Category: Books

The story behind the story – Echoes from the Past

The novel ‘Echoes from the past’ started out as a short story I wrote about 30 years ago, titled ‘The birthday’.

My idea was to take a normal person out of their comfort zone and led on a short but very frightening journey to a place where a surprise birthday party had been arranged.

Thus the very large man with a scar and a red tie was created.

So was the friend with the limousine who worked as a pilot.

So were the two women, Wendy and Angelina, who were Flight Attendants that the pilot friend asked to join the conspiracy.

I was going to rework the short story, then about ten pages long, into something a little more.

And like all re-writes, especially those I have anything to do with, it turned into a novel.

There was motivation.  I had told some colleagues at the place where I worked at the time that I liked writing, and they wanted a sample.  I was going to give them the re-worked short story.  Instead, I gave them ‘Echoes from the past’

Originally it was not set anywhere in particular.

But when considering a location, I had, at the time, recently been to New York in December, and visited Brooklyn and Queens, as well as a lot of New York itself.  We were there for New Years, and it was an experience I’ll never forget.

One evening we were out late, and finished up in Brooklyn Heights, near the waterfront, and there was rain and snow, it was cold and wet, and there were apartment buildings shimmering in the street light, and I thought, this is the place where my main character will live.

It had a very spooky atmosphere, the sort where ghosts would not be unexpected.  I felt more than one shiver go up and down my spine in the few minutes I was there.

I had taken notes, as I always do, of everywhere we went so I had a ready supply of locations I could use, changing the names in some cases.

Fifth Avenue near the Rockefeller center is amazing at first light, and late at night with the Seasonal decorations and lights.

The original main character was a shy and man of few friends, hence not expecting the surprise party.  I enhanced that shyness into purposely lonely because of an issue from his past that leaves him always looking over his shoulder and ready to move on at the slightest hint of trouble.  No friends, no relationships, just a very low profile.

Then I thought, what if he breaks the cardinal rule, and begins a relationship?

But it is also as much an exploration of a damaged soul, as it is the search for a normal life, without having any idea what normal was, and how the understanding of one person can sometimes make all the difference in what we may think or feel.

And, of course, I wanted a happy ending.

Except for the bad guys.

Get it here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

newechocover5rs

Searching for locations: The Pagoda Forest, near Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, China

The pagoda forest

After another exhausting walk, by now the heat was beginning to take its toll on everyone, we arrived at the pagoda forest.

A little history first:

The pagoda forest is located west of the Shaolin Temple and the foot of a hill.  As the largest pagoda forest in China, it covers approximately 20,000 square meters and has about 230 pagodas build from the Tang Dynasty (618-907) to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Each pagoda is the tomb of an eminent monk from the Shaolin Temple.  Graceful and exquisite, they belong to different eras and constructed in different styles.  The first pagoda was thought to be built in 791.

It is now a world heritage site.

No, it’s not a forest with trees it’s a collection of over 200 pagodas, each a tribute to a head monk at the temple and it goes back a long time.  The tribute can have one, three, five, or a maximum of seven layers.  The ashes of the individual are buried under the base of the pagoda.

The size, height, and story of the pagoda indicate its accomplishments, prestige, merits, and virtues. Each pagoda was carved with the exact date of construction and brief inscriptions and has its own style with various shapes such as a polygonal, cylindrical, vase, conical and monolithic.

This is one of the more recently constructed pagodas

There are pagodas for eminent foreign monks also in the forest.

From there we get a ride back on the back of a large electric wagon

to the front entrance courtyard where drinks and ice creams can be bought, and a visit to the all-important happy place.

Then it’s back to the hotel.

The first case of PI Walthenson – “A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers”

This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

PIWalthJones1

An excerpt from the book:

When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.

Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.

It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.

Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.

But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.

His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.

At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.

For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.

Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.

Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.

Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.

It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.

It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.

Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.

So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.

There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.

So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.

There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.

She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.

Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.

Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.

Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.

Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.

Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2024

Writing a book in 365 days – 183

Day 183

Poetry – or my thoughts on it

…

I have often wondered what the interest in poetry is because I have read those same poems that people wax lyrical about, and it just doesn’t have the same effect.

But…

Then I did some digging…

Poetry requires words written in lines for a specified number of lines about almost anything.

Two, three, four, five lines, and more.

Words that rhyme, words that do not, there are rules and types, and then there is not.

It encompasses anything and everything. It can read at a fast or slow pace, professing undying love or utter hatred, and can describe something familiarly or make the familiar sound like something else.

Objects become feelings, and feelings become objects.

Some poets are famous; there are poets we like and poets we hate.  Some poets are just there.  There are poets we should read and poets we shouldn’t, though why is anyone’s guess.

There are poets we know, not because we have read them but because they are in the collective consciousness, poets like Burns, W B Yeats, Walter Whitman, Shakespeare, and Emily Dickinson.

I even know them because people who are in the TV shows and movies are always reciting them.

Perhaps I appreciate poetry more than I care to admit.

In writing this and taking a deep dive into the world of poems and what it is all about, I have come across some rather meaningful poetry.

Perhaps I might find one that encapsulated my life and ask for it to be read at my funeral.  At the very least, the attendees will be utterly surprised. 

‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.

I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.

For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.

For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.

For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.

Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.

When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.

And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

In a word: Blank

Yes, I’m drawing a blank, which means I have no idea

It seems that I do this a lot these days, perhaps one of the perils of being a writer

But…

Using blank in a story doesn’t necessarily convey the antagonist is clueless, more likely he or she just used one in a gun, put there by a person who didn’t want to get shot.

No, still drawing a blank on this one.

A blank space means there’s nothing in it, and you see a lot of these in crosswords and sudoku, even when the user has been toiling for hours

I’m thinking anyone who met me might misinterpret my blank expression, well, it’s not too expressive in the first place

Perhaps before the coin becomes a coin; it is a piece of blank metal to begin with.  How good would it be to get a one-sided coin, that’d be worth a lot?

And the very worst description of blank; having a blank piece of paper in front of you, and you really are drawing a blank!

“Echoes From The Past”, the past doesn’t necessarily stay there


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.

https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

newechocover5rs

On the research trail…

Or as it might more commonly be known as, spending a few hours in a historical museum. which just happens to cover some of the material you need for a school project.

I brought up the subject of living history yesterday after we all packed off to have an hour ride on a steam train and accompanying equally aged carriages.

Since these trains have been missing for nearly fifty years, there is basically two generations of people who have never had the chance to travel in such a manner in their lifetime, unless, of course, they have found a tourist train like our example, the Mary Valley Rattler.

It’s the same as the early days of finding gold in Gympie, in Queensland, Australia.  It dates back to the 1860s, and one can only imagine what it was like because most of the history is in books.  Yes, they have sketches, and sometimes photographs, but these do not generally date back to the middle of the nineteenth century.

But, visiting a living example of what it was like in ‘the old days’ can give those generations a glimpse of what it was like.

Single room schools, because unlike today when schools now cater to over 1,000 children in varying years, one school held about 20 or 30 in all grades, with a single teacher.

In fact, today, I saw a collection of readers that I remember reading when I was in grade school, a long time ago.  Even the desks and the ink wells brought back interesting memories, one of which when I was ink monitor.

But housed in a number of old-style buildings was the information on the diggings, the mines and the impact of gold in general, and, at the very end, the children got to do a little panning for gold, and found a number of small fragments of real gold.

Once they’d been shown by a panning expert that looked as if he had been transported into this time from the past.

There are similar places elsewhere in this country that preserve the past to show future generations what it was like.

After this weekend, we have more than enough information to work on the project, based around gold mining, and it’s impact on the people, the area, and the government.

And best of all, it has generated an interest in the past, reading more, and perhaps if we’re lucky, an interest in writing something based on history, which sometimes is quite difficult when it has to compete with more interesting pastimes like computer games.

“Trouble in Store” – Short Stories My Way:  The re-write – Part 2

Now that I’ve gone through the story and made quite a few changes, it’s time to look at the story

…

It took a second, perhaps three, to sum up the situation.

A young girl, about 16 or 17, scared, looking sideways at a man on the ground, then Alphonse, and then Jack.  He recognized the gun, a Luger, a German relic of WW2, perhaps her father’s souvenir, or more likely a stolen weapon, now pointing at him then Alphonse, then back to him.

Jack took another second or two to consider if he could disarm her.  No, the distance was too great.  He put his hands out where she could see them.  No sudden movements trying to remain calm, and his heart rate was up to the point of cardiac arrest.  No point in making a bad situation worse.

Pointing with the gun, she said, “Move closer to the counter where I can see you better.”

Everything but her hand was steady as a rock.  The only telltale sign of stress was the bead of perspiration on her brow.  It was 40 degrees Fahrenheit in the shop.

Jack shivered and then did as he was told.

A few seconds more for him to decide she was in the unpredictable category.

“What’s wrong with your friend?”  Jack tried the friendly approach after he’d taken the three steps sideways necessary to reach the counter.

The shopkeeper, Alphonse, who, Jack noted seemed to have aged another ten years in the last few months, spoke instead; “I suspect he’s an addict, looking for a score.  At the end of his tether, my guess, and her to get some money.”

A simple hold-up that had gone wrong.  Wrong time, wrong place, in more ways than one Jack thought, now realizing he had walked into a very dangerous situation.  She didn’t look like a user.  The boy on the ground did, and he looked like he was going through the beginnings of withdrawal.

Oddly, though, Jack had noticed a look pass between the shopkeeper and the girl.

“All you had to do was give us the money, and we wouldn’t be here, now.”  She was glaring back at Alphonse.  “You can still make this right.”

A flicker of memory jumped out of the depths of Jack’s mind, something discussed at the dinner table with their neighbours, something about the shop being a pickup point for drugs.

The boy on the floor, he was not here for money.

Jack thought he’d try another approach.  “Look, I don’t want trouble, and you don’t want trouble.  I’ll go, forget this ever happened.  You might want to do the same.”

The girl looked like she was thinking.  The gun, though, still moved between him and the shopkeeper.

Another assessment of the girl; this was not her real home.  She was from a better class of people, a different part of town.  Caught up in a downward spiral because of her friend on the floor.

Caught in a situation she was not equipped to deal with.

…

© Charles Heath 2016-2024

Writing a book in 365 days – 182

Day 182

He decided that, for once, he was going to ignore everything he knew about living a good life.

…

At what point do you decide that, having done everything that was asked of you, taken heed of all the advice, and achieved everything possible, your life isn’t a life but an empty shell where a living, vibrant human being should be?

Forty.

It was supposed to be that magical age where everything was supposed to come together. At least, that was what his mother had told him last night at the special dinner held in his honour.

Not just family like he had requested, but over 200 specially selected guests, friends and business connections of his parents, people he knew but didn’t know, people who were an important part of the business network.

And then there was that one comment, some guy he’d never seen before but was what his mother would call a radical, someone who didn’t conform.  Blue shirt and green tie.  Pale blue suit and tan shoes.  A fashion disaster.

He said, quite off-hand, “It’s time for you to go off the rails, forties mate.  Fast cars and younger women.”  He was with his wife, he was fiftyish, she was about twenty, it wasn’t a good look, and the expression on his mother’s face: priceless.

I shook his hand and moved on.

Forty.

Lying in bed the next morning, the first shard of light showing through the curtains, was it time to reassess where I was in the greater scheme of things? 

My hand-picked wife was up and out for her morning run on the specially landscaped path built throughout the extensive gardens that surrounded the manor house.

She had become a clone of my mother.  She was descended from royalty, my mother said, but I had my doubts.  A few too many drinks and her character changed completely, and under that ice queen exterior, there was a real person.

When I asked her about it, she simply denied it existed and then never drank again.

We had two perfect children.  Well, some would say they were perfect, I thought they needed to be allowed to be children, but who listened to me?

Forty.

Life begins at…

It felt like my life was over.  I wanted, I craved for a single moment when I was out of my depth, where I was frightened of the consequences of my actions, scared to make a decision because it was the right one, not one that would please my mother.

I sighed. 

That was never going to happen.

Eloise came back from her run, and it was the only time I saw her, if I saw her, a mess. I liked the mess, said so once, and she was horrified.

“You do realise that you look great.” I decided today I was going to act out of character.

“I’m sorry.  I thought you were asleep.”

“Well, I could be dreaming, and if I am, it’s one of the better ones.”

She smiled.  That was something else about her.  She rarely smiled. That is to say, smiled so that her whole face lit up.

In that moment, it did, and that girl I saw twenty years ago suddenly came back to life.  The one my mother had almost destroyed in her quest to make her a Marron clone.

“You should be up.”

“I don’t want to be up.  What I want is you, right here, right now.  The girl I first met twenty years ago, the girl before my mother turned her into a robot.”

“That girl is gone, Alec.”

“That girl is standing right in front of me.”

She suddenly looked confused.  It was an expression I’d not seen on her face for many years.

I got out of bed, a ridiculously large ocean of self-pity, and all of a sudden, I had no interest in wallowing in it and walked over to her.

The room was as large as a ballroom, and we could have performed a waltz in it.

She watched me warily until I stopped in front of her and took her hands in mine.  “My mother has completely taken her away.  You peer out every now and then, and it makes my heart miss a beat or two when it does.”

She blinked.  Her eyes had tears forming, and then after another blink, a tear escaped, and I watched it slowly run down the side of her face.

“I hate my life,” I said. “I hate everything to do with this place, my work, what it has done to both of us.  I want the girl you were, still are, hiding there behind an almost impenetrable facade.  Please give her back to me.”

I could see more confusion, and I think she thought this might be a test.  In the early days of our relationship, my mother had always been one to look out for signs that she was not doing enough.

In my mind, she was too good for the likes of this family, having seen what my mother had done to my older sister, the one we never mentioned or talked about, and Eloise was almost down that same path.

“I can’t.  You know why I can’t. “

At what point do you choose all of what we had against having a life?  The money, the luxury, the possessions, the power that came with it?  It could be intoxicating, but in truth, it was a curse.

“Is it the money?  Power? The notion that you can wear a hundred thousand dollar dress once and never again?  Or wear that million-dollar diamond necklace?  What do you think you have?”

“Everything I ever wanted.”

“Except freedom.”

She shrugged.  “There is always a price to pay.  It would be the same anywhere else.  With anyone else.  Life is simply a series of compromises.”

That was my mother speaking, right there.  The facade had reappeared, the stony look returning, the one I saw every morning down in the breakfast room.

I sighed, let her go, and kissed her on her forehead.

“Another day, another million dollars.  See you downstairs.  We’ve got that Anderson thing this morning.”

She gave me a last wary look.  “Are you alright?”

I was not surprised she thought I might be ill.  It had been a long time since the last time I acted out of character.

“Sure.  Must have something to do with turning forty.  I’m sure it’s just a guy thing.”

I don’t think she quite believed me.

Of course, had she been in my office the previous afternoon, just before I was about to go home and change for the big birthday bash my mother had organised for me, Alfred H Ribbentop, the Chief Executive lawyer, came to see me.

The last time I’d seen him was the day he read the family my father’s will, nearly six years ago, after he suffered a heart attack and died.

I wanted to believe my mother killed him.  I was still looking for proof.  Apparently, he left everything to her and just small annuities to his children, ensuring we remain her slaves.

That was the last thing my father had wanted for us.

Alfred came in and sat in the seat opposite my desk.  No one ever sat on that seat, no one except my father, and after he passed, my mother.

I didn’t tell him my mother would be very displeased if she found out.

“I have a letter from your father.”

“A miracle then, since he’s been dead neatly six years.”

“You know that the Lord works in mysterious ways.”  He pulled an envelope out of his top pocket and put it on the desk facing me.

It was my father’s handwriting.

“Is it real?”

“Did I forge it? No.  I was in the room when he wrote it because there was some stuff I had to organise.  Read it.”

I shrugged.  What harm could a message from to grave do?

Inside the envelope was a single sheet of paper.

“Alec…

“A man is no good until he turns 40.  I know, that’s how long it took me to realise I was a nincompoop.  You will have been kowtowing to your mother because she thinks she has all the power.  The truth is, I didn’t have the time to stop her.  But the devil is always in the details that she never asked about or was interested in.

“Well, today that ignorance is going to come back and bite her.  As of today, you have 51 per cent of the management company’s shares, which means you are now in total control of what happens.  I figured about five years under her thumb would be long enough.

“And you, of all the children, would have been smart enough to plan for something like this.  After all, Alfred would have dropped his mysterious hints as he always did with me.

“So, run away with Eloise and take the time to enjoy your life because I didn’t and look what happened to me.”

“Dad.”

I looked over at Alfred, a man who rarely smiled.  If it were humanly possible, I would have said he looked amused.

“Is this true?”

“Eldest living son, at age 40.  Yes.”

“Does Mother know?”

“Yes.  She had her legal people go over every line and tried to break it, and tried to set up a new entity and turn your inheritances into a worthless shell.  Your father was three steps ahead of her, even from the grave.  She was 100 shares short of doing anything that meddled with the corporate structure.  And the beauty of it, no one knew who the anonymous shareholder was, but their proxy always sided with you and your eldest sister’s shares, which were the controlling interest.  Your mother alienating her was the biggest mistake of her life.”

“And the mysterious shareholder?”

“It doesn’t matter.  You have the controlling interest, so use it wisely.  You don’t have to be here. You can proxy someone of your choice to do as you wish.  I will ask you to be sensible, as I know you will.  Your mother may have been somewhat misguided when it came to people, but she can run the company.  She just needs the voice of reason in her ear, just as it was when your father was alive.”

He stood.  “Use this information as you wish, but I always find springing subtle surprises are always more fun than just blurting it out.”

With that, he was gone.

I had a lot to think about.

Breakfast, unless we were away from home, was mandatory. 

Mother insisted we all be in attendance so she could make sure we were ready and on point for the day to come.

It’s why I liked being away.  She could not intimidate us, not directly.

We lived at home along with my two younger brothers.  My sister had long escaped the lunatic asylum, as she called it, and I only got to see her when visiting the other side of the country.

I was usually down first, my brother John second, sometimes Eloise, then my other brother Walter and rarely his wife, who wanted to escape but didn’t have the courage to leave.

This morning, when I entered the room, everyone bar Eloise was there, and Mother was presiding like the hanging judge.

When I stepped into the room, all eyes shifted to me. 

“Why aren’t you dressed?” Mothers’ tone was one not to be reckoned with.

I leaned against the doorjamb and crossed my arms.
I’d been reading up on body language, and this meant something like being obstinate.

“I’ve decided to take the day off.  The thing is, I don’t remember the last time I did.”

The other three looked at each other and then stood.  Each said they had somewhere else to be, and mother did not stop them from leaving the room.  Perhaps she knew what was coming.

When we were alone, she said, “What’s this about?”

“I think you know.”

“Alfred.”

“I wouldn’t bother worrying about who or what or when.  It doesn’t matter.  I was always going to be standing here, right at this moment in time, saying what I may or may not say.”

“You think…”

“I don’t care.  You see, you think whatever you say or do will right the ship, your ship, but you can’t.  Your words might have some impact if I did care, but sadly, I don’t.  I did what you asked, and Eloise did as she was asked.  And not once did you acknowledge it.”

“You weren’t raised to be a sob story.”

“I’m sure you weren’t raised to be a tyrannical bitch, but here we are.”

She slowly got out of her chair and took the stance that indicated a pitched battle was about to ensue.  It was meant to intimidate.  Two days ago, it might have.

She put on her ice queen face.  I’d once compared my mother to Bodecia in her war chariot, going into battle.  She thought it amusing.

“Go back upstairs, change, and be down here ready to go in 30 minutes.  We have work to do.  We’ll talk about this, whatever this is, later.”

Two days ago, that bollocking would have been enough.  Today, it was laughable.

I heard movement behind me, and it had to be Eloise.  A moment later, she was behind me, the trademark perfume just reaching out.  She must have heard my mother’s raised voice.  It got louder

I felt her hand on my shoulder.

“There’s nothing to talk about.  Richards is outside the front door waiting for you.  I expect you to handle the meetings today and tomorrow as the Chief Executive.  I spoke to Larry yesterday, and he’s on board with the changes.”

I could see the red tinges in her cheeks, not the rouge but rage.

“This is ridiculous.”

“This is how it will be.  Or you can retire, and I will get someone else to do it.  There will be no discussion.  What will it be?”

“This isn’t over.”

“No, it isn’t.  You have to sign a new contract.  As soon as you arrive at the office.  Otherwise, I will consider your refusal as your resignation.  I would like you to stay on exactly as you are.  You simply have a lesser amount of voting shares.  Talk to Alfred.  He’s got all the details.”

She shook her head and crossed the room.  She stopped when she saw Eloise behind me, and I could feel her shrink back.

I could see the hostility on my mother’s face.

“There are many things I could say, but sadly, it would be like water off a duck’s back.  But I will say this.  Once.  If you think this is defiance brought on by what Alfred told me yesterday, you’re wrong.  I woke up yesterday morning and simply decided I’d had enough.  I was planning to leave this morning, with or without Eloise, and never come back.  Yesterday, I hated you, this place, the company, perhaps even the entire world.  Today, a lot of that hasn’t changed.  I know I wanted my Eloise of old, and I know she’s been very disappointed in me for not defending her right to be herself and that changes now.  You will treat her with respect, or you will have me to deal with, and if you think you can be scary, just remember I learned scary from the very best.  Now, save the bluster, the anger, and all that nonsense you go on about, and go.”

She took a deep breath as if mentally counting to ten, or working on a perfect retort, and i braced myself for the incoming missiles.

“Very good.  Do you want to know when the papers are signed?”

“A brief text will suffice.”

“Agreed.  Good morning.”

Lambert, her personal assistant, was hovering just beyond the door, an incredulous expression on her face.  I guess it was going to be almost permanent.

I turned, reached out and took Eloise’s hand in mine.  “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Not being the man you expected me to be.”

“Perhaps i should apologise too.”

“No.  You were everything I expected and more.”

“OK.  Do we have to stay here?  I want my own place.”

“A mansion?”

“God no.  Just a small cosy house, big enough for the four of us. I think the kids should be taken out of that horrid school and go to a local high school.  I have been looking, you know.”

“I do.  And to that end, after breakfast, we’ll be taking a drive to collect David and Elizabeth from that horrid school, and then, house hunting.”

“Like real people?”

“Like real people.  Just remember not to wear a fifty-thousand-dollar dress.  We don’t want the realtor to think we have a lot of money.”

Well, we were probably going to have to work on that aspect.  Getting unused to being rich was going to be a lot harder than the alternative.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025