If Only I Could Tell You

by Hannah Beckerman

  “Don’t be silly, Mum, your life hasn’t been static. You’ve done a brilliant, important job all these years—think of all those thousands of children you’ve encouraged to read. That’s no small achievement. And what about us? You’re an amazing mum, a wonderful grandmother. Your life hasn’t been that bad, has it?”

  Something familiar in Lily’s voice—the need to be the first to dive in with proof that she was the kinder of the two sisters—caused Jess’s back teeth to grind together.

  “Of course it hasn’t. I know I’ve been lucky in lots of different ways. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other things I’d like to have done. Take tonight. Would I ever have joined a choir if I hadn’t known I was dying? It’s silly, really. We all know it’s going to happen to us eventually and yet it’s as though we don’t want to accept that our time is limited until we’re issued with a specific sell-by date.”

  There was a pause in which Jess sensed her mum biding her time.

  “So that’s why I’ve booked three first-class tickets to New York and five nights at the Plaza Hotel. It’s over a weekend, so you’ll only have to miss a couple of days’ work. All I’m asking is that the two of you come away with me—together—to New York. Can you do that? Can you put your differences aside, just for five days?”

  No one spoke. Around her, Jess could hear the ambient hum of other people’s lives, but inside her head the prospect played itself out like a movie she wasn’t sure she wanted to see: Jess, Lily, and their mum playing happy families in New York as if the last twenty-eight years had never happened; the three of them walking through Central Park, watching boaters on the lake, and stepping out of the path of speeding skaters; drinking coffee on the High Line and looking out across the Hudson to New Jersey; navigating their way around the labyrinthine rooms of the Met and marveling at the views from Top of the Rock. Her mum smiling and laughing, one final wish granted.

  The fantasy tugged at Jess’s heart. It would be so easy to let out a single word that would make her mum happy. But then a memory crept into her head: lying in bed with Zoe that final night, reading her poems, watching her eyelids flutter, wishing she could share whatever deep sleep her sister was in, not knowing then that it would be the last time she would ever see her. Not knowing that the next morning she would spy Lily emerging from the spare room, see her barricade herself against the door, and watch the guilt, fear, and panic burn in her eyes.

  “I can’t. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

  “You have to, Mum! First-class tickets to New York? You can’t say no. I’ll go with Granny if you don’t want to.”

  Jess shook her head, confirming a decision she knew to be right.

  “Why not, Mum? It’s five days, that’s all. Stop being so selfish. It’s not all about you, you know.” Mia’s voice was laced with frustration.

  Jess looked at her daughter, wishing there was some way to explain the past without having to tell her anything at all. “Mia, please. There are lots of things you don’t understand.”

  “Oh, I know. You’ve been telling me my whole life there are things I don’t understand: that I’m too young or they’re too complicated. But don’t you think you owe it to Granny, to Aunt Lily, to tell them at least why you won’t go?”

  Aunt Lily. Three short, clipped syllables and yet enough to cause all the moisture to evaporate from Jess’s mouth.

  She looked at the four of them, watching her, waiting for an explanation they thought they wanted to hear, an explanation that, once heard, could never be unheard. A story that would haunt them just as it had haunted Jess all these years. She knew she couldn’t do it to them. She wouldn’t do it to her mum. “I can’t. It’s complicated. I just can’t.” Jess looked down, picked at the skin around the base of her thumbnail, tore at the cuticle until the first drop of blood oozed through.

  “Please reconsider, Jess. It’s only five days. Just five days with both of you—that’s all I’m asking.”

  Jess watched as her mum reached across the table, as familiar fingers enfolded her hand and a sequence of memories flickered into view.

  Waiting outside the classroom with Zoe, her collar rubbing against her neck, the line of pegs hanging with coats, bags, and cardigans: so many, how would she ever find out who they all belonged to? Something invisible bouncing around her stomach, like jumping beans. And then the squeeze of her mum’s hand reassuring her that her first day at school was going to be OK.

  Perched on a stool in the kitchen, hot tears soaking her cheeks, her left forefinger bent at an angle that even a seven-year-old could see wasn’t right, her discarded bike lying on the kitchen floor, wheels still spinning. Her mum grabbing the car keys, calling to Lily to look after Zoe, mentions of hospitals and breakages and emergency departments. And then the clutch of her mum’s hand telling her there was nothing that couldn’t be fixed.

  Queuing to enter the graduation hall, conscious of curious eyes flitting from her face to her tummy, its gentle curve concealed by the generous cut of her gown. Self-consciousness pinching her cheeks while the palm of her hand rested over the place where six inches of life was just beginning to swallow, suck its thumb, hear Jess’s voice. And then the clasp of her mum’s hand telling her she was proud of her, whatever the circumstances.

  Lying on the sofa, Mia curled up on her chest, at eight days old still preferring the fetal position she had been accustomed to inside Jess’s womb. Jess’s head heavy with fatigue, her breasts aching with the milk Mia was not yet able to drink despite repeated, frustrating attempts to help her latch on. And then the gentle fingers of her mum’s hand telling her she could do this, she could be a good mother.

  Sitting in an armchair, legs hugged tightly against her chest where panic knocked at a door she was too scared to open, Mia at her feet, pulling at threads on a rug Jess could not imagine ever being able to replace now that she was a single parent. Single parent. The phrase throbbing in her head, too new to feel real, less than three days since Iain had left her. And then the encircling of her mum’s hand around hers telling her that this was not the end, just a different beginning, one she was capable of surviving.

  A lifetime of love, reassurance, and pride expressed through the gentle containment of one hand inside another.

  And then a more recent memory: sitting in the concert hall just a few hours earlier, watching her mum sing, feeling Mia’s hand inside hers and knowing there would never be anything at once so simple and yet so complicated, so straightforward and yet so profound, as a child’s hand held inside their mother’s. A gesture which she had, for so many years, taken for granted.

  As Jess glanced between her mum and her daughter she had an image of a future she hoped never to encounter: of sitting where her mum was now, Mia opposite, Jess asking her daughter for something so small—so undemanding—and Mia refusing.

  “OK, Mum, I’ll come. I’ll come to New York.”

  Part Six

  July

  Chapter 48

  Jess

  A deep sigh emerged from the back seat of the car, and Jess glanced in the rearview mirror to where Mia was staring out of the window, chewing her thumbnail. She seemed distracted—anxious, almost—as though she cared more than anyone about whether or not Jess got on the plane. Jess still didn’t understand why Mia had insisted on accompanying them to the airport but it had been too early in the morning for an argument.

  In the passenger seat next to Jess, Audrey was fiddling with something in her bag. Jess had first heard her pottering around at half past five this morning and had already watched her unpack and repack her hand luggage at least half a dozen times.

  There had been so many moments during the past four weeks that Jess had wanted to sit next to her mum at the kitchen table, clear her throat, and tell her that she was sorry, she’d spoken precipitately, she should never have agreed to the trip. So many nights since the concert at the Albert Hall Jess had lain awake in bed wondering how five days in New York with her mum and Lily could be anyt
hing other than disastrous.

  Mia sighed again, and Jess’s patience stretched like a rubber band on the brink of snapping. “What is it, Mia? You’ve been sighing in the back of the car ever since we left. I did say it was too early for you to come with us. You’re wasting the best part of a morning when you could be in the library.”

  Out of the corner of her eye Jess saw her mum turn to look at Mia, glimpsed a silent communication pass between them. “Mia, what is it? Whatever it is, just tell me.”

  Mia paused, and Jess detected another undecipherable look pass between them as her daughter fiddled with the silver stud in her ear.

  “OK. Well, the thing is . . . there’s something I haven’t been entirely honest with you about. You know those Saturday mornings I said I was going to the library or studying at a friend’s or whatever? Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Granny and I . . . We’ve been going to that art class at the Royal College together, the one I told you about . . .”

  As Mia’s voice trailed off, the words took a few seconds to find form in Jess’s head, like numbers in a color vision test emerging from a mass of dots. “You’ve been going to that art class together behind my back? I can’t believe you’ve been colluding in this, Mum. What on earth were you thinking?”

  “Don’t be cross with Granny. She really didn’t want me to lie to you, but she didn’t understand any more than I did why you were so adamant I couldn’t do it. It’s just one morning a week.”

  “Please don’t get angry, Jess. I know it was wrong of us to go behind your back but you can see how passionate Mia is about art. I honestly didn’t think that one Saturday morning a week was going to be such a big issue.”

  “You and Mia both lying to me is a big issue. You know Mia doesn’t have time for hobbies this year. How can she expect to get into Cambridge if she doesn’t apply herself?”

  Jess turned her head in time to see another surreptitious glance pass between her mum and her daughter: if she hadn’t had to look back at the road, she’d have sworn her mum had nodded at Mia.

  “Well, that’s the other thing, Mum. You know I love art—I’ve always loved it—and this course . . . Well, the tutor seems to think I’m pretty good. Really good, actually. She thinks that if I got a portfolio together I’d have a really strong chance of getting on an art foundation course after my A-levels. And when I spoke to my art teacher at school, he said the same thing. They’ve even said they’ll write me references. So, the thing is . . . I don’t think I want to go to Cambridge.”

  Jess was aware of words forming sentences but when she tried to replay them in her head she couldn’t seem to structure them into meaning. “What are you talking about, Mia? Of course you’re applying to Cambridge. You want to study English. That’s been your plan for as long as I can remember.”

  “No, that’s been your plan. You’re the one who’s always wanted me to go to Cambridge. You’re the one who’s been talking about it for as long as I can remember. Have you ever even asked me what I want?”

  “What’s got into you, Mia? Where’s all this come from?” Jess pressed her foot down hard on the accelerator, watched the speedometer edge over the speed limit.

  “Slow down, Jess. Please. Just listen to Mia. Let her explain.”

  Jess swerved into the outside lane, felt the pressure in her knuckles as her hands gripped the steering wheel. “Please don’t tell me how to behave with my own daughter. You’ve clearly been party to all this, and for some inexplicable reason have chosen not to tell me, so I’m not really in the mood for maternal advice from you.”

  She pulled back into the middle lane, eased her foot off the accelerator, and glanced again in the rearview mirror. As she watched Mia undo her ponytail and retie it, it became perfectly clear to Jess where the idea had come from. “It’s Phoebe, isn’t it? She’s put you up to this. I knew I shouldn’t have let that family anywhere near us. They’re toxic. This is all her idea, isn’t it?”

  She sensed the tension in the car thickening, as though an invisible wall were being erected down the middle with Jess on one side, and her mother and daughter on the other.

  “For goodness’ sake, Mum, can’t you even credit me with making my own decisions? This has got nothing whatsoever to do with Phoebe. If anything, it’s Granny who’s made me realize that it would be madness to spend my whole life doing something I don’t want to do. I want to make you happy and proud of me, but can’t you just let me do it in my own way?”

  There was a heaviness in Jess’s head, like the metal shutters of a migraine being drawn over her eyes. She felt oppressively tired, an overwhelming desire for the world to stop and let her off. “I don’t know what you’ve been saying to Mia, Mum, but whatever it is, please can you tell her that you didn’t mean it, that she’s got it wrong. Please tell her that she needs to apply to Cambridge, just like she’s always planned, even if she’s having a bit of a wobble.”

  “I’m not having a wobble. Why can’t you listen to what I’m saying? It’s not my dream to go to Cambridge. It’s yours. You’re the one who’s jealous of the fact that Aunt Lily went to Oxford when you didn’t get the grades for Cambridge. You’re the one who was pregnant by the time you sat your finals and who’s spent the rest of your life regretting it as far as I can see.”

  “That’s not true and you know it. Of course I don’t regret it. How could I possibly regret having you? I love you. You’re the best thing I’ve ever done with my life.”

  “It is true. You want to live your life through me. You want me to do all the things you failed to do when you were younger. You want me to have all the same ambitions you used to have, just because you never got to fulfill them. And that’s just not fair.”

  Jess drove as though her body had taken control of the car with no input from her brain. This was one of those rare moments when she dared to imagine how different her life might have been were she not always having these parental conversations alone.

  As she pulled into the mid-stay car park at Heathrow’s Terminal 5, Jess let Mia’s words settle in her head. She could sense her mum staring at her but was too angry to turn and meet her gaze. “Mia, I know you’re passionate about art, but that doesn’t mean I should stand by and let you make mistakes I think you’ll regret for the rest of your life. It’s my job, as your mum, to protect you as much as I can, sometimes even from your own decisions.”

  “But I don’t want your protection. If I’m going to have regrets, I want them to be mine, not yours. I’ve spent my whole life trying to be what you want me to be. I’ve never got into trouble, I’ve always got straight As, I’ve never set a foot wrong because it felt like you only loved me when I was doing everything right—”

  “Come on, Mia, that’s not fair. I’m sorry if—”

  “Yes, it is, Mum. That’s what it’s always felt like. Can’t you just let me do this one thing I want to do without making me feel as though somehow I’m letting you down?”

  In the seconds that followed it seemed to Jess that every possible response ran through her mind. As she wended her way up the narrow ramps of the car park in search of a free space, it struck her that this was one of those moments when the stitches of her relationship with Mia eased loose and there was no way of knowing what pattern they would form when they finally knitted back together. She knew, deep down, that it was only a matter of time: that she would, in the end, give her blessing, grant Mia the autonomy she craved if only so as not to lose her. But now, without understanding why, she couldn’t seem to find the words to communicate any of that to Mia.

  “I only want what’s best for you.”

  “Fine. So stop going on about Cambridge and let me go to art college. I’m going anyway, whether you want me to or not.”

  As Jess nudged the car into a parking space she imagined getting out, folding her arms around Mia, holding her close, and blanketing their conflict in an embrace. She imagined reassuring Mia that she could never disappoint her, not really, because even the greatest maternal
disappointments were shrouded in love.

  But before Jess had a chance to do any of that—before she had found in the gap that had opened up between them the words to tell Mia that of course she would support her, whatever she wanted to do—Mia was getting out of the car, wishing her grandmother a good trip, slamming the door, and storming off toward the exit.

  Jess yanked at her seat belt, the buckle sticking. She thrust her fingers down on the release button until she’d managed to free herself, clicked open the driver’s door and scrambled out, an apology forming on her lips. But her words dissolved into the ether as Mia strode away, already halfway across the car park. Jess hesitated, contemplated following her, but then she glanced back into the car to see her mum looking at the clock on the dashboard, anxiety pinching the skin between her eyebrows. Jess looked up again and watched Mia go, watched her little girl get smaller and smaller until she had jumped through the elevator doors and disappeared altogether.

  Chapter 49

  Lily

  There was a bleeping from Phoebe’s phone and Lily watched—her skin prickling with irritation or heat, she wasn’t sure which—as Phoebe read a message and tapped out a reply.

  “For goodness’ sake, Phoebe, do you have to be glued to your phone? Gran will be here soon and then I’ll be leaving. I’m not sure why you insisted on coming if you were just going to be on your phone the whole time.”

  Around them on the airport concourse, taxis fought for prime drop-off positions as the humid July heat seeped into Lily’s skin. It was early still but she could feel tiny beads of sweat gathering in the pores above her lips.

  “Jesus, you can talk. You’re never off your phone. I already told you, I want to see Gran off. This is quite a big deal for her, in case you hadn’t realized. And I’m meeting Mia so we can head back into town and go to the film festival together.”