Writing Exercise – multiple views of the same event
…
I was given the brief to interview the witnesses regarding a theft, in plain sight, of a backpack from a university student who was engaged in conversation outside a cafe. I had been asking for more responsibility, and this, I was told, was the first test.
It was a simple set of questions: ask the witnesses what they saw and any means of identifying the thief.
Witness 1: Winifred Atkins, age 67
“What did you see?” was the first question.
“Not a lot. But…”
She looked the helpful sort, with a ready smile, some might call mischievous.
“There were six of them, students or teenagers perhaps. Pity they didn’t know how to dress properly, but these days, you know, anything goes.”
I nodded. I was sure the next witness would see them in an entirely different light.
“Anyway, they were talking, or maybe arguing. I could see the victim, the one who had her bag taken, was getting annoyed at the others. Something about a boy, but, then, isn’t it always at that age?”
“Is that what drew your attention to the group?”
“That, and that one of the other girls called her a rather bad name. It upset her, and that’s where the arguing started. It was distracting.”
“The victim was distracted?”
“No, I was. That’s why, when my attention was on the two of them, one almost trying to strangle the other, and I think I would too given the language, that’s when the thief came and went so quickly it was a blur.”
“From where?”
“Inside the cafe. By now, everyone was watching the two girls trying to strangle each other and the boys egging them on. Someone should strangle them. That’s when he picked up the bag as he walked past, and no one at that table noticed. No one. Not surprised.”
“Can you describe the thief?”
“Young, their age or a little older, hat covering his face, clothes shabby, those jeans with cuts in them, sandshoes, green t-shirt.”
“Any identifying marks?”
“None I could see. Only saw him for a fraction of a second; the fight was getting heated. That’s all I’ve got.”
…
That was the first. The second witness was Janet Wakely, aged 15.
“What did you see?”
“A fight. Some girl called the other girl a slut, and they went at it. I would have videoed it and posted it on the Internet, but I know you lot would have got in a twist over it.”
My boss would. I would have been able to use it as evidence. Pity.
“Then…”
“The victim wasn’t a very nice person, stealing that other girl’s boyfriend. Maybe you could charge her with theft.”
I tried to explain that the law didn’t work like that; it had to be a criminal offence like stealing property, like the girl’s backpack. “Did you see it happen?”
“Some old guy came out of the cafe with a coffee, walked past the table, and just picked it up. They were all carrying on so, they never noticed a thing. Brazen.”
“Can you describe the thief?”
“Oldish, about 30, maybe 40, you know. Levis, Nike shoes, the expensive sort, and one of them expensive polo shirts, you know, with the horse emblem. He had a hat with a maple leaf, which was odd for someone in this country to wear; maybe he was a foreigner.”
At least, at the end, she said he had gone up the same street as the previous witness.”
…
I made a call to our IT person and asked if any video had been posted on social media, guessing that my previous witness had, in fact, filmed the whole argument and posted it, and I was right.
And viewing it, I wasn’t surprised that both of them were wrong. A man had come out of the cafe, but he had walked straight past them. It was one of the boys at the table who had detached himself at the high point of the fight and taken the backpack while all their attention was focussed on the fight.
“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.
When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.
From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.
There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.
Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.
Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?
Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?
Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?
Well, we all know what a sheet is, it’s one of those things you put on a bed. A bottom sheet, a fitted sheet, a top sheet, flannelette sheet.
It could also be a piece of paper, e.g. pass me a sheet of paper please, only to get in reply, what size?
There can be a sheet of flames, best if you see one get away as fast as you can.
Of course, that fire can be put out by rain sheeting down.
You can have a sheet map, that is one that opens out. Funny how you can never get them folded back the same way. And a problem when you’re in a car and open it out – hang on, I can’t see out the window!
That lake is a lovely sheet of water, very still just as the sun comes up, and then, what a reflection. Great if you are a landscape painter.
Then there’s sheet metal, did that in school and wasn’t very good at it.
If you’re a philatelist, then there’s always a sheet of stamps, might be worth something in a hundred years’ time.
Then, if it is worth millions, you might turn white as a sheet with shock.
But the best of all, if you drink too much it is said you are ‘two sheets to the wind’.
When you’re given another chance, it is like being given a clean sheet.
And another form might be to do with sailing when you sheet a sail, which is to say you are making it either tauter or less taut.
What happens when your past finally catches up with you?
…
Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.
Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment Will’s life slowly starts to unravel and it’s obvious to him it’s time to move on.
This time, however, there is more at stake.
Will has broken his number one rule, don’t get involved.
With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.
But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved there is going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.
The problem is, there are familiar faces and a question of who is a friend and who is foe made all the more difficult because of the enemy, if it was the enemy, simply because it didn’t look or sound or act like the enemy.
Now, it appears, his problems stem from another operation he participated in, and because of it, he has now been roped into what might be called a suicide mission.
“Are there? How many should I have?”
The only way he could know there was not a full complement as if he had been told by someone how many people were in our group from the outset. I looked at Jacobi, and he shrugged.
“This is not a good time to be playing games, Sergeant James.”
The guards gripped their weapons a little tighter and looked ready to use them.
“The only one playing games here would be you. It would be irrelevant if I had more or I had fewer people here because you have more than enough to cover us, and then some. But you would agree it would be imprudent for me to put all my eggs in one basket as it were, and yes, there are several others, but they are waiting for me to call them, further down the track. Not to put too fine a point on it, distrust works both ways. We don’t come back, I can assure you, your losses will be bigger than ours. Oh, and a word of advice, don’t go looking for them, not unless you want good men to die needlessly.”
Tough talk, and could get us killed, but I was hoping that until he had the diamonds in his hands, he would humor me. A minute or so passed where I assumed he was making a calculation on what the odds were, then he shrugged. There was merit in what I’d told him. Monroe and Shurl had plenty of ammunition and would have a foxhole that wouldn’t be over-run or penetrated.
“I think you might be right, so let’s not get bogged down in an argument that’s going nowhere. We have what you want, and you have what we want. Let’s go inside and talk.”
Was that a sigh of relief moment? Perhaps. But it was clear he needed us out of the way before his men could search the cars. I was happy to let him think he had the upper hand.
“Lead the way.”
We all filed into the building and sat down around a large table. There were bottles of water out, and we might have drunk from them but I could see the seal had been broken on min so it looked like we would be going thirsty.
The commander drank from his, no doubt as a gesture that the water was safe. None of my people were buying it.
“I’ll kick it off,” I said. “Are our people in good health?”
“Of course. Healthy enough to walk out of here of their own accord. Did you bring the compensation with you?”
“I did.”
“Can I see it?”
“Can I see our people.”
Friendly, and time-consuming double talk. I could see he was waiting impatiently. “All in good time. “Did you have any trouble getting here?” he asked casually. “I heard there were some local militias on the road collecting road taxes earlier today.”
“If there was, we didn’t see any. Smooth run, except for the state of the roads. I hope the road taxes those people are collecting are to fix the roads.”
He smiled. “It is what it is. This is the Democratic Republic of the Congo, not the United States of America. Things are done differently here. We put the people first, and the roads second.”
There was a discreet knock on the door, followed by a cowering man coming into the room and walking up behind the commander. He took a few seconds to whisper into his ear, during which the commander’s expression turned very dark.
I had to assume that they had found all the weapons we had left for them to find, and not done a very close inspection to find those we did not want them to find. It was a bold assumption and could make a difference once we left, and if we were attacked. I was sure that was part of the message the man had relayed to his commander.
The man almost ran out of the building, slamming the door behind him.
The commander looked at me. “Where are the diamonds?”
That was as direct as he could get.
“At this point, that’s for me to know until I’m assured you intend to honor your part of the agreement. Searching our cars for the diamonds tells me you are not a man to be trusted, and, you should have realized in making that discovery, you’re not dealing with fools.”
The dark expression eased, and he tried to look like the man who held all the cards. He probably did, but it would be interesting to see to what extent he would press his advantage. We had nothing to lose, though it didn’t send a very good message to the team that I was willing to sacrifice them. This was after all supposed to be a suicide mission.
“What’s to stop me from just shooting your people one by one until you tell me.”
“The same reason I told you at the gate. You will lose a lot more than I will. Something you might not be aware of is that the people who sent me have control over satellites. You might not be familiar with satellite technology, but be assured that we are being observed, and have been on this little odyssey. It also means that they, sitting in a bunker somewhere in the world, also have access to nasty drones, you know, the sort that leaves craters where villages and settlements once were. This place would not withstand a direct hit, and there would be no one left alive after it. Killing any or all of us will incur wrath you really don’t want to deal with. Put simply, if I don’t drive out of here with my people within half an hour this whole area will become an uninhabitable crater.”
Bamfield had said as one option, not that he could order such a strike, was to threaten them with a drone strike. I hadn’t done that in as many words, but the commander looked as though he got the inference.
“You could do that anyway.”
“I could, but that’s not the way I work. For some odd reason. The people I work for seem to think you might be useful to them in the future, and Jacobi here will be happy to stay and talk about it. Now, the clock is ticking.”
He took a moment, then stood. “Let’s go meet your people then.”
For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.
Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.
And, so, it continues…
…
Leonardo was a fool, not that any of those who followed him would say that to his face, but all of them knew it and accepted that he made the best leader.
The reason for that, they all knew if anything went wrong, then the leader would be the first to be held accountable.
They all also knew that what Leonardo had done to Martina and Chiara, and the cold-blooded murder of the villagers, justifying it by saying they were collaborators, was also wrong, and had refused to take part in it.
Leonardo just thought they didn’t have the stomach to do what was necessary, failing to realize he was committing a crime, war or not.
Alberto, arguably the next man to take over the resistance group if anything happened to Leonardo, was nominally second in command and was there because he had the respect of the men, far more than their current leader.
He was the one who suspected there was something wrong at the castle, that the British soldiers there were not quite doing what they said they were there for. He had seen, even directed, Germans seeking sanctuary in England in exchange for information, come, but not go. Not like they did in the beginning.
And that man called Atherton, the one who arrived just before the paratroopers, he was British, and they had captured him. The talk was that he was a German collaborator, but Alberto wasn’t convinced.
But, not having the full allegiance of all the resistance fighters, he could not say anything or try to organize the men to be more careful in their approach to those at the castle. Leonardo still held sway with them.
For now.
.
The Italians had their own section of the cells in the dungeons where they stayed, Leonardo, deeming it not safe in the village. Alberto agreed because he had made several forays down there, only to discover that Leonardo would be shot on sight if he showed his face there again. Some resistance they made, he thought, where they didn’t have the confidence of their own people.
Leonardo was up supping with the devil, as Alberto had been known to say, put of Leonardo’s earshot, and several of the men were resting. The others, more loyal to Leonardo were in the cellar cell drinking their way through the wine stock and were most likely drunk and passed out.
Alberto didn’t care for the vintage, a subject that he was well versed in because before the war he had worked for the family of winemakers. The wines stored, he had recognized when they’d first discovered them, as being of inferior quality, and had been left there rather than throwing it away. Leonardo would not have known the difference.
“Something is not right.” A voice from the corner, belonging to a man named Bolini, broke his reverie. The truth was, he was tired and wished it were all done with.
“What makes you say that?” He asked.
“Killing the villagers. What did they do wrong, other than just trying to survive? It’s what we’re all trying to do. It’s not our war.”
“You know what it’s like, stuck in the middle. It’s a bit like the in-laws. You don’t want them, but you’re stuck with them.”
“In-laws. Don’t get me started.” The other, a man named Christo, weighed in.
“You do realize we may be held accountable for what happened back at the village,” Bolini had obviously been thinking about the repercussions.
“We brought the only witnesses here, and they sure as hell aren’t going to last long. Not after what Leonardo did to them.”
“That’s possible, but we all know what happened.”
“But there are others outside who also know what happened, and if we want to keep out of trouble, we are going to have to take care of them,” Bolini said.
Alberto hadn’t quite got through considering the ramifications of what Fernando just did, and the fact they’d helped him. Bolini was right, even if they hadn’t been as reckless, they were still going to be tarred with the same brush.
And Atherton was still out there.
The trouble with trying to clean up a mess is that eventually there’s a bigger mess to deal with. Maybe it was time to get rid of Fernando.
The man called Wallace, the one who seemed to be in charge, came around the corner and stopped when he saw Alberto.
“Where’s your leader?”
Alberto pointed his head in the direction of the wine cellar.
Wallace shook his head, knowing what that meant. “Tell him he’s got another pickup. Two hours in the village. A family, with two children. Tell him to sober up, and if he doesn’t in time, you have my permission to shoot him.”
Surely the man wasn’t serious.
“Well, what are you sitting around for? Get moving.”
Wallace cast a disapproving glance over the three, shook his head again, and left.
O is for — Or else. It all depends on who actually says it
…
When my older brother used to say ‘or else’, it usually meant that if I didn’t do what he asked, I would find myself on the end of my father’s idea or corporal punishment.
I hated my brother for all of my teenage years and then some.
What I learned from it was that everything I did had consequences, mostly those I didn’t like, even if what I did wasn’t bad. Someone could always put a spin on them so that it sounded a lot worse than the actual outcome
It was the reason why, in the end, I did nothing of consequence, and it meant that by the time I reached the pivotal age of forty, I had done nothing with my life.
No special girl, no marriage and divorce, a run-down car, a rented rubbish pile that could be called an apartment, and nothing of any consequence.
I was always with one foot out the door. No attachments to people or possessions, and to a certain degree, free as a bird.
And I might have stayed that way if I had not answered a phone call and stayed in one place long enough to receive a letter and an invitation.
To a high school reunion.
Josie Brixton, another name for the nemesis Josephine, was the one girl i hated more than my brother. It might have been because they were boyfriend and girlfriend all through high school, and she tormented me as much, if not worse, than he did.
They had their prom moment; I wished them well and then promptly packed a small bag and ran away from home. They had driven me to it, and with no support or relief from my parents, I no longer wanted to be part of that family.
I had a plan, as good a plan as a seventeen-year-old could come up with. I was going to find a jog on a ship and sail the seven seas until I could forget about the people who made my life impossible.
Of course, if it had been the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, that plan would have worked well, but in the twenty-first century. Instead I hopped on a train until a ticket inspector threw me off, in a small rural town in a place I’d never hear of, and when I asked at the nearest hotel where I could find a room, he directed me to a farm about six miles put of town, a farm always looking for workers.
The farmer, an old and lonely man, wife recently deceased and children gone, couldn’t pay much but offered a room, one his son had lived in until he left, and a job doing chores he couldn’t do himself, for the prove of a room and food. And a slice of the profits, if there were any.
I stayed for ten years.
No one asked where I came from. No one was really interested in who I was, and that suited me fine. I stayed until he died. Then, the children returned and fought over the inheritance. Five greedy, horrible children whom I left to sort themselves out. I read later that one shot the other four and then went to prison for the rest of his life.
Clearly, he had more problems than I did.
Twenty-three years later, I was on the other side of the country, a cleaner in an old hospital, working the night shift.
I made the mistake of never getting rid of my old phone number, and that was how Josephine found me. It was a number that seemed familiar but not a family one. I never spoke to any of them again.
“Hello?”
“I’m looking for a man named Christopher Blunt.” The voice sounded familiar, too.
“Speaking.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath, then, ” My God, you are alive?”
“Last I looked.” Then I recognised the voice and its little tonal inflections. Josephine, the kitchen from hell.
I disconnected the call. I never wanted to speak to her again, either. More than likely, she was married to my brother, and he was definitely on my “I don’t want to see” list.
The phone rang again, the same number. I ignored it and then switched off the phone. No one ever rang me, but that was more likely because I never gave anyone my number.
But over the next seven days, I mulled over why she would be calling me. When I told Wally, my daytime counterpart, at the shift change, he said in his usual philosophical way, “Things happen for a reason.”
He was probably right.
My brother was missing, making my life miserable.
In a moment of weakness, I answered the phone again.
Before I could get a word in, she said, “Don’t hang up.”
I said, in my best taciturn manner, “Then don’t call me. The fact I haven’t called you or anyone for twenty-three years should be a clear enough reason.”
“You caused a great deal of concern. No one knew what happened to you. We all believed you had been kidnapped and killed. Or worse. We had the sheriff, the county police, the state troopers, and then the FBI. Your parents were suspects for years, and your brother spent time in jail until he could prove his innocence. I guess, in a sense, they all deserved it. Even I was terrible to you.”
I shrugged. No apology would ever make up for what they did to me.
“Who are you calling?”
“A reunion at the high school. They’re bulldozing it and putting up a shopping mall. Last chance to relive those happy school memories.”
It was probably the line she used on all the ex-students. None of my memories were happy. “If that’s the selling point, you lost me. The only reason I’d come back is to drive the bulldozer. With the whole class inside. Do you really want someone like me there?”
“Everyone’s changed, you know.”
“My brother would never change.”
“Your brother is dead. Heart attack. You leaving destroyed everything I’d planned, so maybe I’m just as angry at you as you are with us.”
Well, if I’d planned to piss her off, it worked. “Then it’s the last I’ll hear about this reunion. Goodbye Josephine.”
I disconnected the call and then lamented the fact I had managed not to think about any pf them for years and how easily it was to get riled up at just the thought of them. Right then, I didn’t think I could ever get past that horrible part of life and the people who had made it so.
Of course, life would be simple if we could forget the sins of the past. I dated a psychiatrist a long time ago, and she attempted to analyse me. Practise for when she took up practise.
She eventually decided I was a hopeless case and that I needed yo confront those sins of the past. I just ignored her, but over the years, I had considered going home and then decided I wouldn’t.
Now, perhaps after twenty-three years, it was time.
In the end, it wasn’t a hard decision. The hospital management told me I could no longer accumulate my leave and told me I had to take it. All three months of it.
I got in the beat-up car and headed for my hometown, halfway across the country, not knowing if the car would make it.
It did, as far as the city limits, my town now a lot larger than it used to be. Passing the city limits sign, I picked up a sheriff’s car, and it followed me with lights flashing until I pulled over.
Just what I needed: a speeding ticket. Only I wasn’t speeding. I was meticulously careful not to show interest. Actions always had consequences.
Then I watched the deputy get out of the car, adjust his gun, put his hat on, check his reflection in the side window, and then walk towards the driver’s side of my car.
I watched him in the side mirror until, within a few feet, I recognised the face. Older now, still the same. “Bucky Winchester.” Bucky because he gut bucked off the artificial rodeo bull at the hotel not far from the same city limits I’d just passed.
There was a lot more to that story.
The man’s expression changed, and I knew it was him. “My God, you’re Christopher Blunt. You’re dead.”
“Then I can drive off with no charge to answer.”
“Clearly, you’re not dead. Where have you been?”
“Anywhere but here.”
“Why?”
“Fuck, Bucky, maybe you and the rest of the football teams made my life hell.”
“You were not the only one. Hell, your brother wouldn’t let us treat you as badly as the others. Get out of the car.”
“Why?” Bucky was mean back then. Maybe he was still just as mean.
“Because it’s easier for you to shown me your licence and registration.”
“What was I doing wrong?”
“Nothing, but I still gave to check.”
I shrugged and then got out. I showed him the documents.
“You been in Maine?”
It was there on licence.
“Among other places.”
“Never thought of coming home?”
“Nope. Didn’t want to see you lot again.”
“And yet you’re here? Why?”
“Reunion.”
“There’s going to be a lot of familiar faces, not all of them happy to see you.”
“Then you might have to earn your salary.”
He looked up and down, then stood defensively, hand on gun but still holstered.
“Perhaps it would be for the best that you get back in your vehicle, turn around, and go back to where you came from. Or else.”
Sound advice from his point of view. “Or else what, Bucky?”
“I’ll arrest you and put you in jail for the duration.”
The squared soldier look, the very ugly, angry expression he had on his face, and the degree of belligerence I knew he had within him made him look formidable.
Except I knew his weakness.
“Then come and do it, Bucky.”
Boy to man, there was no change in what essentially the definitive schoolyard bully was.
Writing Exercise – Write about a place you’ve never been, with an out-of-sorts traveller, and a misunderstanding
…
Have you ever just decided on the spur of the moment to get away?
Anywhere but home, or whatever you think home is, but really it’s just four walls slowly closing in on you because it turns out it had become nothing like what you were hoping for.
A bit like life, really.
I ran away from home, not literally, but practically, because everything back home reminded me of the miserable life I had, no respect, no friends to speak of, and parents who couldn’t;t see past the asperations they had for me, my fathers to take over the hardware store, and my mother, to marry that nice girl Cindy, just up the road.
Cindy had no aspirations. The hardware store was a dinosaur from the past and would soon be superseded by the online suppliers who were cheaper and always in stock.
No one was listening, so I left.
Now, the same was happening. No one was listening, and I was getting stuck in a rut.
Time, I told myself, for a change.
New York Penn Station, the place to go anywhere other than New York.
I fired up my computer and found the first trip it showed me, from Penn Station on West 34th Street to Kansas City the next morning at 10:45, Via Chicago. I’d never been to Chicago, but I’d just watched a rather bad musical movie called Calamity Jane, and it was a place in it.
I think they called that serendipity.
…
I packed my trusty backpack for a two-day travelling experience after booking a business class seat. I would, at the very least, travel in a little comfort, and was no stranger to sleeping in seats, given the number of red-eye specials I took travelling for the company.
I found the train, and my seat, shown to me by a conductor, which was a surprise.
Then it was simply a matter of picking up my book, and reading until it was time to sleep.
Except…
Just before the train departed a young woman, about 30ish if I was to guess, came up the aisle, looking at seat numbers and then sitting next to me.
First reaction, she smelled of moth balls. An odd thought, had she been living in a clothes closit? Nothing would surprise me in New York.
Second creation, surprise she travelled with so little. Perhaps that was why she had so many clothes on: jeans, flannel shirt, jumper, jacket, scarf, gloves, sturdy boots.
She looked me up and down but said nothing. I tried not to look at her, but there was something about her. Had I seen her before, or was she ill? She looked very pale, and her eyes were watery. Did she have a cold or worse, a variant of COVID? I really didn’t want to get sick before I got started on this odyssey.
For a few minutes, before the train started rolling out of the station, I seriously considered getting off the train.
I didn’t and hoped I wouldn’t regret it.
…
Six hours out, she looked like death warmed up. There was definitely something wrong with her, and I was considering going to the conductor to see if there was a doctor on board.
Then she woke up.
I had to ask, “Are you alright?”
“Why?”
“You look very ill.”
“I just feel out of sorts. Time of the year, between seasons. Hot one minute, cold the next.”
I’m surprised she told me, after the instant dagger look she gave me before I asked.
“Why take the train when you can fly?”
“Going to see my parents in Kansas City.”
“You live there?”
“No.”
Didn’t answer the question. Like everyone else I spoke to it was impossible to get a straight answer to a clear question.
“But your parents live there?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t?”
“No.”
“They moved to Kansas City?”
“No. Lived there all their lives.”
“But you don’t?”
“No.”
“Wouldn’t it be quicker to fly?”
“Not enough time.”
OK. Another strange answer that begged a hundred questions.
“For what?”
She gave me a seriously dangerous look, and I think if she had either a gun or a knife, I’d be dead now. “Do you always ask daft questions?”
“Mostly, it seems, but I’ll bite. Not enough time for what?”
“To think about what I will say to them?”
“About what?”
OK. That was not a question to ask, but she definitely piqued my interest.
“A guy I knew in Kansas City.”
“But you don;t live there?”
“He followed me to New York. Thought I was the one. Seems he thought that about three, so he had three ‘the one’s’. If you know what I mean.”
I seriously considered going back to sleep. Or reading the Gideon version of the bible I stole from a hotel room.
“But you didn’t live in Kansas City?”
“Not now. No.”
“Then I’ll leave you to it.”
“To what?”
“Thinking.”
“About?”
“The not ‘one’.”
She looked at me strangely. “Are you sure you’re not an axe murderer? I mean, it would be just my luck…”
When we arrive at the embarkation site we find at least 100 buses all lined up and parked, and literally thousands of Chinese and other Asians streaming through the turnstiles to get on another boat leaving earlier than ours.
Buses were just literally arriving one after the other stopping near where we were standing with a dozen or so other groups waiting patiently, and with people were everywhere it could only be described as organized chaos.
Someone obviously knew where everyone was supposed to go, and when it was our turn, we joined the queue. There were a lot of people in front of us, and a lot more behind, so I had to wonder just how big the boat was.
We soon found out.
And it was amusing to watch people running, yes, they were actually running, to get to the third level, or found available seating. Being around the first to board, we had no trouble finding a seat on the second level.
I was not quite sure what the name of the boat was, but it had 3 decks and VIP rooms and it was huge, with marble staircases, the sort you could make a grand entrance on. The last such ornate marble staircase we had seen was in a hotel in Hong Kong, and that was some staircase.
But who has marble staircases in a boat?
We’re going out across the water as far as the Bund and then turn around and come back about 30 to 40 minutes. By the time everyone was on board, there was no room left on the third level, no seats on the second level nor standing room at the end of the second level where the stairs up to the third level were.
No one wanted to pay the extra to go into the VIP lounge.
We were sitting by very large windows where it was warm enough watching the steady procession of the colored lights of other vessels, and outside the buildings.
It was quite spectacular, as were some of the other boats going out on the harbor.
All the buildings of the Bund were lit up
And along that part of the Bund was a number of old English style buildings made from sandstone, and very impressive to say the least.
On the other side of the harbour were the more modern buildings, including the communications tower, a rather impressive structure.
I had to go to the rear of the vessel to get a photo, a very difficult proposition given here was no space on the railing, not even on the stairs going up or down. It was just luck I managed to get some photos between passengers heads.
And, another view of that communications tower:
There was no doubt this was one of the most colourful night-time boat tours I’ve ever been on. Certainly, when we saw the same buildings the following day, they were not half as spectacular in daylight.
I never did get up to the third level to see what the view was like.
First on the list was his sister, the one hoping that when all else failed, she would become Queen.
Of course, being a surviving male, he had usurped her hopes, and it wasn’t going to be an easy reunion once they were alone.
And seeing Isobel, her counterpart in the next principality and fierce rival, and sometimes enemy at the gate over the last 800 years, nothing is going to be simple.
At least she hasn’t tried to assassinate him yet.
Then, there is the fiancé of Edward, the man who would have been king, and whose body had still not been recovered and probably might not.
She’s genuinely upset and appears to know nothing about any plot to disappear and meet up later in Paris, or that she was on her way to Paris for any other reason than just leaving like it was normal.
The new king insists she stay for the King’s funeral.
Then there’s the fiancé of Gregory, the princess that had Bern selected for our new king, as much a match could be made when they were younger.
They had never hit it off, but she stayed and found her way with the King’s immediate older brother.
She, too, seems upset, but not as much as she could be. She wants to stay and honour his memory in some way, and that is fine with the king.
She had met his choice of bride and, being a non-royal, offers to guide her through the process, though admitting Rush is not going to be a shrinking violet.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 