Runaway Wife (12 page)

“I want payment up front!” Jenny said, immediately rising to the bait that Shona had dangled so cruelly in front of her, much to Shona’s amusement.

“It’s OK, Jenny,” Rose said, as she opened the door to the room next to hers, which she had requested specifically for her friend. “Shona’s only joking. Aren’t you, Shona?”

“Yep.” Shona smiled briefly at Jenny, which was about as warm as Rose ever saw her get with someone before she knew them. Why she had singled Rose out to befriend from the very beginning, even back in the café days, Rose had yet to work out. It wasn’t as if they were ever obvious soul mates, even after they realized that their relationships had more in common than either one was comfortable admitting. Perhaps for all of Shona’s bravado, her leader-of-the-pack attitude, and the sense of humor that always made her so popular, she’d looked back then at that skinny little orphaned teen selling ice cream because she didn’t know what else to do and
seen a true reflection of herself, the way she really was behind all the cut-price glamour. In any case, Rose was reluctant to ask; her dependence on Shona, to be the one person to reassure her that for all her faults she wasn’t completely mad, made her reluctant to do anything that might jinx her only adult friendship.

“When you first arrived, Jenny saw you out the window and said you looked like a hussy,” Maddie told Shona cheerfully, sitting demurely on the bed as Shona tipped the contents of one of her carrier bags into a drawer.

“Maddie,” Rose grumbled, cursing her daughter’s uncanny ability to report verbatim adult conversations that she wasn’t suppose to have listened to.

Shona raised a plucked brow at Jenny.

“Breakfast is between eight and eight thirty, I don’t take orders, I don’t do coffee.” Jenny was clearly determined not to be intimidated by Shona. “I take as I find and speak my mind. That’s the way I am. If you don’t like it, you know what you can do.”

“Or,” Rose said, raising her palms, “or I could just make us all a nice cup of tea.”

“I’ve got to go out,” Jenny said uncertainly, looking as if she was unwilling to leave Shona unsupervised or, indeed, without an armed guard. “Would you like to join us for dinner tonight, Rose? And her too, I suppose.”

“Cheers, thanks,” Shona said. “I will, as I don’t suppose there’s a KFC round here. What is it, haggis or some shit?”

“OK, thank you, see you later!” Rose said, shutting the door on Jenny before a full-blown fight could break out.

“Why do you do it?” Rose asked Shona as soon as she heard Jenny stomping down the stairs, muttering furiously to herself. “You’re not like that, like some cartoon psycho, why do you let people think you are?”

“Dunno.” Shona shrugged at Maddie, who was sorting through her make-up bag, a rare treat, as Rose rarely wore any. She was having a wonderful time not because she was a little girl who liked to play dress-up, but because she liked to sort things. Within a few minutes, Shona’s extensive collection of lipsticks would be lined up, organized by color gradient, and her eye shadows the same. “It’s easier, I suppose, if that’s how people expect me to be. It’s too much effort to make them see different.”

“I see you.” Rose shook her head. “It doesn’t take any effort at all.”

“Ah, no, I think you’ll find that’s you. You’re mental, it’s practically official.” Shona glanced at Maddie and, picking up a bright pink lipstick, pointed her in the direction of the bathroom next door. “Go and try it on. I bet it’ll look lovely.”

“Really?” Maddie eyed the lipstick suspiciously. “I’m only a child, you know. I don’t want to look tarty.”

“Oh, go on, you old stick-in-the-mud. If you’re a child, act like one! Smear it on good and thick!” Still looking uncertain, Maddie obediently trotted off to experiment with make-up, Shona careful to close the door after her.

“Dickhead’s telling anyone who’ll listen that you’ve had a breakdown,” Shona said, suddenly serious. “That you’ve run off with Maddie and that he’s worried for your mental health, that you’ve been talking a lot about your mother’s suicide recently.”

“What?” Rose exclaimed, her eyes widening. “He’s saying I want to kill myself?”

“He’s not saying exactly, he’s saying everything but, and then letting people fill in the gaps. My mum heard it off Yvette Patel, who heard it off that nurse, Margaret. Apparently he ‘confided’ in her about what a terrible burden it’s
been, keeping your problems hidden from view all this time, and how he’s worried sick about Maddie’s safety.”

“But that’s not true, that’s not true at all.” Rose was horrified. She knew Richard, she knew how very good he was at being believable. It was his speciality, getting people to trust him, to put their faith in him “The
last
thing I want to do is kill myself. If anything, I want to save my life, and Maddie’s, by getting away from him! Has he called the police, social services?”

“I don’t know,” Shona apologized, seeing the anxiety wrought on Rose’s face. “But I do know that even if he has, they’re not going to start a nationwide search straightaway and do a reconstruction on
Crimewatch
. The police are used to couples threatening each other in the heat of an argument, trust me. The neighbors called them out on me and Ryan more times than I want to remember. Only a couple of times did they take us seriously, and even then they needed both of us to agree before they did anything. Anyway, I reckon it’s the same for the social. They’ve got enough on their plates without being sent off on a wild-goose chase at a moment’s notice, even if it is Dr. Dickhead making all the noise. I think you’ve got a little while yet before you have to really worry. Like I said, Rose is mental, chasing some bloody bloke across the country, just because he once sent her a postcard, but not in
that
way.”

“Said to who?” Rose asked her, worried. “You didn’t tell anyone I was here, did you?”

“No!” Shona said instantly. “Well. Yes, I told my mum. I had to. You don’t just get lent a car, your kids taken care of, and given a load of cash to take off for no reason. But Mum won’t say anything, I swear. You know how grateful she was for how you’ve helped me and the boys before; she’s not going to land you in it.”

“I hope not,” Rose said anxiously, wondering what Richard
was up to even now to make sure that the whole world would believe him when he said it was she who was the danger. She who was unstable and couldn’t be trusted. If anyone could do it, it was Richard.

“Look, don’t worry,” Shona said reassuringly, as she dropped an arm around Rose’s shoulder, kissing her on the cheek, hugging her tightly, and lifting her chin in defiance. “We’re miles from fucking anywhere here. The right arse end of the universe. What fuckwit would ever think of looking for us here? So, where are the local sex spots? I hear it’s all about doing it outdoors in the country.”

“Honestly, as if you would!” Rose said, shaking her head at her friend. “That’s another thing I don’t get about you, always playing the tart, when really we both know nothing could be farther from the truth. You’re just a big old romantic at heart. Always believing in the happy ending.”

“Well, you’ve got to believe, haven’t you?” Shona said. “Otherwise what else have you got? Anyway, it’s you who wants me to pack in Ryan for good, so maybe I need to start looking around.” Shona was thoughtful. “Hey, maybe I’ll marry a farmer, bake cakes and shit.”

Rose laughed. “
That
I would like to see.”

“Well, you never know what sort of romance a quickie in a car park might lead to.” Shona chuckled, digging Rose in the ribs.

“What’s a quickie in a car park?” Maddie asked, returning from the bathroom with a thick slick of pink gloss plastered around her mouth.

“Um, it’s like a sort of parking ticket,” Rose said.

“Aw, now don’t you look pretty?” Shona said, holding a mirror up for Maddie to look in, making her giggle. “You stick with your Aunty Shona, I’ll teach you the true meaning of style.”

Rose looked at her barely dressed friend, a pumped-up invention of a tough, sexy woman that had nothing to do with the real person that lay beneath, and shook her head.

“Only over my dead body,” she said.

•  •  •

“Tell us all about it, then,” Jenny said as soon as Rose, Shona, and Maddie appeared in the dining room. “How did things go with your dad? I rang Ted to find out, but he wouldn’t answer his phone, bloody boy.”

Rose puffed out her cheeks, looking at Maddie, who hadn’t been the least bit curious about how the meeting with her long-lost grandfather had gone. Nor had she looked like she missed Rose when she turned up after two large whiskeys and with a slightly fuzzy head. If anything, she’d looked mildly inconvenienced to have to stop playing with the doll’s house and engage with her mother. Sometimes—often, actually—Rose would look at Maddie and wonder if the child loved her at all. Although more often than not Maddie’s anxiety when separated from what she knew was acute, Rose didn’t think that Maddie’s source of comfort particularly had to be her mother or her father. A favorite jumper or Bear would do equally well. It was certainly true that Maddie had slotted happily alongside Jenny with the sort of ease of companionship that Rose found very rare herself. For her part, she loved Maddie with a passion that she never thought would be possible, and one day, she supposed, it would just be nice to know with certainty that the little girl loved her back.

“It went how I expected, I suppose,” Rose said. “He was shocked to see me, and very unhappy that I’d come at all. He really just wanted me to leave.”

“I feel like that when you make me play with Belinda Morris,” Maddie said, carefully removing all the green beans from her plate, referring to the little girl that lived two doors down.
Richard was keen that his daughter appeared to be just like all the other little girls and had encouraged the friendship, only for Rose to have to make excuses once Maddie had called Belinda “an insufferable little fool” in front of her mother, claiming, “She’s got a stupid face.”

“Awful, how a man could turn his back on his own child that way,” Jenny said, looking at Brian, who was quietly reading the paper. “You should do something about it, Brian.”

“Me?” Brian said, affronted. “What the bloody hell should I do about it?”

“Go up there, talk to him. You wouldn’t have anyone treat your Haleigh the way that man’s treated Rose!”

“I know, that’s ’cause I’m Haleigh’s dad!” Brian said.

“And he’s hers,” Jenny declared, as if somehow that made her whole argument watertight.

“Really, no one has to go up there,” Rose said, desperate to rescue Brian, who, she suspected, had been propelled into the middle of more than one of his wife’s feuds on very tenuous grounds. “I’m going back up there tomorrow. He said he’d answer my questions, so really all I have to do is think about what I want to ask him. I mean, I want to ask him about so much, but then again, I’m not really sure I want to know the answers. I’m not even really sure if I want to go.”

“Ask him if he’s got a will,” Jenny said.

“Ask him which leg he’d like me to break first,” Shona added.

“Ask him why I’ve never met him,” Maddie said casually, almost as if she wasn’t really interested in the answer, but it was the question that struck home hardest with everyone else around the table.

“I’ll come with you,” Shona said. “Like your bodyguard.”

“Really, I think it should be me who comes with you,” Maddie said. “He’s my granddad, after all.”

At first the idea horrified Rose, but it took her only a moment to wonder if actually it was the best way of tackling John again. Bringing Maddie would take the tension out of the situation, defuse it from being confrontational into more simply a visit. And perhaps that way it would be easier for John to talk to her, knowing that she wasn’t there simply to accuse him or to start a fight. Maddie wasn’t the most relaxing child to introduce to new people, but Rose had a feeling that John would like that about her.

“I think that’s a good idea.” Rose nodded. “I think you should come, Maddie.”

Maddie looked up as if she’d forgotten what she’d recently suggested. “Hmm?”

“That you come to meet John,” Rose said.

“Should be interesting,” Maddie said to Brian, with an air of curiosity. Was it nice, Rose wondered, to be as disconnected from the world as her daughter sometimes seemed to be? Life raged on around her, full of violent storms and upheaval, and yet most of it literally went over her head. Yes, the things inside Maddie’s head could frighten her—she was often terrorized by various imaginary ghosts and goblins—but Rose had only ever seen her scared by real life once, the little bubble of her own world finally pierced, and that had been the night they had left Richard.

“And me.” Shona helped herself to a second helping of chicken pie, much to Jenny’s chagrin, which was only slightly softened by her adding, “Bloody lovely pie, mate.”

“I think just us,” Rose said. “Don’t want to frighten him off completely.”

“What are you saying?” Shona half accused, half laughed. “And what the bloody hell am I going to do in this dump while you’re up there?”

Before Rose could answer, Ted appeared in the doorway,
his coppery hair damp from the drizzle, his battered leather jacket glittering with moisture.

“Thank you, God, for sending me to heaven,” Shona said at the sight of him, not even wincing when Rose dug her elbow into her ribs.

“All right?” Ted nodded at Shona, his gaze dwelling for a moment more than was necessary on her ample and mostly on-display cleavage, before he smiled at Rose and then his mother.

“Dropping you in a backstage pass for the gig tomorrow.”

“Backstage pass?” Brian snorted. “I didn’t know the pub had a backstage!”

“Yeah, well, it’s got the snug, it’s a VIP area.” Ted smiled at Rose. “You’re still coming, yeah?”

“Well, I haven’t even asked about . . .” Rose had been too preoccupied with hoping that Shona wouldn’t cause Jenny to spontaneously combust to ask her about babysitting.

“Mum, you’ll look after the kid, won’t you? So Rosie can come to the gig tomorrow?”