PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE

I've been alerted to The Writer's Café thanks to a helpful Twitter contact who suggested it was a great place to share reviews, get feedback on fiction work, and connect with publishers.

I had a go but got frustrated when it didn't appear to acknowledge that I'd posted up two chapters of my book. Unsure of where they may have ended up in the cyberspehere, I decided to delete my newly created account. I couldn't work out how to use it so there seemed little point. Then my contact told me that the site is "old IT" and the biggest key to gaining benefit from it is patience. I've reinstated my account so I'll just wait and see what happens next.

Meanwhile, I had hoped to work on creating chapter three tomorrow but it doesn't look likely as Grandaughter No 1 (of 2) is coming over to stay. She loves coming, we love having her, and her mum and dad need a break as her little brother, Grandson No 1 (of 2), is poorly with teething.

I don't know whether she will join me for my morning run after she wakes up on Sunday morning, as she's only 6 years old, but I suppose she might enjoy a muddy stroll in the fields.

This new regime of mine must be doing me some good because I'm starting to ache in places I'd forgotten existed. No pain, no gain as they say - and that includes overcoming the frustrations of joining a new community for writers.

CHAPTER TWO

The fog wasn’t as thick or as frozen as last night but the air was damp and grey. Gloom hung over the top of the two-up two-down terraced houses on one side of traffic dirty Victoria Street and the four storey houses on the other, some broken up into bedsits, some developed into student flats and others into high rise executive apartments. Fencing with a bent panel for vandals to squeeze through cordoned off the barren land and brick foundations of where the old second hand shop once stood between a refurbished dentist’s surgery on one side, with thick cream blinds in the window and brass lettering on the door, and the corner shop on the other advertising tobacco, sweets and newspapers with a big Fakham Herald Sold Here banner in the window. A big sign informed that the land had been sold and was awaiting development like many others in Fakham which hadn‘t quite reinvented itself before the crash came and money ran out.

Lou Weekes sat waiting for the lights to turn green. Things hadn’t really changed in a century, she thought. In the old days when men worked 14 hours a day in heavy engineering factories littered across the city, they paid rent to their wealthy industrial employers who lived in the big grand houses on one side while their workers shared the smaller overcrowded houses on the other with their families and lodgers who helped to make ends meet. Then, despite the poverty, the houses were pristine. Lou once interviewed an old woman who’d lived down there before the war who told her how they used to be in competition with their neighbours. The best housewives were always out early scrubbing the front door step. The modern white British poor on benefits and immigrants rented rooms in those now shabby looking houses and the only people on front door steps were the heroin addicts begging for “a bit of small change please.”

Grubby dust and nicotine stained nets hung in some windows. Others had panes broken out and cardboard strategically placed to stop the cold from getting in. Of course the new professionals on the regenerated side of the road were always complaining about those on the old side to the council and the Herald and anyone else who would listen about anti-social behaviour from the drug addicts, paid sickness benefit to get high on heroin or morphine every day, and the Eastern Europeans who had recently moved into houses that the professionals termed sheds with beds because they were so overcrowded.

The Polish, Lithuanians, Romanians, Russians and Czechs worked hard on the land in the neighbouring agricultural countryside, spent little, lived in cramped conditions in hope to send as much money home to relatives as possible so it’s no wonder they went outside to smoke, to chat, to socialise, to breathe fresh air, to drink cheap beer and vodka on the street because the pubs were now too expensive and exclusive since the bloody awful smoking ban that Lou despised so much. But such behaviour wasn’t in keeping with the new vibrant and middle class city the bourgeoisie council and the developers at Fakham Associates were trying to create. Wretched and poor people littered the area and gave it a bad name when Regeneration was the new buzz word on everyone’s lips which, it seemed, included regenerating the people who lived in the area if they weren’t quite bourgeoisie enough. But not all of the locals wanted it in traditional working class, and now largely underclass or professional class, Fakham. Change was coming fast, too fast, for the town which had altered more in 10 years than the previous 100.

Lou’s hands were on the steering wheel. She tapped her fingers impatiently, turned her wrist inwards and looked at her watch. If she didn’t get to her desk within the next five minutes, news editor Andrew Sharp would literally have her guts for garters. He was a nasty piece of work who could slice out your kidney before you’d realised you’d been stabbed in the back. She hoped he’d move on soon. That sort usually did even though their talent was always claimed on the back of good journalists who did the real digging and legwork for the great stories he claimed credit for and sold to news agencies for the few extra hundred quid each week that he didn’t deserve or earn.

She pressed her foot hard on the accelerator as the lights changed, turned onto the south end of High Street past the entrance to the alley that linked both ends of town, and then slammed down hard on the brake. A pedestrian shot out and had taken a chance at running through the red man at the crossing. Everyone was in a hurry it seemed. Lucky for Lou, and the idiot in a baseball cap and trainers, she was on the ball this morning when she had no right to be after last night’s session with her best mate Munday. They’d shared a few spliffs, a few giggles, Munday had played her his latest composition on his guitar and she knew when she crushed the last of several joints out at 2am, and then got up late this morning, that she’d have to hit the ground running. Munday’s cold shower helped to wake her up. The near miss with the pedestrian had certainly cleared the haze from the dope smoking but she was trembling at the thought of what would have happened if she‘d hit that man.

Instead of thanks for her rapid reaction that saved the dickhead’s life, the pedestrian in a matching off white track suit with black stripes down each leg and sleeve, looked back as he got safely to the other side, lifted his arm, faced his hand outwards and then raised his two index fingers and split them apart into the sign of a V and flicked. His profanity was no more than mouthed words drowned out by the noise of the busy traffic travelling up and down High Street in a rush. Lou’s heart still pounded at the near miss. Her whole body shook in rhythm to it’s forceful beat and she knew it was the dope that had made her so anxious. A horn sounded behind her. But she needed a minute to compose herself. She sat back, blew out a huge sigh, reached for a cigarette from the well under the gear stick, a lighter from the dashboard and then lit up. She drew in a long draw and then exhaled with a huge pleasurable sigh and allowed the tension to drain away. Cigarette bouncing from her mouth, she pushed the car into gear and prepared to move on as the bloke in a suit in the car behind continued to pap his horn and make rude gestures at her that she could see in her rear view mirror. Everybody seemed in such a bad mood these days and she was no exception especially where Sharp was concerned but he was her boss so she’d have to button it.

A volley of profanities burst forth from Lou’s jacket pocket in an infantile, squabbling and offensive tirade, as she turned off the car engine in the Fakham Herald car park. She’d forgotten she’d changed her ring tone last night to the offensive cartoon show’s rude joke theme in a moment of high giggles with Munday who had Bluetoothed it to her mobile for a shared laugh. She knew she’d have to change it back, it wasn’t exactly “appropriate” for a professional who could be sat in an inquest hearing with grieving parents one minute, while talking to a headmistress about an infant school nativity the next, but she smiled in recognition of the caller.

“Hi Neil. What you got for me? Something I could use as a spade, I hope.”

Most hacks would kill for the kind of special relationship between Lou and DCI Neil Worthy from Fakham CID - if they didn’t kill each other first.

“What you been up to this time? I always said you were like dog shit - you spread everywhere.”

“Very funny. I’m just running late and his lordship is bound to have a go. So what’s new?”

Lou banged the car door shut and the blip as she locked up remotely from her keyholder sounded. She turned her back to walk towards the metal door in the three storey purpose built Fakham Herald building which a handful of staff occupied since it's printing presses went and it downgraded from daily to weekly in line with falling circulation figures. Everyone got free news from the internet these days so they didn't buy newspapers - or as newcomers to the city they had no real interest or affiliation in community news from a town that they were mostly passing through with no intention of laying down roots.

She paused before pressing the combination of keys that would allow her inside and pulled out her cigarettes from her bag instead. She pinched one out, put it to her mouth and lit up.

“You’re still smoking then?” Neil said as Lou blew out.

“Yeah, don’t tell me you can smell it over the phone now too - isn’t that called fourth or fifth hand smoke or some rubbish?“

“I thought you were running late.”

“I am. But I need the extra five minutes I haven’t got this morning after a dickhead ran out in front of my car and nearly got himself killed and me done for causing death by dangerous driving. But you didn’t phone to talk to me about my smoking, I’m sure.”

“No, but it’s why I left you.”

“Oh fuck off Neil. Her name was Jacqui and we both know it.”

She fiddled with her bag, put her keys inside and held her cigarette pack and lighter in one hand as the phone was held to her ear in a hunch with her shoulder attached to the hand and two fingers that pinched around the cigarette she was smoking.

“I was joking so please don‘t start on about Jacqui. I‘m trying to do you a favour here. You know damn well that cigarettes I can handle but a police officer living with a wreck head was only ever going to be career suicide.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you say so. I'm not going to argue today. I haven't got the will or the time.”

“Oh do grow up Lou. You’re not a teenager anymore. You're a middle aged woman. Drugs are bad. End of. There's nothing to argue about.”

“Look, what d’ya want Neil? Did you just phone me to have a go or have you got something I can use this morning?” She rolled her eyes and hooked her bag onto her shoulder.

“You heard about the fire?”

“Where?”

“It’s on the website but it’s being reported as arson with one fatality.”

“Well, thanks for telling me. My car radio’s knackered and I haven't had time to listen to the news this morning which wouldn’t have gone down well with Sharp."

Lou imagined the way his lip curled and his nostrils flared in contempt at any reporter who arrived at work not knowing the day’s breaking news in advance and then he‘d go on about it all day, with little digs here and there about how news reporters who haven‘t got a clue what‘s in the news should be working in PR or stacking shelves. The thought stuck in Lou’s throat and made her gag. Jacqui had her own PR company and she sure as hell was doing better out of that than Lou as a weekly newspaper reporter who had struggled to pay her mortgage since Neil moved out. She might well earn more working in a supermarket than a newspaper always looking to make cut backs.

“But that’s why I’m phoning.” Neil said. “It’s more than a fire but the press doesn‘t know that yet. The fire was set deliberately – and Barings is going to paint is as vandalism to keep the press off his back - but it was set to cover up a murder and the initial autopsy has found injuries similar to Maureen Casey’s and Susan Drake‘s”

The phone fell. Lou reacted quickly, did a jig, and saved it from crashing to the floor, sacrificing the cigarette packet to a puddle on the ground instead.

“But they got Simon Gillespie for those didn‘t they? “ She bent to pick up the pack and shook off the excess water, hissed, and rubbed the packet dry along the side of her black fleece jacket. “And I thought the police were not reinvestigating after Gillespie was freed on appeal because they were so sure he‘d done it? “

Neil tutted and blew out a heavy sigh: “That’s the problem. It looks like it's come back to haunt us and this time Gillespie has an alibi. There is a press conference this afternoon but Baring isn‘t going to mention the link because he doesn‘t want to have to deal with the criticism even though we in CID think he should so you‘ve got to ask the right questions and get it out into the open because we need witnesses. I’ve got to get to the scene. Baring’s on the warpath. He was late himself this morning and is as angry as hell, barking out orders to everyone. You’re not the only one with an arsehole for a boss.“

Lou smiled : “At least we still have something in common then,“ she said. She fiddled in her jacket pocket and brought out a small engraved circular tin. She pressed a pin on the edge and it popped open to reveal a well used pocket ashtray. She stubbed her cigarette out on the black ash charred inside surface and clipped it shut again.”

“Come down to the scene. It’s Hermit Road. Forensics are there now. But don’t let on to Baring that I told you about it. There won't be any other press there so this is exclusive.“

“Cheers. I suppose you want something for that.”

“Well, you could pay me back tonight. 7 o’clock in the Painter’s Arms. There’s something I want to discuss.“

“Make it The Noose at 9 and I might consider it. What's it about?”

“Jacqui's sister has gone missing.”

“Fuck Jacqui. What‘s her sister got to do with me and why should I care?”

“Lou, this isn’t about Jacqui, you or me, but a 17 year old girl who hasn‘t been home or seen by anyone in two months and a chief superintendent who doesn‘t think her disappearance worthy of investigation.”

PARENTS AND KIDS

I'm looking forward to watching part two of the BBC's Victoria's Children this evening and I think I've earned the luxury of iPlayer in bed after a successful first day of my new regime.

I ran this morning despite the rain which would normally put me off getting out in the country in summer never mind winter but I felt determined. Don't get me wrong. I'm no Olympic hopeful, I doubt I'll be entering this year's local 10k run, but a gentle jog combined with a brisk walk is a refreshing way to start the day and, like my novel, I hope to build up my stamina bit by neglected bit as the year progresses.

I also managed to achieve almost everything else I set out to do by the end of today - except for starting work on the crime novel's chapter 2 second rewrite. An exciting freelance opportunity came up that needed attention instead but I've still progressed with the novel even if I haven't worked on the bit I intended to address.

Fiction writing and ideas don't always come to me when I want them to. I can sit at the computer for hours staring in vain at a blank screen while trying to avoid distractions like Facebook and Twitter. Later, when I'm not thinking about it, ideas, scenarios, characters, and bits that fit with my plot development come to me. That's when I stop whatever I'm doing, grab a pen and a notebook, and write until my mind is empty. This is where my 2000+ new words come from every day. They are just some of the bricks I'll be using for the foundations of what will ultimately amount to a huge construction project. Likewise they act as the sketch of a painting that has yet to add it's hues, shades, nuances and light to create an overall image.

Parental relationships with children and the Nature/Nurture debate are themes in my book which is another reason, apart from my interest in history and the Monarchy, that I'm looking forward to the second part of the programme examining how Queen Victoria treated her kids and how they responded.

The ever cynical Philip Larkin has his own universal views on that :

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself.

NEW YEAR - NEW REGIME

I love running but it occurred to me late last night that it's been a while since I ran regularly so I thought the time had come to get off my backside and start again and that's just what I did first thing when I got up this morning.

Of course today is a holiday so by "first thing" I don't mean at sun up but rather 11.30am after a leisurely wake up following my usual two cups of tea in bed which help to set me right for the day.

I'm lucky to live in such a lovely area with fields and footpaths running at the back of my house with just an old windmill and a Norman Church in sight across the flat landscape. It's like having a ready made track on my back doorstep.

Of course motivation to get out and run is stronger when the sun shines like today rather than when it rains, snows or blows, but I'm going to attempt to stick to my new regime of running in the mornings, followed by a great big bacon and egg bap, more tea and a cigarette, then several hours at the computer writing until I finish the task I've set myself this year to write my first novel.

Happy New Year to readers and writers. Whatever your goals or dreams, I hope this is the year they're realised and come to fruition.

CHAPTER ONE

Image from here

My New Year's resolution for 2013 is to actually finish the crime novel I started a while ago. Chapter one is almost there so I thought it would be a good time to post it and ask for reactions from readers and whether it excites and makes you want to read on and follow the story to its conclusion.

If you are able to comment then please do. Feedback and constructive criticism is always welcome but I hope you enjoy this anyway.
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Hot puffs of breath mixed with the frozen mist in rapid clouds that melted into the fog, knees thudded in objection beneath a skirt too short, every muscle in her torso tightened, the tendons at the back of her legs strained and pulled against their will. Her vest top clung to her in an impossible sweat and made her freeze even more. Her arms were red and blotched with purple patterns around the goosebumps like tiny pimples in need of a skin cure.

The streets were quiet but she knew she'd have a chance if she could just get across the new development site to the High Street or the alley car park. Taking main roads to the town centre where the police station was, and where she knew people would still be out celebrating Saturday night, could be a blessing but she couldn't take the chance again of flagging down a passing motorist for help. He must know she'd gone missing by now and he'd be looking for her. She squeezed through a gap in the fence around the development site, squatted down behind a parked car on Victoria Street, her stomach cramped in panic, forced bile to her throat which she spewed out into the gutter.

Dirty hands with long fingers that ended with jagged and broken fingernails torn into bloody tips wrapped across her mouth and swiped it dry leaving a grubby trail. Her mind was numb, focussed only on cold and fear. It was incapable of rational thought made senseless by the drugs he gave her. She repeated to herself to wake it up : “car park, alley, High Street.” She had to stay focussed. They were just ahead and help was just beyond. She darted looks left, right, behind her, crept out from around the car, the road was still quiet. No moving cars, no people, but several vehicles, white with frost were parked along each side obviously asleep until rush hour in the morning when their owners would struggle to get them started again.

The lights of the apartment blocks on one side of the street were out except for a couple near the top in a soft hazy daze against the fog. The grand houses with stone steps leading up to big doors looked formidable and dark. The tatty houses on the other side of the street looked mostly uninhabited. She weighed up her best chances. Knocking doors would leave her exposed, out in the open, unprotected and bait if he came cruising by as she stood freezing, filthy, blood-stained and wretched waiting for someone to answer the door. If she tried to make town he could be hiding, waiting and he'd see her before she got there. Her brain wouldn't work. It just told her to run and run fast. She stood, wrapped her arms around her and hunched into herself as if trying to squeeze her slim frame smaller into invisibility. She walked rapidly to the end of the street, past the corner shop, and then broke out into a sprint over the bottom end of High Street and to the car park at the entrance to the alley. She bobbed down again behind a parked car panting rapidly but hope of help there left her when there was no one around and no sound but that of her own breath still making the air around her warmer that it made her.

She crawled through the cars on all fours towards the alley that would take her to the top end of High Street where she was certain she'd get help. Somewhere deep from the depths of panic, fear and pain her brain agreed and proved her right when she entered the long dark old brick alley where she immediately heard cackling laughter and floating chatter rise up from the town centre.

The sound of normal happy life crept along the top end of High Street and got stronger as revellers approached the far end of the alleyway that shrouded her. Her intended roar for attention dissolved into a pathetic squeak from a parched throat on fire that did nothing to protect her from the freezing cold but robbed her of her voice. She screamed again as best she could as she ran along the alley but her voice again deserted her and was easily strangled by guttural laughter and playful high pitched squeals as the drunks walked on oblivious to the hope she had in them. Then there was silence. A stillness, like the moment when birds stop singing, insects vanish and flower petals close in defence against the sudden and furious storm that beats down in blind fury through heavy still clouds onto the exposed and open landscape.

The only sound was her own breath and her heart thumping against her rib cage. She stopped to listen to the noise outside of her own body and held what little breath she had. Nothing. No-one. She released rhythmic gasps as she fought to refill her lungs with air and bent over, hands on her ripped knees. She darted anxious looks up and down the black alleyway, hair in rats tails hung each side of her face and flicked like whips as they blew away from her as she puffed. Street lights bounced pale light into the blackness and she knew she was not far. It would be over soon. They'd have to believe her. She stood, and straightened, more relaxed this time, more focussed on where she needed to be and turned to run again. And then the blow. Sharp, searing pain in her temples and the back of her eyes, warmth spread like thick syrup down her face, and then darkness descended into black.

A man smiled, bent over her and lifted her up as if she was drunk and had to lean on him for support as he half carried and half dragged her back along the alley to the car park. Footsteps and mixed gentle voices sounded at the top High Street end of the alley so he shifted quickly into one of the old piss-stained and littered alcoves in case they turned in. He held the girl up against him and both melted into the darkness under cover of his black clothes. He held his breath as the clip clop of shoes and chatter of lovers got closer, level, and then moved past him before they stopped a little further up. They embraced. He heard the sound of their kissing like dogs slurping the last of the food in their dish. Animals, he thought. People were only animals with basic needs and he knew what they'd be doing tonight when they got home. Animals.

The girl moaned. He put his hand over her mouth and nose and held tight until she went limp again. A flicker of excitement ran through him as she slumped against him, heat rose in his chest and his heart beat a little faster.

The lovers were too engrossed in each other to notice the world let alone anyone else around them but after the embrace they walked on, chatting, giggling, laughing. He listened carefully and heard a car engine start at the other end of the alley. He waited a minute and then heaved the girl along. The fog had thickened and he could barely make out his battered old Mondeo in the car park but that was a good thing. There was no one around, vision in this weather was limited anyway so he was sure that no one would see him.

He opened the boot of his car and slung the girl inside. She shouldn't have come looking. It was her own fault. She deserved all she got.

AFTERNOON WITH CHANDLER

Timeless classic The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler doesn't just grab you by the throat as you read - it's pins you up against the wall, holds you in a vice like grip, and refuses to let go until your eyes blur and can't stay on the page a minute longer.

Using harsh and tension filled prose that shows the seedy side of life in LA, Chandler colours a city black and white, pure and evil, with varying shades of grey. Rain lashes down endlessly as the plot gathers pace and we meet characters as dodgy as a bad fairground ride with a screw loose and as vulnerable as a toddler not strapped in.

I've never read the book before but Ive seen both 1946 and 1976 screen versions, my favourite being the Bogart/Bacall film noir that oozes sexual chemistry, life on the edge, and the seedy side of life for both rich and poor. It's a world of murder, porn, exploitation, blackmail, gambling, innuendo, drinking whiskey and rye and smoking. It's a world now gone - replaced with one far more dirty, less honourable among thieves, and much more shocking.

The Big Sleep keeps you on the edge but it's not frightening and in places is somewhat amusing for a thriller not written as a comedy. However, back in 1939 readers were less desensitised then they are today. Times change and the book stands witness to the underground of that era which contemporaries would have found shocking. Swearing is forbidden in line with the then then sensibilities and moralities. The most profane word used is "nuts," but homophobia is reeled off as an acceptable reaction to gay men, maybe because it was a crime back then, or maybe just because our parents' and grandparents' generation generally were less enlightened. Sexism is also rampant in the book - if somewhat charming and quaint at times.

The Big Sleep is one three crime novels that I've been studying in preparation as tutor of an eight week adult comparative literature course. The other two books we'll be looking at are Trick of the Dark by Val McDermid which will be a lovely counterbalance to Chandler's homophobia and a very different PI, and Bad Boy by Peter Robinson to compare the screen adaptations. Will the DCI Banks series become regarded as the same kind of classic - or are they as incomparable as a grey Plymouth and a Porsce 911?

THE FEAR

Wow. Just Wow. That sums up my response to the new channel Four series The Fear a stomping new crime thriller with a difference.

Richie is a gangster who's been the unchallenged top dog of his town for 15 years and his violent days are behind him. He's got all of the local politicians, police, and officials in his pocket and the cover of respectability to gloss over his gangster past.

He's also got two soft and stupid sons who use his name in vain when dealing with organised sex traffickers from Albania who don't like being used. Promises are made in Richie's name and the Albanians want what they are promised.

When the sons fail to deliver, they take what they feel they are owed and Richie's peaceful new world is blown into oblivion. He's the sort of man that would usually have nipped such a threat in the bud with swift, untraceable violence. But he has a problem. Dementia is eating his brain, he's slipping back into the dark days of his past, he forgets where he is, who he's with, what he's done, and he's unaware of the danger his empire is in and how far his mind is lost.

At the point where he can deal with them and hope to salvage something, his mind goes off on a tangent and any plan for peace goes horribly wrong. Once his condition becomes apparent to the family, his sons are out for themselves. They have always used Daddy's name as a shield but now they have to stand on their own two feet.

The cool and business headed son has been beaten and raped by the gang into submission and compliance and the other is so far off his head on coke he just reacts like an idiot, doesn't think, and has now put the whole family in future danger with nothing to protect them.

Peter Mullan is excellent in the role. Despite his criminal past, you feel for him and his situation. He is like a monster one minute when he beats up one of his sons, and like a frightened child the next in his wife's arms as he begs for help in understanding what is happening to him.

The last episode is on this evening at 10pm. I'm expecting a great climax to the story but I hope like the last Channel Four series that I enjoyed so much Secret State it doesn't have the same disappointing ending.

I expected a better finale following the authentic feel of that political thriller but the fourth episode trailed off into fantasy land as it came hurriedly to an end which could have been handled much better.

I am not expecting to be disappointed by The Fear's ending. It certainly has far less to resolve than Secret State's convoluted plot and in some ways we already know that Richie's life is hanging by a thread. The slow moving bullet heading his way in the very first opening scene gives an indication of how he is going to end up. I suppose it just depends on who is behind the gun that fired it.