THE MISDIRECTION: SUMMARY

The story begins describing a block of flats in Northern England on a cold winter night and then concentrates upon two inhabitants of one of the flats. Both are sleeping. An 8 year old child named Renaud and his French born mother Anna. Anna wakes when a cold breeze enters their room through a boarded up window. She cannot return to sleep once she is awake. She is distressed by her dream and goes over and sits up against the wall. She starts to re-enter her past through her daydream and the story follows her thoughts travelling back to her life as a 17 year old living in Southern France with her younger brother and authoritative mother. In this period in her life Anna is struggling at school and finds it hard to make friends. She cannot please her mum and quits school without telling her. She gets a job to help her father (who is estranged from his wife) pay gambling debts. Anna is used by most of the people in her life. Her mother does not love her and thinks she is a failure, her father uses her to get money and her work colleagues see her as their run around. She cares about her brother who she helps bring up in his young life, but he loses interest in her when he goes to school and makes friends of his own age. She feels very fed up with her life until at a bus stop she meets a 19 year old called Joe who is visiting in her hometown. She sees him during a space of a couple of months and decides to leave with him to his home in North England. They live with Joe's aunt and uncle. Anna lives rent free when she first arrives and tries to repay them by doing housework and being a good tenant. She is trying to learn English, but is struggling and converses still in her natural language. She gets a job breifly, but becomes pregnant not long after and has to give it up. When she gives birth to Renaud she is extremely happy as she feels she has something to concentrate her life on, but her relationship with Joe does not take off when she arrives in England. He is less attracted to her back home than during his stay in France. She doesn't seem able to leave her past behind and doesn't involve herself much in his life in England. He stills wants to go out and see his friends and doesn't really feel ready to be tied down to a family. When Renaud is born its bad news for him. He however sees Anna is happy and is glad at that that and thinks he has achieved what he planned with her which was to help improve her life from how things were for her. He realises though he doesn't love her enough to want to stay with her in a long term relationship He begins seeing an old schoolfriend who he is more compatible to and eventually he and Anna decide to live apart. He helps her get a flat that is not in a great area and he sends her money from his job to help support their child. Joe's rejection of her really batters Anna's confidence in other people and she does not pursue a future partner in the rest of the story. Anna was devoted to Joe and thought he was the only person who ever really cared enough about her. Once he is not in her life she puts her whole effort into bringing up Renaud in the difficult surroundings of their rough apartment block. During this time Anna becomes physically a symbol of her poverty not having much money to spend on herself and encounters problems in her area. She has no friends here (she only knows very basic English) and strangers seem adverse to her. She suffers a physical assault after answering back to some people that carelessly knock her and her child over when messing around, that leaves her with injuries that hinder her life for a fortnight. Despite her troubles though Anna has developed a spirit to fight for son that he does not suffer due to what she is experiencing. Anna shares a very close relationship with her son. She is very good to him. All the things they can afford she gets for him and spends little on her own wants and desires. As they are on there own together a lot of the time without a TV or Radio in their flat, they talk a lot and find alternative methods of entertainment. They go on walks to places and Anna encourages him in anything he takes interest. He spends a lot of time drawing pictures from photographs Anna takes from around the city and Anna gives him little fun exercises to do. Anna makes a special effort on Renauds birthdays. On one birthday she dresses as a clown and performs simple magic tricks which she learns from a book. When Renaud is a little older Anna does not hold him back from making friends despite her own isolation. He starts to play with a friend from school who lives on the same apartment block. Anna dedicates her whole time into seeing Renaud happy and she regains worth back into her life, despite the setbacks and her personal trauma of her own life in South France and with the breakup of her relationship with Joe. I haven't settled on one set ending to this story yet, but there is not happy conclusion for Anna. Time passes on during the night whilst Anna relives past events over in her mind. It is a regular occurance for her as she cannot sleep properly due to her bad memories. She has to get Renaud ready for school. He has a match later with other kids in his class after school and Anna promises him that she will be their to watch him. After dropping him off at school though she is knocked down by a car as she accidently steps out at a bad time..