The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae (ARC)
Page 17
‘No.’ Ailsa chewed this over at 3 a.m., torn between saying her piece and prolonging the agony. ‘I’m going with dignified silence.’
‘Good. Oh, Ailsa.’ The hug is hard and full of everything they’ve been through. Ailsa closes her eyes. It’s almost like being with her mother, in the old days, before she had Apple. She squeezes her eyes closed, tight, and breathes in Emily’s perfume, Black Opium, vanilla and sweet, the scent that her friend has worn for as long as Ailsa has known her. Then Emily sighs, holds her at arm’s length and looks her over, as though she’s checking for anything she’s missed.
‘I’m OK. Well, I will be.’ Yes, she will. In the scheme of things, and all.
‘Good. Screw the lot of them. Not literally. How about we go and get some paint samples? I’ve got all day.’
‘Sounds lovely,’ she says, and then her phone rings. It’s Hayley.
Her mother’s voice sounds careful, picking its way down the line. ‘I’m at work today. Eight o’clock start. They have all the papers in the staffroom. I had a look through.’
‘Yes?’ If she pretends she hasn’t seen the article, Hayley will feel as though she ought to tell her, on the grounds that it’s better to come from her than someone else. May as well get this over with. ‘Did you see the thing about – about Seb and me?’
‘I did,’ Hayley says. ‘I was worried for you. Are you all right?’
‘Sort of. No. Yes,’ Ailsa says.
Hayley laughs, a sympathetic sound that makes Ailsa homesick even though she’s at home. ‘I think that’s how I’d feel.’
Ailsa lets herself exhale, closes her eyes, rests her head back on the sofa. ‘I am now. Emily’s here.’
A pause. ‘Good,’ Hayley says. ‘Tell her thank you, aye?’ Ailsa hates this, but lets it go. She knows how her mother, Tamsin, Emily, Ruthie and Dennis have played a sort of looking-after-Ailsa tag for the last eighteen months, and it will be a while before it stops all together.
‘You’ve a right to be upset,’ Hayley says. ‘They’re bastards.’
‘That’s what Seb said.’
A beat of a pause from the other end of the line. ‘You’ve spoken to him?’
‘He warned me about it,’ Ailsa says. ‘His agent got a call.’
‘Well, I hope he’s ashamed of himself,’ Hayley says.
‘I don’t think it’s his fault. He can’t help these things. He’s in the public eye. People are interested in him.’ Apple gives the tiniest twitch, in confirmation: We are interested in him, Ailsa, you and I.
Hayley sighs. ‘It’s all good publicity for him, though. And I notice they didn’t comment about his shirt being open so far down. Or that he could have done with a shave. A cynic might think that he has friends at that paper.’
‘It’s not like that, Mum.’ The peevishness in her voice surprises her. It’s no wonder that Hayley sounds crisp in return.
‘Oh aye? And how do you know? This won’t just be keeping him in people’s minds? At your expense?’
‘Nobody knows who I am,’ Ailsa says, trying to sound matter-of-fact. It’s a bit strained but it’s better than making her mother think she’s annoyed with her. ‘There was a waitress. She had her photo taken with him. She obviously fancied him. It was her.’
Gently now, Hayley replies, ‘Even so. I don’t like it, Ailsa. I don’t like to see you being talked about in that way. And it’s a lovely dress.’
‘Thanks,’ Ailsa says. She means it. She hopes she sounds as though she does.
From: Seb
Sent: 2 June, 2018
To: Ailsa
Subject: Bloody Sun
Hi Ailsa,
I don’t know if you got my text. I checked it before I sent it. It does actually say, ‘Page 8. Call me when you’ve seen it if you want to talk’. As opposed to ‘Paint cart Mohawk see see yodel’ or whatever.
Anyway. I’m around, until about three. Then my sister’s coming over to criticise my lifestyle and dress sense (probably) but she’s bringing my little nieces, and usually cake, not made of nuts and mammoth-fur, so I’ll put up with her.
Sorry, again.
Seb x
From: Ailsa
To: Seb
Dear Seb,
Yes, I’ve seen it. It fair put me off my croissant.
It’s not your fault.
Ailsa
From: Seb
To: Ailsa
Cavemen had access to a patisserie? I need to have a word with my history teacher. I was taught all the wrong things. Or wasn’t listening. Yeah, probably not listening.
You didn’t say if you’re OK. Are you OK?
It’s really shit when that sort of thing happens. You do get used to it, but the first few times are hard. I’ve had a few months off – not interesting enough, once the eye stuff had died down – but now R&J is happening it looks like I’m fair game again. I’m so sorry.
After the episode of Wherefore Art Thou? where we had to do a dance routine from West Side Story (Roz had to explain why to me), The Sun published a picture of my head on a Thunderbird’s body. And not even one of the cool Thunderbirds. Like I say, they really are bastards. (Journalists, not Thunderbirds).
S x
P.S. As you like old films I thought you might know what Thunderbirds are.
From: Ailsa
To: Seb
You’re right. I didn’t say if I’m OK. Honestly, I’m not sure. I felt quite shaken and tearful, and that’s not like me. It’s just a photo of me. I know I’m overweight. And I don’t want to be whatever The Sun thinks is an acceptable shape for a woman, because if I was, there would be nowhere to keep my organs. So I’ve really got nothing to be upset about.
I suppose I could see that I looked awful in that photo and having to read the article pointing it out makes me feel – bullied. And I’m trying to get fit, and I feel the best I have done, literally, ever. I’m – oh, I don’t know – I’m supposed to be above all this. If I’m happy with myself, I should be happy. If I’m not, I should be doing something about it (like not backsliding on the croissant front). What’s in the papers should be irrelevant.
So, I’m not OK, but I guess I will be. I’m – let’s say fine-ish (autocorrect just tried to make that ‘fiendish’).
I do know who Thunderbirds are/were (do puppets die? Maybe they get recycled into puppet transplants?). I’d say you dance way better than that.
From: Seb
To: Ailsa
Well, my fine-ish fiend, I’m still sorry.
And it was a terrible photo. You look much lovelier in real life. And you dance sort of – poetically. With your whole heart. You look great in that dress as well. I don’t know if I said it but I thought you looked beautiful. Skinnyjeans waitresses with straight hair and big eyelashes all look the same. You look like you.
Am I making it better or worse?
Fenella thought the Thunderbird thing in the paper was hilarious. She didn’t have much of a sense of humour, but she liked that. She always liked it when I fell over or anything where I made a tit of myself. She was nicer to other people. I’m not sure if it was a teaching strategy. It probably was.
I missed you when you went back to the land of the heatless sky. Once I’d got over the hangover. I brought you back a smoothie from the gym on Sunday morning and felt like an idiot. It was quite nice though. Spinach, orange, apple and avocado. I could have done without the spinach.
We’ve got the photoshoot/calendar thing a week on Saturday. Shall we go to dinner, or something, afterwards? (Do I have to say tea?) I’ve booked myself into a hotel for the night, and Roz has got me doing something with her on Sunday. She didn’t say what. I’ll do as I’m told. She’s a slave driver. Worse than you. (Kidding.)
S xx
From: Ailsa
To: Seb
I think you’re making it better, but I don’t want to think/ write about it anymore, if that’s OK.
We Scots have to be bilingual because English folk never bother. So – it wo
uld be nice to have dinner after the photoshoot. I’ll see you there.
Ailsa
Part Six
June 2018
Thou Needest Not Be Gone
www.myblueblueheart.blogspot.co.uk
1 June, 2018
Choosing a Word
I’ve got a funny request for you today, not least because I can’t tell you why I’m asking. I need to choose a word that sums up how I feel about being a transplanted organ recipient.
I want to get away from gratitude. Not because (as I hope you know) I’m not grateful, but because it’s a bit more complicated than that.
And – I’ve been spending a bit of time lately reading Romeo and Juliet.
So I’ve chosen three words from the play that I think are appropriate to life-after-transplant:
Torchbearer: I’m one of the first generation to survive Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS to its friends). If I’d been born a few years earlier, then my mother would have watched me die. There were no other options. I’m a symbol. I’m a sign of what’s possible. I’m lighting the way, not by anything I’m doing, just by the fact of my continued existence. I’m walking forward into the dark.
Cherishing: This is a great word, is it not? Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I lie there for a minute and I think of Apple, as though she’s a treasure I’ve been given, and I’ve wrapped her up and put her in the safest place I can. (As anyone who’s had their ribcage opened will tell you, it’s really not designed for that. It tells you so, afterwards, in no uncertain terms.)
Fortune: You know the reason for this one. I’m not alive because I deserve to be or because I’ve passed a test or because there’s some divine something looking out for me. (Feel free to think that there is, if that suits you. I prefer to think I’m here because of a fluke to some all-powerful being choosing me over someone else.) I’m alive because of a happy-for-me coincidence of blood group, ill-enough-but-not-too-ill, and someone else’s death. Each of those three factors has so many variables. Luck/chance/fortune: it’s the reason for the blood being pumped around my body right now.
Here’s the vote. I’m going to give you until Wednesday.
TORCHBEARER
CHERISHING
FORTUNE
5 shares
15 comments
Results:
TORCHBEARER
65%
CHERISHING
25%
FORTUNE
10%
1 June, 2017
This Time Last Year
‘Could you begin by telling me why you’re here, Ailsa?’
‘My mum thought it would be a good idea.’
‘Is that the only reason?’
‘Yes. No.’ Being talked into going to a counsellor has brought out Ailsa’s inner fifteen-year-old – the one she was never really allowed to be, because she always had to be looking after her heart. ‘I’m not coping very well.’
‘With what?’
A shrug. ‘I don’t know. Waiting for a heart. Missing someone.’
A nod, a soft smile that makes Ailsa feel as though she’s already given one of the correct answers. Oh, how she doesn’t want to be here.
‘Who is it that you miss, Ailsa?’
Ailsa looks at the woman sitting across from her – kind-faced, calm and ready to help – and she wants to try. But there seems to be no way to talk about Lennox now. After the first flurry of desperate sharing, the memories and the talking about him, as though she and his family had to create him and preserve them in their words, Ailsa feels as though just saying his name will break her in two. And what will be exposed, then, is uglier than her failing malformed heart: a tarred clump of sadness and frustration that he’s not there; fury with him for leaving her to face his death, her death alone; the sick, black envy that it’s all over for him now, and that he’s cheated her by leaving her behind. She cannot let this out of her. Not yet.
‘I can’t,’ she gets out, something strangled-sounding, but the counsellor seems to understand.
‘If you don’t feel up to talking,’ she says, ‘I’m going to suggest that maybe you write something down. A letter to yourself. Say, Ailsa this time next year – what would she say to you? Or what would you say to that Ailsa?’
Ailsa takes the paper and pen. To start with, looking at the blankness is just as bad as looking at her mother’s anxious face. A year from now isn’t really something she can think about – she’ll be either dead, or a version of herself that’s inconceivable now – but she could perhaps help tomorrow’s Ailsa out. It’s not what she’s supposed to do, but as her mother says, she’s done with giving a fuck.
Dear Ailsa,
Remember, if you die, at least it will stop hurting.
At least it will stop.
Love,
Ailsa
9 June, 2018
It’s photoshoot day.
Which means it’s three weeks since she saw Seb, a fortnight since the article that made her lie awake hating her body, even though to do so was a betrayal of her heart.
Three days ago, Ailsa received an email from Libby, asking her to arrive before three with freshly washed hair and without makeup, and instructing her to bring clothes that were neither black nor ‘excessively patterned’. She would be made up, photographed, then interviewed, providing material in readiness for the launch of the calendar and campaign. She’d had a week’s notice of the questions for the interview; she’d practised her answers with Hayley last weekend. Living apart from each other is hard, and they’re adapting. That’s what Emily says they’re doing, anyway. To Ailsa it feels like non-stop wrong-footedness: she’s always waiting for her mother to come home. It’s a kind of diluted grief. Which it shouldn’t be, because she’s got what she wants.
Lucy answers the door and leads Ailsa through the house, stage-whisper voice trailing over her shoulder as she goes. ‘Mum thought this might be a bit much for her, so she and Dad have taken Louisa to the zoo. We’re doing OK. Libby’s finishing off the interview with the liver. Come and meet Jules; she’s waiting to do the kidney. You’re after that.’
The shoot is taking place next to Lennox’s tree, which is flanked by reflectors; there’s a tripod in front of it, unattended for the moment, ungainly and purposeless on the lawn. The photographer is standing with her back to them, hunched, apparently headless. When she hears Lucy and Ailsa, she turns, smiles, holds up the camera she’s been looking at.
‘We’ve got some nice shots here.’ Then, registering that she’s looking at Lucy and not Libby, ‘Oh, sorry.’
‘No problem,’ Lucy says. ‘This is Ailsa. The heart.’
‘Hi,’ Ailsa says. ‘The rest of me is my own.’
‘Hello!’ One stride, two, a handshake, and then Ailsa is being scrutinised. ‘I’m Jules. You’ve great skin. We won’t have any problems with you. What did you bring to wear?’
‘These,’ Ailsa says, opening the bag she’s folded her clothes into. Libby’s guidelines had ruled out her new dress. (She’s become perversely fond of the yellow roses.) Instead, she’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a heart-shaped cloud motif on it. In her bag she has a Breton-striped sweater that’s a bit too big now – but if she has to hold up her word in front of her it won’t matter – and the purple-striped blouse that Hayley chose for her before they went to London. Tamsin had not only sewn on a press-stud to make sure that the top of Ailsa’s scar was covered, but also replaced the original white buttons with vintage pewter ones, in the shapes of tiny butterflies and hearts.
Jules looks her over, noticing her earrings, which are blue ceramic heart studs. ‘I like those – very witty.’
‘Thanks,’ Ailsa says. Jules must have read her blog, to understand the significance. She feels herself relax, a bit.
‘Do you want to keep your glasses on?’
‘Why?’
‘No reason,’ Jules says, ‘except that some people don’t. It depends on if you think of them as you. They’re great.’
‘Fine. Let’s go with this,’ Jules says, holding up the striped shirt, ‘and tell Pip – ah, no, I’ll tell her myself.’ Jules heads for the house, Lucy and Ailsa behind her. An anxious-looking man in a dark grey shirt smiles shyly at Ailsa as they pass in the kitchen. Lucy tells him it’s time for his photographs and takes him out to the garden.
The dining table is covered with make-up, pots and pots of colours, each one working through every version of itself: blues from navy to the transparent tint of a drop of rain, pinks that start at blazing sunset and move to the memory of a blush. An older woman – bare-faced, big-smiled, hair tied back behind a purple bandanna – is waiting.
‘Here’s Ailsa,’ Jules says. ‘I’d like her really natural, very little around the eyes, lips something around’ – she scans the table in front of her, picks a lipstick – ‘this. Hair down. She’s wearing her glasses.’
‘Your wish is my command,’ Pip says, making a kiss with her mouth. Jules laughs, and Ailsa thinks: Everyone has someone. Except me. And my mother, who doesn’t want anyone.
Having her hair and make-up done is an intimate-not-intimate feeling, like a medical examination: touch with concentration, without eye-contact, without feeling. Breathe. The room is quiet, the heat from the rollers and the steam from the iron, where Lucy is pressing her shirt, reassuring.
Propped on the sideboard is a piece of board, about three feet by fifteen inches, the word ‘torchbearer’ scribed on it in a bold lower-case script, the vertical strokes thick and strong, the curves moving from fine to broad and back again, like the beginnings and endings of gusts of wind. Just looking at it makes Apple beat louder, and Ailsa feel like crying. She thinks about Juliet’s words, as she prepares to part from Romeo after their wedding night, denying that the sun is the sun: ‘It is some meteor that the sun exhales/To be to thee this night a torchbearer’. When she’d blogged about this she’d struggled to express how it made her feel, and ended up with something half right, half true. She is not brave or blessed, just the person who happens to be showing the way.