Tag: creativity

Inspiration, Maybe – Volume Two

50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.

They all start with –

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like.  For instance:

And, the story:

Have you ever watched your hopes and dreams simply just fly away?

Everything I thought I wanted and needed had just left in an aeroplane, and although I said I was not going to, i came to the airport to see the plane leave.  Not the person on it, that would have been far too difficult and emotional, but perhaps it was symbolic, the end of one life and the start of another.

But no matter what I thought or felt, we had both come to the right decision.  She needed the opportunity to spread her wings.  It was probably not the best idea for her to apply for the job without telling me, but I understood her reasons.

She was in a rut.  Though her job was a very good one, it was not as demanding as she had expected, particularly after the last promotion, but with it came resentment from others on her level, that she, the youngest of the group would get the position.

It was something that had been weighing down of her for the last three months, and if noticed it, the late nights, the moodiness, sometimes a flash of temper.  I knew she had one, no one could have such red hair and not, but she had always kept it in check.

And, then there was us, together, and after seven years, it felt like we were going nowhere.  Perhaps that was down to my lack of ambition, and though she never said it, lack of sophistication.  It hadn’t been an issue, well, not until her last promotion, and the fact she had to entertain more, and frankly I felt like an embarrassment to her.

So, there it was, three days ago, the beginning of the weekend, and we had planned to go away for a few days and take stock.  We both acknowledged we needed to talk, but it never seemed the right time.

It was then she said she had quit her job and found a new one.  Starting the following Monday.

Ok, that took me by surprise, not so much that it something I sort of guessed might happen, but that she would just blurt it out.

I think that right then, at that moment, I could feel her frustration with everything around her.

What surprised her was my reaction.  None.

I simply asked where who, and when.

A world-class newspaper, in New York, and she had to be there in a week.

A week.

It was all the time I had left with her.

I remember I just shrugged and asked if the planned weekend away was off.

She stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, hands around a cup of coffee she had just poured, and that one thing I remembered was the lone tear that ran down her cheek.

Is that all you want to know?

I did, yes, but we had lost that intimacy we used to have when she would have told me what was happening, and we would have brainstormed solutions. I might be a cabinet maker but I still had a brain, was what I overheard her tell a friend once.

There’s not much to ask, I said.  You’ve been desperately unhappy and haven’t been able to hide it all that well, you have been under a lot of pressure trying to deal with a group of troglodytes, and you’ve been leaning on Bentley’s shoulder instead of mine, and I get it, he’s got more experience in that place,  and the politics that go with it, and is still an ally.

Her immediate superior and instrumental in her getting the position, but unlike some men in his position he had not taken advantage of a situation like some men would.  And even if she had made a move, which I doubted, that was not the sort of woman she was, he would have politely declined.

One of the very few happily married men in that organisation, so I heard.

So, she said, you’re not just a pretty face.

Par for the course for a cabinet maker whose university degree is in psychology.  It doesn’t take rocket science to see what was happening to you.  I just didn’t think it was my place to jump in unless you asked me, and when you didn’t, well, that told me everything I needed to know.

Yes, our relationship had a use by date, and it was in the next few days.

I was thinking, she said, that you might come with me,  you can make cabinets anywhere.

I could, but I think the real problem wasn’t just the job.  It was everything around her and going with her, that would just be a constant reminder of what had been holding her back. I didn’t want that for her and said so.

Then the only question left was, what do we do now?

Go shopping for suitcases.  Bags to pack, and places to go.

Getting on the roller coaster is easy.  On the beginning, it’s a slow easy ride, followed by the slow climb to the top.  It’s much like some relationships, they start out easy, they require a little work to get to the next level, follows by the adrenaline rush when it all comes together.

What most people forget is that what comes down must go back up, and life is pretty much a roller coaster with highs and lows.

Our roller coaster had just come or of the final turn and we were braking so that it stops at the station.

There was no question of going with her to New York.  Yes, I promised I’d come over and visit her, but that was a promise with crossed fingers behind my back.  After a few months in t the new job the last thing shed want was a reminder of what she left behind.  New friends new life.

We packed her bags, three out everything she didn’t want, a free trips to the op shop with stiff she knew others would like to have, and basically, by the time she was ready to go, there was nothing left of her in the apartment, or anywhere.

Her friends would be seeing her off at the airport, and that’s when I told her I was not coming, that moment the taxi arrived to take her away forever.  I remember standing there, watching the taxi go.  It was going to be, and was, as hard as it was to watch the plane leave.

So, there I was, finally staring at the blank sky, around me a dozen other plane spotters, a rather motley crew of plane enthusiasts.

Already that morning there’s been 6 different types of plane depart, and I could hear another winding up its engines for take-off.

People coming, people going.

Maybe I would go to New York in a couple of months, not to see her, but just see what the attraction was.  Or maybe I would drop in, just to see how she was.

As one of my friends told me when I gave him the news, the future is never written in stone, and it’s about time you broadened your horizons.

Perhaps it was.

© Charles Heath 2020-2021

Coming soon.  Find the above story and 49 others like it in:

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 33

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

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

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

Chasing leads, maybe

 

Monica, from the last interrogation, had brought a file.  It looked the same as the last one she brought with her, the one with my name on it.

This time it was thicker.

Intelligence gathering at its finest.  There’d be stuff in there that even I didn’t know about me.

She didn’t open it, just looked at me.

“What have you been doing?”

“Working?”

“For whom?”

“Nobbin, of course.  I am now assigned to his section.  Did you do that?”

“He did.  He tells me you’re working on the O’Connell investigation.”

“Is that what it’s called.  He never told me that.  And I had to find out where I’d been assigned by logging onto a computer.  An email or letter would have made my life a little easier.”

“You’re just lucky you’re still working here.  Now, tell me more about this Severin character.”

“I told you everything I knew the last time you spoke to me.  Apparently, you seemed to know who it was.  Perhaps you might tell me, too.”

“It’s…”

“And,” I interrupted, “don’t tell me it’s above my pay grade.  I was potentially working for traitors and could have finished up in jail for treason.”

“You might still get there.”

Then why hadn’t she had me arrested and thrown in a dungeon the last time we met?  There was an easy answer to that question.  She needed me out in the field.  Nobbin needed me in the field.  They presumably needed me to remain available to Severin for whatever reason.

“What do you want?”

She opened the file, turned a few pages, and stopped at a yellow sheet of paper.  I wasn’t able to read it upside down, but it had very small spidery writing on it.

Then she looked at me again.

“Some secret documents appear to have gone missing.  We believe that is to say Director Dobbin thinks these may have been on a USB drive that was in the possession of O’Connell at the time of his death.  You were there at the time of his death.  You can see where this is going…”

No matter which answers I gave it was the wrong one, which led to do not pass go and do not collect two hundred dollars, or pounds as the case may be.

“I haven’t got it, and he didn’t tell me where it was, and I saw him die.”

“If you say so.”  She went back to the file and turned some more pagers.

“What do you mean?”

She looked up.  “So far, there’s no body been recovered, or any evidence there was a shooting where you said it was.”

“Are you trying to tell me he’s alive, because if you are, then I must be a very poor judge of people who have no pulse.  He was not about to get up and walk away.”

“Did you see the body removed?”

Now there’s an interesting point.  I had done as I was told and left when told to.  I assumed Severin would sort the problem out, in fact, hadn’t he called in the cleaners?  I saw a white van.

Actually, when I thought about it, I had no idea what happened after I left.  And, now that I remember, I didn’t see anyone get out of the white van.

Could bodies get up and walk?

I was beginning to think they could.

© Charles Heath 2020

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 39

This is what we saw driving along the Coquihalla Highway in Canada, a rather infamous stretch of road featured on the Discovery Channel, and yes, we saw a number of cars and trucks off the side of the road, and not in a good way

The road was iced over in place, and driving was difficult, but on the plus side the scenery was spectacular, and it was hard not to be distracted when driving.

But, inspiration for a story? It might go something like this:

…

Arty was adamant that he knew the best where man in the business.

That might gave been true if he was in the middle of the city where there were endless tests and turns that could be used to lost chasing police vehicles.

But that didn’t apply to the open road, and one that was think with ice and snow, even if it had recently been cleared.

But that wasn’t as bad as the fact that we had got free of the city, lost the pursuing cars, changed vehicles, and got away free.

All he had to fo was follow the road.

Except Arty had a temper, and getting stuck behind an old van going ever so slowly on the road, caused him to first blast them with horn, then start doing dangerous accelations up behind them, and then attempt to overtake on a bend in the road.

That might not have been so bad if there had not been an oncoming car, but there was.

Even that might not have been so bad if the car had not been a police vehicle.

But the real kicker: Arty lost control of the car and we went sailing off the edge of the road into a ravine, landing on soft ice which after a minute started cracking and then gave way.

The last place I wanted to be was to be sinking into a freezing cold river, but there we were, all frantically trying to get out.

Fortunately, I did, but not before I was soaking wet, and almost frozen. The rest didn’t make it.

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 38

This is one of those images that could be anywhere.

So, here’s the problem:

Ethan was reluctant to agree to go to the stag night, knowing firstly, that the others going were a bit too unruly when they had too many drinks, secondly, that they had to agree to not know where they were being taken by the bus, and thirdly, anything they saw or did had to remain completely confidential.

That was particularly the case when it came to the ‘stag’.

In that case, Ethan knew exactly what this night was going to be, hours of unrelenting debauchery.

And, since Ethan was the stag’s brother, and he was the best man, there was no way he could wriggle his way out of this one.

On top of that, Ethan had to promise the bride to be that he would not let her husband to be go too far. That statement, of course, was like a box full of hand grenades. He didn’t ask for a definition of too far.

So, seven sober, respectable, hard-working junior executives in suits that were worth more than Ethan’s annual salary boarded the bus.

What happened from that moment the bus drove off, until Ethan’s brother’s body was found floating face down in the river behind the resort, handcuffed to a naked girl in a rubber dinghy, barely alive from an overdose, was anyone’s guess, and Ethan’s worst nightmare.

Especially when he was the last one to see his brother, and the girl, alive.

And, no, this is not based on a real-life experience, though in recurring nightmares I’m the one floating fase down in the river.

Writing about writing a book – Day 15

Our main character Bill probably needs to give an account of the situation he found himself in.  I have, for a while, considered that he is just another soldier who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, but now, I want to add a dimension.

He finishes up where he is, in the end, because he chose to be there, and it was something of a rocky ride to get there.

That I’m still planning in my head.

In the meantime, this is the initial piece I wrote for his situation description:

I used to joke about telling people my middle name was ‘danger’.  It seemed I was not the only one, and for a time, worked with a group of soldiers and ex-soldiers in a capacity similar to that of being a mercenary.

Each one of us had a specialty.  Mine was being the sniper.  Johnny had knife skills and not the sort that was used in a kitchen.  Freddie, explosives, Bill, well, you just left Bill alone because he had a grudge against the world and everyone in it.

The Colonel used to say we were all handpicked, but that wasn’t necessarily the case.  I knew for a fact some of the team came straight out of the stockade before their time was up.

Because some of us were expendable.

The thing was; none of us cared.  For those who were ‘rescued’, it was better out in the jungle, dodging bullets, than being inside, your fate left in the hands of the Gods. 

I knew how it was.  I’d been there once or twice myself.

This morning had started the same as many others.  Rise and shine, a breakfast of sorts, into the chopper, and after an hour or so, dropping into a grassy patch, with nothing but jungle in every direction.  Our mission was to find and liberate a number of our people who had gone missing, read captured, on the border between Cambodia and Vietnam.  It was a familiar country because I had, over the last year or so, gone hunting missing POW’s in the area.  Old prisons had been converted into drug laboratories, and we’d broken up a few of those too.

The noise of the chopper put paid to any sort of stealthy approach and, by the time it dropped us off, if there was anyone nearby, our advantage, if we ever had one, was gone.  The trouble was, to cover the same distance by foot would take a week, and, by the time we arrived, if we arrived, more than half the team would be dead.  We may have been good, but we were not that good.  It was not our home turf.

It was hot, sticky, and nothing like home.  There wasn’t a day that passed when I thought to myself it was getting harder and harder to remember when I wasn’t constantly hot and sweaty, nor as frightened.  It happened that way, towards the end of a tour.

Once on the ground, every man was on full alert.  We changed the lead and tail end constantly, to make sure we didn’t lose anyone.  And it was hard going, the constant heat, sweat, punctuated with slight relief when it rained.

Then as quickly as it came, it went, leaving you wet then sticky.

And if that wasn’t enough to contend with, there was the enemy.   You couldn’t see them, nor hear them yet you had the feeling he was watching you the whole time, and it made your skin crawl.

Sometimes the enemy attacked when we had to camp, invisibly swooping, shooting from the trees, and firing a mortar or two, then disappearing back into the luminous greenery without a trace.  These were the remnants of the Viet Cong, Cambodian armed forces, disaffected Laotians, or the Chinese, or so we believed, but they were well-trained mercenaries and just the sort of people the drug cartels would use.

And surviving the operation, any operation, was like playing Russian roulette.  Was it your turn this time, or someone else’s?  You could be walking along, straining your eyes and ears, and next minute, find the man who was covering your back, dead.  Booby traps were silent and swift.  Landmines are loud and very messy.  Both hangovers from the war, and never cleaned up.  People you’d meet, you never knew whose side they were on, so it was best to avoid all contact.

© Charles Heath 2015-2021

Writing about writing a book – Day 14 Continues

Whilst Davenport’s backstory is now coming together, I’m back with the main character, and working on a bit of his backstory too, mainly what he is about to remember of his past, locked away for many years, most likely caused by the trauma he suffered at the hands of the enemy, though the definition of ‘enemy’ here will have a number of different meanings.

These first dreams are disjointed but point to one certainty, Bill was, for a time, a prisoner, whether it was as a prisoner of war, or something else, he is yet to discover.

Another certainty he will learn in time is that he holds a secret, a secret several people would like to find out about, and who will go to extreme lengths to get it from him.

This memory fragment confirms he was a prisoner, despite the assurances to the contrary:

 

I woke suddenly, tense, eyes open, and alert.  I could feel the fear coursing through my veins, every nerve end tingling.

I had only one thought in mind.

Escape.

Now.

Before it started again.

I moved my hand and found it strapped down as was my other hand and my legs.  I was barely able to move.

A sudden jolt of pain went through me, starting at my shoulder where the knife had been dug in and twisted, the memory of which was very clear in my mind.  It increased as I struggled against the restraints, the fear of it happening again stirring me to try harder.

I’d been here before and the result was bad.

Very bad.

I struggled harder.

I looked around and saw no one or anything else.  The room seemed different from the one I last remembered, more closed in, claustrophobic.  The light came on, bright neon lights, blinding me.  The flash I got before I closed my eyes, it was a hospital room.  I was captive, and it was after the torture session, where the doctors put me back together just enough to last the next session.

Torture, recovery, torture, recovery, over and over, night, day, light, dark, warm, cold.  I had no idea where I was, what day, week, month, or year it was, when I’d last eaten, or eaten at all.

And I didn’t know why.

Why they didn’t kill me and get it over with.  I didn’t know anything.

The door opened and I opened my eyes, now a little more adjusted to the bright light.  He came over and looked down at me.

Chinese.

The enemy.

One of the insidious men keeping me alive.

I kept my eyes on him as he looked at the folder beside the bed, and checked my vital signs.

“How are we this morning?”

English, with only a trace of a Chinese accent.  They all spoke nearly perfect English, confusing me, making me think I was safe.  That I would talk to them.  Confide in them.

I didn’t feel safe and I had nothing to say.

“You had a very bad night.”

Tell me something I didn’t know.  I struggled against the restraints.

“They’re for your own protection.  You tried to get out of bed and reopened your wound.  I’m sorry, but we have had to restrain you.”

“Let me go,” I hissed, “or kill me.”

“I assure you no one wants to kill you.”

I didn’t believe him.  He was trying to trick me.  Trying to allay my fears.  I knew all of their tricks now.

I had to escape.  I had to get away or die trying.  I could not take another session.  Not in that dark, dank, evil room.

I tried harder to escape, felt the restraining hands of his friends, holding me down as he administered another injection, silence, and darkness closing in once again.

 

Still not sure where this is going, but it’s defining the past of our main character, and will become a lot clearer as the story progresses.

I am intending for these dreams, if extracted and put in order, will be the basis of the missing past the main character has not been able to remember, and given how horrific some of them are, it’s no surprise they’ve been buried very deep in his subconscious.

 

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

In a word: Fourth

When you realize you are the fourth child, you are really hoping that the split is two boys and two girls.  Woe betide you if you are a boy and you have three sisters.  It could also be as interesting, notice I didn’t say intolerable) if you are a girl with three brothers.

Hang on, I know someone who was in that exact same situation.  Fortunately, being a girl and the youngest, she could do no wrong in the eyes of her father.

But I digress (as usual)

The meaning of fourth is self-evident, just count to four and it’s the fourth number, perhaps better explained by the fact it is one after the third in a series

Then we use it with other words like,

Fourth-gear, usually reserved for the highway where one expects to geta clear run.  Of course, with more and more cars on the road, sometimes it’s difficult to get out of second.

The fourth estate, no, not what a rich person owns, along with a lot more one guesses, but another name for the press.

One fourth, your share of an estate, if of course, you have three other siblings.  And, in murder mysteries, usually those fourths seem to die mysteriously, and your fourth becomes a third, a half, and then you go to jail.

in fourth place, where it seems all the horse I back run

And,

This is not to be confused with the word forth, which sounds the same but means something entirely different, like

I’m sure we’ve all been told to go forth and be something or other, which means to go forward or come out of hiding

It is also a Scottish river, one notably called the Firth of Forth, and if it sounds odd, so do a lot things in Scotland

You could also place back and forth, much the same as you would in a hospital waiting for the birth of your first child.

An excerpt from “Sunday in New York”

Now available on Amazon at:  https://amzn.to/2H7ALs8

 

Williams’ Restaurant, East 65th Street, New York, Saturday, 8:00 p.m.

 

We met the Blaine’s at Williams’, a rather upmarket restaurant that the Blaine’s frequently visited, and had recommended.

Of course, during the taxi ride there, Alison reminded me that with my new job, we would be able to go to many more places like Williams’.  It was, at worst, more emotional blackmail, because as far as Alison was concerned, we were well on our way to posh restaurants, the Trump Tower Apartments, and the trappings of the ‘executive set’.

It would be a miracle if I didn’t strangle Elaine before the night was over.  It was she who had filled Alison’s head with all this stuff and nonsense.

Aside from the half frown half-smile, Alison was looking stunning.  It was months since she had last dressed up, and she was especially wearing the dress I’d bought her for our 5th anniversary that cost a month’s salary.  On her, it was worth it, and I would have paid more if I had to.  She had adored it, and me, for a week or so after.

For tonight, I think I was close to getting back on that pedestal.

She had the looks and figure to draw attention, the sort movie stars got on the red carpet, and when we walked into the restaurant, I swear there were at least five seconds silence, and many more gasps.

Even I had a sudden loss of breath earlier in the evening when she came out of the dressing room.  Once more I was reminded of how lucky I was that she had agreed to marry me.  Amid all those self-doubts, I couldn’t believe she had loved me when there were so many others ‘out there’ who were more appealing.

Elaine was out of her seat and came over just as the Head Waiter hovered into sight.  She personally escorted Alison to the table, allowing me to follow like the Queen’s consort, while she and Alison basked in the admiring glances of the other patrons.

More than once I heard the muted question, “Who is she?”

Jimmy stood, we shook hands, and then we sat together.  It was not the usual boy, girl, boy, girl seating arrangement.  Jimmy and I on one side and Elaine and Alison on the other.

The battle lines were drawn.

Jimmy was looking fashionable, with the permanent blade one beard, unkempt hair, and designer dinner suit that looked like he’d slept in it.  Alison insisted I wear a tuxedo, and I looked like the proverbial penguin or just a thinner version of Alfred Hitchcock.

The bow tie had been slightly crooked, but just before we stepped out she had straightened it.  And took the moment to look deeply into my soul.  It was one of those moments when words were not necessary.

Then it was gone.

I relived it briefly as I sat and she looked at me.  A penetrating look that told me to ‘behave’.

When we were settled, Elaine said, in that breathless, enthusiastic manner of hers when she was excited, “So, Harry, you are finally moving up.”  It was not a question, but a statement.

I was not sure what she meant by ‘finally’ but I accepted it with good grace.  Sometimes Elaine was prone to using figures of speech I didn’t understand.  I guessed she was talking about the new job.  “It was supposed to be a secret.”

She smiled widely.  “There are no secrets between Al and I, are there Al?”

I looked at ‘Al’ and saw a brief look of consternation.

I was not sure Alison liked the idea of being called Al.  I tried it once and was admonished.  But it was interesting her ‘best friend forever’ was allowed that distinction when I was not.  It was, perhaps, another indicator of how far I’d slipped in her estimation.

Perhaps, I thought, it was a necessary evil.  As I understood it, the Blaine’s were our mentors at the Trump Tower, because they didn’t just let ‘anyone’ in.  I didn’t ask if the Blaine’s thought we were just ‘anyone’ before I got the job offer.

And then there was that look between Alison and Elaine, quickly stolen before Alison realized I was looking at both of them.  I was out of my depth, in a place I didn’t belong, with people I didn’t understand.  And yet, apparently, Alison did.  I must have missed the memo.

“No,” Alison said softly, stealing a glance in my direction, “No secrets between friends.”

No secrets.  Her look conveyed something else entirely.

The waiter brought champagne, Krug, and poured glasses for each of us.  It was not the cheap stuff, and I was glad I brought a couple of thousand dollars with me.  We were going to need it.

Then, a toast.

To a new job and a new life.

“When did you decide?”  Elaine was effusive at the best of times, but with the champagne, it was worse.

Alison had a strange expression on her face.  It was obvious she had told Elaine it was a done deal, even before I’d made up my mind.  Perhaps she’d assumed I might be ‘refreshingly honest’ in front of Elaine, but it could also mean she didn’t really care what I might say or do.

Instead of consternation, she looked happy, and I realized it would be churlish, even silly if I made a scene.  I knew what I wanted to say.  I also knew that it would serve little purpose provoking Elaine, or upsetting Alison.  This was not the time or the place.  Alison had been looking forward to coming here, and I was not going to spoil it.

Instead, I said, smiling, “When I woke up this morning and found Alison missing.  If she had been there, I would not have noticed the water stain on the roof above our bed, and decide there and then how much I hated the place.” I used my reassuring smile, the one I used with the customers when all hell was breaking loose, and the forest fire was out of control.  “It’s the little things.  They all add up until one day …”  I shrugged.  “I guess that one day was today.”

I saw an incredulous look pass between Elaine and Alison, a non-verbal question; perhaps, is he for real?  Or; I told you he’d come around.

I had no idea the two were so close.

“How quaint,” Elaine said, which just about summed up her feelings towards me.  I think, at that moment, I lost some brownie points.  It was all I could come up with at short notice.

“Yes,” I added, with a little more emphasis than I wanted.  “Alison was off to get some study in with one of her friends.”

“Weren’t the two of you off to the Hamptons, a weekend with some friends?” Jimmy piped up, and immediately got the ‘shut up you fool’ look, that cut that line of conversation dead.  Someone forgot to feed Jimmy his lines.

It was followed by the condescending smile from Elaine, and “I need to powder my nose.  Care to join me, Al?”

A frown, then a forced smile for her new best friend.  “Yes.”

I watched them leave the table and head in the direction of the restroom, looking like they were in earnest conversation.  I thought ‘Al’ looked annoyed, but I could be wrong.

I had to say Jimmy looked more surprised than I did.

There was that odd moment of silence between us, Jimmy still smarting from his death stare, and for me, the Alison and Elaine show.  I was quite literally gob-smacked.

I drained my champagne glass gathering some courage and turned to him.  “By the way, we were going to have a weekend away, but this legal tutorial thing came up.  You know Alison is doing her law degree.”

He looked startled when he realized I had spoken.  He was looking intently at a woman several tables over from us, one who’d obviously forgotten some basic garments when getting dressed.  Or perhaps it was deliberate.  She’d definitely had some enhancements done.

He dragged his eyes back to me.  “Yes.  Elaine said something or other about it.  But I thought she said the tutor was out of town and it had been postponed until next week.  Perhaps I got it wrong.  I usually do.”

“Perhaps I’ve got it wrong.”  I shrugged, as the dark thoughts started swirling in my head again.  “This week or next, what does it matter?”

Of course, it mattered to me, and I digested what he said with a sinking heart.  It showed there was another problem between Alison and me; it was possible she was now telling me lies.  If what he said was true and I had no reason to doubt him, where was she going tomorrow morning, and had she really been with a friend studying today?

We poured some more champagne, had a drink, then he asked, “This promotion thing, what’s it worth?”

“Trouble, I suspect.  Definitely more money, but less time at home.”

“Oh,” raised eyebrows.  Obviously, the women had not talked about the job in front of him, or, at least, not all the details.  “You sure you want to do that?”

At last the voice of reason.  “Me?  No.”

“Yet you accepted the job.”

I sucked in a breath or two while I considered whether I could trust him.  Even if I couldn’t, I could see my ship was sinking, so it wouldn’t matter what I told him, or what Elaine might find out from him.  “Jimmy, between you and me I haven’t as yet decided one way or another.  To be honest, I won’t know until I go up to Barclay’s office and he asks me the question.”

“Barclay?”

“My boss.”

“Elaine’s doing a job for a Barclay that recently moved in the tower a block down from us.  I thought I recognized the name.”

“How did Elaine get the job?”

“Oh, Alison put him onto her.”

“When?”

“A couple of months ago.  Why?”

I shrugged and tried to keep a straight face, while my insides were churning up like the wake of a supertanker.  I felt sick, faint, and wanting to die all at the same moment.  “Perhaps she said something about it, but it didn’t connect at the time.  Too busy with work I expect.  I think I seriously need to get away for a while.”

I could hardly breathe, my throat was constricted and I knew I had to keep it together.  I could see Elaine and Alison coming back, so I had to calm down.  I sucked in some deep breaths, and put my ‘manage a complete and utter disaster’ look on my face.

And I had to change the subject, quickly, so I said, “Jimmy, Elaine told Alison, who told me, you were something of a guru of the cause and effects of the global economic meltdown.  Now, I have a couple of friends who have been expounding this theory …”

Like flicking a switch, I launched into the well-worn practice of ‘running a distraction’, like at work when we needed to keep the customer from discovering the truth.  It was one of the things I was good at, taking over a conversation and pushing it in a different direction.  It was salvaging a good result from an utter disaster, and if ever there was a time that it was required, it was right here, right now.

When Alison sat down and looked at me, she knew something had happened between Jimmy and I.  I might have looked pale or red-faced, or angry or disappointed, it didn’t matter.  If that didn’t seal the deal for her, the fact I took over the dining engagement did.  She knew well enough the only time I did that was when everything was about to go to hell in a handbasket.  She’d seen me in action before and had been suitably astonished.

But I got into gear, kept the champagne flowing and steered the conversation, as much as one could from a seasoned professional like Elaine, and, I think, in Jimmy’s eyes, he saw the battle lines and knew who took the crown on points.  Neither Elaine nor Jimmy suspected anything, and if the truth be told, I had improved my stocks with Elaine.  She was at times both surprised and interested, even willing to take a back seat.

Alison, on the other hand, tried poking around the edges, and, once when Elaine and Jimmy had got up to have a cigarette outside, questioned me directly.  I chose to ignore her, and pretend nothing had happened, instead of telling her how much I was enjoying the evening.

She had her ‘secrets’.  I had mine.

At the end of the evening, when I got up to go to the bathroom, I was physically sick from the pent up tension and the implications of what Jimmy had told me.  It took a while for me to pull myself together; so long, in fact, Jimmy came looking for me.  I told him I’d drunk too much champagne, and he seemed satisfied with that excuse.  When I returned, both Alison and Elaine noticed how pale I was but neither made any comment.

It was a sad way to end what was supposed to be a delightful evening, which to a large degree it was for the other three.  But I had achieved what I set out to do, and that was to play them at their own game, watching the deception, once I knew there was a deception, as warily as a cat watches its prey.

I had also discovered Jimmy’s real calling; a professor of economics at the same University Alison was doing her law degree.  It was no surprise in the end, on a night where surprises abounded, that the world could really be that small.

We parted in the early hours of the morning, a taxi whisking us back to the Lower East Side, another taking the Blaine’s back to the Upper West Side.  But, in our case, as Alison reminded me, it would not be for much longer.  She showed concern for my health, asked me what was wrong.  It took all the courage I could muster to tell her it was most likely something I ate and the champagne, and that I would be fine in the morning.

She could see quite plainly it was anything other than what I told her, but she didn’t pursue it.  Perhaps she just didn’t care what I was playing at.

And yet, after everything that had happened, once inside our ‘palace’, the events of the evening were discarded, like her clothing, and she again reminded me of what we had together in the early years before the problems had set in.

It left me confused and lost.

I couldn’t sleep because my mind had now gone down that irreversible path that told me I was losing her, that she had found someone else, and that our marriage was in its last death throes.

And now I knew it had something to do with Barclay.

 

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

Sunday In New York

 

Writing about writing a book – Day 13 supplemental

I was going to say ‘Captain’s log supplemental’ and add a stardate, but the analogy might get lost because not everyone is a Star Trekker.

Needless to say, there’s always more to say about an event, especially when the mind is casting about for ideas to add or enhance a story.

It comes down to, does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?  It’s an interesting question because, in this instance, art will be imitating, to a certain extent, life.

Perhaps what is lost in the telling is the inability of newly divorced people in working out where the boundaries are, whether or not they are entitled to know about the other person’s private life, and how that will make them feel.

I’m guessing when a marriage breaks down, there’s always a cause, and while the word amicable gets bandied around a lot, it’s said, but quite often not meant.

Does mummy have a boyfriend?

Does daddy have a girlfriend?

What generally happens is the children are the only ones who know what’s really happening to each of the parents, because they get transported between the two, as neither parent would want to be seen stopping the other from seeing them/

Of course, where the children are grown up and leading their own lives, the situation should be a lot easier.

But, where does this fit in with the story I hear you asking.

 

Marriages fall apart for many reasons.  In the story, Bill acknowledges that it is largely his fault, and one suspects it’s probably an undiagnosed case of PTSD that back in the sixties and seventies was not really understood.

It led to both he and Ellen leading individual but separate lives whilst keeping up appearances for the sake of their children.  There’s no doubting who brought them up, Ellen, and who had the greater influence over them, although, for the sake of this story, both couldn’t wait to leave home and live somewhere else.

They do, and together.  They are not married and do not have children.  They were not the cause of the breakup, and fortunately, neither of the girls blame one or the other parent.

But that doesn’t mean, over the years, that either parent hasn’t tried to use them to glean information about the other.  It is how Bill discovered, some time ago, that Ellen had ‘a special friend’.

Yet, neither of the daughters have seen him, and not surprisingly, he had made sure that Bill has never seen him.  It’s for a particular reason, one that will become obvious later in the story.  It is, I think, a rather clever twist.

Also, Ellen is not a bad person and certainly wasn’t bad to Bill, perhaps more long-suffering.  She did stay with him for a long time, mainly for the children, but also because she genuinely cared for Bill.

And Bill had not had another woman friend, not until he discovers his feelings towards Jennifer and even then, he keeps that to himself, even when he really doesn’t have to.

Sigh.

Time to return to my fictional world.

Timelines, deadlines, and disasters

Unfortunately, I’m not one of those people who work well to timelines, so the very thought of using something like Microsoft Project to get my writing into some sort of timeframe, with deadlines, seemed, to me, to be a bit extreme.

Say for instance the major deadlines for a writing project are

  1.  Write an outline, with as much detail as possible, with an overarching plot, characters, key points in the novel, and scouting for locations
  2. Writing.  This could be broken down into chapters, but more practicable would be sectioned, each consisting of a number of chapters.
  3. Editing, planning for one, two or three, or more edits
  4. Proofreading
  5. Send to editor

Clearly if I was going to take this approach, then I would have to allocate hours of the day specifically for writing and doing all those other writer chores in less time, and with fewer distractions.

And, it might work for a more dedicated author.

But…

I did make a new years resolution that I would try and do things differently this year.

Except…

I set a goal to restart editing of my next novel on 1st Feb. I thought, setting it so far into the year it would be easy.

It would give me the time to clear up all the outstanding, get in the way, distractions, and be free to finally finish it.

But there’s always something else to do, other than what we’re supposed to be doing.

For me it used to be going away, spending long, sleepless hours flying from one side of the world to the other had fuelled my imagination more than I expected and where this used to be the impetus to write more stories that that had not happened yet this year.

I have other stories of course, all in carious stages of writing, but if only I could focus on one story at a time.

So…

I’ve tried to set some new, more realistic goals to finish playing with these other stories as soon as I can, so come the first of March, I can resume work on the next book to be published.

Or not.