Feedback on new project

First draft

Not sure if I am doing this posting thing right, but here goes. Am thinking of a script with the below female as the main character. Started writing the below as back story, and wouldn't mind some feedback.

---

Abandoning her duties as a hostess, Miriam slipped into her living room, which bore a laminated sign that read “Coats and presents.” She needed a moment by herself. Preparing for her 60th birthday party had given her so much to do over the previous few weeks that she felt a tinge of regret that it was all happening now, and that the only thing left for her to manage would be the cleaning up. Still, she took comfort in how well it was all going. Nearly everyone she had invited had turned up, and those who hadn’t were invited more in hope than expectation.

She found her attention drawn to the coats and she ran her hand along them. The designer overcoats and fine silk scarves belonged to the lawyers and doctors; the pea coats and leather jackets belonged to the literary crowd, mostly her sister’s husband’s friends, but she had known them in college; and there were the distressed vintage jackets and hand-knitted ponchos that spoke of lives of self-expression, freedom and adventure. It surprised her to see how many of these there were.

And her eye fell on the pile of presents. Some had been beautifully wrapped and bore the insignia of exclusive boutiques. She imagined herself in the role of the buyer - seamlessly managing to fit the shopping trip into the schedule of a busy professional, striding through the store, selecting the perfect gift, and handing a credit card over to a beautiful yet submissive assistant without giving a thought to the cost. Perhaps she would also field an urgent call and make an executive decision while the assistant wrapped the present. A spasm of desire ran through her genitals at the thought.

But there were also many presents that were clearly hand-made: signed copies of books; original paintings; hampers of home-mad jams and chutneys and sauces; knitwear and weaving; pottery; vouchers for spiritual retreats written in calligraphy on parchment. The thought of her friends giving her their love and their creative energy, the very best of themselves, caused a different reaction. At first she put her hand to her heart and inclined her head as if a tear was coming to her eye, but then felt a flash of resentment and anger. Shocked at herself, she quickly suppressed the unworthy emotion, re-assumed the slightly patronizing air she wore when playing hostess, and left the room.

As she made her way to the conservatory, she noticed a light in the small room she used as an office. A lot of the preparation she had done for the party had been done in here, and she had put considerable effort into dressing up this room to give the impression that it was the nerve centre of a critical operation. The desk was scattered with carefully chosen paperwork and files. On a whiteboard on the wall were detailed project plans, timelines, and to-do lists. It had taken her considerably more time to draw up these plans than it would have taken to complete the tasks themselves, which largely consisted of routine jobs such as ringing a plumber, or renewing the insurance. But she had secretly hoped that someone would wander in there, and she was delighted that they had. She opened the door, prepared to make a self-deprecating remark about the room being off limits, too chaotic for public sight, only to find it was her husband Dermot.

“Oh for God’s sake,” she spat. Her lips were pursed in disgust. She had never been happy about Dermot’s drinking, but the only good thing about it was that he could usually be relied upon to be the life and soul of any party. Yet here he was, hiding away from her party in her office, drinking brandy by himself.

“Dermot, what the hell are you doing in here? You get to go off and drink and mope by yourself every day of the year, and I don’t try to stop you. You’d think that just this once you could put me first and make a bit of effort at my party. Now get back out there!”
He raised his head and looked at her. She was shocked to see the sad old man she was married to, and the limp, tired features that hung down from his fat face. His eyes were red.

“I have nobody here,” he said quietly, in the slow, careful enunciation of a habitual drinker trying to appear less drunk than he is.

“What are you talking about?” Miriam began, about to list off Dermot’s friends, assuming that they were present as they always were. But then she realized that they weren’t there. They had all died over the past few years. She didn’t allow this to take the wind out of her sails, though.

“Look, tonight isn’t about you,” she snapped. “This is my party, now get out there and mingle. I don’t want people talking.”

He gave a deep sigh. “Ok, I’m coming,” he said wearily, but made no attempt to move.
Miriam felt as if she was dealing with a young child. “Now!” she hissed. Seeing that he had begun to stir, she returned to the main room, her features set in a determined rictus.

--

Three guests remained at the end of the party: Miriam’s sister-in-law, Jane; Imogen, an old college friend; and Deirdre, who had been married to one of Dermot’s dead friends. Dermot had gone to bed, and they had finally managed to wake up a snoring surgeon and pack him into a taxi. The catering staff had done most of the cleaning and there was nothing left to do for the night.

“You sit down,” Jane said to Miriam, “and I’ll make us all a pot of tea.”

“Oh thanks, Jane,” Miriam said as she collapsed into a chair. Jane was one of Miriam’s role models. She had been married to Dermot’s brother, had raised a family with him, and when she realized her needs weren’t being met, had left him and opened her own real estate business, which was now thriving. What she really admired about Jane was how she did everything with the same brisk efficiency. Whether it was returning a faulty product to a shop or leaving her husband, she dealt with both situations in exactly the same no-nonsense manner: just things that have to be done.

When everyone was sitting down with a cup of tea in front of them, Miriam realized that the women were looking at her with sympathy. They seemed to be waiting for her to admit something. She looked at her friend Imogen and raised her eyebrows.

“How is Dermot?” Imogen asked gently.

“Oh, you know Dermot,” Miriam said, but she was instantly on the defensive. “He’s still as busy as ever. Even though the profession is coming under pressure, he still has a very busy practice.”

Nobody said anything, but let their sympathetic expressions do the talking.

“What?” Miriam asked. “So he had a bit too much to drink? I might get drunk too if I found myself married to a 60 year-old woman!”

They smiled indulgently at the attempted humour.

“I asked him if he thought about retirement,” said Deirdre. “After all, he’s 68 now, and he certainly doesn’t need the money. Do you know what he said? He wouldn’t know what to do with himself.”

“Come on!” Miriam said. “He was just dodging the question. Ask any man his age that question and they’d probably say the same thing.”

“Oh no, I know him better than that!” Deirdre said earnestly. She had gone out with Dermot before either of them was married, and her husband had been his best friend. “No, he said he had thought of it. There was literally nothing he wanted to do. Golf, sailing, fishing, travelling, reading, studying, starting a small business…. Not a single thing interested him. He said he liked the routine of his work. It keeps him from thinking. Imagine that!”

There was another silence in which the women regarded Miriam with sympathy.

“So I’d love to have you all down for a visit!” Imogen announced, by way of changing the subject. Imogen had recently retired to County Kerry, having sold her successful psychotherapy clinic in London. She now kept bees and sold artisanal products made from honey and beeswax at farmers’ markets.

“It’s just glorious in the autumn when the leaves are beginning to change colour. How are you guys fixed for next month?”

“That sounds wonderful,” Miriam said gladly. “Count me in!”

“Oh honey, I’d love nothing more than to come,” Jane said. “But I just won’t be able to get away. It’s all very hush-hush and I can’t say who it is, but a certain Hollywood producer is looking for a great house to film a period piece, and yours truly has been asked to scout for locations. I’m not going to have a second to myself for the next few months! But as soon as I have a window, I’ll be there! It sounds divine.”

“Oh my goodness!” Miriam made herself say. “How exciting!”

“I’m afraid I can’t make it either,” said Deirdre. “I have an exhibition to prepare for, and I’m going to be flat out as well.”

“High flyers!” Imogen snorted, throwing her eyes up to heaven and smiling gently at Miriam. “So it looks like it’s just you and me, hon?”

“Great!” Miriam said, trying to smile and project enthusiasm, while inside she was fighting the urge to throw her tea in all their faces.

---

The four were reunited earlier than expected, two weeks later in the local church.
“Those of us who were fortunate enough to know Dermot will remember a man who loved two things above all else: his work, and family, especially his loving wife Miriam,” intoned the priest. “Only God can fathom the thoughts that went through his mind during his last days, and what led him to take his own life. But we ask our heavenly father to grant forgiveness to Dermot and healing to Miriam and the boys in their time of grief.”

Miriam shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot as Imogen reached forward and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.

She was so thankful for the support of her friends, who formed a protective cordon around her at the graveyard and then bustled her into the funeral car. Imogen, her rock, ordered the driver to take them to a nearby pub where they fortified themselves with a stiff gin and tonic each, then they made their way to the hotel where the reception was being held. The girls did what they could to shield Miriam, but they couldn’t keep everyone at bay and eventually it started.

Dermot’s nephew and godson, Fionn, was the first to say it. A nasty character, who had caused his own parents nothing but grief, he was also a heavy drinker, and he had obviously had more than a few already.

“So, are you proud of yourself?” he asked Miriam, pushing his accusing red head in between the shoulders of Imogen and Deirdre. “Kicking a man when he’s down? Taking away the last thing that he valued?”

“Fionn, I know you’re upset, but you don’t know anything about what it was like to be married to your uncle,” Miriam began.

“You can’t even say his name!” Fionn snorted. “At least you have some shame, I’ll give you that!”

“No, you’re the one who doesn’t know him!” screeched a female voice full of venom. This was Vivian, Dermot’s first cousin.

“You don’t know the first thing about the decent, kind man that you drove into the grave! Do you know what he was doing for you? He was selling his practice, that he spent 40 years building up, so he could buy you a bloody vineyard in France. A vineyard! Do you think he did that for his own happiness? No, he was doing it for you, because he knew that the most important thing to you was having something that you could boast about to these bloody bitches. It was going to be a surprise. But you couldn’t even let him do that. You had to get in there first and break his heart.”

“Ok, that’s enough,” said Jane, taking control of the situation with typical efficiency, “Miriam, you’re leaving.”

And she hauled Miriam up by the lapels, and shepherded her, Imogen and Deirdre out of the hotel and into the funeral car.

“Right,” Jane said, once they were on the move. “Let’s get you home and into some proper clothes. We’re going out on the town!”

The women stared at her, stunned, as if they had been hit by a tidal wave.

“What?!” Jane said, staring back at them defiantly. “It’s not for nothing that they call me Hurricane Jane!”

The car rocked with the joyous laughter of the women as it sped away from the funeral and into their future.

---

The next few weeks were a whirlwind of activity for Miriam. She barely had time to think, let alone grieve. Dealing with Dermot’s estate took up the bulk of her time. Everything had been left to her, as is only right and proper, but she was pleasantly surprised by the extent of his assets; she was now a wealthy woman.

When all the formalities had been dealt with, she took some time by herself. She needed to grieve, to feel, and to heal. So she booked herself into a luxury spa resort for a weekend for some me-time.

After a day of treatments, during which she felt as if her whole body and soul had been renewed, she allowed herself to cry, alone in her room. There was no point in expelling the toxins from her body and not releasing those that were in her heart. She wrapped herself in her robe and pulled a box of tissues onto the bed. But the tears wouldn’t come. She thought of Dermot and the despair he must have felt in his last hours, the loneliness and emptiness that must have driven him to do what he did, and she expected a flood of emotion to come rushing to the surface at the thought. But nothing happened.

She thought of their sons, grown men now, with lives of their own, and how they had worshipped him as little boys; how the mere sound of his car in the driveway was enough to fill them with joy. She imagined the loss from their point of view, but the memory failed to move her. Dermot hadn’t dealt with their adolescence well, and a rift had grown between them, which had only widened ever since. They had barely spoken in years, other than exchanging pleasantries when forced into each other’s company.

She began to think of Dermot’s family, but images of the ugly scenes at the funeral were all that came to mind, so she quickly abandoned this line of inquiry.

Lastly, she thought about herself. She had lost interest in Dermot many years earlier and would not pretend that she was going to miss him. But she had been shocked, on the night she told him she was leaving him, by the effect that the announcement had had on him. It had never occurred to her that she meant so much to him, that, despite the distance that had grown between them, he still loved her, that he always had, that, as he said himself, he always would. She thought of this great love, this undying passion that he had for her, and the tears finally came.

They were healing tears and tears of relief. As she sobbed to herself, she felt, perhaps for the first time ever, the full magnitude of her womanhood, the creative energy that had surged through her and into the universe, giving life to her children and inspiring an undying love in the heart of a man. She was filled with awe and gratitude, and vowed then and there that she would devote the rest of her life to sharing her life force – her love force – with the world.

---

The next few months of Miriam’s life were spent looking for direction. She had had to admit to herself that the vineyard that her husband was going to buy for her was actually quite a good idea. It was in an idyllic spot in France, with a beautiful chateau that would make a perfect label on the bottle. But that was tainted now, and she couldn’t go ahead with it. Luckily he hadn’t signed any binding contracts, so all that was lost was a relatively small deposit.

This just left her the issue of how she was going to give something back to the universe for all the gifts it had given her. She asked the cosmos to give her a sign, and placed her fate in its hands. She had once heard about a book where a man made all his decisions based on the roll of a dice, and decided that she would do the same, only a dice didn’t strike her as appropriate. It was too prosaic. So she got into her car one day, drove to a service station beside the M50 motorway, and asked the I-Ching which exit she should take. After a few false starts, the ancient text gave her a clear sign, that she should go North West.

The journey took her on multiple twists and turns, and she consulted the oracle many times. The drama and mystery of the journey absorbed her, and she barely considered where she was. Without noticing, the entire day passed, and she found herself having to stop for fuel in a small town in County Cavan. She was astonished to see that the entire day had passed, and it was getting dark. She shuddered at the thought of having to spend the night in the drab, depressing town, and it was with a heavy heart that she broached the subject with the attendant.

“Are there are nice hotels nearby?” she asked, tentatively.

The man behind the counter looked like someone from her grandfather’s generation. He smiled at her kindly.

“There aren’t any 5-star international chain hotels, if that’s what you mean, but there’s a perfectly nice bed and breakfast just down the road.”

He went to jot down directions on a piece of paper.

“Oh…” Miriam began. She was about to say that a bed and breakfast wasn’t quite what she had in mind, but then she remembered that the Cosmos was guiding her. She forced herself to pay attention to the man’s directions, and managed to smile and thank him before leaving with his hand-drawn map in her hand.

With a heavy heart, she forced herself to follow his directions, expecting to arrive at an identikit dormer bungalow, but found herself pulling into through two old stone pillars, following a winding, overgrown driveway, and arriving at a charming country house. It had clearly once been a very fine house, but its glories had faded.

Miriam was the only guest, and after she had seen her room – charming – came down to tea. The owner turned out to be a wise old Dutchman who had bought it several years earlier, intending to restore it to its former glory. Unfortunately, like so many others, he had overextended himself during the property bubble that had inflated in the area in the previous decade, and, he was sad to say, the banks were going to oblige him to sell. It was a sign from the Cosmos.

Miriam left the bed and breakfast the next day having agreed a remarkably good price for the property. She already had a vision for what she was going to do with it. It would be a spiritual healing centre, a retreat offering a refuge from the world for whoever needed it – whether it was a busy career woman who just needs a break, or someone with serious emotional problems. Her centre would heal them.

Tender Wing

Wow,,,this story could really run. really enjoyed it..keep going. What was your inspiration? Have you based these female characters on poeople you know or have met?

I think you have a massive opportunity to inject some humour. This is very appealing to the reader. Happy to share ideas with you if you like.

It's great, welldone

Tender W

Tender Wing

Wow,,,this story could really run. really enjoyed it..keep going. What was your inspiration? Have you based these female characters on poeople you know or have met?

I think you have a massive opportunity to inject some humour. This is very appealing to the reader. Happy to share ideas with you if you like.

It's great, welldone

Tender W

First draft

Thanks for your comments, they are very encouraging. I might continue putting the back story for the main characters up here unless there is any issue with this? I don't want to take up space here with random notes and so on if this is against policy.

Yes, my intention is for this to be a black comedy once it starts. The main character will attempt various life-affirming projects inspired by movies and self-help books etc, but they will all end in disaster due to her own selfishness and vanity. She is also going to have to employ some staff who will be an unsuitable as possible.

All suggestions are welcome.

Tender Wing

Yes I can see this is full of potential. With a constant desire to fulfil her own needs life can never be straightforward. I think you are going in the right direction.

The staffing could be really funny. An ex prostitute with fake references who sells herself as personable (yeah right) could be employed along with a head housekeeper who has a drinking problem,,,,the list goes on

I'm really looking forward to the next chapter

First draft

Haven't had a chance to do much on this recently. Getting back to it now.

---

Miriam was in her element. She was busier than she had ever been in her entire life, and, finally, she was the boss! She had an architect to direct, builders on site, suppliers to negotiate with, a constant stream of deliveries to co-ordinate. Her office in the house was a true version of what she had attempted to create at home.

She arrived one morning at 10am to find a queue outside her office door. The architect and the head builder were in the middle of a heated discussion, and there was a ragtag bunch of other people lined up behind them; she had no idea who they were. As soon as they saw her, they began clamouring for her attention.

She tried to smile calmly and project serenity in their direction, but it had no effect. The voices just got louder and more cacophonous. She felt her poise desert her completely.
“Let me at least get a coffee before you start badgering me!” she roared at them, humiliated to find tears already stinging her eyes.

There was a stunned silence, which her architect, a twenty-something man wearing designer glasses, a beard, and a purple cardigan, was the first to break.

“Look, it’s your money,” he said. “And if you want to waste it, keeping a full crew on site, sitting around the place doing nothing is a good way to go about it. But if you want anyone to do any work here, you’re going to have to make some decisions. Either that or you empower someone else to make them for you.”

She looked at them in silence, the weight of their expectations pressing down on her as she opened the door to her office. Inside was a scene of chaos. Complex documents sat in piles on her desk. Her in-tray was invisible beneath the pile of invoices that she had put in there yesterday, but when she looked at it, she couldn’t be certain whether they were bills she had paid, or ones that had to be paid today.

On the whiteboard, which was the first thing she had had installed, was a cloud of words she had scrawled in a flash of inspiration. Vision. Emotion. Power. Elements. Intuition. These words were still visible, but many had been erased, and the start of a to-do list had taken their place.

1. Project plan.

Was the only entry. She sat in her chair heavily and put her head in her hands. There was a soft cough from the door. The builder had put his head around it.

“Look,” he said, “I don’t want to interfere, but you might want to think about hiring a project manager.”

“Great idea!” Miriam groaned sarcastically. “Another person to deal with, just what I need.”

“No,” the builder persisted. “The project manager takes care of all the details and only gets you involved when the important decisions need to be made. At the moment, you’re trying to do everything, and you’re just not getting through it. Not all builders want to just sit around doing nothing, you know. My lads are getting restless.”

Miriam was silent for a moment. “I suppose it will cost me an arm and a leg?”

“Not as much as it will cost you if you keep trying to do everything yourself. Will I get someone to give you a ring?”

“All right,” she said wearily. “And if you can just get someone to bring me a coffee as well?”
The builder smiled.

“I’ll get it myself,” he said gently, leaving the room.

---

The project manager had phoned Miriam later that morning. A diffident, almost shy type, he mumbled his name as he introduced himself, but she thought it was something like Marcus. He had gone through his experience of similar projects and made very reassuring sounds about how he specialised in bringing structure out of chaos, and how he would deal with all of the details and only involve her in the big decisions. But there was something a bit off about him. Miriam felt back in control after her earlier episode, and this man appeared suitably deferential to her. She felt at ease in her role of boss with him.

“Look, I’m just going to come out and say this,” she said crisply. “Is something the matter? You seem as if there is something bothering you that you can’t bring yourself to say.”

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. Finally he spoke.

“I’m just wondering if you remember me,” the man said, in a quiet voice, almost a whisper.

Miriam was knocked back a bit. What was it he had said his name was?

“Eh, Marcus, wasn’t it?” she asked.

“No, Lucas,” he said more clearly this time. “Lucas Geatons.”

“Oh, Lucas!” she said, trying to buy time as she racked her brains. “I thought you had said Marcus!” No memories were forthcoming. “Of course I, uh… Well, it’s been a long time, you know.”

“It’s ok,” he said, his voice heavy with suppressed sadness. “You don’t have to pretend. Once upon a time, we were friends, or kind of friends. It was back in college, before you dropped out. I wrote that essay for you, the one that you had to had in or fail the year?”

A vague hint of recollection returned to Miriam. There had been a time when she had to hand in an essay or face expulsion. And on the same night, she was invited to a ball by a future supreme court judge. Now that she thought of it, there had been someone! A guy who used to do things for her! And he had written the essay, even going so far as to reproduce her handwriting. She couldn’t recall anything about the guy at all, but here he was in her life again. Coming to save the day! Again!

“Of course! Marcus!” she said, injecting some warmth and enthusiasm into her voice. “Of course I remember you!”

“Eh, it’s Lucas actually,” he interrupted.

“Yes, that’s what I said! Lucas! So what have you been up to all these years?”

“Well, as I said, I’ve spent my career in project management…” he began excitedly, but Miriam interrupted him.

“That’s great, just great,” she said soothingly. “I’m dying to hear all about it. So when can you start?”

There was a brief pause, before Lucas answered, “I need to just tie up a few loose ends on a current project…”

“Oh no, here we go again. I don’t like the sound of this!” Miriam said.

“Ok, ok!” Lucas said quickly. “I can delegate most of it. I can be there tomorrow morning if that works? I might just have to make a few calls to deal with issues on the old job.”

“Marcus, you’re my guardian angel,” Miriam said. “I think I might be in love. See you in the morning.”

---

Lucas hung up the phone and swiveled his chair to look around his room. He was at home in his one bedroom apartment, at the desk in his bedroom. His cat lifted her head from the pillow and gazed at him.

“That was her!” he told the cat, who failed to register any emotion. “It was Miriam!”

If he had been a different sort of person, he might have picked up the cat and danced around the room in gay abandon, but the idea did not occur to him, which was just as well, for such a gesture would not have been well-received by the stately feline.

“Back in my life after all these years! It’s a sign. It must be a sign from the universe!”

His laptop was open in front of him, showing a letter that he was in the process of writing. It began:

“To whom it may concern, not that anyone will be even slightly concerned….”

He jumped up from the chair and swept the bottles of painkillers that he had lined up into the waste-paper basket.

“I’m alive again!” he cried.

Tender Wing

Oh my,,,the plot thickens!!!

How exciting. You have really triggured my imagination and getting the attention of the readrer early on is key. Welldone you. Keep going, I really can't wait to read on.

The structure and description of the ensuing chaos of the conversion is well written and gives the reader real insight into the difficulties and issues of such a an undertaking.

More please

Tender wing

Ps,,,what's your user name?

First draft

Bit more. This is just back story incidentally. I just decided to write it out instead of doing it in bullet point, or some other format.

---

“So if you consult your agendas,” Miriam was saying to a group of grey-suited public officials, “you will see that we will commence our tour with a visit to the Nirvana lounge.

But first…” she gestured towards the door which opened to admit a chef bearing a tray of delicacies, “I would like to offer you some spiritual palate cleansers which our chef has prepared for you.”

The chef beamed with delight as he flounced into the room, launching into a description of the food. “In season, organic, produce, all sourced from specially chosen artisan producers in the local area…” he began, but was interrupted by a dank-haired woman.

“We’ve brought our own lunch,” she declared in a flat midlands accent. “It’s against regulations for us to accept anything that could be seen as an inducement.”

The chef deflated like a punctured balloon. "Oh,” he said, and left his mouth hanging open.

“It wouldn’t be my cup of tea anyway though,” the woman said, looking skeptically at the tray.

“Great!”Miriam trilled brightly. “That gives us 10 minutes extra time. If you’ll follow me, we can get started.”

She floated out of the room, swan-like in a plain white dress, projecting (with some chemical assistance) the stillness and tranquility of an underground lake. Several manic months had passed during which the building had been fully renovated, a business plan had been drafted, a website had been built and an advertising campaign had been planned. Miriam had overseen all the work, naturally, while Lucas worked out the details. The stress of managing the initial phase of the development had taken so much out of her that she had needed to go to a spa herself to detox for several weeks. This had been followed by a series of spiritual retreats and training courses. In fact, she was so busy during the development work that she hadn’t set foot on site until the week before the grand opening.

The facility expressed her soul beautifully, though, and now the only hurdle left was to obtain clearance from the building inspector, the food safety inspector, and the health service, the purpose of the visit today.

Miriam glided around the centre, describing in the breathless voice she used to convey her spirituality, all of the features of the rooms they entered. Talk therapy rooms had been modeled on cutting edge facilities in Scandinavia; there was a Reiki room, an indoor garden for meditation and mindfulness, an aqua lounge, T’ai chi and Ayurveda facilities, the list went on. All these she described with what she hoped was the right level of wonder in her voice.

She had discussed the possibility of piping some vapour into the air, maybe marijuana, or a low dose of codeine, but Lucas dissuaded her. Instead, they had piped in some pan pipe music and extra oxygen.

About half way through the tour, one of the functionaries interrupted. He was a fat, red faced man, approaching retirement age, but he had the faux affability of an Irish politician.

“Ok, I think we get the picture now,” he said. “I don’t need to see any more new age … em…. Stuff, if that’s ok with you. Now I think you said that you planned to employ a licenced psychiatrist?”

“That’s right,” Miriam breathed. In her mind, she was a bird gliding through the sky on currents of love.

“So will this individual be prescribing controlled medication?”

“Yes, but only in very rare cases,” Miriam said. “Spiritual pain cannot be healed with chemicals."

“Quite,” the man grinned. “So we need to see your pharmacy, and assess the security features.”

“Of course,” Miriam said. “Let me bring you right there.” She led the group around the corner.

“Sorry,” the official said. “Don’t mean to be difficult here, but this is a department of health inspection. It needs to be conducted by the book, which means no non-essential personnel. You understand.”

Miriam was momentarily nonplussed, unable to think of a way to dismiss the other inspectors. However they all seemed to take it in their stride.

“We’ll wait in reception,” said the woman who had refused the food earlier. The grey group traipsed off, leaving Miriam with the health inspector.

“So,” he said to her as they made their way to the pharmacy. “Have you hired a psychiatrist yet?”

“No,” said Miriam. “We have seen a few candidates, although most of the applicants have been …. Well… I don’t know quite how to say this….”

“Foreigners?” the man asked.

“Yes. Not that I have an issue with that, you know, but I just wonder, in a rural area like this, whether there would be some…”

“Racists? Yes, no end of them.”

“Culture clash I was going to say.”

“Of course. So, this is it, then?” they had come to the pharmacy.

“Yes,” Miriam said. “I am assured it meets the current quality and security standards.

The man drew air in between his teeth. “I’m afraid I can’t sign off on it,” he said. “Not as it currently stands.”

“Oh no,” Miriam said, although she found herself unable to summon much emotion due to the effects of the tranquilisers. “What do I need to do?”

“I’m afraid it is too close to the fire escape.”

“Sorry, why is that a problem?”

“Regulations!” the man said. “I don’t make them, I just have to follow them.”

“Oh my goodness,” Miriam said. “I don’t know what to do. We can’t move it without causing major disruption. I’ll have to call my project manager.” She began fumbling with her phone.

“Yes, it will be an expensive business,” the man said, scrutinizing her closely. “Of course, these regulations only apply when a non-departmental approved psychiatrist is in charge of the facility. However, if we had some say in the selection process, we might be able to take a different view of things.”

He smiled expansively at her. Miriam stared back in bafflement. She knew he was implying something but couldn’t figure out what it was.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I have a lot on my mind. Could you explain that a bit more clearly?”

The official stared at her in exasperation. At this point, Lucas materialized from somewhere in the background, and took the man aside. Miriam looked on as they conferred, muttering to each other with their heads close together. Then the official clapped Lucas on the back, beamed at Miriam, and headed off in the direction of the others.

“All settled,” he called to her over his departing shoulder as Lucas approached Miriam to explain that they would be hiring a psychiatrist from the public sector.

Meanwhile, the official was on his phone.

“Yes, all settled,” he was saying gleefully. “I’ve finally got the bastard off our hands!”

First draft

Tender Wing wrote: »

Oh my,,,the plot thickens!!!

How exciting. You have really triggured my imagination and getting the attention of the readrer early on is key. Welldone you. Keep going, I really can't wait to read on.

The structure and description of the ensuing chaos of the conversion is well written and gives the reader real insight into the difficulties and issues of such a an undertaking.

More please

Tender wing

Ps,,,what's your user name?

Thanks. I'm trying to force myself to be patient. I'm eager to get the story moving, but have to get this stuff down first.

Isn't "First draft" my username? Or is the username something else?

First draft

Next little bit

---

Desmond Kinch found himself in some sort of industrial facility. He looked down to see a painted concrete floor, and above him was a network of metal rails suspended from the ceiling. The rails began to shriek as something was pushed along them; he peered towards the entrance to the room and saw some shapes emerging from the darkness, moving jerkily along. They were sides of meat. A chill ran through him and he realized he was stark naked, and standing on top of a metal scales, while an official in a white coat scrutinized him dubiously, and made notes on a clipboard. Appearing to have reached a decision, they pressed a button which caused a red light to start flashing above him and a loud klaxon to scream through the space they were in. Other white-coated inspectors were instantly on the scene to confer with the inspector; they all glared at Kinch while the klaxon blared on, and seemed to reach a terrible, but inevitable, decision.

He shuddered awake, but could not identify the room he found in which he found himself. A phone was ringing on the bedside table while at the same time someone was leaning on the doorbell. When he raised his head, he saw a television atop a bland wooden cabinet, a writing desk, a mirrored wardrobe, and a walled off section to his left. This was enough to tell him that he was in a hotel room. The small display window on the television read 14:27, and he realized why the phone was ringing, so he snatched it up.

“Let me just deal with your colleague at the door,” he barked into the receiver, assuming that his immediate grasp of the situation would put whoever was on the line on the back foot. After quickly checking that he was not naked, he crossed the room to deal with whoever was at the door. But on the way there, he caught sight of himself in the mirror and was riveted to the spot. Was that him?

A bleak visage confronted him. Its features were bloated, it had a black eye and a fat lip, and it seemed to be on the verge of tears. Below it was a fat, drooping body in a white vest which was smattered with bloodstains. His head began pounding, and he opened the door to tell the chambermaid that he was resolving the situation with the front desk, and that she could get back to her work.

But it wasn’t the chambermaid. As soon as he had taken off the latch, the door was thrust in, admitting the general manager and two security guards.

“We need you to vacate the room, Mr Kinch,” the manager declared. “Immediately.”

“Yes, my phone must be acting up, and I seem to have overslept,” Kinch began. “I was just about to explain to your colleague on the phone that I would take the room for another night.”

“No you won’t, Mr Kinch,” the manager stated. “Now please get dressed. We need you to vacate the room immediately. You are no longer welcome in any of our hotels.”

“Look, surely that isn’t necessary,” Kinch said. “I’m just not at my best right now, and have to admit to a certain lack of recall, but if I could just get in a quick power nap, I’d be able to discuss things calmly and we could reach a satisfactory resolution of whatever problems may have occurred?”

“Not going to happen,” said one of the security men gruffly. “Get dressed and get going.”

Kinch glanced him up and down. Like all security men, he was big and beefy, but with that, he had no more brain power than a carthorse. Noticing this, the guard squared up to Kinch.

“You didn’t get enough last night, did you?” he asked threateningly. The manager held out a hand to restrain him.

“Mr Kinch, your credit card has been declined,” he said. “How to you propose to settle your bill?”

Kinch began to retreat into the room, casting about for signs of his clothes. His trousers were balled up and in the bin for some reason. He fished them out and found them badly crumpled and covered in stains. But he had no other clothes that he could locate, so had to put them on.

“As you know, I’m here on business, attending a major conference. My employers, the Department of Health, will cover any liabilities.” Something occurred to him and he became emboldened. “Actually it’s impossible that my card was declined. It’s a department-approved card, and I happen to know that there is no credit limit.”

A piece of cloth that was the same colour as his suit jacket was sticking out of one of the desk drawers. He opened it to find his jacket, shirt and tie in the drawer, all badly soiled. With great reluctance, he began putting them on.

“I’m afraid that is not the case, Mr Kinch,” the manager said. “We followed up with our payments provider, who advised that a block was placed on the card yesterday afternoon. In addition to the damages that you will have to pay for, you also ran up a very significant bill in the bar and restaurant.”

Kinch had found his shoes and was sitting on the bed, getting them on. He scanned the room for any other possessions. His bag was inside the bathroom door, but there didn’t appear to be anything else in the room. The manager produced a folder and began reading through the list.

“Food in restaurant: 300. Wine: 500. Champagne: 750.”

Kinch groaned as some memories began to come back to him. The girl from the lobby.

“Accommodation: 1,500.”

He had commanded an upgrade to a junior suite, and had had to pay a fee for an additional guest.”

“Damage: 4,000”

Kinch was dressed and he had his shoes on. The manager had moved further into the room, and his flunkies had come with him. Kinch charged for the exit, grabbing his bag from the bathroom. He careened down the corridor, flung open the emergency exit door and charged down the concrete stairs. Three flights down, he found himself faced with another emergency exit door, this one bearing large warnings that it was alarmed. He shoved it open and found himself in a back alley, while the alarm screamed around him. Instinctively, he turned left and ran. It brought him to a street around the corner from the hotel. A row of taxis was parked on the street, and Kinch made for the nearest one. The driver reached over and locked the door; he shook his head at Kinch. The other drivers in the vicinity had also noticed him, and it was clear that they wouldn’t be picking him up. Behind him he could hear shouts of the hotel staff pursuing him. He took a right and ran for his life.

About twenty minutes later, Kinch emerged from a laneway, where he had been hiding behind two skips. The security men had passed just feet away from him, but of course, being as dumb as they were, hadn't thought to look for him. He cautiously peered around the corner, then, sure that the coast was clear, began to saunter casually along. There was a pub up ahead, and he needed a drink more than he ever had in his life.

The barman placed a pint of beer and a double vodka in front of Kinch, and waited expectantly for his payment. Kinch took out his wallet, selected a 20, and handed it over. As he did, he felt his stomach lurch, and a cold, sick wave of panic washed over him. Where was his passport? Frantically, he patted all his pockets and began rummaging in his bag, but even as he did he knew he was just postponing the inevitable.

He knew where the passport was. He had left it behind the desk at the hotel.

First draft

Last part of intro / backstory

--

It was Christy O’Toole’s forty-third birthday and he was sitting in the window seat of the coffee shop, softly plucking a guitar. He had dyed his long hair the previous day, and was wearing hessian trousers, rope sandals and love beads. At the table in front of him sat an earnest young Swiss au pair of around twenty. Her parents had sent her to Ireland to try to get her off heroin, and she had met Christy at his regular haunt, Tao and Coffee, where he had been giving a reading of his poetry.

It was the morning when she had to return to Switzerland. As a parting gift, he had given her a signed copy of one of his poems, which he had had printed out on a scroll. She was holding it by the corner, as if it trying to avoid being soiled by it.

“The head is wrecked ‘neath tides of flex,” she said scornfully. “What a load of sh_t!”

Christy struck a minor chord on the guitar. He was glancing across the room at two girls he thought might be checking him out. They looked Spanish.

“You are such a phony!” the Swiss girl was saying. “I can’t believe I swallowed your bullsh_t. You’re a walking, talking cliché!”

“Uh huh?” Christy said absently, and he began strumming the refrain of a popular reggae song, his attention still on the Spanish girls. The Swiss began to escalate things.

“You’re not even good in bed,” she said, raising her voice. “You were finished before you barely got started, and you’ve got a SMALL D_CK. I barely even knew you were there.”

Christy put down the guitar and looked her directly in the eye.

“Listen baby, I don’t want to hear any more of that kind of talk,” he said, jumping off the love seat, and drawing himself up to his full five foot five. “I’ve got better things to do with my life than wallow in your negativity.”

“Oh yeah?” she spat. “Like what?”

“As it happens,” he said airily, as he slung the guitar over his back and pulled on his beret, “I have a job interview.”

The girl groaned theatrically. “Let me guess. Night porter in a tourist hostel, so you can prey on young, drunk foreign girls?”

“No actually, it’s an opportunity to get back to my real passion: Life coaching.”

“Ha!” she laughed bitterly. “You? A life coach? Well God help anyone who ends up with you as their coach.”

Christy didn’t reply but pulled on his shades and danced out of the coffee shop on his toes, in the bouncing gait that, in his mind, was like a boxer’s. His trusty Honda 50 was outside. He pulled on his lid, kickstarted the bike, and roared off in a cloud of blue smoke towards Cavan, and Miriam’s new healing centre.

First draft

So this is pretty much my set up. A dysfunctional therapeutic centre that will do no business, and will have to try to find ways of making money / staying afloat.

Main characters are:

Miriam (the boss) - a vain, selfish woman going through a late-life crisis. The clinic is a vanity project that she has set up to compete with her middle class friends. She is bossy, yet lazy; a malingerer with no work ethic who has very harsh expectations of everyone else. She is manipulative and shallow, impulsive and gullible, sexually promiscuous and slothful. Concocts grandiose schemes.

Lucas (only sane man) - A white knight who has been in love with Miriam since his childhood, but who she has always friendzoned. He is dependent, insecure, awkward. Also a coward and a sneak. If he feels he can get away with something, has no conscience whatsoever. He is the operations manager who keeps the show on the road.

Kinch (smart guy) - Someone with delusions of grandeur. Arrogant, bombastic, prideful. Is intellectually very smart, but hopelessly impractical and terrible with people. Fundamentally dishonest and corrupt, is always trying to rip someone off, but is never able to execute any of his scams properly. Is physically big and strong, but also clumsy and short-sighted. Mister Magoo. Gluttonous and greedy. Subverts all of Miriam's schemes to his own ends, but never achieves these. Has been fired from every job he had. Impulsive and fond of the high life. A drinker, a glutton, and user of prostitutes, who is always in hot water with people. Is a licenced psychiatrist and can prescribe drugs. Sees Christy as a joke, not a real person. Is constantly abusing him, and thinking of ways to bully him.

Christy (pervert) - An insecure man-child with small-man syndrome. Sees himself as a spiritual person, a poet and a musician. A lothario who preys on vulnerable young girls. Has a massive chip on his shoulder, and is always taking offence. Plays the nice-guy card and pretends to be a champion of the underdog, but if he gets any power or authority will abuse it to the max. Neurotic, obsessive, perfectionist, paranoid. Has spent his life in college, and has attained a long list of useless qualifications. Works dead end jobs. Is the life coach in the clinic. Hates Kinch, but is passive aggressive towards him. Pretends to go along with him, but tries to get him into trouble always. Drawn like a magnet towards anything that he thinks will make him look cool. Often takes hippy drugs.

Will stick to posting notes / plot outlines and so on from here on.

First episode will be called "The Monk who sold his Hyundai."

All feedback gratefully received.

Tender Wing

Hi first draft. All I can say is "wow" very clever! from what you have written so far it is obvious that only mayhem is sure to ensue. You have projected this very well indeed through the description of the characters. I'm hooked. You have a great imagination and the way you have expressed the story so far seems very insightful.

Love it