Runaways

by Carolyn McCrae

  The earliest were from when I had only been with Jonathan for a few weeks. He must have planned from the very beginning to isolate me from my friends and family. He would have been in touch with Ramesh all that time, taking his instructions. That birthday, 1983, I hadn’t really expected many cards, especially with the wedding, but I had been upset not to get one from Ted or Maureen. When we had got back from our honeymoon and I had mentioned in passing that there were no birthday cards waiting for me, he had poured some more wine and asked me sarcastically if he wasn’t enough for me.

  I opened an envelope which had a birthday card in it, signed With love always, Maureen. Inserted in the card was a note in Ted’s recognisably neat handwriting.

  My dear Annie, or are you Susannah again?

  This is just a short note to wish you both all the luck in the world.

  Don’t lose touch, always remember that, whatever you may think, you are very dear to a lot of people.

  There were Christmas cards postmarked 1983. I recognised Ted’s writing and read another note.

  I am so disappointed you haven’t been in touch, perhaps life is too hectic.

  Write when you get a chance

  With my love.

  Ted

  I had sent them cards. I had written. It was so unfair that they thought I hadn’t.

  There were others, from Linda and Charles, and scribbled notes from Josie and the boys. They would think I hadn’t wanted to keep in touch with them. I hated people thinking badly of me, especially when it wasn’t my fault.

  All those years with Carl I hadn’t replied to letters as I should have done. These, however, were letters I had never had the opportunity to read and would have opened and replied to enthusiastically if I had ever known of their existence.

  None of the letters were addressed to ‘Susannah Smith’, they were all to me as ‘Donaldson’.

  They could never have been sent wedding invitations. He had been working with Ramesh to isolate me from them all from the very beginning and I had gone along with it.

  It seemed very important to talk to someone, to explain that it wasn’t my fault that I hadn’t been in touch, that they mustn’t think badly of me; that I needed them. I picked up the phone and dialled Maureen’s number, I didn’t even have to look it up.

  There was no reply.

  I tried Ted’s number.

  The voice that answered was unfamiliar.

  “Ted?”

  “I’m afraid not. You must have the wrong number.”

  I repeated the number I had dialled.

  “That’s my number. Perhaps you’re calling a previous occupant. I’ve only been here a few months.”

  “Have you got a forwarding address? A new number?”

  “Sorry, no.” The man’s voice was pleasant, with a noticeable, but not unpleasant, Merseyside accent.

  “Sorry to have bothered you.”

  I tried Maureen’s number again. Again no reply.

  I tried Ted’s office. I knew there would be no one there at this time of night but thought there might be an answering machine. There was no reply. I went to my address book and checked the number. I had remembered it wrongly and with my sense of panic barely in check I dialled again. That number was unobtainable. I tried directory enquiries. ‘No, there is no company of that name listed in Liverpool. And no there is no Mr Edward Mottram either.’

  It was my fault, but I had cut myself off from these people I had loved and who had loved me and now I couldn’t re-connect. I clenched my fists and gave way to tears.

  When I began to think again, rather than just feel loneliness and fear, I looked down at the address book in my hand. My thumb was keeping it open in the Ms. Mottram, McKennah, McNamara, and Me. There was the phone number of the flat and it made me think of Jonathan, passed out on his bedroom floor.

  But that had been several hours ago. He would be awake now, aware that I had gone. He would have sobered up and would check my room, he would see that I had taken many of my things. His first instinct wouldn’t be regret or pain, it would be to stop the credit cards and tell the bank not to honour any of my cheques. Could he have done it already?

  In five minutes I was at a cash machine withdrawing £100. My relief was enormous when it gave me both the money and the card back. I had visited four more machines, gradually increasing the sum requested, before one didn’t return my card. I was not unhappy, I had enough cash to see me through a few weeks and it seemed Jonathan had not managed to put a stop on anything. If I checked out early in the morning I should be OK. On my way through the foyer at the hotel I asked the concierge to arrange a first class return rail ticket.

  I had to go back to Hoylake.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The following afternoon I was in a taxi being driven from Liverpool Lime Street station through the Mersey tunnel, the streets of Birkenhead, over the sandstone of Bidston Hill and across the Wirral to Hoylake I wondered whether my mother had felt this much of a stranger when she had returned.

  I checked in at the hotel and in the fading light of the January day I made the once familiar walk down the long straight road by the golf course towards Sandhey. Instead of turning into the drive I carried on down the slipway and onto the sandstone rocks.

  I stood for some minutes looking out over the wet sands towards Hilbre Island, those sands where I should have drowned over 20 years before. There were a few hardy people throwing sticks for golden retrievers in the blustery winds coming off the Irish Sea in late January. It was the same time of year as my mother’s funeral. If she had lived she would have been a pensioner now, 65. I found it difficult to picture her, let alone imagine what she would have been like had she lived. She had only just managed 50. She would have been 44 when she had come to my first wedding. The reception was held in the garden behind the wall I was now leaning on. Weddings, funerals and birthday parties, they all seemed to have been held in this garden, such was the control Max had over our family’s life.

  ‘The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there’. Where did that come from? I stared across the sands, hearing the hauntingly familiar cry of the gulls. What is it about being in a particular place that brings such obscure memories flooding back so clearly?

  I rang the doorbell of Sandhey. Looking around me as I waited for the door to be answered I was pulled out of my reflective mood. The windows were badly in need of repair and decoration, the pebbledash was cracked and splitting away from the walls, exposing brickwork. Even the garden, usually so neat in its winter hibernation, seemed unusually neglected and unkempt.

  Monika finally answered the door. It was more than eight years since she had stood on this doorstep waving me and the children off as we left with Carl to start our new life. I know I had aged in those years, but where Monika had seemed a young woman when I last saw her she was now an old one. Middle age had passed her by. She would be in her 50s yet she seemed 20 years older, as old as Edith had been when I had last seen her.

  Her first words ‘we aren’t expecting visitors, you should have telephoned’ were hardly welcoming but she did eventually move aside to let me in. As I took off my coat I looked around at the hallway I had known so well. I remembered brushing the stair carpet on my hands and knees hoping every minute that Carl would ring. That would have been 1963. Minutes passed and I was still alone in the hall. I walked around the walls, under the stairs, remembering standing with David looking at the Schiele and holding the conversation that had been the beginning of so much for me.

  But the picture wasn’t there.

  I had only a few moments to look around and realise that all the walls were practically bare, all the original paintings now replaced by small, cheaply framed photographs of Max with a variety of famous people before Monika ushered me into the drawing room.

  They may exist in the traditionally accepted sense of ethereal beings with lives of their own but my understanding of ghosts is what I saw as I walked into Max’s presence.

>   Standing by the fireplace was the ghost of Charles, looking disapproving, as he had done the evening of our mother’s funeral; Maureen stood by the drinks cabinet and Ted was sitting in the chair by the fireplace. There were other figures, Graham, Edith, I could almost see us all in this room still holding the same taut conversations as we had that evening.

  For a few fractions of a second we were all here, just as we had been years ago.

  “We were not expecting you.” Max asked, he was nearly 80 but I was still surprised at how old he looked.

  “Sir Max disapproves of surprises.”

  “Sir Max?” I asked remembering my argument with Carl.

  “Sir Max.” Monika replied with emphasis. Max’s efforts with giving to charity and political parties must have paid off. I had missed the announcement.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t know I was coming until yesterday.”

  I didn’t like to add that I thought they might have been pleased to see me, but perhaps it had been thoughtless of me. There was no warmth in their welcome, though Max was impeccably polite. We sat drinking tea, making conversation in a detached way. I looked at the bare bookshelves and the walls empty of the valued pictures of the past.

  “You live in London?”

  “Yes, I have been living in London.” I qualified my answer. Now wasn’t the time to explain my changed circumstances. I didn’t even know if they knew I had been married. I was saying nothing that was unnecessary, it would only lead to awkward questions. But I saw my opportunity.

  “Yes, Uncle Max.” I was not going to call him ‘Sir’. “I have been living in a flat in Connaught Square.”

  I didn’t imagine the change in his expression, though slight it was detectable. I continued unnaturally cheerily. “It’s a lovely old building with many original features such as the cornices and the fireplaces. It’s not one of those flats that has been recently developed. I understand the block belonged to the government for many years and they’ve only just started selling bits off. My room had a lovely view, I could almost see the park.”

  He understood what I was trying to tell him.

  “Look, I have a photograph here…” I rummaged in my bag.

  “I don’t think so.” Max waved his hand dismissively. But he knew I knew.

  “I’ve enjoyed living in London, it’s been so easy to go to museums and art galleries, I’ve grown quite fond of some early 20th Century artists. You had some lovely examples here didn’t you? I didn’t see them in the hall?” Perhaps I was pushing him too hard.

  “They’ve been put away for safe keeping.” Monika answered firmly.

  “Have you seen your brother?” Max asked, perhaps trying to change the subject.

  “I haven’t seen him for years.”

  “But don’t you live close by?”

  I thought he must be confused. “I’ve lived in the south for years now, Max.”

  “He never writes.”

  Why would he write? Perhaps they had fallen out. Perhaps Max had finally seen through Charles and their long friendship had finally petered out.

  “He was an ungrateful, spiteful boy.” I had never known Monika say anything critical of Charles. “You don’t want to know where he is, Sir Max. Remember, you don’t have anything to do with him. Not since he took up with that woman and those delinquents.” She looked at me defiantly as we both knew she was talking about my children.

  Max lapsed into the self-pitying memories of the old. “He did change. He was a good, thoughtful, boy. He was no trouble at all and then he changed …” His voice tailed off and, obviously deciding not to share his thoughts and he sat quietly sipping his tea, with Monika fussing about him in case he spilt the hot liquid and burned himself.

  “You must go soon.” She said without warmth. “Sir Max is getting tired.” I had once been her ‘little girl’ and she my ‘nanny’. But that was a long time ago and we hadn’t spoken as friends for years. “You will want to be at the station before it gets dark.”

  Max interrupted her with something of his old authority. “No, Monika, I want to talk to Susannah and I’m well able to speak for myself.”

  Monika did not like the reprimand and hurried to tidy away the tea tray and the biscuits. In the old days there would always have been sandwiches and small cakes for tea, even when there were no visitors ‘just in case anyone pops in.’ Times were obviously harder.

  “Susannah. Please, follow me.”

  Max’s study had always been out of bounds. I could remember being in the room only twice in my life and this was the first time I had been invited in.

  He walked steadily, if slowly, around his desk and sat down, gesturing for me to sit in the armchair by the fireplace. “Well, young, lady, you have been doing some investigating.” He chuckled, it was a strange sound and I wondered whether it was going to turn into a cough but he cleared his throat and continued, not expecting me to answer. “I am not surprised, indeed I am delighted that you show an interest in your family. And you are quite correct, I am familiar with Connaught Square.”

  “Can you answer a question that has been worrying me?”

  “I will try, though much of what you want to know is written down in these papers, locked away in this drawer until I die.”

  “Why?”

  “Is that your question? Or are you asking me why I don’t want people to read my papers until I am gone. That is easy to answer; because it will hurt.”

  “You’ve never worried about hurting people in the past have you?”

  “That is both unfair and untrue. I have done everything in my power not to hurt people.”

  “Where do I begin? The people whose valuables you stole before the war?”

  He was unapologetic. “They would have been stolen anyway.”

  “But you made no effort after the war to return them to their owners.”

  “They would have been dead.”

  “You used all that wealth to live a life of luxury. Didn’t you feel in the least guilty?”

  “I was guilty only of one thing, Susannah, I survived. That is where my guilt lies. I have survived where millions didn’t.”

  “And what about Graham? And Holly’s father?”

  “What about them?”

  “When they became inconvenient you managed to have them removed.”

  “I have friends in powerful places who were kind enough to help.”

  “I wouldn’t call David a ‘friend’, would you?”

  Max hesitated, perhaps wondering how much I knew and whether I was bluffing. “He is dead. I need not call him anything.”

  We paused in our sparring and I looked at the empty grate.

  “What was your question?” Max asked after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

  “Where has all your money gone?” It was not the question he had been expecting. “Max, it’s obvious. The house and garden are falling apart, they need money spending on them, repairs that would have been done automatically have been neglected. The paintings have gone, they’re not ‘in safe keeping’ are they? They’ve been sold or stolen haven’t they? Where has all the money gone because its gone hasn’t it?”

  “I have enough to live out my life.”

  “What about Monika?”

  “She will be provided for.”

  “What about the others, they all expect something of your millions.”

  “Including you Susannah?”

  “No. Not including me.” He seemed to accept what I said.

  “The money was never mine.”

  “I know.” He looked up from the table where he had been doodling on the large sheet of blue blotting paper as I continued. “As long as you looked after David’s family.” He continued doodling to hide his interest in how much I had found out. “But then you stopped spending it on Alicia’s children.”

  “You had no need of it.”

  “You didn’t give it all to charity, did you? How much of it was stolen? How many of your paintings, you art, your silver, y
ou wine? You used what you could, you used what was available, but the rest was stolen. Who stole it? Do you know? Do you care?”

  “It was your delinquent children. They stole it.” There was something in the way he half looked up towards me that made me realise he knew that was a lie.

  “No they didn’t. It was someone else? Someone you knew?” I was persistent.

  He was saying nothing. I decided to change tack.

  “Did losing all your wealth salve your guilty conscience?”

  “I am guilty of nothing. I have done no harm. I have done nothing that hundreds of others have not also done. I have nothing to be guilty about.”

  “But little to be proud of either.”

  Max’s face broke slowly into an unconvincing smile. “It is amusing.” His tone was conversational rather than confrontational but he was not relaxed.

  “What is?”

  “How like your mother you are. She was an intelligent woman, very beautiful and very talented but she was no good with men. You are argumentative and strong. Men don’t like that. Are you married? I see no ring on your finger but there is the mark where one has been. You see I notice these things, just because I am old don’t think I can’t see. Your mother chose her men unwisely. Arnold was never going to be a good husband to her. Me? I was never going to give her security or standing in society. Ted? Now he would have been good for your mother. He was steadfast and honest but she never looked at him as anything other than a shoulder to lean on. Now you, you wasted so much of your young life on Witherby, then Parry, now this latest man, a weak man and a disaster too? You think you are the strong one, I think so too, so find someone who is even stronger than you, someone who is steady and secure, someone who loves you for who you are not who you think you are. If you are not careful you will be like your mother and not find that special one. You will not find him unless you keep your eyes open. Your mother lived her life with her eyes shut. Make sure you do not do the same.”

  He was a different man from the one who had been sipping tea under the eagle gaze of Monika. He seemed to be speaking caring words but there was no sympathy in them. He sounded bitter. “Take care or you will miss him. You cannot go through this life without your soul mate.”