The Wife Who Ran Away

by Tess Stimson

  Keir puts his hand on his heart in mock apology. ‘I’m devastated. Would you have preferred it if I’d told you first and then you’d ordered it?’

  I laugh and let it go. He wasn’t making a point. There’s no baggage, no history here.

  ‘So how come you’re still in town?’ Keir asks as the waiter returns with our wine.

  Briefly I consider telling him the truth: Four weeks ago, I walked out of my life and I don’t know if I have a home to go to any more.

  ‘I didn’t want to go home,’ I say simply.

  ‘What did those at home want?’

  ‘I didn’t ask them.’

  He takes a sip of wine. ‘Interesting. You don’t seem the sort of woman to abandon your family without good reason.’

  ‘What sort of woman do I seem?’ I ask curiously.

  ‘The sort with a good reason.’

  Our soup arrives. We each pick up our spoon and busy ourselves with the food. He was right: it is delicious.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what my reason is?’ I ask after a moment.

  ‘Do I really need to know?’

  ‘No.’ I tear off a small piece of bread, embarrassed. Of course this boy doesn’t care about my life. He’s just being polite, making small talk. ‘No, of course you don’t.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want to know about you,’ Keir says. ‘But why you left your family has nothing to do with who you are, not really. I don’t care about the past. I’m only interested in now.’

  He’s so very young. Only youth thinks the past, the ties that bind, don’t matter.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-eight. How old are you?’

  I suppose I asked for that. ‘Thirty-nine. Well, forty in two weeks.’

  ‘Does it make any difference? Now we know how old we both are?’

  I’m suddenly tired: tired and confused. I don’t know what he wants. If he needs money, I’d rather he simply asked for it.

  ‘Look, Keir,’ I sigh, putting my napkin on the table. ‘It’s lovely to see you, of course, but I’ll be honest with you. I’m not really sure what I’m doing here. If you and your girlfriend are in some kind of—’

  ‘Girlfriend?’

  ‘Molly. If you need money . . .’

  ‘Molly’s my sister, not my girlfriend.’ He stares at me intently, as if this changes everything.

  ‘Keir,’ I start.

  He shoves back his chair. I sigh. Clearly he’s going to walk and I’m going to get stuck with the bill. Wonderful.

  The last thing I expect is for him to kiss me.

  Ned

  ‘Sorry it’s not better news, old son,’ Simmons says. ‘Wish I could help, mate. I really do.’

  I knock back my Scotch. Cheap and nasty, like Simmons himself. ‘Forget it, Jeremy. It was just a thought.’

  ‘Any other time. You know how much we like your stuff.’ The editor reaches across his desk to take back the half-empty bottle and locks it in a drawer. ‘I’ll be frank: it’s been a bad year for the paper. Christ, it’s been a bad year all round. Lot of belt-tightening going on. Never know who’s going to be next.’

  He hauls his fat belly out from behind the desk and nods towards the newsroom on the other side of the glass. ‘Fucking vicious out there,’ he says, digging his hands into his pockets and playing with his balls. ‘Six months ago, they let half the staffers go and hired the rest back on contract. No holiday, no pension. Closed down Books and Health altogether. Only reason we haven’t lost anyone on Sports is because they’re mostly stringers anyway. Not that we’re using them; we’re taking most of what we print off the wires.’

  ‘Yeah. I get it. Well, no harm in asking . . .’

  ‘Remember Bill Munro?’ Simmons interrupts. ‘On the financial desk? Repossessed. Bailiffs came round and kicked him out on the street. Wife, three kids, another one on the way. If anyone should’ve seen the crash coming, you’d think it would have been him.’

  ‘It’s been a tough time all round. Look, if you hear anything . . .’

  ‘Will do.’

  I shake his fat, sweaty paw, forcing a smile. Slimy bastard. He’s waited years for this. He never got over me beating him to Sports Journalist of the Year the only time he ever got nominated.

  As I cross the newsroom, a familiar voice calls my name. ‘Ned! I thought it was you.’

  A tall skinny guy with a distinct resemblance to Mr Bean waves across his desk. It takes me a second to place him. ‘Martin! I thought you’d fucked off to Spain years ago! You’re never still here?’

  ‘Jackie threw me out.’ He grimaces. ‘Bitch waited till I’d finished paying off the mortgage, and then took me for the lot. House, pension, the works. Next thing I know, she’s moved her bloody tennis coach in. Couldn’t afford to quit the job and take early retirement after all. I was lucky to keep the clothes I stood up in.’

  ‘You poor bastard,’ I sympathize.

  He grabs his jacket off the back of his chair. ‘Don’t suppose you’d fancy a drink?’

  We stroll round the corner to the Green Man, one of the few hostelries left in town where a man can still get a decent pint. None of your gnat’s-piss American beer with a slice of lemon shoved in the neck. The barman turns a blind eye to a few discreet smokes, too, as long as you don’t stint the rounds and put a few in the bin.

  ‘So how’s it going?’ Martin asks as we pull out a couple of stools at a scarred table in the corner. ‘Still enjoying a life of leisure thanks to that lovely wife of yours?’

  I blow the head off my beer. ‘Not so much, as it happens. Kate upped and left a month ago.’

  He whistles. ‘Mate, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Yeah, well. These things happen.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ He hunches over the table. ‘Shit, I thought you and Kate were golden. Love’s young dream. Don’t tell me you were dipping your wick where it didn’t belong?’

  ‘Chance’d be a fine thing.’

  ‘So what the fuck happened?’

  ‘You tell me.’ I drain half my pint in a single gulp. ‘Ran off without a word. Didn’t even say goodbye to the kids. We thought she was dead in a ditch somewhere. Police had me fitted up as the next Crippen; seriously, mate, I thought I was going to be banged up for life. Next thing I know, she turns up in Rome.’

  ‘Rome? You’re shitting me.’

  ‘Wish I was.’

  ‘Another bloke, was it?’

  ‘Kate? She’s a hard-nosed bitch sometimes, but she’s not a slapper.’ I pause. ‘Sorry, mate. No offence. Didn’t mean to imply . . .’

  He waves his hand. ‘Forget it. Jackie always was a slag.’

  I finish my pint. ‘Kate’s never been that interested in sex, to be honest. I was lucky if I got it once a month. You could lock her in a room with the Chippendales and she’d pick up a book.’

  ‘You’re not worried about her out there with all those Latin lovers, then?’

  I snort. ‘Only one I’m worried about is the dyke she’s staying with.’

  Martin stubs out his cigarette and picks up our empty glasses for another round. ‘You know, mate, you want to get things sorted. Take it from me: get your retaliation in first.’

  ‘Cheers, mate. Next round’s mine.’

  ‘I’m serious, Ned,’ Martin says when he returns with our refills. ‘Get yourself a brief before she does. Once these bitches get the lawyers involved, it’s all over. If she’s buggered off to Rome, you should make your move now. Empty the joint account and change the locks, I would.’

  ‘Account’s already bloody empty. Why d’you think I’m kissing Simmons’s arse?’

  ‘Even more reason. You want her swanning back home with some bloody Romeo and kicking you out of your own house?’

  ‘Look, I appreciate the concern, but it’s not going to happen. We’re not getting divorced, mate. You know what women are like. She’s just taking some time out to get her head together.’

  ‘That’s what Jackie said,’ Ma
rtin mutters darkly.

  I stare into my beer. Kate’s been gone over a month. It’s weeks since I spoke to her, and she still hasn’t come home. I thought she’d stay another few days or so to make her point, then come back home and we’d say no more about it. But she hasn’t even called to check in since then. I’m not going to be the one to chase her and beg her to come back. Eleanor was right: the more I run after her, the worse I’ll make it. If she’s going to come home, she’ll do it in her own sweet time, and nothing I can do will make any difference.

  Only it looks more and more like she’s not.

  I love my wife. I want her back, and not just because the house can’t run without her. I miss her. More than I’d have thought possible, given the way things were between us before she left. Maybe I wasn’t a perfect husband, but did I really deserve this? Couldn’t she at least have talked to me first, instead of leaving without a word?

  ‘Look, mate,’ Martin says with forced cheerfulness. ‘Divorce isn’t the end of the world. Jackie got the house and the kids, but I got my life back. I’m a free man again! Plenty more fish in the sea. I can take my pick. I tell you, Jackie leaving was the best thing that ever happened to me.’

  Martin’s not even fifty, but he looks a decade older. His nose is red and veiny, and he’s started to cultivate a comb-over. The hem of his cheap shiny jacket is coming down, and there are old sweat stains under the arms. He looks like what he is: a sad, washed-up loser who can barely hold down a job on the local rag.

  ‘Yeah,’ I echo. ‘Who needs ’em, right?’

  ‘Be a bit easier if she hadn’t left me brassic, of course,’ he sighs. ‘Girls like to be shown a good time. Doesn’t go down well if you ask them to go Dutch.’

  He digs around in his pocket for a pen, then scribbles a name on a coaster and shoves it across. ‘Learn from my mistakes. Get yourself sorted, pronto.’

  I pick up the coaster. ‘Nicholas Lyon? Who’s he? Your lawyer?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘Hers.’

  I leave Martin nursing his fifth pint and head back to the car. Today was a total wash-out. Simmons would cut off his own arm rather than throw me a bone. Martin promised to give me some investigative work on a football match-fixing scam he’s been working on, but even if it comes off, which I seriously doubt, it’ll be a day or two’s work at most.

  I toss the coaster in the glove compartment. It would serve Kate right if I did screw her for every penny. She’s the one earning the big bucks; she’s the one who left the family home. What the fuck are we supposed to live on? How am I supposed to pay the mortgage and feed the kids?

  Then there’s the trifling matter of the eighty grand I owe the bookies.

  I start the car. If I don’t make some kind of down-payment on what I owe, I’m going to end up with both my legs broken. I haven’t heard a dicky-bird from the bastards for weeks, but it’s only a matter of time before they send me a message. Dog shit through the letterbox, a key down the side of the car. Then it’ll get serious. Last time, they threatened to hurt Kate. With her out of the picture, I need to make sure they don’t turn their attention to Agness.

  The fuel indicator light comes on as I turn on to the motorway and I cross my fingers I’ve got enough to get home. I don’t have a fucking bean left on me. Our AA coverage has lapsed, too. Last thing I need is to be stranded on the hard shoulder of the M3.

  I’m running on fumes by the time I make it back. I’ll have to tap Eleanor for more cash just to fill up, which’ll mean eating another shit sandwich. We may have called a truce the other day, but she’s got me over a barrel, and we both know it. Without her money, I’d be screwed.

  Agness pounces the minute I’m through the door.

  ‘Dad, you didn’t pay my school fees,’ she accuses. She waves a letter at me. ‘They were due at the start of term. This letter is, like, really serious.’

  ‘Jesus. Would you let me get through the fucking door?’

  ‘Language, Edward,’ Eleanor sniffs.

  I fling my coat over the back of a chair. ‘Get me a beer, would you, Agness.’

  ‘What about my school fees?’

  ‘I’ll get to it. You shouldn’t have been opening my post, anyway.’

  ‘It wasn’t addressed to you. It was addressed to Mum, and she’s not here.’

  ‘Christ, Agness,’ I sigh, opening the fridge myself. I shift cartons of juice and boxes of eggs. ‘Where the fuck is my beer?’

  ‘We’ve run out,’ Eleanor says crisply.

  ‘Well, why didn’t you go shopping, then?’

  ‘I’m not sure I should be driving yet . . .’

  ‘Gran, it’s been over a month. It was only a sprain,’ Agness interrupts. ‘And Mum’s car’s an automatic – you should be fine.’

  I glance warily at my daughter. She’s been a bit of a revelation recently, exhibiting a side none of us knew existed. Making shopping lists, sorting through bills, organizing the lot of us. She reminds me alarmingly of Kate. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was actually enjoying this crisis.

  ‘Dad,’ she says now, ‘you really need to pay this. They’ll expel me if you don’t.’

  ‘I’ll get to it,’ I say irritably.

  ‘You said that last time.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Agness! I said I’d get to it! What d’you want me to do?’

  ‘I want you to sort it out, Dad!’ Agness yells. ‘I want you to take charge!’

  I stare at the door as it slams behind her. Agness and I have always had a special bond. She’s adored me since she was a baby; Kate used to get upset at the way Agness preferred to sit on my lap and always insisted I was the one to tuck her into bed at night. It got worse as she grew older, with Agness following me around the house and climbing all over me if Kate so much as tried to hold my hand. During her teens, her preference has been so marked, it has sometimes reduced Kate to tears. The two of them were barely speaking in the weeks leading up to Kate leaving. Outwardly, I sympathized with my wife, but secretly, I loved the attention.

  But there’s no adoration in Agness’s eyes now. Suddenly I feel about two inches tall. A wave of fury rips through me. This is Kate’s fault. Yeah, I’m not a perfect husband. I dumped too much on her, I screwed up over the baby, I took her for granted. And Christ knows I fucked up big-time over the gambling. But I didn’t deserve this.

  They want me to take charge? Fine. On their own heads be it.

  Kate

  Apart from the fact that he’s practically half my age, Keir’s not my type at all. Julia’s right: I’m a sucker for a pretty face. Alessio, with his melting chocolate eyes and caramel skin, or Luca, my landlord, the snake-hipped Vogue model, are much more my kind of man. Even Ned, a long time ago. There was a time when my husband could make me tingle with just a look. I’d forgotten that.

  Keir does have a certain aesthetic appeal. A strange Celtic beauty, all blue-white pallor and ruddy leonine hair. Fey, my mother would call him. Not quite of this world. Certainly not the kind of man to get your pulse racing. He’s curiously bloodless to look at, like a Greek statue. I can’t begin to imagine what he might be like in bed, and it feels strangely indecent to try.

  Then he kisses me full on the mouth at the restaurant table, in front of everyone, and everything I thought I knew about myself is turned on its head. For the first time, I understand that a bolt of lightning is not just a romantic novelist’s cliché. If Alessio’s kisses once made me tingle, Keir’s touch is like being thrown across the room by a thousand-volt shock.

  When he releases me, I collapse in the chair like a puppet whose strings have been cut. I can’t quite catch my breath. My hands are shaking. My whole body is throbbing with a need so intense it’s actually painful.

  Keir throws several euro notes onto the table and takes me by the elbow. For a moment I don’t respond, too stunned to move.

  ‘You had no idea?’ Keir asks disbelievingly, his amber eyes searching my face. ‘You really didn’t know?’

 
; I shake my head.

  ‘I thought you realized,’ he says. ‘I thought you knew.’

  I stumble to my feet. ‘This is ridiculous,’ I whisper.

  Keir picks up my bag and, still possessively holding my elbow, guides me out of the restaurant and across the cobbled square.

  ‘I have to go home—’

  ‘That is ridiculous,’ Keir says.

  I glance around the piazza. I can’t quite get my bearings; I feel as if I’ve been spun in a circle. I’m dizzy and disoriented. I know my flat isn’t far from here, but I have no idea in which direction to strike out.

  Keir stops by a parking bay filled with dozens of Vespas, and I watch as he opens the rear locker of the nearest one.

  ‘What’s this?’ I ask stupidly as he hands me a pale gold helmet.

  ‘A basket of flowers.’

  I push it back at him, pulling myself together with an effort. ‘I know what it is, Keir. But I don’t need it. I can walk from here.’

  ‘You’re not going on the back of this scooter unless you wear it. And we can’t walk, not with you wearing those silly shoes. It’s at least five miles.’

  It takes me a moment to realize what he means.

  I laugh. ‘I can’t possibly go back with you!’

  ‘Why not?’ Keir asks. He sounds genuinely puzzled.

  ‘Well, for a start, I’m married. I don’t go off with strange men.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call me strange, exactly. Would you?’

  ‘You know what I mean. And yes, I would, actually. Call you strange, I mean. Anyway, you’re practically half my age, it’d be almost—’

  ‘I’m twenty-eight. And you’re forty in two weeks,’ he says impatiently. ‘Can I stipulate to the age difference, counsellor, or do we have to go through it all again?’