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.
One third of the month is gone and this writing job is not getting any easier.
The notion that we can sit down and over a period of 30 days, we can write a 50,000 word novel would be, to some, a preposterous notion.
For me, it is not. I have done it for three years in a row, and even without having a plan.
This one has a plan, but that plan only sometimes stretches to a day or two ahead, depending on how I’m going.
Today, it had been hard going because I set time aside to just sit down and write it, but you all know how fickle that can be. Devote time, and the words don’t come, have no time and try scratching in between a lot of other jobs, and the words are flowing.
It is annoying to say the least.
Bit, for today, Jack has discovered he does, indeed, have a doppelganger, and that he is related, which explains the uncanny likeness. Of course, he has been followed to the island, and run to ground in a park where the two meet face to face. Oh, and the doppelganger has a name, Jacob.
It could have got ugly, but Maryanne is there, though Jack is still not sure why, and her presence averts what could have been an ugly showdown,
Instead, some words of advice. Jack must ask his mother for the answers.
A fine time for Jack to discover that his mother has been lying to him for his whole life.
But, of course, any attempt to get her on the phone is proving difficult.
And it might mean the end of his holiday.
Our Jack is not a happy man.
Today’s effort amounts to 2,873 words, for a total, so far, of 25,485.
Yes, word wise we have reached the half way mark, but story wise, it appears it make take a little longer.
This word, where I live, had taken on a new meaning. We have telephone scammers who ask your name when you answer the phone, and when you say yes, they hang up.
It doesn’t take much imagination how they can use that recording.
So, I now answer the phone with maybe, which confuses the real callers who want to know if it is you.
Of course, maybe is one of those words that have so many meaning, but the best one is to use it while you have time to think of a proper answer.
For example, did you get the potatoes? You haven’t been out, it slipped your mind, or you just plain forgot, but run with a ‘maybe’ so you can judge the reaction.
Angry face, you know no matter what, you’re in trouble.
Genial face, you know that it didn’t really matter and all is forgiven.
Then there’s the person who doesn’t know you and comes up to you in a crowded room. Are you [put name here]?
Maybe. We want to know if we’re in trouble, or if it for something good.
Using ‘maybe’ in writing probably isn’t the best word to us, but I like defying the experts. You can always find a maybe or two in any of my books.
After several years of bad management, the company had decided to make a clean sweep and change upper management. Of course, that sort of change was driven by the volatility of the company’s share price and dividends, and shareholders’ discontent. Productivity was down because of low employee morale driven by what was labelled a ‘toxic work environment’. This led to production problems, quality control issues, and falling sales.
Something had to be done.
The new broom, as it was come to be known as, had made several far sweeping changes, one of which, to counter the discontent of its employees, was to institute the anonymous complaint. Any employee could make a complaint without fear of reprisals. In the past, those that had were vilified, demoted, or sacked. Now, the new broom had decided that employee input would improve the workplace, improve productivity, and provide the way back to the halcyon days.
Or so we thought.
Two phones, each on a bedside table, both chimed to indicate an incoming message.
I’d been staring at the roof, contemplating the start of a new week in a place where I had decided was not where I wanted to be. Beside me, still asleep, was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, but she was not sure about making a commitment. She’d been down that road before, and it failed miserably and was taking it slow.
I told her slow was my middle name.
I leaned over and picked up the phone, more out of curiosity than anything else, but fascinated that both phones could go off at the same time.
“In the light of a host of complaints about the catering division, it has been decided that the staff cafeteria will cease operations at the end of the month. It has for a number of years been the subject of employee dissatisfaction and the result of an extensive investigation to the feasibility of keeping it going, given the economic climate and fiscal position of the company the only viable decision is to cease operations. Staff currently working in the catering department will be transferred to other positions within the company.”
How could this be possible? I had seen the feasibility study relating to the cafeteria, and it was ‘feasible’ to keep it going. They were right though, there had been a host of complaints, but that was because the catering manager had no idea how to run a large-scale cafeteria that churned out upwards of 5,000 meals a day. Even Olga, who was right here with me now, had said that it was the most poorly managed operation she had ever worked in.
I tossed the phone back on the bedside table and got back under the covers. Too early and too cold to get out of bed.
It woke Olga.
“Trouble in paradise?”
Paradise was her euphemism for work. She had become increasingly desponded as I about working there. In her case, as q waitress in the cafeteria, it was a job she could take or leave. For me, loitering on the fringes of middle management, not so much. Not if I wanted to keep the flash apartment and upscale car.
“They have dumped the cafeteria.”
I had expected her to leap up in indignation. It barely registered on the Richter scale. “And what did you expect?” She raised her head off the pillow. “They were never going to implement your suggestions, it would make Commissar Bland look like a fool, like the fool above him.”
Her analogy transposing our fearless leaders with those back in the old Soviet Union were always an insight to what she had experienced back home before she emigrated with her parents. Commissar Bland was a dictator, and not a man to cross. She cared little about him, and treated him, like the others did, as a joke.
“So much for the new broom,” I muttered.
“You are so naive Petr, but like home, change means no change, just different faces and words that all mean the same thing.”
Petr was her pet name for me, named after an old mentor of hers.
“Aren’t you the one losing your job. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“I will become best factory worker. We are very adaptable. You should try not to lose any sleep.”
She lay down again and snuggled closer.
…
I left her at the fourth floor where my office was located, and she would continue up to the next, the location of the cafeteria.
If I remember correctly, the current CEO when the factory manager, had always wanted to reclaim the cafeteria space for a new modernised production line, but the old guard had seen the benefit of keeping it despite the cost, as a means of keeping its workforce. Even twenty years ago, it would not have made a discussion topic, even in jest.
But times change.
Herman, another of the middle management fringe dwellers, and had also seen the need to have something to ‘bribe’ the workforce. We’d only been talking about it with others on our level the other day when all manner of rumours were drifting through our building.
He was loitering in the passage, obviously waiting for me.
“You’ve seen the message?”
I nodded.
“Hell of a way to kill an institution?”
I walked into my cubicle and dumped my bag on the floor. As a first act, the new broom removed all the offices, and put everyone into an open plan, where it was easier to communicate with others and removed the barriers walls and doors presented. The jury was still out on whether it worked, I could still never get to see the people I needed to.
He followed me in and sat in a chair in the corner. I sat on the desk, it was not a large cubicle.
“It was a drain on profits. The world has moved on from pandering to workforces. It seems dividends are more important. I’m sure this will not be the only change.”
“Like managers losing their cars and credit cards, except for the upper echelon. I don’t think you’ll see them close the executive dining room.”
Yes, it was only a matter of time before that morsel would raise its head under the banner of hypocrisy.
“Probably not. But remember, we used to build cars once, and it was good advertising to hand them out to all and sundry. Now, trying to do the right thing costs too much.”
My phone on the desk rang and startled me. It was still quiet, the bulk of the cubicle population hadn’t arrived yet. My guess they were gathering in coffee shops discussing the news.
I picked up receiver mid ring, then said, “Yes?” I refused to follow the official answering sequence advised by the new broom.
Hesitation, then, “O’Hara from Administration. Can you come and see me, nine a.m.?”
Why? There was no way anyone could know I sent that memo, and I wasn’t on management’s radar, it had been O’Hara himself who told me to keep up the good work, the coded message that said I was not on the latest promotion list.
“I’ll see you then.” I was not going to say ‘yes, sir’ like other management hopefuls. O’Hara was not someone who could be buttered up, a fact only I seemed to be aware of.
“Who was that?”
“O’Hara.”
“Then your days are numbered. He never calls except to say you have a promotion or you’re fired. You aren’t on the promotion list.”
“How can you be sure?”
No one was supposed to know who was on that list for sure, it was a closely guarded secret. Herman said he knew someone who knew someone who knew Herman’s PA, and had been told who was on the list. So far, in the last two lists, he had been right about us two.
Perhaps he was right. I was going to get fired.
“Have I ever been wrong?”
Technically, no. But I never got any other names of those who were on the list. Maybe it was better to wait, and be disappointed then.
“Well, we’ll soon find out.”
…
It took twenty minutes to walk from the old administration building to the new, built recently on the outskirts of the company site, on what was once the carpark. The carpark had been relocated under the new administration building, and it gave management the perfect excuse to charge us to park our cars.
A Lot of employees had switched from car to the train, less than the weekly cost of the carpark. Another new broom initiative; getting people out of cars and onto public transport, their contribution to easing global warming.
None of us, other than those in the new administration building had passes, so we had to sign in as visitors on the ground floor, even though we spent a lot of time travelling back and forth, and visiting other members of our departments who had been moved from the old building.
No, not a new broom initiative, just the result of an obtuse security chief.
Getting the pass made me five minutes late, and O’Hara didn’t like tardy people.
A glare followed me from the door of his office to the seat in front of his desk where he motioned me to sit. The offices were better here and were offices not cubicles. Everyone else wanted to be transferred to the new office. I didn’t. Too far away from Olga.
“I called you over to discuss the ten-point plan to save the cafeteria.”
“What ten-point plan?” Perhaps they did know who wrote the memo.
“I had every written complaint checked to see whose writing it was. Next time, write it on the computer and print it out.”
I shrugged. “I did it for a laugh. Nothing’s going to change in this place.”
“You sound like you don’t like working here?”
“I do. Most days. Today, though, is one reason to leave. That cafeteria has been here since the day the factory started. The employers, once, were involved in getting employees housing, even had their own estate, and assisted them to buy cars. It was a novel thought in an age where employers, well, some employers, considered their employees assets.”
“We still do.”
I shook my head. I guess if you wanted to be in management you had to believe and repeat the new mantra. I’d heard about the management team building conferences.
“So, we’re going back to our original values?”
“This is neither the time, nor do we have the fiscal viability. But it seems some of the board members consider your proposals need fleshing out into a plan with costings so they can make a more balanced judgement.”
“Unfortunately, you just uttered the two words that make that idea redundant, fiscal viability. There is no possible way in this current world we live in that a cafeteria would ever be viable, unless we charged five-star restaurant prices for the meals.”
“Humour me and do it anyway.”
“Not my department.”
“Fixed. You now are temporarily assigned to ‘rebuilding and restructuring’. You can add three others to your team. You have a week.”
“And if I say no.”
“It’s that or your resignation. You have been given an opportunity, take it.”
I shrugged. I’d heard about the new broom’s method of culling. Give them jobs that they can’t possibly find a solution to. Devious, but devastatingly effective. One last hurrah before being tossed on the executive scrap heap.
When I came out of his office, Herman was waiting in the outer office.
“You too,” I said.
“Nine of us. Sounds like there’s a new project in the wind.”
I didn’t burst his bubble. Ten more budding executives were getting the push. I sighed.
At least now Olga and I could go visit her family on the shores of the Black Sea. There was no excuse not to.
Today Jack is about to become as confused as he ever will be. Well, maybe not as ever, but it’s the start of a time when he will not know what is happening.
Firstly, there’s Maryanne. Whilst the full extent of the enigma she she will be for nearly three quarters of the book, may need a little adjustment when it comes to the first edit, I know something about her now, and those characteristics will gradually be dropped in front of the reader.
Some will say, after this chapter, that she is trouble. Jack has known that from the start, but that assessment really comes from a distinct lack of understand of women in general. Yes, he had had girlfriends, but not like Maryanne.
And, before you asked, yes, she is, in part, modelled on a woman I once knew, and she was nothing like any other woman I had known. She was genuinely a beautiful soul, and very much misunderstood.
Jack is fortunate in that he is hesitant to take that last step, though I suspect he might want to, but there are reasons for holding back.
These will be more apparent in the next chapter … I hope.
It’s written in my head, and I’m tempted to stay up and write it, but it’s late, and life other than being a writer will impinge on my time tomorrow.
Today’s effort amounts to 2,018 words, for a total, so far, of 22,612.
After several years of bad management, the company had decided to make a clean sweep and change upper management. Of course, that sort of change was driven by the volatility of the company’s share price and dividends, and shareholders’ discontent. Productivity was down because of low employee morale driven by what was labelled a ‘toxic work environment’. This led to production problems, quality control issues, and falling sales.
Something had to be done.
The new broom, as it was come to be known as, had made several far sweeping changes, one of which, to counter the discontent of its employees, was to institute the anonymous complaint. Any employee could make a complaint without fear of reprisals. In the past, those that had were vilified, demoted, or sacked. Now, the new broom had decided that employee input would improve the workplace, improve productivity, and provide the way back to the halcyon days.
Or so we thought.
Two phones, each on a bedside table, both chimed to indicate an incoming message.
I’d been staring at the roof, contemplating the start of a new week in a place where I had decided was not where I wanted to be. Beside me, still asleep, was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, but she was not sure about making a commitment. She’d been down that road before, and it failed miserably and was taking it slow.
I told her slow was my middle name.
I leaned over and picked up the phone, more out of curiosity than anything else, but fascinated that both phones could go off at the same time.
“In the light of a host of complaints about the catering division, it has been decided that the staff cafeteria will cease operations at the end of the month. It has for a number of years been the subject of employee dissatisfaction and the result of an extensive investigation to the feasibility of keeping it going, given the economic climate and fiscal position of the company the only viable decision is to cease operations. Staff currently working in the catering department will be transferred to other positions within the company.”
How could this be possible? I had seen the feasibility study relating to the cafeteria, and it was ‘feasible’ to keep it going. They were right though, there had been a host of complaints, but that was because the catering manager had no idea how to run a large-scale cafeteria that churned out upwards of 5,000 meals a day. Even Olga, who was right here with me now, had said that it was the most poorly managed operation she had ever worked in.
I tossed the phone back on the bedside table and got back under the covers. Too early and too cold to get out of bed.
It woke Olga.
“Trouble in paradise?”
Paradise was her euphemism for work. She had become increasingly desponded as I about working there. In her case, as q waitress in the cafeteria, it was a job she could take or leave. For me, loitering on the fringes of middle management, not so much. Not if I wanted to keep the flash apartment and upscale car.
“They have dumped the cafeteria.”
I had expected her to leap up in indignation. It barely registered on the Richter scale. “And what did you expect?” She raised her head off the pillow. “They were never going to implement your suggestions, it would make Commissar Bland look like a fool, like the fool above him.”
Her analogy transposing our fearless leaders with those back in the old Soviet Union were always an insight to what she had experienced back home before she emigrated with her parents. Commissar Bland was a dictator, and not a man to cross. She cared little about him, and treated him, like the others did, as a joke.
“So much for the new broom,” I muttered.
“You are so naive Petr, but like home, change means no change, just different faces and words that all mean the same thing.”
Petr was her pet name for me, named after an old mentor of hers.
“Aren’t you the one losing your job. Doesn’t it bother you?”
“I will become best factory worker. We are very adaptable. You should try not to lose any sleep.”
She lay down again and snuggled closer.
…
I left her at the fourth floor where my office was located, and she would continue up to the next, the location of the cafeteria.
If I remember correctly, the current CEO when the factory manager, had always wanted to reclaim the cafeteria space for a new modernised production line, but the old guard had seen the benefit of keeping it despite the cost, as a means of keeping its workforce. Even twenty years ago, it would not have made a discussion topic, even in jest.
But times change.
Herman, another of the middle management fringe dwellers, and had also seen the need to have something to ‘bribe’ the workforce. We’d only been talking about it with others on our level the other day when all manner of rumours were drifting through our building.
He was loitering in the passage, obviously waiting for me.
“You’ve seen the message?”
I nodded.
“Hell of a way to kill an institution?”
I walked into my cubicle and dumped my bag on the floor. As a first act, the new broom removed all the offices, and put everyone into an open plan, where it was easier to communicate with others and removed the barriers walls and doors presented. The jury was still out on whether it worked, I could still never get to see the people I needed to.
He followed me in and sat in a chair in the corner. I sat on the desk, it was not a large cubicle.
“It was a drain on profits. The world has moved on from pandering to workforces. It seems dividends are more important. I’m sure this will not be the only change.”
“Like managers losing their cars and credit cards, except for the upper echelon. I don’t think you’ll see them close the executive dining room.”
Yes, it was only a matter of time before that morsel would raise its head under the banner of hypocrisy.
“Probably not. But remember, we used to build cars once, and it was good advertising to hand them out to all and sundry. Now, trying to do the right thing costs too much.”
My phone on the desk rang and startled me. It was still quiet, the bulk of the cubicle population hadn’t arrived yet. My guess they were gathering in coffee shops discussing the news.
I picked up receiver mid ring, then said, “Yes?” I refused to follow the official answering sequence advised by the new broom.
Hesitation, then, “O’Hara from Administration. Can you come and see me, nine a.m.?”
Why? There was no way anyone could know I sent that memo, and I wasn’t on management’s radar, it had been O’Hara himself who told me to keep up the good work, the coded message that said I was not on the latest promotion list.
“I’ll see you then.” I was not going to say ‘yes, sir’ like other management hopefuls. O’Hara was not someone who could be buttered up, a fact only I seemed to be aware of.
“Who was that?”
“O’Hara.”
“Then your days are numbered. He never calls except to say you have a promotion or you’re fired. You aren’t on the promotion list.”
“How can you be sure?”
No one was supposed to know who was on that list for sure, it was a closely guarded secret. Herman said he knew someone who knew someone who knew Herman’s PA, and had been told who was on the list. So far, in the last two lists, he had been right about us two.
Perhaps he was right. I was going to get fired.
“Have I ever been wrong?”
Technically, no. But I never got any other names of those who were on the list. Maybe it was better to wait, and be disappointed then.
“Well, we’ll soon find out.”
…
It took twenty minutes to walk from the old administration building to the new, built recently on the outskirts of the company site, on what was once the carpark. The carpark had been relocated under the new administration building, and it gave management the perfect excuse to charge us to park our cars.
A Lot of employees had switched from car to the train, less than the weekly cost of the carpark. Another new broom initiative; getting people out of cars and onto public transport, their contribution to easing global warming.
None of us, other than those in the new administration building had passes, so we had to sign in as visitors on the ground floor, even though we spent a lot of time travelling back and forth, and visiting other members of our departments who had been moved from the old building.
No, not a new broom initiative, just the result of an obtuse security chief.
Getting the pass made me five minutes late, and O’Hara didn’t like tardy people.
A glare followed me from the door of his office to the seat in front of his desk where he motioned me to sit. The offices were better here and were offices not cubicles. Everyone else wanted to be transferred to the new office. I didn’t. Too far away from Olga.
“I called you over to discuss the ten-point plan to save the cafeteria.”
“What ten-point plan?” Perhaps they did know who wrote the memo.
“I had every written complaint checked to see whose writing it was. Next time, write it on the computer and print it out.”
I shrugged. “I did it for a laugh. Nothing’s going to change in this place.”
“You sound like you don’t like working here?”
“I do. Most days. Today, though, is one reason to leave. That cafeteria has been here since the day the factory started. The employers, once, were involved in getting employees housing, even had their own estate, and assisted them to buy cars. It was a novel thought in an age where employers, well, some employers, considered their employees assets.”
“We still do.”
I shook my head. I guess if you wanted to be in management you had to believe and repeat the new mantra. I’d heard about the management team building conferences.
“So, we’re going back to our original values?”
“This is neither the time, nor do we have the fiscal viability. But it seems some of the board members consider your proposals need fleshing out into a plan with costings so they can make a more balanced judgement.”
“Unfortunately, you just uttered the two words that make that idea redundant, fiscal viability. There is no possible way in this current world we live in that a cafeteria would ever be viable, unless we charged five-star restaurant prices for the meals.”
“Humour me and do it anyway.”
“Not my department.”
“Fixed. You now are temporarily assigned to ‘rebuilding and restructuring’. You can add three others to your team. You have a week.”
“And if I say no.”
“It’s that or your resignation. You have been given an opportunity, take it.”
I shrugged. I’d heard about the new broom’s method of culling. Give them jobs that they can’t possibly find a solution to. Devious, but devastatingly effective. One last hurrah before being tossed on the executive scrap heap.
When I came out of his office, Herman was waiting in the outer office.
“You too,” I said.
“Nine of us. Sounds like there’s a new project in the wind.”
I didn’t burst his bubble. Ten more budding executives were getting the push. I sighed.
At least now Olga and I could go visit her family on the shores of the Black Sea. There was no excuse not to.
Today Jack is about to become as confused as he ever will be. Well, maybe not as ever, but it’s the start of a time when he will not know what is happening.
Firstly, there’s Maryanne. Whilst the full extent of the enigma she she will be for nearly three quarters of the book, may need a little adjustment when it comes to the first edit, I know something about her now, and those characteristics will gradually be dropped in front of the reader.
Some will say, after this chapter, that she is trouble. Jack has known that from the start, but that assessment really comes from a distinct lack of understand of women in general. Yes, he had had girlfriends, but not like Maryanne.
And, before you asked, yes, she is, in part, modelled on a woman I once knew, and she was nothing like any other woman I had known. She was genuinely a beautiful soul, and very much misunderstood.
Jack is fortunate in that he is hesitant to take that last step, though I suspect he might want to, but there are reasons for holding back.
These will be more apparent in the next chapter … I hope.
It’s written in my head, and I’m tempted to stay up and write it, but it’s late, and life other than being a writer will impinge on my time tomorrow.
Today’s effort amounts to 2,018 words, for a total, so far, of 22,612.
It’s what I’d always expected of my teachers, having to stand up the front of the classroom and look like they were in control.
These days, not so much, but back in my day, teachers, and particularly the men, were to be feared, and stern expressions were the features of an effective teacher.
So, in this context, it means a hardness or severity of manner.
Whilst in a sense that was frightening to us kids, another form of the word also can be used to express a forbidding or gloomy appearance.
Grandfathers also have that stern look, but it’s more forbidding, more authoritarian, more severe, more austere, well, you get the picture. A six-year-old would be trembling in his or her boots.
There again, in facing up to either possibility above, you could stand firm with a stern resolve not to buckle under the pressure.
Of course, not a good idea if you’re facing a tank (with a stern-looking tank master)
Then…
If you’re standing at the end of the boat, not the front, but the rear, you would be standing at the stern of the boat, or ship.
Oddly, when issuing instructions to go in reverse, not something you would say if you were on the bridge, you would instead say, or possibly yell, full speed astern, because you’re about to hit an iceberg.
Or some idiot in a jet ski who likes to think he or she can beat the bullet (or 65,000 tonnes of a ship that has very little mobility).
Yes, I’m drawing a blank, which means I have no idea
It seems that I do this a lot these days, perhaps one of the perils of being a writer
But…
Using blank in a story doesn’t necessarily convey the antagonist is clueless, more likely he or she just used one in a gun, put there by a person who didn’t want to get shot.
No, still drawing a blank on this one.
A blank space means there’s nothing in it, and you see a lot of these in crosswords and sudoku, even when the user has been toiling for hours
I’m thinking anyone who met me might misinterpret my blank expression, well, it’s not too expressive in the first place
Perhaps before the coin becomes a coin; it is a piece of blank metal to begin with. How good would it be to get a one-sided coin, that’d be worth a lot?
And the very worst description of blank; having a blank piece of paper in front of you, and you really are drawing a blank!
You take the gondola up to the Skyline and get some of the most amazing views.
Below is a photo of The Remarkables, one of several ski resorts near Queenstown.
You can see the winding road going up the mountainside. We have made this trip several times and it is particularly frightening in winter when chains are required.
In the other direction, heading towards Kingston, the views of the mountains and the lake are equally as magnificent.
Or manage to capture a photo of the Earnslaw making its way across the lake towards Walter Peak Farm. It seems almost like a miniature toy.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 