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

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  Grace knew that he was divorced with two children and that he’d been living on his own for the past five years. She remembered Ken sympathising over his situation, arguing that men came off worst in most divorces, usually having to leave the family home while still having to pay for it. But Grace knew nothing of the circumstances of Pat’s divorce, nor how old his children were.

  ‘Twenty-five and twenty-two,’ he told her when they’d sat at a table near the window and were exchanging pleasantries. ‘Michael is a psychotherapist. Angelique is studying engineering. And how are yours?’ he added. ‘Ken was very proud of them.’

  Grace smiled and told Pat that they were doing well. Then she decided there’d been enough chit-chat and asked about the USB. Pat took it out of his jacket pocket and put it on the table in front of them.

  ‘I’m surprised you’re here already,’ he observed. ‘Ken told me it might be some time before you came for it. If at all.’

  ‘Did he give you any instructions for if I didn’t contact you?’ she asked.

  For the first time, Pat, who until now had radiated a kind of urbane charm, looked uncomfortable.

  ‘Well?’ she asked.

  ‘He told me that if you didn’t contact me by the end of July, I was to get in touch with you and ask what had happened. And if you said you hadn’t gone on the trip, or hadn’t been able to solve the treasure hunt, I was to give you a different USB.’

  ‘There’s a second one!’ She looked at him in surprise.

  ‘There was,’ he said. ‘I destroyed it.’

  She looked at him in surprise.

  ‘That’s what he told me to do if you called me first,’ he explained.

  ‘And you really did destroy it?’

  ‘What else would I do?’ he asked.

  What else indeed. Grace was all too aware that in the same circumstances she – and every woman she knew – would have given it to the person it was intended for, regardless. She wondered if such a lack of curiosity was a male thing, or if academics generally were a special breed.

  ‘I know Ken would be thrilled that you’re here,’ said Pat. ‘He was excited about your treasure hunt.’

  ‘Was he indeed.’

  ‘He said it was to make you think,’ said Pat. ‘And to make you realise you could manage without him.’

  ‘I knew that already,’ said Grace.

  ‘Ken told me that you were very capable and competent, but he wasn’t sure you could think outside the box,’ said Pat.

  ‘You seem to have chatted rather a lot about me.’

  ‘We talked about our wives from time to time. After my divorce, he told me that I should find someone like you.’

  Grace was startled. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. He said you were the kind of wife every man should have.’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure that’s a compliment,’ said Grace. ‘It makes me sound far too much like a doormat. Which,’ she added, ‘I probably was.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ said Pat. ‘I doubt you could ever be anything other than very lovely.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You’re a lovely woman,’ Pat told her. ‘Elegant, attractive, smart – Ken was right in everything he said about you.’

  Grace felt herself blush.

  ‘Anyway, he also asked me to keep an eye out for you,’ Pat said. ‘You know, if you needed anything done around the house or help with . . . well, anything at all you might need a man for. Advice on stuff.’

  ‘So despite all my elegance, attractiveness and smartness, my late husband thought I needed a man to organise me?’

  ‘That’s not it at all,’ Pat said. ‘He told me you were very capable. But that he didn’t want you to have to do it all alone.’

  Grace said nothing.

  ‘He wanted to make sure that you’d be OK after he’d gone,’ said Pat.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I get that.’

  ‘So, if there’s anything at all I can do . . .’

  ‘You’re kind to offer,’ said Grace. ‘But the truth is, I was the one who organised everything around the house. And if anyone needed advice, it was me who gave it.’

  ‘I kind of suspected that might be the case,’ said Pat. ‘After all, I knew Ken.’ He smiled at her, and Grace couldn’t help smiling in return.

  ‘It was nice to see you again,’ she said after she’d drained her coffee cup. ‘And thank you for carrying out your designated duty so conscientiously.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ He stood up and she did the same. ‘I do realise that you’re perfectly capable of coping on your own. But I also know there’s more to life than coping. I’ve discovered that over the past few years. You have to get out and live it. I’d really like it if we could keep in touch. Perhaps meet up from time to time. Have dinner. Go to the theatre. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Should she feel complimented by the fact that Ken’s friend seemed to be hitting on her? wondered Grace. Unless Ken had asked him to. In which case it was a bit insulting.

  ‘I could call you later in the week,’ he suggested.

  ‘I’m not really in that frame of mind right now,’ she said. ‘Besides, I’m going back to Spain for a while.’

  ‘Oh.’ Pat looked disappointed. ‘Tell you what, I’ll send you a message if I see a play or a concert I think might interest you. If you’re around, you can think about it. No commitment either way.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Grace. She shook hands and walked out of the café. Pat Rice was a decent man, she acknowledged. But she didn’t want to form a relationship with another academic, no matter how decent he was. She’d done that already.

  Nor was she going to let Ken manage her future relationships.

  She could do that all by herself.

  Chapter 35

  Sutton, Dublin, Ireland: 5.3389°N 6.1103°W

  As soon as she arrived home, Grace sat at the kitchen table and inserted the USB into the laptop.

  There was a delay while the little wheel spun around and she was afraid that perhaps Ken had forgotten to leave her a final password clue. But eventually a screen opened with a link to yet another video.

  Once again the light seemed to emphasise the lines on Ken’s face and the fact that he was even more gaunt than in the last recording. His expression was serious. She hit pause, went to the fridge and took out a bottle of wine. She uncorked it, poured herself a large glass and took a gulp before she pressed play again.

  ‘So,’ Ken said. ‘Here we are for the final time, Hippo. You and me. Face to face. I hope it hasn’t taken you too long to work it all out. I gave you till July. Did you get it done more quickly? It infuriates me that I don’t know. That I’ll never know. But I’ve moved on, and so have you. I hope you won’t forget me, though. I hope you’ll always remember the good times we had together. I want to have been the most important man in your life.

  ‘If I had to sum up my own life, Hippo, it’s been good. That’s why I’m so frustrated by this cruel disease. I have so much more to offer and now I won’t have the chance. I’ve done things I’m proud of. I had a successful career. I gave lectures in many different places. I’m a critically acclaimed author. And I have a wonderful family.

  ‘A lot of that is down to you. I always knew that, but I never thanked you for making it the way it was. I suppose I should have. But I’ve never been much of a person for saying thanks.

  ‘So somewhat late, I do thank you for being the person you are. For being the kind of person who puts other people ahead of herself. Me, the kids, even Brett, the dog I know you never wanted and that you ended up having to look after – whatever we wanted was always ahead of whatever you wanted. You let me be the man I wanted to be and you raised our children to be their own people too. And none of us ever thanked you enough.’

  Ken started to cough, and reached out for the small bottle of water on the desk in front of him. Grace watched as he tried to bring it to his lips, wincing for him as the water dribbled down his chin and he wiped it clumsily away.


  ‘I suppose the lack of thanks up to now is because I’m not an emotional person. You’ve known that from the start, of course, and I know it bothered you sometimes. I would’ve tried harder, but it’s not who I am. I could never be an emoter rather than a thinker. It might be popular, but I don’t like sentiment. Even now, knowing I don’t have much time left, I find it hard to be emotional about it. Well, I’m angry, of course. I can do anger. I know I’ve lost my temper over this a number of times and I apologise if it upset you. I know you would have liked me to be more demonstrative. To tell you that I loved you more often. To hold your hand in public. I couldn’t do that, Hippo. Even for you.

  ‘But . . .’ he took a deep breath, ‘but I do love you. I loved you from the moment I first saw you at the door to the plane. I couldn’t keep my eyes off you, even though I was supposed to be working on the paper I’d brought with me. I made a mess of editing it and spent the next day going over it again. I knew I had to be with you, Hippo. It was fate. Maybe these days you’d call it arrogance or privilege to think like that. I can see how you would. But I only thought that way because you mattered so much. I knew, you see, that you were the right person for me. I knew you’d make my life better. I knew you’d be a great wife.’

  Grace paused the recording and got up from the table, taking her glass of wine with her. She walked out into the long garden filled with flowers and took deep breaths before sipping the wine. After a couple of minutes, when she felt more composed, she went back inside and hit the play icon again.

  ‘I remember telling you that beautiful women had all the power.’ Ken’s voice continued seamlessly, although it was clear that it was becoming more of an effort for him to keep talking. ‘I meant it, Hippo. You never knew the power you had over me. Not only because you’re beautiful, but because you’re such a strong person inside too. You never wielded that power, of course, even though you could have. I don’t know why. You would have cowed me. But you never tried.

  ‘And sometimes it made me wonder if you loved me as much as I loved you. I wondered if you simply couldn’t be bothered to tell me not to do things because it didn’t matter to you. I never asked that question because I was afraid of the answer. Afraid that maybe I didn’t matter as much as I wanted to. Yet not asking was a form of arrogance too. I wasn’t the best husband I could have been. And I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry I’ve only realised it now.

  ‘If you’re watching this, you’ve completed the task I set you. You did something for me when you didn’t have to, because I’m not there to know. But that’s the sort of woman you are. You’re loyal and dependable and you were my rock. Have you scattered my ashes? I keep imagining you flinging them off the balcony on the ferry. I bet you weren’t convinced about it. I bet you were worried about someone spotting you. About littering the sea. But I’m pretty sure you did it for me anyway. As for the remainder – I hope you held some back like I wanted – I’d quite like some left in Cartagena; you know how much I enjoyed going to the Roman theatre there. I don’t suppose they’d let you scatter them in a historical monument, but maybe you could leave a small amount somewhere. I don’t mind what you do with the rest. Your choice, Hippo. Whatever you want.’

  He took another awkward sip from his water bottle. Grace took a much larger gulp of her wine.

  ‘OK, now let’s talk about the treasure hunt,’ said Ken. ‘I thought of it when you first suggested we take the ferry to France and Spain. I understood why you wanted to do it, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew I didn’t want to take that trip, knowing it was for the last time. I didn’t want to go to places I’d loved, knowing I wasn’t ever going to see them again. And when I got a bit sicker and you said you’d do the driving, I couldn’t bear the fact that you’d taken control of it. I felt useless. And then you said to me that if I wouldn’t go, you’d go by yourself, remember? I wasn’t sure if you meant it then, but I suddenly thought it would be a good thing. I thought about your life after me, where you’d have to do so much on your own. I thought it might be nice to start with something different. So that’s why I decided on the treasure hunt. That’s what I’ve spent so much time doing in my office. You think I’m putting my affairs in order. Well, I am, I suppose, but not the way you think.

  ‘In the end, I reckoned you’d go because I knew you wouldn’t waste the ticket! You’re not a woman who likes anything to go to waste. Even now, it makes me smile when I remember you feeding the children stuff after the best-before dates. Aline was always so dramatic – crying that she’d die of food poisoning. And you’d laugh at her and tell her she’d die of starvation first because it was the out-of-date food or nothing. You were so strong with them. You raised them well.

  ‘Anyhow, Hippo, knowing you’d go, I wanted you to have something to do while you were there. Something to keep you anchored. Is that very arrogant of me too? I didn’t do it from arrogance, though. I did it for you.

  ‘I wanted you to see places we’d been through my eyes. To see the things I’d noticed but you hadn’t. I wanted to share them with you. To share how I thought about them. So that’s why I made you go to the Jules Verne museum in Nantes. I went there the year we stayed in Saint-Nazaire. It was the time Fionn fell out of the tree on the campsite and cut his leg, remember? After all the fuss of bringing him to the hospital and getting it stitched, I needed some time to myself, so I drove into town and found the museum. I never told you about it. I don’t know why. But now you’ve been and I’m glad, because I really enjoyed it and I hope you did too.

  We both loved La Rochelle, didn’t we? I’m sorry there were so many times I went off wandering by myself. Especially that evening we took the kids into town for supper. They were acting up and I couldn’t bear it, so I went for a walk. I remember leaving you with them in a pavement restaurant and wandering around the little book stalls near the port. I shouldn’t have left you to deal with them, I know, but the book stalls were far more appealing. I used to think they’d be the perfect setting for a crime novel, and so every time we went to La Rochelle, I thought of murders and mystery and Simenon. You know when you’d sometimes ask me what I was thinking, and I’d say “nothing”? I was actually plotting my own murder-mystery novel. Never got around to it, of course. It was always going to be “some day”. And now some day will never come. I regret that, Hippo. I don’t want you to have regrets in the future.

  ‘As for the Fleur d’Île, I ended up stopping there when I went for a walk the last year we visited La Rochelle. I had a drink there and I saw the dog. Isn’t she a beauty? At least I hope she’s still there and you saw her! I’m confident the plaque will be – and it must be because otherwise you wouldn’t be looking at me now.

  ‘I regret we didn’t spend more time in Bordeaux. I always meant to go back and explore it properly, but it’s too late now. The Spanish stretch – Pamplona, Alcalá de Henares and Toledo, all new to you; those are etched on my memory forever, and more than anything I wanted you to experience them as I experienced them. Because, of course, I wouldn’t have gone on that first lecture tour without your encouragement. Do you remember the evening at college? When the dean introduced the Spanish professor to us? You were more beautiful than ever that night, Hippo. Your hair was up – I always loved when you did it that way, you looked so elegant – and you were wearing a pale-yellow dress with beads around the collar. You’d bought a new pair of shoes to go with it. They had high heels and that meant you were taller than me. I kept trying to have someone standing between us so that you didn’t tower over me. You were a true Amazon that night. And you talked to Professor Rodriguez for ages. I was quite jealous. But afterwards he told me that you’d spoken about my work on the influences of American writers in Europe. And how I believed it was important to look at the cultural implications of writers from different countries being published overseas. He was very impressed with you. I didn’t say that, of course. Didn’t want you getting a big head.

  ‘Anyway, that’s how the ide
a of the lecture tour came about. It started my love affair with Pamplona, too. I guess I saw myself as a modern-day Hemingway, although obviously – despite the fact that the critics liked my book – I wasn’t. Still, I loved going there, and even though it was all thanks to you, when you asked me if you could come one year, I said no, because it was my thing. Mine alone. It was a place where I always felt good about myself. Alcalá de Henares and Toledo too. If you’d come, I wouldn’t have been able to pretend that I was some kind of academic genius, because you’d have talked about everyday things that would have made me realise I wasn’t.

  ‘God, Hippo, thinking about all this now makes me feel as though I was the most selfish husband who ever lived. Was I? I wish I could ask you that face to face. I wish we could have this conversation face to face. But I can’t. I don’t want to . . . well . . . it’s bad enough that you’re going to remember my broken body. I don’t want you to remember my broken mind too.’

  Grace paused the video again and closed her eyes, wrapping her arms around herself as she remembered the last time she’d seen him at the funeral home. Still Ken, but not Ken. He’d lost the arrogant look that had always been a part of him. And without it, he wasn’t the man she’d known. Ken’s body, without Ken’s mind, wasn’t Ken at all.

  She started the video again. He was speaking more slowly now, taking care forming his words, trying hard not to slur them. Her heart ached for him.

  ‘Granada,’ he said, ‘well, we had a couple of good stays there, didn’t we? The thing I loved about our first trip was going around the Alhambra with you. I think we shared the enjoyment of that equally. I know you loved it, and so did I, possibly for different reasons.

  ‘As for Lorca, naturally you weren’t interested in his work. What I liked about him was that he didn’t want to be typecast as a certain type of poet and playwright. In the end, I guess he was. It’s what we’re all afraid of, isn’t it? That people see us one way and one way only.