The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae (ARC)

by Stephanie Butland

  ‘Is that tea not cold?’

  ‘It’s clay cold,’ Hayley says. ‘It doesnae matter.’

  ‘So that was it?’ Ailsa asks. ‘He just – went?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ Hayley says. ‘I never saw him again. I got a letter, a few days later. Tamsin was checking for post. She had my keys.’

  ‘Have you got it?’ Despite everything she’s hearing, feeling – and it’s just starting to well up in her, a great wave of all her mother has had to do, be, care about, on her own, all of these years, and he knew what she was going to be up against – she wants to see what his handwriting is like, and put her hand on the paper that he wrote on.

  Hayley laughs. ‘You have got to be joking.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘It said –’ Ailsa half expects her mother to recite the whole thing, because how would you not know a letter like that by heart? ‘It said – well, it said that he couldn’t cope. That he felt no bond with you and that he had realised that he had expected you to die. And although he didn’t want that, he hadn’t thought about how complicated your life was going to be. And it was better that he let us down now, rather than later. I think – I suppose – in his head it must have made sense.’

  Ailsa hears herself laugh. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to defend him,’ she says.

  ‘Oh, I’m not defending him, Ailsa. He was a coward. He didnae find that out until you were born. Just like I didnae find out what I was like until I had you to care for.’

  ‘So you didn’t speak to him again?’ The questions are crowding in now, and Ailsa is trying to pick the best, the most important, because she can see that she isn’t going to be able to ask them all. Her mother’s shoulders are slumping, her hands are tight around the mug, and she’s not so much blinking as closing her eyes for two or three seconds at a time. It won’t be long until Hayley slams this conversation shut, asks for wine or finds her appetite, and Ailsa doesn’t know whether this is one-off openness or the first of many conversations.

  Hayley makes a sound, a laugh with the amusement sucked from it. ‘I didnae. But – oh, Ailsa, I wasnae dignified about it. I called him at work and I cried into his answering machine at home. You’d probably call it begging. He broke my heart, he really did. I knew he was struggling but I didnae think he’d leave me. Leave us. There was a payphone on wheels in the hospital. I had it in my room all the time I wasnae with you. In the end, Tamsin refused to bring me any more change. Then there was a night when you were proper, seriously blue, and I sat with you, on my own, and thought about all the ways I was going to protect you. In the morning I found I’d grown a spine and I stopped trying to contact him.’

  Ailsa nods. She’s had some nights like that. Everything seems different at 3 a.m. Usually, it changes back with daylight, but every now and again, you are a new person in the morning.

  ‘In the letter he said that he’d been talking to work and they’d arranged for him to move straight away. He said he would stay away until the end of October and he hoped that was enough time for me to get my things out of his place and get settled into mine. So I had to cancel my tenants, and go back to his flat and sort everything so you would have a home to come back to.’ Hayley’s hand traces a shape, a mirrored parabola of helplessness, complication, up, down. ‘You were this weak thing in the hospital with three-quarters of a heart and I was trying to work out what the fuck was happening to my life. I was determined to be an adult about it all. My ma and da were coming down – I’d put them off for as long as I could – but you were nearly three weeks old and I think your gran thought you were going to outgrow some of the five hundred pairs of bootees she had knitted for you. So I thought I’d get everything sorted and done ready for them coming. New beginnings, and all that. You were going to come home while they were in Edinburgh, or at least I hoped you were. Then I walked into his flat and I saw all the things he had. There was a whole shelf of recipe books and all his shirts were hung up on the hangers from the dry-cleaners. I thought about all the ways that you and me were going to struggle. So Tamsin and me cleared everything out and took it to the charity shops.’

  ‘You did not!’

  ‘We did. Well, most of it. That Le Creuset of Tamsin’s was your father’s. And I took all of the stuff that wasnae going to last. I didnae want the thought of him hanging around forever. But I had no idea where my money was going to come from. I didnae know about benefits, or how much I’d be able to work, or any of that. I had no clue if you could put a child with a heart condition in a nursery, or if you’d need to be warmer than other babies, because of your circulation, and I’d have whopping heating bills.’

  Ailsa imagines herself, given a sick baby to keep alive. She wouldn’t know where to start. She wouldn’t trust herself with a kitten. ‘So what did you take?’

  Hayley shrugs. ‘All the food. Cleaning stuff. Loo rolls. Soap and shampoo. Printer paper. All that.’

  This is the mother Ailsa recognises. Hayley is talking as though she’s reminiscing about a holiday. ‘There were a couple of weeks when I’d been discharged from the hospital and you hadnae. Tamsin would pick me up and we’d go and load the car with things from his flat. She’d drop me at the hospital to be with you and then she would drive around all the charity shops. She’d take a bag here, a bag there. Then she came back and said hello to you, and then we went back to my place and she made sure I wasnae going to have an overnight breakdown. We did that until his flat was empty.’

  ‘Empty? Actually empty?’

  ‘We left the furniture, because it was too much hassle to organise someone to move it. We left all the electrical things as well, the toaster and all that, because charity shops don’t take them. We took all of his records to the British Heart Foundation. We were going to take the mattress, but we couldnae be arsed. We gave his pillows to Oxfam. He had some nice stuff, his parents had been well off, and I thought he’d be walking around the city when he got back, down from the station, and he’d be passing the charity shops, looking in the windows, thinking, oh, I have a suit like that one, that’s really like my china…’

  Ailsa is laughing now, proper, thorough, belly-up laughter, though she doesn’t know how much of it is horror. ‘What did he do?’

  Hayley has been laughing, too, but she stops. ‘Absolutely nothing. Not a word from him. He just – sucked it up. Which goes to show he knew he was wrong. I half expected him to turn up on my doorstep, but he didnae. I had a lot of fine things to say to him, about valuing his cake tins more than he cared about his own daughter, but – well, it could be that he knew what I’d say. He didnae have to knock on my door to hear it. I chucked his keys in a bin outside the hospital. I didnae want to be tempted to go round when he was back in Edinburgh. But I wanted him tae be worried that I might.’

  There’s a minute of silence, another. Into it, Ailsa says, ‘Mum. You should have told me all this.’ She almost adds: Because you didn’t have to carry it all on your own, but she can see from Hayley’s face, her soft, calm profile, that she doesn’t need to.

  ‘I know. But I didn’t want you to think that – that you made it happen. Kids always think it’s their fault, do they not, if their folks split up?’

  ‘Oh, Mum.’ Apple is quiet in her chest, as though she’s listening for clues that tell her how she should be feeling; she’s beating gently, slowly.

  Hayley turns to look at her, touches her chin. ‘It’s all water under the bridge, Ailsa. He got in touch via a solicitor to offer us money. I didn’t want to take it but your grandparents talked me into it. They talked me into getting your Child Disability Living Allowance as well, though I didn’t want to sign you up as disabled for anything because I didnae want you ever tae think of yourself as disadvantaged. I wanted you tae feel capable of anything. When you were two, his solicitor wrote to me again. The letter said he had sold his flat, and he thought it was right that I should have the proceeds from it, as a full and final settlement of his child support obligations. I was tempted to tell
him to shove it, but thirty grand’s thirty grand and it paid off the mortgage. The fact that you weren’t even mentioned in the letter pissed me off so much I’d have had his eyeballs and gone back for the sockets if I could. He’d never asked to see you, or asked for a photo, or how you were.’

  They both sigh, an accidental harmony.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve had to tell you about all this.’

  Oh, no, no, that’s the wrong thing to be sorry about. ‘I think I deserved to know, Mum.’

  ‘Aye, well. If we all got what we deserved it would be fine world.’ Ailsa knows how this is meant – the gentlest of reprimands, a reminder of how complicated this is – but she hears it in a different way. No one deserved a transplant more than Lennox. That would have been fine for sure. Take a breath, Ailsa.

  ‘You should have told me, Mum. But I’m sorry you went through all that. It must have been – I honestly cannot imagine.’

  ‘I’ve always done my best,’ Hayley says, and Ailsa takes her hand, squeezes it. All that they’ve been through is between them. There were times, in hospital, when Ailsa wondered whether the sheer force of her mother’s determination was what brought her new heart to her. Now, she wonders if it was love. One thing’s for sure: they can weather this.

  ‘I know,’ Ailsa says, ‘and you know, whatever he’s like, he’s not ever going to be my dad.’

  Hayley’s fingertips go rigid; she blinks, quickquickquick, the way she always does when she’s surprised. ‘You’re not taking that blog post down, then?’

  ‘Well – no,’ Ailsa says, ‘I’m going to do what it says. That’s how it works, Mum. You know that.’

  She’s said it as gently as she can, but for a second Ailsa thinks her mother is going to slap her. Hayley does a worse thing than that. She starts to cry. Then she rummages in her bag, pulls out a pen and her diary, writes something down and tears out the page. She hands it to Ailsa. There’s a single word: ‘Twelvetrees’.

  ‘That’s his surname. He shouldnae take much finding.’

  ‘Mum…’ She knows she should say she’s sorry. She probably is, somewhere, in the eerie fog that’s filling up the space where certainty used to be. She sits and waits for something to happen. If only Apple was her real heart. Then she’d know what was right.

  From: Seb

  Sent: 6 July, 2018

  To: Ailsa

  Subject: Hello?

  Hey BlueHeart,

  You’ve gone a bit quiet.

  As it’s Wednesday I hope you’re taking your blue heart dancing.

  Take care,

  Seb x

  From: Ailsa

  To: Seb

  Hello Romeo,

  I’m a bit down, if I’m honest. Don’t tell anyone – if you’ve had a heart transplant it’s not allowed.

  I basically go to work, go dancing and sleep. There’s the weekly thrill of a hospital appointment and trying to get my head around law conversion degrees. Plus – the biological father stuff. I know you’re busy with rehearsals so I didn’t think you’d be waiting to hear from me.

  Ailsa

  From: Seb

  To: Ailsa

  Always waiting to hear from you, babe.

  I saw your blog post about your biological father, and the result. I’m glad you toned it down. It was the right thing to do.

  Call me any time. I’m in rehearsals this week (just me, Meredith and Roz, because Meredith isn’t around for all of the Edinburgh rehearsals) but I’ll always call you back.

  From: Ailsa

  To: Seb

  My mother wasn’t a fan of the post. But she came over and told me the actual truth about him, which is different to the version in the blog post you read. So I suppose that’s something.

  From: Seb

  To: Ailsa

  Well, I’m hoping it’s good truth, but your tone isn’t exactly cheerful. It’s not going to turn out that Mel Gibson is your real father, is it?

  From: Ailsa

  To: Seb

  Thank you, I just laughed for the first time in a week.

  No, Mel Gibson isn’t my real father. Neither is Sean Connery or anyone else you can think of who is either Scottish or has worn tartan in a film.

  From: Seb

  To: Ailsa

  Actually, I was doing a clever thing. BraveHeart/BlueHeart.

  From: Ailsa

  To: Seb

  Aha! Maybe Mel Gibson *is* my real father, then.

  But just in case he isn’t, I’m googling ‘David Twelvetrees’ for what is probably going to be the shortest search for a parent in history.

  From: Seb

  To: Ailsa

  You don’t have to get in touch with him if you don’t want to, you know. If you do, do. If you don’t, don’t. Your blog’s amazing, but you’re better.

  From: Ailsa

  To: Seb

  I do.

  From: Seb

  To: Ailsa

  Not my business. Understood.

  So, rehearsals start on 2 July. I hope we can see a bit of each other.

  From: Ailsa

  To: Seb

  Won’t Meredith need your attention? And the others? I mean – isn’t it all intense and – actorish?

  From: Seb

  To: Ailsa

  I think it will be/can be intense, yes, and it has to be, because you have to trust each other. Like a massively complicated tango. On ice.

  But the rehearsals are going to be bitty, because Roz (Bulgaria) has to accommodate everyone trying to fit in day jobs, and even though Romeo is, obviously, the most important character in the play, she won’t need me all the time. She’s offered to put me up.

  Meredith can look after herself. Roz offered her accommodation as well but I think she’s staying in a hotel.

  From: Ailsa

  To: Seb

  It would be nice to spend some time with you.

  I might not be great company. I’ve never really fallen out with my mother before. Not seriously. But it’s like things have frozen over between us.

  And I didn’t even ask about your eye.

  From: Seb

  To: Ailsa

  It will be more than nice, BlueHeart, if last time is anything to go by.

  I could stay over sometimes, if you wanted.

  My eye is OK. More stitches out next week. I think the light’s getting a bit easier. When things change little by little it’s hard to tell.

  7 July, 2017

  This Time Last Year

  ‘I’ve got good news,’ Hayley says with a grin, and then adds, quickly, ‘not a heart.’

  Ailsa has been dozing. She dozes a lot, at the moment, pretending to herself that it’s the heat but knowing it’s the creeping failure of her body that’s turning her into someone who can barely face getting out of bed. She sits up, and Hayley is there straight away to adjust her pillows.

  ‘What, then?’ Ailsa cannot imagine any other good news.

  ‘I’ve got you a weekend pass. We can take a trip.’

  Ailsa’s torn between wanting to go – the sky, seen from the hospital garden, isn’t big or broad or uncluttered enough to satisfy her dying heart – and the sheer effort involved in standing upright, unhooking from drips and monitors, leaving the room. But her mother’s face tells her she needs to pretend. During his last week, Lennox had said, ‘It’s not about me anymore.’ Ailsa knows what he means, now.

  ‘Fantastic! Where do you fancy?’

  ‘It’s up to you, hen.’

  Ailsa finds a laugh. ‘Disney? I could meet Mickey Mouse.’ She stops herself, just in time, from making a joke about that being what all the dying kids want to do. Lennox would have got it.

  ‘I dinnae think we could afford the insurance.’

  ‘OK,’ Ailsa says, ‘how about —’ And then her breathing starts to speed up with panic, because she realises that what she’s being asked to do, in all probability, is decide where she’ll go on the last trip of her life. The more ill she gets, the more the likelihood of a hear
t arriving in time diminishes.

  Hayley takes her hand. ‘It’s OK, Ailsa. Slow it down.’

  ‘Where do you want to go, Mum?’ But Hayley looks away, and Ailsa can see that she has the same weight of decision-making on her. Where is the last place you would choose to go with your daughter?

  ‘We should ask your blog.’

  Ailsa laughs. ‘You don’t approve of the blog, remember.’

  ‘Aye, well,’ light tone, but a pain in Hayley’s eyes that Ailsa can’t bear to look at, ‘I dinnae have the head space to decide either. This time next year, you won’t be needing a blog to make your decisions.’

  Lennox’s voice, in Ailsa’s head: That’s true, either way.

  From: David

  Sent: 7 July, 2018

  To: Ailsa

  Subject: Good to hear from you

  Dear Ailsa,

  What a surprise to hear from you. A good surprise, that is. Before I replied I looked you up. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you looking so alive and well. I’ve read your blog from beginning to end. What a time you’ve had.

  I don’t know what your mother has told you but I won’t start with the past. I’ll start with the now. That seems best.

  I’m 54 and I live in Leatherhead in Surrey. I work for a bank and I’m married to Gemma. We met when I moved to Guildford, around the time you were born – we worked in the same branch. We have two boys, George and Thomas, who are 17 and 15. George is very keen on his music and we are trying to persuade him to go to university, but all he really wants to do is play in his band. We have no idea where his talent comes from. Gemma and I are music fans but have no skill. Thomas is severely dyslexic and loves animals and consequently we have a real menagerie at home – mostly animals that he rescues, although he does have a Labrador of his own. He volunteers at an animal shelter at the weekends. Gemma has three older sisters and we have such a big extended family that we hire a church hall on Boxing Day so that we can all get together!