If Only You Knew Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1 Ava

  Chapter 2 Hope

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38 One year later

  Chapter One - What Becomes of the Broken

  Chapter Two - What Becomes of the Broken H

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names,

  characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the

  author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Ebook Published 2012

  by Poolbeg Press Ltd

  123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle

  Dublin 13, Ireland

  E-mail: [email protected]

  www.poolbeg.com

  © Claire Allan 2011

  Copyright for typesetting, layout, design, ebook

  © Poolbeg Press Ltd

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781781990155

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  www.poolbeg.com

  About the author

  Claire Allan lives in Derry with her husband Neil and her children Joseph and Cara. By day she maintains her mild-mannered reporter persona at the offices of the Derry Journal and by night she loves writing, reading, trying to bake the perfect cupcakes and singing her heart out with Encore Contemporary Choir. She recently had a premature mid-life crisis and bought a pair of skinny jeans and got a tattoo. It’s very subtle, though. Honest.

  If Only You Knew is Claire’s fifth novel. You can find out more about Claire at www.claireallan.com or you can follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

  Acknowledgements

  This is always the tricky part, because I’m always afraid I’ll forget someone or offend someone or make an eejit of myself but nonetheless there are people out there who have helped me make this book what it is and they need thanking.

  First of all, my family – my husband and most especially my children who didn’t mind (too much) when they gave me up for a few months of intense rewrites. I love you so very much, and I promise to make it up to you all. Thanks for being loving, entertaining, supportive and inspiring.

  My parents and my siblings – thank you for cheering me on – especially Mammy and Daddy who picked me up on more than one occasion and helped me stay focused.

  To those friends who read, supported, laughed, raged and cried – or just said “You can do it” – thank you. As always love to Vicki, Fionnuala, my Auntie Raine, Erin and Catherine who held my hand, dried my tears and made me laugh. For those of you who poured me drinks, a special thanks.

  Thanks to my colleagues at the Derry Journal and Johnston Press NI.

  As always my fellow writers have helped me more than they probably know. To those special people who offered their support and advice without hesitation – thank you. To my fellow Northern Girls – thank you. Especially thanks to Fionnuala (aka Fiona Cassidy) who was always on the end of the phone and, despite being exceptionally busy in her own life, took the time to gee me on. She deserves a medal. Also very special thanks to Shirley Benton who just cheered me on – which meant a lot.

  Thanks go to all my Facebook and Twitter friends – and all the fans who have got in touch and shared this journey with me. Thanks to Francesca Norris for helping me find the perfect name for the book – it really suits it so well.

  This year I’ve also had the added support and friendship of my fellow singers from Encóre Contemporary Choir. Yes, I know . . . me, who can’t sing . . . in a choir! The laugh of it! But, as it turns out, all I needed was someone to help me find my voice and my new friends have helped me find that, on and off the stage. Tomy wee Sop 2 crew and to all the men and women who make it brilliant – not to mention our committee (Marie-Louise, Bernie, Lisa and Emmet) – thank you all. “Lean On Me” will happen sometime . . .

  At this stage I usually thank my agent – but a simple thank-you this time is not enough. Ger, thank you sincerely from the bottom of my heart. You know we have been on quite a journey with this one – and you have been my cheerleader and my friend and you always had faith in me and my writing. Let’s indeed get this show on the road. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  And to all at Poolbeg – thank you again for guiding me on this journey. Special thanks go to Paula Campbell whose never-ending faith, guidance and support have made this book what it is. Yes, we will laugh about it one day. As always thanks also to Gaye Shortland – who has the keenest eye and the sharpest wit in the business.

  Finally thanks to all booksellers, book buyers, book borrowers, librarians (especially all at Libraries NI) for your support, friendship and feedback. None of it is taken for granted.

  For Neil, Joseph and Cara

  Love you so pretty

  xxx

  Chapter 1

  Ava

  Standing in the middle of the fresh-produce aisle in Tesco, Ava took a deep breath and hoped that God would grant her the strength to get all the way around to the tinned-goods aisle – and eventually through the check-out and on her way home – without losing her mind entirely.

  Maisie had insisted she was much too big a girl for the trolley and was currently running rings round the carrots, flapping her wings behind her and declaring that she was a butterfly.A few people had smiled indulgently at the child as she twirled while a perfectly preened thirty-something had tutted loudly and muttered that children should be left at home if they couldn’t behave well in public.

  Ava wanted to bite back with something witty and cutting but she was too busy trying to remember whether or not they needed onions, what it was Connor had asked her to pick up for him and whether or not she had locked up her classroom before leaving work for the day.

  Instead, even though she knew it was childish, she pulled a face at Ms Perfect and took Maisie by the arm and tried to persuade her to help by selecting a few apples for their trolley. It was all going so well until Maisie belted off at lightning speed, reaching out one chubby little hand to the most precarious apple on the bottom of the pile and set off an avalanche ofPink Ladies which gave Ms Perfect the chance to do the very loudest tut in her repertoire before stepping over the apples and heading on her way. Ava felt like crying as she wrestled a
n indignant Maisie back into the trolley and set about picking the apples up and stocking them back in the display before anyone suggested she pay for the lot of them.

  She would need a drink when she got home. A big, cold, alcoholic drink. In a big glass. Maybe one of those feckers which held an entire bottle.

  Putting the last apple in place, she took a deep breath just as she heard Maisie squeal a momentous “Mammmeeeeee!” before toppling head first out of the trolley and landing with a scream on the floor.

  A&E hadn’t been very busy, thankfully, and they had been whisked through triage and onto X-ray relatively quickly. Ava had been tempted to ask the doctors if there was any chance of some mildly mind-altering painkillers to help her escape from the headache which was building in her head and the coronary she had no doubt was building somewhere around her heart.

  She had phoned Connor, while Maisie screamed blue murder in the background, and had tried to assure him it was okay and it was only a mild trolley-jumping accident and she was pretty sure no bones were broken in the process. She didn’t tell him that Maisie had saved herself from splitting her head open by breaking the fall with her hand. He had sighed deeply, and said he would meet her at the hospital. The staff at Tesco had been more than lovely, bringing an icepack and telling her not to worry about abandoning her half-filled trolley but she had been mortified anyway. And worried, of course. Maisie’s wrist was starting to swell and bruise and she couldn’t be consoled. The dream of a glass of wine slipped further and further away. When the doctor returned to their cubicle and said the injury was no more than a bad sprain, which would require strapping and some pain relief, Ava felt herself finally sag with relief and tears sprang to her eyes.

  Maisie looked up, now doped up on Calpol with her eyes drooping, and Ava felt like the worst mother in the world for feeling frustrated and angry at how the whole situation had developed. Maisie had just been overexcited after a day at nursery. She had been excited to see her mammy and had gone into hyper mode. She hadn’t been naughty – she was just being a typical almost-three-year-old, but Ava hadn’t been in the form for it – not after a long week at work.Maybe if she had paid more attention this wouldn’t have happened. She would have to try harder. Guiltily, she tearfully kissed her daughter on the head and assured her she loved her all the way to the moon and back.

  Eventually Connor popped his head around the curtain, looking equally as frazzled, tired and fecked-off as she felt.

  “I drove as fast as I could,” he said, “but you know what it’s like trying to get out of Belfast at this time of the evening. Is she okay?”

  “A bad sprain,” Ava said looking down at a now sleeping Maisie. “She’ll be fine. They’ve given her painkillers and are going to strap her wrist up.”

  “Thank God,” he said, sitting down on the plastic chair beside his wife and sagging with relief.

  Both of them eyed a trolley-bed opposite them and Ava wondered what it would be like to just climb under the harsh, starchy sheets and fall asleep. She could tell by the look in Connor’s eyes that he felt exactly the same.

  “I’d fight you to the death for it,” she said, smiling at him and at the bed. And she was only half joking.

  A few hours had passed and Maisie was sleeping in her mammy and daddy’s bed, her poor bandaged arm cradling her favourite stuffed bunny rabbit. She had thrown a minor fit at the very notion of sleeping in her own big-girl bed and, too tired to argue with her after all that the day had thrown at them, Ava and Connor had agreed and had tucked her in before returning to the living room to sit, nursing cups of tea and staring into space.

  “It could have been worse,” Connor said. “At least it wasn’t serious.”

  Ava nodded. “I know.” She sat back, closed her eyes and was just about to drift off into a blissful exhaustion-induced coma when it struck her that she still didn’t have her shopping done and she would need to face the supermarket again. “Fuck!” she swore. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

  Saturday mornings were reserved for that special kind of hell that was a Soft Play centre. Even with a bandaged and swollen arm, Maisie could not be dissuaded from her weekly trip to the ball pools and slides of Cheeky Monkeys. Ava couldn’t argue – not after the act of wilful neglect which had seen her daughter tumble headfirst out of a trolley the day before. So she had packed a bag, filled with cartons of juice, boxes of raisins, a couple of favourite dollies and a change of clothes and had strapped her strong-willed daughter into the back of the car. Connor had padded out to see them, still exhausted from his week of commuting to and from Belfast for work. “I’ll take her if you want,” he offered and Ava had wanted more than anything to let him but instead she settled for hugging him and thanking him for the offer – even though she knew he had made it knowing full well she would never take him up on it.

  Saturday mornings were when she met her mummy friends who would arrive with their charges and regale her with stories about their wonderfulness. It wasn’t that Ava didn’t find Maisie wonderful – she was constantly amazed by her daughter’s flighty wee personality as it developed – but she wasn’t one of those who felt the need to boast about her either.

  Saturdays were the days she also met Karen – known as ‘Hell-mum’ to Ava and Connor in their private conversations. Karen had taken to motherhood like a layabout takes to work. She did it because she had to but she took no joy in it. She also very much enjoyed sharing her horror stories, time and time again, with anyone who wanted to (or in many cases didn’t want to) listen. Ava felt sorry for her to an extent – she clearly had issues by the bucket-load. Ava looked at Karen’s five-year-old sometimes and felt her heart sink to her boots. She wondered if, in quieter moments, Karen was actually more maternal than she appeared in public.

  Sighing, Ava pulled into the car park of the centre and tried to contain Maisie from running in front of the wheels of the 4x4s hunting for a prime parent-and-child parking space. She saw Karen’s Land Rover among them and she braced herself for the latest chapter in ‘How Hard My Life Is Compared to Yours’ from her once dear friend.

  “C’mon, Maisie Moo!” she called, injecting a fake sense of cheer into her voice. “It’s time to play and meet all your friends!”

  Karen sat sipping from a latte while Ava cradled Maisie – suddenly overcome with nervousness thanks to her sore arm.

  “Oh God, you poor thing. Still it could have been worse. I remember when Sophie was the same age – took a tumble in the park and needed three stitches. Still, I only thought things were tough then. God, Ava, you’ve no idea. Now that’s she five – and at school and learning the badness from the other ones – it’s even tougher. You can’t watch her these days. Intoeverything.”

  Ava nodded sympathetically, all the while thinking that Karen hadn’t given a single glance to where her daughter was since she’d sauntered into the café attached to the play centre half an hour before.

  “I’m sure her being five has its good points,” she offered, hoping that her friend would assure her that of course she was just having a bad day and living with a five-year-old was a joy day in and day out.

  “Hmmm,” Karen said with a sly smile, “I’m sure it has – I just can’t think of any of them at the moment. It’s all just work, work, work with some worry thrown in for good measure.”She laughed as she said it and Ava had to fight the urge to pick up the cream bun she was just about to tuck into and ram it right into Karen’s face to stop her from talking any more. She didn’t want to hear that it got worse. She wanted to hear that it got better – and easier and altogether more pleasant. She wanted her friend to tell her that she was only a couple of months away from an altogether easier existence when she would not feel so tired, and worried and overworked 99% of the time.

  Deciding that ramming a cream bun in the face of one of her oldest friends was probably not the best way to relieve the knot of tension which seemed to exist on a permanent basis between her shoulder blades, she smiled sweetly and took a large bite
from it instead, allowing the sugary softness of the confectionery to give her a momentary saccharine-induced high. If they had served ice-cold Pinot Grigio in the Soft Play, she would have knocked a couple of those back too.

  Karen was just about to launch into her latest rant on the perils of motherhood (this time – Play-Doh and why it was the work of the Devil) when Ava’s phone burst into life. Gratefully, she pawed in her bag to find it. She didn’t care who was phoning. It could have been a heavily accented salesperson trying to persuade her to part with her life savings for a timeshare but she would have spoken to him.

  Glancing down she saw that it was her mother. This was definitely strange. Sure, she was due to see her mother later that day anyway. Saturday afternoons were always spent at Granny’s house, where Maisie had the run of the place and her very own playroom to wreak havoc in.

  “Mum?” Ava answered as Maisie glanced up at her.

  “Ava, thank goodness I got you,” her mother said, her voice choking with emotion.

  “Is everything okay, Mum? Mum, what’s wrong?”

  Suddenly, even though she knew this made her a very bad person indeed, the thought crossed her mind that if something was wrong she would have the perfect excuse to get up and leave the play centre without any hesitation whatsoever. She glanced at Karen who was staring into the bottom of her coffee cup, disgusted to be cut off from her rant before she got into full flow, and she felt guilty. She was a bad friend and a bad daughter.