Day 190

Writing exercise – go back to an old story and rework it

…

When You Least Expect It

Life on the edge, in the corporate world I had immersed myself in, could be exciting, enthralling, or exhausting.  People say accountants were boring creatures of habit, with all the charisma of a monotone bingo caller with no sense of alliteration.  Pretty much an apt description of me.

My definition of life on the edge?  Thinking that I would ever work up the courage to ask Anne Menzies out on a date.  Hell would freeze over first.

Besides, who had the time to think about such trivialities when there was a pending merger, and the numbers had to be perfect.  Which is why my morning started badly and just got gradually worse.

Why?

The numbers didn’t add up.

I tossed the pile of printouts and colourful charts that were supposed to say business was booming, now and into the future, but the flat line said otherwise.  It was different to the result I ran the day before, and I had the afternoon to find out why before the big meeting the next morning.

We were going to dazzle the prospective merger partner.

Or not.

I sighed and threw myself into the chair and rubbed my eyes and then temples, as if that would ease the headache that was starting to get worse.

Somehow, Gallagher, the senior partne,r would see this as my fault.

“Anyone for lunch?” I yelled.  Asking in a normal voice would certainly be ignored.  So much I remembered from the day before.

Jack, my best friend and the complete antithesis of me, had been right.  Anyone with an office was in the firing line.  Anyone who preferred to be a general dogsbody, well, no one looked at them twice.

I heard the gong that signified noon, and for some time to take a break.  Company-provided lunchtime activities included working off those extra pounds in the games room, or putting them back on in the dining room, where, for a modest cost, one could overindulge to one’s hearts content.

Said Jack, as he did every Tuesday and Thursday, put his head in the door and shook his head.  My desk was a mess, unlike his, which was always clear.  Jack was a good friend, well-meaning, but not promotional material.  He was good at taking orders, not giving them, but he was the all-around nice guy who could hit it off with all the girls, and I discovered, a useful acquaintance.

He waited until I looked up, then said, “Ship sinking?” he asked, then came in and sat in the office’s most comfortable chair.

“Will all hands, when it should just be the Captain.”

“The numbers don’t add up?”

Sometimes he said stuff that was spot on accurate, but he would have no idea that it was actually the case.  Or he was cleverer than I gave him credit.

I gave him one of my ‘I don’t believe you said that’ looks.  “You know accountancy.  You either fudge the numbers, or you fudge the numbers.”

“Like that is it?”

“Exactly.”

“Fancy a few tranquillising drinks to help straighten out your perspective on life?  Helps numbers to add up the way they always should have.”

“Not today.  Food only, and I haven’t got a lot of time.”

He sighed.  “Be careful, Rick, or you might turn into a real accountant.”

“Har bloody har.”

He stood and frowned.  “Coming?”

Why not?  I needed a break from, and maybe a change of scenery might change the perspective.  Food, then a stroll downtown.  I need time to think.”

He shrugged.  “I’ll catch up with you downstairs.”

Whenever I decided to go out for lunch, someone always found a way to mess with the plan.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be grumpy this time because it was Anne.  Anne was one of the more important personal assistants in the building and dropped by my office on her way to the staff dining room.

She had only done that once before, to deliver a message from her manager, who just happened to be Gallagher.  I knew she wasn’t here to see me for any other reason.

“Ah, Rick.  Caught you just in time.”  The tone said everything I needed to know.  Another impossible deadline.

“Mr Gallagher is after the forward sales and revenue charts?”

“They’re coming.”

“When?”

“Christmas.”  It was wrong to be flippant, but that was the sort of day it was.

Her expression clouded over, the smile turning to a frown.

“The numbers don’t add up.”

“He provided you with access to the system, and I know he’s spent the last two days putting the numbers together.”

“He needs the charts by the close of business tonight.”

“Then you can tell him it will be sorted by then.”

“You don’t sound confident?  He told me you were the best man for the job, that you haven’t let him down yet.”

No pressure then.  Sent the one girl I liked down to put me on the spot.  If I failed him, I failed her; chances gone.

“I’m sure he won’t deny me sustenance.  I work better after I’ve had something to eat.”

“Going up to lunch?”

“Not today.” I ushered her to the door, grabbing my coat as we went out.

“And miss your favourite dish?”

How did she know it was my favourite dish?  Curious.

“It certainly looks that way.”

“Going out with the boys?”

“Only one.”

“Jack?”

I nodded.

She sighed.  “You could do so much better.”

I left her at the lift foyer; she was going up, I was going down.  In my lift, I had only one thought: what was it about Jack she didn’t like?

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Day 189

Writing exercise – Everybody called him Einstein, but long before he had made his last big mistake, people had forgotten why.

…

Some legends are spoken at gatherings around night fires, times when folks liked to talk about olden times, times when life was different.

There were signs of a different civilisation, almost lost in the vegetation, of people who had lived very different lives from what we have now.

Our settlements were near these ruins, taking advantage of facilities that had been created or repurposed, and our progress was based on what we found.

But there was one legend of a person known as Buck, or perhaps his name could have been longer. The relic we found was only a small part of something larger.

One of the elders of our clan said he had heard, when he was young, of a relic called a book, where there was writing in a language that was once spoken by those who lived long ago.

It was still our language, taught down through the generations, as a mark of respect to the people we believed were our ancestors.

This Buck, he said, was also compared to another, a man called Einstein, a great man who lived many centuries before, one of many who contributed to creating the means of destroying the world, and nearly everyone on the planet.

That legend had faded because no one wanted to remember the people who had made our world the way it was, scarred, with often warring clans, fighting over the little resources we had. 

It seemed silly that we had to spend more time and effort defending what we had rather than living our lives in peace, but that was something else we learned: not to be greedy and to covet other people’s property.  It was a pity that other clans did not.

My question had been, if this man Buck was so clever, why were we not more advanced?  The thing was, no one really knew why this Buck was so clever, why he was compared to that man called Einstein specifically, and no one really cared.

The day dawned, a fine day without winds or storms, and warm.  It had been progressively getting warmer, and now, in my twentieth year, the cold only lasted for four months of the year. 

It was my turn to go to the well and get the water.  It was a morning chore that had its advantages.  I got to meet up with the other younger people in the clan, and one in particular, a girl of my age, Anna.

If I did everything right, our families would eventually meet, and the bargaining for the marriage between us would commence.  Everything had a value in trade. There was no money, a strange concept from long ago, only what we had to trade.  Furs, food, timber, mud bricks, tools, weapons.

We did not fight each other, only the other clans, if we were attacked.  Such a thing as crime and an ancient concept was not tolerated, and if committed, the perpetrator was expelled into the wastelands.

I joined the line and waited for my turn.  There was a water monitor whose job was to make sure everyone got their fair share.  I collected our water and then waited to see if Anna came.

She did, collected her water, and then came over time where I was waiting.

“Guy, how are you?”

“Anna.  I am well.  How are you?”

“I am also well.  I trust your family is well.”

“They are.  Yours?”

“They are also well.  It looks like we will have more warm days this year.  My father says it will extend the crops so we will have more food to store for the cold times.”

“That is good.  We are hoping to have more cattle and sheep for meat and milk.”

“There are more people.  My father says we will have to start exploring again.”

“We he be leading the expedition?  I would like to go with him this time, if i can get permission.”

“I will ask.  Now I must go.  It was nice talking to you, Guy.”

“It was nice talking to you, Anna.”

My trips to the well were not only to meet Anna, but also the thrill of getting another clue to how we came to be.

Her father was one of the few elders trusted with the history of our clan, who organised expeditions beyond the boundary of our village, sometimes put into the expanse.
.
No one ever ventured there. It was uninhabitable with no water, no vegetation, and only ruins of a much older and advanced civilisation.  The people, he said, had destroyed themselves through greed and paranoia.

It was said he had seen things no man should ever want to see or should.

He did not share these revelations with his family, but sometimes Anna acquired an artefact and would tell me, in hushed tones, or other times slip me a piece of paper she had written on, with the note to burn it when read.

It was all very secretive.

I checked my pocket, and there was a piece of much-folded paper.  When I was alone and not to be interrupted, I carefully unfolded it.  It was not handwriting.  It was very neat letters, what she had called printing, where all the writing was elegant and easily readable.

We didn’t have books, and I don’t think any of us had ever seen one.  We knew about paper, though our paper wasn’t the same as the relics we were told existed.  This page I had could get me into trouble because it was a relic.

It was about a man named Albert Einstein, who lived many centuries ago, a man who developed the theory of relativity and contributed to the photoelectric effect, which is a phenomenon related to the interaction between light and matter. 

It was obvious to me that to be classed as brilliant, you had to use words no one else could understand.  I folded the page up and his it.  I would give it back next time I saw her.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Day 189

Writing exercise – Everybody called him Einstein, but long before he had made his last big mistake, people had forgotten why.

…

Some legends are spoken at gatherings around night fires, times when folks liked to talk about olden times, times when life was different.

There were signs of a different civilisation, almost lost in the vegetation, of people who had lived very different lives from what we have now.

Our settlements were near these ruins, taking advantage of facilities that had been created or repurposed, and our progress was based on what we found.

But there was one legend of a person known as Buck, or perhaps his name could have been longer. The relic we found was only a small part of something larger.

One of the elders of our clan said he had heard, when he was young, of a relic called a book, where there was writing in a language that was once spoken by those who lived long ago.

It was still our language, taught down through the generations, as a mark of respect to the people we believed were our ancestors.

This Buck, he said, was also compared to another, a man called Einstein, a great man who lived many centuries before, one of many who contributed to creating the means of destroying the world, and nearly everyone on the planet.

That legend had faded because no one wanted to remember the people who had made our world the way it was, scarred, with often warring clans, fighting over the little resources we had. 

It seemed silly that we had to spend more time and effort defending what we had rather than living our lives in peace, but that was something else we learned: not to be greedy and to covet other people’s property.  It was a pity that other clans did not.

My question had been, if this man Buck was so clever, why were we not more advanced?  The thing was, no one really knew why this Buck was so clever, why he was compared to that man called Einstein specifically, and no one really cared.

The day dawned, a fine day without winds or storms, and warm.  It had been progressively getting warmer, and now, in my twentieth year, the cold only lasted for four months of the year. 

It was my turn to go to the well and get the water.  It was a morning chore that had its advantages.  I got to meet up with the other younger people in the clan, and one in particular, a girl of my age, Anna.

If I did everything right, our families would eventually meet, and the bargaining for the marriage between us would commence.  Everything had a value in trade. There was no money, a strange concept from long ago, only what we had to trade.  Furs, food, timber, mud bricks, tools, weapons.

We did not fight each other, only the other clans, if we were attacked.  Such a thing as crime and an ancient concept was not tolerated, and if committed, the perpetrator was expelled into the wastelands.

I joined the line and waited for my turn.  There was a water monitor whose job was to make sure everyone got their fair share.  I collected our water and then waited to see if Anna came.

She did, collected her water, and then came over time where I was waiting.

“Guy, how are you?”

“Anna.  I am well.  How are you?”

“I am also well.  I trust your family is well.”

“They are.  Yours?”

“They are also well.  It looks like we will have more warm days this year.  My father says it will extend the crops so we will have more food to store for the cold times.”

“That is good.  We are hoping to have more cattle and sheep for meat and milk.”

“There are more people.  My father says we will have to start exploring again.”

“We he be leading the expedition?  I would like to go with him this time, if i can get permission.”

“I will ask.  Now I must go.  It was nice talking to you, Guy.”

“It was nice talking to you, Anna.”

My trips to the well were not only to meet Anna, but also the thrill of getting another clue to how we came to be.

Her father was one of the few elders trusted with the history of our clan, who organised expeditions beyond the boundary of our village, sometimes put into the expanse.
.
No one ever ventured there. It was uninhabitable with no water, no vegetation, and only ruins of a much older and advanced civilisation.  The people, he said, had destroyed themselves through greed and paranoia.

It was said he had seen things no man should ever want to see or should.

He did not share these revelations with his family, but sometimes Anna acquired an artefact and would tell me, in hushed tones, or other times slip me a piece of paper she had written on, with the note to burn it when read.

It was all very secretive.

I checked my pocket, and there was a piece of much-folded paper.  When I was alone and not to be interrupted, I carefully unfolded it.  It was not handwriting.  It was very neat letters, what she had called printing, where all the writing was elegant and easily readable.

We didn’t have books, and I don’t think any of us had ever seen one.  We knew about paper, though our paper wasn’t the same as the relics we were told existed.  This page I had could get me into trouble because it was a relic.

It was about a man named Albert Einstein, who lived many centuries ago, a man who developed the theory of relativity and contributed to the photoelectric effect, which is a phenomenon related to the interaction between light and matter. 

It was obvious to me that to be classed as brilliant, you had to use words no one else could understand.  I folded the page up and his it.  I would give it back next time I saw her.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Day 188

Everybody has one book in them

…

Generally, when it comes to advice on writing books, a lot of people who want to help you realise the writing cream, will tell you, you are one of the lucky people who have a book in them.

Here’s the thing…

Everybody has one book in them.

And generally, that will be about something you know very well. Whether it’s about being a mechanic, a gardener, or piloting a spacecraft, or just playing football. Deep down, you know there is that one subject that makes you an expert.

Me?

I’m a computer expert, and used to teach people how to use various computer languages, and certain applications used on PC’s. Programming is not easy; learning the fundamentals of a programming language is hard.

But where I used to teach, the company asked me to create several course manuals to aid the teach of the subject, so in a sense, I have already published.

So, I have a suggestion.

There’s nothing like writing about the history of your family.  Yes.  I know.  My family is as boring as hell. As much as you know about them, perhaps as far back as a grandfather or grandmother on either side if you are married.

More often than not, by the time you are ready to discover the story, a lot of the participants are dead, and their stories have gone with them to the grave. Ask around, and all you get is “nothing special here”.

I was 70 when I thought I’d poke around in the lives of my forebears.  I had a few names and a mother who had a lot of paper stored in a file.

Then…

What did you know about your parents?  My parents were dead, but even when they were alive, they didn’t share much.

How did it go?

I discovered I had another grandmother on my father’s side who was an adventuress.  Born in 1889 in Dorchester, England was the second child of parents who had earlier marriages, so she had five stepbrothers and stepsisters,

She was a single child, and the brother she could have had who died two years earlier.

She became a milliner/draper at an early age and worked/lived in a draper in Gillingham, Dorset.  Her father died in 1907, her mother in 1908, and with the proceeds of their wills, she had enough to travel second class to Australia in early 1914.

A 25 year old girl in 1914 travelled for over a month on a ship with 1,200 other passengers from Tilbury, England to Melbourne, Australia.  Oddly enought there was 57 other single women on that same ship.

I have only one word, Wow!

And that’s the story right there.  I traced a diary for the same ship, the same time of year, day by day.  I have plans for the ship.  I know everyone who had been on board and where they got off and got on.

The story is going to write itself. 

Day 188

Everybody has one book in them

…

Generally, when it comes to advice on writing books, a lot of people who want to help you realise the writing cream, will tell you, you are one of the lucky people who have a book in them.

Here’s the thing…

Everybody has one book in them.

And generally, that will be about something you know very well. Whether it’s about being a mechanic, a gardener, or piloting a spacecraft, or just playing football. Deep down, you know there is that one subject that makes you an expert.

Me?

I’m a computer expert, and used to teach people how to use various computer languages, and certain applications used on PC’s. Programming is not easy; learning the fundamentals of a programming language is hard.

But where I used to teach, the company asked me to create several course manuals to aid the teach of the subject, so in a sense, I have already published.

So, I have a suggestion.

There’s nothing like writing about the history of your family.  Yes.  I know.  My family is as boring as hell. As much as you know about them, perhaps as far back as a grandfather or grandmother on either side if you are married.

More often than not, by the time you are ready to discover the story, a lot of the participants are dead, and their stories have gone with them to the grave. Ask around, and all you get is “nothing special here”.

I was 70 when I thought I’d poke around in the lives of my forebears.  I had a few names and a mother who had a lot of paper stored in a file.

Then…

What did you know about your parents?  My parents were dead, but even when they were alive, they didn’t share much.

How did it go?

I discovered I had another grandmother on my father’s side who was an adventuress.  Born in 1889 in Dorchester, England was the second child of parents who had earlier marriages, so she had five stepbrothers and stepsisters,

She was a single child, and the brother she could have had who died two years earlier.

She became a milliner/draper at an early age and worked/lived in a draper in Gillingham, Dorset.  Her father died in 1907, her mother in 1908, and with the proceeds of their wills, she had enough to travel second class to Australia in early 1914.

A 25 year old girl in 1914 travelled for over a month on a ship with 1,200 other passengers from Tilbury, England to Melbourne, Australia.  Oddly enought there was 57 other single women on that same ship.

I have only one word, Wow!

And that’s the story right there.  I traced a diary for the same ship, the same time of year, day by day.  I have plans for the ship.  I know everyone who had been on board and where they got off and got on.

The story is going to write itself. 

Days 186 and 187

Writing exercise – about something other than the book I’m writing –

…

I had worked very hard to improve my position from fact checker to my ultimate role, editor. It took years of dedication and application, doing everything that was asked of me, and more.

And now, after seven years, I believed my time had come, an email from the chief editor to discuss my role moving forward.

It had been the same every year but those were reviews of my work, and I knew it took time before the review became an interview for promotion.  It was my turn.

10 AM:  Montgomery Montague’s office, 45^th floor, the executive level, one above editorial, the department I aspired to work for.

Chester, my recalcitrant cat, raised his head as I came into the kitchen, and gave me his usual look of disdain.  This morning, he was not going to get off as easily.

“This is my day,” I said.  “You can rejoice in my success, or you can mope.”

A meow told me he did not give one jot what was happening in my world, just get the food in the bowl now.  Yes, that look was almost one of malice.

“Not today mister.”  I selected a tin of some sort of fish, removed the lid and scooped it into the bowl. 

Before I could move the bowl to the floor he had jumped up onto the counter, sniffed it, and looked at me.  Yes, that was the ‘you gave me that yesterday’ look, and that momentary thrill of tricking him, passed.

Of course, I hadn’t.  He looked at me and meowed twice.  The rebuke.

“No,” I said.  “You eat it, or you starve.  I’m going to work now.”

I stared him down.  “You cannot rain on my parade.” Another few seconds, he turned back to the bowl and took a tentative bite.  “I’ll be back with the good news.”

Good things happened in threes, my mother used to say.  That was number one.

The train was late, a holdup over a signal failure, or that’s what I thought I heard, but to Montgomery Montague, that was not an excuse.

Despite the minor setback, I forgoed my usual early morning coffee and went straight to the office, and weas only five minutes late.

When I reached his outer office where his personal assistant sat I saw her coming out of his office, and she gave me the ‘look’.  Everyone knew it, it was not a good day.

Had an event I had no control over ruined my chance.  She sat and I took a seat.

She was going to make me wait.

And panic.

Then she looked up and smiled.  “You are very lucky I was detained in his office.  I’ll tell him you’re here.”

She called, then nodded, assent to enter the inner sanctum.  It would be the third time I had bene in his office, the first my interview for the job, the second a discussion over some facts that were in dispute. And this time. Hopefully, my promotion.

I knocked on the door, waited for the terse ‘enter’ then went in, softly closing the door behind me.

Then it was past the meeting table. The coffee table the lounge chairs, the open space, the stop at the desk.

There was always the right number of chairs for those invited.  The uncomfortable chairs so you didn’t linger longer than necessary.

“Have a seat.”

The question was, which one?  Someone said once there was a right choice and a wrong choice, and I just realised there were two seats.  Was there another person about to join the interview?

I sat in the left seat.

There was just a hint of a smile on his face.  “The pilot’s seat.  Good choice, Ben.”

He gave me the serious look, the one that rattled everyone who sat opposite his desk, from new employees to the seasoned editors, those who had been here for years.

“Do you write?”

It was an unexpected question, and perhaps a little superfluous.  Why work at a publisher if you didn’t write?  I was going to say that, but was it a trick question?

“Yes, I do.”

“And read?”

“Avidly.  Writers must read.”  It was almost a mantra in this place.

“Of course, they do.  What type of stories do you write?”

“Thrillers, espionage, but at the moment historical fiction.”

“Busy then?”

“I keep myself amused in my spare time, and Chester more so.”

“Chester?”

“My cat, and harshest critic.  I read him parts of the story, and if he complains, it’s a rewrite.”

He made a face; one I didn’t decipher.  Someone once said, don’t embellish.  “What makes you think you can edit?”

“I’ve read a great many books to learn style and composition.  Ui can see errors in manuscripts that I’ve been given to fact check and often check later what I found with the end product, and I’ve had successes.”

“Editing is more than just grammar and spelling.  It’s continuity, missing links, slight changes in titles, descriptions, and other errors that authors routinely make.  We do not want to be checking your work.  You are the final word.  But…”

And here it comes, all my hopes and dreams were about to be shattered.

“I need you to do a test case for me before I make the final decision.”

He leaned forward and opened a drawer in front of him and pulled out a folder, looked at it then put it on the desk.  It was quite thick, but old, and quite discoloured.  The front had several coffee cup stains.

“This novel has been here for at least thirty years, and so far, no one has been able to turn it into something worth reading.  We call it Pandora’s Box.  You never know what’s inside.  A word to the wise, the last 25 recipients of this manuscript failed and didn’t get to become an editor here.  I have high hopes that you will not join them.  You have three weeks.”

He pushed the file across the desk towards me.  The interview, such as it was, was over.

Good things come in threes. Let’s call the outcome of this meeting a possible second.

Clutching the folder close, I took the elevator back down to my floor.  I assumed I was not yet a fully-fledged editor, so I could not move to the editorial floor five above, where I currently worked with nine other fact-checkers.

We worked in pairs, and my pair was Josie, a graduate with more degrees than I had, and I often wondered why she was not a rocket scientist.  She certainly knew enough about them, and space.

I had been considering asking her on a date, but after hearing about her last one, I decided she was not going to be interested in someone like me.

She saw me come out of the elevator and then went back to her work until I sat down.  In the fact-checking department, a year longer than me, and having no desire to become an editor, she had this dream of the cottage, the country garden, the picket fence, the husband who came home the same time every day, and the 2.4 children.  I was not sure the last part was possible; it had to be either 2 or 3.

“How did the interview go?”

I had told her I was going to see Montague and High Hopes.  She didn’t try to dash them, having seen her fair share of hopefuls’ crash and burn, but I could see the lack of confidence in her eyes when I told her of my ambition.  All she told me was to not fly too close to the sun.

“I have a task, a test.”

“Pandora’s Box?”

“You know?”

“Everyone knows.  No one speaks of it.”

“It’s not the first time he’s brought it out?”

“No.”

“And no one has made it work?”

“They couldn’t.  It’s gibberish.  He’s reputed to have written it himself as a means to squash budding hopefuls.”

“No one?”

“None that I’ve heard of over the last 10 years.  They come, they get the call to his office, he gives them Pandora’s Box, they fail, and then they leave.”

“Why?”

“Because they know he will never promote them to editor.”

I shrugged.  “There’s always a first time.”

“Have you read any of it?”

“No.”

“Then take it home and read it to Chester.  If he turns up his nose, then you have a problem.  If not, well, there may be hope.”

That said, she returned to the pile of manuscripts, each about some aspect of space.

I put the file in my backpack along with my laptop computer and, at precisely 6:05 pm, left the office.

I thought of asking Josie if she wanted to drop into a bar that was on both our ways home.  Sometimes when she wanted a sounding board, we would drop into a quaint bar and have a drink or two and sometimes a snack.  They were not dates, even though in my imagination they were.

She had come from a small town in the Midwest, and I came from upstate, New York.  Her family were ranchers, mine bankers, so we had little in common.

This time we parted at the door, with a promise I’d tell her what my reaction was to the story.  She had only heard about it, and nothing good.

Chester was waiting, curled up on the lounge where he was not supposed to be, but then, he never listened to me.

I glared at him as I closed the door, crossed to the kitchen bench where I put dinner from the Deli up the road, and the backpack.  I thought about taking the file out, but left it.  Dinner for Chester, then dinner for me, first.

An hour later and after cleaning up. I dragged the folder out and extracted the manuscript.  It was about three hundred pages of double-spaced type, done on an old-world manual typewriter with a cloth ribbon that had seen a lot of use.  The unevenness of the typeface told me some keys were stiffer to push than others, typed by a hunter and pecker, not an accomplished typist.

Errors we xxed out, and there were handwritten notes in red ink, whether put there by the author or a hapless would-be editor.

The title:  A Continental Mystery.

No author, the sheets were yellowing and darkening around the paper edges.  All of the pages had the look and feel of being thumbed through many times.  There were dog-eared pages scattered throughout the manuscript.  I looked, but there was no reason behind any of them, and one had a coffee cup stain.

It was hardly the sort of manuscript the company would accept.  I knew their requested requirements for submissions, and they were very high.  This would never have made the cut.

So…

I had to ask myself what Montague’s game was here?

Perhaps if I read the first page…

I made myself comfortable on the lounge chair, put my feet up on the ottoman and after a few minutes, Chester came and sat next to me.

“Would you like me to read you this story?” I said, looking at him.

His expression said ‘No’.

Good.  I was not in the mood to spare him.

It was a dark early morning; the moon had disappeared behind clouds that suggested an imminent downpour.  James quickened his pace to get to King’s Cross station before the skies above him opened.

It was not the only reason he was in a hurry; he had promised Matilda, the girl he was intending to ask to marry him, that he would be at the station a half hour before the train was to depart, and she did not like tardiness.

They were taking the train to Edinburgh, where they would be collected and taken to Matilda’s family home, Barkworth Manor.  For him, it was an opportunity to travel on the latest night Scotsman service, just upgraded to rival any luxury train in the world.

“Well,” I said to Chester, who seemed to have an expression of interest.  “A girl who belongs to a wealthy family, living in such a salubrious residence to be named Barkworth Manor, in Scotland no less.”

Chester turned away and yawned.  Rich girls living in posh manor houses obviously didn’t impress him.  I shrugged.  It had my attention.  Was she an heiress?  And who was this James?

Read on…

James considered himself the luckiest man in London and had to believe he had been in the right place at the right time.  A chance meeting outside the Savoy Hotel, an awkward conversation that led to coffee and cake, which in turn led to dinner.

It seemed serendipitous; they were both down from Oxford, both studying Archaeology, and could have equally accidentally met in Oxford as in London.  It led to a semester of chance meetings, which led to study time in the Bodleian Library, which led to dinner, and then an invitation for him to spend the weekend in Scotland with her parents.

In normal circumstances, he visited his mother in Cornwall, or sometimes a weekend with his academic acquaintances.  That had all changed as his friendship with Matilda slowly became something more.

I dragged the notebook computer over and started a new document, and typed a note, ‘the start needs work’.  A better definition of the protagonists was needed.

But in my imagination, I could visualise London at night, dark clouds swirling, rain imminent, as it had rained every time I had visited England myself and then I tried to remember what Kings Cross looked like.

The year, if I was assuming correctly, was about 1928, and I remembered seeing a steam train documentary not long ago.  I would have been as excited as James, just seeing the train, let alone travelling on it.

The fact-checking part of me then went looking for information on the night trains to Edinburgh.  There was the Flying Scotsman, the overnight train from London to Edinburgh, selecting the date 1928.  There was, however, another train, the Night Scotsman, that had started in May of that year, left London at 10:35 pm and arrived in Edinburgh about eight and a half hours later.  Photos showed the locomotive, the carriages, and plans of the sleepers, first and third class.  It was between the wars, and a bustling time, but there might be a lead into the great depression, so there was going to be historical context.

Then I realised I was getting ahead of myself and needed to read more.  It wasn’t badly written, it just needed a few changes, making the characters more relatable, and whether they were on equal footing.

Or perhaps I wasn’t.

The reader always needs to know the basics.  Firstly, who was going to be the main protagonist? That was James.  Male, early twenties, perhaps the accepted age for a prospective graduate, and given the cost of his studies, perhaps reasonably wealthy parents were funding him.

Certainly, the girl, of similar age, was being funded by her parents, though at that time it might have been less acceptable for her to be studying rather than getting married.  Social mores were very different then, but times were changing, albeit slowly.  It wasn’t long after the suffragettes.

I scanned through the pages for more information on the boy.

James McArthur, the third son of Sir William McArthur, banker, the son being 24 years old.  His mother, Lady Allison McArthur, nee Benton, was a writer, not overly successful but enough to be in a circle of similar ladies, who cross all sections of the Arts.  James had been 14 at the end of the Great War, and had lost two of his brothers to it, leaving him, a younger brother and two older sisters.

Then, the girl. 

Matilda Carterville was one of four daughters and two sons of Lord and Lady Carterville, landowner and shipping magnate, whose personal Empire was as vast as the British Empire of the day.  Matilda’s mother had not been from the aristocracy, and had caught the eye of the Lord, before he became a Lord, when she was a Shakespearean actress.  For him, it had been love at first sight; for her, it had been an amusing interlude until she discovered who he was, and it ended up all over the society pages.

Several hours passed as I constructed a family tree from the first 100 pages.  I wondered if this was what other Editors did, trying to get a handle on the characters, their associations, and be ready for whatever the author threw at them. I felt, by the end of it, that I knew James and Matilda.

It was interesting to discover that James’s mother lived in a house that was described as a cottage, it also had a name, and to me sounded like it had a hundred rooms, a dozen servants who all lived in, and grounds the size of a municipal park.

That paled to insignificance when it came to the castle Matilda came from.  Yes, an actual castle, once described as sprawling, a place where one could get lost, that was described as cold and draughty, with towers, and everything made of stone.  It had a banquet hall, a dining hall, and countless other rooms and staff, a place that would cost a fortune to keep in good repair and run.

Oh, yes, it had grounds to go hunting and shooting, fox hunting, and a lake to go fishing.  Surrounding it was farmland with cattle, sheep, and various crops, and produce used in the castle kitchen.  It was hard to imagine such places still existed, especially the class divisions that I had read about, which were virtually swept away after the Second World War.  Still, I did see mention of butlers, maids, ground staff, chauffeurs and countless others.

It was a world I could only imagine existed, once upon a time.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Days 186 and 187

Writing exercise – about something other than the book I’m writing –

…

I had worked very hard to improve my position from fact checker to my ultimate role, editor. It took years of dedication and application, doing everything that was asked of me, and more.

And now, after seven years, I believed my time had come, an email from the chief editor to discuss my role moving forward.

It had been the same every year but those were reviews of my work, and I knew it took time before the review became an interview for promotion.  It was my turn.

10 AM:  Montgomery Montague’s office, 45^th floor, the executive level, one above editorial, the department I aspired to work for.

Chester, my recalcitrant cat, raised his head as I came into the kitchen, and gave me his usual look of disdain.  This morning, he was not going to get off as easily.

“This is my day,” I said.  “You can rejoice in my success, or you can mope.”

A meow told me he did not give one jot what was happening in my world, just get the food in the bowl now.  Yes, that look was almost one of malice.

“Not today mister.”  I selected a tin of some sort of fish, removed the lid and scooped it into the bowl. 

Before I could move the bowl to the floor he had jumped up onto the counter, sniffed it, and looked at me.  Yes, that was the ‘you gave me that yesterday’ look, and that momentary thrill of tricking him, passed.

Of course, I hadn’t.  He looked at me and meowed twice.  The rebuke.

“No,” I said.  “You eat it, or you starve.  I’m going to work now.”

I stared him down.  “You cannot rain on my parade.” Another few seconds, he turned back to the bowl and took a tentative bite.  “I’ll be back with the good news.”

Good things happened in threes, my mother used to say.  That was number one.

The train was late, a holdup over a signal failure, or that’s what I thought I heard, but to Montgomery Montague, that was not an excuse.

Despite the minor setback, I forgoed my usual early morning coffee and went straight to the office, and weas only five minutes late.

When I reached his outer office where his personal assistant sat I saw her coming out of his office, and she gave me the ‘look’.  Everyone knew it, it was not a good day.

Had an event I had no control over ruined my chance.  She sat and I took a seat.

She was going to make me wait.

And panic.

Then she looked up and smiled.  “You are very lucky I was detained in his office.  I’ll tell him you’re here.”

She called, then nodded, assent to enter the inner sanctum.  It would be the third time I had bene in his office, the first my interview for the job, the second a discussion over some facts that were in dispute. And this time. Hopefully, my promotion.

I knocked on the door, waited for the terse ‘enter’ then went in, softly closing the door behind me.

Then it was past the meeting table. The coffee table the lounge chairs, the open space, the stop at the desk.

There was always the right number of chairs for those invited.  The uncomfortable chairs so you didn’t linger longer than necessary.

“Have a seat.”

The question was, which one?  Someone said once there was a right choice and a wrong choice, and I just realised there were two seats.  Was there another person about to join the interview?

I sat in the left seat.

There was just a hint of a smile on his face.  “The pilot’s seat.  Good choice, Ben.”

He gave me the serious look, the one that rattled everyone who sat opposite his desk, from new employees to the seasoned editors, those who had been here for years.

“Do you write?”

It was an unexpected question, and perhaps a little superfluous.  Why work at a publisher if you didn’t write?  I was going to say that, but was it a trick question?

“Yes, I do.”

“And read?”

“Avidly.  Writers must read.”  It was almost a mantra in this place.

“Of course, they do.  What type of stories do you write?”

“Thrillers, espionage, but at the moment historical fiction.”

“Busy then?”

“I keep myself amused in my spare time, and Chester more so.”

“Chester?”

“My cat, and harshest critic.  I read him parts of the story, and if he complains, it’s a rewrite.”

He made a face; one I didn’t decipher.  Someone once said, don’t embellish.  “What makes you think you can edit?”

“I’ve read a great many books to learn style and composition.  Ui can see errors in manuscripts that I’ve been given to fact check and often check later what I found with the end product, and I’ve had successes.”

“Editing is more than just grammar and spelling.  It’s continuity, missing links, slight changes in titles, descriptions, and other errors that authors routinely make.  We do not want to be checking your work.  You are the final word.  But…”

And here it comes, all my hopes and dreams were about to be shattered.

“I need you to do a test case for me before I make the final decision.”

He leaned forward and opened a drawer in front of him and pulled out a folder, looked at it then put it on the desk.  It was quite thick, but old, and quite discoloured.  The front had several coffee cup stains.

“This novel has been here for at least thirty years, and so far, no one has been able to turn it into something worth reading.  We call it Pandora’s Box.  You never know what’s inside.  A word to the wise, the last 25 recipients of this manuscript failed and didn’t get to become an editor here.  I have high hopes that you will not join them.  You have three weeks.”

He pushed the file across the desk towards me.  The interview, such as it was, was over.

Good things come in threes. Let’s call the outcome of this meeting a possible second.

Clutching the folder close, I took the elevator back down to my floor.  I assumed I was not yet a fully-fledged editor, so I could not move to the editorial floor five above, where I currently worked with nine other fact-checkers.

We worked in pairs, and my pair was Josie, a graduate with more degrees than I had, and I often wondered why she was not a rocket scientist.  She certainly knew enough about them, and space.

I had been considering asking her on a date, but after hearing about her last one, I decided she was not going to be interested in someone like me.

She saw me come out of the elevator and then went back to her work until I sat down.  In the fact-checking department, a year longer than me, and having no desire to become an editor, she had this dream of the cottage, the country garden, the picket fence, the husband who came home the same time every day, and the 2.4 children.  I was not sure the last part was possible; it had to be either 2 or 3.

“How did the interview go?”

I had told her I was going to see Montague and High Hopes.  She didn’t try to dash them, having seen her fair share of hopefuls’ crash and burn, but I could see the lack of confidence in her eyes when I told her of my ambition.  All she told me was to not fly too close to the sun.

“I have a task, a test.”

“Pandora’s Box?”

“You know?”

“Everyone knows.  No one speaks of it.”

“It’s not the first time he’s brought it out?”

“No.”

“And no one has made it work?”

“They couldn’t.  It’s gibberish.  He’s reputed to have written it himself as a means to squash budding hopefuls.”

“No one?”

“None that I’ve heard of over the last 10 years.  They come, they get the call to his office, he gives them Pandora’s Box, they fail, and then they leave.”

“Why?”

“Because they know he will never promote them to editor.”

I shrugged.  “There’s always a first time.”

“Have you read any of it?”

“No.”

“Then take it home and read it to Chester.  If he turns up his nose, then you have a problem.  If not, well, there may be hope.”

That said, she returned to the pile of manuscripts, each about some aspect of space.

I put the file in my backpack along with my laptop computer and, at precisely 6:05 pm, left the office.

I thought of asking Josie if she wanted to drop into a bar that was on both our ways home.  Sometimes when she wanted a sounding board, we would drop into a quaint bar and have a drink or two and sometimes a snack.  They were not dates, even though in my imagination they were.

She had come from a small town in the Midwest, and I came from upstate, New York.  Her family were ranchers, mine bankers, so we had little in common.

This time we parted at the door, with a promise I’d tell her what my reaction was to the story.  She had only heard about it, and nothing good.

Chester was waiting, curled up on the lounge where he was not supposed to be, but then, he never listened to me.

I glared at him as I closed the door, crossed to the kitchen bench where I put dinner from the Deli up the road, and the backpack.  I thought about taking the file out, but left it.  Dinner for Chester, then dinner for me, first.

An hour later and after cleaning up. I dragged the folder out and extracted the manuscript.  It was about three hundred pages of double-spaced type, done on an old-world manual typewriter with a cloth ribbon that had seen a lot of use.  The unevenness of the typeface told me some keys were stiffer to push than others, typed by a hunter and pecker, not an accomplished typist.

Errors we xxed out, and there were handwritten notes in red ink, whether put there by the author or a hapless would-be editor.

The title:  A Continental Mystery.

No author, the sheets were yellowing and darkening around the paper edges.  All of the pages had the look and feel of being thumbed through many times.  There were dog-eared pages scattered throughout the manuscript.  I looked, but there was no reason behind any of them, and one had a coffee cup stain.

It was hardly the sort of manuscript the company would accept.  I knew their requested requirements for submissions, and they were very high.  This would never have made the cut.

So…

I had to ask myself what Montague’s game was here?

Perhaps if I read the first page…

I made myself comfortable on the lounge chair, put my feet up on the ottoman and after a few minutes, Chester came and sat next to me.

“Would you like me to read you this story?” I said, looking at him.

His expression said ‘No’.

Good.  I was not in the mood to spare him.

It was a dark early morning; the moon had disappeared behind clouds that suggested an imminent downpour.  James quickened his pace to get to King’s Cross station before the skies above him opened.

It was not the only reason he was in a hurry; he had promised Matilda, the girl he was intending to ask to marry him, that he would be at the station a half hour before the train was to depart, and she did not like tardiness.

They were taking the train to Edinburgh, where they would be collected and taken to Matilda’s family home, Barkworth Manor.  For him, it was an opportunity to travel on the latest night Scotsman service, just upgraded to rival any luxury train in the world.

“Well,” I said to Chester, who seemed to have an expression of interest.  “A girl who belongs to a wealthy family, living in such a salubrious residence to be named Barkworth Manor, in Scotland no less.”

Chester turned away and yawned.  Rich girls living in posh manor houses obviously didn’t impress him.  I shrugged.  It had my attention.  Was she an heiress?  And who was this James?

Read on…

James considered himself the luckiest man in London and had to believe he had been in the right place at the right time.  A chance meeting outside the Savoy Hotel, an awkward conversation that led to coffee and cake, which in turn led to dinner.

It seemed serendipitous; they were both down from Oxford, both studying Archaeology, and could have equally accidentally met in Oxford as in London.  It led to a semester of chance meetings, which led to study time in the Bodleian Library, which led to dinner, and then an invitation for him to spend the weekend in Scotland with her parents.

In normal circumstances, he visited his mother in Cornwall, or sometimes a weekend with his academic acquaintances.  That had all changed as his friendship with Matilda slowly became something more.

I dragged the notebook computer over and started a new document, and typed a note, ‘the start needs work’.  A better definition of the protagonists was needed.

But in my imagination, I could visualise London at night, dark clouds swirling, rain imminent, as it had rained every time I had visited England myself and then I tried to remember what Kings Cross looked like.

The year, if I was assuming correctly, was about 1928, and I remembered seeing a steam train documentary not long ago.  I would have been as excited as James, just seeing the train, let alone travelling on it.

The fact-checking part of me then went looking for information on the night trains to Edinburgh.  There was the Flying Scotsman, the overnight train from London to Edinburgh, selecting the date 1928.  There was, however, another train, the Night Scotsman, that had started in May of that year, left London at 10:35 pm and arrived in Edinburgh about eight and a half hours later.  Photos showed the locomotive, the carriages, and plans of the sleepers, first and third class.  It was between the wars, and a bustling time, but there might be a lead into the great depression, so there was going to be historical context.

Then I realised I was getting ahead of myself and needed to read more.  It wasn’t badly written, it just needed a few changes, making the characters more relatable, and whether they were on equal footing.

Or perhaps I wasn’t.

The reader always needs to know the basics.  Firstly, who was going to be the main protagonist? That was James.  Male, early twenties, perhaps the accepted age for a prospective graduate, and given the cost of his studies, perhaps reasonably wealthy parents were funding him.

Certainly, the girl, of similar age, was being funded by her parents, though at that time it might have been less acceptable for her to be studying rather than getting married.  Social mores were very different then, but times were changing, albeit slowly.  It wasn’t long after the suffragettes.

I scanned through the pages for more information on the boy.

James McArthur, the third son of Sir William McArthur, banker, the son being 24 years old.  His mother, Lady Allison McArthur, nee Benton, was a writer, not overly successful but enough to be in a circle of similar ladies, who cross all sections of the Arts.  James had been 14 at the end of the Great War, and had lost two of his brothers to it, leaving him, a younger brother and two older sisters.

Then, the girl. 

Matilda Carterville was one of four daughters and two sons of Lord and Lady Carterville, landowner and shipping magnate, whose personal Empire was as vast as the British Empire of the day.  Matilda’s mother had not been from the aristocracy, and had caught the eye of the Lord, before he became a Lord, when she was a Shakespearean actress.  For him, it had been love at first sight; for her, it had been an amusing interlude until she discovered who he was, and it ended up all over the society pages.

Several hours passed as I constructed a family tree from the first 100 pages.  I wondered if this was what other Editors did, trying to get a handle on the characters, their associations, and be ready for whatever the author threw at them. I felt, by the end of it, that I knew James and Matilda.

It was interesting to discover that James’s mother lived in a house that was described as a cottage, it also had a name, and to me sounded like it had a hundred rooms, a dozen servants who all lived in, and grounds the size of a municipal park.

That paled to insignificance when it came to the castle Matilda came from.  Yes, an actual castle, once described as sprawling, a place where one could get lost, that was described as cold and draughty, with towers, and everything made of stone.  It had a banquet hall, a dining hall, and countless other rooms and staff, a place that would cost a fortune to keep in good repair and run.

Oh, yes, it had grounds to go hunting and shooting, fox hunting, and a lake to go fishing.  Surrounding it was farmland with cattle, sheep, and various crops, and produce used in the castle kitchen.  It was hard to imagine such places still existed, especially the class divisions that I had read about, which were virtually swept away after the Second World War.  Still, I did see mention of butlers, maids, ground staff, chauffeurs and countless others.

It was a world I could only imagine existed, once upon a time.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025