A Woman with Mongrel Ch. 01

"Meaning?"

"The valuation needs updating, just as the man said."

Rex: But this could add another million bucks to the purchase price.

Fred: That is possible.

Harry: If that presents a problem Mrs Robertson and I are prepared to buy out you three shareholders at our valuation and find a buyer to take the company as a going concern; it does, after all, have the signs of becoming an international gold mine.

There was a lengthy silence.

"Any further comments?" asked the chairman. "No, then please ask Carson to come in Peter."

The faintly smiling Carson entered and Max explained that Harry had correctly pointed out that the valuation of assets was out of date.

"Harry, would you like to state your two conditions and ultimatum you mentioned to us."

"Yes Mr Chairman. One, that a new certified valuation of assets be carried out immediately and the sale proceed, based on that valuation. Two, that the company sets up a trust funded entirely by the company at $10,000 per year for five years, to be called the Philip Robertson Memorial Scholarship to be awarded to the student graduating with the highest marks in electronics at the end of the first year course in the three-year Diploma of Marine Technology at our city's Technical Training Institute. The ultimatum is that if there is not total agreement on items One and Two that Mrs Robertson and I offer to buy out each partner for $800,000 cash, which is not bad money since your original investment was only $150,000 each. We anticipate we can easily treble our money by selling out to the Americans."

Harry was pleased to see Carson staring at him, a slight smile on her face. He'd not discussed with her the demand for the scholarship or the joint purchase of all assets.

"Carson," said Rex, after a brief word with financial adviser Fred Quirk. "The new valuation should be completed by midday on Wednesday next. Could your and Harry now leave us to discuss these new proposals and we meet here on Wednesday, commencing with lunch."

"That would be satisfactory, Rex. Come on Harry."

As soon as they were outside, Carson turned on Harry: "Harry Truscott, please answer me this: how the fuck can we get our hands on a further $2.4 million cash to buy out those jerks?"

"I've got some put away, quite a lot actually, and once a mortgage company takes a look at the new valuation figures they will open their coffers to you."

"You didn't tell me about making this ultimatum and neither did you tell me about the memorial scholarship which, actually, I think is a sweet idea."

"I didn't think you would wear the ultimatum because of the risks -- Diomedes Mantell would have done it that way. I only thought of the scholarships when I saw those guys sitting, smirking at first, and I thought the bastards and they should pay for trying to rip off the wife of their late buddy."

"Good one, but $10,000 is not much."

"Perhaps not, but it will help some keen kid. Besides, if the company remains here instead of going offshore and the scholarship wins them kudos, they will be smart enough to increase to value to get more mileage."

"Diomedes Mantell's a pretty smart guy. I'm putting you on a promise: if I get more money than I was expecting from the sale, then I'm going to be very nice to you."

"How nice?"

"Very nice. I'll buy you a great present."

Back in bed, listening the breeze-blown sound of little waves arriving to kiss the sands in hypnotic frequency -- which is why he had the slider door open -- Harry fretted, fighting sleep. It was all too nice, too incredibly pat. She'd said she would buy him a great present, but her eyes indicated to him, unless he was very mistaken, that she was going to let him seduce her. This was all wrong -- any red blooded man wants SEX but not a reward. His mind clicked into creative mode as he searched to find the answers. Surprisingly, it came almost instant: Carson was deficient in one area -- yes, that was it! She had everything, except she knew she had to have a man she'd loved. But where was her mongrel, her flashing lights? Carson looked fabulous, spoke great, er, spoke beautifully, moved gracefully and was ever so charming -- a mother's perfect dream. In fact an advertiser's dream -- the perfect cardboard cutout of the ultimate woman. But where was her fucking heart, her passion! Triumphant that he'd figured out the problem, Harry slipped asleep and during the night dreamt of Carson and then Jessie arrived and confusingly the figures of the two women became ghost-like and merged.

Harry cried out in his sleep, a cry of frustration, but it was drowned by the 13th wave hitting the beach -- the wave in a sequence that comes in a little larger, a little nosier than its twelve predecessors. Anyone thinking that all waves were the same size needed to think again. As Harry would say to himself, 'Even Diomedes Mantell knew that'.

Lydia cried and feet padded along the floor to her nursery.

Nursing Lydia, Carson thought most people would automatically dismiss Harry as a nobody. Harry never appeared to shave properly and his hair was a walking mess, though she'd noticed he did have a brush and comb in his bathroom. They showed signs of having being used -- some tentative ritual ingrained by his mother no doubt but his mother probably had not pressed on to teach her boy how to brush and comb properly.

She'd teach him, thought Carson, and then flushing, thought she'd do no such thing. She smiled, thinking how heroic it had been offering herself in an oblique way to Harry, at least announcing it was on its way. Her face clouded. She'd made it conditional on receipt of a greater amount of money thanks to Harry's intervention. She'd offered herself to him over money? Oh God. No wonder his offhand reaction had disappointed her; he'd been appalled. He'd would be denied the chase - real or emotional - that apparently men revel in, grinding a woman down in relentless pursuit until the spoils lay before him.

Now Carson did more than flush; she stirred sexually and knew it. Harry's face, lined in disappointed, appeared before her. She pressed back in the nursing chair, wanting that face gone, and it disappeared. It was replaced by another face, a face she didn't know and then, eyes held tightly shut in an attempt to retain that image, Carson knew why she didn't recognize the face of Jessie Chicago -- it was because Jessie's face was terrible sad. This was uncharacteristic -- Jessie never, never, never was sad unless Diomedes Mantell was in jail or in hospital undergoing surgery after being shot or run over by a car in an attempted assassination. Carson opened her eyes. Jessie's image faded away and Carson wept; she had no right to do this to Jessie -- trading off sex for money, that is.

Realizing she was half asleep, her mind in confusion between reality and dredging pages of second-rate fiction. Carson did not resist. There was an answer here somewhere. Jessie was coming before her for a reason. Carson smiled. She was aware these 'visitations' -- if that were the correct term -- were progressive. Each time Jessie was becoming more real to her; she only saw Jessie, never Diomedes.

There would be a reason for this, of course.

She'd been mortified at injuring a person -- any person -- even a scruffy male author of ridiculously old-fashion type detective novels which he seemed almost solely responsible for a revival of the genre. The old style, that is, because plenty of wannabe authors were writing detective stories but delved boringly deep into modern forensic methods, electronics and some were now based on space craft chases between planets, for heaven's sake. Carson had been given a bumbling detective novel two or three years earlier, and in her loneliness after the death had picked it up to read, knowing it would be light and puerile, easy fodder for her wounded mind. The reading experience had been not too bad; in fact she went out and returned home with seven other titles in the series and the bookshop ordered the other three in the series and pre-ordered the greatly anticipated twelfth novel, as it had been suggested towards the close of the eleventh novel that Jessie Chicago was prepared to propose to Diomedes Mantell.

Carson had asked the owner of the small book store how many pre-orders did she have for that book. The elderly woman looked into her ruled hard-back notebook and said seven hundred and thirty-two. Almost blown away by that, Carson had told the woman that was unbelievable. Annoyed, the bookstore woman tossed the notebook on the counter and told Carson to take a look for herself. The thick notebook was devoted entirely to 'The 12th -- pre-Christmas'.

Running down pages of names Carson saw every name she looked at was female. She handed the register back.

"Now do you believe me?"

Carson had nodded.

"Women everywhere have become fans of Jessie Chicago. I reckon that the writer Harry Truscott is a women's pen name because no man is capable of writing so brilliantly about Jess's sensitive moments."

Carson had laughed and said the photo of the author on the inside rear of the dust jacket was definitely scruffy male -- her very words! The prim woman had snorted, and said that authors were deceptive bastards -- her very words! They laughed and Carson went home with her books, and that night began to fall in love with the character of Jessie Chicago.

Carson stirred and directed Lydia to the other nipple.

Jessie Chicago had first appeared in her dreams so vividly because Carson had absorbed details of character build-up; she'd been painted as quite an action girl -- she was big into fitness -- and the writer was big, too brutal in fact, on Jessie's eccentricities. In comparison, Diomedes Mantell appeared almost bullet-proof.

Carson jerked upright in the chair, taking sleeping Lydia with her.

"That's it!" she cried. "He draws the character of Diomedes well but he's superb with Jessie because she'd become a monster and possessed him -- she's forcing him to develop her into the perfect women. And that's true -- as the sequels have appeared her deficits in character have become less conspicuous and even in sex with Diomedes she's reacting to Diomedes as only a dream woman would."

Carson shrieked in triumphant laughter. That woke up Lydia, who began crying, and Sara came running into the room.

"What's up? Who are you talking to?"

"Myself, I know why Jessie Chicago is beginning to haunt me."

"Have you been drinking?" Sara charged. "More than half a glass is bad for Lydia."

"No, only the half glass I had last evening. How many of the bumbling detective series have you read, darling?"

"I'm on to the seventh."

"What can you remember about Jessie Chicago?"

"She's just an amazing woman, so inspirational. Stupid Diomedes Mantell fails to see that. He only has her to help with the driving over long distances, to cook when they are camping and of course, for all the sex. Gosh, are you aware that if the woman..."

"Sara!"

"What?"

"Let's leave the sex out of it just for now. I want to become like Jessie Chicago."

"You?"

The almost derisive look on her niece's face horrified Carson; what did she see that Carson didn't?

Lydia gurgled at them, so Sara took her and suggested they go to the kitchen. It was 5:30 so Lydia might take some solids.

"What's wrong with me becoming like Jessie Chicago?"

Sara avoided eye contact, which made Carson stiffen slightly; this just would not do. "Sara, I need the benefit of your advice, your youthful rising perception."

"See -- you're wheedling; Jessie Chicago never wheedles."

"Wheedle. I never wheedle."

"You do... you smile too much...you are boringly constantly pleasant...you avoid any behavior that would make you appear vulnerable...and goodness knows what else. You are my adorable auntie, but you cannot become a Jessie Chicago."

"Oh Sara, you shock me; is that how you see me?" said Carson, smearing a tear on to her cheek. "I never realized. I always try to be good, to be pleasant to everyone. I always have, even to my dolls."

Sara avoided being drawn.

"Come on Sara; I shan't wheedle. Come on, you little bitch, tell me exactly what I am."

"You can't even pull that one off, auntie, giggled Sara. "You're not supposed to look pleasant when you call someone a bitch."

"That's enough, Sara. Tell me as nicely as you can; but give it to me on the chin."

"You constantly act like an ageing Barbie doll."

Carson staggered backwards, hands behind her back reaching for one of the bar stools; she needed to sit down. Her pretty face, devoid of makeup, had paled and she was obviously near to the watershed.

"Don't worry, Aunt Carson. Everyone loves you and everyone knows Jessie Chicago is too wonderful to be true. Everyone. Do you realize a Jessie Chicago Fan Clubs has launched in Chicago, with branches springing up everywhere, and now even leading women's magazines are attempting to explain the phenomena? I read on the Internet at midnight that a kind of hysteria is developing because the author of the bumbling detective series has been injured in a car accident but has been discharged from hospital and has just disappeared. There's a fear that it won't be Christmas without the twelfth novel."

"Ohmigod, those poor women. I can imagine what they feel. We must do something."

"What?"

"Let me think. I know, fetch your digital camera and take a photo of Harry. Make sure you get the arm brace and make sure he's decent -- drape the sheet over you-know-what discreetly. Then come to the computer -- I know a website I can use to post the story -- but we must remain anonymous otherwise we'll be besieged by the international media."

"Can you do this?"

"Of course, I use to be promotions officer for Kelly Drake Fashions."

"Kelly Drake -- oh God, I never knew that. She's a legend."

"Well, Sara, your mum has never been interested in anything beyond horses, babies and lambs, has she? She'd addicted to farm kitchen fashion."

"You're funny, auntie," giggled Sara. "I can almost imagine Jessie Chicago saying something like that."

With Lydia happily playing on the floor with a necklace, Sara watched Carson download the image and edit it.

"Gosh, he's getting a little porky around the belly -- he needs to work out more at the gym."

"He's probably gaining weigh, Sara, because he's not having sex."

They giggled.

Carson accessed the website she wanted and copying one of the pages she'd designed six years earlier, cleared the graphics and text, inserted the photo and added the caption: '

Wounded by not down, sleeping author Harry Truscott had taken refuge with two women dedicated to restoring him to health.

She then inserted the text she'd written in MSWord and formatted for a web page:

Author Promises Jessie Chicago Will Come Through for Christmas.

The story, of course, was a complete fabrication as it quoted Harry who remained unaware this was going on.

Carson then scanned Harry's driver's license, and found letters from his literary agent and publishers which contained the addresses of their websites. She then linked the web page she'd constructed to the websites of Harry's agent and publisher and to the website address she'd taken from the record of Sara's midnight visits of sites -- Home Page of the International Fan Club of Jessie Chicago.

Finally, Carson sent off emails to the Chicago website webmaster and to Harry's agent and publishing editor, alerting them to the existence of the webpage, which would soon be posted. She inserted a screenshot of the page she'd constructed.

"Why did you insert the scan of his driver's license?"

"For authenticity -- it's fairly difficult to fake a license, isn't it?"

"I suppose so. But the media will hunt him out, won't they."

"I suppose so; that always happens in books and films. But except for the gym, I'm going to keep him indoors."

Their house guest appeared. "Hello, you two -- looking at adult websites, huh?" Harry grinned, bending over and pretending to shield Lydia's eyes.

"I've never looked at an adult website in my life," Carson said stiffly.

"And that's what is partly wrong with you," whispered Sara.

"Come on, Harry. You can play with Lydia when we return -- let's hit the circuit. I'll pretend I'm Jessie Chicago and show that little barbarian who masquerades as a personal trainer that I've got what it takes."

"Who is Jessie Chicago?" asked Harry, straight-faced.

The women looked at each other and groaned.

TO BE CONTINUED...