Advice, please …

Question. If Dominic Cummings is a super-forecaster and so clever he can’t be sacked, then why have we got the highest number of deaths in Europe and the worst death rate per 100,000 population in the world? It just makes you wonder what other rubbish decisions this government is making.

[image error]the face of someone who has just finished his brother’s probate (no will). If anyone would like support/advice on this please DM me, or comment, I’d be delighted to help. It’s not too frightening

We’re OK. Mary’s been in the wars a bit, so that’s been on all of our minds. But we think we’re getting there. The weather has been so kind with Mrs Sun unable to pull herself away. I can’t begin to imagine what it would have been like if it had been raining (sorry Scotland). It’s allowed us to get our back garden into gold medal at RHS Chelsea contention – if they’d bothered to run it this year. It couldn’t be any neater.

And I’ve been writing. I’m now at 30,000 words (out of somewhere between 70 and 80k). All being well I should have the first draft complete by the end of June. In that time I’ve also got to provide a cover and blurb for Blood Red Earth, which is due back from the proofreader soon. Then I have the rigmarole of typesetting for the paperback – which I hate. But, this is book six, so I should be up for it.

Then comes the crunch. I have still not done any marketing, except reduce the cost of all five books to 99p/99c for the duration of the pandemic. And I’ve had an upturn in sales. I reckon I’ll sell close to 50 books this month, which will beat my sales totals since I launched On The Back Foot To Hell last summer. I have, however, been in touch with a professional publicist. They will market book 6, including radio interviews, blogs, blah … for four weeks for £2500 (+ another £500 of free books). It’s a lot of money and it may not repay itself.

But do you know what my problem is? Would marketing the Sam Green series be a vanity project? Like any artist, do I really think my work is good enough to spend money to attract people who may not like it? And if it fails, am I a vain failure?

Does that matter? And, if I don’t do something, am I missing a huge opportunity to reach out to a much wider bunch of readers? It’s a huge uncertainty for me; which is odd, because I am normally pretty certain about most things.

Add to that that I will have the new book ready at about the same time, and I’ve written to two well known agents (on the back of my almost publishing contract with Bookouture – their recommendation) … and they take some time to respond.

What should I do?

Comments welcome.

Anyhow, the unedited, unproofread Chapter 6 is below. I hope you’re keeping up…

[image error]proud father – Bex getting ready for her Korean students to arrive back into class

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Chapter 6

Thirty minutes later Emily was on her bike, with a rapidly constructed picnic and flask of coffee. She did think about popping down to Chez Ami, but dismissed it. Then she considered texting Pierre. But dismissed that as well. She was going to have a Pierre-free day. Today, as previously planned, she was heading west, along the coast to Camping Le Clos Du Rhône. It was just over a mile away. She’d be there in no time.

There was no cycle path until she reached the end of the marina, and then a mixed pedestrian/bike path materialised on her left, set higher than the road. She took it hoping to see the Mediterranean in all its glory, but it was hidden by mid-height trees.

Soon the town ran out of steam and what she could see of the sea bent further left, away from her, making room for beach carparks and a large motorhome stopover. The latter was half-full of affluent white boxes on wheels, their owners sat outside on picnic chairs sipping hot drinks and cold beers, admiring the views of the tall white sides of similar vans. On her right was pure Camargue: scrubby wetland with the odd, far-off ranch interrupting an otherwise desolate expanse.

The cycle track started to curve right, inland, as it followed the main road. Forward left was an expanse of pine trees and a couple of decent signs which probably announced the arrival of the campsite. A smaller road branched in that direction … which she followed.

She was at the entrance to Camping Le Clos Du Rhône less than a minute later. It was more rustic than the site she visited yesterday, it’s chalets, campervans, caravans and tents all snuck beneath the canopies of the pines. It was relaxed and homely and it made her think that, should she come next time, she’d bring a tent.

There was no entrance barrier; just a small wooden reception building off to the right. She parked up her bike and entered the building through a door which was held open by a small, blue gas bottle. She was met by a wooden counter, an exchange one-for-one bookshelf, a glass-fronted fridge selling sodas, a table full of holiday leaflets and a late middle-aged man wearing half-rim glasses who was tapping away at a laptop.

‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle,’ was accompanied by a welcoming smile.

‘Bonjour, Monsieur. Parlez-vous Anglais?’ She asked.

‘A little. How can I help?’ The man replied.

Emily was already fishing out the two photos.

She handed them to the man.

‘Do you recognise this … sorry, not the tent or the family, but the position?’ She asked.

The man looked attentively at both photos over the top of his glasses.

‘They were taken a long time ago?’ He held a photo in each hand by their corners.

‘Almost forty years ago.’ Emily added.

He smiled and put the images on the counter and slid them in Emily’s direction.

‘Would you like me to take you to the pitch?’ The man pushed his glasses firmly up his nose.

‘You recognise it?’ Emily had no idea why she was excited, but she was.

‘Yes, of course. My father owned the site – and now my wife and I run it. This pitch is the last one on the far corner of the site.’ He waved a hand in the general direction of the sea. ‘There’s a chalet there now, but the owners are not in at the moment. You’re are more than welcome to go and have a look. Is that your family?’

Emily nodded.

‘My mum. She died earlier this year. I’m revisiting some of her old haunts.’ Emily nodded as she replied.

‘I’m sorry.’ The man genuinely looked like he was. And then he added, ‘What year were these taken?’

‘1982. In the summer.’ She replied.

‘Ahh, that was a hot one.’ He nodded and smiled again. It was a genuinely warm smile. ‘Is your mother the younger lady in the pictures?’

Emily froze temporarily, but then continued placing the photos back in her rucksack.

‘Yes.’ Her reply came across more suspicious than she wanted it to. ‘Do you recognise her?’

Surely not.

‘Possibly.’ He smiled again. ‘ I would definitely have met her. My job was to lead newcomers to their pitches and make sure they settled in. I met everyone.’

It was a long shot, but Emily tried. ‘Did you fish then?’

He snorted. ‘No. I was too busy helping my father look after the campsite.’ He paused. Emily thought she saw some cogs spinning behind his eyes. And then, ‘The fishermen all worked from the wharf just beyond the campsite at Tiki Ill. It’s on the Petit Rhone. You used to be able to see the boats from the bottom of the campsite. Now the small wood has grown and the view is obscured. But if you head onto the beach and turn right, you can walk around to the boats.’

He smiled again.

She nodded and said, ‘Thanks,’ at the same time.

‘I hope you find what you’re looking for.’ He added as she threw her backpack over her shoulder.

‘Merci, Monsieur,’ She said.

As she stepped back out into the dappled sunshine, the man called one more time. ‘Lock up your bike if you leave it anywhere. Even on the site.’

Emily turned her head. She could just make out the man’s face in the shadow of the wooden hut.

‘Gypsies.’ He added, with a resigned look.

She nodded, put a hand and wiggled her fingers as a wave.

It took her a couple of attempts to negotiate the maze that was the campsite. It was bigger than she was expecting. And it took her a little longer to be sure of the pitch. There were a couple which might be considered to be ‘on the far corner’ of the campsite. In the end she was convinced she’d got the right one. But it was full of white and sick-yellow coloured holiday chalet. She managed to walk the perimeter of the pitch but with the oversized caravan in its middle she struggled to imagine her mum and her family sitting around a flimsy camping table whilst grandma cooked up a feast on a single primus stove. Her mum, all desperate to eat and then rush the washing up so she could slip away to the beach to meet her fisherman lover, waiting patiently.

Instead Emily secured her bike to a tree, attached her helmet to her rucksack and then cut through a gap in some fairly heavy bushes that appeared to lead to the beach. A few seconds later she was met by a dune, which she climbed and, as she crested, there was the Mediterranean. It was different from the beach at the centre of the town. To her right the water was browner, she guessed a result of the river mixing with the sea. In front of her humans had constructed semicircular breakwaters, which protected small, curving beaches now purposefully washed by very docile waves. The sand was busy with holiday makers here, but not crowded – similar to the campsite. She wondered what it might be like in ten days time?

She dropped off the dune, hopped over a metre-wide stretch of large pebbles until she was on fine, damp sand.

She took off her Jesus sandals, took them in one hand, and then headed off towards the river which she could see in the middle distance.

As she strolled the crowds lost their intensity and by the time she reached a raised concrete wall which, she guessed, was holding back the river, she was on her own.

She had to use three points of contact and perspire a little harder to scale the wall but, once her short arms and short legs were on the top of the wall, there was the Petit Rhone. It wasn’t a huge river, hence the title. But it was stately and, across from her, the green, hairy bank looked as if it were home to all sorts of Wind in the Willows type creatures. She made a note to come back with a pair of binoculars. Beyond the bank was a stringy fence and, a few metres in, a black bull. It was grazing disinterestedly, lifting its head only to shake away some bothersome flies.

To her right, no more than fifty metres away, was a pier. It was the parking place for a white yacht and a couple of smaller boats. Nothing else. Set back from the pier was a wooden lodge of some description, an almost empty carpark and a few tables protected from the warming sun by beer-logo’d parasols.

A restaurant?

A fish restaurant?

The river wall was a metre wide. It led off in the direction of the lodge, although it seemed to lose interest in the middle distance – concrete looking like it might give way to a grassy bank, which had worn away in places.

She’d give it a go – after she’d put her sandals back on.

In the end the river wall stopped abruptly after a few minutes and it gave way to a small, muddy cove. The gap was far too big for her to navigate and so she headed inland and was soon among the trees. Underfoot was undulating and a bed of pine needles gave a little like an old thin mattress. The sun only managed a glimpse through the trees and that meant it was cooler, but not unpleasantly so.

She turned parallel to the river as soon as she could and, in the distance, could pick out vertical shafts of daylight where the trees succumbed to man’s need for space. She’d be there in a couple of minutes.

Looking down to make sure she didn’t trip, she spotted the now ubiquitous small glossy metallic canisters which fed e-cigarettes. If they’d been abandoned here, Emily was sure that these would be mixed with some drug or other, probably maruanja, and puffed at by teenagers. A few feet away was a used condom. The sight of it made her flinch. It was a brief, regretful moment. A reminder that last night had bordered on elicit, maybe even sordid. Was she no better than the young people who had got high and stolen sex in the forest?

She could lie to herself that her affair with Pierre was okay. But, for some reason, some unnecessary moral reason, she wasn’t.

It had been fabulously intense. But hadn’t it also been …? She was about to use the word ‘dirty’, but that wasn’t right. Everything they had done was normal – even natural. But she still wasn’t sure it was her.

She shook the thought away – and strode off towards the edge of the forest.

She made it into the light, the sun immediately warming her bare shoulders …

… and then she stopped.

Dead still.

River. Terrace. Tables and parasols. Wooden lodge, more like a large hut. A wrap around carpark with a single car.

And a bicycle.

Resting against the back end of the lodge.

She recognised it immediately.

It was the bazooka bike. Ridden by the man with the expressionless face.

What do I do now?

Gbassy had thrown the last of a pile of stones into the river. He had been trying to hit a slow moving log and had managed to clip it once out of ten attempts. It was a childhood game. When toys were in short supply, gathering together a stash of small rocks and then competing with your friends as to who could knock over a can, or throw a pebble to see who could get closest to fold in the ground, filled an hour or so. It also provided an element of competition many boys searched for as they meandered the confusing path to manhood.

He stood, brushed the back of his thin jeans and turned to make his way across the carpark back to the restaurant. Monsieur Segal would be here in fifteen minutes and he needed to prepare the espresso machine and collect the money box from the safe. It wouldn’t do to be late.

When he was halfway across the carpark, the mid-morning sun casting a human-sized shadow on the sandy carpark which followed him as he walked, he spotted a woman in the tree line. She was stood still, her mouth slightly open and one hand hesitantly pointing toward the hut as though she’d spotted something that made her very wary.

‘Bonjour Mademoiselle,’ he half-shouted across to the trees. ‘Puis-je vous aider?’

There was no reply. It was as though the woman was in a trance.

He changed direction and headed towards her.

‘Puis-je vous aider?’ He tried again. The woman smarted, dropped her hand and looked at him as though he was an alien. Which, to all intents and purposes, he was.

Let’s not go there. Please. He didn’t want a racial encounter with a woman.

‘Noh … eh … merci.’ She paused, then glanced around as though she was calculating distances and escape routes, ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ She was nodding now. It was all very peculiar.

An Englishwoman? He’d never met one of those before.

‘Are you sure? You look a little startled.’ It was a very odd conversation. He was at least ten years younger than she was and yet, he was acting as the tribe elder.

Gbassy was no more than a couple of metres away from the woman now. She looked at him and then, in an instant, seemed to regain all of her faculties. The dizziness was gone.

‘Sorry.’ The woman took a deep breath. And forced a smile. ‘You speak English.’ It was neither a question nor a statement. He took it as the former.

‘Yes. A little. Can I help?’ He replied. He tried to look as non-threatening as possible. He’d regained the weight he’d lost on the journey – and some. And, at one-ninety tall he knew he could look imposing.

‘Sure.’ She tilted her head to one side as if looking past him. ‘Who owns the red bike?’

Gbassy was stuck. He knew who owned the bike. It was the chef’s, Monsieur Segal’s son. But he didn’t really think it was his place to say. And why did the woman want to know?

To find some time he unnecessarily looked behind him, and then turned back to face the woman.

‘Why do you ask?’ He replied.

The woman appeared to be thinking. She looked around him again as if expecting to see someone.

‘It’s … well … I met a man riding this bike, briefly, at the lighthouse the other day. And we almost had an accident. And … I wanted to say sorry.’

Gbassy chewed over the explanation for a second. The woman’s description lacked commitment. But, she was cute – not like the north Guinean women where size was wealth and wealth had its attraction.

‘He’s in, if you’d like to meet him.’ Gbassy answered the question without actually answering.

‘In?’ The woman faced was etched with curiosity.

‘Yes. He’s the chef. It’s a restaurant.’

‘Oh.’ The woman replied.

There was a pause. Gbassy had absolutely no idea where this was going.

‘Is he any good?’ She asked.

He paused before replying. The answer was, ‘yes’, but he still didn’t understand the intent behind the questioning.

‘Yes. Very. You should come here and eat. The fish is excellent.’ He was in salesman mode now and, he thought, doing rather a good job of it.

‘Oh. Yes, sure. I might do that.’

Her reply was half-interrupted by the sound of a car entering the carpark. Gbassy turned quickly.

It was Monsieur Segal.

Bother.

‘I have to go now.’ He did.

He turned and jogged towards the restaurant.

‘What’s the chef’s name?’ The woman cried out as he approached the hut.

‘Luis Segal!’ He shouted over his shoulder as he weaved in and out of the tables to get to the door into the building.

That couldn’t do any harm, could it?

He was in the kitchen in no time. Luis, who’d arrived half an hour ago, was chopping onions on the kitchen table with accuracy and speed that made his motion almost a blur. A couple of seconds later Gbassy was filling the espresso machine with water.

‘What was that all about?’ The chef asked lazily in French as another onion was diced without mercy..

That caught Gbassy – Luis rarely spoke to him.

Had he done something wrong?

He reached for the large coffee tin which was on a shelf, took off the lid and started to heap ground coffee into the machine.

‘Nothing.’ He tried to sound nonchalant. ‘It was a woman, that’s all.’

Luis stopped slicing.

‘What – where?’ There was no threat to Luis’s tone. Just intrigue.

Gbassy paused just as he was about to start the machine.

‘On the edge of the pines. She asked who owns the bike.’ He half shrugged his shoulders, expecting a reply. There was something a little unnerving about having a conversation with someone you didn’t wholly trust who was gripping a very sharp knife.

There wasn’t one. So he continued.

‘She recognised the bike. Said she’d met you at the lighthouse. She wanted to know your name.’ Gbassy screwed his face up in defence, not knowing how the chef with a knife would react.

Like father …

But he didn’t. Instead Luis moved to the shuttered window and, as he opened it he asked, ‘Is she still there?’

It was a rhetorical question. Luis would have a good view of the pines from the open window, and must have been able to see by now. So Gbassy didn’t answer. Instead he moved to the man’s side and, without making physical contact, looked over the chef’s shoulder.

The woman was gone.

The chef shot a glance back at him, but his expression didn’t shout, ‘you’re in my personal space’, instead he asked another question.

‘What did the woman look like?’

Gbassy gave as best a description as he could of the cute woman.

Luis stuck his head forward in order to get a better view. He stayed like that for a short time and then turned; Gbassy gave him some space.

The chef snorted to himself.

‘You better get the box out and his majesty’s coffee sorted. Otherwise there’ll be violence.’

Gbassy had no idea whether or not the last clause of Luis’s sentence was a joke, or not. But it warmed him that the chef was now engaging him in non-food order conversation, making a joke at his father’s expense and, in his own way, protecting him.

Money box and coffee.

Yes, he should do that now.

‘And, if you see the woman again, let me know.’ Luis added as he took half a peeled onion in hand.

‘Sure. I will.’

And that was that.

Emily was getting good at breaking her own promises. But, hey, they were only little ones, so it didn’t matter.

She was back at Chez Ami, iced coffee in hand with the sun streaming down – and sitting on a barrelful of spent will power. In fairness she had made one good decision. Her head was now protected by a straw hat she’d bought at a market just along from where she was now.

Out of school she was mildly hopeless. But she lived with that. Pierre’s draw had become more and more irresistible as the day had worn on. And, after her semi-confrontation at the fish restaurant, she was in need of something. She didn’t know what exactly, but she suspected that Pierre was currently the answer to most of the questions she might pose.

Emily had moved into the woods once the very nice and very young black man, who spoke English with a gangster-French twang, had disappeared into the chalet. She’d stopped once she was in cover and turned. It was another one of those unfathomable decisions. But it turned out to be an inspired one.

She had positioned herself half behind a tree, and knelt down as if she were a sniper. It was most odd.

She waited. Just for a bit.

Seconds later a shutter opened in the wall closest to her. Emily pulled back so that she was better hidden … and snuck a look.

There he was. Bazooka-bike man. Or, that is, the man’s head. And then the young black man. It was all a bit comical, really.

The two men must have had a chat about her’s and the black man’s exchange, moments ago in the carpark.

Was bazooka-bike man looking for her?

Yes. Of course he was.

But why?

Was he worried that she might slash his tyres? Or steal his bike?

She didn’t know.

She was lost. Confounded.

And that line of thought had stayed with her as she picked her way back to the beach and then, with her Jesus sandals back in her hands, had walked for twenty minutes towards town, turned round and walked back again. By then it was close enough to lunch to be good enough, and she found a shady spot in the dunes, consumed her picnic and fell asleep.

She had woken an hour later, the sun burning a melanoma onto her right calf which had failed to remain in the shade. With the breaking strain of ripe brie, it didn’t take her long to decide that it was Pierre time. Because …. well, why not?

That was an hour ago. She’d dropped her bike off at the AirB&B, walked into town and stumbled across a small market in a car park just down from the church. It was mostly cheap clothes, tacky kitchenware and some tourist tat. But there was a hat stall, with more sun hats than she had the energy to try on. It took her less than a minute to pick out a floppy boater with a rainbow ribbon.

There was a small mirror hanging from a metal upright. She had to stand on tiptoes to check her pending purchase … and it was fine. The bowl of the hat was big enough to consume all her hair, and the brim wide enough to both shield her from the sun and also make her look a little bit coy.

Pierre had noticed.

He had been lovely. He could have made it awkward, but instead he had smiled, touched her shoulder and taken her order.

‘Le chapeau te va,’ he had said. And to make sure she understood, which she thought she did, he had raised a finger and tapped his forehead. And smiled again. Which had made her midriff go a little bit dizzy.

But she knew this thing between her and Pierre wasn’t anything other than a thing. She knew that innately – with every cell of her body. It was a combination of the fact that he was only down for the summer, she was only down for part of the summer and … and, no matter how charming he was and no matter how good the sex had been, and maybe would continue to be, there was a detachment. Emily couldn’t put her finger on it, but this thing was transactional. However ridiculous that sounded.

Anyhow, he was working now and she had to fill the time with something. The view from the cafe was interesting, but hardly St Moritz. There was a road between the cafe and a raised, concrete, boardwalk. However, if she straightened her back she could see the sea, the very top of which was a strong, straight mid-blue that was made deeper still by the soft-white of distant, high cloud which might well have been a hundred miles of haze.

There were a couple of yachts in the middle distance, both in full sail. It was an activity she really wanted to experience. Not the small, one-woman affairs full of ropes and knots and a dangerously swinging boom. No, Emily wanted to be on something big enough for cabins, a kitchen, a drinks cabinet and a fridge full of tonic – and ice. But it had to have sails. She couldn’t be doing with a pointy gin palace, captained by a millionaire, sporting a blazer with a fake, gold breast badge.

It was a distant dream and, in its way, sullied what she was doing now. Her teaching was so important to her. She loved making a difference for disadvantaged children, winning small battles, learning from her losses, getting kids to be ‘bovvered’ with their maths and coming home bereft of every ounce of energy that she’d left home with earlier in the day. It was central to who she was. And it would stay so for a long time to come.

However. In some distant future, once she’d found someone to share her classroom comedy with and maybe produced a couple of maths students of her own, there’d be room for wider ambition. A yacht. With cabins, a kitchen, a drinks cabinet and a fridge full of tonic – and ice. And sails. It would definitely have sails.

Sometime in the future.

Her phone buzzed and her wistfulness was interrupted.

She checked it. It was a text from an old university friend. It was a casual, ‘How’s it going?’. She was just about to reply when a thought came to her.

Instead of responding to the text, Emily opened up Google and typed in, ‘Luis Segal’. She checked the Facebook entries. Nothing. Then Twitter. Nothing. It didn’t surprise her that the expressionless man didn’t have a social media presence. She scrolled down. There was nothing else of note.

She then added ‘chef’ to the search. And got nothing.

Then, Tiki Ill.

Nothing.

Finally, Tiki Ill and restaurant.

She had something. There was a link to the restaurant. She clicked on it.

And there he was, one of three photographs on a first generation and very clunky website.

Chef – Luis Segal.

Gotcha. He looked just as gormless as he did in real life.

What a nerd.

And then something else caught. As well as an unflattering photo of the terrace, with its plastic covered tables, mismatched chairs and fake flowers, there was a photo of another man. Another Segal.

Owner – Marc Segal.

Emily expanded the image so it took up the whole of her screen.

She paused and twisted her head from side to side.

Surely not?

She put the phone face up on the table and reached into her rucksack and took out the see-through plastic insert in which she kept a handful of her mum’s photos. She took them out and shuffled them until she found the one she was looking for. It was an early day selfie, the type when you placed your camera on a steady spot, set the inbuilt timer, pressed the shutter, rushed back to your proposed place in the picture and waited, often without the desired result.

But, for her mum, that time it had worked.

And it was a lovely photo. The two of them sat on the beach, their backs up against the hull of a small, upturned wooden boat. They both looked very happy.

Her mum was wearing a pair of hot yellow pants and a skimpy red bikini top. She had eighties hair and a little too much makeup. The man was topless, more hair than flesh – not Emily’s preference. And he was tanned and fit – an image of Pierre lying naked on the bed in the flat trotted through her consciousness, which she instantly deleted.

And his face was rugged; chiselled almost. It was all Roman nose and high, dark eyebrows, small ears, thin lips and a dimple on his chin. In his way he was a young, French Kirk Douglas – but more tanned. He was very attractive. But Emily knew all that. She’d looked at the photo many times before.

Which is why the photo on her phone had caught her attention.

The man, summoned by a million pixels had a dimple on his chin. The same man who owned the restaurant with its one-dimensional website that desperately needed updating.

Marc Segal.

She now had the phone in one hand and the photo in the other.

She turned the picture over. Her mum had scrawled a note on the back in biro.

It read: me and Marc.

‘Would you like another coffee?’

It was Pierre. He had crept up on her like a mounting credit card bill.

He was smiling again. It was beautiful.

But he also had an eye on her phone. And the picture. There was an intensity there, but she might have misunderstood his expression.

Emily swiped at her phone, turned the photo over and smiled back.

‘No, thanks.’ She replied.

He nodded.

‘D’accord. In that case, would you like to meet up for a drink tonight?’