Southend U3A

Writing for Fun

June 2016

Breakout - Jenni Bowers

She stared in the mirror how could this have happened again? Her face had broken out once more with awful red blotches – what had she eaten?

No seafood, no spices or tomatoes – yet now, on her wedding day her face was a mess again. Wendy had been taking pills to help her relax and not stress about the wedding – she was sure it would all go well and her husband to be, Terry, would show up.

He'd promised to behave, turn over a new leaf, be a good husband. But her mother had gone on and on about 'a leopard never changes his spots', once a loser always a loser and so on until she had screamed, 'Mum, shut up, give him a chance – or don't come to the wedding!'

Beryl was shocked and dismayed, she adored Wendy, her only child and how she wished they'd never moved in next door to Terrys' family – what a lot of degenerates they were with that Terry immediately homing in on her lovely Wendy. After that it had been loves young dream with fifteen year old Wendy so in love every effort Beryl made to try and split them up had proved useless.

She had nurtured this her only child since that itinerate drunk Harry had up and left her with the baby only 6 months old – lived for her in fact, with her own mother saying, 'I told you so, always said he was a loser, no job, no respect,' on and on and on until Beryl had asked a friend to put them up and later nabbed a nice little council house which was still their cosy home. Wendy sat at the dressing table sobbing, 'How can I get rid of these horrible spots now, mum? the wedding's in three hours and look at me, trust me to have another break out now.'

Beryl felt guilty, she'd been feeding Wendy lovely cakes and biscuits all week, trying to help her put on some weight because her daughter was a really skinny girl and she wanted some nice cleavage to show off in the lovely second hand wedding gown they'd bought at the local charity shop for £50. Unfortunately she realised that the sugar had probably caused the acne outbreak now – what could she do?

'I'll go and make us a nice cuppa and you can lay in the bath, put a cold flannel on your face and relax – I'm sure they'll not look so bad when you calm down dear.'

By the time the Roller arrived Wendy's face had lost its blotched, lumpy look and with a little concealer she didn't look too bad at all – the neighbours gathered at the gate and threw confetti over her and she smiled at last – on her way to her future.

Beryl, who had preceded her to the church, watched her baby with tears in her eyes, but felt proud of the beautiful young woman she'd raised and prayed fervently that this time history would not be repeated, that Terry would prove to be as much in love with Wendy as he'd declared to her when he last begged her to give him a chance – well this was it – we'll see, she thought.