If Only I Could Tell You

by Hannah Beckerman

  “Honestly, it’s fine. The student I teach on Saturday is away this week so I’m totally free. Just let me get this lot cleared up and then we’ll be good to go.”

  There was laughter from the far side of the rehearsal room and Audrey turned to see Phoebe chatting with some of the younger choir members she’d befriended over the past month. One of them—Harry—seemed to laugh louder than the others at her jokes, reaching out a hand to touch her arm, training his gaze on her long after she’d finished speaking.

  As Audrey caught Phoebe’s eye and returned her granddaughter’s smile, she realized that she looked forward to these choir rehearsals—and her art classes with Mia—more than she had looked forward to anything for years. “Ben, it really is a wonderful thing you’re doing here. Not many people would give up their evenings and weekends voluntarily to put something like this together.”

  Ben half smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I guess we all have to atone for our sins somehow.” He laughed, but the sound was thin and reedy.

  “I can’t imagine you having any sins to atone for.”

  “Don’t you believe it. We’ve all got skeletons in our closet, haven’t we?”

  Audrey turned around and bent down to pick up a discarded chocolate wrapper from the floor, and felt a pain pull across her chest. She breathed deeply against it but it continued to slice between her ribs, a lightning flash of heat every time she inhaled. Clamping her jaw shut, her back teeth grinding, she forced herself upright. As she stood up, her head felt fuzzy and light, as though it might just roll away. She grabbed the lid of the piano, reminding herself that this was to be expected, that there was nothing to be alarmed about, that it would pass as long as she didn’t panic.

  She waited a few seconds until her body was vaguely under control, and when she turned back to Ben she saw that he was sorting through folders of music balanced on the piano stool and was relieved he hadn’t noticed. During their car journeys over the past few weeks, Audrey had told Ben many things about her life, but never that she was ill. She hadn’t felt he needed to know, hadn’t wanted to see the look of sympathy, surprise or pity in his eyes when she said the words out loud.

  Now, looking at him, she realized that Ben had told her next to nothing about himself. Recalling their conversations, she was sure she’d asked about his life outside the choir but, now she came to think of it, she couldn’t remember him ever giving her any answers.

  “So what are you up to tonight, Ben? Anything special?” Audrey leaned against the piano, her head still woozy.

  “Nothing much. Just a good book and a decent glass of red wine. I’m afraid my Saturday night partying days were over a long time ago.”

  He smiled but Audrey caught a flicker of hesitation.

  “Do you not have any family? No Mrs. Levine? No children of your own?”

  “I do, actually, yes. Two kids, Zach and Erin.”

  A stiffness in Ben’s tone made Audrey glance up. She saw something in his expression she thought she recognized though she couldn’t identify what it was. “They’re beautiful names. Do they like living in London or would they rather be in America?”

  Ben began shuffling pieces of paper he’d already tidied just a few moments before. “Erin’s back home in New York, with my wife. My ex-wife. I’m divorced. I haven’t seen them in a while.”

  The shuffling continued, Ben removing song sheets from plastic folders before slipping them back in again.

  “I’m really sorry to hear that. It must be very difficult, for all of you. And what about your son? Is he here with you?”

  There was a heavy silence in which Audrey sensed she had asked a question Ben didn’t want to answer.

  She watched as Ben’s paper-shuffling stopped and his body came to a standstill. She watched the slow rise and fall of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed, the gentle elevation of his rib cage as he breathed in and then out. It was as though the world had paused, neither of them knowing quite what might follow.

  “No, he’s not. Zach, he . . . Well, he . . . he died a few years ago.”

  Ben turned toward her, deep creases lining his forehead, and Audrey could feel the distress spreading across her face. She was conscious of an echo in her ears, and she readied herself to reply, hoping the right response might emerge before she gave herself away. But instead of the sound of her own voice, Audrey heard only a rush of air around her ears and the dull thud of flesh against wood.

  And then everything went black.

  Chapter 26

  Jess

  Jess stood in the middle of a field in the far reaches of west London, watching the director talk to the two lead actors, their heads bent together like children conspiring in a playground.

  The crew reset and the director’s assistant called for quiet. The camera turned over and the scene began again.

  Jess looked at her watch, wondering how much longer she’d be at work today, thinking about the pile of washing that had to be done, the carpets that needed vacuuming and the bathroom that required a long-overdue clean. Sometimes when she was on location Jess couldn’t help feeling that somewhere out there, real life was happening while she watched pretend life repeat itself again and again.

  Her mind began wandering into fantasies of how different her life might be had she not got pregnant years before she was ready and spent the last months of university battling morning sickness instead of studying for finals; had Iain not asked her to move in with him immediately after she graduated and had she not mistakenly believed that his maturity—twenty-one years her senior—meant he would provide the security she craved; had she understood, at the time, that her fear of returning to Barnsbury Square was fueling a decision that would determine the rest of her life.

  She thought back to that day, standing in the kitchen at Barnsbury Square, an overnight bag at her feet, waiting to hear her mum’s reaction. On the radio next to the microwave, All Saints had been singing “Never Ever,” and Jess had turned down the volume even though it was one of her favorite songs.

  She remembered her mum standing opposite, hands gripping the back of a kitchen chair as though needing to steady herself in the face of Jess’s news.

  I can see how disappointed in me you are, Mum, but I’m not going to change my mind. I’m having this baby whether you like it or not. Jess recalled the defiance in her voice, alongside the conviction and the confidence. Even now she didn’t know how she had managed to sound so certain when it had been such a long way from what she’d felt. So many times prior to that conversation she had pictured her mum’s response: had imagined her smiling, folding her in her arms, giving her the answer to a dilemma she didn’t know how to resolve. In each imagined scene, Jess had felt the tension between them dissolve, had felt the news sweep aside all the years of caution and mistrust, narrowing the distance between them. It was a fantasy she hadn’t even known existed until she’d become pregnant. But as soon as she had learned she was having a baby, she had wanted more than anything—more, even, than Iain’s promises to stand by her—to feel close to her mum again. But instead, as they had stood opposite one another in the kitchen, Jess had been aware of the chasm between them widening.

  Iain loves me and I love him. And we can make this work. I’ll only need to take a year off after I graduate and then I’ll get a job. Iain will be able to support us in the meantime, and then when I start work we’ll get someone to look after the baby. So please don’t think we haven’t thought this through.

  She could hear, even all these years later, the confrontation in her voice but also, underneath it, the fear. She remembered hoping that the more she talked, the more she might come to believe the things she was saying. It had been true that she and Iain had discussed it, true that they had a plan which, on paper at least, seemed entirely achievable. It was true that she loved Iain. And yet, even as she had stood there, challenging her mum to contradict her, she had not been able to turn off the anxiety, flickering like a faulty lightbulb at the back of he
r mind, that history was repeating itself: that, just like her mum, she was giving up on her ambitions because of an unplanned pregnancy.

  But you’re so young, Jess. And Iain . . . I know you think you love him, but the age difference . . . When you’re forty, he’s going to be on the brink of retirement. What’s that going to be like for you? What will it be like for the baby?

  Her mum’s questions had reverberated in Jess’s head but she had been unable to produce any answers. Why can’t you just be happy for me? You’ve never liked Iain—why can’t you just admit it? You’ve never given him a chance.

  That’s not true, Jess. It’s not that I don’t like him. I just worry—you must be able to understand why. He’s old enough to be your father.

  Jess had experienced then a feeling that defied a single adjective, that seemed to compound all the anger and resentment, fear, and grief that had simmered inside of her for more than a decade. I’m almost twenty-one, for God’s sake. I know what I’m doing. It’s not as if I’m a child.

  There had been another, unspoken, sentence that Jess had allowed to hover in silent parentheses, knowing it would be a cheap shot. But in the end she hadn’t been able to stop herself.

  It’s not as if I’m as young as you were when you got pregnant with Lily.

  She remembered how her mum had looked at her with such sadness, regret, and longing, and how Jess had known instinctively that this was another of those moments when the ties that bound them slackened and pulled in different directions, to which they must both, gradually, become accustomed. But each time it had happened before, Jess had not been consciously aware of the adjustment until after it had been made. This time, it was as though she was watching it happen and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  The director called something to the lead camera operator and Jess looked around the crew, thinking about the career she had fallen into through necessity rather than choice, a career other people seemed to imagine was glamorous, ignoring the unsociable hours, the disruptive travel, the egos she worked with. All these years later, she still couldn’t resist the fantasy that perhaps, had she never got pregnant and moved in with Iain, she might now be sitting in the office of a major newspaper, commissioning articles about artists, scientists, politicians, or captains of industry, rather than standing in a muddy field worrying about parking permits and traffic noise.

  Sometimes Jess felt as though she’d exited, stage left, from her own life many years ago, but no one in the audience had noticed.

  “Right, everyone, let’s take a break. Back on set in fifteen. Charlie and Lucia, can I have a word?”

  As Justin swung his arms around the shoulders of his lead actors and steered them deeper into the field, the crew melted away.

  “Are you coming for a drink tonight, Jess? There’s a pub Steve spotted nearby that looks half decent so a few of us are going for a couple of pints when we finally wrap.”

  Jess shook her head as she and Paul—a cameraman she’d known for ten years and one of the few colleagues she’d describe as a friend—set off toward the catering truck. “Thanks for asking but I’ve got loads to do this evening.”

  “It’s Saturday night, you can’t just go home. Come on, loads of us are going—me, Steve, Ray, John, Milly, Lexi. It’ll be a laugh.”

  Jess thought about sitting around a pub table, having a drink and a packet of crisps, gossiping about the day’s events with people who would be her colleagues for another four weeks, and suddenly she was answering before she could stop herself. “OK, then. Just a quick one. That’d be nice, thanks.”

  “Great. It doesn’t have to be a late night. Wait there—I’ll go and get us both a cup of tea and a couple of pastries if there are any left.”

  Paul wandered off while Jess pulled her mobile phone from her pocket and switched it on. As it blinked into life, a series of notifications pinged onto the screen.

  Four missed calls, four new voice messages, all from Mia. Jess didn’t need to listen to them to know something was wrong.

  She pressed down hard on Mia’s name to return the call. There was less than one complete ring before it was answered.

  “Mum, why haven’t you been answering your phone? I’ve been calling you for ages. You need to come now. It’s Granny.”

  Chapter 27

  Audrey

  Audrey slid her eyes from left to right, a simple enough movement yet one that sent a sharp pain shooting across her forehead.

  “How are you feeling now, Mum? You gave us such a scare.”

  Sitting on one side of the hospital bed holding her hand, Lily was looking unusually harried: a faint smudge of mascara bruised the skin under one eye and strands of hair poked out from a makeshift bun. Phoebe stood on the other side of the bed, both of them smiling with a forced cheerfulness that made Audrey nervous. From the busy ER corridor outside the cubicle, she could hear machines beeping, phones ringing, doctors calling out names of medicines, nurses issuing instructions to orderlies.

  Hospital. It was the very last place she wanted to be.

  “Can I get you anything, Gran? A glass of water? Something to eat? I could pop to the shop and see if there’s any of that salted caramel chocolate you like?”

  Audrey shook her head. It felt as though someone must have filled it with lead while she was unconscious.

  “You need to eat something, Mum. I know it’s hard when you feel nauseous, but you’ll get terribly weak if your blood sugar’s too low.”

  Audrey’s hand moved instinctively to her stomach. It felt permanently bloated in spite of its emptiness, as though someone had blown up a balloon and put it inside her when she wasn’t looking. The last thing she wanted was food.

  “Come on—we must be able to get you something.”

  Audrey remained silent, knowing that the only thing she wanted was the one thing no one could give her. She thought about all those hours she had wasted over the years: the boring TV shows she’d watched, the depressing newspaper articles she’d read, the friendships she’d allowed to run miles beyond their course. All those days she’d pottered through life as though she had all the time in the world.

  “You have to eat, Mum. Come on. There must be something you fancy.”

  Audrey shook her head again. As she lay under the stiff white hospital sheets, beneath the fluorescent glare of strip lighting and the watchful gaze of her family, she suddenly realized that she’d become the very thing she dreaded: a patient, not a person.

  Lily squeezed her hand as if Audrey were a child in need of gentle encouragement, and Audrey suddenly understood that it wasn’t death she feared so much as the process of dying.

  “I should let Jess know I’m here. She’ll be worried if she gets home and I’m not there.”

  At the mention of Jess’s name, Audrey felt the atmosphere thicken. Lily stood up and began tucking in sheets that hadn’t come loose, then rearranged the jug of water and plastic cup on the bedside cabinet that were in no need of tidying. Audrey glanced at Phoebe in time to catch her granddaughter’s raised eyebrows and almost imperceptible nod.

  Audrey’s thoughts scrambled toward an understanding. Of course Phoebe would have told Mia, and Mia would have told Jess. Which meant that Jess might be on her way to the hospital right now.

  Audrey pulled herself up to a sitting position, her head sluggish, her pulse throbbing. For years she had hoped for another meeting between her daughters but not in these circumstances, not in this location. As she tried to imagine the scene that might unfold should Jess arrive, she was hit by a new wave of nausea that rose up through her chest and hung, suspended, in her throat.

  “Why don’t I find a doctor, Mum, and ask when they might have the results of your tests?”

  Audrey was about to agree when the cubicle curtain swished back and there, standing on the threshold, was Mia.

  Chapter 28

  Lily

  The cubicle curtain opened to reveal a young woman so strikingly like Phoebe that, for a terribl
e, dislocating second, Lily thought that somehow she must have given birth to her without even knowing it.

  Lily stared at Mia, at a face she had seen many times in photographs at her mum’s house but which she had begun to believe she might never see again in the flesh. So many times she had imagined chance encounters on the tube, in the park, trapped in an elevator together. On so many nights she had lain awake envisaging circumstances that would lead her to turn up at Jess’s house and hope that Mia answered the door so she could introduce herself. But none of those scenarios had prepared her for what she would feel when she stood two feet away from a young woman to whom she had always felt indelibly linked even though they had never properly met.

  She tried to think of all she wanted to say, tried to remember all the speeches she had prepared over the years in case they met accidentally. But now Mia was standing in front of her, Lily wanted nothing more than to look at her. She felt an immediate sense of attachment to her niece, as though a double helix of DNA stretched between them like an invisible bridge, anchoring them together.

  She was aware of needing to do something, say something. But having waited all these years for precisely this moment, she now wasn’t sure what to do with it. She felt like a child on Christmas morning who, after weeks of feverish anticipation, could not bear to open her presents because, once she had, it would all be over.

  Lily swallowed hard and willed herself to find the right words. “I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to meet you at last. You’re . . . It’s just so strange seeing you and Phoebe in the same room. Not strange, I don’t mean that—it’s lovely. It’s lovely to finally meet you. And is Jess . . . is your mum here too?” Lily heard the tremor in her voice and smiled in the hope of smothering it.

  “Not yet. But she’s on her way.”