When Good Friends Go Bad (36 page)

'So you became a farmer as well as an artist? I can't wait to tell the others.'

'You can't.'

'But why not, Rowan?' Jen asked, perplexed. 'And why was it so hard to find you? Why were you such an elusive butterfly?'

'Because . . . because . . .' Suddenly her eyes began to fill and her heavy chest heaved up and down at an alarming rate. 'I can't say.'

'But you must. Please, Rowan. Is it because you're annoyed with us?'

'No.' She shook her head.

'Is it because you're not into nostalgia?'

'No.'

'Then what's the matter? Just tell me. Then I'll leave.'

'Did you ever stop to think, Jen, the reason I might not want finding is because I'm terrified. Sodding bloody terrified.' A lone tear trickled down her fat cheek.

'Of all things,
that
didn't cross my mind.' Jen put her arm around Rowan's big wide shoulder. 'But why? Terrified of what?'

'Because . . . I've memories . . .' Racking great sobs shuddered through her as she leant her weight against Jen.

'Shhh, shhh. It's all right. We all have memories,' she clucked gently. 'Each and every one of us. Surely yours aren't that bad?'

'Right enough, they are. I – I . . . things went on.'

'What type of things?'

'Can't say.' She dropped her head like a child and stared into her lap.

'Can't or won't?'

'It's too awful.'

'Hey, nothing can be that awful,' Jen soothed. 'I've been in terrible dilemmas over the years. Look, here's the deal,' she said, sounding like Meg, 'you tell me what you've done and I'll tell you what I was about to do the other . . .'

'I've
done?' She suddenly jumped in, incensed, lifting her head and glaring into Jen's eyes.
'I've
done nothing.'

'Who, then? Come on, Rowan, better out than in as my dad would say.' Jen tried to sound jovial and encouraging, sensing she was getting near the truth.

'My ex-husband,' Rowan said flatly. She took a deep breath and then started to speak in a quiet shaky voice. 'It was me mam's fault. She'd stuck me in that immersion school with teachers as barmy as herself, bunch of raving nationalists, detentions for speaking English, lamenting the loss of the birch rod, raging about Londoners buying their land. I was never so heartsick and lonely. And he was, too. He managed to get mail to me through my friend Gwyneth. It was the only glimmer of light in those dark days. I thought he was my saviour.' Her heavy shoulders slumped. 'And so we eloped.'

'Carry on,' Jen urged gently, afraid that the wrong word or inflection would stop her in her tracks, hardly able to believe the tale her friend was spinning.

'He was superb in the beginning, you know, soft, sweet, caring, would do anything for me, run me baths, buy me flowers, get the shopping. Even learned me to cook . . .' She started to sob.

'Phew, that's a relief, you were always rubbish at domestic science.' Jen rubbed her back, hoping to encourage her to continue, but Rowan wasn't smiling.

She took another breath. 'He was jealous, but then so was I a bit in the beginning. A handsome devil he was and I thought, stupid cow, that his jealousy just proved how much he loved me. As time went on though he got worse, never wanted to let me out of his sight, not even to go shopping. I couldn't talk to another person without him going off on one. Seemed like whenever I made new friends and wanted to meet them, just for coffee like, he'd sell up and we'd go and live somewhere else.'

She got to her feet, moving around the room restlessly. Jen didn't dare say a word as she continued talking.

'I lost touch with me mam, everyone, until it wasn't worth making friends any more. He was rude as well. If people came visiting, he'd just sit scowling at them. It was embarrassing for them and for me.' She got down on her knees and began to build up newspapers and kindling for a fire. 'Slowly he chipped away my confidence, wouldn't allow me to dress nice, wear make-up, nothing, tried to stop me going out alone. It was like he wanted us in our own little bubble – no else around.
Where are you going? What were you saying to that man? Who was that you were speaking to?'
She gulped. 'If I so much as asked the paper lad how his nan was doing, he'd think I was arranging to meet him later.'

'Couldn't you just up sticks and leave?'

'How? I had no money of my own, you see.' Rowan's voice was loaded with emotion. 'No savings. No job. He had complete control of the finances. It was his money that paid the bills, he always reminded me, his wages that covered the mortgage, his name on the deeds.'

'You couldn't have found a job yourself?' Jen said gently.

'I wanted to but without any skills or training . . . Anyway he was dead against it, said no wife of his was going to work. He was that worried I'd run off with someone and when he sensed me distancing myself from him, that's when things got tougher. He took my door key from me, unplugged the phone and locked it away.' Rowan fiddled around, making a perfect cage with her kindling, and reached for a matchbox, sliding it open.

'I was a prisoner practically. I told him we couldn't go on like this. That we needed counselling. That it weren't healthy and we shouldn't just live in each other's pockets, not seeing other folk, but he just got angry, said he'd kill himself if I left or if I ever took up with another man. And that's when it became physical.'

'He hit you?' Jen could feel her fists tighten in anger.

Tears welled in her eyes. 'The occasional kicks and a slap or two. Once he even threw me mam's sugar bowl at me, missed but that weren't the worst of it.'

'Did you call the police?'

'Which time?'

'When he threw the sugar bowl?' Jen picked on the biggest instance of abuse.

'No.' Rowan touched a match to the paper, which burst into flames. 'I was too ashamed of the way I was, of how I'd caused the situation.' She blew on the conflagration, sending sparks shooting up the chimney. 'I felt it must have been me, you see, because I encouraged him in the first place. I was as much to blame. And really there were a few bruises, where he'd grabbed my arm or something, but nothing that would stand up in court.' Her voice was bitter. 'It weren't real wife-battering or nothing. No broken bones. They'd never have given me round-the-clock protection.'

'They could have helped, though.'

'Nah.' She shook her head and another loose strand fell down. 'I went to this drop-in centre once. They were very pleasant, friendly like, but the lady said if I really wanted to leave, I should just go. She said he was manipulating me and people who threatened suicide rarely did it.'

She turned brimming blue eyes to Jen. 'But she didn't really understand. Didn't know how low I felt, how little strength I had to fight. All she went on about was occupational orders and injunctions and where I could find lawyers, but I had no money. So I left with piles of leaflets and that was that. I managed to get away a few times, hitched back to Mam's, but each time he came round, promising to change, weeping, telling me how he only lived for me, and I always felt so guilty. Rowan Howard is a coward, that's what they used to chant at school. And they were right, I was, I am.'

'That's not true.' Jen got a tissue from her bag and passed it to her. 'You were brave and sweet and . . .'

'No, Jen,' she said evenly.
'You
were brave,
Meg
was brave, even Georgina could be brave occasionally. I weren't. I was Rowan Howard the coward.'

'What about when you called asking us to meet? In Wiltshire?'

Rowan sat back on the hearth, a smudge of soot on her cheek. 'That was when I finally left. I had it planned out. I saw him spying on me when I went into the phone booth to call all of you, I knew he'd follow me wherever I went and so he did, all the way to Warminster. So when I went into the hotel . . .'

'You were there?' Jen gasped. She racked her brain, trying to remember who else she'd seen at the inn. Definitely not her friend.

'I saw you arrive. And Meg. I was hiding in the hallway to the toilets when you checked in. But I made sure you didn't see me. He'd be wondering who I was meeting, probably imagining it was a man. If he saw you I knew he'd think we were all scheming a big escape, that I was inside, pouring out my woes and troubles, that we'd be there ages chatting and if he didn't stop me on the way out, he could at least follow until he had his chance to find me alone.'

'So near to us,' Jen said in a whisper, picturing the scene as she described it. All the time they'd been hoping and waiting and excited about seeing Rowan, looking up each time the door opened, wondering what had happened, she'd been down the corridor from them.

'I so wanted to be normal like, to talk with you and the others and have a laugh, catch up on news. But I knew it was impossible, that it was my last chance. And I weren't normal, I'd made a muck-up of my life, nothing to be proud of. So when you and Meg went into the bar,' she continued, 'I slid out the back and raced to the train station. All I had was an overnight bag and I was so scared my heart was ready to burst out of my chest, indeed it was.' She shook her head. 'He probably sat there all night watching you through that window. The glass was so dark you could only see shapes.'

'If you could have got a message to us somehow . . .' Jen shook her head with the maddening frustration of it all. They could have smuggled her out, maybe. One of them could have set up a false trail to lure away Rowan's abusive husband. Georgina could have taken Meg out the front door with a blanket over her head so the bastard would give chase, and Jen would have sneaked away with Rowan as soon as the coast was clear.

Rowan poked at the fire with a stick before answering, sending sparks flying. 'It was easier my way. If you knew where I was . . .' She stretched out her legs and yawned, a sleepy lumberjack in her blanket-sized checked shirt, firelight flickering over her face. 'Let's be realistic, the three of you never could keep a secret. Georgina would have blurted it out somewhere or Meg would have just had to tell someone or . . . well, never mind, it was too big a chance to take. I didn't want to involve you.'

But she had involved them, Jen thought, vaguely indignant. At least she could have pretended she didn't want to get them hurt, instead of implying they were useless dimwits. Rowan always used to be so sweet. What had that brute done to her?

'We were your friends. We could have helped you.'

'No one could have helped me.'

'We really missed you.' Jen reached out her hand to touch Rowan's. She waited for an 'I missed you back', but instead Rowan pulled her hand away.

'So how did you end up in Wales? Or were you there all along?' It was Jen's turn to stand up and give the fire a poke. A cat walked across the back of the sofa, unnoticed by Feo, who was lying where Jen's feet had been.

'No, but Wales was the last place he'd look. I'd vowed I'd never go back after my ordeal at that awful school. So I found this village. Changed my name, took on a new identity and swore me mam to secrecy. But I needed money so I had to start painting again.' She gave a loud sigh. 'If only I'd taken dressmaking instead of English in fourth year.'

'English was compulsory.' Jen pursed her lips, thinking maybe she too could have been a seamstress. Why didn't they teach you practical things? 'They say there's two people you need in a controlling relationship. One a bully and the other an enabler, which is a person who'll allow the bully to let it happen.'

Rowan slowly began nodding. 'They're wise words, you know. Did you become a therapist or something?'

'No,' Jen grinned, 'I saw it on the Trisha Goddard show.'

Rowan began smiling a little. 'I'd forgotten how you always made me laugh.' She took Jen's hand between her own. Rowan's were rough and cracked from working in the soil, weather-beaten like her face. Jen doubted if either had seen a lick of moisturiser in their lifetime.

'It took me years to escape him but finally I did, and now I'm so happy and content here without the worry of him ever finding me. Maybe I'm being paranoid, and he won't come after me any more. It's been almost ten years now. Perhaps he's even forgotten all about me.'

'I'm sure he has.'

'You know something, Jen,' she blew into her tissue again, 'having you around to put things in perspective, well, I'd sort of put a line through the past, blocked it all out. But in blocking out all the sad memories, I seem to have blocked out all the happy memories too. I think I'm glad you came here.'

'I'm glad I came here too,' Jen smiled.

Rowan ignored her, staring into space. 'And what is a name, after all? Rowan Howard/Rowan Dugan/Dyllis Bedlow. They're all just names.'

'Dugan? Rowan
Dugan?'
Jen stammered, aghast.

'You must remember him. He was our English teacher and he taught drama after school.'

'Tom?' Jen spluttered. 'Hairy-backed Tom?' She felt chilly suddenly and panicky.

'Hairy-backed? How did you know that?' Rowan looked alarmed. 'He didn't sleep with you as well, did he? I thought it was only me and Linda Petroski?'

'No. I mean . . . he never made a pass at me at school. It's . . . so it was true about him and Linda?' She hardly knew what she was saying, her mind whirling like a rat in a cage, the hairs on her arms and neck standing up in dread.

What should she do? Her brain quickly scrambled for answers.

'Who knows?' Rowan shrugged. 'She always were a big fat liar, so she was.'

Jen's panic rose. She'd told him Rowan's bloody address. Or as near as dammit. 'I remember seeing you and Tom . . . I mean Mr Dugan . . . huddled together in the playground once. You told us you were interested in drama.'

'I was. But our big plays became little plays, then tiny weeny plays, just the two of us, and it went further and of course we couldn't let anyone know because they'd have given him the sack, he could even have gone to jail. We were terrified Hawkeye Hawkins suspected. And even though he left the school the same year we did, old Hawkins gave him a terrible reference and he couldn't get work teaching again.'

Come to think of it, Jen now realised who the white-haired old man at the reunion was, the one who'd been giving Dugan the evil eye. Hawkeye Hawkins, their old headmaster. So that was why Dugan was clinging to Jen all night. All the time she'd thought
she
was using
Dugan, Dugan
was using
her!

'Maybe I've been hiding away too long. For all I know Tom could have died or emigrated. I could be like those Japanese living on Pacific islands not knowing the war's over.'

'On the other hand, maybe the war's still raging.' Jen hated bursting her small bubble of hope, but she had to fess up some time. Already she was starting to look around nervously. As the light faded the farmhouse seemed full of shadows, and she kept imagining she heard the whine of a car engine.

'What do you mean?' Rowan said, perplexed.