To understand why Carla Barlow hated Rich Connor so much, you have to go back to when she was sixteen years old and to when many people knew her as Carla Donovan...
Carla Donovan was the type of sixteen year old that you really didn't want to mess with, she was feisty and gobby but she was only that way because she had to be, she grew up on one of the roughest estates in Manchester, her home life was full of dodgy men coming and going as they pleased, a teenage girls's nightmare to be honest and everywhere she went she was judged for being her mother's daughter.
Life wasn't all bad for Carla though, she used to really enjoy working in this posh shoe shop in Manchester central and when she had first got the job she was so proud. She felt that way because she had been chosen over a few other girls from her year at school . Her mother had also told her she didn't think that she would get the job because she was too common so to hear that she had aced the interview was music to Carla's ears.
She was also ecstatic to finally have a way of making her own money. Money that she didn't have to give to her Mum or her brother or what ever "uncle" was around at the time, it was all hers to spend how she pleased.
Teenage Carla felt very grown up and sophisticated with a job and this job came with a whole new set of friends too.
Other than the owner and the manager, most of the people who worked in the shop were young, they were almost all students who were in school, college or Uni and Carla was the youngest of the group. It didn't matter though, they all treated Carla like she was one of the gang and they always used to all go out and have fun together after their shift on a Saturday.
The Uni students were all old enough to purchase the alcohol legally and one of those Uni students was Rich Connor.
Now Rich Connor had always had thing for Carla, ever since he'd met her one-day back when she was about fourteen and on the estate she used to live on. She was sat on a wall with Michelle, braiding her long dark hair when Rich had walked up to them and Michelle had told her that he was her cousin. At first he seemed like someone who Carla really liked.
He studied accounting, he seemed decent and someone who she was pleased about working with. Everyone at work trusted Rich a lot, he was alway good with the customers and always handy to have around in a crisis, so he was eventually given keys to the building.
Sometimes he closed the shop with Carla. She was glad when he was around because she knew that she could slack off a little. One-day, when it was just the two of them Rich decided to bite the bullet and finally ask Carla out.
She declined his offer politely and said that she thought that he was just a friend, she also said that Michelle would never allow her to go out with her older cousin of course at the time, Carla had no idea that she would eventually marry Michelle's older bother.
Rich took Carla's slight refusal to not go out with him well at first. He didn't mention it again until they had gone to the cinema one night with everyone else from the shop that is and he was walking her home when he asked her out again.
Carla said no and Rich tried to talk her round. He said he would treat her really well and take her out to some really nice places but she just shrugged him off, still saying that she didn't think of him in that way.
Once again Rich took Carla's no, quite well and didn't ask her out again for the longest time.
During her time at the shoe shop, Carla had also gotten close to a boy who was in college doing his A Levels. He was called Guy and he and Carla got on like a house on fire. They liked the same music and bonded well over their rather crazy families.
Rich didn't show it but he didn't like how close Carla had gotten to Guy and secretly resented him for it, he was sure that Guy wanted Carla all for himself. He didn't know that Guy was actually gay and had only confided in Carla about it because they had become such good friends.
Months went by before Rich asked Carla out again and this time she told him a little more harshly this time that she really really wasn't interested in him.
At all.
Rich was not pleased with the way Carla had spoken to him this time but he kept his anger in. He told himself that one day she would change her mind but as the months went by it soon became clear to him that she wouldn't.
She once joked about it with Guy who had called Rich pathetic and said that Carla was way too good for him, They were unaware that Rich had heard all this, he detested the way that they were mocking him but made sure that he kept his cool all the same.
Then one Saturday night just before Christmas, there was a party in one of the old abandoned houses on the estate where Carla lived. The owners had long moved out and this house was now just used for some rather wild and rather illegal parties. This party was organised by Rich's best friend Joe and everyone knew that was sure to be full of endless amounts of alcohol and drugs.
Drugs were something that Carla had never ever wanted to touch. She had grown up in a house with a drug dealer and has seen just how destructive they could be.
Drugs had almost torn her household apart, so whenever she had been offered them and she had been offered them a lot due to where she lived, she always made sure that she said no.
This party was no different of course and she had gone along to it, dressed in a rather low cut top and short black skirt with Michelle in tow, planning to get a little bit drunk and have an amazing time.
She got more than a little bit drunk and she didn't have an amazing time.
Michelle's boyfriend was also at this Party and it wasn't long before Michelle had gone off with him and left Carla to it. She wasn't alone though, she was with Guy and some of their other friends from the shoe shop and as they danced the night away and swigged vodka Carla felt stupidly happy.
She was happy because she was really doing well at work, that very day in fact her boss had come up to her and said he was raising her pay because he thought she had done so well. Her home life was still rather hellish but all in all everything else seemed to be going okay, even Rob was starting to behave himself a little.
Guy and Carla hung out together for most of the night but then Guy went outside for a cigarette and left a rather tipsy Carla alone with Rich. She wondered if he was going to ask her out again but he didn't. He just chatted away as normal and poured her another drink before saying that he was going to go outside and join Guy for a smoke.
That was the last thing Carla remembered about that night.
The next thing that she knew she woke up in her bed at home, feeling totally ill and very hungover. She was sick as soon as she sat upright and clambered out of bed as she tried to piece together the events of last night, then her Mum came bursting into her room.
Screaming and shouting about how Carla was a little tramp and that she had embarrassed the family, which Carla had felt was a slight case of a pot calling a kettle black because her mother was the one who was known by everyone for causing many a scene and it was only when Carla looked down at her legs that she saw the state of them.
Her tights were ripped, with long ladders in them, when she went to look in the mirror she saw that she had her make smudged all over her face and her hair was totally wild.
As her mother continued to hurl abuse at her, so much so that Rob had come in looking very concerned for his big sister only to be sent away again, Carla knew that what she was feeling right now was no ordinary hangover.
Even though she was only sixteen Carla had a lot of experience with drink, but this time her stomach lurched over and over again, she felt dizzy and her head pounded like it had never done before.
She got up and pushed her Mum aside as she went to be sick again and as hard as she tried she just couldn't work out what had happened to her. She knew that she hadn't of gotten drunk, she couldn't have, not just on that rather small amount of vodka that she had drunk.
It was later on that day that she found out what really happened.
Guy had come over to see how Carla was that afternoon. Even though Carla's Mum didn't want him to come in and see her, eventually he was allowed in. Carla took him up to her bedroom and Guy revealed all.
He said that he had come back inside from his fag to find Carla dancing by herself, swaying to the music and nodding along like she was in some sort of trance.
Guy had said that he found it amusing at first, that he thought Carla was just drunk and that she was having a good time, he soon realised that she wasn't quite right.
Her pupils were huge and she wasn't making any sense when she spoke, Guy wondered if she had maybe taken something and had put her down on the sofa in front of a whole crowd of people who were chatting away, he had told them to keep an eye on her and that he was going to find her best friend Michelle.
Guy found Michelle outside in her boyfriends arms and told her about Carla, Michelle scoffed at him and said there is no way Carla would ever try drugs and that she was probably just drunk.
Frustrated and sure that Michelle wouldn't be torn away from her latest boyfriends arms, Guy decided to sort out Carla himself.
He went back into the room where he had left her, only to find that she was gone. He went around asking people if they had seen her, peeved because he had told them to keep an eye on her and yet that they had let her go.
They told him to calm down, they said it was fine and that her friend Rich had picked her up off the sofa and that he was probably going to look after her.
Guy didn't like Rich and he also didn't trust him, he had an older sister at the same Uni as him and she had told him all about Rich Connor. Guy had also found the way he used to ask Carla out every chance he got rather desperate, so he raced around the house to see if he could find them.
Something about this situation didn't sit right with him and for a very good reason.
Guy eventually found Rich and Carla.
Carla was sprawled across a bed, completely out of it. Her eyes were shut but she was trying to bat away Rich who was almost on top of her, pulling down her tights and saying that he knew she wanted it really.
Guy didn't give Rich a second longer to put his filthy hands on Carla. He went absolutely crazy and yanked Rich off Carla's body in a instant. He pushed him against the wall and even though he was smaller than Rich, thankfully he was a lot stronger.
Rich tried to say that he wasn't doing anything and that he was just checking if Carla was okay but Guy wasn't that stupid and besides Rich's jeans were undone and Carla's tights were still pulled down, her underwear still thankfully pulled up.
Guy hit Rich hard, so hard that he was sure that he seriously hurt his hand in the process. Rich hit the ground instantly and Guy wasted no time in pulling Carla up and getting her right out of there.
He lifted her up off the bed and tried to get her to talk to him.
She didn't make any sense and then was suddenly sick. It was clear to Guy that Rich had obviously drugged Carla and as she suddenly passed out again he knew he had to get her safe and home.
He dragged her through the party goers as quick as he could, she was unresponsive as he staggered through the crowds and told her that everything was going to be okay.
He went to find Michelle and told her what he had stumbled upon but Michelle was rather drunk at this point and was sure that Carla was just drunk herself, Michelle's boyfriend then got annoyed and just told Guy to push off.
Some of the other people who worked at the shoe shop saw Guy struggling with Carla so they helped him take her home.
They helped him walk her to her front door and when her Mum answered she looked livid.
She took one look at Carla's ripped tights, low cut top and the way she was hanging off Guy and went mental.
To everyone's surprise she reached over and slapped Carla hard across the face.
Carla's head rocked and she blearily opened her eyes, her Mum then pulled her inside the flat without even saying thank you to Guy or his friends for bringing her home and even though Guy tried to explain that Carla's drink had been spiked and that he thought she needed to go to hospital, her Mum just slammed the door shut.
Guy told Carla all of this, whilst holding her hand tightly and making sure she knew that none of this was her fault. The news that Rich had done such a thing had really stunned Carla because like everyone she really trusted him. She couldn't believe that Rich would have stooped so low but she knew that it must have been him, especially as he had been the one to pour her that last fateful drink and upon Guy's encouragement to get checked over Carla went to the hospital.
She told her Mum she was going and of course her Mum refused to go with her so Guy accompanied Carla instead. It really hurt Carla that her Mum had refused to support her but she tried not so show it as they took a cab to the nearest hospital.
A medic checked her over and took all the necessary tests but Carla knew that no matter what happened, Rich was going to get away with it.
There were hundreds of people at the party and there was no proof that he had been the one to drug her, there was no way she could prove it was him but she decided she was going to go around town and make sure everyone knew about it even so.
On their way home from the hospital Carla and Guy actually bumped into Rich. He had a black eye from where Guy had punched him but still looked pretty pleased with himself. Carla confronted Rich straight away but he denied it off course.
He said that they were all drunk and that Carla was probably just not used to drinking so much vodka and that she obviously couldn't handle it that's all. He then said that Guy had probably just stumbled in on them both in a drunken embrace and had over reacted because he was jealous.
Guy threatened to punch Rich again at this point but Carla stopped him and said it didn't matter what Rich said because she was still going to tell everyone what he did.
Rich didn't seem too bothered about this, he just shrugged and told them both that no one would believe them and that if they did try and drag his name through the mud they would both regret it.
Guy said he wasn't scared of Rich and that he was going to make sure that everyone knew what he was like.
The next day Guy was taken to hospital after being savagely beaten up on his way home from college by a bunch of thugs. Carla knew Rich had something to do with it but she still couldn't prove anything.
Everyone just assumed that Carla was drunk, that Guy was drunk too and had overreacted. They said that if she had been drugged it was probably because she had taken it herself, Like mother like daughter they said.
They assumed all of this because Rich was such a lovely and genuine guy. He would never do anything like that to someone he had worked with for almost a year and especially not to Carla, she was Michelle's cousin after all, she was practically family.
Carla didn't give up at first, she kept telling anyone who would listen but she was starting to see that the truth was falling on deaf ears.
Michelle's Mother found out about the things that were being said about her nephew and called Carla a dirty little liar. She blamed her for leading Michelle astray and making her go to this party in the first place. Michelle was a little peeved because she was now grounded and not allowed to see her boyfriend, she said that she wanted to believe Carla but there was no way her Mum would let her say it out loud.
Carla said she understood, she knew Michelle had to stick up for Rich, he was her cousin after all.
After weeks of trying, Carla just couldn't seem to convince anyone that Rich had been the one to drug her at that party so in the end, she gave up.
Her own Mother didn't even believe her and as Guy was now in hospital she knew that Rich was a lot more dangerous than she had ever thought.
Of course he made sure that he was on his best behaviour, he carried on as normal and everyone continued to love him...
Almost an exact twenty-four years later and everyone still seemed to love Rich Connor. Everyone who met him thought he was hilarious and a real decent bloke.
Carla was sat in the corner of The Pub on Friday night, with her arm draped around Peter. He was on the phone discussing something with his boss but every so often he would kiss Carla on the nose or cheek. As always she relished being in his company and it wasn't until she saw Rich come out and start helping Michelle behind the bar that she remembered the secret she had been keeping from Peter.
She hadn't told him about Rich because she knew that he would fly right off the handle, he'd confront him about it, which would probably cause some friction with Michelle and with Christmas fast approaching Carla really didn't want any trouble, especially as this Christmas with Peter and Simon looked like it might just be her best one ever.
Please review and let me know what you thought of this update... I wasn't sure about it but I thought it was a different way to tell the story.
:)