The Women Who Ran Away: Will their secrets follow them?

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  She felt it again now. A horrible feeling in the centre of her stomach. And the pain higher up too, the one that had made her think she might be having a heart attack. But she knew she wasn’t. She knew it was simply her anger at being played. At allowing herself to be played.

  She was angrier with herself than with him.

  She blamed herself more than him.

  But she blamed him too, and that was why she was going away and taking the damn car with her.

  Chapter 2

  Ringaskiddy, Ireland: 51.8304°N 8.3219°W

  Grace Garvey was already at Ringaskiddy. She’d driven from Dublin the previous night because that was what she and Ken had always done in the years when they’d taken the children on their annual camping holiday to Brittany. Drive down the night before, stay in a guest house near the port and wake up refreshed and ready for the sailing. Also, Ken would say, there was no need to worry about breakdowns or anything slowing them down en route if they went ahead of time. They were where they needed to be.

  Only once had Grace pointed out that if they had a breakdown in Ireland they’d be in big trouble regardless, given that they usually had at least a two-hour drive after getting off the ferry at Roscoff. But Ken had shaken his head and told her not to be a drama queen. Even though he was the one who made their annual holiday into a drama, planning it down to the finest detail and fuming if things didn’t go exactly to his meticulous plan.

  Grace always did her best to ensure that nothing interfered with the plan, without him ever being aware of it. Ken was a man who became stressed when things didn’t turn out the way he wanted. This stressed Grace out too, although the children, Aline, Fionn and Regan, never seemed to notice the undercurrent of tension that surrounded the house in the week leading up to their departure. All they cared about was arriving at that year’s chosen campsite and having a good time.

  And despite the stress that Ken placed upon himself, their family holidays invariably were good times. Grace’s memories of them were precious.

  She sat on the bed in Portview House – the same guest house they’d used all their lives – and opened the laptop she’d brought with her. Ken’s laptop. She hadn’t intended to bring it, but at the very last minute, she’d gone back inside the house and grabbed it. She could have emailed the documents to herself, but she’d decided that perhaps the laptop might have hidden information on it that she might need. She hadn’t yet found anything, other than the sent email she’d received three months earlier. And she didn’t need to read that again. But having the laptop, knowing that it was Ken’s, was important to her.

  She gazed indecisively at the folder entitled The Big Anniversary Treasure Hunt. She’d opened it when he’d first sent the email and then closed it again, not willing to be part of a plan that she’d known nothing about. And not willing to have him tell her what to do. Not when he’d done something so truly dreadful that he’d shaken her faith in everything they’d had together. But here, now, she couldn’t help herself.

  She clicked on the folder. It contained eight documents, each with an individual title:

  Nantes

  La Rochelle

  Bordeaux

  Pamplona

  Alcalá de Henares

  Toledo

  Granada

  Cartagena

  Each document was locked by a password. Grace had tried a couple of random passwords on them without any success. Then she’d concentrated on the Nantes document, because it was the first in the itinerary that he’d set out, bombarding it with memorable dates and other significant combinations. Frustrated by her failure, she’d moved on to La Rochelle. After her third incorrect guess, she’d got a message saying that she had seven further attempts before being locked out. She’d stopped then. Even if she wasn’t sure she wanted to see the contents of the document, she didn’t want to be locked out yet.

  She’d gone back to the Nantes document, where it appeared she had as many guesses at the password as she liked, possibly because it was the first of the collection. That would be typical of Ken. Break her in easily before making things progressively more difficult. But she could almost feel his disgust at her not having been able to figure it out straight away. He’d known by the time he’d sent the email that he wouldn’t be with her to help. So why hadn’t he left her some sort of clue to start her off?

  Maybe he had, she thought. And maybe she was too stupid to spot it.

  Had he considered at all that she might not play his silly game? Or had he always known she’d do what he wanted no matter how ridiculous?

  She snapped the lid of the laptop closed. Her brain was too frazzled to work on the passwords now. It was focused on getting to the port and boarding the ferry, as though Ken was sitting beside her telling her not to shilly-shally. He’d always made sure they arrived at the terminal exactly two and a half hours before the sailing. Once they’d even been the first car in the queue, which had pleased him no end. Grace didn’t need to be first in the queue. But she didn’t want to be late either.

  There was no chance of her being late. She could see the ship from her bedroom window, tall and white against the blue sky and teal-green sea. She knew it was far too early to leave, no matter what Ken’s voice was telling her.

  She put the laptop into her overnight case and went downstairs.

  Claire Dolan, the owner of Portview House, smiled at her and asked if she was planning to leave already.

  ‘You’ll need me out of the room shortly,’ replied Grace.

  Claire told her that there was no rush and that she was welcome to use the living room for as long as she liked. ‘I know you’ve been coming here for years and you’re accustomed to travelling, but it’s the first time you’ve done it on your own,’ she said. ‘So take your time.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Grace assured her. ‘There’s no need to worry about me.’

  There was an infinitesimal moment of awkwardness before Claire reached out and gave her a little hug, one arm around Grace’s bony shoulder. ‘I know you’re a strong woman,’ she said gently, ‘but I’m sure it’s been hard. I was surprised, to be honest, when you made the booking. I didn’t think you’d want to go by yourself.’

  ‘I hadn’t planned to be by myself.’ Grace gave her a rueful smile. ‘My friend Elaine was supposed to come with me. But then her daughter went into a very early labour and her baby was poorly for a while, so I told her not to even think about me but to go to Megan. She lives in Canada.’ Grace shrugged, as though Canada explained everything.

  ‘Are you a hundred per cent sure you’ll be OK on your own, though?’ asked Claire.

  Grace nodded. ‘Absolutely,’ she said, in a voice that was free of any doubt.

  She’d said the same to her elder daughter, Aline, when she’d asked Grace that question too.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll manage,’ agreed Aline, who’d dropped in on her way home from work to see how her mother was doing. ‘But all that driving without anyone to share . . . I’m sure Dad didn’t expect you to do it alone. He’d have imagined one of us would be with you. Maybe even all of us, like before. You could wait until that was a possibility. I don’t want you to get too tired, and there’s really no rush to—’

  ‘I won’t get tired,’ insisted Grace. ‘None of the stages are that long. And you know quite well that it would be impossible to get everyone together again this year. So I’m doing it and that’s that.’

  ‘It’s asking a lot of yourself. Especially when—’

  ‘When what?’ Grace’s clear blue eyes hardened as she interrupted her daughter again.

  ‘When you’re grieving.’

  ‘I’m not grieving!’ The words had come out more forcefully than she’d meant and she registered the dismay on Aline’s face. ‘I mean, yes, I’m grieving but I’m . . .’ She was going to say she was too angry – and perhaps too guilty – to grieve, but she knew that would freak Aline out even more. ‘I’m doing it for closure,’ she said, quietly confident that she�
��d pressed the right button. Aline was big into closure. She’d had a closure evening for Ken before Fionn and Regan had left the country; they’d gone through his vast library of books, picked one each and then read a chapter out loud to each other. She’d played video clips of him at all their graduations, as well as at the family dinner for Grace’s sixtieth birthday, where he’d called her his constant light. And then she’d recited ‘My Memory Library’ by Sarah Blackstone

  Grace had smiled throughout, but her heart hadn’t been in it, especially during Aline’s recitation of a poem Grace knew Ken would have dismissed as sentimental nonsense. Ken had never liked poems that rhymed. So while her children were reading and reciting, she’d been remembering the week after Aline’s graduation, when her daughter had packed her textbooks into a big box and donated them to a local education centre, saying that it was important to have them out of the house and in her past. Ken had been furious with her. He’d said that she’d need to reference them in the future even though she had her degree. She’d mentioned Google. He’d fumed quietly. Ken hadn’t believed much in closure either. Until, perhaps, he had.

  Aline celebrated birthdays and Christmas and Easter as waypoints in her life, always talking about marking new beginnings (tautology, Ken said, and when Aline asked what he meant, he told her to look it up. On Google, if it makes you feel better, he added). But even if their tastes in books and poetry differed, Aline and Ken were more like each other than they knew, mused Grace. Both of them brimming with self-confidence, both of them believing their way was the right way. Neither of them thinking of the consequences of their actions on other people, always expecting they’d fall into line.

  ‘I care about you.’ Aline broke into her thoughts. ‘We all do. We don’t want anything to happen to you.’

  ‘Things happen all the time,’ said Grace, which elicited an even more shocked expression from Aline. ‘But I’ll be fine. I’m more worried about you guys, to be honest.’

  ‘It’s been really hard, but I’ve dealt with it,’ said Aline. ‘So have Fionn and Regan. I’m not sure you have, Mum.’

  ‘I have. Honestly,’ Grace lied.

  ‘I’d be happier if Elaine was going with you.’ Aline wasn’t at all convinced by her mother’s words.

  ‘So would I,’ said Grace, although that was probably a lie too. ‘But she has other priorities. I’ll be fine. Anyhow,’ she added, ‘I’ll FaceTime you from all my destinations and let you know how it’s going. You can keep me up to date too.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ said Grace again.

  She wasn’t going to tell her daughter that there was a part of her that wanted to do the trip by herself. Aline would have been even more hurt by that. And, like the rest of them, she’d been hurt enough already. But since Grace had decided to make this journey, nobody was going to stop her. Despite some initial misgivings, she was looking forward to driving off the ferry in France and doing her own thing, as much as she could given the schedule he’d laid out for her and the requests he’d made.

  ‘You couldn’t simply leave it,’ she murmured. ‘You still have to organise me.’

  She’d never acknowledged before how much Ken’s desire to be in charge bothered her. Especially his determination to plan their holidays. Her own working life had been ruled by timetables and plans, which should have made it a pleasure, really, to leave the arrangements to him. But he never chose to fly to a destination. On a plane, she would inevitably have known more than him. She’d been a senior cabin crew member after all. She could have made things easier for them. But he didn’t want her to. She knew nothing about ferries.

  However, despite the stress he brought to it, Ken had been good at organising holidays. The children loved taking the ferry and the freedom of the campsites in France. They loved the excitement of living in a tent, and later, in a mobile home, enjoying the basic nature of it. So despite occasionally feeling aggrieved at her lack of input, Grace went with the flow.

  She’d always been good at going with the flow.

  Now she walked into the colourful garden of the guest house and gazed out over the ocean. The sun was higher in the sky and had turned the sea to a deep azure blue. It was a perfect day for the crossing. A perfect day to travel.

  Chapter 3

  Dublin to Ringaskiddy: 268 km

  Deira didn’t stop on her journey from Dublin to Ringaskiddy, and as soon as she arrived at the port she joined the queue of vehicles waiting to board. Embarkation had been under way for the past hour, but there were still quite a number of travellers ahead of her. From the vantage point of her car she could see people already walking around the upper deck of the boat, bright specks of colour against the white ship.

  She allowed herself a sigh of relief as she handed over her ticket and was waved forward. Deep down, she’d half expected to be stopped and hauled off to be interviewed by the Gardaí. But the port officials clearly hadn’t been alerted, and the other travellers were far too concerned about boarding the ferry to even notice her; although the male drivers of the heavily laden cars, camper vans and SUVs surrounding her occasionally shot envious glances at the low-profile convertible.

  When she was safely parked, she made her way to the passenger deck, not bothering with the lifts, where families with children, babies, bags and buggies, were waiting, but taking the stairs instead. By the time she reached Deck 8, she was regretting it, thinking she was a good deal less fit than she’d fondly imagined. She waited for a moment to catch her breath, then walked the length of the carpeted corridor to find her cabin.

  She pushed the door open and went inside.

  Before they’d booked the holiday, she and Gavin had spent hours on the ferry company’s website doing virtual tours of all the cabins and decks, so she knew what to expect. But it was still a relief to see that their chosen cabin – her cabin now – was bright and airy, with plenty of room for a table and chairs as well as the bed. It also had a patio door leading to a private balcony. ‘Cruise-ferrying’, the company had called its service, and Deira had to admit that the cabin was almost as good as the one they’d had on the only occasion they’d gone on a proper cruise. That had been for her thirtieth birthday. It didn’t feel like only yesterday, yet it didn’t seem like nearly a decade ago either. She still remembered the thrill of it – flying to Barcelona, from where the enormous ship was departing on its Mediterranean voyage; staying overnight in a flashy hotel; getting a taxi to the port the following morning. Feeling the joy of being away with the man she loved. It had been a fantastic holiday. One of the best of her life.

  Now she was on a cruise ferry from Ringaskiddy. And this time she was alone.

  She opened the patio doors and stepped onto the balcony. The breeze whipped her hair around her face and she tucked it behind her ears. Far below, she could see the huge ropes tethering the ship to the pier. Workers in hi-vis jackets were walking along its length, shouting information to each other. Beyond the enclosed area for passengers a crowd of people sat on a mound of grass looking up at the ship, waving from time to time. Deira didn’t know if they were waving at people they knew, or if they were randomly waving because the ship was about to depart. It was nice to see them, though. Nice to think that people she’d never met before might be wishing her bon voyage.

  She felt a shuddering sensation beneath her feet as somewhere within the depths of the ship the engines throbbed into life. The smell of diesel mingled with the tarry whiff from the jetty and the salty tang of the sea. Huge seagulls screeched and wheeled overhead. The workers began loosening the heavy ropes. The ship’s vibrations increased. The people on the grassy bank waved again. And suddenly they were moving, slowly and ponderously, away from the shore, away from Ireland and out into the open water.

  Although not immediately into the open water, she realised. The ship still had to negotiate the harbour and the long channel that led to the sea. But they were on their way. Nobody could stop her now. She’d done it.
r />   Her mobile rang.

  She almost dropped it overboard.

  ‘Where are you?’ asked Gillian when she answered. ‘I got your automatic “do not disturb, I’m driving” message when I texted you earlier.’

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Deira felt a sudden fear in the pit of her stomach and thought of Gavin.

  ‘I wanted to ask you a favour,’ said Gillian. ‘Bex is going to Dublin tomorrow. She has an interview for a summer internship later in the week and she was hoping to spend a couple of nights with you. Her friend Lydia is going with her.’

  Deira stifled a groan. Her nineteen-year-old niece and god-daughter, Gill’s eldest child, often came to the capital and always assumed that there’d be a bed for her at Deira’s for the duration of her stay. Gill invariably made the same assumption on her own visits to Dublin. And although Deira was fond of Bex and usually enjoyed her company (if not always Gill’s), it drove her nuts that both of them invariably landed on her at the last minute, as though she didn’t have a life of her own.

  Though from Gill’s point of view, she probably didn’t. Not now, anyway.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said as she watched the emerald-green shoreline glide past, ‘but I’m away. So it’s not possible.’

  ‘Away? Where?’ asked Gill. ‘You didn’t say anything about it last time we talked.’

  You’re not in charge of me now. I don’t need to tell you everything I do. Deira steadied herself and bit back the remark.

  ‘I wasn’t sure I was going,’ she told her sister. ‘But then I decided I would.’

  ‘Where?’ demanded Gill again.

  ‘France,’ replied Deira.

  ‘France! When did you go and when are you back?’

  ‘I’m on my way now,’ said Deira. ‘And I won’t be back for nearly a month.’ That wasn’t strictly true. She’d be home in less than three weeks. But there was no need to tell Gill that.

  ‘A month!’ Gill’s words ended in almost a screech. ‘How on earth can you take a month off, Deira O’Brien?’