Okay, here's my entry for the Earth Day contest. I'm not 100% as to which category it should go in, so it'll be interesting (for me) to see where it ends up.
It begins with Amy watching her mother as they take part in an Earth Day project to clean up the local canal bank. Amy has a suspicion her mother might have a new lover in the offing, but she's determined to put a stop to their hanky-panky.
But it doesn't go according to plan...
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. I'm half expecting a bumpy ride 'cause of my recent dig at the Loving Wives folks; and in its own way, even though it might slew my score a little, it'll be interesting to see what happens if they spot my name on the New List.
If there are any errors outstanding, I apologise. Yep, all me own fault. Also, I tried a couple of experiments in regard to point of view and tense and I'd appreciate some feedback on how that works, or doesn't as the case may be.
Thank you for reading.
GA -- Ranong, Thailand -- 27th March 2014.
Prologue
Amy realises there's something going on. She's seen it before, she recognises the signs.
So she knows she has to watch them.
Amy doubts he'd risk doing anything with the journalist and the photographer from the local paper close by. But, as it goes, she's to find out soon enough she has that wrong.
They're all on the canal bank, a team on either side, with fourteen to a team. There's no significance in the number -- twenty-four volunteers plus the four co-ordinators, which makes it twelve plus two on each bank.
They're spread out like an army patrol, the canal as the axis, working in pairs. One holds a large black refuse sack while the other collects whatever detritus is in their path. Occasionally there's a call for a co-ordinator to examine something too large to fit into the bag, usually a rusted bike frame or supermarket shopping trolley that will need a special collection.
It occurs to Amy early on to wonder about how so many shopping trollies end up in the undergrowth by the canal when the nearest Tesco is two miles away, but the thought drifts away when she sees her mother, the chief co-ordinator, on the opposite bank, with Anthony close by.
It's midday and, at a call from Amy's mother the teams converge for a forty-five minute break, a picnic on the bank of the canal organised by Anthony at the council's expense.
Amy settles on a patch of grass a few feet from the body of the group and listens to Anthony expound to the journalist, a dumpy blob of a woman with a digital Dictaphone held in one podgy hand. He's yapping on about the Earth Day initiative for the canal bank clean-up, giving it large, making sure the woman is in no doubt that this, and other efforts all along the waterway, are his idea.
The journalist thanks Anthony and, after the tog takes a few pictures, moves off for more sound bites, this time from eager volunteers.
As the Earth Day chatter goes on around her, Amy watches her mother. Sure enough, amid the conversations about the canal clearance and other clean-up events, the gushing praise for Anthony, with comments about the apparent apathy of the public at large, Amy watches her mother flirt with the Godsend himself.
The man, Anthony, the saviour of the canal, the self-serving arrogant pig, a council employee at present, but with political aspirations, stands and stretches with his hands against his kidneys. He makes a bit of a show about his aching back, although he's spent most of the day in the Range Rover moving from group to group along the length of the waterway, the pair from the newspaper in tow.
Amy hasn't seen Anthony bend to pick up a thing; she rolls her eyes and mutters about him being such a wanker. Despite the man giving her a few days' work, at her mother's request, Amy didn't have much time for him.
Then, while Amy keeps a surreptitious eye fixed to her mother, Anthony leans in and murmurs something into the woman's ear.
Amy has to look away quickly when her mother's eyes flick in her direction.
Feigning nonchalance as she nibbles a sandwich -- which is actually quite good -- she sees Anthony saunter off down the bank
Nobody so much as glances at him while chatter and laughter swells from the group of volunteers, most of them excited by the possibility of their smiling faces appearing in the paper.
But Amy's attention never wavers, and ninety seconds later she watches as her mother rises to her feet.
Her mother throws a surreptitious glance around the gathering before she too ambles away.
Amy gives her mother half a minute start before she gets up and follows.
Sure enough, as she suspected, Amy sees her and Anthony meet a hundred yards away from the gathering. The clandestine pair hurry away, so preoccupied that neither sees the young blonde woman following. They move at a quick pace along the muddy track, veering abruptly to the left, away from the water.
Amy quickens her pace when she sees her mother and Anthony duck out of sight. She's careful to avoid splashing into any of the small puddles dotted along the path, desperate for a covert approach. When she arrives at the spot where she thinks Anthony and her mother left the path, Amy sees a gap in the tangle of hedgerow. She takes a moment puzzling over how either her mother or Anthony knew about the near indistinguishable gap in the green, but pushes the questions away when she realises she's wasting time -- one or the other must have been to the place before, most likely Anthony, Amy decides, and then she's pushing into the gap, branches and leaves plucking and scraping at her arms.
She doesn't have far to go, just a yard or so until she breaks out into a more open area, a crossroads of sorts, a litter-strewn T-junction of dry earth beaten flat by the passing of feet. Amy realises she's standing on a track most probably used by the inhabitants of the housing estate just beyond the cheap, wooden-slatted fence she can see a few feet in front of her. It's the kind of place local kids would use during weekends and holidays: hidden dens and hide and seek, a short cut from the estate to the world beyond. There would probably be a gap in the fence, a couple of loose boards perhaps...
Amy stands at the junction, dappled sunlight from the cool, April midday speckling the ground. She has to make a decision -- left or right?
On instinct she opts for the left, moving along as quiet as she can in a round-shouldered half-crouch in response to the low overhang of tree branches either side.
She freezes when she hears voices.
