I went pretty deep into a rabbit hole this week about the emerging new singer Stella Lefty. I saw her name popping up everywhere, and after that her song started showing up unannounced on Instagram. Then Spotify. Basically anywhere and probably everywhere. She has a song called Boston, a pretty average country tune that rips off Noah Kahan’s “Stick Season” to the point she had to give him song writing credits (AKA the plagiarism version of Captain America’s shield) But the song isn’t the reason for the backlash against her. Once people realised that her father was the multi billionaire owner of Groupon, her song was ripped to shreds, and her Instagram comment sections began to look like a scene from Mad Max. When I browse Instagram, I always counter myself by saying that most of the comments on there are by bad acting bots. That might be an article for another day. But as I went through the comments, the level of vitriol against the perceived nepotism couldn’t be written by bots. I have a split opinion on nepotism. I don’t really think its fair to lambaste someone for who their parents are, and I do think the nepo babies still have to have some kind of talent to actually go out and perform in their chosen (or handed to) fields, but I do see where the backlash comes from. I think in the last couple of years people have begun to really despise inauthenticity. There’s a lot of people who absolutely hate AI, online streamers with put on personalities and vapid social media culture. There’s a growing hate for anything seen as overproduced "Slop" and anyone who we perceive as being handed an underserved opportunity. I guess Stella Lefty has become a conduit for this hate, and she probably hasn’t helped herself with some of her quotes lately. But it made me think, if her song was an absolute smash that received mass plaudits, would people care as much about who her father was?

I often wonder what’s the limit to the hatred of nepotism. Stella Lefty has a decent voice and the song is mediocre (To me, not to us all) so when the billionaire father piece arrives people have their tomatoes at the ready. My favourite comment I read that really satisfied my secret thirst for cattiness was that her lyric “On a train back to Boston” was a bad start because she’s probably never been on a train in her life. It feels like these days if you pursue a career in the public eye, you turn your life into an episode of “Who do you think you are?” where people online dig up your old ancestor who once served Paul McCartney a cup of tea in 1965. Once the nepotism is found, we latch onto and unload the clip like Rambo. We don’t like your song, we don’t like you and we hate billionaires.

How talented do you have to be to negate the nepo baby hatred? Clairo’s dad is an extremely well connected executive, do people really mind? not really. Her music is perceived as good, and her as talented, so people are willing to put up with whatever her background is. What’s the crazy/hot scale for nepotism/talented? Has anyone tried to chart that? I remember when the video for Lana Del Rey "Video Games" came out when I was like 16 or so, and when we watched it me and my sister thought she had made it all on her own. Which obviously couldn’t be true, but at the time we didn’t know. We just thought that it was self made because it appeared that way. As I read through the backlash this week, I wondered what would happen if that video came out now. Once people found out that no, she already has a record deal with a huge company, I can imagine the hate surge would be like the scene in Ghostbusters 2 when they use the New Yorker’s energy at the end of the movie. We want realness and on our own terms.

I don’t like to see someone become the internet’s punching bag of the moment, but I do like the push for a bit of authenticity. Don’t sell us something while pretending to be someone you’re not. The internet has gotten much smarter and houndish since the days of 2011. I feel like we’ve all become sniffer dogs at the airport, except its nepotism that’s been stowed away instead of a slap of coke. I wonder what Stella Lefty’s next move will be, or anyone coming from a privileged background. Is it really worth being rich and privileged if every comment on social media is pouring cold water on everything you do? I doubt it. If it’s open season on nepo babies, what does it all lead to? Maybe we have to find out for ourselves, before the algorithm tells us what to think…

She frowned and looked in the mirror. They were driving a dead man's  car and neither of them had spoken for an hour. For a long time the only sound had been the engine, a beautiful but misplaced sound. She looked once more. There was no one behind them. “I already searched for a tracker.” She answered. “I was thinking more of a bomb. A second look won't hurt.” Bond replied and she pulled into the shade of a vineyard, where people were working diligently. The shade was provided by the swaying trees that represented the boundary of the vineyard and Bond was glad for the cooler air. He got out and felt his back crack as he stretched. Corinne got out and walked to the shade, her loose white linen shirt flowing from her. Before Bond began to look under the car, he looked at Corinne. “Tell me, was the man on the dock the same one who caught you outside of the bakery?” She didn't respond. She was standing in the shade and watching the workers. It reminded her of childhood, working with cousins who she hadn't seen for years. Looking at the baskets overflowing with fruit, Corinne wiped a tear from her eye, swept back her hair and turned to face Bond, who she was beginning to feel an inexplicable link to. “What did you say?” She asked, so Bond repeated himself. “Yes, it was him.” Corinne answered. “Did you recognise him?” Bond asked. This was a charade, and an irksome one at that. He knew Corinne would never give him a straight answer, would always hold something back in one way or another. He just wished it didn't have to be the same this time. Bond got on his knees and got himself halfway under the car with some difficulty. “It's a standard question.” He told her from underneath the vehicle. Corinne looked sideways and back.”Only from the morning, if that's what you mean. I've never seen him before,” No one was coming, but she knew someone would eventually look for them. As they always would. “I shot first. Wasn't that enough?” She watched his muscular legs moving underneath the car. He was coming back out and grunting with effort. “What did you do to him? Did you kill him?” She asked Bond. Deep down, she knew the answer. Back in the Victoire Casino, all those months ago, he had told her he had killed enough men for the both of them. She pondered those words as she watched Bond use the car for leverage and stand back up. He had a black metal device in his hand, the size of a golf ball. There were no markings on it and he hadn't seen a device anything like it before. A tractor and trailer was rumbling along from the vineyard. Bond stared at it up close and tried to commit it to memory. If he held onto it to bring back to Q in England, he got the sense the device was an electronic death sentence for the both of them. He held it up to his ear and heard a surreal whirring noise. The tractor passed by and Bond lobbed the device cricket style into the trailer. It landed soundlessly in a hay bail. “No, I didn't kill him. Neither did your bullet, though it didn't help him much. He took a cyanide capsule when he realised there was no escape. He never said who he worked for. I only got a parting phrase from him.” Bond told Corinne who kept her eyes on his as she asked him what the phrase had been. She braced. “Progress is relentless.” Bond said. He saw the glimmer of horrifying recognition in her face but she was the most adaptable liar he had ever come across. Bond had to remind himself that no matter how much he found himself attracted to the woman standing before him, she was still a criminal first and foremost, and a world class one at that. She remained placid. “I can't say that I do,” She said, walking back to the Ferrari. “Do you want to drive?” She said uncharacteristically. Even Bond was flustered. “I don't know where we’re going.” He said, stepping closer to the car. “I'll direct you. I'll tell you what I think you want to know. On one condition.” She said, sliding across to the passenger seat. “Tell me, and I'll see if I'll accept.” He said as she tossed him the keys. “No more questions until we reach the lake house. Let me listen to the car and the free world. We might not have either of them for much longer.” Corinne said as she produced a pair of black sunglasses. She looked over at the vineyard again and quickly put them on. She swore in French under her breath. “Very well.” Bond said, putting the key in the ignition. They drove on in silence.

The sun was still blazing hot. Bond wiped his brow and returned both hands to the steering wheel. Corinne was draped in her seat, slouched and pouting. He wondered what she thought of. As was customary, Bond looked in the mirror. There was no car trailing them, and it felt like they were alone in the world. Bond had a gun within reaching distance and wondered when he’d use it again. Molinari's brutal death mask came back to his mind. Progress is relentless, the two hitmen had said. What could that mean? It was a credo he had never heard of, and he had no intention of signalling back to M for information. Bond believed he was persona non grata back there, even if he had foiled Alec Trevelyan's final plot. The road was blurry with heat. The Ferrari was an easy car to drive, but Corinne made it look better. Trevelyan. He was never far from Bond’s mind. Alec had never actually said the progress is relentless phrase during his tirades, but Bond still had no doubt he was connected in some way. The whole ordeal was a complicated web of lies and deceit and Bond knew he was at the centre of it all. He wanted to smash it all to bits, no matter who stood in the way. “What does ‘progress is relentless’ mean?”

Bond said to Corinne, who sat up straight and pulled her borrowed shirt in closer. “I thought I told you no questions.” She told him. The road curved, and they saw Lake Como glistening in the distance. It was going to be a beautiful evening, for some people. “Alright. What does it mean to you?” Bond said, waiting for her next directions. “It means nothing to me. It never will. It's something my father used to say, and it died with him.” Corinne said, finally opening the locked chest that was her memories. “Two men trying to kill us both said it, so it can't be extinct. Unless…” Bond trailed off, baiting her out. He looked down. She had her own little gun in her hand, and he felt his heart jump. She looked at him and hid it from view again. “You’ve already shot me once.” Bond said, raising an eyebrow. “Twice would be very poor manners.” 

She looked across at him from the passenger seat. The Ferrari seemed to drive itself. She was as alluring a woman he had ever come across, but even after everything that had happened, Bond considered her almost completely unobtainable. He watched her onyx hair flow in the wind. There would always be some part of her holding back, never unleashing true self. He looked in the mirror. His eyes were cold. 

“The Phantom is dead. But his mantra lives on. Why is that? Don't you wonder?”

“You're trying to say my father isn't dead, is that it? You think Phantom is still here? James, you're so far behind sometimes that I wonder how you ever got to where you are. I watched him die on a metal slab in prison. I told you that in Rome. Don't pretend you have forgotten. You never forget anything, do you?” She said, before telling him to turn right. The road dipped. The grass here was fallow and sun bleached. “Not much. Certainly not when it comes to you.” Bond said, but she didn't respond. “They cremated him in a prison furnace, never knowing who he was. It was all a lie. His whole life was a lie. My father was Phantom and a hundred other things. In the end, he chose to be convicted as one of his personas. I don't know why.” Corinne said. Bond didn't respond. He was watching the narrow road, wondering where it led to. He looked across at Corinne, who was staring forwards, her eyes wide. A huge lake house came into view. In the distance, it seemed like a beautiful holiday home to reside in the summer, but as they got closer, Bond saw flaws and blemishes in the house. Up close, nothing was perfect. Corinne told him to follow the little road. There were no gates, no anything. No one seemed to be there at all. He stopped the car and cut off the engine. Molinari’s car was as close as the dead man would ever get to this place. Bond felt like torching it, if it wouldn't leave them stranded. The lake house was surrounded by tall trees which hid it from view, and the seclusion was far from reassuring. “We’re here.” Corinne said, opening the passenger side door and stepping out in one smooth motion. Bond followed suit. The heat wasn't quite as intense in the shade of the trees. Bond looked around. The gardens which encircled the house were overgrown and unkempt. “Rustic.” Bond said under his breath. Corinne was already moving. “Come with me.” She said without looking backwards. He looked at her from behind. He still enjoyed the sight of her lithe body, before wondering if she was still armed. At that moment, Bond took out his pistol, reloaded it and kept it hidden from view. He started to follow Corinne.

She ignored the double doors at the front. She walked along the side of the lake house. The air coming from the lake was cool and fresh and Bond felt it on his stinging skin. The gardens to the side were even more unkempt, with rose bushes wildly sprouting everywhere. She was walking with a calmness that only familiarity can bring. Bond was a few steps behind her. Like always. To their left there was a gated off tennis court, its red clay marked and faded. The net was half fallen down and broken in spots. “Tell me what kind of place this is.” Bond said. He was beginning to feel on edge. If it was a trap, he wasn't going in blind again. There was a small side door. She pushed back some wilted vines that were climbing up the white wall. It revealed a keypad, still active. Bond raised an eyebrow and looked at Corinne. She leant down and inputted a code with alarming speed. The light above it flashed green. Corinne pushed the door open and stepped inside. She finally looked back at him. Holding the door open, Bond had never seen her as tense. “You want to know the truth? This house holds all our secrets.” They went inside. The air was thick inside. Bond wanted to draw his gun but squashed his impulse.

They were in a long hallway, where there was a dim light at the end. Now, Corinne stood close to Bond. “What sort of a place is this?” He said. The inside of the house was even more eerie than outside. They began walking down the corridor, prompted by Corinne. “I haven't been here for years. At least a decade.” She said, her voice unnatural. The rooms along the sides were extravagantly decorated, but all covered in dust. “Who lived here?” Bond asked her, believing he already knew. He just didn't want to consider it. At the end of the corridor, they came to a marble anteroom. The lights from the dusty windows made visibility dim and breathing hard. Bond looked down. The floor was covered in dust and discarded trash that looked as old as the house itself. Bond saw a letter underneath it all. He swept the dust and rubbish with his foot, uncovering a blood red D, in faded coloured marble. Corinne stood over him, not speaking, off in her own world, wherever that was. Using his shoes, Bond swept like a frenzied cleaner. He stood back a couple of steps and looked down again. DUMONT started back at him in gilded letters. It stopped Bond in his tracks. He read the letters twice over. Corinne was already at the door. This one was unlocked, though it was made of thick oak. She knew how to unlock it. “This is it. This is what you wanted, James. This is the Phantom’s home, and mine in turn. There's something I was supposed to do, but never had the courage to before. Come on, let's face it together.”

They found themselves in a wide, dim room. It used to be extravagant, but now it was decrepit and old. It made Bond think about growing old, if that ever happened. As he looked around, Bond would have felt more at ease in a prison camp. There were tables covered in stale cloths, bobbled velvet curtains blocking out all the windows. Bond impulsively reached for his gun but stopped himself out of fear of scaring Corinne further. But, when he looked at her, he realised there was nothing else left to frighten her. She was looking around the old room as though it was a monument to a life she had never been able to forget. She seemed to float as she moved across the room. Bond looked up. There were chandeliers, smashed to pieces or faded. “When my father died, he left me just one instruction. Nothing more.” Corinne said softly. On the far wall there was a bookcase, one with a sliding ladder. Every book was leatherbound and old, covered in a thin layer of dust. “There's nothing here for us, Corinne.” Bond said, standing in the middle of the room. Bond felt he was the furthest from a superstitious man than was humanly possible but even he had to admit the room and the lake house made him feel an unrelenting feeling of despair deep in his chest. It was stuffy and warm, but he still couldn't sweat. “Maybe not for you.” Corinne said. Her voice sounded eerie. It was almost spectral. Bond stepped forward and felt the tiny particles of broken glass crack under his heel. He wondered just how many ghosts this house harboured.

Corinne stood before the bookcase, spellbound. She seemed to know exactly what to do, and Bond watched her from afar. “We can leave. Come with me. Won't you come with me?” Bond pleaded. Corinne was transfixed. She pulled at a book. “My favourite, The Tempest,” She whispered. Bond had moved across to her. “He knew I would choose this one. Shakespeare. Do you know it? What am I saying, of course you do. The British playwright and the British killer.” Bond heard a mechanical noise, like gears grinding and an engine whirring. He whipped backwards and looked at the other side of the room. Right at the top, a beaming light had appeared. “What the hell kind of place is this?” Bond shouted. Corinne pushed past him. She walked to one of the tables and pulled out a chair, but didn't sit on it. Bond followed her, turned and saw the far wall where the light was pointing. He swore under his breath. The machine was a projector. An image appeared. A tall, thin man walked towards the camera. A lake was behind him. Bond knew the steps. He’d just seen them hardly twenty minutes beforehand. Corinne gasped and collapsed onto the chair. Bond looked down at her, but she didn't need any help. Her wet eyes gazed up at the screen, with an emotion Bond couldn't trace. “If you're seeing this, it's because I am dead.” The man said, in baritone French. “Corinne, my love. It's time I explain my world to you,” The figure moved closer again. Bond had never seen the face before. His greying hair was swept back, but his eyes still gleamed with danger. Bond dared not to speak. “For my world is your world. To you, I am your father. To this world I speak of, I have only one name. Phantom.”

IV

The Phantom, bold and untouchable, stared down at them. The projection was so clear it was as if the famed assassin was in the room with them. Corinne looked at the floor, murmuring. “No, no. No…” she whispered. Bond put his hand on her shoulder and she recoiled, shrugging it off instantaneously. “He can't do this. He's dead. He can't do this.” She said, standing up. The film cut to black, shook and reappeared. Phantom was in the very same room they were in, but the room was resplendent and bright. He wore an expertly cut suit, and from its style Bond guessed the film had been made some time ago. He wondered where he had been at the time, or more importantly, where Corinne was. “We can…” Bond started, but Phantom began to speak on screen. His voice was loud, and echoed through the room. “There are those who control, and those who follow.” He said. Corinne held her head in her hands, silent. Bond watched. The Phantom hardly moved as he spoke. Bond studied him. Could this really be the man behind SPECTRE all along? The heat was finally getting to Bond. He was lightheaded, and sweat now ran down his face. He tried to loosen his collar, but nothing worked. Corinne straightened. She stood up, weakly. “I can't take it. I hate it. I truly-” She said, before looking up at the projection again. “This is an immoral, unsparing world. If you allow it to be,” Phantom said. Bond felt the hairs on his neck stand up. As Phantom spoke, all Bond could hear was Alec Trevelyan, before their final duel on that stormy night. Phantom said, the film cutting to black again. The projector kept whirring. “Bastard!” Corinne screamed. The Phantom reappeared. “The world is a very dangerous place for a woman, especially for one such as you, Corinne,” He said. He was standing by the lake again, which on film appeared to be grey and murky. It was like a message from hell. “When you were a child, I wondered what you would become. I wanted to protect you from my world, the dark one that no one knows exists. I thought I could shield you, protect you.” Phantom said. Bond watched the screen with contempt. Beneath the debonair looks was an insidious creature, and Bond burned with rage. “I wanted to be different,” Corinne stammered. “I wanted to…” Phantom loomed over them. In the distance, Bond heard something. He was almost certain of it. “Corinne…” He said, but she wasn't listening. She was distraught. “It was too late when I realised. The more I had tried to push you away, the more I had moulded you into my image. I searched for something that was in front of me all along. You. My successor.” Phantom’s voice was alarmingly clear. The effect distracted Bond. He looked back at the door they came through. He swore he could see smoke pouring through the gaps.

“It's time to leave.” Bond said. “No!” She screamed. “You must carry on my work, Corinne. All your life has led to this very moment. My time is over,” Phantom said. Bond and Corinne stood side by side and looked upwards at the projected face. “All that was mine is yours, my love. You'll know what to do. You always did. As I always told you time and time again, progress is relentless.” The projector jammed. Bond looked around in time to see the firebomb gliding through the air, towards the wall. He ducked for cover, taking Corinne with him. The explosion was brief, but the heat was tremendous. Bond was prone on the floor as he looked up at the burning image of Phantom, his unemotional face being consumed by the flames. The bullets began to rain down on them from everywhere and nowhere. A handful of men burst through the door and the long windows. Bond took out his gun, while holding Corinne. Outnumbered, Bond looked back. The Phantom was gone, nothing but ashes. He reloaded his gun. At that moment, he felt it was all he had left.

End of part 3

The first NBA game I ever attended was about 8 months after I moved to Canada. It was the Toronto Raptors and the LA Clippers, and I only got a ticket the morning of the game, standing room only. I entered the stadium as soon as the doors opened, wanting to catch a glimpse at the Clippers players up close. Somehow I wound up near the floor after telling an usher I was on vacation. When the Clippers players walked on to the floor for their shoot around, it was the first and only time in my life I can say I was genuinely starstruck. When Paul George, Kawhi Leonard and James Harden walked out, I was dumbfounded. It was like seeing characters from your favourite TV show leaping into the real world. When Russell Westbrook walked out behind them, it was like Batman had walked out onto the floor. When I watched his retirement video yesterday, it was the first thing I thought about.

Westbrook was a player who received as much criticism throughout his career as any other player I can remember. Some of it was deserved and some of it wasn’t. He was never a great shooter, and he never managed to win a championship. I personally never cared about his flaws. I always admired Westbrook for one thing and one thing only: He gave it everything he had, in every game he played.

I think the reason we admire the players like Westbrook who leave absolutely everything out on the floor or field, is because in our heads as fans we think: If I was a player, that’s how I would play the game. We love the game and we expect the players to feel the same way, but not all of them do. Some of them check out after getting the big contract, some of them hold back for fear of past injuries reoccuring, and some of them just flat out really don't care. That was what I always loved about Westbrook's game. Though blessed with otherworldly athleticism which brought him an MVP award in 2017 and countless other accolades, he played like someone who was still trying to break into the league. He respected the game and in turn the game gave back to him. I have loved basketball since I was a teenager, mainly because the top calibre players always seem to be from another planet than us. It's the speed and dexterity of the best players movements, the ability to process at a pace that us mere mortals could never hope to reach, while playing at a skill level almost incomprehensible to us. You watch someone like Lebron and know he is a one in a million talent, probably never to be repeated again. Russell Westbrook was the same. We can't hope to jump like him, to go from one end of the court to the other in a matter of seconds like him, but at any level of any game, we can put in the hustle and effort he did. From the lowest rec league to the highest level of any sport, we can play with the determination of Russell Westbrook. He may have had a level of athleticism that was essentially unobtainable to the common man who plays in a slow, befuddling game after work, but we could both respect the game the same way.

Respect the game and the game will respect you. It's a credo I've heard and read countless times over the years in all different sports, both individual and team. Boiled down, my interpretation of the phrase was that if you approach each game the same way, with honest effort and determination, more often than not you'll get your just reward. I always felt that the game itself it's an living, breathing organism of its own that ebbs and flows as naturally as a river. Statistics and records don't tell us, but when engrossed in a game, be it tennis or soccer, you can see its peaks and valleys in real time. I've seen quite a few people over recent times say there is no such thing as momentum in sport, but I completely disagree. It's one of the few sporting hills I'm willing to die on. How often do you see a goalkeeper do a big save down one end, and then his team goes up the other and score? It's a momentum shift, a tone setter. The best teams and players have a certain way to create their own momentum. It all comes back to the respect the game mantra. Roger Federer loves tennis probably more than anyone, and he won 8 Wimbledons because of it. He played every game with full focus, and it paid him back. I've always felt that the game can sense these things. It's why you see underdogs beating heavy favourites. How often have we seen a much more skilled and accomplished team or individual lose to an underdog? The favourite slacks off, resting on their laurels and expecting to win without having to go up a gear. Then, the underdog punches them on the nose and takes it to them, and the beleaguered favourite has no idea how to respond. The game responds.

Russell Westbrook retired without an NBA title. Though he gave it everything, it wasn't quite enough. I think there is a sad beauty in it. You can unload the tank and try your absolute best, but you still need a few lucky breaks along the way. It's the same in life. For the most part, we can't do it all on our own. We need a few breaks and a few allies along the way, as the best players need good teammates. The best champions in all sports still have coaches. The best teams in all our favourite sports aren't one man teams, we love and admire the all around squads the most. Russell Westbrook gave it all he had, and those of us who loved the game in the same way in turn loved him for it. You just had to be there.

TWO WEEKS AGO - LONDON

The studio was almost pitch black. The only light was coming from the on air button and the few screens around. Croker fidgeted uncomfortably in his green room seat and worried. It was the live premiere of his second album, on one of the trendiest programs in the country. They were deep in the heart of North London, somewhere near Islington. Back in the olden days of his childhood and teenage years, travelling this far north was akin to an odyssey. Now it was just part of a job. The name of the host is Marco Costa, who gave the impression of having just arrived from Milan, although Croker knew he was from a small seaside town in Kent. Costa wore a white linen shirt with most of the buttons undone and when he took his headphones off his bald head shone red from the on air light. Costa liked to pretend that the shaved style was a choice and thought of himself as a modern day Yul Bryner, but an ex-girlfriend once told Croker that the only part Costa played in the process was sweeping up his hair as it fell out. They went to break again, an extended one for the news. “If it were up to me, we wouldn't even have news on this show, man, who needs it?” Costa said as he stuck his hand out to Croker, standing up and welcoming Croker to the studio, who was ushered in by a tired looking assistant. She puffed her cheeks and left quickly. “Can't all be bad news, can it?” Croker asked as he sat into the guest chair. It was set lower than Costa’s, a notoriously vertically challenged man. “Depends who's asking. My show ain't about the news or the outside world. This is about music, just music. Strictly passion. You’ve got the passion. I can see it in your eyes, man.” Costa said, gesturing frantically. 

Croker thought of two things. One, the local dealers must be kept in business by Costa alone. Two, he wondered how Costa could read his eyes, when Croker had been wearing dark glasses when he walked in. They came back from the commercials. Croker knew this show had a lot of listeners. Costa had told him that himself over and over again. He’d been on before, when his first album was on fire. He’d done a live set and afterwards Costa invited him to what he termed a little get together, which ended up being washed out cokeheads from the nineties still hanging on to the glory days one way or another. It had been a brief night out. Croker only listened to the last words of Costa's question. “So, difficult second album syndrome, or so they say. Not me, but some folk do say it, the non believers, the anarchists. Before we drop your first track, what do you think of the dreaded syndrome?” Costa blabbered on. For one of the top music shows on radio, there was a lot of talking. Croker hesitated to answer. He certainly couldn't say that the thought of failure had him waking up in a cold sweat every night, and he definitely couldn't say that he had put in ten times more effort making this album than he ever had the first one, which had been made on a whim within a week. “The work will speak for itself, hopefully. It's nothing worth worrying about.” Croker said as Marco Costa looked at him, wide eyed and gleeful. “Worrying is sleep paralysis in waking form. I wrote that in my thought journal just the other day. Anyway, let's do this. Let's drop this nuke on the nation, shall we?”

“Come on, London! Stand to attention! This is Croker speaking!” Costa yelled into his mic, vein nearly popping out of his forehead. The rest of the show was a blur. Croker could remember speaking, mumbling as he introduced Project 2, his new album. Then, he remembered the cold sweat running down his back as the music played out, a deep house heart attack playing out on booming speakers. The studio suddenly felt very small. The walls were closing in. They were definitely shrinking. He’d come in sober. Someone had spiked his drink. It was Costa. Had to be. Croker looked down at the floor. Nowhere else to go. He looked back up. They were halfway through the album, and Costa’s entire demeanour had changed. The vein had disappeared. He buttoned up his shirt. He was looking at the screen in front of him, his eyes scanning the text messages. Costa looked back up and caught Croker looking at him. He smiled weakly and put two thumbs up. It was like a Roman style execution. 

The show ended early, due to technical difficulties. Croker knew what that meant. They’d gotten to track six, and the producer had made some kind of signal to Costa. It was time to pull the plug. Not long after, he was standing on the high street alone with Costa. It was midnight. A cold breeze blew on their backs. Croker waited for the inevitable invite to some gaudy afters, but it didn't come. Costa just walked beside him, without saying anything. Croker hated awkward silences. He’d had enough of them over the years and music always seemed to fill the void. “Going anywhere tonight? Mayfair?” Croker said in pure desperation. He looked upwards. It didn't help. Costa shook his head. “Err, nowhere for me. Early night to bed, methinks.” He said, suddenly flat and dull. Costa had even replaced his linen shirt with a cardigan. “What did the listeners think?” Croker pressed. “They were divided. I thought it was experimental. People often misunderstand things like that.” Costa said tactfully. Croker looked sideways at him. The king of indifference was human after all. The day after, it turned out they really were divided. Some of them hated it, but some of them only strongly disliked it. Croker watched the black cabs drift by. He had a sudden thought that he’d be driving one soon, just like his dad and his dad before him. “The opinion of the masses is often wrong, Croker. Remember that.” Marco Costa said. He shook Croker's hand in the same manner as a chief mourner at a funeral. He went back into the building. The metal door shut with a thud behind him. Croker hailed a cab, got into it and wondered if it was all a dream.

COSTA DEL SOL

It was just past midday, and business was picking up. Croker did an about face and left the beachfront behind, avoiding the ensuing brawl for positions on the sand. The holidaymakers were out and about and their money wouldn't spend itself. Croker walked and walked. His trainers were battered anyway so it made little difference. It was starting to be the hottest time of the day, and the sweat was pumping down his back, the football shirt feeling heavy. Don't take your shirt off, Croker told himself. That would just top it all off. He went off the beaten track, going uphill. The ground beneath his feet was smooth white tiles and the narrow street was thankfully shaded. Every house and building was a gleaming white. He’d left the tourist drag and found seclusion, but seclusion brought on thoughts and thoughts brought on misery. The locals were setting up for the afternoon. There were bottles of tantalizingly cold water being sold for three times what they’d usually be, and little holes in the wall shops selling plastic fans that were more likely to melt in your hand than cool you down. Croker needed a drink. Senan called it the hair of the dog. He scanned the street, and saw one promising place. It was all white paint and San Miguel umbrellas offering even more shade. He started towards it, and got interrupted by a  portly little Spaniard sitting on a stool in front of a blank canvas. He looked like Picasso's very estranged brother. “You looking very miserable and sad, my friend.” Picasso said. “Feel like it, too.” Croker answered, trying to move along. “You no happy?” The man said, taking out an easel. Croker looked down. He was selling exaggerated caricatures, and had the examples to prove it. Tom Hanks was staring back at Croker, although his head was about fifteen times bigger and he was arching his eyebrows in a crudely suggestive manner. Croker wondered if the sun had gone to his head. In fact, he wondered if the sun had gone to everyone's head around there. “Not happy. I made some art that people didn't like.” Croker told the man, who was taking out an extremely crumpled and well worn beret out of his fanny pack. “You painter? That's nice.” Picasso said. “No, music.” The man nodded like a wise sage. Croker then realised he’d have to tip the man when he left. “I like music.” He added. “What do you do if people don't like your drawing?” Croker asked him. He took his designer sunglasses off. He was sick of them and everything they represented. The old man stuck his beret on and contemplated. He lit a cigarette and stuck it into the corner of his mouth. A horde of tourists were on their way. “I tell them to go fuck themselves, and sticking their opinion up their ass.” Picasso said, smiling widely. Croker handed him the sunglasses. “Good advice. Take this as a thank you, will you?” Croker said as he walked in the direction of the bar.

The cool air in the bar was the best welcoming gift anyone could have asked for. There was no visible name for the place anywhere, and there was no front door either. The place was open plan and seemed to just beckon passers by inside like a siren's call. The walls were all white, only interrupted by paintings of all moods. The fans on the ceiling swirled in unison and Croker felt an immediate sense of relief as he reached the bar. He happened to be the only customer. There were no high stools, only wicker chairs dotted around. The floor was white and blue patterned tiles. It was more like stepping into someone's living room, something Croker enjoyed. He was leaning against the bar and looking up at the ceiling fans, which were a blessing compared to the buzzing horde of electric fans in the cafe. Then, he heard a swish behind him and felt a presence in the room. He turned and found himself face to face with a woman, eyeing him with some suspicion with crystal blue eyes. Though her skin was sun kissed, there was something familiar about her which Croker couldn't place. He thought he had taken too long to speak. “Are you open?” He blurted out awkwardly. “I'm not sure, but it looks like it to me. What would you like?” She asked him in Spanish inflected English. Her voice was an intertwining blend of accents. He ordered a San Miguel. “Must be siesta time.” Croker said as she opened the bottle and slid it towards him. It was ice cold and the glass was sweating. “No, just quiet. We’ve only just reopened after some time away.” She said, turning away and getting back to her work. Croker let the bar hold him up. He hadn't realised quite how far he’d walked until that moment. The alcohol also helped remind him of the debauchery from the night before. He decided it would be his only drink of the day. “Most people sit on the chairs.” The girl said. She was wearing a slim fitting white T shirt with the Guinness pelican smiling outwards at whoever looked. Then, there was a split second of recognition that nearly sent Croker running as if he were in a Spanish spinoff of Trainspotting. She stopped stocking the fridge and looked at him as if he were a very rare and strange creature. “Do I know you?” 

“Err..maybe. I've been on holiday here before. With my grandmother. My family I mean. I mean…” Croker was tripping over his words for the first time in memory. “Did you play the Avalon last winter?” The girl asked. Her whole demeanour had changed, from indifference to intrigue. She played with a gold chain around her neck. Croker felt his football shirt sticking to his back as he tried to formulate a charismatic answer. “Yeah, I did.” Was all he came up with. New York in January. Bass so loud it shook the walls and his bones. Being offered an exciting and new pill that ended up with him face down near the Brooklyn Bridge hours later. Heady days. Lost days. “I knew it. So weird. How weird is this?” She said, “Oh, it's weird.” Croker said quickly. Soon after she was searching underneath the bar and finally produced a cracked copy of his CD. She held it up like a girl on a poster. “I'm not going to get you to sign it or anything. Calm your tits,” She said and introduced herself as Lucia. “The English side of the family call me Lucy. Fucking English, you always want your own way, yeah?” She said as a second patron came in, fanning themselves with a recently acquired instrument from the beach. Lucia busied herself with them as Croker took a long swig from the bottle and instantly regretted it. She left the CD on the bar. As she conversed in staccato Spanish with a linen outfitted customer, he couldn't help but slide it across the smooth oak bartop to himself. Croker picked it up and flipped it over, reading the track list. He looked like he had found a valuable antique. Lucia reappeared. “Don't worry, it's genuine. If that's what you're wondering. Don't buy the fakes around here. You'll buy Madonna and end up with Elvis,” She said, He put the CD down and looked up at her. She pushed some more. “That doesn't answer why you're here of all places. Shouldn't you be somewhere a bit more trendy? What happened, the flight to Ibiza got diverted?”

If she had a long sofa to sit on, it would have been a therapy session. “No Ibiza this year. My second release isn't…well…I don't suppose you already know? It’d make it much easier to explain.” Croker tailed off and finished the bottle. “Yeah. Well, I heard it online. It wasn't as bad as they all said.” Lucia said. He winced. “Sorry. But yeah, it wasn't. The main goal of the music world is to avoid being the punching bag. You're the punching bag for today. Someone else will take over, I'm certain.” Lucia said, wandering off again. Croker hoped she was right. It was a slim thing to hold on to, but it would do for now. Speakers above the bar crackled into life, a slow and melodramatic Latin song that Croker had never heard of but made a mental note to ask for. She came back. Each time she left and came back was a new buzz. He guessed it was the booze oozing out of his system but he hoped it wasn't. “What were you doing at the Avalon? New York's a long way from here. Wasn't the promenade enough to satisfy you?” Croker asked while ordering a soda. Alcohol was out the window, for the day at least. “I don't search for satisfaction. Don't worry about that,” She said, counting the cash register. “No, I was working for a magazine there. I'm a photographer.” Croker tensed and she noticed it with a sigh. The English were a paranoid bunch. “That's all I need.” Croker said to himself while pouring the lemonade. “And no, I haven't gone undercover to get a story on the famous DJ slumming it in Spain.” Croker smiled. “You must have come back for a good reason, at least.” She looked above the bar, as if to the heavens. “Not quite.” She spoke hardly above a whisper. Sitting on a wooden shelf, surrounded by two unlit candles, was a frame of a jovial looking Englishman, grinning at the camera. In loving memory. “Ever seen Only Fools?” She said with clarity. “Once or twice.” Croker said, meaning hundreds. He was still looking up at the photograph. “Family. They hold you back, drag you down…and then…” She said but stopped. “They break your bloody heart.” Croker said, standing up straight. She collected herself. He got the feeling she’d had some practise in the art form. “Yeah. Straight from his favourite show. The funeral was a few weeks ago. I've been back for a few months. This is his bar. He used to stand just at the corner of the bar there. But that's life.” She said, now cleaning glasses. She moved with beguiling ease. “Perspective.” Croker said, taking out some euros to pay. She missed it. “I'm off to see a friend. He works in a pub down the road. It's called Murphy’s. Know it?” Croker asked her as the bar started to fill up. Siesta hour had come to an end. Upon hearing the name of Senan's humble workplace, Lucia's eyes widened. “Holy shit, you're heading to Bedlam. Good luck. You'll need it.” She said with a devilish smile. “Can't be that bad. I haven't heard a bad word about it and I've been here for well over twenty four hours.” Croker said, starting to leave. “That depends on who you ask.” Lucia told him. Croker waited and scratched his forearm. It was then he realised that his confidence had been flushed out of him like draining a swimming pool. “Are you around later?” She looked at the incoming flood of customers. “If you can find me.” 

“Stay for the rest of the summer. Stay the rest of the year, in fact. Sod it!” Senan said. Croker took a long drag of his dwindling cigarette. “Two more days and I'm going straight back to London. I've got an absolute shitshow to clean up.” He announced, not really believing himself. “Sure. It's only one pox of an album. How big a mess could it make?” Senan said, checking his watch. “It's my career on the line!” Croker exclaimed. Senan wrinkled his nose and waved away his friend’s concerns with pure indignation. “Ara. Move over here. We’ll buy the pub.” They were standing in the shade, on an extremely narrow lane next to Murphy's Irish pub, which apparently was rather unflatteringly known as Bedlam. Croker had just finished retelling his exploits up the hill. “All well and good, she sounds like a very nice girl. But don't trust anyone who calls this place of ours Bedlam,” They walked back onto the busy incline which had a line of pubs and takeaways. flanked by palm trees, and even they looked like they couldn't take much more sunshine. “Bedlam implies that we’re all lunatics.” Senan said, thrusting his thumb over his shoulder. At that moment, a middle aged man wearing a Hawaiian shirt depicting various acts of debauchery on them appeared before them, waving frantically. “Now is there anything weird about that?” Senan said, before he could even think to turn around.

Senan led Croker through the cultured surroundings of the pub and out to the back. The pub was dimly lit and the sun never seemed to get to every spot in the place. There were signposts to all corners of Ireland and the big television in the corner was showing highlights from a match long forgotten. The man in the Hawaiian shirt turned out to be the owner, Camp Barry. Not camp in terms of tents and food in tin foil, but camp in terms of Eurovision and drag acts. The three of them ended up sitting in the back of the place, under a huge umbrella on the balcony. They were quite the trio. Camp Barry was chain smoking. Senan was finishing up his highly enhanced introduction, which both Croker and Barry waved off. “Oh yes, Senny’s famous friend. I must say, I thought you were a figment of his imagination.” Camp Barry said. His phone was buzzing nonstop in his pocket. “I hope that's your phone.” Croker said. Camp Barry enjoyed that one. He tilted his head back like a pelican and laughed. “Dear me. Senny, you ought to learn something from this friend of yours. He gave me a good old laugh on this cursed day.” Camp Barry said, turning his phone on silent. “You must be a popular man.” Croker commented. “In all the wrong circles. If I was popular, I’d have a line of freaks waiting out the door. Sorry, not freaks. Talents. Someone's just cancelled on us, you see. Benalmadena's answer to the Rolling Stones, I was told. Well, by the time I get through with them, they’ll resemble, well…I'll tell you what they’ll resemble,” Camp Barry said, cutting off his rant by tipping his ashes into a cracked shot glass. “We need an act. any kind of act and sharpish. Those reprobates down the road have booked a Tom Jones tribute act, and I have it on good authority that there's a coach load of Welsh coming from Malaga to see him.” Camp Barry said, turning to Senan, who was taking up the pose of a marble statue while racking his brains. “Who’s down the road?” Croker said. The world of Murphy’s pub was like stepping into the Bermuda Triangle. “Those evil people in The Greedy Monk Bar. Insidious, they are. They want to run us out of business, you know. C’mon Crokes. You're the showman. Any good ideas for an act?” Senan said, passing the buck with alarming ease. There was a huge wig airing out in the sun on the balcony. Croker pointed to it with his eyes. “I've heard you’ve got the best Tina Turner act this side of Madrid.” He said, not really thinking. Camp Barry straightened up and touched his greying hair. “Sheena Turner, I'll have you know. Anyway, it's a  no go. Sheena only comes out on special occasions.” Camp Barry said, lighting another cigarette. “This seems like one to me. What are we looking for? Actual music, or just someone to get the crowd going?” Croker said. Senan had moved on to rubbing his chin with a look of total consternation. “Why not both?” He said. Camp Barry blew smoke out of his nose. “An act that will get people spending money in the pub. Also, if they can get them so pissed they won't remember if the act was good or bad, that’d help too.”

Camp Barry was called away on a no doubt important task, leaving the two of them sitting out the back without much left to discuss. “Still heading back Thursday? The fun's only beginning, you know. It’d be a shame to go home and miss out.” Senan said. They both stood up at the same time. The truth was, there really wasn't much to go back to except for a pissed off record company and glum faces, but they had to be confronted eventually. “Yeah, well…I dunno. I really don't.” Croker said. Then, his phone buzzed for the first time all day. He answered on the second ring, so as to not seem desperate. For all the caller knew, he could be sunning himself on Venice Beach. He looked at his surroundings. Beer umbrellas and empty pint glasses. He answered with a cautious hello. “Croker. It's Rupert St Clair!” An exuberant voice boomed through the speaker. Croker rolled his eyes. St Clair matched his regal name by being a royal pain in the arse, which everyone put up with. Being one of the top promoters in the city tended to grant some leeway. “Good to hear from you, bear.” Croker said, using a nickname he knew would annoy him. “Look, listen. Here's the thing. I'm booking for a club in Soho tonight. Very vogue, very nouveau riche, and they're in dire need of a DJ.” St Clair said. Croker could picture his smarmy look even over the phone. He could also picture the extremely slicked back hair which he used to cover a prominent bald spot on the back of his head. “Oh yeah? Tonight, you said?” Croker said, even thinking of the possibilities of a early flight back. “Yes, tonight, pronto. Someone who can really get the pulses racing, that kind of thing. So, you were the very first person I called upon. They need a DJ. Do you know a good one?” St Clair said, his voice oozing arrogance. Croker could hear the tinned laughter in the background from whatever sycophants St Clair had surrounded himself with for the day. He snapped the phone shut. “Who was that?” Senan said. “No one important,” Croker said, feeling his face flushing red. “Do you know what? I think I'll stay for a while longer. Let the fun begin.”

End of II. Thanks to all who read.

They had forgotten to close the balcony door, so the sun flooded into the apartment and woke them up. The whole apartment felt like a greenhouse by the time the two men went and sat on the balcony. Neither of them spoke. Their faces were reddened from the previous day's sun, and the heaviest hangover that either of them had ever felt didn't help. The metal chairs tried to burn their backsides as they reclined. “Heavy night.” The Englishman said. “Heavyish,” The Irishman replied, searching his shorts pocket for a cigarette and grasping at the last one left. “Small mercies.” He added. 

The Englishman hunched forward and sighed. To the outside world, his name was Croker. It was a moniker, practically a mask to hide away his true self from the outside world. Until a couple of weeks before, he had been spoken of in learned circles as one of the trendiest DJs in Europe. His name was brought up in the darkest corners of all night raves in Berlin, the most avant garde circles of Paris and anywhere else where it's too cool to care about anything else. His real name was Charlton, which was only known to his family. He was named after either Heston or Athletic and no one was quite sure which. He put on a pair of sunglasses and took in the Spanish sunshine. The sunglasses were worth more than the cramped apartment behind them. They had been given to Croker in a gaudy velvet gift bag at the after party of some event in Mayfair. He’d been handed the gift bag first by a Swedish model, and her number second. The last time he tried to call the number, it didn't even ring. Must have been bad service. 

The Irishman exhaled smoke through his nose in a thin stream and sighed. “There's an awful smell of shite.” He announced. “Don't look at me.” Croker answered. Senan stood up, went to the edge of the balcony and looked over the Spanish surroundings which he had called home every summer for the past three years. He looked downwards, the cigarette dangling from his mouth. The ashes threatened to fall onto his ginger flecked stubble as he craned his head. He saw a Spanish binman unloading the teeming skip directly beneath them, the heat turning it into a garbage furnace. “Right. Down to the cafe.” 

They left the apartment slowly, delicately making their way to the droning elevator in the hotel block. Croker kept his sunglasses on, the beams of light feeling like lasers into his eyes. He threw on a West Ham shirt and a battered pair of Adidas. Senan wore sandals. They seemed to be glued to his feet. He wore a crumpled linen shirt which was missing three buttons. “I feel like I've been dragged backwards through a bush.” Senan said as the elevator doors opened with a shudder.

“A thorn bush.” Croker added. “A thorn bush made of broken glass.” Senan said as they began to descend. In the enclosed space, Croker could smell the alcohol fumes emanating from the pair of them for the first time. “We look like a pair of pissheads.” He said, finally daring himself to look in the stained mirror. His hair was shaggy and after pushing his sunglasses up, he saw his eyes were as pink as Senan's sunburned neck. “No harm,” Senan answered as the doors opened. As they walked out, they saw a man walking through the lobby with extremely deliberate steps. He was wobbling. “I reckon we fit right in.”

They decamped to Cannon and Ball Cafe, which mercifully had a horde of fans blowing. The place was festooned with British paraphernalia of every era except the present, and the television in the corner was tuned only to channels from home. There was no room for foreign objects in a place like this. A rerun of a long forgotten sitcom was running in the background as Croker and Senan half collapsed at one of the tables. There were only three options at the Cannon and Ball. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. The clientele were a weathered bunch, who were for the most part so tanned that sunbathing for them was like breathing for everyone else. The sign above the two men's heads was advertising bingo in the afternoon. Croker looked around. “It’s hardly Mykonos, is it?” Croker said to himself as much as anyone else. That's where he had been when his second album had been released, to much anticipation. “Not quite, but this place is real. Salt of the earth types. And drunkards, too.” Two years before, Croker's first album had kicked off a triumphant summer, a hit from the very moment it dropped. He felt like Bogart in Casablanca. He’d always have the first album. 

There was a red top tabloid newspaper left behind on their table. He picked it up and flicked through it. “They don’t review house albums in papers like this, surely?” Croker said, his internal monologue sounding strange and alien when spoken aloud. Senan shook his head and ordered two breakfasts for them, along with the biggest pot of tea possible.

“Stop torturing yourself, man. How many reviews can they print?” He said in a hoarse voice. “Too many.” Croker answered, flipping to the back and looking over the football. He didn't need to read any more reviews to know. He could recite the bad ones off by heart already, and it had only been a fortnight. “They tore the fucking thing to shreds within a day. Do you know what they gave it out of five stars in NME?” Croker said as the waitress put down the large teapot. He thanked her without looking up. Senan scratched his beard in contemplation. “I wouldn't like to guess.” He poured the tea and gave himself a hearty serving of sugar. “None!” Croker said, pouring his own. The haze of the alcohol and hangover was wearing off and the darkness was quickly coming back. “None out of fucking five. Have you ever heard of something like that?” He said. “Ah, now. Who made them judge, jury and…” Senan replied, wincing. “Executioner? I'm not sure, but my head was on the chopping block.”

The full English breakfasts arrived, delivered from a kitchen that looked like it belonged on a prison ship. “Badly needed.” Senan said, picking up the brown sauce. “Listen, I'm being serious now. Bollocks to the reviews, alright? They're just opinions. They’re like an arsehole, everyone's got one. That's what the Americans say, you know.” He spoke while drowning his breakfast. “The episode of The Bill that I co-wrote, now that got bad reviews. That got absolutely fecking pilloried. I've written probably a million words over the years, how many do you reckon got thrown in the bin?”

“Enough for the both of us. You’ve been turned down more times than volume. Anyways, you told me your friend ruined that episode.” The meagre royalties from his hodgepodge of accepted writing were Senan's sustenance, and the summers spent as a barman in Torremolinos kept him going until Christmas at the very least. He was a charismatic magnet of a human who pulled everyone and anyone into his stratosphere. Croker had been dragged along by him for almost a decade. “Friend? That man is no friend of mine. I had a perfectly good subplot, which he shredded like a blind barber, that…But look, we’re talking about you. Not me. People loved the first one. They’ll love this one. Or else they just didn’t get it. Happy?” Senan said as he ate. “Have you listened to it?” Croker replied. Senan chewed, causing a long delay. “Partially. Well, very partially. I'm a busy man, you know. I write, I work, I-”

“Drink.” Croker interrupted.

“That too.” Senan said as his phone started to buzz. “See? I'm like Martin Sheen in that film.”

“Wall Street?” 

Senan answered, looking at his surroundings. “I was thinking more of Apocalypse Now.”

“I've just been politely informed that I started work an hour ago,” Senan said, gravely putting the phone down. He stood up, the chair scraping against the floor. “I best be off.” He finished and put a fiver down on the table. He was fleeing when Croker called to him. “You're short.”

Senan waved with impunity. “And you're skinny. Call down later. There’s someone who wants to see you. Remember, no reviews!”

END OF PROLOGUE. Wanted to see if anyone responds and to try something new. If people enjoy it, I’ll carry it on.

We didn't speak for a long while after our opening exchange. I watched England slip by through the window. I kept an eye out on the passengers passing by along the corridor beside us and at each station we stopped at I examined the platform like a hawk. Soon after, we stopped a doldrum of a station, which seemed to serve absolutely no one. It seemed to have sprouted out from the fields that surrounded it. There was an old woman and two businessmen waiting. I knew plenty of people who worked in the city and commuted every day without fail, but something about the two men struck me as strange. I have a keen eye for watching people. You can size them up by watching the little actions they take, rather than the big ones. There was something in the way their suits didn't quite fit the way they should, their stature and expressionless faces. I watched them get on nearby, each of them carrying a silly little briefcase each. They got onboard ahead of the frail old girl, which annoyed me further. Alexandra Nelson watched me watching them. “It's rude to stare at people, you know.” She said, and I felt that horrible chill in the spine when you know something very bad is on the horizon. I stood up and went to the compartment door. The two businessmen were coming along the passage. Up close, they were a pair of hulking brutes, and I blocked the doorway. I looked over my shoulder at her. She was now sitting up straight like a disturbed cat. “Company, I think,” I told her. “Just how many people are in this operation of yours?” I added. I glanced up the corridor again. The men were a pair of brutes alright. Their giant hands made their suitcases look miniature and they shuffled uncomfortably along. I glanced back at the girl again, and she had curled herself up with the jacket, her beret pointing downwards. It was the only card she had to play and she played it well. It was better than I would have managed, no doubt. The two men went by slowly like two passing icebergs. I let them pass and they didn't so much as look sideways. I hid my face anyway. This was a professional operation, I now had absolutely no doubt about it. They clearly wanted the girl badly. But for what purpose? I listened to the whistles on the platform and we set off again. The next stop was about twenty minutes away, on a good day. Well, this was as good as any. It started to absolutely pour down rain, hammering against the window.  “A fine day to be on the run.” Alexandra said. She stood and straightened herself out. “You didn't get a glance at the two heavyweights, I suppose?” I asked her. She nodded. She had a glib expression. The colour was draining from her face. “I did. They're rather hard to miss, you know.” She made for the door. I blocked it. “Unless you're planning on raiding the dining cart for our lunches, I think we should stay put for now.” I told her. She searched my face and sat down again, asking only for a cigarette of her own. I lit one for her and watched. “Well, what are they? Russians? Germans? The French!” I said the last one with sneering contempt for some reason. Her name struck a bell in the dusty cabinets of my memory. Lord Nelson was quite the hero of mine during my mostly forgotten childhood and reading of his exploits had instilled in me an unshakeable dislike of the French. It was illogical, but I enjoy being illogical. It makes it harder for people to predict your next move. I was considering our next move when I sat back down. The towns we passed were drab and grey which could only mean London was on the horizon. “No, no. Don't worry, Mister Saxon. They're all very English. That's the damn problem…” Alexandra Nelson said, looking away from me and watching the country slip by.

“They don't look much like Englishmen to me,” I said while fixing my ever crumpled collar. “Black leather jackets and berets hardly seem to be the fashion of the day. No offence.” Passengers were passing by at all times and I was trying to subtly get a look at each and every one of them. We were well and truly trapped and being a sitting target is something that never sits well with me. “I'm going to make a break for it at the next station.” Alexandra announced. I shook my head. “That’ll never work. If this organisation of yours is as big as they seem, they will no doubt-” I began to talk but I saw her cheeks flush and she bared her teeth. “They’re very far from being my organisation, Saxon. Tell me, what's your next clever idea?” She said to me. I was out of clever ideas so I decided to stall. “They’ll be waiting for us at the next station and every other one down the line. I've done this kind of thing before, you know, except when I did it the people chasing me wore grey and spoke German.” I said as she folded one leg over the other. “Oh yes? Think yourself a war hero, do you? Where did you serve?” She asked. I hadn't spoken about the war to just about anyone for some time and certainly not when I was still sober. “I was in the RAF and I flew Spitfires.” I told the girl, which was half true. “A peril of the job was occasionally being shot to pieces. I wound up in a prison camp on the German border where me and a few others decided to leave early, which our hosts didn't take kindly to. So yes, I have some experience of being on the run.” She listened without much response. That was quite alright by me. I was well used to being stone walled by attractive women by that point. Suddenly, there was a dark shadow at our window. I watched her hand shoot towards her knife. I turned quickly towards the door. The ticket inspector was looming in the doorway. My heart was beating out of my chest as I gave him a once over. He was fairly old and very short. He looked like a dried out prune of a man, and when he asked for our tickets he said it as though the air was escaping his lungs at gunpoint. I had quickly bought tickets on the platform before we boarded and handed them over. He stamped them with some effort. “Not the first time my tickets have been stamped.” I said to him and in response he sighed and wandered along to the next compartment. I closed the door and sat back down. As I did so, I wondered where in London I’d be able to lay my hands on a weapon. I had an old boys network from the war to call upon but they were scattered all over the place. I put my hands on my knees and leaned forwards to speak to the girl. She kept her hand on her knife. It wasn't very encouraging, but not much was by that point. “I'll accompany you as far as London. After that, we can wash our hands of each other, if you wish. The fact is I'm just as involved in this plot of yours as anyone else. Our friend Calloway will have passed on my description to-” Alexandra tensed up and strained to keep her voice down as she cut me off. “A plot? Is that all you think it is?” She said sharply. “I don't think much of anything. Why don't you try to give me the gist of it, and I'll see if my feeble brain can make sense of it.” I answered her. There comes a point in every encounter with the fairer sex that I get on their very last nerve. I often do it unintentionally, but this time was different. She stood up again. “Of all the people to be pulled from a wreckage by, it has to be the most insufferable oaf in this doomed country!” She said and paced some more. A little old woman was passing by, looked in at the pair of us and shook her head in sadness at the quarreling couple. I waved to her and she moved along. “Doomed how?” I said quickly, knowing I’d caught her on something. “Doomed,” Alexandra Nelson said, “Doomed in the way that within the next twenty four hours there will be an assassination, a professional hit, that will plunge this nation into the deepest crisis since the war. Is that simple enough for you to grasp?” I slouched in my seat, lit a match and stubbed it out again. I watched the rain against the glass. In truth, I wish I really had been to stupid to understand. It would have made things a lot easier than they were.

I listened to the train again and checked my watch. We were minutes away from the next station. Consulting my own memory, which was admittedly shoddy, I knew the next station after our pending stop was going to be Tottenham Hale, which would land us in London. I couldn't allow them to get the jump on us at the next station. I knew we needed to slip into the sprawling city and hope that it shielded us like a concrete canopy. I had absolutely no doubt that this kind of organisation had the manpower to keep throwing roadblocks at us at every stop. “Well, we appear to be in this together, at least for the time being. Perhaps I should have struck Calloway a bit harder last night. What is he in all this, the leader?” I asked her and she openly scoffed at such a crude suggestion. “The leader? God no. Max Calloway can hardly lead a dog, never mind a terror cell.” Alexandra said. I was preoccupied by then. We had been talking for much too long. I was thinking about the elderly ticket inspector again. I pictured his wrinkled face again. It was strange to even think of, but it got my back up. I took out my train ticket. The paper was crinkled and torn and barely even legible. I shot up, went to the compartment door and looked right along the train corridor. The two heavyweights were slowly making their way towards us, having swapped their little suitcases for a cosh each. They held the weapon in their giant paws, but their expressions hadn't changed. They still looked like mourners at a funeral. I shut the door quickly and turned to her. “I think the ticket inspector has punched our tickets for us again.” I said. 

She began to protest and then gave up. I appeared to be the only ally that she had. “What do you propose next, war hero?” She said and looked out of the window. It had now begun to absolutely bucket down rain, coming down in grey sheets. I don't know why, but I took this as a sign of encouragement. No one puts up much of a chase in rain like that. I’d done it myself. “We’re going to jump from the train. Follow me.” 

She buttoned her jacket and followed me. I was quite surprised that she did, but then again she hadn't much choice. I opened the compartment door and left in one motion. I had no items with me to leave behind, but nonetheless I was in search of something in particular. The two thugs were following us slowly, barely disguising their weaponry. I wondered how many times they’d put on a show like this before. We moved quickly but with precision. Strangely, I felt no panic at all. I could honestly say I’d been in worse situations before. Being enclosed by the Gestapo on the last train to Geneva will harden even the softest of souls. I pushed the memories away and kept moving towards the back of the train. I could hear the girls strained breathing behind me. However she had infiltrated this terror cell, I began to get the sense this was much more than even a wily operator like she appeared to be could have expected. She followed me tightly behind. We had to jump before the next station, there was no question about it. I looked back quickly. The two brutes were moving quickly now, almost breaking into a run along the shaky, noisy train corridor. Their bodies moved, but their faces still looked like the Easter Island statues. It was plain weird to me. The tea trolley was mercifully being pushed along in our direction. It was being operated by a tough looking old bird who reminded me of the old seadogs I had met in the war. He had a bristling grey beard and a pair of eyebrows that looked like grey puffy clouds floating above his eyes. He was grumbling and stumbling around with the motion of the train and he looked none too pleased as we approached to get by. “Manners, manners. Bloody ingrates.” He said. His voice sounded like he chewed concrete for relaxation. I couldn't help but wonder if he was in league with the crooked ticket inspector, so I bustled past the old git and his trolley, leading Alexandra past him. He was swearing up a storm about the etiquette of this generation as we ran through the carriages. He was so perturbed that he delayed the two brutes with his ranting.

I listened to their arguing as we fled, picking up a lost umbrella that was leaning against the wall as we went. “Worried about the weather, Saxon?” She said breathlessly. “I enjoy the rain. Makes me feel like a kid again.” I said. We came to a thin door that connected one train car to another. “This is it.” I said. I opened it with some effort, feeling the gust of wind and rain hitting my face. I leaned outside and got pelted with hard rain drops. I looked left and saw more train tracks. I looked right and I saw a damp, soggy hill that was running alongside the track. We passed a sign that said London was closer than I expected. I looked back at the girl. “Here we go,” I said, taking her hand. “You first.” I told her. She glared at me with unrestrained displeasure. “You’re positively mad, do you know that, Saxon?” Alexandra said. “I've known it for some time,” I said, nodding behind us. The brutes were back, only this time they were covered in tea and were now running. I could hear their booming footsteps approaching. “But not as mad as those two.” 

I helped her outside. She stood on the railing with some effort. I looked back, gripped my stolen umbrella and lunged with it, picturing Saint George or Robin Hood in my mind. I smashed it over the head of the closer of the two thugs. It broke over his head, sending him flailing back for a split second. I kicked the other one. It was like kicking a brass door. They piled forward and I felt the strength of their grips, but I somehow broke free. The girl had jumped. Where she had landed, I had no idea. “Sorry boys, this is my stop. Ta ta for now.” I said as I struggled up on the metal railing. There was nothing but a green blur underneath me. I went for it, feeling the two men clutching at my shadow. I got a decent push off and for a moment I felt as though I was particularly graceful, gliding through the air like a falling autumnal leaf. That image was quickly put to an end when I landed on the grassy knoll with an almighty thump. It put the wind clean out of my lungs. I was face down in the grass for some time, listening to the rain fall on my back and groaning. I rolled on my side and watched the train disappearing, its whistle fading. It was a beautiful sight. Then, Alexandra Nelson appeared over me, hunched down and looked at me with something approaching concern. I thought I saw an ounce of sympathy until she spoke. “Look what you've gone and done, you silly man.” She said, helping me to my feet. “You’ve gone and landed yourself right in all this business.” I dragged myself forwards as she began to walk down the hill, where there was a quiet lane with no cars. 

There was nobody waiting for us, not even Max Calloway. I had a good mind to give him a  third punch, should I see him again. We kept going through the field and over the wall, where civilization was waiting for us. It was a sleepy village where not much was going on. They had no idea how close to damnation they were, if Nelson's theory was true. I noticed two cars parked haphazardly on the side of the lane. It led towards an ancient church with crumbling gravestones. The man was remonstrating  with the woman. It didn't seem like a happy marriage. “I told you! I told you time and time again, but you just won't listen!” The woman berated him. I wondered what she’d told him. He’d left his car door open, with the engine running. Perhaps that's what she had told him to stop doing. He didn't look like much of a listener as I approached. It was perfectly unspoken. The girl caught on quickly, not even needing a glance. Meanwhile the couple had gone even redder in the face, if that was possible.

I decided to alleviate part of their trouble by giving them more time to talk things over, as I sat in the driver's seat and pulled away. I took a quick glance at her and caught Alexandra Nelson smiling. I didn't look back, but I’d wager a fair chunk of money that it took them a long time to notice the missing vehicle. I drove onwards. London was calling us.

End of III. Thanks for reading. I have gone through a tough time in the last month or so and am trying to get back on track emotionally and with my writing work. Thanks to all

I retraced my steps, following my wet footprints through the sodden fields. It was still raining. The clouds broke and let the moon illuminate my path just a little bit, which wasn't much of a help. The girl was still talking, only what I first guessed were the ramblings of the half conscious, which I was no stranger to. She started saying London and a few street names that I so happened to recognise from the war, which interested me enough until I stepped so deeply into a waterlogged divot that it nearly submerged my leg up to the knee. Cursing the saints and all their associates, I got over the gate with much trouble. I saw the cottage through a clearing, where I had stupidly left a lamp on in my haste to investigate the sound of the car crash. I stopped. I scanned the gravel yard outside the cottage and the bushes outside. There was no sign of any car tracks or any more leather-jacketed thugs. I did of course wonder to myself if I was carrying one of them over my shoulder, but the look of hatred that was etched into that scarred face only a short walk away told me otherwise. My steps crunched on the damp gravel as I made my way across. Manoeuvring awkwardly, I put my ear to the door and heard nothing. I imagined someone waiting in the corner with a loaded gun waiting to put an end to me and the girl, but when I entered the cottage, no one was there. The fire was petering out, that was all. I put her on the bed, collected myself and realised that my head felt as if it was made out of cement. With hesitation, I took off her soaked jacket and hung it up to dry. After that I fashioned myself a lookout post, picked up The Earl’s damned rifle and began my watch, with my eyes already dropping. It had been a long night, and as I sat there listening to the sound of water dropping from the leather jacket, I began to feel this was only the beginning of my troubles.

By dawn, I was propped up against the wall, sitting on a wooden stool that was much too small for me. I was nursing a rifle on my shoulder and was facing the front door, which I had done for the past few hours. I stirred from a pitiful sleep and sat up straight. My back ached in response and I tried to shake away the cobwebs of my frightful dreams, which were of smashed cars and swooping searchlights. “Don't you hear me talking to you?” I heard a woman's voice calling. “Insufferable oaf.” I sat up straight. “I'm keeping watch, damn you,” I said and pointed the rifle at the door again. I am not much of a morning person until I hear the boil of the nearest kettle. I looked across the room. The floorboards creaked as I got up from the stool. She was lying exactly where I had deposited her during the night and I was dragged straight from my slumber and into reality. She was wearing men’s style trousers, jet black and slim fitting with a white shirt and a black tie. It was a curious outfit. I noticed this just before I noticed the knife in her hand. It was a poxy little thing, but looked like it would cause damage all the same. “I like to play darts,” she said in an educated English accent. “Your nose should make a good bullseye.”

She made no motion to throw it. I realised I was holding a hunting rifle in my hands, which I suppose was a way to put her off. I put the gun down, went to the kitchen table and lit a cigarette. I offered her one and she took it. “On one condition. No knife throwing. Save that for the circus.” I told her. “Fine, although you’d make a fine clown. Just so you know, you won't have me captive for long. I'll break out and resume my mission, whether it means putting this knife in your heart or not.” She said, accepting the lit cigarette with apprehension. “Captive?” I exclaimed. She felt her forehead and the purple bruise that had appeared in the last few hours. “I'll give you one back for this.” She spat again. I walked back to my stool and sat down. “Oh, no…that wasn't me. You did that all to yourself. Your car-”

I began to monologue but she cut me off by getting up from the bed and charging to the front window. It was the only one that you could see the yard from. “You took my car away. Bastard!” She said, turning to face me with the knife in her hand. I didn't move. I took a long drag on my cigarette. Believe it or not, I feel more at home in situations where a knife is being thrust at me. It's the normal world that bores me. “You did that all by yourself. Well, you and your scarred friend who ran you off the road.” I told her through a cloud of smoke. I got up and began making breakfast. The Earl ate three eggs every morning which led to foul flatulence and a veritable supply of the damn things for me. She was beginning to remember. Her eyes were darting around with realisation. “Calloway. That fascist. I should stick this knife right up his…” She threatened and stopped. She looked at me with interest rather than hatred. “So who the hell are you?” She spat. I was breaking eggshells with my back turned to her. “No one you’d know.” I told her. She noticed her jacket was dry and threw it on. “Then you won't mind me leaving.” She said and went for the door. “I doubt you’ll get far. You totaled the car last night. I intervened. Your large friend came to your aid with a gun in his hand. I put a stop to him, for now. He might still be there, but he might not be.” I said to her as she moved closer to the door. “Who do you work for?” She said, and I answered without much emotion. “Myself. My name is Edward Saxon. I'm nobody. I just heard your crash and intervened. That's all,” She looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “Not that I care much, but I’d stay put for the morning at least. I’d wager your friend Calloway has some heavy friends to call upon. Am I right?” I asked. “More than you could imagine.” She told me in a quiet voice. I left the eggs and faced her. “Take me to my car. Once I recover my bag, I'll be on my way. Savvy?” She told me. I wanted to ask her name but I got the sense I wouldn't receive an answer. “Alright, but just know that you interrupted my breakfast, a cardinal sin in my book.” I told her, put my Barbour back on and went to the door. She stepped out into the yard, looking all around. She was cagey and pursued by a force I had no notion of. I stopped in the doorway. This time, I took the gun with me.

I found myself walking across the same fields as a few hours before, this time with the girl in tow. She had her back up and was clearly uneasy with the conditions, so I stopped and bargained with her. I handed her the rifle and told her she was free to plug me in the back if she felt the need to. This seemed to lighten the tension and we pressed on. She didn't need to know that I had unloaded the rifle and was keeping the bullet in my pocket for safekeeping. I'm not a genius, but I'm not a complete idiot.

As we got close to the crash site, Her steps became laboured and her breathing strained. I was surprised she was standing at all, let alone walking. Whoever the girl was, she was made of tougher stuff than most. We made it to the very hedgerows that I had made my move from. Of course, it all looked much less dangerous than it had seemed in the darkness. I saw the car through the shrubs. She cursed under her breath. There was a mound and gap in the hedges, made for ramblers’ convenience if nothing else. I helped her through. We walked along the lane. The dip was now a moat, having soaked up rain all night. The car was now right side up, which made me uneasy. The man who she had named as Calloway was gone. I could see where they had dragged him from the grass. I allowed myself a moment's satisfaction that my second punch had the impact that I hoped for. The girl cursed under her breath. She knew as well as I did that the upturned car and the removal of the knocked out man meant there was at least one man helping Calloway, if not more. She started walking towards the car. I checked my watch. After I wiped the rain away from the numbers, I saw that it was only seven in the morning. A fine time, but not one to be hanging around a country lane in front of an overturned vehicle. I had heard enough farmers going to and fro on the lane to know better. “We best be moving. Do whatever it is you have to.” I told her, and to my surprise she agreed. She stepped down into the divot and walked to the rear of the car. I joined her. The front half of course was practically turned in on itself but the back was only dented. The boot was smashed asunder, the battered shards lying in the grass. It had been searched thoroughly. She cursed again, but this time in satisfaction. “Poor old Maxie. He's always one step behind. Even behind you.” She said as she searched her jacket. I shrugged. If she knew the scarred man well enough to have a pet name for him, I wondered what else she knew. I watched as she put the rifle against the car and produced a gold key, which she inserted in a lock inside the boot which I hadn't even noticed. The lock clicked and a hidden compartment opened. I didn't see a thing. It was a deep hole. She glanced sideways at me. “Very well.” I said, knowing from experience when women willed me away. I got up out of the dip and on the lane, where I listened for approaching cars. The only sound I heard was the morning birdsong. The birds were delighted with the soaked conditions and pleaded their case in unison. I looked both ways. Nothing. By then, she had returned to the lane and stood beside me. I couldn't tell what she had retrieved from the car. It must have been well hidden, whatever it was. “I suppose I should thank you.” She said to me, “You suppose.” I answered in a less tactful tone. We stood around for longer than seemed plausible. “Your next move?” I asked her to get the ball rolling. “London, I assume?” She gripped the gun tighter. If it was loaded, I’d have been worried. But it wasn't, so I pressed the issue. “When I lifted you from the wreckage, you kept saying London. A few street names, too. They were familiar to me during the war, but not now.” I said, not knowing why I told her about the war. “I hope that's all you heard. If you know what I do, it’d be punching your ticket to death.”

“I've had my card marked more times than I’d care to guess.” I said. I gestured towards the hedgerows and we started back. I was surprised she followed me, but then again she hadn't much choice. In truth, the clever thing to do would have been to leave her behind and put all of it behind me, but the thickening plot and the mystery of the girl and the car and the scarred man intrigued me. I wanted to see what would happen next. As I told you, I'm prone to making a few daft choices from time to time. “Your best bet is the train. There's a station just past the town. I'm sure you already knew that.” I said as I helped her over a rusted country gate. “I didn't.” She said as she stepped down, her boot squelching horribly in the mud. We started walking over a recently ploughed field. The ground was hardening and the morning sun was coming up bright. “I'll bring you to the station. That’ll be the end of it.” I said. She was stomping along beside me. “I don't have money, if that's what you're after.” She replied. “I don't want money. I've had it before, lost it and had it again.” I told her as we made it to the end of the rolling lines of ploughed turf and into a softer, green ground. “It might not mean much to you,” I said as the cottage came into view, “But if you're on the run and you think they’ve got you cornered on a train, jump as it slows at a station or crossing. You'll never lose them on a platform. There's always more waiting at the station.” I said, not knowing quite why. She was shaking her head but seemed pleased. “Talking from experience, I take it? That's not bad advice from a farmer,” She said. “How do you know that?” I looked on the horizon. Something was wrong, but I didn't know what it was. “Because I've done it. The Germans didn't take too kindly to escaping prisoners in the war, believe it or not. I haven't always lived in the countryside, you know.” I said as I got a closer look at the cottage. The door was just a crack open, and I was sure that I noticed fresh footsteps on the gravel. That was enough for me. I got down low and told the girl to do the same. She caught on instantly. She’d been through worse, I imagined. We were low and covered by the clusters of tall trees around the cottage. The jeep was hidden in a wooden barn nearby, which was on the verge of collapse and had been for some time. The Earl wasn't much of a man for upkeep. He’d wait until it fell on him before he did anything about it. I searched my jacket. I had all my keys around a ring, which I had moaned about at the time I was given them but now I thanked the stars. I handed the girl the keys and pointed at the barn. “I think your friend Calloway is hosting a party inside.” I said. She was crouched down beside me, looking at the cottage. I could tell she wanted to go in and confront Calloway, and more likely than not deal him another scar, but instead she handed me the hunting rifle. “Make a distraction. You don't seem to mind making noise. I'll get the jeep.” She told me and watched as I loaded the rifle. She called me an unspeakable name for my ploy but I repelled it easily enough. I've been called worse in my time, of course. 

I watched her approach the barn. I hadn't learned her name or her cause, but here I was studying the scene through the iron sight of a rifle. An old friend of mine in the war had once told me that I was someone that things just seem to happen to. I must remember to write him a letter to say how right he was. Of course, I only had two bullets, so it would have to be a good shot that caused as much chaos as possible. I’d read an adventure book where the desperate hero had shot a gas tank to cause an almighty explosion which aided his escape, but I didn't have any of them lying around to fire upon. The girl was waiting behind the barn. She was waiting for her mark. I was getting quite panicked as I looked for an option, when a stocky little figure in a black trench coat and beret stomped into the yard. He looked like Napoleon if he ate beans on toast four times a day. He was stomping and shouting but his voice wouldn't quite carry all the way to me. “For bloody hours!” I heard him shout. I was out of ideas, so I shot him. Nothing fatal, mind. I hit him in the buttocks, and he was rolling around on the floor screaming murder. It was at that moment I heard the jeep’s engine screaming. I reloaded as the green jeep came steaming out of the barn, which surprisingly stayed upright. Calloway came running from indoors. I saw the scar from my vantage point. He had a distinctive face. I would have known him anywhere. He fired into the trees, in my general direction. I ran to the gravel and waited. The headlights of the jeep almost blinded me as she approached. I could hear the screaming Napoleon and the shot of the Mauser pistol from Calloway, again missing. I willed her to the stop and much to my surprise she did, skidding to a stop in front of me. The wheels kicked up an almighty spray of mud as I jumped in. We tore off, both of us in silence as she stamped on the accelerator. She started wincing and blinking far too much effort. “I'm seeing two roads. My head is gone.” She said woozily. We stopped before she would pass out altogether. I got out, swore enough hot air to fill a balloon and rushed to the driver's side. She was slumped in the passenger seat when I got in. Jumping into the car at that speed reminded me of my Spitfire days. I took the wheel and looked in the mirror. All I saw was a green blur, and maybe our pursuers.

I drove fast to the nearby train station. I skipped the town, navigating the shrunken backroads. To drive through the town at the kind of speed I wanted to go at would have caused a huge scene, as did anything out of the ordinary in that little village. I leaned across her awkwardly and wound down the window, letting the fresh air hit her face and perhaps wake her up a bit. It was raining again. I made a vow at that moment that once The Earl came back and relieved me from my groundsman duties, I’d swiftly disappear to the nearest desert. I’d take the scorpions over this bloody rain. I slowed the jeep down and parked. The engine was combustible at the best of times and made a noise like a shotgun as I stopped. That woke the girl up enough to make her draw her knife again. “Come on. Quit stalling.” She told me and got out quickly. I obeyed, remarkably. She produced a fat purse and pulled an astonishing pile of money. She saw me look at it. “Operational costs.” She said and thrust the notes at me. I was now properly on the run, not for the first time in my life either. I thought about searchlights and barbed wire fences as we stood together and watched the train come around the bend. The puffs of grey smoke went up into an even more dreary looking sky. It was quite the English scene, which was fine by me. I hadn't had many English adventures. We got on the train and found a quiet compartment. I slid the door shut and collapsed into the seat. I was so far past exhaustion that I almost felt fresh. I had been shot at and shot someone in return. “London it is, then.” The girl said, looking over me with a new expression. I wondered if she was planning to stab me or kiss me. To be truthful, at that moment I wouldn't have cared either way. I looked out of the window beside me. Through the raindrops, I saw a black car the very same as the one I’d seen during the night. A very angry man got out and hopped on the spot in rage, while a rotund little man was splayed out on the backseat gesturing towards his backside. If it wasn't so sad, I’d have laughed.

End of Chapter 2. Thanks as always to everyone who reads my work.

I sat at the desk and typed uneasy words that didn't have any kind of rhyme or meaning. Ideas were easy to come by but the act itself was the difficult part. I had been in New York the previous autumn, where an interesting woman who lived in Manhattan told me simply to write what I know. The second instruction she gave me was put in a much more blunt manner and had sent me off to the nearest elevator and out into the teeming American streets in search of a taxi. If only I could write what I know. I could tell tales from my past that would be so darkly fantastical that no one would believe the words on the page as they read them. I found myself staring at an empty page, the typewriter staring back at me. Hurry up and write something so we can both get it over with, I heard it say in exasperation. There was a rumble of thunder outside. I stood up and walked to the door. The rain had stopped and there was a fantastic smell of wet turf outside, a remnant of a childhood spent outside that I had genuinely missed in my travels and war campaigns. I glanced down at the floor. The Earl had left a rifle by the door, balancing against the wall. “What would I want a rifle for? There's nothing to be found for miles.” I had asked him, taking the gun without examination. The Earl had raised an eyebrow. “Unless it finds you.”

I put on a pair of wellingtons and stood in the open doorway. I heard an owl and the echo of a delighted frog. The world was drenched. As I stood there considering the world and all the steps that had led me to this spot, I suddenly heard the sickening noise of an engine roaring its last breath and the metallic thud of a car crashing to a stop. That put the fear into me and I'm not someone who tends to scare easily. In my line of work most people aren't, but that night I hesitated and looked back at the rifle. After a quick deliberation, I left it behind, and trod off in the direction of the noise. Instead of a rifle I had brought a small torch, using its thin beam to illuminate my path. As I walked through the sodden grass, I decided that at least the incident might provoke some kind of idea to fill my empty pages. I could hear the death rattle of a car on the other side of a hedgerow. I had arrived only a few days ago but my instinct was always to scout my surroundings. It was a country lane, hardly wide enough to drive a French coupe through, never mind a tractor. I searched for a gate or some kind of gap to get through. The rain started again, this time a light patter. The sky was tremendously dark and dangerous. With some effort and with briars and nettle jabbing at me I rolled through and found myself on the other side. I was standing in the grassy dip which was beside the lane, which I supposed had claimed more than a few vehicles in its time. My steps squelched horribly as I made my way along the dip. The smoke from the crashed car was starting to thicken as I neared the site. Then, I saw it. It was a black Bentley, some kind of relic from at least a decade before. It wasn't the kind of car that could handle terrain like this. It was out of place and alien, just as I was. I walked towards it with caution. I had seen many injured people in my time but had never really grown used to it. The rain and smoke hit my face as I got closer. I called out, trying to see if the driver or occupants were conscious. The whole front end of the vehicle was more or less destroyed. There were singed bits of metal and smashed glass everywhere. I stood up for a second look. The car must have taken the corner at an extraordinary speed to have made such an impact. I crouched and stepped closer. The backseats were empty, only filled with more broken glass. I looked at the driver's seat. The girl was slumped forwards over the steering wheel, her black hair matted to her bloodied forehead. I checked her pulse, and was surprised to find she was still very much alive. Her eyes were shut tightly, as if to block out the waking world. The front door worked, dented as it was. I knew there was a village nearby, and I also recalled that The Earl had mentioned an old army surgeon he met in the great war lived there. The engine smoked and rattled and the grey puffs of smoke were beginning to flow through the holes in the glass and I knew that there was no way I could leave a stricken person in such a position. I have a habit of noticing things at the worst time possible and I strangely noticed that she was wearing a strange black leather jacket which went all the way down to her knees. Then, I heard the sound of another car. It was coming down the lane and extremely fast.

I'm far from an intelligent man, as you'll find out in these pages, but I do happen to trust in my instincts. They had served me well over the years and they were to come in handy again on that wet night. As the car skidded to a halt, I looked up from the dip and decided to hide myself from view. I left the battered car and the girl behind and dove into cover in the hedgerows, as if a Stuka was dive bombing the area. From my hidden vantage point, I got a look at the new arrival. It was a block of a thing, no doubt British by design. I'm far from an expert on cars, but I know a thing or two about people, and there was something about the lanky figure who emerged from the vehicle that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand. He had a torch of his own, and swept it across the grass. I was glad it was nighttime and also glad for the English weather, for the first time. He left the motor running and shined his light down towards the crumpled heap of a car. The light reflected back at him from the broken glass and it was at that moment I saw the gun in his hand. This was not a concerned citizen or policeman, of course. He stepped unsteadily from the lane onto the grass and began to descend. I cursed myself for leaving behind The Earl’s rifle, if it even worked. In my experience, most people don't wait around to see if a gun works or not before they throw their hands up in surrender anyway. I crouched even lower, laying in the thickets. The man was obviously not much of a rural type as he struggled to get down the slope. He was moving towards the car with his gun pointed down as I pondered what my next move was going to be.

He was about five paces away from the crash site when I started to drag myself forwards out of the hedgerow. His light was pointing into the car and at the woman. I guessed he was doing the same thing as me and trying to decide if she was dead or not. It had taken me a short while and it was taking him longer. By the time he raised his gun, I was beside him. He had no chance of seeing or hearing my movements around the car thanks to the conditions and having all his attention on the woman. I’d seen many men lose their focus thanks to women over the years but this time was by far the most lethal. His light was on the girl's face and my light flashed on to his, showing his snarling face. He had a fresh scar along his cheek which added to the horror. “You ought to have called for help.” I said to him, giving him no chance to respond as I threw a right hook which connected flush on to his jaw, sending him to the ground in a heap. He lay motionless. I picked up his gun, a Mauser. Old habits kicked in and I opened it up to find a single bullet missing from the chamber. Whether or not it was freshly fired, I didn't have time to check. I emptied the rest of the bullets and tossed the pistol down beside the prone man. At least when he woke up, he would be armed and not as dangerous. I knew it was time to go. If this was an organised type of operation, they’d no doubt send a second car to follow the progress of the scarred fellow. As my wizened old relative had predicted, trouble had found  me.

End of opener, with the next part to come over the weekend. Thanks to everyone who reads and interacts with me.

“You wait here. Don't go on deck until I come back.” Bond said and went up the steps. He could feel the heat on his back already. Corinne wanted to protest but she realised there was little point arguing with Bond. Really, she was a thief, and this was his calling. “And if they find me here?” She asked. She held her small calibre pistol in her left hand tight enough to crack it. Bond looked at her and then the gun. “Shoot them,” Bond said. 

“A fine suggestion,” Corinne said. “What if I miss?”

“I've never seen you miss before. It’d be a bad time to start.”

Bond stalked the streets around the port. They were perfectly manicured, white marble and tiles all around. He was wearing shorts and a white linen shirt and felt dreadfully exposed without his gun. He could still see the little yacht in the close distance, and felt a pang of guilt for leaving Corinne as a sitting target. Bond made his way through the yawning, glacial morning crowd. Most of the people Bond saw were too rich to care about anything and those who weren't would have to fake it. Bond found shade under a cafe awning and was glad for it. He put on black sunglasses and leaned against the cool marble wall, a respite from the heat. His man was out there somewhere, no doubt nearby. Being the hunted rather than the hunter was growing to annoy Bond. He walked only a few steps and tied his shoelaces, watching the line of yachts and cruisers that lined the docks. The sea glittered back at him, revealing nothing. If this man was good enough to catch Corinne unaware, that at least made him a dangerous opponent. Bond eyed the huge yacht that was hosting the brunch party. The ship was a floating representation of decadence, and Bond sneered as he got a good look at it. Still, it was in direct line to his boat and therefore Corinne, but as he began to move again a thought struck him. It hit him far worse than the blasts of heat from the shining sun ever could. Corinne had described her pursuer as a killer, just like Bond. Is that all she thought of him as? Ignoring his doubtful, insidious thoughts he put himself in the other man's shoes. If he had found himself standing across the street from an unaware and defenceless target, Bond knew what he would have done. He would have taken the shot without thinking twice. Leaving it up to chance and passing up opportunities was for amateurs. “He looks just like you.” Corinne's words echoed in Bond's mind as he ambled up the ramp leading to the brunch party. As he received a glass of champagne upon entry from a waiter who was too overheated to care, Bond finally realised what was really happening, and promptly cursed himself twice for good effect. He had been so wrapped up in Corinne's world, that he had forgotten his own. In the midst of the searing temperatures, Bond's logic was icy cold. It was patently obvious. The killer wanted Bond's head, and had put the scare on Corinne to get the wheels turning yet again. Bond headed towards the yacht, his pace quickening with every step.

Nobody seemed to notice Bond's arrival at the party, which made sense since most of the people present were too far gone on wine to care. It was clearly a liquid brunch. Bond waltzed through the mingling crowd, a chill running up his spine. He knew he was close to the height of the silent duel. At this stage, there could only be two outcomes. Both outcomes would result in a flurry of unspeakable violence that Bond was beginning to loath. Every vanquished foe seemed to bring on a new one. Bond walked to the very end of the boat, only being noticed by a few prying eyes and a few half closed ones at the same time. He put his hands on the railing, which was stinging hot to touch. He enjoyed the sting of the hot metal on his skin. It made him feel alive. It was Bond's experience that pain was the most consistent and dependable emotion in his life. He downed the glass of whatever the hell the heavily perspiring butler had handed him on the way in. It didn't taste like anything Bond liked. He took his sunglasses off, pinned them to his shirt pocket and focused his eyes. Corinne was standing on the decks of their temporary abode, basking in the sun, disobeying his wishes to stay hidden, which he guessed she would. She was utterly fearless, or was good at pretending to be. Why was that? Nothing ever fazed her, yet they had been through the same tawdry tale with Trevelyan which had left Bond shaken to the core. She was laying on her front and Bond knew that meant she had a gun tucked closely underneath her slim, tantalising body. She was always prepared. Bond felt he was always a step behind her, and had been from the very start. His thoughts were broken as another white jacketed waiter appeared at his side. He had his damp hair slicked to the side and his face was remarkably dry. Bond guessed the Europeans could handle the sun better than any Brit, but was caught by surprise when the waiter spoke. “Fill your drink, sir?” He asked in a voice much like Bonds. He seemed to enjoy Bond's intrigue. “I always save the first pour for a fellow Englishman.” The waiter added as Bond accepted the glass. Bond examined the waiter for an instant. His eyes were dulled and almost sad and his hair was coloured like copper wire and the texture of a horse brush. Bond noticed that the man forgot to take the empty glass which was perched in front of Bond. “How did you guess?” Bond asked him, not trying the drink just yet. It was at the very bottom of his list of priorities. “Your face is red enough to enrage a bull. It took me a long old time to get used to this kind of heat, let me tell you.” The man replied, mockingly humouring Bond, which did little to help his mood. Bond looked around at the crowd. Nobody cared. He looked back at the waiter, who hadn't moved. He obviously wasn't the hardest working waiter in the world. “I've been in hotter situations than this, I can tell you.” Bond said. He put the glass to his mouth, sniffed something unusual and stopped. If his mind wasn't playing tricks on him, which it probably was, he thought he could smell the fearful aroma of poison in the glass. “I wouldn't doubt you have,” The waiter said. “Us Brits abroad always seem to attract trouble, don't we?” Bond leaned back on the railing. He looked downwards. The water swirled underneath. It was a straight drop. There was a line of various types of boats and jet skis, like lily pads on an English pond. They led back to Corinne and back to their altered lives. He looked away. “Some attract trouble more than others,” Bond answered the man. “Look, I hate to be a bad sport, but I reckon you’ve mixed this too strongly. Maybe the heat is getting to you after all. What did you say your name was, again?” The waiter's eyes darted to and fro. “I didn't. Yours is…?” He said, sticking his hand out to take the full glass back. Bond noticed the trickle of blood running down the man's hand, coming from the white sleeve of his jacket. “I think you know my name, perhaps you heard it in passing,” Bond told the waiter, who gritted his teeth.  “You ought to get that seen to. In case someone takes offence to it.” Bond added. The waiter flashed a smile and then a knife. “Perhaps I will. After I see to you first, Mister Bond. You ought to have stayed in London. You'll have to go back in a bodybag now, I'm afraid.” He snarled. Bond could feel the animalistic nature that only the very first exchange of violence brings about. Bond threw the poisoned glass in the waiter's face. Screaming, he feverishly wiped poisoned liquid from his eyes and swiped his gleaming knife at Bond, a wild attempt that just went past Bond's throat. The partygoers all turned to look, expensive grapes falling from the gaping, shocked mouths. All pretence of Englishness dropped from the man’s voice as he and his target grappled. He spat and cursed in a tongue that Bond couldn’t quite recognise. The man was strong as an ox and he gripped Bond with his free arm and flung him into a table of entrees, sending the crepes and grapes splattering to the floor. That was too much to bear for the surrounding mob. One of them gasped in admonishment. Bond stumbled over the remains of the table and let his attacker come towards him, with the shining knife in his hand waiting to draw blood. “You can't win, Bond. Progress is relentless.” The man said, throwing off his stolen, ill fitting waiter's jacket. He revealed a defensive wound along his bicep, no doubt sustained from whatever poor soul he had taken it from. He sneered and spat and enjoyed his advantage. Then, he stumbled. He slipped on the soaked yacht deck. Bond seized his chance. It was a feverish tussle, one that could have gone on forever if Bond had not quickly seized the waiter by the flowing lapel of his stolen jacket, rushed him backwards by pure brute force and then smashed his head on the railing once and then twice for good measure before throwing him overboard, landing with a hearty splash. It was as much excitement as the assembled crowd had ever seen. Bond turned to face them. “Nothing to worry about. Tipping culture is getting out of hand in Monaco, that's all.” He said, turning back and looking at his boat, where Corinne was still lying face down. Was she moving?

The beams of sunlight were warming Corinne's almost bare back. She didn't move. She was face down on a towel just under the sail. Her arms were spread out, fingers not reaching for anything. As Bond fought in the near distance on the pleasure yacht, a second man got out of a car on the seafront and surveyed the scene. The car was an exquisite Ferrari Enzo, which fitted in perfectly in the moneyed surroundings, as did the well groomed driver. He had done a poor parking job, intending to make a hasty visit. He ignored the protestations of the gibbering Frenchman who accosted him as he walked down the steps which led to the harbour. The Frenchman followed him, wagging his finger in admonishment. The second man turned, whipped his hand as quickly and sharply as a buzzard and flattened the Frenchman. “Stai zitto.” He said before moving on. He could not allow any interference from simpletons or professionals alike. His name was Molinari. He had been passed up on in Rome, but now his opportunity had been presented to him practically gift wrapped in silk. Molinari wore all black, including his sunglasses and slicked back hair. He looked like a millionaire walking to his later purchase as he strolled along the pier, looking at each floating home. He glanced left, and saw an almighty commotion on a boat nearby. The British spy had taken the bait, it seemed. He stalked along the boats. Where was she? Molinari was a city boy and knew little about boats. This was certainly no time for a nautical lesson. People were his business, and he watched the moving faces. There were flags fluttering on each yacht, the sight of them annoying him further. He saw the cursed red and blue of Britain, while too aware that this man Bond wouldn’t be so stupid to fly his own flag. Then, he spotted her. She was laying on the deck, ripe for the picking, but motionless. Molinari felt his blood rush to his head. If someone had gotten to her first, he was going to go on an almighty rampage. He moved closer to his unwitting prey. Then, he heard the noise and felt a rush of dread.

As Molinari closed in, he saw Bond. He was perched on the edge of some gaudy pleasure boat, apparently about to jump. What the hell was he doing? Molinari took his first step on the narrow ramp which led to Bond and Corinne's boat. She hadn't moved. If she was dead, there would be hell to pay. He looked on the horizon. Bond was now heading on directly towards him like a falling missile. He was vaulting over yachts and cruisers like a hurdler in the Olympics. The sight of incoming danger froze Molinari. His attention taken, he missed Corinne rolling onto her back and aiming a pistol at him. “Tell me who you work for and perhaps you'll live.” Corinne spat in acidic French. She looked at him closer. “Who is it?” She said in Italian. How did she guess that? Molinari looked. Bond was closing in. The man was a human weapon. Impossible. “Someone we all know.” Molinari said. It was no good. He’d have to kill them both anyway. He dove to his left, took the Beretti out and aimed. Corinne fired first, and quicker. How could she shoot like that? The bullet singed into his shoulder with a sickening thud. Molinari heard the cries from himself and the scared onlookers and decided the next course of action was a hasty retreat. Clutching his wound, he began to run back up the pier. He couldn't see James Bond. Molinari never saw Bond throw his accomplices' knife from a distance, the highly sharpened tool shining at it flew through the heavy air. It wedged into his thigh, like being shot with a bamboo dart in an old jungle movie. He kept running. Molinari was a tough customer and always proved it. Pain was a helpful incentive to keep running. 

Bond jumped up to the pier. Corinne had come to the edge of the yacht and was looking down at him. The gun shook in her hand. “Throw the gun to me.” Bond asked her urgently and she did so. “Put everything we have into a bag and get us a car. We have to leave.” Bond told her.  “But-” She said but Bond was already tearing off in pursuit. Discretion had been thrown out of the window. He followed the trail of blood drops. He was away from the docks within a sprint. On street level, there was an almighty vehicular carnage, even more than usual. Bond hid the gun. It felt good to be armed again. He followed red splatters on the concrete, leading out into the road. Cars were backed up and sideways, the blood leading straight across the street. Bond felt like a lion following a wounded prey. The game had flipped one way and then another. All it took was one throw of a knife. He heard the arguments and the blaring horns and kept following the trail. There were blood and food stains on his shirt but no one seemed to notice. Bond didn't even run. There was no need to. He knew he had wounded the man enough to slow him down. Corinne had fired without blinking but her face was without colour after. Her mask was cracking. The drops of blood led to a quiet backstreet, where people were taking their afternoon coffees. One of them was a thickly built man who had a pair of sunglasses perched on his cannonball shaped head. “You the police? A man just flashed a gun at myself and the wife.” He said in an Irish brogue. Bond shrugged. “Somewhat.” The Irishman looked Bond up and down. “I don't like to speak to coppers or Englishmen,” He said, his pink face turning darker. “But I hear the Trattoria is nice this time of day.” Bond nodded, picked up the pace and found the dimly lit restaurant. Its clay walls mirrored a hazy sunset. It was quiet inside and empty. The kitchen door was swinging and Bond could see a waitress jabbing a finger towards the back, shouting at an unwitting cook. Bond moved towards the back in silence, his eyes fixed upon the wooden framed door at the very back of the restaurant. He stood in front of it and drew out his gun. He almost kicked the door off its hinges. He found Molinari slumped in the toilet, blood running from both of his wounds. Bond aimed. Molinari held his gun up but let it fall. He muttered in Italian, Bond not caring what it meant. “Who do you work for?” Bond asked brutally. Molinari smiled. “You'll see, Bond.” He said in perfect English. He grimaced. Bond clutched the gun tighter and had his finger ready to pull the trigger when he noticed the knife jutting out of Molinari's leg. “You’re better than they think you are. I’d tell them, but…” Molinari trailed off. “Dead men tend not to give good advice.” Bond said. Corinne's bullet was lodged in the man’s body and slowly killing him. “Tell me who sent you.” Bond said, knowing he wouldn’t. Bond stepped forward, Corinne's gun only a few inches from the Italian assassin's skull. Molinari dropped his gun on the floor. The metal cracked against the white and black tiles. Molinari looked up at Bond, pulled out a tablet from his pocket and smiled again through a crimson mask. “Progress is relentless, Bond.” Molinari said, quickly downing the cyanide. Bond didn't flinch. There was no use. Molinari slumped further and stared at the floor. Bond turned his back to him and shut the door. He hid Corinne's gun again and went back through the restaurant. The chef was at the kitchen door, remonstrating on the phone. Bond walked back the way he had come, through quiet shaded alleys which were home to wealth and violence. At the bottom of the alleyway he was flushed out into the sun where a Ferrari Enzo pulled up with Corinne at the wheel. Molinari had left the keys in the ignition, anticipating a quick escape. Their hastily packed bags were lodged in the back. Bond got in, finally feeling his wounds catching up to him. “What did you do to him?” Corinne asked him while looking in the mirror and watching the streets. “Nothing,” Bond said as they exchanged guns. “He ate something that didn't agree with him.” Corinne pulled away, caressing the leather steering wheel. The engine responded to her touch. “Where to?” Bond asked, feeling fatigue slipping in like nightfall. “I know a place.” Corinne said, tearing through the winding streets.

End of Part 2. Thanks for reading.

My mum flew from Ireland to England on Wednesday. Since we’re 5 hours behind, I said I’d wait until Thursday to call. I can hear myself say it as I type these words. I thought it’s alright, I’ll wait until tomorrow until she settles in a bit. Then in the evening our time, I was sitting outside when the notification bearing the bad news popped up. He had died in his sleep and that was it. No goodbye, no crying over the phone. Nothing, just gone. I’ll never get to call again.

I had all these thoughts in my head about what I could say over the phone to him when I got the chance but it never came. I thought about it for hours through a haze of tears and sadness. He died in his sleep, but what were his last thoughts? Were they happy or sad? Did he think about me?

I’ll always carry the memories of him. I wrote in a note on here and spoke to my friends about it, but I do believe that even when someone leaves us, they can never truly be gone if we talk about them, speak about the memories and their curious quirks. I wish I had called that day, but we can’t punish ourselves for things we have no control over. I’ll pay tribute in my own way, every day until the pain goes away just a little bit and we can open up a bit more. He loved snooker and James Bond films, and he hated phone calls. The betting shops in Kent will miss him as much as us. One of my favourite times was when we went into a Paddy Power or a William Hill and as we went in the door he said “I don’t come in this one often, really.” And when we went in, the woman behind the counter shouted “Hello Alan!!!” As if greeting a long lost friend. Anyway, I’m rambling. Grief and death are strange and sometimes beautiful things. All we can do is cherish the moments.

Charlie held his hands up in resignation. “And they say the Americans can't negotiate.” 

Her eyes sharpened but she let the remark float by. He guessed she wasn't the patriotic type. She promptly beckoned him and within a couple of minutes they were back on the casino floor, the noise of ringing bells and falling tokens a deafening crescendo after the silence of the backrooms. “You best count yourself lucky. Not many first timers walk out of there without at least a broken hand.” Case said to him as they walked the floor. “I can assure you I'm far from a first timer. Let me tell you something, I-” Charlie started to say, but she was too far ahead to hear. He followed her as if magnetised. “Try and keep up. If you work as slow as you walk, we’ll never get anywhere.” She told him as they walked through the gold gilded doors into the heavy summer night. It was stifling but not for them. It only seemed fresh and exciting. The night air brought the promise of action, which was the sole reason he was there, after all. A valet pulled around in a gleaming red car which had the top down. It was an American type that Charlie knew little about. Watching Miss Case round the car, he was realising there was a lot he didn't know about American types. He saw her pass the valet, giving him a tip and a smile. He seemed to value the smile more. She got in the driver seat, fished out her keys from her bag and looked over at him. He was still standing glum faced on the red carpet. “Well?” She said, “You want to make some money or not?” Charlie had never jumped into a car faster.  The leather was red hot but he didn't care. She turned the purring engine on and guided the car away from The Sands, the flashing bulbs shining down on them.

End of opening. Thanks for reading.

I followed my instincts, without thinking or wondering what would happen next. I’d second guessed myself at almost every step of my adult life, and now as an over the hill millenial I decided to pack it all in and do something for once without thinking of the consequences. There was an absolute fear that was built into my psyche somewhere along the line, brick by brick until it resembles a prison wall. As I felt my eyes stinging with fatigue, I stopped the car, got out and realised where I had ended up. It looked like I had driven directly into my own memories. It was a seaside town like countless others dotted on the south coast of England, all fish and chips and bingo. The seagulls were swooping over the beach, which instead of sand was only rocks. I looked to my right. The pier hadn’t changed. The flags were still fluttering above a decrepit bandstand, which my dad always said was a booming hive of young love in the far off days in the seventies. Those stories used to make my skin crawl. No one wants to imagine their dad dressed as a John Travolta knockoff. The sun was setting and the chill off the sea sent me back further. We had gone on holiday here every year until I was about eighteen, when I decided I was too cool to go. I walked across the road and the arcade had gotten a slight upgrade, but not much. The carpet was somehow just as faded as it had been in the 2000s. The doors were all flung open, which they always had to do when it was hot because the place would turn into a greenhouse when the temperature went above mild. I stepped inside and I heard the sound of coins falling from the 2p machine into plastic cups. It’s one of the sounds that dominated my childhood along with The Clash. I can actually feel my blood pumping and my heart racing. As ever, the other shoe drops and I feel a quick burst of gloom as I realise it’s just me there and no one else. We used to come down from London with a crowd of us, barrelling down the motorway in a convoy all excited for the week ahead until the first inevitable row let the air out of the whole thing. We’d stay in a couple of caravans, the cramped confines encouraging laughter and violence. The best times would be when the football was on at the same time, and all the England flags would all come out until a routine and expected defeat. The smell of the hot donuts floated from the canteen in the corner as I left the arcade and went back to the car. I leaned against the bonnet and looked out at the familiar view. I’d sat here as a child, a teenager and now as a thoroughly over the hill adult. I took my phone out of my pocket and I had no notifications or missed calls. Ring someone, I thought to myself. Tell them you love them. I put the phone away, unsure I could handle another bout of rejection. As I look around at the haze covering a little seaside town that appears unspoiled from how I remembered it, I decided it wasn’t the place to experience scorn or rejection. I had felt that here as a teenager and sworn off of it for life afterwards. I decided to shield myself from the heartache by never opening up as myself, always portraying what the other person needed or desired me to be. I stood up and kept walking along the cracked pavement. They could never get that right. Anytime they fixed it, we’d come back the next summer and it would be in ruins already. I saw the cafe on the corner and stopped on the spot. It was the first time I had felt truly rattled in a year, maybe more. It’s like in a cartoon when Wile E Coyote runs smack dab into a painted tunnel. I was standing there, frozen. Then I remember, it’s not 2006 anymore. Nothing is the same as it used to be. I’ve lived a mediocre life but one free of carefully avoided embarrassment. So really, what is there to fear anymore? I walked a bit further, sat on the sea wall again. I can’t even remember her name as I try to think. I’m lying to myself, of course. I remember it better than any name. The cafe was a greasy spoon owned and run by her family, and it became this tribal arena where my teenaged self went on a charm offensive that resembled a medieval battlefield. I sat on the wall opposite the cafe and tried to avoid those memories, knowing I couldn’t. I was practically sitting in one of them, after all. It’s a balmy summer night some time in 2011. She finishes another humdrum shift in the cafe and I’m waiting outside. Every summer since the mid 2000s I’ve tried to find the right words but I never can. We cycle aimlessly through the caravan parks, dodging miskicked footballs and reversing cars. Her hair is dark auburn and I can still picture it flowing behind her as the breeze from the sea comes in. I tried to be so cool back then, trying to impress her with my cool knowledge of cool bands nobody had heard of, not realising that everyone knew who The Smiths were. I walked across the street thinking about bluetooth, youtube to mp3 and limewire. The cafe was dim inside, and the doors were closed. The tables had been pulled in. I looked inside and noticed the cafe had stayed more or less the same, except for the prices. A light appeared from the back and then shortly after she opened the door to tell me they were closed, her exactly the same as I remembered it. I could have sworn that I saw a brief glimpse of recognition, like the split second when you lock eyes with someone from across the room. Her eyes hadn’t faded, they were still as bright as ever. She promptly shut the door in my face and turned around. At that moment, I finally embrace being embarrassed, because I want to feel something, anything except for apathy. I stood and watched her walk to the back, turned around and made it back to the pavement when I heard the door open again. Do you still like Arctic Monkeys? She called out from behind me. I turned. Not as much as I used to, I told her. The sky was dark now. It was a heavy summer night. She was locking up. She walked over and stood in front of me. I didn’t think you’d still be here, I said. Me neither, she said as we walked along. I was in New York, but I had to come back. Me too, I answered quickly. When you haven’t spoken to someone for fourteen years, it always feels like you revert back to the person you used to be. I’ve been told that you can always go back, I said. She rolled her eyes just the same way she did back in those halcyon days. She asked me, do you remember the pub on the corner? No, I answered honestly. I was never allowed in. I was always stationed outside. That’s right, you were. They’ve got new owners now. The old ones got done for tax evasion in Benidorm. We walked in silence for a moment. Lets go in for one, I said, opening myself up to rejection and shame. I don’t care anymore. I want to feel awkward, I want to feel embarrassed. It’s good to feel, no matter what comes out of it. Go on then, she said as the smell of cigarettes wafted from the smoking area. Let’s stay a while, she said, opening the pub doors. There’s no one else here, after all.

The end

would not, from all the borders of itself,

burst like a star: for here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life.

I read this last line over and over again. I always had this gnawing feeling that I was missing out on something, even if I didn’t quite know what it was. I always had this weird urge to go far away and see what would happen, but when I was in my early 20s I was too awkward and bankrupt to actually do something about it. I knew I had to change something to try and make myself feel like I was living my life, so I just googled move to Canada. I landed there about 6 months later. Landing there was the scariest moment of all. I’d already secured rent and a job, but arriving there and not knowing a single person in the entire country was a terrifying prospect. The day after, I walked through these Canadian streets that to me looked like something from a sitcom or film. It was the houses and the cars and the leafy streets with ice hockey goals in the driveways. It was mad, and it still is. The thrill of being in a new world never wore off for me.

I never regretted moving away but the first six months were very lonely. I said it at the time but really I should have done it when I was a bit younger, I found it hard to make friends my own age. I was able to make really good friendships at work and through soccer which helped a lot. I come from a stubborn family and I kept repeating to myself that no matter what happened, I was going to last the full visa. I’d heard all these stories of people moving from Ireland to Australia and coming home within weeks and just feeling apathetic. It is tough, but it’s worth it. Why go to all the effort of leaving only to return in a month?

I will say I’m lucky. It’s not perfect but I love living here. Being able to go to Toronto is a privilege, it has so much up there. I got to see my first live NBA game here, something I can genuinely say I never dreamed I could do. Seeing players ten foot away from me who I’d only ever seen through a screen was the first and only time I’ve truly been starstruck in my life. I’ve had way more good experiences than bad. I’ve developed as a person and as a writer. I’d never have written an interesting word if I’d stayed at home. My friends and girlfriend here encouraged me to write and never scoffed at the idea of me trying to be a writer, something I couldn’t say Irish people would do. We love to take people down a peg or two or make fun out of them when we feel a bit awkward. There’s no harm in that, but it’s nice to have some genuine support too.

If anyone has ever had a weird feeling in the pit of their stomach that there was something out there waiting for them, search for it. You never know what you’ll find.

Later, I read it for about two and a half hours under the dim airplane lighting. I just couldn’t put it down. To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you what the da Vinci code is about. All I knew is that Tom Hanks played the main character in the film and that for some reason we had the video game of it years ago. I could never get past the first level. I don’t really remember the plot, but I remember the feeling of being totally engrossed, not wanting to put it down and wanting to turn to the next page over and over again. For whatever reason, it really hooks you in. Dan Brown is a very clever author. There’s a lot of cringe inducing lines and borderline insane exposition, but you hardly notice. There’s a formula and he makes you join the ride. Every chapter ends the same way and there’s ALOT of chapters. They all end on a cliffhanger or some kind of hook to keep you reading. It’s always something like “Langdon wanted orange juice so he went to the fridge. Upon opening the door, he couldn’t believe what he saw staring back at him from the top shelf...”

The characters are kind of paper thin but you still want to see what happens to them. There’s an overarching plot with a mad monk and an evil priest. Robert Langdon is the hero of the book. He’s the kind of guy who furrows his eyebrows and says “Fascinating.” As he ponders the deeper meaning of a Diet Coke can. He’s a very clever man. We know this because he wears tweed jackets and makes references to Harvard all the time. The other main character is Sophie. She’s a police officer, her grandfather has been murdered by the mad monk and she’s French. That’s basically all you need to know.

I think the real reason I would list it one of my favourite reads recently is that I brought it with me on a trip last autumn. My copy is a little battered paperback and I had it in my bag as we went from Toronto to Dublin, across Ireland to Mayo and then all the way over to London. A journey that begins in a little library in Ontario ends up on grandparents table in the south east of England. I like when we associate objects with our good memories. They help us remember the good times.

I’m not a literary snob. If I enjoy it, I’ll read anything, really. My favourite books as a kid was the horrible histories series. They were a British staple, and really vulgar at times which is probably why I loved them. It’s nice to let go and enjoy something. Not everything we consume or read has to have a deeper meaning and need to be discussed for six hours at a round table. I love books so much because of that balance. We can go from reading crime and punishment one week to reading the Da Vinci code the next, and still get the same enjoyment. The next time you pick up a book and think “Do I really want to read this?” Try it, who cares. If it’s forgettable, stick it in a little library. That’s the beauty of books. There’s something out there for everyone.

Bond drove to London, going back along the coastal roads he had hunted Trevelyan down on only a few hours before. Though he had beaten Trevelyan and smashed his hateful plot, it didn’t feel like much of a victory. Bond had a gnawing sensation that he had only won a temporary victory. He looked out of the driver’s side window. The sea was a black, tumbling mass. Bond imagined ghostly figures morphing from the abyss to prey on him and all he loved. No, it couldn’t be over. Maybe it never would be. The empty road stretched into darkness, as if to nowhere. Bond put his foot down.

It was almost dawn when he reached London. The air was fresh and the sky had a blue haze. M could wait. There wasn’t much else to say. Bond was battered and bruised. He could feel the dried blood on his skin, his own and Trevelyan’s. Alec would haunt him from his final destination just as he had done from his faked death. Ghosts seem to hang around forever. An hour later, he stood in his King’s Road flat having washed away the blood but not the images in his mind. He was in the living room, hovering in front of the telephone and watching Corinne smoking a foul smelling French cigarette. As bad as it was, it was an aroma that he associated only with her, which softened his opinion. She was sitting with one leg over the other wearing only a borrowed linen Polo that went down to her knees. She was watching him with lazy intent. She was the greatest thief in the world. She was also the sole reason he had survived the insidious conspiracy on the streets of Rome. Corinne blew a smoke ring into the air and watched it float away. Bond glanced down at the black telephone and then back to Corinne. He could still feel the faint bruise from where she had shot him in that seedy casino. It was almost funny, time goes by quickly when you’re being shot at. Bond was waiting for a call from the office and they were late, which was unusual bordering on the surreal. Corinne stubbed out her cigarette and eyed him passively. “Maybe they don’t need you anymore.” She said, standing up and walking to the kitchen. Bond managed a weak smile as she looked over her shoulder at him, her hair cascading down her back. They would always need him, Bond thought. They’d need him until he was a washed up wreck of a man and then someone else would step into his shoes. That was how things went in their business. The telephone buzzed. Bond answered it on the first ring. It was Moneypenny. “Other line, James.” She said quickly. The line went dead again. Bond placed the phone back. Corinne held a bottle of red wine and watched Bond walk along the carpeted hallway to his study. She could half see where the map adorning the wall still had a pin indicating her home village in the Alps. The door closed and she heard the lock click. Corinne bit her bottom lip and delayed opening the wine. Even after all that had happened, some things still had to remain secret.

The black telephone was kept in a drawer of a dark oak desk in the small study. The desk itself was an antique, procured for Bond by a former paramour who worked in Christies of London. Bond had forgotten the value of the desk a long time ago, unfortunately along with the woman who had delivered it to him. People leave objects behind in others’ lives and then drift away like the tide. Bond picked up the phone. It was a gloomy morning outside. Bond’s desk was seldom used but had an excellent view of the street. It was still early. Nothing was out of place at all. Nobody knew how close they had come to war overnight. Bond thought of the burning house again. “Are you there, Bond?” M’s voice said through the speaker. “Speaking.” Bond coughed and looked away from the window. He sat down in his leather desk chair. “Everything went silent, so we assumed you’d been successful in your mission.” M said. Bond scoffed silently, which he wouldn’t have done if he was face to face with M. The telephone had a few advantages. As he sat battered and bruised, he didn’t feel very successful at all. M asked him again for a rundown of the events, so Bond told him. He told his superior the whole story, leaving little doubt that Alec Trevelyan was eliminated once and for all. The great reset, Alec’s delirious scheme to set the world on fire, had ended with a burning house beside the sea. “It’s over then.” M said softly. “We’ll see.” Bond replied coldly and waited a long time for a response. Bond asked what was to come next. “You’re due a holiday, I would say. A long one, too,” M said. Bond wanted so badly to tell M about the sense of dread that was hanging over his entire being, but he couldn’t put it into words. It was impossible. “And Bond? I am sorry, you know. For the entire thing. I should have trusted you more than I did.”

Bond sat back in the chair and felt his blood run cold. He needed more. He felt a burning desire to find out who was pulling the strings of this entire show, but he couldn’t picture the actual stage or participants. It was blank. “I’ve never asked for anything from you, M,” Bond said as he stood up from the chair. “Certainly not an apology, anyway. I’ll be back soon.” Bond put the phone down and waited for a while. He let himself out of the study and left the door hanging open. Corinne was dressed for the day. She wore cream slacks and a black Ralph Lauren tennis shirt and she made it work. “Think of anywhere to go for breakfast during your private conversation?” Corinne said as she noticed his return. “How about Monte Carlo?” Bond replied, meaning it as sincerely as anything he’d ever said. Corinne raised a wry smile. “That could work.”

From afar, it looked like a typical business meeting. The transaction was taking place in

an underground chess club in a dark Moscow backwater. There was a long waiting list, and the club was forbidden to even be spoken of outside the dingy basement, the punishment being totally exiled. There was a table all the way at the back. The man who ran the place was called Yuri, a shabby Russian who spoke as though he had a mouthful of plums. There were a few games dotted around the long room that made up the club. The bottles of vodka and pots of coffee were lined up neatly beside each other. Yuri was holding his bear paw to his forehead and groaning. If any of the chess players had looked in his direction, they’d have thought he was haggling for prices on a new investment, like the honest communist he affected to be. A woman sat on the other side of the table, glaring at him with harsh black eyes. It was strange enough to see a woman in the chess club, never mind seeing one dominate Yuri over shots of pure vodka. Her name was Eva Stankovic, who had travelled from Zagreb. She had her blonde hair slicked back and wore black combat trousers and a military sweater belonging to an undesignated rank. Who was going to tell her to do otherwise? No one dared question Stankovic if they knew her, and those who didn’t know her soon found out the hard way. As they sat around the little table, there were no negotiations on shipping fees or investment rates. The only thing being traded between the two were human lives, a commodity that Stankovic had more expertise in than anyone. Everyone has a price, she had once heard an American pig say while she spied on him in Chicago. “So you’ll do it?” Yuri said, drinking his fourth coffee. Stankovic pushed around some photographs on the table. There wasn’t much room left thanks to the mugs and the flasks of vodka. No one dared approach the table to clear it for them. The pictures were black and white blurs to an untrained eye. Stankovic saw what she wanted. It showed a woman with black hair standing on a stone bridge, surrounded by snow. “I can complete the mission,” Stankovic said as Yuri smiled with stained teeth. “For triple the price.” She added, wiping the coffee-bean smile off of the Russian’s face. Russians didn’t like to smile much anyway, she thought. When Yuri began to object, she stood up from the table and began to leave. No one in the chess club moved an inch. “Wait, wait!” Yuri said. “You want more? Fine. Take more. Money is nothing to these people. You’re just bleeding me dry.” Stankovic didn’t sit down. She snatched the photos and stashed them. “That can be arranged.” She said to him, shrinking him down to size. “So…” Yuri spat. “You will do it? I can tell my people that you will?” Stankovic didn’t show any hint of emotion. “They will be dead within forty eight hours.” She said, before turning and walking out of the club. Every set of eyes in the place were on her back. Let them look. Stankovic had always sworn that she’d pay them all a visit one day. She went up the grimy concrete steps into the Moscow street. The air was strangely fresh by their standards. Her Mercedes was parked right in front. If it led to suspecting eyes on the club, so be it. They had nothing to tie her down with anyway, and she loved taunting the Russians with a German car. She fished out the keys and looked up and down the street. Nothing was out of place. It was dreary monotony as usual, placid looking people going about their uniform lives. Stankovic opened the car and sat in the driver’s seat. She looked down. There was a bullet the size of her palm balancing on the steering wheel. There was a word burnt in acid on the bullet casing. PENANCE stared back at her. Stankovic looked all around and her hand frantically searched for her gun. She scanned the dull streets and saw nothing. It had emptied in seconds. A red circle appeared on the windscreen. There was no doubt it came from the sights of the sniper rifle the engraved bullet was intended for. As Stankovic threw herself into the backseat in an attempted escape, she saw the red circle disappear. It vanished in an instant. It was replaced by the sound of hissing coming from the engine. Her heartbeat sounded like cannonfire, she opened the rear passenger door and fell onto the cold street. Yuri was arriving at the top of the stairs, having climbed up there with some amount of effort. Bemused, he looked down at the crawling, scrambling assassin. “I forgot to tell you that…What the hell are you doing? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Yuri shouted. Stankovic vaulted over the fence and took cover in the stairwell. As she landed, she heard her Mercedes explode into a fireball. It flipped upside down and landed as a charred corpse in the street. The flames lit up Stankovic’s black eyes as she watched it burn.

Bond sat alone on the decks of the yacht. The water was calm. It was evening in Monaco, the elegant white buildings illuminating like specks of gold. They had arrived a few hours ago. It was early summer and the place was busy. They had taken up residence in Port Hercules, aboard a yacht that Corinne owned. How the boat had come into her possession was up for debate. “Don’t worry about it,” She told him when he asked about it. He was lifting a suitcase out of an Italian roadster as she spoke. “I won it. That’s all you need to know.” Bond listened, knowing that usually meant she had cheated for it. They had spent the afternoon drifting aimlessly around their decadent surroundings, with Bond silently checking for exits and Corinne casing every place they went in. Money was plenty in Monaco and in the early summer buzz there were plenty of winning streaks going on in the casinos. The spy and the thief stood outside the main game in town. The carpet was red and the rails were golden. They exchanged looks and walked to the nearest restaurant. The last time they had been in a casino had ended with her shooting him. It didn’t seem like a good omen.

A while after, Bond sat with his knees to his chest and looked outwards. The sky was the darkest shade of blue he had ever seen, with hardly a cloud to bother it. The world was a vast, lonely place at times. If this was what being on holiday was like, Bond decided he wouldn’t be going on another one for a long time. He faced away from the town and looked out to sea. All he had done for the afternoon was watch every dark corner and every strange face through the filter of his black Ray Bans. Every stranger was a potential enemy and every turn was a suspected ambush. It wasn’t a way to live. Corinne appeared at his side, returning from below deck with wine. It was the same one from London that morning and it was still unopened. “What are you thinking about?” She said as she sat beside him. Bond removed his watch. Time was irrelevant and chastening. “Just you.” Bond replied, stretching his legs. Corinne opened the wine and poured a glass. To Bond’s eyes, it looked like she was pouring blood. He nervously lit a cigarette and put the glass of wine down beside him without taking a sip. “You’re thinking about me, sure. My father, more to the point.” Corinne said, taking the cigarette from his mouth and taking a long drag before returning it. “He’s dead. I watched him die with my own eyes. Even he can’t escape that.” Corinne said. Bond only knew her father by a single name. Phantom, the killer of all killers and the name that Alec Trevelyan had lured Bond in within the Roman Colosseum. Phantom was a name only known to hardly anyone in the world. He was as much an assassin as he was a king in secret circles. “That may be so,” Bond answered. “Alec Trevelyan was dead once already and it didn’t stop him. That’s my exact fear. With your father dead, who took his place? Who takes Alec’s place now? Evil is cyclical, you know it as well as I do. M said it’s over, but I don’t agree. The game isn’t finished just yet. There is always some other conspiracy to bend the world to its will, plotted in the shadows by evil. I’m almost certain of it.” Bond said and took a hearty gulp of wine. Corinne listened and did the same. “You think my father passed on the family business to me?” She asked. Bond waved the cigarette. “It hadn’t crossed my mind.” He said, knowing that it had. “I don’t know, James. The world is a big place. If people want to make plots to kill us, let them find us first.” Corinne said as casually as she would order dinner. “Not if I find them first.” Bond told her, taking the blood red bottle and moving it aside to be closer to her.

Summer in Cape Town was a kaleidoscope of noise and colour. The traffic was heaving and moving in waves. Walking through the painted houses, Doc Zaire thought to himself that he could have picked a better place to be banished to. Still, no one asked questions around here and for once he sensed there were no daggers being sharpened by his countless enemies around every corner. Cape Town wasn’t completely terrible and anyway, he couldn’t show his face in his own country any time soon. He was a stout little warlord, walking with his thick arms swinging at his side. In his own opinion, it was a disgrace that he had been exiled at all. After all, in his opinion Doc Zaire was a very important man. Who else could have waged such destruction in such a small amount of time? He had waged a campaign of selfish righteousness and felt he had been betrayed and cast aside in return. He had been run out of practically every country in Western Africa by the time he landed in Cape Town. What kind of way was it to treat their hero? It wasn’t his fault that they couldn’t handle the scale of his ambition. He had ordered one death after another to show the fools the way of morality and yet they still hadn’t learned a thing. Never mind. With this job, he was going to be put straight back on his pedestal, where he could claim victory and revenge against those who had wronged him. By request, he arrived at the meeting alone. Doc Zaire felt uneasy without his cadre of bodyguards. He was armed to the teeth but felt it was still not enough. He got the feeling that he shouldn’t have abandoned his armoured truck after growing impatient with the traffic, but it was worth it to be on time. The South African wasn’t going to wait. The courtyard was flanked by a tall hotel building on one side and a tenement building on the other. There were distant figures hanging around all over the place but the South African had obviously swept the area clear of any preying vultures. Doc Zaire felt his self awarded medals rattle on his chest as he walked to the centre of the courtyard. He would never take them off, even if it meant painting himself as a target to his traitors. The South African was sitting under the shade of the only trees to be seen. There were white sheets hanging all around and the red dust swirled in the light breeze. The South African walked towards Doc Zaire and introduced himself as Janre. He was a beast of a man, hardly a hint of fat on his lean body. His jaw had the same curvature as an iceberg. He didn’t offer a handshake. Dealing with Doc Zaire was enough of an insult for a white supremacist like Janre. However, the organisation Janre represented had taken notice of Doc Zaire’s lust for blood and money and decided he was an asset they could use and discard. They sat down opposite each other on wooden stools. Doc Zaire looked up at the hotel building and was unnerved. The glint from the windows was much like the glare of a rifle. “What are you looking at? Our men have swept the place.” Janre said with distaste. As much as he tried not to, Janre’s eyes still burned with hatred. “We must proceed with this deal quickly,” Doc Zaire said, spit flying. “I get the most uncomfortable feeling I’m being watched.” Janre had a black metal suitcase at his feet. The nerve! The impudence of the man! “We will discuss the terms of your job first. Then the fee.” Janre said, trying to smile and failing. It wasn’t an act he did very often, if at all. Doc Zaire was looking all around, every shining window apparently terrifying him. “I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve it.” Doc Zaire murmured, holding his beefy hand up to his eyes. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Janre said, standing up. Janre moved towards the warlord to deliver a cuff around the face to calm him down, but stopped in his tracks. Janre’s eyes widened with fear. He watched the red circle appear in the red dust at his feet. It blinked, and reappeared between Doc Zaire’s forehead. Janre took cover but never heard the shot. When he looked back, Doc Zaire was sprawled out on the dirt, dead. On hands and knees, Janre scrambled over to the metal suitcase and grasped for it. He got to his feet and tried to sprint across the courtyard, the red circle following him all the way.

Morning brought an orange haze and the port was quiet. Even millionaires sleep in from time to time. Bond awoke below deck, saw he was alone and sat up in a panic. He threw on a shirt and went up to the deck. He saw nothing but the sunrise and luxury yachts swaying in the breeze. Bond was unarmed and exposed. Whoever was out there, it was a good time to strike against him. He finally saw Corinne walking towards him, dressed casually with her hair up and carrying a paper bag, a baguette sticking out of it. She was very French, and he was very British. They were nothing but a spy and thief who had been entangled together in an insidious, brutal web. Though he was glad to be with her, Bond worried incessantly. Collateral damage was the worst kind to him. He watched in a daze as she climbed aboard with consummate ease. She went straight below decks without a word. He went down a step, and then she reappeared with a gun. “I’m being followed.” Corinne said. “How do you know?” Bond replied, climbing down and to arm himself in turn. “I always know.” Corinne said. Bond tucked his pistol in the waistband of his shorts, hid it over a shirt and stepped back up to the deck. He scanned the port. Like always, there was a thin line separating the glamour from violent debauchery. Bond’s senses were activated like a hunted animal. He knew at that moment that M was wrong. The killing game had resumed with gusto.

End of Part 1.

I know people prefer my original work, but I really wanted to dip into the Bond world this time. As I said in the dedication, my Grandad has always loved Bond. In October, while I was visiting England, he handed me the DVD of Casino Royale and urged me to watch it if I got bored in my room. It ended up being the moment I decided to transport some of my unworkable ideas to the Bond world, which led me to joining substack and beginning my journey as a “Real” writer. I’m still learning the ropes, but I will always think of that moment. Thanks for reading.

Whitechapel London, 1888

When the body was brought out, the strained murmuring from the crowd of onlookers hushed immediately. The men removed their flat caps in unison and the women sobbed. The crowd parted, and the gaunt faces of the police carrying the body out confirmed their darkest fear. Jack the Ripper, the crazed killer stalking the haunted, foggy streets of nocturnal London had struck again. It was the end of September and the morning was misty and cold. The gathered crowd watched with morbid fascination, for this was no average murder. “It’s happened again. It’s happened once again.” One of the women screamed out, breaking the silence like a hammer to ice. The drab coloured crowd began to disperse when the body was gone. The police hurried them along with the threat of violence, though in this part of London they had seen enough violence in the passing summer to last them a lifetime. One or two interlopers tried to make their way into the murder scene, trying to win a profit on the ever burgeoning Ripper market. Doors had been splashed red with fake blood for the sake of spare coins. One man remained after the warnings had worn thin and the nearest constable gave a chastening clip across the legs to the last voyeur. Lorimer stood on the corner opposite, letting the first drops of the morning’s rainfall hit him. The dark circles around his eyes looked like twin moons and his bristling moustache was unkempt and unseemly for a gentleman detective of the Met Police. He wore a black overcoat which was flecked with the dirt of his night’s work. Lorimer always worked at night, as did his most wanted prize, the murderer only known as Jack. Lorimer had read hundreds upon hundreds of letters signed from the killer by now, the fake blending into the real with the smallest line of reality dividing them. Lorimer had come to loathe sleep. Jack the Ripper never slept. He was an omnipresent figure who stalked the nights and his increasingly stark thoughts. Lorimer had waking nightmares, chasing a cloaked figure who he could never catch. The morning bells brought him back to the living world. Lorimer walked away from Mitre Square, thinking that the morning bells sounded just like swinging knives.

The winding cobbled streets were no better in the morning than they had been all night. Jack had struck his most daring blow yet, two murders within hours of each other. Lorimer was only one of hundreds of black capped detectives all working through the waves of hysteria. It seemed for a while that there was no other crime happening in the entire city. That night, Lorimer had been called to the discovery of bloodied clothing and a frenzied, hateful graffiti on a grimy wall nearby. They had been ordered to wash the graffiti away for fear of a race riot breaking out. Lorimer knew it couldn’t be Jack. In Lorimer’s fatigued mind, he painted Jack as totally apolitical, a barely sentient being whose only lust was for blood and killing. The graffiti disappeared quickly. Lorimer knew Jack never would. Lorimer often pictured his own grave, covered over with weeds and the decay of time. A dark figure would loom over the grave, darkening it with his shadow. Jack would live on, long after Lorimer and all around him were long gone from the cursed plain that was the world. Lorimer watched the horse carriages rolling by. East London was coming to life for a new day, though clouded by hysteria as well as rain clouds. The market stalls were out and the bellowing cacophony of noise was almost normal. Londoners carry on. Generations of Lorimers had passed on the same tale of the great fire, decades upon decades ago. Every house on the Lorimer’s sprawling street had been overwhelmed by fire and ash except for their own. It was their own myth to go along with all the rest. Lorimers held out until the very end, they believed. Now, Lorimer hunted for some kind of witness from the night just past. Hundreds of policemen were descending on the soot covered streets of Whitechapel. “The cursed double event! Jack strikes again!” A man selling newspapers called out on a claustrophobic lane. Lorimer watched with haunted eyes as the man ran out of papers within minutes. Jack was the talk, Jack was the driver of all events, Jack the Ripper, Jack the Myth. Lorimer turned away, bumping into a child. After apologising, Lorimer looked down and saw the book the boy had dropped during the collision. It was a thin paperback, quickly printed and crude. Lorimer bent down and picked it up for the boy. He was a pasty boy of about seven, no older than Lorimer’s son when he died. It was a Penny Dreadful novel, depicting the killer of the day. The boy looked up with innocent eyes and Lorimer felt a sudden surge of rage. “These damned things are no good for you,” Lorimer said harshly, “Where did you get it from?” The boy pointed a spindly finger towards a cavernous looking bookshop halfway down the lane. The gaslights outside it hadn’t been doused yet and it doused the shop with an awful glow. Lorimer took the book, gave the child some coins and started marching towards the shop. He stepped into the bookshop as a woman was leaving, clutching the latest distasteful Ripper tome. The man behind the counter leered at him. The confines of the shop were cramped and dusty. Leather spines flanked the walls, none of them academic. Lorimer decided they were all filth. “Looking for Jack?” The owner said and spat tobacco into a bowl. It was an appropriate opening salvo. Lorimer looked at the confiscated book again. The cover showed a haunting image of Jack the Ripper terrifying two unsuspecting victims. As Lorimer stared at the cover with hastening intent, the black and white drawings began to move and jump off the page. Jack taunted him, bellowing a guttural scream of pure and utter hatred as his portrait became a moving vision. Lorimer threw the book at the owner. It bounced off his head and fell to the floor again. “You’re absolutely bloody mad, whoever you are!” The owner seethed. “Have some respect,” Lorimer said as he gripped the door handle and ripped it open, nearly taking the door from its hinges. The marketgoers turned to look, just as they had done a short distance away at Jack’s latest terror. “Some respect, for yourself and for the dead.” Lorimer said as he slammed the door closed and stormed away into the London fog.

End of Prologue.

Thanks for reading. If enough people are interested, Im going to carry on this series in the coming weeks.

Last year, my landlord in Canada asked me how the Mayo game was going upstairs. We had just been knocked out of the All Ireland championship with the last kick of the game, adding another chapter to a long list of disasters. Mayo have lost 15 Championship finals since they last won it in 1951. We get excited every year, and they always manage to blow  up in the most traumatising way possible. Without fail. But we still come back year after year in the hope that this year MIGHT be different, knowing it probably won't be. “We lost,” I said to my landlord. “We were cursed by an evil priest in 1951, that's the problem.” A sentence that makes no sense whatsoever, but it does to me and anyone who knows about it. Just last weekend, I was on the train to Toronto with my girlfriend and watched Mayo lose in absolutely disastrous fashion, yet again. It took me about 3 stops to get over it, and by the time we were walking on Bay Street I had already predicted a bounce back next week, not even knowing who they would be playing against. It’s nonsensical and almost always wrong, but we do it anyway out of sheer loyalty and delusion. I love to be delusional.

When the New York Knicks won the title on Saturday night, I couldn't get over the emotion of the occasion. I watched a lot of Reels showing fans commemorating graves of long gone Knick fans with blue and orange flags, telling them their old team got over the line years after they left us. One of my absolute favourite things about sport is when a team wins, and your first thought is “Such and such would have been happy today.” I think it's beautiful. When the game ended and the Knicks had won, I loved the thought of so many people thinking of someone who would have loved to have seen it. We love our teams and most of the time they don't love us in return, but sometimes you get the one emotional payoff and it makes it all worth it.

We all live in eternal hope when it comes to our favourites. If we could all be as optimistic about life as we are our fandoms, the world would probably be a much better place. We live all our lives wishing and thinking that one day our team will get over the line just once for us. Me and my mum have supported Crystal Palace all my life. Last year, they won the first trophy in club history. You spend years and years talking about the team, watching the games and hoping with this weird undying optimism that one day it will all work out. Then it happens and it doesn't feel real. When that final whistle sounded and we had actually won, I cried a lot. The shoulder shudders kind of sobbing. You wait all your life for something to happen, and then it does. It really is just a game. They all are. Everything that comes next follows what happened before. When I watch Wimbledon, I think of playing tennis in the street with chalk lines and a makeshift net. When I watch England tomorrow, I'll think of the little boy crying in 2002. I think it's one of the most unifying things in the world, if you allow it to be.

The other thing that has really stuck with me ever since was pretending not to be interested as some poor sod from Hull would go up on stage to get mercilessly destroyed by the live audience. They used to do the auditions in a glorified dance studio so that the less talented contestants could be ridiculed in a more personal setting:

but then that wasn’t enough, so the show went up a notch and started wheeling pub singers out in front of the baying mob in a live studio audience. The hunger games books and movie were hugely popular around the same time and it always reminded me of it.

Every “hilarious” audition would the be the same thing. A slovenly looking Englishman with enough hair gel to lubricate an engine would always have an interview where he’d say he sung in pubs with no windows but he was going to be the next Elvis. Then the hooting mob would boo and hiss as the contestant absolutely mangled a Robbie Williams song. Sharon Osbourne and her dutiful gibbon Louie Walsh would pretend to stifle laughter at the bare faced cheek of this simpleton to even try and sing for them, while Simon would put his hand up and tell them it was the worst audition ever. Again.

But the other side to the shows success was the fact that at its peak everyone knew who was in it each year. During the months it was on, the most popular contestants would apparently be as well known as established singers until their inevitable elimination a few weeks later. What will Joe Bloggs sing on ABBA night? We’d wonder all week, before poor Joe would fade into obscurity after leaving the show. The theme nights were another quirky and now outdated part of the show, too. It’s Halloween, who wants to sing Thriller by Michael Jackson!!??

I don’t miss X factor or its controversies. It certainly didn’t take a genius to realise it was a heavily convoluted game show with only the delusion of choice. Towards the end, they’d always have a girlband, boyband (Little Mix and One Direction being the X factor money machines of the 2010s) an “old” contestant (someone over 40) a few solo singers and after Ed Sheeran’s popularity around 2012 they always tried to have some brooding acoustic singer with a little beard and a guitar trying to do a Tracy chapman version of a Britney Spears song.

The thing I think of most is the monoculture side of it. Everyone knew who was in it and what happened on the weekends show. You didn’t even have to watch a minute of the show to know who was eliminated that week. We don’t really have many unifying, all conquering shows like that anymore. We still have popular shows, but there’s so many streaming services that not everyone watches the same shows all the time anymore. I think Instagram reels are the new monoculture now, which is scary and funny at the same time. Shows like X factor died off and got canned for 20 second videos that everyone shares with friends in a second. When I think about it, how many times do you say at work “Did anyone see that reel where-“ and everyone immediately knows the video you’re talking about. It happens weekly to me, even as a millennial working mainly with gen z co workers who think I’m a geriatric. The monoculture is now in short form, and I can’t help but wonder what will come along and push it aside.

True Blue, III

1940. The Battle.

It was two weeks after the Dunkirk evacuation when McQueen met the lionised pilot Blake Lawrence, hero to all and friend to some, for the very first time. He had barely gone through basic training when he had been posted to Lawrence’s battle hardened 101 Squadron. As the jeep carrying the new pilots coughed and sputtered its way through the backroads of rural Kent, McQueens constant sense of dread heightened. As they edged closer to the airfield, he felt he was being led to his execution. His sense of foreboding only increased as he was deposited off the truck and found himself walking across the busy airfield, ordered to search for Captain Lawrence. McQueen felt that he knew Lawrence as well as an old friend. After Dunkirk, everyone had heard about his exploits in the crucible over the French coast. How he had held off half the Luftwaffe on his own, how he had run out of fuel halfway to Dover and glided the rest of the way and finally how he was now going to hold off the vaunted German pilots once again and protect the English shores. McQueen found him sitting in a deckchair in the cut up grass. Lawrence had golden hair and he shielded his glacial blue eyes from the sun as he regarded the new arrival. He had a pipe hanging out of his mouth and was wearing a standard issue royal blue jumper, even on the hot summer afternoon. McQueen stood in front of him and hesitated. Lawrence was reading a dense book, and put it down with hesitation. He looked like a man on holiday, not in the midst of the most violent war anyone had ever seen.

McQueen always hesitated during introductions. “Well, what is it?” Lawrence said irritably, standing up. He had situated his deckhair to face a battered, bullet soaked Spitfire. A ground crew man was washing blood off of the cockpit window. McQueen introduced himself, told Lawrence he had been assigned to 101 Squadron and held out his hand. Lawrence ignored it and began walking down the line of planes. “Keep up, will you?” Lawrence said. McQueen followed diligently. Lawrence was still holding the book in one hand and his pipe in the other. He was muttering something. McQueen recognised the book as The Seven Pillars Of Wisdom by T.E Lawrence. It was a war memoir. “Any relation of yours?” McQueen asked softly, while wondering what kind of man took a break from war by reading about another one. “You what?” Lawrence grouched, then looked at the book. “Oh, this. No. If only. Then I wouldn’t be in this pox of an air force, I’d be in the army, where…” Lawrence said, trailing off. “How many flight hours have you logged?” He asked, his voice jumping up a decibel. “About ten.” McQueen answered. From Lawrence’s immediate grimace, he knew it was the wrong answer. “Ten,” He repeated. “Christ alive. I shall wait three days before I learn your name, then. If you’re still alive by then, I’ll ask you about it.” Lawrence was storming between the green painted planes. “You know we’re right in the shitter, don’t you, young man?” Lawrence said, though he barely appeared to be past his mid twenties. “We are absolutely, categorically goosed. Ripe for the plunder.” Lawrence said, putting the pipe back in his mouth. The row of Spitfires now felt like graves in a cemetery, and McQueen was rapidly feeling a sense of loathing about the whole exercise. “That wasn’t the spirit that got you through Dunkirk.” McQueen said, wishing he hadn’t. Lawrence stopped on the spot and stood so close to McQueen that he cast a shadow over his face. “That was nothing but luck. By the way, most of what they wrote about me was lies. Everyone lies. There’s Freeman. Come on.” Lawrence stormed along the line and tapped Freeman on the shoulder who was helping an engineer investigate a failing engine. “Al, find this new man a plane. That’s it.” Lawrence said, turning around and walking back only a few steps. “Not so fast, Blakey,” Freeman called out. “You never answered me this morning. I ask again, what is the bloody plan?” Lawrence kept his distance as he looked at Freeman, his most trusted man by far and someone who McQueen knew he would like from the jump. “A plan?” Lawrence asked with venom. “What semblance of a plan do you see around here?”

1944. The Sea.

McQueen sat on the bench overlooking the shore. His temples pulsed and his damaged eye was worse than ever. The crash felt like yesterday, and the memories of Lawrence were even sharper. Freeman was sitting outside the seaside hut, having taken the wooden stool outside. He had his head in his hands. He watched as the suited man sat down beside McQueen. He was impeccably dressed, not even a hair out of place. But he was unmemorable. No one could name a detail about the man as soon as he left a room. “Where did they send you from? The air force?” McQueen asked in vain. “I’m not military.” The man said. He offered no introduction at all. He was only there for his mission. McQueen was on edge. He watched the waves flow. “I wouldn’t want to drag you all the way out here for nothing, and I’d hate to disappoint you.” McQueen said. He looked over his shoulder at his temporary home. Freeman still had his head in his hands. “Let’s say I’m from the Home Office. Will that do?” The man asked. He had no suitcase or notes. Not even a wallet. McQueen shrugged his acknowledgement and asked him for a name. The man sighed. “Let’s say Brown.” The man seemed perturbed by any question. McQueen stood up and went to the very edge of the low cliff. “If you jump, you won’t hear my proposition,” Brown said. “That’s quite the war wound you have. I had something similar, back in the first go round. I was gassed at Verdun. I lost my vision for some time. Do you get headaches?” McQueen nodded and stepped slowly from the edge. “Always.” He said, barely above a whisper. “I still do. I like them. I can accept a headache from time to time. We survived. We may not have done it with much grace, but we did.” Brown said. “The war’s not over yet, plenty of time for me to cop it just yet.” McQueen said in turn. Brown looked out to see. Eye contact was something he seemed to avoid. “I used to be jealous of the dead. They have it easy. No one can bother them. It’s the ones who make it through that have to carry it with them. Like you and Freeman’s friend, Squadron Leader Lawrence.”

McQueen saw images of prison camps and firing squads. “I’ve known Lawrence to be killed in action for a long time. If you’ve come all this way to tell me that, I’ll have to disappoint you after all.” He told the government agent of unspecified rank. “Quite right. No, you needn’t worry about what I think. This one’s all up to you,” Brown told him and stood up. “Let’s walk.”

Freeman came with them. He followed from behind, clearly nervous. It was as though he expected Brown to pull a gun at any moment. “I’ve read your file. You did your bit. A lot more than others, I would say.” Brown said. Freeman was about five paces behind, smoking and muttering while looking out to sea. “Short on manpower? The air force won’t take me back, you know. They tend not to want half blind pilots with broken bodies. I’m afraid my patriotism is shot to bits, too.” McQueen said. The whole thing seemed a farce. A cruel one at that. Freeman smiled at the ground. “Patriotism?” Brown spat the word like it was poison. “Patriotism is overrated. Patriotism is your ticket into the show, makes you put your uniform on. That’s it. After that, it takes a bit of bollocks and guile to survive, something I believe you possess.”

McQueen could feel his face heating up. “Lawrence had it.” He said quickly, much too quickly for Brown’s liking. Up close, the manicured suit shrivelled. Brown was an old British bulldog of a man. The suit and hair didn’t hide the grooves on his forehead or his scarred, oft broken nose.

“Did he?” Brown asked. Freeman stopped behind them, sat at the old spotters post and let them walk away. He’d had enough. “When was he shot down for the first time?” Brown asked. Neither of them noticed Freeman. McQueen didn’t want to. It would have hurt too much. “Egypt. Around the spring of ‘41.” McQueen said, pretending to guess when he remembered the day exactly. Lawrence’s plane had gone down in the plains. He had a lucid recollection of standing in a tent, which was being buffeted by cool winds of the desert at night, and watching the smoke rising from the wreckage. It was directly behind the enemy line. Hopeless. “Lawrence escaped the German prison camp after he recovered from a broken arm,” Brown brought him back to the present with the drudgery of his voice. “Took him a while to come back though, didn’t it? Walked all the way home to you flyboys in the desert. The heat must have been unbearable, don’t you think? I bet that started his obsession with Lawrence Of Arabia. Has a kind of hero complex, our Blake Lawrence, doesn’t he?” McQueen noticed that Brown referred to the myth in present tense. He must still be out there. He has to be. “No, no,” McQueen delayed. “He was reading that book during the Battle of Britain. It can’t be then.” Brown looked sideways at him. “It’s a long book.”

The two men kept walking along the windswept path. To their left was a steep drop into the unforgiving sea. It was like being on the edge of the world itself.

“What do you want?” McQueen asked. The distant figure of Freeman hadn’t moved from the spotters post. “I told you patriotism is overrated, and it is,” Brown turned to face him. He was remarkably intimidating for a man of humble stature. “But I work for this country. This is my second war. I intend to make it my last. To make it so, I do my job. It’s a job no sane man would want, but that’s quite alright by me. I don’t like the sane or the well adjusted. Matter of fact, they bore me to tears. You can’t fight with sane men. They fear too much and rage too little. My job is to hunt traitors. I chase them into the darkest corners until I can impose my will and they waste away into nothing. I think Blake Lawrence was a spy and a traitor all along. I think he’s alive and running Gestapo agents in France, and you’re going to get him for me.”

End of Part III. Thanks for reading.

2.

The little black plane was barely visible in the night sky over occupied France. It was a stubby machine with no guns to defend itself. The plane was a Lysander, a plane that McQueen had slowly warmed up to, even when being shot to pieces in. There were no floodlights searching with their penetrating beams that gave the bomber crews such nightmares. The sky was completely empty, dark and swirling with menace. It was like flying in a dream, and McQueen always dreamt in vivid colour. All he had was a silken map and the smallest torch known to man. He willed the plane on, flying gamely towards a destination that had little basis in reality.

Lawrence had been taken two nights ago, the harsh orange flashes of the ambush still imprinted on McQueens mind. When he heard about the proposed rescue mission, McQueen had stormed in to volunteer. The officers had received his enthusiasm without much fanfare. McQueen was searching, searching and searching for the strip of land on his co-ordinates. The fields below were like a noir patchwork, barely distinguishable from each other. As he descended lower to the unknown, McQueen thought about the look Freeman had given him as he left England that night.

Apart from the venerable Lawrence, who McQueen seemed to worship as a god of his own creation, Freeman was the closest friend he had in the entire war. McQueen was putting on his heavy flying jacket as Freeman appeared, walking through the door blowing hot air on to his blueish hands. Freeman was always cold.

“You’re doing it, then.” Freeman said, his face pale as ever. McQueen could only nod, and walk past him. The trio of McQueen, Lawrence and Freeman were bound together so tightly that they were known mockingly as the three wise men. They had fought in skirmishes in Greece and Africa, and even in those soaring temperatures, Freeman would still inevitably complain of a perceived chill in the air. On that night, Freeman had walked behind McQueen in silence. They walked across the airfield. The ground crew had finished preparing the Lysander. McQueen began to step up to the plane. “Don’t do it, Tom.” Freeman said quickly, as if the words hurt to say. McQueen hoisted himself up. The cockpit was already open for him. “I have to. It’s my duty.” McQueen said, knowing he didn’t believe himself. “Lawrence is gone, Queenie. He’s not coming back.” Freeman answered, looking up at him. McQueen got into the pilot’s seat and began checking the equipment. Freeman’s face appeared beside him. He was hanging on to the side of the plane, his face begging but his voice silent. “Lawrence would do it for us.” McQueen told his friend, who grimaced. “For you, maybe.” Freeman jumped down. He retreated to the wet soggy grass, between a pair of stationery Spitfires. “I’m sorry.” McQueen called after him, but he pretended he didn’t hear. He wiped his eyes and watched the Lysander take off and then walked away, consumed by the darkness.

The signal came as sharp as a dagger. Two bright flashes from below, an interval and then a singular beam. It was the French resistance. It was Lawrence, McQueen decided. It had to be.

They were miles from Calais, miles from Dunkirk and many miles from home. McQueens crusade was picking up speed. He wiped his goggles and looked out from the side of the cockpit. The guns didn’t light up. They didn’t have to. The flak and bullets hailed against the Lysander, the sound of death all around him. McQueen evaded as quickly as the stiff plane would allow him to, feeling the blood running down his face. Wind blew through bullet holes and froze him to the bone. Freeman always said it was cold. McQueen thought he was already dead. He decided the plane was taking him away from the cruel world and into a new one. The engine smoked but never faulted. He kept flying his death vessel ever forwards, until he saw the distorted figure that was home. McQueen could remember the sound of the crash. It was a dull thump in a blurred shape of a field. McQueen could remember rolling out of the destroyed plane and little else. It was ablaze not long after. For an agonizing time, it was the only warmth he had.

McQueen walked down the hill towards the seaside hut. He opened his eyes and saw the sand drifting over the straw grass. He looked up. Freeman turned and leaned against the door. He had dark rings around his eyes, just like he always did. He was a wiry man with his hair slicked backwards. He wore a thin pencil moustache. Freeman stopped leaning, smiled and walked towards McQueen. They had told him to be careful with him. “Queenie.” Freeman said, holding out his hand. McQueen accepted but couldn’t look him in the eye. “How about tea?” Freeman asked.

“I’ll make it. I’ve gotten the hang of it.” McQueen answered, unlocking the door. “They don’t even lock their doors in London, you know.” Freeman said, stepping inside. It was his third visit to the McQueens seaside abode. No one else from the RAF had visited or made contact with him. They wanted it to all be over, and it was. There was a war to be won and there could be no respite for dead airmen, no matter what they left behind. There were certainly no quarters given to shattered men who only had one working eye. Freeman looked at the typewriter. The product of McQueens morning was piled up in a scattered pile beside it. “You’re writing again. Good.” Freeman said. The hut smelled like the ocean. He hated the ocean. “Trying to, at least. Not that it makes much sense.” McQueen said. Freeman sat down opposite, looking directly at him. Since the crash, he was one of only two people willing to do so. “Not much has made sense for a while, has it?” he said, laconically stretching. “Since you’ve turned into Chaucer overnight, can I read your work?” McQueen hesitated. He had always felt intellectually inferior to Freeman, an Oxford scholar who came from a long line of them. “It’s not finished. Maybe later.”

Freeman shrugged and lit a cigarette. He only smoked when he was on edge. Something was wrong. McQueen stood in the cramped space that served as a kitchen and looked at Freeman. He had a strange moment of recognition when he saw that Freeman looked exactly the same as he did when he had first laid eyes on him four years ago during the Battle of Britain. Their squadron was put together in a matter of minutes, and given another minute to introduce themselves to the men they would henceforth be trusting with their lives. “How do you feel?” Freeman asked. McQueen went to the door and flung it open. He needed all the air he could get. “I’ve got one eye and my left arm only works when it feels like it. Not terrific, I must admit.”

He said as he felt the air lap around. “Lord Nelson only had one eye and one arm, and he beat Napoleon. You’ve got the one up on him, I’d say.” Freeman said. Freeman only rambled when he was nervous, and he was hardly ever nervous.

It was a hot summer, just like now as they sat in silence waiting for the other man to speak first. They had gone from Biggin Hill to Cairo with hardly a harsh word exchanged and now neither of them could speak. McQueen sat down on the rickety stool beside the typewriter. Freeman tried to smile but it faded away just as quickly as it had arrived. He stubbed out his cigarette. “Let’s go for a walk,” He said and jumped up. “Bloody sea air. Freezes me to the bone, it does.”

McQueen looked at the typewriter, felt his scars ache and looked back to Freeman.

“What is it?” McQueen said.

“I didn’t want to do this, you know. They asked me because…well.”

“It’s Lawrence, isn’t it?” McQueen said, the silent anvil suddenly dropping. The unspoken name seemed to hit Freeman like a bodyshot. “If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it. Just tell them no.”

“Tell who?” McQueen asked, short of breath.

Freeman straightened up and looked at him in fear. It was the first time McQueen had ever seen him look that way and it terrified him. “There’s someone coming to talk to you about Lawrence. He’s alive, Queenie. They think you can get him.”

McQueen stumbled outside, his migraine returning. The very foundation of the earth seemed to shake. He doubled over and tried to regain what little composure he could muster. When he looked up, a man in a suit and tie was walking on the sand dunes towards him. From that second on, the sea and the clouds beyond it were already fading away.