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09/30/2007
Carol´s Story
Carol And Her Story: Carol Remembers Her Grand Past
Life From WW2 England to The Argentina of the 40s and 50s
Working Title: An Englishwoman in Buenos Aires
For Carol, life began in England around 1925.
Joyce (her real name) is on leave. She and another A.T.S. both go for a drink in a well-known bar on Regent Street. It is almost time to leave when Joyce stands under mistletoe and is kissed by a young captain by the name of Douglas Flanagan. It is friendship/love at first sight for both of them. Joyce and her captain spend the next 48 hours (of their leave) together –then both go back to their respective regiments. They write to each other for 5 months until Douglas asks her to marry him. Joyce accepts, gets permission from her commanding officer, and then travels to Scotland, where Douglas has been sent with his unit. Joyce and Douglas are married in Scotland, and they spend 2 wonderful weeks together until the order comes for his regiment to go to Liverpool. Liverpool is the port city where the allied troops are getting ready for the invasion of Europe, which is occupied by the enemy. Douglas leaves, and Joyce does not see him again for two years. In the meantime, Joyce, who was only 18, meets another army officer, an Argentine of Belgian ancestry who has enlisted as a volunteer. They have an affair and Joyce becomes pregnant. The war ends, and Douglas, her husband, who at first was listed as missing, comes back to the United Kingdom. In the meantime, the Belgian-Argentine officer leaves the about-to-give-birth Joyce temporarily. He promises to return for her and the baby.
Joyce is now alone in London—a bomb has killed her mother a few months earlier. Douglas, her husband, returns from the War and finds her quite pregnant by another man. He says he still loves her, but he will not accept the child. He suggests she give it up for adoption once it is born. She refuses, and they divorce. The Argentine/Belgian comes back when the baby girl is three-months-old. They stay in the United Kingdom for a year, then Joyce, her new husband and the baby travel to Argentina. By this time, Joyce is pregnant again.
Joyce finds life in Argentina very different from what it was in the UK: there is no such thing as food ration, since there is more than plenty to eat, and the women she runs into are beautifully dressed. Joyce is overwhelmed by the abundance of it all.
After a few years, Joyce comes to realize that her wealthy Argentine/Belgian husband is not exactly what she expected him to be. He had a very definite attraction as far as other women were concerned. This was extremely difficult for her to cope with. Without her knowledge, most of his extramarital affairs took place in her own home. One day she discovers him making love to the mistress of his own father in the bathroom.
Her life in Argentina is one of parties, trips and jewelry from Cartier Jewelers. But behind closed doors her husband soon turns out to be a jealous man. He slaps his wife in public on several occasions, yet his affairs with other women continue. She stays, yet she herself has an affair. But when her husband leaves her to get a divorce, she wishes they could all live under one roof, a happy, normal dysfunctional family going about their business.
The novel starts in 1942 and ends in 1961. It goes from the main character being a 17-year-old British army recruit in WW2 to Bs. As. in the 1940s and 50s to 1961 when she has been divorced. She goes from adolescent British Army officer to young married immigrant to sophisticated socialite in Argentina/Punta del Este. And from divorcee to the longtime mistress of a nice man with alcohol problems.
Carol started to drink during her first years in Argentina because she was shy in this new country, and drinking helped her cope with all the changes going on around her. Later it became a way to drown her sorrows.
Will the story end in 1961, or will it end in 2001, with Carol believing she’s dying of something in her pancreas? I think it’s best for the story to end in 1961, when she’s still young and beautiful. It would make a nice contemporary period piece.
And Carol now, almost seventy-six years old, with that aristocratic bearing, especially with her done up short grayish hair and a black outfit. She looks like a duchess living in the wrong environment. She’s a duchess living in the boondocks.
. She just can’t forget her aristocratic past. There’s no real way she can get adjusted to what her life is now and she doesn’t have the money to lead the kind of life she once did. Drinking to forget only numbs her. It makes her feel worse. And then she stops and eats nothing except for a yogurt. Funny thing about Carol: she looks great from a distance.
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