This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.
Coming soon!
Tag: Reading
Trying to pick up the pieces
I can see how it is that a writer’s life is one that, at times, has to be shut off from the outside world.
It’s a bit hard to keep a stream of thoughts going when in one ear is some banal detective show, and in the other, a conversation that you have to keep up with. I know how hard it is because I’ve tried doing three things at once, and failed miserably in all three.
So, out I slink to the writing room and start by re-reading the previous chapters, to get back into the plot. I should remember where I am, and get straight to it, but the devil is in the detail.
Going back, quite often I revise, and a plotline is tweaked, and a whole new window is opened. God, I wish I didn’t do that!
Then I get to the blank page, ready to go, and…
The phone rings.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
Phone answered, back to the blank page, no, it’s gone, got yo go back, blast, another revision, and back to the blank page.
Half an hour shot to pieces.
The phone rings again.
Blast scam callers. I nearly rip the cord out of the wall.
All through this the cat just watches, and, is that a knowing smile?
It can’t be, I’ve just learned that cats can’t smile, or make any sort of face.
I’m sure his thoughts are not a vague or scrambled, or wrestling with the ploys of several stories on the go, getting locations right, getting characters to think and do their thing with a fair degree of continuity.
The cat’s world is one of which chair to lie on, where is that elusive mouse be it real or otherwise, and is this fool going to feed me, and please, please, don’t let it be the lasagna. I am not that cat!
Unlike other professions, it’s a steady, sometimes frustrating, slog where you can’t just walk away, have a great time, and come back and pick up where you left off. Stories have to be written from beginning to end, not a bit here and a bit there.
It’s a bit like running a marathon. You are in a zone, the first few miles are the hardest, the middle is just getting the rhythm and breathing under control, and then you hope you get to the end because it can seem that you’ve been going forever and the end is never in sight.
But, when you reach the end, oh, isn’t the feeling one of pure joy and relief.
Sorry, not there yet.
And no comment is required from the cat gallery, thankyou!
In a word: Not
You will not go outside, you will not go to the movies.
The word not, when used by your parents when you are a child is the key in the lock keeping you from having fun.
It is the very definition of everything negative, and much harsher than just a plain no.
That you will ‘not…’ has been the gateway for many an exploit or adventure, because anything you have done contrary to the ‘not’ is all that much sweeter.
Until you get into trouble, but, then, isn’t that how you learn life’s lessons?
But if you are a programmer like me, not takes on a whole new meaning in a language like,
‘If not like …. then’
meaning in layman’s terms if something isn’t like a specific value then do something else.
Hang on, isn’t that a bit like reality?
This is not to be confused with the work Knot which is,
A blemish in a piece of wood
The speed of a ship, winds, and sometimes a plane
But basically,
Something you tie to keep your shoes on, or around your finger to remind you to tie your shoes before getting on the 36-knot high-speed ferry made of knotty wood.
It is also something you find in tangled hair and is very painful trying to remove it.
It is also an unpleasant tightness in body muscles and you need a masseuse to get rid of them.
“The Things We Do For Love” – Coming soon
Is love the metaphorical equivalent to ‘walking the plank’; a dive into uncharted waters?
For Henry the only romance he was interested in was a life at sea, and when away from it, he strived to find sanctuary from his family and perhaps life itself. It takes him to a small village by the sea, s place he never expected to find another just like him, Michelle, whom he soon discovers is as mysterious as she is beautiful.
Henry had long since given up the notion of finding romance, and Michelle couldn’t get involved for reasons she could never explain, but in the end both acknowledge that something happened the moment they first met.
Plans were made, plans were revised, and hopes were shattered.
A chance encounter causes Michelle’s past to catch up with her, and whatever hope she had of having a normal life with Henry, or anyone else, is gone. To keep him alive she has to destroy her blossoming relationship, an act that breaks her heart and shatters his.
But can love conquer all?
It takes a few words of encouragement from an unlikely source to send Henry and his friend Radly on an odyssey into the darkest corners of the red light district in a race against time to find and rescue the woman he finally realizes is the love of his life.
The cover, at the moment, looks like this:
“Echoes From The Past”, buried, but not deep enough
What happens when your past finally catches up with you?
Christmas is just around the corner, a time to be with family. For Will Mason, an orphan since he was fourteen, it is a time for reflection on what his life could have been, and what it could be.
Until a chance encounter brings back to life the reasons for his twenty years of self-imposed exile from a life only normal people could have. From that moment Will’s life slowly starts to unravel and it’s obvious to him it’s time to move on.
This time, however, there is more at stake.
Will has broken his number one rule, don’t get involved.
With his nemesis, Eddie Jamieson, suddenly within reach, and a blossoming relationship with an office colleague, Maria, about to change everything, Will has to make a choice. Quietly leave, or finally, make a stand.
But as Will soon discovers, when other people are involved there is going to be terrible consequences no matter what choice he makes.
The past and how it affect us
As much as we profess that we have left the past in the past and that we are firmly focussed on the present and even more so, the future, it isn’t always the case.
I’ve already had a discussion about whether the past defines us. In the majority of cases that may be true to a very small extent, but in everyone there is a basic understanding of what is right and what is wrong, and if we are wronged during that valuable learning period as a child, there is nearly always someone there to guide you in the right direction.
For the most part, during that time, it’s your parents.
And if the are the perpetrators of that wrong, then hopefully you know enough that it is wrong, and that you have the courage to tell someone else, like a grandparent or school counsellor, or even the police.
That’s now, of course, where we live in a far more transparent world children who are being abused have a voice that will be heard.
Wind this back 60 years.
There were no such protections. Any stray aunt, uncle, neighbour, or just a good friend of the family could get away with sexual assault, or any sort of domestic violence because society then had a different set of rules.
Grownups would first believe their fellow grownups before they listened to the ramblings of a child. In those days a child never had a voice, and we are now discovering just how many children were abused.
The same went for women. There are untold numbers of women out there that spent many years cowering lest they were beaten or verbally and mentally abused. Trying to protect their children from a bullying father copped the harshest treatment, but there wer many reasons, the simplest being not having dinner on the t sable when he got home.
As young children seeing this behaviour and not understanding it’s significance, can lead to the practice being handed down simply because a young child will accept it as the norm. It’s still the reason why some children are still bullies at school, that boys treat girls badly and swearing is very common among children as young as six or seven.
Back 69 odd years ago the results of parental behaviour had far more serious ramifications because the people who should have done something about it, thought nothing of it. Why? Although some people thought it was wrong, it was the people who mattered that didn’t. A woman who depended on a man who bashed her was far less likely to leave than one today.
Back then there were no half way houses, no protection from the bullies, and no social welfare systems in place to help these women or their children.
My mother was one of those women.
Me and my elder brother were two of those children. Don’t ask me how we came out the other side, totally different people to what we might have been.
Perhaps it was down to my grandmother with whom we spent enough time to learn there was a different type of world out there, and all we had to do was embrace it.
And, for the few years my father finally come to his senses, and leaving us all alone, life wasn’t normal but it was better.. We just kept moving, so loneliness was a way of life.
But, it seems, he changed in a different ways, and became controlling, especially in my mother’s case, and though I didn’t really understand then the results of it, the full extent of this behaviour came out when I had to make the decision to separate my mother from him in their nursing home because he was verbally and mentally abusing her. There were other aspects to this controlling behavior that tipped the scales.
Having done that, he turned his rage and vitriol on me. Imagine right there and then, every terrible memory came flooding back and the fear and despair I felt.
We had a blazing row, I was denounced as a conspirator and a lot of other unrepeatable things, and I have not spoken to him since.
Mercifully my mother is safe from him now, but she has full blown dementia, and it is, I suspect the end result of the beatings she suffered.
But there’s always a silver lining, as my grandmother used to say, and that was for me to write, and from a very early age I would read any book I could get my hands on, and then behind to invent an alternate works to live in, one where there wasn’t the violence and misery we suffered.
And using that imagination, and using the many books I had read began to write my own stories. I have a trove of material written back then which I pull out every now and then, and which have fuelled many stories now.
Perhaps it was a side effect from my younger years that I was introverted and had very low self esteem. Because if that it too years, being married to the most remarkable and generous woman, that I finally found the courage to publish my stories.
They’re not bestsellers, but their mine, and ar the result of self achievement I never though, all those years ago, was possible.
Being Inspired – the book
Over the past year or so I have been selecting photographs I’ve taken on many travels, and put a story to them.
When I reached a milestone of 50 stories, I decided to make them into a book, and, in doing so, I have gone through each and revised them, making some longer and into short stories.
50 photographs, 50 stories. I’ve called it, “Inspiration, Maybe”
It will be available soon.
In a word: Hair
You comb it every day, or brush it, it can be tangled, fine, smooth and silky or shiny.
It can fall out, you can have none, it can be red, brown, black, blonde, white, and a million shades in between.
Yes, it’s hair.
It can be pesky stuff, especially from animals who tend to moult and leave it everywhere. We have a cat and well know the foibles of hair loss.
You can get it cut, get it coloured, trimmed, permed by a hairdresser in a salon, where lots of subjects are discussed, and even movies have been made around salons.
I haven’t been within a hairsbreadth of either living or dying, but I’m sure someone has. That hairsbreadth is not very wide, and I’d rather have bullets, arrows or fists missing by that margin.
You can be in another’s hair, that is, being a pest.
There’s the hair of the dog, supposedly a hangover cure.
And, going to scary places will make your hair stand on end.
This is not to be confused with the word heir which means something completely different, namely it described the legatee or inheritor of the family fortune.
Or not. Ages ago, only sons were seen as heirs, and that was even more prevalent among royal families. It also applied to heirs when it came to titles, and the family wealth and property, which went to the eldest son.
It makes a good plotline for many a murder mystery.
Also, let’s be clear, there is also an heiress and an heirloom.
Then there is another, hare, which is a cousin of the rabbit and considered a pest.
I’m not quite sure how someone came up with the descriptor harebrained, which has nothing to do with the hare.
It could mean to run quickly and usually in a careless manner.
I’ve always wanted to go on a Treasure Hunt – Part 27
Here’s the thing…
Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.
I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.
But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.
Once again there’s a new instalment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.
I was taken to the hospital, despite the fact the paramedics deemed that I might not be as badly concussed as they first thought. At the very least, I got a ride in the ambulance and painkilling pills that were very effective.
They kept me in the emergency department in between being taken for X-Rays, and I think something they called a CT Scan. Whatever it was, it didn’t help my claustrophobia. When that was completed, my mother was waiting in the cubicle. Benderby, looking concerned, stood behind her.
After the attendant left, he said, “I’ll be going now. Take all the time you need to recover Sam; I’ll make sure you don’t lose any wages over this. And you can be assured that it will not happen again, and we will get the people who did this.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’m just glad nothing worse happened to you.”
He said something to my mother in hushed tones and then left. My mother had got over her initial reaction, and a more curious look had replaced the one of fear.
“Tell me you didn’t try to apprehend those thieves yourself, Sam.”
“No, I didn’t. I didn’t know there was anyone in the building until I was hit from behind. I’m not sure what they thought they were going to find there that was of any value, it’s just parts for some of the products built there.”
“People will steal anything for money these days. You should know that. Times are not as good for some. Perhaps it’s not a good idea for you to work there is this is going to happen again.”
“You heard Mr Benderby. He’ll make sure security is improved, and I suspect I was in the wrong place at the wrong time because I don’t normally go into the warehouse itself, that someone else’s purview. So, stop worrying, and go home. I’m fine.”
I wished she would go. I wanted to check if Boggs had been brought in and see what had happened to him. I also wanted to know if the perpetrator was Vince. If it was, Nadia was first on my list for a visit when I got out of the hospital.
It seemed to mollify her concern.
“Mr Benderby said to tell you if you need a ride home, to call this number,” she gave me a piece of paper with a phone number on it, “and a driver will come. He’s been very nice about everything. You will thank him.”
“I will. Yes. Now go home. Get some rest. And stop worrying about me.”
Ten minutes later, I got off the bed and stood. Well, I tried to stand, but my head wasn’t quite ready to accept that it was in command of everything else. It took only seconds for the room to start spinning, and I had to lie down again.
My reconnaissance was going to have to wait for an hour or so.
A nurse came and checked my blood pressure and pulse, both high but not off the chart, and she went off looking concerned.
A few minutes after that an orderly went by with another bed, empty but recently used, and I recognised him as another of the boys Boggs and I went to school with. He was destined for bigger things, but it seems he, too, never got out of the neighbourhood.
He saw me looking at him, stopped, and his expression told me he’d recognised me.
“Sam?”
“Angelo?”
“The same. I’ll be back after I’ve dropped off this bed. Won’t be long. I won’t ask how you are, you must be sick if you’re in that bed.”
True. And it was natural to ask, ‘How are you?’ when you see someone after having not seen them a while, even if you are in a hospital. A weird custom indeed, which occupied my thoughts till he returned.
Angelo had been the smartest kid in our class, and we had all assumed that he would become a doctor, or a lawyer, one of those jobs that made piles of money. He was also the boy whom all the girls swooned over.
Being his friend had benefits.
Unfortunately, Boggs and I, not being the two brightest kids, didn’t register on his friend’s scale. In his favour, he was not a bully like Monty was, but I guess that went with being one of the school’s star athletes, but he did simply ignore us.
Now, it seems the mighty had fallen. It was a destiny that seemed to befall anyone who came from our neighbourhood.
The same could be said for Monty, who got a sports scholarship to further his sporting career, but he too stumbled at the second hurdle, being done for performance-enhancing drugs, and banished to the boondocks from whence he came.
Now, as far as I knew, he was working for the Colosimo’s.
Angelo seemed bright enough. That impression was confirmed when he returned with two bottles of soda and handed one to me.
“Hopefully it won’t kill you,” he said, sitting down.
“Shouldn’t. I’m here because someone hit me over the head.”
“Bar fight?”
Once, in the old days, that might be the case. “If only I could take the bragging rights, but no. I work over at Benderby’s warehouse, and someone broke it. Seems I got in the way.”
“Benderby’s eh? Thought you said you’d die before ever working for them.”
True, we all said the same, in school, as naïve children who hadn’t yet learned how tough the world was going to be.
“Needs must. My mother isn’t getting any younger, and it’s a struggle. But I guess you already know that. You were going to be a doctor, not a trolley pusher.”
His shook his head. “As you say, reality trumps dreams. Education costs, my parents couldn’t raise the money, and, well, I think you know the rest.”
A minute’s silence for the death of whatever dreams we may have had passed.
“Have you seen Boggs. He’s here somewhere.”
“I saw him in ER, didn’t look too good, but I think it was mostly superficial wounds. Apparently, some unknown assailants beat him up. You two still hang out together?”
“Off and on.”
You weren’t with him when this happened.” He nodded towards the bandage on my head.
“No.” but, I thought, it was most likely the same person who inflicted both injuries. Had Boggs set us both up for some reason? It had to do with the treasure, and now Vince was in on the act.
“Does Boggs still go on about that Pirate treasure he reckons is buried here somewhere? I mean, his dad used to bang on about it, and there’s no doubt it got him killed. You reckon someone went after Boggs over it?”
Angelo hadn’t forgotten that even in school, Boggs had said he was going to be a treasure hunter when he grew up, and he had a map that would be the basis of his first quest. That same map he told me was his father’s.
That same map that had got both of us beaten up.
“Is he here, somewhere?” I asked.
“Next ward. Last I saw he was out; they gave him a sedative so he could rest.”
Squawking sounds came out of Angelo’s communicator, and only he seemed to know what it meant.
He stood. “Got to go now. Perhaps we can catch up later.”
© Charles Heath 2019
“The Devil You Don’t”, be careful what you wish for
John Pennington’s life is in the doldrums. Looking for new opportunities, prevaricating about getting married, the only joy on the horizon was an upcoming visit to his grandmother in Sorrento, Italy.
Suddenly he is left at the check-in counter with a message on his phone telling him the marriage is off, and the relationship is over.
If only he hadn’t promised a friend he would do a favor for him in Rome.
At the first stop, Geneva, he has a chance encounter with Zoe, an intriguing woman who captures his imagination from the moment she boards the Savoire, and his life ventures into uncharted territory in more ways than one.
That ‘favor’ for his friend suddenly becomes a life-changing event, and when Zoe, the woman who he knows is too good to be true, reappears, danger and death follows.
Shot at, lied to, seduced, and drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems, John is dragged into an adrenaline-charged undertaking, where he may have been wiser to stay with the ‘devil you know’ rather than opt for the ‘devil you don’t’.
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