The Runaway Wife

by Dee MacDonald

  ‘You keep in touch, darling. Let us know where you are. It could get lonely sometimes, and we don’t want you rushing back to The Roger for all the wrong reasons. And are you absolutely sure we can’t persuade you to stay another night?’ Freddy asked anxiously. ‘No? Well, you know where we are, so come back anytime at all. Now, let’s check your oil and things. Are you sure that old banger’s going to get you to wherever you’re going? Now, promise you’ll come to see us again? Promise? We want to hear about everything you get up to! Everything! Now, off you go! Where did you say you were going today?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Connie. ‘But northwards – possibly Manchester.’

  ‘Manchester? Why on earth Manchester?’

  Connie recalled her one and only visit to Manchester at Sally Parker’s wedding over forty years previously. She and Sally had shared a damp flat in Hammersmith around the time of the Greek summer. And it was there, in Manchester, watching a beaming Sally head up the aisle, that she made her decision to marry Roger. Manchester was also the place where she decided to accept the fact that she was pregnant, having missed two periods. A decision-making place, perhaps. A location that had changed her life.

  ‘I think it owes me,’ she replied.

  As she got into the car Connie realised that she envied Freddy and Baz for their easy relationship, their hands touching as they passed each other, their banter, their teasing, their laughter. OK, so they hadn’t been together for as long as she and Roger had, but she couldn’t recall Roger ever squeezing her arm as they passed, or howling with laughter at a ridiculous joke. But of course every relationship was different. She just wished hers hadn’t been so different.

  Freddy watched the little green car head down the driveway and then turn into the lane. Connie gave a final toot of the horn and waved out of the window just before she disappeared from view.

  ‘Do you think she’ll be back?’ Baz asked as he came up from behind and slid his arm round Freddy’s waist.

  ‘I really don’t know, darling. Anything could happen. How many women of sixty-something are swanning about out there with little idea of where they’re going, for God’s sake?’

  ‘What’s the husband really like?’ Baz asked as they wandered back into the house.

  ‘Well, I’d say he’s probably good enough husband material, if somewhat boring, and predictable and… well, you know he was a chartered accountant? Nothing wrong with that, of course, but they’re not generally a terribly exciting species. I did point this out to her when she introduced me to him shortly before they were due to be married.’

  ‘But you didn’t like him, did you?’

  ‘Not a great deal. And he certainly didn’t care much for me – or any of her Megatour friends for that matter. Of course, Middle England didn’t like gays to come out openly back then.’

  ‘So, why did she marry him, I wonder?’

  ‘Well, he was tall, good-looking and I think she craved security, because he had enough money for a house, which was very important to Connie. And he put her in the pudding club, to boot. Would you believe she met him on a return flight from Athens where he was attending some sort of mathematical convention? How boring is that!’

  ‘She should have known then,’ sighed Baz.

  ‘Indeed she should,’ said Freddy. ‘And, somewhere deep inside, I think she probably did.’

  Chapter Seven

  THE BOND

  Connie was somewhere near Derby when she saw the sign for Barney’s Cafe – one mile ahead. Judging by the line-up of heavy goods vehicles parked outside, Barney’s was a favourite with truck drivers, and just the sort of place where Roger wouldn’t dream of eating. With this in mind, and aware that her tummy had been rumbling and grumbling for some miles, Connie turned in and parked Kermit alongside one of the biggest articulated monsters she had ever seen. Inside the cafe she was greeted with the noisy babble of male voices and laughter, the clicking of knives and forks, and the almost imperceptible sound of Frank Sinatra trying to make himself heard somewhere in the background. There was just one table free – for two – by the window, where Connie sat down and regarded her surroundings. The clientele consisted mainly of drivers, one or two youngsters and an elderly couple. The red Formica tabletop was spotlessly clean, as was the row of hefty sauce bottles.

  ‘You had a look at the menu yet, love?’ She pronounced it ‘loov’, so Connie knew she’d hit the north. The waitress, who looked about sixteen, was encased in metal-ware from her pierced, ringed eyebrows to her studded nose and lip, and then sideways to her multi-pierced ears, which jangled as she bent down.

  ‘I’m starving,’ Connie remarked, picking up the menu.

  ‘How about a Barney’s Bonanza, then? Comes with the lot – black pudding, sausages, chips.’

  ‘Oh, all right then,’ Connie grinned. ‘Bring it on!’ Then she wondered what size she would be by the time she got home, eating all this stodge. If she went home. Well, of course she’d go home – where else would she go?

  She was aware that one of the drivers at the table opposite was openly staring at her. Connie felt flustered. She supposed a woman on her own might look out of place in here. Then he winked and grinned. Cheeky bugger! While she awaited Barney’s Bonanza she tried to avoid eye contact with her new admirer. Meanwhile Sinatra laboured on, against the din, with ‘Strangers in the Night’.

  ‘Mind if I share your table?’ Without waiting for an answer, a large woman with cyclamen-coloured hair plonked herself down on the seat opposite. She wore a matching cyclamen-coloured low-cut top, from which her two enormous boobs bounced, perilously close to escape. She had some pink roses tattooed up her arm but, unlike Len in Stratford, didn’t appear to love anybody.

  ‘Innit hot?’ Her new companion wiped her upper lip with the back of her hand.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Connie. At least the woman blocked her view of the driver. Now, she thought, please don’t start talking. Still suffering the after-effects of Freddy’s hospitality, she now craved some peace and quiet.

  ‘I just got off the bus from London,’ the woman went on. ‘Sweltering in there it was, like a bleedin’ oven. I was sweatin’ like a pig. That bus goes on to Leeds,’ she added, as if Connie cared. ‘But there’s another one comes along in about an hour or so which gets me right the way home. You live round here?’

  ‘No,’ said Connie. ‘Sussex.’

  ‘Blimey, you’re a long way from home then! You on your own?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Aw, nice to have company then. I’m Kath.’

  ‘Connie.’

  Just then the waitress jangled up with Connie’s Bonanza, which she served with a flourish.

  ‘Blimey, Connie, you gonna get on the outside of all that lot?’ Kath looked impressed.

  ‘I’m going to try,’ said Connie. Please let her shut up now.

  ‘Hey!’ Kath yelled at the waitress, pointing at Connie’s plate. ‘Bring me one of them, please – and some bread and butter.’ She turned her attention back to Connie. ‘You on holiday then?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Connie, as she swallowed her first mouthful. It seemed the simplest thing to say.

  ‘So, where are you going?’ That inevitable question.

  ‘Oh, here and there,’ Connie replied, after she’d swallowed some more. ‘Where the fancy takes me.’

  ‘The fancy! Get you!’ Much raucous laughter.

  Connie continued eating but Kath was not about to give up the conversation.

  ‘I always eat here when I change buses. Ever so clean it is.’

  Connie swallowed and nodded. ‘The food is delicious,’ she admitted as she speared a chip. The chips were the best she’d ever eaten; chunky, golden and tasty. None of those thin sticks that were only good for dipping in something.

  ‘Yeah, the food’s good. But didn’t think I’d see a posh lady like yourself in a transport caff though.’

  ‘Posh? I’m not posh!’

  Kath looked around and guffawed. ‘Well, you’
re a damn sight posher than most of this bloody lot.’

  Just then Kath’s Bonanza arrived and Connie hoped it might keep her quiet, but no such luck.

  ‘I eat here, see, ’cos it’s late by the time I get ’ome and it saves me cooking.’

  Connie nodded. After she’d swallowed another mouthful she asked, out of politeness, ‘Have you much further to go?’

  ‘Just to Manchester, love. I’m a Londoner though. I expect you can tell that from the way I speak? I’ve been livin’ up here for bleedin’ years. Could’ve got a train from London, of course, but I get a freebie on the buses ’cos me youngest works for the bus company. But it means I gotta keep changing buses, so it’s a long day.’

  ‘Do you go back to London often then?’ Connie asked, as it was obvious that Barney’s Bonanza was not going to stop Kath rabbiting on.

  ‘Every couple of months, usually. Go to see me son. Another son, that is.’

  ‘Does he live there?’

  ‘At Her Majesty’s pleasure, Connie! At Her Majesty’s pleasure! Three years he got. Not his fault though; always got in with the wrong crowd, Wayne did.’

  Connie digested this information along with her next mouthful. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it happens. You got kids?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Well, I got five and two of them turned out to be real pains in the arse.’ She had the remarkable ability to talk and eat at the same time without it distorting her speech in any way. ‘I expect your three have all done well for themselves, ’ave they?’

  ‘Yes, quite well. I’ve been lucky.’

  ‘I had me first when I was sixteen, at home in West Ham. Me dad chucked me out, so I came up to Manchester with the baby’s father, ’cos he came from up here, see. We stayed with his parents for a bit but it didn’t work out – not after the baby was born like. Then I met Trev. He didn’t mind me having a baby, but he couldn’t marry me, see, ’cos ’e was still married to someone else who wouldn’t divorce ’im. I think they was Catholic.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Connie.

  ‘Trev and me had twins. We was together five years before he scarpered. You’ve just had the one bloke, I suppose?’

  ‘Well, yes, I’ve only been married once.’ Connie realised that this statement didn’t fill her with as much pleasure or pride as she would have liked.

  ‘So, is he still around? You widowed? Divorced?’

  ‘He’s still around and I’m still married to him.’

  ‘I got married too after that, though. Joe took me on with the three kids; he was a good bloke, and we had three more. Joe died a couple of years ago.’

  ‘So you’ve had six children?’ Connie said as she scraped her plate.

  ‘Yeah, but I lost one. Billy – one of me twins. Only seventeen he was, on that bloody motorbike. Awful it was, worst thing that ever happened to me. You can’t bleedin’ imagine.’

  Connie pushed her plate to the side and leaned forwards. ‘Oh yes, I can. I lost a son, too, twenty-three years ago.’

  Kath stopped chewing, and laid a hand over Connie’s. Connie was strangely moved by this gesture. ‘It’s a long time ago.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe it is, but it still hurts like buggery, don’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it does. If he’d lived he’d be thirty-five now. And no one in the family remembered the anniversary of his death last week.’

  ‘That’s bleedin’ awful.’

  ‘He was only twelve. He was on his bike too.’ Connie smiled. ‘His was a push bike, of course. Got hit by a speeding car mounting the pavement in a thirty limit while he was cycling down the road. The driver only got a few years.’

  In spite of herself, Connie felt her eyes welling up. Ben, so long ago now but always, always there in her thoughts. (She could still see the policeman on the doorstep. ‘Mrs McColl?’ he’d asked solemnly. She’d known straight away it was one of her children.) And none of them had remembered the other day. They hadn’t even noticed she’d gone alone to the grave; she was damned if she was going to remind any of them.

  Kath withdrew her hand. ‘I tried religion for a while, but it didn’t last. Didn’t help at all.’

  ‘Roger, my husband, he turned to religion too, but it didn’t do it for me either. In fact, I blamed God, if he exists, for taking Ben. I still do. I tried séances as well, as I was so desperate, but they all seemed to be a bit of a con. Perhaps I didn’t meet a genuine spiritualist.’

  Connie recalled sitting round a table with four others while Zena (if that was her real name) called out ‘to those beyond the grave’. Judging by the reactions of two of the others she had had some success. With Connie it was ‘someone who died when you were a child’, and that person was all right and happy among the angels, and ‘watching over her’. If that was supposed to be one of her parents, he or she was not doing a very good job, letting her boy be taken from her.

  ‘All I wanted to do was shut myself away,’ she told Kath, remembering the unbearable grief.

  But Connie had three other children. Children are more resilient; they grieve and cry for a bit and then they get on with it. Life is for living, after all. In the meantime Roger worked twelve hours a day and went to church on Sundays. That was his way of dealing with it. But she’d so wanted him there. She remembered not only the grief, but also the loneliness; she’d only wanted to curl up with her husband and weep until she could weep no more. But Roger wasn’t that kind of husband.

  ‘Séances! Lotta mumbo-jumbo, if you ask me.’ Kath had finished her Bonanza and was looking at her watch.

  ‘What time’s your bus?’ Connie asked.

  ‘I got about fifteen minutes yet,’ Kath said as she drained the dregs of her tea. ‘But I’m really sorry to be going ’cos I’d really like to talk to you more about, you know…’

  ‘Maybe I could give you a lift?’ Connie heard herself say. She suddenly realised that she didn’t want to stop chatting to Kath.

  ‘You going to Manchester then?’

  Connie grinned. ‘It just so happens I am! But you’ll have to give me directions to your place.’

  ‘You’re a bleedin’ angel, Connie.’

  As Connie unlocked Kermit, Kath said, ‘And here’s me thinkin’ you’d have a posh car!’

  ‘Don’t you want a lift in this then?’

  ‘’Course I do! I just thought…’

  ‘You just thought I’d have a smart BMW or something,’ Connie cut in. ‘Well, our family car is a bit grander than this, but Kermit is my little run-around and I love him.’

  ‘Him? I thought cars were supposed to be female?’

  ‘Not this one. Kermit’s his name because he’s green and noisy. Now, sling your bag on the back seat.’

  As Kath settled herself in the front Connie wondered how many more waifs and strays she might collect on her travels. If he could see any of her travelling companions, Roger would have an apoplectic fit.

  She found herself relaxing with Kath. Sometimes she desperately needed to talk about Ben, but people – even Roger most of the time – shied away from the subject. Such a loss was unimaginable to most, and they had no idea what to say, so they coped by avoiding the subject altogether, careful not to even mention his name.

  Kath had no such reservations and was eager to talk about Billy and ‘that bleedin’ bike’ which, apparently, he’d insisted on riding at breakneck speed ‘all over the bleedin’ place.. In turn, Connie spoke about Ben’s accident, and how it had almost killed their marriage as well. But they’d come through it, and soldiered on for the sake of Diana, Nick and Lou.

  As they headed towards Salford, Connie asked, ‘Do you live on your own?’

  ‘Yeah, I do now. Two-bedroom terrace I got, straight out of Corrie. You watch Corrie? No? Well they’re threatenin’ to knock us all down in Packingham Street, ’cos Salford’s gone posh now, what with having the BBC and all up here.’ Kath was squinting through the window. ‘Here, you need to take the next left! Where are you going afte
r you’ve dropped me off?’

  ‘I was planning to spend the night in Manchester. A cheap B&B or something.’

  ‘Have you booked a B&B, then?’

  ‘Not yet, but I’m sure I’ll find somewhere.’

  ‘You can stay with me if you like. I got a spare room – nothing fancy, mind. Fancy, ha ha, here we go again!’

  Connie felt quite choked. ‘I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble…’

  ‘No bleedin’ trouble!’ Kath interrupted. ‘I wouldn’t have asked you if it was, would I?’

  Kath’s house was tiny, but immaculate. The front room into which Connie was ushered had countless knick-knacks on every available surface, along with at least thirty framed photographs of her considerable brood.

  ‘That was Billy,’ said Kath, removing one of the larger photographs and polishing it with the hem of the purple cardigan she’d just put on.

  ‘He looks like you,’ Connie said softly.

  ‘Yeah, he did. Everyone said that. He was a twin, you know; the other one was a girl. Mandy.’

  ‘How did she take it?’

  ‘Not too bad. They wasn’t that close. She’s in Canada now, nursing, married, two kids, done all right for herself.’

  ‘Did it affect your marriage?’

  ‘Joe was great; I think it made us close. Don’t forget he wasn’t Billy’s father either. What about you?’

  ‘No. It didn’t bring us closer.’

  ‘No? Well, if that don’t bring you together then nothing will. He sounds a bit starchy, your old man. Why d’you marry him in the first place?’

  Connie thought for a minute. ‘At the time I thought he was the bee’s knees. Good-looking, good job. I was a bit short of relatives and security, you see. Then, believe it or not, he got me pregnant the first time we slept together, and that clinched it. I wanted the baby, and to settle down, so that’s what I did. Forty-one years ago.’

  ‘And you’ve never wanted to leave him?’

  ‘At times, of course, but I wouldn’t even have considered it when the children were at home. It’s only lately that I’ve felt restless – yes, that’s the word: restless. After all these years I think I’d like to feel insecure and free again. For a while, anyway.’