“Susannah where the bloody hell are you?”
Jonathan was home.
“In here.”
I was sitting at my desk working at the Personal Computer that had been my Christmas present to myself. In the two weeks since Jonathan had returned to work after the long Christmas and New Year break, I had been transferring all the information I had accumulated over the previous years from my old fashioned word processor to my new machine. It had taken two weeks but I had everything I had learned in a well labelled series of files in documents and spreadsheets in carefully organised directories. In the year since the wedding I had re-focussed on David, Max and Vijay and as 1985 began I was busy planning the next stage of my investigations. I would have plenty of time now as the Christmas round of socialising was over and I would not be required to be Jonathan’s ‘wife’ for some time.
“I’ve got news for you.” Jonathan was slurring his words.
“Yes?” I probably sounded as irritated as I felt at being interrupted. “Anything I might be remotely interested in?”
“Probably.”
“Terrific.”
“In fact, darling girl, it might be the best news I have ever given you.” Jonathan’s sarcastic use of endearments always annoyed me.
“When have you ever given me good news?”
“I’ve been fired.”
“Now that is good news.”
“No notice. No nothing. Just no job!” He laughed and I realised he was drunk, or stoned, or both.
I wasn’t going to ask what happened, I would wait for him to tell me in his own good time. He would eventually tell me if he wanted to and it only made him happier if I asked, so I waited for him to explain.
“Pissed. I was pissed. I told the fuckers what they could do with their fucking job. They said I wasn’t going to make Partner. They couldn’t even wait ‘til fucking September. They said I was ‘unreliable’ so I told them where they could stick their fucking job. I went to the pub and went back and told them what they could fucking do. And they told me to fuck off. Well no, they didn’t actually,” he giggled inanely “they told me never to darken their door again, ‘begone’ they said, ‘leave, go, disappear, depart!’ So I fucked off.” And he stumbled against the settee and fell to the floor.
I didn’t try to help him. I was thinking what his news meant for me. Our arrangement had only been for as long as he had the prospect of making partner, as long as he needed a wife for respectability. I had played my side of the bargain and had attended all the dinner parties and sporting events, operas and gallery openings that were part of the process of proving that Jonathan was the ‘right sort of person’ to be offered a partnership. I thought all along it was a lost cause but I went along with it so long as I had a place to live, someone to pay my credit card bills and the time to learn about David, Vijay and Max. Now I could divorce him, I had grounds enough, he would go back to New Zealand and I would be free to take up my own life again.
At times I had let myself imagine what life would have been like if I had stayed with Carl. I wondered where he was, what he was doing, who he was with. What if we ever got together again? I had changed, perhaps I was readier now than I had ever been for a relationship with him. In moments of self-knowledge, perhaps too rare, I realised that he had tried to make a go of it, at least, at first. It was me that had failed, literally miserably, to make his life better. He still appeared, albeit infrequently, on obscure television programmes, his media career seemingly in decline. In the libraries I would look under indexes for ‘Carl Witherby’ to find that he hadn’t published anything recently.
I hadn’t heard from the children, Linda or Charles, and there hadn’t even been a card from Maureen or from Ted the previous Christmas. I had made a point of writing them bright, optimistic letters, when I had got back from India. I had hoped Ted at least would have seen through the bravado and realised how much I wanted to hear from him. It had only been two years but it seemed forever since we had all been in touch.
I made two mugs of coffee and gave one to Jonathan who had calmed down a bit.
“Here, drink this, we need to talk.”
Although he said ‘Yes, dear.’ I knew he wasn’t really hearing anything I said.
“When are you going then?”
He looked mystified. “Going? Whatchamean ‘going’?”
He stood up, as if to go out of the door. “Of course. Gotta go home.” When he got to the door, one hand on the handle he turned back “Can’t. Can’t go home.” He looked at me and laughed “Gotta pack first. Can’t go home without packing. Pack pack pack pack pack.” He stumbled across the corridor and fumbled with his keys to lock his room. He turned round and held the keys out towards me grinning childishly. “Help Jonny?”
I took the keys from him and went into my husband’s bedroom for the first time since the day before we were married. It was a very different me who, 16 months earlier, had left to meet his family at the airport, before going directly to the register office. The morning we had arrived back from India he had emptied all my things from the drawers and wardrobes and thrown them out onto the corridor and I had been happy to move into the spare room. The next Saturday a man came round with a tool box to fit a lock on Jonathan’s room so that even had I wanted to go in I couldn’t.
It was a mess. There were t-shirts socks and underpants on the floor, his work suits were on hangers but not in the cupboard, they were suspended from the curtain rails. I couldn’t believe that a man, so fastidious in so many ways, could live in such a way. But then, I reasoned, he had hardly spent any time here.
I went to open the cupboard but Jonathan stumbled to block the door in a melodramatic fashion. “Thou shalt not pass!” and when I turned to go out of the room without argument he moved away asking in his hurt, boyish voice “Don’t you want to see?” I knew if I moved towards him he would block the door again and laugh at my optimism so I carried on towards the door. “All my little secrets? Aren’t you the teensiest weensiest bit curious?”
“No.”
“Well I’m going to show you anyway!” He shouted as if he had won a great victory. “Here!” He had slid the cupboard door open and picked up a carrier bag which he threw vaguely in my direction. “There you are!” It seemed that that effort was all he could make as he collapsed on the floor. “Stupid bitch.” He looked up at me and around the room as if he had never seen it before and passed out.
I took the bag and went to my room.
It was full of envelopes. Most were addressed to me but at an address I did not recognise. The various handwritings were familiar, the dates on the postmarks regular throughout the previous months. Another packet, held together with a blue elastic band, were all the letters I had written and given to him to post.
I put the bag in a holdall along with some clothes. I packed the papers I knew I couldn’t do without into my briefcase. I took the disk out of my new computer and poured the remainder of my coffee into the drives. I glanced swiftly around the flat to make sure I had everything that I really needed and left.
I took a taxi to The Savoy. Without a second glance the concierge took my briefcase and holdall and ushered me into the foyer. In jeans and sweatshirt I was not dressed as their usual guests were but the hotel’s staff were well trained.
Giving them a credit card I decided that Jonathan was going to have a surprise when he read his next statement, a river suite at the Savoy is not cheap. Nor was the limousine the hotel had arranged which waited patiently that afternoon outside various exclusive shops in Knightsbridge, Bond Street and Piccadilly.
With a roomful of shopping bags I finally sat down in my suite, with a room service meal and bottle of good wine, to read the letters that Jonathan had kept from me.
I didn’t recognise the address they had been sent to, I didn’t know anyone in Wimbledon. Perhaps one of Jonathan’s colleagues had agreed to have my post go to his address, perhaps Jonathan had another flat, another life. God knows he spent enough time away he could have had a mistress or even another wife and children for all I knew. Perhaps I was just the ‘work wife’. I thought the best thing was to sort the letters into chronological order as far as I could read the postmarks.
The earliest were from when I had only been with Jonathan for a few weeks. He must have planned from the very beginning to isolate me from my friends and family. He would have been in touch with Ramesh all that time, taking his instructions. That birthday, 1983, I hadn’t really expected many cards, especially with the wedding, but I had been upset not to get one from Ted or Maureen. When we had got back from our honeymoon and I had mentioned in passing that there were no birthday cards waiting for me, he had poured some more wine and asked me sarcastically if he wasn’t enough for me.
I opened an envelope which had a birthday card in it, signed With love always, Maureen. Inserted in the card was a note in Ted’s recognisably neat handwriting.
My dear Annie, or are you Susannah again?
This is just a short note to wish you both all the luck in the world.
Don’t lose touch, always remember that, whatever you may think, you are very dear to a lot of people.
There were Christmas cards postmarked 1983. I recognised Ted’s writing and read another note.
I am so disappointed you haven’t been in touch, perhaps life is too hectic.
Write when you get a chance
With my love.
Ted
I had sent them cards. I had written. It was so unfair that they thought I hadn’t.
There were others, from Linda and Charles, and scribbled notes from Josie and the boys. They would think I hadn’t wanted to keep in touch with them. I hated people thinking badly of me, especially when it wasn’t my fault.
All those years with Carl I hadn’t replied to letters as I should have done. These, however, were letters I had never had the opportunity to read and would have opened and replied to enthusiastically if I had ever known of their existence.
None of the letters were addressed to ‘Susannah Smith’, they were all to me as ‘Donaldson’.
They could never have been sent wedding invitations. He had been working with Ramesh to isolate me from them all from the very beginning and I had gone along with it.
It seemed very important to talk to someone, to explain that it wasn’t my fault that I hadn’t been in touch, that they mustn’t think badly of me; that I needed them. I picked up the phone and dialled Maureen’s number, I didn’t even have to look it up.
There was no reply.
I tried Ted’s number.
The voice that answered was unfamiliar.
“Ted?”
“I’m afraid not. You must have the wrong number.”
I repeated the number I had dialled.
“That’s my number. Perhaps you’re calling a previous occupant. I’ve only been here a few months.”
“Have you got a forwarding address? A new number?”
“Sorry, no.” The man’s voice was pleasant, with a noticeable, but not unpleasant, Merseyside accent.
“Sorry to have bothered you.”
I tried Maureen’s number again. Again no reply.
I tried Ted’s office. I knew there would be no one there at this time of night but thought there might be an answering machine. There was no reply. I went to my address book and checked the number. I had remembered it wrongly and with my sense of panic barely in check I dialled again. That number was unobtainable. I tried directory enquiries. ‘No, there is no company of that name listed in Liverpool. And no there is no Mr Edward Mottram either.’
It was my fault, but I had cut myself off from these people I had loved and who had loved me and now I couldn’t re-connect. I clenched my fists and gave way to tears.
When I began to think again, rather than just feel loneliness and fear, I looked down at the address book in my hand. My thumb was keeping it open in the Ms. Mottram, McKennah, McNamara, and Me. There was the phone number of the flat and it made me think of Jonathan, passed out on his bedroom floor.
But that had been several hours ago. He would be awake now, aware that I had gone. He would have sobered up and would check my room, he would see that I had taken many of my things. His first instinct wouldn’t be regret or pain, it would be to stop the credit cards and tell the bank not to honour any of my cheques. Could he have done it already?
In five minutes I was at a cash machine withdrawing £100. My relief was enormous when it gave me both the money and the card back. I had visited four more machines, gradually increasing the sum requested, before one didn’t return my card. I was not unhappy, I had enough cash to see me through a few weeks and it seemed Jonathan had not managed to put a stop on anything. If I checked out early in the morning I should be OK. On my way through the foyer at the hotel I asked the concierge to arrange a first class return rail ticket.
I had to go back to Hoylake.