Acknowledgement

I always felt the long list of acknowledgements for assistance in the writing of a novel, increasingly  prevalent it seems, was just a tiny bit pathetic - after all, if they were proper writers surely they could  do it all themselves?

Humbled, I now know different.   A complete stranger, met only through the good offices of the 'whole MS read-swapping' group at WriteWords, not only read the whole of my second draft of 'Not wanted on Voyage', she also made sixty-one comments.   Some were a treat, noting phrases she particularly liked (and henceforth I will always include them in any critique I do), some were small but vital (like pointing out I'd written 'Madigan' when I'd meant 'Mirabel') and several were "too much show, not enough tell".

Having dealt with the minor points I am now tackling these larger ones and already I can see that I am making vast improvements.  Yes - I am making them, it is still my book, but I might not have done so had it not been for her pointing them out, and so I will gladly include her name among other acknowledgements.

And I am very slightly less trepidatious knowing this will be the novel I shall, in September, be handing first to a 'book-doctor' and then pitching to an agent at the York Festival of Writing.

Just marking the day

Today would have been my Dad's ninetieth birthday - in this 'three generations' photo he is younger than I am now.








It is also the anniversary of Effie Traves' birthday - in Timaru, New Zealand in 1891- and of her death, in childbirth in a hospital in Ymir, British Columbia.  She married my father's mother's brother, and a few years ago, in New Zealand we met up with a nephew of hers, who gave me copies of letters and photos.

Excarnation

Excarnation - the removal of flesh from the bones, a word known to me from reading John Hedges 'Tomb of the Eagles' wherein he describes burial practices in Neolithic Orkney.  It is my intention to do the same for 'Not wanted on voyage' since without exception the comments of four most excellent readers on WriteWords said, in a variety of ways, 'too, too wordy!' 

In one way it pains me to deprive the reader of the detail of how Ian and Lydia met, how Davy rescued Fay and Zoë's deceived her mother, especially when I have already wiped out how Natasha got pregnant, what happened at the blood donor session and just what a nasty piece of work Gareth's daughter is.   In another way, especially with the months of 'Prediction' practice I've had at fitting a tale into one hundred words - and making it interesting! - I actively welcome the challenge (and précis was something I always was good at.)
  
I envisage the finished product as being not entirely skeletal - but have no idea how long it will take.   Nor whether I'll have got sick of the whole thing by then.

Reiprocal writing help

On  20th March I posted about beta readers, wondering how they were to be found.  On 22nd March I joined the WriteWords site and a few days later, the 'Whole MS read/swapping' group.  There I posted one, then fourteen, chapters of my problematical 'Not wanted on voyage'.

In just three weeks I have had four folk read and comment on it, with honesty, insight and courtesy, which was way beyond my expectations (the reading, not the courtesy etc).
So I thank Gaius, Arboreal Sal, AlanH and Astrea whose comments have been exactly what I needed to know what is still required to knock this into a shape which others might want to read.  ('Prune' in a word - the length of my sentences, yet again causing problems; Astrea's "I don't think style should overwhelm meaning" being especially pertinent)   Can't say it'll be easy but am sure it'll be worthwhile.

It is, of course, absolutely necessary to reciprocate, to also read and comment on others' work, otherise the group fails to function, but that is no hardship when I consider the pleasure I get from that.  Also, there are myriad other groups, you don'r have to have an MS, but this I CAN and do recommend.

On location

Initial purpose of the trip was to revisit old haunts, where we did our courting (for that was what it was referred to as, in those days) but I immediately latched on to the additional prospect of some location research for novels.






'Making good' includes a couple of funerals, taking place in a graveyard described from memory.  The reality was, unsurprisngly, smaller, but also less sloping and further from the consequently hidden view of church and house that once belonged to Henry VIII, so the conversation between Sean and Bridie is inaccurate and has, in fact, to be fiction.  Of course.




'Longest shadows reach' is less problematical since much of the action, which takes place in 2011 - and one of the major inspirations - is a house which was demolished in the 1960s, so I will have far fewer qualms about sending Luke Darbyshere to stay in a pub which I had forgotten but whose location is perfect.  It too, is about to be demolished.

Fifty years ago today

Fifty years ago today I woke up in Saffron Walden, last morning of a stay with school friend Sue, a stay which both underlined to some extent my social ineptness, compared to hers, and included several ‘firsts’ - pubs and snogging against a wall with just-met strangers  -  all taking place against an insistent, ever-repetitive, slightly whining,  ‘From a jack to a king.’ 

Fifty years ago today, the bus ride home, Saffron Walden to Bishop’s Stortford and a second bus from there to Hunsdon, and me so filled with a heightened sense of  ... of something ... that I still recall the sensation, that fizzing self-awareness as I looked south across the valley of massed trees in Much Hadham to the space where the turreted fairy-tale castle was no more.   (This castle re-inserted itself into my head last year, become inspirational  background to a to-be-written novel, subsequently a found Flickr photo of its ruined state connecting me to a boy I sat beside in primary school, much more than fifty years ago;  the novel is now one-third writ.)

Fifty years ago today I dressed for the youth club visit (the reason for my earlier than otherwise intended return home) to the ‘59 Club’, in Hackney Wick, knowing only that  it’s leader was the ‘Ton-up vicar’, in brown shoes, mustard colour dress and nearly-black stockings which I still have, the rip reminding me of an unthinking trip on a rose-bush.

Fifty years ago  we travelled there by coach, me sat next to Gillian, and there, in semi-shadowed, high-ceilinged dustiness, I danced and talked to Steve, marvelling at the antics of the hunch-shouldered mods, gloomy circling round handbags and dressed in polka dots;  unexpected in a bikers’ club;  we snogged all the way home.

Callipygian and A Change of focus

A change of focus [32]
‘Yanno, no,’ Raptor’s expression pained, ‘how could I have killed him?  I was with you, he in custody...’
Pettinger grunted. ‘No... released on diplomatic bail... as per the fucking handbook.’   Then, doggedly reverting, ignoring the turbulence of messages from his superior, questioning his absence,  ‘How come my brothers knew, when I did not?’
‘Guessed.  I sent you here, paid for your education.’
‘Manufactured reasons for me not to return?
Sharp gleam of surprise, not sufficiently fast-hid, ‘Kept you safe...’
‘Why not protect me there?  Since you need me to eventually return.  And why, for fuck’s sake, why the tinpot embassy?’

A change of focus [33]
Raptor’s smile a recrudescent memory.  ‘Part of their grand scheme to wrest power; naïve belief that allying themselves with Britain in these turbulent times...’
‘Christ, don’t tell me they’re stupid enough to trust the EU handbook?’
‘They wanted a hand-out to support their fight against the Dubnovaskis.   I merely encouraged.’
‘Is Khakbethia really that poverty-stricken?’
‘It’s known hunger... as I know hunger now.’  Standing, ‘Time to eat, Yanno.’
‘You still have to tell me about Sally-Ann.  You knew her, had her, passed her on to me...’
Quietly, ‘Did not kill her.’
‘But caused her to be killed?’
Raptor strode ahead.

The most recent  entries for the Prediction which required the inclusion of handbook, grunt, and  turbulent.  And with thanks to my younger son for the word 'callipygian'

Omnibus plus

 

 A money-saving omnibus edition of the first three Bridie and Sean books with the extra, hitherto unpublished in this format earlier tale of how Jenna copes with a three month old baby and an adulterous husband 

Now available from

http://www.lulu.com/shop/sandra-davies/make-and-mend/paperback/product-20949179.html

and if you buy before March 31st, quoting coupon code VERNUM you pay 20% less

Cast in stone - always and ever?

I am the keeper of a large number of photos and documents relating to my Sutcliffe family, from Warley (the one near Halifax in Calderdale) and this afternoon received an email asking whether or not I knew the grave number my great-grandfather was buried in.  I did, and was able to furnish written proof in the form of a receipt giving details of the burial of his 5 year-old son in 1888

Soon after  Edwin's death, when the cemetery was still fairly new they must have had a photograph taken of the headstone, which has Tom and Sarah Sutcliffe as 'of Tuel Lane, Sowerby Bridge' carved upon it.

At a later date this inscription must have been erased and another one carved because by the time I photographed it, ninety-nine years later in 1987, the inscription clearly read of 'Little Moor Warley'

Levelling and loyalty

Jack was in the upper-middle echelons of criminal aristocracy within the City, Tao’s status similar but, because more country-wide, marginally less notable.
The manse owned by the holder of Tao’s Lisbon-stolen letters placed him far higher, as did the sovereign-price he’d offered against Jack’s head, whereas that on Tao’s had been raised by his yeoman brother and was of small account, save for the added influence of the eldritch witch.
She, giddily-overconfident, was still too much the novice, badly underestimated cell-mate loyalty, failed to prevent them getting drunk together and misunderstood the head-clearing effects of a syzgy of high-class whores.

This is part 23 of Tao's tale, inspired by prompts from  The Prediction, for which the less-than-sympatheric words this week were : eldritch, manse, aristocracy + syzgy (optional) 

TW3 (remember that?)

TW3 - Friday night, allowed to stay up late despite not entirely understanding the satire of Willie Rushton, not sure whether or not David Frost was a pain and loving the husky break in Millicent Martin's voice, but knowing that this was something new and shocking.

But I'm more referring to the past week - a scratchy week of grey cold, lots of reading (a Good Thing mostly) and bloody editing.  Sometimes editing feels good, improvements flow and you know things can only get better, but last week that 'are you sure you're not overwriting, losing the freshness?' question kept asking itself.   Over both novels, which are at the same stage, despite having been begun six months or so apart.

The reading has been mixed:  three fast-paced, violent, noir, damaged hero crime novels (Ken Bruen, Declan Hughes, Ray Banks), all superbly written but a factor in my mild dissatisfaction with what I've written (and no I do not want to emulate but in admiring one can't help but measure).  Frances Fyfield, more thriller than crime but much more 'English', and Tessa Hadley were equally enjoyable. 
[N.B. do click on the top five book covers in  montage in the right hand column for more information]

But yesterday I joined a group called WriteWords which promises much, provided I make the effort to participate.
This week's Prediction prompts are eldritch, manse and aristocracy, with the addition of syzgy if I fancy it.   Not sure how Tao and Carrion Jack, or John Pettinger and Raptor are going to manage those (The story so far can be read on Pages, above.)

Coming to terms

"Do you need a.... drink or anything ... a cup of tea? Was it bad news?" 
The voice tailed away, could have been speaking from the moon, from another planet for all she heard what it was saying, she was at the limit of her ability to concentrate on anyone else, to be polite. One hand still clutched the telegram, the other fiddled with the buttons at her throat, they’d never felt this tight before, she thought she might choke. 
Turning her back, with as much determination as she could muster, not caring whether or not she was seeming to be rude, she continued to walk down the overgrown path, away from the house, trying not to see the faintly printed capitals, on paper tape, stuck to the pale cream official Post Office form, trying not to read the words which were, nevertheless, etched on her retina. MISSED BOAT STOP NOT GOING TO MAKE THIRTEENTH STOP REARRANGE WEDDING FOR TWENTYNINTH.
 The baby would be here by then, for sure. 

 .oOo.

Sometimes you win and other times someone else does. 
This was one of the latter, and been for the past three occasions if he was honest. If he was counting. Which he hadn’t meant to be at least. But in truth he’d begun to wonder if it wasn’t just that he was a mug, falling for all those sob stories about dying mothers, weddings and funerals to go to and letting them take his place on the boat. After all, he had a wedding to go to, didn’t he?
 His own. 
Or was that the problem? Was he secretly – so secret even he didn’t know – trying to get out of marrying Emily? 
Not that Emily was the problem, not at all, he loved Emily. Obviously he did, and she loved him otherwise she’d never have let him ... 
But she did, had seen how important it was. He’d been so desperate, so sure that if he didn’t then, with her, he never would, and given that the life expectancy once they got to France was, so some smartarse n the pub had told him, no more than fourteen days, he’d die without ever having ... so maybe he had been a bit over-persuasive. 
Maybe that was why it had been such a ... let down. 

 .oOo.

Skin of his teeth, and that fact that he’d made it in time must mean that God had intended it all along. He had arrived. And on the twenty-ninth as he had said. Had told his brother to get in touch with the registrar and rearrange it. 
The same brother picked him up from the port, handed him a bag with a suit and a shirt – neither the right size but they’d do – and drove to the registry office like a madman, assuring him he had the ring and everyone knew today was the day and though he’d not seen Emily herself, just her mother, she’d said it would all be OK, Emily would be there. 
And she was. 
But the baby that Emily carried inside had been there for nigh on nine months. His ship overseas had sailed on Easter Sunday. Today was the end of September.

[Three prompted pieces from Thinking Ten] 

IIIA, IIIAlpha, III Aleph, and beta readers

The first year classes at the grammar school I went to were streamed into III A, III Alpha, III Aleph, second year was IV B, IV Beta, IV Beth and so on.   I was always middle stream so was either Alpha or Beta.

But I'd never heard of the term 'beta reader' until the year before last, when someone commenting, I think, on one of my Friday Book Blurbs (alas no more) that she would volunteer if ever I wrote the book I'd so enticingly blurbed.   It was a reasonably self-explanatory term, however, and I thought no more of it.   Until last week when I thought I could do with a few folk to read my current novel and tell me whether or not it works - for them - and if not why not. 
So I Googled the term and discovered, at a quick sprint through random posts (couldn't justify the term 'research') that such creatures are rare, temperamental, likely to be either upsetting in their tactless candour or lying in their fulsome praise, mightinsist on payment and will likely want you to reciprocate.
The latter - reciprocation - I would willingly do in theory, but it would ten be necessary to choose readers who write in a similar genre.   Which educes choice even further.   Always assuming there is choice in the first place.

Anyone any experience they can offer so's I know more before making an attempt to find me some beta readers?

When the going gets tough ...

... or even just because I want to ... And it isn't even procrastination really, just a minor diversion, but this is the (current) version of the cover for the book to follow 'Not wanted on voyage'.   Only a third of it written so far, but I'm wanting to get on with it, which is why I've been head down trying to finish final drafts of both NWOV and 'Making good', the fourth (and possibly, last) in the Bridie and Sean series.

Darn it! - a plot hole discovered

"Although it's likely Walpole will have cleared it up" Madigan, one of my characters says, speaking of possible blood and gore.

But there's been no mention by her, or any of her three companions, that Walpole has been involved in anything.

I know it - it's my story.
The reader knows it - the scene appeared earlier.
These folks, in discussion in the bar, do not know of it.
Damn.
I have to tell them, before page 193.

A change of focus

Decanting truth from a flagon – a vat – of  lies, lies long-distilled from fear-straddled infancy, had become second nature for John Pettinger. 
Childhood fear had been triple-dealt.  Siblings, father, his mother’s brother Raptor:  least physical but most frightening, because of tearing  notches in his mind.
Was that why today’s interrogation had brought recognition? Understanding?  Sense of like-mindedness?
Why he’d let him go, arresting his brother in Raptor’s place, to placate his boss and provide a perpetrator for the crimes committed by his uncle?
Did that stem from his oh-so-superior understanding of the truth?
Or had Raptor cynically brainwashed him once again?

‘I could lose my job for this...’ Pettinger, behind the wheel.
‘Could come and work for me.  Could do so anyway, straddle both worlds...’
‘Good and evil?’
‘Here, and there.’
‘Tell me about Sally-Ann.’
‘She’s the first I decanted your way...’
‘Why?’
‘Why first?  Your brothers had become ungrateful...’
‘You regularly supply them?’
‘Having tried and tested, yes.  Hopgood had brains, though...’
‘They don’t?’
Grunted affirmation. ‘Had ambition too...’
‘So it wasn’t you who killed her?’
‘I don’t kill women...’
Raised eyebrow ‘There’s notches enough say you lie.’
‘Not since...’
‘Not since my mother?’
‘Yanno, it had to be done.’

[episodes 26 and 27 in John Pettinger's tale, this week's prompts from  The Prediction being 'decant', 'notch' and 'straddle'   The tale in its entirety can be read by clicking the page tab above]

Counting drafts

And no, not the sort that currently waft through even the double glazing today, swirling the polystyrene snow (and yes, I do know they're spelt differently)

Today I finished reading the revisions I'd made after three read-throughs of  'Holding steady', the second full-length novel in the Bridie and Sean series (strictly speaking, the first three were novellas) and have now put it aside to prove for a bit, while I get on with doing much the same for 2011's NaNoWriMo, 'Not wanted on voyage', which started with the intention of being a sort of detective novel but I fear has a hefty dose of romance within it.

So much so that when a friend thought the cover 'very masculine' I knew it had to be tweaked.

I also finished reading, lunchtime, Jane Rusbridge's 'The devil's music' - recommended (I think) in a Spectator review and bought in Wells nine days ago.  Certainly merited the five stars I awarded in on Goodreads.   Certainly makes me aware of the overly-explained nature of some of my writing.

Definition - a favourite drabble

Over at John Xero's 101 Fiction today, one of my favourite Prediction pieces

Covert

Whatever I wanted to believe, he was not, and never would be, one of those WYSIWYGs.

Probably never had been.  No, for all the carefully combed hair, the deliberate, deceptively-boyish (in the sense of in quotation marks, but I did know he was too intelligent to do that twitchy-fingered thing to denote them) flop of a mid-brown fringe, the discreet and expensive aftershave, faintly redolent of an apple orchard on a drowsy afternoon (a memory, which was nearly my undoing, though I kept that to myself) and the confident way he strode into the room, he was most definitely not what he seemed.

I watched him, confident that, sat where I was, it would take him a moment or two to spot me, and went over in my mind what I knew of him, what he had allowed to be known.

And what he had hoped never would be known.

But I have my sources.  I knew that the eyes above those perfectly-planed cheekbones would just as easily transfer to a snake, and that, like the iceberg of his wicked heart, there was far more going on under that smooth exterior.  And all of it sewage.

Thinking Ten: Words Inc, (Wednesday)  snake, plane, iceberg

Learning by experience

‘It's the way to do it, the proper way, the way I was taught.’

‘Yes, but why?’
‘Because it’s always been done like that.’
‘Yes, so you keep saying, but why?’
‘Well, it just is, that’s how I was shown, and by someone who knew a lot more about it than you do!’
She was getting upset, defensive, seeing it as only right that she would know more than me, would be the one to tell me.
But because she couldn’t give me a better reason, I was refusing to do it that way, insisted, stubbornly and with the arrogance of youth, the contrariness of my teenage years, on doing it what felt like a more logical way.

It was many, many years before I worked out that her way, the way my mother had been taught,  was better, for the simple reason that to fold one quarter of a tablecloth back on itself meant it was far easier to spread it open across a table with a single flick.

Thinking Ten prompt:  Take it Away (Tuesday) It's the way...

Tao returns from Rhodes - latest 2 episodes

Tao thinks he may have been too hasty
Kick a corpse to life and you’ll inevitably disturb carrion.  
Tao knew this but had believed those who abhorred the trappings of authority were like to have at least a minimal grasp of underworld allegiance.
Nevertheless, introduced, with a tug at his sleeve by the fledging like-to-be-gallows-bird who’d brought him here, he questioned his own sanity in evoking the man whose name in desperation he’d used to instigate his rescue.
A man whose gaze silently persuaded him to say he carried letters he’d be willing to sell on,  before assuring, ‘No reason to be reticent here, Mathias, all is known.’

Tao meets his match
Even as Tao recalled the dagger concealed within his sleeve, the man produced and waved it: a death-dealing crucifix.
‘Think that again and ‘twill be you who die.  So long as I’ve the letters you stole in Lisbon I’ll stay reticent about your many crimes.  The Englishman in Dublin did not require them?’
‘He would not pay.’
‘Hmm, I heard he did.  Certainly, I shall not.’ 
Snake-smiling eyes watched Tao forge his features to neutrality, ‘Not, at least, until you’ve dealt with Carrion Jack.’
‘Dealt?’
’He has a thing of mine.’
‘You want it back?’
‘Not now she’s been used.’

prompt words on this week's Prediction are: 'carrion', 'sleeve',' reticent'

Just cause

From the ditch - luckily dry - and behind the hedge I had a good view of the road, the arriving of the cars, and the dressed-in-their-best folk emerging from them, smiling and commenting on the sunshine, welcome, and surprising, after the week of rain we’d had, the women’s hats, turning back and forth in over-animated conversation, a parade of long-stemmed flowers.
Then, for a while, after the slamming of doors and tap-tapping of heels on the stone pathway ceased there was a lull in the proceedings, and only the meandering organ music from within the church to be heard, spiced by the buzzing of bees amongst the dog-roses.
I’d seen him go in, early, earlier than he should have, than the accompanying best man thought wise, looking nervous, unaccustomed to the harshness of the collar and tie around his neck, and I knew that he’d’ve liked to take a tot or two from the hip flask he usually carried but could not today since it would have spoiled the line of his hired suit.
Then the big, black, smooth-engined car arrived, pulled into the space in front of the lych gate that had been saved for it, and the blonde head of the driver could be seen, going to open the passenger doors.   Her father first, smug pomposity in every gleaming inch of him, then her, The Bride, looking somehow plastic and unreal, as if captured and sprayed.  Made stiff and plastic, a model of a soon-to-be-the-perfect-wife.
I waited until the organ began that creaking, doom-laden tune before making my move.   Opened silently (my earlier, pre-greasing preparations paying off) the little door and crept to another narrow door from where, while remaining hidden, I had a good view of those standing therein. 
Waited until after “Who giveth this woman” for her father to sit down in the front pew.
Waited for the “If any man knows...” words from the officiating vicar.
Waited for the sudden swirl of stiff-skirted dress, the tap-tapping of a single pair of feet.
Heard (or thought I did) the falling of the flowers from her hand.
Only heard the beginnings of the gasp of questioning shock as I opened the inner door, making sure to stay out of sight.  Shut it and wedged the already-held chair behind it.   Took her hand and ran with her through and out the small back door, reminding her to duck.   Through the hedge, leapt the ditch and to the pick-up truck beyond.
Climbed in and sped away.
The groom himself had been impediment enough.

Thinking Ten Saturday canvas

John Pettinger at the Khakbethian embassy

This, episode 22 of the serial 'A change of focus', was voted last week's winner of the Friday Prediction challenge by host  Colleen Foley.  
Predictioneers were required to incorporate 'articulate', 'whorl', 'pelt'  into a  sci-fi, horror- fantasy or noir tale of no more than one hundred words

‘Excellency!’
Strangled articulation announced the entry of  the pensioner hired to disguise the whorls of dirty espionage which hung about the Khakbethian embassy.

Skull-knuckled hands clutching the double doors, he hung for a moment then slowly sagged until his badger-pelted head lay on the carpet, arms perforce rotated back- and upwards,  nine inches of knife-handle protruding from his spine.

The ambassador  and his officially-unacknowledged brother turned as one to watch him, their  mutual observation interrupted by the appearance of the man presumed responsible, the sight of whom brought relief to one brother, terror to the other, in roughly equal quantities.

 
Earlier episodes can be accessed by the 'A change of focus' page link above.

Steps in growing up

I hadn’t yet been given the nickname ‘Drip’ but this is as good an illustration as any of why I eventually earned it.  
It was probably my ninth summer, back in the days when we had a lot more freedom both to wander at will and to make mistakes.   My mistake wasn’t, as it happened, life-threatening, even though the last decision I made went against the only ‘beware of’ instruction I remembered receiving from my parents.  
It was like this.  I’d caught, on a warm and sunny afternoon, a bus to the nearest small town. (Ware, it was which, to those that didn’t know it, caused a string of daft and repetitive questions, which would have out-Pythoned Monty had he been around at the time).
Somehow, I’d spent more money that I should have and so didn’t have enough for the bus fare home.   So I walked about a mile to what I thought was a suitably far enough away bus stop to eat up the difference in fare.   Having arrived, I then looked at the timetable to see when the next bus was due (country buses were on the infrequent side).   It took me some time to understand that the reason the timetable wasn’t making any sense to me was not because I couldn’t read it but because I didn’t own a watch and had not the faintest clue what the time was.
When that dawned on me I started walking, taking a longer route than necessary because I didn’t know the short cuts.   So it was probably something more than four miles I walked, all the way through Stanstead Abbotts. 
When a car stopped and offered a lift I studied them only briefly – a couple older than my parents, grey-haired and obviously anxious to be helpful.   I accepted, gratefully and sat on the green leather seat, trying hard not to cry with relief and hoping they wouldn’t notice that my hands were so sweaty that they picked up the dye off the green leather seats

Plot Thickens (Thursday) a decision based on not enough information

Tune-wired memory

“One two three ...”  yesterday's Thinking Ten words for Take it  away Tuesday:  a ten minute piece of writing which has to start with these words.

Where they led me seemed inevitable.

That song, a bit whiney, ubiquitous at the time,  coloured many weeks as I remember, filled my head again, including that ever-after memorable line (because I don’t think I’d heard it before):   “like taking candy from a baby”.

I Googled it, looked it up on You Tube and was not surprised to find the year was 1966, the year I married.   It had been written and recorded by someone called Len Barry, who I’d swear I’d never heard of, ever.

Despite the pleasure of the memories hearing it again certainly makes me more appreciative of more meaningful lyrics, like many of Arab Strap and The Floating Men.   And many, many more.

But odd how fast and hard it came to me on reading those words

Books and beer, rugby and research

Last year we were limited by the size of the car (a Smart two-seater convertible not the most capacious vehicle for luggage);  this year more by what we could physically manage to carry, and time was limited too because we had to do some research into Edinburgh pubs (for my next novel) of which there are some wonderful ones, and there just happened to be the Six Nations to watch (though the Wales France game didn't hold much interest so we went in search of food instead).
In the end I managed to buy twenty-nine exceeding last year's hold by a round dozen.   Many - Gillian Galbraith, Craig Russell, Caro Ramsay, G J Moffatt (and possibly James Kelman) - were sought as a result of reading Len Wanner's excellent crime writer interviews (http://thecrimeofitall.com/) which are not only a source of potential reading but also prompt an incisive explanation of the writings behind them, and frequently include recommendations of other writers.

I beg your pardon

I remember making the dress, must have been early in 1963,  cotton, with a surface that felt a bit like it had been embroidered with the self-same threads, heavy-weight (I’d read about something called ‘crash’ and wondered if it was that, but, from the dictionary definition, assume not).   What it undoubtedly was was a highly unflattering mustard colour.   It had a drawstring waist and should more accurately be described as a pinafore dress because it was sleeveless and intended to be worn over a matching blouse with stiff, stand-up collar, which required lining with a tight-woven man-made fabric.   It was so uncomfortable, however, that I invariably felt I’d spent the night in the fridge and my neck become frozen solid, that I preferred wearing a brown jumper instead.

This was the outfit I was wearing, along with brown shoes and dark stockings, the night I first got together with the man who became my husband.   I still have the stockings - torn to shreds as we tried to negotiate a row of rose bushes.

Today's Thinking Ten prompt : Words Inc. (Wednesday) mustard, fridge, crash

Only seven plots - only seven endings?

I'm not going to identify the ending - but I want to put it on record that the denouement in Tony Black's 'Murder mile', which I finished reading yesterday, is near identical to the childhood secret shared by Luke Darbyshere and Baz Rose, which was hinted at in 'Not wanted on voyage' (and in place since October 2011) and forms one of the main strands for the as-yet-untitled follow-up, of which 50K words has already been written.
Just so's you know I'm not copying!

Distraction

There’s no accounting for the way the brain works, for how childish imagination can make something out of nothing,  sometimes to tell a story, to distract from external things that are going bad, to make the world seem right again, even if only for a little while.   And sometimes, most times, that story was just enough to let enough time go past so that things outside the door of his room – white painted, dark blue dressing gown that he never wore because it was too tight, but it still stayed hanging there on the brass hook – to settle down, for the voices to stop shouting, for things to be back to normal.

Sometimes imagination did take over, did tell him stories of bad things, told them so well he didn’t always know they were just stories, found himself believing in lines of witches, in robots shouting in metallic voices ... until it started to get light.

But today, just when it was starting to get light, he remembered that view from his bedroom window, and knew that the most terrifying thought of all had been terrifying because it had also been a prophecy, which somehow he’d always known, had always half-believed.   Even while he didn’t believe it.   A prophecy of the firing squad which, as soon as the sun was fully up, would shoot him dead..

3xT10 flashes - Baby clinic

The pair of them stood in front of me, joint accusation, joint virtue, and all around conversation dropped to next to nothing as every other woman in the room wanted to hear what they were going to say to me.

‘Er, Mrs Stoneman ...’ Sister Weston, hating my guts but not wanting to let the vicar’s wife see it.

‘It‘s miss.’  And my face matched my name, the ‘stone’ bit at least.   This was a battle I’d fought several times already.

‘Oh, it’s ... it’s just a courtesy title ...’  The starchy rustle of her gown, the creaking of her highly-polished lace-ups, the pursing of her lips - not one iota of courtesy in intent.

‘I find it insulting.   I’m not married, don’t want to be and certainly do not merit the title.’  I reached into my pocket for the packet of Woodbines I knew was there and without taking my eyes off her, pulled one out and put it between my lips, closed the packet and replaced it in my pocket.

Right on cue, she said ‘Oh Mrs ... er, Miss Stoneman, we don’t want to smoke around baby do we?’

And beside her the vicar’s wife reached into her own pocket, pulled out a lighter, flicked it to flame and while extending it to my cigarette said, ‘Whyever not, I need something to help me through the day.’

You could have heard a pin drop.  

Actually that’s a lie, because if it had dropped the same time as the pupil midwife, poor little kid, dropped the metal dish, in such a way as to cause the nappy therein to tip and spill its contents – what had that child been eating?! – you wouldn’t have heard a thing, especially as her screech, of horror, followed the clatter pdq.   Mercifully, Sister Weston was struck dumb.  

Her face was a picture though and I remembered then that it was a new vicar’s wife, or rather the wife of the new vicar, only arrived on Sunday (I just knew they always came into the clinic, regular, presumably to sign us up for christening and all the other shit.  I’d always ignored them.  Up to now.)

Anyway, this one was no sweet-natured flowers-and-soup type vicar’s wife.   Had her wits about her, well and truly.  Before Sister could open her mouth the she’d said to the poor little pupil midwife, ‘Don’t cry, it’s only piss and shit, tell me where the cloths are kept and I’ll clean it up, then perhaps you can take me round to tell me who’s who.’

The rest of this week's posts for Thinking Ten

Words Inc. (Wednesday)  joint, gown, pocket

One Word/Sentence Two (Friday) In the second sentence include the following word: dish

Plot Thickens (Thursday)  taking on an unfamiliar role