The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae

by Stephanie Butland

  KAT: And when was that?

  AILSA: When I was twenty-five. I hadn’t been very well for a while, just gradually getting more breathless—

  KAT: Was that when you turned blue?

  AILSA: I was always blue. It was a consequence of the kind of heart repair I had. It was a fenestration—

  KAT: Hey, it’s the weekend! We don’t need the nuts and bolts of heart repair. Why were you blue? In layman’s terms.

  SEB: No, hold on a minute, Kat. You can’t just say ‘blue’ and move on. What are we talking? Smurf? Avatar? Cookie Monster?

  AILSA: (laughing) Not exactly. Closest to Avatar, I suppose. More like – more like the colour of bleached denim. If you see someone with cyanosis, you probably wouldn’t say, ‘Oh, look, a smurf in human form.’ It would be more like – they would seem pallid. Very unhealthy-looking. And their lips would have a tinge you’d get from – from eating blueberries, maybe, and your nail beds too.

  SEB: So the colour your teeth go when you’ve been drinking a smoothie with blueberries in?

  AILSA: Exactly.

  KAT: So now we’ve established exactly the kind of blue you were, Ailsa, when did that start?

  AILSA: It was always there. It’s a sign that you’re not getting enough oxygen, and although I could function for a long time, quite normally—

  KAT: You mentioned that you went to university . . . ?

  AILSA: Yes. But it had to be in Edinburgh, because living away from home would have been too complicated. And I didn’t really do all of the things other students do. I could keep up with the work, but not really the social life. I used to do what we called after-parties. People used to come to my flat in the morning and I’d make tea and toast, and they’d tell me what I’d missed. One year I was too sick to go to the ball so we had an anti-ball where my friends came round in pyjamas and we watched films and ate pizza. You do your best, don’t you? Whatever your circumstances.

  KAT: And you live with your mum, is that right? That’s got to cramp your style.

  AILSA: Not if your style is constant tiredness and inability to breathe. My mother has been amazing. I’m OK, Mum, I’ve taken my medication!

  KAT: And we were talking about the polls. The point being that you had no power? You were just waiting to get a heart?

  AILSA: Yes. It just seemed mad to me that I was expected to live like a normal person – to decide what to do with my life, where to go, what to wear – when the biggest single factor in my life’s course was completely out of my control. The only way to cope with that, for me, was to give up any idea of control at all.

  KAT: Because things happen for a reason?

  AILSA: No. Three weeks ago, I went to mark the twenty-ninth birthday of someone I loved very much. It wasn’t a party, it was a memorial, because he died last year. He was every sort of decent, lovely man you could imagine. He caught Hepatitis B when he was travelling, and no one realised what it was until it was too far advanced, and by the time he was treated the only option was a liver transplant, and he didn’t get the liver. He died. Tell me that happened for a reason.

  SEB: I hate it when people say that. Things happen. That’s it.

  AILSA: Exactly. Thanks.

  KAT: Let’s talk about the blog some more. You didn’t ask your blog whether you should go ahead with your transplant?

  AILSA: No. The need for a transplant has always been a given. It’s a serious thing, Kat – it really was life or death for me.

  KAT: Granted. But – you’re sitting here in a unicorn headband – look out for the photo on Twitter, folks! I’ve got the poll here. The options you gave were: Number one – Dress down, it’s the radio! T-shirt, jeans, your cowboy boots; Number two – Dress up, it’s national radio! Dress, heels, serious eyeliner; Number three – The space-hopper costume you bought for a 1970s party three years ago and haven’t worn since (for some reason); Number four – Unicorn headband and tail.

  AILSA: I was convinced it was going to be the space hopper costume. But fortunately, most people are good people, even if they do like a bit of mischief . . .

  SEB: I had a go on a space hopper once. It was hilarious.

  KAT: But my point, Ailsa, is that you didn’t give anyone the option of, say, turning up here naked? Or wearing – I don’t know, full body armour, or a hijab?

  AILSA: I think what you’re saying, Kat, is that I create the choices, which is true. But it doesn’t negate the point.

  KAT: Which is . . . ?

  AILSA: If you’re waiting for a transplant, the course of your life is, basically, the toss of a coin.

  KAT: I would have thought there would be – I don’t know – robot hearts by now.

  AILSA: Well, there are some man-made and mechanised options. But when you’ve had a few heart operations, then the area around your heart is already under strain, so your body is less likely to cope with something like that.

  KAT: Interesting. Seb, how about you? How do you feel about your transplant?

  SEB: I feel grateful. It sounds glib, but you don’t really know what you’ve got until it’s gone, or at least going, and the thought of losing my sight – maybe losing an eye – was awful. But a cornea transplant isn’t anything like as big a deal as a heart.

  KAT: I’m sure listeners who’ve allowed loved ones to donate corneas won’t agree . . .

  SEB: I don’t mean – emotionally. I mean medically. I could have lived successfully without an eye. No one does well without a heart.

  KAT: But you still have a part of someone else’s body in your body. And you wouldn’t have that unless they’d died.

  SEB: I’m not saying I’m not grateful, Kat. The first thing I did when I came out of hospital was get myself on the organ donor register.

  AILSA: It’s not an easy idea. I’m grateful to my donor and at the same time I find it really hard to think about him or her. It’s a difficult thing, to be alive, because and only because someone else is dead.

  SEB: Or to be able to see because someone else isn’t here to use their eyes.

  KAT: What would you say to those donors and their families, if you could?

  SEB: Again, it’s hard not to sound glib.

  AILSA: I can write to my donor’s family a year after I have my transplant – though I will never know who they are, the transplant coordinator will pass the letter on. It’s an important thing to do, I think, but it won’t be easy. I agree with Seb. We say ‘thank you’ a hundred times a week, for coffee or change or to someone who puts us through to a helpdesk. Using the same words for this feels invalid.

  KAT: Yes, because these people are heroes, aren’t they? To donate your organs is an extraordinary thing.

  SEB: Absolutely.

  KAT: And you agree, Ailsa?

  AILSA: Well, yes and no.

  KAT: Interesting. I would have thought that you, of all people, would appreciate the heroism of donors. I wonder how your donor feels about that? Well, he or she is dead. I wonder how their family would feel?

  AILSA: I’m not saying I’m not grateful. But hundreds of people are on a waiting list for a donor of one sort or another, and hundreds of people die every day. If it was the norm for organs to be donated, then many more people would live on. When you’ve watched people you love die for the want of a liver, it – it changes your perspective.

  KAT: So you want to take the choice away from grieving families?

  AILSA: That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying we need a – a cultural shift in how we do this. We need to be a bit less emotional about it. After all, when you’re dead, your organs are no use to you. The law is starting to change, and I don’t think it’s a moment too soon.

  KAT: Well, as you can hear, it’s an emotive topic we’re discussing this afternoon. We’ll go to our next track, and then we’ll be talking StarDance gossip with Sebastian Morley. I see you’ve been learning to dance, Ailsa?

  AILSA: I’ve been to a few tango classes. I love it. Do you dance, Seb?

  SE
B: It depends who you ask. One of the judges thought I was a disaster.

  KAT: (laughter) We’re sitting in the studio with a very puzzled-looking unicorn. I would have thought that even unicorns would know who Sebastian Morley is. Jermaine from Solihull has suggested ‘My Heart Will Go On’ by Celine Dion. Nice one, Jermaine. If you’re out and about in London later, look out for a unicorn, because she might just push you under a bus to get a lung for one of her mates. We’ll be back after news, sport and weather.

  ‘Kat’s an arsehole,’ Seb says. ‘I’ve been interviewed by her before. Don’t worry about it.’

  The show over, Betsy has taken Seb and Ailsa back to the reception desk. One revolving door later and they are standing outside on the pavement, in feeble March sunshine, smiling uncertainly at each other like two people who have accidentally made eye contact at a bus stop. Ailsa looks at her hands, sees them shake.

  ‘I’m not worried about it.’ And she isn’t, exactly. But, ‘She wanted simple answers to things that are complicated. Of course I’m grateful. It’s not as straightforward as she makes out, though, you know?’

  Seb smiles. ‘Tell me about it. She once asked me about why I’d taken the job on Last Orders. Honest answer? I’d just bought a flat. I didn’t have any other long-term offers. The money was good. But you can’t say that. She didn’t want to know that actors are people looking for work, just like anyone else, and unless you’re – I dunno – David Tennant, you take what you can get. You take a job because you’re offered it, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose you do,’ Ailsa says.

  There must be something in the way she says it. Seb turns towards her, for the first time since they left the building. ‘I don’t know what you do. Apart from not be blue. And blog. In an award-winning way. While dressed as a unicorn.’ He laughs. ‘Which is quite a lot.’

  Ailsa laughs too, and feels something – tension, hurt – leave her. Apple unclenches. ‘It’s more than I knew about you. I can’t work until I get my six-month all-clear. I should be less vulnerable to infection after that.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  Another laugh, but one with a twitch in it. ‘I wish I knew. I’ve never had a job. I’ve not really done the things that make you employable. Anything.’

  ‘I’ll sell you my Duke of Edinburgh badge if that will help,’ Seb says.

  She likes that he doesn’t smile when he’s joking. ‘I get one automatically. For being from Edinburgh. You don’t have to do any camping or anything.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No,’ Ailsa says. There’s a beat before he looks at her.

  ‘Bloody unicorns,’ he says, ‘you’re all lying bastards.’

  And now she’s laughing, properly. Everything that she’s brought to this morning, the tension and the worry, breaking up and rushing out at the ridiculousness of what’s happening right now. Seb is watching her, or seems to be. He’s smiling. ‘I didn’t think it was that funny,’ he says.

  Ailsa takes a deep breath, now the last of the laughter has bubbled out of her. Oh, the feeling of it; the sense that she can actually be full of all the air she needs, whenever she wants to be, and a deep breath is enough. ‘I don’t know why it was.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Seb says, with a laugh of his own in his voice. Then, ‘I’ve never been to Edinburgh. Only Glasgow.’

  ‘Well,’ Ailsa says, ‘that’s basically the same thing.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No.’ That smile of his is really something.

  ‘I like how you talk,’ Seb says. ‘Say “Kat was an arsehole on the radio on Saturday”.’

  ‘I’m not a performing monkey.’ It’s slightly better than ‘Can I look at your scar’, Ailsa supposes – not that anyone has done that, but she’d had an awful moment in the studio when she wondered if Kat was about to ask.

  ‘No,’ Seb says, ‘but you are dressed as a unicorn. Please?’

  ‘OK. Kat was an arsehole on the radio on Saturday.’

  He is retying his scarf, but as soon as she starts to speak, he stops, one hand mid-air, tassels dropping from the spaces between his fingers; his face attentive. ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘It’s the rs, I think. I’ve never had to do a Scottish accent for anything.’

  ‘It’s an Edinburgh accent, not a Scottish accent. And not really a very strong one.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Seb says, ‘I didn’t mean to offend your . . . fuck, I don’t know, what did I offend?’

  Ailsa’s breath is white in the grey London air; her nose tip feels cold. ‘I’m not offended. But during the last hour I’ve been a representative for all of the Internet, all bloggers, and everyone who’s ever had a transplant. I can’t start representing all of Scotland too. I’m out of . . .’

  ‘Representativeness?’

  ‘Aye, representativeness.’ Although thinking about it, Ailsa has never been representative of anything in her life: she’s been the special, the different, the outsider. Apart from when she’s been sitting in a clinic waiting room.

  ‘You see? “Aye, representativeness.” Beautiful.’

  Ailsa smiles, shrugs. ‘If you say so.’

  Seb starts to walk away from the main entrance; Ailsa walks beside him. ‘Are you going back north today?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve a train booked at four. From King’s Cross.’ It’s just gone three.

  Seb looks at his watch, at her. ‘I can go that way.’

  ‘I was going to take a cab,’ Ailsa says. ‘I can’t do public transport. I’ve a depressed immune system.’

  ‘Music to my ears,’ Seb says. ‘We can share. You should have time to get a decent coffee at the station. And I can show you my eye on the way.’

  Ailsa almost says no. Seb’s known her for an hour and a half; he doesn’t get to organise the next hour of her life for her. But she hesitates, and while she does so she imagines the question, posed to the blog: Should I agree to a short taxi ride with a handsome (and famous, though I hadn’t heard of him) man who has just offered to show me his transplanted cornea? Yes, 100%, No, 0%, is her best guess. Maybe: Yes, 99%, No, 1%, if her mother is voting.

  ‘OK,’ she says. She needs to Google him as soon as she gets on the train.

  Seb is already flagging down a cab, anyway. One stops within seconds, as though he’s magnetic, the car automatically drawn to him. He says something to the driver through the window, and then holds the door open for her. She climbs in and fastens her seat belt. Seb sits opposite her on the fold-down seat and laughs.

  ‘Seat belt? Really?’

  ‘Really. I haven’t survived four heart operations to die in a taxi, thank you.’ She knows she sounds tart; doesn’t care. People take life for granted.

  He leans forward and takes off his sunglasses. ‘OK. Well, I’m going to take the risk. Look. It’s the left one. My left, your right. Can you see the stitches?’ Their knees are touching; Ailsa moves hers tight together, so that his can stretch out to the sides. And now she’s looking into his eyes. They are the colour that his hair, the colouring of his skin, suggests. It’s the green of an imagined meadow. She has to remind herself that she’s supposed to be looking at a piece of medical artistry, not behaving as though she is on a first date.

  At first, moving her gaze from eye to eye, she can see nothing different about Seb’s left eye. And then there it is, like a constellation suddenly making itself apparent in the sky: stitches zig-zagging around the green of his iris. She forgets, just for a second, about pain and panic and transplant. Here is a visible miracle.

  www.celebritynewshub.co.uk

  16 November, 2017

  EYE, EYE: Sexy Seb Pulls Out of StarDance in Infection Shock

  Sebastian Morley, the twenty-seven-year-old heartthrob we were all rooting for to win StarDance this year, has had to leave the show, breaking all of our hearts.

  The actor, who we fell for as barman Milo Bradshaw in BBC soap Last Orders, which he left earlier this year, was top of the judges’ leaderboard – and way ahead in th
e public vote. He had bravely danced a cha-cha with foxy dance partner Fenella Albright, despite being in pain from his swollen, bloodshot eye. Head judge, Bob, quipped that Seb might have a sore eye but there was nothing wrong with his feet.

  Earlier, Seb had brushed off worries, joking, ‘I’ll be blind with panic on the dance floor anyway!’

  The sexy star had been top of the leaderboard for two weeks running, with a steamy salsa followed by a romantic American Smooth. Next week would have seen him dance the tango.

  Seb’s partner Fenella was seen leaving Moorfields Eye Hospital in London in tears yesterday afternoon, accompanied by his sister Catherine.

  Sebastian Morley: Career in Brief

  Although he’s only twenty-seven, we feel as though we’ve known Seb forever. It’s ten years since he shot to fame. He was runner-up in the reality TV competition Wherefore Art Thou?, missing out on the role of Romeo in a six-month West End run of Romeo and Juliet by a handful of votes. He’d been the favourite to win – and with his serious green eyes, floppy blond hair, chiselled cheekbones and cheeky grin, we were all ready to be his Juliet! The winner, Xander Maxted-Morton, was booed on his first night in the role when he forgot a line, and Seb’s fans picketed the theatre with placards declaring: ‘Seb is our Romeo’. Morley came to the theatre to ask them to stop the protest – which only made us love him more. He landed the role of restaurant owner Max Rainbow in Channel 4’s Shoreditch-based drama, Beards and Skittles, before spending six years in Last Orders. He left the soap in February 2017. He was planning to ‘have some fun’ on StarDance before making his next career move. That eye infection doesn’t look like much fun, though . . .

  www.celebritynewshub.co.uk

  19 November, 2017

  More to Seb’s Problems Than Meets the Eye

  We thought things couldn’t get worse for sexy Seb Morley, after an eye infection put a stop to his StarDance moves. But we were wrong.