred words, so now it’s back to burning the midnight oil yet again so that this part reads the way its supposed to.

I knew there was a reason why I didn’t like editing!

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

…

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.

Just in case.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

newechocover5rs

In a word: Great

Or is it grate?

Is it possible to mix the two up?  I don’t think so.

Great usually means: everything is great, or good, or excellent, whatever degree of goodness you want to put to it.

It could also mean something else, like:  Well, you were a great help! when in fact you want to say how useless they were.

Large or little.

Like all creatures great and small,  Why not say big or small.  Big doesn’t quite have the same effect.

Of course, you could be a great person, well, what I really mean is distinguished.  Besides, great could mean way above average, too.  Or grand, or impressive, the list goes on.

And haven’t we all, at some time had a great-aunt.  No not the good one, the ‘great’ one, denoting her seniority, not necessarily how nice she is.

 

As for the other grate, we can build a fire in it.

Or add an ‘un’ in front and ‘ful’ at the end, to denote what parents sometimes think of their children

Or get a block of cheese and ‘grate’ it into small shreds.

Or speak in a voice that grates on your nerves, possibly by that great-aunt.

Inspiration, maybe – Volume 1

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:

lookingdownfromcoronetpeak

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.

“Maybe next time,” Alan said.

“We’ll get him.  It’s just a matter of time.”

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Find this and other stories in “Inspiration, maybe”  available soon.

InspirationMaybe1v1

The cinema of my dreams – It continued in London – Episode 27

A conversation with a Countess

…

Opera was one of those events most people could take or leave.  Violetta loved it and we went often.  I went because it was more interesting to observe the people who went.

This time was no different.

Rodby was bored, his long-suffering wife, as I came to believe she was, loved it, and used it as a form of torture, and the countess, well, it was difficult to say.  She had other matters on her mind.

I spent the first half wondering what the connection was between Mrs Rodby and the countess, the half-time interval listening to their friendly banter about the old days, discovering they had got up to all sorts of high jinks in a boarding school for elegant ladies of which they were decidedly most not, and then the second half thinking that life was so much easier for the wealthy and powerful fifty years ago than it was today.

In the end, where an opinion had to be professed, I said that had I not been an expert in languages, all of it would have been lost on me.  Even so, as a love story with tragedy, wouldn’t it be better to be more upbeat?

Obviously, I didn’t get it.  Other than that, it was an opportunity to dress up and meet people you’d never normally get to see.

There was a brief debate in the lobby about where we would finish the night and it ended up being at the hotel where the countess was staying.  She made a call, and a room was set aside, with catering.

The countess and I took the chauffeur-driven car, the Rodby’s by their own transport.  I was expecting, after the car moved out into the traffic, our exit from the Opera House far more anonymous than our arrival, she would give me an indication of what I was there for.

And then remembered that she was as surprised to see me as I was to see her, and then to be referred to as a potential suitor, not a troubleshooter.  That label had been attached later by Mrs Rodby.

But I had to ask, in a roundabout way.

“Have you known Mrs Rodby a long time?  I gather it started at school?”

“Boarding school.  We were both daughters of diplomats, though my father was a Lord, hers what the English quaintly referred to as a Gentleman.  My mother was Italian, very feisty but with no maternal instincts.  We used to spend holidays in the South of France at a chateau in Antibes.  We lost touch for a while, living in different worlds.”

“She mentioned to me you might need some help.  Perhaps a relief for you to  know that she was not matchmaking but asked me along for a different reason.”

I watched her expression change several times.  Whatever the problem was, it was one she was reluctant to share.  Was it an embarrassment, or an errant child in trouble, or something worse?  I could not imagine her asking me to ‘retire’ an adversary, an over ardent lover, or a business rival.

“She did say you used to take your wife to the opera.”

“Rather the other way around.  She loved it.  I tried.”

“I must confess, it was my husband’s thing, not so much for the spectacle, but the hobnobbing, if it could be called that.  It was all about ‘being seen’.  That, the races, balls, galas, and everything in between.  Do you dance?”

“Before Violetta, I used to pretend I didn’t.  I had a mother who made it mandatory because you never knew when it would be useful.  I fancy she had high hopes I would marry a princess.  She didn’t live to find out I did.  Not a royal princess, by to me everything but having royal blood.  And., yes, I would not have got that second glance if I could not do the tango.”

“Your favourite?”

“After I met her, it was all I needed to know she was the one.”

“It’s curious, is it not, that it takes just one.  My moment was the quick step, and I hated it.  For a long time, I could never quite get it right, but then the Count turns up, spies me trying to hide on the other side of the ballroom, and picks me out of a gaggle of girls vying for his attention.”

“You were not?”

“I was barely out of school, and totally out of my depth.  My mother decided he was going to be the one, and unbeknownst to me had talked up my attributes to the point where I could never fulfil her lofty expectations, or his.  I thought, then, one dance and I could go.  Damn and blast it was the quick step, and his reputation as a demanding, fussy, easily annoyed with those who fumbled, stumbled, and grumbled, of much renown, I just wanted the floor to open up and suck me it.”

“Up till that moment was it like a fairytale?”

“Odd you should say that, but yes.  Up to that moment.”

“Obviously you pulled off the challenge.”

“Somehow, I managed, but in the process, I made a lifelong enemy.  Perhaps it is this that your friend alludes to.  I mentioned it in passing, but it is of no consequence.  The Count’s family will deal with it, as they always have.  You need not concern yourself, simply enjoy the evening, and tomorrow life will be as it should be.”

Perhaps she should have told Mrs Rodby that, because I had a feeling my life was not going to be ‘as it should be’.

…

© Charles Heath 2023

Sayings: Beyond the pale

I’ve often said, when espying an injustice that was so outrageously displayed that no one could miss it, as being beyond the pale.

The pale within a fence became an area of land within a boundary such as a county, and then to areas within Ireland that were held by the British. As these became smaller, those areas were deemed to be uncivilized.

This, in modern parlance, beyond the pale refers to someone’s behavior being outside the accepted norm.

There’s also…

In a word: Pale

Which is the color of the face of a person who is usually desperately unwell?

As distinct from a pale face, a white man is described by the American Indians. This, sadly, was learned from American westerns, motion pictures that told a rather interesting version of events between the Indians and the new settlers.

Paleface was in one movie, in particular, Bob Hope.

A pale can also be a single upright piece of wood in a fence.

Something could pale into significance, or be a pale imitation of a better quality article.

Not to be confused with a pail, which is a bucket, wooden or otherwise, that holds liquids.

The most famous of which is that which Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water, and, well, you know how that ended.

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 13

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritising.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Am I working for anyone now?

 

So, there I was, walking along the street, hands in pockets, trying to look like my whole world hadn’t come crashing down on me when a car pulled over to the side of the road.

I may have been down in the dumps but not that far that I wasn’t still aware of what was going on around me, the training had been that good, so I hung back a little from the curb and waited to see if was me they were after, or just some lucky rich person being dropped off.

And ready to disappear into the crowd, not that there was one, but there were three exits available and within momentary reach if necessary.

I watched the rear window go down slowly then saw a familiar face.

Nobbin.

“Get in Mr Jackson.  We have more to talk about.”

I hesitated like anyone with the training I had would, as any person with common sense would too, I guess.

“It’s perfectly safe, I assure you.”  He sounded reassuring.

A glance into the car showed only him and the driver, who was getting out of the car.  I watched him come around to the curbside and put his hand on the door handle.

“Sir,” he said.

He opened the door.  Nobbin had moved to the other side.

I shrugged, then got in.  A thought: how many people had got into cars such as this, and were never seen again?”

It was not a statistic that reached any of the newspapers.  Only the end result, a body washed down the Thames, with no indication of who it was, or where they came from, and no identification, or means of identification available.

The door closed, the driver went back to the front of the car, and then gently eased the car out into the traffic.

“I’m sorry for the theatrics surrounding this meeting, but it is necessary.  I’m sure you were told of the need for secrecy in this matter, and I’m just reinforcing that.”

“Just who are you?  And, for that matter, those people back in that building?  Or, if it’s not too hard to wrap your head around, who the hell have I been working for?”

“Good questions, all.  At least now I can speak freely.  As you can, Mr Jackson.”

“Except I have no idea who’s side you’re on, I’m on, or anyone for that matter.  This is not what I signed up for.”

“Well, to put some perspective on your situation, Mr Jackson, you were not supposed to live to tell about it.  It was an operation that was created with one purpose in mind, to find an agent named

William O’Connor, and kill him.  And everyone in the team assigned to the task.”

“By Severin and Maury?  If so, why didn’t they kill me in the alley along with this O’Connor?”

“That is a mystery to all of us.”

“And those people back in the room.  Who the hell were they?”

“Operations.  Trying to find out how a sub-section could be created and function within their purview and not be detected.  That’s what it was, run by two agents who had been expelled a few months back, but who were clever enough to work around all of the safeguards, recruit four agents, and then go after the man who caused the end of their careers.”

“Simple, it seems.”

“Very.  And, if it had not been for you, we would never have known who or why.”

“Perhaps we should be thankful there was an explosion then, otherwise we’d all be dead.”

“Or not, because as far as I know, that was part of the operation, designed to take the target, you and the surveillance member behind you.  It only did a third the job.  It didn’t go off at the critical moment.  No one was seriously hurt, by the way.”

“The policeman?”

“Critical but stable.  He’ll survive.”

“The police who were accusing me of being the bomber?”

“Our people trying to delay you, so our man could get away.  Seems they trained you better than we expected.  Did O’Connor say anything to you?”

“There wasn’t much time before I found him, and Severin shot him.”

“Anything at all?”

“He knew who I was.”

“Then he knew the whole team, and who was running it.”

“He killed two of them.”

“In self-defence.  They were not only surveillance but also assassins.  Different training before they joined your group.”

I had thought there was something odd about them.

“Anything else,” he asked again.

“Yes.  He said to tell you he found something he should, and that the evidence is…  And that’s when he was shot.  He didn’t tell me where it was.”

“He didn’t have to.  We had set up three prearranged drop sites, so it must be in one of those.  Here’s my card.”

He handed me a white card with a name and a phone number.  The name was not Nobbin.

“If this Severin contacts you again, call me.  I am available any hour of the day or night on that number.”

“If he doesn’t?”

“Then you will hear from me in the not too distant future.  The fact you’re a survivor tells me you are resourceful and have the makings of a good agent, one I can use in my department.”

“And those others back at the office?”

“You won’t hear from them again.”

The car stopped outside an underground staircase.

“This is your stop, Mr Jackson.  Thank you for your co-operation.”

Perhaps my career wasn’t in tatters.  I got out of the car, and watched it leave before heading for the underground, his card safely tucked away in my pocket.

 

© Charles Heath 2019

“The Document” – the editor’s final draft – Day 9

This book has finally come back from the Editor, so this month it is going to get a second revision, a second draft for the editor, and beta readers.

And so it begins…

…

Real-life impinges on my writing time

…
Today is the day I pick up the grandchildren from school, cook dinner, and then take them home.

How does this affect the writing time, you ask.

It doesn’t help if you were up till 2:31 am the same morning and sleep in till after 10.

Still time before leaving at 2:30 pm to go to the school, you say.

Wrong.

Food to prepare, a potato bake, is simple to make, but it takes time to prepare, and cook.

Chicken schnitzels, cut the chicken, and crumb it, simple, but takes time.

Before you know it, it’s time to go, and the potato bake has been in for an hour so far.

Oh, and one child requires handmade chips, not the bought kind, and neither like store-bought schnitzels, so everything is handmade.

By the time the kids are back home, I’ve got the coffee from a drive-through cafe, it’s after 7:00 pm.

By the time I get to the computer to start, it’s after 11:00 pm

Tired.

My mind is blank.

Just write

Two and a half hours later, 1,697 words were edited. It feels like it’s still Gibberish, but it’s done.

Thank God tomorrow is another day

Or not.

It’s a mind-numbing shopping day!

Searching for locations: Auckland, New Zealand – Another city that has a tower

Nearly every city has a high building, a tower, or a large Ferris wheel.

London had the London eye
Paris has the Eiffel tower
The Galata in Istanbul
The CN Tower in Toronto
The towers of San Gimignano
Pisa has a leaning tower

We’ve managed to see all of the above bar the Galata in Istanbul.  One day we might get there.

But, on this side of the world, there are two, the Sydney Tower, and the Sky Tower in Auckland, which we just visited recently.

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It’s not a tall tower, but it definitely gives great vies of Auckland, particularly to the north

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The mountain in the background at the top of the photo is of a volcano on Rangitoto Island.  When we were visiting, there were reports that it might become active again.

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To give a height perspective, it didn’t seem all that far down to the apartment building and gardens nearby.