Helen

Develde Farm, Goldengreens
5ft tall. Glasses. (She took off her round glasses, and after rubbing her eyes for a bit, cleaned the lenses on her sleeve.) 
used to run a hostel in Oz
Married to Ray, divorced, went to Oz with Gary Vincent.
Her and Ray had both been born and raised in Oxford. It wasn’t until after they separated that he had moved to Scotland, and it hadn’t been until after they had divorced that her and Gary had emigrated to Australia. (Chapter 8)
Character
Helen has been an emotional mess her entire life.
She loved animals, dogs especially, and kept dogs, cats, and the occasional horse all through her life
Then Reditus
Then:
‘Dear Ray,
I got your address through the Red Cross. I’m here, somewhere near Evermarch!
When the world got all jumbled up, our bit of Perth ended up not so very far away. 
Near Norway I’m told. It was hell there and we had to get away, there was constant trouble, 
bodies in the street, you wouldn’t believe it. We paid people-smugglers to take us to 
Strake, but they took everything. Then when we were trying to get across the border
they wanted more. So twat-face Gary sold me to the church! He promised to get a job, 
earn money and buy me back, but God knows what’s happened to him. Now the church 
has sold me to a farm in a place called Goldengreens. The Red Cross man told me they 
are still ways to free slaves in Evermarch. Ray, you’ve got to help me. Last night 
one of the other slaves was shanked in their sleep. I can’t survive this. 
They told me you work for the church? Or something? Remember me and help me,
Helen’
...
‘This is the happiest I’ve been since it all happened,’ she said and put her hand on top of Lorric’s. ‘Last Christmas I was in a concentration camp.’ 
- so in Perth/Oslo kind place? :D
xxx
The conversation moved on to their lives before the reditus. Helen, the most talkative of the three had already told them all there was to know about her. Her marriage to Ray Lorric, how it eventually crumbled for what now felt like petty reasons, her affair with Gary Vincent and their emigration to Australia where they had run a backpackers hostel for eight years right up to the day when Australia was suddenly 
Melissa
Tina
Helen's thoughts
(I think this has been modified a bit in the book!)
She knew she had been badly behaved, and she knew that she made excuses for herself. She had been adopted. 
She had been abused. That had all happened in her early teens though and she was a middle-aged woman now. 
So, she had treated some people badly? So, she had broken some promises, but who didn’t? It was no use; she knew all the old excuses just didn’t fly any more. 
God was back, and she was in hell, it was as simple as that. Surely though, surely, she didn’t deserve this?
Helen was beyond self-pity now. The horrors she had seen had hardened her. 
She was hardly “Ivan Denisovich”, but life in the gulag had scorched away all the layers of self-delusion. 
She could not afford any of that nonsense now. It was either cope with some cold reality or death.
The other women, mainly the white ones, still hung on to etc etc 
Helens backstory and thoughts in Chapter 11 
She was nourished by her memories. From her comfortable childhood, and the warm memories of her parents and younger brother. From her dull and unsatisfying marriage to Ray, that somehow seemed like a vision of marital bliss now. The tiny house with only one bedroom that they rattled around in and the living room with a kitchen adjoining it that was no bigger than a cupboard. That blasted piano too, that she had bought on a whim and that had she had never learned to play, taking up half the room and that had become such a bone of contention between her and Ray that it was the basis of all the bad feeling that ultimately led to their divorce. It all seemed so stupid now and looking back she realised how unreasonable she had been. She had expecting Ray to provide her with everything, not just financially, but emotionally too. They had been so young. She had been so young. She had wanted Ray to be more like a father to her than a partner. Even so, all the fights early on, she enjoyed the memories of the good times. They had enjoyed life back then, going out with their collection of oddball friends to pubs and nightclubs, or the theatre, or whatever else took their fancy. After that all came to its end, she met Gary. He had been handsome and excitingly new. Running off to Australia had been an adventure, but after a year she had come to realise that under the good looks and well-maintained body he was a useless twat. So, she had largely ignored him for most of their relationship and lived her own life, finally coming to realise that she didn’t need a man in her life to be happy. Since becoming a slave Helen felt she was beginning to realise something else about her life. It was hard to put into words, but it was could perhaps be expressed as insipidly prosaic as “don’t sweat the small stuff”. Even the worst of times in her previously life were infinitely superior to the life of a slave. She hoped if she ever got back to something resembling the life of a free woman, she would cherish every moment of it. She probably wouldn’t, said part of her mind, but she didn’t care about what her inner voice of criticism said much these days. Slaves didn’t lose any sleep worrying about how they felt about something that may or may not happen. Slaves, she told herself, that wanted to survive better realise that self-recrimination was an indulgence that could not be afforded. You woke, you ate, you worked, you slept. You got through it a day at a time. As Helen watched the winter sun creep behind the hills, she smiled to herself. If only she was good at taking her own advice. Being sold into slavery had not made her strong, it had made her worse. Her neurosis was all that was left of her.
CHARACTER GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
# By chapter 11, Helen is a sympathetic character to the reader, but her arc is for her to get darkner
# The farm plot is Owen coming back, shoot out with the army etc
# The thing with Melissa and 'that boy' ramps up. Daniel is it?
# Daniel is slain, Helen thinks it was Melissa
# After that though she gets 'saved' by Ray when the time comes and abandons Melissa and Tina
# She's not bothered by Melissa, but abandoning Tina eats away at her
# She does the whole 'I'm a horrible person!' thing with Ray and blames him and herself. Ray has bigger problems.
# OTHER STUFF! :D
# Ray gives her his talk about how she won't be free until she throws off the chains she has put on herself and all that etc
# She finds another man to latch onto. Some poor sucker! Make the reader be biting their knuckles as at first this bloke thinks she's really nice "She's been through so much etc She's so brave"
# Nah mate, she's nuts, say his mates
OLD NOTES
will become free eventually.
But stays on the farm for a while. Have a bit of farm life.
then its raided and some folks die. Probably Ruth and Niomi??? Nah, a bit obvious
Seeks freedom, It costs a lot etc, Has to sacrifice someone or something...
Helen must give up her anger to help herself and the others
I think right at the end even she is still a slave. What does that say about her? [unless the Ray arc pans out]
I think we have to have a run in with Owen and his mum
Helen does something that conflicts the reader. She is skatty. Maybe falls out with Melissa and Tina who wander off (on a horse? :D)
and end up at JFs house????
Melissa: (reveal later,teacher? Ministers wife?) something unexpected anyway
I think at the end Ray may give her a mild telling off etc. Something about the literal and figurative throwing off of the chains. Mel and Tina left, but Helen was always ... not sure here... need to not piss off the reader, but Im trying to say something about being stuck in a rut and not having the courage to throw off your old fears etc. Basically Crazy Cath and her repeating of the same mistakes. Not sure.
I think Helen needs to go darker etc. Starts being less sympathetic etc
Category:Paradise
Category:Paradise Characters
Category:Helen
Category:Slaves