The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae

by Stephanie Butland

  ‘You might be the one that’s not ready.’

  ‘Ailsa, that’s harsh,’ Tamsin says gently.

  But a moment afterwards, Hayley says quietly, ‘It could well be. I cannae quite get used tae the idea that you can manage without me, hen.’

  Ailsa closes her eyes against the pain in this, the years of care and hope and fierceness for her that she hears in her mother’s voice. ‘I don’t want to manage without you,’ she says, and she can hear tears in her voice, pleading. ‘I just want to live on my own. I want to see who I am now I have’ – she puts her hand over Apple – ‘this. Please.’

  Tamsin puts a hand over each of their hands. ‘I think we need to try this for six months,’ she says, ‘and then review. You’re both thinking with your hearts and that’s not what hearts are for.’

  www.myblueblueheartblogspot.co.uk

  20 April, 2018

  Adventure?

  I thought, when Apple arrived, that I would be brave.

  When you’re ill, people tell you you’re brave the whole time. This is ridiculous. It’s not bravery that means spending months in hospital and having a laugh with the nurses and submitting to blood tests, via-the-nose biopsies, CPR and God knows what else. It’s the absence of choice. There’s nothing brave about letting people do all sorts of medical hoo-ha that stops you from becoming dead.

  Anyway. I always thought I was going to be brave, and fierce, and it turns out that I am average. Ordinary. (I wanted that too, so I can’t complain.)

  And now I’ve been offered something that is an opportunity to be brave. I could go to London for two weeks, to help someone out with something. (No, I’m not saying any more than that. Some things are private.) Part of me thinks that it would be a brilliant thing to do: a true adventure. And part of me wants to say no, because – well, because it wouldn’t be home. I’ve never been away from home for more than a week (apart from being in hospital, which doesn’t count). A week was as long as Mum would take off work when I was growing up – locum pharmacists are more in demand than usual in school holidays. I did a couple of study trips within the UK when I was at university, but they were three or four days, and I never took a course that would take me abroad, because it would have been too complicated to organise (before you even get to insurance). I’ve had holidays at my grandparents’ in the north of Scotland, and Mum, my auntie and I went to Wales once. The rain was different in Wales. Not as good as Scottish rain.

  Nearly two weeks in London might not seem like a big deal. But it is for me. Whenever I think of it, my stomach gets a blank space in the middle of it that might be dread.

  I’d be well looked after and, of course, London has hospitals.

  I’m going to keep this open until Monday. If the clinic says I can, should I go to London for two weeks to help someone out with something? (The something is not illegal.)

  YES, Ailsa. Have an adventure. Take a chance.

  NO, BlueHeart. Anything that gives you a feeling that might be dread is best avoided. Have a different adventure.

  1 share

  13 comments

  Results:

  Yes:

  96%

  No:

  4%

  11 May, 2018

  It hasn’t been a bad morning’s shopping for Ailsa’s down-a-dress-size wardrobe. She has bought black jeans, blue leggings, and a skirt the purple-pink of a raspberry and banana smoothie. She now has navy brogues with turquoise laces and a couple of round-necked tops that sit high enough to hide her scar without making her look like a schoolmarm. It’s not as livid as it was, pink rather than red, the puckering of skin not so obvious – but it’s still not something that she wants the world to be able to gawp at – or not bother to notice. She and Apple know the meaning of it. It’s theirs. Her mother picked out a blouse with a narrow purple pinstripe, which is perfect except for the fact that the top of her scar shows. Hayley offered to put a press-stud on it (‘By which I mean, persuade Tamsin to put a press-stud on it’).

  And Ailsa is not as thrilled with it all as she thought she would be. It’s not the shopping. It’s the feelings. The mirrors in the shop changing rooms aren’t quite as flattering as the one at home, on the back of the wardrobe door. They let Ailsa see all of her body, the places where she has little rolls of fat and the cellulite on the backs of her thighs.

  She knows that she is more than the outside of her body, and that fitness is more than appearance, of course she does. But still, looking at her strip-lit self, the scar her eyes usually slide over and the backside she doesn’t normally see, have leeched the confidence out of her. It’s not what she needs when she’s going to London tomorrow, staying in a stranger’s flat, spending almost two weeks with someone who is, the more she thinks about it, as good as a stranger. She has a curdling feeling in her gut, which is nothing to do with her drug regime, or her diet.

  Hayley is on edge, too. Even though talking with Tamsin helped – and so did making a plan, because at least they don’t have to try to work anything else out for now – they can’t seem to properly relax around each other. Like Tamsin said, they aren’t a normal mother and daughter, and anything they try to do is going to be loaded. Ailsa had offered to move out instead, but Hayley insisted that it wasn’t that that was the issue – ‘This flat belongs tae both of us, and it’s been your home as long as it’s been mine’. It’s just, it seems, the letting go.

  Moving is stressful even under normal circumstances, Ailsa reminds herself. When she gets back from London, it will be over, and they can relax into something more normal. How many twenty-eight-year-olds have lived with their parents all of their lives? Only the ill ones. She’s not ill anymore. And she’ll be starting her new job. She couldn’t quite believe it, when the call came. Christa says she’ll be amazed at how quickly she’ll get used to working at Full of Beans, but Ailsa doesn’t want to get used to this feeling. She did it. She got a job. For the first time in her life she will be going to work, and Hayley had been pleased for her, she could see it in her face, but that hadn’t stopped her from saying things like, ‘You’ll need to be sure they have a proper hand sanitiser at work.’

  ‘I think we need to go and get you a new bra. You must have gone down a size in that, as well,’ Hayley says. She adds, ‘Because, of course, you lose weight from the top down,’ as though this is a known and accepted fact of life. Ailsa doesn’t remember reading this anywhere, even though she must have read that ‘the first five pounds you lose is water’ hundreds of times. But maybe it is true. If the next half stone goes from her middle, she’ll be happy. She is happy. She is, she is.

  Apart from the thought of exposing, explaining, the scar to a bra-fitter. She’s not sure she’s ready for that. But Hayley doesn’t seem to think that bra-buying is up for discussion. They are in the lingerie section of Jenners department store before you can say ‘underwired balconette’.

  Hayley drops herself into a seat outside the changing rooms, and does what she always does when she’s waiting: she takes off her scarf, folds it, smooths it, unfolds it, and wraps it around her neck again. Today she’s wearing a fine silk scarf, moon-silver with heavy navy tassels that make it wrap tightly around her throat, so her skin seems to shine. It’s not Ailsa’s favourite, but when she commented on it this morning, Hayley said, ‘I’ve only a few here, because the rest are already at Tamsin’s, so you’ll have to grin and bear it.’

  Ailsa, in the changing room, takes off her T-shirt and stands in her jeans and her old bra while Shona, the bra-fitter, stands back and scrutinises her. ‘We need to get you down a cup size and a back size, by the look of it,’ she says, then adds, ‘I see all sorts in here: mastectomies, reconstructions, implants. The messes some poor women are in beggars belief. Just young lasses, too, a lot of them, like you. But whoever did this has done a smashing job for you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Ailsa says, although she shouldn’t really be taking credit; she stores the compliment away for the next time she sees Mr Mokbel. If ever she
does see him. The last check-up was with one of his interns. Presumably he’s too busy with the ill to spend time with the heart-bearers he’s fixed.

  After trying on bras that seem to make her look all shapes and sizes, Ailsa chooses two, one black, one ice-blue, both the same style, a cup-size and back-size smaller than her old one. She feels herself stand straighter in them. She’s looking at the lace, the straps, and the fact that she has a really nice bust with a perfectly formed heart beating behind it, rather than her scar or the fat around her middle.

  When she leaves the changing room, dressed again but wearing the ice-blue one, Shona having snipped off the label and taken it to the till, Hayley smiles and says, ‘Aye, that’s grand. Feel better?’

  ‘I do,’ Ailsa says. ‘You were right, I did need a new bra.’

  ‘Well,’ Hayley says, ‘you deserve to walk tall.’

  The dresses she tries on afterwards seem to hang better, look better, than anything she’d worn in the morning. The one she decides on is all-over yellow roses on a navy background, round-necked, three-quarter-length sleeved, flared a little at the hem and sitting above her knee. The woman in the mirror, this time, is healthy and happy, confident.

  And that’s it for her budget. Ailsa was eligible for Disability Living Allowance as a child; she probably would have been as an adult, but she and Hayley had talked and thought and decided that they wouldn’t apply. Though they wouldn’t be means-tested, they agreed that the assessment process was something they didn’t need in their lives then. And with a paid-off mortgage (‘Thanks to your biological father, though not in the “thankful” sense of the word’) and a reasonably sensible approach to living, they could manage. So they did.

  Ailsa took student loans and has an allowance from her mother, but she’s well now, and too old for being kept anyway, especially with Hayley moving out. They agreed, with Tamsin’s help, that Hayley will continue to pay the bills for six months, and Ailsa, in that time, will find a job and decide what she’s going to do in the longer term. Tamsin won’t charge Hayley rent for that time. Then they’ll reassess.

  So today’s shop will do her just fine for the foreseeable future. (How odd to count it in months and years.) Sure, some of her old clothes are too big, but some of them look great now she’s got some weight off. Emily and Pritti were always big charity shop fans; she can see if they fancy an afternoon of raking around for bargains sometime.

  ‘I’m done,’ she says, when she’s paid for the dress. It’s almost two.

  ‘Let’s get a quick sandwich before we head back,’ Hayley says.

  ‘Good idea.’ They don’t talk so much, when they’re in the flat, these days. No one is sulking, exactly, it’s just that they don’t know how to manage the transition. It will all be fine once it’s done. Absolutely it will. There is barely any question in Ailsa’s mind about it all.

  They make their way to Rose Street and the cafe that they’ve liked since they used to come for strawberry milkshakes after hospital check-ups. They have the same routine everywhere they eat or drink: find a table, take it in turns to go to the toilets and wash their hands, order, relax. Ailsa chooses black coffee and a mushroom omelette, Hayley a cheese and ham panini and a cappuccino, which she stirs, even though, to Ailsa, this defeats the object. But they’ve had the cappuccino/latte conversation often enough over the years. Sometimes Ailsa thinks the reason things are quieter is simply the fact that she and her mother have had every single conversation that’s possible between the two of them often enough to know them by heart.

  ‘Happy with what you’ve got?’ Hayley asks.

  ‘Yes,’ Ailsa says, ‘I think so.’ Her earlier feelings of too-fat have dissipated. She’s getting healthier. That’s what matters.

  ‘You didnae want to treat yourself to a new bag?’

  ‘Not today.’ Ailsa loves her battered old satchel, and she doesn’t care what anyone thinks.

  ‘Worth a try,’ Hayley says, with a smile. Then, ‘It’s all different, isn’t it? Even the things we never thought were affected by your heart. They were.’

  Ailsa nods, puts her hand on her mother’s arm, just a touch, in thanks. ‘Are we going to be all right?’ she asks.

  That pinched mouth again. ‘It’s a bit late for that now, isn’t it? You were very sure in front of your Auntie Tamsin.’

  ‘I know. I am. It’s just –’ She takes a breath and feels Apple press the words up to her mouth. ‘Just because I want this doesn’t mean I don’t love you.’

  Hayley sighs. ‘And I love you. Right down tae our bones. We’ll be all right, hen. I know we’re doing it the other way around, and I don’t know a mother who wouldn’t be upset at her daughter moving away. But – the alternative is worse, aye?’

  Ailsa nods, but she hates that they still feel that they aren’t allowed to be sad about anything, on the grounds that she is Not Dead. She thinks of Seb and his story about Tom Foster, almost tells it to her mother, but decides against.

  ‘I want to come and see you. Every week.’

  Hayley nods. She reaches across the table, touches the side of Ailsa’s face, and Ailsa bites back the impulse to make a joke about her beard being nearly gone, and lets herself be loved.

  ‘If you can get in.’ Tamsin, who deals in what she calls ‘vintage collectibles’ and what Hayley cheerfully refers to as ’tat’, is notorious for mess and chaos, and her flat is crowded with furniture, paintings, small and pointless tables stacked with books and magazines.

  ‘You might find that lodger she had when you clear out the wardrobe. He could be trapped in there.’

  ‘I wouldnae be surprised,’ Hayley says. Then, ‘I wish you’d wear red again. You’d look lovely. It’s a good colour for you. Your hair.’

  Ailsa nods. When she used to wear red, the colour would pick out the gold of her otherwise dull blondish hair. It did something to her skin, too, warming it, neutralising the blue. It would probably work wonders now.

  ‘I can’t,’ she says.

  ‘I know,’ Hayley says, ‘not yet. But one day.’

  ‘Yes.’ Ailsa knows she has to agree, because now there are so many days. Anything could happen. But she thinks: no. If it’s a decision she feels right about – taking part in Romeo and Juliet, or not wearing red – then it’s a decision made. If not –

  ‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you, about your blog.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I’m just a wee bit concerned about this jaunt of yours. I’m not so sure it’s wise.’

  ‘You were the four per cent that voted against, were you?’

  Hayley laughs, stirs her coffee again, takes a sip. ‘I don’t vote. I’ll not speak for Tamsin, though.’

  Ailsa takes a breath, thinks this through. Her coffee is cool enough to drink now, so she sips, and then her omelette arrives. It’s huge, spilling off the side of the plate, and it looks, and smells, like no omelette Ailsa could ever make. Hers end up like scrambled eggs whatever she does. Hayley says she doesn’t have her pan hot enough and she needs to hold her nerve. Ailsa says that’s what you need to do for pancakes. She’ll soon be on her own in the kitchen, though.

  ‘Is it the voting, or is it the going to London?’

  Hayley sighs and looks away, before responding, ‘You know I’ve never liked the voting. And some of it seems daft to me. Why does your heart need a name? It’s yours. But this London thing – it doesn’t smell right.’

  ‘Why not?’ Ailsa puts her hand to her chest, to quell Apple’s outraged bumping against her ribcage. Her heart has yet to learn that her mother’s not one for anything she considers whimsical or impractical.

  ‘You can’t tell me that this – Seb’ – she says it as though it’s in inverted commas, as though it’s not really a name, or he’s not really a person – ‘has no one else who can help him with this?’

  ‘Not for the length of time he needs,’ Ailsa says, ‘and he doesn’t want actors, because they’ll act. He just wants someone to help him learn
.’

  ‘And not be paid.’

  ‘He’s paying my expenses.’ Ailsa knows she sounds defensive.

  ‘Have you not heard of women’s liberation, Ailsa? Do you not know that this kind of thing is not OK? Some people might call it exploitation. And when you’ve a job waiting . . .’

  Hayley’s voice is mild but Ailsa knows to tread carefully. ‘He’s a friend, Mum. That’s why I’m doing it. It’s the only reason. Well, that and – and getting away. We’ll go out. I’ll do some sightseeing. I’ll be – normal. And we have friends who’ve done an awful lot for us. It’s nice to be the friend who’s doing the helping, for once.’

  Hayley sighs, and Ailsa knows she’s thinking of Mrs Owens, who used to live downstairs and would always babysit if Hayley was working, and all of the parents who made Ailsa welcome after school, because Hayley was anxious about her being in the house on her own. ‘You havnae been friends for very long, for him to be asking such a favour of you. Even if you do get to do a bit of sightseeing.’

  ‘I’ll have my own place to stay,’ Ailsa says.

  ‘You’ve only his word for that.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Mum. You’re not really thinking he’s going to murder me. If he is he’s gone a stupid way about it.’

  ‘No,’ Hayley says, ‘but he might – take advantage. You’re not exactly . . .’

  ‘Seb’s not so short of offers that he needs to lure me from Edinburgh. And anyway – I’m not exactly what?’ Ailsa’s appetite has gone. She’s barely eaten half of what was on her plate. She doesn’t know if she’s full, or if this conversation is doing something to her body. Cold omelettes are no good, anyway. She pushes the plate aside.

  ‘Experienced. Worldly.’

  Ailsa laughs. Her mother knows about Lennox, of course. And about Jacob, who she met in the kitchen one morning when he was making tea and wearing Ailsa’s dressing gown. She doesn’t know about the American exchange student she gave directions to on a Friday morning, who spent Friday night, most of Saturday in her bed. (Robbie? Randy? No, if he was called Randy that would have stuck in her mind.) Or the night of the Student Union’s firework party, when she and that guy who was studying Ancient Civilisations were the only ones to duck inside out of the cold. Or –