The Postcard: a short story

/ Caron Allan / Leave a comment

Here’s a short story I wrote a LONG time ago…

‘Have you finished that contract yet?’

My manager’s voice cut into my little lonely bubble and made me jump half out of my skin. He glowered a bit, angry with me for being startled, but he was somewhat mollified when I told him I only had two more pages to go out of the original thirty-two.

‘By lunchtime, yeah?’ he reminded me as he moved away to pester someone else.

I can’t stand it here. I’ve been here a month, but it feels like a life-sentence. A weekend is just not enough parole time after the working week that precedes it.

I stared at the postcard my predecessor left pinned to the hessian wall of the cubicle. It shows a ramshackle cottage on a beach, an empty beach, with palm trees and golden sand that seems to stretch on for miles, lapped by blue, blue water. And nothing else. No one else.

The cottage wasn’t really a cottage, it was more like a shed or a hut. The roof looks like it would blow away in a hurricane. And this looks like the kind of place where they actually have hurricanes, somewhere hot, tropical. And the walls don’t exactly look sound. There are cracks between the boards—I can imagine all kinds of creepy crawlies getting in through those. There’s only one small window, partially boarded over. There’s a wonky railing around what appears to be a microscopic veranda.

But all the same… it calls to me. Wish you were here? Oh yes, I most certainly do.

With each passing day I’ve looked at it more and more. My eyes are drawn to it.

On Monday, after a tense weekend of knowing what awaits me once Sunday is over, I return to my cell, turn on my computer, and take my first look of the week at the card.

Then work begins: a constant stream of emails, calls, online meetings, in-person meetings, assessments, reassessments, and always those annoying little, ‘I wonder if you could just pop this on your to-do list’ or, ‘Sorry Jan/Lynne/Suzie from accounts/Jeff/Steve haven’t quite been able to get to this, so if you could just help a chap out and…’

I get my head down and get on with things. Lunch breaks are a myth in this place, as is their reputed work-life balance. Most of the time, I hardly look up from my desk until half an hour after I should have gone home. There’s always more still to do, and I usually find I’ve two or three hours after Jan, Lynne or Suzie and the rest of them. That’s Monday madness.

Tuesday is not a lot better, though I quite often get a lunch break and I usually leave more or less on time, maybe an hour at most of overtime. I glance at the picture several times on a Tuesday.

Wednesday is easier—the lull before the end-of-the-week storm. Usually I catch up with my workload from the week before, which keeps me busy—so much so that I often forget all about the little hut.

Thursday things start to get crazy again—contracts to complete, information to chase, people to call, emails, meetings, and yet more calls followed by more meetings. It’s manic but still only a dress rehearsal for Frantic Friday. It’s a bit like grocery shopping the last weekend before Christmas—total chaos with everyone grabbing haphazardly at things just in case they never get any food again.

Friday. So close to the weekend but such a horror to live through week after week. That’s when I seek refuge the most often, gazing at the picture, really drinking in that impossibly blue sky, reflected in the improbably blue water, the wide expanse of deserted beach. As if by the sheer force of my concentration I could transport myself there. I can almost hear the soft sound of the water washing up onto the shore.

Our office is huge. And we are all tucked away in our little cells—our cubicles which accommodate our desk, chairs, computer, phone and trays upon trays of paperwork. I remember once years ago people used to say that using computer systems would make most administration processes redundant, and that there would be a huge reduction in paperwork. The strange, alluring legend of the paperless office. There are eighty-six of us on this floor. Eighty-six computers all warming the heavy recycled air with their hot little components. Eighty-six chairs on rollers that don’t quite roll. Eighty-six miserable people kept in little squares like veal calves or stray dogs waiting to be adopted, euthanised or housed temporarily until either retirement or death claims us—either one is good at the moment.

They play the radio over the PA system—to ‘keep up morale’. The problem is, there is only one radio, and eighty-six tastes in music. I find it so stressful to listen to boy bands and rock chicks and divas all day long. It’s mentally exhausting. But it’s not as bad as Talk Radio. That’s the worst. People ringing in to talk about the tragedies in their life, breaking your heart as you reply to the fourteenth email about the same—still unresolved—issue.

Then there’s the constant toing and froing of the workers—like being perpetually on some crowded stairs—figures bustling back and forth, not friends, not visitors, just milling about, clattering by in noisy heels on the wood-effect flooring. Dropping stuff right behind you. Laughing loudly or sobbing quietly into their coffee.

I bet none of that happens on that little beach. I bet it’s quiet all the time. If I sat on that little veranda, I bet all I would hear, if I closed my eyes would be the soft rustling of the palm trees, the sound of the occasional bird overhead, the sound of the waves and my own calm breath, moving in and out and washing away my tension.

I bet no one ever yells out ‘What the hell has happened to the accounting software updates?’ Or, ‘Does anyone know how to unjam printer seven?’

I bet if people ever came to that hut they would bring a small gift—some fruit, perhaps or maybe some flowers. And I’d make tea, and we could sit on that veranda and look at the water. We could talk if we wanted to, but I wouldn’t mind if we didn’t.

‘What happened to that blue folder marked ‘urgent’?’ my manager barks in my ear suddenly, and I accidentally type half a dozen letter Ys on the screen as I jerk round to look at him. He glares at me again. ‘Daydreaming again? For God’s sake, keep you mind on your work. Then maybe folders wouldn’t keep disappearing.’

He’s gone again and I’m fighting back tears. It seems so unfair that I’m here in this place when there are places like the one on the postcard on the wall. I know people say we all have bad days, you’ll feel better tomorrow. But this dread, this slow, cold death has been going on for decades. What if it’s not how I feel in a passing moment of self-pity but it’s the length and breadth of my whole existence?

This is all I’ve ever known. All I’m likely to know until I retire. It’s no good telling me that when I retire I can do all the things I’ve dreamed of, like travelling. Why do I have to wait until my life is almost over to begin enjoying it? I don’t just need a holiday, I need a whole change of life.

I’m hardly thinking. I reach out and grab the postcard off the wall. Do I dare? Am I crazy? I lean down under the desk to pull out my bag. Before I even know what I’m going to do, I’ve thrust the postcard inside and put my bag under my arm. I turn and look around me. I see nothing here that is mine. I get up. I walk away down the aisle to the lift, hardly daring to breathe.

At the lift door, I wait impatiently. When it arrives and the door opens, I feel a sense of excitement, of doing something terribly naughty yet wonderful. I step inside before anyone tries to stop me. As the doors close, I realise no one has even noticed me leave, and as the lift doors close, I wonder how long it will be before they realise I’ve gone.

No one even sees me walk out of the big double front doors. No one. I’m nothing to them. As I hurry down the hill towards the railway station, so aware of the precious cargo in my bag, I feel a slight pang of guilt.

Perhaps I should have left the postcard to brighten the day of the next poor sap that occupies my cubicle.

*

Scene from upcoming Dottie Manderson mystery Midnight, the Stars and You

/ Caron Allan / Leave a comment

From time to time I post a deleted or discarded scene from one of my books on here, but today I thought I’d share a scene from my upcoming Dottie book, Midnight, The Stars And You: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 8. (I’m still not quite sure when this book will be out, I’m hoping it will be this summer…)

I hope you enjoy this short scene:

 

Sir Nigel always ensured that Lady Matilda Cosgrove – one of his oldest and dearest friends – had the Ormulu Room whenever she came to stay. In fact, he rather counted on it, because otherwise he’d have to invite fewer guests or get them to share their rooms: very few of the other guests would feel comfortable surrounded by so much ornate, gilded wood coupled with a rather dark marble. Lady Matilda liked the room. As far as Sir Nigel could tell, she was the only person in existence who did like the room.

It was a quarter to seven on a Saturday evening in June when Lady Matilda sat at the vast gold and dark brown dressing-table and allowed her maid to dress her hair in what they both deemed to be the most becoming fashion for a lady in her late sixties. They were deep in conversation about which gown Lady Matilda had worn to a certain affair in the Spring of 1881, when there came a tap on the door.

Salt – Lady Matilda’s maid, set down her comb and perfume bottle and turned to the door to state, ‘Come,’ with as much dignity as her ladyship herself.

The door opened. A timid little red-headed maid stood on the threshold looking extremely nervous.

‘Well?’ demanded Salt. She was a fierce protector of her ladyship’s privacy.

‘Begging your pardon, my lady,’ the young woman began, ‘but Sir Nigel’s compliments and would it suit your ladyship to place your jewellery into Sir Nigel’s safe for the evening? There’s been two break-ins on this square in the last week, and Sir Nigel doesn’t want to run any risks with your ladyship’s valuables. In fact, I’m to go to all the ladies – and the gentlemen – and take their valuables down to his lordship’s safe.’

She accompanied this information with a kind of bobbing curtsey, all the while nervously wringing her hands. Lady Matilda thought she was rather a sweet little thing.

‘And what is your name, my dear?’ demanded her ladyship.

‘Eliza, ma’am. Eliza Smallwood. I’m new in this establishment.’

‘Well, Eliza Smallwood, I should be most obliged if you would take my jewellery case to Sir Nigel at once and thank him for his good sense and kind thoughts. Salt, give the child the case. But make sure to keep out what I need for this evening, obviously, won’t you.’

‘Yes, my lady.’

Salt extracted several glittering items of great value. Once Lady Matilda had nodded her approval, the case was locked up again, the tiny black key slipped into Salt’s pocket, and the case was handed to the young maid.

She gave another little bob and clutching the jewellery case to her as if her life depended on keeping it safe, she said, ‘Thank you, your ladyship. I’ll take these to Sir Nigel directly. Good evening.’

The door closed behind her, and Salt and Lady Matilda resumed their discussion relating to the precise colour and fabric of the gown worn on the evening of the Royal Gala over forty years earlier.

It was not long before the bell rang for dinner, and Lady Matilda descended the grand staircase to meet the other guests for a pre-dinner aperitif.

Sir Nigel greeted her with a beaming smile, taking both her hands in his and kissing first her left cheek then her right in his usual warm manner that Lady Matilda found delightfully Continental.

She lost no time in thanking him again for his invitation to stay for the weekend whilst George was overseas on his usual ambassadorial duties. As always, she offered her compliments on the charming Ormulu Bedroom, which had, she said, a rich glamour that one didn’t see everywhere. She asked after his health, heard with patience of his sciatica and stiff knees – she was herself a martyr to her knees, and promised to let him have Salt’s remedy for the relief of the discomfort – then she remarked,

‘Nigel, dearest, it was so thoughtful of you to send up that sweet little girl to fetch my jewellery. I shall feel so much happier knowing my grandmother’s diamonds are safely locked away. These robberies are such a worry.’

He stared at her for a second or two too long, and she immediately divined that something was amiss. But before she could quiz him about it, the door was flung open and Salt ran in, tears streaming down her face, causing everyone to turn and stare, drinks and forks halted halfway to their mouths.

She wailed, ‘Oh my dear lady, I’ve just found out. There isn’t any such maid as that Eliza girl in the house. And she’s gone off with all your valuables!’

And indeed she had. She had practically run down the back stairs with the jewellery case in her arms, knowing she had only a minute or two to make her escape. The side door was still ajar, and unseen by anyone, she slipped outside, pulling off her cap and apron and throwing them onto the grass, then she hopped into the waiting car at the end of the drive.

It sped off before anyone in the house had even realised there had been a robbery.

***

 

Job vacancy: armchair sleuth required (readvertised)

/ Caron Allan / 3 Comments

 

We at LaughingAtLife.org (not a real company!) have a new part-time vacancy for the role of armchair sleuth.

About this role:

You must be ready, willing and able to deliver timely advice to all suspects and potential victims. (But not too timely. Whilst we agree that forewarned is forearmed, if you’re too good at your job, you may find the number of victims drops alarmingly and you are left with no one to investigate/suspect which will lead to everyone at LaughingAtLife.org moving into the genre of romance. Or maybe Fantasy. No one at LaughingAtLife.org wants that to happen.)

You should be highly experienced in delivering comments such as ‘I knew that was going to happen’ or ‘You could write this (insert offensive vocabulary here) stuff yourself!’

If you have fancied taking part in shows such as Gogglebox, this job could be for you!

Essential qualifications:

Eagle-eyed attention to detail.

Nerves of steel.

Ability to pick locks with a hair pin or safety pin. Or a lock-pick.

Suspicious of everyone and everything. Make remarks such as ‘Oh really?’ and ‘Feel free to be open and honest with me, I will discover the truth in the end.’

Be liable to take all alibis with a pinch of salt. Or snuff.

Able to sniff out spurious motives and supply educated guesswork.

Must possess own monocle or pince-nez or (misplaced) reading glasses (on colour-coded ribbons or fine cord – not too long though, you don’t want someone to strangle you with said reading  glasses cord, do you?).

Should be able to demonstrate a long-established habit of putting your fingertips together in a thoughtful manner before speaking.

You must have a luxurious moustache which you continually fondle or trim or dye a suspiciously dark colour. This role is open to all genders in our commitment to non-discrimination.

Or, failing the moustache, you may have a knitting fetish, and take knitting everywhere with you so that you are ready at a moment’s notice to disarm suspects with your apparent inoffensiveness and the sense of calm rationality that you radiate.

Must be able to recall a long series of villagey anecdotes you can crowbar into any conversation.

Must know the difference between a colonel and a major. Must equally be conversant with the differences between life-peers and the other sort, whatever they are. And of course, ministers of religion and local politicians. Must know how to address a Dowager without causing universal embarrassment at the knitting circle or Ladies’ Bright Hour.

Must be able to shake your head sorrowfully from time to time and say, ‘The world is a very wicked place’ or make some quote about the universal fallibility of mankind.

Additional desirable qualifications:

Knowledge of Shakespeare, Milton and the Bible useful. Possibly also Tennyson. (but we at LaughingAtLife.org do not insist on Tennyson.)

Must not be liable to scream or faint when confronted with a gory scene. Must know exactly where to place fingers on the neck to discover the non-existent pulse of a victim.

Encyclopaedic knowledge of deadly fungi and herbs could come in handy. Ditto household chemicals. Or medicines.

Must be able to dip fingertip in any powdery drug and taste it without dying, and also must be able to identify said drug.

Salary:

There is no salary, just the reward of knowing you did your best, and served your country. Or, failing that, completed at least one matinee jacket for the new baby of a friend of a friend of a friend.

Perks:

Sadly, neither are there any perks. There is no holiday allowance, as every time you go on holiday, someone will do something stupid and you will find yourself ‘embroiled’ in a new murder case. Even if you have a staycation, the grumpy colonel in the Old Manor House will upset someone who will then disguise themselves as a vicar and whack the colonel over the head 47 times with a fire-iron. You will of course realise that this was almost inevitable given the colonel’s generally offensive manner, and also it will be just what happened with Mrs Castle’s little boy in Northampton when he skived off school that day in 1948.

There is no sick pay, apart from the satisfaction that your last days will be repackaged and sold as Mr X’s or Ms Y’s Final Cases with a picture of the actor who plays your role on the front cover.

How to Apply:

Seriously?

***

Criss Cross: Friendship Can Be Murder: book1

/ Caron Allan / 1 Comment

My cozy mysteries set in the 1930s, along my two books from the 1960s mystery series, tend to outsell my original series, the Friendship Can Be Murder series to a considerable degree, and so I often go months without mentioning or even really thinking about my first few books.

They aren’t ‘literary’ – none of my books are. And as they are written in the form of diary entries, in the first person, I realise that they are not a popular choice point-of-view-wise.

But nevertheless, I have a great affection for them. I mean, often I look at these books, and think, ‘What was I thinking, I must have been mad!’ and other times, I’m just really grateful that I took the plunge and published them, and I learned so much that was invaluable when I came to publish my later books.

Book 1 – Criss Cross – was published in February 2013 – eons ago! And so I thought I would share a snippet from that book. It might pique your interest, or it might not, but I’m just showing it some love for the first time in a long while.

To set the stage, Cressida, a very wealthy lady who is married to Thomas, has been pondering the practicalities of killing her mother-in-law. Needless to say, they don’t get on, and Cressida has decided the world would be a much nicer place without her mother-in-law in it. So she’s mulling this over in her diary.

I mean, the vast majority of normal people, people like you and I, we just instinctively know the correct way to behave. We apologise when someone else bumps into us, we begin every complaint with ‘terribly sorry to be a nuisance, but…’ We’re nice. Pleasant. We have a kind of in-built mechanism, straight as a line in damp sand, an invisible barrier which prevents us stepping beyond the realm of reasonable and acceptable behaviour.

Some people do not.

Some people never read the signs, they ignore all warnings and plough doggedly on, intent only on saying what they want to say and doing what they want to do. They don’t care about your feelings. They turn up unannounced and uninvited, they change your plans without considering your wishes. They don’t notice the look on your face, the halting of your phrase, they are oblivious to the cooling of the atmosphere around them. They never notice that infinitesimal pause before you continue to hand around the petit-fours, a fixed smile plastered on your face, inane pleasantries tripping off your tongue. Some people remain completely and utterly ignorant of all the signs.

Everyone else, metaphorically speaking, has grabbed their handbags and jackets, collected their madeleine-tins from your kitchen, tossed the keys to the Range Rover to their husbands, dashed out of the door leaving kisses still hanging in the air, and are already on the slip road to the motorway whilst That Person is still looking vaguely around as a few motes of dust drift gently down to the Axminster. They are wearing that idiotic expression that says, ‘Who? Me? What could I have possibly said?’ or even worse, ‘Well I only said what everyone else was thinking’.

And they are always, always, always completely unaware when they have outstayed their welcome.

There’s only one way to deal with people like that.

One way and only one way.

You have to kill them.

They never take the hint, you see. They fail to detect the slight frost in your demeanour as they witter on, insulting your loved ones, criticising your friends, your home, your life. Such people cannot be taught, changed or reasoned with. In the end, it’s just easier for all concerned if you get rid of them before they truly become a Nuisance and make everyone with whom they come into contact completely and utterly miserable.

And if that seems a little harsh, just think for a moment about what these people do to your self-esteem, to your inner calm, to your peace of mind. When the phone rings, these are the people whose voice one dreads to hear. One begins to dread all family occasions and holidays because of That Person. Frankly, it’s just not worth the emotional and psychological trauma of putting up with them. Life is quite challenging enough. And that is the stage I’ve now reached with Clarice.

So.

That said, it’s one thing to say to oneself, Monday, water plants, collect dry-cleaning, go to library, bake fairy cakes for the One-to-One day-centre fundraiser, and quite another thing to just sort of slip onto the bottom of your to-do list, ‘Oh and kill mother-in-law and get everything tidied up because dinner will be on the table at seven o’clock sharp due to drinks at eight-thirty at the Pearson-Jones’.

Things—unfortunately—just aren’t quite that simple.

The Grandes Dames of the murder mystery genre, practising their art in the early and middle parts of the twentieth century—what one might term the ‘Golden Age’ of detective fiction—espoused the pleasures of poisoning. Fly-papers were meticulously soaked to extract their lethal properties, berries and toadstools were carefully gathered and sliced and diced and surreptitiously introduced into steaming casseroles and tempting omelettes. On every domestic shelf such things as sleeping draughts and rat poison and eye drops sat unnoticed and unremarked, and a home was not a home without at least a few jars of cyanide or arsenic sulking forgotten in garden sheds and garages.

But, sadly, these items are notoriously tricky to come by nowadays in our ‘Nanny state’.

Of course, one watches these TV programmes that explain all about the forensic process, so that one is pre-armed with useful information. Knives wielded by the left-handed protagonist cut quite differently to those employed by a right-handed person. Equally so the short protagonist and the weak slash feeble protagonist.

In addition the actual wound inflicted by a classic blunt weapon can yield so much information about not just the weapon itself but also the attacker—the approximate height, stance, and even weight and probable gender, for example, and the ferocity of attack is sometimes a gauge as to motive and psychology. Firing a gun leaves residue on one’s clothes, gloves, and skin, and, contrary to popular belief, it can be quite a job laying one’s hands on a firearm.

According to the Daily Tabloid, a gun may readily be obtained at certain pubs in our larger cities for as little as £30, usually from a gentleman going by the name of Baz or Tel, but the problem is, these tend to be the kind of establishments one would hesitate to enter in broad daylight, let alone late in the evening.

Remember, it’s very difficult to get a decent glass of Merlot in this kind of hostelry, and one can’t just go in and hang about without making a purchase of some kind. If you do just go into the bar and stand or sit in a corner, the other patrons are likely to stare and nudge one another. They may even whisper to one another, ‘Wot jer fink er game is then?’ or possibly, ‘Oi Tel, woss up wiv er, she too good fer us or summink?’

This is especially the case when one gentleman approaches and states that he and his friend, Gaz or Stevo or even ‘Arrison would like to buy you a beverage of some description, usually a Mojito or similar, and you are forced to politely but firmly decline. They are apt to be offended.

And if you do order a nice glass of Merlot, there’s always a momentary look of confusion on the face of the Landlord as he tries to recollect whether he has a corkscrew within easy reach, or how long ago he opened the half-empty bottle on the back counter—was it recently enough to avoid the expense of opening a brand new bottle?

Then he’ll ask if you’d like ice and lemon. Might as well add a cherry-on-a-stick and a little umbrella! And there’s no point in trying to charge it to your Diamond Visa or Titanium Amex—they much prefer to deal with cash. It’s altogether a rather unpleasant experience.

In any case, Baz or Tel are always surprisingly suspicious when one asks them if it would be possible to purchase a small Eastern-European revolver, something with a fairly hefty slug but small enough to slip into a small Louis Vuitton clutch-purse, or at a pinch into a Mulberry shoulder bag, or even, and here I may be straying into the realms of fantasy or James Bond (same thing, I suppose), even into the top of one’s stocking.

The gentleman invariably looks a bit puzzled and says something along the lines of, ‘‘ere that sounds a bit dodgy Darlin’. I don’t do nuffin like that.’ Well, of course it’s a bit dodgy, one points out, one is illegally attempting to buy a gun in a corner of the car park of a fleabag pub at eleven o’clock at night, and paying cash into the bargain. How could one possibly see it in any other light than dodgy? It doesn’t matter if you offer them £100, £200 or even £500 at this point, they just walk away shaking their heads and saying, ‘screw that, I don’t wanna get cort up in nuffin dodgy.’

I ask you.

The criminal classes aren’t what they once were. But what other choices does one have?

A pillow over the face in the dead of night is liable to leave a filament of goose-down in the lungs of your chosen recipient. This will immediately be detected by any half-decent forensic examiner and blabbed all over the Car-Crash Telly channel in a late-night special called Toffs Who Kill or something of the kind.

A bit of a bump with the car in a quiet part of town on a wet Wednesday afternoon may lead to eyewitnesses or CCTV footage recording your number plate for posterity. For goodness sake, tiny fragments of paint from the wing of your vehicle may embed themselves in the depths of the wound you inflict, and these same may be delicately reclaimed by a steady-handed science-nerd in a lab coat wielding a pair of sterile tweezers.

Murder is a difficult road to travel. But one must bear in mind the old maxim that nothing worthwhile is ever attained without a struggle. Therefore it is imperative to be utterly committed, to be dedicated in one’s approach, to persevere in the face of adversity and to make copious notes so that one may learn from one’s mistakes. And of course, it goes almost without saying, each stage must be planned in intricate, even tedious, detail.

Today I went to my local stationer’s—It’s so vital, I feel, that one supports local businesses wherever possible—and bought two notebooks, a small index card box, a set of ruled index cards, and a rather nice fountain pen. My husband seems to be under the impression that I require these items to catalogue my shoe collection. Sweet! And not a bad idea… but first things first.

Now, I’ve worked out I have approximately six weeks in which to plan and carry out my little project, and still have time for a decent mourning period before we have to be in Scotland for the ‘glorious twelfth’, my Thomas’s cousin Jessica (lovely woman!) always has a house party. Actually this year it’s the ‘glorious thirteenth’ as the twelfth falls on the Sabbath, and one never shoots in Scotland on the Sabbath. Der! Thomas loves his shooting, so although I’m not a lover of messy pastimes, I always like to encourage him to relax and have a bit of fun. Stockbrokers work so hard, don’t they, and such high stress levels, one obviously doesn’t want them to crack up under the pressure!

***

Rewriting a novel – a nuts and bolts approach

/ Caron Allan / 4 Comments

(This post first appeared in 2017 when I was invited to do a guest spot on Pink Glitter Publishing for my dear friend and author Emma Baird.) And sorry, it’s another really long post this week…

I love rewriting. There, I’ve said it. I think I could be the only person in the history of the world who actually enjoys rewriting. In fact, I like it a lot more than writing the first draft. I hate that bit. Okay, maybe not hate. I love the thrill of writing the first 50 pages or so, when it’s all fresh and exciting, and it begins to unfold on the page. Love that. But…sooner or later I always hit the first-draft wall. I know it’s because I don’t plot. I’m a pantser. So sue me, I hate to plot. If I plan out my book, on some level I feel I’ve already told the story already and it loses it’s allure.

But that makes the initial experience of writing a draft rather an emotional, rivers-deep-mountains-high kind of affair. But… rewriting, oh that is a whole new thing. I LOVE rewriting. You are free from the ‘burden’ of creating and, taking a distancing step back from your work, you can begin to rethink, polish and tidy. I love to tidy. Sometimes I can only do this by laying all the pages out on the floor and wracking my brains over which order this mess is supposed to go in.

Hemingway famously said, ‘Write drunk, edit sober.’ I haven’t tried it, but it might work for you. I have to say, editing sometimes makes me feel like I need a little help…

Don’t revise as you go. I know there are always a few people for whom that system works, but trust me, it’s not for most people. You get so bogged down in the detail that you never progress. I know people who have spent literally years rewriting the same first three chapters and have never finished the book. It makes me so sad. Write the whole book, from beginning to end, always looking forwards, pressing on till you reach ‘The End’. If you can’t remember the names and places mentioned earlier in the story, just do what I do and put a massive X, or XX, or Mr Thingy, or What Was Her Name, The One With The Long Blonde Hair, in its place. Or refer to a list of names and places you create as you go along.

It’s so much easier to revise a whole book. Like creating a sculpture, you’ve got that solid block to chip away at. You’ve got the overall shape and idea to work on. Your book is your outline. (You can thank Mary Wibberley for that bit of advice in her book from decades ago, To Writers With Love.)

After finishing your first draft, don’t immediately start revisions. Unless you are on the clock and the deadline is almost on you (we’ve all done it), put the book away for as long as you can. This is the perfect time to write another book. Yes, really. Leave your first draft for at least a few weeks, ideally a few months, or even a year. You will need to approach it next time around with a good degree of detachment to get out of writer mode and into rewriter mode. Then, when you’ve finished the next book, while that is ‘maturing’, you can go back to the previous one. Or, if you’ve a) got all the time in the world, or b) you’ve decided to write a series and publish fairly close together, now could be the perfect time to write book three!

Gary Cooper pondering that tricky scene just before the end of chapter six.

So you’re ready to start. Read it. Don’t write, don’t type, don’t tweak, fiddle, twiddle or jiggle. Just read the whole story through from beginning to end. You are trying to get an overview, to reacquaint yourself with your story. Afterwards, make notes on how you felt about the book. Does the story hang together? Does the plot progress logically (unless an illogical plot is essential to your story)? Do you have that sensation of tripping up as you read—a bit like when you miss a stair and think you’re falling—that’s when there’s a problem, usually a plot problem. Try to pinpoint what it was that made you feel like that. Put a sticky note on the page, or if a computer file, highlight the section, or bookmark it, or make a note in the Track Changes feature if using Word.

If you’re frustrated by not being able to make changes as you spot them, or worried you might forget, again, as already suggested, make notes in the Track Changes feature of Word, or pencil notes in the margin, or use sticky notes if working with a paper copy, just don’t change the body of the book yet. Hopefully after rereading the whole book, you will be able to see the strengths and weaknesses of your draft. You will see what needs to go. If not, give it to a trusted friend or writing pal to read. Ask them to be honest and not just pat you on the back. Rewriting can feel very much like ‘fixing problems’ or putting right things that are wrong, and with this mind-set, this can be quite demoralising. Don’t get into this trap. Remember, you’re polishing, refining. Putting flesh on a flexible framework. It’s all good.

Save your original draft, and make a copy with a new version name, just in case in the end, you’re not happy with what you’ve done and need to revert and give it another go. Again, we’ve all done that, I think. Give yourself a fall back position.

Start tinkering. Start with the easy stuff like consistency of character description and behaviour, check the names, spellings, and personal details of all characters, check place-names are correct and consistent throughout. Then move on to point of view. With POV, consistency is everything. If you’re writing anything other than an omniscient third person viewpoint, then there will be things your main characters cannot know until it is revealed to them. Make sure you’ve nailed that.

Next, check for all those words you overuse. For me, that’s words like So, And and Also. A friend of mine uses Thus in almost every paragraph… it’s really annoying. If you use unusual words to describe something, don’t repeat them more than once (if that) as unusual words stick in the reader’s mind and break the wonderful spell you’ve created of suspending disbelief: the worst possible offence you can commit as a writer of fiction. Don’t rip your reader from the story and plunge them back into the real world. Make less use of unusual words such as coterie or Schadenfreude, these are words that stand out from the page, and stick in your reader’s mind. If you use clichés—please don’t—but if you absolutely must, do it just once, don’t repeat them. You also don’t need to show off all the big words you know. Nine times out of ten, the simple, direct phrase will work better than anything flowery, waffly or too complicated. Keep it simple.

And if like me you write books set in the 1930s or 1960s – check for anachronistic things – things that weren’t invented then, hadn’t been discovered, developed or couldn’t be done, differences of etiquette, speech patterns, all the stuff that has furious readers turning to Goodreads or Amazon and saying, ‘1*, couldn’t possibly get past the comment about using a zip! In 1920? Hardly!’ Because believe me, those little things make a big difference to a reader and can ruin the whole reading experience. If in doubt, ask someone, or ask Mr Google.

Brain boggle is a normal part of revising your book. Don’t worry about it. Have a nice soothing cuppa and relax for a bit.

Check hyphenation, apostrophe use, adverbs and speech tags. I don’t agree with the ‘don’t use adverbs, they’re evil’ approach, but use them sparingly. (See what I did there?) Keep metaphors and especially similes to a minimum, unless you’re writing poetry; they are also irritating. Don’t use fussy speech tags: he responded, she retorted, he espoused, she countered, etc. Once in a while is fine, but you don’t need to tag every speech, just enough so the reader knows who said what. The word ‘said’, 90% of the time, is the best speech tag there is, it’s invisible, the reader will pass on, aware of who is speaking but not bothered about how – that should be clear from the context and what they say. Again, keep it simple.

Tidy your grammar, get rid of typos and unnecessary repetition. Check your tense scenes or action scenes for long, meandering sentences that slow the reader down and take forever to read so that the reader can’t remember what you were talking about, and they have to go back to the beginning to reread, trying to figure out the meaning (like that, for example – four lines for one sentence??? Too much, unless you’re writing War and Peace). Check slow, reflective, emotional or romantic scenes for accidentally humorous clangers, (my often quoted, ‘and then he opened the door in his pyjamas’), or break-neck short sentences that rush the reader too quickly through the text.

Read it again. And again. Tweak as you go, now, but remember some changes will have a knock-on effect and need to be addressed multiple times throughout the book. Now pass the draft to your close friends/beta-readers/book group, for your first round of major feedback. You can’t, sadly, trust yourself entirely to write, polish, edit, proofread, proofread, edit and polish then proofread. you’ll need help. If affordable, get professional help, go with a recommended person or business, not someone you pluck from nowhere unless they have incredible feedback. Otherwise keep to a small trusted group of serious writers and readers who have excellent language skills and a kind, tactful way of letting you know when something’s not quite right. If you use more than one beta-reader, you might find they contradict one another – then all you can do is go with the majority and trust your gut.

Then—I hate to say it—you need to do it all again. I read somewhere that if you don’t hate your book by the time it is published, you haven’t done enough work on it, and believe me I’ve come so close to hating a couple of my books. Your book is not ready for your editor or proofreader until you are absolutely convinced that it’s perfect. Trust me, it won’t be. But it’ll be pretty close. Make sure you are not the only one to do the ‘extra final final proofread’ – you’ll definitely miss something.

As an editor, I’d say there’s nothing worse than getting a script that should be as close to release-ready as an author can make it, but turns out to be little more than a first draft. It’s like seeing a neglected child. And when you make your first sale or get a really wonderful review, it will feel like it was worth every minute.

***

 

Author interview: historical fiction author Heike Wolf

/ Caron Allan

It’s been forever since I managed to nab someone unlucky enough to be interviewed by me, but what could be better than a chat with a writer of historical fiction? Heike Wolf is the author of a number of books that tell the story of people living through different eras of German history, and she has a real flair for bringing the past to life and making the characters so real and relatable. How does she do that? And what is her inspiration? Let’s find out!

Hi Heike, and welcome. It’s great to have you here.

You and I have got to know one another through the amazing work you’ve done in editing the German translations (translated by the brilliant Stef Mills) of my Dottie Manderson mysteries. And although we’ve chatted in the past, I almost forgot that you had an actual life with other interests – and a day job as an author.

What kind of books do you write? And what is it about them that fires your inspiration?

I write historical fiction. I have been a history buff for as long as I can remember and when I read or hear about historic events, I’m immediately involved emotionally: trying to picture, to actually feel, how people experienced these events, how they felt, what they thought, what the world looked, sounded like, smelled like at that point. It’s the people behind the history that fascinate me.

When I plan a new book I first read about the historic background – and by that I mean reading everything I can get my hands on, immersing myself in that time period. Then, the ideas come automatically, the historic events fuel and shape the story.

The two books about the Schönau family were also inspired by my own family history. I grew up with the many life stories I heard from grandparents, my great-aunt and others, most of them tragic, and they not only made me realize how lucky I am for my sheltered life but also inspired me to weave some of them into this two-part novel about a German family.

I love history too – it was studying texts from the past that made me realise that, in simple terms, the people of the past were real, and living, and ‘just like us’ – once I grasped that, I found history deeply absorbing. But as individuals we also have a past.

So what were your earliest influences? What did you read as a child?

My mother read to me for hours before I could read myself, authors like Astrid Lindgren and some of the most popular authors of German children’s books. My English grandmother gave me Enid Blyton books as soon as I could read, and I devoured them. Of course I then wanted to go to boarding school and solve mysteries …

Actually I read so much that my parents were on a perpetual book hunt for me. They asked friends, relatives and neighbours if they had children’s books I could borrow. They scoured flea markets, my mother walked to the library bus with me when it was in town and of course I had a long wish list that consisted exclusively of books. I remained faithful to Enid Blyton for most of my earlier childhood. When I was eleven, I saw “Gone with the Wind” on television and wanted to read that book quite urgently. That started my historical fiction infatuation. It consisted mainly of books about American history, with a bit of Tolstoi and other Russians sprinkled in. In my later teens I discovered Dickens, Poe and the marvellous Goethe. Yes, I was a nerdy child, I admit it.

I wanted to go to boarding school and solve mysteries too! Though I was less interested in studying…

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m researching Prussia during the Napoleonic era for the third book in my series about a village in Prussia (in German) and I’m currently translating the second book about the Schönau family into English. This will accompany the family from 1934 to 1957 – through dictatorship, war and a divided Germany.

Speaking of the Schönau family, I know that this week, you’ve just released your first English translation of the first book of the two, A Citizen of All Times which I highly recommend for an insightful, absorbing read, and so what can we look forward to in the future from you?

In German, I want to write some more books for my Prussian series – it covers a fictional village near Berlin throughout the most eventful periods of Prussia between 1685 and 1945.

I also have plans to write a novel or series about Germans moving to the United States, so I’m gathering ideas for that.

As for English versions: After the translation of the second book about the Schönau family, I might translate my trilogy about an American family between 1832 and 1932 at some point.

Like most authors, you’re also an avid reader, who are your favourite authors?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – a masterful way with words and a fascinating character in itself.

Charles Dickens – he created the most unique characters and had a talent to combine humour and tragedy in his very own way.

Erich Maria Remarque – such elegant prose. Never a word too much, wonderful mastery of language and one of the most important chroniclers of the 20th century in Germany.

Edgar Allan Poe – a dark mind, which he put to thrilling literary use.

And what do you do when you’re not reading?

Hiking through the forests and being enslaved by my two cats. Reading. Doing puzzles while listening to historical or true crime documentaries. Doing volunteer work for our local castle.

Lol I’m glad I’m not the only cat-servant around! Do you have a writing process as such, and if so, what is it?

I research the history first and see what story ideas result from that. Then I mull these ideas over – preferably while hiking – until I have a beginning and a broad idea of where the story goes. I start writing and see where it takes me. I rarely develop characters thoroughly in advance because I noticed that they develop on their own while I write. I see where they take me and usually it makes sense to follow that path.

Then I see how the story develops and plot step by step – preferably while hiking even more.

I have no set writing times, I noticed it doesn’t work if I force myself to write. So I write when I feel like it (which fortunately is often).

What single piece of advice do you wish someone had given you 15 years ago?

Most of the time things turn out much better than you fear.

That’s very true. And fear can stop us from achieving so much.

Coming back to books, do you regularly reread certain books?

I read Goethe’s Faust about once every two years. Then, there are some novels that touched or / and impressed me for various reasons, so I occasionally read them again. Several of them from the authors I mentioned above as my favourite ones but also many others.

And lastly, where can readers find you?

I’m not very active on social media, but I do occasionally post on Instagram: www.instagram.com/heike_wolf_historischeromane

My own website is mainly in German (but these days it’s so easy to have websites translated right in the browser) and contains information about my books and articles relating to some of the historic topics I covered in my books: www.menschenlebengeschichte.com

Thank you so much, Heike, it’s been fascinating talking with you, and I wish you great success with all your ventures.

Brief bio of Heike Wolf:

Heike Wolf studied to be a lawyer, but she has been fascinated by books and writing ever since she can remember. She started to write fiction as soon as she knew how to write at all (the quality of her works has improved by then). The passion for history came a few years later and so the ground was set for writing historic fiction after she had first focused on non-fiction books for expats to Germany (“Coming to and Living in Germany”, “Cross-cultural musings about Germany”).

Her family history extends across many countries, and she has also lived in various countries herself, so it’s not surprising that her family history and the countries she loves play a role in many of her books. Her two books about the German family Schönau were in large parts inspired by her great-aunt’s life. As Heike Wolf, who grew up with an English mother and a German father, also does literary translations, she translated the first Schönau book into English and is currently working on the translation of the second.

Her novels are characterized by careful research and the skillful interweaving of the historical background with the lives of her characters ­– “people live history”.

Carry on reading below to find out a bit more about Heike’s new book A Citizen of All Times out this week in English:

The story of a German family in the most turbulent time of the last century.

Volume 1:

While Charlotte plans her eightieth birthday and follows the demonstrations and upheavals in the East Germany, she thinks back to her childhood and youth in Leipzig, where she was born in 1909 and grew up with two siblings. Their sheltered childhood is shaken by World War I, revolution and a completely changed world. During the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic, in a politically unstable time, the three Schönau children take their first steps into adult life. While Charlotte’s sister Dorchen enjoys the liberal cultural life in Berlin, her brother Heinrich is drawn to the wrong circles. Charlotte herself experiences the versatility of being a university student and suffers the first painful loss of her life.

In the second volume, the darkest period of German history has descended upon the country. Each of the Schönau siblings has a different way of getting through the Nazi dictatorship and World War II. Dorothea gets to know the ugly face of the new regime, has to make sacrifices and undergo fundamental life changes. Heinrich has found his place and is leaving behind those who have accompanied him. Charlotte focuses on her family and tries to ignore unpleasant truths. The war brings unimaginable losses and forces almost everybody to make difficult decisions. At the end of the war, the family finds itself facing new trials.
Charlotte’s eightieth birthday on November 9, 1989 ends in a way she would never have thought possible.

You can find both eBook and paperback versions here:

Amazon USA

Amazon UK

Amazon Germany

***

New Shoots: a quite long short story

/ Caron Allan / 6 Comments

June 1829

In the little garden behind his father’s cottage, the spiraea shoots had rooted. Walter could see the little green buds, emerging here and there up the length of the canes that stood in a row before him like soldiers on parade. In some cases, the buds were a little larger than the rest, and were just beginning to unfurl. Walter turned to survey the bench with its dozens of pots of soil and the new life contained within them. Strawberry plantlets growing stronger day by day; pansy, geranium and snapdragon seedlings showing their first ‘true’ leaves, dahlia shoots just beginning to push their tips above the surface of the soil, and beside the bench, in the border, the tall sweet peas had already reached the first wire.

He smiled and felt as though a weight had lifted from his shoulders. These small beginnings would change his life. He would be his own man someday, with his own thriving business, no longer at the beck and call of His Lordship. He could ask Hetty Miller to be his wife. They could be married by Christmas.

It was as if his every dream was on the point of coming true.

September 1835

Walter Jenkins stood in the dock of the court. He gave the clerk his name, date of birth and his abode. His voice quavered a little and he cleared his throat to continue. He had never been in a court before. He’d never been accused of anything before.

The clerk of the court told him to remain standing as everyone else took their seats. He felt clumsy, naked, as all eyes turned on him. His cheeks burned with shame as the clerk read out the charge.

“The plaintiff, His Lordship the Lord Branchley, accuses you of building an independent and thriving concern as a market gardener upon the theft of plants from His Lordship’s grounds, where you worked as an under-gardener until five years ago when you began working on your own account. How do you plead?”

Walter licked his lips. He fidgeted with his jacket hem as he stammered his response. Then he had to repeat himself in order that everyone could hear him.

“Not—not guilty, Your Worship—um—your—um, sir.”

“Hmm.” The judge peered over his glasses at Walter and fixed him with a hard look. “So noted.” He made a mark on the paper in front of him with his fountain pen.

And so it began. Walter was permitted to take his seat and he sank down in relief, clutching at the wooden rail in front of him, his head swimming. He was a bag full of nerves.

At erudite length, the prosecution set forth their case: that the accused had stolen plants and seeds from the grounds of eminent philanthropist Lord Branchley, and had thus been able to set himself up as a market-gardener, with considerable success. Furthermore, it was stated that the accused had traded on knowledge he had gained during his employment by His Lordship and turned it to his advantage. There was more but these were the key points upon which their case hinged. His Lordship himself was in court and sat with his team of the finest attorneys at the front of the court. It was His Lordship’s desire to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.

For three hours, the prosecution set forth their case. Walter couldn’t take in what was happening. The legal jargon washed over him, leaching away his confidence, his pride, everything he knew. All he could think was, would he hang/ or be transported? Or…? Punishments too harsh to be considered with a calm mind. All he wanted was to be home again with his family.

When at last the judge declared a two-hour break for lunch, Walter was already wondering if it was too late to change his plea. Perhaps that might bring him some leniency from the court.

As soon as he reached the cool solitude of his cell, relief filled him. Out in the world beyond the court, the attorneys were enjoying a lavish four-course lunch, served on fine china. For Walter, lunch was a pot of small beer and some bread and cheese. But Walter didn’t feel much like eating. He took a little of the cheese, and perhaps half of the beer. He thought about his case.

If he changed his plea to guilty, he wouldn’t just go to prison, he would lose everything—his business, his little home and most importantly, his family. Hetty had married him, against her parents’ advice, on the understanding that he was able to support a family. Walter felt completely without hope. Lord Branchley’s case was too strong against him, his attorneys were too learned and powerful.

But what would happen if that was no longer the case? Even if he didn’t go to prison, he would have to pay damages. What if he lost everything and had to return to his old room at Mrs Clark’s? Hetty would not go with him, he was certain of that, and why should she bring the two babes to live in such a crowd? No, she would go home to her mother, and if that happened, he would never see her again. With His Lordship bound to win the action, Walter knew his life was finished even if he, by some marvel, escaped a prison sentence. Walter cleared his throat a couple of times and dashed away a tear.

At that moment, his defence attorney arrived. Although lacking the flair and aura of success of his opponents, he was all Walter had been able to afford. In fact, Walter suspected he couldn’t really afford this man either, but the attorney had agreed to represent him, and Walter would simply pay what he could when he could manage it. The man had said it was an interesting case. Right now, he was beaming as if there wasn’t a worry in the world. Walter repressed an urge to punch him on the nose.

“Well, Jenkins, I feel it’s going very well. Very well indeed, young sir. We’ll soon have you out of here, don’t you worry about that.” He paused, clearly expecting Walter to thank him. His remarks met with silence and the attorney continued with a slight frown. “Now, now, young fellow, chin up. No cause to be down in the dumps, you know.”

“They seem to have all the right with them,” Walter said. “I thought there would be a jury?”

“No indeed, it isn’t that kind of trial. It will be His Honour who will make the judgment based on the evidence.”

“Just that one judge? We may as well give up now. I have no chance of success.”

“It may seem so now, but we will not give in! No, no, we must cling to our beliefs and hope for the best. Now, once we resume after luncheon, I will have the opportunity to put your side of the story, and then we shall see, eh? What do you think to that?”

Walter said, “I think I shall go to prison. Or be transported to the Antipodes. I shall never see my wife or my children again.”

The attorney frowned at him again. He slapped him on the shoulder.

“Come, come, man, there’s no need for such talk. We have an excellent case. We’ll have you back with your family in no time. Right! Now, I’m just off for a spot of lunch and I will see you in court later on.”

The cell seemed emptier after the attorney left, but all the same Walter was glad he was gone.

*

After lunch the prosecution began by calling the first of their two witnesses, Lord Branchley’s head gardener. He gave a sworn statement that he had seen the defendant remove plant material from the compost heap for unknown purposes on no fewer than three occasions. That seemed to satisfy the prosecutor, who resumed his seat with a grave look and pursed lips.

Walter’s defence attorney stood. “Have you ever seen the defendant removing plants or any other items from anywhere other than the compost heap?”

The head-gardener, an aged gentleman with weak eyes, stood turning his hat round and round in his hand and avoiding Walter’s eye, and finally he admitted he had not.

“And can you elucidate for the officers of this court, the function of this compost heap?”

“Er, beg pardon?” the head-gardener leaned forward, looking puzzled.

“Yes, of course,” said the defence attorney with a broad smile round the court. Leaning on the rail of the witness box, he turned back to the witness with a matey grin. “Er, just tell us, old chap, what’s it for?”

“The compost heap? Well, it’s a kind of rubbish tip for all the unwanted bits and bobs from the grounds and it rots down to make a rich soil you can put back on the garden. Very good stuff it makes. Very good for roses, fruit and vegetables of course, and…” he was counting them off on grimy fingers.

“That is sufficient information, thank you, Mr Duffy,” said the judge.

“Sir, sorry sir,” said Duffy and he seemed surprised by the laughter that filled the court. The judge rapped his gavel and the amusement was silenced.

“And was it His Lordship who asked you to create this compost heap?”

“Well no, not as such. His Lordship leaves the day-to-day running of the grounds to me, and I always has at least one compost heap on the go. You see, it makes very good…”

“Er, yes, quite so,” said the defence attorney hastily. “So the creation of a compost heap is part of your normal gardening practice, which experience has taught you is beneficial to your work?”

“Er, yes, it has, it is, I mean. Er—yes.”

Again a ripple of laughter was heard but quickly died away under the judge’s frowning looks. The defence attorney gathered his papers. He directed a nod to the judge.

“No more questions, your honour.”

The prosecution attorney immediately leapt to his feet and asked to put a further question. The judge inclined his head, and the prosecutor stepped forward.

“I believe it’s true to say the accused has learned all his skills from the employment His Lordship has so generously granted?”

The head-gardener struggled to fathom the sentence, his old forehead even more crinkled than usual with the effort. The prosecution attorney attempted to clarify his meaning in simpler terms.

“The job of under-gardener gives many opportunities to learn new skills and to gain experience, I imagine?”

The head-gardener wavered. “Well it does and it doesn’t.”

The prosecution attorney tried to hide his annoyance. His chance to prove the case based on this testimony would dwindle if he couldn’t get the old fool to say the right things.

“I see. But I imagine that when Mr Jenkins left His Lordship’s employ, he knew a lot more than he did when he first started?”

“It’s possible,” conceded the old man. “Young Wally had such an enquiring nature. He was always bringing in books and such and telling me all his high-falutin’ ideas about this and that. Never one to be content with doing things the way them’d always been done. Always wanting to try summat new. He fair drove me wild at times.”

Seeing that continuing with the witness was likely to actually harm his case, the prosecutor decided to take his seat with a crisp bow. “No further questions, your honour.”

The prosecution then called the second witness, Matthew Styles, under-gardener.

Matthew Styles took the stand, saying his oath loudly and looking around smiling. He appeared to be relishing the experience, and even waved to a young lady seated near the front. After posing a few general questions as to the age and occupation of the witness, the prosecution attorney then asked, “Have you ever seen anyone removing items from the compost heap or anywhere else?”

“Including me?” Styles asked, eagerly.

The prosecutor, a little surprised, nodded. “Er, yes, Mr Styles, including yourself.”

“We all ‘ave.”

“All?”

“Oh yes, indeed. And even His Lordship’s butler, he’s very fond of sweet peas, you know, so even he, when they’re there, he comes down and cops ‘em off Mr Duffy. Then there’s cook, she likes a bit of lavender or rosemary…”

“Thank you, Mr Styles, no further questions.” The prosecutor withdrew, frowning. The defence attorney leapt to his feet.

“Excuse me, Mr Styles. Am I correct in thinking that other servants than those who work in the gardens also avail themselves…?”

“Oh yes. The butler, Mr Stephens the butler, he likes his sweet peas, so at the end of the season, when they is dug out from the side border and chucked on the heap, he comes down for the pods to get the seeds. Then he can grow sweet peas in his own garden. Won a prize, he did, last year at the village show. I think the first prize was a guinea, and if I remember aright, the second prize was a leg of mutton. Very good he is with sweet peas, Mr Stephens. And then there’s Mavis. She works in the kitchen. She takes the flowers from the summer pruning for her mother’s grave. They’re not actually dead. The flowers I mean,” Styles explained to the tittering audience, provoking a further outburst as he added, “Her mother’s dead right enough, God rest her, but the flowers is just a bit past their best, though still quite nice looking, rather like Mavis herself.”

The judge banged his gavel six times and stunned everyone to silence. “I think we’ve heard enough to consider the question answered.”

The defence attorney inclined himself in a courtly bow. “As you wish, your honour.” He turned back to the witness. “And so, it seems acceptable and indeed commonplace for employees to remove items from the compost heap, as it is clear that anything placed thereupon is unwanted, that is the case, is it not?”

“It is.” Styles agreed. The defence attorney resumed his seat. The prosecution attorney stood and said,

“It appears as though there is wholesale theft going on within His Lordship’s premises. It almost sounds as though every servant is cheating His Lordship. Disgraceful.” He bowed to the bench. “No further questions for this witness, your honour.”

Styles was dismissed. The prosecution rested, his expression one of dissatisfaction. The defence attorney called the accused to the stand. Walter Jenkins took his oath on the Bible, his voice low.

“Mr Jenkins, how long had you been employed by His Lordship as an undergardener before you left to pursue your own business?”

“A little over six months, sir. I think it was about eight months altogether.”

“Really?” the defence attorney infused his voice with surprise. “From the testimony we have heard today, I had thought it had been a much longer period than that.”

“Oh no sir. I worked for my father from the age of fourteen until he passed away when I was twenty-five.”

“And then you went to work for Lord Branchley?”

“Yes sir.”

“What line of work was your father in?”

“He was a market-gardener, sir.”

“Indeed. How interesting. But one imagines that you had far greater opportunity to learn your trade in your employment at Lord Branchley’s?”

“I learned a great deal about digging, sir. And about cutting grass. Those were my main duties as an under-gardener.”

“I see. And I have no doubt these skills were useful to you when you set up your own market garden?”

The judge silenced the few sniggers around the courtroom with a single look.

Walter Jenkins hesitated then said, “Well sir, I don’t cut grass in my market garden, seeing as I don’t have a lot of room for grass. But it’s true I do occasionally dig.”

“Thank you, Mr Jenkins. And after your father passed away, what was the reason you did not continue in your father’s market garden but instead came to take a position with Lord Branchley?”

Walter bowed his head. Those in the court could see him biting his lip.

The judge spoke. “Mr Jenkins, I must urge you to answer the question.”

Walter’s head came up. “Yes sir, Your—um. It was just—I hadn’t wanted to say, but it was because of the business being sold to pay off my brother’s debts. There was no money left and so I was forced to find myself a position with the old business gone.”

“Thank you, Mr Jenkins, I do appreciate that this is not easy for you. And is your brother still in debt?”

“No sir.” Walter said. He looked down at the floor. Only the few people at the front of the court heard him as he said, barely above a whisper, “My brother was hanged last year on account of killing a man in a brawl.”

The judge tsked and shook his head. He scratched another note on his paper. Walter felt a wave of despair wash over him but on glancing up, met what appeared to be sympathy in the judge’s eyes.

The defence attorney continued. “I am very sorry to hear of your troubles. We will turn away from all that. Perhaps I could ask you to explain just how you came to provide yourself with the means to set up your business?”

This was easier ground for Walter after the previous question. He relaxed a little and his voice was clear.

“Well sir, I took a few things from the compost heap, as you know. There was a few canes from His Lordship’s spiraea in the shrubbery. It’s a good big patch of it at the back, and you has to prune it back hard every year. I was in charge of the shrubbery as Mr Duffy didn’t care for shrubs. Now, my father used to grow spiraea and the trick is to cut it right down after flowering, it makes it come back all the stronger in the next year, and it makes a nice rosy-coloured background to the other plants. The cuttings, like long canes they are, they root really easy. So I took a dozen of them and I rooted them. When His Lordship was in the grounds, sir, taking a look around with Mr Duffy, I approached him and said to him, would he like to have more of the spiraea in the shrubbery as it was dead easy to root and it would make a nice display of pinky-red flowers when it came out, and I knew as Her Ladyship was much taken with the colour.”

“And what did Lord Branchley say?”

“He said, begging your pardon for the cursing, sir, he said, ‘Who is this damned oik, Duffy?’ And Mr Duffy, he looked daggers at me and said to His Lordship as I was one of the under-gardeners. ‘Not any more’, said His Lordship, ‘give him a week’s notice and get rid of the upstart. I’ll not be addressed so rudely in my own gardens’. ”

“He sacked you?”

“He sacked me, sir, yes, there and then.”

“Then what happened?”

“Then His Lordship, he turned to Mr Duffy, and asked him what I was on about. So Mr Duffy showed him the spiraea and said as I was suggesting having more of them.”

“And did His Lordship comment at all on this?”

“He said, ‘I hate the bloody things,’ begging your pardon Your Worship, but that is the very words what His Lordship used. Then he says, ‘Rip them all out. Can’t stand them. Get rid of them all.’ That’s what he said, sir.”

“So now, you found yourself out of work and you had the spiraea canes. What happened next?”

“Well sir, I had me week’s notice to work. And there was a lot of nice bits on the compost heap. Strawberry creepers, seeds, cuttings, dahlia tubers from where we’d been dividing the clumps due to them growing out onto the south lawn. I came away with no reference but with a tidy pile of little plants and cuttings and seeds which I put into a sack what I brought from home. And just then, I was walking out with Hetty Miller, as was a maid from the Dower House. But I couldn’t marry as I didn’t have no job. But Hetty says to me, you can sell them when they’re rooted up. She said I could earn enough to rent a nice little cottage, that way I could start my own market garden up gradual-like. So that’s what I done. And then me and Hetty got married, and now there’s the two babes.” At this point Walter turned to the judge, “Sir, begging your pardon, but if I gets transported or goes to prison I will never see Hetty nor my children again as her mother took against me on account of me being sacked. My Hetty means everything to me, sir. If I’d have known how His Lordship felt, I’d have willingly paid for the stuff I took, but I thought it would be all right because all of us was doing it and in any case His Lordship said to get rid of them.”

There was a half-hearted protest from the prosecution, but the judge waved it away with a weary hand.

“Mr Jenkins, what would you say the original items you took were worth? If one had to purchase them from a market garden such as yours, for example.”

“You don’t buy things like that, sir, Your Worshipfulness, they are just…”

“Just rubbish to be thrown away on a compost heap? I see. Very well, thank you, you may stand down.”

The judge made some more notes. He announced a recess of one hour and the court was cleared.

*

An hour later, in his cell, Walter was trembling from head to foot. He could hear the warder approaching, the keys jangling on his belt. The door opened, and the warder gestured to Walter. “C’mon then, lad, let’s be having you.”

Walter stumbled along the chilly corridor and soon was back in the dock, clutching the rail for support.

Everyone rose to their feet as the judge entered. He strode to his bench, his lips pressed tightly together, his expression grim. Walter felt ill; he began to pray silently and fervently in a way he had not prayed since Sunday school. Up in the balcony, Hetty’s face was a white anxious oval, her gloved hand pressed to her mouth, her little hat hiding her lovely curls. The judge took his seat, then everyone else sat. The judge arranged his papers into a neat stack before him and he took up his gavel. He addressed the court, his firm voice resonating around the room.

“I have made my decision. The defendant will rise.”

Walter rose, trembling, to hear the words that would decide his future. He hoped he wouldn’t be sick or faint away when the sentence was pronounced.

“Having weighed the evidence in this case and after consideration of all the facts, I find in favour of the plaintiff.” The Judge banged his gavel and a murmur arose all around him.

“Jolly good show!” Lord Branchley immediately leapt to his feet, his face wreathed in smiles as he received the congratulations of his attorneys and they shook hands.

In the dock, Walter was barely able to take in what had been said. He heard a wail from behind him and turned to see Hetty on her feet, eyes wide with shock. The judge was compelled to pound his gavel on the bench a number of times before order was restored. Silence fell once more. The judge continued:

“I order that the defendant shall pay damages in the amount of one penny for the—er—spiraea canes—and the same amount for the strawberry plantlets. Also, I award a farthing for the costs of the plaintiff.”

For a moment Walter couldn’t understand what was happening. The prosecution attorney, his assistants and his client Lord Branchley all halted in their premature celebrations, mouths gaping open. Then, outraged, they began to demand that His Honour should review the evidence. The defence attorney charged across the courtroom and pumped Walter’s arm up and down.

“A triumph, my boy, a triumph!”

The judge, ignoring the commotion, addressed Walter directly. “Let the record show that the court commends you, Mr Jenkins, for your ingenuity, hard work and your skilful grasp of your chosen trade. The court commiserates with you over the difficulties that have beset you in the past and hopes that your market garden will continue to thrive. And if you will kindly leave your particulars with my clerk, I believe my good lady will be interested to know what you have in the line of dahlias, as she is contemplating some improvements to our own grounds at home. Court is adjourned.”

The judge stood and left the court, his gown billowing.

Lord Branchley, red-faced with fury, was pushing aside his attorneys to leave the court, uttering oaths as he went.

As the warder stepped forward to release Walter and remove his handcuffs, Walter turned to look across the courtroom. Hetty was making her way towards him, dashing away tears and smiling.

“We won!” he said. He still couldn’t believe it. She laughed as he swept her into his arms.

“Silly! Of course we did!”

“You will come home again now, won’t you? You and the kids?”

“Yes, Walter Jenkins, we will come home. I’ll never doubt you again, I swear.”

 

The End

***

All rights reserved. Copyright 2018 © Caron Allan

So… how did we get here? A few ideas about being a writer.

/ Caron Allan / 5 Comments

Now also available in a German language edition

This week, I thought I’d burble on a bit about some of the milestones of my writing life.

Writing courses, conferences and videos/newsletters: There are so many out there, and I’ve tried quite a few.

spoiler alert:

*sigh* they’re not as much fun as you’d think, sometimes. And sometimes they’re not too helpful, either.

As part of my degree in literature and history, I did a writing module – just a bit of extra fun for me, to pat myself on the back for all the hard work, and to finish off my credits and collect the ‘with honours’ portion of the diploma. One of the first things the tutor told us, and this was around only around 2010, was that we would need to resign ourselves to being hobby-writers only. She said, as if it was good news, that we had a greater chance of being part of the next team to travel into space than to be picked up by a publishing company. I know, from talking to some of the other students, that I was not the only one to go home from that session feeling like I wanted to throw myself off a cliff. I was in my fifties, so going into space was the unlikeliest thing I could imagine… I had hoped that getting a book published would be a little easier.

But actually, not long after that, I began to hear about this thing called self-publishing, and the more I looked into it, the more I liked what I saw. So, at the end of 2012, with  sideways smirk at my diploma, I uploaded my first novel onto Mr Zon, and the rest, as they say is… well not history, but cozy mysteries that sort of sell. (Thank you, you lovely reading people.)

My mother said, ‘That’s not real publishing, it’s not a real book.’ Nothing could shift her from that, and of course, that was what all the newspapers and the books and nay-sayers were saying at the time. They still do. But all I can say is, I’ve read plenty of rubbish trad-pubbed books, and many wonderful self-pubbed.

Years earlier, when we lived in Brisbane, Australia, I attended some workshops for crime writers who were starting out. Sadly, I don’t remember anything the tutor taught us, other than this advice: If we wanted write crime fiction and bring authenticity into our work, she suggested we practice following people. Yes, actually FOLLOWING total strangers we did not know. Pick them up at the mall, trail them, see where they go, what they do, who they meet, she said. It would bring realism to our writing, she said, and help us to understand the criminal mind and all about the complexities of being a private investigator etc. All I could think was, I will definitely get run over, punched in the face or kidnapped, maybe all three. This sounded like a terrible idea, and again, I was pleased to discover I was not the only one who thought so. I didn’t go back. Nor did I take her advice. But I would dearly love to know if any of the class thought, ‘you know what, that sounds like a really good idea’. I hope the library of the prison they are likely to be incarcerated in have a better range of ideas in their ‘How to Write’ books section.

So what did help me to get started on the long and winding road to your bookshelves? 

A very old book by Dorothea Brande: Becoming A Writer. It showed me myself and taught me that writers are created not born, to a certain extent. It showed me how to get started and how to teach myself to write.

Stephen King’s On Writing. For similar reasons to Dorothea’s book from the 1930s, plus the voice of experience and not to mention, success.

And I talked to lots of writers, beginners and well-established. I still do.

And I read, and read, and read. Not just to learn, but for the sheer love of it. I read all sorts, not just within the genre I write.

And on top of that I wrote. And when I had finished writing a book, I set it aside and wrote another. Because in the end, the only way to learn how to do something, is to actually make yourself do it. At first you’re terrible. You can’t play the piano when you are five and have never touched a key before. Writing is the same. It’s a process that requires dedication and above all else, perseverance.

My first book, using the back of a Weetabix packet for the covers, written when I was around 10.

***

Is the 11th too late for goalsetting?

/ Caron Allan / 5 Comments

For various reasons I’m a bit late to the What I Will Accomplish This Year 2024 party.

I have goals – quite lofty ones really, but who knows what I will have the time and energy to achieve? But if I decided, you know what, I’ll take a year out, the danger is I won’t achieve anything, and what’s the point of that?

So here we go – this is 2024 as I see it, part of the way through the second week of January. this is what i would want to do, in an ideal world, if the sky was the limit and i didn’t have cancer treatment to deal with.

  1. Finish and publish Dottie Manderson mysteries book 8: Midnight, the Stars And You. This has to be this year’s main priority in terms of writing, because people keep saying things like, you know, when is it out? There’s only so many times you can nod and smile and say, it’s coming, honest. There’s a teaser for it on here somewhere. If you fancy taunting yourself with something that is still four or five months away, here it is. I promise it’ll arrive eventually.
  2. Because I felt pretty down about the whole ‘by the way, you’ve got breast cancer’ thing, apart from working on the 2nd book of the Miss Gascoigne 1960s mystery series (which came out on Dec 8th) I started playing around with a book I wrote over ten years ago, purely for fun, and it’s actually almost ‘there’ – almost ready for publication, and so although it’s not part of any of my three series, I will very likely publish that in February, just for fun. It’ll just be a one-off, stand alone novel like Easy Living. This book is called The Cousins, and again, there’s a teaser and a bit of info here.
  3. Now I know last year, in a fit of optimism I started banging on about a new story in the Friendship Can Be Murder series, which has been out for over ten years and I kind of thought was finished at three books. And I have written quite a lot for that new book, but it’s nowhere near ready, and so, let’s be honest, it’s not likely to make an appearance in 2024, or if it does it’ll sneak out at the very last minute. I tentatively called that book Dirty Work, and I do hope to finish it and publish it over the next year or two, but there’s no date as yet.
  4. And then, my second main priority will be to get to work and finish and publish book 3 of the Miss Gascoigne mysteries. This will be Through Dancing Poppies, and I hope/plan/rashly promise it will be out in November of December of this year. You can bang on my door and demand it if I don’t deliver.
  5. My next German translation of a Dottie book is due out at the end of this month. If you love to read a novel in German, this could be perfekt for you! Keep your eyes peeled for Rosenblüten und weiße Spitze: ein Dottie Manderson Fall: Buch 7. Zitat aus Rosenblüten und weiße Spitze: Ein Dottie Manderson Fall: Buch 7

And by the way, if I seem flippant about the cancer, I’m not. But I am open to talking about it – as they say, fear of the name increases fear of the thing itself, and I refuse to live in fear. I trust the medical team at the hospital where I’m having treatment, in fact they’ve been blooming amazing, and I believe them when they say that ‘eventually’ I will be okay. And so many lovely people are praying for me… And if only we could get proper funding for the NHS I’d be a happy bunny. I believe passionately in a national health service – good health is not something that should be the preserve of the wealthy.

So that’s how my 2024 is looking right now. What are you doing with yours? Got any plans for world domination or maybe a nice holiday?

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