If Only

by Kate Eberlen

  Should he put ‘Sorry’ or ‘I’m so sorry’ or ‘Forgive me’ or ‘I know what you must have thought, but . . .’ or even ‘I love you’ or, better still, ‘Please believe that I love you and I never meant for this to happen’.

  He tries to imagine her sitting opposite him and pictures her face, frowning as she thinks seriously about the answer to a question, searching for a logical explanation. He cannot write anything flowery, because that will annoy her. It has to be something that will stop her from simply deleting it.

  He eventually decides on ‘Please read this!’

  And then there is the remainder of the blank screen to fill.

  Alf’s as nervous as he used to be when confronted with the title of an English essay at school, having done all the reading and worked out what he thought, yet still frozen, not knowing where to begin, not trusting himself to be able to convey what he wanted to say to the reader. Mr Marriot used to tell him, ‘Just start, Alf. Don’t think about creating the perfect first sentence, just get something down and you can always make it better later. To write, you have to start writing.’

  It’s good advice. Alf decides he’ll get everything that he wants to say written down, then come back to it. It has been weeks now since he saw Letty. He’s impatient to contact her, but it can wait another day. It’s probably the most important letter he’ll ever write in his life. He has to get it right.

  Dear Letty. No, too formal. Hi there! Too glib. Maybe start with nothing. Just go straight in.

  I’m sitting on the waterfront in a place called Sant’Angelo. It’s on the west side of Ischia, where we were going when I last saw you. It’s lovely here. Perhaps the most beautiful place I have ever been to, but, without you here, Letty, it feels like looking at a postcard of a view instead of really experiencing it.

  Before I met you, I didn’t even know, but now it feels like I was just riding along on the surface of life. When I started getting to know you, it was like everything suddenly got meaning. In the mornings, I didn’t wake up thinking ‘another day’, I woke up excited about what I was going to learn that day, and excited about seeing you, and even more excited about dancing with you, and . . . well, making love with you, that was like being taken to another dimension . . . I’ve fallen for you, Letty. Never knew why it was the word ‘fallen’ before, but now I do, because it’s like there’s an inevitability about it and I don’t have control of what I feel, it’s just happening to me. I’ve never been in love before. I didn’t know it was possible to admire and desire someone so much that they occupy all your thoughts and emotions . . .

  Trouble was – and here’s the stupid bit that I’m still putting off saying, even though what I should do, should have done, is come right out with it – I was already in a relationship. I should have told you right from the start. I don’t know now why I didn’t. I knew almost immediately that I wanted to split with Gina, but it wasn’t really because of anything she had done, it was because I had met you, and it just didn’t seem fair to let her down . . . So, as it’s turned out, I’ve made everyone unhappy, and I lost you . . . I hate making people unhappy, but losing you feels like losing the life I’d only just realized was possible . . .

  Alf writes until the bar closes, pouring all his emotions onto the screen, and for a moment he is tempted to just click send. But he stops himself. He thinks of Mr Marriot again.

  ‘What’s your aim, Alf? Where are you going with this? What do you want your reader to think at the end?’

  It’s not an exercise in explaining his feelings to himself; it’s his only hope of getting Letty back.

  ‘Let it rest. Come back to it later. You’ll be surprised how much better you can make it.’

  Just after he closes the email app, a notification appears on the icon. He has received an email. For an excited moment, he allows himself to believe that it is from Letty, that the two of them have been thinking the same things at the same time and miraculously connected in cyberspace.

  Then he taps the icon and sees that the message is from his grandmother.

  Dear Alf,

  We all thank you for the postcard, which was kind of you. It looks very nice where you are. I’m sorry to hear about you and Gina. I don’t know if it was her decision or yours, but I do know it’s always difficult when you break up with someone. And even though you know my thoughts about her, I believe you felt strongly about her, so that can’t have been easy either way.

  I’m sorry it all got out of hand, Alf. I know that your mother is sorry too. Sometimes these things happen in families and it all blows up, and once terrible things have been said, it’s hard to go back. Whatever anyone tells you about the university of life, nobody gives you lessons and there aren’t exams you have to take, so we all muddle through as best we can.

  I’m going to be honest now, Alf, and say I don’t know if I’d of been in the mood to apologize yet if we didn’t need you so much here. Donna has been diagnosed with post-natal depression. I think she must have had it with you, Alf, which was why she was always crying. You were such a patient little boy with your mum. We thought it was Kieran’s passing that was making her upset, not a medical thing, but now I’m not so sure. It was bad then, but it’s much worse now. You think of depression as when someone’s really, really sad, but apparently it can come with other things like psychosis, and that’s what Donna’s got now. So, she keeps thinking she’s a bad mother and she’s going to harm the little ones, and she’s terrified. At first we thought that she was just tired from the birth, and trying to feed two babies is no joke. We thought if she got some rest she’d calm down. But it’s more than that, Alf. It’s a mental illness. She’s getting treatment now and she’s had to go into hospital. Gary’s doing his best, but he’s self-employed so he doesn’t get paternity leave like the government’s always going on about, but they don’t think about men like him who can’t just take weeks off. Grandad isn’t a teacher, as you know, and the worry about Donna seems to have made his arthritis worse, so he’s really only good for doing the admin and keeping the books. I’m helping Donna full time, but I can’t teach as well, and if it goes on like this, we’re going to have to close the dance hall.

  So, Alf. Could you come home and help us? I know it’s a big ask. But I know you’re a good boy. Always have been. I think because you were so much the centre of all our lives, Alf, we couldn’t believe it when you lied to us, but all teenagers lie. Donna did. She knew I wouldn’t approve of her going out with a biker, so she didn’t tell me, so that was a lot to find out all at once, I can tell you, and relations weren’t the greatest then either.

  I’m sorry about being so hard, Alf. And I know in her heart of hearts Donna is too. Grandad and Gary always thought we went well over the top anyway. We’d all be so grateful if you could help us.

  Love from your gran, Cheryl.

  Alf wipes away the tears that have been running down his face.

  It’s nearly midnight, but that’s only eleven in the UK. Cheryl has just sent the email to him so she must be up. He taps her mobile number, but it rings unanswered. Perhaps she’s with Mum at the hospital?

  Alf looks up flights out of Naples.

  Then he clicks reply:

  Dear Gran,

  I can get a flight the day after tomorrow. Please send my love to Mum and tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m looking forward to meeting my little sisters. I will do my best to help you.

  Love, Alf.

  38

  Seventh week

  LETTY

  They are saying on the news that it is the hottest prolonged spell of weather since the summer of 1976, which her parents’ generation always remember with nostalgia. It has been hard work trying to get the last bits of stuff cleared, which Frances refers to as ‘pockets of resistance’, as if she is engaged in a war of attrition with the family’s possessions. Each day, Letty wakes up to another piercingly blue sky, sunshine beating against the now curtain-less windows. The unrelenting heat is making he
r feel constantly exhausted and a little queasy. She hangs out of her bedroom window in a vain attempt to breathe fresher air, but it is already thirty degrees.

  Letty picks up her phone, a small part of her hoping that the email she received late last night was in fact a dream, so she won’t have to do anything about it.

  And yet, it was wonderful to hear from him again, after weeks of trying to forget.

  Please read this!

  I’m sorry it has taken me so long to write. It took weeks of persistence to get the school to give me your email address. And then I found out that my mum was ill. So I’m back in Blackpool now, trying to help out here, and Italy feels like a million miles away.

  There’s so many things I want to tell you, Letty, but the main one is sorry. Everything I said to you was true. I love you. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. I want to be with you more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

  But there was stuff I left out as well. And that was stupid of me.

  I was already in a relationship with Gina when I met you. Please believe that I tried to finish it that morning we were going to Ischia, but Gina wasn’t home when I got back. I know it’s no excuse because I should have told her before, but it was bad timing because her father was visiting Rome, and that made it more difficult because she was out with him, or he was there too, and it was never the right time. I never expected Gina and Stuart to come looking for me. That was too weird, seeing them and you, and then you running off. I panicked. I thought I’d better tell Gina then and there and get it done with. But I should have run after you and explained. By the time I did, you’d disappeared . . .

  The email goes on about his longing for her, how she changed his life, how he wishes they could be together, but realizes that they probably can’t because she will not be able to forgive him. He says that he respects that, but all he wants is for her to give him the chance to prove himself.

  At the end he writes: I am reading Catullus in translation, like you recommended. I hate myself and I love you, Letty. And I am torn in two.

  Tears roll down Letty’s face.

  Please don’t hate yourself, she wants to tell him. What I love about you is that you’re happy with who you are.

  She reads the email again, searching for hidden clues. Unless it is the most Machiavellian wind-up – and she doesn’t believe Alf is capable of that – it is clear that he doesn’t know about her relationship with Stuart. Stuart is Gina’s father. It’s as simple as that. And yet, she knows it’s not. Stuart had come to Rome to find her, she’s sure of it.

  And there is Alf assuming that the reason Letty ran away was because she saw him with his girlfriend. She wants to write immediately and tell him it wasn’t that. She wants to say that she always suspected he had a girlfriend, and she believes that he was going to finish it. But she knows that if she gets in touch with him again, she will also have to tell him about her relationship with Spencer, who is Stuart, because she wouldn’t want to have secrets from Alf, and it wouldn’t be fair for him to think that he is the guilty one.

  If she contacts Alf, she will have to tell him. And he will not love her then.

  Letty hears her mother calling up the stairs.

  ‘Come and have some breakfast!’

  FRANCES

  Letty’s obviously been crying, and she is doing that thing of looking away whenever Frances tries to make eye contact. She is eating a plain yoghurt. It takes all the energy Frances can muster to pretend not to count the spoonfuls, fussing around, running the tap, boiling the water, making tea, opening the fridge, staring at its virtually empty shelves, enjoying the coolness, sitting down at the table, pretending to read the paper.

  It’s not in Frances’s nature to say nothing, and yet she knows that saying something might make things worse.

  Since Letty’s been home, she’s hardly left the house. She hasn’t even mentioned going back up to Oxford and Trinity term must be in full swing by now. She’s not eating properly. Whenever Frances suggests she go for a walk or a swim, Letty makes some excuse and returns to her room, where she seems to do nothing but lie on the bed staring at the ceiling.

  The medical term is ‘ruminating’, she remembers. And it is not healthy.

  Is it still the aftershock of Marina’s death that has Letty in its grip? Or the idea that Marina wasn’t quite who she thought she was? Or is it the trauma of her parents’ marriage failing? Or the reality of leaving the house she has lived in all her life? Aren’t death, divorce and moving supposed to be the most stressful things?

  Or is it whatever happened in Rome? She seemed so happy there when they spoke on the phone and Frances had dared to breathe a sigh of relief, allowing herself to believe that maybe Letty had finally become an independent person that nobody had to worry about any more.

  Why did she allow herself to feel relieved? Surely that can’t have caused this, Frances thinks, wondering how a perfectly rational grown-up can, even for a second, believe in jinxes. Is there a small, irrational part of the human brain, she wonders, that magnifies when stressed, making a person think that bad things are their fault? Or is it just her? Is it her own massive inadequacy, because she’s always been the one who fixed things? Her job, their house, Ivo. What a joke! Now everything’s gone wrong, and her daughter is sinking, and she’s never been any good at fixing Letty.

  This bloody heat doesn’t help. Nor does the fact that she and Letty are living in a limbo-like space where they’ve not quite left one house and are not quite certain of the other. There are stacks of boxes in every room. Most of them are going into storage along with all the furniture, because, typically, Ivo and Rollo cannot decide what to do with the stuff their family has accumulated over the past seventy years. Rollo’s wife doesn’t want their house turning into a museum; Ivo and his mistress have not decided where to buy a place, or whether to buy at all.

  ‘I’m really much happier in a one-bedroom flat with nothing,’ he told Frances proudly the last time he showed his face, as if she should award him a Scout badge for slumming it or something. ‘Perhaps we should put everything into an auction?’

  ‘Nothing to do with me,’ Frances said. Because even though she hates the indecision, the disorder and the delay, she is not about to start ringing up Sotheby’s on his behalf, which is what she would have done in the past and what he hopes she’ll do, although of course he’d deny it.

  Frances is taking nothing with her except her clothes, shoes and books, along with a single box of treasured mementos of the children’s lives. The first programme Oscar’s name appeared in; the tiny violet tutu Letty wore for the Flower Fairies ballet at her pre-elementary class.

  It will be exciting to start again from scratch, she tells herself, and yet she dare not look forward to it too much in case it doesn’t happen; any number of things can go wrong with buying and selling property.

  Pretending to be absorbed in the newspaper, Frances turns to the Arts pages.

  ‘There’s a live relay of the new Swan Lake this evening,’ she announces. ‘It’s supposed to be wonderful. Would you like to go?’

  ‘With you?’ Letty asks.

  ‘Well, I’d like to see it . . . We can go separately if you wish.’ Frances does her best not to sound hurt.

  ‘No, no! That’s not at all what I meant!’ says Letty. ‘I’d love to go if you’re going?’

  LETTY

  Trafalgar Square has turned into an open-air auditorium with a giant screen in front of Nelson’s Column.

  Letty cannot believe the thousands of people here.

  Up on the screen, she sees that it is Vadim Muntagirov who will be dancing the role of Prince Siegfried.

  ‘Lucky us,’ says Frances, as they find a spot on the steps down to the square, which make a natural amphitheatre for the show. ‘He got the most amazing reviews everywhere.’

  ‘He was so wonderful in Manon,’ Letty says.

  She remembers watching the final act – the soaring music, the heartbreaking emotion
that the dancers expressed through their bodies.

  ‘It was the most beautiful and passionate thing I have ever seen,’ Alf said.

  She aches with longing for him.

  He is back in the UK. Perhaps he is even watching the live relay in some cinema in Blackpool?

  ‘I adore him.’ Frances is still talking about Vadim. ‘His dancing is just so free and lyrical and beautiful. It’s like getting a shot of pure joy. Apparently the company nickname for him is Vadream!’

  When she was a teenager, Letty used to think her mother chattered away incessantly simply to annoy her, but she has realized recently that it’s because Letty’s silences make her nervous. She doesn’t know what Letty is thinking, and Frances likes to be in control. The more Letty tries to avoid conversation, the more Frances has to fill the empty space. It’s irritating, but Frances is trying so hard to be friends Letty forces herself to try harder too.

  ‘I had a crush on him at school,’ she admits. ‘I had this fantasy of dancing a pas de deux with him. Not that I even met him or anything, because he was years above. Except on the last day – I just had to rush up tell him he was amazing!’

  Frances is staring at her.

  ‘What?’ Letty asks.

  ‘That just sounds so unlike you! Weirdly, I almost did the same thing the other day. I saw him coming out of the stage door and only just managed to stop myself fangirling madly.’

  The lights in the auditorium on the screen go down. There is a brief round of applause for the conductor, and then the haunting music begins, and the curtain sweeps up to reveal a wicked sorcerer turning a princess into a helpless swan.

  FRANCES

  All the good press Frances has read about the new production of Swan Lake is spot on. The sets are stunning, the costumes lavish, and the entire Royal Ballet is on terrific form. It’s a pity, she thinks, that the music is so familiar from the thousands of adverts it’s been used in. How amazing it must have been to hear it for the first time.