If Only You Knew

by Claire Allan

  “No,” Hope had said, shaking her head vigorously. “How could he be?He sounded a bit shell-shocked. I think it was a lot to take in all at the one go and I’m not even sure I said all the right things but he said he would get here as soon as he could.”

  Ava wished with all her might that Connor could be there right there and then and that she had told him as soon as she had even suspected she might have been pregnant, or as soon as the test had come up positive. She had wasted several days getting it right in her head without worrying about what it might feel like in his head. She wished she had spoken to him the night before and had insisted he listened to her and not just gone back into the pub to watch the end of the match. She wished, just wished, everything was different. Everything, that is, apart from the baby in her tummy.

  “I know,” Hope said, cutting through her thoughts, “I know this is hard. But you stay strong. Try and rest. As much as you can. He’ll be here soon and the doctor will be here soon and hopefully it will all be fine.”

  Ava was absolutely, knee-clenchingly, tummy-achingly desperate to go for a pee. She was also absolutely, knee-clenchingly, tummy-achingly terrified to move from the bed on which she lay. She didn’t know if she had stopped bleeding yet. She didn’t know if moving would somehow unstick the little baby in her womb. And she was sure that as soon as she disappeared, the consultant she had been waiting on for the last hour and a half would appear, see her bed was empty and put her to the back of the list.

  “I have to go to the toilet,” she whispered to Hope, who was at this stage slouched back in her chair, her eyelids drooping.

  “Go then. Do you want me to help you?”

  “But what if the doctor comes?”

  “She’ll wait, surely?”

  “I don’t know,” Ava said, tapping her fingers on the bed. “Shouldn’t she be here by now? This doctor? Shouldn’t she be right here telling me what is going on?”

  She hated living in this kind of twilight state. Of course it was lovely that for now she was still pregnant, but would she stay pregnant? The thought that she wouldn’t was almost too much to take and yet she wanted an answer. Knowing had to be easier – well, preferable anyway – to not knowing.

  “Do you want me to enquire what is happening?” Hope asked and Ava nodded meekly.

  She watched as Hope stood up and walked towards the door of the very lovely, serene little room in which she was resting and she thought about Connor. He should be on his way to the airport now, maybe even boarding his plane. She wondered what was going through his mind. Wishing that she had spoken to him, but knowing that she wouldn’t have had a notion what to say, she rested her head back on her pillow and closed her eyes. This baby would be beautiful. It would have Connor’s fair hair and remarkably long eyelashes. It would have her nose – Connor loved her nose. She could almost see the baby now, crinkled, newborn, perfect, and she felt her heart sink at the thought that she hadn’t cherished every briefsecond of morning sickness, every fatigued moment of her pregnancy.

  Brushing a tear away from her cheek hastily, she steadied herself and took a deep breath. “If ifs and ands were pots and pans . . .” she told herself before looking at the door and wishing Hope would hurry back and bring the doctor with her.

  “You have a subchorionic haematoma,” the consultant said matter of factly.“What this means is that there a large area of bleeding behind your placenta. This may go away on its own, in the best case, or it may get worse.”

  Ava stared at the screen in front of her, at the dark spot the consultant was pointing to. “If it gets worse?”

  “Then you may miscarry. Many, many women with this condition go on to deliver perfectly healthy babies – perhaps a little early.”

  “But some don’t?” Ava felt her voice shake. “Can you treat it? What can you do? What can I do?”

  “For now, you rest,” the doctor said. “We will see if the bleeding stops but I’m afraid there is nothing we can do to stop it. It must stop of its own accord. I will get you some aspirin, sometimes this helps, but the most important thing for now is to rest and try as much as you can not to worry. I know this is hard to understand, but given the amount of bleeding you have had, this is the best possible diagnosis. Baby is still there.”

  “Thank you,” Ava said, her head buzzing as she tried to take in all the information.

  The doctor patted her on the knee and with a whoosh she was gone.

  “It’s good news, isn’t it?” Hope asked. “It sounds very positive. It sounds like you are in with a good chance.”

  A good chance. Ava hadn’t wanted the doctor to let her know there would be a good chance. She had wanted her to say, in her very lovely French accent, that there was a no-doubt-about-it, 100%, without a doubt, absolute and total ‘chance’ that things would be okay and that this was just a silly little blip on the road. She didn’t want her say that it would possibly be okay, but it might not and in the meantime, all this way from home, she had to lie there and take a fecking aspirin.

  “I want to go home,” she said, petulantly.

  “You need to rest. This isn’t quite Betty’s pad, but it’s not bad either,” Hope offered.

  “I don’t mean Betty’s house. I want to go home, home – to my own house and my own doctors and my own fecking aspirin. I’ve had enough of Betty’s fecking house,” she said, equally petulantly.

  She knew how she sounded but she didn’t care. Was it the stress of last night’s revelations that had brought all this on in the first place? At that moment she was pretty sure that if she could she would walk away from France and never look back. If she could turn back time and never see the damned letter, or never agree to go to France in the first instance she would. Jesus, she thought she was getting into this for a pair of shoes – not a birth mother, a baby and a stay in hospital. Biting her lip she knew she was verging on mildly hysterical and there was a part of her which knew she should be sitting there relieved and that the doctor was right – this was the best possible outcome, given the bleeding, but her head was spinning. This talk of a subcorri-doodah wotsit meant nothing to her other than the fact that she felt completely out of control – and Ava Campbell did not like feeling even a little bit out of control.

  “When will Connor be here?” she asked Hope. “I need Connor.”

  “Soon,” Hope soothed. “Soon.”

  When Ava had dozed off Hope left again to crave another imaginary cigarette and get a breath of fresh air. Jean-Luc was still there, sitting on a green plastic bench, examining the hairs on the back of his arms. As she approached he looked up and smiled awkwardly. Smiling awkwardly back she wasn’t sure where they went from here. The last time she had seen him, an hour before, he had kissed her and she had kissed him and it had been one big, mad, delirious snog fest which had left her feeling weak at the knees. They had broken apart and she had mumbled that she had to return to Ava and he had mumbled that he understood and she had stumbled off.

  She couldn’t talk to Ava about it. Ava had more than enough on her mind and she was pretty sure that she wouldn’t have appreciated Hope wailing in, lumping herself down on the chair beside her hospital bed and telling her she had kissed a Frenchman and liked it. So she had sat, with this secret – and this sense of confusion bubbling through her about what had happened. She would have asked Jean-Luc what on earth it was all about but she was too shell-shocked. From his interest on their day out, to his coldness on the phone the day before to this passionate clinch as her cousin lay in a hospital bed, she couldn’t quite work him out.

  Staring at him again now as he looked at her with the awkward smile which made him look twenty years younger, she still wasn’t sure what to think.

  “Connor sent a message,” she said. “He’s at Dublin airport now. His flight leaves in an hour.”

  “I can pick him up from the airport and bring him here.”

  Shaking her head but smiling, Hope told him there was no need and that they had imposed on his time enou
gh.

  “No, it is not a problem,” he said, “I want to do something. And you have to stay here, I imagine, with Ava? She will need you.”

  “Yes,” Hope nodded. “But the news is good. They think she might be okay. That the baby might be okay.”

  He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. “Oh thank God,” he said. “I was worried.”

  He looked, Hope thought, with slight alarm, as though he might actually cry. Looking at him, sitting down across from him and trying to make sense of it all, she heard herself blurt out, “I just don’t get you.”

  “Get me?” he asked, confused. “What do you mean, get me?”

  “Understand you. I don’t understand you. Here you are devoting yourself to two ladies you barely know. Looking for all intents and purposes as if you genuinely care about Ava and her baby. Did you know? Do you know?”

  “You are speaking in riddles,” he said, looking more than a little perplexed.

  “About Ava and Betty?”

  “What about Ava and Betty? And you, as you say, don’t ‘get me’? I don’t get you.”

  “That Ava is Betty’s daughter? You must have known.”

  The look on his face told her that he absolutely did not know. He glanced around him, quickly, as if waiting for someone to jump out declaring he was on candid camera.

  “No,” he said, solemnly. “No . . . I did not know.”

  “I thought that was why you were so worried. That you were in on it all – this whole big story. We didn’t know until we found a letter last night.”

  “I’m not a monster,” he said, “I’m not only worried because of some big secret which I knew nothing about. I’m worried because she was scared and in pain.”

  “And you kissed me?” she asked, wanting him to tell her that he hadn’t kissed her out of some sort of sense of guilt either and that he wanted to. She knew she was verging on psycho status but she couldn’t stop herself.

  “You kissed me back,” he said.

  “I did, but I know my motives.”

  “Motives?” he said, looking pissed off. “There were no motives. No, I did not know Betty was anyone’s mother. I am waiting here because I thought you might need me. By you, I mean you and Ava. And I care about Ava and her baby because she looked so . . . distraught. And the kiss? I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you.”

  “But yesterday . . .” She knew she was annoying him with her questions but she was tired and sweaty and, she realised, scruffy. She hadn’t even had time to brush her hair that morning, simply hauling it back in a scrunchie. She had no make-up on. She was wearing a pair of loose tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt. She wasn’t even sure she had put any deodorant on that morning. She wondered why today – when she looked like she had been dragged through a hedge backwards – he had kissed her when the day before he had treated her like a business colleague and she needed to know.

  “Yesterday?”

  “You were cold. You were cold and distant and I didn’t know what to think. And I’ve been messed around, Jean-Luc, by men who don’t know what they want. So if you want something, if you want to kiss me, just kiss me. If you want to care, just care. If you want to spend time with me, just spend time with me. But don’t,” and she felt her voice shake as she said this, knowing that she was about to make a complete tit of herself but somehow being unable to stop, “don’t fuck me and leave me on the carpet.”

  She heard the words come out of her mouth and she saw the look of confusion flash across his face and she was instantly embarrassed for swearing and for being crude and for talking utter shite and she dropped her head to her hands and shook her head.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m sorry.”

  “I never left you on the carpet,” he said, his voice thick with frustration. “And I never meant to mess you around. It’s complicated.”

  “It’s always complicated,” she said, peeking through her fingers and feeling the heat from her face blaze against the palm of her hands. “I’m sorry. It’s been a strange few hours. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to think anymore.”She felt sick. God, she should have just shut up. Christ, the carpet? Had she really said that? She was mortified. There she was shouting at him as if he was Dylan and losing the run of herself altogether. “Connor is landing at six thirty-five,” she said matter of factly.

  “I’ll pick him up,” he said softly. “And I will bring him here. And maybe we can talk. When you are a little calmer.”

  And a little less mental, she chided herself. This was definitely a conversation to finish when she was a little less mental.

  Chapter 31

  Ava brushed her hair and scrubbed her face clean before rubbing some moisturiser into her skin, feeling it sting. She hadn’t cried in an hour. She actually felt strangely calm. The bleeding had eased. It was still there and she was still afraid to move, but it had definitely eased. A nurse who spoke no English whatsoever had just been in to take her temperature, check her blood pressure and fuss about something she didn’t understand. She had just nodded and that had seemed to appease the nurse and she had scurried off again, returning with a jug of iced water and an extra pillow.

  Thanking the nurse and straightening her dressing-gown, she blew her fringe from her face and sat back and glanced at the clock on the wall. Surely he would be here soon? With every new set of footsteps she heard walking down the corridor she felt her heart quicken. She just wanted to see him, and for him to hug her and tell her it was all okay, and part of her was scared shitless. What if he was hurt? What if he was upsetthat she hadn’t told him? He would be hurt that Hope knew first. And random French medical people. And a hunky Frenchman. Telling her husband should have been the first thing she did. Taking a deep breath, she exhaled slowly to steady herself. She should phone Cora too. Cora didn’t know. Cora didn’t know she was pregnant or, probably, that her big old secret had been blown apart. No, she shouldn’t phone Cora after all. She couldn’t bring herself to call her. Not now. She would focus on her baby and nothing else. If she thought about Cora too much she would get upset and angry and Lord only knows if getting upset and angry had landed her in hospital. No, she chided herself, calm thoughts.Don’t think about the lie your life has been. Don’t think about the hurt and pain you caused just through being born. Don’t think that you’ll never get to tell Betty you understand . . .

  The nurse appeared again, more animated this time, babbling nineteen to the dozen.

  Ava shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t understand,” she muttered.

  “Visitor,” the nurse said. “There is a visitor.”

  Hope stood up. “I’ll go and see. It’s probably him. I’ll check and tell them to let him in if it is.”

  “Okay.”

  “He loves you so much,” Hope said softly. “I don’t know him very well, but I know that much for sure.”

  Ava nodded, feeling slightly sick. “Okay. I know. Okay, thank you.”

  And with that Hopewas gone, just about at the time when Ava really needed her to hold her hand most of all.

  When Connor walked into the room Ava found herself speechless – which was almost unheard of for her. She always had something to say. She was famous for saying the right thing at the right time in almost every situation. No one was able to shock her into silence. Even when one of her charges in school brought in his dead hamster for show and tell she had responded with a warm smile and the appropriate kind words about little hammy having shuffled off his mortal coil. But when Connor walked in and she saw him – looking as though he had aged ten years in the five days since she had last seen him – she was speechless and she felt the tears she had been sure had run dry fill her eyes. In that second she reminded herself of one of her charges who had taken a fall in the playground. They would come round, and stay calm, but as soon as their mum arrived to pick them up all the hurt and the pain would rush out and they would dissolve into hysterics. Every part of her wanted to dissolve into hysterics. She want
ed to tell him she was sorry for not telling him as soon as she knew and for not wanting this baby more. She wanted to tell him it was okay, or maybe okay, or at least she thought it would be okay. She wanted to tell him that she wanted her mum, but she wasn’t sure who her mum was anymore. She wanted to tell him that she wished Maisie was there because she had just learned how precious children could be and she wanted her little girl as close to her as could be.

  Most of all, however, she wanted him to hold her and to soothe her and to tell her it was fine and that he loved her and their baby.

  Ava looked up, blinking back tears, and the hysterics came and he, just as she knew he would, held her and soothed her and told her she would be fine and everything would be fine and he loved her more than anything in the world.

  Wrapping his arms around her and pulling her even closer, he said, “Ava, I’m so sorry. So, so sorry about everything. Butwe’re here. You, me and this baby. And please God we’ll have this little one safe and sound. We’ll focus on that. Just focus on our baby and it will be okay. We will be okay.”

  “You don’t worry it will change anything? You’re not worried that we’re under enough pressure?” She felt stupid saying the words because she already knew that she didn’t care what pressure they were under, this baby was the most important thing of all.

  “Of course it will change everything,” he said with a laugh. “But in a good way.Another little Maisie running around? What could be better? Or madder?”

  “Cora’s not my mum,” she sniffed.

  “Yes, she is,” Connor said. “She’ll always be your mum – the person you run too. Biology doesn’t change that.”

  “Doesn’t it?” she asked, because she didn’t know the answers at all any more.

  He shook his head. “I know your mum. I’ve seen her cry on your wedding day. I’ve seen her fuss over you when you were pregnant with Maisie. I’ve seen the two of you together, lost in your own world. I’ve seen how she does your head in. Only a mother can do your head in that much.”