The Runaway Wife: A laugh out loud feel good novel about second chances

by Dee MacDonald

  ‘My special girl,’ Uncle Bill would say on his visits home. But she wasn’t Aunt Lorna’s special girl; she was well-dressed and well-fed, if only somewhat rationed in love. When she eventually had children of her own, Connie could better understand the bond. Uncle Bill had died soon after retirement, and Aunt Lorna, or at least the shell of Aunt Lorna, gazed at Connie without any sign of recognition when she made her monthly visits to the nursing home. Awaiting death or dinner, whichever came along first.

  Even though it was barely light, Connie slid out of her Miracle sleeping bag, which was covered in a dewy sheen. She was too cold to get back to sleep so she opened Kermit’s passenger door and draped the sleeping bag over it. There was the promise of another warm day, and it would soon dry once the sun had risen a little higher. The others probably wouldn’t wake up for some time yet so she got out the folding chair again and sat, studying the map and trying to decide where she might be going. She was on the A9 so it was probably sensible to continue on to Inverness, which was somewhere she’d always fancied visiting. She’d never been able to persuade Roger to venture any further north than Edinburgh, which was where, he seemed to think, civilisation came to an end.

  ‘With a name like McColl you must have some Scottish ancestry,’ she’d said.

  ‘Generations ago,’ Roger had replied. ‘And they were sensible enough to head south.’

  The youngsters woke a little later and they all breakfasted on sausage rolls and instant coffee before setting off for Inverness. Harry and Nyree were aiming to get to John o’Groats eventually, after exploring the Highlands. Connie was none too sure where she was going after Inverness. But they had all day to travel less than forty miles so they decided to explore some of the interesting-sounding, isolated villages signposted off the A9.

  ‘I like the sound of Lochmahadoc,’ mused Nyree, craning her neck to look back at the sign.

  ‘Let’s go there then,’ suggested Connie.

  Lochmahadoc was a small, grey Highland village spectacularly positioned against a backdrop of heather-clad hills and distant blue mountains. No sign of a loch, though.

  Harry spotted a modest hotel. ‘Pub lunch later, perhaps?’ he suggested hopefully.

  But, as they rounded the corner to the signposted parking, nothing prepared them for the sea of trucks, juggernauts and assorted vehicles and equipment that appeared to stretch to the horizon. And people rushing everywhere.

  ‘What the—?’ spluttered Harry.

  Connie parked the car in one of the few remaining spaces. ‘So much for our tranquil Highland village – do we really want to stay here?’

  As they got out of the car they were accosted by a human whirlwind in the shape of a skinny girl with a wild mop of frizzy red hair, a FCUK T-shirt, tight jeans and cowboy boots, clutching a clipboard.

  ‘Are you the guys from the Extraordinaries agency?’ she demanded. ‘Aren’t there four of you?’

  The three regarded each other in bewilderment before Harry found his voice. ‘Last time I looked there were just three of us.’

  The girl sighed loudly. ‘You’re not the extras then?’

  ‘We certainly aren’t,’ Harry replied.

  ‘We’re short of four fucking extras!’ the girl ranted, running her fingers through her already chaotic tangle of hair. ‘Casper’s going to shit himself if they don’t show up soon.’

  Before anyone could progress the conversation further, a large middle-aged man with bleached blond hair, dressed in denim, and with a multitude of gadgets on chains dangling round his neck, appeared on the scene.

  ‘Are these the extras, Sam?’

  Sam rolled her eyes yet again and shook her head. ‘They’re just bloody tourists, Casper.’

  Casper smacked his forehead dramatically and groaned. ‘They’ll have to do. We just can’t wait any longer. This scene’s got to be shot in sunshine and there’s a bloody big black cloud heading this way. And Harvey’s going mad.’

  ‘Harvey’s the director,’ explained Sam to the astounded trio.

  ‘Right,’ continued the indomitable Casper. ‘We need one person serving coffee; the old girl will do. And the young couple need to be sitting at a table drinking the stuff. Like, pronto! But we still need to find someone else – oh shit, shit shit!’

  Connie was flabbergasted and furious. Old girl, indeed!

  ‘Just one moment!’ She marched forwards to face Casper. ‘It’s hardly our fault your damned extras haven’t shown up, so please don’t take it out on us. And don’t be so bloody rude! We know nothing about what you’re doing here, and we don’t want to know because now we’re heading for Inverness – pronto – thank you very much!’

  With that she turned on her heel and headed back towards Kermit, signalling to the others to follow.

  ‘Hang on! Keep your hair on, lady!’ Casper wasn’t giving up. ‘It’ll only take a day or two. Give them the lowdown, Sam, and don’t let them go. And see if you can find a fourth.’ He headed back towards the action while Sam rolled her eyes heavenward yet again.

  ‘Please – can you help us out?’ She’d suddenly adopted a humbler approach. ‘You only have to stand around, sit around – background stuff for The Hamiltons.’ She studied them for signs of recognition. ‘The soap on Scottish television, you know?’

  ‘No,’ the three replied in unison.

  ‘Well,’ Sam sighed, ‘it’s very popular north of the border. And two of our main characters – a young couple – have eloped and are supposed to be staying here. We’ve had to build a coffee shop because they don’t do coffee shops in this godforsaken place.’ More sighing. ‘And we need a minimum of four extras.’

  ‘No,’ Connie repeated.

  ‘The money’s good.’

  ‘Money?’ The three stopped in their tracks.

  ‘How much money?’ asked Harry.

  Sam smiled. ‘Seventy pounds a day, plus breakfast, lunch and dinner.’

  ‘We’ll stay,’ they replied in unison.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  SCOTTISH SOAP

  Polly, the make-up artist, applied powder to Connie’s nose with an enormous fluffy puff. ‘Can’t have shine,’ she said. ‘And now we really need to emphasise your eyes.’

  ‘I’ll look like a clown,’ Connie muttered. ‘I’m only supposed to be standing behind a counter, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yeah, but we can’t have your face in a blur.’

  Polly had already worked her magic on the other two, much to Harry’s disgust (‘Jeez, she’s just put powder on my face!’) and Nyree’s amusement. As she selected an appropriate mascara for Connie she glanced out of the window. ‘I guess they’ve finally found a fourth. Sam looks like she’s frogmarching some poor guy in this direction.’

  Another idiot, thought Connie, who’ll do anything for money.

  ‘Now,’ said Polly as she put the cap on the mascara brush, ‘Sam will take you across to Wardrobe.’

  The door flew open. ‘Finally found a fourth!’ Sam announced triumphantly as she led a tall man through the door. ‘This is Dan.’

  ‘Don,’ the man corrected.

  ‘Yeah, whatever. He’ll need the usual, Pol. Come on, you three, we’re off to Wardrobe. And I’ll be back for you shortly, Dan.’

  ‘Don,’ he repeated, smiling at Connie.

  For a moment she’d assumed he was one of the actors, as she took in his black hair greying neatly and evenly round each nicely shaped ear. His dark brown eyes reminded her of long-ago summers: the Adonis who greatly enlivened her stay in Greece, or the Italian lothario who’d embellished her holiday in Sicily. Mediterranean Man. Not to be trusted for one minute, so just as well sensible grey-eyed English Roger had come along when he had.

  ‘Now,’ said Sam, turning towards Harry and Nyree, ‘you two are going to be sitting at a table, in the background, drinking cappuccinos and rabbiting quietly away about anything that comes into your heads. Just try and look animated. Our two characters, who are called Calum and Barbara, will be
doing their scene right in front of you, but you don’t look at them. You two –’ she waved a hand at Connie and the newly powdered Don, who had just joined them – ‘are in the coffee shop. You, Connie, are behind the counter dispensing coffee from the machine. It’s a real one, but you just need to pull a few handles – Casper’ll show you. And you, Dan, are the customer, waiting for your coffee and passing the time of day with Connie here. That should be done by lunchtime if nobody snuffs their lines.’ She sniffed and sighed again.

  Connie emerged onto the set draped in a white overall.

  ‘What’s this?’ yelled Casper.

  ‘The old girl doesn’t look Italian enough!’ screamed Harvey, the director, whose long grey hair was anchored in a ponytail.

  ‘Best we could get,’ snapped Casper.

  Best we could get. Old girl. I’m going to give somebody a ticking off in a minute, thought Connie. She had to concentrate very hard on the seventy pounds.

  ‘It’s got “Giovanni’s” painted above the door, for Chrissakes!’ Harvey glared at them all.

  ‘Well, we could stick a dark wig on her then,’ Casper shouted, signalling to Sam, who was still rushing around in a demented fashion waving her clipboard.

  ‘We haven’t got all day,’ yelled Harvey. ‘What about the bloke? He looks like he could be Italian. Can’t he serve the bloody coffee, and she can be the customer. Get him a white coat, Sam!’

  ‘Can’t they just be Scottish?’ sighed Casper.

  ‘No they bloody well can’t. Any half decent cafe up here is run by Italians. Now, get in position before this cloud comes over.’ With that he signalled to the technicians, causing cigarettes to be hastily extinguished and the murmur of conversation to abate.

  Sam led Connie into the improvised coffee shop and removed her white coat. ‘Stay here,’ she commanded, ‘while I get Dan positioned behind the counter and au fait with the machine.’

  ‘Don,’ he murmured, as he followed her.

  ‘OK,’ said Sam, ‘now you just need to pull a few handles, like this. See, shot of coffee, frothy milk, hey presto – cappuccino! It’s real stuff. Now, you two are to chat to each other in a whisper, yeah? Just say any old crap, like you’re passing the time of day, yeah? The sound mustn’t interfere with the conversation our two lovers out there are having. And you, Dan, are passing the cup across to Connie, got it? Yeah?’

  ‘Got it, yeah,’ he said, grinning at Connie. ‘I’m Don.’

  ‘I’d never have guessed,’ said Connie.

  ‘And I’m supposed to be Italian, so watch out! Buongiorno! Now, what shall we whisper about, Connie?’

  There followed hushing sounds all around and the click of the clapboard, which signalled the commencement of the dialogue between the two eloping characters, Calum and Barbara.

  ‘How do you like your coffee, Connie?’ Don asked in a stage whisper as he struggled with the rudiments of the machine.

  ‘Preferably in the cup.’ Connie tried to keep a straight face as coffee spurted in all directions.

  ‘Well, I’ve never used one of these damn things before in my life,’ he whispered as he set down the cup and saucer, awash with coffee, on the counter. Nobody seemed to have noticed and the argument between the two lovers appeared to be reaching its crescendo, which hopefully meant the end of the scene.

  ‘No proper Italian would slosh coffee around like that,’ Connie whispered, noting the penetrating dark eyes, his beautifully shaped hands and the way he… No, no, she thought, I’m sounding like a Mills & Boon heroine. He was just a good-looking bloke, and she thought he was probably well aware of it.

  ‘Well, what you’re looking at is half-Scottish and half-English, so you’ll have to make allowances.’

  ‘So I will.’ She noted his nice teeth too. ‘What shall we discuss now?’

  Don smiled at her. Really nice teeth, they were. ‘You could tell me how you ended up here and why.’

  ‘We were planning to go to Inverness. We just stopped to have a look at the scenery.’

  ‘I just stopped for a wee and a tea,’ he said, ‘and look at us all now. Are you travelling with the two youngsters? Your son? Your daughter?’

  What a flatterer, she thought, or do I really look young enough to be their mother? I suppose I could have given birth in my forties.

  ‘I’m just giving them a lift,’ Connie whispered. ‘He’s Australian and she’s from New Zealand.’

  ‘CUT!’ yelled the director. The two stars had messed up their lines. More shouting. ‘We’ll have to do that again.’ More coffee. Everyone looked up at the sky, where the black cloud was about to blot out the sun.

  ‘We’ve got to get this in the can!’ Harvey was tugging at his ponytail in frustration.

  Sam had edged in from nowhere, minus the clipboard this time, and removed the messy cup and saucer from the counter. ‘Just as well no one can see this,’ she murmured. ‘You’ll have to do more of this, Dan, when we start again. Yeah?’

  ‘Anything you say, Pam,’ said Don with a sigh.

  ‘Sam!’ she corrected him.

  ‘Think of the seventy pounds,’ Connie whispered.

  Calum and Barbara’s conversation had turned into a satisfactory full-scale row, with no one forgetting their lines this time, which fortunately meant that the necessary footage was finally in the can seconds before the first spots of rain began to fall.

  ‘Lunch!’ yelled Casper.

  ‘Not you,’ said Sam, reappearing from nowhere. ‘You eat last.’

  The four extras were directed to a large caravan nearby, which had two functioning toilets and some comfortable seating. ‘You wait in here,’ continued Sam, ‘until I come to give you the OK. Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah!’ they chorused.

  While they waited they chatted generally and Connie discovered that Don was an ex-airline pilot who had retired the previous year. ‘They chuck you out at fifty-five,’ he added, ‘but I’d had enough anyway.’

  So, he was fifty-six. And he was twice divorced (she’d suspected correctly he was something of a ladies’ man), had two grown-up daughters, and lived in Cornwall.

  ‘I’ve only been there once,’ Connie said. ‘Where in Cornwall do you live?’

  ‘On the north coast. It’s really beautiful there and very wild, particularly in the winter. I bought a place down there years ago for family holidays, and now I live there all the time.’

  He’d come up to Scotland to visit his late mother’s only remaining sister, who lived in Perth.

  ‘My mother was the Scottish half,’ he explained. ‘Her sister’s eighty-six and quite a character.’ He’d then continued northwards because he wanted to visit Inverness again. ‘I was born up here when my father was stationed at RAF Kinloss and, when I was a child, we often used to come through Inverness, so I just thought I’d like to visit the place again.’

  The food was unexpectedly delicious, and there was plenty of it, even though they were the last to eat. As lowly extras they ate after the stars, the director and most of the crew. And even after the production assistant (Casper) and the runner (Sam). The pecking order, it seemed, was sacred.

  ‘Best lunch we’ve had in days!’ Harry exclaimed, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin.

  ‘Only lunch we’ve had in days,’ corrected Nyree.

  ‘Don’t know where we’ll find room for dinner as well,’ Connie said. ‘Not to mention afternoon tea.’

  ‘We’ve got to store it all up for the frugal times ahead,’ said Harry. ‘Like camels in the desert.’

  Don had asked her several questions regarding her reasons for travelling so far north, and Connie had given him little in the way of a satisfactory reply. She’d either fended off the questions or abruptly changed the subject and, as a result, he’d become particularly well informed on Harry’s life in Australia and Nyree’s enormous family in New Zealand. She had of course told him that she was married and lived in Sussex. At one point Harry had chipped in with, ‘But you’re getting ready to fly, ar
en’t you, Connie?’ Don had given her a questioning look but mercifully, at that point, Sam had ordered them back on set.

  Connie wondered why she was so reluctant to discuss her personal life with this man. After all, she’d opened up to Harry and to Kath and to Jeannie. But there was something about Don that she found disconcerting. Those dark eyes of his seemed to bore into her very soul. He was dangerously attractive and the least he knew of her and the sooner she was on her way – solo – the better it would be.

  At the end of the day’s filming Sam informed them that, for reasons of health and safety, they were forbidden from sleeping in any of the film caravan units.

  ‘You have to find your own accommodation and the hotel’s full up with all us lot!’ She waved her arms around cheerfully.

  ‘You could try squeezing into our tent,’ said Harry, oblivious to Nyree’s hostile stare.

  ‘I’ve rung up and booked the last remaining room in Lochmahadoc’s only B&B,’ Don said. ‘But, look, I’ve got a big car and I could easily sleep in that. Why don’t you have the room, Connie?’

  ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t!’ He was being gentlemanly to a fault but Connie didn’t want to be beholden to anyone, and particularly not to this good-looking stranger. ‘My own car’s fine. Really. I’ve got a sleeping bag and everything.’

  ‘She has, you know,’ said Harry.

  ‘Really, I’ve done it before,’ she added.

  ‘Well,’ said Don, ‘let’s meet up in the Poachers’ Bar of the hotel for a few nightcaps, and we can discuss it then.’

  The Poachers’ Bar had spent a considerable fortune on taxidermy – from the glass-encased salmon, set against painted views of swirling rivers, to the countless many-pointed-antlered stags’ heads gazing vacantly from above, plus two pheasants displayed against heather-clad hillsides and one surprised-looking otter.