Ursula's Secret

by Mairi Wilson

  When she got back to Ursula’s flat, the post had arrived. She scooped the letters up from the mat. A couple of brown envelopes and one white one which no matter how hard it tried couldn’t hide the fact it was a bill. Holding letters addressed to a dead person felt wrong, disrespectful. She’d felt the same way when she’d gone to her mother’s house for the first time after she’d died. She hated the way that life carried on without pausing to acknowledge that this person was gone. Unreasonable, she knew, irrational even. How could anyone know what had happened? But it felt cruel, nonetheless. Callous. Unfair.

  Suppressing a small stab of unfocused anger, she threw the envelopes onto the table with the rest of the pile waiting to be tackled. She watched it overbalance and cascade onto the tiled floor.

  “Bugger.” She gathered them up again, picturing the look of disapproval on both her mother’s face and Ursula’s. “Bugger,” she repeated defiantly. She’d get to the post later this evening. Maybe. But for now, she needed a cup of tea and something to eat. Toast seemed simplest. Jenny had said there was bread in the freezer. Time enough to worry about good nutrition when she had less on her mind.

  Her phone beeped with a text as she was waiting for the toaster to throw out her supper. Jenny.

  Hope went ok today. Remember here to help if U need me.

  Kind of her, and above and beyond the call of a cleaner and carer. But then it was clear she’d forged a special relationship with Ursula and seemed happy to extend that to include Lexy. Or perhaps she just wanted to be sure Lexy did right by Ursula in clearing the flat and so on. Remembering the “recently added” codicil, though, Lexy felt a twinge of suspicion and wondered if there was something less wholesome behind Jenny’s cheery chat. But if so, what could her objective be? Money, or something that could be turned into it, most likely. Looking around, though, there didn’t seem to be much, but then Lexy was no expert. Plenty of paintings on the wall and a few African-looking bits and pieces that could be more than mere bric-a-brac. She’d have to get someone in to value it all.

  The toaster popped and snapped her back to the moment. She was being uncharitable. She should just accept that there were genuine, caring people in the world and Jenny was one of them. She was letting the aftershocks of her mother’s death cloud her judgement. But it was hard not to, when you knew a stranger had left your mother to die on a quiet suburban street. A drunk, probably, the police had said, classic hit-and-run, and leafy suburbs didn’t tend to yield much by way of CCTV or witness statements so best not expect too much. No, not easy to trust in the milk of human kindness after something like that. And especially not after discovering that that same mother, the person you trusted most in the world, had been holding out on you.

  She dunked a teabag in a mug of hot water just long enough for it to colour into something that passed for tea, splashed in milk and then took it with the toast through to the sitting room. She didn’t put the light on immediately but stood for a moment looking out at the long shadows cast by the last of the sun. No one around this late on a weekday evening apart from the odd dog-walker. Yesterday’s barbecuing revellers had disappeared. There was a movement at the foot of one of the trees across the road from the flat, at the edge of the Meadows, and Lexy instinctively drew back. Was there someone there, hiding behind the broad trunk of a sycamore? Watching the flat? Watching her? She waited, looked along the shaded path. There was no one in sight, and, when she turned back to the tree, nothing except shadows of branches and leaves, twitching in the breeze. It’d be UFOs and little green men next.

  She turned away and sat in one of the old high-backed armchairs, tugging off the ill-judged shoes, stretching her feet and wriggling her toes to get the circulation going again before dragging a footstool closer. Balancing the mug precariously on the arm of the chair and the plate of toast on her knees, she rested her head back. She’d close her eyes for just a moment, let the quiet and the gathering darkness soothe—

  She jolted upright at the rattle of the letter box, sending toast and plate skittering across the floor and lukewarm tea splashing into her lap. So much for the smart skirt. Hobbling out to the hallway, holding out the bottom of her skirt to try to contain as much of the milky liquid as possible, she saw a letter lying on the floor inside the door. Its edges were bordered with something she hadn’t seen in years: the blue and red chevrons of an airmail envelope.

  Intrigued, she stooped to pick it up, hardly feeling the splatters of tea landing on her feet as she let go the skirt hem. She heard the door across the landing close as she read the words Delivered to Flat 8 in error printed neatly in pencil beneath the colourful stamps clustered in the upper corner. She could just make out enough of the frank against their exuberance to see it had come from Blantyre. Malawi.

  3

  Between continents, June 6th

  Lexy stretched her legs out in front of her and flexed her ankles, mirroring the diagrams for health in the air she’d seen in the in-flight magazine, before bringing her feet back to the footrest and realigning her body in the large seat until she was settled and comfortable. She was grinning like a child with candyfloss, but she didn’t care. An upgrade to First Class. Things like this never happened to her. But then again, she’d never done anything quite this impetuous before. She’d taken it as a good sign, a sign she was doing the right thing. Not that it mattered if she wasn’t. She didn’t have to explain herself to anyone any more. Her throat tightened. There was no one left who would expect her to explain.

  No. She wasn’t going to think like that, feel sorry for herself, feel abandoned and alone. She was doing this so she wouldn’t be alone. She was going to find … what exactly? Her mother’s … stepbrother? She wasn’t sure there was much of a legal relationship, if any, but Ursula had given birth to one and mothered the other, so there was a connection, and that was all that mattered.

  Willing herself to push thoughts of her mother to the back of her mind, she picked up the glass she’d just accepted from the stewardess, held the cool stem and raised it to the window as if tipping a farewell toast to the sun setting over London behind her.

  Malawi, here I come.

  She sipped the champagne, savouring the froth of bubbles exploding on her tongue, tingling like the excitement she’d felt when she’d walked out of the travel agent in central Edinburgh yesterday with her itinerary in her hand, subduing a sense of alarm at the amount of money she’d just spent by telling herself this was exactly the point of credit cards. This morning she’d been on a train to London, stopped at the flat just long enough to find her passport, pack a bag and put a note through Mrs B’s door asking her to hold on to the box Danny had left, and then took the Tube to the airport. Easy. Frighteningly easy.

  It wasn’t until she’d checked in and gone through security that she’d had a moment to think. Should she be doing this? Why was she doing this? Because of a letter from someone she’d never met, to a woman she hadn’t seen in more than twenty years? Because she had nothing better to do with the long summer holiday stretching ahead of her than deal with the aftermath of bereavement? Or because she was terrified that if she stood still long enough the full enormity of the last couple of weeks would break over her and bury her in blackness?

  She’d stopped dead in the corridor near the boarding gate, paralysed by panic.

  “Hey, careful!” someone had growled behind her and then a heavy man sidestepped past with exaggerated effort, turning to walk backwards for a couple of steps so he could shake his head and glare at her. She’d just stood there, petrified, as other passengers navigated their way round her like water round stone. She didn’t have to go, she told herself. She could turn around and go home. To her empty flat. To her mother’s empty house. No one was waiting for her, just as no one was forcing her to get on that plane. Whatever she did, it was her choice, her decision.

  And that was all she’d needed. The recognition that she was in control, was free to choose, calmed her. She chose to get on the plane even if
it did feel a bit like running away. So what? No one needed to know. And everything would still be waiting for her when she got back, so if she wanted to go to Malawi, why shouldn’t she? It had been where her parents met, where Ursula had worked, where so much of the history of her little family had been forged, and she was curious now, now that there was no one left to tell her about it. Strange that the idea of visiting had never occurred to her before, that her mother had never suggested it, never wanted to return.

  Isobel had rarely spoken of her time there, or of her younger life at all, and Lexy hadn’t thought to press her. Now, though, she was hungry to know what her parents’ early life together had been like before Lexy arrived and took centre stage. She wanted to bring herself close to them again by getting to know something of their younger selves, the people they were before they became defined by parenthood. A ridiculous, desperate notion perhaps, to fight off the loneliness and despair looming in her shadows, to make up for her regret at taking her parents for granted when they’d been alive. Her father she could forgive herself for; she’d only been a toddler when he died and she barely remembered him, just accepted him as he’d been handed down to her by her mother, by the newspaper obituary she’d found tucked in her mother’s jewellery box, alongside a heart-shaped locket with a tiny photograph of Lexy as a baby and a faded photo of a young man she’d assumed to be her father, and a lock of baby hair tied with a pink satin ribbon.

  But her mother was different. Lexy had made the mistake of not looking, not seeing beyond the maternal to the core of the woman she’d grown up with, of not recognising her mother as anything more than the role she played in Lexy’s own life – a mistake she could never put right now. But at least this trip could pay some kind of homage to the woman she wished she’d taken the time to know better, to understand, to befriend. The woman she was furious with for leaving her, but especially for lying to her.

  She drained her glass. The champagne had lost its edge. Lukewarm now. Her attempt at devil-may-care spontaneity wasn’t really working. She could almost hear Danny lecturing her, as he had so many times before.

  “Lexy, why don’t you think sometimes. Actions have consequences, you know,” he’d say in that prissy, patronising tone, as if he were speaking to a student late with an essay because they’d been out on the razzle all night. He could be such a pain at times. Especially when he was right. His lectures always triggered arguments. She’d tell him he was boring; he’d tell her she was behaving like a spoilt child. She’d storm out; he’d shout at her not to slam the door, so of course she would. And then after she’d stomped round the block a few times or kicked the hell out of the leaves in the park, she’d sneak back home again. He’d be reading some academic journal or getting on with his marking as if nothing had happened. Except he’d have to say it. Couldn’t help himself. Every time. “You really need to learn to control yourself, Lexy.” And they’d start all over again.

  But what Danny would or wouldn’t have said was, like so much that had guided her life until now, no longer relevant. She was a free agent. She stared at her reflection in the window, clouds beyond her blurring her outline. She was free. She wasn’t sure she liked the feeling, but she’d have to get used to it. So, this was a start. Going to Africa to find Ursula’s son, an uncle of sorts. And if that letter was right, the fact that it wasn’t going to be as straightforward as she’d initially thought just added a little spice. There was a hint of drama, subterfuge even, and she’d always found that sort of frisson irresistible.

  The crisp airmail paper crackled as she pulled it from her pocket.

  Blantyre Hospital,

  May 24th

  Dear Ursula,

  As you requested, I contacted the Mission on my last clinic tour hoping to be able to put your mind at rest, but I’m afraid the news does nothing to alleviate our concerns. They had recently received a visit from a woman claiming to be the daughter of a German missionary compiling a book of some sort on the history and legacy of European missions in Africa. She was particularly interested in the orphanage and said she was devoting a chapter to the role of the Church in resettling orphaned or abandoned children, but she aroused suspicions when she mentioned a certain name as an example of the work the Mission itself had undertaken in that regard. It is our good fortune that it was Sister Agnes herself who met with this visitor, and needless to say she divulged nothing beyond general statements about past activities, the paucity of records and archives and so on. An invitation to tour the orphanage itself was declined, despite the alleged interest in that area, and the visitor left scarcely better informed than when she’d arrived.

  That night, however, there was a break-in at the Mission, the first ever. Malawi isn’t what it was when you were here, but it is still safe enough and a crime against the Mission rare indeed, so it seems unlikely to have been a coincidence, especially as it was the archive store that was targeted and vandalised. The whole room was turned over, with papers from files strewn everywhere and paint and bleach poured over everything too, destroying many of the records, or at least leaving them all but illegible. The clearing up and re-filing is proving to be a slow and challenging process and it’s difficult to tell yet precisely what’s missing, but the papers we are concerned about have not been recovered, at least to date. I fear we must assume they will not be. Sister Agnes clearly blames herself, for keeping them in the first place, but it was what they always did and she was not in a position to break with procedure at the time. I tried to make her see that none of this is her fault, but she seems determined to wear sackcloth and ashes – metaphorically, not literally, we must hope.

  Sister Agnes gave me a description of the visitor, but she was cautious as to its accuracy. Not much gets past our friend and she said she was sure the woman was disguised. Most likely wearing a wig, so probably not blonde at all, as she appeared to be, nor German, as the German the woman spoke before they settled on English was, even by Sister Agnes’ schoolgirl standards, old-fashioned and stilted, so whatever else she may be, Sister is sure she isn’t a native German speaker. The visitor’s English, on the other hand, was almost without accent and remarkably colloquial. Beyond that, she was youngish and of average height and build, although loose clothing and heeled shoes could be masking the reality there too, and she had blue eyes. Very blue eyes. Probably tinted lenses, our Sherlock of a Sister suspects. She looked quite suntanned, apparently, as if she’d been in the country a while, but the good Sister again commented that the backs of the woman’s hands were paler than her face, so she surmised make-up or fake tan.

  In short, the visitor had come disguised and that in itself is enough cause for alarm. But Ursula, perhaps we need to take the initiative here. This is all ancient history and it may be that it’s time to bring it out into the open. I don’t say that lightly, but times have changed. I understand it would be difficult, that it would stir up painful memories for you, for Gran too, come to that. But surely the lives you both have led are testament to your goodness? You only did what you did because you truly thought it was for the best and no one will blame you for that. I can’t see that there’s any need to keep these secrets any longer. What would once have been an unimaginable scandal, something that could ruin a career, destroy a business, would be no more than a five-minute wonder now. A headline in one day’s paper and forgotten the next. Think about it, Ursula. It may be best for everyone in the long run. Perhaps it’s time that the injustices of the past were properly and fairly resolved, or at least some gesture made towards their resolution. No one has to do or be anything they don’t want to, after all, but I do feel everyone has the right to be given the choice. And remember, Ursula, there’s no potential for blackmail if there are no secrets.

  But know that whatever you decide, you can continue to rely on me to support you. And Gran too, of course, although I’ve not shared these more recent developments with her. She continues, I’m sorry to report, to fail. But, as ever, she refuses to slow down or make any concessio
n at all to her advancing years or her medical condition. I can see why you two have remained such firm friends for so long – there’s more than a little “kindred spirit” shared between you. You share that same formidable determination that just seems to get stronger with each passing year.

  There seems to be little by way of good news to send you, I’m afraid. Although there is the possibility that my research application will be accepted and we will be able to expand the programme considerably if that is the case. Malaria is on the agenda again in world health circles, so I am hopeful. Other than that, life in the hospital is as it always is, and Blantyre society continues as always too. I sometimes think we live in a time warp here, and if you were to return, you would find it all much as you left it. But for all that, I’d not be anywhere else. Despite your love and care, those cold years in Edinburgh were proof enough that I need the African sun to keep me warm, although I will try, I promise, to come and visit soon.

  I’ll leave it to Gran to fill you in on the latest gossip from the Club and your old cronies. She always seems to be well enough to keep tabs on everyone, and besides, I know you’ll be waiting to hear what my investigations at the Mission turned up so I’ll get this off to you now. But Ursula, please, do reconsider the need to continue with this secrecy. I’m really very concerned for you. You didn’t say why you suspected there might have been contact made with the Mission and that bothers me. Is there something you haven’t told me? What was it that prompted your enquiry? Whatever it is, please be careful. The threat of discovery is not sufficient reason to put yourself at risk in any way and I worry that you might do that, perhaps without even realising. Would it really be so bad if the truth came out after all this time? I doubt it. It might even end up all being for the best.