If Only You Knew

by Claire Allan

  Hope stopped dancing and looked ather new lover. “You knew? You knew about the house and the inheritance?”

  “Not all the details. Just some. But even though she is gone I wouldn’t dare cross Betty. She made me vow to keep it to myself. She made me promise. I knew if I broke her promise that she would come back and haunt me.”

  Hope thought of the letter, the letter she had in her room for Jean-Luc and she laughed again. Yes, Betty definitely always could come back to haunt someone. “You know,” she said with a wink, “I think she has. Hang on.”

  Padding to her room, her heart still thumping and her mind still racing, she delved into the bedside table and pulled out the envelope. Strangely she felt jealous as she looked at the envelope. To the best of her knowledge she had seen her last letter from Betty. Jean-Luc was still to delve into her aunt’s world. Holding the letter to her, she breathed in and tried to imagine Betty writing it – trying to imagine the comfort her aunt had felt from putting these words together in her last few months.

  The cheering gone from her head and her heart, she sat on the bed and whispered,“I will make you proud, Betty. I’ll come back here every year and every year I’ll make you proud. Thank you.”

  Walking back to the living room she found Connor and Ava were alone. “He’s gone down to the pool,” Ava said, gently. “He seemed a little overwhelmed.”

  “I think we are all a little overwhelmed,” Hope said, suddenly aware she was still wearing a vintage ball gown and that she was a little squiffy, although in fairness the contents of Betty’s letter had done a good job in sobering her up.

  “I’d better go down there,” she said, to herself as much as to anyone else.

  “Good luck,” Ava said gently and Hope turned and walked into the night air, following the flickering light of the tealights down the steps towards the pool where Jean-Luc was sitting, looking over the water.

  He turned to look at her silently, shrugging his shoulders as she gestured towards him with the letter.

  “I was not expecting this,” he said softly.

  “None of us were expecting any of this,” Hope said, as she handed him the letter. “Perhaps I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Non,” he said, “Please stay. Please.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I’ll stay.”

  “Okay,” he said, carefully opening the letter and unfolding it.

  He laughed and then breathed in deeply as he read what Betty had written, before handing the letter to Hope.

  My darling Jean-Luc,

  You know how I love you. You know how you are like the son I never had. Well, you know I would never hurt you and only want good things for you. Please heed my advice on this one – and I hope I’m not way off target (but somehow I think I’m right on this).

  She is not Luisa. Trust her. Allow yourself to love again. And please don’t hurt her.

  With all my love,

  Betty

  x

  Chapter 37

  Hope and Ava were sitting on the terrace eating breakfast. Connor had said he would leave them to their girly chatter and had disappeared inside with a book in his hand. Jean-Luc would drive Hope to the airport. Ava and Connor would be taking the hire car. Ava had known there was no point in trying to persuade Hope to come with them. She might have been pretty self-absorbed the last few days but she knew enough to realise that Jean-Luc had changed her friend in a million ways. She didn’t look sad anymore and when she spoke of Dylan she didn’t have a pained expression on her face. That, Ava reckoned, was a good thing. They had wandered back from the pool the night before lost in each other and that morning they had been lost in their own conversation wandering around the pool together, chatting animatedly.

  “I take it you will see him again?” Ava asked.

  Hope smiled. “One day at a time, sweet Ava. But yes, I think so. He’s been longing for a break for a while. He devoted so much of his life to caring for his father and then for Betty. He said there is nothing holding him back now. He’s going to join me for some of my travels.”

  “So you are going to travel then?”

  Hope nodded confidently. “Without a doubt. I’ve nothing stopping me now. And with a companion who actually wants to be with me. Yes, short of a major catastrophe I’ll be travelling. But you will stay in touch, won’t you? I don’t want to sound like a desperate primary three but – you will still be my friend?”

  “Of course,” Ava laughed, reaching out to hug her cousin. “Of course I will. How could I not? After all we’ve been through? It’s been something!”

  “It sure has,” Hope said, clinking her mug against Ava’s. “It sure has.”

  Opening her eyes she breathed out just as the taxi pulled up to that little terraced house on the outskirts of Belfast. Hope had been replaying the last moments she had spent with Jean-Luc, how he had kissed her and told her to never, ever feel she didn’t deserve the very best ever again. She had felt as if she were floating on air as he had promised to stay in touch and arrange their first trip. That said, as the taxi man barked the fare at her in a broad Belfast accent and she scrambled through her purse for what little sterling she had stashed away and thought of walking through the front door that wasn’t really hers any more, she felt grounded back to earth with a bang.

  “Keep the change,” she smiled at the taxi man who looked down at the notes she had pressed into his hand and grunted.

  “I’ll be careful not to spend it all in the one shop, will I, love?”

  She had half a notion to tell him to shag off but decided not to. Soon enough she would be away from Belfast and grumpy taxi-drivers so instead she just smiled at him and said “I guess so” before hauling her case out of the boot unassisted and walking to her front door.

  It was mid-afternoon and she knew Dylan and – by default Cyndi – should be in. Whether or not they would be up would be another matter but nonetheless they would be there. She shivered at the notion she might well walk in on them in the act, but she reminded herself that for now at least this was still her house.

  Walking in, she knew things had changed. There were new cushions on the sofa. New tea and coffee canisters sat on the worktops and the fug of a cheap airfreshener swamped her. On the mantelpiece, where it had every right to be, was a picture of Dylan and Cyndi. Thankfully it was of their faces and not their feet. She sat on the sofa, looked around her, sensed how things had changed and smiled. Different didn’t need to be bad. Different didn’t need to be scary.

  She walked through the kitchen and switched on the kettle, instinctively reaching for the cupboard where Dylan kept his not-so-secret stash of chocolate. Reaching in, she pulled out a packet of cream crackers and a Milky Bar. This must be the work of Cyndi, she thought, as the kettle started to whistle. Dylan and she didn’t eat plain biscuits, let alone crackers. And as for white chocolate? Fuck that! White chocolate was for wimps, or Ballymena folk. Eyeing the bar with the disgust it deserved before throwing it to the back of cupboard, she dropped a tea bag into a mug and opened the fridge to find a carton of skimmed milk staring back at her – mocking her even. No, she definitely needed to leave. Then again she desperately needed a cup of tea so she poured the watery anaemic-looking liquid into her cup before topping it up with boiling water.

  She was just swearing at how “someone” (being Cyndi with a Y and a fecking I) had rearranged the cutlery in the drawer, when she heard his voice behind her.

  “Want to make me one?”

  She turned to see him smile and in that instant every second of their friendship flashed through her mind.

  “For old times’ sake?” she said.

  He shrugged. “Surely old times’ sake requires something stiffer than a cup of tea?”

  “It’s a bit early for drinking,” she said.

  “But it isn’t too early for chocolate biscuits,” he offered, delving into the back of her cupboard. “I hope you don’t mind. I used this as a bit of a hiding space. Had to keep Cyndi happy.”
<
br />   She smiled and took two biscuits from the packet.

  “You’re really going to go, aren’t you?” he said.

  “I think I already have,” she said. Part of her – but just a small part which lived right next to her ego – wanted him to start begging her not to go while declaring his undying love for her, but a bigger part just wanted him to be happy for her.

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” he said, “But I understand. I wish it could have been different.”

  “I don’t,” Hope replied confidently. “There was a time I did – about a week ago – but I suppose if you and I were going to work, we would have worked a long time ago. And Cyndi, well, she’s not so bad . . . for a countrywoman . . . and she makes you happy.”

  “She does,” he said with a smile.

  “That’s fine then,” she smiled back. “But if you could wait till I’m fully moved out before you ‘christen’ my bedroom then that would be good.”

  The smirk on his face told her she should have laid down that particular ground rule before she went away.

  “You will be okay, won’t you?” he asked as she sat at the table.

  “I’ll be better than okay. Have you time for me to tell you about someone special? And about my very mad aunt, her lovely house and my new-found inheritance?”

  He smiled, sat down opposite her and said, “For you, my only Hope, I always have time.”

  Ava walked up the path to her mother’s house, bone-tired from the flight and feeling more than a little nervous. So nervous in fact that she felt sick to her stomach. Which could, of course, be morning sickness which would be a comfort. Or it could be because she was going to come face to face with her mother for the first time since she learned the truth about her birth.

  She had spoken to Cora on the phone earlier – it had all been very matter of fact and typically Ava – filled with making arrangements and plans. Cora had booked her an appointment for the following day and had offered to keep Maisie so that Connor could go with her. She had even offered to keep Maisie overnight to allow Ava to recover from travelling and to ensure she could take it easy, but Ava couldn’t wait. She had to see her daughter again – she had to feel her soft little body in her arms and smell the Johnson’s baby shampoo from her hair and feel her soft breath on her face. And she had to see Cora again and tell her that she was her mum and always would be.

  “Remember you’re not to lift her,” Connor warned.

  “Mum?” Ava asked, jolted from her thoughts

  “Maisie, you banana,” Connor said softly. “You’re not to lift Maisie. But don’t lift your mum either.”

  She smiled, half-heartedly, her heart thudding.

  “We’ll be okay, won’t we?” she asked, looking to him for reassurance.

  “You, Cora, Maisie, Me, Shrimp Baby . . . yes, we will all be okay.”

  She reached up and kissed him, then knocked on the door, knowing that really there was no need as Cora would have been standing in the hall, patiently, or impatiently, waiting for the knock.

  Her worry lifted a little as she heard the clatter of her daughter running down the hall screaming, “Mammy! Daddy! Mammy! Daddy!”

  Ava felt her heart contract with love. And as her mother opened the door and she saw her, her heart contracted further.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered and Cora fell into her arms crying.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Enough of sorry,” Ava said. “Everyone has said sorry too many times now. We’ll just move on.”

  And now, hearing her daughter run towards her, she offered a silent prayer of thanks to Betty and to her mum, who was always going to be her mum, and looked down at her fabulous deep-purple shoes.

  “Love you, Betty,” she whispered as she watched her husband scoop Maisie into his arms before ordering Ava herself to the softest chair in the house where he placed her rosy-cheeked girl on her knee and she smothered her in kisses.

  “I love you, baby,” she said. “I love you so much.”

  “My love you too,” Maisie chirped, covering Ava’s face in sticky kisses. “My love you all the way to the moon!”

  Chapter 38

  One year later

  The wisteria had grown a little taller and the lavender seemed to smell a little stronger.Maisie jumped onto the gravel of the drivewayand shouted, “We’re here, we’re here! Look, Mammy! It’s our happy holiday home! Look, Mammy, we’re here!”

  Ava smiled as she climbed out of the car and lifted her daughter.

  “We sure are! Isn’t it lovely? Look at all the flowers.”

  “Down, Mammy, down,” Maisie wriggled. “I see a butterfly. Look, Mammy. Look at its wings!” She pelted off towards the garden, skipping as she went, the exhaustion from the journey having passed with the excitement of reaching their final destination.

  “I’ll get her,” Connor said, smiling and chasing after their daughter. “You get Toots there out of the car and bring her inside and I’ll follow!”

  “Yes, boss,” Ava smiled, opened the back door of their hire car and reached in to unclip the car seat where baby Beth was sleeping soundly, her rosebud lips closed in a perfect pout and her long eyelashes fluttering softly onto her cheeks. She had been great through the journey – Ava hadn’t been sure, having never travelled with an infant before but at four months old Beth was already proving to be a great traveller. She had smiled at the lady at the check-in desk in Belfast, slept throughout the flight apart from waking for a quick feed and had snoozed as they drove through the countryside to Betty’s house. Ava stroked her cheek – she looked deliciously cute in her romper suit and sunhat. It was hard to believe all the drama they had been through just one year before, right in this very house.

  To think they hadn’t even been sure Beth would make it, but here she was, a perfect little bundle of contentment. At least she was content most of the time – and that was good enough for Ava and Connor.

  “We found out about you here,” Ava whispered to her sleeping baby as she carried the car seat to the big oak door which was slightly ajar. “This feels like your first home,” she said, pushing the door open and calling her hellos.

  “We’re through on the terrace,” she heard Hope’s voice carry back as she set the car seat down on the new leather sofa, which didn’t look a patch on the tweed chair, and unstrapped baby Beth who stayed blissfully asleep and curled up on her mammy’s shoulder. Ava could hear the sound of Connor and Maisie chasing each other and giggling in the garden and she thought how nice it was that this house was finally ringing with the sound of a child’s laughter. Betty would have been proud, she smiled, carrying her baby through the French doors to be greeted by a smiling Hope and a grinning Jean-Luc.

  “Bonjour et bienvenue,” Hope trilled, running to hug her cousin. “Oh my God. Is this Beth? Well, of course it’s Beth! Who else would it be?”

  Ava proudly handed her daughter over and Hope gazed at the sleeping baby who decided to have a little fuss before nestling into the crook of her arm.

  “She’s just even more delightful in real life! Look at those squishy cheeks! Oh my, you make beautiful babies, Ava Campbell! And where’s the other one?”

  “Still chasing butterflies,” Ava said with a sigh. “She’ll be in soon.” She reached over to kiss her cousin again while Jean-Luc bided his time in the background. “You look well,” she said, “Travelling obviously agrees with you.”

  “And motherhood obviously agrees with you. I’ve brought a couple of those dresses in case you feel you can try them on this time.”

  Ava laughed. There was no way she was telling Hope that her looking so well was down to a pair of extra-strength support knickers and good fake tan applied two nights before. “I’m happy with my purple shoes,” she said.

  “Sit down, ladies,” Jean-Luc said. “It is so nice to see you both together again.”

  Ava noticed he was looking more at Hope than at her as he spoke. Kissing him on the cheek, she smiled. “Sure it’s only been a ma
tter of weeks since you saw this one. You can’t have missed her too much!”

  Jean-Luc smiled and kissed Hope on the top of the head. “I always miss her when I’m not with her and we’re not off on one of our adventures.”

  “Where’s next then?” Ava asked, as Jean-Luc poured a glass of champagne.

  “America next. New York. Not quite so off the beaten track as Tanzania or Vietnam but we fancy a little luxury,” Hope replied.

  “Sounds blissful,” Ava said.

  “If your cousin is true to form we will spend the entire time walking the streets and uncovering hidden treasures.”

  “It wouldn’t be suitable for my readers if we didn’t dig a little deeper,” Hope said. “Which reminds me. Ava, there’s going to be a book! Okay, so it will be a small print run and it’s not likely to set the bestsellers list alight – but there is going to be a book!”

  Hope looked so excited that Ava felt excited for her too. “Based on your columns?”

  “And a little more! It started last year, actually. I took Betty’s lead and started to write a few letters to myself. I thought maybe that would be it – that there would just be one or two but Ifound I quite liked it. I pitched them, along with the travel ideas, to a publisher and well, there you go. A book on the way!”

  “That’s amazing,” Ava said, genuinely proud. “You must be delighted.”

  “Over the moon. I’m going to dedicate the book to Betty’s memory. Wasn’t quite ready to go the whole hog and, you know, name a baby after her,” she said, nodding towards the sleeping Beth, “but I figured a book dedication would impress her.”

  “She would have made everyone she knew buy a copy,” Jean-Luc said. “There would never be any book like it in her eyes.”