Ghostwriting

  I have been beating my head against a brick wall trying to gain some real editing experience.

  As I read on, sympathising with how hard it was to get a break at doing what you are passionate about, I found myself walking into my boss’ office.

  The studio was installing a small editing suite downstairs, so I figured they’d probably be looking for editors.

  My boss looked the resume over. ‘I know this girl,’ he exclaimed with delight. ‘Give her a call. Get her in here.’

  Our first telephone conversation was like having a conversation with myself, and funnily enough people were always mistaking Karen and me for each other on the phone. I believe Karen screeched for joy a few times when I told her to come see us about editing work, for she was being spared the fate of being a dental nurse — an occupation for which she proved creatively unsuited.

  So, Karen began her life as a starving artist and came to work at the studio for peanuts. I think I’d be putting it mildly to say that Karen and I hit it off like a house on fire. She was just beginning to explore esoteric thought and the power of the mind, and my scripts were full of such doctrines.

  In between my first manuscript, Everything We Know, and The Ancient Future, I wrote three and a half film scripts before I gave up on the film industry and decided to go back to writing books.

  The last one and a half film scripts I wrote Karen had a real passion for, and still has. The completed (but never complete) film script was entitled Chairs. This title, like the film script itself, has changed many times and yet, to this day, it is still being referred to as Chairs, and after ten years it is still threatening to be made.

  A wonderful pagan girl (Karena, film producer) has it under her wing and has taken it upon herself to fly with it — God speed!

  I met this film producer through Karen, I might add, so what goes around comes around. If Chairs ever does get made, it will be dedicated to Karen, who has believed in the project for longer than anyone who has been associated with it, including myself. The other half a film script that Karen has never stopped bugging me about is Book of Dreams. Only five or so people ever read this unfinished story and not one of them has let up at me about completing it. Thus, I have began writing it as a manuscript and the characters are so delightful that I believe Book of Dreams will finally be released as a novel sometime soon. Whether it ever becomes a film remains to be seen.

  After many years of thrashing it out as an assistant editor and many more years of editing documentaries and whatever other student film was going, Karen edited her first real television drama, and earned herself a nomination as Best Editor. The first feature film Karen edited just won best picture at the Berlin Film Festival. Go girl!

  All through my writing career, Karen has been following my stories, chapter by chapter, eagerly anticipating the plot, laughing at the jokes and falling in love with the characters. The character of Katren in The Ancient Future Trilogy had a fair whack of Karen in her.

  By the time I began penning ‘The Detox Factor’, I had already written three short ghost stories dedicated to friends and the seed for this book had been planted.

  Karen is the kind of girl who would really appreciate being stuck in a ghost story, I thought. I also feel that I owe her a story for all her encouragement and feedback in the past, and just for being a most excellent friend.

  And, just to make sure that Karen didn’t feel too freaked out whilst in spook land, I decided to send her in with another character — the most tough-as-guts woman I’ve ever known.

  Here I must give special credit to a body building babe I had the joy of working with once. Her name is Mandy, and when I met her Tory Alexander was born. Mandy had been the female Australian body building champion twice and had represented Australia overseas. She took my esoteric beliefs and added philosophies like, ‘Get over it, mate,’ and ‘Fuck it, babe!’ Fuck everything, as a matter a fact, the ‘f’ word being far and away Mandy’s favourite. She had a presence that was larger and louder than your average male. Even when she wasn’t training and was a tiny size ten, she could intimidate any man who was stupid enough to piss her off. She might have lost a little of the muscle, but she never lost the attitude. My original story idea, to send a hero back to the Dark Age, changed … I would send a heroine, a woman like this woman, who could hold her own against the warriors of the time.

  In real life, Mandy and Karen have never actually met, so it seems funny that they ended up in this story together — I feel sure the reader shall easily define which character is based on which woman.

  The Detox Factor

  WARNING: Those strongly opposed to coarse language should probably skip to the next story.

  1. The Resolution Binge

  ‘SO WE’RE AGREED then, we’ll do it.’ Shannon pushed for a commitment.

  ‘I gotta do something.’ Billie blew her nose ‘I’m dying here.’ She sniffled as she stuffed her tissue back into her pocket. Then, clinking her near-empty glass of bourbon against Shannon’s vodka, lime and lemonade, they downed their drinks to seal their pact.

  ‘We’ll get off it all … smokes, booze, coffee, junk food,’ Shannon vowed with great enthusiasm, which was easy to do whilst drunk and smoked out in a tiny pub.

  ‘Pills, trips, dope,’ Billie shot in.

  ‘All that, too,’ Shannon granted, considering Billie had a lot more vices than she did. ‘Meat, chocolate —’

  ‘Hey,’ Billie drew the line, ‘let’s not get too excited.’

  The shocked expression on her friend’s face made Shannon laugh. ‘Perhaps giving up chocolate is a bit extreme.’

  The thought of getting out of the city for a while had Shannon excited, and now they’d made a pact to get healthy that would double the benefit of this much needed break.

  Shannon always felt guilty taking holidays. In the film industry, as soon as you took your finger off the pulse you risked missing out on work. But to hell with it, she’d decided. Her resume was looking fairly healthy, and having cut a couple of feature films of late, her bank account was in good shape too.

  The mountains would not have been Shannon’s first pick for a holiday destination, but a friend-client of Billie’s was going overseas and leaving his secluded country retreat vacant for months. Why pay for a trip OS when there was great accommodation, free of charge, here at home. Personally, Shannon was going to miss the beach; she surfed every morning, religiously. Billie had consoled her with the news that their getaway had an indoor, heated pool, and Shannon had agreed that this would provide satisfactory compensation.

  ‘Can I buy either of you lovely ladies a drink?’ A cute but tipsy, wax-head leaned between them and yelled to be heard over the music.

  Billie and Shannon, blonde, blue-eyed and fairly fit, always attracted male attention when they went out together. Even though they were of the same colouring and neither of them was very tall, they appeared to be a regular odd couple. Shannon was a little hippie-surfer chick, with crystal earrings, ankle chains, bracelets and bare feet — whenever she could get away with it. Billie, on the other hand, was more your baggy jeans, steel-cap boots, midriff singlet and leather jacket kind of girl.

  Billie eyed the arm the surfer dude had placed over her shoulder and then looked back at him in disgust. ‘Did I give you permission to hang your pissed carcass over my person? No, I don’t think so.’ This was the polite version of what Billie said. In reality she managed to work the ‘f’ word into the sentence about four times.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the guy smiled broadly and backed off, holding his hands up in truce.

  ‘You will be, if you touch me again.’ She managed the ‘f’ word only twice that time. Billie shrugged off his touch to remove her leather jacket and expose the rippling muscles of her upper body.

  Billie was a body sculptor; she’d owned a gym in the inner city. She sculpted other people’s bodies for a living and made a pretty penny doing it.

  ‘Shit! She’s a guy.’ The wax-head aimed his joke
at Shannon, as she seemed more obliging.

  Billie served the surfer her evil eye. ‘You know, you’re really fuckin’ asking for it.’

  In final appeal, he looked to Shannon, who smiled. ‘You’d better leave … she’s on steroids,’ she whispered from behind her hand. As he took the hint and departed, Shannon looked at Billie and slowly shook her head. ‘Such hostility!’

  ‘Well, he asked for it.’ Billie clicked her fingers to get the bartender’s attention.

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Shannon stated determinedly. ‘He was just being nice.’

  ‘The nicest thing he did was fuck off.’ Billie tried whistling for the bartender, and scoring his attention she ordered another round.

  ‘Look, if you’re going to help me build up my bod,’ Shannon bargained, ‘then I’m going to teach you how to meditate.’

  ‘What the fuck for?’ Billie shoved Shannon’s glass down in front of her on the bar and receiving naught but a huge grin as a reply, Billie nodded to concede. ‘So you think I need a little softening up, eh? What the hell, I’ll give anything a whirl.’ She paid the barman for the drinks.

  ‘To our very good health,’ Shannon proposed.

  ‘Happy holidays, babe.’ Billie hit her glass against Shannon’s and they savoured their last taste of alcohol for the next six weeks.

  2. Hungover

  There had been much drunken debate about what foods they were or weren’t giving up, and in the end the girls decided to go their own way in that department.

  The next morning they visited the huge supermarket near Shannon’s place and headed out of town with a carload of food, and a roof rack of luggage.

  The sunglasses had been in constant employment. Shannon marvelled at Billie’s capacity to drive when she could barely manage to prise her eyelids open for more than seconds at a time. God knows what items of food she’d brought by mistake; it was hard to read labels with your eyes watering like taps.

  ‘You look like shit, babe,’ Billie commented over the top of her sunglasses, as she lit a smoke. ‘I’m the one with the flu. What’s your excuse?’

  ‘You did this to me,’ Shannon defended with a pout — a useless attempt to hide her guilty smile.

  ‘Take responsibility for your actions, miss,’ Billie lectured. ‘Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?’

  Shannon waved the smoke away and gave a couple of token coughs to change the subject — the smell was making her feel sick, as she hadn’t ventured to eat anything yet. ‘I thought we were giving those things up?’

  ‘We haven’t got there yet,’ Billie justified. ‘Here, you want one?’ She held out her soft pack of cigarettes and a single smoke slid out ready for the taking.

  Shannon merely shook her head and groaned. Something told her that Billie wasn’t too serious about their pledge, but she was determined to discover what life was like beyond the vices.

  Their behinds were fairly well numbed by the time they climbed out of the car, but, beholding the old house that was to be their abode for the next month or so, they were not complaining.

  ‘Not bad, eh?’ Billie prompted, noting Shannon’s dropping jaw.

  ‘Does it come with its own butler or what?’ Shannon finally drew breath and laughed.

  ‘No.’ Billie looked a bit disappointed. ‘But a cleaner and a gardener come once a week.’

  To one side of the house was a large glasshouse, positioned beautifully among the gardens. ‘A greenhouse.’ Shannon wondered what grew in there.

  ‘Sorry, no,’ Billie teased. ‘That’s the heated pool,’ she screeched with great excitement.

  ‘You’re shitting me?’ Shannon squealed when Billie nodded, and then held her head as it recovered from the pain of her sudden outburst.

  ‘Shall we investigate?’ Billie backed off in the direction of the glasshouse, jangling the keys.

  ‘Sure,’ replied Shannon, in a more staid manner.

  Billie bounded down the garden path and Shannon could only envy her friend’s powers of recuperation. Billie drank far more than she had last night and had secured less sleep. Shannon had to figure that Billie’s body was just more adjusted to the abuse.

  ‘Well, holy shit, will you look at this!’ Billie exclaimed upon opening the French doors and viewing the huge swimming pool, which was a good length for swimming laps. ‘I’m going to feel like fucking Cleopatra swimming in that!’

  Poolside was a quaint coffeehouse-style table with two chairs. On the table was an ice bucket containing a bottle of bubbly, and two champagne glasses were alongside.

  Billie wandered over and read the note that was propped up in front of the ice bucket.

  Take good care of my haven. And have a binge on me,

  Love Simon.

  PS — Try not to make too much noise, Billie, or you might disturb the ghosts. Booooo!

  ‘He’s so full of it.’ Billie had a quiet chuckle and handed the note to Shannon, who was still gaping, speechless, at the pool and gymnasium. Billie whipped the bottle from the ice bucket and discovering it was a vintage bottle of Moet, she changed her tune about their absent host. ‘I take it all back, Simon. You’re a total babe.’ She kissed the bottle and began unwrapping it.

  ‘What does he mean, ghosts?’ Shannon queried, rather disturbed by the message.

  ‘It’s a joke, darl … he’s having a go at the volume of my personality.’

  ‘Hey,’ Shannon frowned, as she noticed Billie was about to pop the cork on the bottle of booze. ‘We’re in detox, remember? We’ve definitely arrived now.’

  Billie raised the bottle so that Shannon could view the label more clearly and when her friend smiled, tempted by the rare treat, Billie wrinkled her brow to plead, ‘We haven’t actually entered the house yet.’

  ‘Just one glass,’ Shannon proffered, removing Billie’s fingers from the bottle and taking it from her. ‘After we have something to eat.’

  Billie followed Shannon and the bottle out of the pool-house. ‘But we can’t just let the rest of the bottle go to waste.’

  ‘Well, you’ll be on your own,’ Shannon turned back to inform her, hoping to guilt-trip Billie into behaving herself, but instead she caught her revelling.

  Billie contained herself. ‘Damn shame.’

  After lunch Billie took Shannon and the bottle of bubbly on an exploration of the house. It had seventeen rooms in all: a kitchen, a laundry, a pantry, a wine cellar, a dining room, a sitting room, a games/bar room, a sunroom, a study cum library, four bedrooms, three bathrooms and one dressing room. In addition there was the entrance foyer and hallways.

  ‘What does one guy do with all this room?’ Shannon shook her head, amazed. ‘I mean, he’s gay … it’s not like he’s planning to have a large family.’

  ‘Simon opens the place for bed and breakfast when it suits him, and the rest of the time, he throws parties.’ Billie topped up her champagne flute. ‘Are you happy with the Elizabethan bedroom?’

  ‘Oh quite.’ Shannon bunged on a posh accent. ‘And are you finding the playboy suite to your liking?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Billie bounced off the walls in an attempt to walk straight, as they headed down the hall toward the stairs. ‘I’ve got a fu-ah-cking hot tub at the end of my bed. I’m in heaven!’

  Shannon loved the way Billie said the ‘f’ word, when she wasn’t saying it in anger; she put a half-laugh in the middle of the word, which made her pronunciation of the word truly inspiring.

  ‘I can always move to the Japanese suite tomorrow night,’ Billie added.

  ‘Or the sailor’s suite.’ Shannon did her best gay impersonation, which sent Billie into a fit of laughter.

  Despite Simon’s outrageous themes, every room of the house was exquisitely decorated and immaculately tidy and clean — although Shannon feared that it wouldn’t stay that way for long with Billie in tenancy.

  Shannon threw together a big pot of vegetable soup for dinner and Billie was completely off her face, having finished the bubbly. Bi
llie had a minimal amount to eat, opting instead to smoke away her hunger, but Shannon slurped down a huge bowl of soup and mopped up the remains with fresh crusty bread.

  They’d lit the fires in their rooms before dinner, so Shannon retired to a warm room aglow with golden firelight.

  The bed was big, soft and regal and made her feel like a princess from a medieval tale. She fell asleep with images of heroic knights and lustful affairs playing in her imagination.

  When Shannon woke it was not yet daylight. Why am I awake?

  A knock on the front door answered her question.

  She was about to raise her snug, sleepy carcass, when she heard Billie scampering down the stairs to answer it. From the top floor the footsteps rounded at the landing where Shannon’s room was located and, passing her doorway, the sound of scuffling feet continued on down the second flight of stairs and across the entrance foyer to the front door.

  ‘Who the hell calls at this hour?’ Shannon mumbled, pulling her silken feather quilt tighter around herself as she rolled over and went back to sleep.

  By the time Billie wandered down the next morning, Shannon had already been for a walk, had a shower, eaten breakfast, read the paper and was presently engaged in doing some yoga stretches.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Shannon, upside down in a shoulder stand.

  ‘Is it?’ Billie scratched her head, looking rather blearier than she had the morning before. ‘I slept like a log,’ she emphasised and then yawned. ‘I don’t think I budged from the position I landed in all night.’ She made a move toward the kitchen.

  ‘Except for when you answered the door,’ Shannon corrected Billie’s oversight, dying to know who had come calling.

  ‘I never answered the door,’ Billie turned back to assure her. ‘Even if anyone knew we were here, who would call by in the wee hours? You must have dreamt it.’