Treasure Trove Recalled from WIP

John stayed rooted to the sofa, his mind drifting, seeking some solace on the incoming tide of desolation. He could see his dive partners, Teri and Spencer, two of the best American marine archaeologists he had ever worked with, about to drop over the side of their boat searching for the wreck on a reef off the Bahamas that they all knew was down there. It was a day he’d never forget. 

They stayed down searching the seabed while he watched the swell picking up as the wind increased. He signalled them on the safety line to surface. The boats had edged dangerously together prow to prow and before he knew what was happening Teri was there between them her feet braced on an anchor chain as she tried to keep them apart. They lurched together on the swell with a sickening crunch. John flung himself into the sea while the captains fired up the boats’ engines to separate them. Blood was pouring from Teri’s thigh, belly and chest, where the sharp metal of the prow had sliced into her. The blood from the jagged incisions was already beginning to colour the water. John pulled her away from the danger area. She felt lifeless in his arms. He knew he would have to be quick as the blood would attract sharks. Holding her with one arm, he pulled once again on the line to hurry Spencer to the surface and swam with her to the side of the boat where willing hands lifted her to safety.

‘What’s up, man?’ Spencer had said immediately he broke the surface. ‘We’re on to something down there.’

‘It’s Teri. She’s badly injured. I’ve done all I could. She’s on board and the captain has radioed for a helicopter.’

The next few hours were hell. Spencer berated everyone. None of them knew why Teri had re-surfaced between the boats. He figured she must have lost her bearings, but wouldn’t admit it in front of the crew. John thought it might have been the current. Her skin grew whiter under her sun-kissed features. They had patched her up as best they could. Loss of blood was immense. She looked like she would not recover. She was slipping away from them.

Eventually the helicopter arrived with paramedics on board and carried her off to Nassau. Spencer went with her and left John to explore the wreck. That evening he sent them a message saying he was not moving from the spot as Spencer had been right. They had discovered the remains of a Spanish ship, the fruit of all their research in the archives, records and charts. And John had put his hand on the first gold coins of what would be a significant find. The next day, once they had stabilised the loss of blood, they moved her to Miami at Spencer’s insistence where Teri was operated on.

John remembered weeks later seeing her at their home recovering from the multiple operations and wanting all the news about the treasure trove. Then, another couple of years on, with Spencer having run off with some undergraduate from FSU, Teri met him for dinner at the Fontainebleu where he was staying a few nights for a conference, dazzling him in a mermaid’s dress of coloured metal leaves that clung to her figure and provided shimmering highlights to her blonde tresses. She had come up to his room and had taken it off to show him the jagged scar, which ran from her thigh across her abdomen to below her breast. 

With Teri it was not horrific but incredibly sexy. She had disrobed with a casualness that was disarming, not that John had needed any prompting to overcome his resistance to her.

Review of Catherine MacLeod's Daisychains of Silence

I have reviewed Daisychains of Silence on Amazon. This fine book offers some thought-provoking insights into the gestation and birth of a contemporary female soul and allowed me to explore similarities with my three main characters in The Cushion Effect.
The full review appears below. I encourage all my followers to read this excellent work.

An awesome silence: is it golden or guilt?

‘Memory believes before knowing remembers.’ William Faulkner’s dicho is apposite to the interwoven family tapestry worked impressively by Catherine MacLeod in Daisychains of Silence. The novel echoes any number of North American authors who use the patchwork quilt as a metaphor for the collage of life’s incidents and images. But here the metaphor of silken threads is subtler, more discerning, in the way the protagonist Deirdre/Daisy picks her way through the scenes of childhood bullying, adolescent abuse, and womanly betrayal. Eventually one comes to realise that Daisy, her adopted name, is indeed a whole, a complete person in her nature, whereas Deirdre, her given name, is forever a child nurtured to ill effect by her circumstances.

Set in the recent past and a generation earlier, the novel is at one and the same time a coming of age story, with unexpected surprises and a catalogue of unforeseen disasters that tempt the reader into visualising an inescapable descent into paranoia, and a redemptive coming to maturity saga, albeit with many questions still unanswered. There is an endearing, prophylactic innocence that shields the wilful Daisy from undue harm and yet, simultaneously, precipitates her into the arms of a parental struggle and sexual encounters, from the insidious and violent, to the needy and tender.

Initially the quiet retrospection of the adult Daisy attempts to come to terms with her mother’s forgetfulness, seemingly as contrived as pathological. The discovery of a hoard of realia from their past opens portals of discovery and self-knowledge which twist and turn in their elusiveness. Her memory is stirred to provide the reader with exquisitely drawn picture postcards from her past: early life in an idyllic rural Scotland; the horror of dorm life in a girls’ private school; the encounter with her father’s other woman; her first heterosexual love. As this young life evolves, the damage done by psychologically powerful characters brings to Daisy the unwanted attribute of, literally, an accident waiting to happen. Several accidents, perchance.

Her adolescent response is to secure her mouth in a punk-like, threaded daisychain pattern, a self-silenced Papageno who has come up empty chasing the bright birds of her youth. Although the reader appreciates her more voluble later self, Daisy’s silent quest for knowledge, sifting through the epistolary threads of her family life, leads her into a series of doubts that shakes her to the core of her being. Is her mother a murderer; is her partner a confirmed adulterer?

Characters in the novel are portrayed beautifully in depth by the writer. There is an emphasis on close-ups either through the eyes of the protagonist or from the viewpoint of her tormentors or supporters. This gives a sense of wonderment in the eye of the beholder. Daisy doesn’t do much or react to much in medium or long shot. This element enhances the confusion her younger self falls foul of and her latter day self is prone to. Exquisitely managed shocks to the trajectory of her life and indeed to the assumptions of the reader lend an intriguing mystery to the story that unfolds.  The result is an uneasy attachment to and admiration for Daisy that demands the outcome of her quest for the truth.

The way the emergent characters end the novel, aspiring daughter, faithful friend, forgiven partner, secret half-brother-in-law, suggests that Daisy has more than a few chapters more of self-discovery in what could be a very entertaining sequel. For now it is a pleasure to return to the family secrets in which as a child and youth she participates, and as an adult uncovers. Catherine MacLeod’s achievement is a rich embroidery of interwoven threads that stimulates thought, provokes consternation, and delivers surprise, shock and enlightenment at what lies beneath a dystopian family breakdown mirrored one generation after another. The book is a triumph of literary crossover fiction inspiring both young women of today and their maturer counterparts.

The Messiah at St Martin's in-the-Fields

This extract is from my Work In Progress ~ American Daughters: Advent

They returned without incident in the dark to Knightsbridge. John smiled to himself as they drove easily into the metropolis, observing the endless line of commuters and holidaymakers crawling along on the motorway in the opposite direction. It was late afternoon. Livia was waiting for them with a hot cup of tea and some freshly baked scones.

‘I hope John hasn’t tired you out completely.’ she said, ‘We’ve plenty of time before the concert?’

‘What concert?’ John looked up quizzically.

‘You’ve forgotten already? I told you I was arranging tickets for the Messiah at St Martin’s-in-the-Fields. It’s tonight.’

‘We’re OK, Livia,’ Hilary assured her. ‘Not too much jet lag. What do we wear?’

‘Not sackcloth and ashes. John’ll be doing that. I’ll come with you to your room and see what you’ve brought. Andrew’s joining us. He’s looking forward to spending some time with you.’

Later, Livia caught up with John in their bedroom.

‘I’m going to enjoy taking your daughters shopping tomorrow.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because I can dress them from top to bottom. They haven’t brought much with them.’

‘They won’t enjoy it. They don’t like being told what to do.’

‘I’m not going to go at it bull-headed. You’ll see. For tonight I’ve given them a couple of my coats.’

They all had a light supper, the girls in frocks their mother had bought for them, simple mid-calf length floral designs, with low-heeled sensible shoes. They looked like librarians on a day out. Andrew came in as they were finishing up.

‘Late as usual,’ John quipped.

Andrew looked appealingly at Livia as he was introduced to the girls.

‘There’s some leftovers. Hilary and Robin haven’t eaten very much. Help yourself, darling. And do change out of those cargo pants.’

When the time came for them to go, Andrew had noticeably spruced up and was even wearing a jacket and tie. John raised his eyebrows and gave his stepson a minatory glance.

‘Don’t worry, John, I won’t be kidnapping your daughters. I’ll be leaving you all after the concert.’

‘Off to some den of iniquity.’

‘However did you guess?’

‘I thought we might all walk back along The Mall together,’ Livia suggested hopefully.

‘Not a chance, Ma. I’ve got other plans.’

‘Alright, then. But you might just go down and see if you can hail us a cab. I forgot to phone for one.’

‘I’m on my way.’ With that Andrew scooted out of the flat.

‘That’s not like you, Livia,’ John observed.

‘No, it’s not. For once I can’t think of everything. You might take some of the responsibility.’

‘Yes, John,’ Hilary added. ‘Why do you leave everything to your wife?’

‘I don’t.’

‘That’s how it seems to us.’ Robin added her own nail into his coffin.

‘Let’s go down to the lobby.’ Livia cut short the criticism. ‘I’m sure Andrew will get a cab. He’s very good like that.’

The girls put on the coats that Livia had provided for them, a navy blue woollen coat for Hilary and a black woollen full-length coat with large belt for Robin. They both put on their Mulberry beanies and wrapped long woollen scarves around their necks. Livia wore a dark suit and blue coat of military cut, with wide collar, epaulettes and touches of braiding. John always thought she looked like a Napoleonic army officer in it. The look was completed by her knee-length black leather boots. John smiled as he followed them out to the lift, his black overcoat on his arm.

By the time they were assembled in the lobby, Andrew came bouncing up the steps. He’d flagged down a cab on Pont Street. He and John sat on the jump seats facing the rear as Hilary and Robin sat either side of Livia. John could not help smiling. They were en famille at last. John called for the cab to stop in front of the National Gallery and they walked up to the old church. As Livia had hoped they were early enough to get the seats she wanted, upstairs in a corner to the rear, near the exit. She enjoyed being able to see the whole of the interior in front of her. The church was candlelit and quickly filled with the dark coats of the London faithful attending the concert. The wooden benches were hard but the overture soon made them forget it. Only Andrew squirmed uncomfortably. John looked across the corner seating at Hilary and Robin, sitting on the far side of Livia. They were transported by the scene in front of them. They wrapped themselves into the music and when the tenor began to sing their faces lit up.

Comfort ye had always brought tears to John’s eyes. It seemed a very pure form of music to him. The Messaiah had always meant a lot to John from his very first visit as a boy with his father to hear it at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. His father’s friend, Wally, who had been a regular tenor in the chorus at the Phil had managed to get them front row tickets for the recital.

     Ev'ry valley. Ev'ry valley shall be exalted, and ev'ry mountain and hill made low; the crooked straight, and the rough places plain. He had often shocked his fellow archeologists and more particularly their local helpers by bursting into song when he was busy about a dig. And it was mostly The Messiah that he sang, switching from tenor to baritone as appropriate. It was particularly effective in the jungle as the birds would rise in chattering flocks and the monkeys yammer in a perplexed pique at the intrusion.

     There was always some beauty in the Chorus that called to be watched. That night John wondered if women felt the same looking at the longer line of tenors and basses. To him the male choristers looked an indistinguished ugly mass. Not so the women. There was a sexy blonde with a clear high brow and lustrous locks down her shoulders among the sopranos, and a Latin looking contralto with a sultry intense look. During his first encounter with The Messiah he had found himself looking up at a bosomy contralto singing Behold, a virgin shall conceive. At one point she dropped her gaze towards him and smiled. He seemed like a speck in the limpid blue of her eyes.

By the interval they were all ready to have a drink. John and Andrew had left early to go down to the crypt where the cafeteria offered a small menu of food and drink. John took mulled wine for all of them and by the time the three women had met up with them Andrew had found them some seating on one of the long benches. He had remained standing and chatted conspiratorially with Robin as they sipped from their steaming paper cups. Hilary was moved by the music and chatted with Livia. During the Pastoral Symphony they had both noticed one of the female violinists break a string and an adjacent colleague pass her a string from his pocket. They had held their breath while she had quickly re-strung her instrument and managed to start playing again before the end of the piece.

Hilary and Robin seemed very comfortable in this setting amid the motley crew attending the concert and John would have been relaxed if he had not seen Andrew reaching for his mobile and then speaking into it all the while looking at Hilary and Robin. In the second half of the concert, after they had all stood for the Hallelujah Chorus, during the air I know that my Redeemer liveth he could see Livia’s eyes fill with tears. She reached into a pocket for her handkerchief. Then Hilary reached over and held her free hand. John was touched to the quick by the magic of it all. The moment was broken by Andrew climbing up out of the seating and going through the doors to stand on the landing.

An irritated John joined him.

‘What’s going on?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m not dense. I saw you plotting with Robin during the interval.’

‘I was just asking her if she’d like to come with her sister for a sherry afterwards.’

‘A sherry?’

‘Something like that.’

‘You know your mother wants us all to walk back home together.’

‘There’s no way I’m doing that. Always had something planned for tonight. Anyway, there’s more planned now than any of you know about.’

‘Such as?’

‘That’s for me to know,’ Andrew laughed tapping his nose with an impertinent finger before returning into the church.

John followed him, irritated by the secrecy and his stepson’s knowing manner. An old lady in a rather bedraggled coat had moved from the row above to take John’s seat.

‘I’m sorry, I thought you had left. I can’t see clearly from my seat because of the pillar.’

‘It’s alright,’ John replied. ‘I’ll listen from up here.’ John liked looking down at Livia and his daughters.

After the Amen Chorus the entire audience rose to give the conductor, soloists, chorus and orchestra a deserved standing ovation. John stayed rooted to the spot as if wanting the applause to continue. So much so that he stood there transfixed while all about him the audience bustled to leave. Finally an exasperated woman next to him all but pushed him out of the way.

‘Excuse me, if you don’t mind. It’s not enough that you spoiled the concert for us all by getting up and following your son to the exit in the middle of  the concert but now you’re preventing me getting along to catch my bus.’

‘He’s not my son,’ John responded automatically, abruptly brought out of his revelry, looking down at the fat little woman clutching her umbrella. ‘And as for your bus, I hope it’s stuck in traffic miles away. A very merry Christmas to you.’

She spluttered past him and made her way to the exit.

When John caught up with the family on the landing he was questioned by Hilary. Apparently the woman had made some comment to her about her father.

‘It wasn’t very nice of you.’

‘Nice? She was a monster. Anyway, didn’t you see what I did for that other lady?’

‘No. It’s no use trying to balance the books.’

‘I know that already.’

‘Seems to me you’re still learning.’

Livia ushered them down the stairs, Andrew grinning with his mobile to his ear. When they stepped outside the church on to the forecourt, they were met by a klaxon greeting them. Archie had pulled over to the inconvenience of the rest of the traffic coming down Charing Cross Road to wait for them in a old, cream Mark II Jaguar.

‘What are you doing here?’ John asked as Archie rolled down the window.

‘It’s a surprise that Andrew thought up. Taking your daughters to see the lights.’

‘What? Now?’

‘What a good idea,’ Livia enthused, opening the door so Robin and Hilary could climb in the back with Andrew.

‘But . . . but I thought we were walking back up The Mall.’

‘After your recent display, I think it’s only you, darling.’

‘Yes,’ laughed Hilary, ‘the revenge of the bus passenger.’

‘Are you coming, sister mine?’ Archie asked, as the hooting of horns behind him intensified.

‘Yes, darling, wouldn’t miss it for the world’ Livia replied gaily hopping in to the front seat. ‘Sorry, John, there’s no room for you. Be a love and get back to the flat and put the kettle on for us, will you.’

‘I suppose I’ve got Andrew to thank for this. I’ll settle with him,’ he roared as Archie pulled away form the kerb into the traffic. 

 He was tempted to take a taxi, but determinedly crossed the Square and made his way, a solitary forlorn figure, past the ICA building in Carlton House Terrace, up The Mall, and on towards Buckingham Palace. The Messiah was running in his head. And with his stripes seemed particularly appropriate.

Upon his return to Cadogan Square he decided to play The Messiah on the sound system and then dutifully went to the kitched to fill the kettle. In the meantime he helped himself to a stiff vodka and tonic. But he was left in an even worse frame of mind when Livia returned without his daughters. She had enjoyed herself, letting Archie do the tour of Oxford Street and Regent Street, only insisting that they visit her favourite place for the effect of the lights, Pimlico Green, on their return west. The plain icicle lights in the small perfectly shaped trees on the triangle of paving stones pleased her own design sense.

‘Where’s Hilary and Robin?’

‘They’ve gone out with Andrew and Archie.’

‘Archie? What’s your brother doing with my daughters? He’s twenty-five years older than them.’

‘I wouldn’t fret, darling. His last girlfriend was at Cambridge. He’s well used to the younger set.’

‘My God! What are you letting happen?’

‘John, do calm down, he’s only dropping the three of them off in South Ken. I expect they’ve gone to Janet’s Bar.’

‘Great! I think we should follow them. I don’t trust Archie. Or Andrew. Or Janet for that matter.’

He expressed a fear that had recently surfaced in his wife. At first Livia had been happy that Andrew frequented Janet’s Bar, as she and John had known her for some years. But it appeared she became almost a surrogate mother for the clubbing incarnation of her son. Janet was a hostess extraordinaire and a party animal herself, a matronly American who wore glasses and a range of Alice bands from black to gold-spangled and a way with the boys. Initially Livia was happy to have Andrew experiment with drinks there. It was almost a supervised session but increasingly she worried about his dependence on another older woman. She felt somewhere very deep down that Janet did not like her. John thought her concern amusing.

‘I’m not tracking down my son. You go if you want.’

‘That boy is up to something. Let me tell you.’ He hesitated, not sure if he should spill the beans about the amorous arsonist. No, he decided. If he was going to do so, he needed to see Andrew’s face.

‘Tell me what?’

‘I’m worried about Andrew,’ he recommenced carefully. ‘He’s out clubbing and drinking an awful lot. I’m not sure he’s in with a good crowd.’

‘He’s perfectly fine. They’re all boys he went to school with.’

‘And girls?’

‘I’m sure he’s playing the field.’

‘Ploughing the field more like. And that’s what worries me about him with Hilary and Robin.’

‘Now you are being silly. He’s got his own friends.’

‘I know.’ Only too well, John thought, wondering what Livia would think of Phyllis.

‘Besides, Hilary and Robin come across too unsophisticated for his taste?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘He told me, of course.’

‘But he was happy enough to take them out with him.’

‘He just wanted to show them a bit of the London scene.’

‘I’m suspicious of his motives. And his condescension. And I’m amused that he thinks they’re unsophisticated. He doesn’t know them.’

‘No, but he’s got a first impression. And they do have that certain ingénue quality.’

‘But you’re going to fix that, aren’t you?’

‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘You’re taking them out shopping tomorrow.’

‘Not just shopping. They’ll be transformed. We’ve got appointments at Harrods in the morning and lunch at my spa in Covent Garden.’ She laughed. ‘So you won’t be able to join us there, I’m afraid.’

‘They won’t like it.’

‘You don’t know them very well at all. They’ve told me they’re really looking forward to it. Besides I’m using your credit cards for the day. You won’t mind treating us, will you, darling. We’re making a day of it.’