So I wrote an actual sonnet. Three quatrains and a closing couplet, each line must have 10 syllables and a there is a specific rhyming pattern. Mine is a Spenserian sonnet after Sir Edmund Spenser, the first poet to modify Petrarch’s form.
As many of my friends know, I have had a novel in the offing for years now. The unfinished manuscript has been re worked, reviewed, abandoned, submitted for professional appraisal, shoved back into the drawer and pulled out again. But as in love as I am with parts of it, I simply cannot seem to apply myself to getting to the end, which I think is a pity, because at least then I could say I have written a book. Of course, saying you have written AND had a book published are two different things. Maybe putting Chapter One out here will galvanise me to finish what I started long ago, and then…who knows…
From welovebudapest.com
The Hungarian Tourism Board’s stand at the travel show revealed a beautiful backdrop of the capital city which is how Francesca Copeland found herself sitting in Berlin with a perfect view over the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, which links the twin cities of Buda and Pest over the River Danube. In the final stages of negotiations with the portly but not unattractive hotel owner, Fran was ignoring the alarm bells ringing in her head when he finally made his move on her. She had sensed his attention veering off the subject of the terms and conditions of the contract somewhere around the third glass of Bull’s Blood.
A familiar voice told her to steer the negotiations back onto a professional track, and to refuse to enter into the suggestive banter which her client was clumsily attempting in a language not his own. But Fran was skilled in the art of flirtation and could rarely resist the thrust and parry of the game even though such occasions generally spelled disaster. The fumbling hands and sensuous lips of Laszlo Varga signaled yet another in the series of Fran’s spectacular fiascos.
‘Of course, you need to make full inspection of the property, mostly important the bedrooms,’ Laszlo leered.
‘Naturally, Laszlo. We’ll start with the public areas, perhaps in the bar for an aperitif, then we will sit in your splendid dining room and I will assess the lighting and décor, and after a wonderful dinner, then we can go up and check out the bedrooms…’ Her suggestion was clear, even to the linguistically challenged hotelier.
He reached out to grab her hand, covering it with kisses, deliberately brushing her breast as he moved in. Fran wondered about her best route out of the situation. She had demonstrated a serious lapse of judgement and dereliction of professionalism – and the contract wasn’t even signed.
“Laszlo,” she began “it’s not that I don’t find you attractive, but…”
“Francesca,” Laszlo groaned as she pushed him away.
“Look, Laszlo, we can get to know each other better once the contract is signed.”
Laszlo immediately sobered up on being reminded of the business at hand. Or possibly because Fran’s tone of voice held a promise. Fran knew that there would be no signature and therefore no promise to keep tonight, and stood up, straightening her skirt.
“Laszlo, I have another appointment this evening, so let’s meet tomorrow morning at 8.30, when I hope we will be able to reach an agreement to proceed with plans for a spectacular refurbishment of the King Béla IV by the Bijou International Hotel Group.”
Laszlo looked at her, the wolfish glint in his eye still apparent. At that moment he would doubtless have sold his family’s share in the magnificent Danube river front property for a single night with Fran but he conceded defeat with good grace.
“Goodnight, Francesca. Tomorrow we sign and afterwards I take you to celebrate, yes?”
“Big celebration, yes, of course,” Fran replied, deferring Laszlo’s ardour until she was more sober and better able to manage him. She gathered up her briefcase and coat, kissed him on the cheek and made a dignified exit from the near deserted conference centre.
The subterranean Berlin bar was crowded by the time Fran arrived to meet her colleagues. Her earlier alcohol-induced buzz was wearing off and she began to feel flat and deflated. All she really wanted to do was go back to her hotel room and sleep. She knew the evening would be the usual huddle of party die-hards, sad singles and career climbers. As she mentally pigeon-holed her colleagues, Fran acknowledged to herself that she could fit into all three categories. Tonight, though, she had no real desire to confront her own shortcomings and sighed at the thought of another empty, drunken evening.
She descended the stairs into the trendy nightspot. Half way down, she scanned the smoky pall and saw Chrissie. In addition to being Fran’s friend, Chrissie was the company’s IT director and creator of a sophisticated CAD system for their interior décor and floor plans. For a techno nerd she was the definitive party animal. Claudia from the Paris office stood at Chrissie’s side as if taking shelter. For all her Gallic charm, she was the perennial sad single in the company. Taking centre stage, not surprisingly, was the MD of Bijou Hotels. Gio Maldini was Italian. His tousled hair, dark brown eyes and broken English ensured that every woman he met fell in love with him. But he was ruthless, a hard core career climber whose quest for money and power had recently brought him to London to head the hotel group’s global office. Soon after his arrival, despite a wife and two children, he took a similarly determined route into Chrissie’s bed.
Chrissie saw Fran and waved. Fran noted that even her hand gesture was slurred. They had obviously been here a while. Fran made her way across the room, shrugging off her heavy winter coat as she threaded her way through the tables.
“Hi, you guys,” she greeted each of them with a kiss on both cheeks.
“Where’ve you been?” Chrissie asked.
“You don’t want to know,” said Fran, but of course they did and Fran as usual put the funniest spin on her day which had culminated in the scene with Laszlo. She was careful to play down her part in the abortive seduction as Gio was expecting a positive outcome from her meeting. She had no desire to disabuse his recent first good impression of her, since she stood in line for a promotion over the next few months. She had promised herself no more romantic entanglements of whatever intensity or duration; they would only detract from or interfere with her master plan of rapid progression in the company structures.
Time to clean up my act, turn over a new leaf and become a new me, she thought as she ordered a drink.
They were all, including Claudia, enjoying being regaled by Fran’s story when a tall, imposing figure strode up to their table.
“Is anyone sitting here?” he asked pointing to an empty chair next to Fran. He had a slight accent that was hard to place.
“No, be my guest,” Fran replied, craning her neck to look up at him. She was drawn immediately by his blue eyes and his gaze which held hers like a firm handshake. She expected him to lift the chair and take it away, but in a surprise move, he sat down and smiled.
“Duncan,” he said, in what Fran took to be an introduction.
“Fran, Claudia, Chrissie and Gio,” Fran said, indicating each member of the group. “Your round, then?” Duncan looked a little taken aback. What had he expected, thought Fran, gate crashing their party?
“And some peanuts, or pretzels or something, if they have any,” she added, grinning at the other three.
Fran turned back to her friends, continuing her story, expecting to have seen the last of Duncan whoever he was. Ten minutes later he returned with two bottles of wine, five glasses and a bowl of pretzels balanced up the length of his forearm. A nice strong forearm clad in an expensive blue Oxford button down shirt, Fran noted, ignoring the alarm bells that had saved her from the Hungarian earlier in the evening.
As lockdown begins really to bite and we get increasingly restless and fed up of our own four walls and the same route between home and the supermarket, here are two short travel pieces, one written in response to the prompt ‘Tripod’ and the other to ‘Nonsense’ (it’s strange where your brain takes you with just one, simple word!)
The Tripod piece is actually a mash up of two places, both in Namibia, which is one of my favourite countries. The actual telescope of the story was set up in the then Sossusvlei Karos Lodge which I visited in 1998 – in fact we were there when news of Princess Diana’s death came through – but the place I also had in my mind’s eye when writing this is a lodge in the Kalahari where I spent new year’s eve 2017 going into 2018 and where the below photo was taken.
The second piece is also a mash up of a lot of different bush experiences I’ve had, although I have NEVER taken the plunge…
As Far as the Eye can See…
View towards the Rostock Ritz Desert Lodge
The telescope was permanently installed on the boundary of the camp. The hard, dusty ground was pitted from the legs of its tripod as each day, it was shifted a little to the left, a little to the right, to be trained on its day or night-time quarry.
Its lens captured a myriad of sights, despite the desolation of the lodge’s location.
In the early mornings and evenings, meerkat burrows teemed with families scurrying back and forth, but were quiet under the noon day sun.
From time to time, small herds of zebra ambled across the horizon, shimmering in the searing heat of the desert. Less frequently, a single oryx would move slowly into view, stopping every so often to look around at a landscape that never altered.
Sometimes a dust cloud approaching from far in the distance alerted staff to arriving guests, but such was the vista and for so far could you see, that there was ample time to ready the room before they arrived, hot and thirsty from the drive.
And for an hour or more after bills were settled and goodbyes had been said, a similar trail of gritty sand followed behind the retreating cars of departing visitors.
At night, the sky was a canopy of blinking stars, and the telescope would track Venus or Jupiter, Mars or Mercury or just gaze upon the moon. The telescope had to be recalibrated frequently to follow the shifting planets.
The vast desert and sky were full of life.
Taking the Plunge…
It had been an action-packed holiday and I had been pushed to my limits.
We had spent days walking in the African bush with only the protection of a youthful looking game ranger, who looked as nervous as I felt. He kept his rifle cocked at all times, ready.
We slept under the stars, the silhouettes of visiting hyenas flickering in the campfire light on the walls of our flimsy tents.
We were mock charged by an angry elephant, who flapped his ears frantically warning us off. We didn’t need to be asked twice, and we retreated cautiously, never turning our backs.
We ate antelope steaks, impala and kudu. It made me sad after we had seen so many of these elegant and skittish creatures grazing peacefully on the open plains.
We travelled along the complex waterways of the Delta by mokoro, hunkered down deep in the traditional dugouts, vigilant for hippos whose aggression is legendary.
But now I was facing my biggest challenge yet.
‘I can’t. Please don’t make me. I’m too scared.’
‘Nonsense, you’re going to love it.’
I dithered on the edge, hobbled like a cow at the ankles, trussed like a turkey in the harness.
The waters of the mighty Zambezi swirled over enormous rocks far below and the speck of a rubber dinghy bobbed up and down, waiting.
The operator was encouraging but firm and I felt a gentle nudge in the small of my back. My stomach flipped. I heard the primal scream, ‘Bungee!’
At 111 metres, the bridge over the Zambezi at Vic Falls, Zimbabwe from which you can bungee, is one of the highest jumps in the world…
Because this. Exactly one year ago. Although we weren’t married. That’s poetic licence to respond to the prompt ‘The Signature’ in 1 000 words. The rest is real, but I’m over it, finally.
She was already up, curled on the sofa with her morning coffee and the Sunday newspapers when he emerged, hair mussed up and still blinking against the light. She looked up and smiled, watching him make his way down the stairs to join her.
“Good morning, Lovely,” she greeted.
“Morning.” Subdued. The rest she can barely remember. Only fragments came back to her later as she replayed the moment in her head, and then out loud to others.
He sat in the armchair opposite her, and launched, without preamble into what he had probably been rehearsing for some time.
“You might have noticed my behaviour has been a little strange recently.” (she hadn’t) “The thing is, I have lost my romantic feelings for you.” After that, if he said anything else, she didn’t hear him. But that was the gist of it, no explanation, no frills, no fuss. Just like him.
Interminable silence. He refused to fill it and sat looking at anything but her.
“And so now what?” What was supposed to happen next? What was she supposed to do now? He hadn’t elaborated on the consequences of his bombshell.
“I’m sure we can continue to live here in a civilised fashion until you can move back into your house.” Rehearsed. Cold. Self-protection.
They had been married and living together in his house for exactly 5 months, creating a home from his former bachelor existence and now he wanted her to move out again. Their short marriage, the idyll, was over. It was inconceivable.
She fled upstairs leaving him alone with his relief. Still in shock, she pulled clean linen out from the cupboard and hauled it into the spare room. It would be intolerable to lie next to him from now on, knowing he no longer wanted or needed her in his bed. Her bed, actually. She did a mental inventory of everything she needed to do in order to disentangle their lives, which had become intertwined over time, but pulled apart in a mere matter of moments.
She would need to tell her tenants and give them notice. How they loved her house, their first independent, grown up home after university. But it was her home first and their feelings were secondary to her desperate need to now be gone from this nightmare that was her world crashing down around her.
The next few days were a blur. He tried to maintain a veneer of civility and adopted the friendly tone of a house mate, asking after her day, enquiring if she was in for dinner. How did he even do that? She in turn railed against him, crying, shouting, pleading, wheedling. He was immutable and met whatever came his way with the same answer.
“I’m so sorry it came to this. It’s nothing that you did or didn’t do. I cannot tell you anything different. These are my feelings and I can’t help them or change them.”
What was incomprehensible to her was the apparent ease with which he accepted his own loss, never mind hers. There had been no signs, no conversations, nothing. If he had wanted, he could have voiced his doubts earlier and found a way to work whatever he was feeling out. But he seemed simply to have flicked a switch, turned off the love tap, and moved on, leaving her unprepared to face a future without him. Talk about the rug being pulled, the ball from left field, so many clichés but only one heart break, and that was hers.
She started spending the evenings packing boxes. He assiduously ignored the sounds of the reams of wrapping paper required to swaddle her breakable goods and of the lengths of sticking tape she ripped off the roll to seal up each box, meticulously labelled for its journey back from where it had so recently been transported.
Each time he walked past the hive of activity that was her furious efforts at getting out with her belongings, sanity and dignity intact, she threw a snide comment his way. She simply couldn’t help herself. There were no visible signs of disturbance in his routine or in his emotions. He seemed impervious to her distress and she couldn’t even determine if underneath he felt a shred of regret or sadness.
On the day she moved out, he got up early. She heard him moving around and thought to get up to say goodbye, but who needs a scene at 05h30 on what was going to be one of the toughest days of her life. She let him go, listening out for the final sliding to of the front gate.
And then the day came when he asked her to meet him at his attorney’s office. She knew from that moment that there would be no going back. His decision was irrevocable and there was no room for her in his future. He had excised her from his life with all the expertise of a surgeon lancing a tumour. Clean. Clinical.
When she arrived, he was already sitting at the attorney’s board table, holding his glasses up on his forehead, not necessary for the reading of the document she knew he was about to present to her. She had pre-empted his legal move and had drawn up her own version of the final chapter of their relationship. Why should he be in charge of the entire narrative, from the moment he delivered his coup de grace, to asking her to agree to his terms and conditions. Well she wasn’t about to make it that easy for him.
He stood up to greet her, leaning in for a conciliatory? affectionate? nostalgic? kiss. She ignored the gesture and sat down. She finally felt in control and slid her document across the highly polished surface towards him.
“One or the other of us needs to put their signature to one or the other of these documents and put an end to this.” He asserted.
Today, 30 June, would have been my maternal Gran’s birthday. She was born in 1905. She raised my mother and aunt on her own in the 1940s, having left my grandfather when they were both very young. Those were not the days to be a single mother with a living husband and it must have been immensely hard. But she was an amazing woman with whom we spent every Sunday for as long as I can remember during my childhood. Here are two short pieces that I wrote with some random, specific memories of her.
My Gran gave me my name. And she taught me how to dance. She loved to dance but was a tall woman, something she said prejudiced the boys against her when she was growing up in the 1920s.
When she did find a partner, he turned out to be no good.
We spent every Sunday with her. She always made roast lamb lunch ‘with all the trimmings’. And jam roly poly.
I loved to watch her roll her stockings neatly up from toe to garter belt.
She always blotted her lipstick after applying it and checked herself in the tarnished wardrobe door mirror before leaving the house.
Rene, c.1917 aged around 12.
Even though the aroma of roasting lamb assailed us as we mounted the windy stairs in the funny old house where my grandmother lived, we knew there was also a chicken treat awaiting us.
For years, our Sundays never changed. Gran greeted us from the bus, hugging us warmly and then we set off for her flat at the same brisk pace that I keep up today. The house was a 3 storey Victorian mansion, its former grandeur much faded.
Its occupants were all single elderly ladies who, like the house, showed signs of advancing decrepitude.
The rooms had been randomly divided up, so the flats were of widely differing sizes, some with their own bathrooms and kitchen, whilst others shared. Mrs Cairns and Miss Welsh each had a one room bedsit, whilst the formidable Mrs Shardlow had a whole suite.
My Gran occupied the attic which had three rooms and a kitchenette, but she lived in just one which was kept warm and cosy.
After recounting our school week to her, we had lunch – the lamb. But, in between Sundays, Gran ate chicken. The special Sunday expense was just for me and my sisters. Lamb was expensive and apart from the leftovers which took her to Tuesdays, the rest of the week called for frugality.
After lunch was cleared away, we would go to the top shelf in the kitchen and reach up for the dried wishbone that was waiting for us. Gran had devised a rota to accommodate three sisters and the two ended wish bone.
I couldn’t wait until it was my turn to hook my little finger round the bone and pull. Like a Christmas cracker, whoever got the larger piece as it snapped in two, was declared the victor and got to choose the story.
The 2020 Wimbledon tournament should have started today but it was cancelled back in April – for the first time only since World War II. Novak Djokovic of course wouldn’t have been there anyway, given that he went ahead with his own tournament amidst the pandemic and promptly contracted COVID-19, along with a number of the other participants, and his wife. Let that be a lesson to us all.
I lived around the corner for a few years from The All England Lawn Tennis Club which hosts Wimbledon, but have never had the pleasure of attending, so this short piece written for the prompt’ Lawn’ in 150 words is culled from imagination and the boasts of friends that have.
A swathe of purple and green throngs the pavement. People push towards the turnstiles. Touts hold out tickets, naming eye watering prices. Few people take notice, whilst others haggle in the hope of accessing the hallowed grounds.
Inside, the maze of courts spreads left and right. The majestic Centre Court commands attention.
Some visitors enjoy an exorbitant bowl of strawberries and cream or a glass of Pimm’s to say they have. Then walkways begin to thin out as the flamboyant parade of hats, dresses, jackets and ties makes its way to the stands.
Score boards come alive and blink the players’ names for the first matches of the day.
At two thirty sharp, umpires are atop their perches, players emerge from the change rooms to the crowd’s gentle applause and the familiar sound of tennis balls being pounded back and forth fills the All England Lawn Tennis Club.
This week we started going back to the office 2 days per week, by department. Our biometric finger print access has been disabled to reduce the number of touch points around the office, so there is no longer an accurate recording of our comings and goings. This piece was pulled from memories of jobs I have hated (only two as I recall – although neither was in a biscuit factory!) and as a result, I have kept the promise to myself that is expressed in the final line.
She pulled the buff time-card out of the rack on the factory wall and punched it into the clock. Her tardiness was recorded in red, adding to the columns where black digits made an infrequent appearance.
She hated this job and couldn’t motivate herself to make it to work on time. Each day when she woke up she did an inventory of her arms, legs, fingers and toes, her ears, nose and throat, checking for any ailments that might warrant her calling in sick.
Her personnel file showed a woeful attendance and time keeping record and the supervisor never missed an opportunity to remind her of the fact, but still they kept her on. Few people were desperate enough to perform the repetitive task of plucking misshapen biscuits off the line.
She vowed she would never in her life again take a job she didn’t go to with joy in her heart.
Right now it is freezing cold in Johannesburg, and unseasonally grey and miserable. Our winters are usually bright and sunny, so these last few days prompted me to post this piece that I wrote as a warning against sun worship.
The sunshine had always lifted her spirits. She questioned why she’d been born in the northern hemisphere. She preferred to imagine herself a native of a sun-soaked island in the Caribbean where the weather never changed. She was convinced she had Seasonal Affective Disorder – as her moods swung from euphoric highs down into despondency with the fluctuating weather of her grey northern home town.
At school, she defied the headmistress who told the girls that only ‘mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon day sun’, sitting out on the field during lunchtime. Her grandmother – from the same generation as the school principal – told her that a lady was always ‘ pale and interesting’ but she saw nothing attractive about being white and insipid.
Back in the day she had slathered herself with pure coconut oil on the beach, in the garden – wherever she was when the weak British sun poked out from behind the clouds. She would move around, following the trajectory of the sun, and like a sunflower tilt her head in the direction of its rays.
When sunbeds were a thing, she was a regular visitor to the salon, her only concession to the harmful UV rays a special pair of goggles. She loved the tan, her skin glowed and she felt more alive.
But what had enlivened her was now taking her life from her. Cancer had pocked her face, arms and legs and would kill her in a matter of months.
So 300 words on the subject of Men & Women doesn’t go very far when you think of everything that’s been written on the subject of Venus & Mars. Quite fortuitously, this iconic track came on the radio as I was contemplating my story using this particular prompt…so with thanks to The Kinks for the inspiration.
I elbowed my way through the mass of people. I was utterly unused to city life, having left home only a week before. The music, dim electric candle-light and dense smoky atmosphere were disorienting. I stood alone in a dark recess.
A tall, dusky beauty sashayed up to me. She leaned her head on my shoulder and whispered in my ear. Her chocolatey voice was low, but I heard her ask me to dance. We swayed up close to each other, and she squeezed me tightly, almost crushing my spine.
The combination of her sexy, feminine movements and husky voice was intriguing and intoxicating. She was strong and determined, passionate and intense. We moved off the dance floor, found an empty booth and slid in. The waiter raised his eyes at me quizzically as we ordered a bottle of champagne which we finished without exchanging any more words. Pulling me closer to her so that I was almost on her lap she whispered, “Won’t you come home with me, little boy.”
I looked deep into her eyes and felt myself falling for this magnificent creature. If her intention wasn’t already clear, she murmured, “I can see that you’ve never kissed a woman before, so tonight I’m going to make you a man.”
Taking me by the hand, she led us through the undulating crowd. I felt woozy and uncertain. I stumbled, falling to my knees, but she picked me back up in her strong arms.
Outside, in the cold light of the dawn, I looked harder at the women with whom I was surely falling in love. I could discern a faint but unmistakeable dark shadow of stubble under what I could see now was heavy make-up.
“What did you say your name was?” My voice cracked.
