Read Online Runaway Wife by Rowan Coleman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Rowan Coleman
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her mental health was finally giving in to genetics, despite the care that Richard had taken of her.
“You see me as the enemy,” Richard had said to her on that final afternoon. “But don’t you see, Rose, you are your own worst enemy? Without me to protect you, you have no idea how to survive.”
What if he was right? After all, here she was, hiding in a picture postcard, chasing a signature on a letter that was nothing more than a half-formed memory, a delusion. What if she was more like her mother than she ever realized? Anyone looking at this situation from the outside would be on Richard’s side. She knew anyone sensible would be, and that’s what frightened her the most. A trusted and respected GP, Richard had it well within his powers to carry out his threat to the letter, and the whole world would be on his side. And yet, there was one person who knew the truth.
Peering round the door to check that Maddie was still happy composing songs to conquer the world under the drizzle of the shower, Rose dialed the number of the only person in the world she could truly call a friend. She phoned Shona.
“Fuck’s sake,” Shona greeted her. “I thought he’d done for you. I thought you were under the floorboards, babe. I tried phoning you, but all it said was that your voice mail was full. Full of that shit, no doubt.”
“How did you know I’d gone?” Rose asked. She’d had no plans to meet Shona that she hadn’t turned up for; they rarely spoke on the phone or texted, always making their arrangements in person, face-to-face.
“He came here looking for you this morning,” Shona told her. “All polite concern, sweetness and light, ‘It’s Maddie I’m worried about, Rose hasn’t been herself for weeks, there’s no telling what she might do,’ and all that bollocks. I told him I haven’t seen you in months, so why would I know anything about you?”
Rose wasn’t sure when her friendship with Shona became a secret that both of them kept from their partners, she only knew that it seemed like the only way of keeping it intact. Richard didn’t like her to have friends he didn’t approve of, and as for Shona’s boyfriend . . . he hated Rose with a passion, blaming her completely for his and Shona’s breakup. Shona often joked that all the sneaking around they did to see each other was just as complicated as having an affair, and without any of the sex.
“So you’ve left him, then?” Shona said. “What happened to make you finally go, what did he do?”
“He . . .” Rose closed her eyes, images and words flashing behind them too quickly to make any sense, things she couldn’t face seeing or hearing, even in memory, just yet. “I just couldn’t take another minute. Before I knew what I was doing I had the car keys, Maddie and I were gone. He ran down the street after us. I didn’t think it through, Sho. I just went and . . . and now I don’t know what to do next.”
The gnawing fear at the empty chasm that representedRose’s future bit fiercely at her heart again, as Rose remembered she had nothing like a plan that stretched beyond the next few hours.
“I don’t blame you for getting out. About time too,” Shona said. She’d hated Richard from the moment she set eyes on him, more than fourteen years ago, when the two of them waitressed in Marley’s Famous Ice-Cream Parlour on the front as teenagers, Shona a bolshie, mouthy, sexy girl with more front than the town, and Rose, an alternative, Gothic, odd-looking girl, with a scowl that could turn anything to stone. They shouldn’t have hit it off; Rose, pale, thin and glowering in her candy-striped uniform, and buxom Shona nonchalantly making sure she left more buttons undone than she should, a surefire way of boosting her tips from harassed dads. And yet the two of them had become instant friends, making each other smile when they least expected it, and as Rose began to find her feet in the world as an adult, it was Shona
“You see me as the enemy,” Richard had said to her on that final afternoon. “But don’t you see, Rose, you are your own worst enemy? Without me to protect you, you have no idea how to survive.”
What if he was right? After all, here she was, hiding in a picture postcard, chasing a signature on a letter that was nothing more than a half-formed memory, a delusion. What if she was more like her mother than she ever realized? Anyone looking at this situation from the outside would be on Richard’s side. She knew anyone sensible would be, and that’s what frightened her the most. A trusted and respected GP, Richard had it well within his powers to carry out his threat to the letter, and the whole world would be on his side. And yet, there was one person who knew the truth.
Peering round the door to check that Maddie was still happy composing songs to conquer the world under the drizzle of the shower, Rose dialed the number of the only person in the world she could truly call a friend. She phoned Shona.
“Fuck’s sake,” Shona greeted her. “I thought he’d done for you. I thought you were under the floorboards, babe. I tried phoning you, but all it said was that your voice mail was full. Full of that shit, no doubt.”
“How did you know I’d gone?” Rose asked. She’d had no plans to meet Shona that she hadn’t turned up for; they rarely spoke on the phone or texted, always making their arrangements in person, face-to-face.
“He came here looking for you this morning,” Shona told her. “All polite concern, sweetness and light, ‘It’s Maddie I’m worried about, Rose hasn’t been herself for weeks, there’s no telling what she might do,’ and all that bollocks. I told him I haven’t seen you in months, so why would I know anything about you?”
Rose wasn’t sure when her friendship with Shona became a secret that both of them kept from their partners, she only knew that it seemed like the only way of keeping it intact. Richard didn’t like her to have friends he didn’t approve of, and as for Shona’s boyfriend . . . he hated Rose with a passion, blaming her completely for his and Shona’s breakup. Shona often joked that all the sneaking around they did to see each other was just as complicated as having an affair, and without any of the sex.
“So you’ve left him, then?” Shona said. “What happened to make you finally go, what did he do?”
“He . . .” Rose closed her eyes, images and words flashing behind them too quickly to make any sense, things she couldn’t face seeing or hearing, even in memory, just yet. “I just couldn’t take another minute. Before I knew what I was doing I had the car keys, Maddie and I were gone. He ran down the street after us. I didn’t think it through, Sho. I just went and . . . and now I don’t know what to do next.”
The gnawing fear at the empty chasm that representedRose’s future bit fiercely at her heart again, as Rose remembered she had nothing like a plan that stretched beyond the next few hours.
“I don’t blame you for getting out. About time too,” Shona said. She’d hated Richard from the moment she set eyes on him, more than fourteen years ago, when the two of them waitressed in Marley’s Famous Ice-Cream Parlour on the front as teenagers, Shona a bolshie, mouthy, sexy girl with more front than the town, and Rose, an alternative, Gothic, odd-looking girl, with a scowl that could turn anything to stone. They shouldn’t have hit it off; Rose, pale, thin and glowering in her candy-striped uniform, and buxom Shona nonchalantly making sure she left more buttons undone than she should, a surefire way of boosting her tips from harassed dads. And yet the two of them had become instant friends, making each other smile when they least expected it, and as Rose began to find her feet in the world as an adult, it was Shona
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