The Wife Who Ran Away

by Tess Stimson

  ‘You know where it is,’ I say drily.

  ‘Have you told Agness that Guy’s safe?’ Kate says as we’re finally left alone.

  ‘I texted her. She’s on her way home. I left a message for Liesl too, telling her not to worry. Not that she has been, of course. She’s missed all the excitement.’

  ‘I suppose I’d better tell Guy about Eleanor . . .’

  I put out a hand to detain her. ‘Not just yet.’

  We sit quietly across from one another at the kitchen table, drained by the drama. I know this is probably the last time I’ll have the chance to be alone like this with my wife. She’s got a new life now, and it doesn’t include me.

  I’m not angry; not any more. A part of me actually admires her for having the balls to break free. Our marriage had been in a persistent vegetative state for years, but I’d never have had the guts to pull the plug. Most people don’t. We trudge along in the same old rut, making do, getting on with things, keeping our heads down and telling ourselves it could be worse. Don’t upset the apple cart. A bird in the hand. The grass is greener. It all adds up to a life half bloody lived. But we only get one shot at this. How can I blame Kate for wanting to make the most of her life? Long before she left me, I’d stopped even noticing her. We weren’t living, we were sleepwalking towards our graves. I can’t remember the last time I told her I loved her or wondered what she was thinking. She was right to go. She deserves better.

  ‘I love you,’ I tell her suddenly.

  ‘Oh, Ned—’

  ‘No, wait. Wait. I’m saying it wrong.’ I pause, searching for the right words, wanting to get this absolutely right. ‘What I mean is that I love you, and I understand why you’ve got to go. You belong with Keir. He’ll make you happy. I was wrong, the way I treated you. I forced you to be someone you didn’t want to be. I made you take on all the responsibility and deal with all the bullshit, just so I could keep being young and carefree. I don’t want you to feel sad or guilty about leaving. I just hope that, one day, you’ll feel that what we had, our marriage, the fifteen years we spent together, was worth it. Not just because of Guy and Agness, but because the good outweighed the bad. That’s all I wanted to say.’

  I stand up. ‘I’ll come to Eleanor’s funeral, of course. And we need to sort things out: the house, and everything. But I think I’ll go to my study for a while now. I’d rather not actually see you leave. If that’s OK.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she says simply.

  I nod. I know I’m doing the right thing.

  So why does it hurt so fucking much?

  Kate

  On the morning of my mother’s funeral, I wake from a fitful, anxious sleep just as dawn is breaking. Climbing out of bed quietly so as not to disturb Keir, I tiptoe into the cramped hotel bathroom and close the door. Then I curl up on the cold tiled floor between the bath and the lavatory like an infant and give myself over to grief.

  I don’t normally cry, I’m not a crier; I’ve always prided myself on my self-control. But I’m suddenly overwhelmed by huge, wracking sobs such as I haven’t experienced since I was a child. It’s as if years and years of cumulative loss have caught up with me. All the pressure and tension and strain and responsibility, coming out now in a great tidal wave of tears. I yield to it, surrender completely. Even when the crying stops I’m not sure I’ll ever feel free of it.

  The door opens. Keir stands there in his T-shirt and boxers, rumpled and beautiful. He crouches down beside me and tries to put his arms round me, but I push him away.

  ‘Oh God,’ I gasp, ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry, I just don’t want you to see me like this—’

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ Keir says firmly. ‘It’s good for you to cry.’

  ‘I don’t want to cry! I want . . . I want . . .’

  ‘I know,’ he says.

  I can’t let myself be soothed. I pull my knees into my chest and wrap my arms around them, physically blocking myself off. ‘It’s so unfair!’ I cry pitifully, my voice echoing around the tiled bathroom walls. ‘Why did she have to die? Why now?’

  ‘Your parents always live too long or die too soon,’ Keir says painfully.

  ‘We never got a chance to talk!’ I shout furiously at him. ‘I left it too late!’

  ‘What would you have said?’

  ‘I’d have told her I loved her, for a start!’

  ‘She knew that.’

  ‘I’d have said I was sorry for not spending enough time with her—’

  ‘She knew that too.’

  ‘I’d have asked why she was always so hard on me,’ I choke through my sobs. ‘I’d have asked why she couldn’t just love me. Why she never took my side. What I did that was always so wrong.’

  ‘You know the answers to that already. As much as she knew herself, anyway.’

  I’ve been harder on you than on your sister, and I’ve expected more from you. But I’ve never loved you less. The opposite, in fact.

  I was jealous of you. I was jealous of the freedom and choices you had.

  You have a duty to be happy, too. In the end, Kate, it’s all any mother wants for her child.

  I hiccough for a long time as the storm passes, wiping my snotty face with the hem of my T-shirt. ‘She called me Kate,’ I say finally when I can talk again. ‘The last time I spoke to her. It was the first time she ever called me that.’

  ‘There’s never a good time for someone we love to die,’ Keir says softly. ‘We always want more time. Five more minutes. One more conversation. A single kiss. You came back in time, Kate. You told each other all that needed to be said. Maybe that’s as good as it was ever going to get.’

  ‘She told me, if you were the man I should be with, I wasn’t to give you up.’

  ‘In that case, I’m sorry I didn’t get to know her better.’

  ‘Are you the man I should be with?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes,’ he says firmly.

  So different from Ned, who didn’t try to fight for me until it was too late.

  Tell him. Tell him tell him tell him.

  What if he walks away? What if I lose him? Or worse: what if he stays with me just because of the baby?

  He won’t leave you. He loves you. Tell him.

  ‘Do you love me?’ Keir asks, uncannily echoing my thoughts.

  I don’t need to think about it. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you want to be with me?’

  ‘Yes, but . . .’

  ‘Then whatever you’re about to say can wait.’ He reaches out his hand, and, after a brief hesitation I take it, scrambling awkwardly to my feet. ‘Come back to bed. We don’t need to be up for another couple of hours.’

  ‘Actually, I think I’ll take a shower. I’ve got a headache and I can’t sleep anyway.’

  ‘Would you like me to . . .’

  ‘I’ll be fine on my own.’

  Keir shrugs. ‘OK,’ he says.

  ‘It’s my mother’s funeral today,’ I add defensively. ‘I just need to be on my own for a while.’

  He smiles. ‘I said, it’s OK.’

  I lock the door behind him and step into the tiny cubicle, standing submissively under the hot, beating water, my head throbbing with fear and anxiety. I have to tell Keir about the baby today. After the funeral. I can’t put it off any longer. Ned, too. I have to explain things properly to my husband. He may not want to be part of this baby’s life, but we have two other children together. For their sake, if not ours, I need to be straight with him. And the two of us need to sit down together with Agness and Guy and tell them what’s happening. No more running away for either of us.

  When the water starts to run cold, I get out and towel myself dry, then return to the bedroom and put on the new sleeveless black shift I’ve had to buy for the funeral: already none of my other suitable black dresses fit. I slip on a pair of simple court shoes and pick up the hat I wore to my father’s funeral. Women can be divided into two groups, I think as I put it on: those who suit hats, and those who don’t. I’m firmly in t
he latter camp, but Eleanor would never forgive me if I didn’t wear one to her funeral.

  Behind me, Keir is carelessly flinging clothes and shoes and books into his backpack. After the funeral, we’ll leave the hotel where we’ve been staying for the past week and go to London, where Keir has a small flat in Islington. His six-month sabbatical is over; when the new academic year starts in a few weeks, he’ll go back to his teaching job at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. Since I’m now unemployed, we’ll have to survive on his pitifully small salary; and in a few months, there’ll be three of us to support.

  I’ve no idea how we’re going to manage once we’ve exhausted my redundancy pay-off (a conscience-soothing gesture from Paul Forde, who waited until the day my leave ended and then summarily fired me, after fifteen years, by email). Maybe at some point I can take an art-history teaching course at Goldsmith’s and cobble together some sort of childcare, but that’s too far ahead for me to think about now.

  And it all depends on Keir, of course. How he reacts to my news. It doesn’t come easily to me, not knowing what’s going to happen in my life a day, a week, a year from now; but I’m trying.

  Keir doesn’t own a suit, but has rustled up a pair of black jeans and, with his crumpled grey linen jacket, he looks appropriate in his own way. We take a taxi over to the house, where Ned and the children are waiting in the sitting room, stiff and uncomfortable in their new black clothes.

  It’s the first time Ned and I have seen each other since I left a week ago, though I’ve been back to visit Agness and Guy, of course. We greet each other awkwardly, exchanging harmless comments about the weather – muggy and threatening rain – and Eleanor’s reactionary WI choice of hymns for the service. Before things get too sticky, we’re saved by the arrival of the hearse and stream thankfully outside to take our places in the two limousines that will make up the cortège. It’s already been decided that Keir and I will travel with my sister Lindsay and her eight-year-old son in the first car; Ned, Agness and Guy will take the second. Very diplomatic; very modern.

  Agness still can’t quite look at me, I notice. I have no idea what Ned has said to her about our separation, although he promised he wouldn’t break the news about the baby. I expected her to pull away from me again, but, to my surprise, she seems to be trying to understand. She’s sad for her father, of course. As am I.

  Guy puts his arm round my shoulder and gives me a quick hug as we sort ourselves out by the cars. ‘Chin up, Mum,’ he whispers.

  I smile gratefully at him. He’s like a different person since he came home. He’s grown up and developed a confidence in himself that’s a joy to see. I know instinctively that there’ll be no more trouble for him at school, whatever choices he makes with his life. He’s got the measure of himself now.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ I whisper back. ‘And so will you, Guy. Whatever happens. Whatever – whoever – you choose.’

  Our eyes meet in understanding. ‘Thanks,’ he says simply.

  I watch him climb into the car with Ned and his sister, my heart full. I came so close to losing this fine young man. It’s not a mistake I intend to repeat. My children may be almost grown, but they need me now more than ever. I won’t leave them again.

  ‘I meant to ask you,’ my sister says chattily as we settle into the back of our limo. ‘My car died last week. The garage says it’s going to cost more to fix it than it’s worth.’

  She waits for me to leap in and offer to buy her a replacement, as I always do. I open my mouth and then close it again. I hear Eleanor in my head: It does no one any good if you do everything for them; you least of all.

  Lindsay turns to stare huffily out of the window and refuses to talk to me for the rest of the journey.

  When we arrive at the old church just outside Salisbury where Eleanor attended services most Sundays, the family regroups in the churchyard. Black-clad mourners are already fling into the church, greeting each other with self-conscious nods.

  Keir melts tactfully towards the back of the church as we go in, taking his place in the last pew next to a man in his early sixties wearing army uniform and a chest full of medals. I wish Keir could sit beside me, but I can’t do that to Ned and the children. They’ve got enough to cope with today.

  Eleanor’s willow coffin looks beautiful on the catafalque. Sweet William and freesias – her favourite flowers – are entwined around the sides, and a traditional arrangement of lilies spills from the top. No ‘Gran’ spelled out in chrysanthemums; she’d spin in that basket like a top if we dared do anything she’d consider common.

  I know the funeral service is beautiful because I put it together, but I don’t take any of it in. It’s like your wedding day: it passes by in a blur, and afterwards you wonder if you were really there. We listen to ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘Faith of Our Fathers’; Henry Scott Holland – ‘Death is nothing at all’ – and the twenty-third psalm. Ned gets up and gives a very surprising, moving eulogy, and I smile at him through a mist of tears as he sits down.

  And then the pall-bearers are picking up the picnic-hamper coffin, and we’re all fling out of the church – the old soldier has tears streaming down his cheeks, I notice – and round the back towards the crowded graveyard. New ‘clients’ are no longer accepted, but Eleanor reserved her place years ago, next to James; doing the proper thing in death, as she always did in life.

  Agness’s odd boyfriend appears from behind a gravestone, looking strangely at home for once amid the sea of black. I notice a flash of silver as they link hands. Agness informed me last week that they’ve both signed up to the Silver Ring Thing and pledged celibacy until marriage. Given that she’s only fourteen, the fact she’s even thinking about sex has me coming out in hives. I suppose I’d better have a serious talk with her about birth control soon. Not that I’m in any position to throw stones.

  My sister starts to howl as Eleanor’s coffin is lowered into her grave. Ned sweetly moves to put his arm round her as her young son looks on, bewildered and confused. Eleanor was right: he is a good man. Maybe even the right man for me. Just at the wrong time.

  Afterwards, as I turn away, the old soldier is there.

  ‘Robert Cooper,’ he says formally, holding out his hand. ‘Forty years ago, I loved your mother very much. I wish I’d had the chance to tell her one last time.’

  For a moment I’m too startled to respond, then, belatedly, I return his handshake.

  ‘You look like her,’ he says wistfully. ‘It’s your eyes.’

  Eleanor never mentioned another man. She never even discussed how she met my father. I always knew better than to ask.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask, too curious to be polite. ‘Between the two of you?’

  ‘She chose you,’ he says with a small, sad smile.

  If Keir is the man you should be with, don’t give him up. Not for anyone. Certainly not out of a misguided sense of duty and doing the right thing.

  I watch him as he turns and walks stiffly away, his back ramrod straight. I have no idea what he meant. Did they have an affair after I was born? Did Eleanor stay with my father, for my sake? Was she warning me not to make the same mistake? I’ll never be able to ask her; and perhaps it no longer matters. Whatever Eleanor’s secrets were, they’ve died with her.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Keir asks.

  I nod. ‘Just give me a few minutes.’

  I thread my way through the tall, moss-covered Victorian gravestones. They did things so much better then, I think, eyeing the garish modern headstones on the fringe of the cemetery. No Hallmark inscriptions or gilt engravings. Just names and dates carved into the weathered stone and granite.

  I’m contemplating a family plot – husband, wife, four children who died before their first birthdays, a son who lived to be a hundred and one – when Ned approaches.

  ‘I don’t want to disturb you,’ he says as I turn round.

  ‘It’s OK.’ I smile. ‘Your eulogy was beautiful. Thank you.’

  ‘Eleanor could be a p
iece of work, but funnily enough, I miss having her around. She kept me on my toes, if nothing else.’ He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a padded envelope. ‘I wanted to give you this.’

  I look quizzically at him for a moment and then open it. Inside is a single photograph of Eleanor and me. I recognize it instantly, though I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. It was taken a few days after Agness was born. My mother and I are sitting on the low wall by the kitchen garden, pink June roses in full bloom on the trellis behind us. She has her arm around my shoulders, and the two of us are laughing at something two-year-old Guy, just out of shot, has said. We look happy and relaxed in each other’s company. Like any mother and daughter.

  ‘Where did you find this?’ I ask wonderingly.

  ‘I got some boxes down from the loft. I knew it was in there somewhere.’

  I trace my finger over the photograph. I know the state of our cardboard archives: Ned must have spent hours looking for this. The same man who gave me garage flowers on our anniversary and a fax machine for my last birthday.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say inadequately.

  ‘It’s too easy just to remember the bad times. I wanted you to remember how good it could be too.’

  I realize he’s no longer talking about my relationship with Eleanor.

  ‘I know it’s too late now,’ Ned says matter-of-factly. ‘But there’s something I want you to know. I would have loved that baby. He or she will be a part of you, and there’s nothing about you that I don’t love. You loved Guy because he was mine. I realized after you left last week that this is no different. If you’d wanted to stay with me, your baby would have become ours. Of course it would. I’d have loved it just as much as Guy or Agness. I know it doesn’t make any difference now, but I just need you to know that.’

  I stare at Ned, at this man whose face is as familiar as my own, a man I’ve known and loved for two-thirds of my adult life, and who still has the capacity to surprise me. Who hasn’t stopped surprising me, if I’m honest, since I came back eleven days ago. I expected him to be bitter and angry on my return; I welcomed it, almost. It assuaged the guilt and made my decision so much easier. I was totally unprepared for Ned to forgive me so readily, to be so generous about Keir. I watched him shake my lover’s hand across the table after Guy’s miraculous return and realized with a shock that I’ve never known Ned not do the right thing, however much it cost him. Even to the point of being prepared now to take on another man’s child. He’s made mistakes, yes – mistakes that have threatened our home and family; but so have I. Just because I’ve always treated him like a child doesn’t mean he is one. He’d never run away from his responsibilities the way I did. For all his faults, he never gave up on me. On us. Still hasn’t, in fact.