If Only You Knew

by Claire Allan

She pressed send and switched her phone off. She had more important things on her mind, like quietly snoozing with her husband and their teeny tiny baby and making sure everything stayed put.

  “I think it is a perfect example of post-modernism combined with a hint of the realists,” Jean-Luc said, standing back and staring at the frame on the wall with a cheeky grin on his face.

  “Indeed,” Hope said, grinning back at him before falling into a fit of the giggles. If they weren’t careful they were going to be kicked out. Already a very surly-looking man in a museum uniform had shushed them loudly as they erupted in giggles in front of a rather risqué image.

  Stepping back from the glass-framed fire evacuation sign they had been staring at, they walked towards the exit.

  “I told you I wasn’t much of a museum person,” Hope laughed as they stepped out into the open air. Her ribs hurt from laughing and she was sure her make-up was streaked across her face from rubbing the tears from her cheeks.

  “I don’t think I have ever enjoyed a museum as much,” Jean-Luc replied, directing her to towards a small café.

  She sat down and smiled as he nodded towards a waiter and ordered two coffees in an accent which made Hope feel all tingly.

  “We were a little childish, no?” he said, a smile still drawn across his face.

  He was exceptionally handsome when he smiled. When he wasn’t smiling he of course had that dark and brooding look down to a tee – which was attractive in its own right. But when he smiled, and the crow’s feet crinkled, she felt a little flutter of something more. To top this, the way he said “leetle” made her feel a little weak at the knees. It was a damn good thing she was sitting down.

  “Maybe a little,” she said, trying not to mimic his accent in case he thought she was taking the mick, “but it was fun. We should really do it again some time? Although in fairness I understand that the Ulster Museum in Belfast might be a bit of a trek for you.”

  He smiled that gorgeous smile again. “Just a leetle bit,” he responded and Hope was grateful in that moment that a waiter arrived, bearing two cups of coffee, because she might just have been tempted to haul him over the table, snog him senseless and demand he let her take a picture of his naked feet to put on her Facebook profile.

  They had met just over an hour before. After she had left Louis’ shop, she had wandered round the market stalls buying souvenirs. She had stood, with a ring on each finger at a gaudy costume jeweller’s and had smiled as she paid for each and every one of them. They would come with her on her travels, she decided. She would ask Dylan if he wouldn’t mind storing her stuff until she thought of what to do with it but there were certain items which absolutely were not going to be left behind – such as her collection of jewelled flip-flops, her rings and her bangles. She would look stylish at every turn and, she decided, she would even invest in one of those dinky little netbooks so she could file copy back to whoever wanted to buy travel columns and keep updated with her life back at home. The world didn’t have to be a lonely place even if she was travelling on her own. Walking around the market, she felt completely at ease as she also had done as she wandered the streets of Marseille to get to the museum. She knew she was positively beaming by the time she was joined by Jean-Luc.

  “Have we time to go in?” she had asked him, batting her eyelids and not actually caring if he flirted back.

  He looked at his watch. “Mais oui,” he replied before guiding her inside. “You seem happier today, Hope.”

  She cringed a little as she knew what he really meant was that she seemed less volatile. She was definitely less of a crazy woman and more confident in herself. It was amazing what a good talking-to via the letters of a dead aunt and a good half hour under the shower with Jo Malone could do for a girl.

  They had walked around slowly, chatting and smiling, their conversation becoming easier as they went, until they were holding their sides laughing by the emergency exit. Now sitting by the port with a latte in her hand, Hope felt herself relax completely.

  “Oh I needed this,” she said, sipping from her coffee and of course by ‘this’ she didn’t mean the coffee. More the chance to relax and have a laugh and not think about doomed crushes on housemates or the feet of their girlfriends. It was okayto think of Jean-Luc’s feet. She imagined them to be a rare breed – non-scary-looking man feet. His would have no curling toes, no jutting bones and no masses of hair. There would be not one trace of a manky yellow toenail. He probably had pedicures. He struck her as the metrosexualtype.

  “If I may be so bold, you seemed a leetle down yesterday,” he said, his eyebrow raised just slightly.”

  “By ‘down’ you mean ‘mad’?” She laughed, feeling her face redden. “I am so sorry about that. It wasn’t you.”

  “Well, I certainly know it wasn’t me on the carpet if that is what you mean. You confuse me, Hope. You let your guard down sometimes. I know there is something else troubling you though. Someone troubling. The man from the carpet?”

  He was perceptive. Perceptive and handsome. With nice feet. She liked him.

  Biting her lip, she looked straight into his eyes. “I’m so sorry for dragging you into my sad story. Let’s just say you bore the brunt of my frustration. To tell you it all would take a long time and wouldinvolve me making an eejit of myself.”

  “Eejit?” he asked, puzzled.

  She liked how the word sounded in his accent, how it rolled off his tongue. She very much enjoyed the look of bafflement.

  “Oh, ‘idiot’,” she said. “I have made an idiot of myself.”

  “We all make mistakes,” he offered.

  “You’ve not heard my story yet.”

  “But I have, how did you say it, borne the brunt of it?”

  “Do you really want to know?” she asked, figuring that, at least, he deserved an explanation.

  “I have time.”

  So she began to talk. She told him about her first day at university. She told him how she had been made to feel a part of Dylan’s family. She told him about the unsuccessful Christmas snog and the holiday hump that was never to be spoken about again. She told him about them moving in together, and her growing sense of loneliness, and of course her growing dependence on Dylan for any form of contact. She told him about Cyndi, and about the feet, and about her earlier phonecall and the flirtation and the sleeping together. He listened intently, interrupting only every now and again to ask a question or to ask her to repeat herself when he had trouble deciphering her accent. On more than one occasion he had reached over and rubbed her arm reassuringly. He had not even one bit minded when she had found herself choked with emotion and had let a tear or two fall.

  When Hope had finished talking she was spent – wrecked, if the truth be told – and longing for a glass of wine.

  “You deserve happiness,” he had said, simply. “And you will get it.”

  There was a sadness in his eyes which made her think he had a similar sad story, but she was almost afraid to ask him. Still, she felt they had bonded. Sure hadn’t she just told him how she had spent the last few years falling in love with someone who was never, ever going to love her back?

  “And you, are you not happy?”

  “What makes you ask that?”

  “Just a hunch that maybe there is more to you than meets the eye. Just, well, you say I run hot and cold but you seem guarded too, sometimes. And then sometimes you are lovely.”

  “Which am I now?” he asked, reaching for his coffee cup and sipping from it.

  “Lovely. But, you know, yesterday we kissed and then we were back to business again. And today you are lovely again.”

  “You like that word, ‘lovely’,” he said with a smile and set his coffee cup back on the table.

  He said no more and she knew she was maybe pushing him. She didn’t want to come across all demanding and needy again so she just smiled and said yes, sure wasn’t lovely a lovely word anyway and there was no harm in using it.

  “I like t
he way you say it,” he said before draining his cup and offering to take her home.

  “Thanks – that would be great.”

  “Or if you like you can go to the hospital?”

  “Ava has texted and she is resting. I’ll go and see her tomorrow. Home is fine,” she said, feeling slightly frustrated that she couldn’t draw anything out of him after she had bared her soul.

  “I’m not him,” he said as she got up to walk to the car. “And I’m not always lovely.”

  “Him?”

  “The kind of man who would lead someone on. A man like Dylan. I don’t work like that. But I am not perfect.”

  She wanted to kiss him there and then, to put her hand to his face, to feel his skin on her skinbut she just wasn’t sure how he would take it. Instead she said what was in her heart.

  “Perfect is overrated and I know that you are nothing like him.”

  Hope had known all along that there was going to be a ‘moment’ when they reached the villa. It wasn’t, she had known with absolute clarity, going to be like it was the last time he had dropped her back to the house. He wasn’t going to drive off. He was going to kiss her and she was going to let him. While he had beena great friend to her all afternoon, she had also been aware of the growing fizz of attraction between them. It was strange, she thought as she stared out of the car at the winding road on the way to the villa, how she knew it. It wasn’t like with Dylan when she had played 101guessing games with herself. If he had phoned her within an hour of going to work she had convinced herself he was mad for her. If he had kissed her on the top of the head as he walked to put his mug and plate in the sink she had told herself it was obvious he was fighting theurge to throw her onto the kitchen floor and have his wicked way with her. When he went away with friends for the weekend and texted her at two in the morning with some garbled message she couldn’t even decipher she had kidded herself it was a declaration of never ending love.

  Of course that had been bullshit. But with Jean-Luc she knew there was something. Okay, so he was still being guarded but she knew where he was coming from and she knew that he was interested in some way. She knew that he wouldn’t hurt her but she wasn’t under any illusions either. She wasn’t mad enough to convince herself he was madly in love with her but she knew, as sure as eggs are eggs, that he was going to kiss her.

  She was so sure, in fact, that when he stopped the car a few hundred yards from the house and looked over at her she silently thanked Jesus, Mary and the Wee Donkey that she was already sitting down because if she had not been sat firmly on her seat she was sure her legswould give out from under her.

  “I have had a lovely afternoon.” he said. “I don’t want to be presumptuous but . . .”

  “You’re not.” She looked him deep in the eyes and then her eyes were drawn to his lips.

  “Good,” he said, gently cupping her face in his hands and kissing her so softly that she felt as if she were floating.

  “Will you come in for coffee?” she asked, knowing that she was being a bit forward and knowing that it was not really coffee she was offering.

  “Yes,” he said, without hesitation. “I would like that very much.”

  They were no sooner through the door than the pretence that they were going to have coffee was gone entirely. She closed the front door and turned to find him so close to her that she could feel his breath on her face. She closed her eyes and felt his hands on her waist, pulling her close to him. Her eyes still closed, Hope tilted her head to his and felt the first soft brush of his lips on hers. It was then she realised just how fast her heart was thumping and just how much she wanted this. Nothing else mattered as his kiss deepened. Nothing else even crossed her mind as his hands slid up from her waist until they were caressing her – her hair, her face, her breasts. She felt herself gasp with pleasure – sheer unadulterated pleasure with no ulterior motives and no grand plan – and she gave in to exactly what she was feeling right there and then on the living room floor but this time, when they were both sated, he didn’t get up and walk away. He just kissed her, gently on the nose, and told her she was amazing.

  Chapter 34

  “You can go home,” the doctor said, putting the scanner away. “Baby seems to be happy.The clot has not got any bigger and, if you continue to take aspirin, it may well disperse. I am happy to discharge you if you are happy to go.”

  Ava felt herself smile. Another twenty-four hours with no bleeding had been such a relief. Admittedly she had barely moved from her hospital bed bar a short walk around the grounds and the occasional shuffle to the ensuite bathroom. Every time she had made to move, Connor had jumped to attention and offered to fetch whatever it was she wanted.

  On one occasion she’d had to tell him that much as she appreciated his attention there were some things which he absolutely could not do for her, such as pee or brush her teeth.

  “I’m only trying to look after you,” he said in a mock huff before settling back down into his chair and letting her get on with her ablutions.

  As she stood in the bathroom she smiled – in a strange way it had been nice to spend some time with Connor. Okay, so when it came to second honeymoons a couple of days in a French hospital had not been top of her list but now that they were there – just the two of them – it had been quite nice.

  They had talked about it the night before as they lay side by side in their twin beds chatting. “I don’t remember the last time we did this,” Connor had said.

  Ava had pulled a face. She was pretty sure they had never done this before. “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Talked into the wee small hours. Don’t you remember when we were first together and we would sit up all night talking?”

  “I’m pretty sure talking was not the only thing we did,” Ava said with a smile, remembering the nights when it felt as if they just couldn’t get enough of each other.

  “Yes, well, that was good too and, you know, if ever there is a time when you feel like repeating that particular kind of behaviour and you are medically able to do the same then I’m your man,” he said with a laugh. “But don’t you remember, those nights where we just couldn’t sleep until we knew as much about each other as we could and how it didn’t seem like any time had passed before we were watching the sunrise and wondering where the night went?”

  Ava nodded. Those were memories she looked back on time and time again – memories which reminded her why and how much she loved him. “When did we stop that?” she said softly. “I remember thinking we would never stop that and that we would always be just like that – the couple who talked all night and couldn’t get enough of each other and would never want to stop holding hands.”

  “God, I don’t know,” he said softly, turning over in his bed and reaching out his hand to hers. “I suppose life gets in the way. If we stayed up all night now we would be pulverised the next day with our exceptionally enthusiastic daughter and I would never survive the drive to Belfast and back. And you know those kids who rely on you to teach them the very basics? They would sense your weakness and they would bring you down!” He said the last sentence in a deep American accent as if he were doing a voiceover for a movie trailer.

  It made her laugh so loud that she snorted. Jesus, she realised, even though it was one of the most unattractive sounds in the world she couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed until she snorted. But she was pretty sure that had been with Connor too. That’s why they had worked. That’s why they had fallen in love, because they could always, always, make each other laugh but somewhere along the line that faded, or got broken or got put on the back burner.

  “I love you,” she said softly when she had stopped laughing.

  “And I love you too. You know that, don’t you? And all the stopping talking all night and being grumpy and stressed has never ever meant I love you any less.”

  “I know,” she said. “And I’m sorry too, for being grumpy and boring.”

  He laughed. “I ha
dn’t noticed.”

  “You’re a terrible liar, Mr Campbell,” she said, squeezing his hand gently.

  “But I’m not lying about this. I do love you and I’m just sorry it took something like this to get us talking again.”

  “This isn’t so bad,” Ava said, feeling buoyed with a new-found confidence. “This could still end well. We can make this work and at least we have had the chance to finally sit down and be together.”

  “We’ll do it more often,” Connor said. “Not necessarily in a hospital setting. I can think of better places, but we will do it. And we’ll even bring Maisie and we’ll get out of our boring, stick-in-the-mud routines.”

  “That sounds like a very good plan indeed,” Ava said, turning to kiss him softly.

  Most of the night was spent talking, talking and making plans. Ava was relieved that Connor felt much the same way that she did – that things just absolutely had to change.

  “But can we afford it? If I cut my hours, or stay at home with the kids? Could we manage?”

  “We can cut back – somewhere. We’ll move house if we have to – downsize if necessary. Or I’ll work more hours.”

  “No,” Ava said, the last thing she wanted was Connor under any more pressure. It wouldn’t help anyone at all if he was even more tired than he already was. “You are under enough stress. Could you get work back nearer home? Get rid of the commute? And I’ll get a part-time job. I’m sure my mother would help out. If it was a few hours?”

  Connor sighed. “I don’t know. There isn’t much work around at the moment. But I’ll look, or see if I can work from home for a bit? Or just get a different job, flipping burgers or whatever. We’ll do what we need to be together and to make this work.”

  Ordinarily this kind of talk would have sent Ava into a fit of anxiety. The ifs and buts. The talk of moving from her beloved house in the suburbs. The thought of asking her mother for helpnormally made her want to boke but part of her figured Cora would owe her a favour or two these days. The talk of changing from the career she had trained for and worked hard at usually made her want to run for the hills but now, she thought, lying in the dark, it was different. What had Betty said? That sometimes you take the scenic route to get to where you are meant to be? Maybe the last ten years had been the scenic route and this baby was her way of getting where she actually was meant to be. And where she was meant to be was a happier place where she wasn’t constantly second-guessing herself or feeling torn between all the people she thought she was meant to be. Lying in the bed she realised this was the first time she had thought of Betty fondly – not that she had hated her. She just didn’t know what to feel, but two days and a near miscarriage and talking to Connor into the wee small hours made her realise that Betty hadn’t meant to hurt her. Betty hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. No one had. The past was the past and she couldn’t change it. She would just have to learn to live with it and accept it. Connor was right. She was still who she always was.