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Tag: Charles Heath
In a word: Loose
We’ve all heard of the expression, he’s playing it fast and loose, or more interestingly, he’s fast and loose with the truth.
I’ve never really got a proper definition of that expression, but it sounds good, and people have to use their imaginations and put their own interpretation to it.
And if this was the 1930s, and Clarke Gable was playing opposite Jean Harlow, it’s exactly how the posters would describe the blonde bombshell.
Loose, however, in a more literal sense means not tight, so a loose nut on a bolt might be the cause of a catastrophe.
And speaking of catastrophes, there’s a fox loose in the hen house. Sadly it would be very difficult to catch and tie up.
Of course, in hot weather, you’d rather be wearing something loose, to keep cool.
Women, in particular, can wear their hair loose, as distinct from ‘up’, or in a ponytail or braids.
Some people make a loose interpretation, which inevitably creates grey areas, and loose lips, well, they’ve been known to sink ships.
This word can sometimes be confused with lose, which means something else entirely.
Like, lose a watch, lose your head, in more ways than one, lose your life, as if it was one of nine when it isn’t, and lose everything, perhaps, in the 1930’s stock market crash.
Quite literally, it means to be deprived of, or cease to gain or have.
You can lose weight, have a clock that loses time, or you can lose your temper.
Sometimes I lose the plot.
“One Last Look”, nothing is what it seems
A single event can have enormous consequences.
A single event driven by fate, after Ben told his wife Charlotte he would be late home one night, he left early, and by chance discovers his wife having dinner in their favourite restaurant with another man.
A single event where it could be said Ben was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Who was this man? Why was she having dinner with him?
A simple truth to explain the single event was all Ben required. Instead, Charlotte told him a lie.
A single event that forces Ben to question everything he thought he knew about his wife, and the people who are around her.
After a near-death experience and forced retirement into a world he is unfamiliar with, Ben finds himself once again drawn back into that life of lies, violence, and intrigue.
From London to a small village in Tuscany, little by little Ben discovers who the woman he married is, and the real reason why fate had brought them together.
It is available on Amazon here: http://amzn.to/2CqUBcz
Figures of speech
I found this explanation on the internet: ‘a word or phrase used in a non-literal sense for rhetorical or vivid effect.’
We as writers should not use these in our writing because most people might not understand their use. I think it sometimes adds a degree of whimsy to the story.
I remember some years ago when I working with a Russian chap who’d not been in the country very long, and though he had a reasonable use of English, it was not quite up with our figures of speech.
And made me realize when he kept asking me what they meant, just how many I used in everyday use.
Most of these figures of speech use descriptions that do not necessarily match the word being described, such as ‘I dance like I have two left feet’.
And that pretty much sums up how good I can dance. But …
‘Like a bat out of hell’, not sure how this got into the vernacular
‘Like a bull in a china shop’, describes a toddler let loose, no, you had the securely in their pram but somehow they got loose while you weren’t looking
‘More front than Myers’, as my mother used to say, but in context, Myers is the Australian version of the English Selfridges or Harrods or Paris Galleries Lafayette. It refers to the width of street frontage of the stores, which in fact stretched for a whole block
‘As mad as a hatter’, though not necessarily of the millinery kind, but, well, you can guess, it’s from Alice in Wonderland
‘As nutty as a fruitcake’, provided your fruitcake has nuts in it
And, ‘I haven’t heard from him in donkey’s years’ which means you haven’t heard from someone for a long time, or perhaps as long as it takes donkey’s ears to fully grow.
Yes, someone made a minor adjustment and added a y to ears, because it used to be ‘donkey’s ears’, believe it or not.
You can see, if you get the references, they are somewhat apt, and, yes, they sometimes creep into my stories.
An excerpt from “Strangers We’ve Become” – Coming Soon
I wandered back to my villa.
It was in darkness. I was sure I had left several lights on, especially over the door so I could see to unlock it.
I looked up and saw the globe was broken.
Instant alert.
I went to the first hiding spot for the gun, and it wasn’t there. I went to the backup and it wasn’t there either. Someone had found my carefully hidden stash of weapons and removed them.
Who?
There were four hiding spots and all were empty. Someone had removed the weapons. That could only mean one possibility.
I had a visitor, not necessarily here for a social call.
But, of course, being the well-trained agent I’d once been and not one to be caught unawares, I crossed over to my neighbor and relieved him of a weapon that, if found, would require a lot of explaining.
Suitably armed, it was time to return the surprise.
There were three entrances to the villa, the front door, the back door, and a rather strange escape hatch. One of the more interesting attractions of the villa I’d rented was its heritage. It was built in the late 1700s, by a man who was, by all accounts, a thief. It had a hidden underground room which had been in the past a vault but was now a wine cellar, and it had an escape hatch by which the man could come and go undetected, particularly if there was a mob outside the door baying for his blood.
It now gave me the means to enter the villa without my visitors being alerted, unless, of course, they were near the vicinity of the doorway inside the villa, but that possibility was unlikely. It was not where anyone could anticipate or expect a doorway to be.
The secret entrance was at the rear of the villa behind a large copse, two camouflaged wooden doors built into the ground. I move aside some of the branches that covered them and lifted one side. After I’d discovered the doors and rusty hinges, I’d oiled and cleaned them, and cleared the passageway of cobwebs and fallen rocks. It had a mildew smell, but nothing would get rid of that. I’d left torches at either end so I could see.
I closed the door after me, and went quietly down the steps, enveloped in darkness till I switched on the torch. I traversed the short passage which turned ninety degrees about halfway to the door at the other end. I carried the key to this door on the keyring, found it and opened the door. It too had been oiled and swung open soundlessly.
I stepped in the darkness and closed the door.
I was on the lower level under the kitchen, now the wine cellar, the ‘door’ doubling as a set of shelves which had very little on them, less to fall and alert anyone in the villa.
Silence, an eerie silence.
I took the steps up to the kitchen, stopping when my head was level with the floor, checking to see if anyone was waiting. There wasn’t. It seemed to me to be an unlikely spot for an ambush.
I’d already considered the possibility of someone coming after me, especially because it had been Bespalov I’d killed, and I was sure he had friends, all equally as mad as he was. Equally, I’d also considered it nigh on impossible for anyone to find out it was me who killed him because the only people who knew that were Prendergast, Alisha, a few others in the Department, and Susan.
That raised the question of who told them where I was.
If I was the man I used to be, my first suspect would be Susan. The departure this morning, and now this was too coincidental. But I was not that man.
Or was I?
I reached the start of the passageway that led from the kitchen to the front door and peered into the semi-darkness. My eyes had got used to the dark, and it was no longer an inky void. Fragments of light leaked in around the door from outside and through the edge of the window curtains where they didn’t fit properly. A bone of contention upstairs in the morning, when first light shone and invariably woke me up hours before I wanted to.
Still nothing.
I took a moment to consider how I would approach the visitor’s job. I would get a plan of the villa in my head, all entrances, where a target could be led to or attacked where there would be no escape.
Coming in the front door. If I was not expecting anything, I’d just open the door and walk-in. One shot would be all that was required.
Contract complete.
I sidled quietly up the passage staying close to the wall, edging closer to the front door. There was an alcove where the shooter could be waiting. It was an ideal spot to wait.
Crunch.
I stepped on some nutshells.
Not my nutshells.
I felt it before I heard it. The bullet with my name on it.
And how the shooter missed, from point-blank range, and hit me in the arm, I had no idea. I fired off two shots before a second shot from the shooter went wide and hit the door with a loud thwack.
I saw a red dot wavering as it honed in on me and I fell to the floor, stretching out, looking up where the origin of the light was coming and pulled the trigger three times, evenly spaced, and a second later I heard the sound of a body falling down the stairs and stopping at the bottom, not very far from me.
Two assassins.
I’d not expected that.
The assassin by the door was dead, a lucky shot on my part. The second was still breathing.
I checked the body for any weapons and found a second gun and two knives. Armed to the teeth!
I pulled off the balaclava; a man, early thirties, definitely Italian. I was expecting a Russian.
I slapped his face, waking him up. Blood was leaking from several slashes on his face when his head had hit the stairs on the way down. The awkward angle of his arms and legs told me there were broken bones, probably a lot worse internally. He was not long for this earth.
“Who employed you?”
He looked at me with dead eyes, a pursed mouth, perhaps a smile. “Not today my friend. You have made a very bad enemy.” He coughed and blood poured out of his mouth. “There will be more …”
Friends of Bespalov, no doubt.
I would have to leave. Two unexplainable bodies, I’d have a hard time explaining my way out of this mess. I dragged the two bodies into the lounge, clearing the passageway just in case someone had heard anything.
Just in case anyone was outside at the time, I sat in the dark, at the foot of the stairs, and tried to breathe normally. I was trying not to connect dots that led back to Susan, but the coincidence was worrying me.
A half-hour passed and I hadn’t moved. Deep in thought, I’d forgotten about being shot, unaware that blood was running down my arm and dripping onto the floor.
Until I heard a knock on my front door.
Two thoughts, it was either the police, alerted by the neighbors, or it was the second wave, though why would they be knocking on the door?
I stood, and immediately felt a stabbing pain in my arm. I took out a handkerchief and turned it into a makeshift tourniquet, then wrapped a kitchen towel around the wound.
If it was the police, this was going to be a difficult situation. Holding the gun behind my back, I opened the door a fraction and looked out.
No police, just Maria. I hoped she was not part of the next ‘wave’.
“You left your phone behind on the table. I thought you might be looking for it.” She held it out in front of her.
When I didn’t open the door any further, she looked at me quizzically, and then asked, “Is anything wrong?”
I was going to thank her for returning the phone, but I heard her breathe in sharply, and add, breathlessly, “You’re bleeding.”
I looked at my arm and realized it was visible through the door, and not only that, the towel was soaked in blood.
“You need to go away now.”
Should I tell her the truth? It was probably too late, and if she was any sort of law-abiding citizen she would go straight to the police.
She showed no signs of leaving, just an unnerving curiosity. “What happened?”
I ran through several explanations, but none seemed plausible. I went with the truth. “My past caught up with me.”
“You need someone to fix that before you pass out from blood loss. It doesn’t look good.”
“I can fix it. You need to leave. It is not safe to be here with me.”
The pain in my arm was not getting any better, and the blood was starting to run down my arm again as the tourniquet loosened. She was right, I needed it fixed sooner rather than later.
I opened the door and let her in. It was a mistake, a huge mistake, and I would have to deal with the consequences. Once inside, she turned on the light and saw the pool of blood just inside the door and the trail leading to the lounge. She followed the trail and turned into the lounge, turned on the light, and no doubt saw the two dead men.
I expected her to scream. She didn’t.
She gave me a good hard look, perhaps trying to see if I was dangerous. Killing people wasn’t something you looked the other way about. She would have to go to the police.
“What happened here?”
“I came home from the cafe and two men were waiting for me. I used to work for the Government, but no longer. I suspect these men were here to repay a debt. I was lucky.”
“Not so much, looking at your arm.”
She came closer and inspected it.
“Sit down.”
She found another towel and wrapped it around the wound, retightening the tourniquet to stem the bleeding.
“Do you have medical supplies?”
I nodded. “Upstairs.” I had a medical kit, and on the road, I usually made my own running repairs. Another old habit I hadn’t quite shaken off yet.
She went upstairs, rummaged, and then came back. I wondered briefly what she would think of the unmade bed though I was not sure why it might interest her.
She helped me remove my shirt, and then cleaned the wound. Fortunately, she didn’t have to remove a bullet. It was a clean wound but it would require stitches.
When she’d finished she said, “Your friend said one day this might happen.”
No prizes for guessing who that friend was, and it didn’t please me that she had involved Maria.
“Alisha?”
“She didn’t tell me her name, but I think she cares a lot about you. She said trouble has a way of finding you, gave me a phone and said to call her if something like this happened.”
“That was wrong of her to do that.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. Will you call her?”
“Yes. I can’t stay here now. You should go now. Hopefully, by the time I leave in the morning, no one will ever know what happened here, especially you.”
She smiled. “As you say, I was never here.”
© Charles Heath 2018-2020
In a word: Light
Yes, I see the lighthouse, what’s it doing all the way out there? The thing is, these places are sometimes so remote, I start thinking I should rent one for 6 months and then, without any distractions, I’ll get the blasted book finished.
Until there’s a shipwreck, of course!
Light is of course light, duh. Turn on the switch and let there be light.
Hang on, didn’t someone else say that, millennia ago? Someone famous? It’s on the tip of my tongue.
No! It’s not cyanide…
So, whilst we need it to see everything, it has another meaning…
My, that’s a light load your carrying today, which means not very heavy.
Or, that’s a light-coloured jumper, which means pale.
Oh, and did you light the fire?
And, after you light the fire, do you light out to a safe haven in light traffic because really it was arson, and you got a light sentence the last time enabling you to do it again.
If you are trying to rob someone, then it was a kilo light.
And after a long hard struggle, did you light upon the correct answer?
This is not to be confused with another similar word, lite.
It seems this is only used for describing low-calorie drinks and food, such as lite beer, which seems to me to be a lazy way of not using light
Still, there’s not much other use of the word except as a suffix -lite, but then you’d have to mention -lyte as well.
The message here – just use the damn word light and be done with it.
The story behind the story: A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers
To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.
But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continue on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.
That, I think is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much idea of where it’s going as the reader does.
It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years. Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?
My private detective, Harry Walthenson
I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mold of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Phillip Marlow, but he’s not.
But, I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modeled Harry and his office on it. Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.
Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life. I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.
Then there’s the title, like
The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I image back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello
The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister. And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.
But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.
Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brother’s Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then went the way of the others.
Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and at the editor for the last.
I have high hopes of publishing it in May 2020. It even has a cover.
Words, sometimes more destructive than bullets, and one ‘sorry’ could save a lot of heartache and pain
They can destroy relationships
They can tear apart friendships
They can start wars
We are sometimes at a loss for words
Sometimes we can’t find the words
And then there those horrible things called crosswords.
There are antonyms and synonyms
Sometimes we use words we don’t know the meaning of because of their similarity with others we do
Then there one or more words that make other words as in anagrams
There are substitute words, words we use around children like fudge instead of, well you get what I mean
There’s no doubt we would be lost without words
Words are to be chosen carefully and thoughtfully
They need to be delivered in an appropriate manner, not in haste, and not in anger
We need to believe in what we’re saying before others will believe it
We need to learn how to express our feelings
We should take advantage of learning English (or any other native language) when at school
We need to start reading as soon as we can and keep up reading as we get older. One should never underestimate the power reading and writing gives us no matter who we are.
Always have a dictionary by your side. It is the most valuable book you can own.
And always remember the power of speech can at times move mountains
“Sunday in New York”, it’s a bumpy road to love
“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.
When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.
From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.
There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.
Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.
Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?
Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?
Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?
As they say in the classics, read on!
Purchase:
http://tinyurl.com/Amazon-SundayInNewYork
Writing about writing a book – Day 16
As we now know Bill realizes that he had been captured and interrogated by someone, ostensibly Chinese, but not exactly from the Viet Kong
I’ve been pondering how Bill ends up in the hands of the Chinese, well, I know how he does, and this needs to be put down.
Some pieces of the puzzle are coming together.
Davenport arrived at the airstrip where I was waiting in a makeshift building, with windows, easy chairs, a self-serve bar, and best of all air conditioning. Waiting for the chopper that was bringing in my replacement from Singapore airport.
He didn’t normally come to see us off so I thought it either odd or just a change of heart. He had brought the shiny Cadillac, an ostentatious piece of Americana that never failed to capture the local’s imagination.
Davenport was, I soon discovered, a man who liked to impress upon the world how great America was. I hadn’t the heart to tell him it failed on me.
He had crisp fatigues on and looked as though he had just stepped out of the shower, very clean, very cool, and very refreshed. The car’s air-conditioning would have helped. We all got that first ride from the strip to the camp in that car, and it was memorable, to say the least.
The driver stayed in the car, engine running, as he stepped into the lounge. “Chandler.”
“Sir.” No snapping to attention, neither of us was in uniform.
“There’s been a change of plans.”
“Sir.” This didn’t sound very good.
“Your replacement is not coming. Some trouble on the plane over. Can’t spare a man so you will have to fill in. I’m sorry.”
I went to say that I’d done my rotation, but the look on his face told me it would fall on deaf ears, so instead, I shrugged, let the driver, who had appeared out of the car as if on cue, collect my case, and followed Davenport out to the car.
It was definitely cooler in the car. Davenport slid in the other side, the driver closing his door, then got in himself. I had to close my own. We headed back towards the camp slowly.
“We need 6 men for this op, Bill. I’ll find some way of making this up to you.”
I shrugged. “If you say so.”
I’d been looking forward to getting out of the jungle and getting back to civilization, as well as Ellen, who had been waiting patiently for the last six months. She would not be very happy when I finally got to tell her.
“Oh, but the way, I took the liberty of calling your wife and apologizing on your behalf and said you’d probably be another week at the most. She didn’t seem to mind. She sounds like a nice lady.”
“She is. She has to put up with me.”
“Yes. We all have that problem.”
I listened to the hum of the air conditioning, the only other sound inside the car. Usually, Davenport had a symphony playing over the radio, but not today. He seemed different, more aloof, but, then, after the altercation, I had with him recently, we hadn’t spoken much after that. Not unless we had to.
“The job isn’t difficult,” he said when we were nearing the compound. “Another prison camp, and this time the intel is solid. Buggers were careless and we’ve got some pictures. The only problem is getting there. It’s going to be a bit of a hike.”
Another of his understatements. I could remember the last ‘bit of a hike’. “When do we leave?”
“First light tomorrow. Chopper to the drop zone then a day’s march to the camp. RV at the drop zone from day 4 till you get there.”
“Who’s in charge?” I’d run the last operation so I was hoping it would carry forward.
“If you’d been staying instead of being a last-minute replacement, it would have been you. Instead, we had to bring in a couple of specialists who have been on the ground here quite some time. They know the terrain and the people.”
New guys. I hated new guys. Especially those who purport to have experience on the ground. Invariably they didn’t and I’d had words with Davenport more than once about it, especially when we had such a high attrition rate. I believed it was only a miracle that I had lasted this long, and I was now tempting providence this time around.
“I hope they are better than the last two.”
“They are. I picked them myself. At least you will be there to keep them on the straight and narrow.
Which was exactly what I didn’t want.
Damn.
Back at the compound, I dragged myself back to my old quarters, hoping they hadn’t given away my billet just yet. It was a hut if you could call it that, which had seen better days, but it kept the rain out.
I shared it with another soldier, or ex, I didn’t really know, and he was not the sort of man you asked, and even less talkative than most. I knew his name was Barry McDougall, that he was Scottish, he didn’t wear a kilt and had killed men with his bare hands, one in a barroom fight.
Allegedly.
I was not surprised. He was six feet six inches tall, all muscle, and always surly, and unlike many of the English that had come and gone, didn’t complain about the heat.
I dumped my bag on the locker at the end of the bed and sat in one of the two well worn easy chairs. Barry was in the other, reading.
He lowered the paper and looked at me. “Back, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Miss the chopper?”
“No.”
“Beer’s cold.”
“Thanks.”
I got up and went to the fridge. One of the perks of the job. An endless supply of cold beer.
“Get me one too.”
I did and passed it to him, the sat down again. He took the beer and went back to his paper.
“Seen the new guys,” I asked.
A voice from behind the paper, “Yes.”
“Any good?”
“No.”
“Another fun run in the jungle then?”
“Looks like it.”
We drank in silence. What more could be said?
There is more but I have to let the words jumble around in my head while I sleep. More on this tomorrow!
© Charles Heath 2018-2020
