My goal in the 2021 A2Z Challenge is to complete a novel I started a few years ago but which has languished for lack of love (writing!). Each Post, daily in April (Sundays excepted), will consist of some aspect of the novel plus a chapter from it. I hope that the Alphabetical items will give a bit of extra background, muse on the writing process, but most of all, help me develop certain ideas to improve the novel. Some 12 chapters are already written so I have a bit of a head start…
Please comment with any opinions good or bad – you have no idea how much I need feedback at this stage…
Names are important! Names mean something or several things and when a person or object has several names, meanings multiply and that’s before you take metaphorical meanings into account…
The poem Naming of Parts sticks in the mind because of that several times repeated line but also because whilst ostensibly a lecture by a sergeant, one of a series preparing soldiers to go to war, the soldier whose thoughts we are privy to, allows his attention to wander to neighbouring gardens and to the bees (and birds) – “ Japonica – Glistens like coral in all of the neighbouring gardens,” and in verse four, the symbolism is quite sexual –
“And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.”
I considered the use of made-up languages in Science Fiction the other day, and came down – at least in my book “Train Wreck” – against the idea. But names are a different matter. They evoke things, they indicate certain things – whether consciously or unconsciously.
In “Train Wreck” our hapless hero is called Jack – an everyman sort of name – but his surname – Gulliver – is a nod to Gulliver’s Travels. Stig Johannson is a Scandinavian name – the surname indicating his father’s name which he can trace back to the bold explorer who first took a chance by landing on Hawaii 2 without the possibility of taking off again. I hope that Stig’s name reflects his pioneering ancestor. Robert Widnes – though President, has a rather bland name – appropriate to a politician, I hope.
But there are not just names for people, but places too and they also have significance. The capital – New Orleans – we are told in Chapter 4, is so called because of its similar location to the original New Orleans back on Earth, at the mouth of a vast continental river. On the long journey to the stars, the planners of Hawaii 2 had plenty of time to choose names and locations for the network of towns and cities that would make up the colonised planet. Bringing old names from “home” gives people some sense of continuity, but also says something about the new world, you wouldn’t,t call a rainforest New Sahara…
Erehwon is also a nod to the 1872 novel “Erewhon” by Samuel Butler, but in that older book, the name, though thought to be a reference to Nowhere, spelt backwards – has the h and w transposed. The people of Hawaii 2 who gave this town its more direct reversal of Nowhere, were not referencing a – to them – obscure 19th-century book, no – they made up that “joke” all by themselves! It is only you, as the reader, who may get the allusion. The Erehwon of Hawaii 2 really is the back of beyond, the place you go to disappear – Nowhere spelt backwards…
Here’s a thought though, when we name something or someone, with a name loaded with meaning, is that thing, or person ( in real life as well as in fiction), likely to be moulded by and gradually live up to the name they have been given? Take New Orleans for example. Those planners not only referenced the location of the city on its river, but they had a lot of pictures and words about the original city, a city which had long ago drowned, one of the early casualties of rising sea levels and extreme weather events – hurricanes and the sea eventually obliterated the levees and the city itself. But the fragments of the internet taken by man to the stars, had a lot of references to old New Orleans, because it was a holiday destination! Like porn and cat videos, the internet was riddled with holiday ads and promotions – so much so, that the photographs and text were almost guaranteed to survive. It’s like those 2D barcodes, they look too complex for us to spot the patterns and repetitions, but they carry their message several times, so that if the barcode is smudged or torn, the degree of redundancy means they can still be read. The pictures of Earth’s New Orleans were so pretty, the verandahed houses so appropriate to the climate of Hawaii 2 at that location, that these styles crept into the architecture of the new world as well as the name.
The tourist destinations play another important part in developing Hawaii 2. Pictures of Iceland showed the eponymous Geysir which gave its name to all other geysers and having spotted these volcanic features on Hawaii 2, another tourist image – “The Blue Lagoon” and its origin as a cooling pond for a geothermal power station, gave the planners the idea of developing such “green” facilities on Hawaii 2. Unfortunately, the parts of the internet that gave the method for constructing these power stations, was lost – only the tourist literature remained. However, the engineers figured it out – you drill two holes down to a volcanic hot spot, pump water down one and steam emerges from the other to generate power – no carbon footprint and no ongoing cost!
Thank you for your patience as I work out these little details which may make it into the book! The chapter today, is as far as I have got with the book so far and mainly due to pressure of work from my day job, I know I will not get the book finished in the month. There may be some more chapters to come though, however, what I would like to do, if you have read along so far, is to gather email addresses of anyone who would like to receive the rest of the book as and when I finish it. Please let me know in the comments along with what you think of the story so far…
I shall continue to do these A2Z posts as well as any new chapters I do complete so don’t go away – watch this space please…
Chapter 14
Gervald’s Story.
When Stig and Alex returned a while later, they found Jack assisting Katie to prepare a meal by peeling potatoes whilst she made a sauce. There was a comfortable atmosphere between them. Katie moved the saucepan off the heat and took Alex off into another room for a moment saying she had something she really needed to tell him. They were gone a while and Stig and Jack stayed in the kitchen watching over the potatoes which Jack had set to boil.
“Did you find Gervald?” Jack asked.
“We did! And it proved useful, not just about him and his story, but it may have some implications for your story too…”
“Do tell!” said Jack – they were sitting at the kitchen table sipping cans of beer.
“Alex took us to the place he thought the stranger who might be Gervald was and he was right. We snuck up on it – not easy in near desert country, but it was the right approach – Gervald was on the back veranda and he took off inside and locked the doors as soon as we showed. If we hadn’t seen him first we wouldn’t have known he was inside. He wouldn’t answer so Alex went round the front and I picked the lock.”
“Really Stig? I’ve always wanted to know how to do that! Not that many people lock their doors here but still – maybe you could give me a lesson!”
“Easy Tiger! We’ll find time one day! Anyway, I go inside but no sign of Gervald so I let Alex in and he says that Gervald hasn’t come out so we start looking round for him. I call out to him – tell him who we are and that we mean him no harm. I tell him about you and your connection to Clem and everything I know about his story as Clem told it. I ask him if he is hiding out because he is afraid of someone and I tell him we can help – that if we could find him, then someone else could do so just as easily…”
Stig goes to the fridge and fetches another bottle of beer but Jack declines the offer of one.
“Finally, at this, Gervald emerges from behind a panel in the wall – a hiding place he has constructed. He is very scared, looks out of all the windows to see if we are alone before sitting down and talking to us.”
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
“What Clem said about me is true. I was more interested in the recreational drugs to begin with. I liked hanging out with him in his lab – which he allowed me to do once I knew him well enough. He told me his story and he encouraged me also, to go to college and study pharmacology. Gradually, I became more able to be of help to him and although I was still into getting high, I started to develop an interest in the more medical research Clem was doing.”
Gervald had calmed down a bit since he realised he wasn’t in any immediate danger and had started to tell his tale, but only after going over who Stig was – Stig had just said – “a member of the Rangers…”
“Then one day, I was in a bar one evening, Clem was away for a couple of weeks – I think he may actually have been on a trip to Hawaii 1. He didn’t share everything with me and he certainly didn’t allow me to be at his place and his lab when he wasn’t there.
These guys started talking to me, asking what I did and when I said I worked for this genius chemist, they said ‘Clem? We know all about Clem!’
I was surprised and alarm bells started ringing but they went on affably enough to say they had some business connections with Clem – were disappointed to find he was away as they had hoped to see him whilst they were passing through.
I asked them where they were from and they said Hawaii 1 and I was impressed but also surprised since I had this inkling that was where Clem had gone anyway. They asked what I was working on and said I must be busy with Clem away. I said no to the latter I explained that Clem didn’t allow me to work whilst he was away and we were never really what you’d call busy – not since Clem works at his own pace on his own projects. They seemed quite envious of that – ‘Must be nice! Where we come from, you work as hard and fast as you can because unless you’re one of the very rich, everybody is on the clock…’ Then they changed the subject for a bit.”
Clem jumped up and had another look out through all the windows as if he still wasn’t convinced that his visitors were kosher then he came and sat down and continued his story.
“It wasn’t long before they asked what I did, exactly, for Clem. I told them I was a student now and so I was more useful to Clem – to be honest, I was boasting a bit at that stage, I had downed a few drinks before these guys showed up and they kept buying… They didn’t propose anything that night , but a few weeks later, just before Clem came home, they ‘happened to be passing by’ and we had another evening drinking, I asked them about life on Hawaii 1. They said I should come and see for myself – of course – I told them there was no way I could afford a trip like that. They said I shouldn’t rule it out – they might have some work for a bright guy like me, perhaps I could set up a lab on my own and make something for them. Like a fool I asked what? They told me that they knew Clem had a new drug with no come down but that he wasn’t interested in making it for them – if I could do it, then they would buy and import the equipment needed. Of course, I knew they were talking about Sunset. I said I didn’t have the complete formula but I had done some of the testing on it. ‘But you could get the details if you wanted to…’ I told them I could and asked how much they needed, they asked how much I thought I could make. – I told them I would have to work out some figures and what equipment I would need. They gave me a mail contact to reach them – and that’s how it began.
Once they had my lab set up, they came round regularly and gradually they started to press me for odd bits of information from Clem’s computers – some of it probably wasn’t important – it just got me used to doing stuff for them. They paid generously – mostly into an account they said was ‘waiting for me on Hawaii 1’. They started to push for more information about stuff I knew Clem was more circumspect about – medical stuff – and I started to get cold feet. They didn’t get nasty, not then, in fact, they said they were going to take me to a party! I would get to meet some important people from both Hawaii 1 and 2.”
Stig had been taking notes as Gervald told his story and asking the odd question – could Gervald describe the men, what was the contact number they had given him, could he remember any specific dates he had seen them… Gervald cooperated fully, he seemed relieved to let it all out finally. He went on.
“The party was on an island, we went on the biggest private boat I had ever seen and as well as the guy’s I knew, there were some women – very smartly dressed but I thought later, that they were – you know – professional… We all went ashore and into a side room off the main living space I was introduced to someone from Hawaii 1- a Mr Jensen – who seemed to be quite important – the guys were very deferential to him. He said that ‘they were very pleased with my work, that Sunset was the way forward, a good, clean drug with less side effects – just what they needed to keep the workers happy!’ Then the guys and I went out into the main room where we joined the girls. They pointed out the President – you know Widnes! He was talking to the guy that I had the meeting with – they seemed to be friendly, but there was some sort of struggle going on – like Jensen was pushing for something – it reminded me of how it was when the guys came to talk to me! But then one of the women started coming on to me and it wasn’t long before we were headed back to the boat because she said we would have it to ourselves. She poured me a drink and we sat on a couch and she kissed me, I know that much, but after that I remember nothing. Next time I woke, I was in bed in one of the cabins – naked, but what else had happened I couldn’t tell you.
I’ve had a lot of time here to think about what happened and I realised I was well played at that party – I saw some luxury, got complimented by someone who could have been anyone, saw the President but never got to talk to him – or anyone else come to that. I got kissed but that was literally the only taste of the high life I had before being whisked back to normality. Smoke and mirrors! After that, the guys started to get really pushy and downright nasty and I started to realise more and more that I was out of my depth – I owed them more for the equipment than I could possibly afford and they could tell Clem what I had done too, not that I thought that likely. I was on the hook so I decided to just disappear and hope they wouldn’t come after me – tell me! Do you think they will, Stig?”
“I really can’t say Gervald, but I think we will get you moved somewhere safer, just in case. After all, you didn’t really take much finding did you? Said Stig.
“I guess not!” Gervald looked very uncomfortable again.
“Look! I’ll make a call straight away and get someone to pick you up tonight. We’ll get your camper taken in the opposite direction as a decoy, okay?”
“Okay!”
“I will arrange for someone to take a more formal statement too before you disappear into what we might call a ‘witness protection program’ although that is a bit grand for Hawaii 2 – we certainly don’t have a program as such – you would be the first and only member of it if we did!”
“Thank you Stig, I have been terrified, I won’t lie to you…”
“That’s okay Gervald – you have been foolish not to mention disloyal – but we on Hawaii 2 look after our own.”
