The Wife Who Ran Away

by Tess Stimson

  Ned hesitated and then pulled the jacket out of the bag. The Duke Blue Devils fleece I bought him last year on a trip to the States. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ the police driver said. He looked like he was about to cry.

  ‘You don’t have to do this,’ Ned said to me. His eyes were sunk in his skull, dark pools of grief and misery. ‘They don’t need us both.’

  ‘I’m his mother,’ I whispered.

  He nodded briefly.

  I moved forward, gripping the steel window frame, literally bracing myself. The room seemed to swim – the floor was rocking as if I was on board a ship. I couldn’t suck enough air into my lungs. My palms started to sweat, my fingers and feet started tingling and turning numb. I felt dizzy and sick, and my mouth went as dry as cotton wool. I was terrified I’d start to laugh again, and that this time I wouldn’t be able to stop.

  ‘You can do this,’ Keir said softly.

  ‘Are you ready?’ the moustache asked.

  ‘Just do it,’ Ned said thickly.

  The moustache rapped on the window. On the other side, the curtain drew back. I pressed my forehead to the cool glass, staring at the body on the table, and started to cry. Such a waste. Such a terrible, terrible waste.

  Keir put his arm round my waist, but it was to Guy’s father I turned, burying my head in his shoulder as the sobs wracked my body. Huge, ugly, hiccoughing sobs. All the pain of the last year spilled out of me: the loss of my baby, the rift with Ned, the terrible guilt I’ve felt at leaving the children, the end of my marriage, and now this nightmare with Guy . . .

  Ned held my head against his chest. The three of us stood there for a long moment, linked in a chain of escaping grief.

  Finally Ned turned to the moustached officer. ‘It’s not him,’ he said. ‘I don’t know who that poor kid is, but it’s not our son.’

  The undertaker gets to his feet and extends his hand again. ‘We’ve liaised with the church you requested, and they’re able to do the funeral next Tuesday, a week from today. I gather you already have a plot reserved in their cemetery.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you,’ Ned says.

  ‘But what about Guy?’ I ask anxiously. ‘We can’t bury his grandmother without him . . .’

  ‘Keir will find him,’ Ned says firmly. ‘He promised, didn’t he? He’ll bring him back long before next Tuesday.’

  I have an idea, Keir had said as we left the mortuary. Give me forty-eight hours. I think I know where he might have gone.

  I watched him hail a taxi, wondering dispassionately if I’d ever see him again. I don’t really expect him to find Guy. In a city of ten million people, it’ll be a miracle.

  ‘It’s been three days already,’ I say now, but I allow myself to be convinced, because what’s the alternative?

  ‘Your mother will be in our chapel of rest until the funeral,’ the undertaker tells me kindly. ‘You can come to visit her at any time.’

  ‘Eleanor will want flowers,’ I say. ‘She’d want everyone to know she was missed. Can you put that in the funeral notice?’

  ‘Flowers,’ the undertaker says, making a note to himself.

  While Ned sees him out, I pick up the brochure again. Eleanor was always very insistent about being buried, not cremated. The willow looks pretty, I think absently. I suspect Eleanor would prefer it to the heavy formality of traditional oak, even if the latter does carry the Forest Stewardship Council stamp of approval. But what do I really know about what she would have wanted? Death isn’t something Eleanor and I ever discussed.

  Ned and I came home on Saturday filled with a guilty mix of elation at our reprieve, and sadness for the unknown boy who had somehow ended up with Guy’s jacket, and whose corpse remained unclaimed, to find Agness sitting at the foot of the stairs, sobbing hysterically. She’d discovered Eleanor slumped over the kitchen table, a paring knife and half-peeled apple still in her hands. Unforgivably, neither Ned nor I had answered our mobiles, having forgotten to turn them back on after we’d left the morgue. Paramedics had taken my mother to hospital, but she’d been dead before Agness had even found her. A massive aneurysm, according to the doctor who signed her death certificate. Very possibly caused by the fall she took down the stairs the day before I left for Rome.

  ‘He seemed like a nice man,’ Ned says on his return. ‘The undertaker.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  Ned sits down on the sofa beside me, twisting his body so that we’re face to face. ‘Kate, I know this is the worst possible time. You’ve just lost your mother, and we’re both frantic about Guy. But this can’t wait. We have to talk.’

  I nod, not really listening.

  ‘I’ve done my best to understand. I’ve tried to give you space. And Keir seems—’

  ‘Like a nice man?’

  ‘Look.’ He rubs his hands on the knees of his trousers. ‘This isn’t a conversation I want to be having right now. It’s not a conversation I ever thought I’d have to have, to be honest.’

  ‘After the funeral. Let’s talk then . . .’

  ‘If this could wait, trust me, I would.’ He sighs heavily and reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a flat white plastic stick and pushes it across the coffee table towards me.

  ‘You’re pregnant,’ he says.

  Ned

  Kate stares at the white stick on the table between us. ‘Where did you find that?’ she asks faintly.

  ‘Don’t worry. I wasn’t going through your stuff. Bag split when I was taking out the rubbish this morning.’ A nasty thought suddenly strikes me. ‘Christ, it is yours, isn’t it? Dear God, if Agness is—’

  ‘It’s mine,’ Kate says.

  Thank God for that, at least.

  We stare at each other. Kate is the colour of cheese, except for her cheeks, which have two bright pink Aunt Sally spots of colour on them.

  ‘Positive, isn’t it?’ I ask, just to be sure. ‘Three white lines?’

  ‘Three white lines?’

  I point.

  ‘Two pink lines. Only a man,’ Kate sighs.

  ‘How long have you known?’ I ask.

  ‘I just did the test this morning. It’s probably still wet.’

  ‘So, how far along . . .’

  ‘It’s Keir’s,’ she says, killing my last, desperate hope.

  I can’t help it: despite my resolution to be mature and adult about this, I just want to find the long-haired bastard and punch his fucking lights out. Jesus Christ! Some bloody overgrown schoolboy screwing my wife! Getting her pregnant! What am I supposed to do with that?

  ‘This changes everything, doesn’t it?’ she says quietly. ‘Whatever you said before.’

  I want to tell her no. I want to say I still love her, no matter what she’s done; that I’ll forgive her anything, if only she’ll come back. Three months ago – Christ, three days ago – I’d have thought an affair was crossing the Rubicon, no going back; but I realize now it’s not true. I’ve already forgiven her for sleeping with Keir. If that’s all it was, I’d take her back in an instant. I love her that much.

  But she’s having his baby. Maybe, in the end, I’d forgive her even that; but would I ever forgive the child? How could I love a child on those terms? How could I be a decent father to it? It wouldn’t be fair. Every child deserves to grow up loved.

  She’s right. This changes everything.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Kate says, her voice shaking. ‘I never meant this to happen. I had no idea it could. After – after we lost . . . our baby . . . the doctor said I’d never get pregnant again; my eggs were just too old.’ Suddenly the words are tumbling over each other in her haste to explain. ‘I’ve only had one period since I got to Rome, just after I arrived. I thought it must be the menopause. It never occurred to me this might happen. I can’t believe I was so stupid. I would never have put you through this – put any of us through this.’

  ‘Does he know?’

  ‘No. I told you, I only found out this morning. I wouldn’t even have
bothered with a test at all, but the other day, when Eleanor was frying eggs, I felt so sick . . .’

  ‘You were the same with Agness,’ I say. ‘One whiff.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she says helplessly.

  Not my problem, I think bitterly; but somehow I can’t bring myself to say it. I’ve never known Kate like this: vulnerable, scared. She’s never needed me in the whole of our marriage. But she’s just lost her mother, she’s scared out of her wits about our son, and now she’s got herself knocked up by a teenage holiday fling. How can I kick her when she’s down?

  I force myself to be a friend. ‘Have you thought about . . .’

  ‘No!’ she says sharply. ‘I’m not getting rid of it!’

  ‘So,’ I say heavily. I spread my hands. ‘This thing with Keir. How serious is it?’

  I think I’m still hoping she’ll tell me it was a one-off; a drunken night of madness at a weak moment, even though I’ve seen the way they are together, the air practically humming between them. Even though the kid got on a plane and chased her halfway across Europe rather than spend a day without her. He’s clearly got it bad. What I don’t know is how she feels about him.

  She looks at me steadily. ‘Serious,’ she says.

  ‘Do you love him?’

  Her gaze drops to her lap. She twists her wedding ring round her finger, and the room grows so quiet I can hear the thrum of the cat purring on the piano stool. I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff. Say no, I plead in my head. Say no say no say no.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispers.

  My stomach swoops. Jesus. Jesus. It’s really over.

  ‘The problem is,’ Kate adds wearily, ‘I love you too.’

  ‘You can’t,’ I say. ‘You can’t have it both ways.’

  ‘I love Agness and Guy,’ she protests.

  ‘It’s not the same. And even if it was,’ I say angrily, ‘you can’t have both of us. You have to choose.’

  ‘I don’t think I have a choice any more,’ she says.

  ‘You’re having his baby.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says.

  ‘Then no. I don’t think you do.’

  She buries her face in her hands. Suddenly she looks no older than Agness. I want to put my arms round her to make it all better, but I no longer have the right. She’s been my wife for a decade and a half, but she’s suddenly off-limits. I don’t know how to be around her.

  I jerk at the sound of banging at the back door. Agness – back from seeing that Goth boyfriend of hers. I must’ve locked the door by mistake.

  I get up and go into the kitchen. It’s not Agness knocking on the glass.

  ‘Christ Almighty,’ I gasp.

  Once all the hugging and kissing has died down a bit, the four of us settle awkwardly around the kitchen table with our mugs of hot sweet tea, the English panacea for all ills. Kate can’t stop touching Guy, as if she’s unable to quite believe he’s real.

  ‘You’re sure I can’t get you something to eat?’ she says for the nineteenth time.

  ‘Kate, I told you,’ Guy mumbles, gently shrugging her off and tugging Keir’s borrowed army jacket down over his scabbed hands. ‘Keir hasn’t stopped feeding me since we met.’

  My son’s a mess. His clothes are filthy, he’s missing one trainer, and he’s dropped ten pounds he couldn’t spare from his already skinny frame. But he seems more comfortable in his own skin than I’ve seen him in years. As if the worst has already happened and nothing else can touch him now.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ Kate says wonderingly. ‘I can’t believe he found you.’

  She looks like a different woman from the one sobbing on the sofa just thirty minutes ago. Ten years younger. Beyond happy. Radiant is the only way to describe her now. She’s staring across the table at the ginger bastard like he’s some sort of fucking god, and I can’t say a word. I can’t begrudge him his moment of glory: he found my son. He found my son, a kid he’d never even met, when his own father couldn’t. I’m the bloody journalist . . . I should’ve thought to check Guy’s history on his laptop myself. But it was Keir who saw he’d been on the Eurostar website dozens of times in the past few weeks and guessed he’d try to get to Kate. And Keir who staked out St Pancras for three days and three nights, catnapping on the concourse for a few minutes at a time so he didn’t miss him.

  So yes, I’m grateful to my wife’s lover for that. But I’m not a fucking saint. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t give me a pathetic glow of satisfaction that his heroic vigil has left him looking like a fucking hobo. Greasy hair, moth-eaten red and grey stubble (kid can’t even grow a proper beard, and he’s already going grey), and black bags under his eyes you could pack a tent in. He smells none too sweet when you stand downwind either. Seventy-two hours without soap, water or sleep doesn’t do a lot for a bloke’s sex appeal.

  But he found my kid. So I get to my feet and hold out my hand. ‘Bloody amazing job, mate,’ I say firmly. ‘Can’t thank you enough.’

  He hesitates briefly, then stands up and shakes my hand across the table. ‘No worries. Glad to help.’

  Kate looks at the two of us, a strange expression on her face. Almost as if she feels . . . left out.

  ‘Keir told me you saw the video,’ Guy says suddenly.

  Keir and I glance warily at each other and sit back down.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Guy says. ‘I’m OK about it now. He paid for it, didn’t he?’

  ‘Who paid for what?’ I ask, confused.

  ‘Dessler. The one behind the video. I beat him up. I might even have killed him,’ he adds cheerfully. ‘The police are looking for me. It’s OK, I don’t mind. We’re even now. I don’t mind if I have to go to prison.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I demand incredulously. ‘According to Dessler’s parents, he’s in hospital with a burst appendix.’

  Guy looks startled. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘I spoke to them myself!’

  ‘The kid’s kept his mouth shut,’ Keir says shrewdly. ‘He’s not going to shop you, Guy, or it’ll all come out. He’ll be in a great deal more shit than you, dude, if they know he’s the happy-slapper behind that video.’

  ‘But . . . but I broke his ribs! I nearly killed him!’

  I glance at Kate. ‘His parents must know more than they’re letting on, or they wouldn’t be covering for him with the appendix bullshit. I thought at the time they sounded odd when they told me about it.’

  ‘John Dessler’s an MP,’ Kate says. ‘I met him at a school fundraiser once. He’s probably terrified this’ll end up in the papers.’

  Guy looks like someone has just given him back his life. ‘They’re not going to lock me up?’

  ‘No one’s locking you up,’ Kate says firmly. She pushes his mug of tea across the table towards him. ‘Why don’t you drink your tea and tell us exactly what happened. Slowly, from the beginning.’

  Her expression doesn’t waver as our son describes his attack on Dessler, the nights sleeping rough, the days wandering around London like a sleepwalker. Only when he details his encounter with the priest – if the sick bastard even was a priest – and his subsequent jump off the bridge does she look stricken, and it’s all I can do not to leap up and fling my arms round her and tell her it’s all going to be OK.

  Then, unexpectedly, Guy laughs. ‘Only landed in the mud, didn’t I?’ he grins, looking for the first time like the teenager he is. ‘Tide was out. Didn’t even get wet. I felt like such a fucking prick – sorry, Kate. It’s just, there I was, jumping off the bridge like a right bloody diva, and then I just landed up to my arse in slime. I must’ve looked a right tosser. Lost one of my new Nikes, too.’

  ‘Have you any idea how lucky you were?’ Kate demands rhetorically.

  ‘The mud kind of stank, but at least it was soft. I cleaned up a bit in a McDonald’s, and then just walked around till I dried off. That’s when I figured I had to come and find you,’ he adds, turning to Kate. ‘I s
ort of thought, if I could just make it to Rome, I’d find you somehow. It took me a couple of days to scrounge enough money for the ticket, but I managed it in the end. There’s still a lot of decent people out there,’ he adds thoughtfully. ‘One lady gave me five pounds, told me to go home and find my mum. Don’t think she knew how far I had to go.’

  Kate looks sick.

  ‘Don’t feel bad,’ Guy says quickly. ‘I’d probably have run off anyway, even if you hadn’t left.’

  ‘I want to kill that priest,’ I hiss. ‘Would you know him again if you saw him?’

  Guy shrugs. ‘Maybe. I’d like my fleece back. I left it in his car when I jumped out.’

  I don’t tell him that somehow his jacket ended up on the back of another kid who wasn’t so lucky. The post-mortem said the boy was strangled. For all we know, it could’ve been the priest. We’ll have to tell the cops, but not now. It can wait an hour or two.

  ‘When I saw Keir at the station, I thought he was just another sicko,’ Guy admits, flushing. ‘He came up to me when I was queuing for my ticket. Said my mum and dad were looking for me. I thought it was just another line.’

  Keir rubs his chin ruefully. ‘You’ve got a hell of a right hook there, dude.’

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Guy mumbles.

  ‘My own fault. Should’ve shown you Kate’s photo right off the bat. You’d have known I was kosher then.’

  I do my best to crush the jealous spike of anger at the thought of this kid with my wife’s photo in his wallet.

  ‘Dad, look. D’you mind if I go up and chill out for a bit?’ Guy says with a heavy yawn. ‘I’m kind of shattered. I promise I’ll talk to the cops or whatever you want later, but I could so use a bed right now.’

  Kate leaps up. ‘Why don’t you let me run you a hot bath.’

  ‘If it’s OK with you, I think I’ll just crash. Later?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She hesitates. ‘Some of my things are in your room. Just put them outside the door.’

  He nods, too tired to connect the dots and ask why.

  ‘D’you mind if I take you up on that bath before I go?’ Keir says, pushing back his chair. ‘If I try checking in to a hotel looking like this, they won’t let me in the door.’