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Veronica Marie Jefferson

by LMJT 

Posted: 11 January 2009
Word Count: 1851
Summary: Hi everyone, I hope you don't mind, but this time around I'm putting up a story that I'm going to enter for a short story competition. It has to be 2000 words on the theme of 'Conflict', so I've some room to pad stuff out. I wrote it in the week as a piece of flash, and I'm aware that the ending's a bit rushed, but would appreciate any comments. Thanks! :)


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If there was one thing that Veronica Marie Jefferson savoured, it was the once familiar smell of success. A girl born into privilege, she’d scored straight As in her school exams, gained the highest First that Oxford had ever known, and later won a Pulitzer prize for her cutting edge journalism.

Ten years ago she’d surpassed even herself by giving birth to Angela - or Angel as she was called at home - without the need for an epidural. She’d dismissed offers from nurses with a wave of a hand, sure that it was only women who’d never risen to a challenge in their lives that took such an easy option. No, no, she would do this properly, she’d thought as the nurses’ cooing blurred around her.

Twelve hours later, she held her baby in her arms. The pain had been excruciating, of course, but she’d done it. She had done it because she’d been determined.

Since then, on Richard’s insistence, she had become a full-time mother, and the job was the first that she couldn’t quite manage. Yes, she was wonderful at the cooking and the cleaning, the school runs and the sleepovers, but, and she’d never admit this to anyone, she just couldn’t find a bond with her daughter. In fact, if home was a professional environment and Angela was her employee, she’d be fired with immediate effect for her poor effort and complete lack of ambition.

Though she’d allowed a little leeway in the first few years and had resisted the urge to put too much pressure on her daughter to walk and talk (though she was still quicker than Liz-next-door’s simple Sally, thank you very much), it was now that Veronica was starting to panic. Though she had her mother’s good looks, Angela had neither her way with words or her father’s mathematical mind. In all honesty, she was turning out to be decidedly average at best and a heart-stopping letdown at worst.

Whenever Veronica brought this up with Angela in family meetings, however, Richard would cut her off immediately.

‘She’s ten, darling,’ he’d say, the number in verbal italics as if Veronica could have forgotten.

‘I was winning short story competitions at ten,’ she’d retort, aware of her daughter sitting beside her, all goggle eyes and goofy teeth. ‘I don’t think it’s unfair of me to have expectations of her, Richard. There must be something she’s good at, for God’s sake, but I feel like we’ve tried everything.’ She looked at Angela and sighed loudly. ‘What do you want to do with your life? What are you passionate about?’’

Her daughter shrugged, a habit that Veronica loathed. ‘Don’t know,’ she said, more to the table than her mother.

‘How can you not know? I knew I wanted to be a journalist when I was seven. You’re ten! Didn’t I ever tell you about the review I wrote on The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe? My teacher thought I’d copied it from the Times Literary Supplement. How can you not know what you want to do? Time’s getting on, Angela. Isn’t there anyone you admire? Anyone you want to be like?’

She waited for a moment and prepared herself to be modest after hearing that all little girls wanted to be like their mothers. Me, Angel? She’d say, patting her daughter’s head as if she were an obedient dog. Oh, you’re just so sweet. Richard, did you hear that? Angel said she wants to be just like me, I can’t believe she-,

‘I like Ariel,’ Angela said suddenly, nervously picking the skin around her thumbs. Another horrible habit. ‘I’d like to be like her.’

Veronica drummed her fingers on her chin. Ariel, she thought. An unusual name. An actress? That could work, given she could pull enough strings to get Angela into the Sylvia Young school. A musician? Perhaps, though Veronica still hadn’t recovered from Angela’s terrifying recorder solo in the school concert. She still couldn’t believe that the audience had applauded!

‘Who’s Ariel, sweetheart?’ she asked at last.

‘The little mermaid.’

It was moments such as this that Veronica wondered if she’d brought the wrong child home from the hospital. And if it really was too late to take her back.


A few days later though, ever the lateral thinker, she decided to make her daughter a swimmer. A swimmer! What fun! At last, she’d told Richard, something she’s interested in. Something she wants to do.

He’d not shared her enthusiasm, though, and said simply, ‘Don’t be too pushy with her, Ronnie.’

‘As if I would be,’ she replied, already imagining another trophy cabinet beside her own.

Angela’s lessons were on Saturdays at 8am, and every week Veronica would go to watch her daughter from the sidelines, her nerves in shreds as if watching soldiers cross a minefield. Should she be splashing that much? she’d wonder. Shouldn’t she be quicker? Is that grunting sound normal?

Taking Andre the teacher aside one morning while Angela changed, Veronica asked, ‘How’s she getting on?’

He nodded quickly. ‘Fine. She’s getting on fine.’

‘Fine? That’s all? Do you think she’s good enough to go professional?’

‘She’s only been coming here for three weeks.’

Veronica met his eye. ‘That’s not what I asked,’ she said.

He sighed. ‘Most professionals start swimming a lot younger than Angela, but she could make it if she sets her mind to it.’ He handed her a leaflet from his back pocket. ‘Look, there’s a gala in two weeks. Why don’t you see if she wants to enter? It’ll be a good chance for her to swim competitively. And you can see how she’s doing compared to her peers.’

‘Wonderful,’ Veronica said, slipping the leaflet into her Prada handbag. ‘That’s just perfect.’

A moment later, Angela appeared from the changing rooms and Veronica forced herself not to see her daughter’s pasty limbs sticking out of a stretched Speedo suit, but instead a little mermaid. A little mermaid whose success she could make her own.


In the two weeks leading up to the gala, Veronica felt as if she were competing in the event herself. Every day she was up at 5am to take Angela to the swimming pool for two hours before school, then she’d be the first at the gates of St Joseph’s Primary at three-thirty, bundling her daughter into the back of the car for another an hour of swimming in the evening. Everything in the house began to smell of chlorine, and the tips of Angela’s fingers were permanent prunes. But what did that matter in the long run?

‘Do you think she’s doing too much?’ Richard asked one evening over dinner during which a silent Angela turned from shades of white to shades of green.

‘She wanted to be a mermaid, Richard,’ Veronica snapped. ‘A mermaid has to swim!’

‘I feel sick,’ muttered Angela.

‘No you don’t, darling,’ Veronica said, setting down her knife and fork and putting on her ‘fighting talk’ voice. ‘You feel fear. And what did I tell you about fear? Hmm? Come on, what do we say to fear?’

Angela made a sound that could have been her swallowing her own tongue, then turned the greenest green that Veronica had ever witnessed on human flesh.

‘Come on sweetheart,’ she encouraged through gritted teeth. ‘What do we tell fear?’

Her daughter looked up, burbled, ‘There’s no fear here,’ then vomited into her plate.

Veronica smiled with pride, then looked to Richard who was staring at her with his jaw dropped.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Nerves. What can you do?’


The drive to the swimming pool on the morning of the gala was beyond tense. Angela was in the back, already in her swimming costume at Veronica’s insistence, and Richard was in the passenger seat with the, ‘Go Angel, Go!!!’ banner folded in his lap.

‘She knows it’s not all about winning, doesn’t she?’ he asked in a whisper.

‘Don’t start that talk with me, Richard,’ Veronica said in a forced cheery tone. ‘You know what I think about that kind of thing. If she doesn’t want to win, she shouldn’t be taking part.’ She looked in the rear view mirror and caught her daughter’s eye. ‘Right, sweetheart?’

‘Right,’ Angela nodded.

Though she wasn’t one to judge, Veronica was certain that the majority of the other parents at the gala were the sorts whose children shouldn’t be in public swimming baths. The sorts who wouldn’t have paid the money she had to get Angel ready for this competition. No doubt they’d just hoped the school swimming lessons once a week would be enough to see them through to victory. The fools. Oh, of course she should pity them, but they were probably happy in their own little ways. People were like that, weren’t they? Even she’d seen Wife Swap enough times to understand that.

When Angela appeared with the rest of the swimmers at the deep end of the swimming pool, Veronica stood up holding the banner above her head.

‘Go on, Angel,’ she screamed, hearing her echo bounce back. ‘There’s no fear here!’

Rows of common faces turned to look at her, but she paid them no heed. Poor things, she thought, not giving their children any support. Still, someone had to keep the state schools running.

Feeling Richard’s hand on her knee, she turned to look at her husband.

‘You’ll be okay whatever the outcome, won’t you?’ he said hesitantly.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I mean, you won’t make her feel terrible if she loses.’

‘How can I make her feel terrible?’

‘By making her feel like a failure.’

‘A failure is someone who loses,’ she said. ‘And she’s not going to lose, is she? We’ve paid all that money. She’s had the best training possible.’

‘But what if-,’

‘No, Richard. No what ifs. She’s not going to lose. Is that understood?’

Moments later, a whistle was blown and the swimmers dived into the pool in a blur of action. All except for Angela who stood at the edge and, with her legs crossed, looked as if she was going to wet herself.

Though she opened her mouth to shout for her daughter to move, Veronica was silent and it took until the swimmers had swum one length for her to realise that Angela wasn’t going to be joining them.

Before she knew what she was doing, she had grabbed Angela’s swimming bag and hoisted herself over the wall separating the spectators from the swimmers, her heart thumping hard against her chest.

Though someone tried to stop her, she barged past and marched over to her daughter who was shivering now, tears wobbling in the corners of her eyes.

What the hell are you doing? She wanted to scream. I’ve paid good money for you to win this gala, and you’re making a complete show of me.

But while that may have been what she thought, it wasn’t what she felt. And as she wrapped a towel around her trembling body and held her close she wondered if perhaps they had come together after all.






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Comments by other Members



barjoker at 13:55 on 21 January 2009  Report this post
Hi Liam, hope these comments don't come too late for your competition entry.

I am very much in admiration of your short story skills, finding short stories next to impossible myself; not to mention your writing style, which is so fluent and readable. This story really draws the reader in, despite the unsympathetic character, with the expectation that she'll be getting some kind of come-uppance.

However, while I like the fact that you have thwarted expectation with redemption instead of punishment for VMJ, I'm afraid I don't find the ending convincing at the moment. There doesn't seem to be any reason for your character to suddenly find sympathy for her daughter; perhaps you need to set something up earlier on so that the reader recognises whatever it is that is resonating for her at the end?

This is a very strong character, and you set up clear motivations for her at the outset, and I think you need to be careful to make her consistent. For example, she became a full-time mother 'at Richard's insistence,' but clearly she is not someone whose husband can insist on anything - I imagine her as the sort of woman who takes on motherhood like a new career, determined to excel at it the way she excelled prefessionally.

A few other nitpicks and suggestions (hope you don't mind, I am in editing mode and very free with my red pen!)

the once familiar smell of success
- don't think you need 'once familiar'. If you are trying to suggest that she now misses it, perhaps you could bring this out more elsewhere?

her cutting edge journalism
- bit vague: your readers (me, anyway) might like to know exactly what the prize was for?

she'd surpassed even herself by giving birth to Angela...without the need for an epidural
- I have to say, I cringed a bit reading this. I'm not entirely sure why - perhaps because these days (and ten years ago too) so many women do make a virtue of giving birth without pain relief, it's not that big a deal (well of course it is, but you can't brag about it so much because everyone else did the same!); or maybe because it sounds like she considers this her crowning achievement - more impressive than winning a Pulitzer?!; or maybe just because the nurses 'offered' her an epidural. I wish. In my experience you have to ask, loudly and repeatedly, for one. Oh, and nurses (actually midwives) don't 'coo' either. Mine asked me why I was yelling and told me not to be such a baby!

couldn't find a bond
- not quite right - perhaps just 'couldn't bond'?

it was now that Veronica was starting to panic
- why now? Perhaps, if Angela was eleven, she could just have started secondary school, where she would have been streamed straight away, so VMJ would realise she was in the average/middle stream for everything?

heart-stopping letdown
- not sure about 'heart-stopping'

Whenever VMJ brought this up
- this sounds like VMJ is telling Angela she is a let-down, which does seem very harsh even for her; was that your intention?

I don't think it's unfair
- I don't think it's unreasonable?

prepared herself to be modest, after hearing that all little girls wanted to be like their mothers
- seemed a little clumsy; perhaps something like, 'prepared herself to feign modesty, sure all little girls wanted to be like their mothers'?

given she could pull enough strings
- I might say 'assuming she could..'

The little mermaid
- I think 'Little Mermaid' should be capitalised

in the long run
- in the great scheme of things?

one evening over dinner during which a silent Angela turned from shades of white to shades of green
- perhaps too much in one go; maybe the reference to Angela's skin colour could come either directly before or directly after she says she feels sick? As it stands it's a little confusing as it seems to refer back in time, to all the swimming, rather than forwards, to the gala.

could have been her swallowing her own tongue
- yikes! where did this come from? Is it VMJ's POV? Not sure about this one!

Veronica smiled with pride
- this didn't make sense to me, since Angela clearly hasn't defeated the fear!

the sorts whose children shouldn't be in public swimming baths
- I didn't understand what you meant here: did you mean, 'whose children should stick to public swimming baths'? Or 'shouldn't be in proper competitions'? If not public baths, then where?

wouldn't have paid the money she had
- the money she had paid?

Even she'd seen Wife Swap enough times to undersatnd that
- this seemed a little left field to me, didn't really understand what the point it was meant to illustrate.

Rows of common faces
- doesn't quite work; sorry can't think of an easy substitute, but if you want to use the word 'common' you need to be clear about the context otherwise it seems to mean 'frequently occurring'!

Poor things, she thought
- didn't quite follow - it should be the children she feels sorry for, not the parents?

Is that understood?
- Perhaps a little OTT?

Hope this is helpful Liam, good luck with the competition.

Joker





Jane Elmor at 16:30 on 21 January 2009  Report this post
Hi there - hope I'm not too late too!
The start of this grabbed me immediately - I really wanted to know what was going to happen to this high flyer. I like the premise of an overachieving mother who can't bear her daughter's lack of ambition and averageness! She's very over the top, but that's funny. I laughed out loud at "terrifying recorder solo" That's hilarious!
I pretty much agree with Joker's fab comments (apart from the 'once familiar smell of success', which I like, as it shows quite succinctly her successes are in the past and gives an original twist to the cliche 'smell of success'. But as J says, the ending needs a bit of work I think to be convincing. That feeling of bonding she gets for her daughter comes out of the blue, which, while a good twist, needs a reason. Why does she get it? Does she empathise suddenly, seeing her daughter vulnerable and failing? Or the fact she'd refused to swim, sort of standing up to her mother? Or, etc, etc...
Only a couple of other weeny things -
'Prada handbag' jumped out at me because I didn't see her as a Prada kind of woman... she seems to have been too serious to be bothered with designer labels...? Have I got her wrong? Perhaps you just don't need to mention it. (I also felt this a bit about her thinking it would be fine for her daughter to become an actress and go to the Sylvia Young school - a bit frivolous for her? But then, she is desperate for anything I suppose!)
And "A little mermaid whose success she could make her own". I didn't think you need to state that it would be her own success, as I already got that motivation. What a nightmare mum! Funny though. She probably needs to soften up at the end...?
A really enjoyable read though. Very best of luck with the competition!
J x

LMJT at 20:54 on 21 January 2009  Report this post
Hi Jo and Jane,

Thank you so much for your comments. I agree completely with all that you've said, and really appreciate your taking the time to read. (Jane, I am so, so sorry. I don't think I've taken a look at your work before, but I am going to do so this week. Sorry again).

I wrote this in a bit of a rush. I have a book of prompts for each day of the year (this one was 'gala' and it was my new year's resolution to write one every day. I've already failed! But it worked as a stimulus for this story, which I still have time to enter!

Thanks again both.

Liam

Gillian75 at 13:42 on 22 January 2009  Report this post
Hi Liam,

I really enjoyed reading this. I'm not a fan of short stories but this really grabbed my attention from the outset. The MC is a character who I'm sure, many women can relate to.
And in that respect there are a number of bits I really like - such as - 'if home was a professional environment and Angela was her employee' and 'My teacher thought I’d copied it from the Times Literary Supplement'. I even detect some humour in here, given that the MC is a little OTT (I hope I have picked this up correctly and that you did indeed mean it to be funny!)

The main bit that threw me was the MC becoming a full-time mother at Richard's insistence. I'm not sure about this - if she's the kind of woman you paint at the outset, I don't think she'd entertain this.

I also noticed the first five paragraphs were taken up with much of what has already happened - info is being fired at the reader in quick succession. Perhaps you could soften this a little?

Also a final nitpick - I think the Pulitzer prize is awarded to American citizens only? I'm not sure about this - I could be wrong.

Overall, Liam a really good read and one which held my attention throughout.

Hopefully it'll shape up to be a winner

Good luck
Gillian

Xena at 16:57 on 22 January 2009  Report this post
Hi Liam,

Once again, your writing has a very natural flow, which makes it very easy to read it. I think you have a very organized mind, which produces very clear, reader-friendly works.

I have only two tiny points to note.

Veronica was certain that the majority of the other parents at the gala were the sorts whose children shouldn’t be in public swimming baths. The sorts who wouldn’t have paid the money she had to get Angel ready for this competition. No doubt they’d just hoped the school swimming lessons once a week would be enough to see them through to victory.


I couldn’t follow the reasoning in this paragraph. I understand she’s being snobbish to other parents, but why are they ‘the sorts whose children shouldn’t be in public swimming baths’. Are public swimming baths such prestigious places, that they are out of reach for most of the riffraff? Or maybe I’m misreading it.


I don’t fully understand (and again it may be just me) what you meant by ‘perhaps they had come together after all’ at the end. Do you mean that they have both failed, and now are united in their failure? It wasn’t very clear to me. I’d say Veronica’s main failure is the failure to love her daughter. Because she can’t love her, she desperately tries to find reasons to like her, but there aren’t many, and that’s what’s driving her berserk.

I think it’s a fine piece of writing, capable of winning any competition.

Cheers!


Jane Elmor at 20:03 on 22 January 2009  Report this post
Hi Liam - really nothing to be sorry about - I haven't got any work posted up at the mo anyway! I'm really impressed you were even thinking of writing so much from a prompt a day, even if you say you've 'failed'...! Really good luck with the comp. JC x

LMJT at 11:03 on 29 January 2009  Report this post
Hi Gillian and Xena,

Sorry for the delay in replying to your comments. I've taken them all on board!

Gillian, yes it is meant to be a humourous tale, but perhaps that needs to be clearer. Completely agree that the opening paragraphs are too telly, and am working on that at the moment. See what you mean, too, about her not being the kind of woman who would agree to becoming a full time mother.

Xena, your point about the swimming pool is excellent. What I meant was that she perceived the children to be too unclean for public baths, but that's not clear or, really, relevant. Agree with you too about the ending. It was rushed and it shows. I'm working on that at the moment and hope to upload again on Sunday!

Thanks again all.

Liam


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