If Only You Knew

by Claire Allan

  You don’t think I’m just a mad old woman, do you?

  Well, presuming you don’t, I wanted to say some things. Some things which are just for you. Some things I wish I had said to your face – that we had talked over. But I suppose I didn’t think it was my place. You get brave in death. You say things that you never would have in life because no one can answer back, or tell you to feck off. And it’s easier. And we’ve already established I could be a bit of a coward at times.

  I wanted to say thank you, my darling. I believe you came into my life for a special reason and now I’m hoping you can let me into yours and you won’t mind me having my say.

  Where to begin? When I came home forMammy’s funeral I was in pieces. It had been a long time since I was home – not that I considered Derry to be home any more. I’d only come back a handful of times – to see my parents, to attend their funerals. Coming back was too painful. I didn’t feel welcome – the air of disappointment hung thick in the air and the guilt crushed me. In France I could put that aside– and I did. Please don’t think for even one second I had a lifetime of misery. I didn’t. But when I came home to Derry I had to face up to it. For a long time Derry held only sad memories for me and feelings that I didn’t really belong. Things were different in the 70s. We didn’t have the internet or email, of course, so when I moved away my connection back home came through the odd letter and the odder phone call. (My parents had a pathological fear of the phone and an even bigger one of phone bills. No call was ever longer than five minutes. I swear I could hear Daddy counting down in the background each time they called.)

  We couldn’t afford to come home very often and it was hard to come home anyway. The tension which was there when I left, well, it eased but it never went away and it seemed every time I came home that wound was torn open again. Needless to say, my family backhome couldn’t afford to come and see us either. They all had families and commitments or were struggling to find work. Times were tough.

  When I first moved away, Ava, I pined for home. And I think I kind of built a rose-tinted image of it. France was, and is, stunningly beautiful but a part of me hankered for the hills of Donegal and the steep streets of Derry. I would love the few times I would come home – it would feel so special and I would cry as I drove over the Glenshane Pass or up the road from Dublin when I would get that first glimpse of the Foyle meandering towards the city.

  But after a while, this became my home. My true home. And my memories became a little bit hazy. They didn’t go away – understand they didn’t go away – but they were memories. They weren’t my life.

  And when I arrived back for Mammy’s funeral and everything had changed . . . oh, I felt like an outsider. I was an outsider. The room was filled with family members I didn’t know and had never met and who didn’t really know me. I hadn’t expected a big welcome. I was hardly the prodigal daughter and in fairness you all had so much else to be concerning yourselves with, burying your granny and all.

  So I sat, in the corner of the room, and felt alone. And, Ava, I mean I felt utterly alone. There was no Mammy and Daddy there. I know I was in my fiftiesand perhaps should expect such things but I still felt like an orphan. And Claude was gone too. The last time I had been home he had been at my side and that made it all – everything – much more bearable.

  I was missing him that day. And missing my parents.And missing an old Derry and the life I used to have when I was younger. Mad, isn’t it? The Derry I left was being torn apart by bombs and bullets and wasn’t pretty to look at.But I was missing it all the same, and I thought that if and when I died, no one from home would probably even notice or care. Not really. I mean they would tut and shake their heads and say it was fierce sad but then it would pass and they would get on with their lives. Which is the way it should be.

  I felt that if I got up and walked out of that room in that moment no one would really notice. I know that’s awfully selfish. Everyone was grieving. Everyone was dealing with their own issues but, you know, sometimes you can’t help how you feel.

  So I was about to get up and walk out. I’d paid my respects and I thought I really don’t fit here anymore and then you sat down beside me and you smiled and you said you loved my shoes.

  Do you know how that comment saved me that day? I don’t mean I was about to go for a long walk off a short precipice or anything but I was feeling utterly lost. You loving my shoes hauled me right back up and out of my grump. And your smile . . . Ava, my darling, you have such a lovely smile.

  I could tell you were preoccupied that day, concerned about your baby who hadn’t been sleeping and Cora who was taking Mam’s death particularly hard. You looked tired. And when I say tired, I mean to-the-bone tired – the kind of tired which comes from the inside out and makes you want to walk out of rooms filled with your family and keep walking until you find some sort of peace.

  I’m not being presumptuous, am I? I’m not off the mark? You probably think I’ve no right to pass comment.

  It’s just that I saw in you a little of what I felt in myself that day. Like someone who didn’t really know what they wanted any more and didn’t really feel they belonged anywhere?

  That’s a hard feeling to live with, Ava. It wears you and leaves you feeling even more tired.

  Ava stopped reading and put the letter down. It wasn’t that she was done but she just couldn’t read any more for now. Was it that obvious? Even then? Even when Maisie was tiny and she’d only just met Betty? Sweet Jesus. She had thought she looked normal – happy even. She shook her head. It wasn’t that she was unhappy or depressed. She just wasn’t right. Standing up and leaving the letter on the table, she walked down to the pool, trying to quiet the voices in her head. Betty saw it. Betty saw it as soon as she met her so who else saw it? Jesus, was she wandering around all this time looking like the fecking Mother of Sorrows?

  She wasn’t fed up all the time. Yes, she was tired. Yes, she was stressed out. Yes, motherhood had been the hardest thing she had ever done in her entire life and, yes, she felt like she was stuck in some sort of hamster wheel running constantly and never getting anywhere. She felt like she was some sort of a failure because all around her mums were getting on with it and taking to it like a duck to water and she wasn’t. She was struggling. Struggling with making sure she did any of it right and didn’t mess up Maisie’s life. And struggling with trying to hold on to any shred of her old pre-baby life she could because that was the only her she had ever known.

  She couldn’t admit it to anyone. Connor just didn’t understand it. He didn’t understand a mother’s inbuilt perfectionist streak – her desire to get it all just right. No, not a desire, more of a need. He would kiss her on the top of her head and tell her to relax and that she was doing a great job – but she didn’t want to do a great job. She wanted to do the best job – at parenting and at work and at being a wife.

  She couldn’t tell Cora. Cora would give her the “maybe you should give up work” speech followed by the “you young women want it all” speech which made her feel like she had somehow done something terribly wrong and bold by going and getting herself an education. For a woman who grew up in the bra-burning era, Cora was a traditionalist at heart. Ava had tried to argue the bit with her many a time when she was younger – telling her that everyone said a modern woman could have it all. Her mother had tutted and turned her head a little to the side and said “We’ll see” in a patronising manner which made Ava actually want to smack her in the face. (Which she would never do, because you know, it’s a very bad thing indeed to smack your mammy in the face.) Now, she could hardly sit down and say, “Actually, mother, you know all those beliefs I argued the toss with you about? You were right and I was wrong.” No, there were some things whichno good could come of, and admitting to her mother that she had in fact been right all along was one of them.

  As for Karen, Karen would just tell her to get drunk and to stop taking it all so seriously. Which, appealing as it was, wouldn’t m
ake things better overnight. She would just wake up the next day with a hangover and a nagging sense of guilt that she just wasn’t getting it right at all. Any of it.

  She wished, not for the first time, that Betty was there. That she could sit and talk to her and share her thoughts about the letter with her and perhaps, more than anything, thank her for noticing that things weren’t perfect and she wasn’t coping.

  She felt herself inhale and suddenly she struggled to breathe out again. Sitting there by the pool she felt her chest constrict with the weight of the realisation that, despite her very best attempts at trying to look and be as perfect as possible, she was as transparent as a shard of glass. Karen thought she was a martyr. Connor was always telling her to relax. Her mum would give her a look which told her to slow down and now, even from beyond the grave, Betty was telling her that she wasn’t quite as in control as she thought. She put her hand to the lounger to steady herself even though she was already sitting down and she willed her body to just breathe. A simple action. A simple in and out – a slow inhalation followed by a slow exhalation. Tears sprang to her eyes as she breathed and she wished she hadn’t been so blasé about Hope going out for the afternoon with Jean-Luc. She could have done with some company there and then – for Hope to smile and tell her she was lovely and friendly and seemed like a great mammy.

  Slowly her breathing returned to normal. Slowly she told herself she was okay. It was okay. Then she stood up and walked back to the letter and decided to keep reading, realising that even if Betty had seen she was miserable she had clearly also seen something else in her – something she liked.

  She breathed in, easier this time, and lifted the letter to continue, picking up where she left off.

  But even though you felt that way, Ava, even though you had your own grief to deal with and your own worries in your life, you sat and you talked to me. And we had fun, didn’t we?

  I never thought I would laugh at my own mother’s funeral, but we laughed and chatted like old friends. I felt like I belonged again. You made me feel anchored to something again – something I had pushed to the side.

  I’ve often thought about you since and wondered do you feel as if you belong? At the funeral you didn’t sit with the rest of your family – the family you see all the time. You sat with me. Do you feel like an outsider sometimes? I often wondered about that.

  Did you know that every year your mother would send me a Christmas card with a long letter – filling me in on all the family news? So I heard about you – how you did well in your job, how your wee girl was growing. And I thought of that girl who sat beside me and looked tired and I just thought . . . well . . . I don’t know . . . I wanted to make things easier for you.

  You deserve to have things a little easier. So I’ve brought you to France – for a break, for achance to stop and look around and think about what you really want.

  I know what you modern women are like – a bit like the rest of us really. Sometimes it takes someone holding a great big mirror up to your face to make you stop and reassess. Sometimes we take the scenic route to get there, but we do get there, darling. We do. That sounds like I read a lot of self-help books, but I don’t really. I only bought the one and read it halfway before Claude told me that I didn’t need a book to let me know what I wanted in life.

  He was always right. So you know, anyway, yourself, what you want, don’t you?

  With lots of love,

  Betty

  xxx

  Chapter 23

  Hope stood on the terrace overlooking the village of Saint Jeannet. Her feet ached, as did her calves from walking up and up and through the village’s winding streets to reach the rustic, yet majestic church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste.

  “It’s beautiful,” she had breathed as soon as she had breath enough to speak.

  “I think so,” Jean-Luc had replied and she glanced at him.

  She wondered what he must have made of her – this slightly sweaty and rather wheezy girl from Ireland – while he stood there not a drop of perspiration to be seen, in his loose cotton shirt with his sunglasses nestled on the top of his head. She must have looked a sight, and yet he had a smile on his face. If she reeked of body odour there was no wrinkling of his nose to betray the fact.

  Mercifully the chapel was cool and Hope sat on one of the wooden benches and took it all in. She had enjoyed her day with Jean-Luc – the drive along the hairpin bends of the Riviera, the lunch at a small café close to the coast and the walk to the top of the village which, in fairness, had almost killed her. But the views had been worth it. And she didn’t just mean the scenery. They had chatted almost effortlessly – and Hope had been delighted altogether with herself that she hadn’t fallen into her old habit of adopting other people’s accents within seconds of talking to them. She was pretty sure a faux French accent would not have gone down all that well on this occasion.

  When she had recovered and cooled down, Jean-Luc had taken her hand and led her to the Fontaine du Boeuf where she had splashed cool water on her wrists and the back of her neck. She wasn’t sure she wasn’t suffering from some form of sunstroke but when she looked over atJean-Luc he seemed to be entranced by her actions. This was impressive, she thought. Dylan rarely even noticed when she did her make-up or washed her hair, never mind when she just splashed herself with some water.

  “Come and see the terrace,” he had said, reaching for her hand again and she had smiled and followed. “It will be worth it,” he grinned and she knew it already was.

  Having traipsed over, he pulled her in front of him and faced her towards the view – his mouth was deliciously close to her ear and she didn’t flinch. She could feel the warmth from his body and the heat in his hands as he held onto her arms.

  “This is France,” he said. “This is what you should write about. This is what kept Betty here. It kept her young and gave her a sense of purpose. This is what life is all about.”

  She felt herself melt and realised that if she did not get a hold of her faculties very soon, what she would be writing about might well bear more of a resemblance to erotic fiction than travel journalism.

  I must not go to strange countries and sleep with hunky men with whom there is no future,she told herself before stepping away from Jean-Luc’s grasp and gazing at the village below.

  “This certainly has its own charm,” she said unsure of what she was talking about any more. She felt dizzy with it all – and not just because of the height of the hill. Just two days before she had been breaking her heart over Dylan and now here she was, desperate to kiss a man who for all she knew was a complete and utter gigolo anyway. He had that look about him – that look like he would jump in the sack with anyone he took a fancy to and that all he would have to do to have them bend to his will was speak in his accent and flash that winning smile.

  And she was tempted. Not only because they had shared a deliciously gorgeous day together but because it had been a Very Long Time Indeed since she had jumped in the sack with anyone who truly wanted to be in bed with her and there was a part of her which just longed to remember what it felt like to have a man do whatever the heck he wanted to her and to just allow herself to enjoy it without thinking about what it might all mean. Looking at Jean-Luc she knew, absolutely and without reservation, that she would enjoy it without all that complicated unrequited-love crap getting in the way. With some men you just know it would be good, she thought. It’s all in the swagger.

  No, she must distract herself because she was not in France to fall into bed with anyone. She was there to fulfil her aunt’s last wishes and act with a certain level of respect and decorum. Betty clearly had been very fond of the man standing beside her and it would do no good at all to muddy the waters of their relationship. Even though she kind of really wanted to.

  “It has been a lovely day,” she said. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.” And she wasn’t, of course, just talking about the sights, sounds and smells of Provence.

&nbs
p; “I’m glad, but don’t tell me you want our day to end already?”

  “It’s gone five,” she said, looking at her watch.

  “Perfect time for a glass of wine then. Let me take you to a little restaurant in the village? We can have something to eat before I take you home. I’m sure Ava won’t mind. She is probably still napping.”

  Frig it, she thought. One glass wouldn’t hurt. Nor could one more hour in his company.

  As they sat, a bottle of Merlot on the table, Hope spoke. “You have told me a lot about Saint Jeannet, and a lot about France. You have told me everything I could ever have wanted to know about the history of the lovely chapel on the hill. But why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”

  She was aware that sounded like a cheesy pick-up line. She couldn’t help it. It seemed that everything she did or said or thought that day seemed better suited to the pages of a Danielle Steele novel than to real life. Then again, this was hardly real life. This time next week she would be back in Belfast, cooking bacon baps and listening to Cyndi orgasm. Not to mention she would be back to the reality of trying to pitch articles and deal with her overdraft. No, she quite liked her pretend life here in France. She could most absolutely definitely get used to this sort of thing, cheesy lines and all.

  “There is not a lot to know,” Jean-Luc replied. “You know why I am helping Betty out and you know why I moved back to Saint Jeannet. That is all there is to say.”

  “Well, I’m a journalist and I say different. We have to know the who, what, why, where and when. There must be something else you can tell me? How old are you?”