Lucky Man Pt. 02

"Already in hand, Sir," came the reply. God, when I am right about people I am right. These last few years my trust in the abilities of staff given the responsibilities they were comfortable with had brought rich dividends, and monetary considerations being the least of them.

Chapter 3. Reckoning

I turned around. Ruth was fully ten feet away, three long strides, although I hardly recall moving away from her at all. She stood stock still once more, still with her hands held together just below a white belt which gave shape to the thin dress draped over her hips, lightly clinging to her thighs. She had a light brown handbag with a narrow leather strap over one shoulder. Behind her was an empty hall, the only movement to one side at the back, where a large black female cleaner was languidly removing a cumbersome floor polishing machine from a cupboard.

Ruth's eyes were either closed or focused on the floor by her feet, tears rolled down her cheeks dripping unchecked onto her cotton dress, outlining her small, still pert breasts. Her slim figure looked isolated, alone. She appeared even smaller than her elfin figure presumed, in the large space around her. I closed the distance between us in three strides and separated her hands to hold in mine. I looked at her tear-stained face and, as I took her hands, those sad blue eyes slowly lifted and returned my gaze.

I released my left hand from hers to search my pocket for a tissue, then abandoned that one remembering that I had used it during the plane journey. I released my right hand from hers to search my other pocket and she exhaled and groaned faintly. I quickly shifted the thick wad of three or four tissues to my left hand and grasped her left hand with my right again. Ruth clenched her fingers round mine tightly as if fearing I would release her once more. I lifted the tissues to her cheek and lightly dabbed at the line of tears on her right cheek rather ineffectively, as it happens.

Ruth smiled and then laughed shortly, in relief I think more than anything else, and lifted her spare hand from her side, pulling my left hand towards her lips and kissed it lightly. She took the wad of tissue from my fingers and dabbed at her cheeks and below her eyes, using quite a bit more force than I had attempted.

"He hated you, your father always had. He couldn't control you like he did us." Ruth said quietly, still dabbing at her eyes. "He said you were so eager to please but he couldn't manipulate you, you were too strong for him. When he beat you, you defied him, when he ignored you, you ignored him, when he beat your mother you fought him. When he beat you to within an inch of your life, but you escaped him. Your mother drew strength from your defiance and stayed with him only so she could protect you from him ... and ... from us." She looked up at me to see how I was reacting.

I said, "Go on, I need to hear everything, please, no more secrets."

"No more secrets," Ruth repeated very quietly. She drew a deep breath and seemed to draw inner strength to continue.

"That's why when your father went to the hospital with her after she suffered her massive stroke, he wanted her to die alone, just to get at you." She paused for a moment to steel herself to carry on. "He was a beast, Mark, we all know that now. He removed all your mother's IDs, even pulled off her rings from her fingers and left her, as a Jane Doe. Yet he remained nearby, be boasted to us in private, watching from the waiting room as she died neglected and unrecognised. Someone had reported the ambulance to a neighbour a couple of days later and followed it up but by then she had died. She was finally free of him. He wouldn't let any of us go any other way." Ruth sobbed, lowering her eyes, "My own mother was enslaved since she was 18, Reggie even made love to her on her deathbed in the hospital while I played lookout at the door. He was inhuman and the shameful things he made us do will live as guilt with us forever."

"Was Reggie your only lover while we were married?" I asked, tentatively.

I looked at Ruth and she started to cry. I waited a moment for her to pull herself together. "All your cousins were your father's children. He had power over his sisters, their husbands and his brother's wives, even the children of your sisters were his. He groomed all these children from an early age, rewarding and punishing them and when they were old enough at 18 he raped them, male or female, he took his pleasure when and how and as often as he wanted. Occasionally, very occasionally ..." She faltered and looked at me. I think she must have thought I really didn't want to hear this.

I did.

I spoke softly to Ruth. "I want to hear everything, I need to know it all. I am owed that much. Please, Ruth. You've been broken by my father, I know that. I don't want to break you any more than you have been already, I really don't, but I do want to know, in order to try and understand."

She rallied. "He had amazing sexual power, he was a juggernaut, he knew everyone's buttons to press, but not the way a lover would, but like a monster who had to dominate and hurt. He would take us all on most of the time but sometimes for his amusement he would mix us up, men on men, women on women, mother on daughter, uncles and aunts, whatever combination was his whim. Everything was for his own amusement, fuelling his hate, he had no love for anyone. We were totally in his power, we really had no will to resist. We have all been in therapy since, but the guilt, the pain we caused you, remains."

She was crying openly now the tears rolling down her face, I wondered how much more she could cry.

We stood there, no-one else in view except the lone worker hoovering in the far corner of the cavernous hall.

"It was Charlie," she continued, "who broke the spell he had over us first. She was the last one to be influenced and the first to snap out of it. It was immediately after your Dad had been buried and the Will about to be read. It was clear that you and Bob weren't going to show up, we didn't know why then. Charlie pointed out to us that Reggie was dead and he no longer had any power over us. For some, especially your aunts, it took a while before we were able to talk ourselves all through it and then the girls and I went home to try and put things right with you. And you were gone. We saw you had been sick and feared for you. We couldn't get you by phone or text or email. You had packed hardly anything and disappeared. We looked for you. We found Bob in hospital the next day, but his memory was shot. He couldn't remember if he had destroyed the Will or not -"

"He was going to destroy it?"

"Of course, that's why he switched Will and copy, so the sealed one sent to the lawyers was unsigned and invalid. We gathered you must have seen the original Will, plus the letter and list of all his children. Then the divorce papers came through out of the blue and I met with your lawyer. You had paid him up front and he had no contact details for you. When I asked where he was to send the divorce papers, he said you had told him not to worry about the paperwork as you already knew our marriage was over. 'Dead and buried' was the expression he used. I know I broke your heart Mark, but you broke mine too, that day. I thought that our actions, however much they were out of our control, had killed you."

She wiped the tears from her eyes with my bundle of tissues, still holding an iron grip on my right hand.

She wasn't quite finished. "There was not a trace of you and, you silly sod, you had told the lawyer that I could have the house and all the money in the accounts. We feared for your life, especially when every trail ran cold and we received the acknowledgement that you had cancelled all the insurance policies, including the one on your life. You were nowhere to be found."

"So how did you catch up with me today?"

"Your mother's tombstone," she said. "The flowers you sent every year we couldn't trace, only that the orders came from abroad. Then this year you replaced the temporary grave marker with a beautiful headstone. You took your time over it and had faxes and emails of draft wordings and designs being sent back and forth. It was only when the headstone was erected a few weeks ago that I became aware of it, made some enquiries and, after fluttering a few eyelids, the monumental masons were only too pleased to show me that you were living in Beijing. We had your new name, we knew you were living in China as a Chinese national, we really hadn't considered that! I went to China with Bob and Carol and found your apartment building but you had already moved on. Everyone we met who we were sure must have known you were very tight-lipped, whatever we offered got us nowhere. Carol used her airline contacts and found you had flown several times to Singapore, so she went there."

She looked at me then, so I guessed she was looking for some response.

"I was negotiating for a bridge design and build, which took up a great deal of my time for several months," I smiled remembering those endless, fruitless negotiations, thinking that while everyone accuses the Chinese of being inscrutable, they had nothing on the Malays. "We never got the contract," I added "A lot of effort and zero return."

"I couldn't stay in Beijing any longer," Ruth took up her story again, "So I went to Christchurch to be with Charlie and her husband Jacob. Bob stayed on in China but wasn't getting anywhere, so I called Andie and she persuaded Jim to get a leave of absence from San Francisco Police Department and flew to Beijing a couple of days ago. Then Carol got a tip off from London that you were leaving LHR for Sydney with your son and she got me on a flight from New Zealand and the others from Beijing, while she joined your flight at Singapore. As you know, Charlie is too far into her pregnancy to be allowed to fly."

I could see her mind was working out how to say the next thing on her mind. I gave her time to sort it out. The cabs could wait.

"We just want to be back into your life again. It is important to the girls that you see them regularly and get to know their husbands and children and vice versa. Whatever happened to us as a family in the past, and I have no excuses for our weakness and gullibility, your girls always regarded you as their Dad. As for me, I want to meet your wife and son and be allowed to see you all at high days and holidays, when you see our children and grandchildren. I want us to be friends, Mark, or at least on a level of being on speaking terms. And you really must allow me to give you your fair share of the house value and our savings, I cannot bear the thought of you wandering the world with no permanent home for your new family."

She looked at me appealingly and continued "Your sisters escaped your father years ago and managed to stay away. Your Mum helped them in this regard. When the Will was read, the version placed with your Dad's solicitors was the copy Reggie intended for you to read and was unsigned and unwitnessed." she laughed at the thought. "Bob switched them and put the original Will in your letter but Reggie hid that sealed letter away in his study. Bob drank too much while looking for it and was unable to destroy it. Fortunately, you took it with you and the solicitor was forced to refer back to the previous Last Will which they had on record, which then became the valid one. That version did not have a list of children, it just said "My surviving children", which the lawyers applied just to his legal children, your two sisters and you. Your sisters refused to take their share until you were found and could be divided reasonably, so it is still held in trust. The last valuation had your share at just over three million pounds. Mark, you are a wealthy man, there is no need for you to keep running, you could fly first class, now."

I spoke at last, changing the subject to something more important to me than any inheritance. "Reggie was very angry at his fortieth anniversary dance when we danced together so well, I thought he was going to explode. He controlled you, but you never told him about our birthday and anniversary dances, did you?"

"That was something that Reggie didn't know about. I kept it from him, knowing he would have made it dirty and sordid like he did everything else," whispered Ruth, "It was the only thing that was ours, the only pleasure we had that I could keep pure. Reggie wanted to dance with me in Edinburgh on my birthday, but I deflected him, I bought tickets for the ballet instead. It is the one thing that was for you and me ... for us. I have missed it for five birthdays now."

A movement at the corner of my peripheral vision turned my attention to where the toilets were located. There I could see Billy, Jim, Charlie and Andie, who was carrying baby Markie, from the changing room and heading for the cab rank outside the building. Bill Junior gave me a cheery wave as they headed towards the exit.

I pulled on Ruth's hand, which still held me in her tight grip, and we started to walk towards the exit and the cabs. She stumbled on behind me, as if in a dream.

"I don't have a wife, I've not remarried," I said as we picked up speed. "I never married Billy's mother. He isn't actually an orphan, his parents are very much alive but they are rather unsophisticated country people and Billy outgrew them. They all wanted me to adopt him and the arrangement works to our mutual advantage, we stay with them at least three or four times a year." I neglected to say they were staying in my country house.

"You are right, I am ready to get to know my children again and it is to everyone's advantage for the two of us to act like civilised people and for me to be on speaking terms with my ex-wife."

Ruth stopped, pulling at my arm so I stopped too.

"You are still married," she said, "I went to see your lawyer five years ago, but I never signed the divorce papers. I appealed to the court that you were temporarily insane, were unaware of your inheritance and was possibly suicidal, that you needed your family intact to aid your recovery following your eventual discovery. The court ruled that you should be sectioned for your wellbeing and your divorce petition denied. I am not your ex-wife, Mark, or Bill. Whatever you call yourself, you are still married ... to me."

She looked to have gathered her composure, her tears had dried up, she had no make-up to run as she wasn't wearing any, she didn't really need it, she was a perfect English Rose. It was then, exploring her face, that I spotted she was wearing those antique gold and garnet earrings that I had bought her for her first birthday that we shared together, the night we made love. They glittered like a talisman of hope. Of course I could afford the finest rubies of champions but right now those garnets really were punching above their weight.

She chewed her lower lip again to see what my reaction would be to her latest revelation.

I pulled her to me and kissed her forehead. "I better introduce you to our son," I said. "They'll get to the cabs before us if we don't get a move on."

"Our son?" she said quietly, breathlessly, as we started to walk quickly towards the exit, with me urging, pulling her on.

"Well," I replied, "If we are still married, then he is every bit your son as much as mine. You'll love him as much as I do when you get to know him."

"I loved you from our first kiss, I thought you should know," she said very quietly.

"I know," I replied. "Me too, there has never been anyone else who came close."

Our little family group had disappeared through the door ahead of us.

"They won't actually leave without us, will they?" Ruth said anxiously.

"No they won't," I assured her.

"Not sure if I know where we are going or what's happening, honey," she said. "I think I'm suffering from information overload, it has all been a bit too much."

"Well, I imagine we will have a very nice meal waiting for us at the boat, but we will have time to clean up and change beforehand. I hope you have a good appetite. We could even have a midnight waltz or two on the quarterdeck before retiring. At first light we will sail for New Zealand to see our daughter and meet her other half, Jacob I think you said?"

"Yes, Jacob Sheerwater, he's a professional cricketer."

"Well, and hopefully see our grandchild born. I guess the trip will take four days but my skipper will confirm. We can stay on board very comfortably when we get to Chrstchurch, so we do not need to inconvenience Charlie and her hubby. After that we can be pretty flexible, perhaps sail to Fiji, or even the Reef as we originally planned.

"The world is our oyster, Ruthie. How would you like to spend the English winter in Melbourne, then visit our families in Christchurch, California and China, before spending the spring in England, summer in the Med and back to Melbourne in time for a family Christmas?"

"Really? It sounds perfect... Could we really be that lucky?"

"Really we can, we are."

I released my hand and put it round her waist, I wanted to restore the blood flow to my crushed and tingling fingers. My wife Ruthie, the one and only love of my life, tucked her arm in turn around my waist. We hurried out the door towards the waiting cabs and the rest of our lives together, finally in charge of our own destiny, making our own luck.

The End.