The Runaway Wife

by Rowan Coleman

  “Me too,” Rose said. “I don’t know why we haven’t done it before.”

  “I want to live here, Mum,” Maddie said quite suddenly, turning away from the sink to look at Rose, washing-up liquid bubbles garlanding her wrists. “Like I said to that lady, I want to live here with Granddad, and cook together and paint every day.”

  Rose put the finished pie into the creaky old oven, unsure whether it was nearly hot enough, and thought for a moment.

  “If we lived here, or near here, there would be a lot to think about.”

  “Like what?” Maddie asked her.

  “School,” Rose said. “It will be a new term before you know it. We’d have to find you a school place.”

  “But why?” Maddie sighed unhappily. “I don’t like school. Teachers don’t like me, children don’t like me, and I don’t like them. I’m not the sort of child who suits school. You could keep me at home and let me be a genius.”

  Full of compassion for her poor awkward, cast-out little girl, Rose went to Maddie and put her arms around her.

  “That’s not true,” she said. “It’s not true that people don’t like you. It’s just that you are different from most children, and they find you a little hard to get to know. I mean, how many other seven-year-olds know so much about Ancient Egypt? Or want to paint instead of play with dolls or watch TV? But you should have friends your own age, and if we did stay around here you would have to go to school. This time, though, I’d be a better mummy. I’d help people understand how lovely you really are because I know they’ll like you when they do.”

  For once Maddie relaxed into Rose’s body, letting herself be hugged.

  “I would try school again, if we stay here,” Maddie said.

  “And what about Daddy?” Rose said tentatively. “Living here would mean you were very far away from him.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Maddie said, drawing back to look up at her mum. “Daddy is a bad man, isn’t he? He hurt me and you, and he makes you cry a lot.”

  Rose stared in Maddie’s face, which seemed so certain, and wanted to weep.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know if Daddy is a bad man. I thought once that Granddad was bad, and he certainly made a lot of mistakes, but we’re getting to be friends now—good friends—and I don’t think he is bad anymore. I think Daddy and I don’t belong together. We make each other very unhappy. But I would never want to take you away from your dad, Maddie. Even after he scared us as much as he did.” Rose’s mouth went dry as she spoke out loud the words she could hardly bear to think.

  “He was never unkind to me before,” Maddie said. “He used to always smile at me, and let me read to him, and take me out for trips to learn things. But he’s stopped being like that now. He’s turned into a troll.” Maddie’s face folded inwards in dismay as she remembered once again what happened. “He hurt me. He stopped being Daddy and he hurt me.”

  “I know,” Rose said softly, struggling to explain what she did not really understand herself. That Richard had turned his inner fury, even if without malicious intent, on Maddie had shaken her to the core, and she was terribly afraid that, having hurt her once, having broken that taboo, albeit accidentally, it would be easier for him to hurt her again. For all this time she’d thought about leaving Richard, of escaping him, she’d never worked out if that meant cutting him completely out of Maddie’s life too, severing her from her father, just as she had been from hers. “I am sure that Daddy is very sorry for what happened. I am sure about that. Maybe one day you’ll be able to talk to him about what happened,” Rose said uncertainly. “If you want to, that is.”

  “OK,” Maddie said. “As long as we can stay here.”

  “I’m not sure we could actually live in Storm Cottage,” Rose said. “For one thing there is only one other very small bedroom—you’d barely squeeze in there! And for another, John likes living alone. I don’t think he’d want us.”

  “I would,” John said. Maddie and Rose looked up to see him coming slowly down the stairs, clutching the banister. “I would like you to live here. And there is room. Through there.” He nodded at a door that Rose hadn’t noticed before, because there were a large number of boxes piled up in front of it. “There’s a good-sized room in there. I’ve been holding off making it into a bedroom for me, putting in a shower room, because I didn’t want to admit that the time was coming when I wouldn’t make the stairs. But it would do for you, Rose, until I can get it modified. So there is room, if you want to live here.”

  “There, you see?” Maddie said happily. “And now it is settled. Are you ready to paint yet, Granddad?”

  “Maddie, hang on a second,” Rose said, going to help her father down the last two steps. “Dad, should you even be up?”

  “I feel fine,” John said. “I told you, all I needed was a rest and my medication.”

  “You don’t look fine, though,” Rose said, examining John’s grayish and waxy skin.

  “I’m fine,” he said, brushing her helping hand away. “I heard you two talking down here. It was a nice sound. I would like to live with you, Rose. Not to be my nurse or take care of me. I will be on my feet for a good while longer yet, and when . . . if I’m not, I’ll sort out care.” John looked at her, taking a breath as he obviously needed to gather some courage to say the words he’d clearly prepared. “I would like you to live here because you are my little girl. And I’ve missed you all these years. Because I’m selfish and weak, and the older I get, the more I would like the chance for redemption.”

  “And because you like me,” Maddie reminded him, keen not to be left out.

  “And because I like you very much,” John told the child fondly.

  “Live here?” Rose looked around the tiny cramped room. “But what about Tilda?”

  “Tilda is important to me,” John said. “More than I am able to say. But our friendship is what it is. I can’t ever mend what I took from her: the chance to be happy, have children, grandchildren. I don’t want to lose her, so I’d have to ask you to find a way to accept her, maybe even befriend her one day.”

  Rose ran her fingers over her face. This felt so soon, so sudden. Wasn’t it only last week that her father was all but ignoring her? Could things really change so quickly, in the blink of an eye? There was so much to consider, to worry about, if it didn’t work out. Not least, uprooting Maddie again just as she got settled into a new home, but worse, the hurt that both of them would feel if in the end John couldn’t live with and care for them in the way he hoped to. Rose wasn’t strong enough to stand another rejection, not from her father, not again.

  And then she remembered how her mother went out one morning and never came back, how Richard walked into the café one day and took over her life, how she had cut away her old hair and dyed it blond, how she had let a man she barely knew kiss every single inch of her. This was what life was like, hanging on a thread, balanced on a knife edge. Life was a precarious existence full of uncertainty, and it was only her marriage to Richard that had kept her from understanding that until now.

  “OK,” Rose said, much to Maddie’s delight. “Perhaps we could move in over the weekend? On a trial basis, see how it goes? But yes, yes, Dad. Yes, we would love to live here with you.”

  “Good.” John smiled, sinking rather abruptly onto a chair, causing both Maddie and Rose to rush to his side. “Oh, for God’s sake, stop clucking around me like I’m an invalid. Keep this rubbish up and I will change my mind.”

  • • •

  “You’re going to live here with your old man?” Shona said, looking up at the outside of Storm Cottage. “Has it got an inside loo?”

  Shona had stopped by on her way home to say a proper goodbye after Rose had called her to tell her their plans. It was getting late, close to eleven, but still the sky was awash with light, even though the moon had risen and the stars had begun to pierce through.

  “I’m going to try,” Rose said cautiously. “Who would have thought it? I came
here with some half-cocked plan to get Frasier, and I found my father, a home, friends. A place where Maddie feels like she belongs. It really couldn’t be much better, could it? Do you think this could be it, Shona? Do you think this is our time to be happy?”

  “I do,” Shona said. “I think it’s our time to be happy for both of us. Not just you, but me too. I feel that, Rose, I really do.”

  The two women hugged each other for a long time, Rose reluctant to let go of her friend.

  “Jenny’s going to be put out when you tell her,” Shona said, rolling her eyes. “For a minute this afternoon it looked like she had another guest. This bloke turned up, reckoned he was a rambler, although if he was, the only place he’d ever rambled to was the pub. But anyway, he had a look around, decided he didn’t like it, and was on his way. When you move out she’ll have no guests again.”

  “There’s got to be something I can do to help her,” Rose said. “She’s scary, but she’s been nice to me.”

  “Help her figure out how to make money out of that annex, that would be a start,” Shona said. She nodded at the car. “I’d better be on my way.”

  “Drive carefully,” Rose said. “Stop if you get tired. Don’t drink and drive.”

  “Because I might spill it.” Shona giggled. “As if I ever would. Who are you, my mother? Oh, no, that’s the angry woman stranded at home with my kids. See you, babe.”

  “See you,” Rose said. She stood in the yard until the light of the little Nissan finally disappeared into the advancing gloom. Now it was time to start to live her new life for real, no more rehearsals. This was it.

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  “Will I need a passport?” Maddie said as she and Rose set off in Frasier’s car early the next morning. Goodness only knew what time he’d got up to pick them up, but he’d arrived at eight on the dot on Friday morning, concerned to hear that John had had a funny turn.

  “Do I need to call the specialist?” he’d asked John almost as soon as he’d walked in through the door of Storm Cottage, pulling out a chair and sitting next to him. John regarded him sideways with a distinctly disdainful air; he was definitely feeling better.

  “It’s just the old trouble,” John said carefully. “The damn arthritis, the pills, the withdrawal if I forget to take them. I’m fine now. Rose stayed here with me last night, and tomorrow they are going to come and stay here perhaps for good, if I’m lucky.”

  “Really?” Frasier beamed at Rose. “That’s wonderful news. Someone to answer the phone at last!”

  “I shan’t be turning the phone on,” John said drily, raising a menacing brow. “So where are you taking my daughter today, and why?”

  “Oh! Er . . . just thought I’d take her to look at the gallery, have a day trip, see some of your work, you know,” Frasier had said, shifting a little uncomfortably in his chair, like a teenage boy having met his girlfriend’s angry father for the first time. “You’re more than welcome to come along. It’s just when I’ve asked before—”

  “I’d rather gouge my eyes out with a rusty nail than go anywhere near that den of commercialism,” John said, pursing his lips in what might have been a gesture of disapproval or a repressed smile, Rose wasn’t sure.

  “We don’t have to go,” Rose stepped in. “Not if you’re not up to being alone?”

  “I am perfectly capable of being alone,” John said. “In fact, I shall enjoy it, a little period of calm before my life changes forever. And besides, Tilda said she’d pop in to see how I am.”

  Rose noticed how Frasier’s eyes had widened, and he glanced at her, no doubt to gauge her reaction to the news that Tilda was still a part of her father’s life. So he had known about her all along too. What other secrets did her father have that Frasier was keeping for him? The truth was that Rose hadn’t really had much time to think about it. She’d spent the previous night squashed into the single bed in the boxroom with Maddie, in case John wanted her in the night. Encircled in her arms, Maddie had drifted off to sleep at once, but Rose wasn’t sure that she slept at all for any of the night, as everything that had happened circled round and round in her head. Tilda, her father’s wife, still his friend, and what else? It was hard to tell from their brief meeting, and Rose supposed that if she’d never met Tilda before, had no idea who she was, she would just have seen a kind, concerned older woman when she opened the front door to Storm Cottage, and not the home wrecker she had always believed Tilda to be.

  That was part of it, Rose had thought, part of coming to terms with what had happened and finding a way to love her father again. Accepting that he too was as responsible as anyone else—if not more so—for what had happened to Rose and her mother including Marian and even Rose herself. Realizing that he was as flawed as every other human being. Wouldn’t Maddie have to do the same to love her father again, one day soon? And when the time came, Rose would have to steel herself to help her do it. There wasn’t any alternative.

  “Just bear in mind that you are not to touch my daughter in any way I do not deem appropriate,” John had said, this time a definite smile twitching around his mouth.

  “Never, ever, I would never . . .” Frasier had said, a little disappointingly, until he realized that John was joking and broke out into a smile. “Without Rose’s say-so.”

  Rose had grinned all the way to the car.

  • • •

  “You won’t need a passport,” Frasier told Maddie. “Not yet, anyway. Maybe in a couple of years’ time you Sassenachs will find it harder to get across the border, but today you should be OK.”

  “What’s a Sassenach?” Maddie asked him.

  “It’s a sort of rude word that Scottish people use to describe Englishpeople,” Frasier said, winking at Rose, who was repressing a smile as she looked out the window.

  “Well, that’s not very polite, is it, Mum?” Maddie said, huffing. “Not very polite at all.”

  There was a moment or two of awkward silence. And then Frasier piped up, “So anyone for a game of I Spy?”

  Poor Frasier McCleod, he’d lived his whole life long without ever before playing a game of I Spy with Rose’s daughter. Little did he know it was going to be a long, long journey.

  • • •

  It took almost two hours before Frasier finally pulled up in front of McCleod’s Fine Arts, which, as Rose peered out the window, seemed to take up all four stories of an impressive-looking Regency gray stone house on Queen Street, opposite ornamental gardens enclosed with decorative wrought-iron railings, and in the middle of an elegant-looking terrace. Coming round the car, Frasier opened the door and helped Rose out, then lifted Maddie down onto the pavement.

  “It looks foreign,” Maddie said, staring up at the building with interest. “How far away is the Loch Ness Monster? Will I need to speak Scottish to understand anyone? Will they try and arrest me for being a sassa-thingy?”

  “How about we start off with some tea and cake?” Frasier said, taking Maddie’s hand and leading her into the gallery. “And no, no one will try and arrest you, I promise. I must say, young Maddie, I have never played such an expert and intricately complicated game of I Spy before.”

  “I’m not an expert,” Maddie said proudly, clearly thinking that was exactly what she was. “I just like to describe things accurately, which does mean that sometimes I do have to use a lot of initials.”

  “I would never, ever have got that the bluish, greenish, tinted-with-pink thing was C for cloud, one that we last saw about thirty kilometers ago!” Frasier said with remarkable goodwill, considering that Maddie had spent most of the journey testing him to his limit. Rose smiled; it was nice that Maddie had another adult to call her friend. Her next task must be to find her someone of her own age who would understand her.

  “That was because you weren’t concentrating properly,” Maddie said, content to leave her hand in his as he led them into the gallery. “I did keep telling you to!”

  Behind the reception desk, a pretty red-
haired young girl beamed at Frasier, coming round the desk to greet Maddie and Rose. For one horrible moment, Rose thought that this charming young creature, in the full flush of beautiful youth, might be Cecily, but it turned out her name was Tamar and she was an art student who worked here part time, to help fund her studies. It was clear she had an enormous crush on Frasier, by the way she fluttered her lashes at him and giggled when he asked her to arrange some tea and cake, but happily Frasier was completely oblivious to her admiration. He probably had eyes only for Cecily, Rose thought.

  “Come and look at some art,” Frasier said after dispatching Tamar. “Maddie, I want you to tell me what you think of my latest acquisitions, which ones will make me money and which I will be reluctantly returning to the artist.”

  Rose and Frasier hung back as Maddie walked around the large room, which must have once been about four if not five separate rooms and which Frasier explained he’d gone to great trouble and expense to open out into his main showing area, with a few smaller rooms leading off it.

  “It’s really very impressive,” Rose said in hushed tones, feeling that for some reason she ought to be whispering. “Did you have all of this when you came to see me in Broadstairs?”

  “Good Lord, no.” Frasier shook his head. “I barely had two pennies to rub together when I came to see you. Not that I would have wanted you to know that. I was very keen to impress you. I knew you wouldn’t want to talk to just any old two-bit con man—which I wasn’t, by the way. I was just . . . starting out on my own after years of working for other people.”

  Rose stopped as Maddie stood nose to canvas with a painting that seemed to her to depict mainly a large purple blob, and yet her daughter seemed fascinated by it, examining it minutely.

  “You certainly did make an impression on me,” Rose said, glancing at him shyly. “More than you will ever know, really.”