If Only I Could Tell You

by Hannah Beckerman

  Mia’s questions hummed in Audrey’s head, peeling back the layers of memory until she was back there, running past the police car and into her house to discover the cause of Helen Sheppard’s hysterical phone call.

  When the young policeman had told her what had happened, Audrey had thought there must have been some mistake. It could not have been Edward who had done this. Edward was strong and sensible, the one upon whom they all depended to be the voice of reason.

  But as the policeman had stated the facts again, slower this time, Audrey had known deep in the pit of her stomach that it was true. She had not needed the policewoman to tell her that he had left no note because she had already known why Edward had chosen to take his own life. She had been the only person who knew, and the knowledge had felt like a shroud of loneliness wrapping itself around her.

  She remembered holding on to Jess, remembered how quiet the house had been, how still. How there had been no sound bar a duet of sorrow and heartbreak, and how it had taken a little while for her to realize that one of the voices chanting the lament was her own.

  She had stood in the sitting room, police officers bustling around her, and thought about the last time she had seen Edward as she had walked out of their bedroom that morning, him still cocooned under the duvet. She had asked whether he should start getting ready for work, the pretense at normality straining her voice. He had kept his back to her, told her he was taking the day off, his voice the distant monotone that in recent weeks had become his only alternative to rage. That cold, distant behavior was so unlike the man she had married, so unlike the man he had been just three months before. She had promised to keep the girls quiet, told him that a day off would probably do him good, trying to find in her voice something to dissolve the animosity that had wedged itself between them.

  Holding on to Jess, not yet able to comprehend that she would never see Edward again, Audrey had wondered why she hadn’t been more vigilant. Why she hadn’t thought it odd that Edward—whose sick days in seventeen years she could count on one hand—should suddenly grant himself a day off. Her cheeks had burned with self-reproach that, after everything they had been through, she had not been more alert to changes in his routine, however slight. As the clock in the hall had chimed, Audrey had known that she was to blame. Edward might have tied the noose around his neck, but she had handed him the rope.

  Audrey had not known it at the time, but her guilt was to be a storm that would rage for years to come, that would rise and fall with her moods, with the seasons, with the notable dates in the calendar that whipped it back into a frenzy.

  Later that day—Audrey could never remember when exactly—she had gone downstairs to the kitchen with the policeman and policewoman and they had asked her questions she had discovered only later constituted her statement. She had given them only the bare facts—the usual timings of departures and arrivals, place of work, age, and health—but she had not dared tell them everything. It was too tortuous a tale and the repercussions had been too momentous, not just for her but for the girls too. But as soon as she had informed the police of what had happened in June—the parts she could divulge without any further incrimination—she had sensed them concluding that they had found their motive, had watched them close their notebooks on the case.

  When the police had finally finished asking questions, she remembered unfurling her fingers to find deep indentations in her palms where her nails had dug into the flesh. As anonymous figures had bustled in and out of her house, Audrey had been aware of a gnawing dread that this was an experience from which her girls would never recover. She had not known it then but in the following years, as she had watched her family implode, she had suspected there had to be a link between Jess’s trauma at having discovered her father’s body and her decision to cut Lily out of her life. But Audrey had never been able to uncover what that link was or why Lily had borne the brunt of Jess’s rage.

  Audrey looked out of the window onto the street below. She could feel Mia watching her, but however she rewrote the story of Edward’s death, there seemed to be no way to craft it into a meaningful synopsis. “It was a very hard time. That summer had already been so difficult and then losing Edward . . . I think it probably hit your mum worst of all.”

  Audrey thought about how Jess had changed that summer: from an affectionate, carefree ten-year-old at the beginning to a watchful, angry eleven-year-old by the end.

  “But before that, before Grandad . . . before he died, were you happy?”

  Happy. Audrey repeated the word in her head, wondering if there were as many definitions of it as there were people on the planet.

  She and Edward had argued so much in the months leading up to his suicide, arguments of such quiet ferocity that they had shifted the foundations on which their marriage had been built. So many times since, Audrey had imagined a parallel life, one in which she had chosen never to tell the truth. Because through whichever prism she viewed it, she could not escape the possibility that had she never told anyone what had happened, Edward might still be alive now.

  “Yes, we had been happy. For a long time we were very happy. But sometimes life has a habit of throwing things at you that are too big even for the strongest relationship to withstand. What makes you ask?”

  “I’ve just always wondered whether you were angry with Grandad about not going to university. I’ve never understood why you didn’t go later, after you’d got married and had children. You got straight As in your A-levels and you’re easily one of the cleverest people I know. From what you’ve always said it sounded like you really wanted to go, so I wondered what stopped you, whether it was Grandad.”

  Audrey thought about how to answer honestly without betraying the life she had lived and the choices she had made. “No, it wasn’t Grandad. If anything, it was my own cowardice. I couldn’t imagine how people might have reacted if I’d said I wanted to go to university in my mid-twenties.” Audrey’s mouth felt dry and she sipped the cup of tea cooling between the palms of her hands. “Sometimes, in those months between finding out I was pregnant and marrying Edward, I’d imagine myself sitting down and typing a letter to the university, asking if I could defer for a year. I had it all worked out: I’d get someone to look after the baby while I was at lectures and I’d study in the evenings and at weekends when Edward wasn’t at work. The plan was so clear and simple in my head, yet whenever I thought about actually writing the letter, I felt completely paralyzed. When I look back now, all I can think is, What on earth stopped me? Why didn’t I at least try? And however many times I ask myself that question, there’s only ever one answer I can offer in response. Because I was scared. It’s as simple as that.”

  Audrey’s voice began to splinter and she drank the last of her tea, noticing the small brown spots decorating the bottom of the mug where it hadn’t been washed properly.

  “What were you scared of?”

  “That I couldn’t do it, I suppose. I was worried that I’d cause all that fuss, make all those arrangements, only to discover I couldn’t cope. It was a failure of courage, nothing more complicated than that. It’s the greatest trick people play on themselves, allowing their fears to destroy their ambitions.” Audrey looked out of the window, where the sun was fighting its way through the clouds.

  “I’m sorry, Granny. I shouldn’t have asked. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Audrey shook her head. “Don’t be sorry. I’m pleased you’re interested. Honestly.” She reached for a tissue from her handbag, coughed into it, knew without checking what she’d find if she dared look. She crumpled it into a tight ball and tucked it into her pocket.

  “Do you regret it now? Not going to university, I mean. Getting married, having children. Do you wish you’d done things differently?”

  Mia’s questions circled inside Audrey’s head.

  Regret. It was such a powerful word, a word that implied the desire for an undoing. And that wasn’t how Audrey felt about her marriage, her children, the fa
mily to whom she’d devoted the best part of her life. So many times she’d imagined parallel versions of herself: an Audrey who’d written that letter, got a deferred place, started university a year later, and completed her degree in spite of the odds stacked against her. An Audrey who might have fulfillled that teenage ambition to sit behind a mahogany desk in a university English department, preparing the next lecture for her enthusiastic students.

  But each of those scenarios demanded an impossible unraveling of her life. Because there would be no Jess at home, no Mia sitting opposite her. None of the past forty-four years as she’d known them would exist. And that was unthinkable: the untangling of a life back to a moment of critical decision. Audrey could never know where that other track might have led her, could never know what kind of a journey it might have taken her on. All she could know was the family she’d have needed to give up in order to find out.

  “I don’t regret it, no. It’s not regret so much as melancholy, maybe. A mourning for alternative lives you can never know. Do you remember those choose-your-own-adventure books you used to read when you were little? Life is a bit like one of those, except in real life you can’t go back to the beginning and start again.”

  Mia let out a heavy sigh, her eyes still blotchy.

  “What is it, Mia? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Just what you said. It’s got me thinking, that’s all.”

  Audrey squeezed Mia’s hand, studied her granddaughter’s smooth, elastic flesh in contrast to the delta of veins rising up beneath her own skin. “Mia, if you can get to the end of your life without having accumulated too many regrets—your regrets, no one else’s—I think you’ll be happy with the life you’ve led. It’s easier said than done, I know. Just try not to get to my age burdened by too many if onlys.”

  Mia smiled but it was as if something was trapped behind her eyes that Audrey couldn’t reach. “Look, Granny, everyone else is heading back to class. We ought to go too.”

  “Are you still free afterward, for our trip to the Tate? We can have lunch there before my choir rehearsal this afternoon.”

  Mia nodded. As Audrey slid back her chair and pushed herself to her feet, there it was again: the sharp stabbing sensation in her shoulder. She ground her back teeth against the pain, breathing slowly and counting the seconds until, she hoped, it would subside.

  As they headed out of the canteen and back up to the art room, the pain in her shoulder still needling inside the joint, Audrey thought about what she’d planned for their trip to the Tate and couldn’t be sure whether the violent knocking against her ribs was a feeling of fear or hope.

  Chapter 21

  Audrey

  Walking into the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, Audrey scanned the length of the vast, cavernous space.

  “Right, Granny, where shall we start? How about the Rothko room? We always love it in there. Or do you want an early lunch first?”

  Audrey’s eyes continued to sweep the hall.

  “Are you OK? You seem a bit distracted.”

  Audrey turned to Mia and smiled, trying to ignore the pounding of her heart. “I’m fine. I’m just always surprised by how busy it is in here.” The little white lie was hot on her tongue.

  It had been three weeks since her latest diagnosis, when the idea had begun to formulate. She knew it was risky, knew the jeopardy involved should she be caught, but in spite of the possible repercussions, she hadn’t been able to stop herself.

  “Shall we go up, then?”

  “Let’s just stand here a moment, shall we? Even when there’s no exhibition in here, I still love this space.”

  They both looked up at the steel joists running from floor to ceiling, at the viewing windows jutting out from the floors above like enormous bird boxes, at the strip of skylights running the length of the room beneath intersecting metal beams. Audrey felt the clamminess between her palms, tried to reassure herself that this time things would be different. She had deliberately planned it as far away from home as she could without arousing suspicion, had chosen the one place she had felt sure they wouldn’t be caught. But as she looked up at the light streaming through the glass ceiling, she couldn’t erase memories of the last time she had attempted this.

  Over Mia’s shoulder, she spotted a familiar figure walking toward her, their face breaking into a wide, trusting smile.

  And then she sensed Mia turn and follow her gaze, felt the crackle of tentative recognition as Mia’s eyes locked onto the young woman heading toward them.

  “What the . . . ? Granny, what’s going on?”

  And then Phoebe was there, standing in front of them, just inches away from the cousin she hadn’t seen for twelve years.

  The two young women stared at one another and Audrey watched them, aware that time had slowed down, that all around them parents hurried children toward escalators, friends rushed to greet one another, first dates were met with disappointment or relief, and tourists rotated gallery maps from left to right, while in the center of the ramp, standing on the fossil-gray concrete floor as though the clocks had stopped, Audrey’s granddaughters looked into each other’s eyes for the first time in more than a decade.

  Audrey felt the muscles in her chest pull taut. It was only now, seeing the two of them together, that she understood how deeply she had wanted to witness this encounter and how long she had waited for it to happen.

  She watched as looks of confusion passed between her granddaughters and then words began to fall from her lips before she had a chance to collect them in the right order. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to fib to you both. But I thought that this way neither of you had to lie to your mums about where you were going and no one could accuse you of duplicity. I just wanted you to have a chance to meet and get to know each other. It’s absurd, you being kept apart all these years. I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t have done it in secret. It must be a terrible shock . . .”

  Audrey’s explanation dissolved as Mia and Phoebe collapsed into fits of laughter. “What is it? What’s funny? I don’t understand.”

  Her head felt foggy as she watched the girls laughing, tears in their eyes.

  “Oh, Gran, I’m sorry. We shouldn’t laugh really. It’s sweet of you. Please don’t think we don’t appreciate it.” Phoebe glanced at Mia and they both started laughing again.

  “I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

  And then she saw the look exchanged between them: a look of knowledge and recognition, of friendship and intimacy, and all at once she understood. And as the realization spread, it was as if someone had placed a hot-water bottle in the center of her chest that was warming her from the inside out. “What . . . ? When . . . ? How did it happen?”

  Questions scrambled from her lips, and then Mia and Phoebe were answering, their sentences leapfrogging one another, picking up a part of the story the other had missed: a tale told by two voices that could have been one. The story of how, two years previously, Phoebe had tracked down Mia on Facebook, sent her a message, and begun a correspondence. How, soon after, they had begun meeting in secret, after school or on Saturday mornings. How they had seen each other every week since, a clandestine friendship that had soon become closer than any other, transcending the family politics they had never understood but which had kept them apart for years.

  “You’re not angry with us, are you, Granny? We honestly did think about telling you—didn’t we, Phoebe?—but we thought if you knew, you might have felt you had to tell our mums and it just seemed easier this way. We never meant to lie to you, really we didn’t.”

  Audrey took each girl by the hand, holding them with all she wanted to say but couldn’t find the words to express, hoping they might understand just a fraction of how happy they had made her.

  And then all three of them were laughing. Standing in the center of the Turbine Hall, there was a split second when Audrey looked outside their unexpected trio, catching the glances of passersby, and it took her a few seconds to interpret their cu
rious expressions. But as she turned back to her granddaughters, she understood what people were staring at: the sight of these two beautiful young women whose similarities were so striking they could easily be mistaken for twins. As she held on tight to their hands, her heart swelled with pride and relief but most of all with love.

  Chapter 22

  Audrey

  “Right, if I can have everyone’s attention, please.”

  Audrey’s head turned, along with dozens of others, to where Ben was leaning on the upright piano, his assistant by his side. She caught Phoebe’s eye and they exchanged a wry smile. It was just over an hour since they’d left Mia at Tate Modern and it felt to Audrey as though the three of them were now linked by the knowledge that, even amid familial chaos, something good and unexpected could emerge from the rubble.

  “It’s fantastic to see such a great turnout again this afternoon. Caitlin’s just told me that ninety-three of you have signed in, which is incredible. We assumed you’d be dropping like flies by the fifth week, so perhaps I’m not working you hard enough.”

  There was a low murmur of laughter as Ben grinned, his eyes roaming across the room. It was similar to the one in which the auditions had been held—wooden floor, whitewashed walls, wide rectangular windows on one side—but at least double the size.

  “Seriously, putting together something like this is a bit like sending out party invites. You only expect about half the people to turn up, so I really am grateful that so many of you are still here after nine rehearsals. It may sound like an obvious thing to say, but a choir doesn’t exist without singers. It doesn’t exist without you. And given how well you guys have started coming together already, I’m confident that when we step onto the stage at the Albert Hall on June twenty-fifth, the audience are going to believe we’ve been singing together for years.”