If Only You Knew

by Claire Allan

  The stairway to the attic was old and rickety. It had got no less rickety in the last few days so Ava moved slowly and carefully.

  Even though the sun was streaming through the skylight in the attic, it still felt a little cold and scary.

  Ha, she thought to herself, scary my ass. I’ve seen scary these last few days. I’ve stared down the barrel at scary. This is just an attic. With a box of clothes. Which I have to look at.

  Crouched on a box she pulled the dust-covered sticky tape from the box marked Baby Things and opened it. A fine layer of tissue paper protected what lay beneath. There were Babygros, a few vests, a small knitted hat in crisp white. Below another layer of tissue paper was a white, soft, tiny cardigan with pale yellow buttons sewn on carefully. Was this the first thing she had worn? She lifted it and held it to her cheek before sitting it on her knee and marvelling at the smallness of it. She had worn it and Betty had knit it, each stitch an intricate declaration of love. She stroked it, feeling the dedication and longing in every knit one, purl one, every dropped stitch.

  Under the cardigan was an envelope, yellowed and battered – its contents had clearly been spilled out many times. Tipping them out, there was a small, equally yellowed, plastic band the circumference of a 50p piece. In spidery handwriting there was a declaration that this baby, born on October 16, 1976, belonged to Cora Mullen and weighed in at 7lbs and 1oz. There was a card, gaudy and glittery, bearing the message Thank You which was signed from Cora to Betty. “There are no words,” it said. No, there were no words but there were shite cards. A thank you? In glitter with a big fecking bunny on the front? Hardly seemed a fair swap for a baby. Ava choked through her tears – fair play to her mum though. Manners to the end. A thank-you card for every occasion.

  Then there was a photo – a faded polaroid in which she could make out someone who looked for all intents and purposes like Ava holding a baby and smiling, not at the camera but at the baby. With a thud, she realised she was looking at Betty, in her hospital bed, holding her. There was such love in Betty’s eyes that it took her breath away. Turning the photo over shesaw, in Betty’s handwriting Ava Louise and I, October 17, 1976.

  “Oh God love you,” Ava said, “it must have been so hard.” She thought of her own first few days with Maisie, how she marvelled at every wrinkle, crinkle and crease. How she couldn’t get enough of the softness of her cheek against her face. How the very smell of her breath, soft and gentle on her face made her feel more alive than she ever had done.

  Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she reached back into the box and pulled out one more envelope – this time crisp white, with her name written alongside two kisses.

  My darling girl,

  If you have opened this then you can’t be angry with me. Not really angry. Thank you. I’m sorry to have done this to you in this way. I’m sorry to have done this to Cora. Please don’t be angry with her. She was a lifesaver to me – literally. And you were a lifesaver to her.

  I want you to know I never forgot you. I thought of you often. Every year, every event, every birthday and every Christmas. I wrote letters and cards but kept them – which is all a bit much for you now. Mr Semple has them in storage should you need them.It might be a bit much for me to expect you to want them, but they are there all the same. As is a card for Maisie. I bought it but couldn’t send it when she was born. You will still pass on my rings to her, won’t you? Even if you are very cross with me.

  I wanted you to know some things. When we tried for a baby, Claude and I, it was never to replace you. I suppose had we been blessed, all this might have come out sooner. We would have told our child about the sister it had back in Derry.

  The day you were born, Ava, was forever etched in my memory. Your mam was the first to hold you, but after she had been shooed away by the nurses I had time with you to cuddle you and tell you all my secrets. I loved you. I loved you from the first moment you were placed in my arms. Letting go wasn’t easy, but it was the right thing to do.

  You were always in my heart. Always. You never left.

  I hope you can forgive me. I hope that you can think of me fondly.

  With much love,

  Betty

  xxxx

  Clutching the cardigan and the letter to her, she climbed back down the rickety stairwell to the bedroom where Connor was sitting on the bed, towel-drying his hair.

  “There’s another letter,” she said. “I went and looked.”

  He glanced at the cardigan and looked back at her. All she could do was shrug her shoulders. “I’d like to bring this home,” she said, handing him the cardigan and sitting down beside him. “And I’d like to take the crib too.”

  He nodded, wrapped his arms around her and she allowed herself to sink into them. I’m still me, she thought, but a part of me will always be here.

  “So,” Ava said, sitting on the swing on the terrace with her feet curled under her. “What have I missed? Has it been terribly boring? Did you go to the market? Tell all.”

  She watched as her cousin smiled brightly and she had a notion there was good deal of nice gossip to hear.

  “I have spent the vast majority of the last two days in the company of Jean-Luc who, as it happens, is a very nice kisser. And who, as it happens, likes me a bit. And who, as it happens, is a very considerate lover.”

  Ava almost choked on her glass of iced water. Seriously? Hope had gone full circle from pining over her man back in Belfast and complaining that Jean-Luc was messing with her head to having sex with him?

  “You had sex with him?” Ava asked, just to be sure.

  “Four times,” Hope said with a wink. “And he stayed till morning – which is, in fairness, when the fourth time happened. And we talked and he’s lovely. He likes that word ‘lovely’. We said that word a lot. And not once did he call me Hopeless.”

  “Who calls you Hopeless?” Ava asked, shifting in her seat.

  “Dylan. It’s one of his pet names for me.”

  Shocked at how anyone could think that was an acceptable name to be called by someone purporting to be anyone’s best friend, Ava tried to hide her reaction. She was starting to see that not only was Dylan not the right man for her cousin to be in love with but that he really, perhaps, wasn’t a very nice person at all. Yes, she was definitely taking against him.

  “Well, if you will forgive me, he sounds like an eejit and I can’t believe he would speak to you like that.”

  “Ah, it was all in good fun. Well, when it started it was all in good fun. I suppose I didn’t see it so much like that recently, especially when Cyndi moved in and I did feel hopeless . . .” She trailed off and looked a little sad and Ava wanted happy, bubbly, Hope back.

  “But Jean-Luc, he never called you Hopeless?”

  “Oh no, he was all down with the ma cherie’s and all that lovely ooh la la French stuff. Actually, oh Ava, he’s had his heart broken in the past and has been scared to let anyone in again.”

  “And he has let you in?”

  “I think, as we discussed, he let me in four times,” Hope said with a laugh. “Look, it’s not love in a bucket but we’ve had a lovely time together. It has been great but I think, maybe we have just been a stepping-stone for each other – proof that we can move on. I don’t know if that will turn into anything else because, Ava, I’ve decided I’m doing it. I’m definitely doing it. I’m packing in my tiny wee home office and I’m leaving my house in Glenville Road, and Dylan and his shagging girlfriend and I’m travelling the world.”

  “Wow!” Ava was genuinely impressed. She was delighted, however, to realise that she wasn’t jealous as she would have been a few days before. She was happy for Hope and happy for herself.“I’m impressed. That sounds amazing. You know, Connor and I were talking and we’re going to make some pretty big changes too. We’re not entirely sure how we’re going to do it, but we talked, and talked, and talked and I think we might just have a little of ourselves back.”

  “I’m delighted for you
, Ava. So happy.”

  “And I’m happy for you.”

  “So you should be. I just had sex with a very handsome man. I couldn’t be happier for me if I tried!” Hope laughed before her face darkened just that little bit. “He’s calling over later. I’m not sure how you feel about this, but we’re going to go and visit Betty’s grave.”

  Ava felt herself shiver. The thought of Betty’s grave made her feel odd. This was where she would confront her, she supposed.

  “Would you mind if I came along?”she asked, thinking that she really needed to go even though part of her dreaded it. “And can you maybe come and hold my hand?”

  “Of course, darling, of course,” Hope said, coming to sit beside her and take her hand.

  “I’m a bit scared,” Ava confessed, brushing a tear from her face. “But this is something I need to do, isn’t it?”

  “Only if you feel ready.”

  “We’re going home tomorrow. I’d need to feel ready. It would only annoy me if I went home without doing it. And I do have things I want to say to her. Even with all that has gone on I want to thank her for giving me a good life. And I want to thank her for bringing me here – more than anything it has given me the chance to realise what I really want and what really matters.”She saw Hope sniff and she hugged her close.“I’m grateful that she brought us together. Connor and I both are. And I’m glad I came with you. You know, when we were thrown together I was a bit apprehensive. I didn’t know you bar hearingtalk about you and your big glam life and I was sure that you would think I was the most godawful boring prude on the planet.” Her faced blazed as she spoke.

  “Truth was,” Hope replied, “I was kind of scared you would be the most godawful boring prude on the planet. All I’d heard from my mum was about my perfect cousin and her gorgeous house and her beautiful child. All perfect, gorgeous, beautiful. I was afraid I would either want to kill myself from feeling completely inferior or kill you for your smuggy ways. But the truth is, you don’t have too many smuggy ways.”

  “And you don’t think I’m a self-pitying martyr?” Ava asked, figuring that even though she had decided Karen was most definitely not going to factor in her life any time in the future, she would test Karen’s theories on someone who had got to know her really quite intimately over the course of the last week.

  “You what? Self-pitying? I see none of that. Jesus, Ava, even when . . . when . . . you know . . . the big scary thing happened, and then the second big scary thing happened you didn’t feel sorry for yourself. You worried about the baby and about Connor and about Maisie and even about me. You’re the least self-pitying, self-absorbed person I know! Who told you that?”

  “Just a friend. Well, an ex-friend as it happens,” Ava said, wiping away a few more non-hormonal tears from her cheeks.

  “Well, what the frig would she know anyway?” Hope said. “Silly old boot!”

  A soft warm breeze tousled Ava’s hair as she walked through the lines of perfectly manicured plots until they arrived at a simple black granite stone bearing both Betty’s and Claude’s names and the dates of their births. In fresh gold lettering the words Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die were etched into the stone.

  “Betty wanted that,” Hope said. “She never really wanted anyone to come here. She didn’t want people to think of her like this. As a plot of grass and an imposing stone. She loved that poem. She loved to think that once she was gone she would still be around in some kind of a way.”

  “Like a not-scary ghost,” Ava said, wiping away a tear and laughing.

  She knelt down, feeling the need to kneel down before she fell down, and placed a simple posy of flowers from the garden at the headstone. “I know you said she didn’t like flowers being left, but I wanted to leave something.”

  “I have something too,” Hope said, reaching into her pocket and taking out the envelope containing the letter she had written earlier. “I figured Betty left us so many letters it was only right to leave her one in return, even if she won’t ever read it.”

  “That’s a nice idea,” Ava said. “I’m sure she would love it. I can’t believe we didn’t come here sooner.”

  “Oh I can,” Hope said, crouching down to draw her fingers over the lettering. “This is lovely, but she’s right. She’s not here. She’s back at the house – in the garden, in the attic, in the village, in the air. She’s in you, pet. This is nothing, except some remains and she would hate to be remembered like this.”

  “Do you think she is with him again?” Ava asked.

  Instinctively Hope put her arm around Ava. She felt like she could do with a little bit of protecting. Letting Ava lay her head softly on her shoulder, she soothed her. “With Claude? Oh I’d really like to think so. I’d like to think they are kicking up a storm up there – laughing and dancing and having the craic. And singing Danny Boy as loudly as she can and deafening all the angels.”

  Ava laughed and sniffed and Hope felt herself overcome with emotion.

  “I can’t believe I’m starting to feel so emotional leaving this place,” she said. “I didn’t expect this. I’ve been here before and left without looking back, but . . .” She trailed off, unable to find the words to say what she wanted to say.

  “I know,” Ava said, hugging her back. “You know, we should go back to the house and give it a proper send-off. Of course I can’t drink and I’ll mostly just be sitting on a comfy chair taking it easy, but we should go back and give it one last big bye-bye and treat it to one last rendition of Danny Boy.”

  “Have you heard me singing?”

  “On a drunken occasion yes,” Ava smiled.

  “Then you will know that my rendition of Danny Boy would not be considered to be a treat by anyone. But, with a half a bottle of plonk in me I’d be willing to give it a go.” She stood up and helped Ava to stand. “And I promise, absolutely, not to attempt any early 90s hits or in fact anything other than that one verse of Danny Boy. Even then, you’ll have to help me hit the high notes.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Ava said as the pair turned to walk towards where Connor and Jean-Luc were standing in the early evening sunshine.

  Hope didn’t look back as she walked away from Betty’s graveside. She didn’t feel the need. She just smiled as she walked back to where Jean-Luc was waiting and allowed him to pull her into a hug just as Connor pulled Ava into a hug.

  “Do you want to stay a little longer?” Jean-Luc asked.

  “No. No, I’m fine. We’re fine. But we want to go back to the house and open a bottle of something and toast Betty for one last time on the terrace and we would love it, and think it only right, if you joined us.” She looked atAva who smiled.

  “Yes, please, Jean-Luc.”

  “I would like that,” he said.

  “Great,” Hope said, shaking off the emotion that was threatening to choke her. “Great. Let’s go then. I’ll open the first bottle and, tell you what, I might finally try on one of those dresses?”

  “Dresses?” Jean-Luc asked, his eyebrow raised and a wicked smile spreading across his face.

  “Only the finest,” Hope laughed. “And if you’re lucky you might even see a very special jumpsuit.”

  Ava was sitting on the bed watching Hope as she dressed.

  “Are you sure I can’t tempt you to try a dress on?” she asked as she zipped up the red satin number. She had piled her hair onto the top of her head, letting her curls fall softly, framing her sunkissed face, and she was revelling in her new-found tan – not to mention absolutely delighted that the dress was zipping up and not screaming for mercy.

  “If I even tried I would bust the seams and put undue pressure on this little mite – and given that I have spent the last few days building up a lovely pallor I’m not sure I wouldn’t just look like a washed-out rag. I do, however, have my very lovely shoes.” Ava clicked her heels together and flashed herpurplesatin shoes.

  “Do you know what I think? Dorothy’s ruby slippers c
an kiss your ass. Those shoes are amazing.”

  “I know!” Ava said enthusiastically. “And she wore them to a funeral! I hope I’m still wearing ridiculously impractical shoes to funerals all the rest of my days, although if the truth be told these are the first pair of ridiculously impractical shoes I have ever owned.”

  “If you are going to wait thirty-four years for fabulous shoes, then those shoes are definitely the kind of pair worth waiting for.”

  “I wholeheartedly agree,” Ava said, raising her glass of orange juice towards Hope, who was sipping from a glass of fine champagne.

  Hope turned to clink her glass against her cousin’s.“Whadd’ya think?” she asked, swinging her hips and praying her boobs stayed put where they were meant to.

  “I think,” Ava said, “that Jessica Rabbit can kiss your mighty fine ass! Oh to think someone very closely biologically related to me wore this! Clearly I did not inherit her ass.” She was laughing as she spoke.

  “Your ass is fine, my dear,” Hope said. “But she was incredibly glam, wasn’t she? Wow, she had style – apart from the yellow jump suit, naturally.” She turned to look at herself in the mirror and was blown away by how good she looked. She had always avoided satin like the plague, convinced that the material would make her look as though she was due to give birth to a team of baby elephants. But Ava was right on this occasion. On this occasion she looked amazing – like a sultry, sexy 50s movie star with a glint in her eye that she hadn’t seen in a long time. Smoothing down the dress and winking at her reflection, she raised her glass to the mirror and smiled. “Here’s looking at you, Ms Scott! The world is going to know your name.”