Runaways

by Carolyn McCrae

  I looked over my shoulder at the table behind, half expecting David to be sitting there watching us.

  At the end of the meal Carl lifted his glass towards mine, “Happy birthday Alicia.”

  I lifted mine and touched it to his. “Happy birthday Mother. She would have been 66. It’s impossible to think of her that old. You know you never remembered my birthday or our anniversary. Have you any idea how much that hurt?”

  He emptied the glass and signalled to the waiter for another. We sat in silence as the new bottle was opened with due ceremony and our old glasses were removed from the table to be replaced with clean new ones. He lifted the new glass towards me, and I lifted mine to his and they touched. “Happy Anniversary Alicia and Arnold.” We were being forgiving on this last night.

  “Happy Anniversary.” He replied. “How many years would it have been?”

  “She married on her 21st birthday so 45.”

  “You know my mother and he were together long before he married your mother don’t you?”

  “I’ve never really thought about it.”

  “Well I have. There’s so much we don’t know but what I do know is that my father loved my mother. He couldn’t have known they were brother and sister. I will never believe he knew that. I believe he loved her but was told not to marry her so he married Alicia. I believe he never loved your mother, that was a marriage of convenience. As soon as he could he married my mother. He wouldn’t have done if he’d known they were brother and sister.”

  “After all these years it still hurts.”

  “Of course it hurts. It’s the most important thing in my life.”

  “Oh Carl. You should have forgotten all this years ago.”

  “How could I? How can I? It’s where I come from. It’s me.”

  “Carl. You are you. Not your parents, or your grandparents. You are what you make of you.”

  “No, Susie, That’s where we’re different. You have managed to do that, to separate yourself from your parents…

  “That’s because I never really knew them.”

  “… but I can’t. I’ve tried. Every day I’ve tried not to be my father’s son, my grandfather’s grandson. I’ve tried and I’ve never managed it. Every time I do something I see Arnold or Kathleen in it. I see the fact of their incest. There is no way I can get away from it. Ever. I’ve tried and I can’t.”

  I listened to the pain in his voice. It was real and it went very, very deep. He had spoken quietly and deliberately, no one could have heard what he was saying or how much it hurt him. Ted had told me how much it hurt him and I hadn’t helped.

  “I’m sorry Susie, but I can never forget what they were. It’s not you, it’s not anything that you have done, it’s me. I can never, ever, forget that I should never have been born. I can’t forget it. It is as much part of me as …” he held out his hand to me “… this, my hand. I can’t chop it off, I can’t get rid of it. It is part of me. I am dirty, I am tainted, I am the child of incest.”

  For so many years I had thought that incest was not so bad. All the years I had thought Carl was my brother and I hadn’t cared, all I had wanted was to be with him, but he had cared about incest. He knew what it really meant. I felt so sorry that I hadn’t understood him years ago.

  “You tried.” I spoke gently, I hoped gently enough. “You really tried Carl, you took us on, you looked after us those years in Cambridge, you really tried.”

  The waiter came and cleared the table, running a stupid little roller over the tablecloth to get rid of any crumbs. What he made of our earnest, quiet conversation I don’t know. Perhaps he didn’t hear much of it.

  “I didn’t try hard enough to help did I? Ted told me you needed me more than I needed you but I never believed him. I should have done shouldn’t I? All the time it was you who needed someone to build confidence and I thought it was you who was there to help me.”

  I looked at Carl. His hair, always long as if this were still the 1960s tied behind his neck in a pony tail, was turning grey. His eyes, so blue and so deep were set in a face that I realised I had never really known.

  “We’ll always be friends won’t we?”

  “Absolutely always.”

  “You’ll always come to me when there is absolutely no one else and you need help won’t you?”

  “Absolutely always.”

  We finished the rest of the bottle in silence, looking out over the lights reflected in the river.

  At six o’clock the next morning, when we had spent our last night together, Carl stood in the window. I looked at his naked body knowing this really was the last time I would see him like this. I got out of bed and stood next to him, he put his arm around me and I leant my body against his.

  “Whatever happened to ‘Happy Ever After’?” He asked wistfully.

  “Or of life ever being fair?”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Christmas 1986 was a particularly bad time. The weather was dire and I watched too much television and drank too much wine. On Christmas Day the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film lasted a bottle and when it finished I sat on the sofa feeling very sorry for myself reflecting on the year. I wasn’t looking forward to 1987.

  On New Year’s Eve I could stand being on my own no longer and called Maureen’s number.

  I didn’t recognise the voice that answered, it was a man’s voice but not Ted. I could hear laughter and music in the background, almost like a party.

  “Is Maureen in?”

  “Who? Sorry. It’s a bit difficult to hear, hang on a moment while I close the door.” I heard footsteps on Maureen’s wooden floor, and could even picture the mat which muffled the man’s footsteps for a few seconds as he walked to the door. It was so familiar to me, the corridor with the phone, the furniture in the room behind the now closed door. I pictured myself sitting with Ted and Maureen around the fire in that room. Who were these people? Had Maureen moved? Were these new occupants? So many thoughts went through my head as the man came back to the phone.

  “Sorry about that, I couldn’t hear you. Who was it you wanted?”

  “Maureen. Maureen Sheldon. Does she still live at this number?”

  “Oh Maureen! Yes, Shall I tell her who’s calling?” The man was very polite, very well spoken. I decided he had a lovely voice.

  “Annie. Can you tell her it’s Annie.”

  “Hang on a sec.” The name seemed to mean nothing to the young man but I heard the silence after he had opened the door and announced “Maureen, there’s a lady called Annie on the phone for you.” After a few moments I recognised Linda’s voice. “Did you say Annie’?” She did not seemed pleased.

  “Yes. Why? Is there a problem?” The young man seemed worried that he hadn’t just put the phone down. “Should I have hung up?”

  There was a period of quiet, even the music had stopped.

  Then I heard Ted’s voice “I’ll go.”

  I listened to his footsteps on the bare boards, then muffled by the rug. I could picture him approaching the phone. I shouldn’t have called. I was expecting to speak to Maureen, I was expecting her to be alone, as I was. I wasn’t expecting her to be having a family gathering; a gathering of my family. Linda was there, was Charles? If there were there perhaps that well-spoken, polite young man was my son. Who else was there? Josie? Did she have a boyfriend? Did the boys have girlfriends? So many thoughts in such a short time. And I had no idea what I was going to say.

  “Annie? Susannah? Is that you?”

  “Hello Ted. Happy New Year.” I tried to sound casual.

  “Oh Annie, it is so good to hear your voice.” He sounded as if the weight of years was lifting from him. “How are you? Where are you?”

  I responded in kind, happy and relaxed. “I’m fine. I’ve missed you.”

  “We’ve all missed you Susannah. Where are you? There’s so much to say. Give me your phone number, your address. Don’t hang up.” He sounded frantic at the prospect. I was flattered and relieved.
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  “I wasn’t going to.” It was so good to hear the familiar reassurance in his voice. I was crying as I recited my phone number.

  “You’re in London?” He said recognising the dialling code.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “We thought you were in New Zealand.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Never mind now. Can I come to see you? Tomorrow? I can’t come now I’ve had a few glasses of wine.”

  “It’s probably not a good idea to drive on New Year’s Eve anyway.” I couldn’t believe I was holding a perfectly normal conversation.

  “No. Where are you? I’ll come tomorrow morning.”

  I gave him the address.

  “Do you need directions?”

  “I’ll find it.”

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say and I didn’t want to hang up. Ted must have heard me sniffling into a tissue.

  “Annie, it really is lovely to hear from you. Thank you for calling. It couldn’t have been easy.”

  Still I couldn’t say anything. Four years seemed a very long time.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  The phone went dead and I sat on the floor looking at the phone in my hand and I cried.

  The next morning I spent more time cleaning the flat ready for my visitor.

  After the divorce I didn’t need to stay in the flat. I had hated its dingy decoration and incongruous assortment of furniture. It was always cold and I didn’t like Caroline and her endless stream of one-nightstands. But since it was convenient I had asked her to leave. The landlord agreed that I could live rent free for a year if I paid for a complete refurbishment. He got a very good bargain but I had a flat that suited me. As I tidied and hoovered around I wondered what Ted would make of it, a very well appointed flat in a very dingy area.

  I worried about what to wear and changed several times, finally settling on a pair or camel slacks and a grey polo neck sweater. I looked critically in the mirror and wondered what changes Ted would see. I had lost weight. I had grey in my hair, which needed cutting. It was important that Ted approved of what he saw.

  I didn’t know what time he would arrive and at 10.30 I was standing in the window watching for a car. I didn’t know what car he had, perhaps still the Rover he had driven me to Sevenoaks in four years before. There wasn’t much traffic and the time passed very slowly. It was past 11 when a sports car pulled into the parking area that had once been the front garden of the house.

  I hardly recognised him. Where I had aged ten years in the past four Ted was ten years younger.

  I stood outside the door and listened as he ran up the stairs two at a time.

  “Annie! Oh Annie!” He put his arms around me and hugged me so hard I had to ask him to let me breathe.

  “Oh sorry, I’m hurting you! But it is so very good to see you.”

  “We’d better go in.”

  After the initial hugs and when I had wiped away my tears we settled down with mugs of coffee. There had been many times in my life when I hadn’t seen Ted for years on end and we had always taken up where we had left off. When I went back to Hoylake after my four years at Sussex conversation hadn’t been stilted or strained between us. We had stood together in the garden of Sandhey and talked as if we had seen each other every day. There had been no awkwardness or embarrassment. But when he had come to Linda’s rescue and stayed those few days with Maureen things had got a bit awkward and now I didn’t know what to say to this man who had been my friend all my life.

  And it seemed he didn’t know what to say to me either.

  We fell back on polite conversation. ‘Was the drive up OK?’ ‘Did you find it easily?’ ‘I wonder what the year will bring.’

  It was that last question that Ted picked up on.

  “You weren’t at the New Year’s Party in 1976 were you?’” He didn’t wait for an answer before continuing, “No, you didn’t get back until that summer did you? Charles decided to have a New Year’s Party funnily enough with Linda. They had just started the business. It was an odd do. It was the day Holly ran away from her husband and probably the day Charles fell in love with her. Funny how things work out isn’t it?”

  I just managed to say ‘No, I hadn’t been there’ when he continued rather lamely. “There’s so much that’s happened in the past few years, there’s so much to tell you. But what about you? When did you get back from New Zealand?” His voice had changed, it had less energy and seemed guarded.

  “I’ve never been there.”

  He gave me a funny look.

  “But the postcards you sent?”

  “I’ve never been to New Zealand.” I repeated rather lamely. “When was I supposed to be there?”

  “You weren’t?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you say you were?”

  “I didn’t”

  “But…”

  “Tell me what you think I’ve been up to these past years.” I knew Jonathan had been devious and had lied about our lives, I wondered how far he had gone.

  “We got a card from you, a couple of weeks after you left Maureen’s, saying you’d gone to New Zealand with that man you’d met in Sevenoaks.”

  “Jonathan.”

  “That’s it. You said you’d decided to start a new life there. You said that your life in England was a mess and that you loved this man and were going to New Zealand to live with him and his family but if we wanted to write to you there was an address in south London we could send letters to and they would be forwarded to you.”

  “In Wimbledon?”

  “Yes SW19.”

  “I have never been there.”

  “Then how…?”

  “Jonathan.” I spoke with what I hoped was sufficient coldness. “He must have sent them, or got his family to, someone. It wasn’t me. He tried to cut me off from all my friends.”

  “What have you been doing? Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been in London, most of the time.”

  “Oh Susie, what did that man do?”

  “He tried to separate me from you all, but he couldn’t could he? Not in the end.” I kissed him on the cheek and he put his hand on mine, squeezed it, and did not let it go.

  “No Susie, he couldn’t.”

  I caught his eye and smiled. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Haven’t we?” And we began to relax.

  “You tell me first.” There would be time enough to tell him of my disastrous marriage and successful divorce, of the progress I had made with learning about the long, rather convoluted, relationship between Max and David and my search for Vijay.

  Now was the time to hear about my children.

  I listened to Ted without interruption for over an hour. I had wondered at Linda’s ability to work with my children, I had shuddered with her when hearing of the influence of Ramesh, I had actually felt sorry for Charles and the misunderstanding of Max and the misanthropy of Monika. But more than anything I had felt admiration for Josie and Bill and affection for their brothers.

  Ted paused frequently as he had told me how my children had grown through what the past years had thrown at them expecting me, I suspect, to ask specific questions about them. But I had not interrupted him.

  “Don’t you want to know how they’ve got on down here? How well they’ve done? You should be very proud of them all. Josie has as good an analytical brain as I’ve seen in any young person I’ve worked with over the years. She did exactly what she said she would do. She has worked while studying and has experienced life. She’s had a few good relationships and some terrible ones, but has put all the bad ones down to experience and learned from them. You’ll like her. She is very like you were at her age. She’s a very attractive young woman in every possible way.”

  I was aware of the indirect compliment and felt myself blushing.

  “Bill is the spectacular one. He travels all over the country…”

  “In a wheelchai
r?”

  “Absolutely. He competes all over the country. He does very well. Jack and Al drive him wherever he wants to go though he’s always complaining that more should be done for sport for the ‘dis-tinctively-abled’ as he describes it.”

  “Al and Jack drive?

  “Yes. Strangely enough they both passed their tests first time. I didn’t think they would but Charles made sure they had plenty of proper lessons and didn’t pick up his bad habits.”

  “What do they do with the rest of their time?”

  “They’re not academic like their sister but they’re all still at school. Jack’s in his final year, he lost a lot of time in their various moves, but oddly enough they have great plans for when they leave. They’re dab hands at carpentry and decorating, that time sorting out the house for Bill had a lasting effect, and they already make good money in the holidays doing all sorts of handy-man type things. Charles was very sensible making sure they had the best tools and a good grounding in technique. They’re starting their own business next year. Linda’s doing the administration for them. Sevenoaks is a good area, there will be no end of work for them if they turn up when they say they will and do what they are paid to do.”

  “Will Bill be able to help?”

  “Absolutely, that’s the great thing. He already does during the holidays. It really is the best thing for them. They would hate to have proper jobs, working for other people, being told what to do all the time.”

  “I didn’t think I’d be interested in what they were doing.”

  “But you are?”

  “Surprisingly so. And what about you? Have you joined the exodus to the south?”

  “I followed very shortly after Charles left. Max changed. He sold the business and let us all go.”

  “He fired you?”

  “Made us redundant.”

  “How could he after all those years?”