Graduation:

Along with fellow Writing School colleagues I graduated 'in absentia' from Manchester Metropolitan University on July 9th. Our class are scattered across the globe and there was little chance of us all getting together to share in the celebrations. But grateful thanks are due to our tutors at  MMU's Writing School and in the Dept. of English.  And special thanks to each and every one of the novels 05 online class - a fantastic bunch who made the whole process a joy.

and now ? it's Uni all over again !

You'd be forgiven for thinking that, having just graduated after three years on the MA programme, I'd have had enough of further education for a while. But I've just enrolled on the PGDE course at Aberdeen University. So  it's a further ten months of intense study for yours truly.  

Novel seeks agent...

My first novel - The Power of 2 - is a pacy thriller with a literary spin to a genre background. You can read the book jacket 'blurb' below and if If you fancy a look at the opening chapter you can do so below.

Progress on the novel front is slow - the industry tends to work that way, so it's not unexpected. However, the full ms has been requested and I'm hopeful of hearing something positive in the not too distant future.

Blurb: The Power of 2

In a small village on London’s outskirts, Adam Rosewood attends the funeral of his best friend unaware that he’s inherited a debt to gangland boss Cornelius Callaghan. Cornelius has one last shot at the big prize and needs all the money he can lay his hands on. His enforcers Mo and Harvey Scallion are charged with ensuring Adam pays what’s due.

Adam is haunted by loss and his own underachievement in life but is ready to change. Mo Scallion, a man for whom torment is both a way of life and a means to quell an inner pain, would prefer things stay just as they are. In The Power of 2 each tells his own story: a story of partners and rivals, of friends, brothers and budding relationships. Need success for one mean failure for the other? Or does what’s for us find us in the end?

Adam and Mo walk in the shadow of loss … and fate, in a tale of double cross, confusion and bloody murder.

 

 

*********

 

 

Praise for The Power of 2 ....

An intelligent thriller told with assurance and style... the dialogue is good and the action beautifully observed. The photophobic Mo makes an interesting villain, the criminal set-ups and various tragic mistakes are believable, and the twists and surprises in the plot well-realised.

The ability to handle action, and to create a believable criminal underworld, is rare, and we can see that this novel would translate very well into film, in the same way as Jake Arnott's The Long Firm. Sentence by sentence the style is accomplished and well-controlled, the set pieces are supremely well done, and the conventions of the genre are intelligently handled. 

MMU.

 

The Power of 2

By John Holding

 

Book I

~ 2’s ~

 

 

Chapter 1 ~ Somebody has to do it ~  

~ Adam ~

           

I work with an energetic rhythm, my lips silently mouthing the words of the songs that play in my head. And that’s how it goes, that’s my plan. Perspiration gathers on my brow and I wipe it away with my sleeve. But after a while the sweat runs in rivulets down the hollow of my chest and the crevice of my back. Under my thin, standard allocation council jacket, my vest clings to me like a second skin.

            After over an hour’s labour I’m happy with the depth. These days I don’t have to check, I just know. I straighten, lean my spade against the sidewall and with the palms of my hands pressed on my lower back I thrust my chest out and push my elbows together, teasing the kinks from my spine. A small involuntary gasp escapes my mouth. I tug at my clothing and peel the vest from my body.

Now that I’m standing upright the rays of the mid-morning sun are warm on the back of my neck, and this despite the fever of my own efforts. I look down at my work; those same rays will have burned the morning dew from the grass above, but the heat doesn’t penetrate more than a few inches into the soil. I glance at the dark surrounding walls, their clawing dampness drawing the fire from me, swallowing it whole. A shudder runs through me. Not for the first time I wonder what I’m doing in a job like this.

            Of course, there’s more to it than meets the eye; if there weren’t I’d not have had to attend all those training courses. In some respects I can argue that what I’ve acquired is a skill, but I don’t; at least not with anyone other than big Nigel at pay review time. It began as a means to an end, a job like any other, at the time the only one I could get. But I soon realised it was something of a conversation stopper. People look at me differently when they find out and keep me at a distance thereafter, as if I’m marked through association. I’m used to it but I learned it was a no-go area when I was out on the pull with Colin and Ferris. If a girl asked what I did for a living I told her I was a Council worker in Tannock Bar. If pressed further I’d go as far as to say I worked in the Parks and Gardens sector. It wasn’t a lie; it just wasn’t specific.

My breather over I look at my watch then turn my attention to levelling out the base, heaving out the last few shovelfuls of soil onto the surrounding tarpaulin. These last scoops are always the worst. With the ground above head height the effort has to be that bit steadier, more deliberate and the shovel feels heavier in my hands than when I laid it down because my muscles ache and protest all the more with the renewed effort.

Finally I’m satisfied that the base is level so I take my spade in both hands and carefully push it out onto the grass. Then, with my cheek pressed into the cold face of the dirt wall I raise my right arm and feel along the grave’s edge until my fingers find the handle of the trimming blade. I gather the tool in and run it down each of the four corners in turn taking out any rough edges, any hang-up points, squaring them off. I’m on my hands and knees trimming the final six inches of the last two corners when it happens. It dawns on me that I’m not sticking to the plan; I’m letting the music wash over me, letting myself think, no longer mouthing the lyrics. The thought alone forces me to re-focus on the track that’s playing but the up-tempo beat has been replaced by something slower, something soulful, almost haunting. Too late, I realise my mistake, Annie bloody Lennox is in my head singing ‘I’ve Got a Life’.

In the chilling depths of the pit my mind’s eye conjures an image. My mother’s face swims before me, her expression serious, questioning. But almost as quickly as it formed, it is gone, though the lilting voice continues. I feel my jaw drop; my breaths quicken. Another vision forms in the mists of my exhaled breath. I make out Colin’s eyes, the bridge of his nose... this is too much. My fingers let go of the trimming blade. I fumble at the cord at my neck wrenching the ipod from beneath my jacket and the headphones from my ears. I launch them up and out.

“Everything okay, Adam?”

I reclaim the trimming blade and scramble across to run it down the remaining corners. “Sure boss, I’m all done.”

            “Good,” he says, reaching the grave and peering down at me. “You’re gonna need all your time. I’ll have someone else prepare the graveside as we agreed. You get yourself gone.”

The foreman passes down a small ladder purposely laid adjacent to the graveside excavations and I climb out. His eyes linger on the grave. He lays a hand on my shoulder, “Good job, son, I know that can’t have been easy.”

 

Half an hour later I’m standing under the shower in my one-bedroom flat letting the steaming water cleanse me. Everyone gets wrapped up in the job’s cringing, uncomfortable association with death; I almost laugh as I recall myself telling Colin and Ferris that the gruesome aspect didn’t bother me. It’s not like I’m handling the bodies, like an undertaker or a mortician, or dissecting them like a pathologist. Now that would be morbid. But few people really appreciate how physically demanding and downright filthy my job can be. I mean, dirt and dust get up my nose and in my ears. More than that, it lies in the creases of my skin, in the furrows of my brow, even under the thin folds of my eyelids. I keep my fingernails well trimmed, but at the end of each day they too are caked in grime. The thought unnerves me; I reach for the shower gel and soap myself for a third time. With my eyes closed I roll my head in a slow circle first one way then the other, hearing the light creak of muscle and tendon stretching at the same time as the warm jets pummel my skin. I sigh, however much the dirt and smell of the graveyard clings to me I know I’m able wash it all away. This thought always makes the shower at the end of my shift the best part of my day.

            I pass into the bedroom in the final throws of towelling my hair dry then pick up my watch from the top of the dresser. “Fuck,” I say, noticing the time as I slip it on. I throw the towel on the floor and dress quickly; a fresh pair of boxers, my smart black trousers and socks; a crisp white shirt - short sleeved but then I don’t have another, at least not a white one. And, of course, the black tie I bought specially. I use the mirror above the dresser to check that the knot looks okay then reach into the cluster of bottles that sit on the left hand corner of the dresser. A squirt of aftershave; a little gel run through my hair and I’m done. I set the gel back down and my eyes fall onto the framed, yellowing photograph peeking out from behind the bottles. I pick it up. Her fair hair glistens, falling straight like a waterfall to spill across her shoulders and, like the shine in her bright eyes; it belies her otherwise pallid complexion. Hers is the first picture my mind had conjured in the depths of the grave earlier in the day. Those eyes burn into me. “You looking at me like that doesn’t make it any easier, Ma. Things don’t always work out the way we want.” I set the picture back onto the dresser, face down.

            The intercom sounds and I walk to the hall to lift the receiver. “Hello?”

            “You right then?” the voice asks.

            “Sure, Ferris, keep the engine running on that rust bucket of yours. I’ll be right down.” I step into a pair of black shoes. On the way out I grab my wallet, keys and finally a black raincoat from the hallway closet. On the landing I’ve got the key in the door ready to turn the lock when I hesitate. Five seconds later I’m back in the bedroom, wiping the glass photo frame with the face of my new tie before setting it back upright in its place on the dresser.

            In the street I spot Ferris in a grey suit twenty yards away leaning with his backside against the passenger door of his aged Capri, its engine idling. I call out as I get within earshot. “Hey, where did you get the suit, Ferris? Did Mothercare have a sale on?

“Ha, fucking ha,” he yells back.

“The car had a scrub too then has it?”

Ferris shoots up and cranes his neck over his shoulder trying to look at the seat of his trousers. “Bastard suit’s just out the cleaners too. Is it bad?” he asks, turning his backside to me.

“Bad? It’s the scrawniest little arse I’ve seen in months, like a knot in a hankie.”

“Very funny, I’ll need to remember that one,” he says dusting himself down.

We climb into the car and once we’ve got going he asks how we’re doing for time, so I look at my watch. “We should just about make it.”

“How did it go this morning? Ferris asks. “Must’ve been bleedin’ weird.”  He glances at me for a second then looks back at the road. Then he removes a hand from the wheel to run a finger between his neck and shirt collar. He’s made an effort and I know it.

I turn away and stare absently out of the passenger window then exhale noisily. “It was strange; you’ve heard the phrase ‘whistle while you work,’ well I updated it. I wore my ipod and drowned my thoughts with music just so I could get through it without thinking too much.” My thoughts pass to the vision of Colin’s face I’d brought to mind in the grave. I’m about to tell Ferris, then think better of it. Instead I say, “Not every day you dig a grave for a mate is it?”

“At least you were able to do something for him; he’d have been pleased about that.”

“C’mon, Ferris, its Colin we’re talking about. We both know he wouldn’t give a toss for sentimentality.” I watch Ferris’s lips tighten, biting back further comment – he knows I’m right.

We drive on until Ferris finally breaks the silence. “Anyway, how come it’s a church service and a burial? I mean Colin wasn’t religious.”

“Colin’s sister made the arrangements. I suspect she pulled a few string to get him a plot. I think she’s a church elder or something, not here but wherever it is she lives. It’s who you know that makes the difference – even in death.”

“Colin’s sister? I didn’t even know he had a sister.”

“Hmm, Barbara,” I tell him. “They didn’t get on, haven’t…hadn’t,” I correct myself, “spoken in years apparently.”

“You’ve met her then?” Ferris asks.

“I met them both in the care home. Colin was a bit of a tearaway. Barbara thought I was a bad influence on him.”

            Ferris raises his eyebrows and his jaw visibly slackens. “You, a bad influence on Colin? You’ve got to be bleedin’ kidding. He didn’t need help from anyone there.”

            “Well,” I tell him, “you can understand it. He was her brother; she’s bound to think the best of him.”

Small stones thud off the underside of the car as the tyres churn the gravel at Tannock Bar Parish Church. Ferris draws the Capri to a halt and we climb out.

“Well, it got us here,” I say nodding at the Capri.

Ferris looks up, a hurt expression on his face. “She’s a classic,” he announces, in a higher pitch than normal. “I’ll have you know there are plenty of people who’d want this beauty.”

“Yeah,” I tell him, “and all of them scrap merchants.” I raise a half-hearted smile, but even that seems out of place.

I look around whilst Ferris hauls at the waist of his trousers and dusts his backside again. “Less than half a dozen cars and one of those’ll be the Minister’s. It’s a small turnout, Ferris. Let’s get it over with.”

“Least he’s got a nice day for it,” Ferris says looking skyward.

            I lead the way and we walk up the path to the church. At the door Ferris taps me on the arm and points to my shoes. They’re dull; I’ve forgotten to polish them. I rest both hands on Ferris’s shoulders for balance and rub the face of my right shoe down the calf of my left trouser leg. I do likewise to obtain a shine on the left. Ferris gives me the thumbs up. I get the feeling that I’m making such an arse of showing proper respect that somehow Colin would be pleased.

Inside the organist plays something sombre and I’m hit by a wave of disappointment. It’s indicative of the mood but, for me, it doesn’t reflect Colin’s attitude to life. Three men and a woman sit together in a pew midway down the aisle; they speak in whispers that seem to bounce off all the walls intensifying the attempted private discussion yet leaving it an unintelligible garble. We walk past them and sit two pews in front. Ahead, in the foremost pew two women sit alone.

            Ferris groans and leans in towards me. “Jesus,” he whispers, “it brings it home seeing it sitting there, eh?”

            I nod. The coffin sits out front bedecked in wreaths, the largest of which sits lengthways along the coffin itself. I’ve seen them often enough. Indeed, I often have to clear them from the gravesides myself after funerals. This one is a fusion of yellow and white flowers teased through a wire frame to form the word ‘Brother’. As the Minister appears from his vestry we make to stand and I glance behind me. The mourners number precisely eight. I ask myself if this is the sum total of Colin’s life. Were these people really the only lives he touched? The thought leaves me cold. 

            The Minister clears his throat and we stand in unison. He conducts a simple service, speaks of sorrow at the loss of a life in tragic circumstances, of promise lost and hopes unfulfilled. Whilst this is all true it’s also generic. It’s obvious that the Minister knows nothing of Colin; the sermon holds nothing of ‘him’. I find myself switching off, delving into memory to recall the freckle-faced fourteen-year-old who’d befriended me on my first day at the care home; a time when I really believed my stay there was only a blip in an otherwise normal childhood. Of course, I’m ignoring the fact that my mother was a single parent. But what I mean is that until that point I missed out on nothing for the lack of a father. 

            On a signal from the Minister half a dozen men appear from the wings and proceed with admirable regard to first raise then carry the coffin from the church. The mourners, all eight of us, fall in behind the Minister. As the two women from the front pew pass I recognise one as Barbara. Her eyes, reddened with tears and the tiredness of loss, meet mine and immediately cut away. In that moment I know there is to be no reconciliation between us.

            As the mourners gather at the graveside and watch the coffin being lowered into its final resting place I stand a yard or two further back, Ferris beside me. Ferris hasn’t spoken for a while but chooses this moment to break his silence. “I take it you don’t want to get any closer?”

            “You could say I’ve been too close already, Ferris, but you get closer if you want.” I just wanted to give Barbara her moment without interference; she was, after all, Colin’s blood.

            “I’m fine here if you are,” Ferris says.

            The Minister says a few brief words over the grave, Barbara casts the obligatory sprinkling of earth onto the casket and it is over. She shakes the Minister’s hand, thanks him for his service and brusquely brushes past Ferris and I on her way out of the cemetery leaving the friend who had accompanied her trailing in her wake.

 “Don’t tell me,” Ferris says watching her stride away with her friend scurrying to make up the ground in between them. “That was Barbara, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus, I wouldn’t count on a Christmas card from her if I were you,” he says.

            We exchange solemn nods with the Minister and the remaining mourners as each makes to depart. Finally, we are alone at the graveside.  I squat down, grab a handful of earth, sprinkle it onto the coffin and whisper God Bless. Then I stand, walk to the floral tributes that have been brought out from the church and bend to read the cards. There is one from Bob, Donna and the boys, another from Mike and Sadie – both, I surmise, might be neighbours or perhaps friends of Barbara’s. Leaving Barbara’s tribute aside, that leaves just two others, one simply reads ‘R.I. P.’ initialled JM, the other ‘Missing you,’ from Anne-Marie, Mark, Jeff, Steve and all at Trondby. I smile and walk back to the graveside.

Ferris stands, hands in trouser pockets, staring into the grave. I lay a hand on the nape of his neck. “C’mon, they’ll be wanting to infill the grave, let’s leave them to get on with it.”

            “Are we heading back to the hotel for a drink with the rest of the mourners?” Ferris asks.

            “Nah, let’s head off on our own. Those people didn’t know Colin, or most of them didn’t.”

“I didn’t recognise anyone,” Ferris says. “I didn’t even know Colin had a sister until five minutes before we buried the poor bastard. Who were they all anyway?”

            “Well, now you know who Barbara is. My guess is that the lady with her was a friend, maybe a neighbour offering support.” We reach the Capri and speak across the car roof. “I looked at the cards that came with the flowers; there was one from a JM.” Ferris’s face remains blank. “You know Colin had big ideas, just bluster for the most part, but maybe he was making some connections.”

            “How do you mean?” Ferris asks.

            I squint. “It’s a bit of a leap… but maybe JM is Jack Muldoon.”

            “Don’t know him,” Ferris says. “But hasn’t he got a bit of a reputation?”

            I motion that we should get into the car and wait as Ferris first climbs in then reaches across to unlock my door from the inside. “I’ve not met anyone who knows him either – but he’s supposed to be bad news, Ferris. Thing is, I just can’t think of a ‘JM’ who might have sent Colin a wreath. I could be way off base here.”

            “Shit, but what if you’re right,” Ferris says. “The crash was an accident, wasn’t it? I mean Colin wouldn’t have pissed this Muldoon guy off or something?”

I smile. “No, let’s not get carried away. All I’m saying is that I think Colin was setting his sights higher than the next job and he’d started making himself known. Maybe we went along with this for too long. Now’s a good time for us to get out.”

            Ferris stays silent; he stares out of the window.

            “There was another wreath there too,” I tell him, “from all at Trondby’s. I reckon the other four mourners were his workmates from Trondby.”

            Ferris purses his lips and blows out a long, slow breath. “You read my mind. I was worried that he’d screwed up and dropped us in it. So they’ve no idea that he took the job just so we could turn ‘em over?”

            I shake my head, “None at all.”

            Ferris guns the engine. “Great, we’re in the clear then. Let’s go have a drink and give Colin a proper send off.

 *********