Memories of the conversations with my cat – 41

As some may be aware, but many are not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mouse catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some years ago.

Recently, I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.

For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits, I will run the series again from Episode 1

These are the memories of our time together…

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This is Chester. He had been shocked by my transformation into someone he least likely expected to find in his domain.

After a chastisement, I told him he could expect more shocks in the days to follow.

Why he asks. All I want is a peaceful life lying in the sun by the window, and no pesky mice to chase.

Sorry, I say. I’m playing roles for my next book. Trying to get the feel for the character.

A drunk, a fool, and a man who does household chores. You’re failed in all three, just in case you want to know what I think.

I don’t.

The cat doesn’t have a sense of humour, or if he does, I’m not seeing it.

I think you’ve got it wrong. Not a drunk, a man with physical disabilities, not a fool but a clown who’s lost his will to perform, and yes, I am the one who does the cooking and cleaning,

And who’s in charge of feeding you? Anything else you care to add?

Looking good, keep up the good work, but how about fresh fish rather than that packet stuff.

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job? – Episode 7

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.

A body and a whole bunch of questions.

A full minute passed, with only one car passing, the rest of the time there was a strange sort of silence.

The man on the ground didn’t move. Whoever shot him had shot to kill. I took the few steps to stand beside him and could see the hole and the bloodstain of the wound. Shot in the heart, instant death.

Usually, if it was a sniper, it was a head shot. Less chance of missing a vital organ and leaving the target alive.

Odd too that it was just before he told me where some ‘evidence’ was located. And who the hell was this Alfred Nobbin?

I heard a car turn into the alley and come towards me. Halfway, it stopped, the engine switched off, and the doors opened.

Two men. Maury, my handler, and Severin, the instructor. Neither was carrying a gun, so neither had shot him. That meant someone else was still in play.

I said, “I had him, but someone shot him.”

Stating the obvious, Maury’s expression told me.

“You’re not dead.”

“Perhaps I wasn’t a target.”

“Today. Did he say who he was?”

“No.”

No hesitation or they’ll think I’m lying, which I am. I was not sure why, but was it because I detected a note of sincerity in the target’s tone?

“Checked for identification yet?”

“Just about to.” I knelt down and went through his pockets. Nothing. I told Maury that.

“Pity.” He hadn’t moved from where he stopped. Severin had been looking back up the alley, no doubt looking for where the bullet came from.

Had he reached the same conclusion I had, a balcony on the third floor of the left-hand building? The shooter would be long gone by now.

A white van pulled into the lane and pulled up behind Maury’s car. The cleaners.

It raided questions. How did Maury know we’d be here, and that the target would be shot dead? Or had he assumed I’d all but kill him in revenge for what had happened to the others.

What had happened to the others?

“The rest of the team,” I asked.

“Two dead, one critical. One safe. Let’s go. We need to have a debriefing.”

I took a last look at the body, the joined Maury and Severin in the car. I had questions of my own.

“A bad day’s work,” Severin muttered, as he drove off.

“But conclusive proof we have a traitor, the last thing we need right now.”

I was surprised they were discussing high-level matters that I considered above my pay grade. And, I had to say, it worried me.

Writing a book in 365 days – 204

Day 204

Setting a story in an invented world

…

We are all born with an imagination. It’s simply a matter of whether we choose to use it or not.

Some people have every reason to want to disappear into an imaginary world of their creation because life is too hard or impossible in reality.

I was there for two reasons.

The first, because I loved reading books, especially stories about brave people and children who had holidays by the sea, who got together to have adventures.

Of course, if you were like me, it was Enid Blyton, the Famous Five and the Secret Seven. I must have read and reread those stories over and over.

As I got older and the stories got more sophisticated, right out of the school library, my desire for adventure only grew.

Yes, we went on holiday, but there was never anything like what happened in those books.

Until…

We were allowed to stay at my grandmother’s house, who lived in the country. It was by a highway, it was at the end of a lane, it was only a very large block of land, and it was a huge house, lots of rooms, and a place where an imagination could run wild.

My grandmother lived alone. She was a hoarder. She had lots of old musty books and stories that were much different from those I read.

She had a wing of bedrooms, one for my mother, her sister and her brother and a spare, rooms filled with stuff, which, while she went off to bowls and left us on our own, we used to explore.

Those rooms have files of magazines, old documents from the garage her husband, long deceased, had run. History.

Then there was the outside, now in disrepair. Two garages and old cars rotting away. A workshop that had all manner of tools, an overgrown garden of the sort one usually found in towns. There was an outhouse adjoining the laundry, very scary to go to at night, and almost as much during the day.

It was like stepping back in time, long before we had all the modern conveniences we have today.

Hers used to have a large fountain, a rose garden, a croquet lawn, a fernery, and a greenhouse. We recovered some of it, particularly the fountain, and it was incredible. Those gardens would have been magnificent.

Inside the house, there were tables, luxurious lounge chairs, 1930s furniture, cupboards, a wooden stove, and an ice box, an almost perfect reminder of what it had been like long before we were born.

My brother didn’t see it, but then he never really had an imagination.

The second, because of the horrible things that happened to us, if I hadn’t been able to escape, I don’t think I would have made it to adulthood.

A vastly different world was needed, one I could almost walk through a portal into, a place where I could escape.

A child in a boarding school in the English countryside, a pilot in a Sopwith Camel flying over the trenches of WWI, a seaman on a destroyer in action against the Germans in a great sea battle, and an Explorer in the middle of the jungle in Africa, going down the Nile, or the Zambesi.

Anything but who I was and where I was.

Searching for locations: The Kingston Flyer, Kingston, New Zealand

The Kingston Flyer was a vintage train that ran about 14km to Fairlight from Kingston, at the southern end of Lake Wakatipu, and back.

This tourist service was suspended in December 2012 because of locomotive issues.

However, before that, we managed to go on one of the tours, and it was a memorable trip. Trying to drink a cup of tea from the restaurant car was very difficult, given how much the carriages moved around on the tracks.

The original Kingston Flyer ran between Kingston, Gore, Invercargill, and sometimes Dunedin, from the 1890s through to 1957.

There are two steam locomotives used for the Kingston Flyer service, the AB778 starting service in 1925, and the AB795 which started service in 1927.

The AB class locomotive was a 4-6-2 Pacific steam locomotive with a Vanderbilt tender, of which 141 were built between 1915 and 1927 some of which by New Zealand Railways Addington Workshops.

No 235 is the builder’s number for the AB778

There were seven wooden bodied passenger carriages, three passenger coaches, one passenger/refreshments carriage and two car/vans. The is also a Birdcage gallery coach. Each of the rolling stock was built between 1900 and 1923. They were built at either of Addington, Petone, or Hillside.

I suspect the 2 on the side means second class

The passenger coach we traveled in was very comfortable.

This is one of the guard’s vans, and for transporting cargo.

The Kingston Railway Station

and cafe.

A poster sign advertising the Kingston Flyer

The running times for the tourist services, when it was running.

An excerpt from “Sunday in New York”

Now available on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

Williams’ Restaurant, East 65^th Street, New York, Saturday, 8:00 p.m.

We met the Blaine’s at Williams’, a rather upmarket restaurant that the Blaine’s frequently visited, and had recommended.

Of course, during the taxi ride there, Alison reminded me that with my new job, we would be able to go to many more places like Williams’. It was, at worst, more emotional blackmail, because as far as Alison was concerned, we were well on our way to posh restaurants, the Trump Tower Apartments, and the trappings of the ‘executive set’.

It would be a miracle if I didn’t strangle Elaine before the night was over. It was she who had filled Alison’s head with all this stuff and nonsense.

Aside from the half frown half-smile, Alison was looking stunning. It was months since she had last dressed up, and she was especially wearing the dress I’d bought her for our 5^th anniversary that cost a month’s salary. On her, it was worth it, and I would have paid more if I had to. She had adored it, and me, for a week or so after.

For tonight, I think I was close to getting back on that pedestal.

She had the looks and figure to draw attention, the sort movie stars got on the red carpet, and when we walked into the restaurant, I swear there were at least five seconds silence, and many more gasps.

Even I had a sudden loss of breath earlier in the evening when she came out of the dressing room. Once more I was reminded of how lucky I was that she had agreed to marry me. Amid all those self-doubts, I couldn’t believe she had loved me when there were so many others ‘out there’ who were more appealing.

Elaine was out of her seat and came over just as the Head Waiter hovered into sight. She personally escorted Alison to the table, allowing me to follow like the Queen’s consort, while she and Alison basked in the admiring glances of the other patrons.

More than once I heard the muted question, “Who is she?”

Jimmy stood, we shook hands, and then we sat together. It was not the usual boy, girl, boy, girl seating arrangement. Jimmy and I on one side and Elaine and Alison on the other.

The battle lines were drawn.

Jimmy was looking fashionable, with the permanent blade one beard, unkempt hair, and designer dinner suit that looked like he’d slept in it. Alison insisted I wear a tuxedo, and I looked like the proverbial penguin or just a thinner version of Alfred Hitchcock.

The bow tie had been slightly crooked, but just before we stepped out she had straightened it. And took the moment to look deeply into my soul. It was one of those moments when words were not necessary.

Then it was gone.

I relived it briefly as I sat and she looked at me. A penetrating look that told me to ‘behave’.

When we were settled, Elaine said, in that breathless, enthusiastic manner of hers when she was excited, “So, Harry, you are finally moving up.” It was not a question, but a statement.

I was not sure what she meant by ‘finally’ but I accepted it with good grace. Sometimes Elaine was prone to using figures of speech I didn’t understand. I guessed she was talking about the new job. “It was supposed to be a secret.”

She smiled widely. “There are no secrets between Al and I, are there Al?”

I looked at ‘Al’ and saw a brief look of consternation.

I was not sure Alison liked the idea of being called Al. I tried it once and was admonished. But it was interesting her ‘best friend forever’ was allowed that distinction when I was not. It was, perhaps, another indicator of how far I’d slipped in her estimation.

Perhaps, I thought, it was a necessary evil. As I understood it, the Blaine’s were our mentors at the Trump Tower, because they didn’t just let ‘anyone’ in. I didn’t ask if the Blaine’s thought we were just ‘anyone’ before I got the job offer.

And then there was that look between Alison and Elaine, quickly stolen before Alison realized I was looking at both of them. I was out of my depth, in a place I didn’t belong, with people I didn’t understand. And yet, apparently, Alison did. I must have missed the memo.

“No,” Alison said softly, stealing a glance in my direction, “No secrets between friends.”

No secrets. Her look conveyed something else entirely.

The waiter brought champagne, Krug, and poured glasses for each of us. It was not the cheap stuff, and I was glad I brought a couple of thousand dollars with me. We were going to need it.

Then, a toast.

To a new job and a new life.

“When did you decide?” Elaine was effusive at the best of times, but with the champagne, it was worse.

Alison had a strange expression on her face. It was obvious she had told Elaine it was a done deal, even before I’d made up my mind. Perhaps she’d assumed I might be ‘refreshingly honest’ in front of Elaine, but it could also mean she didn’t really care what I might say or do.

Instead of consternation, she looked happy, and I realized it would be churlish, even silly if I made a scene. I knew what I wanted to say. I also knew that it would serve little purpose provoking Elaine, or upsetting Alison. This was not the time or the place. Alison had been looking forward to coming here, and I was not going to spoil it.

Instead, I said, smiling, “When I woke up this morning and found Alison missing. If she had been there, I would not have noticed the water stain on the roof above our bed, and decide there and then how much I hated the place.” I used my reassuring smile, the one I used with the customers when all hell was breaking loose, and the forest fire was out of control. “It’s the little things. They all add up until one day …” I shrugged. “I guess that one day was today.”

I saw an incredulous look pass between Elaine and Alison, a non-verbal question; perhaps, is he for real? Or; I told you he’d come around.

I had no idea the two were so close.

“How quaint,” Elaine said, which just about summed up her feelings towards me. I think, at that moment, I lost some brownie points. It was all I could come up with at short notice.

“Yes,” I added, with a little more emphasis than I wanted. “Alison was off to get some study in with one of her friends.”

“Weren’t the two of you off to the Hamptons, a weekend with some friends?” Jimmy piped up, and immediately got the ‘shut up you fool’ look, that cut that line of conversation dead. Someone forgot to feed Jimmy his lines.

It was followed by the condescending smile from Elaine, and “I need to powder my nose. Care to join me, Al?”

A frown, then a forced smile for her new best friend. “Yes.”

I watched them leave the table and head in the direction of the restroom, looking like they were in earnest conversation. I thought ‘Al’ looked annoyed, but I could be wrong.

I had to say Jimmy looked more surprised than I did.

There was that odd moment of silence between us, Jimmy still smarting from his death stare, and for me, the Alison and Elaine show. I was quite literally gob-smacked.

I drained my champagne glass gathering some courage and turned to him. “By the way, we were going to have a weekend away, but this legal tutorial thing came up. You know Alison is doing her law degree.”

He looked startled when he realized I had spoken. He was looking intently at a woman several tables over from us, one who’d obviously forgotten some basic garments when getting dressed. Or perhaps it was deliberate. She’d definitely had some enhancements done.

He dragged his eyes back to me. “Yes. Elaine said something or other about it. But I thought she said the tutor was out of town and it had been postponed until next week. Perhaps I got it wrong. I usually do.”

“Perhaps I’ve got it wrong.” I shrugged, as the dark thoughts started swirling in my head again. “This week or next, what does it matter?”

Of course, it mattered to me, and I digested what he said with a sinking heart. It showed there was another problem between Alison and me; it was possible she was now telling me lies. If what he said was true and I had no reason to doubt him, where was she going tomorrow morning, and had she really been with a friend studying today?

We poured some more champagne, had a drink, then he asked, “This promotion thing, what’s it worth?”

“Trouble, I suspect. Definitely more money, but less time at home.”

“Oh,” raised eyebrows. Obviously, the women had not talked about the job in front of him, or, at least, not all the details. “You sure you want to do that?”

At last the voice of reason. “Me? No.”

“Yet you accepted the job.”

I sucked in a breath or two while I considered whether I could trust him. Even if I couldn’t, I could see my ship was sinking, so it wouldn’t matter what I told him, or what Elaine might find out from him. “Jimmy, between you and me I haven’t as yet decided one way or another. To be honest, I won’t know until I go up to Barclay’s office and he asks me the question.”

“Barclay?”

“My boss.”

“Elaine’s doing a job for a Barclay that recently moved in the tower a block down from us. I thought I recognized the name.”

“How did Elaine get the job?”

“Oh, Alison put him onto her.”

“When?”

“A couple of months ago. Why?”

I shrugged and tried to keep a straight face, while my insides were churning up like the wake of a supertanker. I felt sick, faint, and wanting to die all at the same moment. “Perhaps she said something about it, but it didn’t connect at the time. Too busy with work I expect. I think I seriously need to get away for a while.”

I could hardly breathe, my throat was constricted and I knew I had to keep it together. I could see Elaine and Alison coming back, so I had to calm down. I sucked in some deep breaths, and put my ‘manage a complete and utter disaster’ look on my face.

And I had to change the subject, quickly, so I said, “Jimmy, Elaine told Alison, who told me, you were something of a guru of the cause and effects of the global economic meltdown. Now, I have a couple of friends who have been expounding this theory …”

Like flicking a switch, I launched into the well-worn practice of ‘running a distraction’, like at work when we needed to keep the customer from discovering the truth. It was one of the things I was good at, taking over a conversation and pushing it in a different direction. It was salvaging a good result from an utter disaster, and if ever there was a time that it was required, it was right here, right now.

When Alison sat down and looked at me, she knew something had happened between Jimmy and I. I might have looked pale or red-faced, or angry or disappointed, it didn’t matter. If that didn’t seal the deal for her, the fact I took over the dining engagement did. She knew well enough the only time I did that was when everything was about to go to hell in a handbasket. She’d seen me in action before and had been suitably astonished.

But I got into gear, kept the champagne flowing and steered the conversation, as much as one could from a seasoned professional like Elaine, and, I think, in Jimmy’s eyes, he saw the battle lines and knew who took the crown on points. Neither Elaine nor Jimmy suspected anything, and if the truth be told, I had improved my stocks with Elaine. She was at times both surprised and interested, even willing to take a back seat.

Alison, on the other hand, tried poking around the edges, and, once when Elaine and Jimmy had got up to have a cigarette outside, questioned me directly. I chose to ignore her, and pretend nothing had happened, instead of telling her how much I was enjoying the evening.

She had her ‘secrets’. I had mine.

At the end of the evening, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I was physically sick from the pent up tension and the implications of what Jimmy had told me. It took a while for me to pull myself together; so long, in fact, Jimmy came looking for me. I told him I’d drunk too much champagne, and he seemed satisfied with that excuse. When I returned, both Alison and Elaine noticed how pale I was but neither made any comment.

It was a sad way to end what was supposed to be a delightful evening, which to a large degree it was for the other three. But I had achieved what I set out to do, and that was to play them at their own game, watching the deception, once I knew there was a deception, as warily as a cat watches its prey.

I had also discovered Jimmy’s real calling; a professor of economics at the same University Alison was doing her law degree. It was no surprise in the end, on a night where surprises abounded, that the world could really be that small.

We parted in the early hours of the morning, a taxi whisking us back to the Lower East Side, another taking the Blaine’s back to the Upper West Side. But, in our case, as Alison reminded me, it would not be for much longer. She showed concern for my health, asked me what was wrong. It took all the courage I could muster to tell her it was most likely something I ate and the champagne, and that I would be fine in the morning.

She could see quite plainly it was anything other than what I told her, but she didn’t pursue it. Perhaps she just didn’t care what I was playing at.

And yet, after everything that had happened, once inside our ‘palace’, the events of the evening were discarded, like her clothing, and she again reminded me of what we had together in the early years before the problems had set in.

It left me confused and lost.

I couldn’t sleep because my mind had now gone down that irreversible path that told me I was losing her, that she had found someone else, and that our marriage was in its last death throes.

And now I knew it had something to do with Barclay.

Sunday In New York

Searching for locations: Huka Falls, Taupo, New Zealand

Huka Falls is located in the Wairakei Tourist Park about five minutes north of Taupo on the north island of New Zealand.

The Waikato River heading towards the gorge

The water heading down the gorge, gathering pace

until it crashes over the top of the waterfall at the rate of about 220,000 liters per second. It also makes a very loud noise, so that when you are close to it, hearing anything but the falls is impossible.

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’.