If Only You Knew

by Claire Allan

  My dear girls,

  I bet you weren’t expecting this – but as you know I liked to be different. I liked to surprise people.

  If you are receiving this letter then you have decided to come over to France to fulfil my last wishes. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me (actually I don’t know how happy it makes me because I’m dead . . . but as an alive person writing this, it makes me happy to think you will come here).

  I wanted to let you know that even though I won’t be there with you in body, I will be there with you in spirit. But not in a scary ghost kind of way. I’ll just, well, I hope, I’ll be watching over you.

  I have very special reasons for asking you to go to France – which will become clear in time. You will get a few more letters and these will help make it clearer when you are there.

  I hope I haven’t left the house in too much of a mess. It has been a while since I was there – there came a time when I just had to go into the Hospice where they would look after me. I have missed it – so when you go there can you stand on the terrace and raise a glass to me? Jean-Luc has left you a choice bottle of wine for just this purpose. Feel free to raise as many glasses as it takes to empty it.

  Raise a glass to Claude too. You would have liked him. He was the love of my life. I know some people thought I was mad to up sticks and move away from all I knew at home to be with him . . . but I had no choice. It was a tough decision. The toughest decision I have ever had to make – and not without complications. Leaving home, leaving my family . . . it was hard. Walking away when things were how they were. Knowing what I was leaving behind. It was so hard. But I had to make a life for myself.

  Anyway, tell everyone back home I said hello. Tell them I was happy, that I have regretted very little about my life – that what I have regretted, I still know was for the best. Tell them that I trust you both implicitly to take care of my affairs. Ava, tell your mum I love her. Hope, tell your father, stubborn and all as he is, that it’s all okay.

  And when you raise your glass to me on my terrace, remember that sometimes you have to take risks to find yourself. Sometimes, the unthinkable becomes the right answer. I hope that doesn’t sound too pretentious.

  With much love to you, my darling girls,

  Betty

  xx

  She held the letter to her and found, surprisingly, that her eyes were wet and that the predominant thought in her mind wasthat somewhere she had lost herself and maybe she needed to be brave. And in that moment that hurt more than whatever Dylan was getting up to.

  Ava had not been expecting to hear from her aunt again and when she had come in from work with a tired and over-emotional child in tow, she had been shocked to see the familiar handwriting on the front of the letter sitting on her hall table. She sat Maisie in front of the TV with her favourite programme and her favourite teddy while she walked to the kitchen and sat at the island with a cup of tea, to read.

  There was no doubt Betty was a character – that was evident. Ava wondered what her very special reason was for inviting them to France – and she looked forward, with a certain trepidation, to finding out. The letter had left her feeling warm and fuzzy. The love that Betty had for Claude was evident. The confidence she had in her decision was even more so – but most of all Ava took comfort from the fact that at one stage Betty too felt as if she had lost herself. Suddenly she felt less alone.

  With the letter in her hand she lifted the phone to call Hope, sure that she would have received the same note.

  As soon as Hope answered Ava could tell something wasn’t quite right. She sounded subdued – and, from what little Ava knew of her cousin, she knew this was not how things normally played out.

  “Are you okay?” she asked and she heard Hope sniff.

  “It’s part of that long sad story I said I would tell you about in France because, to be honest, your phone bill would be astronomical if I started wittering on about it just now. And, anyway, as previously discussed, wine will make it better.”

  Ava felt herself warm a little bit more to her cousin – and to the notion of a girly chat in France. She sensed she would be able to confide a little in Hope – in a way that she couldn’t confide in Karen or even Connor.

  Naturally when it came to Connor, there were times when she wanted to vent about him – which he generally didn’t appreciate listening to. And when it came to Karen, she had that magical ability that some women have of turning each and every topic of conversation back to herself and her own experiences.

  It was one of those things which disappointed her most about her life. She had always thought that once she became a mum herself she would easily make some brand-new friends for life. She was one of the first of her friends – such as they were – to become a mum and she had desperately wanted a mummy friend to pal around with. So she had padded out to every parent-and-toddler group going in the hope of meeting a kindred spirit. Instead she had met Karen who had been sipping tea while a two-year-old Sophie held court in the play kitchen. At first she had found Karen, with her acerbic wit, a breath of fresh air – but as time passed she realised Karen was a deeply flawed and deeply unhappy person and the absolute last person she could confide in when she needed a listening ear.

  “How are you, anyway?” Hope said, cutting through her thoughts. “Never mind me and my Very Sad Story. I guess you got the letter from Betty? Jeez, I wasn’t expecting that!”

  “Nor was I,” Ava said, glancing down again. “Although I’m very much looking forward to the prospect of toasting on the terrace.”

  “Ah!The terrace! I could die happy on that terrace. I mean, you know, hopefully I won’t because that would make for a pretty shite break for you but, Ava, it’s amazing. So beautiful that the whole world could just disappear there and then and you wouldn’t care. It’s a wee piece of heaven on earth.”

  Ava was relieved to hear that Hope’s voice had been transformed from sounding slightly anxious and edgy to having a gorgeous, dream-like quality.

  Then a fizzle of excitement shot through Ava. It was delicious and felt a little naughty but she didn’t want to try and batten it down – not one bit – and, looking at the calendar on the wall, she suddenly wished the next two weeks would whizz past and the end of term would have been and gone and she could be there feeling the warm sun of the Provence sunshine beating down on her face.

  “Oh, you make it sound so nice.”

  “Believe me,” Hope replied, “I’m not doing it justice.”

  Chapter 8

  “We’re going to go shopping today, Maisie Moo,” Ava declared happily as she struggled to get the wriggling octopus her child was doing a very good impression of into her jacket.

  “I don’t wanna go shoppin’,” Maisie huffed. “I wanna play with my fwiends.” Her lisp was cute and the protruding bottom lip verging on adorable but Ava knew she had to play this carefully. The cute and the adorable could very easily turn into a full-on screaming tantrum quite easily.

  “She can stay with me if you want,” Connor offered, his eyes drooping with sleep and his face begging her silently not to say yes. He needed his Saturday morning lie-in more than anything, what with the commute he had been putting in every weekday for the last six months.

  Occasionally Ava had thoughts that maybe, just maybe, she was exhausted too and needed a break herself. After all, when Connor was away from the wee small hours it was she who had to get up, get Maisie sorted and get the house in order before they hit the rush-hour traffic.

  Evenings were a blur of being a mammy while trying to prepare for another day in the classroom and yet when Connor practically fell through the door with exhaustion each evening she still found herself fussing round him like a mother hen.

  She was worried, so worried, that he would end up so exhausted he would drive himself off the side of the road on the Glenshane Pass one evening coming home, and she put to the back of her mind the times when she wished she could just close her eyes for ten wee seconds as she
drove over the Foyle Bridge each night on her way home.

  “No. We’ll be grand,” she said, kissing Connor on the cheek. “Sure isn’t this what mammies and their daughters do? Go for shopping trips? Besides, I really do need to get some new things before my trip to France.”

  He nodded gratefully and she knew that before her car had reached the bottom of the drive his head would be on his pillow and an unattractive puddle of drool would be starting to form.

  Maisie was fidgety by the time they reached Dunnes Stores and stood, hopping impatiently from foot to foot, while Ava riffled through a rail of linen trousers looking for something light, airy and South-of-France-y-looking.

  “Can we go to McDonald’s, Mammy?” Maisie chirped.

  “It’s only ten in the morning, sweetie, but maybe if you are good girl we can go for lunch.”

  “Okay,” she sing-songed. “Can we go to the shoe shop, Mammy?”

  “In a wee bit, darling. Let’s just finish here.”

  “Okay,” she sing-songed a little less cheerfully. She reached her chubby hand to a display of folded T-shirts and pulled one towards her which started an avalanche of coloured cotton. “Ooops, Mammy,” she muttered, her bottom lip wavering.

  “It’s okay, darling,” Ava soothed her while feeling her own cheeks start to burn. “Let’s just fold them up and it will be fine.”

  “I wanna go the bookshop,” Maisie replied, turning on her heel and heading for the exit.

  “Maisie!” Ava called, trying to maintain her composure. It was amazing. She could be cool as a cucumber in a classroom of two dozen four and five-year-olds, but one half hour in the city centre with her own child had her wishing Prozac was sold over the counter.

  Hastily folding the T-shirts and running after Maisie, she caught up with her just in time for her daughter to declare she had to go to the toilet as she jigged up and down and grabbed at her crotch.

  Having raced her to the toilets before the day was lost entirely, Ava stood over her daughter as she declared she didn’t have to go afterall and tried to remember what life was like before she was a mother. Christ, how she would have loved to have just one of those days again! Waking up after a lazy lie-in beside Connor. Having a bit of morning sex before enjoying a cooked breakfast together. Showering at her leisure. Driving to town without a soundtrack of nursery rhymes blasting in her ears before mooching around the shops. And she could go to the good shops – the shops where she didn’t go anymore for fear of a sticky hand leaving a mark on a rich wool blend. Shops which sold nice lingerie and expensive bags, not functional mammy knickers which hid her stretch-marks and Peppa Pig rucksacks for storing tiny plastic tiaras and dressing-up shoes.

  It was best she gave up on the idea of a nice wander around the shops. She would call and see her mother instead. In fact if God was good to her, her mother might just offer to mind Maisie for a couple of hours and she could come back to the shopping centre all alone. Oh, it would be bliss!

  “C’mon, Moo Moo!” she called to Maisie who was fascinated with the automatic taps in the washroom. “Let’s go and see Granny.”

  “And get a McDonald’s!” her daughter cheeped as if that was the natural end to any sentence.

  Ava’s mammy was one of those naturally maternal kind of women who children swarm to. If she had wanted to, she could have got a cracking job as the Pied Piper of Derry. When Ava and Maisie arrived at her house, Cora appeared in a haze of home-baking smells and Miss Dior perfume, smiling beatifically as her granddaughter ran into her arms.

  “Granny!” Maisie squealed as Cora swept her through to the kitchen and handed her a toddler-sized apron.

  “We have buns to ice and I might just have some Rice Krispies which need covering in chocolate.”

  Ava watched as her daughter’s eyes lit up like headlamps at the promise of icing and chocolate and no doubt Smarties. All thoughts of McDonald’s were gone. Ava kind of wished she was a child again and could slip on an apron and join in the fun herself. Her mother always had been mad for the homebaking. She was the quintessentially wonderful stay-at-home uber-mum who had a fresh cooked meal on the table each night and who kept a perfect house. Needless to say, Ava’s skills didn’t stretch quite as far and after a long day at work a couple of fishfingers served with a side order of potato waffles were about as much as she could manage.

  “Well, darling,” Cora said, as she emptied her baking cupboard of icing sugar and cooking chocolate, “how are you? Is France a goer?”

  “Yes,” Ava said excitedly, taking a seat by the kitchen window and watching her mother deftly set to work without needing to measure anything or even look down. “Ten days’ time. I was just trying to do a bit of shopping there when madam threw one of her hissy fits.”

  “Well,” Cora said, gently ruffling her granddaughter’s hair, “the town isn’t very exciting for a wee one, is it?”

  Maisie shook her head diligently. “S’not, Granny. S’not.”

  “Well, I have to get my messages done sometime,” Ava sniffed. “And it’s hard, you know.”

  Cora smiled at her daughter and at Maisie who was gazing wide-eyed into a bowl of melted chocolate. “You modern mammies. You want it all.”

  “I don’t,” Ava found herself saying. “I don’t want it all. I just want my job and my wee girl and some sense of who I am and not to feel torn in half between all of those.”

  “There’s many a woman who would be grateful for all you have. A great job and a gorgeous wee woman here. I don’t know why you tie yourself up in knots over it.”

  Ava nodded but she wished her mother understood. Then again, how could she? She never worked when Ava was little. She never knew the pressures. She wasn’t one of the generation who had been promised they could have it all.

  Ava felt the guilt of not being happy with what she had crush down on her again.

  “I know, Mum,” she said and resisted the urge to follow that with ‘but sometimes’. She knew there were times when ‘but sometimes’ didn’t cut it.

  Cora looked at her again, and then walked towards her. Ava let her mother envelop her in a big hug, closing her eyes and breathing in her familiar scent.

  “My darling, you work too hard and you try too hard. I worry about you. I know I said you should go to France – but do you feel up for it?” She pulled back and studied her daughter. “No, of course you feel up for it. It will do you good. Why don’t you head back into town and get what you need and I’ll mind this little one. And then when you are done you’ll be in better form to look after her again.”

  Ava nodded before kissing her daughter on the top of her head and heading back into town, feeling deliciously free. She would even stop at Starbucks first and drink a big old latte without having to splash out on some chocolatey creation for Maisie who would inevitably throw it all over herself before she was halfway through it. She would worry about her brownie points as a mummy later. And she would worry about whether or not her mother thought she was cutting it in the parenthood stakes later too.

  She was just allowing the warm milky coffee to warm her from the inside out when her phone rang and she lifted it.

  “Ava, where were you this morning? We missed you!” Karen breathed.

  “I’m in town,” Ava answered. “I have to get a few things for my trip to France.”

  “You booked it then? You lucky thing!” Karen squealed. “What are you buying? Please tell me you are buying lovely pretty things and not boring things like suncream and mosquito repellent.”

  “I’m shopping for pretty things. And even better, I’m on my own.”

  She heard Karen take a deep breath and she braced herself for a squeal.

  “You lucky, lucky thing! Actually why don’t you just wait there and I’ll foist Sophie off on her daddy and we can shop together. Oh Jesus, the thought of it! Proper grown-up shopping that doesn’t involve Toys ‘R’ Us or the Early Learning Centre!”

  Ava looked at her watch. “I’m kind of on the clock he
re. My mum has Maisie.”

  “Sure your mum loves the bones of Maisie. How about we meet in thirty minutes at Clarins’ counter in Debenhams. See you then, bye!”

  Ava wasn’t sure which was more difficult: shopping with Maisie or shopping with Karen. While Maisie could put on that droning whine to go somewhere more exciting like the toy shop or the food court, Karen was a like a magpie drawn towards shiny objects which she would ooh and aah over while Ava tried to direct her towards the swimwear section or the sunhat section.

  “Oh my God, look at this!” Karen declared, trying on a glittering bangle. “Oh, this is lovely! I could go for something like this. Shall I?”

  Ava glanced at her watch and back at the bangle, vaguely aware she might well be coming across as rude but counting down in her head to when she needed to be back to get her daughter and get home to her husband so they could at least give this quality time thing a go.

  “Would you calm down!” Karen chided, catching Ava’s glance. “Your family will be fine without you. You really need to learn to relax more. Let yourself go a bit. Jesus, you can’t spend your whole life walking around like you have a stick up your arse. You are out – on your own – enjoy it!”

  It shocked Ava to the core to feel tears spring to her eyes. I must not cry, she whispered internally before readjusting her features to plaster on a big fake smile. “You’re right,” she lied, because in truth she was too scared to argue with Karen. Karen looked like the kind of person who could take on anyone in a fight – and wouldn’t need much persuasion to do so.

  So Ava stood, while Karen added a shiny ring and a necklace to her haul and waited patiently until they finally headed towards the swimsuit section.