Wow, the Worry of a Rejected Manuscript.

I had written a long story which I thought was aimed at a middle-school market, when I asked for the manuscript to be edited it came back with almost 50,000 words removed from the original draft. I now understood where I went wrong, by head hopping the plot and subplots became so complicated, I missed the mark. After submitting to several publishers and receiving their rejections I asked what were the reasons for rejecting it. No one said it wasn't commercial, but they wee worried it was patronising. I now wonder if I should keep some of these pieces that hit the cutting room floor and re-write for an adult audience.

Meet a couple of my favourite characters in a piece that didn't make the cut.

John knocked on the front door. It opened, he showed his identification and asked. ‘William Wyatt?’

‘Yes.’

‘I saw you at the Farrier place yesterday and wondered if we could ask you a few questions. May we come in?’ Jenny showed her warrant card. ‘This is Constable Azzopardi.’

Willy ushered them into the kitchen. It was tidy, but Jenny could tell he lived alone. Dishes drained on the sink and the place was dark.

‘Mind if I open the drapes?’ She asked.

‘Not at all, I had a long night and only got up a couple of hours ago.’

‘Do you know the bloke in this sketch.’

‘He’s Phillip Ryan, a Professor of History at Melbourne Uni.

‘And you recognise this, why? Jenny asked.

‘Because I think, no, I know he wants an old book that belongs to Toby. He has some strange idea that it’s his. He has a fixation about the criminal characters of early Australia, particularly Melbourne. He’s written about twenty books on them.’ Willy yawned. ‘Pardon me. After you lost him at the Farrier’s yesterday, I thought he might have hidden out at his boat, but I didn’t see him near the marina all night.’ William stood up and lifted the kettle. ‘Tea or coffee?’

‘No thanks.’ Jenny said. ‘We’ll be off in a minute. Where is this boat?’

Willy scribbled down the address and passed it to her.

‘Expensive habit,’ John said studying the note. ‘Professors must earn plenty?’

‘Old money, family trust, the boat’s in the grandfather’s name. Sixty foot cruiser, called Shogun.’ Willy scratched his greying temples. ‘A banking family with many interests, most of the money was made trading and hiring jewellery in Victorian times. Phillip bragged the depression was a good time for his family.’ Willy felt his face flush and dropped his eyes. ‘Not that I’m envious, I resent his manner. But Ill admit I’ve dropped his name if it afforded opportunity. Not that I’ll do it again.’

‘We’ll check the boat.’ John said. ‘Tell me though. Did you ever give Danny Sabo a mobile phone?’

‘No, don’t have one myself. I believe people will find me if they want to. Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, just wondered?’ He winked at Jenny. ‘We coppers ask all the hard questions.’ John said.

Jenny started the car while John fiddled with his seat belt.

‘Want to see the boats at the marina?’ He said.

‘Nope, I want to go home.’

‘One more call and that’s all for today, promise.’

‘You really do know how to charm a girl, Evans,’ Jenny said , turned into the traffic and headed toward the bay. She thought about Willy and said. ‘We coppers ask all the hard questions. Is that the best you could do? You disappoint me Johnny boy. And what was that about the phone, Slasher said the ASIO guy,’ she took her hands off the wheel and made quotation signs with her fingers, ‘gave it to him.’

‘I checked the supplier. It’s in Willy’s name. Why would he do that?’

‘Ask him, shall we?’

‘Love to, gotta find him first, though.’

‘Well there is that.’ She said.

The marina staff were less than helpful. Nobody had used the yacht for days. The marina had a security monitor on every pier and jetty, but relied on the owners to secure everything else.

‘We’d better take a look then’ John had enough. ‘Where do we go?’

‘Here,’ the squadron secretary jabbed his finger onto a photocopied directory, ‘you’re not a yachty, then? I can see that now.’ He answered his own question and followed it with. ‘I hope you swim?’

Constable Azzopardi bit her lip. ‘Yeah and I might be back with a team to examine your records later. I hope you’ll have time?’ She said.

They walked to the end of the pier. John looked around the hull. Shogun hardly rose or fell to the light swell, it just road there, the fenders squeaking in protest from the wake of passing boats.

‘You didn’t like the squadron secretary?’ He said.

‘I’d like to take Mr Tighty Whitey shirt and shorts and throw him, and his white Italian boat shoes, in the drink. I hope you swim. I’d say as he hit the water. His type are hard to take. I grew up in Footscray, and blokes like him loved to rub our noses in it at school. No, John, I don’t like the squadron secretary.’

‘Bad luck, because here he comes.’

‘I thought I should tell you, I checked the log and Mr Ryan has booked this boat into the ship builders for a surveyor’s report tomorrow.’ The polished man was panting now. ‘We need twenty four hours notice to cancel. Do you think I should cancel? There are penalties if I do, but bigger ones if the boat doesn’t show up.’

‘It should be okay.’ John said. ‘But tell me, what’s the secret to getting on board?’

‘Here, I’ll do it for you.’

‘Reminds me of Mr Humphries from the old TV show; Are You Being Served, just look at him.’

‘Give him a break, Jen. I don’t like him either, but I want to get this over and go home.’

‘Yeah, but he tightens my spring.’

Tighty Whitey flounced back; he gestured toward the rear deck of the cruiser. ‘Come quickly. The launch and the Moke are missing.’ He had lowered a gang plank and raced onboard. ‘And the alarms are smashed too.’ He paced in circles. ‘What will I do, Gentlefolk...? Shogun has been violated.’

‘Thanks we will take it from here.’ John said. ‘What’s a Moke?’

Tighty stayed near the stern. ‘A small car, old. Made in the seventies and fitted nicely on the launch. Phillip had his shortened, and he was talking about replacing it with a Smart car. But oh, how I do go on.’

‘Oh but you do.’ Jenny pointed to the dock. ‘You can go now. Don’t leave the marina. We’ll want a statement of your movements for the past forty eight hours.’

‘When might this be? I’ve got a champions dinner to organise tonight, the Governor will be here and all. I can’t have you disrupt that.’

‘Should we book a table, John?’

‘Sorry, members only I’m afraid.’ He smiled and shrugged at her, holding his palms out in the manner of a street beggar.

‘That’s okay. Expect us to crash at around eight o’clock then.’ Jenny was sick of him. ‘We’ll be back with an order to seize your records, might be months before they get them back though. It’s only John and me to go through them.’

‘Aghh, now you’ve spoilt the surprise, Jen. I so much wanted to come unannounced.’

Jenny glared at Tighty Whitey. ‘You’d better go mate, before I find something to charge you with.’

He looked at her, his instinct wanted to put her in her place, but he thought better of it. ‘You know where I am if you need me.’ He had spent enough time in the company of a Footscray dialect for one day, thank you.

The cabins were immaculate. Everything was as it should be. John thought about the way Arthur’s place looked yesterday. The neat freak, liked things this way.

‘Nice, I could spend some time on one of these. Do you think he is planning to get away, having her slipped and all?’ Jenny said.

‘I think it’s coincidence.’ John said. ‘See the slime and barnacle build up, she hasn’t been out for a while.’ He flicked through the log book. ‘Over twelve months in fact. Scraping the hull will be maintenance, but I am curious to know if the theft of the launch has been reported.’ They looked around and satisfied, left.

‘Home time beckons.’ Jenny said as she pulled out of the parking lot. ‘I’ve had enough today.’

‘Yeah, but first I’d like to check out his office, or his home. I know it’s a long shot but we haven’t looked there yet. We just took what Willy said and blitzed down here. He might have just gone home.’

‘You’ll buy me a dinner to make up for it. You know that, don’t’ you?’

‘Mario’s, all you can eat it is then, tomorrow after work.’

‘I don’t think so, what say the middle of February, the fourteenth. That’ll give me time to find a sitter, and you time to book somewhere nice. Oh, and get a suit to wear too. One for dancing.’

‘That’s Valentine’s Day?’

‘Yep,’ she battered her eyelids at him, ‘all those William W Ryan romance novels lined up in the glass bookcase at Willy’s place got me thinking. You don’t have a life after work, and neither do I. We could go out on a date.’

‘Are you asking me out, Miss Azzopardi?’

‘I do believe I am, Mr Evans.’

‘It’s settled then. Where will we go, on this pretend date?’

‘Surprise me.’

‘Done.’