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

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  The last four months had been too busy for much reading. After handing in her notice to Solas Life and Pensions, she’d been obliged to take time off before starting with Arc. Accompanied by Bex, she’d gone to Paris, where she’d hired a sports car, dropped the roof and driven around the Arc de Triomphe with ‘The Ballad of Lucy Jordan’ blaring from the sound system. It hadn’t been the most relaxing of experiences, as the Parisian traffic had been every bit as terrifying as Grace had promised, but it had been exhilarating all the same.

  Bex had declared it one of the best times of her life. She’d been cheerful and positive throughout the stay, and even when she and Deira had a conversation about her decision to have an abortion, she didn’t get upset.

  ‘You might think differently,’ she’d said to Deira the evening they’d discussed it. ‘But it’s my body, my choice and my right to make it.’

  Deira would never say that she’d wished it had been different. Because even if her fantasy of raising Bex’s baby had been fulfilled, it still would have changed her god-daughter’s life in a way that she couldn’t know. And so she simply said that she loved and supported Bex and that she’d always love and support her, which made the younger girl finally tear up and tell her that she’d always love Deira too.

  They’d grown much closer on that trip, and Deira found that Bex’s quirky sense of humour and determination to do what she wanted matched her own. She told her that she was always welcome to visit her in Dublin, and Bex said that she’d be taking her up on that, because there were concerts scheduled for later in the year that she wanted to go to, and there was always the shopping – and then she laughed and told her not to worry, she wouldn’t land on her unannounced.

  Neither Gill nor Bex was staying with her for their time in Dublin now, because although Gill had initially suggested it, she’d then messaged Deira to say she’d got a great deal on a two-night stay at the Clayton that would be better all round given that Deira would surely be busy with the exhibition and wouldn’t have time to worry about them.

  Deira was astonished but relieved. Nonetheless, she planned to have lunch with her sister and niece the following day. Not being obliged to do something made it so much easier to want to do it, she thought. And she wondered if she truly was a contrary madam, as Gill had often called her in the past, or if her perception of her relationship with her sister had finally shifted for the better.

  ‘Deira. Looking amazing.’ Ardal, Arc’s CEO, bounded down the stairs to join her. ‘I couldn’t be happier with it.’

  ‘Neither could I,’ she admitted. ‘It’s exactly how I visualised it.’

  ‘OK, I love the exhibition, but I also love that we’re putting the company out there as being part of the community and part of the city,’ said Ardal. ‘And I know we have our corporate motives for wanting to do it, but it really matters to me personally too.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ said Deira. ‘I’ve loved working on it.’

  ‘I hope you’ll be working on many more,’ said Ardal.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Ah.’ Ardal nodded towards the glass doors. ‘Our first visitors have arrived. We’re on.’

  Grace was utterly blown away by the exhibition, which was bigger and better than she’d ever imagined. She wished that Ken could be here now to see people marvelling at his collection and talking about the books with such enthusiasm and eagerness. She wished he could have heard the speeches from the Minister and the Lord Mayor and Ardal and finally Deira, who recalled him as a lecturer passionate about words and literature who wanted his students to appreciate the power of the spoken and the written word.

  ‘At college, he constantly tried to make us strive to use words better, to understand the nuances of language and to appreciate the joy that books can bring us,’ she said. ‘He liked challenging us and being challenged, and that never left him. I’m proud and honoured to have been able to bring his amazing collection to the public, and I’d like especially to thank his wife Grace and their children Aline, Fionn and Regan for being with us here today.’

  Grace had been touched by Deira’s remarks and had accepted a tissue from Aline when a tear rolled down her cheek. But after the speeches, she’d been uplifted by the innovative way the books were displayed, and the posters and artwork that Deira had sourced to go with them.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Grace said when she got to speak to Deira afterwards. ‘But I invited someone else along. He’s only just arrived.’

  ‘Of course not. I told you you could bring as many guests as you like,’ Deira said. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Duncan,’ said Grace.

  Deira frowned. ‘Duncan?’

  ‘From the restaurant in Spain,’ said Grace. ‘Duncan Anderson.’

  ‘Grace!’ Deira looked at her in astonishment. ‘Are you and Duncan a thing?’

  Grace smiled slowly.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ Deira said with delight. ‘Well, I do, I thought he fancied you before, but . . . Oh Grace!’

  ‘He came some of the way back with me in my car,’ Grace explained. ‘He was going to the UK for a couple of weeks and it suited him to get the ferry from Santander. So we drove through Spain together and I got to see Santander for the first time. Then I did France on my own.’

  ‘You never said! You’re a dark horse and an amazing woman, Grace Garvey,’ said Deira. ‘You take my breath away.’

  ‘Well, it’s early days, and a long-distance relationship, so we’ll have to see how it works out.’ Grace brushed her hair from her eyes and her huge Adele Dahlia ring flashed in the light. ‘I’m not looking for someone to replace Ken, but even though we’re in different countries at the moment, the companionship is nice. Duncan is a lovely man.’

  ‘Good for you,’ said Deira. ‘What about Pat, though?’

  Pat had been very helpful in sorting through Ken’s collection, and over the last couple of months Deira had grown to like him.

  ‘He’s a decent guy, but he and Ken are very alike in many ways and I don’t want to end up with Ken Mark 2,’ said Grace. ‘Duncan is different. I’m ready for different.’

  Deira gave her a hug, then smiled as Duncan broke away from Fionn, who he’d been talking to, and made his way over.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘It’s great.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  They spoke for a while about the exhibition and about the restaurant, and then Deira was claimed by Ardal, who told her that the PR people were keen to do a short video about the exhibition and that they’d managed to set it up for the following day.

  ‘It’s a pity we didn’t think of it sooner,’ he said. ‘We could have filmed you at Grace’s house, looking through the books. But let’s see what they come up with.’

  ‘Let’s,’ she said, and then went to spend some time with Gill and Bex.

  It was after midnight by the time she got home.

  She kicked off her shoes and flopped on the sofa, and was asleep before she had time to light the restful candle Tillie had given her to celebrate.

  She woke up just before dawn, her neck aching from the odd angle at which she’d slept. But after she’d showered and changed into fresh clothes, she felt surprisingly refreshed. Arc Tech encouraged casual dressing, but Deira liked wearing the sharp suits she’d invested in during her time at Solas. Given that she’d be meeting the producer of the video that morning, and in case they wanted to do some recording there and then, she chose a red shift dress with matching jacket that brought out the warmth of her skin and the depth of her green eyes. She flicked her fingers through her hair and then added her newest red lipstick to her lips. She put her high-heeled Kurt Geiger shoes in her bag and slipped a pair of Skechers on her feet for the walk to the office.

  As she locked the front door behind her, she felt a wave of gratitude towards her new employers for the significant increase in salary that they’d offered her to take on the role. When Bethany Burke had called her back with the total package, she’d almost falle
n off the chair, and had had to hold herself back from jumping at it straight away. But she’d been cool and collected and raised one or two (in her mind) trivial issues with the headhunter, who’d then come back with a revised and even better offer.

  Because of that, Deira had been comfortably able to borrow enough to buy Gavin out of his share of the mews house. She smiled as she remembered his reaction to her handing in her notice at Solas – he’d called her and asked her to come to his office, where he’d asked what her plans were.

  ‘It’s not really your business any more, is it?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m concerned,’ he said. ‘I’m worried that you’re not going to be in a position to deal with your responsibilities if you leave the company.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about me in the slightest.’ Her voice was serene. ‘All you need to know is that I have a new job, I’m perfectly happy and there’s no issue financially that you have to worry about. So let’s get the valuation on the mews and see where we go from there.’

  ‘OK.’ He was clearly taken aback by her new-found positivity. ‘And you’re really all right?’

  ‘Yes, and I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Sorry that I gave you a hard time even though you deserved it. Sorry that I took the car without saying anything. Sorry about lots of things, really. I wasn’t myself back then. Now I am.’

  ‘Right. Thanks.’ He was even more taken aback.

  ‘I hope everything’s OK with you,’ she said. ‘You look a bit tired, to be honest.’

  ‘I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,’ he said. ‘Afton is—’ and then he’d broken off and looked at her again. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘I’m fine.’

  A couple of weeks later, Afton gave birth to a baby girl, whom they named Jewel. Deira hadn’t been sure how she’d feel when she heard the news, but although it initially upset her, she wasn’t plunged into the depths of despair and resentment that she’d feared. And although she didn’t send the new parents a card (they’d surely have thought that both inappropriate and slightly scary), she did send her congratulations to Gavin via her solicitor.

  The early-morning sun filtered through the trees that lined the canal as she walked to Hanover Quay. There was a stillness about this time of the day that appealed to her, as did the knowledge that the hours ahead could be filled with interesting things (boring things too, she admitted to herself, but in the light of the morning sun, she was giving the nod to interesting).

  Despite her early start, she wasn’t the first person in the office. Depending on their role within the company, Arc Tech employees worked a flexible timetable, which allowed them to start any time from five thirty a.m. and finish up to midnight. Deira had never arrived at the office at five thirty, but in the days leading up to the exhibition opening, she’d been there close to midnight most nights.

  The visitor space had been cleaned and tidied after the launch, and was now pristine and welcoming. She walked around it again, happy that every book was being showcased at its very best, still in awe of the professor’s collection and aware that some of the books were indeed quite valuable and therefore more of a treasure than Grace had ever imagined.

  She stopped in front of the rather dog-eared first edition of The Sun Also Rises that had been in the storage locker. The pages were yellowed and foxed with dark brown spots, but still readable. She’d downloaded a copy onto her Kindle app when she’d been given the go-ahead for the exhibition, but she had to admit that she hadn’t really enjoyed it any more on this reading than she had on her first. Also included in the display were Grace’s signed Maeve Binchy novels. Deira liked seeing their jaunty jackets among some of the more drab volumes. Light and shade, she thought. Always important.

  She took the lift to the fourth floor. Although Arc Tech was generally an open-plan building, Deira had a spacious office of her own with floor-to-ceiling windows that gave her great views across the canal dock. It was a bigger office than Gavin’s. And every time she thought of that, she smiled.

  It was almost eleven when Rhona Maguire, the company’s PR executive, dropped in to tell her that the video producer was waiting for her in the visitor space.

  ‘I’ll go down now.’ Deira slipped on the Kurt Geigers – she’d changed from the Skechers after arriving at the building, but usually kicked off her shoes when she was at the desk – then checked her face in her compact mirror, reapplied her Pirate lipstick and tidied her hair before heading for the lift.

  He was looking at a copy of James Plunkett’s Strumpet City, his back to her, when she stepped out into the visitor space. But she recognised him straight away and her polite words of greeting froze on her lips, so that it was the sound of her heels clicking on the tiled floor that made him turn around.

  ‘Hello, Deira,’ he said.

  ‘Charlie.’ His name came out as a croak. ‘Rhona didn’t say . . . She told me it was a video recording . . . I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘I don’t just get all the glam jobs interviewing people in France and Spain,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it’s the corporate work that pays the best.’

  She nodded, still at a loss for words.

  ‘So what she wants is a piece with you talking about the idea for the exhibition. Maybe showing us one or two of the books. Talking about Arc’s commitment to the community. I’ll be doing a piece with Ardal later. It should be all wrapped and ready before the end of the week.’

  ‘Right,’ she said.

  ‘You look great,’ he told her. ‘Very corporate.’

  ‘You look good too.’

  ‘I’m behind the camera. It doesn’t matter how I look.’ He gave her a short smile. ‘Now, the way this works is that Rhona has given me a list of questions. I’ll ask them off camera but I’ll film you answering them. I’ve been looking at the light and I think we should go over there.’ He indicated a corner of the visitor space. ‘Obviously I’ll be taking lots of shots of the exhibition generally. Sound OK?’

  She was overwhelmed by his businesslike approach. By his apparent dismissal of the fact that the last time they’d met she’d humiliated herself in front of him and had forced him to make personal admissions to her that she knew he would have wanted to keep private. But he was behaving as though none of it had happened. As though this was the first time they’d met.

  ‘OK?’ he repeated.

  He hadn’t changed; not, she reminded herself, that a few months should have wrought any great transformation in him. He was wearing the same scuffed leather jacket he’d worn on the ferry, and similar comfortable shoes. His jeans were stonewashed denim. His hair was still ever so slightly longer than was fashionable.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Great.’

  Had he forgotten that night, or was he choosing to ignore it? She might have been the one in the wrong then, but she was the client now. So he couldn’t afford to be offended by her. He couldn’t afford to let any residual feelings he had about her behaviour back then show. She held a power over him that she felt uncomfortable with. She wanted to say something, but he was already getting her to sit on a particular seat and moving around her, checking the angle of the light and how much of the exhibition would be in the shot.

  His phone rang and he had a brief conversation.

  ‘The sound guy,’ he told her when he’d finished. ‘He’ll be here shortly.’

  ‘Would you like a coffee or anything while we’re waiting?’ she asked.

  ‘No thanks. Plenty to be doing. Stay here, will you?’ He left her sitting in his chosen place and walked through the exhibition, taking occasional snaps of the books. Then a younger man arrived and the two of them chatted for a while before returning to where Deira sat.

  ‘I’m Jonah,’ said the younger man. ‘I’ll be wiring you up for sound. D’you mind if I run this wire under your dress? We’ll hide the box behind you. Perfect. Tell me what you had for breakfast.’

  She looked at him, startled.

  ‘To check the sound,’ he cla
rified.

  ‘Nothing, actually.’

  ‘That’s not helpful.’ Charlie raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ll have to make it up. Cornflakes, toast?’

  ‘Um . . . cornflakes, toast. Actually,’ she said, as Jonah fiddled with some settings, ‘I hate both of them. If I eat breakfast, I have fruit.’

  ‘Someone once told me that fruit isn’t good on an empty stomach,’ Charlie remarked. ‘Too acidic. I like toast myself. Smothered in chunky marmalade.’

  ‘I’m a millennial, so it’s smashed avocado toast for me,’ said Jonah. ‘OK, Deira. We’re sorted.’

  ‘Right,’ Charlie said. ‘We’ll do the seated questions first. Then I’ll ask you stuff as we walk around. It won’t all make it into the recording, and don’t worry if you make a mistake; we can do as many takes as we need. Don’t forget, you won’t hear my questions in the actual video, so remember to give as much information as you can. Ready?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let’s go. First one. What gave you the idea for the Written Words exhibition and why did you think this was a good place to stage it?’

  Rhona had emailed Deira the questions the previous evening so that she’d have some time to prepare her answers, but although she knew what she wanted to say, her mouth was dry with nerves.

  Charlie took a small bottle of water from his rucksack and told her to take a slug. ‘Take your time,’ he told her. ‘We’re not in a rush.’

  When she was ready, he asked the question again. This time she was able to give an answer that she hoped was coherent.

  ‘Great,’ he said. ‘OK, next one. How did you source the books?’

  Deira told him about the late professor’s collection and how generous Grace had been in allowing her to look through it.

  ‘How did you two meet?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘We joined forces on an unexpected road trip through France and Spain,’ replied Deira. ‘It was wonderful.’

  ‘Can you show me some of the collection?’