Category: Author

An excerpt from “Sunday in New York”

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

…

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

We met the Blaines at Williams’, a rather upmarket restaurant that the Blaines 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 had been months since she had last dressed up, and she was especially wearing the dress I’d bought her for our 5th 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 get on the red carpet, and when we walked into the restaurant, I swear there were at least five seconds of silence, and many more gasps.

I even 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 a permanent blade one beard, unkempt hair, and a 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 me, 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 that 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 Blaines were our mentors at the Trump Tower, because they didn’t just let ‘anyone’ in.  I didn’t ask if the Blaines 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 realised 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 realised 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 decided 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 studying 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 realised 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; she might have been 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 who recently moved into the tower a block down from us.  I thought I recognised 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 wanted 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 me.  I might have looked pale or red-faced, or angry or disappointed, but it didn’t matter.  If that didn’t seal the deal for her, the fact that I took over the dining engagement did.  She knew well enough that 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, rather than tell 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, that 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: to play them at their own game, watching the deception once I knew there was one, 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 Blaines 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 and 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.

…

© Charles Heath 2015-2026

Sunday In New York

Searching for locations: Sydney to Beijing, China – Every flight is different

Sydney to Beijing – Qantas A330-200
Boarding 11:45, everyone on board by 12:02, for a 12:10 departure. Pushing back 12:12 Take off 12:27

Lunch
Airline food is getting better, but the fact that they serve it up to you in a metal tray with a thick aluminium lid does nothing for the quality of the food inside.  I get what the chef is trying to do, but often there is too little of one thing and too much of another, and what you finish up with is slop in a tray.  Sometimes it’s edible, sometimes it’s not.  Sometimes the meat is tender, and other times it’s like boot leather.  As it is today. I think it’s pork; I should have had the chicken.  Or perhaps it was chicken.  I hate it when you can’t tell what it is that you’re eating. But the drinks were good.

Rest or Sleep, maybe
It’s going to take 11 hours and 20 minutes from Sydney to Beijing, a long time to sit in a plane with nothing much to do other than crosswords, read a book or newspaper or magazine, listen to music on your own device, or the in-flight entertainment, watch a movie again by the in-flight entertainment – if it works – or try to get some sleep. I started with the crosswords but got bored quickly. I fiddled with the in-flight entertainment, looked at the movies and TV shows, but none really interested me, not then at least, so I set it to the flight path. Not exactly stellar entertainment, but it’s always interesting to know where the plane is. Or is it? If we crash, what good would it do me to know it’s somewhere over the ocean, not far from Manila, or somewhere else?  It’s not as if I could phone someone up, on the way down, to let them know where we are. But, just after dinner, we still haven’t left Australia

However, by the time I’ve finished fiddling with and dismissing all of the entertainment alternatives, it’s back to the flight path, and now we are…

Somewhere approaching the Sulu Sea, which I’ve never heard of before, so it looks like I’ll have to study up on my geography when I get home.

OK, Manila looks like somewhere I’ve heard of, so we have to be flying over the Philippines.  Not far left of that is Vietnam.  Neither of those places is on my travel bucket list, so I’ll just look from up here and be satisfied with that.

Working, or not
Chronic boredom is setting in by the time we are just past halfway to our destination. We are over 6 hours into the flight, and there’s no possible way I’m going to get any sleep. I brought my Galaxy Tab loaded with a few of my novel outlines, and planning for missing chapters, thinking I might get a little thinking time in.  Plane rides, I find, are excellent for getting an opportunity to write virtually unhindered by outside interruptions, if, of course, you discount the number of times people brush past, knocking your seat, the person in front lowering the seat into your face, or people around you continually asking you to turn off your light because they’re trying to sleep. Sorry, I say, but you can suffer my pain with me.  It’s one of the joys of flying with over two hundred others in a claustrophobic environment.  Besides, aren’t the lights supposed to be slanted so that only I get the rays of light?  Except, I guess, when the fixed light doesn’t line up with where the airline has fixed the seat (usually so they can squash more people in). So, sorry, not sorry, take it up with the airline.

Back to work, and I put in some quality time on a part of the story that had been eluding me for a while.  I knew what I wanted to write, but not how I was going to approach it, so that blissfully quiet and intense time worked in my favour, something that would not have happened back home. I won’t bore you with the synopsis, just suffice to say it’s finally down on paper, digitally that is, and it’s a huge step forward towards finishing it. There is, of course, the end play, the reading of the will, but not before there are a few thrusts and parries by some of the players, but all in all, the objective was to showcase a group of people with their strengths and weaknesses pushing their characters in various directions, some at odds with what is expected of them. But enough of that.   A quick check of our position shows we’re still over water but closer to our destination, so much so that we might start the pre-landing rituals, starting with food.

Dinner
7:00 – Dinner is served, well, the lights go on, and a lot of tired people try to shake the sleep and sleeplessness out of their systems. Then flight attendants that are far too cheerful, and must have been beamed in from somewhere else, serve another interesting concoction that says what’s in it, but you can’t really be sure of the ingredients.  It comes, and it goes.

9:10 – We begin our descent into Beijing, you know, that moment when the engines almost stop, and there’s a sickening lurch, and the plane heads downward. 9:56 – We touch down on the runway, in the dark, and apparently it has been raining, though from inside the plane you’d never know. 10:10 – the plane arrives at the gate,  the usual few minutes to open the door, and, being closer to the front of the plane this time, it doesn’t take that long before the queue is moving.

Early or late, it doesn’t matter.  After clearing customs and immigration, we have to go in search of our tour guide, waiting for us somewhere outside the arrivals terminal.

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 them.

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’.

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 110

…

Day 110 – To write is to sit in judgement on oneself

…

The Mirror on the Page: Why Writing is the Ultimate Act of Self-Judgment

“To write is to sit in judgment on oneself.” — Henrik Ibsen

We often romanticise the act of writing. We talk about the “flow state,” the “muse,” and the catharsis of putting pen to paper. We view writing as an act of creation—a way to birth new worlds, build arguments, or express the deepest chambers of our souls.

But Henrik Ibsen, the master of the modern realistic drama, offers a colder, more clinical take. For Ibsen, writing isn’t just an act of creation; it is an act of interrogation. To write, he suggests, is to sit in judgment on oneself.

The Inescapable Reflection

When you stare at a blank page, you are not merely filling space. You are deciding what matters, what is true, and what is worth preserving.

Every word we commit to the page is a micro-decision. We choose our adjectives, our syntax, and our silences. In doing so, we inevitably reveal our biases, our insecurities, our logic, and our moral compass. You cannot hide from a finished manuscript. When you read back what you have written, you are reading the architecture of your own mind.

If you write with honesty, you are forced to confront the gaps between who you think you are and what you are actually capable of articulating. It is a mirror that doesn’t just show your face; it shows your thoughts in their raw, unvarnished state.

The Courtroom of the Conscience

Why did Ibsen view this as a form of “judgment”?

Because writing forces a separation between the thinker and the thought. When a thought is just floating in the ether of your brain, it feels fluid and safe. Once you write it down, it becomes an object—a specimen on a slide.

In that moment of scrutiny, the internal judge wakes up:

  • Is this thought coherent, or am I deceiving myself?
  • Is this argument kind, or is it defensive?
  • Does this character reflect my own failings, or am I trying to look like a hero?

Writing is the process of putting our own consciousness on trial. We act as both the prosecutor, hunting for inconsistencies and falsehoods, and the judge, deciding whether these ideas hold up to the light of day.

The Burden (and Gift) of Clarity

This is why so many people find writing painful. It is an unnerving experience to realise that your “deep insights” might actually be clichés, or that your “logical stance” is rooted in fear.

But this judgment is also the greatest gift a writer can receive.

If we never write—if we never force ourselves to sit in judgment of our own ideas—we remain trapped in the echo chambers of our own internal narratives. We keep repeating the same habits, holding the same prejudices, and floating in the same murky waters of half-formed intentions.

By writing, we force ourselves to stand before the bench. We demand evidence. We call our own bluff.

Final Thoughts

Next time you find yourself struggling to find the right word, remember Ibsen. You aren’t just battling with vocabulary; you are engaged in a high-stakes trial. You are evaluating your own worldview.

Writing is not for the faint of heart because it requires the courage to judge oneself—and the even greater courage to accept the verdict, learn from it, and write the next sentence anyway.

So, what is your writing telling you about yourself today? Are you ready to hear the verdict?

The cinema of my dreams – I never wanted to go to Africa – Episode 1

There’s hanging around, and there’s hanging around

…

So, there I was, hanging half out of the helicopter, shooting a handgun at a truck speeding along a dirt track.

I know, what’s the effective range of a handgun?

The sound of the rotors was still deafening even with the earphones on and as I run out of bullets and was reaching for another clip, I heard a voice crackle in my ears.

“Some fool’s got a rocket launcher.”

That fool was trying to lean out the passenger side of the truck and aim the launcher at the helicopter.

The bucking and swaying of the vehicle nearly tipped him out onto the roadside, but something managed to anchor him, and he was taking aim.

“Now would be the time to peel away,” I said, not knowing if the pilot could hear me.

Our course didn’t deviate, so perhaps he hadn’t.

I calculated the distance between the helicopter and the ground, and the speed we were traveling.  Fast.  Short drop.  Quick landing.  Very painful.

In that moment I saw the rocket leave the launcher, I let go.

There was that instant where you feel disembodied and floating on air.  The same as that few seconds in free fall, just before pulling the rip cord of a parachute.

I hit the ground a rolled, not that I thought it would do much good, and the stopped, just before I lost consciousness.  Somewhere in front of me, there was a huge explosion, and then nothing.

Last thought, I hope the helicopter didn’t land on me.

…

© Charles Heath 2018 – 2023

“The Devil You Don’t”, she was the girl you would not take home to your mother!

Now only $0.99 at https://amzn.to/2Xyh1ow

…

John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums. Looking for new opportunities, and prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.

Suddenly he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.

If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favour for him in Rome.

At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.

That ‘favour’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follow.

Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.

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The cinema of my dreams – It continued in London – Episode 23

What’s the Opera got to do with it?

…

I had hoped never to see Rodby again, and yet here I was in that oppressively warm wood polish-smelling office of his, sitting uncomfortably opposite him, a very large and clear desk between us.

In all the time I’d known him, and those visits to his office, there had never been anything on it.  Not even a phone.

The last time I was in this position, to inform him of my retirement, I’d been reluctant to put the resignation envelope on the pristine surface.

Significantly, it was a month to the day after I left Larry’s mother’s house in Sorrento.

The day after I went with Cecilia to her audition, and she smashed it, getting the role from a rather astonished casting director, and director.  He was calling it a possible break-out performance, in a whole different language that I didn’t understand.

That same night I found Juliet dining alone in the hotel restaurant and told her the good news, but her brother had already called her.  We had dinner, and it could have been more, but there was that Cecilia thing in the back of her mind so we parted as friends.

And at a loose end, Venice no longer hold any significance for me, I moved back to London.

I should have gone to Paris.  There, it would have been harder for Alfie to find me.

He had been giving me the ‘come back’ look, one that I had taken a long time to learn how to ignore.

Seeing he wasn’t making any impact, he said, “They found Larry.”

An enigmatic statement.  Who found Larry?

“The Italian police recovered the body, in a little-used area of Lake Como.  No signs of physical damage, not shot or stabbed, but apparently, he died of natural causes.  We’re still waiting for a definitive coroner’s report.  You never really elaborated on what happened at his mother’s house.”

My report was short and lacked detail, more notable for what I didn’t say rather than what I did.

“Nothing to tell.  Brenda just told him his days of running the organization were over, she and Jaime Meyers had collaboratively taken over, and things would be different.  I notice several other hard-line criminals have been taken off the streets since, so Inspector Crowley’s arrangement with her is working.  A win-win situation.  And you don’t have to deal with Larry anymore.”

“That’s the problem.  If something is too good to be true, it generally is. I have to wonder what has replaced him.”

“I’m retired sir.  No longer interested.  Why am I here?”

I could see he had more, possibly to pique my interest, but just shrugged.

“Nothing of any importance.  I thought you might want to know what happened to Larry.  And Martha wants me to go to the opera tonight and she specifically asked me to ask you, and as you know she does not take no for an answer.”

I shrugged.  He was right about his wife, a force of nature to be reckoned with.  I had met her several times, and she had been intrigued with Violetta and had been devastated when she learned of her death.

“Then I guess I’d better dust off the monkey suit.”

“Good.  I’ll text you where and when and send a driver to pick you up.”

© Charles Heath 2022

NaNoWriMo – April – 2026 – Day 36

There is something bittersweet about writing those fateful last two words on your manuscript, ‘The End’.

That’s because it’s not.  Oh, no.  It’s just the beginning.

However daunting the next phase of the writing process is, it’s a huge sigh of relief to finally finish the NaNoWriMo project for this year.

The ending only changed a dozen times, the most recent version yesterday, when, finally in possession of all the facts, we make discoveries that we really wished we hadn’t.

Certainly, the story lives up to the tentative book title ‘Betrayed’ though I’m not sure if I might use ‘Betrayal’ instead.  But a decision on that is a long way off.

Now it’s time to finish editing the manuscript, at the moment running to over 80,000 words, and stop tinkering. The line has been drawn in the sand.

Having parked two or three other projects so I could concentrate on this, now I can go back and continue with my episodic stories, and, at last, find myself able to progress at least one.

But let me say this, it’s a hell of a way to write a novel in a short space of time.

Now it’s off to the editor for the last round of changes, if any, and hopefully, it can be published this year.

Hopefully.

What I learned about writing – Seeking answers in writing stories or novels

Would I? Yes.

I am in the middle of researching my family history. For a long time, I didn’t have any interest. My parents never talked of their relatives, and the only relatives I remember seeing are my mother’s mother, one uncle, my mother’s brother, and vaguely, my father’s older sister.

I knew that my older brother was dabbling in the family history over the last 40 years, and I got to meet and talk to a lot of people I never knew existed.

Then he sent me some family trees, and I was hooked.

There was stuff my parents said, perhaps when they never realised we were listening, that my mother had an older sister whom she was extremely jealous of, and I think I met her once or twice, that my mother’s father had committed suicide, and his son found him, still alive, and was traumatised beyond imagination.

I could believe it. We stayed with my grandmother in her country house, and it was an oasis away from my normal life, and it fed an imagination that inspired many stories. And that I began to live in lots of different worlds, any world but reality.

But…

My father’s mother! Wow!

What 25-year-old girl, in England, who was not wealthy, and in the year 1914 when the world was in upheaval and war clouds were gathering, left her safe job as a milliner in Gillingham, Dorset, to get on a ship with 1,300 other strange souls to spend a month with, and come to, of all places, Melbourne, Australia?

This was my grandmother, the adventuress!

There’s a story to be told, and I’m writing it.

So yes, I will be writing the story, based on fact, but a little embellishment, about someone I never knew, and I think if I’d ever realised who she was, I would have talked to her about it. I was sixteen when she died, and I never really knew her, or rarely saw her.

If I only knew then what I know now…

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 108/109

Days 108 and 109 – Writing Exercise

…

Characters – Plot – Short Story

…

Alexander Bartholemew Winston Jr was my real name, the one I hated with a passion.

My mother and father called me Alexander in that horrible way that you couldn’t tell if they were pleased or angry, mostly the latter.

My paternal grandmother and grandfather called me Bartholomew in public and Bart in private because Bartholomew was a paternal family name of reverence.

Half my friends called me Marty, after Marty McFly of Back To The Future fame, though they never said why, and the rest called me Alex, my preferred name.

So, today it was Alex.

“Alex?”

Samantha Davies had a far more elegant name, Samantha Elizabeth Davies Ramsborough, but had adopted her mother’s pre-marriage surname for anonymity.

We somehow, by a quirk of fate, finished up sharing a four-bedroom apartment in a city where accommodation for one cost a priverbial arm and a leg, and since we all got along so well at University, that camaraderie continued into post-university, and onto the various jobs we were now found ourselves with.

Sam, as she preferred to be called, was coming out into the kitchen where I had coffee, black, strong, no sugar, waiting for her.

“He’s not here.  Today it’s Bart.”

“Simpson?”

“If I had a skateboard, maybe.”

“There’s enough room in this place if you did.”

She was right.  The apartment was half a floor, the possession of an Aunt of one of the other two housemates, with so much room you could get lost. There were even rooms for servants.

Sam had a way of changing subjects, from trivial to serious to trivial again, without time to take a breath.  Half the time, I didn’t know whether I should take her seriously or not.

Which was why we were still just friends, even though she knew how much I liked her; it was just every time we got near the subject, she’d change it.

Maybe she didn’t like me as much.

“Thomas didn’t come home last night.”

If there was a rival for her affections, it was Thomas Aloysius Vanderbloot, an overly self-confident, sometimes smartass, mostly a person whom trouble followed close behind.

I had rescued him from countless scrapes, without thanks or acknowledgement, and, as far as I was concerned, he was now starting to wear out his welcome mat. 

Only it was his grandmother’s apartment.  We didn’t get the privilege rates, which I expected.  I was not one of those entitled sons of wealthy parents, even though they had tried to spoil me, and therefore had only the money I earned to spend.  My brother and sister let them fund their education and pet projects, and were the favourites.

It didn’t bother me.  I was, at least, living my own life.

“We shouldn’t have left him.”

It had been late.  Sam, a budding journalist, had a deadline for a story, and I had a deposition, first thing the next morning.

It was the day after the day after, and we’d all been too busy with different schedules to notice until now.  Philomena, our fourth flatmate, was a nurse, and we rarely saw her

She suddenly appeared, a trait of hers that we firmly believed she travelled through portals because she had a habit of just appearing out of nowhere.

“Whose missing?” she asked.

Sam jumped; the suddenness of her voice from behind her scared her.

“Tom.”

The thing is, Philomena adored Thomas, but he was oblivious to her affection.  It was a little different with Sam; they had a fling in University until he got caught cheating on her, though I knew I didn’t say anything, or ever would, but was there to help pick up the pieces after that first and most intense love.

“Weren’t you two with him the other night?”

Sam, like me, knew what was coming.  Blame.

“We were until he brushed us off.  He had recognised one of his childhood friends, now an investment banker, buying shots, getting drunk and chatting up a few girls.  You know what he’s like.”

“You should have dragged him out.”

Yes, and the last time I did that, I was still carrying the aches and pains from a robust bar fight and a night in jail, drunk and disorderly, and an acid tongue from Sam the next day.

It was always my fault when he couldn’t save himself from himself.

“He’s probably sleeping it off in some seedy hotel,” Sam said, and collected her coffee and flopped into a lounge chair.

She had a new story assignment from the editor and wasn’t happy.

Aside from that, she was well aware of Thomas and seedy hotels.  That was where she found him with another girl, one that Sam had despised because of her open invitation to a male who could be so easily led.

Philomena would not believe either of us, so I let it slide.  It was a day off from lawyering and I was going to make the most of it.

…

Here’s the thing…

Thomas had that way of imposing on your thoughts, even when he was not there.

Uppermost in my mind, and the message my parents, and the parents of the other three, was that we had to be careful, not look for trouble, don’t go to places where trouble could be found, do not be alone in a potential hot spot, and above all, know everything and everyone around you.

In other words, each of us, if anyone knew who we really were, was a potential kidnap victim, or worse.

Each of us, bar Thomas, heeded those words to the letter.  In my application to the law firm, I used my proper name, because I had to, knowing it might open doors because of the family name, and got an interview.  When they asked about the surname, I said it was a distant relative who likely had never heard of me, and the relationship was a coincidence.

I had no interest in trading on my family name.  I was going to succeed or fail on my own merits.  I felt like, at this point, I was failing.

I dropped into a chair near Sam and sipped the coffee, one that Tom had introduced us to, a very expensive taste to acquire.

“How’s your day looking?” I asked, not sure of where this conversation would go.

Her expression was contemplative, so I had to wonder if she was thinking of Tom.  I could feel the green monster sitting on my shoulder.

She looked at me in a way she hadn’t looked at me in a year.  The last time was after the pieces had been reassembled, and I mistook the signs.  I had a long time to try and work out what I did wrong.

Perhaps I was about to find out now.

“It was going to be terrible.  Not just the Tom thing, but I hate my editor.  I hate my job.  I hate my life.  Perhaps it’s time to go home and get married to Mr Dull as ditchwater, and try to be content.”

That said it all.  If she left, so would I.  Home wasn’t the ideal place to go, but I could hide there.  Or if someone hadn’t snapped up Mary Ann Kopeknie, I would.  She was my first love, and truth be told, if Sam wouldn’t have me, maybe Mary Ann would forgive me.

“Like to go for a stroll through Central Park and talk about anything but our woes?”

“Right now, a bar, getting totally obliterated, and ending up in a seedy hotel, seems more appropriate.”

“You don’t mean that.”  I hoped she didn’t.

“I do.  And if you’re offering, take me now, before I change my mind.”

…

When I woke, it wasn’t quite dark, the light from a digital clock casting enough light for me to see if it wasn’t in my room at the apartment.

A brief glance with the range of vision I had showed a curtained window with no light seeping in through the sides, which meant it was night.  There was a painting on the wall, a desk and two chairs.

A hotel room.

Instantly, my mind went back to earlier that morning, if it was the same day, when Sam expressed the desire to have a few drinks.

I thought nine was a bit early, but she had expressed the desire to go with me, so I didn’t.

She wasn’t joking about getting obliterated.  When she could no longer stand or string three words together, the bartender asked us to leave.

I called Tom’s ‘special helpline’ one he included us in on, and we were chauffeured to a hotel Sam just managed to tell us about, making sure we safely made it to the room.

That much I remember.

The rest was a dream I woke up too early from, that part where, in my imagination, we had found that magical connection, where no words were needed, and the love I felt for her was expressed.

It would only happen in my imagination, and not the first time I dreamed it.

I rolled over and discovered I was not alone on the bed.  It must be the rest of the dream, waking up next to the current love of my life.

My imagination would tell me, she would smile, kiss me once, gently, and ask the rhetorical question, how had this not happened before?’

It foundered ridiculous on mt head, and I suspect the large amount of alcohol had damaged part of my brain, and that part where reality lived.  She would never be with me in such a manner.

I think the more appropriate answer to my internal question would be that I put her on the bed and tucked her in to sleep it off.  I did not undress her or do anything without her being fully awake and aware of her surroundings and who she was with

There were no excuses for taking advantage of someone who was incapacitated.

I heard her groan and then felt her move.

Closer to me. 

That was when I realised we were both naked.

My heart rate nearly went through the roof. 

She put her hand on my shoulder and put her arm over me.  Then, a whisper, “You took me out of myself, thank you.”

Then drifted back to sleep.

So close, it was freaking me out.  What if she woke up and started screaming?  What if this wasn’t where she expected to be?  What if she wasn’t expecting it to be me?  There were so many scenarios that filled me with terror.

It is said that the moment you sleep with the girl, no matter how much rapport or respect you had for one another, that goes up in a puff of smoke, and everything changes.

She might no longer be my friend.

She may no longer want to stay at the apartment.

She might decide to go home, and that would be the end of everything.

This was the end of everything.

So, i started counting the seconds that this relationship had left.

A half out passed, and I hadn’t moved.  There were too many parts of her I could unintentionally touch.  And there were other thoughts that I would like to have and express.

She stirred again, but instead of jumping back in fright, discovering she was not alone, I felt her hand moving, and ended up taking my hand in hers and squeezing it.

“Bet you didn’t think you would be here today.”

It was a sultry, low, almost hoarse stone that sent a shiver through me.  It also may have had something to do with her slight movement.

“I didn’t.”

“Are you surprised?”

“Perhaps more elated than I should be.”

I turned my head and saw she had her eyes open, and she had a smile, one that extended to her eyes.

“Until I sat down in the lounge chair, with my coffee, and you sat opposite me, I didn’t realise how you felt about me.  That look you gave me after I said I was thinking about going home.  You were devastated.”

I thought I’d kept the emotion out of my expression, but with her, I could never quite keep the proverbial poker face.

She knew me far better than I realised.

“It has nothing to do with me what you do or don’t do.  I would be upset if you left, but you have your own life to lead.”

“It’s not much of a life.  The guy I thought I loved laughed outright when I told him I wanted more.  It hurt, not as much as the last time, and you know all about that, but what I didn’t realise until that moment, was that what I wanted was right there in front of me.”

I wasn’t going to assume that was me.

She had spent a fair part of that drinking session going on about some other reporter and how much she respected him, and how things had become so red hot between them, they reached the moment where he suggested they get a room.

Until right in the middle of a game where losing meant shedding a piece of clothing, his wife called.  She had seen his cell screen.  The bastard was married.  And in situations like that, she came out the worse off, being transferred and demoted.

I was going to offer her free legal advice.

That was the moment the bartender banished us.

When I didn’t say anything, she just sighed.  “You don’t have to treat me with kid gloves, Alex.  You didn’t for the last six hours, and you surprised me.”

Something clicked in my brain, clearing the fog.  It was one of those moments with the sudden sucking in of breath, and the whole event returns as clear as it was just moments ago.

There had been something tacit in the look she gave me, not long after we got to the hotel, and we were sitting at either end of the bed.  She was still drunk, but sober enough to know who was there and where she was. 

There was one simple question.  “Why do you hesitate?”

That was easy, because I had made a mistake, misinterpreted the signals, and ruined everything.  I did not want to do that again.

“You know why?  I want to be with you, even if it is only as a friend.”

“You can ask me one question, Alex.  One.  Anything.”

And there it was, the abyss that I wanted to cross, and knowing I didn”t have the power in my legs to jump over it.

But I could try.

“Do you feel the same about me as I feel for you? That is how I have felt about you since the first day I met you.”

She made one of those contemplative faces that made my heart sink.  If she had to think about it…

“Had you asked me that question a week ago, my answer would be very different.  As for asking me now, right this very minute, my answer would be the same as it would have been when we walked out the door of that apartment, before landing us here.  Yes.  I think I’ve known that for a while, but it never really occurred to me.  I don’t know why.”

I had to wonder why we went to the bar.  She was not the sort of girl who needed Dutch courage.

“So…” she whispered.

So, now I knew, and it was one of those defining moments, where suddenly everything clicked into place.

“You remember.”

“As i will till the day I die.  If you will have me?”

“Proposals, Alex, have to be done properly, not immediately after wild drunken sex, though I’m not ruling out having more before we leave this room, or if or when we decide to leave.  I’m not interested in going back to work, and I know you’re tired of being a gopher lawyer.  There’s champagne in the fridge, let’s toast our desire to get married, watch a little TV, get a little drunk and see what happens.”

Sam got the champagne and I turned the TV on.

She popped the cork, poured liberal quantities into the glasses, and we sipped.  I turned on the TV, and we sat on the bed.

I flipped through the channels until a local news station displayed the upcoming weather.  It was going to get colder, and she shivered.

Then the word ‘Missing Person’ appeared at the bottom of the screen, and seconds later a photo of Thomas Aloysius Vanderbloot was displayed, not a recent photo, but one from our graduation from University, three or four years old, not a recent photo and very different to how he looked now. 

If we had been holding the drinks, we might have dropped them.  Certainly, for me, I was sure my heart stopped.

“What the…”  Sam was as shocked as I was. 

For just a minute, then I could see a transformation.  Not from the surprise, but the fact that something was not right.

I think we came to the same conclusion at the same time.

“Tom.”

We said it together.

Back in university, a group of us created elaborate pranks on the others.  Some left people in almost dangerous situations. I had found myself in a rock ledge about five hundred feet up with only a rope to scale the remaining hundred feet or so, and Sam, well, she still had nightmares.

Tom’s pranks were the most elaborate and usually the most terrifying.

“This is because we left him at that bar,” she said.

“Because we let our guard down.”

She slipped out of bed and put her shirt on, then went over to the door.  She opened it a fraction, and light from the corridor showed in the crack.  A little wider showed that at least we were in the same hotel we were delivered to.

She closed and locked it.

She walked across to the other side and pulled back the curtains.  A door and what looked to be a patio.  She opened the door, and cold air swept in.  She shivered violently.

I haven’t moved, but I could see lights in the distance.  She found the light switch and flicked it.

The patio area was flooded with light.  In the next instant, she screamed.

I saw it just after she did.  The body of a man, quite dead, is lying in a pool of blood.  Beside the body, a bottle of champagne, bloodied.

She turned and looked at me.  “We’re in a great deal of trouble, aren’t we?”

….

©  Charles Heath  2026