New book coming soon...!
My next book is almost due out, and below is an excerpt from Chapter One.
It follows on from The Return of Gabe McLeod, set in fictional Frazier Bay in the South Island of New Zealand. I am hoping (??!) it will be out by the end of January and all going well, it will be. It is called... The Heart of Matthew McLeod.
THE MEETING OF the
Frazier Bay Restoration Society took place in the church hall on Frazier Bay
Road and had been in progress for well over one hour.
Anna Cameron sat on a
wooden seat alongside her friend Tessa McLeod, surrounded by several dozen
people, most of whom she didn’t know.
She focused her attention
on the man standing at the lectern in front of them: the arm-waving and
white-bearded Jonas Piper, proclaiming his suggestions on how to encourage more
people to visit their quiet part of the South Island. His ideas were more
suited to big cities rather than an out-of-the-way small towns with dwindling
and ageing populations but his enthusiasm was infectious.
Tessa pushed a folded-up
square of paper into Anna’s hand and whispered, “Read it.”
It was like being in high
school, Anna mused, except Anna had never been one to pass or receive notes.
She unfolded the paper and read Gabe’s here with his cousin. He’s looking at
you.
Anna handed the note back
and murmured, “What has your husband looking at me got to do with anything?”
Tessa rolled her eyes and
began to write another note.
“We’re not in school, you
could actually tell me,” Anna whispered. Tessa wouldn’t have been the type to
write notes either. Like her, she’d have taken studying seriously. A-grade
seriously.
“You girls?” Shona
McHardy leant forward from the seat behind and demanded in a low voice, “Are
you both paying attention to Jonas? His ideas are the sort of thing you young
ones should be thinking about for Frazier Bay.”
“We’re not young ones,”
Tessa muttered out the side of her mouth. “We are mature, educated,
professional women.”
“Then what are you
passing notes for? I may be eighty-three on my next birthday but I’m not blind,
you know.”
She settled back as Jeb
Fisher shooshed them, and Tessa passed Anna the new note.
“No time,” Anna said as
Mayor Bob Warrington stood up from his seat. “I think I’m next.”
Bob made his way to the
lectern, with considerable slowness due to his gout and dodgy knee.
“Thank you, Jonas,” he
said wryly. “I’m sure we appreciate your hearty suggestions. We’ll take them to
the committee and see which ones we can take on board.” He added, “If any.”
Bemused chuckles broke
out, Jonas gave a grin as he took his seat in the front row, and Bob gestured
for Anna to make her way to the front.
“Now it’s time,” he
introduced, “for our last speaker of the evening. I think you all know Anna by
now. She works in the library over at Kingston Falls and today she’s offered to
tell us a bit about this mystery photo album that turned up. Let’s welcome
Anna.”
There were a smattering
of claps and an over-the-top whistle from Tessa as Anna made her way up to the
stage where the laptop was set up. She plugged in her USB, brought up the
PowerPoint, adjusted the data projector, and gave her notes a quick glance.
They were bullet-pointed but she wouldn’t need them. She had lived and breathed
the photo album for the past month and now she hoped someone here might be able
to tell her something, tell her anything, about it.
Tessa gave her an
encouraging grin, Nessie Sweetman held both thumbs up, Anna checked the opening
slide on the screen behind her, and she began.
“Thank you, everyone, for
the opportunity to speak about the photo album which is, as Bob mentioned, a
mystery. We have no idea who it belonged to or who the people in the
photographs are, but I hope that some of you here might be able to shed some
light, and maybe even recognise something familiar in the photos.” She moved to
a slide of the album cover itself.
“The album was handed
into the library last month. It was found in a farmhouse quite a way out west
of Frazier Bay. The couple renovating the house—”
“I have a question,”
Nessie interrupted as she rose to her feet. “What are the ages of this couple?
Are they young people with children who might like to get involved with life
here in the Bay?”
Anna pictured the
Kennards. “In-between,” she said. “In their early fifties, I’d say. They moved
from Dunedin when their children left home, to try their hand on a lifestyle
block.”
Nessie harrumphed, sat
back down and folded her arms.
Anna flicked to the next
slide. “Their house is an early 1900s farm house and it was when they remodeled
the kitchen they discovered the album behind a fake wall. It looked as if the
wall had been created to make a small storage area but at some time had been
plastered over and painted with no sign of the existing door. There was
furniture and there were stacks of books, including this one photo album.”
She set the slide show to
move through the images. “We can date these to the 1930s and 40s from the hair
styles and fashion but also because in one photograph there is a copy of the
Frazier Bay Bulletin and we made out the date. January 1943. The people appear
to be from the same family and were photographed over a decade or so.” She
paused at a slide showing two photographs. “On the left the girl looks to be
around three-years-old, and on the right, she’s maybe around twelve.”
“What a cheeky girl,”
Nessie announced. “She reminds me of myself when I was that age.”
Jonas snorted in
disbelief, and Anna looked away from the image. There was so much in the girl’s
face and in her happy expression that reminded Anna of Sophia—
She focused on the faces
in front of her. “There is nothing to identify the family in the album, no
names or dates, and nothing written on the backs of the photos or on the
pages.”
She moved through a few
more slides. “There are no landmarks that can identify where the photos were
taken and there is nothing to acknowledge who the photographer was.”
“Somebody in the family?”
Bob called out.
“That’s possible,” Anna
said, “but these are professional photographs for their time. Everything about
them screams they were taken by someone who knew what they were doing. I’ve
been in touch with a few photographic experts and interestingly, there was one
name that cropped up.”
She flicked to a
different series of photos. “These images are the work of a New Zealand
photographer called Blaine St James. He’s not well-known but in the last few
years, a collection of his work was discovered and museums are piecing together
private donations to come up with a picture of the man.”
There was a perceptible
shift in the crowd and Anna went on, “He worked in the North Island around the
late 1930s but he doesn’t appear to have worked this far south at all.”
Nessie said, “Maybe he
lived around these parts even if he didn’t do any paid work down here?”
“He could have,” Anna
agreed, “but the problem is that he seems to have stopped photography after the
war, and there are no official records of a Blaine St James living in New
Zealand. We’re led to assume the name was a pseudonym for his photography work
and not his real identity. He’s a mystery. Just as,” she said, stopping the
slideshow on a group shot of the ten children, “this family is a mystery, too.”
“Then how did the album
end up in a house around here?” Jeb Fisher piped up.
Anna shrugged. “Hard to
say. I traced the history of the house back to three previous owners, thinking
they could be this family, but that was a dead end. I’ve shown it to the
historical society up in Kingston Falls but no one there could help. I do have
some radio interviews coming up, and we’re digitising more images to go up on
the library website. I’m hoping someone will be able to identify who they are.”
She glanced back at the photo of the family and said, “If Blaine St James is
the photographer, this could be his family. However, if any of these children
are still alive, they would be well into their nineties.”
“Nothing wrong with being
in our nineties,” Jeb called out again.
“Easy for you to say,”
Jonas Piper protested to hoots of laughter.
Anna smiled, pleased the
presentation had provoked their interest. “If any of this jogs a memory, do let
me know.” She set the slide show to continue and said, “And thank you all, for
your time.”
Applause broke out, Anna
let out a relieved breath and she gathered her papers. The note Tessa had given
her was there but she glanced up as Bob approached the table.
He gave her an
appreciative wink before he addressed the crowd. “I’m opening the floor up for
discussion on any other points. We need to talk about the fair on Sunday which
as you all know is to raise funds for the society, and Nessie specifically
wants to speak to the cake stall.” He reached for his mayoral mallet and banged
it on the table. “Be warned. Stick to your time and watch your language.”
“That’s abuse of power,
Mayor,” Nessie called out, and Anna unfolded the paper and read the note.
Gabe’s not looking. It’s
his cousin Matthew. Seems interested!
Anna looked up curiously
and scanned the small crowd. It took a moment to sight Gabe in the back row,
his head turned as he chatted to a partially-obscured man next to him. Even
obscured, he looked unfamiliar, and didn’t resemble anyone she’d met around
here.
The person in front
shifted, Gabe’s cousin came into full view, and then his gaze clashed with
Anna’s.
Anna let out a low breath
as the chatter around her seemed to vanish into white noise. She recognised
him.
Matthew McLeod, an
award-winning creative director who had worked alongside her former husband at
the Dunedin advertising agency.
He moved his head
slightly before he looked away and Anna pressed her lips together. Was it in
acknowledgement, because she doubted he’d remembered her when she could count
on one hand the times they had met.
She remembered him
though—he and his wife, Rebecca. Both attractive, ambitious, and an insanely
together-couple who were the darlings of Dunedin’s social scene. No couple
could be more perfect than Matthew and Rebecca McLeod. (END)
For more on Frazier Bay, go here.