by Claire Allan
“I don’t remember you,” she said and he looked puzzled. “From when I stayed here with Betty, twelve years ago. I thought she had introduced me to absolutely everyone she knew, but I don’t remember you.”
“Ah,” he said with a smile, “twelve years ago I was living and working in Spain. You may have met my father, Pierre? He was a dear friend to Betty and Claude. I moved back to Saint Jeannet nine years ago when he took ill and needed to me to take care of the family business.”
Hope scanned her memory and an image of an older short, rotund man with a comedy moustache entered her head. He was a lovely man – a friendly, smiling kind-hearted soul who told her that if she were thirty years younger he would have married her and taken her from the young man she was currently with.
Nodding fondly at the memory, she smiled. “Oh yes, I remember your father. He was a nice man.”
“With an eye for the ladies,” Jean-Luc laughed – a deep throaty French laugh which made her feel a little funny.
She turned to see him leaning against the worktop, looking around the kitchen.She watched the coffee bubble and brew, making small talk easily with him before she picked up the cups of coffee and gestured that they should move tothe terrace where he asked her more about her trip and she asked him about his travelling experiences. They had been to some of the places, it seemed, weeks or months apart. They smiled at that coincidence and moved on to talk more about Betty.
Hope was able to ascertain, without having to come right out and ask, that no, he had not been her aunt’s lover but had simply helped around the house when he could. He would call in one or two nights a week and she would make him dinner and in return he would make sure all the little odd jobs around the house were done and he would take her shopping each Saturday morning. There couldn’t have been that much between them age-wise but he did not talk of her like she was his great lost love. He talked of her as if she were a friend, or a dear aunt.
From his chat she was also able to ascertain he must not have a significant other making demands on his time. Although – how he was single was simply beyond her.
They chatted for a little more before he looked at his watch and announced that he really must be leaving.
“I have an appointment to attend,” he said, standing up.
She stood too.
“Feel free to call me any time,” he said. “I’m sorry I did not meet Ava. I wanted to talk to you both about the local markets and see what plans you have. Perhaps I will call in tomorrow? Or we could meet for coffee?”
He smiled and Hope could not help but notice how warm and honest his smile seemed. She noticed that more than his crisp white T-shirt with a slight V-neck and his faded jeans. She noticed it more than the downy hair on his tanned arms, or the dark hair sprinkled with the grey on his head or his three-day-old stubble. She noticed it more – but just a little bit more – than the crinkle around his eyes and then she realised she had force herself to break her stare or risk seeming like a complete and utter psycho muppet.
“Betty has much of our week mapped out for us but that would be nice,” she said, extending her hand to his.
“Good,” he said. “I will be in touch soon.”
“You saw him?” Ava squealed, sitting down on one of the squashy sofas, tired from the exertion of mastering the art of left-hand driving and surviving the madness of a supermarket where everything was in French and where she had received dirty looks for speaking English. “Do tell? Was he a hunk? Was he a bit of an Olivier Martinez or more a Gerard Depardieu? Ihope the former and not the latter. I don’t get people who find that Gerard Depardieu handsome. He looks like the kind of man who would have nose hair. Did Jean-Luc have nose hair?”
“I can’t say I looked up his nose to check for hair issues, but he didn’t look the type. He was quite well-groomed. And quite handsome. Like that doctor from Grey’s Anatomy? You know, McSteamy? And his accent was divine – better than Belfast or Derry anyway.”
“Ooooh,” Ava sighed while Hope poured some fresh lemonade into two glasses. “McSteamy . . . sure beats the Derry version, McItYourself,” Ava said with a giggle as Hope sat down. “Like the song said, tell me more!”
“Well, there isn’t much to tell,” said Hope. “He asked if everything was okay. I told him it was. He told me he used to do odd jobs for Betty but, you know, not in that way. I knew his father, as it happens, from when we visited before. He wanted to talk to us both about what happens next and said maybe we could meet for coffee tomorrow? He said we were to get in touch if we needed anything.”
“Anything?” Ava asked, raising her eyebrow. “You seem quite animated, Ms Scott.”
“Ah,” Hope said, putting on a solemn tone so as to remind herself as much as anything else, “you forget I am currently the lead character in my own Very Long Sad Story. It would do me no good to get animated about anything, let alone strange Frenchmen with adorable crinkles around their eyes.”
“You never mentioned the crinkles before.”
“Did I not?” Hope said, an image of his smile flashing into her mind again – an image which she tried to push out as soon as it arrived. An image which had, at least, replaced her never-ending brain wallpaper of Dylan and Cyndi going at it on the kitchen table.
Chapter 15
It was time to start with Betty’s room.
“This will be tough,” Hope said, opening the door and allowing Ava to walk in before her. “Ah well, it wouldn’t be like Betty not to dive right in. Feels a bit weird though, starting to dig through her stuff.”
“It’s a gorgeous room,” Ava said, struck by how peaceful and uncluttering it was.
There was no overflowing basket of clothes which needed ironing. There were no half-read books scattered there or abandoned teddy bears lying on the floor. It was what she wished her own bedroom was like at home – a haven. Plain walls. Simple curtains. A wooden floor with no mushed-in make-up here and there. No noise but the whisper of the wind in the trees outside the window.
“It still feels wrong,” Ava said as she laid out her storage boxes and folders on the bed. There were bags for the stuff which would be dumped. Bags for that which would be recycled. Boxes for the must-keep items and boxes for the items they would sell on.
“I’ve never cleaned out the house of a dead relative before,” Hope said, “but I don’t imagine it ever feels right. We just have to keep reminding ourselves that this is what Betty wanted. And specifically she wanted us to do it, so we’d better keep that in mind too.”
Hope was right, of course and Ava realised that she really needed to detach herself emotionally as much as possible and do what she had to do. There was no good getting maudlin over it – it would still need to be done and this was just the kind of thing that normally sent her into a near-orgasmic frenzy of excitement. Organising things was her thing. She would just have to focus – and focus damn hard.
What she was not expecting, however, was the explosion of emotion which burst through her when Hope opened the wardrobe at the end of the room and she saw not only all of Betty’s clothes neatly hung together but all of Claude’s too – side by side. Her aunt clearly could not bear to be parted from them.A guttural sob – one which brought forward a river of snot along with it – escaped from her throat and all her previous just focus affirmations disappeared as she ran to the lovely ensuite in her own bedroom and locked the door.
Oh God, this was tough. It was going to be tough anyway but, combined with pregnancy hormones crashing through her veins, it was even fecking tougher. She tried to compose herself but each time she thought she had caught her breath another wave of grief and anxiety hit her slap up the face.
“Ava?” she heard Hope say gently, as she rapped on the door.
She shook her head.
“Ava? Are you okay?”
She shook her head again, forgetting that her cousin couldn’t of course see her.
“Ava, it’s only some old things and it’s only natural we’re goin
g to find it emotional.”
Still shaking her head, Ava stood up and opened the door to face her cousin who seemed genuinely concerned for her wellbeing.
“I’m pregnant,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m pregnant – well, I think I’m pregnant anyway and it’s hormones,” she managed before she disintegrated again.
“Oh sweetheart, I’m sensing pregnant is not a good thing right now?”
Ava shook her head again as she allowed Hope to guide her to the edge of the bed to sit down. “That makes me sound like a bitch, doesn’t it? To think it’s not a good thing?”
“Things don’t always work out the way we want them to. What does Connor think? Is he okay with it? He is supportive, isn’t he?”
“He doesn’t know,” Ava said, feeling a little embarrassed even though Hope was being perfectly lovely and holding her hand as if she knew just how horrible this was.
“Oh,” Hope said. “Can I ask a really, really personal question and you can feel free to tell me to feck right off . . . but . . . the baby? It is his, isn’t it?”
Ava laughed at that because she had a hard enough time finding the energy to sleep with her husband never mind carry on a clandestine affair behind his back. “Yes . . . yes, it’s his.”
“And he’s a good husband?” Hope probed gently.
“He is. But this is going to sound awful. It’s just – it’s hard work. It’s fecking hard work.” She wanted to say more – like she was terrified on an almost daily basis that she wasn’t a good enough mother – that she was in some way damaging her child. The papers were filled with reports of how working mothers were leading their children down a one-way path to delinquency and she was afraid Maisie would grow up feeling unloved and unwanted. She already felt as if she was splitting herself into too many parts – how on earth would she split herself into any more?
They sat in silence for a while before Hope spoke again. “You say, you think you are pregnant? Have you tested?”
Ava shook her head before adding that she had bought a test earlier that day and had been fully intending on using it just as soon as she needed to pee.
“Well, do you need to pee now?”
Ava shook her head. It was as if her bladder had gone on strike. It, like the rest of her, didn’t want to confirm what she was most afraid of.
“Right, well then, will we go back to Betty’s room? And we’ll sort some clothes and look for her latest letter and when you are ready we can come back here and you can test, okay?”
Ava nodded as Hope walked into the bathroom and retrieved a tissue for her to blow her nose on.
“That’s a girl,” Hope said with a smile. “And if it makes you feel any better at all – and until you want to talk about things more – I can start telling you my sad story. Trust me, it will make you feel better.”
Hope winked and Ava smiled gratefully as they walked back into Betty and Claude’s room and started folding and sorting their clothes.
“Do you think she ever threw anything out?” Ava asked, feeling more composed now as she unhooked each garment from its hanger and showed it to Hope.
“I’m glad she didn’t. Some of this stuff is gorgeous.” Hope held a long oyster-coloured evening gown in soft satin against her and twirled in front of a mirror. “She had some style – and she knew which pieces to keep and which to throw away. This dress is vintage for sure. She must have trawled the markets like a good ’un. I couldn’t imagine my mum getting away with wearing anything like this and there’s not that much of an age difference. Betty had style.”
“You should keep it. It would look fabulous on you – with some Victory rolls in your hair?”
“I feel like I’m digging in my mother’s dressing-up box,” Hope giggled. “Only, you know, sans the sensible M&S slacks and Dunnes Stores cardigans.”
Ava unhooked a floral tea dress from a hanger and handed it over. “You should try this on too. It’s very now.”
Hope smiled and took it to look at the delicate floral pattern. “God, she was stunning, wasn’t she?” she said, looking from the dress to the wedding picture on the wall and noticing, for the first time, the slightest resemblance between her and Ava who was unhooking a rather less flattering pink velvet jumpsuit which was clearly a wardrobe mistake from the 70s or 80s. Ava held it up and Hope grimaced.
“You don’t want to try this one on?” Ava said with a snort.
“Christ no, I’d look like George from Rainbow!” She laughed as Ava discarded it in the rubbish pile.
Hope was pleased to see Ava look calmer than when she had run from the room like everyone belonging to her had just kicked the bucket. She felt sorry for her. From what she knew of Ava, she always seemed like the kind of person who had it all together. She admitted it. Even though you weren’t really supposed to be jealous of people, she had been heart-jealous of Ava and her marriage and her cute daughter who looked like she walked straight out of an ad for fecking Fairy powder or something. But Ava wasn’t happy. And she was scared and that made Hope wonder what it really was all about.
Ava handed her a silver-coloured shawl, with delicate tassels, and she wrapped it around her shoulders and spun around in it. For a second she imagined she was wearing the oyster-coloured dress at her vintage-style wedding to Dylan. They would travel to Saint Jeannet for their honeymoon and she would remind him that, really, this was kind of where it all started. He would laugh and then admit he didn’t have a baldy notion what she was talking about and she would remind him of the night by the pool and they would laugh uproariously at the very memory.
Then she remembered that there was a Cyndi in the picture now and her fantasy disappeared before her very eyes and she started to work her way through Betty’s drawers.Soft, comfy jumpers, with tailored twin sets and blouses – more functional and less fashionable than the clothes she had worn in her heyday – filled the drawers. All were folded neatly – pressed to perfection. Even her underwear drawer had been neatly arranged – sensible bras and comfortable knickers were folded in piles, together with delicate stockings rolled into balls beside them.Claude’s shirts were pressed and folded together in one drawer. His socks were still bundled together as if they were waiting for the feet to come and fill them. It was quite sweet. Hope wondered who would look after her belongingswhen she was gone. In a moment of fleeting panic she wondered if Cyndi would riffle through the mess that was her underwear drawer and laugh outrageously at the belly-warming big knickers she kept for the days when she had her period. At least, she thought, Ava had Connor even if she was (possibly) pregnant with a baby she wasn’t sure she wanted.
She filled a bag with underwear, tied it and put it to one side while wondering how exactly she should starttelling the Very Long Sad Story. It could of course start with that kiss in her room in the Halls of Residence at university, or their trip together or their sleeping together in the very house they were sleeping in right now. She sighed, opened another drawer and started to fill another bag until she heard a squeal of delight from Ava who had lifted down a dusty box from the top of the wardrobe and opened it.
In her hand she had a pair of purple shoes, with a rounded toe, a flared heel and the most delicate of brocade detailing at the ankle. Decorated with a sequinned rose, big and bold at the front, they were, simply, stunning.
“Ooooooh!” Hope said.
“I know,” Ava answered, hugging them to her. “This was where it all started, you know, with Betty and me . . . and these shoes.”
She had been busting for a pee for a full forty-five minutes before she left the pile of clothes and shoes and made for her ensuite.
“I can come with you,” Hope said. “You know, I’ll sit outside. I won’t actually go in there with you. But I’ll wait in the bedroom. I’ll even put my fingers in my ears so I don’t hear you pee if that helps.”
Ava laughed and she was grateful that her cousin was with her. It made it easier somehow to have someone who had no real vested interest whatsoever in whether
or not she actually was pregnant.
“Okay,” she said, walking through the bedroom, taking the test from where she had hidden it in the bottom of her bag and locking herself in the ensuite while she heard Hope sing outside. Her bladder developed a sudden case of shyness again and she shouted to Hope that she couldn’t do it.
“Run some water,” Hope shouted. “That always makes me want to pee and I’ll sing something . . . erm . . . watery!” she shouted before bursting into a verse of ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head’.
Ava laughed, unwrapped the stick, did what she had to do and waited for the lines to confirm what she already knew.
As the line appeared, just as she knew it would, she started to laugh – just a little hysterically – and then she cried. She had never been so scared, or so exhilarated, in her life.
“Even a little one for the shock?” Hope asked, pouring herself a glass of wine.
“I’m pretty sure even little ones for the shock are frowned upon these days,” Ava said wryly, as she filled the kettle to make a cup of tea.
“Well, you don’t mind if I have one for the shock? I’ve never been with anyone who just found out they were pregnant before.”
Ava smiled. Hope had been brilliant. When she had walked out of the bathroom, stick in hand, emotions veering from one extreme to another in a matter of seconds, Hope had simply given her a big hug and told her she would get through this.
“I don’t know you that well,” she had said, “but I’m pretty sure you have been through worse than this and, while this is as shocking and scary as bedamned, I’m pretty sure that it will all work itself out.”
“Are you always so optimistic about things?”
“Me? Fuck no. But I’ve a feeling about this one and my gut is normally right. Except when it comes to falling in love with the wrong person.”