Just One Year

By Colette Smith

Three young women leave home to move into a house together.

Ronnie wants to become independent; she doesn’t always see herself as others see her, and sharing a room with stroppy little sister Rosie is doing her head in. She’s a secretary in a large Advertising Company; not very exciting but then Ronnie doesn’t exactly value herself, especially as she gets to know her housemates Anna and Clara, both in professional jobs. What she doesn’t expect is her life taking a huge tornado-like spiral into the stratosphere of achievement. First, she gets a lead part in the musical Chicago, and is then appointed Manager for a ground breaking project in her company. Things go from good to wow for Ronnie, but with the odd dip in the form of Lawrence; a colleague from sales, who is foisted on her as a number two. Lawrence tries his best to try to discredit her but then Ronnie takes most things in her stride......mostly!.

And Clara......good, solid, sensible, gentle Clara who leaves home, not for any other reason than that she is swept along in the tide of her friends’ enthusiasm and well she has to leave home sometime, hasn’t she. So far, Clara has lived a happy sheltered life; as the adopted daughter of loving parents, she has never really wanted contact with her mother until the day she springs up from nowhere, with a fairly dubious reason for seeking out her long lost daughter. Can Clara find her way through the biggest crisis in her life? Which way will she go? Will she ever be assertive enough to walk an independent path?

Anna – dark secretive Anna is scarred by being brought up by a bully of a father. Anna is quick to accept Ronnie and Clara’s invitation to move in with them. This is a new start and she leaves her career in nursing to become the lead singer of a rock band. But her boyfriend Greg, the self-professed leader of the band, progresses from the odd joint (or so he says) to harder drugs with booze chasers. Somehow Anna always manages to be around when his drug and drink fuelled moods become nasty. Can she help Greg or will the dream evaporate completely?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Colette Smith
• Release date: May 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476491943

Colette Smith

About Me My name is Colette Smith and this is my first novel, written over the period of a year, for six months of that in Spain. My novel is a far cry from the type of writing I have done all my life, work reports, advocacy summaries and not too long ago, essays for my Business Degree. I am one of those people who thought that ‘everyone has a book in them’ and, I suppose everyone has. What has not been so easy is the commitment, the faith in one’s own abilities and the sheer amount of time and energy required to sustain a novel. I am more than sure that many budding writers fall at the first hurdle and I am pleased I have not. Whatever the result of my submission to you, I am enthusiastic to begin my next book, and the one after that.

Book preview

JUST ONE

YEAR

What a difference a year makes

By

Colette Smith

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published by Colette Smith at Smashwords

Copyright © Colette Smith 2011

All rights reserved.

This ebook is licensed for your personal

enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or

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If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it,

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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this

author.

Cover design by chandlerbookdesign.co.uk

Cover Images:© Istockphoto.com/Valentin

Casarsa/Alen Popov

A ‘girlie’ book David, but the effort is dedicated to you.

This book was written in the seaside town of Mojacar in southern Spain. How lucky am I to have been able to write in such beauty and tranquillity.

I want to thank some people for their unswerving support of my writing. Number one has got to be my friend Jan who has been with me throughout the process, supporting me with her enthusiasm and positive criticism. I’d also like to thank her husband Ray who put up with some lengthy periods of proofreading.

Last, but certainly not least, my husband Alan who has been there all the way, supporting me in his quiet way and helping so much with the editing.

Thank you all

Please enjoy this book

If you feel you would like to, please write me a review

This book is available in print format at most online retailers

Visit my website

http://www.colettesmith.weebly.com

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Rough Take Off

Chapter 2 Plans Afoot

Chapter 3 Seeds of Hope and Doubt

Chapter 4 Go Girl! Go?

Chapter 5 Revelations

Chapter 6 Things in the garden aren’t Rosie

Chapter 7 Loving and Fighting

Chapter 8 Plans and Confidences

Chapter 9 Fighting for the Future

Chapter 10 The Day 0f Reckoning

Chapter 11 A Star is Born!

Chapter 12 Doubts and Misgivings

Chapter 13 Engagement

Chapter 14 It’s a Family Affair

Chapter 15 Oh What Tangled Webs!

Chapter 16 Oh What a Performance

Chapter 17 Retribution All Round

Chapter 18 So Very Dumped

Chapter 19 Downs and Ups

Chapter 20 Decisions Decisions Decisions

Chapter 21 Take a Fist Please

Chapter 22 Smooth Landing

CHAPTER 1

Rough Take Off

The taxi driver pulled into the neat cul-de-sac where Anna lived with her housemates, Ronnie and Clara. She paid him for the short trip and watched as he sped away. It was a particularly dark night and the houses were barely visible. Anna pictured the houses by day in her mind’s eye; neat curtained windows, trimmed lawns and colourful flower beds. The feeling in the little cul-de-sac was one of friendliness. Since the girls had moved in together they had made sure that their house was a copy of the others. They quite often laughed about leaving home, just to find their own place and keep up with the Joneses. There was so little time in their working day to mow the lawn and plant flowerbeds as their neighbours did, but they were determined that nobody would look askance at their house.

Anna could just about see the outline of the refuse wheelie bins on the drives which for one night each week made it look as if there were sentries guarding the properties. She stood at the front door, trying to catch her breath and listening to the night noises. Were the girls in? Were they awake? If they saw her like this then she knew she would have to answer all the questions she had already faced but didn’t want to talk about. How had she put herself in so much danger tonight? She wasn’t sure how long she had lain in that dark alley after the attack. Her watch was smashed on her wrist; the watch her father had given her for her twenty first birthday. She had gone out earlier in the evening determined to change her life. And had been so sure it would all turn out okay and of course it hadn’t. It seemed like a mere minute since she gave up her nursing career and now here she was in an abyss of despair realising that her chosen path had gone horribly wrong. Her life had become intolerable and she accepted that she only had herself to blame. Was she naïve, was she stupid or had she just made one enormous bad judgement call. She had to admit to herself now that she had been all three!

As she stood outside the front door, unable to put the key in the lock, she held her stomach which was hard and painful. Her chest felt so sore that she was sure she had some broken ribs and she wondered what her face looked like, because her attacker had used all his strength to do as much damage to her as possible.

Anna finally turned the key in the lock and walked into the house. The large hallway was in darkness. There were little sounds from upstairs, Ronnie talking quietly in her sleep and Clara snoring, though, of course, she would never admit to that. She turned on the little lamp on the telephone table and looked at her face in the mirror above. Her eyes were beginning to swell and there was dried blood on the side of her face. No wonder the taxi driver had given her such furtive looks but it was a short trip from where he picked her up to home, and she had mostly managed to hide her face.

Going into the sitting room, Anna switched on one of the wall lights. The room was in semi-darkness, the light throwing a shadow across the furniture. Anna looked around at the room that she, Ronnie and Clara had decorated since moving in and remembered the arguments over colours and their refusal to allow family to ‘help’. It had been such fun and the room was a special place for the girls, full of laughter and some tears, of meals eaten with friends and family and some lazing on the settee. Anna remembered that awful party that had nearly got so out of hand. She remembered telling the girls of her decision to leave nursing and the subsequent row with her father who had stormed into the house demanding that she do as he said and ‘stop all the singing nonsense’.

Now that good time had vanished for Anna. If only she had allowed Ronnie and Clara to support her tonight things might be so different. Anna loved Ronnie’s tempestuousness in support of her and Clara and of course her family. As the months went by and Ronnie became more and more caught up with her new management role in work, and a major part in a musical theatre production, Anna found herself envying her friend’s ability to make the most of her abilities. And Clara, gentle Clara, who had welcomed a new family into her life, and who had become more assertive and intuitive. Very different to the nervous, shy girl who had plotted and planned with her and Ronnie to leave home. She had certainly had her share of heartbreak but had come out the other side full of hope and determination to embrace her new family whilst never forgetting her adoptive parents. Anna admitted to herself that she had been very secretive about how she lived her life. She now wondered why she had always shunned the help that was so freely offered by those around her? Was it pride, or did she just want to protect her friends and herself from the fact that her life was really going down the pan and she didn’t know how to stop it.

Anna had loved the freedom of living away from home. She knew Ronnie and Clara felt the same way. In her heart of hearts though, tonight was the end for her. This had to be the end of an era for all three girls who, over the course of the last year, had blossomed into strong women who were capable of dealing with whatever life threw at them. ‘At least two of them were’, Anna thought. As for her, well life just couldn’t be worse.

She was finding it hard to catch her breath and was now so scared. She knew she should have gone to hospital and decided that she would just lie down on the sofa for a while, just for a little while until she caught her breath and see what happened. The idea of being in hospital frightened her. The truth would come out; the truth that hurt her more than all the pain she felt and the bruises that were now appearing on her body – she had been brutally raped. She lay down on the settee and could no longer hold the tears that were cascading down her face. She felt so ill, so terribly frightened. She couldn’t think any more and exhausted, fell asleep.

******

Clara tiptoed down the stairs wondering why the lamp in the hall was on. She had been last to bed and remembered clearly switching all the lights off. She noticed a dim light coming from the sitting room and hesitantly walked in.. Her housemate Anna was curled up on the settee. By the soft light shining on Anna’s face she was startled at the sight of her bruised and battered face. She was fully dressed but her top had ridden up and Clara could see the bruises forming all over her stomach. She was quietly groaning and gasping and her breathing was raspy and uneven. Clara looked down at Anna with a numb kind of fascination. She was no expert but it was obvious Anna was in trouble, and rather than sleeping fitfully, she was barely conscious.

‘OMG Anna, what’s happened to you?’ Clara’s anxiety turned into uncontrolled panic: She ran upstairs, waking Ronnie, and asking her to come downstairs quickly. Her voice was edged with near hysteria.

Throwing the bedclothes aside, Ronnie tried to gather her senses. When she heard Clara’s voice she tumbled through the bedroom door and down the stairs joining her at the side of the settee. Clara was holding Anna’s limp hand; rubbing it as if to instil warmth. ‘Look at her Ronnie, just look at her, she’s bruised all over and I don’t think she’s sleeping, I think she’s unconscious’.

Ronnie looked down at the prone figure and taking the situation in told Clara to call an ambulance immediately. Feeling for Anna’s pulse she listened to the laboured but shallow breathing. ‘A paramedic is on the way’, Clara called as she placed her mobile phone to one side.

Ronnie had no wish to add to Clara’s anxiety but thought the normal first visit from a paramedic was a complete waste of time. Anna needed to be in hospital right now. She was so worried about her breathing that she felt any delay would make things worse. The saving grace was that the paramedic arrived in minutes and immediately ran through a routine of checks.

‘It’s not looking good’, he said grimly. ‘Have you any idea what happened to her?’

‘No, I don’t know, neither of us knows. We found her like this. We came in late. We knew she was going out tonight but when she called us she seemed perfectly fine’.

The paramedic nodded as they waited for the ambulance. His manner told Ronnie all she needed to know. Going through to the kitchen she found Clara weeping.

‘How bad is it?’

‘It’s not good, love. The ambulance will be here in no time at all; the hospital’s the best place for her’. Calling down the hall to the paramedic she told him she would go with Anna. Clara was in no fit state to go and she could follow in a taxi.

‘Join us there, as soon as you’re ready’, she told Clara adding a reassuring hug.

The trip to the hospital was the scariest trip Ronnie had ever experienced. The blue light was eerie in the pitch black, and the wail of the siren seemed unnecessary at this time of night. Ronnie was amazed at how much traffic was still on the road and the speed of the ambulance reflected the urgency of Anna’s need to be in hospital. The journey seemed to take a long time but she knew this was only because she was trying to control the panic she was now feeling. Looking at her friend, strapped into the vehicle’s stretcher, she could hardly believe she was still hanging on. Anna was alabaster white; there was a bluish tinge to her lips. The paramedic was taking her vital signs and Ronnie just held on to the side of the ambulance praying they would soon be there.

‘Shit!’ Ronnie thought: ‘What the hell happened to her?’

A confusion of thoughts were racing through her head but uppermost the thought that Greg, her boyfriend had done this to her. She was in tears now, knowing that she should never have let Anna go alone to meet him tonight. Going through a mental checklist of who she needed to call, Ronnie immediately remembered the file the girls had made up with their family’s contact details. She would call Clara as soon as she got to the hospital to ask her to find the file and bring it with her. Then she would have to call Anna’s parents and dreaded this task.

As the ambulance came to a stop outside the Accident & Emergency entrance Ronnie quickly called Clara. She said she would bring the file with her and had just called a taxi. She seemed a little better and Ronnie hoped she would be okay once she got to the hospital. Dealing with her own fear was all she could cope with now. Clinging on tightly as the ambulance reversed, it was mere seconds until she was following the stretcher carrying her friend through the hospital’s corridors. It all seemed so unreal. She got no further than the swing doors leading in to the A&E emergency room.

A nurse came to where Ronnie was sitting, but she couldn’t answer the barrage of questions that were put to her. Anna was never the talkative type and kept her thoughts and her private life very much to herself. Ronnie didn’t know much about her family. She gathered that her father was something of an opinionated control freak. One of the only things Anna had said was that he was a bully and that she couldn’t stay at home for much longer, not even to support her mother on the numerous occasions he made her life a living hell.

Ronnie had met them both. They had once visited and her father had all but thrown them out of their own home. She remembered the irritation she and Clara felt but responded to the pleading look in Anna’s eyes that they should leave. Ronnie had said at the time that she was going to insist that her housemate tell her what was going on. Anna had been far too secretive over the past months. She had been quieter and looked pale and drawn. Both Ronnie and Clara had tried to find out what was troubling her but, as usual, was brushed off with an excuse.

Now, as Ronnie sat anxiously outside the emergency room in A&E, occasionally pacing up and down, she felt absolutely helpless. She was thinking that had she been more assertive with Anna, whatever had happened tonight might have been avoided. Ronnie had known for some time that Anna was desperately unhappy and promised herself that she would try to help. Why hadn’t she carried her promise through?

When Clara finally arrived at the hospital she was still distressed but had pulled herself together and had brought the file. Ronnie took a deep breath and dialled Anna’s home number. As soon as the receiver at the other end was lifted she heard a brusque male voice. She guessed it might be Anna’s father but asked for Mr Marchant anyway. ‘Speaking!’

Introducing herself she told Anna’s father where she was and why. ‘We shall be there shortly. I hope this isn’t more of her attention seeking behaviour. I thought from her recent visit that she was all over that sort of thing’.

Ronnie’s reply was spontaneous. ‘That’s hardly likely. As things stand she is very very ill and I think your comment, quite frankly, is a little over the top’. Unwilling to give him the opportunity to respond she cut him off without as much as goodbye. Turning to Clara, she said:

‘The self righteous bastard thinks this is ‘attention seeking behaviour’. Can you credit it?

Her next call was to Greg but his mobile went unanswered. The more she thought about it the more certain she was that it was Greg who was responsible for Anna’s condition. He had become increasingly withdrawn and as time had gone by people realised that his drug taking had escalated, and with the escalation came Anna’s remoteness. It seemed to Ronnie and Clara that Anna was frightened more often than not, and didn’t seem to know how to fix the things that were evidently causing her such major distress. It had reached the point where they had decided to call her sister Marina if things failed to improve. Anna wasn’t sleeping at all well, and ate so little that she had become skeletal thin. Ronnie recalled the last time she had tried talking to her. Her attempts were rejected and in as many words she was told to mind her own business.

Ronnie then telephoned Mike, Anna’s friend in the band. He lived in the same block as Greg and she hoped that he might find and persuade him to join them at the hospital.

‘Where’s Greg’, she asked coming straight to the point. ‘I’ve no idea’; Mike said ‘I presumed he was with Anna’.

‘She’s in hospital and she’s in a bad way’.

There was a moment’s pause and then his voice dropped:

‘Ronnie; I think something happened between them today. I was in my flat when they came home and I could hear him ranting and raving at Anna. He kept on calling her a waste of space. Anna was trying to calm him but at one stage I know he shoved her. He’d been drinking all the afternoon. I was worried about him and was on the point of going into his flat when they both went off together’.

Ronnie could almost sense Mike’s tension.

‘Greg’s been like this a lot lately and Anna was really getting the rough end of the stick from him. God! I can’t believe this. Why didn’t I follow him? I’m coming to the hospital’.

‘There’s nothing you can do here’, Ronnie told him tersely. ‘You’ll only be hanging around’.

‘It doesn’t matter; it’s my fault, I didn’t protect her enough. If Greg’s responsible I’ll kill him‘

‘That wouldn’t help, Mike, and it wasn’t your fault’ Ronnie said reassuringly: ‘You’ve tried to support her. Clara and I did as well but there’s nothing anyone can do when she insists she’s okay’. Had she not been able to hear Mike’s breathing she might have assumed he had put the phone down

‘I’m coming to the hospital’, he said. ‘I won’t sleep anyway. I know a few places Greg could be and I’m going to look for him first. I’ll catch up with you later’.

With that his mobile went dead. Ronnie sighed; she was now more certain than ever that Greg was responsible for Anna’s condition.

Mr Marchant and his wife arrived just as the duty doctor returned to the emergency room. Anna’s father; a small portly man was dressed rather oddly in suit and tie given it was the early hours of the morning. Anna’s mother had the look of a hurt animal about her, with eyes darting around her. Mr Marchant did all the talking; his wife didn’t seem to be allowed to speak.

‘I must see the doctor now’. her father commanded.

‘They’ve gone back to Anna but I can tell you what has been said so far’ Ronnie replied pleasantly although she was feeling far from agreeable.

‘Young woman; I don’t need you to appraise me of the situation. I will find out what is happening to my daughter and speak to the doctors myself’.

‘Muriel’, he said, turning to his wife and addressing her as though she were a child. ‘Follow me’,

With a tone of finality he strode off to the Nurses Station with his wife trying vainly to keep up.

Ronnie said as she weakly smiled at Clara. ‘What on earth are those two like? I’m not surprised that Anna was unhappy’.

From where they were standing they could hear Anna’s father demanding attention from the ward nurse but clearly she was more than a match for him. Ronnie could hear the nurse telling Anna’s, by now very confrontational father, that they were doing all they could for their daughter and the doctor would speak to them in due course. ‘In the meantime’, she said pointedly in a voice that would brook no argument, ‘the family room is clearly marked; it’s just down the corridor’. That didn’t go down well with Mr Marchant and with a dismissive wave to the ward nurse, the two returned and seated themselves opposite Clara and Ronnie just as Mike arrived.

‘I couldn’t find him’, he told them. ‘He’s not in any of his usual haunts’. Mr Marchant was listening intently:

‘I suppose you are one of the people who persuaded my daughter to leave a good job and join your band’. Mike looked quizzically at Ronnie and Clara.

‘This is Mr and Mrs Marchant; Anna’s parents’, Ronnie said as Mike returned the man’s unpleasant stare. The animosity was mutual.

‘I hold you people personally responsible for my daughter’s situation. I am sure she would never have left nursing without a degree of coercion from you’. He paused and then added: ‘layabouts’. Mike kept his cool.

‘Mr Marchant’, he said quietly: ‘Instead of firing insults at me you why don’t you look after your wife’.

Mrs Marchant was now walking up and down the corridor and her distress was palpable’. Her husband was paying scant attention to her. She had heard his conversation with Mike and was now pleading with her husband not to make a fuss.

‘Don’t you tell me what to do, woman’, Mr Marchant shouted.

Anna had mentioned to Ronnie and Clara that her mother lived in fear of her father. It was for that reason alone that she had never supported her daughter openly. Ronnie looked at Anna’s mother and noticed the similarity between the two. She was a pretty woman, small and blond as was Anna. On the single occasion Ronnie and Clara had seen her she had worn the same expression she was wearing now. Ronnie thought of a rabbit caught in the headlights glare.

Ronnie, who had been studying the woman intently with a degree of sympathy, suddenly thought she detected a glint of rebellion on Muriel Marchant’s face. ‘Oh oh’, she thought to herself, as the furious anger Anna’s mother must be feeling, surfaced.

‘Oh do be quiet, John’, she said venomously. ‘I’m tired of your tantrums and bullying. You’re always the same and it isn’t helping anything. Our daughter is desperately ill and all you can do is insult and pick fights with people; people who are clearly more concerned about her than you are. I can’t stand any more of it, so just be quiet’. John Marchant’s face reddened and registered indignation. Getting to his feet he strode off in the direction of the Family Room whilst Ronnie and Clara desperately tried to suppress a fit of giggles.

‘Thank God for that’, Muriel Marchant sighed. ‘I’m at the end of my tether with that man. If I hear another command from him I will definitely throttle him. He might find himself on his own when Anna recovers. It’s something I should have done years ago. The woman paused and picked her words carefully: ‘I should have stood up for Anna those times he bullied her. Now I don’t know if I will be able to ask her to forgive me’. Mrs Marchant’s effort to pull herself together was painful to watch, but neither girl said anything as she continued.

‘Now; as my husband wouldn’t listen to you, can you please tell me what the doctors have said?’ Turning to Clara, Ronnie asked her to fetch some teas for the four of them whilst she gave Muriel such information as she had. ‘So there may be a chance?’ Muriel asked with a great deal of trepidation, nearly afraid to hear the answer. ‘The doctor said it’s just a matter of time to see if she comes through it’, Ronnie told her. She went on to tell Muriel about the questions she had been asked. But really, at that early stage, they either didn’t know or weren’t saying what they thought was wrong with her.

For a moment silence reigned. Ronnie, Mike, Clara and Muriel Marchant appeared to have tired of talking and each took refuge in their own thoughts. It was at about 3am when the doctor returned and asked to see the family. By that time they had persuaded Mike to go home and he had done so without protest. Ronnie and Clara instinctively knew he would spend the rest of the night trying to find Greg. Muriel had joined her husband in the family room. The doctor dealing with Anna made his way towards them, leaving Ronnie and Clara to follow at a distance.

‘Why are you still here?’ Mr Marchant asked the two. ‘I would be obliged if you would leave’. The doctor looked perplexed and glanced from the two girls and then back at Anna’s parents waiting expectantly. ‘And I wish them to stay’, Muriel Marchant replied whilst avoiding looking at her husband. Ronnie smiled. The voice Mrs Marchant had found earlier seemed to have grown strong and more decisive and an audible sigh from her husband suggested he realised there was no point arguing in front of everyone. He would sort things out with his wife later.

‘We’ve now discovered the cause of Anna’s collapse’, the doctor told them. ‘Your daughter has suffered a very bad beating. She has a collapsed lung, which we have re-inflated and she is comfortable and stable at the moment. She is, however, still unconscious but out of immediate danger. That’s all I can tell you at present. Now, I suggest you all go home as there’s nothing more you can do here and the best thing for Anna right now is to sleep. If you want to come back first thing then that’s fine’.

John Marchant seemed ready to object but his wife stopped him dead. ‘Come along’, she ordered: ‘You heard what the doctor advised. Let’s go home. Goodbye girls and do please come back when you wish to. You are always welcome here and thank you so much for everything you have done. Had you not been so vigilant I think we would have a very different story to tell. You handled the situation very well and I want you to know that, and how grateful we are to you all for your efforts on our daughter’s behalf’.

Turning on her heels Muriel Marchant started the long walk to the exit, this time Mr Marchant following her. Ronnie and Clara set off behind them. As soon as they arrived back home Ronnie