A third of the way

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Part one sets the scene, we are introduced to the characters, and we get some insight into the machinations of business and the underlying problem of Agatha’s health.

It could be for any number of reasons, hard living when younger, and a little bit older too, it could be the pressures of work, the pressures of motherhood, trying to find the right man knowing he doesn’t exist and worry about people trying to take your money.

Being titled and wealthy is not a benefit, it’s really a curse.  It often works to her advantage, but in others, well, it just doesn’t.

Her health issues have so far been undiagnosed.  She has seen any number of doctors, and none can find what is wrong.  Lethargy, constantly tired, often feeling nauseated, always at the mercy of common colds and viruses, the notion of taking a few months off to try and recover is not an option.

The thing is, the answer to her problems, getting qualified people to run her organisation was a good idea, and she thought she had picked the right people.  And once they start, the subtle changes begin, the little things like being left out of the loop, that sense that she is being spied on, paranoia fed by the illness, and observation, cause her to become unpredictable, then, at the height of it, after discovering what is a revelation, she is incapacitated.

In a sense, she had planned for just such an eventuality, in another, it was almost inevitable.

Guinevere

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There is always a reason why someone wants to leave an organisation where they had been successful, to a point.  After all, the charity business was a rather small world, and it wasn’t hard to find out all the goings on.

Except when an organisation no longer wants to keep a certain employee and is prepared to write a glowing recommendation to hasten their departure.

Guinevere hadn’t done anything wrong; it was just she wanted to move in a new direction, and probably what sealed her fate, wanted a large increase in salary.

Charities tried very hard not to have expenses that exceeded the value of their bequests.  Sometimes they failed, but those were foundations set up by individuals looking to gain tax and other benefits.

And since Agatha was looking to expand her organisation by actively seeking outside donors, Guinevere had been successful in setting up a similar process in the last organisation she worked for.

And after speaking confidentially to Agatha’s father, she knew it was the position she was looking for.  All she had to do was convince Agatha and Adria.  That, of course, might be easier than she thought, discovering that Agatha was unwell, and would be stepping back for a while.

An old adage comes to mind as I’m plotting this, with friends like these, who needs enemies?

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Words today, 1,718, for a total of 16,133

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Howard Joffs

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Howard is Agatha’s lawyer, but more than that, he is a friend and has been ever since they started university together.

He was fully aware of who she was, the title, the heritage, the expectations, and her need to rebel in her own way.

He watched her destroy a marriage that would have worked if she had let it, with a man who was, in the end, too good for her. 

And, along the way, Howard always thought one day she would wake up and see what was in front of her, the man who loved her.

The pity of it was she had sent him to the friend zone and did not think of him in that way, having discovered the truth one night when charged with a lot of alcohol, he told her how he felt.

She was not reviled, just amused.

It was then he realised there was only one man for her, the one she could never have, even though he knew she harboured a secret desire for them to get back together.  Only recently did he discover that man was the father of her children.

But despite his unrequited love, he still did anything and everything she asked, and more.

And would until the day she died.

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Words today, 1,870, for a total of 14,415

The reporter

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Winifred, daughter of Adria, is the contradiction.

She always had no intention of playing on her title, and she always regarded people addressing her as Lady Winifred with suspicion.

She also never wanted to use her name to open doors or get an advantage.  She went to university, and soon realised her calling was the written word and a talent for getting to the truth of the matter.

She honed her journalistic skills in the university newspaper and had the distinction of solving a rather convoluted death that was first believed to be a suicide as a murder, one the murderer would have got away with if she hadn’t tenaciously pursued it.

Those detective skills stood her in good stead, getting her a job at a major newspaper, except the editor didn’t believe she was up to the task, her society and aristocratic background getting in the way.

She has a point to prove, and this latest move by her mother’s organisation as good as any for what might be a good story.

And, in the back of her mind, something she had overheard when researching another story stuck, that involved the General, and it wasn’t good.

Of course, her mother knows Winnie is like a dog with a bone and warns her, ‘There’s nothing to see here’.

Winnie isn’t so sure…

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Words today, 1,529, for a total of 12,545

The General

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We are now going to look at the individuals who are national heroes, looking to do some good in the twilight of their lives.

They have a name, they have a reputation, and it’s a recognisable commodity.

Selling range rovers or enticing young adults to join the armed services isn’t quite the post-service career move he was looking for.

The trouble is, he never got the opportunity to get rich like some of his contemporaries, and what there was went on a gambling addiction that just about took everything when he retired.

But the question is, is the General the person he portrays himself as?

Truth is, he needs to find a very well-paying gig.

And just lurking in the background, fuelling the rising trust issues between father and daughter, why is Agatha’s father promoting this particular celebrity?

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Words today, 2,070, for a total of 11,016

What are friends for?

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Well, when they too have the rug pulled out from under them, how much can they do?

Her best friend and fellow founding member of the charity, recently but no longer CEO, due to the new Chairman who had taken over during our main character’s incapacity, had been visiting her friend in hospital and relating the day-to-day events that had turned the running of their organisation into what she calls a circus

I’m going to give her a daughter who is a tenacious reporter and set her on the trail of a conspiracy, that of the so-called benevolent charities and the shady characters that manage to attach themselves to what she will call the charitable gravy train.

She also is the product of that echelon of people who are upper-class nobility, having resented from a young age being called Lady So and So, going to the privileged schools and being treated differently.

She is the rebel against her birthright, her parents, and everything they stand for.

And yet, as she gets older and sees the worth of those connections, those she had so willingly trashed for the sake of getting an editor to take her seriously, it’s going to be a tricky line she will have to walk if she is going to help her mother.

Perhaps her parents were not the monsters she believed they were.

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Words today, 1785, for a total of 8946

The days you wish you didn’t have children.

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Children are meant to be the joy in your life, not the bane of your existence.

Of course, keeping the secret from their father might have seemed like a good idea if not out of spite in the beginning.

But the truth was he left, and that was on him.  It was not as if he was going to hang around, not after telling her that it was not the time to be having children, not with her wild partying or the fact he was trying to move on after his stint in the Army and that overseas deployment that had severely scarred many of his friends.

Yes, they were perfectly matched, and both agreed they both soul mates and kindred spirits, but it was not enough to keep them together.  Marrying him to spite her father had the reverse effect, and she still suspected her father had bought him off.

But, whatever the reason, she was left with the parenting, delegated to nannies, then boarding school and servants.  It was no wonder they hated their forever disinterested and absent mother, and because of the bored, mischievous miscreants who were constantly in the news and police stations.

Their latest antics were mild compared to previous escapades, but the school could always see a fundraising opportunity.  And being sent home yet again to consider their situation was all she needed.

Fresh out of her latest and longest stay in hospital, the full extent of her situation was becoming clear.

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Words today, 2294, for a total of 7161

Suspicious circumstances

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It’s a matter of getting from a normal busy life, running a very successful and very well-regarded institution, that from the outside was one everyone was envious of to where she is lying in an induced coma following an accident that is still being investigated.

Perhaps we get a glimpse into the detective who will be later called on for a more complex investigation into her life and sadly death.

The question we have to ask is, was this just an accident as a result of her poor health, some were saying a result of her wild childhood early years of dung and alcohol abuse (the privileged life of the youth of the elite wealthy being paid back in spades) or something else.

Is there something about charities that’s not all above board?  With a new management team installed by her father, is the money getting to those who need it, or is it to pat the names needed to be in the high-profile donors?

It strikes me that ages ago when I was talking to a group of others about making donations to a charity that had a high-profile person as spokesperson it had to be good if they spoke on behalf of it for nothing in return.

My illusion was shattered in seconds.  That personality was paid plenty to spruik the charity, drove around on a large expensive car provided, and hosted endless lunches and functions for those who seemed to live an already lavish lifestyle.

It’s a premise I am investigating and will use as a possible outcome to what should be a beneficiary-orientated charity versus one that is there to principally serve the high-profile spruikers.

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Words today, 2070, for a total of 4867

One of those mornings

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We’re unravelling the mystery behind the slow deterioration of our main character.

When did this mysterious malady first manifest itself?

The point here is that there is always a starting point or a catalyst.  It might not always be pinpointed by the person but by someone else who can look from the outside and assess all of the evidence.

And it’s not always an easy task when you don’t really know when it first began because it creeps up on you without you realising it.

Until one morning, you can’t get out of bed.

Of course, there are convenient answers to Amy’s question, and in moments of extreme paranoia, only one name will come to the fore, the name of the person you hate the most at the time.

And then it’s not difficult to attach the reasons to that name, correctly or not.  In her debilitated state, it was easy.  Whether she could prove it, was the hard part.

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Words today, 1128, for a total of 2797

Paranoia is my friend.

Take all the paper out of the file, throw it up in the air, wait until it all lands on the floor, and then take the first piece of paper nearest to you to start.

Perhaps fate is being kind to me because the sheet had the word paranoia on it.

To begin the story, we need to paint a picture of a successful woman running a charitable offshoot that manages the money her inheritance had bequeathed to be used for charitable purposes.

Why not just hand it over to a proper charity and let them do the dirty work?

She did once and found most of it went to administration and very little landed in the hands of those who needed it.

There’s no problem with that except …

Her father thinks there are better things to do, and she has spent considerable time and effort to dissuade her from doing so.

Perhaps his ultimate motive is to get a hold of her money because his own investments are not exactly faring well with the changes he made years before and he does have a wealthy lifestyle and image to keep up.

Then there’s the problem with the mysterious illness she had contracted, making it difficult to work, and necessitates the employment of a new head to administer the charity while she finds out why she’s ill and then recovering.

Her mistake is trusting her father to find the right man.

Then there’s her children, twins, and trouble with a capital T.

The real problem I’d of course that the illness manifests itself in unpredictable ways making her behaviour erratic, her moments of lucidly shorter and her stays in care longer, and her paranoia that someone is trying to kill her slowly taking over.

Who can she trust?

Her lawyer friend, or is he?

Her best friend, who seems above boats?

Her father, who is more interested in his own life than hers?

The new manager has his own agenda and a lot of money to play with.

Her children hate her because she abandoned them to boarding schools.

The doctors keep telling her they can’t find anything wrong.

Or the private detective she had hired to deep dive into all her so-called friends’ lives and find someone who could tell her what was wrong with her.

Oh, and lastly, find her ex-husband Michael, the only man she ever really loved, and whom she now realises she pushed away.

That first chapter of setting the scene has just become five or six.