If Only You Knew

by Claire Allan

  “I’m fine,” she lied for a second time.

  Reluctantly he said his goodbyes and she hung up. Putting her phone down, she padded back to the terrace where Hope was leaning over the chiminea, setting a fire.

  “That was quick,” she said.

  “He was in the pub. It wasn’t right. But he’s going to call me back. In the morning maybe. I’ll tell him then. I’ll definitely tell him it all then.”

  Chapter 28

  Hope wanted to sleep. She was desperately tired, from the inside out, but she couldn’t. Ava had gone to bed, numb and pale, and Hope had gone to her own room trying to make sense of it all. Big fat use she was to anyone! She hadn’t been able to find her voice, never mind be the comfort Betty had obviously hoped her to be. If nodding had been an Olympic sport, however, she would have been a shoo-in for the gold. Truth was, what on earth did you say to someone in those circumstances? “Two mammies”? “Ah well, at least we’re still cousins”? “Worse things happen at sea”?

  She thought of her daddy – how he had never mentioned anything at all to her all these years. Her mother – who was as nosey and in love with gossip as Hope herself was – how did she not let it slip? Not even after a few gin and tonics at Christmas when she would talk about everything.

  Hope wanted to phone her. Truth be told, she wanted to phone Cora and shout at her. And she had half a notion to go to the cemetery and shout at Betty too, for the sake of it all. This wasn’t the carefree trip she had hoped for. This wasn’t a simple riffle through someone’s knicker drawer. This was big – fecking huge. Instinctively she lifted her phone to call Dylan, but glancing at the clock she could see he would be at work. And if he wasn’t at work, he’d be humping Cyndi. Christ, she thought, even her best gossip-buddy was a no-go to her.

  “Oh Betty,” she sighed, as she tried to plump the pillow under her head in a vain attempt to make the bed more comfortable. “Why did you have to do it this way?”

  She didn’t know who she felt worse for. The young Betty who found herself in a godawful mess, or her new friend who was no doubt trying to sleep just as hard in the room downstairs, having had her world torn apart.

  She was tempted to get up and pull the rest of the house asunder, to try and find whatever other secrets might be lurking in Betty’s letters. Jesus, there couldn’t be anything else, could there? She threw off the covers – overheated and overstressed – and padded to the kitchen where she sank a glass of wine and cried until her throat was raw.

  And she thought her life was complicated.

  Ava wasn’t sure what woke her. It was dawn, a half-light fighting to stream in the windows. She blinked her eyes open, a feeling that something was wrong swamping her while she lay waiting for her body to catch up with her mind. Everything was silent – she was sure it hadn’t been a noise which had woken her. Oh Christ. Yesterday. The letter. But that wasn’t it. That wasn’t all. Slowly she became aware of a stabbing pain in her stomach and as she roused herself she wondered how she hadn’t registered it sooner. She tried to speak but all she could do was gasp as her hand reached down and she felt the bed wet beneath her. Inwardly she screamed as she realised her hand was covered in blood but still she couldn’t find the words. I’ve lost you! she screamed inwardly. I didn’t even know you but I’ve lost you! And she was talking to her baby, and to Betty.

  When the breath returned to her body she steadied herself. Slowly she sat up, almost afraid to move, not sure what to expect, terrified of what she might see. She had never had a miscarriage before.There were no manuals on how to deal with this – this physical process – this pain. It wasn’t like this in the movies. She didn’t know whether or not she should move. She was terrified of what she might feel, or see. She wished Connor was there and she felt herself whisper his name while grasping at the bed sheets as she sat on the bed. She wished her mammy was there. Oh God. Her mammy.

  Was she safe to stand up? She didn’t know. She was afraid there might be a gush, like when her waters broke. She looked behind her at the stained sheets, suddenly, irrationally consumed with embarrassment. She felt a scream rise up in her chest – a guttural expression of physical and emotional pain which screeched forth from her body with a force of its own. “Hope!” she called when she could form a coherent word. “Hope! Please! Hope!”

  Bleary-eyed and pale with worry, Hope walked into the room and much as she tried Ava could not find the words to explain what was happening. If she said it, it would be real and she didn’t want it to be real. Instead she just stared at her cousin, her eyes pleading with her to do something – anything.

  “I don’t know,” Hope stuttered. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “The baby,” Ava muttered.

  “I know,” Hope said, running to her and kneeling down in front of her. Feeling the warmth of her cousin’s hand as she took hers, Ava realised she was shaking violently. It wasn’t cold – she realised she must be in shock.

  “I’ve lost the baby,” she heard herself say but the voice she heard didn’t sound like her own, just a strangulated version of her voice. It sounded funny, like she was drunk.

  “We’ll get help,” Hope said.

  Ava looked her straight in the face. Poor Hope, she thought, she looks terrified.

  “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Ava said, knowing that she was saying sorry to everyone – not just Hope. She was saying sorry to Connor, and Maisie, and herself and Betty for fucking up her life and more than that to her baby. The pain was back and she wasn’t sure if it was physical or emotional or both but it pulled the air from her lungs and doubled her in two and she tried to find the breath to let out a sob. “I don’t want this to happen,” she said. “I don’t want this to happen.”

  “Jean-Luc – I’ll call him. I’ll call him and he’ll know what to do. He’ll get help. Don’t worry, I’ll get help.”

  Running from the room to get her mobile Hope felt her stomach threaten to turn over. No, she couldn’t be sick now. Ava needed her. Oh God, poor Ava! She looked so distraught and terrified. Everything paled in comparison to this moment. Running to her room, she scrabbled in the drawer of her bedside table to find her Blackberry. Her hands were shaking so violently she could barely grip anything, never mind lift the sleek phone and try and scroll through her contacts to findJean-Luc’s number. Swearing as she scrolled past his number and managed to miss it as she scrolled back up again. She stopped, stood still and tried to remind herself to breathe. She’d be no good to Ava in this state and Ava needed her right now.

  “Okay,” she said out loud. “Jean-Luc.” Finding the number, she pressed the call button and held the phone to her ear as she rushed to the kitchen to pour a glass of water for Ava. She didn’t know why she was getting the water but at least she felt as if she was doing something. The phone began to ring and Hope tried to keep her patience as she inwardly prayed he would answer – and quickly. She wondered whether to go back to Ava – hating the thought of her being in her room alone – but she didn’t want to panic her by letting her overhear her conversation with Jean-Luc.

  “Come on,” she said, impatiently as she turned the tap off and waited for him to answer. When the phone went to answer service, she swore and kicked the kitchen cupboard, sending a shock of pain right through her body. Now, she really did feel as if she would be sick. Feeling tears spring to her eyes, she hit the redial button. She would call and call and call again and again until he answered. Christ, she didn’t know what to do. Did you call 999 in France? Should she call an ambulance? There was a lot of blood. She had to get back to Ava, she knew that.

  “Come on!” she said, louder this time and she felt her body sag with relief as Jean-Luc answered, his voice heavy with sleep.

  “Good morning?”he said. “Is everything okay?”

  “Jean-Luc, I’m sorry. We need you. It’s Ava. She’s bleeding and it looks bad. She’s losing the baby. I didn’t know what to do but I thought you would know – that you would know know a doctor or someone.
I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath as Jean-Luc digested what he had just heard and then he spoke, in a soft reassuring voice.

  “I’m going to call the doctor right now,” he said. “Ava – how is she?”

  “I’m going to check now. I came away to get my phone.”

  “Stay with her. Don’t leave her. I’ll call you back.”

  It was only when he hung up that Hope let a big, fat tear slide down her cheek which she roughly pushed aside before sipping from the glass she had poured for Ava and walking back to the room.

  Ava was sitting, her eyes gaunt, staring at the window.

  “I need to phone Connor,” she said, calmly.

  “Best wait to find out what is happening,” Hope replied softly.

  “He needs to know.”

  “Jean-Luc is phoning the doctor. He will call back in a minute. We’ll know more then.”

  “I’m losing the baby,” she said, turning to look at her cousin, the pain in her eyes making Hope wince. “I have to be. You can’t lose this much blood and still have a baby. I’m losing the baby, Hope – and he needs to know. Oh God, how do I tell him? He doesn’t even know I’m pregnant. Oh, Jesus Christ help me!”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Hope soothed. “Try to stay calm. It might be okay. People bleed in pregnancy and it’s not always bad. Try to stay positive, my darling.”

  Hope closed her eyes and tried to focus on the positive herself. It was true people did bleed in pregnancy. She had written about it during a stint on a health magazine. They bled and it was just one of those things and they went on to have happy, chubby, perfectly healthy little babies. It happened all the time. In fact, in her mind’s eye she could see one of the features she had written, in print, with a perfectly happy baby girl in a gingham Babygro, looking like she never caused her mother a moment’s worry in her life. She wasn’t sure if they bled this much though . . . there was a lot of blood. A scary amount of blood.

  In that moment, if she could have, Hope would have swapped places with Ava. She would have taken the hurt on herself if she could. She would have done anything in her power to stop the pain her cousin was in and it hurt her that she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything but sit down beside her, and wait for Jean-Luc to call back. She took Ava’s hand and they stared wordlessly at the early morning sky. It had to be okay. It had to be.

  Hope jumped when the phone rang and she answered swiftly.

  “The doctor said to tell her to lie on her left side, and do not move. I am on my way, we’ll go to the hospital, but for now just tell her to lie down.”

  “Did he say anything else?” Hope asked, hoping that the doctor would have said something very reassuring – telling them this was perfectly normal and it would be fine and the baby was okay but looking at the blood on the bed she knew this was not normal. Not at all.

  But Jean-Luc was gone.

  Hanging up, she looked at Ava and gently stroked her cheek. “You need to lie down on your left side, sweetheart. Jean-Luc is coming and we will go to the hospital, but you need to lie down.”

  “I can’t lie down here. I can’t go like this,” Ava said, nodding towards her blood-soaked bed and blood-soaked nightie.

  Hope knew she had to take control, so she did. Standing up, she pulled the duvet over so that Ava could lie down on a fresh bed, then she gently helped her lie down. “I’ll get you some fresh clothes. Just stay still. He’ll be here soon.”

  Kissing her softly on the forehead, Hopewent and found some tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt for her friend to wear and set about finding some towels for her to sit on in the car. She wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do but, as she gathered a few bits and pieces together, and listened to her friend crying, she just wanted to do what she could.

  “The doctors here, they are very good. They will help as much as they can,” Jean-Luc said as Hope answered the door to him.

  “I know,” she said, allowing him to give her a gentle friendly hug.

  Jean-Luc nodded and smiled – a sad smile which made her feel like crying – and she steadied herself to go back into the bedroom.

  Ava had calmed down. She seemed to have morphed into typical Ava mode, talking very matteroffactly about when she would call Connor and what she should take with her. A nighty and a flannel. She needed a flannel. And a toothbrush.

  Hope was almost grateful to see her cousin calm and in control. It helped her feel calm herself. It helped her believe that everything would indeed be okay.The baby would be fine. Ava would be fine. “We should go,” she said gently, folding over Ava’s case and zipping it.

  Ava nodded, staring ahead, seemingly lost in her own world. “They won’t be able to save the baby, will they? Not at this stage in the pregnancy.”

  “You need to let the doctor see you, darling,” Hope answered.

  She didn’t know what else to say. She simply didn’t know how to react. She didn’t want to say that it would be okay as she didn’t know if it would be okay. Hastily she brushed a tear from her eye and walked out to where Jean-Luc stood leaning against the car in the cool morning air.

  She would have given anything to just climb into the car with him, drive off to the horizon and pretend none of this was happening.

  “I don’t speak much French,” Ava said from the back of the car. She was rabbiting on, nine to the dozen. Shock, probably. She told them that, just then. “Excuse me rabbiting, it’s probably the shock. I talk alot when I’m nervous. Of course not in French, obviously. That would be a skill, wouldn’t it, to talk in a different language every time you were stressed? You would get on the TV with that. Or in one of those magazines that you write for, Hope. Would you do a story on me? If that happened?”

  Ava looked atHope who was nodding gently, a look of ‘Poor Ava has lost her marbles’ written square across her face. “You think I’m mad,” she said, without adding that if she didn’t talk she would think about what was happening and she didn’t want to think about what was happening.“I’m scared,” she said, with a little sob, which she gulped back as quickly as she could.

  Hope squeezed her hand.

  “The doctors, they speak good English. I’ll be around, if you need me,” Jean-Luc said.

  Ava felt comforted by this.“You’re very good. Isn’t he very good?” she asked her cousin, before shivering. “I’m cold. That’s probably the shock too.” She was trying to gauge whether or not her tummy was more sore or less sore than it was twenty minutes before. She didn’t want to look down. Never look down. So she looked atHope who was trying her best to wrap a blanket around her shoulders while she sat stock still, staring ahead. Don’t look down.

  “I didn’t ask . . .” she said, trying to block out the thoughts racing through her mind, “but the market – will we be okay missing the market?”

  She wanted them to answer – she wanted the conversation to be normal. Hope just looked at her, the same nodding-dog sympathy-look gawping back at her. She felt a bubble of anger rise up in her. Could they not just be normal? Could this not just be normal? Oh Christ, she felt sick.

  “I feel sick,” she said, “I feel sick. I’m scared. I’m really scared.”

  Chapter 29

  The doctors were very nice – they spoke good English and pulled appropriately sympathetic faces.

  “Let’s have a little look at you,” the tall, blonde and shockingly young female doctor said to her in the cubicle of the Accident and Emergency department.

  Ava had nodded – her high-speed nervous chatter from earlier had gone and she was almost afraid to move or speak. Hope sat holding her hand. Hope’s hand had been her almost constant companion since all this started. Her vicelike grip had kept her grounded in reality – the whole way in the car and as they walked through the sliding doors to the crisp, clean corridor of the hospital. She was still holding her hand as she lay on the hospital bed and waited for the doctor to come and assess her. In fairness she had at least let go, br
iefly, after a softly spoken nurse wearing impossibly squeaky shoes had come in and offered her a hospital gown to change into.

  Now she was lying there, aware that there was little between her unfolding tragedy and the rest of the world apart from a thin curtain and a language barrier.

  The doctor sat on a stool beside the bed and asked a few questions. Ava willed her not to ask about her mother. There was no reason she would, but wouldn’t that just be the icing on the horrible, big fecking cake if she did? She asked her when she had tested positive, if she had bled before, if she’d had a miscarriage before, how long she’d been bleeding and how much had she bled. She said they would do a blood test to check for her hormone levels and then she would do an internal examination and maybe a scan, depending on what she found.

  Ava continued to nod and answer as concisely as she could. She cringed at the thought of an internal – funny how even now, when she felt as vulnerable as she had ever done in her entire life, there were still some things which could move her even further out of her comfort zone than she already was. She knew it had to be done but she felt a tear slide down her cheek at the very thought.

  The doctor gave her a trademark sympathetic smile again and squeezed her hand gently. “I know this is very tough, but we need to know what is happening.”

  Any comfort Ava felt at the gesture soon dissipated at the sight of the very large needle which would have to be inserted in her arm.

  “I’d like to get a cannula inserted too, just in case,” the doctor said and Ava winced. Two needles. Still, if it would help . . . if there was a chance the baby would be okay. She chided herself. She was being ridiculous trying to build her hopes up. She lived in the real world and she knew what the chances were of things being okay.

  She would have to phone Connor and tell him. The thought made her sick to her stomach. He would be devastated. God, how could she even start? How could she tell him in one breath that she was pregnant and in the next take away all that hope and excitement. He’dbe destroyed. A couple of needles were the least of her worries.