Runaway Wife (45 page)

Rose bit her lip, torn between her desire to make her dad happy and her determination to control her own life for once. This wasn’t about manipulation or control, she told herself. This was just a father trying to help his daughter.

“All right,” she conceded. “I’ll talk to the police and the Janette person. But after that I make my own decisions, OK?”

“Very well,” John said, seemingly content that he’d got her to take that first step to making her break from Richard permanently, and in her heart Rose knew he was right. A prolonged stalemate between her and her husband would only make things messy and uncertain. Richard did need showing, by official means, if necessary, that her life as his wife was finished for good. Miles weren’t enough to keep him away, and if she left things as they were, sooner or later he would be back. Rose knew she couldn’t let that happen.

“Very well,” she said. “Dad, I’ll do what you want, for you and for Maddie.”

“And for me,” Frasier added, so softly that Rose wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.

“But I want you to do something for me too,” she continued, glancing up at Frasier, who knew exactly what she was about to say. “Something that would mean more to me than you can imagine.”

John looked at her suspiciously over the top of his glasses.

“Frasier and I want to exhibit your private work, and we want to open in two weeks’ time,” Rose rushed the words out all at once, hoping that the quicker she said them the less likely John was to have time to react negatively. She hoped in vain.

“Absolutely not,” John said with such vehemence that his face flooded red and Rose feared for his heart, on top of everything else. “I don’t know how you can ask that of me! That work is not for sale. It is not for anyone else but me. It’s my . . . diary, my legacy, my gift to you when I am gone, and I will not, I repeat, I will
not
let this man turn it into a three-ring circus, just so he can cream his percentage off the top.” He pointed an accusing finger at Frasier. “I won’t, Rose. I’m sorry, I won’t. I never wanted you to see them while I was alive; if there was a way I could stop you seeing them afterwards, then I would. They document the side of me I hate the most.”

Rose watched dismayed as John bowed his head, sweeping his glasses off his face and pinching the bridge of his nose, as tears squeezed out between his tightly shut eyes.

“Dad,” she said, sliding off the edge of the bed to kneel next to him. “Please, don’t cry. This isn’t at all what we wanted. All we wanted was to show the world what an incredible artist
you are. And I
haven’t
seen the paintings yet. I promised you I wouldn’t and I haven’t. Frasier looked at them, and he thinks they are amazing, brilliant, wonderful.”

“It’s true,” Frasier said, taking Rose’s place on the bed. “John, don’t deprive the world of what you have here. This work is important. It needs to be seen.”

“And I don’t suppose your concern,” John said, gaining his composure, “has anything to do with how much a painting goes up in value once its creator is dead?”

Frasier looked hurt, turning his face away from his friend.

“I know,” he said quietly, “that is not what you really think of me. I know you know that I am your friend, that I always have and always will do the very best I can for you.” When Frasier turned back to face John, his face was set with determination. “I will take a good deal of your vitriol, John, but not that. Besides, this exhibition wouldn’t be about you, it would be
for
Rose. A way for you to show her your soul. Rose listened to you, now you listen to me. Do this one thing for your daughter. And if it helps, we don’t have to put the works up for sale. It could be for viewing only. A retrospective and an unveiling of a great undiscovered British talent in one fell swoop.”

“I will be a laughingstock,” John said, a little less vehemently. “Some foolish old man who’s made all his money painting chocolate-box-pretty pictures and now is praying for some validation from the critics on his deathbed. How they will mock me. I’m sorry, Rose, I don’t want to disappoint you. But no, I don’t want to.”

“Can I show you something?” Rose went to a bookshelf in the corner of the room and from behind it retrieved an object that Frasier recognized as soon as he saw the familiar blanket wrapping. “I was going to put it on the wall for you before you got back, but I couldn’t find a hammer,” Rose said as she
unwrapped the painting. Carefully, she set it at the foot of the bed, standing behind it, holding its edges very carefully.

John gazed at the painting, saying nothing as his eyes roamed over it, looking as if he’d just been reunited with a very dear friend that he had no idea how to react to.

“This painting,” Rose told him over the brim of the canvas, “or at least the sketch for this painting, is the reason why Frasier looked all over the country for you.” She glanced briefly at Frasier, before returning her attention to John. “The reason why I met him, the reason that I came here, the reason that I ever found you. This painting that I
know
you never forgot, because you painted it again.”

Father and daughter held each other’s gaze, saying more in that moment of silence to one another than they could with a thousand words. This was Rose’s proof that she had never forgotten John, and his symbol to prove that she had always been in his thoughts, even when he himself had been lost.

“This isn’t chocolate-box art, Dad,” Rose said. “This wasn’t painted for money, or fame. It was a moment between this little girl and her father. I’ve always kept it. No matter what else was happening, not even when Frasier wanted it, and most of me wanted him to have it. I kept this safe because I looked at it and I felt the love you had for me when you painted it. It was the one thing that I couldn’t ever bear to part with because it was the one little bit of you that I had.”

John stared at the painting for a long time before speaking. “You were sitting on the windowsill, looking out the window with the sunlight in your hair. I did a quick sketch to remember the tilt of your head, the way you crossed your legs and posed your hands, but most of that came from memory and from the emotion, the love I felt for you in that second. You’re right, I never forgot that moment between us, even though sometimes it was unbearable to recall.”

“And this image is repeated,” Frasier told Rose, risking John’s wrath, “again and again, not just in the work I showed you at the gallery but in the works in the barn too.”

“Is that true, Dad?” Rose asked him softly, carefully lifting the painting off the bed and setting it against the wall.

John nodded, dropping his gaze from her. “It’s hardly enough, though, is it? One memory of love to live with in an entire lifetime. I am so ashamed, Rose, so very ashamed of the life that I have led. I don’t want to turn that shame into glory.”

“But what if you turned it into a story?” Rose said, returning to his side. “A path for me to follow. A path that will lead me to a better understanding of you? And think of all the organizing and deciding you’ll have to do. You’ll be able to boss Frasier around mercilessly and be as difficult and as obstinate as you like, and I just think the more you have to occupy your mind, the . . .” Rose stumbled to a faltering stop, realizing what she was about to say.

“The longer I will live,” John finished for her. “Is that what this is about?”

“I’ve only just found you,” Rose said. “Maddie barely knows you. I want every second I can get.”

“Well, then,” John said, taking her hand, “why didn’t you just say that in the first place?”

•  •  •

It had been a very long day, which Rose was looking forward to seeing the back of by the time she finally said goodbye to Jenny, tucked Maddie up in the boxroom, and ushered Tilda, who’d arrived late afternoon, probably in a bid to give Rose time with her father, into John’s room for time alone with her husband.

After everyone had sampled Rose’s lasagne together, and Tilda was in John’s room, Rose came downstairs to the heart-aching sight of Frasier sitting on the sofa, his arm slung along
the length of the back, as if he were issuing an invitation for her to nestle in the crook of his arm. He wasn’t doing that, of course, she thought sadly, he wasn’t doing any such thing, so taking a glass of wine that Frasier had poured for her from the sideboard, Rose went and sat opposite him, in her father’s armchair.

“How was it, talking to the police?” Frasier asked her. Just after lunch, Rose had been as good as her word and gone down to meet the officer at the B & B, telling Maddie she was popping out for some boring old shopping.

“It was difficult,” Rose admitted. “The hardest part is seeing the expression on people’s faces when you try to explain to them what life was like. I can see exactly what they’re thinking: poor stupid cow, why didn’t she leave him at the first sign of trouble? What they don’t know is there isn’t a first sign of trouble. It’s like that experiment you hear about when you are a child. That if you put a frog in a pan of cold water, and gently heat it, you can boil it to death without it ever noticing. That’s what it was like. Richard was ever so slowly smothering me, and I got so used to the lack of oxygen, I didn’t notice.” Rose took a deep gulp of wine. “Still, she has my statement now; it’s on record. And Jenny’s too. Thank God they didn’t feel the need to talk to Maddie. And I do feel better. I feel like I have really made a start on taking back control of my life again.”

Rose smiled at him across the small space between them, which represented such a huge gulf. “Thank you for being here.”

“I honestly don’t have anywhere else to be,” Frasier said. “Although I might just have to spend a little money on a new sofa if I’m going to be here for a while. I might even go crazy and make it a sofa bed.”

They were both silent for a moment, Frasier lost in his own thoughts as Rose allowed herself secretly to wonder
what it would be like to take Frasier by the hand and lead him upstairs to her bed.

“You never really said what it was like,” Frasier said, when Rose finally found the courage to look up at him. “I knew your marriage to Richard was a bad one, and that you felt trapped and unhappy, but I didn’t realize quite how awful it was, the things he . . . put you through.”

Rose shrugged, looking deep into the glass of wine. “It’s not something you really want to talk about. I feel so stupid, so weak, so pathetic.”

“Pathetic is the last thing you are,” Frasier said. “You are strong, impressively so. Resilient, stoic, amazing.”

Rose’s smile was rueful. “Oh, stop trying to be kind, Frasier. They are not the qualities you’d normally put on an Internet dating profile, are they?”

“Are you thinking of Internet dating?” Frasier asked her, alarmed.

“No! Look around you. If Dad has got this mythical laptop you speak of, I’ve yet to find it. And no, no, no to Internet dating or indeed dating. If I know anything now, it’s that I’m nowhere near ready to have anything to do with men. Kissing Ted proved that.”

Frasier nodded, his expression unreadable.

“And kissing him was all that happened,” Rose said, deciding she might as well grasp the nettle while she had the benefit of most of a glass of wine inside her. “And I’m not sorry I did it, even though it . . . changed things between us. Ted was good to me, and kind. He understood. He gave me back something I’d lost and didn’t need anything in return. I’m sorry his feelings got caught up in it all, and most of all I’m sorry that I messed everything up between you and me. But I’m not sorry I kissed him, Frasier. Ted reminded me that kissing is actually really wonderful.”

“I’m glad,” Frasier said, adding ever so slowly, “I would have liked to have been the one to give you that gift.”

Rose looked up at him sharply. “Don’t do that again,” she said, suddenly angry.

“Don’t do what?” he asked, taken aback.

“You are impossible to know how to be around,” Rose told him bitterly. “One minute you’re holding my hand, the next talking about how great Cecily is. Or saying you’ve always loved me and then actually sorry, no, that was a terrible mistake. That we can only ever just be friends, and
now
that you wished you’d kissed me instead of Ted. It’s not fair, Frasier!” Rose got up, walking over to the sideboard where the rest of the wine was. “I know where I stand now. You made it very clear. And that’s how I want it to stay. You, there on the sofa, me upstairs in the bedroom, working together as friends for Dad. If I ever could handle anything more, that’s gone now. You made sure of it. Now I just want to be alone and let my heart rest for a while.”

Frasier leaned back on the sofa saying nothing. Two bright spots of red were coloring his cheeks.

“Rose, I didn’t mean to upset you . . .”

“Good night,” Rose said, picking up her glass of wine, and, even though it was barely nine, “see you in the morning.”

It took until Rose had reached the bottom stair for Frasier to speak.

“Rose,” he said, “for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“For what it’s worth,” Rose said sadly, the anger draining out of her, “I know.”

“S
o?” Rose asked John, who now, two weeks after his operation, was at least able to get out of bed for most of the day, even though he looked thinner, grayer, and more gaunt than ever. “It’s opening night, are you excited?”

“I’m a quivering wreck,” John said drily. “Can’t you tell?”

“I’m excited.” Maddie hopped from one foot to the other. “I’m the most excited of everyone, because Frasier told me that there is a surprise for me. And I am the most excited about that. I don’t know what it is going to be. It might be a television for my bedroom, that would be good. Or an iPad.”

“It’s not either of those things,” Frasier said, coming down the stairs, his hair wet, a towel around his neck. Despite the lingering awkwardness between Rose and him, he had been good to his word and moved into the cottage, running his business as much as he could from his laptop, even going so far as to have a sofa bed delivered and a wireless router fitted, just as he had threatened, and much to John’s disgust.