The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae (ARC)

by Stephanie Butland

  ‘I always liked this clock,’ David says. ‘It’s clever, isn’t it?’ His accent is a sort of characterless English, free of stresses.

  ‘Yes.’ The floral clock used to be a wonder to her. She and Hayley used to come and look at the time, after milkshakes at the Rose Street cafe.

  David nods. ‘They’ve used succulents, so there’s not a lot of maintenance. Nice and practical.’

  ‘If you wanted a practical clock, surely they wouldn’t make it out of flowers to begin with?’ Ailsa smiles to show that she isn’t being argumentative. This is a bit like her first day at work, striving to make the right impression.

  David nods. ‘True enough.’

  ‘I thought it would be good to take a walk, and I have to make sure I get enough exercise.’ She’s not going to brush Apple under the carpet, as it were.

  They set off, the sharply rising bank to Princes Street on their right, where there’s a mass of flowers in purples and yellows, silver and green foliage, thistles and heather and fern, all tumbled together in a sort of well-planned chaos. To their left, down the slope, are trees, more formal flowerbeds, and lawns peppered with people.

  ‘This must take some maintaining,’ David says.

  ‘There are always gardeners around,’ Ailsa replies. She looks at the path they are walking, a sort of pebbledash pavement, sees how one foot just keeps putting itself in front of another. She can do anything this way.

  She looks at his shoes. They are dark grey, suede, the sort of shoes that are advertised in the back of the Sunday magazines she recycles at the ends of shifts. He’s wearing jeans and a polo shirt and carrying a jacket. He looks – respectable. She eventually fixed on jeans, her silver plimsolls, the cloud-heart T-shirt and a cardigan that Tamsin gave her, royal blue and wrap-around, so almost a coat if it gets cool.

  They make small talk: David’s journey, Ailsa’s job, the weather in Scotland (again), how distinctive the Edinburgh skyline is. Ailsa waits – wants – to feel something, the bond that she’s owed, her genes remembering this connection. Something that will justify how much she’s hurt her mother.

  They pause at the war memorial to the Scottish dead of the Second World War. David reads the inscription aloud: ‘If it be life that waits, I shall live forever unconquered. If death, I shall die at last, strong in my pride and free.’ He stands for a moment, then glances at Ailsa – they aren’t looking at each other, much, yet. ‘Beautiful.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Ailsa says. ‘Death doesn’t seem so glorious when you’re looking it in the teeth.’

  ‘True enough.’ David seems to agree with everything. Ailsa thinks of Dennis, shaking his head and saying ‘owt for peace’ when Ruthie is trying to persuade him to do something. But when Dennis says it, it’s a joke.

  She’s tired, all of a sudden, and sits on a bench. The plaque on the back commemorates Maisie Sietsema, nee Stirling, born in Edinburgh in 1919, died in Massachusetts in 1966. How far some people manage to go in their lives.

  ‘I said pleased to meet you, but it should really be: pleased to meet you again,’ David says when he’s settled himself next to her, with something that might be a chuckle. Ailsa reminds herself that they are both nervous.

  ‘I don’t remember the last time,’ she says.

  ‘I do,’ David says, shaking his head. ‘Awful. Awful. Who’d have thought it, to look at you now?’

  Ailsa bites back the obvious response – that clearly he didn’t. She’s here, so she’ll make the best of it. ‘I’m fine now,’ she says. ‘Better every day.’

  ‘It’s been a while since I’ve been to Edinburgh,’ he says. Ailsa pushes her teeth together for a second to make sure she doesn’t say something sarcastic. ‘And it’s a lovely day for Scotland,’ he continues.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Ailsa says. She gets up and sets off again, slowly, along the path. David follows.

  ‘So you’re well?’ he asks.

  Ailsa nods. ‘As well as can be expected. I have a check-up every week. Things seem to be going to plan.’

  ‘Good,’ David says. He touches his hand to his chest. ‘I had a bit of a scare this year with mine. Thank goodness for private health insurance. I had all the tests in a week.’

  ‘So what’s wrong?’ Ailsa asks. Heart trouble isn’t her favourite icebreaker but it will do in a pinch.

  David gives a laugh. ‘Well – funny story – it turns out it was indigestion! Terrible pain, though, right up my side, down my arm. Sweating like a pig. I thought my number was up.’

  ‘Indigestion?’ Ah, here come the feelings. Ailsa suddenly, viscerally, would like to be anywhere else in the world than here. But most especially on the train to Glasgow, to her mother.

  ‘I know.’ David laughs again. No, actually it’s a chortle. It’s the sound of a man who always has someone to hand to laugh at his jokes. ‘Gemma gave me such a going over. No more chilli con carne for me!’

  Ailsa doesn’t say anything. She really, truly cannot think of a single word to offer. She can hear Apple, though, loud and clear: Seriously?

  David steers her to a halt in front of a flower bed. ‘I’ve tried to grow these,’ he says, indicating – well, something, Ailsa has no idea what, but they’re yellow. ‘I think the soil is wrong where we are. Too loamy. This will be peatier, I should think.’

  ‘I’m not interested in gardening,’ Ailsa says. Politeness seems pointless.

  ‘You don’t have a garden?’

  ‘For a while back there,’ Ailsa says, ‘I would have fainted if I’d bent down, or stood up. But no, I don’t have a garden. Don’t you remember? I’ve a couple of window boxes.’

  David looks straight into her face for the first time since the moment they met. ‘You aren’t still in that flat?’

  ‘I am,’ Ailsa says. ‘It’s a great flat. A great spot. And such a lot of memories for me and my mother.’

  David makes a gesture of shoulder and eyebrow, a sort of, ‘I don’t agree but I won’t argue’, and Ailsa is horrified by both his easy dismissal of such an important place in her life and the fact that she recognises that gesture as her own. Or rather, one she’s inherited, it seems. No wonder it’s always irritated the hell out of her mother.

  ‘We’ve nearly an acre,’ he adds, ‘but Gemma’s keen, as well, so it’s a hobby for us both.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ Ailsa says, because she can’t think of another response.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ David says, ‘I’m not doing very well. I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me why you were never in touch?’ Ailsa says. She’s worked hard to expect nothing, yet she’s disappointed by him. And envious – a real, ugly, pus-like feeling – of the younger son, with his rescued animals and all the support he needs to cope with dyslexia. Why was he different from Ailsa? Why did he get a puppy when she got distance and disinterest?

  ‘Well…’ David says, ‘I suppose – I suppose I had assumed that you had – had not survived. Your chances weren’t good.’

  It’s horrible to hear him so cold and clear about it, even though she has always insisted on an unsentimental approach herself. She’s earned it. He hasn’t.

  ‘I know that,’ Ailsa says. ‘But I had a chance. I’m surprised you didn’t want to know. And did you not think my mother would have told you?’

  David sighs. ‘She was angry with me. And,’ he holds up a finger, as though Ailsa might have been about to interrupt, ‘rightly so. I accept that. After what she did to my flat – I don’t know how much she’s told you…’

  ‘She told me everything.’ Ailsa is full of pride for Hayley, her bravery and her truth. The fact that she took so long to tell Ailsa everything doesn’t seem to matter so much.

  That half shrug again. ‘Did she tell you it was my parents’ le Creuset that she took?’

  Ailsa almost laughs. Or cries. How she’s messed things up. Why didn’t she trust her mother, who’s fought for her, whose judgement is almost always right?

  ‘Well, I d
id want to know what had happened to you,’ David says, with a rising inflection of defensiveness in his tone, ‘but it never seemed to be the right time to ask. You know how it is.’

  ‘Not really.’ She’s keeping her voice even, but her feelings aren’t quite so serene. ‘In my life, I’ve always had to do things when I could, because there might not be tomorrow.’

  It’s as though she hasn’t spoken. ‘I thought I would give your mother some time to – to calm herself down. I thought she might get in touch after I sold the flat and gave her the money from it. But she didn’t. And then, once we had George…’ David says. He fumbles in his pocket. Ailsa fears he’s going to try to show her some family photographs. She’s ignored a Facebook friend request from David until she met him. But he takes out a handkerchief, takes off his glasses, and polishes the lenses. He might be avoiding her scrutiny, but she has nothing to lose.

  ‘You were too busy?’

  ‘No, no,’ he seems genuinely distressed, ‘not at all! I often thought I should find out what had happened to you. I just never –’

  ‘Never got around to it?’

  He looks straight into her face. It’s strange, how his eyes are her eyes. ‘Even though I thought you probably hadn’t survived, I didn’t want to know for sure. I wasn’t – I wasn’t ready for that. I know that seems ridiculous. I do know how badly I let you and your mother down, Ailsa. I’m not proud.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that. I don’t think you have any idea how badly you let us down, though. Not really.’

  They walk on. Ailsa imagines him with Gemma and her three sisters, and their husbands and children, not the perfect family but a cauldron of disagreements and unresolved arguments.

  He takes a breath. ‘Ailsa, I’ve no excuse. I did badly by you and your mother, and you both deserved better. Then when your message came, well, I thought it was a chance. I was so glad that you were alive.’

  ‘It hasn’t been easy.’

  ‘I do know that, Ailsa. Especially when I read your blog. You’ve been lucky.’

  Oh, no, no. Ailsa already knows – and Apple is in perfect accord – that she never needs to see this man again, and needs to get away from him before he starts trying to include her in his sprawling family, the half sister/stepdaughter back from the dead. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to let him get away with that.

  ‘Lucky and determined. It’s been hard work. Plus, my mother has been amazing. She never gave up.’ The emphasis comes out on the ‘she’. Ailsa doesn’t care.

  ‘Maybe lucky was a poor choice of word. I suppose I’ve always been risk averse by nature. Your mother pulled me out of that for a while. But when the chips were down – well, a leopard doesn’t change its spots. I think you must understand that, though?’

  ‘Why?’ Ailsa asks. (Yes. Why? Apple echoes.) If she has sacrificed her relationship with her mother for this man, she will never forgive herself. Oh, she wants to cry, enough tears to flood her heart and wash her eyes away.

  ‘Well, your blog. When I saw your polls, I thought: now that’s my daughter. It’s always good to canvass opinions, isn’t it? Take a consensus. That’s what Gemma and I like to do. There’s no excuse for rashness in this day and age.’

  Ailsa starts to walk more quickly, as though speed will lessen the impact of this body blow. She doesn’t much care if David keeps pace with her, but he does.

  ‘Ailsa?’

  ‘I’m not so sure it is a good thing, actually,’ she says. ‘Sometimes you trust your gut, don’t you? Or – or your heart. I mean – if you asked a hundred people whether you should abandon your child because she has a heart problem, I imagine a hundred per cent of the vote would say no, don’t do that. But you did it.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s entirely fair,’ David says, ‘and anyway—’

  ‘No,’ she says. It’s never too late, Ailsa. Say what you want to say. ‘You said in your email I was never a secret from Gemma. Do your boys know about me?’

  ‘Well…’ He looks bewildered now. Ailsa imagines Gemma joking about having three children, not two, and drinking a lot. ‘Gemma said we should see how this went. And then we could introduce you to the family. Slowly.’

  ‘What, first I’m a friend, then I’m a cousin, and then, if everyone votes that they like me, I’m allowed to be your daughter? I’m sorry, David, this was a mistake. Have a safe journey home.’ And she turns and walks away. She’d like to think she’s dignified but there’s a panicky half run to her pace.

  It’s an hour until rehearsal. She hopes that Hayley will answer her phone.

  Voicemail. Ailsa never used to get her mother’s voicemail. Another perk of being no longer dying. She’s walking, walking, her breath fast and ragged, people looking at her. She heads for the graveyard of St Cuthbert’s church, which adjoins the gardens, and stops when her anger – at herself, at David, at the stupid, stupid world and how complicated it is, even when you’re supposed to be normal – runs out.

  She stops in a part of the graveyard where the palest of sunlight is picking its way through the trees. Sitting on a low wall, she notices how the Edinburgh skyline is hidden. She could be anywhere. Even the graves have their backs to her. She can hear voices as people walk nearby, but apart from a seagull glaring at her as though it knows how ungrateful she’s been, she’s on her own. Well, sort of. There’s just her, and Apple, and the seagull, and all of the dead people.

  Inhale. Exhale. She closes her eyes and tilts her head to the sky. When she opens her eyes again she sees that it has changed from grey-blue to blue-grey. It’s a small change, but it matters.

  She’s about to call Hayley again – even if she doesn’t answer, she’ll hear her mother’s voice on the message – when her phone rings.

  ‘Ailsa?’

  ‘Mum, it’s me. I’m sorry,’ she half says, half cries.

  ‘Are you OK, hen? Breathe. Calm down. Is this about that thing in the papers?’

  Hayley had called, to see that she was OK, after the story about her and Seb; Ailsa hadn’t got around to calling back, or that’s what she had told herself. She hadn’t wanted to talk about David, hear the hurt in Hayley’s voice.

  ‘No. That’s – that’s OK. It’s just that – I’ve just met him. It was today.’

  ‘Who? Oh,’ Hayley says, and Ailsa hears her shock, how her voice has a shake in it that’s the shadow to the way her own voice sounds. ‘David? Has it not gone well?’

  ‘He’s – I thought I’d feel something, but I just…’ She’s fumbling for a tissue in her satchel. A couple walks past, and the woman glances at her, concerned, but at least in a cemetery she has a good chance of being left alone to cry.

  ‘Has he upset you? That fucking man. Honestly, Ailsa, if I’d known it was today I’d have –’ Hayley’s voice, furious, pauses, as they both imagine what she might have done.

  ‘Yes. No. Only by being – by being the sort of person who would do what he did.’

  A sigh, down the line, and the sound of what might be tears. ‘Oh, Ailsa. I’m sorry. I wanted to protect you from all this. I just made you more curious.’

  ‘It was my fault, Mum,’ Ailsa says. ‘I should’ve…’ But there’s such a long list, and she doesn’t know what she should have done. Taken her mother’s word that he wasn’t worth the bother? Not asked the question about him? Not asked the blog? Not gone with the vote? Trusted the love her mother’s always shown against the curiosity Apple kindled in her, now she has the time to wonder?

  ‘Well,’ Hayley says, with a sniff/sob, ‘we are where we are. Are you OK? What are you going to do now?’

  Oh, yes. If in doubt, be practical. ‘I’ve got rehearsal. Seb’s staying. I’ll be – I’ll manage.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’ She isn’t. Not really. But being not quite sure seems to be what a lot of normal life is about.

  www.myblueblueheart.blogspot.co.uk

  25 July, 2018

  I’m Sorry

  I’ve
talked a lot, this year, about learning what it means to be normal. I’m sure you’ve laughed along as old BlueHeart here has found out that some afternoons are long and doing your washing is boring. I like to imagine you chuckling at my discovery that how much you weigh is directly related to what you put in your mouth, and mountain climbing takes a bit of preparation and practice.

  Here are some of the things I’ve discovered that being three heartbeats from death allows you to do, even though you can’t get away with them (most days) in normal life:

  Falling asleep during a conversation

  Asking someone to make you a sandwich in the middle of the night (and them doing it)

  Feeling sorry for yourself

  Not thinking about/planning for the future

  Having your wishes/needs treated as more urgent than everyone else’s

  Claiming that life’s not fair and expecting sympathy.

  In summary: generally behaving as though you are more important than everyone else.

  Well, I’m here to say, with you as my witnesses, that I accept I have no excuse for behaving badly anymore. I can’t claim tiredness/anxiety/impending death. I can’t even really claim drug imbalances now that we seem to have got that right.

  So if I am rude, inconsiderate, or plain disrespectful to someone that I love, I have no get-out-of-jail-free card. Of course, I never should have had one, or used one, but – well, I did. When you’re the one that’s dying, it’s easiest to ignore the pain of the person who’s watching you die.

  This last few weeks, I’ve behaved unforgivably badly to my mother. I’ve been rude and unkind, and I’ve chosen not to make the effort to understand things that are not black and white, though I’ve tried to make them so.

  You’ll also recall that I saw my birth father. (Your suggestion of a walk for our meeting was spot-on, by the way. I was able to – literally – run away. Well, walk fast, at least.) All you need to know is: I won’t be seeing him again.