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

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  ‘I wonder what these letters are going to spell out,’ said Deira.

  ‘Another place, perhaps?’ suggested Grace. ‘Somewhere else he wants me to visit.’

  ‘Could be,’ agreed Deira.

  ‘Are you planning to continue the journey with me?’ Grace asked the question casually.

  Deira hesitated. She hadn’t given much further thought to her idea of abandoning Grace in Alcalá de Henares. It had seemed the right thing to do when they’d argued, but now she didn’t like the idea of walking away.

  ‘I’d be happy if you stayed,’ said Grace. ‘But it’s entirely up to you.’

  ‘I was angry at you because you were reading my mind and I was being stupid,’ said Deira. ‘I’m sorry. If you don’t mind having me with you, I’d really like to carry on.’

  ‘We’ve come this far together. It would be a shame to break up a successful partnership,’ Grace told her.

  Deira smiled. ‘True.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to have your breakfast in peace. There’s no rush to leave. It’s only an hour or so to Toledo. I’m going to go for a wander around the town again. Checkout is at eleven. D’you want to meet back here then?’

  Deira nodded.

  Grace walked out of the breakfast room.

  And both of them sighed with relief.

  While she lingered over the peppermint tea she’d decided would be better for her than coffee, Deira sent Bex a text asking if everything was OK at the house. Even though she’d initially been annoyed at her niece staying in her home, she felt terrible that she’d been caught in the crossfire between her and Gavin. But there was a part of her that was now happy to think that Bex was there and that Gavin and Afton couldn’t try to move in. At the moment, the two of them were living in an apartment that, Deira had learned previously, actually belonged to Afton’s parents. If she wasn’t so angry with Gavin, she’d think there was something a little sad about a fifty-seven-year-old man living in an apartment owned by the parents of his twenty-something girlfriend, but she didn’t have any room in her heart for sympathy.

  There was no response from Bex, so she spent some time checking social media, eventually turning, as she so often did these days, to Afton’s Instagram. Normally Afton posted half a dozen times a day, but there had been nothing for the past week. Deira wondered if Gavin had asked her not to put anything up because he didn’t want Deira to see their lives together. Whatever the reason for the other woman’s social media silence, there were still no updates.

  Having finished her tea, Deira filled her glass with more juice and sent a photo of the cloisters to Tillie. She was pleased to get a response straight away.

  Looks super chilled and mindful.

  Deira told her about the tombstones of the nuns.

  Their spirits are watching over you, was Tillie’s response.

  Deira doubted that. And anyhow, she wondered if the spirits of two women who’d died young, probably from some contagious disease, could possibly watch over her in any way other than with disgust that she was so crap at coping with life at her advanced age. Back then, when life expectancy had been so much shorter, she’d have been considered an old woman. And now, despite her sharp new hairstyle and embracing of scarlet lipstick, her body still didn’t think it was young. She thought of the statistics again. Even if by some miracle she did get pregnant, the chance of a miscarriage for a woman her age was 34 per cent; for a woman in her early twenties it could be as low as 9 per cent.

  She thought of all the times in the past she’d worried about being pregnant: when she’d been at college and had a couple of drunken one-nighters; the relationships that hadn’t gone anywhere but were important at the time; and a stupid encounter with one of her tutors that neither of them ever acknowledged again. She wondered if getting pregnant would have been the disaster she’d thought back then. Because if she’d had a baby when she was so much younger, that child would be an adult by now, and she’d have someone to call her own.

  Yet if that had happened, she wouldn’t be the person she was.

  And she didn’t know if that would be a good thing or not.

  Deira had offered to drive to Toledo, saying that it was a short journey and her ribs were completely healed now, so it was she who brought them through a mostly uninspiring, flat landscape, with industrial estates close to the motorway and brown fields in the distance.

  ‘We’re driving around Madrid,’ said Grace when Deira remarked on it. ‘So I guess everything is geared towards the city.’

  But as they approached Toledo, the road twisted upwards into the hills, so that when they reached the parador that Ken had booked for Grace (and where Deira had also managed to get a room), a spectacular view of the old city was spread out beneath them.

  ‘I didn’t realise we’d be outside the town, but it’s worth it for the view,’ said Grace after they’d checked in and were standing on the hotel’s outdoor terrace. ‘If this journey has proved one thing to me, it’s that there are some really lovely places in Spain, and I truly regret that Ken and I never made these journeys together.’

  ‘You should’ve done a blog of this trip,’ said Deira.

  ‘We should’ve, you mean,’ Grace said. ‘Women on tour.’

  ‘We could’ve added Ken’s treasure hunt to make it interesting.’

  ‘Maybe the people following us would’ve worked out the answers to the clues quicker.’

  ‘I dunno. We’ve solved them all in time so far.’

  Grace smiled and started to take photos of the old town in the distance. Meanwhile, Deira checked her phone. There was still no reply from Bex.

  Everything OK? she sent.

  She wasn’t worried about her niece because she knew that her generation didn’t respond to messages straight away. But given the situation the previous day, she was surprised that Bex hadn’t updated her.

  ‘I was thinking of lying out by the pool for a while before going into town,’ said Grace. ‘I’m sure we’ll find the Cervantes statue easily enough, and I’d rather trek around when it’s a bit cooler.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ said Deira, who was still feeling tired and dehydrated. ‘Besides, I know the answer to the second part, so we’re not under any pressure.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘You forget my artistic background.’ Deira grinned. ‘It’s El Greco, the painter. He lived and worked in Toledo. I can’t remember when he died, but that’s a quick Google search.’

  ‘Go, team!’ said Grace. ‘We’re totally owning this. In fact, we’re doing so well, Ken would’ve been disappointed. He’d have wanted me to struggle a bit more.’

  ‘Surely he’d be thrilled,’ said Deira. ‘He wouldn’t want you to miss out on the treasure, whatever it is.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Grace. ‘But . . . I think he thought it would be more like the treasure hunts you say he did for the students back in your day. No mobiles, no googling, just pounding the pavements.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ agreed Deira. ‘I guess it was hard for him to construct something like that when he was confined to the house.’

  ‘Poor Ken.’ Grace’s face clouded over. ‘Until the heart attack, he spent most of his time at his desk. Then he became addicted to action. And then he was diagnosed and he was stuck again.’

  Deira thought there was more sympathy in Grace’s voice than ever before. And it warmed her to think that her friend – because that was how she now considered Grace – was repairing her memories of her husband.

  ‘Anyway, I’m heading to my room now. See you at the pool later,’ said Grace.

  ‘Later,’ agreed Deira, and they went their separate ways again.

  Grace had been amused at Deira’s suggestion of a blog, as, although she hadn’t done anything public, she’d started to email a synopsis of each day to Aline, Fionn and Regan, attaching some of the photos she’d taken. She’d started it in Bordeaux and all three of them had urged her to continue. So when she went back to her room, she composed an email abo
ut her night out in Alcalá de Henares with Deira. As well as attaching photographs of the beautifully restored buildings, and the interior of the hotel (including the tombstones), she added the one of her, Deira and the university lecturers they’d met at the bar.

  It was a late night, she finished. But we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

  And that was true, she realised as she hit send. For the first time since Ken’s death, she hadn’t felt the weight of guilt pressing on her shoulders. It had started to lift when she and Deira had gone into the beauty shop and she’d shown the younger woman how to use lipstick. Grace had always felt that there was nothing more uplifting than wearing a bright-red lipstick and swirling blusher on your cheeks, no matter how bad you were feeling. Shallow though she supposed other people might have found it, wearing Rouge Allure had helped her any time she left the house after Ken’s funeral. But that had been a temporary lift. Now, it was different.

  When they’d been at the bar talking to the lecturers, Grace had joined in the conversation without once thinking of Ken or worrying that he would have been embarrassed by her lack of knowledge of the town and its cultural heritage. The men had been quite happy to answer the questions she’d asked, without thinking them stupid. And they’d been equally happy to share the bottle of wine with her and Deira. It had been both cheering and liberating and she’d returned to the hotel in a haze of positivity.

  She still felt positive.

  So positive that she wasn’t going to worry about baring her cellulite at the pool later.

  Deira was about to go down to the pool herself when Bex FaceTimed her. Deira usually confined her phone calls to audio, but when her niece actually made an effort to speak rather than text, it was always FaceTime. Bex was sitting on the sofa, her feet up, propping the phone against her legs. She looked tired and less groomed than usual, her honey-blonde hair pulled back in a scrunchy. Too many late nights in the city, thought Deira.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked. ‘Gavin hasn’t come back, has he?’

  ‘No,’ said Bex.

  ‘Good. I’m sorry he bothered you.’

  ‘He didn’t. Not really.’

  ‘It was wrong of him to come in all the same.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Deira frowned. Her niece appeared distracted and worried, even though she’d said everything was OK. Although actually, she hadn’t. She’d replied to the question about Gavin. Not about herself. ‘Is everything all right with you?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Bex rubbed her eyes.

  ‘Why sort of? Did you hear back about the internship? Didn’t you get it?’

  ‘I . . . I lied to you about that,’ said Bex.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I didn’t go to an interview.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Deira, although she was thinking that Bex had lied to her mother more than to her. She said so.

  ‘I had to lie to her,’ said Bex. ‘She would’ve killed me otherwise.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Deira. ‘Wouldn’t she have let you stay in Dublin without her?’

  Probably not, she thought as she spoke. Gill was the sort of woman who thought she was her daughter’s best friend, who thought it was fun to do things together. But mothers weren’t supposed to be best friends, not always. Sometimes they had to be mothers.

  ‘I had a different reason for coming to Dublin,’ Bex said.

  A boy, thought Deira. It was nearly always a boy when you were lying to your mother.

  ‘I couldn’t tell her and I couldn’t tell you,’ continued Bex. ‘But I’m here in your house and . . . and I have to talk to someone.’

  ‘You can talk to me, of course,’ said Deira, although Bex rarely confided in her, and she never expected her to.

  ‘I came to Dublin for a . . . for a procedure.’

  ‘What sort of procedure? A beauty job? Your nose? Your boobs?’

  Like every young person Deira knew, Bex was obsessed with her appearance. It took her at least an hour to get ready to leave the house, thanks to a routine that involved the application of more products than Deira even knew existed, while her insistence on using at least half a dozen specialist concoctions meant that going to bed took almost as long. However, Bex reserved particular displeasure for her 34B chest, saying that her assets were paltry in comparison with those of her friends. The last time she’d stayed with Deira, she’d talked about surgery, and Deira, feeling old beyond her years for not thinking this was a good idea, had tried to persuade her otherwise.

  ‘No,’ said Bex in reply to her question. ‘I stopped thinking about that ages ago. This was . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ Bex’s frustration came through in the words. ‘Can’t you guess what sort of procedure I’d have and not tell my mother because she’d kill me?’

  It took a moment before realisation hit Deira, then her hand tightened on her phone.

  ‘An abortion?’ She almost whispered the words. ‘Was that it? Did you have an abortion, Bex?’

  ‘I couldn’t have a baby. I just couldn’t.’ Bex started to cry. ‘It’s the right decision for me, I know. I’m relieved I did it. I don’t regret it. Not at all. But I keep thinking of going home and not saying anything to Mum and I’ll want to. So I had to tell you instead.’

  For the first time in her adult life, Deira was completely speechless. She concentrated on keeping her expression as neutral as she could, but she couldn’t form the words to comfort her niece because she didn’t have them. She didn’t know how to tell Bex that she supported her one hundred per cent when all she wanted to do was yell at her and say that she could have had her baby and that she, Deira, would have taken care of it and that it would have been the best solution for everyone. She couldn’t tell her that her heart was broken. That wasn’t what Bex wanted to hear. But it was the only thing Deira wanted to say.

  ‘It was . . . it was a one-off thing,’ Bex continued into her silence. ‘I didn’t say no that night, but I wanted to. He wasn’t . . . We’re not . . . Well . . . it was easier to let it happen than to argue about it. But I’m not on the pill. I was going out with someone and we were fine, we used protection, but we split up and I went off with some friends and it was a party and we all had a bit too much to drink and . . . It was my own fault, really. I should’ve . . . I could’ve . . . I didn’t say no.’ The tears streamed down her face.

  ‘It’s not all your own fault.’ Deira hardly recognised her own voice. ‘It’s not. You can’t think like that, Bex.’

  ‘I didn’t believe I was pregnant. That it had happened to me,’ said Bex. ‘I mean, who truly thinks it’ll happen the first time with someone? And it was only ever going to be the one time with him.’

  ‘Did you tell him?’

  ‘No!’ Through her tears, Bex looked horrified. ‘No. I couldn’t. His parents are . . . they’re well known in town. And he’s . . . he’s engaged to someone else.’

  ‘Oh Bex.’

  ‘He wouldn’t believe me if I told him, I know he wouldn’t. He’d say it wasn’t his. And if I said anything different, they’d trash-talk me all around the town. I’d be the one who was in the wrong. I’d be called all sorts of names. It’s always the girl who’s in the wrong. It’s always the girl gets called a slut. They’d say I was drunk and I didn’t know who I was with. That it could’ve been anyone. They’d drag up all sorts of stuff about me even if it wasn’t true.’

  ‘Bex, you said it was your fault and it’s not, it’s really not. But I have to ask you – you said it was easier to go along with it. Did he rape you?’

  ‘No. It was . . . it was a mistake. And I’ve fixed it. That’s all.’

  Deira closed her eyes. Her heart went out to her niece, who was hurting so badly but who was absolutely right about how she would be perceived by everyone around her. It would be all very well to say she’d been too drunk to consent, but many people would judge her for getting drunk in the first place. Deira understood exactly what had made Bex take the dec
ision she had. She wanted to comfort her and to assure her that she loved her. Yet Bex had gone for a termination, when Deira herself would have given anything to have a baby of her own.

  She had always vehemently believed in a woman’s right to choose. She still did. It wasn’t for her to make judgements about anybody else’s choices. Nobody could understand the full circumstances except the woman making the choice herself. But she wished that Bex’s had been different. She wished her niece had confided in her before she’d taken an irrevocable step.

  ‘You won’t tell Mum, will you?’ asked Bex.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You don’t think I’m a whore, do you?’

  ‘No! Bex, sweetheart, of course I don’t. How could you even think that?’

  ‘I had sex with someone I hardly knew who’s going to marry someone else. And I got pregnant. So I’m . . . I’m . . .’

  ‘He had sex with you when he was engaged to someone else. And he got you pregnant. He’s as much a part of it as you, even though you’re the one who had to make hard choices,’ said Deira. ‘Don’t for one minute blame yourself.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Bex sniffed. ‘Thank you for saying that. Thank you for understanding. I knew you would.’

  ‘Bex, did you have this done yesterday?’ asked Deira. ‘Had you come home from the clinic when Gavin turned up?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bex.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Deira said. ‘You should have been able to stay there in peace and quiet, not have Gavin tramping around the place like some kind of wrecking ball.’

  ‘Oh, it’s OK,’ said Bex. ‘I went to bed when he left. I . . . Well, your sheets need cleaning. I put them in the wash today, but they’re not—’

  ‘Will you not worry about stuff like that!’ cried Deira. ‘I’m more concerned about you, Bex. Is your friend still with you?’