The Women Who Ran Away - Sheila O'Flanagan Page 0,10

she managed a book a fortnight, but lately she’d been finding it hard to concentrate, and even though this one was well written, her attention kept wandering after a few pages. It had been recommended to her by Tillie, who insisted that she needed something inspiring, and was about a woman who’d suffered a major trauma in her life and gone trekking through the Andes in an effort to find her inner self. Deira wasn’t sure if trauma was at the root of the more recent decisions she herself had made, although sitting in a good restaurant toying with excellent food said a lot about the inner self she still didn’t want to embrace. I’m shallow, she thought. Too concerned about material things and creature comforts. But – and she smiled involuntarily at the thought – a car thief. So a bit out-there after all.

The woman opposite was also reading; she’d taken an old copy of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises from her bag and had left it on the table while she’d gone to the buffet. Deira had written a critical analysis of Hemingway’s most famous work for the English literature module of first-year college exams, suggesting that his casual anti-Semitism was shocking, his characters unlikeable and his dialogue stilted, a critique that had caused her tutor to look at her appraisingly and remark that when she’d written her own masterpiece, she might be in a position to pan a classic twentieth-century novel. Deira had responded by telling him that she’d been asked to write a critical essay, not simply praise the damn book. Hemingway’s so-called masterpiece was full of male arrogance, she insisted, and she was entitled to say so.

The professor laughed then and told her that he liked people who could defend their own point of view, no matter how wrong it might be, so he would mark her highly for the essay even though he didn’t agree with a word of it. It had been a turning point for Deira at college – until she’d locked horns with him, she’d been self-effacing and timid. But that day she’d become a more positive person, one who could stand up for herself. She’d stayed that person for a long time. But now she’d suddenly lost her again. Perhaps, she thought, this trip was the start of getting her back.

The woman opposite turned the pages of the book as she ate, but when she’d finished her smoked salmon, she closed it and pushed it to one side. She looked up and caught Deira observing her.

‘It’s kind of awkward sitting opposite each other without saying a word, and yet so many of us who want tables to ourselves aren’t the kind of people to strike up friendships with random people,’ she observed. ‘However, it’s rude not to at least know who you’re sharing with. My name is Grace. Grace Garvey.’

‘Deira O’Brien.’

Observing Grace more closely, Deira estimated she was in her mid fifties, or perhaps slightly older. But her complexion was smooth and almost flawless and hinted at real beauty when she was younger. In fact, thought Deira, she was beautiful now.

‘Have you sailed on this ship before?’ Grace asked.

Deira shook her head. ‘My first time.’

‘I think this is my tenth, maybe even eleventh.’ Grace smiled. ‘We used to do it every second year when my children were younger.’

Deira glanced around as though Grace’s family would suddenly materialise.

‘I’m on my own this year,’ Grace said.

‘Me too.’

It was a relief to know she wasn’t the only person travelling solo. Seeing so many families on board was the most difficult part of the experience for Deira. Because if things had been different, if she’d been more sure of herself, she could have been part of the whole camping-trips-to-France scene. She could have been the one hustling her children through the interminable queues of the self-service restaurant, hoping they wouldn’t make a scene; unlike the French parents, whose children seemed to have impeccable table manners, Deira knew that hers would have taken after both her and Gavin and been irrepressible. They wouldn’t have wanted to sit still in these more formal surroundings. They would have been a nuisance.

No. She held back that thought. Her children might have been boisterous, but they would never have been a nuisance. She’d have made sure of that.

‘Where are you heading afterwards?’ she asked Grace, who’d finished her salad but hadn’t opened her book again.

‘I’m driving to Cartagena in southern Spain.’

Deira looked at her in astonishment. ‘From Roscoff? On