The Women Who Ran Away - Sheila O'Flanagan Page 0,35

an unexpected fall. And then, not that long afterwards, another one, totally out of the blue. Eventually he agreed to see a doctor. He was diagnosed with motor neurone disease.’

‘Oh no,’ said Deira, with even more sympathy. ‘That’s what Stephen Hawking had, isn’t it? I saw the movie about his life. It was amazing.’

‘He had a form of motor neurone, yes,’ said Grace. ‘Ken and I saw that movie too, and when they told us of Ken’s diagnosis I thought . . . well . . . Everyone was surprised at how much Professor Hawking achieved despite his illness. I knew it would be different with Ken, but I thought it might help, both of them being academics. Both professors. It was stupid. He laughed at me.’

‘I’m sure it was very difficult,’ said Deira.

‘You know how it is.’ Grace sighed. ‘You want to be positive. You talk about all the good things you can do together. You try very hard.’

Deira nodded.

‘But Ken didn’t want to be positive. He was furious with life. Furious with his body. Furious with himself. And furious with me.’

‘Why with you?’

‘Because suddenly, in his eyes, I was more valuable than him,’ she said. ‘He’d always been the driving force in the family. Everything we did revolved around his schedule, his work, his publications, his brilliance. I was his support. Even when I went back to the airline, my hours had to fit in with his.’

‘Was he brilliant?’ asked Deira.

‘He was a brilliant intellectual, that’s for sure,’ said Grace. ‘I often think he married me because I would never be able to challenge him. I was pretty and looked good beside him, but I hadn’t read the books he’d read or done the studying he’d done. So I was his . . . his accessory.’

‘All the same, I’m sure he loved you.’

I love you, Hippolyta. Grace remembered him saying that on their wedding day. She remembered him telling her how lucky he was that someone like her could love someone like him. But he’d rarely said it afterwards. And there was a part of her that always thought he’d considered her a prize to be captured from the moment he’d seen her on the flight to New York. He may have loved her, but how had he loved her? As Grace Garvey? Or as the person he’d chosen? She’d asked herself the same question on more than one occasion. She’d never really known the answer.

‘We were married for nearly forty years, so I guess he must have done,’ she told Deira. ‘Though I’m not sure we were so bothered back then about men loving their wives as much as their wives were supposed to love them. You met someone, you got on well, you wanted sex, you tied the knot.’

‘Seriously?’ Deira looked at her sceptically.

‘OK, not just to have sex,’ conceded Grace. ‘But it was important to be married. It really was. And I was punching above my weight with Ken, that’s for sure.’

‘Maybe he was punching above his weight with you.’

Grace smiled. ‘That’s exactly what he once said, but no. He was the brains. I was the—’

‘Brains too,’ said Deira. ‘As well as the beauty. I can see that.’

‘Well preserved is the term I’ve heard,’ Grace said. ‘But I suppose I was attractive enough when I was younger. Back then, being pretty was part of the job description when you worked as cabin crew. Anyhow,’ she continued, ‘Ken and I were a good partnership for a very long time. But once he was diagnosed, it was difficult to make it work.’

‘Did you split up?’ Deira couldn’t imagine how awful it would be to break up a marriage when one person had a terminal diagnosis.

‘Of course not,’ said Grace. ‘I would never have done that. I told Ken that if he only had a certain amount of time left – the prognosis was two to five years – we should spend it in the best ways we could. I suggested this trip. He’d always organised our holidays before and I thought if we did it again it would be great quality time together as well as giving him a project to focus on. It seemed like it was a good suggestion, because he got very animated about it. He said he’d put it together, plan everything, book our berths, our accommodation in France and Spain, everything. There were more stops than we’d normally make, of course, because otherwise it would have been too difficult for him. It