New novella soon to be released
The Gaff is on its way, dust down your reading glasses
Ladies and gentleman…
Start your engines. Grease those rollerblades. Pump up your bicycle tyres. And get counting those cents, dimes, pennies, shillings and coat buttons. AND YOUR DOGECOIN TOO. YES, YOU AT THE BACK.
The Gaff will soon be available in precisely ZERO good bookstores and online at AMAZON, APPLE BOOKS, KOBO, etc. If I ever get around to uploading them all onto those platforms :)
So what’s it all about? Well…
This is the blurb on the back cover…
Leopold's father has died. Now, he and his three siblings have to deal with a house — affectionately known as "The Gaff" — that he has left behind. Split it into two flats, it has tricky tenants and has been handled up until now by a shady self-proclaimed property manager. As further problems emerge with the property, Leopold and his siblings struggle to stay in control. Then a shocking revelation leaves them reeling. And forces Leopold to question whether he really knew his father at all.
Herewith I include the opening two chapters:
The Gaff
1
'What are we doing about The Gaff?' says my eldest brother.
'What do you mean?' I say. 'Whose gaff?'
'Whose do you think? Dad's gaff. You know, the house that he rented out. We have to do something with it, don't we? We can't just leave it as it is. It has tenants in it. We need to deal with them. And then we need to decide if we want to keep the place, or sell it.'
'Seriously Mike,' says my other brother, Dave. 'Dad's body is probably still warm, and you're talking about what to do with his house?'
'Technically, we’re talking about two flats. Not one house,' says my sister, taking a long drag on her cigarette.
'Yeah, thanks for the clarification Catherine,' says Dave. 'Who cares? If we have to talk about something, can we at least talk about something more pressing? Like the funeral arrangements, or who we need to tell?
I rub my eyes and wish that I could go to sleep and wake up again and realise that this is all a very bad dream. But I know it is not. We are in the back garden of the house that my father rented. He is dead. He died two days ago. We don't really know how, right now. It could have been a heart attack. He dropped dead while washing his car. He was 78, healthy and fit. That is why we are all so shocked. He had piercing blue eyes and lots of white hair. He had grown his hair out after our mother had died and kept it at shoulder length.
Catherine used to say it made him look like a lion.
2
Not many people come to my father's funeral. He stopped talking to many people after my mother died, which was over ten years ago. He had two good friends, but they are dead too. And he did not have that many friends or acquaintances in the first place, anyway.
We have some food and drinks in a pub that is close to the crematorium.
I talk to one of my Uncles. He was my mother's youngest brother. 'So Leopold, tell me, any plans for that house of his?' he asks me.
'We haven't thought about it yet. I suppose we'll put it on the market and split the proceeds. There's a bit to sort out with it though. You know, with the tenants and the rest of it.'
'Yes, I suppose there is,' says my Uncle. 'Funny move of his though, don't you think? Must have cost him an arm and a leg. He used to call it 'The Gaff' for some reason, didn't he?'
'It's a slang word, isn't it? People just sometimes call house gaffs, don't they?' says Catherine, who has come back into the pub and joined the conversation after smoking what was probably her fiftieth cigarette of the day.
'I don't know,' says my Uncle. 'Do they?'
'I think maybe they do,' I say.
Later on, everyone has left, apart from Catherine and my brother Mike.
'Why didn't you go home with Zara and the kids?' I ask him.
'I don't know. I guess I wanted to have another drink or two in Dad's honour. Just the four of us, you know.'
'Dave went home about an hour ago,' says Catherine. 'Francesca said she had to get back to deal with the kids.'
'Why didn't he bring them along?' I say.
'You know what Francesca's like,' says Catherine. 'She won't have wanted them to get upset, or some other load of bollocks.'
'He knows what he's doing,' says Mike. 'He wants a quiet life. Can't blame him. Wish I could go along with everything Zara wants. It would make life a lot less complicated, believe me.'
Mike shakes his head and then finishes his drink. I am worried about him. He looks tired. Stressed. Dare I say it, maybe even depressed.
'I'm going for a cigarette,' says Catherine. 'Are we having shots? Let's have shots.'
'I was going to order a double Johnnie Walker and ginger ale,' says Mike. 'Dad used to love that drink.'
'He did?' says Catherine.
'Yeah, he did,' says Mike.
As well as growing his hair long, my father stopped drinking when my mother died. He also poured a lot of his energy into The Gaff. He sold our old family home and cashed in his pension and savings to buy it. Then he started renting a small house not far from our old family home. He employed a builder to turn The Gaff into two flats. From what I can remember, the whole project took a long time to complete. We hardly saw him while the building work was going on. He always said the income from the tenants in the flats would be his retirement money.
'What if you struggle to rent it out?' I asked him once.
'I won't struggle, don't worry,' he said. 'That gaff is in the perfect position in the perfect town. People will be chomping at the bit to get in there, trust me.'
Dad was always positive in that sort of way.
Progress report
A designer is working on the cover for The Gaff right now. I hope to have it out at the end of this month.
My novel about a private detective based in London who is descended from the last king of Poland will be called The Fragment from The Shroud. I’ve been calling it The Man Who Wore Hats for a long time, but it’s never sat right with me. Mainly because none of the characters really wear that many hats in the first place. I am editing the first draft, it needs a lot of work.
Take it easy. And thanks for reading.