Ursula's Secret

by Mairi Wilson

  Yours, Robbie

  Lexy folded the letter again and slipped it back into its envelope. Turning it over in her hand, she reread the black writing on the flap. Sender: Dr Robert Campbell, Blantyre Hospital, Malawi.

  Campbell. That name as much as the secrets and skulduggery alluded to in the letter had been what had hooked her. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Izzie’s godmother had been someone in Blantyre, Malawi, called Evie Campbell. They’d not been close, but there’d been Christmas cards and occasional letters that would arrive in similarly chevroned envelopes with the same surname printed neatly, although in a different hand, on the back flap. Her mother had carefully steamed the stamps off the envelopes and Lexy had hoarded them for playground barter, but the letters had dwindled then stopped at some point in her early teens and she hadn’t thought about them in years.

  Lexy’s fingers drummed the envelope where she’d placed it in front of her in the centre of the fold-down table. The “Gran” referred to in the letter could be, must be, Evie Campbell. And the secret they were trying to hide must be to do with Ursula’s son. It had to be. This ‘Mission’ must have been involved in some way, and Lexy intended to find out how. She would find Ursula’s son and, though they may not know it yet, Dr Robert Campbell and his gran were going to help her do it.

  4

  The Residence, Blantyre, Malawi, June 7th

  As soon as the door clicked shut behind her, Lexy threw herself back on the bed. Africa. She’d made it. She was exhausted, but her head was buzzing. Everything around her was new, exotic, exciting. Even the taxi from the airport had been an experience: mismatched colour work, plastic roses in a green Tate & Lyle syrup tin jammed into the drink holder between the front seats and a smell that was not at all the “new leather” aroma her local car wash offered. Lexy doubted very much the driver had insurance, or even a licence, but the daring mood that had swept over her and propelled her on this insane journey prevailed. Life really was too short: her mother’s final lesson to her.

  Africa. She was here. She kicked off a shoe. Malawi. The other shoe slapped down onto the floor, too. The place names were sparking like fireworks in her head. She was actually here.

  She couldn’t help herself. She laughed out loud, drumming her heels against the mattress with sheer excitement. Africa. Africa. Africa. For someone who hadn’t known where Malawi was until the travel agent had pointed to it on the map, this was incredible.

  The sound of her phone was unexpected and alien in this new country and it took her a moment to react. Then, scrambling to her feet, she snatched it from her bag and touched the screen to make it stop, seeing Danny’s name too late. Not again.

  “Danny.”

  “Lexy, what the blazes are you up to now? Mrs B’s in a real state. Says she can’t be tripping over your stuff for days and the cat’s all upset and keeps mewling at it. I don’t need this, Lexy. I really don’t.”

  “I’m fine thanks, Danny. How are you?”

  “What? Oh, for heaven’s sake. She wants to know what’s going on.”

  “Why’s she asking you? She knows we’ve split—”

  “Your mobile was switched off. Again. I’ve been trying for hours, too. Left a few messages. Not that you’re exactly responsive to those.”

  Lexy hadn’t checked. Hadn’t realised her phone was getting a signal until it beeped.

  “I’m sorry.” She was annoyed to find herself apologising, justifying herself, but couldn’t stop. “I tried, but she was out and I left her a note explain—”

  “Your note, it seems, was vague. She wants to know when you’ll be back.” Which meant Danny wanted to know. “Saying you’ll collect the box when you’re back but not saying when you’ll be back really isn’t very helpful you know, Lex.”

  “This is none of your business.”

  “You think I don’t know that? I’m not exactly thrilled at being involved in all this. I delivered the box, just as you asked, and thought that was an end of it. But then you go and pull another of your ridiculous stunts. Where have you run off to this time? John o’ Groats? Land’s End? Timbuk-blinking-tu?”

  “Close. Or could be. My geography’s not too good when it comes to Africa.”

  She heard Danny catch his breath.

  “Where are you, Lex?”

  “Not your business, Dan.”

  “Where?”

  “Malawi.”

  “Where?”

  “Malawi. It’s in Africa, between Zambia and—”

  “I know where Malawi is, dammit.” He would, too, she thought, more than a little peeved at having her new-found knowledge dismissed.

  “Lexy, you’ve lost the plot, you really have. You’ve gone on holiday? For heavens’s sake, you can’t run away like this.”

  “It’s not running away! And it’s certainly not a holiday and … and it’s nothing to do with you anyway.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you. I can only think grief has unhinged you, or something. Why Malawi? And why now when you’ve got your mother’s estate—”

  “Don’t really know, okay? Or at least, can’t quite explain it. And you’d never understand anyway. Look, like I said, sorry about Mrs B and all that, but I’ll deal with it. I’ll phone her or send a postcard or something. Just tell her it’s nothing to do with you any more, I’m nothing to do with you any more, and then you can forget about me and get on with playing happy families with that doting broodmare you’ve shacked up with.”

  Lexy heard him gasp, then the line went dead.

  She threw the phone down on the bed, then picked it up and threw it down again, harder. It bounced off the bed and clattered onto the polished floor. She kicked it away and threw herself down on the bed instead. Why did he always bring out the child in her? The spiteful brat she’d never actually been. She wasn’t proud of herself. She was sickened. She’d hurt him, deliberately, and she didn’t really know why.

  Maybe because he was a pompous ass. Maybe because he was right. Was she “unhinged”? How could she tell? Grief wasn’t something she’d experienced before, not as an adult anyway. How dare he say she was running away? She wasn’t. She was … she was … discovering who she was, who she could be. But she had to admit, she was behaving out of character and all this impetuousness was a little scary. At least she’d managed to avoid telling him she’d bought an open ticket to Malawi. That she didn’t know when, or even if, she was going back. She had leave of absence from school till the end of the term, then the holidays, and then who knew? She’d been unhappy there for some time now, not that Danny knew that. He never asked. He’d had no idea what she’d been feeling, even before her mother died.

  She ran back over their conversation. The little she’d told him had been enough to provoke his incredulity, his evident disapproval. Judgemental prig. He’d just been using Mrs B as an excuse, probably, a way of keeping tabs on her. Unhinged, indeed. She could feel the stirrings of anger and self-righteousness overcome any lingering panic or fear about her trip. Maybe she had been a bit harsh with Danny, but she’d plead provocation. She could have said she’d come to Malawi just because she could, now she was rid of him, because Danny himself never would have, because she could go anywhere she pleased now that he was out of her life. But that would have been cruel and now she wasn’t his lover she didn’t want to joust, to score points, to inflict pain.

  And yet she had. Well done, Lexy. Well done.

  She flung her arms wide, struggling to recapture the excitement she’d felt before the phone call, but instead she just felt tired. She’d been too excited to sleep much on the overnight flight. She reached out, stretched through her fingertips, but she still couldn’t reach the sides of the huge bed. She could hear crisp linen creak beneath the batik bedspread as she rolled over and propped herself up on an elbow to look out through the open balcony doors to the lush gardens of the hotel. You can run but you can’t hide, her mother’s voice was whispering in her head. Why did everyone assume she was running? She
wasn’t, or hiding. She was just here. On another continent. In another world, and one she was desperate to explore. How could that be running? For the first time since her mother’s death, she was looking forward, eyes open wide, instead of looking back, eyes half-shut. And maybe what she discovered here would end up returning a part of her mother, of her past, some of the certainties the last few days had stripped away, with their puzzles and revelations.

  Pushing herself up from the depths of the vast bed, Lexy stepped out onto the balcony, where the heat washed over her, as soothing and soft on her skin as cashmere. The balcony was shaded by a climbing jasmine, its tendrils weaving a dense canopy between wooden struts, its white waxen flowers as brilliant against the shadows as stars in a night sky. Beneath Lexy, an immaculate emerald lawn lay like a velvet cushion bordered with hibiscus bushes bursting with blooms in orange and red, yellow and gold. She leant against the balustrade and breathed in the still air, the floral perfumes sweet and cloying, rich and exotic to her hungry senses. She closed her eyes and turned her face to the last of the sun, heard the hum of traffic in the distance, the occasional blast of a horn, the cry of a street vendor, the bark of a dog.

  Whatever it was she’d come to find, it was out there, waiting for her.

  When Lexy woke, she was disorientated again. After years of waking up in the same bed, with Danny beside her, this was too much change too quickly, too many strange beds and places for her soporific self to take on board. It was the alone-ness. Even when she and Danny were on holiday she’d wake up to the familiar warmth of his body, the sound of his breathing. Or, most mornings, she woke to the sound of his voice and the touch of his hand gently shaking her as she’d slept through yet another cacophony of buzzers and bells. He’d bought her so many different alarm clocks; he couldn’t believe her ability to sleep through noise. He’d been beside himself when he’d taken her to the Albert Hall and she’d fallen asleep during the 1812 Overture.

  She shook her head sharply. Danny was the past. Danny was over, a continent away. She was in Africa. She breathed in deeply, stretching her legs out from under her as she sat up, the balcony’s rattan sunlounger shifting noisily beneath her. It was dark now and the cricking of cicadas seemed loud in the cooler air. For a second or two she felt panic, the unfamiliar African night intimidating and smothering her like a captor’s hood. Then she heard voices below, deep, rich and lyrical in a sing-song English she couldn’t quite catch, and she relaxed, feeling a little less alone. She let a tentative smile creep across her face as she stood and stretched more fully, long limbs easing out their cramps and creases, erasing any lingering memories of the long-haul flight.

  She was thirsty, so she wandered back into her room and poured water from the jug on the table neatly covered with an embroidered net veil to protect it from she didn’t like to think what. She’d slept for nearly two hours. Her suitcase still lay closed on the luggage rack just inside the door, where the porter had left it. She sprung the combination lock and rummaged through the contents until she found her washbag, clothes spilling to the floor as she pulled it out. She stepped over them on her way to the bathroom. She’d unpack properly later. Another couple of hours were hardly likely to make the creases any worse. Packing had never been her strong point. Nor had ironing, come to that.

  In the bathroom, the face that peered back at her was pale and dark-eyed. Sleep didn’t seem to have helped with that. She ran a comb through tangled hair, splashed water on her face, brushed her teeth and decided that would have to do; it wasn’t as if anyone knew her here.

  She shrugged one strap of her backpack over her shoulder but caught sight of herself in the mirror as she turned for the door.

  “Oh all right then,” she muttered, imagining her mother’s frown of quiet disapproval. “Lipstick, but that’s it.”

  Still not exactly elegant. She grabbed the end of a cream pashmina trailing from the suitcase and swirled it round her. Better, but surely she could manage the journey to the hotel restaurant without a bulging backpack? Digging deep amongst the travel paraphernalia and the bundle of still-unopened post from Ursula’s flat, she extracted her purse, her notebook and the Manila folder the Edinburgh solicitor had given her. She’d tried to go through it on the plane but failed. Perhaps a decent meal and a glass of good wine would help her make sense of it all. She dropped the backpack onto the bed, clutched folder and notebook to her chest like a breastplate and went in search of sustenance.

  As she locked her door with the old-fashioned metal key and turned to survey the corridor, she caught her breath. She hadn’t paid much attention to her surroundings as she’d been shown up to her room, just concentrated on plodding behind the porter, who’d done his best to pretend her case was feather-light. Perhaps to him it was, but when she’d been hauling it through the airport herself she’d regretted the decision to pack the photo albums Jenny had told her about, as well as the package of papers she’d found beneath them. She’d also thrown in the folder she’d found under the seat of the armchair when she’d been mopping up her spilt tea. There’d been what looked like old letters and diary extracts in that, which had intrigued her. Not her usual type of holiday reading, it had to be said, but then this wasn’t her usual type of holiday. In fact, it wasn’t a holiday at all, as she’d pointed out to Danny, perhaps a little too emphatically. She still felt bad about that conversation. And the ashes. How could she have done that? Her mother, for goodness’ sake. She couldn’t, wouldn’t think about it. It was like peering over the lip of a deep, dark well and she had no idea what lay at the bottom of it. It frightened her, made her unspeakably sad.

  Right now, though, she’d enjoy the moment as best she could. She was delighted to find herself on a wide balcony looking out over a central courtyard, lit softly by lanterns lining the two paths that crossed it like a saltire. Her room, on the upper of two storeys, opened on to one side of this quadrangle, which in turn was open to a purple-blue sky, studded with stars like tiny spotlights and adorned with a sliver of crescent moon dangling over the roof of the wing opposite her.

  Wall lamps splashed yellow pools of light over the cane chairs and coffee tables outside each room, mahogany floorboards gleamed, and potted palms and other plants she didn’t yet recognise cast living shadows against the plain white walls adorned with occasional paintings of African landscapes. Her footsteps echoed as she walked towards one of the two staircases that swept down from either side of the rectangle, then crossed the patio to make her way back to the reception area to ask for directions to the restaurant.

  “Ah, Miss Shaw,” the sharply dressed receptionist greeted her as she approached the desk. “We have a message for you.”

  “Really?”

  “It just arrived. We were told not to disturb you but to wait until you came down.”

  “Thank you.” Lexy took the proffered envelope, surprised to see her name handwritten in black ink across its centre. She turned it over, but there was nothing on the reverse to indicate its sender.

  “Are you having dinner, Miss Shaw? Barney can show you to the restaurant.”

  A flick of the receptionist’s forefinger summoned a short teenager, resplendent in a bellhop’s uniform, to her side.

  “Please, follow me, Miss.” Lexy followed the boy across the lobby towards a gentle hum of conversation and the muffled sound of piano music playing in the background. He stood back to let her through to the restaurant ahead of him, to the greeting area where a magnificent ornate lectern guarded access to the tables. Double doors opened on to a bar on her right where the pianist’s bowed head was just visible beneath the slope of the grand piano’s lid. The few occupants of the room ignored him, more interested in each other, or their cocktails at least, than in the music: a lone drinker propping up the bar, a couple of tables taken by elderly, sun-leathered couples, a group of women in cocktail dresses giggling in armchairs by the window. Her mind still on the letter she held in her hands, she stopped in surprise as the lone drinker raised a ha
nd to wave at her, then she lurched forward, dropping the letter as Barney stumbled into her back.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Lexy said, embarrassed, colliding with the boy again as they both reached for the letter at the same time. “Oh!” She rubbed her forehead, feeling herself blush at the sound of laughter from the bar, surely the lone drinker, amused at the effect he’d had on her.

  “My fault, Miss Shaw. Allow me.” The boy ducked down, but not before Lexy saw a flash of white teeth as his mouth split into a grin. And she was sure he winked as he handed the letter back to her and ushered her forward again, up to the lectern and out of sight of the bar.

  “Sorry – jet lag,” she offered by way of excuse, although she doubted the small time difference really made it a very good one. “Thank you.”

  “No problem, Miss Shaw.”

  “Barney.” A slightly disapproving voice behind her made Lexy spin round to the now-occupied lectern. “That will be all. I’ll take care of our guest now.” Attention turned to Lexy and the voice changed; its hard edge softened into a slippery obsequiousness that would have put Uriah Heep to shame. “How may I help you, ma’am?”

  “I …” Lexy was mesmerised by the sheer height of the man, hovering over his lectern like a minister in a pulpit. Or, she thought irreverently, like a vulture. A Disney vulture, straight out of The Jungle Book. The hooded eyes—

  “A table for Miss Shaw, please,” Barney prompted.

  “Yes. Sorry. Yes, a table. For one, please.”

  “Enjoy your meal, Miss Shaw.” Barney bowed and was gone before she could thank him.

  As she walked the length of the busy dining room, aware of conversation slowing at the tables she passed, their occupants looking up to take in this newcomer, she became increasingly self-conscious. She was glad she’d ditched the backpack but knew it would take more than a pashmina to lend her the air of sophistication such opulent surroundings seemed to demand. At the far end, the restaurant extended out onto a long verandah alongside the same immaculate garden her room overlooked.