Is this one of those moments where it is a good thing he has a partner, and a bad thing that she is a woman?
We all know pain killers and alcohol at a bad mix, and trying to ward off the despondency of messing up what could have been a useful interrogation, he drinks too much, makes a pass at the partner and fails miserably at achieving anything but collapsing on the floor.
She is amused. And annoyed he took matters into his own hands.
Of course, there are questions to answer, like,
Why did he go back and tackle the men who, as he said, were acting suspiciously? Firstly, the police inspector and then, with a lot more suspicion and threatening behaviour, the head of the secret police.
Yes, a man in the street type would not be talking about anything, especially when he knew there were suspicious types, like the rebels, around.
Who is he, then, to be doing this?
Nosey reporter, very nosey reporter, with a little too much devil may care, ergo the bullet wound.
But if you want the story, you need to take the risks.
The inspector wants to know how there was an exchange of gunfire, without saying that the rebels didn’t shoot at each other, and he simply says he was shot, it was a shock, and by the time I got over the shock of it, they were gone.
After all, if he was complicit, where was the gun?
And the youngest sister to the king, in fact, she was only two years younger than him and also sent away at the request of her mother because she had been given the same treatment as the new king.
In fact, he, too, had been horrid to her, and it was not a reunion he was looking forward to.
Rather, oddly, the king had a separate morning room for breakfast and an atrium for lunch, a place where all the Royals could meet and talk over lunch, or just brood.
He’s spent many breakfasts with his brothers and sisters, but not so much at lunch, especially when they were at school.
Now Ruth and her sister could come down, and he could see them between royal duties and meet the other siblings, one of whom was Christine.
It’s awkward, but not as much as it could have been. He was no longer the awkward, pugnacious little boy he once was, but their king.
It was also useful to discover that she was in the process of gathering up all the papers in the old King’s office and taking them down to her archive to be classified and archived, the relevant daily work papers to be refined by the secretaries to be processed.
He also had his PA team of three working closely with her to find out what projects and situations were in play and needed his attention.
Is this one of those moments where it is a good thing he has a partner, and a bad thing that she is a woman?
We all know pain killers and alcohol at a bad mix, and trying to ward off the despondency of messing up what could have been a useful interrogation, he drinks too much, makes a pass at the partner and fails miserably at achieving anything but collapsing on the floor.
She is amused. And annoyed he took matters into his own hands.
Of course, there are questions to answer, like,
Why did he go back and tackle the men who, as he said, were acting suspiciously? Firstly, the police inspector and then, with a lot more suspicion and threatening behaviour, the head of the secret police.
Yes, a man in the street type would not be talking about anything, especially when he knew there were suspicious types, like the rebels, around.
Who is he, then, to be doing this?
Nosey reporter, very nosey reporter, with a little too much devil may care, ergo the bullet wound.
But if you want the story, you need to take the risks.
The inspector wants to know how there was an exchange of gunfire, without saying that the rebels didn’t shoot at each other, and he simply says he was shot, it was a shock, and by the time I got over the shock of it, they were gone.
After all, if he was complicit, where was the gun?
Honesty in writing – can there be too much, as in writing an autobiography?
…
To me there’s honesty and there’s truth.
I read autobiographies and biographies, but there are recollections laced with factual surrounding events. However, quite often, a lot of these events can be taken with a grain of salt.
I do it myself. I tell the truth, but it’s the embellishment that makes events grander, or the strategic omissions that make it larger or smaller than life.
The more embellishment, the better the sales. Everyone wants to read about heroes, people who get things done, and sometimes just to read the other side of the story.
Fiction, though, requires no semblance of the truth, and when weaving it with real events, it’s always a good idea not to try and improve on or demean people who were real and involved. I’m always weaving real places and real events into historical stories, and I work very hard to understand the people, the places, and the events.
And just remember not to make people you know too identifiable in your stories.
As for my autobiography, it will be better than the life I wish I could lead in my books, because 300 pages of utterly boring stuff will not sell.
So there’s nothing like an angry sister who never got to be queen, who sits gleefully in her office, plotting to put the new king in his place.
Yes, royal shenanigans indeed
Queen Isobel of the next-door principality is coming for a state visit, ostensibly to welcome the new king into his new role.
Why then does she burst into his office and gleefully announce the forthcoming arrival of the wicked with odd the west
Because in the old days when he was just a boy, Isobel and her used to torture him mercilessly, yo the point where it, and the treatment from his brothers at the behest of the old king forced him to run away to America.
Yes, survival of the fittest, the bullying was supposed to make a man of him/and his brothers, as it turned out, treatment that after he left was transferred to Edward and then down the line.
But..
As always, there’s more to the story, and it appeared from the briefing document that the annual negotiations between the two principalities had not been completed and signed, and there was a formal request that some items needed further discussion.
When he saw the draft contract, he could see why, but the negotiators had made the concessions so he could if he wanted to.
A lot would depend on that first face-to-face meeting and what her attitude towards him would be. He had not seen her in the last 15 years, and he had expected he never would again, if he could help it, but things never quite go the way people want them to.
Something you steel himself for over the next few days before she arrived.
In the meantime, his sister could go and meet the Queen at the airport as his official representative, and he would make the formal welcome at the castle.
Honesty in writing – can there be too much, as in writing an autobiography?
…
To me there’s honesty and there’s truth.
I read autobiographies and biographies, but there are recollections laced with factual surrounding events. However, quite often, a lot of these events can be taken with a grain of salt.
I do it myself. I tell the truth, but it’s the embellishment that makes events grander, or the strategic omissions that make it larger or smaller than life.
The more embellishment, the better the sales. Everyone wants to read about heroes, people who get things done, and sometimes just to read the other side of the story.
Fiction, though, requires no semblance of the truth, and when weaving it with real events, it’s always a good idea not to try and improve on or demean people who were real and involved. I’m always weaving real places and real events into historical stories, and I work very hard to understand the people, the places, and the events.
And just remember not to make people you know too identifiable in your stories.
As for my autobiography, it will be better than the life I wish I could lead in my books, because 300 pages of utterly boring stuff will not sell.
Q is for – Qualms – that state of uneasiness that cannot be explained
…
It would be true to say that Harry Cressey had turned the company’s fortunes around with some of the most interesting programs I’d ever seen.
In the beginning, when they were first mooted by the owner of the company, the current fifth-generation department store owner, I had to, and a lot of others had, reservations.
But when they were implemented one by one, and they worked, we stopped looking at the man and looked at the result.
It was no mean feat to turn around a lame duck and turn it into more than just a financial success.
It was the theme if a two page spread in the local newspaper was anything to go by, a story that encapsulated a managing director and a board of directors under pressure, a chance meeting and appointment of a financial consultant, Trevor Alexander Frederick Hall, and a fairytale ending for a company and quite literally the city we all lived in.
It was literally the difference between living in a vibrant, small town, single industry city or a ghost town.
Barnaby Oswald, the owner, an older photo that didn’t the stress of age, Trevor Hall, a recent photo beaming like the all conquering hero he was, the main office building and factories, an early photo and one as it was now, after a recent facelift, and a photo of about a thousand of the staff all looking like they had just been given a millions dollars each.
I’d been away the day the shot of the staff was taken
“What’s wrong with that photo?”
Alison came into my office and threw herself into the seat opposite my desk. The clock on the wall behind her said one minute to eight.
Sane time every morning.
“Nothing. All hail the hero of the hour.”
She snorted. That was usually reserved for the hapless Barnaby Oswald, her uncle. No, she wasn’t the boss’s daughter, but she was close enough.
“Look at that photo of Hall and tell me what you see.”
“An urbane middle-aged success story.”
I’d suffered her comments in the indubitable Mr Hall, humouring her because I thought, like quite a few others, there was no way he could save the sinking ship.
We were all wrong.
“Take a closer look.”
She had never told me what she really thought of him other than she had reservations. But Alison was the sort of woman who had reservations about nearly everyone.
Her uncle had muscled her father out of the business and sent him to an early grave. Hall, to her, was just the latest of a long list of follies. Just look at how the business went from success to the Titanic in seven years.
I took a closer look. The photo was too grainy and of low resolution to discern anything, but one thing I did notice was that his eyes were too close together.
“The newspaper photo doesn’t do him justice?”
She frowned at me. “He’s a villain; I’m sure of it. I did a search on the internet, and he didn’t exist five years ago. In fact, he simply appeared out of the blue, popping up in a Fortune 500 company, then a meteoric rise to partner in one of the most prestigious finance and banking corporations. His reference letter was so glowing; to me, it’s the sort of letter a place writes to get rid of him.”
“Or that he is that good.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Trevor with Barnaby, their usual chat at the end of the day before going home. He had looked over and seen Alison with me, and I thought I also saw him sigh.
I had little to do with him, so I was not an expert. Alison had been his first PA and lasted a week. She never said what caused their parting, but there were rumours.
She went to say something but stopped when she saw him coming over.
He stopped at the door. “Ashley, isn’t it?”
“Or ‘hey you’ perhaps more often than it should. I go by either.”
Barnaby called all of the Admin assistants on this floor ‘Hey, you’. He wasn’t good at names to faces or being polite, for that matter.
“Yes.” He turned to Alison. “You were asked not to come up here.”
“After hours, Trevor, and I am an Oswald, and this is my birthright, not yours.” There was no mistaking the antagonistic tone. “Your silly rules only apply during business hours. After that, I can see whoever I want.”
“Be that as it may, just not up here. Now, please leave, or do I have to call security?”
She glared at him, went to say something, then just shrugged. “Whatever.”
Then she got up, nodded at me, and left.
“Sorry you had to witness that, but she has been causing trouble. And apparently, she doesn’t like me.” He shrugged. “Be careful when you’re with her. She does not have the interests of the company in mind.”
What could I say to that?
“Understood.”
A warning was given, and he left. I went back to the paper, but it was too difficult to concentrate. Alison was stuck in my mind, and it was not exactly for the right reasons. I had always liked her, but she had never been as interested in me.
Damn her.
I walked slowly down the stairs a few minutes after Hall had left and came put onto the carpark on one side of the main office building to see Hall drive off in his Mustang, bought for him as a gift for his work in saving the company.
It was a car I’d always wanted but knew I could never afford. Another of those pipe dreams I had.
My car, farthest from the front door and now alone in the pleb section, was different tonight for one reason. Alison was sitting on the trunk.
Why would she be sitting on my car? How did she know what car I owned, let alone where I parked it.
She smiled when she saw me. “Ashley.”
I stopped two or three steps away from her. “Alison. To what do I owe the honour of this visit?”
“Don’t you mean, why is Trevor so worked up about me?”
“It’s above my pay grade, Alison. Everything is above my pay grade, including you.”
“Didn’t that little tirade if his fuel some qualms about him in your mind? I mean, who says that stuff about the boss’s niece? Why would I not have the interests of the company at heart? It is my family’s business, after all.”
I shrugged. “It’s none of my business.”
“It would be if the whole thing came tumbling down like a house of cards.”
“Is it?”
“That’s beside the point.”
Another of the admin assistants, like me, had told me early on that courting ideas about Alison was like wrestling alligators. She was, he said, dangerous and had caused a few admin assistants to get fired.
She slid off the back of the car into my space. She was close, too close for comfort. I had dreamed about looking into her eyes, but now, it scared me.
“You like me, don’t you?”
She gave me a penetrating look that was unsettling.
“Can I plead the fifth amendment?”
She smiled, leaned forward, and kissed me on the cheek. “I like you too. But inevitably, people I like seem to only want the boss’s daughter and the kudos that goes with it. Is that what you want?”
We were standing under a light and would make an interesting view if anyone was still working on this side of the building. The lights were still on, and it would be mostly cleaners. Overtime was banned unless absolutely necessary.
“Nobody cares what I want, Alison, and least of all you. I don’t know what’s going on with you and Trevor; I don’t want to know.”
“Then I’ll say my piece, and then I’ll go. Day three, one am in the boardroom, Trevor Hall raped me. I threatened to go to the police. He simply said if I did, he would expose my family’s true business dealings that caused all the problems. I laughed at him, and the next thing I knew, my father was dead. It was not a suicide. He has a grip on this place, and he’s bleeding it dry. He is a monster, and he needs to be stopped. And now I have nowhere else to go.”
Tears were forming in her eyes. I believed she believed every word she said. I also knew she was very manipulative.
“If you don’t have any qualms about Treveor Hall, you should. By this time next year, there will be nothing left of this place for my uncle, for me, our family, you, and everyone else. It’ll be in a non-extradition country with the remarkable Trever Hall.”
It was a good story. It had all the elements of truth in it, and it could be believable.
I pulled out my phone and dialled the one number on the screen.
She looked surprised.
When a voice answered, I said, “You were right. She knows.”
Silence then, “You know what to do.” The line went dead.
Perhaps not in the beginning, but as time passed, yes.
In my younger years, as an awkward child who didn’t fare well in school, with the sort of boys who treated the weaker kids with aggression, and at home where we were victims of domestic violence, it became necessary to immerse myself in another world than the one that I lived in.
That’s when I began to invent different lives, mostly generated from reading books morning, noon and night and spending any spare time in the school library, anywhere other than in the schoolyard.
Those books fuelled my imagination. I could be anyone else other than who I was, go anywhere, and do anything. The Secret Seven, The Famous Five, Biggles, Billy Bunter, all those characters that today would never get a fair chance.
Soon, those imaginings became scribbles, and the first story I wrote was one of a spy landing on a distant beach in another country and executing a mission which, when I look back, was rather strange, but it kept me busy.
Then a thousand or so books later, fuelled by Alistair MacLean, Hammond Innes, James Patterson, Clive Cussler, Steve Berry, David Baldacci, and countless others, I improved my writing skills, the story became more focussed and less childish, and I decided thrillers were the go.
And when romance didn’t seem to work out all that well, I decided to write myself into one, imagining how it would be. For that, I devoured a few Mills and Boons, but when it came time to write a similar story, it got half way then veered into thriller territory.
I think, in that first effort, I was not the hero, but the forever tired, always battling to stay alive and discovering the love of his life, found ways they could not be together. A bit like real life at times.
My latest effort, I used to read stories for my grandchildren, and then foolishly one night told her I would write a better fair tale. After 11 years, much toiling and excuses for not having it done, I have finished it. 3 volumes, 1,000 plus pages, it is an epic.
Did I always want to be a writer?
Maybe I did and just didn’t realise it back when I was too young to know.
There are still the endless questions on what actually happened from the moment the call came that there was a skier on the top of the mountain in distress.
And why the helicopter was called in, and everything that happened around that one decision. It was, of course, the prerogative of the officer in charge of the ski patrol, at the time Edward.
The question was, was he supposed to be in charge when the two other brothers were out in the field? That raised another question: Why were the two assigned together when the standing orders were only one could be in the field and the other on standby?
How did the Air Force send a newish pilot on a mission that hw had not flown before? It was not good policy to not have an experienced pilot on hand
He was going to go up to the top of the mountain and see for himself, but on memory of the his years in the patrol, it was not that difficult to get to the spot where from the top ski lift, and if that was the case, then the avalanche was preventable.
It was going to be another interesting report when the final assessment was completed. He would have to try and get the parliament to call for a royal commission. Of course, raking over the coals might be the last thing needed, especially since the resort was closed while the slopes were regroomed.
The country needed a quick, blameless answer and reopened the resort for obvious financial reasons, aside from the employment and services it generated.
Perhaps not in the beginning, but as time passed, yes.
In my younger years, as an awkward child who didn’t fare well in school, with the sort of boys who treated the weaker kids with aggression, and at home where we were victims of domestic violence, it became necessary to immerse myself in another world than the one that I lived in.
That’s when I began to invent different lives, mostly generated from reading books morning, noon and night and spending any spare time in the school library, anywhere other than in the schoolyard.
Those books fuelled my imagination. I could be anyone else other than who I was, go anywhere, and do anything. The Secret Seven, The Famous Five, Biggles, Billy Bunter, all those characters that today would never get a fair chance.
Soon, those imaginings became scribbles, and the first story I wrote was one of a spy landing on a distant beach in another country and executing a mission which, when I look back, was rather strange, but it kept me busy.
Then a thousand or so books later, fuelled by Alistair MacLean, Hammond Innes, James Patterson, Clive Cussler, Steve Berry, David Baldacci, and countless others, I improved my writing skills, the story became more focussed and less childish, and I decided thrillers were the go.
And when romance didn’t seem to work out all that well, I decided to write myself into one, imagining how it would be. For that, I devoured a few Mills and Boons, but when it came time to write a similar story, it got half way then veered into thriller territory.
I think, in that first effort, I was not the hero, but the forever tired, always battling to stay alive and discovering the love of his life, found ways they could not be together. A bit like real life at times.
My latest effort, I used to read stories for my grandchildren, and then foolishly one night told her I would write a better fair tale. After 11 years, much toiling and excuses for not having it done, I have finished it. 3 volumes, 1,000 plus pages, it is an epic.
Did I always want to be a writer?
Maybe I did and just didn’t realise it back when I was too young to know.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 