by Claire Allan
Ava laughed, despite herself. “She should have told me.”
“She was probably scared shitless she would lose you.”
In that moment, Ava knew that Cora hadn’t lost her. And never would.
A half hour had passed before Connor emerged from the room, looking less gaunt and drained than when he had gone in. “Thank you,” he said, extending first of all his hand to Jean-Luc and then pulling Hope into a hug. “Thanks for looking after her.”
“It was nothing,” Hope said, embarrassed and exhausted and happy to accept a hug from a man who had no intentions towards her whatsoever other than simply to hug her.
“Ava said you should go home and get some rest. It’s been a long day and I’m here now. They said they’ll get me a fold-up bed to sleep beside her – and I’ve no intention of leaving any time soon anyway. So go home. And rest up. And I’m truly grateful. We both are.”
Hope nodded, feeling emotion swell up inside her. She was almost afraid to speak.
“I will take you home,” Jean-Luc said softly and she wasn’t sure if she dared get into a car with him.
The drive home wasn’t as much awkward as it was excruciatingly painfully awkward. Hope did as much staring out of the window as possible, playing over the whole ‘carpet’ and ‘fucking’ statement in her mind and cringing at the very memory of it. Part of her wanted to say ‘Oops, made a bit of a tit of myself there, didn’t I?’ and beg him to kiss her again but part of her just didn’t trust herself to open her mouth – at all – except to breathe and perhaps to sip from her water bottle and maybe to thank him, quietly and politely when he left her off.
He remained as quiet, staring ahead at the road in front. Occasionally Hope found herself glancing at him, trying to figure him out but trying to be covert about the whole thing. He already, most likely, thought she was a nutjob – cottoning on to the fact that she had taken to staring at him out of the corner of her eye would do nothing to make him think otherwise.
When they pulled up at Betty’s cottage, she realised her chances to say anything were becoming limited. She imagined she would see him again. She still had to give him the letter Betty had left and they still had to deal with all the odds and sods which were supposed to be at the market today. It felt odd to talk to him in a businesslike manner after the day they had spent together but she didn’t trust herself to say anything else.
“Where do we go from here?” she blurted out before realising that sounded a bit Fatal Attraction. “About the house and the items we were taking to market, I mean? What do we do now?”
“I can take the items to market tomorrow, if you want to be here for Ava. And we can meet on Monday to tie up any loose ends.”
He sounded formal – back to the business like the Jean-Luc she had spoken to on the phone the day before. Her shoulders sagged but she didn’t have the energy to say anything other than to tell him that would be fine and to thank him for his assistance. Just like her romp with Dylan, her kiss with Jean-Luc was apparently one of those things which was never to be mentioned again.
“Take care,” he said, softly, as she turned to walk into the house.
“Fuck it,” she swore as she closed the door behind her and stared at the bare room in front of her – devoid of personality bar the green tweed chair in the corner. “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on!” And she kicked the leg of the chair in her temper and marched into the kitchen, pulling the largest wineglass she could find from the cupboard and opening a bottle of Merlot and pouring it almost to the brim, watching the deep-red, blissfully intoxicating liquid swirl around the bowl of the glass. She imagined the oblivion she longed for coming when the deep-red, blissfully intoxicating liquid swirled around her stomach. She could forget about everything that happened that day. Connor was there to mind Ava. Jean-Luc was off doing his strange and mysterious thing and she could sit there in her tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt and drink herself stupid. She gulped from the glass, choking as the wine hit the back of her throat. It was the choking that brought the tears to her eyes in the end but that was only the start of it. As she recalled the day she had just spent with Jean-Luc, her cheeks burned as deep red as the wine she was drinking. And that brought more tears. Why could she not just get through a single interaction with a man of the opposite sex without coming across as some needy, desperate, slightly mental woman?
This, she figured, as she choked again on her second gulp of wine, was all Dylan fecking big-footed-master-shagger McKenzie’s fault and in that instant she hated him. Hated him for shagging her. Hated him for only being her friend. Hated him for his Facebook status updates. Hated him for telling her he missed her and that he had become accustomed to her face. Hated him, most of all, for messing up any chance she ever had with any other man by giving her mixed signals and confusing her entirely.
Hating him, she picked up her phone and dialled, waited for the phone to ring. He would be up now. He would be getting ready for work. He would be fawning over fecking Cyndi with her blonde hair and big tits and her perfectly manicured feet. The rage bubbled as the phone rang – the slow ring of an international call. He answered and the rage, built of exhaustion and humiliation, sprang forth.
“Dylan McKenzie,you are feckwit of the highest order and a very bad person and you should not, repeat, should not, be telling me you like my face, or you miss me or saying anything for that matter which would lead me to believe that you could conceivably have feelings for me when you are in love with someone else and not one bit interested in ever being in love with me. You know I’m vulnerable. You know that more than anyone and there you are shagging people, okay a person, in our house and still expecting me to make your breakfast and cuddle you after she goes home and sleep with you when you get drunk and all sorts of other things which are clearly across the line from a purely platonic relationship. And you give me hope that this could be some kind of ‘When Harry Met Sally’ type of situation and that you might tell me you love me one day and that she was your rebound person, but the truth is, Dylan fecking McKenzie, you just want it all. Well, let me tell you, you can’t have it all. You can’t have me and you can just stop fecking me about. I’m moving out. I’m sure that will make you happy – you can hump wherever the fuck you want, no pun intended – and me and my sad-sack ways won’t be there as your second prize any longer!”
She put the phone down without waiting to hear a response and when he called her back she hit ignore as quick as she could and found that, contrary to her original opinion, she did have more cursing steam left in her and she rounded that whole thing off with a big “And so there, you with your big fat fucking face!” before breathing out and gulping from her wineglass.
When he called back a second time she saw his name flash on the screen and she lifted it, almost tempted to drop it with flare into her wineglassbut instead she simply hit ignore and then tried to steady her pulse.
When her phone rang a third time, Dylan’s name once again flashing across the screen, she gave her phone a bad look and sat it across the room on the dresser. When it rang a fourth time and the glass of wine was no longer choking her, she decided he was clearly going to be persistent and she would need to talk to him.
“Frig it,” she said, and answered. “Hello?” she said, her cheeks warming with the after-effects of the wine and her growing sense of humiliation at her prior behaviour.
“What – the – fuck was that all about?” Dylan asked.
She couldn’t quite work out whether or not he was angry or very amused. A part of her knew, just knew, he would have been secretly delighted that she was working herself up into a lather about him. He was that kind of man – loved attention from the ladies no matter where it came from. He would make a great politician, or footballer.
“You have to ask?” she snapped. “You really have to ask?”
“Clearly I’m a flawed human being, but yes, I need to ask.”
She sighed – one of those deep from her gladiator sandals sighs. �
�It was about you. And us. And whatever is going on, or isn’t going on. And it was about Cyndi. And her feet for that matter. Really, Dylan, the foot picture is a bit much!” She knew she was sounding childish, bitter and perhaps once again, slightly insane.
“What about me and us and all those other things?” he asked.
She took a deep breath. “You’re flirting with me, Dylan. It’s not right and it’s not fair – not just on me, but on Cyndi too. She deserves better and I deserve better.”
“I didn’t mean to flirt,” he said. “When did I flirt?” He sounded as if the very notion of him flirting with her was alien to him and that he was trying to humour her.
“Well, you did. Yesterday with that ‘miss your face’ shite. And you slept with me, or did you not realise you were doing that either? Did you just think I would forget it? I’m not like you, Dylan. I can’t just forget and move back to so-called harmless flirting and being friends. I don’t work that way. Not any more.” She breathed in and exhaled again. “I think we need a break.”
“Erm, you are in France. I think that pretty much constitutes a break, doesn’t it? Not that we were ever together to ‘break’ anything in the first instance, were we?” He sounded like a smug bastard – who must have felt as if he was just humouring her and not taking her seriously at all. Silly little Hope-less, off on one again.
“Oh stop being so fecking smug!” she snapped.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know exactly what I mean, Dylan McKenzie.”
She heard him sigh – a deep frustrated sigh from the depth of his stomach. It rankled with her. Not that she needed much help getting wound up just now.
“Seriously, Hope, I don’t. You phone me up out of the blue giving me dog’s abuse about flirting with you when I don’t think I have been and then you talk about taking a break when we’ve never been together in the first place.”
“But we have been. It might have been just a shag to you but it was more to me. Both times.”
“What?” He sounded genuinely confused.
“Here,” she muttered, her face colouring further. “Betty’s house. You do remember, don’t you?”
There was a pause. She imagined he was mentally flicking through the rolodex of his conquests to find the one filed under ‘Big Mistake’ before he replied.
“Oh then! Hope, that was a long time ago. Have you hadfeelings for me since then?”
“No!” she said sharply and loudly. “But lately, you must have known? I’m not the kind of person to jump into bed with someone on a whim. You knew, Dylan. I know you knew.”
“I didn’t . . .” he said, his voice trailing off.
She wanted to shout back, louder, that he did. Of course he did. He had to, didn’t he? He wasn’t stupid. He must have been aware of her growing neediness. He must have noticed the look of shock in her eyes when he told her he was shacking up with Cyndi. He must, she thought, have realised how when he hugged her lately she hugged him back a little bit tighter and maybe for a little bit longer? But then things with them had always just evolved. She couldn’t pinpoint a defining moment so why would he?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll talk to you when I get back. Maybe we just need a little time to think about where we go from here.”
“I’m sorry too,” he said, and he sounded contrite – as if she had pulled the carpet out from under him and left him sitting on his bare arse on the cold floor, not sure of what to do next.
She hung up and sank to the floor, where she finished her glass of wine and pondered just what a shitey mess her entire life had become.
Chapter 32
Ava was surprised at just how well she slept. As soon as Connor came, and held her hand, and told her he loved her, she was overwhelmed with tiredness and had drifted off. When she woke she looked across the room to where he was sleeping, on a very uncomfortable-looking fold-up bed covered by a completely insufficient cellular blanket. She smiled and took a deep breath. She had to admit she was a little afraid. For a minute or two as she lay there, watching him, she tried to assess whether or not she was in pain.
No pain was good, the doctor had said. The doctor had explained things further as best as she could in her heavy thick accent. She had seemed more hopeful and had offered them printouts of information in English which she said they could read at their leisure. She was recommending rest and regular scans but now that the bleeding had eased off things were looking better.
Connor had squeezed Ava’s hand tightly and, whenthe doctor left, he had leaned over and kissed her before placing his hand once again, very softly, on her tummy.
“I wish I had known straight away, Ava,” he’d said sadly.
“I know, but I wanted it to be special. I mean, after I stopped freaking out I wanted it to be special. Not over the phone. That wasn’t right.”
“If we had lost this baby . . .” he’d started and she didn’t need him to finish the sentence.
She’d known what he was feeling. If she had lost the baby she would have at least known it – had a chance to dream for it, look forward to holding him or her, thought of all the songs she would sing and books she would read and imagine all the adventures that Maisie and her baby brother or sister would share.
“We didn’t,” she’d said. “We nearly lost it all, but we didn’t. And I’ve realised how much I want this.How we would be okay. How we could make this work and how maybe we needed something big to make us sit up and make our lives easier. Well, this is about as big as it gets.”
“Maisie is going to be delighted,” he’d smiled. “She’ll be like a proper wee mammy – we should let her help choose the cot and the pram. Maybe we could let her choose the name?”
“Not unless we want the wee pet named after Mr Fecking Tumble or Peppa shagging Pig.”
Connor had laughed and she’d breathed out.“The mental image of Peppa shagging Pig has scarred me for life,” he’d said.
“We’ll get through this, honey,” she’d offered, getting off the bed, walking to him and taking him in her arms.
“Not if she names the baby,” he’d said, kissing her on the head and laughing gently.
She knew as she lay now and put her hand to her still flat stomach that they were not out of the woods yet. The baby was still small. It didn’t even really look like a baby yet. It kind of looked like a shrimp. But it was her shrimp with a little, beautiful flutter of a heartbeat. And she knew, from how Maisie was, that a little tiny shrimp with a fluttering heartbeat would turn into a funny, cute and loveable (if tiring and occasionally brattish) little child with her daddy’s smile and her mammy’s eyes.
It was after ten when she finally felt ready to talk to Cora. She knew her mum would hate it that she was calling so late. She would probably give her the whole “I thought someone was dead”and “No one calls anyone at this time of the night” speech. Well, there were times, Ava thought, when it was okay to break the rules.
True to form, Cora answered with a slight hint of panic in her voice.
“Hello? What’s wrong?”
It would have been churlish to ask “What is right?” so she bit her lip. She had been surprised by just how emotional she felt hearing Cora’s voice. Suddenly she was reduced to five years old, lost in the supermarket and panicking because she wasn’t sure she would ever see her mum again.
“Oh Mum!” she said, feeling her voice break.
There was a silence on the other end of the phone. A silence which was just broken by Cora’s voice, less confident than Ava had ever heard it.
“You know, don’t you?”
Four words confirmed everything. Feeling them like a body blow, she replied: “I know.”
“We thought we were doing the right thing. We did do the right thing,” Cora replied, her voice shaking.
“You should have told me.”
“I know. I wanted to. But, oh, Ava, don’t you know that you were so a part of me that I thnk I convinced myself you really
were mine. That I had carried you.”
She could hear the pain in her mother’s voice.
“I’m pregnant,” she stuttered.
“Oh Ava!”
“I’m in hospital. I’ve been bleeding, but there’s a heartbeat. They think it will be okay. But it’s been scary.”
“You’ve been bleeding? Oh Ava! Is it bad? How pregnant are you?”
“I’m only a few weeks, very early. Maybe five or six weeks.” She felt tears well in her eyes. “It was bad.” She wanted her mammy. She wanted to cuddle into her and have her stroke her hair and call her a poor pet and assure her that it would be okay in the way only a mother could.
The emotion was thick in Cora’s voice. “I can book a flight. Let me book a flight. I can be with you.”
Ava took a deep breath, so tempted to beg Cora to fly out right there and then but needing time to come to terms with everything without her mother’s fussing.
“Connor is here. It’s okay.”
There was a pause.
“I should have told you,” Cora said, a world of pain in her voice.
“Yes, you should have. If you thought there was a chance I could find out, you should have told me.”
“I wasn’t sure if you would. Betty had kept quiet all these years. I’d always said it was down to her to make that call. I didn’t know she had. Part of me wanted to tell you as soon as I knew you were in her will, but I couldn’t find the words. So I’m a coward and I thought maybe you would go and not find out.”
“I needed to know.”
Cora was silent. Ava was silent too. There was so much she wanted to say, but she just couldn’t find the words. She was tired and she knew Cora was too.
“I do love you. More than anything in the world. You mean the world to me, Ava. You have to know we did it all for you. I did everything in my life just for you.”