The 100-word story I submitted...

So eventually I managed a 100-word story - but it's really a chapter from a novel I started writing about a decade ago... I'm now thinking it'd be a good idea to drag it out and get it finished!

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Rosemary read the invitation to the school reunion and sighed. She knew what it would be like – everyone else looking lean and successful, boasting about their perfect lives, wonderful careers and beautiful children. She decided not to go - but then Annie phoned and asked her to help.
    The day arrived far too quickly. Rosemary went along to the old school and spent all morning with Annie and a few others, putting up bunting in the hall, moving chairs and tables, then setting out the food and drink.
    By lunchtime, Rosemary was miserably aware that her cheeks were burning crimson and sweat was dripping off her fringe. She could have taken a shower – but she had no fresh clothes, only the grey trousers and mauve top that she had put on that morning. She thought it would have to do, until she saw the silky, figure-hugging dresses that Annie and the other ‘old-girls’ were wearing now.
    She went and splashed cold water on her face and began to wander around the hall. She met a few people from her year and had small, unthreatening chats. When anyone asked questions about where she was in her life, she was as vague as possible.
    Eventually, someone rang the small hand-bell that had always been used at morning assembly. Like a vast pack of well-trained dogs, the old boys and girls became silent and still. There were speeches to be endured next, but one person turned and started to leave. Rosemary caught sight of her face.
    It was Jill – older but just as pretty. Her blonde hair was shorter, but she was still slim, in a simple blue top and a long green skirt. She was as dazzling as ever. They looked straight at each other. No mistake. Rosemary took a deep breath, and walked outside too.
    ‘Still gorgeous, then…’ Rosemary spoke to her for the first time in about twenty years.
    ‘You’re looking great yourself,’ replied Jill, ‘What have you been up to all this time?’
    ‘Oh, keeping busy, you know. I’m still working in the Path lab.’
    ‘Still the same old Ro…’
    It was awkward at first.
    When they were children, they had been inseparable. Their friendship had lasted all through school, until Rosemary met Steve and fell heavily in love. Steve would conjure up such exciting things to do and she would follow him like a spaniel, forgetting all other plans. Jill soon realised that Rosemary was lying when she said she was too busy to go out - and suddenly they were no longer friends, not even speaking.
    Once he married Rosemary, Steve changed – or maybe he reverted to his real nature. They rarely went out together and they argued more and more. It was mainly the same argument: Rosemary longed to have a baby, but Steve always said no.

    Rosemary said, ‘Steve and I are divorced - nearly six years, now.’
    ‘Yes, I heard. Was it really difficult?’
    ‘I’m ok. Until a week ago - I went to a party. He was there, with his latest love. Some scrawny little kid called Claire.’
    As Rosemary spoke, Jill’s face changed. First, she looked surprised and shook her head, but as Rosemary described the girl and the way she had talked about their ‘love at first sight’, Jill began to look annoyed.
    ‘That’s strange – he’s never mentioned this Claire...’ Jill said, with a frown.
Rosemary struggled to understand.
    ‘Are you still in touch with Steve, then?’ She watched Jill’s face carefully. Was she blushing?
    ‘Well, yes, we’re friends, of course.’ A dab of scarlet glowed on each cheek.
Of course? 
    ‘Do you see much of him?’ Rosemary was sick of being polite; she had to know more.
  ‘Well, I see Steve – yes. But I’ve never met this Claire. He can’t be that serious about her…’
    ‘It looked serious to me – well, Claire thinks it’s serious…’
    ‘No,’ Jill said, with a quick shake of her head. She was staring past Rosemary again.
Rosemary studied Jill’s perfect face. Could it be that Jill and Steve ... Why hadn’t it ever occurred to her? Those last few years with Steve had been awful; nothing but lies about late nights, missing weekends, mysterious bills and always that argument about having a baby.
‘When did you meet him? Was it recently?’ It was clumsy, and not the question Rosemary really wanted to ask, but she had no idea what to say.
    ‘Yes,’ replied Jill, vaguely. ‘Well, I really must go. A friend is minding my children and I can’t stay…’
    ‘Children, Jill? – er, that’s lovely – what are they like?’
    ‘Tammy’s five and Petra’s six. They’re quite a handful.’
Jill had the air of a bird about to fly, but Rosemary put out a hand to stop her.
    ‘What does Steve think of them?’
    ‘Oh, he’s great with them. Well – he’s just a big kid himself, isn’t he? The girls adore him.’
She gave Rosemary a quick peck on the cheek saying, ‘Lovely to see you again. We must meet up! Bye for now!’

   And then she was gone, like a tornado leaving a trail of wreckage in its wake. Rosemary felt sick and fled to the toilets, where she could sit in private. Steve had remained adamant that there would be no children. They were too young to be parents, he’d said. Babies would spoil everything.
    Whenever Rosemary started on the subject again, Steve had been harsh. ‘If you want love, get a cat,’ he’d said, ‘Kids are too expensive, they ruin your life. If you get pregnant, I’ll be out of that door the minute I hear about it. I mean it.’
    And all along it was Jill – those girls had been born since Rosemary’s divorce. Steve hadn’t left them. Steve was great with them; they adored him…
    Eventually she went back to the reunion.
    Nobody seemed to notice her destroyed state. She occupied herself with finishing up as many sandwiches and slices of gateau as possible, washed down with plenty of wine.

Final short story - the one I didn't post...

I got all behind in the course and just to make it worse, we were supposed to be writing a short story of no more than a thousand words. I wrote this, but it was too muc of a struggle to get everything into such a short word-length. I wrote something else - and turned off the laptop before saving it... But I wrote another one - hey, I want to be a writer, don't I? Anyway, here's the one I didn't submit...

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There was no point in regrets.

Carrie gripped the bag with the little dog in it, as the bus lurched towards the nursing home. Perhaps this time, Mum would look at the dog with the same blank expression that she now wore when she viewed her only daughter. Perhaps.

Once upon a time, Ruth had really been Mum – and Carrie had been her blue-eyed, little girl. Sunny childhood memories of playing in the garden, making cakes together, picnics in the park – they fluttered through Carrie’s mind like bright butterflies that vanished in the winter. Mum couldn’t remember any of it now, as the illness claimed more and more of her personality.

Of course, it was all Carrie’s fault – she hadn’t been the perfect daughter, far from it. But what was she supposed to do? All her friends thought that the best night out was the one where you woke up with no idea what had happened. Carrie had a reputation to maintain – her friends would lay bets on who could out-drink her and Carrie usually won. She could hold her drink, could Carrie.

She used to go home to see her parents every couple of weeks, and they never seemed to notice, at first. She always took some vodka in her overnight bag to tide her over, because they never had any drink indoors. It worked well, until they realised. Carrie had felt absolutely normal that day, but she must have done something wrong because suddenly they knew she had been drinking. They had actually gone through her things and emptied her bottles. There was a furious row – Carrie stroked the little dog as she remembered the harsh words and wished she could go back and unsay them.

Each time she went home, the arguments grew more and more harsh. In the end, Dad told her to get out; they even stopped answering the phone when she called. The worst thing was that letter from Dad – the last contact she ever had from him – telling her she couldn’t keep upsetting her mother like this. He actually wrote that she should go to Alcoholics Anonymous. At the time, she’d thought her parents must be the most dull, stupid morons in the world. Couldn’t they tell the difference between being an alcoholic and having a bit of fun?

The bus pulled up at the nursing home and Carrie had to pull her things together in a hurry. She had a bunch of flowers – red tulips because Mum had always loved red. Carrie had even worn a red jumper and put a red bow on Bobby, the dog, to try to appeal to her mother’s fading mind.

As she walked through the tall front door, she could smell what they’d had for lunch – cauliflower cheese, or something like that, and boiled carrots. She wrinkled her nose as she went in and checked with reception. Then, wearing her visitor badge, she walked upstairs, along the broad, cream-coloured corridor, until she reached her mother’s room. She tapped on the door. It was open, but Carrie knew that Mum would be peevish throughout the visit if she forgot to do that.

Although Ruth turned her wasted face towards the door, she said nothing to Carrie; she just smiled when she saw Bobby. With a quick sigh, Carrie went in and held out the dog to be stroked. Mum was half-sitting up in her bed, so the little Pekingese could snuggle up against her easily. She crooned and stroked Bobby, muttering baby-talk over his little head.

‘Thank you nurse!’ she said, with some difficulty. Her throat had not been working very well recently and she found it hard to swallow and speak. ‘I used to have a dog like this. I called him Bobby. Mother gave him to me for my fifteenth birthday…’ And then the semi-lucid moment was gone.

She cuddled Bobby close with a dreamy expression. Carrie tried to engage her by offering the tulips, but after a shadow of a smile, her mother went back to her vague inward stare.

Ruth had been like that at Dad’s funeral; refusing to speak to Carrie. At the time, Carrie thought she was blaming her for the stroke that took him. Whatever she was thinking, she would say nothing to her daughter and neither would anyone else. Carrie walked away from the cemetery, without going on to the wake.

After all that, what she needed was a drink… But, instead, she remembered her father’s advice and went to AA. Carrie began to regain some control over her life. Eventually, she decided to go back and patch things up with her mother. Ruth still seemed vaguely distant, but also dirty and confused. Carrie learned that Ruth had been diagnosed with dementia and she needed Carrie to care for her.

The illness was relentless. In the last couple of months, Ruth’s muscles had weakened so much that she was unable to eat without a feeding tube and soon her breathing would inevitably fail, too. So, this week, Carrie had been obliged to move Ruth into a hospice. The only thing that made Carrie feel any better about it was that Ruth had shown no sign that she knew what was happening.

After the visit, Carrie went back to her parents’ house. She fed Bobby, then sat and cuddled him on the worn, red sofa. She had discovered a box of old letters in Ruth’s wardrobe and although it seemed voyeuristic, she had been reading her parent’s letters to each other from years ago, when her father was away somewhere.

She realised that he had been in a sanatorium, not national service or college. Carrie thought about her memories of her childhood with her mother – why had she never before noticed that it was just the pair of them? Carrie finally understood why her father had never kept a drop of alcohol at home.

Person in Video 1.7: description

This was an exercise in making a character have some conflicting characteristics. I was trying to make the guy on the bus have two sides, but I think I accidentally told more about the narrator - must think about that as it seems useful...

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   I was sitting on the bus yesterday, just going to the park to feed the ducks, when I noticed an odd person in the seat in front. His hair, which was almost as grey as mine, was long and dragged back into a rough pony tail. I could also see a bit of his cheek with some scruffy, dark stubble; his shoulders were heavy and broad.

   He wore a camouflage jacket, like some kind of urban soldier. I wondered if he was one of those football hooligans. Perhaps he was dangerous - he was much bigger than me. I was watching out for any sort of threat from him... suddenly I realised my stop had come, so I got up in a hurry to get off the bus.

   I tripped and dropped the bag containing the ducks’ bread right in the gangway beside his seat. He looked down at the bag, then turned to look at me and immediately jumped up.

   He was much younger than I had guessed, even scruffier from the front as he was wearing a torn black tee-shirt under that jacket. But he had a beautiful smile. He tapped the bell to warn the bus-driver that I was getting off and picked up my bag for me.

   ‘Here you are!’ he said, and I realised that he was probably young enough to be my grandson. But why was his hair so grey?

   He must have seen me looking at his hair, because  he gave a slight nod and added in a softer voice, ‘It’s been growing out grey ever since I was caught in a fire when I was twelve.’ Before I could apologise for gawping like that, he patted me gently on the shoulder and helped me off the bus.

Character Sketch - or the start of a story?

   She was only thirteen and that meant she had no rights, no space and no needs. She was small and pale with long mouse-coloured hair, which she hated, but dad wouldn’t let her colour it. She was too young for that sort of thing. Too young for makeup, too young for fashion – but when they wanted her to do something, she wasn’t too young then.

   Then it was: Casey, pop down the shops for some groceries - because that stupid cow of a stepmother had forgotten half the shopping. Or Casey, just put out the washing - because Carol’s too pregnant to lift anything; or Casey go down the offy for some beer. It didn’t matter that she was only thirteen then, because Uncle Kev worked at the off-licence and he’d let her have cans of her dad’s favourite booze anytime.

   It wasn’t any better when she went to her mum’s house, because then there was that weasel she was with and the thought of him made Casey shudder. She was dreading the summer because she knew she was going there for half the school holiday. The two lots of adults were sharing her – which meant sharing the bother of having her around.

   She flicked her nails, making a clicking noise, which Carol hated. As expected, her dad told her off for annoying her mother. That’s not my mother, she thought, but no longer dared to say it out loud after the last time. Instead, she asked if she could go to the library – she had to research Henry VIII for History homework, she said. Of course they agreed; when she walked out of the door they were as relieved as she was.

   She walked steadily up the road and crossed at the junction towards the park. She slipped through the gates and took a deep breath of the green air; the trees were frothy with new leaves and the remains of the spring blossoms. It seemed warmer here. She heard the soft humming of bees and the sweet song of a robin from the trees above.

   She calmed and relaxed as she walked – if only they’d let her have a dog, she could cope. But she had nothing. When she moved between her parents’ homes, she could pack her whole life into one wheelie suitcase. Still, perhaps that was a good thing. When they ran away, it would be better to have very few possessions - a dog would just be a worry. Not long now and they would disappear for good.

   She reached the seat where they always met and her heart gave a funny little jump when she saw that he was already there.  She sat as close as she could, so they were touching as much as possible and she risked a tiny peck on his cheek. She drank in the warm sweet smell of his after-shave.

   ‘Ah, Casey, you’ve come for your History lesson,’ he said, smiling.

   ‘Yes Sir.’ She looked into his eyes and knew she was old enough.