Monday, 30 December 2013

L.M. Steel: Christmas For Authors

As Once Upon A Set of Wheels goes through the final stages of a fresh editing process, readying for paperback release, I find myself going over the story with fresh eyes and thinking about the other characters that we meet in the story.
I am already writing a trilogy of books with regards to the family of one of the most evil characters; Miss Astin. However I find myself wondering about the others who cross Lotus’ path.

Having already written a 5000 word short story, written in five chapters about the life Lotus’s greatest friend ‘Tempo’ led up to meeting the dangerous little girl: The Beat Boys. I have decided to a compile a few more short stories about the people who wove in and out of Lotus’ life and how they reflect back on the time they spent with ‘the little girl, nobody calls their own.’


Once Upon A Set Of Wheels
The Tales of the Cursed

I’m starting in order from this point, and begin with the one of the first people Lotus introduces us to in part one of her tale: Baby Driver.


The Tales of the Cursed
A Very Nice Lady

I was first assigned to visit the Suffolk house when Rebecca was about eighteen months old, the adoption services had finished with their supervisory visits long ago. Jean and Robert Suffolk had taken to their adopted daughter like naturals, as if she was born of themselves. She had had the most difficult of starts; abandoned in the middle of no-where, her biological parents were never traced and after a few months in foster care she was homed with the Suffolks, things seemed to finally be looking up for her.
It was in November and there was an early frost, the ground was frozen after heavy rain the previous evening. Jean had been driving to mother and baby group; little baby Becky was in the baby-seat strapped on the passenger side of the car. They say she hit black ice and the car just spun out of control. Of course in 1982 there were no airbags to be deployed in a Datsun Sunny, Only the front seats had belts, the chances they stood against a solid stone wall would never be high. They rushed them both to the hospital and amazingly Becky was fine, barely a scratch on her, but poor Jean didn’t survive the Ambulance journey.
There were of course family liaisons and care workers that worked with Mr Suffolk through the grief and offered help and care with baby Becky but at first he outright refused and declared he was more than capable. It was when she was about sixteen months old and Jeans parents got in touch with child services, they said they had concerns about Becky’s welfare and Roberts health; both physical and mental. he had stopped allowing them to visit him and Becky, telling them they weren’t apart of his family anymore. He told them that Becky was his girl and his alone and no-one else could have her. they were disturbing statements and social services appointed a review of the situation.
Campbell was her first social worker; he knew Becky a long time, a lot longer than she ever knew him. He always said that he wasn’t happy with the situation with her father, something just wasn’t quite right in that house. He performed the initial reports and decided that little Becky should have regular visits, someone to keep an eye on her.
So that was my place, and I watched over Becky for about three and a half years. She was a beautiful little girl, and her face lit up like a little star every Tuesday when I arrived for my visit. She had the most delicate olive skin, with light brown hair that was starting to wave as it grew, and just a dash, a light sprinkling of freckles over a little button nose. She was quite small for her age, but nothing excessive; she was delicate and petite, but there was a ruggedness to her. Even at the age of two i could see a hard shell forming around her, a shield that would rise whenever someone other than her father close to her. When he was close to her, there was something else that came from her, it was almost as combination of fear and adoration. I went to that house every Tuesday for almost two years and I do not believe I ever once saw an affectionate moment shared from that man to his daughter.
Jeans mother dies when Becky was just two, there were complications with her diabetes and one day she simply collapsed and fell into a coma, she passed away two weeks later. Her husband just six months later, they said of a heart attack; a broken heart was the true interpretation. So little Becky was all alone with Robert Suffolk, and it was then, I do believe I realised that this man did not love that little girl at all. He had loved his wife and she had wanted a child so desperately that he had wanted one too. his want was to share her love and when she was gone the love for the child it seemed had never been there.
He was diagnosed in the summer when Becky was three, testicular cancer, easily treatable with the result of removing both testicles, and some chemotherapy. however he decided this would be too much for him and to look after a child as well. One Tuesday I went to visit and he asked if he could speak to me alone, he explained the situation and stated that he wished to Becky in care, and back up for adoption. When I asked how we would explain this to Becky, although I wasn’t happy with her being there I didn’t wish to separate this little girl from the only family she had ever known without real cause.
“Tell her I died!” he stated coldly. “She has killed everyone else in this family, and now she is killing me. Tell her she succeeded and take her away from me before she finishes me off!” he believed this little girl, this baby who was so innocent in everything back then, was cursed. he blamed her for Jeans death, for the deterioration of his sanity, for her grandparents deaths and now for his illness. He told me he believed her biological mother had most likely abandoned her because she knew she was cursed. Honestly I was horrified!

I did wonder, two years later when the doctors came out of the theatre and looked down to us as I sat holding Becky’s hand. This fragile little girl, looking shocked and scared and covered in her foster brothers blood; just for a second I wondered if death did seem to follow her, especially as I had just received my own diagnosis the day before.
I moved away and someone else took my place in her life, many took my place as her carer, her guardian, and many died. As soon as I left my health returned, my diagnoses was not as bad as originally believed and I took on a new life. I married a wonderful man and had three beautiful children, but there nights, I would sit when they were all asleep and wonder about that little girl who was lost right from the day she as born.

Thirteen years had passed and I gazed upon the woman, the young, fragile, still petite and delicate, but now ever so cold and hardened, woman as she stood in the dock. Her skin was still that unblemished ivory except for the scattering of freckles over her little perfect nose, her hair long and flowing, and in different lights either dark blonde or light brown. It’s her eyes that get you though; those deep, bright, sparkling green eyes. no longer has death just happened, just followed her, it has become apart of her; she has exacted it upon those who have hurt her and those who have loved her have wilted, become ill and lost their lives. The only one still standing that young policeman who looks so tired now.
Everybody hates her so much. But as I stand and watch this terrifying young woman, I cannot help but see that helpless little girl, alone with no-one to come to her and I wonder what would’ve happened if Jean had never hit the patch of ice that day.
I wonder most if Robert Suffolk, who lives still to this day in agony and torment of a broken mind, told any truth in his maddened woes. Only one person who ever loved Rebecca Suffolk has survived, everyone else who gave their hearts to her, had their lives taken, either by her hand or near it. Was the baby found in the middle of nowhere with no one to call a mother or father, was she cursed to damn all those who she touched? 

About L.M. Steel


L.M.Steel on paper is a scientist, but since the age of seven when she first had a poem read out on childrens radio, she has had a passion for writing.

Through junior School she concentrated on poetry, then onto high school she moved onto songs, short stories and plays.

Once she left high school she moved onto writing novels and scripts.
The novels are now becoming available to read and one day, the scripts will be directed and filmed for you to see.

Lee was born in 1982 in Rochford, Essex and lived on the outskirts of the village of Canewdon.
At the age of six she moved to West Yorkshire with her parents, elder sister and younger brother, where they owned and ran a dairy farm. Due to the egg crisis of 1991 the farm and business was lost and Lee, with her family, was housed in Sowerby Village, with other ex-farmers, redundant miners and former military families.

She attended Newlands Junior School, and then moved up to Ryburn Valley High School, where she gained 9 GCSE’s
At 17 Lee began a legal apprenticeship course and earned an NVQ Level III in Business Administration
Lee graduated from the University of Huddersfield in 2011with a 1st Class Msci Degree with honours in Forensic and Analytical Science.
She moved to Hampshire to begin work as a Laboratory Technician in 2011.

Lee is a keen rower, enjoying refreshing mornings and evenings out on the Solent. She is also a green tag in Taekwondo, although it's a sport she hasn't quite got back into for a while.
Lee now lives in Southampton with her partner Alexandra Steel who serves in the Royal Navy, and Lee’s Patterdale terrier Cracker

The couple have plans to have a Civil Union in August 2013

Writing
It was at Newland Junior School, that Hazel Hellowell first spotted Lee had a talent for creative writing and encourage her poetry, resulting in the local paper publishing her first poem: Weeping Willow at the age of 10.

Moving onto Ryburn Valley High School Lee continued to write, but it wasn’t until Year 10, where she took up Expressive Arts, that her teachers, Amanda Glover and Jackie Newman also noted Lee had a talent and desire to write and encouraged her to do so. At 14 her second poem was published Heartbreaker.

In 2002 Lee went to Washington DC after being nominated by the International Society of Poetry for the Poet of the Year Award 2002. Although Lee didn’t win, she did win a Poet of Merit Award. for her Poem Hopless Shadow. Lee's first book was published in october 2012: Judged by Your Peers

Links

A blog of allsorts from a writer: http://lmsteel1.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @LMSteel1




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