Month: August 2024

Inspiration, Maybe – Volume Two

50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.

They all start with –

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like.  For instance:

And, the story:

Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?

Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave.  Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.

But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision.  She needed the opportunity to spread her wings.  It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.

She was in a rut.  Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.

It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper.  I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.

And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere.  Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication.  It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.

So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock.  We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.

It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one.  Starting the following Monday.

Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.

I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.

What surprised her was my reaction.  None.

I simply asked where who, and when.

A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.

A week.

It was all the time I had left with her.

I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.

She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.

Is that all you want to know?

I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.

There’s not much to ask, I said.  You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place,  and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.

Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would.  And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.

One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.

So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.

Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology.  It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you.  I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.

Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.

I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me,  you can make cabinets anywhere.

I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job.  It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.

Then the only question left was, what do we do now?

Go shopping for suitcases.  Bags to pack, and places to go.

Getting on the roller coaster is easy.  On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top.  It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.

What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.

Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.

There was no question of going with her to New York.  Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back.  After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind.  New friends new life.

We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.

Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever.  I remember standing there, watching the taxi go.  It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.

So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.

Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.

People coming, people going.

Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was.  Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.

As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.

Perhaps it was.

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

Coming soon.  Find the above story and 49 others like it in:

The Cinema of My Dreams – It ended in Sorrento – Episode 46

Rodby Explains, at last

…

I was about to leave when my phone rang.  “Just a minute, I’d better check.”

I looked at the screen, and it was a private number.  Normally, I would ignore the call, but this time, I had a bad feeling.

“Yes.” 

“Don’t hang up. This is a recorded message. It’s the only way I can tell you what’s happening.”

Rodby, with a tremor.  This was entirely unexpected.

“Have you got a private space where I can listen to this?  It’s a message from my employer and may be relevant to the countess.”

“Of course.”  He got up and went to a door on the side and opened it.  “A conference room. Take as long as you need.”

I walked into the room, and he closed the door behind me.

Another message came in, and I looked at it.  A response from Anthony on the identity of the girl outside after I surreptitiously took her photo and sent it back.

The document had the name age all that personal stuff, where she lived, all her relatives, where she worked, indeed a pi company, and the fact she was an art historian working in the stolen paintings department.  It confirmed her real name was Francesca and not that she had given me earlier.  It was useful for later if she was still in the office.

Meanwhile, I replayed the message.

“As you may have guessed, you did not get the whole story.  Circumstances made it impossible for me to give the proper instructions to Anthony, so I had to work around the facts and add sufficient fiction to make it seem plausible, to Anthony anyway.  I know you can see the holes.

But, an explanation for all of this subterfuge…

Firstly, you are doing this job because you are not on the radar.  Nor is Cecelia, and I’ve kept it so that no one knows you are doing anything for us.  I fear not everyone in the office is rowing in the same direction.

Secondly, I’m under strict instructions at the peril of Martha’s life to do as I am told.  Both Martha and Heidi were kidnapped two weeks ago and were replaced by the two women you met at the opera.  They are very good impersonators and look almost exactly like them.  But they are short on essential details, and I believe you will discover this fact soon enough, if not already.

I don’t know where they are or who has taken them.  I cannot say for certain if Juliet or Vittoria or both are involved in their kidnapping and/or working in concert with the fake countess and whoever she is working for.  I suspect that it’s not the Burkehardt’s, and knowing you, you will have gone to the solicitor’s office and elicited a few facts that no one other than me, him, and three others knows about them.  I was in fact hoping that was going to be your next course of action.

Thirdly, I was asked to put my best person in ensuring the fake countess made it to the solicitor’s office for the sealing of the inheritance documents.  I used you because, out of everyone I knew, because you would be intrigued by the notion that Mrs Rodby would want to set up a date with you and Heidi, especially when you were not looking for one.  Ordinarily, Martha would not do such a thing, but I had to weave the tale so that the fake would agree to use you as her guardian angel.

I believe that by now, you will know that Martha and Heidi are sisters.  Heidi had come to London about a month ago just after the count died, terrified.  An attempt had been made on her life, and she had no idea who or why. She didn’t think it was the Burkhardt’s, but Alessandro was making ugly noises.

Two weeks later, no further advanced in our inquiries, they were taken, so I didn’t have much to work with.

Two important outcomes for this mission are, firstly, you must try and find the women.  It is imperative we get to them before the date of the meeting with the Burkehardt’s.  Secondly, the fake countess must not get to that solicitor’s office.  How you do that is up to you.”

There might have been more, but that’s where the message cut out.

It explained why I thought the woman at Trafalgar Square was different from what I remembered, and Rodby’s very strange behaviour.

I guess I’d be a little off my game if someone had kidnapped Violetta.  What I couldn’t understand was how he let it happen.  His personal security was very tight, and that extended to family members.

It also explained why the solicitor in the other room had not heard from his client, the woman pretending to be her was not her, and didn’t know about the coded communications.

I went back into the lawyer’s office where he was reading through a brief.  I had thought he might see the girl who came in with me.

He looked up.  “Any news.”

For a second, I was going to tell him, but a sixth sense told me not to trust anyone, no matter how sincere they sounded.  With the kind of money being thrown around as the value of this inheritance, strong-minded people could be turned.

It would not serve the real countess if they, whoever they were, knew we knew their secret.  That was the tangled web of lies and deceit this mission was descending into.

“Nothing definitive.  To be honest, this is not my area of expertise, and they’re sending out someone with more experience.  I told them to just leave well alone, but someone in London has a bee in their bonnet about the countess.”

He shrugged.  “She is English, it is understandable.  What are you going to do next?”

“Have a chat with the girl outside.  It won’t hurt to find out why she’s so interested in me.  If I wasn’t such a suspicious bugger, I’d be flattered.  Thank you for your time.”

© Charles Heath 2023

The cinema of my dreams – I never wanted to go to Africa – Episode 2

On the ground, not daring to move

…

Lying there, afraid to move, I honestly believed that was just the stupidest thing I’d ever done.

Aside from the fact I could see we were about to be blown to kingdom come by a rocket, I had that split second to decide if I wanted to be incinerated, or in possession of 206 broken bones.

I guess I was assuming I’d survive the landing. 

After all the helicopter was only about twenty to thirty feet above the ground and not moving very fast, in fact, it was slowing, and turning away, when the pilot saw the rocket launcher.

I could hear the crackling of fire not far from me, a result of the helicopter hitting the ground.  It wasn’t a large explosion, and certainly not accompanied by a hail of red-hot metal parts.

Not yet.

I moved and it hurt.  Understandable.  But there didn’t seem to be any broken bones, which was nothing short of a miracle.  I did try to affect a roll when landing as we were trained in parachute jumping, and maybe that had helped.

Enough time to recover, I rolled over and got to my knees.  Ok, that hurt, twinges in my lower back, and a slight sprain in my right ankle.  No running then.

Then I heard the gears crunching, so sort an old Toyota pickup would make, followed by an over-revving engine.  A novice driver.  Or a man in a hurry.

Damn.

The pickup was coming back to check the wreckage.

And if there were any survivors.

No gun, lost that in the jump.  But, as luck would have it, an AK47 was lying on the ground between me and the burning wreckage.

Only one problem.  The pickup would be on me before I could get to it.

Is this the very definition of being between a rock and a hard place?

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2023

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 34

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 prioritizing.

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

Chasing leads, maybe

…

She had brought a file.  It looked the same as the last one she brought with her, the one with my name on it.

This time it was thicker.

Intelligence gathering at its finest.  There’d be stuff in there that even I didn’t know about me.

She didn’t open it, just looked at me.

“What have you been doing?”

“Working?”

“For whom?”

“Nobbin, of course.  I am now assigned to his section.  Did you do that?”

“He did.  He tells me you’re working on the O’Connell investigation.”

“Is that what it’s called.  He never told me that.  And I had to find out where I’d been assigned by logging onto a computer.  An email or a letter would have made my life a little easier.”

“You’re just lucky you’re still working here.  Now, tell me more about this Severin character.”

“I told you everything I knew the last time you spoke to me.  Apparently, you seemed to know who it was.  Perhaps you might tell me, too.”

“It’s…”

“And,” I interrupted, “don’t tell me it’s above my pay grade.  I was potentially working for traitors and could have finished up in jail for treason.”

“You might still get there.”

Then why hadn’t she had me arrested and thrown in a dungeon the last time we met?  There was an easy answer to that question.  She needed me out in the field.  Nobbin needed me in the field.  They presumably needed me to remain available to Severin for whatever reason.

“What do you want?”

She opened the file, turned a few pages, and stopped at a yellow sheet of paper.  I wasn’t able to read it upside down, but it had very small spidery writing on it.

Then she looked at me again.

“Some secret documents appear to have gone missing.  We believe that is to say Director Dobbin thinks these may have been on a USB drive that was in the possession of O’Connell at the time of his death.  You were there at the time of his death.  You can see where this is going…”

No matter which answers I gave it was the wrong one, which led to do not pass go and do not collect two hundred dollars, or pounds as the case may be.

“I haven’t got it, and he didn’t tell me where it was, and I saw him die.”

“If you say so.”  She went back to the file and turned some more pagers.

“What do you mean?”

She looked up.  “So far, there’s no body been recovered, or any evidence there was a shooting where you said it was.”

“Are you trying to tell me he’s alive, because if you are, then I must be a very poor judge of people who have no pulse.  He was not about to get up and walk away.”

“Did you see the body removed?”

Now there’s an interesting point.  I had done as I was told and left when told to.  I assumed Severin would sort the problem out, in fact, hadn’t he called in the cleaners?  I saw a white van.

Actually, when I thought about it, I had no idea what happened after I left.  And, now that I remember, I didn’t see anyone get out of the white van.

Could bodies get up and walk?

I was beginning to think they could.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

“The Document” – the editor’s final draft – Day 30

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…

…

Just crossed the finish line

…

That’s it for another edition.

67,941 words written, but if I sat down now to contemplate what I’ve just done, the post-it notes would get in the way.

Oh, there was so much revision to do!

But, at least I managed to revise a complete novel in a month which is what I try to do each year, and then worry about editing and refining the next work in progress for the next eleven.

Not looking forward to that job, no sir.

Of course, the ending is nothing like what I envisioned the first time around, but when does it ever once the characters take over.

Until November for the next new novel, or something momentous, I bid you all a good night.

Searching for locations: A small part of London, England

We were in London in Summer, it was a fine afternoon, going into the evening and we decided to get on the London Eye.  As you can see from the clock it was near 7:00 pm.

housesofparliament3

This photo was taken as we were coming down.

Those long evenings were quite remarkable, not in the least going to a pub and sinking a few pints!  There was one such pub not far from Charing Cross Station

The pub was called ‘The Princess of Wales’

And still be light enough to find your way home.

From typewriters to computers to distraction

I first started writing by longhand, still do, in fact, then graduated to my mother’s portable typewriter, right down to the sticking keys and overused ribbon, then moved upwards into the electric world having a pair of IBM electric typewriters I bought from one of the places I worked as second-hand cast-offs.

Just remembering those days gives me the shudders, from the tangled ribbons and messy hands to using carbon paper, how many times before they were useless?

Then the age of the electric typewriter went the same way as the manual ones, simply because I could no longer buy ribbons for my IBM Selectric, so it, too, had to go the way of the dinosaurs.

It was a good thing, then, that computers and word processing software started at about the same time.   Word Perfect, to begin with, and then, in the early days of Windows, Word, and others.  Sometimes it was easier just to use the text editor, and for convenience, it’s often by choice to get ideas down, quick and dirty.

This was before the days of the internet, where you physically had to do something about finding inspiration.  And that, sometimes, was more difficult that it seems.  I do not have a writing room with large windows looking out on a rural or urban panorama.  The window looks onto a fence, and the house next door.

So much for my dream of owning a castle and having a writing room on the second or third level, with astonishing views.

Which leads me to today.  Enough with the reminiscing.  I have all the tools I need to get on with the job, but that isn’t enough to switch on the brain and start typing perfect prose.  I have to go in search of some inspiration.

It’s just that in that short distance, from, say, the couch where you were reading the latest blog posts in the WordPress reader, and the writer’s chair, your preparation for writing ends up getting confused at some of the blogger’s points because it’s hard to find anything relevant that backs up their assertions, or how things work for them.

I guess success form anyone’s standpoint, is what worked for them.  In relaying that to others, two things come to mind.  It worked for them, but in telling a million others, and they all take the same approach, no, sorry, it ain’t going to work no how.  The other, there’s usually a fee attached to gain the knowledge, and, yes, the same proviso applies.  If everyone does it, it ain’t going to work no how.

But, there you are, my attention has been distracted, and unless I’m about to indulge in writing a version of how to achieve success myself, which I haven’t so I’m not, I’m off track, with an out of balance mindset, and therefore unable to write.

Perhaps I should not read blog posts, but the newspapers.

Or not, because they all have an editorial policy that leans either and one way or another, which means their views are not necessarily unbiased.

I was a journalist once and hated the idea of having to toe the editorial line.  Or as luck would have it, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.  It lends to the theory that you can never quite believe anything the media tells you, which is a very sorry place to be when there are no external influences you can trust.

I’m coming around to thinking that it’s probably best left to the dark hours of the night when you would think all the distractions are behind you.  After all, isn’t that what daytime is for?

Except that’s when the ghosts come out to play.

I think.

Was that the lounge room door opening?

‘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

…

Searching For Locations: Disneyland, Paris, France

Whilst I found this tree house to be interesting, it seems to be far from practical because there was little to keep the wind and rain out, though I suppose, in the book, that might not be such a problem.

Be that as it may, and if it was relatively waterproof, then the furnishings would probably survive, and one had to also assume that much of the furnishings, such as the writing desk below, would have washed up as debris from the shipwreck.

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The stove and oven would have to be built by hand, and it is ‘remarkable’ such well-fitting stones were available.  It doesn’t look like it’s been used for a while judging by the amount of gree on it.  Perhaps it is not in a waterproof area.

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The dining table and the shelf in the background have that rough-hewn look about them

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A bit of man-made equipment here for drawing water from the stream

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And though not made in the era of electricity, there is an opportunity to use the water wheel to do more than it appears to be doing

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And tucked away in a corner the all-important study where one can read, or play a little music on the organ.  One could say, for the period, one had all the comforts of home.

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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

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