Day 197

Could you write a fantasy story to avoid getting too serious

For years, people used to tell me I was living in my own fantasy land.

What amazed me was that they could see into my mind that I wanted to be a knight in shining armour, a superhero, a billionaire who wanted for nothing, and a spy who beat the bad guys and won over the girl.

Of course, none of this could ever happen in reality, only in my imagination.

With the arrival of three grandchildren and being asked to take up child-minding, came the time to read them stories before they went to bed.

I used to think that the violence that was within those stories would keep any sane person up all night, but I was quick to realise that any sort of cartoon or fantasy story always carried an indecent level of violence.

Perhaps from a young age, we are supposed to be taught that good triumphs over evil and the bad guys always come off second best.

However….

After reading a lot of fairy tales to the girls, I thought to myself I could do better and decided to write my own.

A snotty, egotistical princess is about to be married off to the prince in the kingdom next door, and he isn’t very nice.  The thing is, no one likes her, and everyone is glad she’s going away to be with her prince.

She’s been betrothed since they were children, and that notion she could marry for love was dashed many years before.

But…

There’s a legend that comes once in a millennium called ‘the conflagration’, where the firstborn eldest daughter from one of the kingdoms in the realm is selected to become ‘the saviour’, who has to go on a quest to find the twelve pieces of the tablet needed to restore peace and order.

It just happens that after the invasion of her kingdom by another, that of her prince, soon to be husband, the conflagration begins. Her ‘knight in shining armour’ comes to collect her, only it is not marriage he has in mind.

Her father’s trusted Master-at-Arms is sent to save her from the prince and take her on the quest, sent to him in his dreams. The problem is, the king believes the Gods have made a mistake, but trusts his personal knight to guide her in her role.

Of course, the knight doesn’t believe she will get past the first task. For that reason, he doesn’t tell her the real reason why they are heading into the Kingdom of Magic. Not until it’s time to find the first artefact.

There are twelve to find, and by the time she locates the last piece of the puzzle, she transforms from the whiny, self-indulgent brat into a fearless leader.

Everything a saviour needed to be.

By the time the first draft was finished, it was 1,100 pages of the story called The Enchanted Horse.

Well, Mr Disney, I’ve just created your next Disney Princess, The Princess Marigold!

Day 196

I don’t remember anything about last night or last week!

When I woke, the sun was streaming through the window.  Odd, I thought, because I had closed the curtains the night before.

While everything looked the same as I’d left it the night before, why did I have a sudden feeling of unease with a shiver going down my spine? 

I could hear the sound of running water coming from within the bathroom. 

I looked sideways and could see that the bedding was turned over like someone had been sleeping on the other side of the bed.  The pillow had a slight dent in it.

Someone had spent the night with me.

I shuddered.  I couldn’t remember anything other than coming home, having a precooked dinner, watching the news, reading for an hour, and then going to bed.

In fact, I could not remember ever bringing a girl home to my flat, simply because I didn’t think she would stay.  It was that bad.

I waited, the water stopped, rustling in the bathroom, and then the door opened.

I didn’t recognise her.  “Who are you?”

Her cheerful expression changed slightly, one of surprise.  “Of course, you know who I am. You’re just playing with me, Robert.  You said you had a wicked sense of humour.”

I was an accountant, and I knew my colleagues considered I was the last person who would have any sort of humour as part of my persona.

Something was awfully wrong because I could not remember anything from the previous night, no matter how hard I tried.

“Be that as it may, let’s just assume for the moment I can’t remember anything.  I suspect I might have uncharacteristically got drunk and now have temporary amnesia.  I’ve heard it can happen.  Please remind me who you are and why you are here?”

“Seriously?”  She sighed. “Alright, you were quite tipsy, I’ll say that.  You were at a party, reluctantly, and your friends, though I have to say they were not very friendly, were plying you with drinks, and I felt I had to rescue you.  You were grateful, we went to another bar briefly, then I brought you home.  You were not well, and I asked you if you wanted me to stay. You agreed, and I did.”

It felt like the truth.  What she described was possible, even probable. It was just that I couldn’t remember.  Would I have asked a random woman up to my flat?  Definitely not, not if I wanted to impress her. I would have asked her to go to a hotel room.

She had a towel around her and was using another to dry her hair.  My imagination went to a place it shouldn’t have, but I still wondered if she was naked under that towel.  I don’t think I was myself.

I’d realised the moment I woke, I was not dressed in my usual pyjamas.  I was trying not to think of the ramifications of that discovery.

“Did I suggest…”

“…we go to a hotel?  Yes.  You said your place was a dump, but I said you had to see my place before you described yours.  It’s far worse than this.  In fact, I find this place quaint, and best of all, your bathroom has hot water.”

OK, so that sounds like me. I was still stuck in the notion I could have gelled with a random woman in a bar, anywhere.  I couldn’t string two words together when it came to talking to Jenny at work, and she was as amazing as the one standing in the bathroom door.

This girl was among the type that wouldn’t give me a second look, let alone a first.  Drunk or sober.

“What day is it?”

“Wednesday.  Why?”

Now she was looking concerned.  Perhaps she had just realised she’d come home with an axe murderer.

And Wednesday?  The last day I remember was a Thursday, the day of the party.  Oh shit!  It was not a day I couldn’t remember. It was a whole week.

She switched from drying her hair to brushing it.  I don’t know why it piqued my interest.  Where did she get the brush from?

“How long have you been here?”

“Just last night.  I stayed because you asked me, very sweetly.  And then promptly threw up, mercifully not over anything.”

“Did we…”

“No.  I’m not that sort of girl.”

“Did I….?”

“Try to seduce me?  No.  You were the perfect gentleman, except for being drunk.”

I shook my head.  “Sorry.”

I tried not to look at her, but she was one of those girls you just notice, and if she walked into a room, even in a hessian sack, all eyes and attention would be on her.

Even with amnesia, there’s no way I would forget her.

“Don’t be.”

Finished brushing her hair, she put the brush down and came over to my side of the bed and sat down. She smiled, brushed a few straying hairs out of my eyes, and said, “You really don’t remember last night, do you?”

I didn’t.  Nor the week before that.  I was surprised the company didn’t call to find out where I was.  Or come looking for me. 

I shook my head.  “No.”

I heard the vibration of my cell phone on the table beside the bed.  She picked up the phone and handed it to me.

“It might be your work.  I’ll just finish up in the bathroom.”

I watched her walk back to the bathroom and close the door behind her.  If my imagination was playing me tricks, she would now disappear.

I brought up the messages.  Only two, one from last Thursday from Mr Graham, head partner, to say the company was sorry to see me go and wished me success in my next venture, and the one that just arrived, a horoscope that said, ‘while one door closes another will open, a friendly face just might not be friendly, so beware.”

Had I really quit my job?  There was absolutely no reason why I would, not after the head of the practice had said that if I put my head down, I could expect an invitation to become a partner in the new year.

Now I knew something was terribly wrong.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Day 195

Lousy stories sell

…

It was not quite the headline I was aiming for.

But…

It’s sometimes true to say that books that are not well written or on subjects that we like to think should not be published sometimes become best-sellers.

It’s like the old advertising adage, “sex sells.”

Lady Chatterley’s Lover, banned, but generated a huge following.

Fifty shades of grey, terribly written, but a huge seller along with the sequels.

The point is, no one really knows what the definition of a bestseller is because at any time, any book can suddenly go gangbusters in sales.

I’ve not had the pleasure.

I write books on the same subjects as my favourite authors, who are best-sellers and very famous names.  Thrillers, detective cases, even Mills & Boon romances.

What do these books have in common?  They take ordinary people out of their ordinary lives and put them into a world that can only exist in their imagination.

That’s the world I need to tap into if I am ever going to be a success in the field of spies and thrillers.  I even wrote a romance once, but I’m still waiting to hear back from the publisher.  No, it was not a Mills and Boon, so that might be the reason why I’m still waiting. 

Day 195

Lousy stories sell

…

It was not quite the headline I was aiming for.

But…

It’s sometimes true to say that books that are not well written or on subjects that we like to think should not be published sometimes become best-sellers.

It’s like the old advertising adage, “sex sells.”

Lady Chatterley’s Lover, banned, but generated a huge following.

Fifty shades of grey, terribly written, but a huge seller along with the sequels.

The point is, no one really knows what the definition of a bestseller is because at any time, any book can suddenly go gangbusters in sales.

I’ve not had the pleasure.

I write books on the same subjects as my favourite authors, who are best-sellers and very famous names.  Thrillers, detective cases, even Mills & Boon romances.

What do these books have in common?  They take ordinary people out of their ordinary lives and put them into a world that can only exist in their imagination.

That’s the world I need to tap into if I am ever going to be a success in the field of spies and thrillers.  I even wrote a romance once, but I’m still waiting to hear back from the publisher.  No, it was not a Mills and Boon, so that might be the reason why I’m still waiting. 

Days 192 and 194

Early childhood memories

…

From Mordialloc, we moved to Dandenong, a new house, 1 Bess Court.  It must have been around the time I started school, because the early memories of living there were going to Dandenong State School No. 1403.  Amazingly, the school number sticks in my mind all this time.

I remember thinking at the time that it was like a castle.  That might have been in 1958 or 1959 when I was 5 or 6 years old, and in pre-school. 

Where we lived was quite new, just up from the Dandenong Creek, and those fields from the bottom of our street were our playground.  We made friends and we all played together.

My father, at the time, worked at General Motors in the Dandenong factory, where they built cars.  For our holidays, he used to get a truck to deliver big wooden box sides, which we, in turn, with the other kids, built a large cubby house.  One caught the eye of the council building inspector, and we had to pull it down.  Why?  It was nearly three stories high!

That was some holiday project.

It also became what might be called a house of horrors.  We were always poor, my mother did not work, and we survived on what my father earned.  There were not enough bedrooms, and to make ends meet, we took in boarders. I know, for a while, I had to live outside in a tent until a bungalow was built onto the back of the house, when the outside toilet was moved inside.  I remember coming home from school one day and one of the male boarders was drunk after losing his job, and when my father came home, he sent him packing.  Another boarder we had, a lady named May, was with us for a while and once went on holiday with us.  For some reason, I always remember her being in a dressing gown.

My father, at one point, suffered a mental breakdown, but I had always believed it was a resurgence of malaria he caught when he was serving in New Guinea during the war.  There were also the memories of being sexually assaulted by my uncle for a period while living here.  It is a memory I have tried hard to forget.

There was also a period of domestic violence where my father would direct his anger at my older brother, and my mother tried to get between them and received some harsh treatment at his hands. And I remember hiding under my bed to get away from it.  We had no idea why he was like this, not then, but after his breakdown, things got better.

Oh, and every year, at Easter, we would paint the whole outside of the house.  As a six- or seven-year-old, I don’t think I was much of a help.

Other times we would go on holidays, packing the tent and ourselves into the car and taking off at short notice to places like Queenscliff, Adelaide, Lakes Entrance, and Wilson’s Promontory.

At some point, things must have got better.  I got to live in the bungalow, school proceeded to grade six, where I remember the teacher distinctly, Mr McPhee, a hard taskmaster, but he taught us well.

We got a bottle of milk every morning, I got lunches made by my mother that were inedible, and several classes and fellow students stuck in my mind, but curiously were forgotten for many years until now.  One, a boy named Andrew Stroud, who was English, I remember because he talked funny, and a girl, Elizabeth Llewellen, because she was nice to me.  I also remember skipping a grade, but I don’t know why.

But that didn’t last long. We moved, and it was a whole new, but not necessarily better world.

…

Those memories will always be hazy. I was told once that what I remembered would not be the same as anyone else in the same house, and it is true. My brother’s memories of the same period are completely different. Somehow that didn’t surprise me.

Days 192 and 194

Early childhood memories

…

From Mordialloc, we moved to Dandenong, a new house, 1 Bess Court.  It must have been around the time I started school, because the early memories of living there were going to Dandenong State School No. 1403.  Amazingly, the school number sticks in my mind all this time.

I remember thinking at the time that it was like a castle.  That might have been in 1958 or 1959 when I was 5 or 6 years old, and in pre-school. 

Where we lived was quite new, just up from the Dandenong Creek, and those fields from the bottom of our street were our playground.  We made friends and we all played together.

My father, at the time, worked at General Motors in the Dandenong factory, where they built cars.  For our holidays, he used to get a truck to deliver big wooden box sides, which we, in turn, with the other kids, built a large cubby house.  One caught the eye of the council building inspector, and we had to pull it down.  Why?  It was nearly three stories high!

That was some holiday project.

It also became what might be called a house of horrors.  We were always poor, my mother did not work, and we survived on what my father earned.  There were not enough bedrooms, and to make ends meet, we took in boarders. I know, for a while, I had to live outside in a tent until a bungalow was built onto the back of the house, when the outside toilet was moved inside.  I remember coming home from school one day and one of the male boarders was drunk after losing his job, and when my father came home, he sent him packing.  Another boarder we had, a lady named May, was with us for a while and once went on holiday with us.  For some reason, I always remember her being in a dressing gown.

My father, at one point, suffered a mental breakdown, but I had always believed it was a resurgence of malaria he caught when he was serving in New Guinea during the war.  There were also the memories of being sexually assaulted by my uncle for a period while living here.  It is a memory I have tried hard to forget.

There was also a period of domestic violence where my father would direct his anger at my older brother, and my mother tried to get between them and received some harsh treatment at his hands. And I remember hiding under my bed to get away from it.  We had no idea why he was like this, not then, but after his breakdown, things got better.

Oh, and every year, at Easter, we would paint the whole outside of the house.  As a six- or seven-year-old, I don’t think I was much of a help.

Other times we would go on holidays, packing the tent and ourselves into the car and taking off at short notice to places like Queenscliff, Adelaide, Lakes Entrance, and Wilson’s Promontory.

At some point, things must have got better.  I got to live in the bungalow, school proceeded to grade six, where I remember the teacher distinctly, Mr McPhee, a hard taskmaster, but he taught us well.

We got a bottle of milk every morning, I got lunches made by my mother that were inedible, and several classes and fellow students stuck in my mind, but curiously were forgotten for many years until now.  One, a boy named Andrew Stroud, who was English, I remember because he talked funny, and a girl, Elizabeth Llewellen, because she was nice to me.  I also remember skipping a grade, but I don’t know why.

But that didn’t last long. We moved, and it was a whole new, but not necessarily better world.

…

Those memories will always be hazy. I was told once that what I remembered would not be the same as anyone else in the same house, and it is true. My brother’s memories of the same period are completely different. Somehow that didn’t surprise me.

More about my story – The story within the story

…

Scattered throughout the main story are the threads that are picked up at the end and cover betrayal.

Betrayal is always a possibility, and sometimes an inevitability in being a spy.  This story is no exception, and the betrayal comes from within.

There are many types of betrayal, that someone knows your secret and tells the people whom you are spying on.

That someone is informed beforehand that you are coming to them and why, and your cover is blown before you get started, and/or

You are the victim of an internecine war between heads of intelligence services that are in competition with each other for results and, therefore, funding.

Or, perhaps, it’s just two old men, one jealous and the other trying to get work done while the jealous one goes about sabotaging his best efforts.

That wouldn’t be so bad except it’s not the bosses who pay the ultimate price.  It’s the agents on the ground.

The question then has to be why?

Politics?

It has a good deal of say in most matters because governments are run by political parties and politicians.  First rule: politicians generally have no idea how to run the departments they are responsible for.  Spies do not get to run intelligence agencies, by and large. 

Perhaps the spies might be the administrators, or private sector heads of departments, but they generally have to do as they are told.

Except what if they defy the minister?

And would the minister know, and if he did, would he tell anyone fo fear of losing that portfolio?

Tricky question.

And for our agent in the field?

He has absolutely no idea what’s going on behind closed doors, just that some of the chess pieces have been rearranged, and he only knows this when a group of bad agents come to kill him.

Well, sabotage the mission and nearly kill him.

Damn!