The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae

by Stephanie Butland

  ‘Yes. Apart from the blog, and that doesn’t count. And emails.’

  ‘The real world’s more interesting. Have you got plates?’

  ‘Emily. Can we please get it over with? And I could have made coffee, you know.’

  ‘I know you could, lovely. But I brought it. You’ll have had enough of making coffee by the time you’ve put your first week in.’

  Ailsa laughs and goes for the paper, but Emily is faster, taking it out of reach. ‘Coffee first, and a croissant or two. We’ll look when we’re fortified.’

  And of course Emily’s right. Twenty minutes of chat – Jacob’s upcoming wedding, Emily’s job, Ailsa’s London trip, though she can’t bring herself to go into The Kiss – and the world feels bigger and less important than anything that The Sun might have to say.

  ‘Here we go, then,’ Emily says, and starts to turn the pages over. Ailsa, next to her on the sofa, feels Apple speeding up, sending a tremble to her fingertips. There’s nothing on pages two and three, four and five, six and seven. Maybe Seb got it wrong, or the story – because there isn’t a story – is too uninteresting to print.

  It’s on page eight. A photograph – grainy, hard to make out the fine detail of it at first – of Seb and her on the dance floor. It’s taken from behind her, so Seb’s face is clear: he’s concentrating, square-shouldered, his extended arm moving towards the camera as he guides Ailsa back. He’s looking at her face. She’s turning her head towards the right, but only her forehead is visible.

  She sits and looks at the photograph for a long time. She can’t bear to turn to the words yet.

  That dress, with the yellow flowers, the one that made her feel so bright and beautiful: it’s stretched across her shoulders, tight, showing the rolls of soft fat over the top of her bra-band. Her back looks thick, her backside broad, her calves almost comically exaggerated ovals. Her arms seem triangular, widening and widening from wrist to shoulder.

  Emily is reading, her arm around Ailsa’s shoulder; she’s muttering to herself about spite and kindness costing nothing. Even before the words Ailsa feels sick, teary, and then ridiculous for being upset at this – at what is nothing more, actually, than a photo of herself. She looks at it again, and then closes her eyes, and remembers how she felt that night. Her body had seemed liquid, graceful in Seb’s arms, moving from step to step, her heart opposite his heart. When they’d left she’d looked at the other dancers – women slimmer than her, bare-armed, narrow-hipped, some smiling, some thin-lipped with concentration, some confident, some stop-starting, tentative. And she had felt as though she was one of them. When really she was the mismatched partner of the handsome man, the one that they would all go home and comment on, wonder about. She had been starting to love her body, its growing strength and ability to do most of the things that she wanted it to. But right now, although she knows that love must be there somewhere, she can’t find it.

  And then she reads the words of the article. They are no worse than the words she’s just said to herself, but they hurt. She tells herself that to judge by appearances is shallow, wrong, and tries to become outraged on behalf of herself, of women. And she is, hypothetically. But mostly she feels fat, ugly, disappointed in herself for believing that being less overweight than she used to be was special. The sure knowledge that she is more than how she looks – the knowledge that replaced her fierce conviction that she was more than her illness – has deserted her.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Not really,’ Ailsa says.

  Emily pulls her closer and says, ‘You know that this isn’t true, don’t you? Not just that it’s awful about you, but everything it’s built on. He’s not better than you because he’s famous. You’re not unworthy because you’re not a stick. There’s just – there’s nothing here.’

  ‘I know.’ Emily’s quiet anger is comforting; so is the fact that she understands it all. ‘Thanks, Em.’

  ‘Are you going to blog about it?’

  ‘No.’ Ailsa chewed this over at 3 a.m., torn between saying her piece and prolonging the agony. ‘I’m going with dignified silence.’

  ‘Good. Oh, Ailsa.’ The hug is hard and full of everything they’ve been through. Ailsa closes her eyes. It’s almost like being with her mother, in the old days, before she had Apple. She squeezes her eyes closed, tight, and breathes in Emily’s perfume, Black Opium, vanilla and sweet, the scent that her friend has worn for as long as Ailsa has known her. Then Emily sighs, holds her at arm’s length and looks her over, as though she’s checking for anything she’s missed.

  ‘I’m OK. Well, I will be.’ Yes, she will. In the scheme of things, and all.

  ‘Good. Screw the lot of them. Not literally. How about we go and get some paint samples? I’ve got all day.’

  ‘Sounds lovely,’ she says, and then her phone rings. It’s Hayley.

  Her mother’s voice sounds careful, picking its way down the line. ‘I’m at work today. Eight o’clock start. They have all the papers in the staffroom. I had a look through.’

  ‘Yes?’ If she pretends she hasn’t seen the article, Hayley will feel as though she ought to tell her, on the grounds that it’s better to come from her than someone else. May as well get this over with. ‘Did you see the thing about – about Seb and me?’

  ‘I did,’ Hayley says. ‘I was worried for you. Are you all right?’

  ‘Sort of. No. Yes,’ Ailsa says.

  Hayley laughs, a sympathetic sound that makes Ailsa homesick even though she’s at home. ‘I think that’s how I’d feel.’

  Ailsa lets herself exhale, closes her eyes, rests her head back on the sofa. ‘I am now. Emily’s here.’

  A pause. ‘Good,’ Hayley says. ‘Tell her thank you, aye?’ Ailsa hates this, but lets it go. She knows how her mother, Tamsin, Emily, Ruthie and Dennis have played a sort of looking-after-Ailsa tag for the last eighteen months, and it will be a while before it stops all together.

  ‘You’ve a right to be upset,’ Hayley says. ‘They’re bastards.’

  ‘That’s what Seb said.’

  A beat of a pause from the other end of the line. ‘You’ve spoken to him?’

  ‘He warned me about it,’ Ailsa says. ‘His agent got a call.’

  ‘Well, I hope he’s ashamed of himself,’ Hayley says.

  ‘I don’t think it’s his fault. He can’t help these things. He’s in the public eye. People are interested in him.’ Apple gives the tiniest twitch, in confirmation: We are interested in him, Ailsa, you and I.

  Hayley sighs. ‘It’s all good publicity for him, though. And I notice they didn’t comment about his shirt being open so far down. Or that he could have done with a shave. A cynic might think that he has friends at that paper.’

  ‘It’s not like that, Mum.’ The peevishness in her voice surprises her. It’s no wonder that Hayley sounds crisp in return.

  ‘Oh aye? And how do you know? This won’t just be keeping him in people’s minds? At your expense?’

  ‘Nobody knows who I am,’ Ailsa says, trying to sound matter-of-fact. It’s a bit strained but it’s better than making her mother think she’s annoyed with her. ‘There was a waitress. She had her photo taken with him. She obviously fancied him. It was her.’

  Gently now, Hayley replies, ‘Even so. I don’t like it, Ailsa. I don’t like to see you being talked about in that way. And it’s a lovely dress.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Ailsa says. She means it. She hopes she sounds as though she does.

  From: Seb

  Sent: 2 June, 2018

  To: Ailsa

  Subject: Bloody Sun

  Hi Ailsa,

  I don’t know if you got my text. I checked it before I sent it. It does actually say, ‘Page 8. Call me when you’ve seen it if you want to talk’. As opposed to ‘Paint cart Mohawk see see yodel’ or whatever.

  Anyway. I’m around, until about three. Then my sister’s coming over to criticise my lifestyle and dress sense (probably) but she’s bringing my little nieces, and usual
ly cake, not made of nuts and mammoth-fur, so I’ll put up with her.

  Sorry, again.

  Seb x

  From: Ailsa

  To: Seb

  Dear Seb,

  Yes, I’ve seen it. It fair put me off my croissant.

  It’s not your fault.

  Ailsa

  From: Seb

  To: Ailsa

  Cavemen had access to a patisserie? I need to have a word with my history teacher. I was taught all the wrong things. Or wasn’t listening. Yeah, probably not listening.

  You didn’t say if you’re OK. Are you OK?

  It’s really shit when that sort of thing happens. You do get used to it, but the first few times are hard. I’ve had a few months off – not interesting enough, once the eye stuff had died down – but now R&J is happening it looks like I’m fair game again. I’m so sorry.

  After the episode of Wherefore Art Thou? where we had to do a dance routine from West Side Story (Roz had to explain why to me), The Sun published a picture of my head on a Thunderbird’s body. And not even one of the cool Thunderbirds. Like I say, they really are bastards. (Journalists, not Thunderbirds).

  S x

  P.S. As you like old films I thought you might know what Thunderbirds are.

  From: Ailsa

  To: Seb

  You’re right. I didn’t say if I’m OK. Honestly, I’m not sure. I felt quite shaken and tearful, and that’s not like me. It’s just a photo of me. I know I’m overweight. And I don’t want to be whatever The Sun thinks is an acceptable shape for a woman, because if I was, there would be nowhere to keep my organs. So I’ve really got nothing to be upset about.

  I suppose I could see that I looked awful in that photo and having to read the article pointing it out makes me feel – bullied. And I’m trying to get fit, and I feel the best I have done, literally, ever. I’m – oh, I don’t know – I’m supposed to be above all this. If I’m happy with myself, I should be happy. If I’m not, I should be doing something about it (like not backsliding on the croissant front). What’s in the papers should be irrelevant.

  So, I’m not OK, but I guess I will be. I’m – let’s say fine-ish (autocorrect just tried to make that ‘fiendish’).

  I do know who Thunderbirds are/were (do puppets die? Maybe they get recycled into puppet transplants?). I’d say you dance way better than that.

  From: Seb

  To: Ailsa

  Well, my fine-ish fiend, I’m still sorry.

  And it was a terrible photo. You look much lovelier in real life. And you dance sort of – poetically. With your whole heart. You look great in that dress as well. I don’t know if I said it but I thought you looked beautiful. Skinny-jeans waitresses with straight hair and big eyelashes all look the same. You look like you.

  Am I making it better or worse?

  Fenella thought the Thunderbird thing in the paper was hilarious. She didn’t have much of a sense of humour, but she liked that. She always liked it when I fell over or anything where I made a tit of myself. She was nicer to other people. I’m not sure if it was a teaching strategy. It probably was.

  I missed you when you went back to the land of the heatless sky. Once I’d got over the hangover. I brought you back a smoothie from the gym on Sunday morning and felt like an idiot. It was quite nice though. Spinach, orange, apple and avocado. I could have done without the spinach.

  We’ve got the photoshoot/calendar thing a week on Saturday. Shall we go to dinner, or something, afterwards? (Do I have to say tea?) I’ve booked myself into a hotel for the night, and Roz has got me doing something with her on Sunday. She didn’t say what. I’ll do as I’m told. She’s a slave driver. Worse than you. (Kidding.)

  S xx

  From: Ailsa

  To: Seb

  I think you’re making it better, but I don’t want to think/write about it anymore, if that’s OK.

  We Scots have to be bilingual because English folk never bother. So – it would be nice to have dinner after the photoshoot. I’ll see you there.

  Ailsa

  www.myblueblueheart.blogspot.co.uk

  1 June, 2018

  Choosing a Word

  I’ve got a funny request for you today, not least because I can’t tell you why I’m asking. I need to choose a word that sums up how I feel about being a transplanted organ recipient.

  I want to get away from gratitude. Not because (as I hope you know) I’m not grateful, but because it’s a bit more complicated than that.

  And – I’ve been spending a bit of time lately reading Romeo and Juliet.

  So I’ve chosen three words from the play that I think are appropriate to life-after-transplant:

  Torchbearer: I’m one of the first generation to survive Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS to its friends). If I’d been born a few years earlier, then my mother would have watched me die. There were no other options. I’m a symbol. I’m a sign of what’s possible. I’m lighting the way, not by anything I’m doing, just by the fact of my continued existence. I’m walking forward into the dark.

  Cherishing: This is a great word, is it not? Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I lie there for a minute and I think of Apple, as though she’s a treasure I’ve been given, and I’ve wrapped her up and put her in the safest place I can. (As anyone who’s had their ribcage opened will tell you, it’s really not designed for that. It tells you so, afterwards, in no uncertain terms.)

  Fortune: You know the reason for this one. I’m not alive because I deserve to be or because I’ve passed a test or because there’s some divine something looking out for me. (Feel free to think that there is, if that suits you. I prefer to think I’m here because of a fluke to some all-powerful being choosing me over someone else.) I’m alive because of a happy-for-me coincidence of blood group, ill-enough-but-not-too-ill, and someone else’s death. Each of those three factors has so many variables. Luck/chance/fortune: it’s the reason for the blood being pumped around my body right now.

  Here’s the vote. I’m going to give you until Wednesday.

  TORCHBEARER

  CHERISHING

  FORTUNE

  5 shares

  15 comments

  Results:

  TORCHBEARER

  65%

  CHERISHING

  25%

  FORTUNE

  10%

  1 June, 2017

  This Time Last Year

  ‘Could you begin by telling me why you’re here, Ailsa?’

  ‘My mum thought it would be a good idea.’

  ‘Is that the only reason?’

  ‘Yes. No.’ Being talked into going to a counsellor has brought out Ailsa’s inner fifteen-year-old – the one she was never really allowed to be, because she always had to be looking after her heart. ‘I’m not coping very well.’

  ‘With what?’

  A shrug. ‘I don’t know. Waiting for a heart. Missing someone.’

  A nod, a soft smile that makes Ailsa feel as though she’s already given one of the correct answers. Oh, how she doesn’t want to be here.

  ‘Who is it that you miss, Ailsa?’

  Ailsa looks at the woman sitting across from her – kind-faced, calm and ready to help – and she wants to try. But there seems to be no way to talk about Lennox now. After the first flurry of desperate sharing, the memories and the talking about him, as though she and his family had to create him and preserve them in their words, Ailsa feels as though just saying his name will break her in two. And what will be exposed, then, is uglier than her failing malformed heart: a tarred clump of sadness and frustration that he’s not there; fury with him for leaving her to face his death, her death alone; the sick, black envy that it’s all over for him now, and that he’s cheated her by leaving her behind. She cannot let this out of her. Not yet.

  ‘I can’t,’ she gets out, something strangled-sounding, but the counsellor seems to understand.

  ‘If you don’t feel up to talking,’ she says, ‘I’m going to suggest that mayb
e you write something down. A letter to yourself. Say, Ailsa this time next year – what would she say to you? Or what would you say to that Ailsa?’

  Ailsa takes the paper and pen. To start with, looking at the blankness is just as bad as looking at her mother’s anxious face. A year from now isn’t really something she can think about – she’ll be either dead, or a version of herself that’s inconceivable now – but she could perhaps help tomorrow’s Ailsa out. It’s not what she’s supposed to do, but as her mother says, she’s done with giving a fuck.

  Dear Ailsa,

  Remember, if you die, at least it will stop hurting.

  At least it will stop.

  Love,

  Ailsa

  9 June, 2018

  It’s photoshoot day.

  Which means it’s three weeks since she saw Seb, a fortnight since the article that made her lie awake hating her body, even though to do so was a betrayal of her heart.

  Three days ago, Ailsa received an email from Libby, asking her to arrive before three with freshly washed hair and without make-up, and instructing her to bring clothes that were neither black nor ‘excessively patterned’. She would be made up, photographed, then interviewed, providing material in readiness for the launch of the calendar and campaign. She’d had a week’s notice of the questions for the interview; she’d practised her answers with Hayley last weekend. Living apart from each other is hard, and they’re adapting. That’s what Emily says they’re doing, anyway. To Ailsa it feels like non-stop wrong-footedness: she’s always waiting for her mother to come home. It’s a kind of diluted grief. Which it shouldn’t be, because she’s got what she wants.