Henry because he doesn’t believe Harry has changed, Harry because he knows if the old rivalry restarts, Henry will leave, and he doesn’t want to be the one to cause it.
It takes a week to break the ice, and, finally, the two can talk. Harry knows Henry is pining over a girl, so he asks the question.
For Henry, as far as he’s concerned, that ship has sailed.
But Harry has a piece of advice for his brother, don’t let Michelle be the one that got away.
So begins the Odyssey.
It starts with reading up on the circumstances and reasons for the existence of such places where Michelle works, and why women finish up there. It branches into drug addiction, of course from a medical view, with his father having an excellent library of books on the subject.
He then does a tour of what is broadly called the red light district, during the day, where it seems hidden away. Then he branches into the newspaper archives and gets a different perspective. Research can only do so much.
After getting a call from Villiers, a relative of Michelle’s she had once mentioned to him, he goes to see him, and they talk. Villiers says she has contacted him and asked him to pass on a message that she will contact him when she needs his help, and it is the first indication she had not given up on them. Villiers gives him another perspective on her.
It also means that the notion he goes looking for her, to see her, or rescue her, he wasn’t quite sure, was the right one. Villiers wants him to go and rescue her. The question is, is she worth rescuing?
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.
Yes, it’s that huge device that is attached to a tall building and either raises or lowers building materials. I’ve often wondered how the drive, so far up in the air can see where to pick up or drop a load.
Typically cranes are used to move large or heavy loads, like large fiberglass swimming pools from the roadside into the front or back yard.
The are train breakdown cranes, dock side cranes and broken down cranes, usually on the road in the middle of rush hour.
They used to have dog men, people who hung on grimly, going up or down with the load. Not me when the building is sixty or seventy floors up.
There can be smaller cranes built on trucks that are for smaller jobs like lifting boats, sometimes parts of houses. We had one near us once lifting a swimming pool into a front yard.
Then there is the crane, a bird. Cranes are usually tall birds with long legs.
In Asia the crane symbolises happiness and eternal youth whereas in Japan the crane symbolises good fortune and longevity.
And other uses such as:
The boy craned his neck to see the batter hit a home run.
Usually if I crane my neck, it causes days of muscular pain, ie literally the definition of a pain in the neck!
It means to distort your body or neck in order to see something more clearly, especially if you are in a bad position, like behind a pylon or tree.
It can also be used to describe a trolley with a large boom with a camera attached.
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.
Even God got to rest of the seventh day perhaps to admire his handiwork, but for a writer there is no rest.
I have to go to lunch with an old friend who is concerned that I have locked myself away in a garret and will wither and die, the same as not admitting myself it was time to move on. There is the woman you marry, and your one true love, the one you can say anything to and is taken. Marilyn is that person. I’m not sure how this lunch will go.
Perhaps a little more work on the plot, and a few drinks to settle the nerves.
Still working on the characters (and all need a lot more work, particularly Davenport, oh, and by the way, he’s new):
Richardson – Vanilla Office worker in the wrong place at the wrong time
Gator, Inspector – Jaded policeman not far from retirement, overlooked for promotion, and always on the fringe. Will this be his big case before he retires?
Halligan – General Manager, also a field agent who failed to complete his mission. More on what that mission was is coming.
Bill Chandler, we seem to have him under control, except for one small detail, his memories will return.
Jennifer, Chandler’s friend, sister to Manilow, not all she appears to be. Spoiler alert! Manilow is another new character who will appear in Bill’s dreams (nightmares)
Benton, Chandler’s immediate superior, yes man, and eternal pessimist.
Aitchison, security chief, aka Colonel Warburton, Manilow’s old commanding officer, repatriated home after making some discoveries about wartime activities.
Wiesenthal – US management employee of Transworld
Giles – Chandler’s hardware assistant
Kowalski – executive promoted to head of security, also new, the cast is getting longer
Andy Collins –from the US, worked with Chandler around at the inception of the network installation, working with Chandler recently when updates were carried out
Davenport, aka Alphonse DeAngelo, Chandler’s old nemesis, ex-Army Colonel, and he will be a piece of work
The plotline continues but I’m not sure if this will be the eventual direction it will go. There will be a lot of writing before now and then:
Chandler thinks he now has time for some private investigation because a lot of things about the recent events didn’t add up. However, in the meantime, the perils of domesticity close in around Bill, the first morning with Jennifer.
A visit to the office, unscheduled, by Bill, brings to light a number of changes; new security and monitoring of movements, making it difficult for Bill to do anything. Kowalski has replaced Aitchison as head of security, and Bill must pay him a visit.
Kowalski is full of sympathy and advises Bill that he has a lot of leave to be taken in order to get better, and a bonus as well. He should not return until fully recovered, and then to a promotion. In other words, Bill reads this as –’Stay Away’.
Giles gives more information of the network problems, and the disaster surrounding the backup tapes, with information that had been requested by Gator. Of course, there was no information of the backup tapes provided, because they had been destroyed. Was it on purpose or by accident?
Another dream and Brainless looms large and lifelike in their first meeting.
At his home to finish collecting his clothes and gear, he wakes up and remembers why he’s there. He had removed a tape from a little-used system he’d installed for another purpose, and had brought it to his own PC to see whether there was any evidence on it – given that every other tape either proved Aitchison and Halligan guilty or had been destroyed by well-meaning but apparently incompetent consultants. His tape has interesting information, which he notes, then hides the tape.
I have been working on the story, the editor is asking for a third draft after making suggested changes – and I’m now working on it
…
Well, we knew something was going to happen when Jack walked in the front door of his modest residence.
It’s been trashed.
We have the clues, we know what they are looking for – that item his mother fortuitously dropped off at the travel agency.
No one knows what it is yet, but it is going to be an important part of the puzzle moving forward.
And now Rosalie has it, it means that she is in danger.
Of course, this is the time to contrast his relationship with Maryanne, and that with Rosalie. Back, before he left, he realised he had a thing for her (though is ‘thing’ the right word to use?) and had said he would meet with her when he got back.
So, a meeting is set. Without Maryanne tagging along.
In the meantime, there is that disaster called his residence to deal with, and, of course, he calls the police to report the break-in.
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 we’re back on the treasure hunt.
…
Charlene, and speaking to Boggs
…
She had been one of the few nice girls at school and we had got along better than most. Boggs had once told me she liked me but was disappointed I hadn’t noticed her. I suppose, back then, I didn’t recognize the signs, and even now, I was still all at sea with girls.
Was she Boggs’s girlfriend? If she was, it was the best-kept secret.
“Hello Charlene,” I said when she also looked up to see who had entered the room.
“Sam.”
“Are you…”
Before I could finish she interrupted, “I’m working in the sheriff’s office, and dad asked me to keep a watch over Boggs.”
“You don’t have to be in the room,” Boggs growled. “It’s not as if I’m going anywhere.”
It was hardly a conciliatory tone. And a mental note, Boggs was uncharacteristically angry. With her, or with me?
“My father asked me to do a job, so here I stay. It’s for your protection as much as anything else.” Then, to me, “how are you, Sam?”
“Good.”
“I understand you found him on the beach belonging to the Cossatino’s. Odd place to be, Sam, for you at least?”
“Nadia and I were searching the coastline for coins with metal detectors when we stumbled over a body. Thought at first it was a beached shark.”
Boggs turned his head back. “Whose idea was it?”
Curious response and I thought about telling him it was mine, but something told me to tell the truth. “Nadia. And before you ask, no, I don’t think she had any other idea in mind because as you and I both know, there’s no access from the ocean to the shore through the reef. That much I ascertained for myself, and that goes for the whole coastline of The Grove.”
If he had looked down from the top of the cliff face, at any point along the coastline he would have seen that for himself. But, that might not always have been the case because there were almost two centuries and a lot of seismic activity in between. I’d seen the big A, but no other evidence it might be the spot, but Boggs had been there, and it was likely he knew it a likely spot too.
He nodded, which meant he had checked himself, which gave him a reason for being at The Grove, but not finishing up where he’d landed. There was something else in his expression and had I not had the knowledge I had, I would have ignored it.
“Why look for coins then?”
“Something to do, I guess, since you’ve stopped asking me to help you. That and doing a little investigation on the side. I’m amazed at just how much information there is out there, and it’s a battle to sort fact from fiction. And I didn’t have the head start you have.”
“You do realize Nadia is a Cossatino. You can’t be consorting with the enemy.”
“I thought she was just someone to hang out with since we hadn’t hit it off at school. In case you didn’t notice, she hasn’t been around these parts for several years, going to Italy to get away from the family. But, I get it, she’s still a Cossatino, or so everyone keeps telling me, and not someone I should be associating with. You’re not the only one issuing dire warnings.”
“That’s your problem, Sam, you see the good in everyone, even if they’re bad.”
“Should I apply that theory to you. You don’t finish up unconscious on a beach where you’re not supposed to be. What happened?”
I could practically see the wheels turning while he formulated an excuse he thought I would buy, then said, “I slipped and fell, something that shouldn’t have happened?”
“Not unless you’d been seen and the Cossatino’s were either coming to get you or were chasing you?”
He didn’t answer perhaps knowing Charlene was there to get answers, but his expression told me it was close to the truth.
“No. Slipped, a fundamental error setting up. I was simply sloppy.”
“You were trespassing.”
“I was practicing my skills, and it’s the best rockface along the coast for exactly that. It’s not the first time I’ve tried.”
OK, we weren’t going to get past the ‘I was practicing mantra’, so I moved on to the next question, “Where have you been lately?”
“The caves in the hills, and trying a bit of climbing there, too.”
“You shouldn’t be doing it alone.”
“I wouldn’t have to if my so-called friend wasn’t cavorting with a snake.”
Often Radly his friend from the ship had regaled him with stories of his exploits in the red-light district. Henry never quite believes most of it, but he was prepared to accept that he might know enough to be of some help.
Henry didn’t want to be visiting the parlours on his own.
But it does mean he has to tell him the true nature of the girl he met and wanted to go after.
Radly is honest, knowing a lot of the girls in the area, most either were not worth the effort, or more likely content with their lot and didn’t want to be rescued. Poor souls who tried often ended up on the wrong end of a bouncer’s fist.
Exactly what Henry wants to avoid.
So, is Radly up for the challenge.
To find her, yes, but if she is trouble, or in trouble, or likely to cause trouble, then no.
Henry has to be prepared to walk away.
He accepts the conditions, and the quest begins after dark.
You would think it is a relatively simple thing to get to the snow.
Of course, there are a few necessities like skis, boots, poles, and warm dry clothing, but that can all be bought or rented when you get there, or if you are an enthusiast, you already have the gear.
So, you get in the car, set the navigator, and off you go. Till you get within 20 k of the ski field, it’s all plain sailing, everyone is excited, and mentally preparing.
Then it all starts to go sideways.
Those last few kilometers to the top are going to be arduous particularly if it’s been snowing and the roads are icy, but the weather is fine with blue skies and no recent snow falls. Were expecting a slow drive and a parking spot.
The road is open.
But…
So late in the morning, a sign at the bottom of the mountain warns all the car parks at the ski field are full, but we venture on anyway.
As you can see, the cars are parked so far away from the ski fields, the prospective skiers have to almost run a marathon before they get there!
And for some odd reason, we picked the very day everyone in New Zealand also wanted to go up to the ski fields so parking, even near the Chateau Tongariro was gone and there were endless cars looking for parking spots and traffic wardens had their hands full trying to keep traffic moving So, for us and everyone else, everything stops at Chateau Tongariro, and from there the only vehicles allowed up are buses.
It’s about 10:30 and we are advised the only way we were getting to see snow was to take a bus
Now, there are two types of busses. You can go up on a local bus, from Whakapapa Village that costs $20 a person which in the context of the cost of skiing not very much, but if you’re not, it’s quite expensive.
The second, one we were advised to use, operates from a place called National Park, about 9 km away, a snow shuttle that costs $6 each. The trouble is by the time we were ready to go there, to catch a shuttle, there were no more shuttles.
We did not know what to expect when we got to ‘National Park’, but being a railway station makes sense. It’s the only place with a very large carpark!
It’s one of those grey, dark, wet mornings where you can inadvertently sleep in because the bedroom remains dark for an extra two hours.
That could be a problem if you have a day job, like most of us.
But, today is Friday, and it’s just what I need. The news is telling us that six months worth of rain just fell in one hour. That’s a lot of rain, but it isn’t going to break the drought.
But that’s not a topic that can make a story work. I need something poetic, dramatic, or a catalyst.
Time to mull over the latest storyline, marshal my thoughts, write the prose in my head.
OK, that not working for me.
The rain is getting heavier, and is splashing outside; the steady waterfall of overflow from the gutters is taking away my concentration.
Rain, rain, go away …
I have two different visions.
A cold, grey day in London (is there any other sort of day?) waiting for a train, and seeing the woman of your dreams go past, standing in the doorway, and in that fraction of a second your eyes meet, a connection is made.
I suspect it has fuelled many a song such as ‘The Look of Love’.
The second is on a desolate section of coastline as for north as you can go in Scotland (yes, I am a glutton for punishment), and she is standing on the cliff top gazing out to sea, hair blowing in the wind. Silent, strong, resolute.
Rain gone.
Notes hastily scribbled in a notebook for later reference.
Time to go out and check if the garden has derived any benefit at all.
