The Runaway

by Martina Cole

  It was this knowledge that frightened her most of all.

  BOOK FOUR

  ‘Frisch weht der Wind der Heimat zu; - mein Irisch Kind, wo weilest du?’ ‘Freshly blows the wind homewards; - my Irish child, where you are dwelling?’

  - Tristan und Isolde, Wagner, 1813-83

  ‘Be all my sins remembered’

  - Hamlet, William Shakespeare, 1564-1616

  ‘I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life! And if God choose I shall but love thee better after death’

  - Sonnets from the Portuguese, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806-61

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  NEW YORK 1987

  ‘For fuck’s sakes, Deirdra, will you get the kids out of my fucking study and into the garden? Everywhere I look there’s brats. Now do what I ask you. Immediately.’

  Deirdra, her long red hair dyed now, doe eyes a startling green still but her figure heavy from constant childbirth, walked into Eamonn’s study and said pointedly: ‘It’s your only daughter’s birthday party. Of course there are children all over the place. What did you expect me to do - not invite her friends, their parents, what? You tell me, Mr Big Man, you seem to know everything.’

  ‘Don’t be funny, Deirdra. All I ask is that you keep them out of my study, that’s all.’

  She shook her head, making her full red cheeks wobble like jellies. ‘We have nine children. This house is always full of children, you fool of a man. What’s another twenty or so, I ask you? Anyway, if Norah goes in there you never say a word. It’s only the boys you’re ever cross with.’

  Eamonn frowned. ‘Because they’re little bastards, that’s why. Anyway, where the fuck is Jack Jr? He was supposed to be here by now - I told him three-thirty.’

  Deirdra shrugged. Her eldest son, named for his grandfather, held no interest for her. In fact, none of the children did.

  ‘How do I know where he is? Out whoring like his father does, I expect.’

  Eamonn closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His wife goaded him constantly and it was wearing. He looked at her as she stood before him. There was no trace left of the seventeen-year-old girl he had married. Deirdra was old before her time.

  He knew her weakness and used it shamelessly. His wife was sex mad, at least with him anyway. The heavier she grew, the more sex she wanted. She did nothing for him, her big fat body did nothing for him, and they both knew that. But still he gave her what she called her due, or had until recently.

  Now he gained a perverse satisfaction from seeing her ask for it, beg for it. He liked to refuse.

  He loved his children and she professed to love them too, but in reality she had no interest in them once they hit three. Deirdra liked babies but he was fucked if she was getting any more from him. Nine children were enough for any man. The college fees alone would keep a small country going for a year, but Eamonn had the money, it wasn’t that. It was the fact that he didn’t really want her as the mother of his children.

  Already Norah, the only girl, was getting too like her mother. Emulating her, with her pseudo-intellectual friends and her pathetic pretence that she understood exactly what they were saying. Deirdra was in fact a sandwich short of a picnic, seriously challenged in the brain department, and he really should point that out to her.

  But today wasn’t the time.

  There was a party for the kids, and the parents would all be here soon, and Eamonn would have to play the convivial host no matter how much he was dreading it. Today he did not need a party of any kind. Especially one that Deirdra had arranged. She would have squandered a fortune on the arrangements, and would make sure that everyone knew just how expensive it had all been. For someone who had always had money, she had an uncanny knack of acting like a parvenu.

  As she stared at him from her green eyes - once her best feature, now covered in too much shadow and false eyelashes - he felt the usual tightening in the base of his neck. She really was a pain. Her tiny tits were encased in a padded bra, but her hips still looked as if they could easily carry a wide load. Her waist was thick, her arms and legs over-plump. Even her neck had a small roll of fat around it, as did the rims of her eyes. She looked like a little red-headed pig, he thought, smiling.

  ‘What’s the joke? Me, I suppose.’ Her voice sounded hurt.

  ‘Don’t be so stupid, I was just thinking of our Norah being a whole eight years old today.’

  Deirdra laughed then, a happy little sound. ‘Christ, eight! The time goes so fast.’

  Not fast enough, was Eamonn’s opinion, but he wisely kept it to himself. His wife walked towards him on her impossibly high heels and tried to put an arm around his neck. He moved expertly away from her.

  ‘Come off it, Deirdra, the kids will be on top of us in a minute.’

  ‘Come upstairs, the au pair can watch them. Come on, Eamonn, it’s been ages.’

  He pushed her away roughly. ‘Leave it out, love, I have a mountain of work to get through before I can have a bit of fun at the party. Are your mum and dad definitely coming?’

  She nodded, pouting in disappointment. ‘You’re getting it somewhere, Eamonn, because you’re not asking me for it.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘Leave it, Deirdra. Not now, eh?’

  Before she could answer the twins burst into the room, faces bright and green eyes full of tears.

  ‘Daddy, Daddy, Dennis is driving us all mad! He’s got a slug gun.’

  Eamonn put his head in his hands and sighed heavily.

  Eight sons and they were all limbs of Satan.

  The Dochertys’ house on Long Island was beautiful, ablaze with chandeliers, the rooms all high-ceilinged and embellished with ornamental plasterwork. The decor was subtle because Eamonn had warned the gay decorator that if he saw any hot pinks or Dayglo oranges he would personally take the man outside and shoot him through the back of the head. Something in his voice had penetrated the man’s Valium trance and he had heeded the warning. The result was a very lovely, spare and understated house.

  Deirdra hated it.

  Eamonn loved it.

  As usual he had won.

  As far as he was concerned, the house was his finest achievement. Worth over two million dollars, it was also a shrewd investment. With fifteen bedrooms, eight receptions, a ballroom and two kitchens, it was ideal for the Dochertys and their nine children.

  The gardens were massive, over five acres, and all securely walled. The only access was through security gates. Eamonn wanted it to be the American equivalent of a country estate and acted the Lord of the Manor in his own home. He also had a flat in Upper Manhattan where he met his girlfriends, and kept a long-term mistress off Bleccker Street. She was called Jasmine, a tiny blonde actress who spent most of her time resting. But she gave great head, and her tits were not only stunning but bought and paid for by him, so that Eamonn felt he’d made another good investment.

  All in all life was good.

  Now, dressed in a dinner suit, he looked every bit the successful man as he greeted his guests - though in the back of his mind he felt a black tie dinner for a child’s eighth birthday was going a bit too far. He would have preferred the kids to have had jelly and ice cream and a few games. Fuck knows, the two Norland nannies cost him the national debt and the au pair wasn’t cheap either. Why couldn’t they have arranged something?

  But he smiled as everyone arrived, and made small talk, and kept his eye on Deirdra who liked to drink a bit too much and was liable to cause a scene if she overindulged.

  It was just on nine-thirty when he thought his eyes were playing him up. Standing at the top of his sweeping staircase, he could have sworn for a moment he saw Cathy Connor. He had just glimpsed her out of the corner of his eye.

  He had come upstairs to belt the living daylights out of the twins who had found a tube of icing and drawn a large pink penis on Norah’s birthday cake. He personally had found it hilarious; the caterers, another load of tight-assed fags his wife had hired, had found it disgus
ting. The twins had just been found out. Liam, aged ten, had grassed them up without a second’s thought.

  It didn’t matter how hard Eamonn tried to instil his East End values into the boys, they just ignored him. Eamonn had told them time and time again: You never tell on family or friends. He doubted they would ever learn that lesson.

  Making his way hurriedly downstairs again, he walked into the ballroom and scanned the throng of people.

  Everything was decorated in lemon and silver: lemon yellow balloons proclaimed ‘Eight Today’ on them, and silver balloons announced ‘Birthday Girl’. The birthday girl herself was dressed in lemon and silver also and being on the plump side like her mother, looked like a fat girl always does in lace and bows: stupid.

  In his heart of hearts Eamonn felt sorry for the child, knowing that she was desperately trying to please her mother. She was talking to all the grown-ups about the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, and finding it difficult. Deirdra tried to coach the girl but it was really a case of the blind leading the blind where culture was concerned.

  He was idly scanning the room when he saw that blonde head again. His heart lifted, and he felt a pulse ticking inside his temple. Then she turned around and his hopes died.

  It wasn’t Cathy.

  It was a stranger, though that wasn’t so surprising. Deirdra was a bitch for inviting unknown people she classed as ‘interesting’. Well, fuck interesting, this particular stranger was layable, that would do for him. Eamonn homed in on her.

  ‘How do you do? I’m the man of the house. And you might be . . .?’

  Usually his accent alone was enough to seduce the American women, they couldn’t resist it. This lady, however, was a different kettle of fish. On closer inspection she was not all he had hoped. She had the blue eyes, the cheekbones and the chin, but that was as far as the similarity to Cathy went.

  In the nasal tones of Brooklyn she told him: ‘I’m Carol Van Dutty, and I’m a sculptress. Your wife is interested in one of my works. It’s a particularly fine piece, actually, Deirdra has quite an eye . . .’

  He interrupted her before she hit him full swing with the sales pitch.

  ‘My wife, honey, wouldn’t know a sculpture from a hole in her arse. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you and forget about you until I’m forced at gunpoint to write you a cheque.’

  Carol Van Dutty, real name Rebekka Splint, watched wide-eyed as the handsome hunk walked away from her.

  Eamonn was upset and it showed. He really had thought he had seen Cathy. He had felt her near to him, sensed her presence. All an illusion, of course.

  He saw his daughter and sighed once more. Norah looked at him with the bewildered eyes of an eight year old totally out of her depth. He walked towards her, greeting people as he went.

  ‘Hi, baby, what’s cooking?’

  Norah laughed, a happy carefree sound, and he was disarmed. She was only a kid, for Christ’s sakes, and here she was, made up like a fucking carnival dancer.

  ‘Come on, sweetcakes. What say me and you retire to my study and smoke a cigar and enjoy a brandy? Christ, you’re eight, it’s time you started drinking and smoking at least.’ Norah giggled into her gloved hands. He felt a surge of real affection for her; if his wife would leave her alone she’d be a terrific kid.

  Eamonn took her hand. As they moved through the crowd and made their way to the door, they were stopped by a business associate of his, an Italian named Johnny Galdi.

  ‘Terrific party, Eamonn, and is this the little birthday girl?’ He chucked her under the chin with his heavy hand. Norah moved her head away and the man laughed. ‘Not interested in boys yet, huh?’

  ‘She’s shy, Johnny, she’s her daddy’s girl.’

  Johnny squeezed the eighteen-year-old bimbette on his arm and laughed gustily. ‘Ain’t they all?’

  Johnny was sixty if he was a day and suddenly he made Eamonn feel depressed. Would that be him eventually, still chasing tail at sixty? Still looking for that elusive female, the one he’d want to fuck until they were too old and too decrepit but they could still reminisce?

  He led Norah to his study, spying Deirdra on the way. She was surrounded by a group of young men, all hanging on her every word. This depressed him as well, because he knew they were all out to put the touch on her for something. She paraded struggling actors, painters, sculptors, and every other fucking wacko she could find, around his home, forever listening to their crap with wide eyes and an open cheque-book. How had his life come to this?

  Inside the study he poured himself a large Johnnie Walker Blue Label, and a Coke for Norah. They sat side by side on the Victorian loveseat his wife insisted was ‘just the thing’ for his study and he tried to make conversation with his only daughter.

  ‘How’s school?’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘How’s your friends?’

  ‘They’re OK.’

  ‘How’s everything going?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Norah, is that all you can say? That school costs over three thousand dollars a term and all you can say is OK?’

  She looked at him with puzzled eyes. ‘Are you OK, Daddy?’

  Shaking his head he laughed, but it was an exasperated sound.

  ‘I’m a child, Daddy, I’m not supposed to talk to you. Don’t you watch Oprah?’

  She was making one of her mother’s adult jokes and it saddened Eamonn. Made him feel like crying, in fact. Suddenly he was terribly upset. He put an arm around her shoulders.

  ‘Listen to me, pumpkin, all that crap Mommy tells you to say . . . well, next time she coaches you, tell her I said you’re not to listen. Be a child, Norah, while you’ve got the chance. My father used to say to me: “Don’t try and be so old, son. One day you’ll be old for the rest of your life.” Do you understand what I’m saying here?’

  Norah nodded. ‘Of course I understand, Daddy, and I know I’m a child. But you try and tell Mommy that! I haven’t got one real friend here tonight. I wanted to go to McDonald’s like my friends, but Mommy said that was low-class.’

  She sighed like an old woman. Her little face was a picture of world weariness as she said sadly, ‘I wish I had more sisters - to take Mommy’s mind off of me a bit, you know?’

  He hugged her to him tightly, his eyes filled with unaccustomed tears at the loneliness in his child’s voice. ‘I’ll talk to Mommy, OK? Tell her to lay off you, how’s that?’

  ‘She won’t listen, Daddy. She thinks I’m going to be the next great woman of America. She wants me to be famous for something. The trouble is, I’m not very good at anything much.’ Her voice was small, broken. It angered him. She was eight years old and already her mother had made her feel like a failure.

  ‘Daddy, can I go now, please? I mean, to bed, not back to the party. Could you square it with Mommy? She wants me to sing later and, Daddy, I really don’t want to.’

  ‘OK, Norah, I’ll tell her me and you got drunk and I had to put you to bed because you were singing dirty Irish songs your grandfather taught you. How’s that?’

  She smiled tremulously. ‘Goodnight, Daddy. I love you.’

  He pulled her to him once more. ‘And I love you, princess. Sweet dreams.’

  At the door she turned and smiled again, and his heart went out to her. He drained his brandy when she had gone then picked up the phone. As he dialled, he thought of his daughter’s worries and determined to talk to his wife tonight and sort this out once and for all.

  He heard the voice he was longing to hear on the answerphone at the other end of the line, and listened to it sadly.

  ‘There’s nobody here to take your call. Please leave a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.’

  Cathy’s voice.

  Sometimes when he rang she answered the phone and they exchanged idle chit-chat. Just hearing her voice gave him an erection.

  He didn’t leave a message but replaced the receiver and stared for long moments at the phone.

&n
bsp; In twelve years he had made over thirty trips to Britain, and never once had he seen her. Tommy always had an excuse as to why she could not attend so much as a small dinner with him. Eamonn knew she held a grudge and it broke his heart. She was still the only woman he had ever really wanted.

  He poured himself another large brandy and walked to the French windows to look out on to his garden. By his study was a replica of the rose garden at Hampton Court, and there he could just make out his son Jack with his arm around the waist of a tiny dark-haired girl. But he could also see the twins and young Paul, who was only seven but with the devilment of a serial killer, about to launch a bucket of water over their eldest brother and his girl.

  Before Eamonn could open the window to protest, the dirty deed was done. He could hear the girl’s screams even over the lousy jazz band his wife had booked for the evening’s entertainment. He went back to his desk, and turned off the light. He had decided to go on the missing list tonight. Let Deirdra sort out the little buggers, he didn’t have the heart for it. Personally, he thought their escapades quite funny and liked to see their high spirits, especially when his wife had all her so-called friends in the house.

  He knew it was petty, but at these times he rather enjoyed her humiliation.

  She’d wanted the Von Trapp family; she’d got a crowd of hooligans called the Dochertys.

  Life had its compensations.

  Deirdra finally located her husband towards midnight, half drunk and still laughing over the incident with the boys. She was fuming.

  ‘How could you, Eamonn, in front of all our friends! How could you humiliate me like this? Everyone’s been asking where you are. My father is worried about you and so is Uncle Petey. He’s gone off to search for you. How could you do this to me, Eamonn?’

  Her voice was a high-pitched whine that grated on his ears.

  ‘On top of everything else, you sent Norah to bed! I’ve told the au pair to get her dressed again so she can sing her solo . . .’