Category: Fiction

In a word: Dog

Yes, it’s that little or big furry thing that’s also known as man’s best friend, a dog.

But the word has a number of other meanings, like a lot of three-letter words.

It can also mean to follow someone closely.

If you are going to the greyhound racing, you could say you’re going to the dogs, or it could mean something entirely different, like deteriorating in manner and ethics.

Then there are those employers who make their workers work very hard, and therefore could be described as making them work like a dog.

Some might even say that it is a dog of a thing, i.e. of poor quality.

There’s a dogleg, which could aptly name some of those monstrous golf course holes that sometimes present the challenge of going through the wood rather than around it.

Tried that and failed many times!

A dog man used to ride the crane load from the ground to the top, an occupation that would not stand the test of occupational health and safety anymore.

And of course, in a battle to the death, it’s really dog eat dog, isn’t it?

‘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, other issues are 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 that he has a beautiful and desirable wife, his belief that she is the object of other men’s desires, and, in particular, his immediate superior’s.

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, and 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, is that nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 7

It’s not like you can pull over to the side of the road…

…

In space, it’s a little difficult to just suddenly stop.

But, given several hundred thousand kilometers, anything is possible.

Especially when there’s a request to divert to Venus.

You can’t always tell when the ship drops out of cruise speed to what could be considered a dead stop, not that a dead stop is necessarily achievable.

I was down in the mess hall when the call came from the officer of the deck for me to return. I was halfway through a half decent cup of coffee, and had just had the donut delivered.

Both now had to be sacrificed.

I looked out the window into the inky blackness of space and it was difficult to say if we were in idle mode. There was, however, another ship just off the port bow, a old cargo ship that had seen better days, and we both looked like we were drifting together.

I suspect that meant we were keeping station, much the same as we would if we were visiting a planet.

I took the elevator and arrived on the bridge where the captain was in earnest conversation with the chief engineer and chief scientist.

He looked up when he saw me approach.

“Ah, number one, there’s a team waiting down on the transport deck. The Aloysius 5 has some vital equipment and personnel on board for repairs at the mining colony on Venus, and we’ve been diverted to pick them up and take them there post haste.”

“Is the other ship out of commission?”

“A temporary issue with the drive. We’re sending an engineering team over to help with the repairs and will check their progress on the way back.”

“Yes, sir.”

Should be simple, I thought. Take one of the shuttle craft over, load up, drop the engineers, get back, head for Venus, about 5 hours from our current position. Much the same as a pleasant drive in the country.

And I needed more shuttle time.

In the elevator I was joined by one of the security staff, a gung-ho type lieutenant named Andrews. A man always looking for trouble, the sort who would shoot first and ask questions later.

Maybe it was not going to be a pleasant outing after all.

…

© Charles Heath 2021

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 45

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on the back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritizing.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Chasing leads, maybe

“Silly question, what were you doing in the hotel with this ‘operative’?”

Yes, it sounded odd the moment I said it, and, if it was the other way around, I’d be thinking the same.

“We joined forces, thinking we were in danger, at the time, not knowing that she was working with Dobbin.  I discovered that later, by chance.  She doesn’t know I know.”

“And she’ll be waiting at the hotel?”

“Dobbin wants the USB.  She believes we’re collaborating, after telling me she works for MI5, on a different mission involving O’Connell.  She had apparently been undercover as a fellow resident at the block where O’Connell had a flat, and a cat.  The cat, of course, had no idea his owner was a secret agent.  The flat was sparsely furnished and didn’t look lived in, so it may have been a safe house.”

“Wheels within wheels.”

“That’s the nature of the job.  Lies, lies, and more lies, nothing is as it seems, and trust no one.”

“Including you?”

“Including me, but keep an open mind, and try not to shoot me.  I’m as all at sea as you are.  And, just to be clear, I’m not sure I believe Quigley that the information is lost.  People like him, and especially his contact, if he was a journalist, tend to have two copies, just in case.  And the explosion might have killed the messenger, but not the information.  Lesson number one, anything is possible, nothing is impossible, and the truth, it really is stranger than fiction.”

“Great.”

A half-hour later I’d parked the car in a parking lot near Charing Cross station.  The plan, if it could be called that, was for me to go back to the room, and for Jennifer to remain in the foyer, and wait.  If anything went wrong she was to leave and wait for a call.  For all intents and purposes, no one knew of her, except perhaps for Severin and Maury, but I wasn’t expecting them to be lurking in the hotel foyer, waiting for me.

As for Dobbin, that was a different story.  It would depend on how impatient he was in getting information on the whereabouts of the USB, and whether he trusted Jan to find out.

I’d soon find out.

The elevator had three others in it, all of who had disembarked floors below mine.   As the last stepped out and the doors closed, it allayed fears of being attacked before I reached the room.

As the doors closed behind me, the silence of the hallway was working on my nerves, until a few steps towards my room I could hear the hissing of an air conditioning intake, and suddenly the starting up of a vacuum cleaner back in the direction I’d just come.

 A cleaner or….

Remember the training for going into confined spaces…

The room was at the end of the passage, a corner room, with two exits after exiting the front door.  I thought about knocking, but, it was my room too, so I used the key and went in.

Lying tied up on the bed was a very dead Maury, three shots to the heart.

And, over the sound of my heart beating very loudly, I could hear the sound of people out in the corridor, followed by pounding on the door.

Then, “Police.”

A second or two after that the door crashed open and six men came into the room, brandishing weapons and shouting for me to get on the floor and show my hands or I would be shot,”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 38/39

Days 38 and 39 – Write a story that is difficult to write

I am trying to create a narrative that includes what I believe to be my grandmother’s manner

…

Now, it was back to cruising, heading for Toulon, and then Naples, and I’d spent a few hours on deck watching the Mediterranean go by, as well as other ships, and a fair number of naval vessels.

It was going to get very hot if war broke out, with the dreadnoughts and battleships facing off against each other.  It would make Nelson’s battle of Trafalgar look very tame indeed.

There was another chair near, and I heard it scrape softly across the floor, then stop.  I glanced over at the girl as she sat down.  She had a magazine in hand, perhaps bought at the railway station to read on the train down to Tilbury.  She glanced around, taking in the situation and appeared to have also assessed the relative peacefulness of the corner.

“Miss Rose, oops, sorry, Rosalie.”

She frowned, then smiled, perhaps accepting that my upbringing would get in the way for a while yet.  We had already decided on first names, though I usually forgot, and manners slipped in, adding a Miss before it.  I should have correctly addressed her as Miss Willshire, but that seemed too formal.

“Privately, like this, I shall call you David.”

“Of course, and I agree with you.  I believe we can blame Debrett’s for the naming protocol.”

She looked puzzled

“Sorry, again.  There’s a book issued every year with all the titled people from the king down.  My father is in there, and unfortunately, so am I.”

“I’ll have to find one.  What does it say about you?”

“Third son, no chance of becoming the Duke, and unmarried.  I don’t know why that would be significant.”

She smiled.  Clearly, she knew something I didn’t.  She said, with a half grin, “To some, you would make an excellent match.  I’m sure there are mothers with plans for their daughters to marry into nobility.  Even some on this ship.”

Again, there was that knowing expression, and I wondered if any of the other girls had said anything.  I hoped I wasn’t giving them or anyone else the wrong impression.

“The eligibles would be in first class.  It’s why I travel second. I’m not worth anything, despite having a job.  Bills to pay, lifestyle to maintain, it’s ridiculous that I have to maintain a standard so the rest of the family can keep up appearances.  You’re lucky.  I understand your father was a well-respected businessman.”

“He was.  Builder of mostly terraces, I think.  Sometimes he worked on specific public buildings.  There’s stonework of his on display in Abergavenny.  I mean to go there one day and see it.”

“Unlike my family, who have no claim to have created a lasting reminder of our existence.”  It often bothered me that we were not making a difference, not in a manner that anyone in a hundred years would look back and see evidence of it.

“What do your parents think of you going to Australia, of all places?”

“My father died about six years back, and my mother, five.  But if they were alive, perhaps they would be a little pensive.  But I am going to visit my uncle’s son, Henry, and his daughter Emma, who is two years older than me.  We have been corresponding for quite some years, and she suggested I might come out, especially now I’m an orphan, of sorts.”

“No brothers and sisters?”

“I would have had another older brother, but he died 17 months after being born.  I know my mother took a while to get over that.  And father, given he was a son.”

It was not spoken with rancour, but there was that undercurrent of how different boys were treated.

“But I have a few stepbrothers and sisters, so I’m not alone.  I get to see them as well as my uncles and aunts from time to time.  But enough about me, you are far more interesting.  Tell me about your family.”

I would have said the opposite was true, but I gave her my usual spiel without glorifying the aristocracy like my brothers would, without making it sound better or worse and with sensitivity to others’ situations.  Not everyone was lucky to have parents like mine; if it could be said, being mired in tradition and expectation was a blessing.

It was clear to me she was not rich but comfortable.  She had the education and manners of a girl who went to decent schools.  She spoke well and was knowledgeable enough to hold her own in a conversation.  She was, however, a little shy or perhaps reserved, and I found that a quality rather than a problem.

And best of all, she made pleasant company of the sort that a companionable silence would not be seen as awkward.

“So,” she said at the end of it, “all children are the same. They just live in different houses.”

“I wish I could say that for some of the children in first class.  Proper little spoilt brats they are.”

I could see from her expression that she agreed but remained silent on the subject.  Those children had nannies travelling with them, but that didn’t guarantee obedience.  In our class, there were no nannies, and the mother coped.  By and large, they were well behaved, and now that the ship school had kicked in, there weren’t so many running around.

“They probably don’t get to see their parents as often,” she said, “with nannies and servants looking after them.  I was lucky my nanny cared, as did the domestic staff.  My father was away for business a lot, but my mother was always there.

“Then you were indeed lucky.  I’m not sure how I would categorise my experience other than that a lot of it was at boarding school.  My brothers loved it.  I hated it.”

“And yet here you are, and a lawyer as well.  My father always talked of sending me to University, but he died before I was of age, and my mother, bless her soul, didn’t believe in girls getting higher education, that our world was one of running a house and having children.  Can’t say the idea of that has appealed to me, but I’m sure that’s where I’ll end up, like it or lump it.”

“Do you work?”

A momentary flash of the eyes.  “Of course.  I have to support myself.  I have a great job in the drapery department at a large store in Gillingham.  Slade and Sons.  They allowed me to live there after my mother died, and the house we had wasn’t ours, so I couldn’t live there.  I’ve been at Gillingham almost since I turned sixteen.  I have been working towards becoming a milliner.”

Clearly, she could see that as a man, I had no idea what she was talking about.

“I design and make hats for ladies, and sometimes they let me work on dresses.  I make all my own.”

For a confessed shop girl, she was so much more.  It explained the hat.  It explained her undeniable elegance, manner and self-confidence.

“Lady Penelope would absolutely love that blue hat you were wearing the day we boarded the ship.  It certainly stood out.”

She smiled.  “Thank you.”

Lady Penelope would like her dresses, too. “Perhaps if I give you an address, you could send a card.  I’m sure Lady Penelope would like to see what you can do for her.  She would definitely like your style.”

Understated but elegant, and yet I was sure Penelope would like to have a personal dress maker that wasn’t trying too hard to make a statement, the gist of her rant the last time she visited and bent my ear on a subject, there was no proper answer I could give to what I discovered was a rhetorical question.

I could see that the magazine she brought with her was about fashion.

“Again, thank you.  It is something I intend to explore when I go home.”

A steward appeared, and we ordered drinks.  I politely requested her to let me pay, but not in any way an obligation on her part for recompense.  I had an arrangement my father had set up, and why not lean on his generosity?

She accepted graciously, but I knew she would find a way to repay me.  It was going to make the voyage all the more interesting.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026

What I learned about writing – Writers must read, or perhaps it should be, writers should read.

Why?

Well, it is said that you cannot become a quarterback if you have not seen what a quarterback does during a game of gridiron.

And whilst a writer can be good at writing, it helps to have read the sort of books that you intend to write to get some idea of what publishers are looking for.

Certainly, if you are writing nonfiction, there’s definitely going to be a great deal of reading in store.

I actually have a library of books, about three thousand of them, not all of the genre that I choose to write, but certainly, a good cross-section to lay the groundwork of the structure of the stories and how they will play out.

There is a formula behind writing a Mills and Boon romance book.

Of course, I’ve tried to write one, but my usual tendency to drift into thriller land gets me in the end, and I have a romance for half the book, and then all the thriller trimmings to bring it home.

I also have a penchant for writing spy stories, and my shelves are filled with the usual suspects, Charles Cummins, John LeCarre, and Len Deighton, just to name a few. I particularly like those of Len Deighton.

And everyone can see the influence James Patterson and Clive Cussler have had on my writing. If only I were half as good as they are…

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

…

With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction.  He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.

I kept my eyes down.  He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup.  I stepped to the other side and so did he.  It was one of those situations.  Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.

Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic.  I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone.  I shrugged and looked at my watch.  It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.

Wait, or walk?  I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station.  What the hell, I needed the exercise.

At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’.  I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light.  As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.

A yellow car stopped inches from me.

It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini.  I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.

Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car.  It was that sort of car.  I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him.  I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on.  The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.

My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter.   Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.

At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure.  I was no longer in a hurry.

At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot.  A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring.  I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road.  I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.

At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar.   It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.

I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did.  There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me.  It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.

Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me.  As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.

Now my imagination was playing tricks.

It could not be the same man.  He was going in a different direction.

In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter.  I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.

I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in.  I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.

Just in case.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

newechocover5rs

Inspiration, maybe – Volume 1

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:

lookingdownfromcoronetpeak

And the story:

It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.

The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.

He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.

The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent.  We were following the car he was in, from a discrete distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.

There was nowhere for him to go.

The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road were now on.  Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.

Where was he going?

“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter.  He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.

“What?”

“I think he’s made us.”

“How?”

“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing.  Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain.  He’s just sped up.”

“How far away?”

“A half-mile.  We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”

It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”

“Step on it.  Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”

Easy to say, not so easy to do.  The road was treacherous, and in places just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three thousand footfall down the mountainside.

Good thing then I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.

Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster.  We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.

Or so we thought.

Coming quickly around another corner we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.

“What the hell…” Aland muttered.

I was out of the car, and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility.  The car was empty, and no indication where he went.

Certainly not up the road.  It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit.  Up the mountainside from here, or down.

I looked up.  Nothing.

Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”

Then where did he go?

Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.

“Sorry,” he said quite calmly.  “Had to go if you know what I mean.”

I’d lost him.

It was as simple as that.

I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.

I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.

It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.

“Maybe next time,” Alan said.

“We’ll get him.  It’s just a matter of time.”

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Find this and other stories in “Inspiration, maybe”  available soon.

InspirationMaybe1v1

First Dig Two Graves

A sequel to “The Devil You Don’t”

…

Revenge is a dish best served cold – or preferably so when everything goes right

Of course, it rarely does, as Alistair, Zoe’s handler, discovers to his peril. Enter a wildcard, John, and whatever Alistair’s plan for dealing with Zoe was dies with him.

It leaves Zoe in completely unfamiliar territory.

…

John’s idyllic romance with a woman who is utterly out of his comfort zone is on borrowed time. She is still trying to reconcile her ambivalence, after being so indifferent for so long.

They agree to take a break, during which she disappears. John, thinking she has left without saying goodbye, refuses to accept the inevitable, calls on an old friend for help in finding her.

After the mayhem and being briefly reunited, she recognises an inevitable truth: there is a price to pay for taking out Alistair; she must leave and find them first, and he would be wise to keep a low profile.

But keeping a low profile just isn’t possible, and enlisting another friend, a private detective and his sister, a deft computer hacker, they track her to the border between Austria and Hungary.

What John doesn’t realise is that another enemy is tracking him to find her too. It could have been a grand tour of Europe. Instead, it becomes a race against time before enemies old and new converge for what will be an inevitable showdown.

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 38/39

Days 38 and 39 – Write a story that is difficult to write

I am trying to create a narrative that includes what I believe to be my grandmother’s manner

…

Now, it was back to cruising, heading for Toulon, and then Naples, and I’d spent a few hours on deck watching the Mediterranean go by, as well as other ships, and a fair number of naval vessels.

It was going to get very hot if war broke out, with the dreadnoughts and battleships facing off against each other.  It would make Nelson’s battle of Trafalgar look very tame indeed.

There was another chair near, and I heard it scrape softly across the floor, then stop.  I glanced over at the girl as she sat down.  She had a magazine in hand, perhaps bought at the railway station to read on the train down to Tilbury.  She glanced around, taking in the situation and appeared to have also assessed the relative peacefulness of the corner.

“Miss Rose, oops, sorry, Rosalie.”

She frowned, then smiled, perhaps accepting that my upbringing would get in the way for a while yet.  We had already decided on first names, though I usually forgot, and manners slipped in, adding a Miss before it.  I should have correctly addressed her as Miss Willshire, but that seemed too formal.

“Privately, like this, I shall call you David.”

“Of course, and I agree with you.  I believe we can blame Debrett’s for the naming protocol.”

She looked puzzled

“Sorry, again.  There’s a book issued every year with all the titled people from the king down.  My father is in there, and unfortunately, so am I.”

“I’ll have to find one.  What does it say about you?”

“Third son, no chance of becoming the Duke, and unmarried.  I don’t know why that would be significant.”

She smiled.  Clearly, she knew something I didn’t.  She said, with a half grin, “To some, you would make an excellent match.  I’m sure there are mothers with plans for their daughters to marry into nobility.  Even some on this ship.”

Again, there was that knowing expression, and I wondered if any of the other girls had said anything.  I hoped I wasn’t giving them or anyone else the wrong impression.

“The eligibles would be in first class.  It’s why I travel second. I’m not worth anything, despite having a job.  Bills to pay, lifestyle to maintain, it’s ridiculous that I have to maintain a standard so the rest of the family can keep up appearances.  You’re lucky.  I understand your father was a well-respected businessman.”

“He was.  Builder of mostly terraces, I think.  Sometimes he worked on specific public buildings.  There’s stonework of his on display in Abergavenny.  I mean to go there one day and see it.”

“Unlike my family, who have no claim to have created a lasting reminder of our existence.”  It often bothered me that we were not making a difference, not in a manner that anyone in a hundred years would look back and see evidence of it.

“What do your parents think of you going to Australia, of all places?”

“My father died about six years back, and my mother, five.  But if they were alive, perhaps they would be a little pensive.  But I am going to visit my uncle’s son, Henry, and his daughter Emma, who is two years older than me.  We have been corresponding for quite some years, and she suggested I might come out, especially now I’m an orphan, of sorts.”

“No brothers and sisters?”

“I would have had another older brother, but he died 17 months after being born.  I know my mother took a while to get over that.  And father, given he was a son.”

It was not spoken with rancour, but there was that undercurrent of how different boys were treated.

“But I have a few stepbrothers and sisters, so I’m not alone.  I get to see them as well as my uncles and aunts from time to time.  But enough about me, you are far more interesting.  Tell me about your family.”

I would have said the opposite was true, but I gave her my usual spiel without glorifying the aristocracy like my brothers would, without making it sound better or worse and with sensitivity to others’ situations.  Not everyone was lucky to have parents like mine; if it could be said, being mired in tradition and expectation was a blessing.

It was clear to me she was not rich but comfortable.  She had the education and manners of a girl who went to decent schools.  She spoke well and was knowledgeable enough to hold her own in a conversation.  She was, however, a little shy or perhaps reserved, and I found that a quality rather than a problem.

And best of all, she made pleasant company of the sort that a companionable silence would not be seen as awkward.

“So,” she said at the end of it, “all children are the same. They just live in different houses.”

“I wish I could say that for some of the children in first class.  Proper little spoilt brats they are.”

I could see from her expression that she agreed but remained silent on the subject.  Those children had nannies travelling with them, but that didn’t guarantee obedience.  In our class, there were no nannies, and the mother coped.  By and large, they were well behaved, and now that the ship school had kicked in, there weren’t so many running around.

“They probably don’t get to see their parents as often,” she said, “with nannies and servants looking after them.  I was lucky my nanny cared, as did the domestic staff.  My father was away for business a lot, but my mother was always there.

“Then you were indeed lucky.  I’m not sure how I would categorise my experience other than that a lot of it was at boarding school.  My brothers loved it.  I hated it.”

“And yet here you are, and a lawyer as well.  My father always talked of sending me to University, but he died before I was of age, and my mother, bless her soul, didn’t believe in girls getting higher education, that our world was one of running a house and having children.  Can’t say the idea of that has appealed to me, but I’m sure that’s where I’ll end up, like it or lump it.”

“Do you work?”

A momentary flash of the eyes.  “Of course.  I have to support myself.  I have a great job in the drapery department at a large store in Gillingham.  Slade and Sons.  They allowed me to live there after my mother died, and the house we had wasn’t ours, so I couldn’t live there.  I’ve been at Gillingham almost since I turned sixteen.  I have been working towards becoming a milliner.”

Clearly, she could see that as a man, I had no idea what she was talking about.

“I design and make hats for ladies, and sometimes they let me work on dresses.  I make all my own.”

For a confessed shop girl, she was so much more.  It explained the hat.  It explained her undeniable elegance, manner and self-confidence.

“Lady Penelope would absolutely love that blue hat you were wearing the day we boarded the ship.  It certainly stood out.”

She smiled.  “Thank you.”

Lady Penelope would like her dresses, too. “Perhaps if I give you an address, you could send a card.  I’m sure Lady Penelope would like to see what you can do for her.  She would definitely like your style.”

Understated but elegant, and yet I was sure Penelope would like to have a personal dress maker that wasn’t trying too hard to make a statement, the gist of her rant the last time she visited and bent my ear on a subject, there was no proper answer I could give to what I discovered was a rhetorical question.

I could see that the magazine she brought with her was about fashion.

“Again, thank you.  It is something I intend to explore when I go home.”

A steward appeared, and we ordered drinks.  I politely requested her to let me pay, but not in any way an obligation on her part for recompense.  I had an arrangement my father had set up, and why not lean on his generosity?

She accepted graciously, but I knew she would find a way to repay me.  It was going to make the voyage all the more interesting.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025-2026