There is a saying ‘you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone’.
For a long time, in days before the current technological age, I didn’t really understand what that meant.
Until now.
How many times, in the last few days have I heard the question, “Where’s my mobile phone?”.
It seems we can lose almost anything else but, without the phone, we are completely lost.
The same now applies to all of our household appliances.
Then, the other day I heard, “We aren’t able to do very much because the microwave oven is broken.”
How did we manage in the days before we had such devices? I know my grandmother used to have a wood stove and cooked everything, bread, meat, fish, vegetables, cakes, puddings, even made a cup of tea with that stove.
I don’t think I ever had a cup of coffee at her house, but I have a lot of memories of some amazing food. No such thing as electric kitchen appliances, or a microwave oven, not in that house.
We had the same experience ourselves when one of the fridge/freezer units broke down, and severely restricted what we could cook and store, especially the freezer.
And perhaps that’s the problem. We take so many things for granted and live a life that is centered around convenience.
What would happen if those conveniences were taken away?
Certainly, for me, I know, what it’s like to lose the use of a kitchen appliance and having to improvise, but I’m not sure how we would react if we had a real catastrophe, like having no electricity.
We try not to think about what it would be like, just a short blackout is enough to frighten us.
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and back on the treasure hunt.
…
“Who the hell is that horrible man?” I asked, still staring after the car, long after it had gone.
I knew trouble when I saw it, and that man was serious trouble.
And the fact he believed there was a treasure map…
“My uncle Rico, he was the one my mother always credited leading my father astray. Whatever they had been doing back then, it was never anything legal.”
So, he knows about the treasure map?”
“He knows nothing. He thinks he knows something, he thinks I know something, but he’s not going to get it out of me.”
“What if he comes after me next?”
It was a daunting prospect, and just looking at Rico was enough to scare me. If he had a machete to back up his insistence I tell the truth? I shuddered.
“You tell him the truth. We have a map, we bought it at the bar like everyone else.”
He was right.
“Boggs?”
His aunt yelled out his name in a manner that meant he was in trouble.
He motioned to keep quiet and follow him.
He took one step before she added, “You take one more step away from this house, and you’ll have more than Rico to worry about.”
A shrug, a wan smile, and then he turned back. “Nothing more today. See you at the Bar tomorrow, and we’ll start the search.
“Surely you don’t think that map is real?”
“Real enough, with missing pieces, we have to track down. Tomorrow.”He turned and went back into the house, the wooden screen door slamming shut behind him.
Followed by the raised voice of an angry Aunt. “What is all this malarkey about a treasure map, and what the hell were you doing in a bar? I bet it was that Johnson kid leading you astray again.”
Never, according to her, Boggs’ fault, and always mine.
I’m sure I’ve been down this road more than once, and with the same novel, but whereas the last edit, which was probably the second or third, finished up in the pile, then forgotten.
I’m doing an active update to all my works in progress, and sending them to the editor, after going through the manuscript once again, with a view to publishing. Hopefully, before the year is out.
…
One of the hazards of writing can be being continually critical of your own work. I’m guilty as charged.
But in writing to a plan and in only 30 days having to edit 50,000 words there is no time to be critical.
Except…
So far down the track, I should be writing, not being critical.
But the thing is, I’m finding that I have to go back three chapters and read them through to pick up the thread. It’s not because it’s changed in any way from the plan, it’s just that I’m finding it hard to edit to a plan when usually I fly by the seat of my pants.
The trouble with doing that, it gives rise to considering changes, and right now there’s no time for change.
This is my least favored option for spending a Sunday morning, but having married a Catholic and agreeing to adopt Catholicism, it’s one of those things that has to be done on rare occasions, usually a child’s milestone.
Yes, we went through our children’s moments like baptism, first communion, and confirmation, or these days in a somewhat different order. Then it came to the turn of our grandchildren and today the last child is making her first communion, and there will end our involvement till the last rites.
Hopefully.
Church to me doesn’t hold any real significance. It doesn’t mean that I would debunk the idea of religion and I firmly believe that if anyone believes in God, then that’s their right.
And it seems there are a lot of believers. I’m sitting in the church now and it is packed. It might be that it’s a captive audience given that it’s a first communion for grade three students and others. but given the enthusiasm of the children involved, I’d say the church was about to get over a hundred new followers.
Of course, a lot depends on the enthusiasm and devoutness of the parents who may wish to spend their Sundays in a different manner, but I suspect there are many here who will continue their devoutness in some form or other.
As for me, sadly, I will continue to use the only day of the week it’s possible to sleep in.
When we reached the hotel, the countess was met by a man whom I deduced was her brother-in-law. I stood back because I got the feeling that the meeting was not expected and that his arrival was a shock, rather than a surprise, and not a good one.
I didn’t see her again that night, her personal assistant coming over to advise an urgent matter had come up and the countess was needed elsewhere.
Nor did I see the Rodby’s who it seemed were diverted from coming to the hotel. Rodby called and apologised on the countess’s behalf and left it at that. I went home in the chauffeur-driven car; a small consolation afforded for my participation.
I also got the impression that a certain wife got a bollocking for interfering in matters that were not her concern. She may have thought so, given their close relationship, she could ‘help’, but European families preferred to sort their own problems out in very definitive styles, something we did quite understand.
I doubted I would have been able to help. That phrase, ‘lifelong enemy’ told me that another woman had eyes for the count, and her snafu was unexpected and unwanted. The question was, did it have anything to do with the count’s death. It was a stretch, but Rodby would not have made that small concession if she did not think either of us could be any assistance.
When I got home, I had a few drinks and put it all out of my mind.
…
Three days later I was sitting in the basement briefing room, after being taken down by Rodby and introduced to what he described as the two best researchers in the organisation.
Anthony Bird, and Alessia Lombardi.
And as a complete, but pleasant surprise, sitting at the other end of the table, looking as her cell phone, Cecilia. Was her starring role over? Or was working for Rodby her day job?
She heard me come in, looked up, nodded, and then went back to her phone. Rodby didn’t stay. Nor had he mentioned at any time, from the moment I arrived outside his office, what this was about.
I sat next to her at the end of the table.
When Rodby left, she said, “We meet again.”
“For a retiree, it seems odd, unless you’ve also retired.”
“I tried. A starring role wasn’t a good enough excuse. Good thing they finished filming my scenes.”
“Can I expect to see it soon?”
“It was a pilot. It’ll probably finish up on the cutting room floor.”
We looked at the two standing up at the front of the room, glaring at us.
Anothony said, “If you are finished?”
She threw her phone on the table and looked at him. I shrugged.
“I suppose it’s too much to want this to be a guide to setting up a retirement plan.”
I guess not.
A photograph of the countess suddenly came up on the screen on the wall. Anthony was starting the show, “You will know this woman as Countess Heidi von Burkhardt. She is nominally the head of the international Burkehardt bank, with headquarters in Geneva, and principal branches in Berlin, Rome, Paris, Vienna, and a few other places.”
“A banker. I must have missed that. She doesn’t look like a banker.”
“She isn’t, she inherited the bank from her husband.”
Another photo appeared on the screen; a man I thought looked like a terrorist in an expensive suit. He continued, “Alessandro Burkehardt, her late husband’s brother. Claims he should own and run the bank, that it’s a family company that’s the purview of the male line of the Burkehardt family. Actually, he wants everything she has, and then kick to the kerb for want of a better expression.”
Nice man. He must be the lifelong enemy she had referred to. Looking at him, he was not a man I would willingly challenge to a duel.
“I don’t think we’re here to discuss family squabbles. Money will do that, but it’s not in our purview to settle those scores, is it?”
No answer. Perhaps Rodby didn’t have anything else going on like a megalomanic trying to take over the world this week.
“Bear with us, it gets better.”
Another photo flashed up on the screen, that of a woman about the same age as the countess.
“Vittoria Romano. Alessandro Burkehardt’s current squeeze and a very nasty piece of work. She had already tried to kill the countess twice in twenty years.”
Beautiful but very deadly.
Another photograph came up on the screen, the same woman, but in a photo with three others, two women, the countess, and Mrs Rodby. And a teenager. A girl that looked very much like…”
“Wasn’t that your ex back in Venice, what’s her name yes, Juliet Ambrose?”
Long before she became the disgraced doctor. Long before any of them had become the old ladies there were now.
“This photograph was taken the week before the countess’s wedding. The girl, as you say, has the name Juliet, but she, we now believe, was the illegitimate daughter of Vittoria Romano, and the Count. It’s a very tangled web.
The words ‘lifelong enemy’ came back to me again.
Vittoria. She had his baby, expected him to marry her, didn’t and like any other normal jilted lover, tried to kill the replacement.
“So just the normal complicated Italian aristocratic family secrets fuelling an equally normal feud.”
“Which you two are going to uncomplicate. But first, you must find the countess. She has, as far as we’re aware, not left the country, and hasn’t been seen since she left the hotel shortly after coming home from the Opera. You were there, I believe.”
“I escorted her to the hotel, and when we arrived, she was intercepted by someone who looked a lot like Alessandro Burkhardt.”
“Most likely Fabio Burkehardt. He had an altercation with the check-in staff over a lost booking, and shortly after that, she checked out. A half hour later the surveillance team lost her. We have her last known location and direction she was heading.”
Alessia came down with two folders and gave one to me and one to Cecilia.
“Everything we have on the relatives, those in the country at the moment, possible locations she could be staying, or being held, and background on the family’s issues. There’s a list of properties overseas where she may have gone, but we have no active record of her leaving.”
“Planes or ferries are not the only means,” I said. “Does she or any one of the family own a yacht?”
“She does, but it’s moored at Antibes. It hasn’t moved for over a month.
“I’m assuming Alfie is out there and will be the go-between?”
“Yes. Oh, and one more thing. There’s a bit of an urgency to this because if the countess is not in Geneva in five days’ time to sign the transfer documents, passing complete ownership of everything the Count possessed, she forfeits it to the eldest brother.”
“Doesn’t point a finger at him at all does it,” Cecilia muttered.
Anthony switched off the projector and put all the papers into a folder. “The clock’s ticking. Daily reports to the Chief are mandatory.”
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.
We have stayed in two different types of accommodation in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia, as a timeshare owner who can trade their week for a week anywhere in the world.
Both are resorts, but different sorts of resorts. The first was a typical RCI resort, where everything is laid back and relaxing, with all the amenities one can expect from a resort.
The other, this one, the Wyndham in Coffs Harbour, is very different, and you notice it when you walk in the front door. You are virtually assaulted by hard-nosed timeshare sales staff who really don’t take no for an answer, and then when you finally escape, ring you every day to make an appointment.
I left the phone off the hook.
Aside from that, the place is excellent, the accommodation very good, and the situation one of the best with what could be called a private beach. There are also a number of bushwalks that cater to old people like me.
As you can see, lakes and greenery, and even a putting green.
And in places, they try very hard to hide the ugly multi-story buildings in amongst the trees
It is only a short walk to the ‘private beach’ and it is sufficiently long enough for a morning walk before breakfast. You could even try to catch some fish for breakfast, though I’m not sure if anyone actually caught anything
Or you can just stare out to sea
And, back in the room, this is the view we had from our verandah
It could be said that of all the women one could meet, whether contrived or by sheer luck, what are the odds it would turn out to be the woman who was being paid a very large sum to kill you.
John Pennington is a man who may be lucky in business, but not so lucky in love. He has just broken up with Phillipa Sternhaven, the woman he thought was the one, but relatives and circumstances, and perhaps because she was a ‘princess’, may also have contributed to the end result.
So, what do you do when you are heartbroken?
That is a story that slowly unfolds, from the first meeting with his nemesis on Lake Geneva, all the way to a hotel room in Sorrento, where he learns the shattering truth.
What should have been solace after disappointment, turns out to be something else entirely, and from that point, everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
He suddenly realizes his so-called friend Sebastian has not exactly told him the truth about a small job he asked him to do, the woman he is falling in love with is not quite who she says she is, and he is caught in the middle of a war between two men who consider people becoming collateral damage as part of their business.
The story paints the characters cleverly displaying all their flaws and weaknesses. The locations add to the story at times taking me back down memory lane, especially to Venice where, in those back streets I confess it’s not all that hard to get lost.
All in all a thoroughly entertaining story with, for once, a satisfying end.
I’m sure I’ve been down this road more than once, and with the same novel, but whereas the last edit, which was probably the second or third, finished up in the pile, then forgotten.
I’m doing an active update to all my works in progress, and sending them to the editor, after going through the manuscript once again, with a view to publishing. Hopefully, before the year is out.
…
One of the hazards of writing can be being continually critical of your own work. I’m guilty as charged.
But in writing to a plan and in only 30 days having to edit 50,000 words there is no time to be critical.
Except…
So far down the track, I should be writing, not being critical.
But the thing is, I’m finding that I have to go back three chapters and read them through to pick up the thread. It’s not because it’s changed in any way from the plan, it’s just that I’m finding it hard to edit to a plan when usually I fly by the seat of my pants.
The trouble with doing that, it gives rise to considering changes, and right now there’s no time for change.
