Chapter 9 - The Hermit

 Finally the chapter where I get to talk about Tante Ilse’s interest in Tarot! As you will see in the chapter, the cards Celia’s laid to answer her questions were quite instructive and plausible. I actually pulled them at random from a Tarot pack, I did not select them for their plausibility. They did however reflect vague ideas that I have been having about why Ned should be in Croatia, rather than in a cemetery in England. I can’t explain Tarot, but my experience is that it throws up interesting possibilities.

I had great difficulties starting Chapter 9. I started three times and had to stop after the first two attempts because they weren’t right.  Here’s version 1:

‘Colin, I tell you it was Ned. I saw Ned. Not somebody who looks like Ned, not somebody who reminded me of Ned. It was Ned! Max … will you turn that bloody noise down!’ The doodles on the pad of paper that Celia always drew when talking on the phone became increasingly spiky.

I used some of this in the final text, but I felt it was too confusing as a beginning. So in the next version, I got Franz out of bed:

Straight after arriving home early on Saturday morning, Celia woke Franz and told him.

‘Ned?’

I quite liked this, but finally decided it was too bare and also confusing. In the final version I decided to put more emphasis on the domestic context

When Franz woke up and went into the kitchen early on Saturday morning he found Celia sitting at the table looking through a pile of old newspaper clippings and photographs.

This was the beginning I finally chose. I hope you can live with it.

The story so far:

Celia Thomas has returned home to Munich from a trip to Zagreb. Late the previous night she believes she saw her brother Ned, who was supposed to have been killed in Bosnia in 1995. But will anybody believe her story?

Chapter 9 - The Hermit can now be found under good stuff