If Only

by Kate Eberlen

  As if he knows she is still there watching, Oscar raises his arm high in the air and waves backwards at her as he walks past the Waldorf hotel, then disappears beyond the crowd of people waiting at the bus stop.

  Was she actually happy with Ivo all those years? She didn’t really stop to think about it. She was too busy. Now, Frances wonders if she derived her validation as a person from work rather than from her family.

  Being made redundant in a marriage is very different from being made redundant from work, which wasn’t great, but at least she saw that coming. Revenues were down; the whole industry was changing. Advertising simply couldn’t be delivered in the same way any more. Though she had tried to keep up with digital this and social-media-platform that, if you were someone who’d grown up with books not screens, you never really got it. The young people who did were valuable and deserved big salaries which, frankly, in the new world, she didn’t any more. If it hadn’t been financially advantageous for her to stay there until the CEO finally called her in to talk about ‘restructuring’, she would have resigned long before. And perhaps that would have been better for her self-esteem. She’d seen what was going on at work, but she hadn’t had a clue what was going on at home.

  Walking past the Royal Opera House box office, Frances decides to see if there are any returns for this evening, knowing that ballet will distract her for a few hours. There is a single seat available, close to the stage. Frances always feels slightly guilty about going to the ballet because of Letty, but she has never lost the tingle of excitement as the lights go down and the curtain swishes up. The programme is a triple bill. The first ballet is contemporary and plotless. Frances is impressed by the technique but unmoved. Occasionally, though, it’s nice to see something that she’s not blown away by. It allows her to think that the life of a ballet dancer might actually be quite boring at times.

  The second ballet is a revival of Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand, and Frances is thrilled to see from the cast list that prima ballerina Marianela Nuñez is dancing the role of Marguerite, and the brilliant young Russian principal, Vadim Muntagirov, is Armand.

  The story is based on Dumas’s La Dame aux Camélias, a kind of mini version of La Traviata. A young man and a courtesan fall passionately in love, but his father insists he leave her. When the young man hears she is dying, it is too late for their love to triumph.

  It’s strange, Frances thinks, reading the plot summary, how most ballets are concerned with young men falling for women who are either innocent victims, like Giselle or Odette, or tragic whores, like Marguerite or Manon. Women in ballets are stereotypes and they almost always die. It’s unbelievably sexist and yet she still adores it.

  Why? Frances tries to rationalize. Perhaps art transcends political correctness? Maybe it’s because those are the tropes of fairy tales that are embedded in girls’ psyches as soon as they are born? Or is it because she’s a secret romantic hiding in a cynic’s body?

  The dancers light up the stage. The Russian’s musicality and phrasing is so natural that he metamorphoses into something that’s more air and artistry than human being, his body becoming a kinetic expression of passion.

  For the second time in a day, Frances finds herself grappling with her bag for a tissue as her eyes fill with tears. The performance feels so intensely redemptive she decides not to stay for the final ballet, but leave with the music and emotion still playing in her mind.

  Wandering along Floral Street towards the tube, she sees Muntagirov leaving from the stage door. Dressed in jeans and a hoody, his hair wet from a shower, he’s now recognizable as the boy she saw at Letty’s first end-of-year performance. Part of her feels she should congratulate him, as if she somehow knows him because she has seen him grow up. You have become a fine young man! I always knew you would be a sensational dancer!

  It would be ridiculous.

  But she did see something special in him then, something almost miraculous: a shy teenager who turned into pure grace and elegance when he danced. He stood out from all the others.

  There was usually only one brilliant male ballet dancer per generation – Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Carlos Acosta. She remembers wondering whether this boy was going to be the next, and then having the treacherous thought that Letty would never be good enough to dance with him. Letty was a little taller than the rest of her year, but she just didn’t stand out. She was beautiful to look at, and yet you lost her on stage.

  Frances remembers sitting in the audience of proud parents suffering a terrible dawning of reality and guilt. Why had she ever encouraged her daughter to do this thing that she was not going to succeed at? Who was it for? Was it really for Letty? Or was it for herself, because she loved the idea of having a daughter on the stage, because it’s what she had wanted to do?

  She’d taken Letty to The Nutcracker when she was only three years old, not knowing that you weren’t supposed to bring children under five. But Letty was so disciplined and contained even then, she could sit still for hours concentrating. She remembers the look of wonder on Letty’s face as she saw the Christmas tree growing out of the stage at the children’s party.

  At the interval, Letty had asked, ‘Can I be one of those children?’

  And Frances had said, yes, of course she could, if she worked hard enough.

  Frances sits on the Northern Line as it trundles from the West End to North London. It wasn’t just her; they’d all encouraged Letty to pursue her ballet dream, she tells herself. Marina, and Ivo too. As a matter of fact, Frances was the only one who’d voiced concerns about the inevitable loss of a proper academic education. Letty was a clever girl. What would happen if she had an accident or something?

  Afterwards she had wondered if it was the very act of articulating that thought that had somehow brought about Letty’s injury and deselection, which was when things started to go downhill for her.

  Never mind ‘you’re only as happy as your unhappiest child’, Frances thinks. That’s a convenient phrase that fathers use to show that they care. It is the fate of mothers to feel responsible for their children’s unhappiness, as if it is all their fault.

  But now Letty is happy in Italy, Frances reminds herself. She doesn’t need to worry so much about her.

  The light is on in the basement. She probably left it on this morning. But as Frances opens the door, she senses that someone is downstairs. She’s felt every emotion in this house, but never fear, and for a moment she’s furious with Ivo for leaving her like this, for putting her in danger as well as humiliating her.

  There must be a protocol for what you should do if you surprise an intruder, but she can’t think what it is. Should she shut the door and ring the police? Or would that be overreacting? It’s possible it’s just Ivo, who’s come back to get something. He still has keys. Or even Rollo. The place is half his, after all, although she doesn’t think he’d come over without asking her.

  Frances puts her keys in her bag and slings it over her shoulder so that she can run if necessary. Then, still standing on the threshold but holding the front door open, she calls out, in as loud and aggressive a tone as she can muster, ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Hello!’

  It is Letty’s voice that floats up from the kitchen.

  36

  Third week

  LETTY

  Letty wishes she had never gone away. At least her mother wouldn’t have had to suffer alone. Not that she’s much help. They’ve never had the sort of mother–daughter relationship that could be described as a friendship. Letty has always felt as if Frances regards her as a curious and slightly tiresome creature. But in the past week, Letty has witnessed her mother’s grief as well as her resilience, and she is beginning to think it is she who has judged unfairly.

  Communicating with Frances was a challenge she’d generally tried to avoid. It was always easier to bask in Marina’s unquestioning love or Ivo’s uncomplicated affection. Letty had never observed her mother vulnerability before returning
from Rome. Now, seeing her mother in an old tracksuit with no foundation to mask the wrinkles, and a narrow stripe of grey roots at the parting of her curly red hair, Letty wonders if this exhausted, fragile-looking person has always existed beneath the professional gloss.

  It’s strange to be home. She still feels in transit somehow, with no idea of a destination. She still feels afraid to go out by herself. She doesn’t know how that’s ever going to stop. She wonders if she should tell someone about Spencer following her to Rome. But who?

  Frances would only overreact, and she has enough stress to cope with. For all that it wasn’t perfect, Frances and Ivo’s marriage lasted almost forty years, and Letty knows that whatever Frances used to say about him being weak or not taking responsibility, she loved him, supported him, allowed him to lead the life that he seemed to want. Letty used to wince at the criticisms Frances would level at Ivo, but now they seem insightful rather than harsh.

  Seven years! It was seven years ago that she sustained her injury. There’s a tiny part of her that wants to know whether her father had already started his affair when they went skating together. Or whether her accident somehow provided the excuse, the catalyst for him to betray them. She cannot ask him because she doesn’t want to see him. Since he has been lying to them all for seven years, she’s not sure whether she would believe his answer anyway.

  Letty sits at Marina’s old pedestal desk, wishing her grandmother were still here. Everything seems to have fallen apart without her. The house, the family. Did Ivo only stay because he feared his mother’s disapproval?

  Wearily, she opens the first drawer of the desk, half tempted to empty its contents straight into a black bin liner as Frances would. Her mother has become ruthless to the point of abandon, but for Letty it is more than just stuff; it is the catalogue of a life, a life she only glimpsed, she realizes when she unearths the photograph.

  It’s in a manila envelope with no writing on it, under a pile of similar unused envelopes in one of the bottom drawers.

  As she pulls the photograph out, she feels as if Marina is standing behind her.

  The photograph is in black and white. In the foreground a couple are dancing around a modest piazza of rectangular houses. The woman’s long dark hair is flowing behind her. She is wearing a waisted dress with a small white collar, buttons down the front and a full gathered skirt made of striped fabric with roses. The tall, handsome man, in high-waisted, wide-legged trousers and a short-sleeved shirt, is smiling into her face. Their bodies make a perfect V shape from the waist. In the background, old men sitting around a cafe table smile with pleasure; a few women with shopping bags have stopped to watch. One of them, with a pram, has her hands clasped excitedly together over her chest, as if she is clapping. The photograph has the slightly blurred quality of the famous Doisneau shot of two lovers kissing on a Paris street, captured in their own spontaneous rush of perfect romance, unaware of the day-to-day world going on around them.

  It is a beautiful evocation of a time, a place, a love affair.

  The longer Letty stares at it, the more she feels torn by conflicting loyalties. She has discovered something she is sure Marina never meant anyone else to see, and she is the only person who could have found it. Anyone else would have chucked it away, along with all the other brown envelopes that smell of age and whose glue has dried to uselessness.

  Did Marina mean for her to see it? Or had her grandmother forgotten the photo was there? Or did she sometimes lock her door, take it out of the envelope and sit thinking about her long-lost lover?

  Letty feels as if her identity is suddenly fluid, mercurial, slipping from her grasp.

  ‘Come and have a look at this!’ she calls to Frances, but her mother is talking on the phone.

  Letty stares at the photo lying on the leather-topped desk. Is this delay a sign that she should not tell? But it is not her secret. It belongs to the family. Marina cannot simply hand the responsibility to her.

  I’m sorry, she tells her grandmother silently.

  ‘That was the estate agent,’ Frances says as she comes into the room.

  Letty feels her heartbeat accelerating in her chest, her neck, her head.

  ‘We have an offer for the house. Short of the asking price, so I’ve told him to up it,’ her mother continues.

  Letty grips the edge of the desk.

  ‘Which estate agent?’ she whispers.

  ‘The one on England’s Lane.’

  Relief whooshes through Letty’s body, but she’s still shaking. Is this another trick?

  ‘You didn’t tell the other one I’d gone to Rome?’

  Frances frowns, bewildered by her peculiar reaction.

  ‘Of course I didn’t!’

  The phone rings again, saving Letty from her mother’s inevitable questions. She can hear her mother talking, but cannot seem to process the information. Whenever she thinks she is free of Spencer, he somehow insinuates himself back into her life. How is she ever going to be rid of him?

  When Frances presses the off button, her face lifts with a smile. ‘I only got us the asking price!’

  Letty waits. She keeps thinking there is going to be a ‘but’ . . .

  Frances’s face falls.

  ‘You hate the idea of moving, don’t you, darling? I’m so sorry . . .’

  ‘No, no, it’s not that,’ Letty tries to reassure her. ‘You are an amazing negotiator!’ She gets up from the desk, arms tentatively outstretched, offering her mother a hug.

  Since she grew, hugs always felt awkward, with her being taller than Frances. But they’ve hugged quite a lot in the last week, and now Letty’s not sure which one of them likes the feeling more.

  Frances pulls away suddenly.

  ‘I am too bloody impatient,’ she says. ‘What I should have done is rung Ivo, and when he said, “Accept!” I should have asked for anything I managed to get on top. Why didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘You could always do it now,’ Letty suggests. ‘He doesn’t even know they’ve called.’

  ‘Letty!’ says Frances, surprised. ‘How incredibly devious of you!’

  Letty feels a little lift of pride at confounding the version of herself as a goody two shoes who never does anything wrong, except through weirdness or naiveté.

  ‘I don’t think I could do that,’ Frances decides. ‘I’m not going to be the liar in this relationship. I think I’ll just take the gratitude and be satisfied with that. What’s this?’ she asks, peering at the photo on the desk.

  ‘I found it,’ Letty says.

  ‘Mother and beloved son dancing,’ says Frances bitterly. ‘I wonder where that was taken . . .’

  ‘It’s not Ivo, though,’ says Letty. ‘It can’t be. Look at what they’re wearing. Look how young Marina is.’

  Frances snatches the photo back.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she says, reeling as the implications occur to her, just as they did to Letty. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Of course not!’ Letty protests.

  ‘I just thought, you know, the dress . . . isn’t that the same one you were so keen to get rid of?’

  ‘Yes. Because I was wearing it when Marina died. In Venice. In the very place this photo was taken!’

  ‘It doesn’t look like Venice.’ Frances looks more closely at the photograph.

  ‘It’s Burano. Marina told me to go there. It’s as if she knew . . .’

  A shiver runs down her spine.

  ‘You were always very close,’ Frances says, putting her hand over Letty’s, sensing she’s disturbed without knowing why. ‘Weird things happen like this sometimes, darling. Some people call it fate; I prefer the notion of serendipity, don’t you? It sounds so much less portentous, and it’s such a lovely word. I once tried to create a campaign around it.’

  ‘A campaign for what?’ Letty asks.

  ‘Hummus and taramasalata, initially,’ says Frances. ‘SerenDIPity, you see. There were plans to roll it out to guacamole . . .’

  It’s so v
ery Frances to go from presentiments of death to party food in a sentence.

  ‘Would have been a horrible waste of the word, really. And of course the world would never have been blessed with Dip a dee doodah, Dip a dee day . . .’ Frances sings the jingle from a Christmas campaign Letty remembers but never realized was her mother’s creation.

  ‘Sorry, darling.’ Frances realizes she’s become sidetracked. ‘So, let’s work this out,’ she says, holding the photo up so they can both look at it. ‘Here we have Marina, in, what, the fifties? Must be. Clearly in love with a man who looks exactly like Ivo, who was born in 1958. Marina and Max were married in 1952. Poor Rollo looks so much like Max did – he must be his son. But Ivo, well, I never could fathom it. Marina must have met this man at the restaurant . . .’

  ‘When I told her I was going to Venice, Marina said something about an Italian count,’ Letty remembers. ‘He bought her lace in Burano. And they danced in the piazza. She said she couldn’t marry him because he was from a very old family . . . I thought she was confused.’

  ‘He couldn’t marry her because she was already bloody married,’ says Frances. ‘God, what a hypocrite in her bloody mantilla on a Sunday, and all her advice about how to be a good wife . . .’

  ‘What advice?’

  ‘Men’s egos are fragile, Frances. You must not tread so heavily, Frances . . .’

  Frances’s imitation of her mother-in-law’s voice is so spot on it feels almost sacrilegious in Marina’s room.

  ‘I was supposed to pretend that I wasn’t the one supporting the family or making the big calls, in case poor Ivo felt emasculated. Although, in hindsight maybe she had a point. Maybe it’s my fault he’s fucked off with totty half his age! You won that one, Marina,’ Frances calls out, looking up at the ceiling.