Ursula's Secret

by Mairi Wilson

  “Inside or out, madam?”

  “Oh out, please. Definitely out.” There were fewer occupied tables on the verandah and these were interspersed with plants and carved fret screens, which offered greater privacy than the expanse of the inside room. As if intuiting her desire for concealment, or deducing from her appearance that she might cause less upset to the regular clientele if tucked discreetly away, the maître d’ led her smartly to a small table at the far end of the verandah, beyond the view of the other diners. He held a chair back for her, sliding it gently beneath her as she sat, then snapped a white linen napkin open and sailed it down onto her lap.

  “Something to drink, Miss Shaw?” he asked as he laid an open menu down on the table in front of her. “One of our special cocktails perhaps, or might I suggest a glass of champagne as an aperitif?”

  “You most certainly might,” Lexy said with feeling. She’d earned it after running the gauntlet of that dining room. A slight raising of an eyebrow led her to reappraise him. Not Disney at all. That look was pure Vulcan, all those nights with Danny watching Star Trek reruns …

  “Um, yes.” She realised he was waiting for her to speak. “A glass of champagne, please.” Champagne? Again? Her conscience pricked her. Hardly appropriate for a grieving daughter. Anyone would think she was celebrating, which she wasn’t, or rich, which she most definitely wasn’t, but she’d worry about budgeting tomorrow. Besides, she hated to think what would happen to the Vulcan’s eyebrows if she ordered a pint of cider.

  A slim flute was brought over by a waiter who took her order and then left her in peace to contemplate the still-unopened message she’d tucked inside the cover of her notebook. She was intrigued but reluctant to open it, didn’t want to disturb her sense of isolation and distance. Not running. Or hiding, of course. Who was she kidding? Danny had seen straight through her bluster.

  But this message. No one was expecting her. No one even knew her here, or knew what had happened to her mother, or to Ursula, which was a big part of why she’d come. Had she even told anyone she was coming? Danny, but this wasn’t him. And the lawyer. She was going to contact the office here, but this hardly looked like an official letter. Besides, Lexy hadn’t said when she was coming, or where she’d be staying.

  She was rattled. She’d been relishing the feeling of anonymity, of freedom. That someone had found her, had seen fit to communicate with her already had dispelled that all too quickly. She’d open it after dinner. Procrastination, thy name is Lexy. She tucked the note away at the back of her notebook again and pulled the Manila folder towards her. This too she’d been putting off, despite carrying it with her since the lawyer gave it to her. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to face up to her responsibilities and sort out Ursula’s affairs. And then her mother’s. How dare Danny think she was running away? She flicked open the folder and started browsing through the pages of numbers and legalese. A foreign language, in black and white and—

  “Miss Shaw?”

  She swept up the folder and sat back, expecting a plate to be placed in front of her, looking up when it wasn’t. A tall, fair-haired man sporting a blazer and what had to be a regimental or old school tie smiled down at her. The lone drinker.

  “Yes?” Lexy managed, remembering the wave, wondering if she should know him, certain she didn’t.

  “Forgive the intrusion.” He paused, as if expecting her to say something, but she had no idea what.

  “Pendleton,” the man continued, smoothly. “Hugh. Consular service. Saw you come in. How do you do?”

  “I’m sorry … Do I … Is there a problem?”

  “Good heavens, no. Didn’t mean to alarm you. No problem at all. I always try to make visitors welcome, you see, show them around, help them get the most from their time in Malawi and so forth. Make sure they know who to come to if they need a hand, which is me, of course. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Oh, I see,” Lexy said, shaking his damp hand, although she didn’t see at all. Surely this level of attention wasn’t normal from a consular service. Even somewhere like Malawi. More likely some lounge lizard ploy to chat her up. She’d stop that in its tracks. “Thank you, but I’m fine.”

  “Nonsense.” Hugh’s free hand waved dismissively. “All part of the service. Anything I can do and all that. Join you for a moment, shall I?”

  Releasing her hand, he crashed heavily into the seat opposite, sending a shockwave across the table that upended Lexy’s champagne glass, its contents frothing over the notebook and Manila folder she’d just laid back down like spume from a breaking wave.

  “Oh I say!” He snatched up the notebook and Lexy grabbed the folder. Waiters with cloths appeared almost immediately and a flurry of wiping and rearranging of linens and cutlery ensued.

  “Awfully sorry about that. No harm done, though, all salvageable.” He was flicking through the notebook to let the pages dry without sticking together, but a little too slowly, as if trying to read what was written there.

  “I’m sure it’s fine now, thanks.” Lexy reached across to reclaim the notebook, giving him no choice but to drag his eyes up from the page and hand it over. As he did so, the envelope she’d tucked inside the back cover fluttered down onto the tabletop between them. Hugh picked it up, turned it over and back, studied her name scrawled on the still-sealed envelope and frowned.

  “You don’t seem to have opened this. Forgot it, did you?” The affable, cultivated bonhomie reappeared, but she could feel his eyes watching closely as she took it from him.

  “It’s just arrived. I haven’t had time.”

  “Don’t mind me. Might be urgent.”

  “I very much doubt it.” Lexy looked around for a waiter. Vulture or Vulcan, she was relieved to see the maître d’ acknowledge her from deep within the restaurant and start off in her direction.

  “Won’t know unless you open it.”

  What was the matter with the man? “Look, Mr Pendleton—”

  “Oh Hugh, please.”

  “I don’t wish to be rude or unsociable or anything, but I really am rather tired.”

  “Anything I can do for you, ma’am?” The maître d’ cast the briefest of glances in Hugh’s direction. “Sir.”

  “No, we’re fi—”

  “Thank you, yes,” Lexy cut in. “I wonder, could you arrange to have my supper sent up to my room? I think the jet lag’s catching up with me.”

  “Of course, ma’am. Right away.” He melted away as smoothly and swiftly as he’d arrived.

  Lexy stood and Hugh stumbled roughly to his feet.

  “I say, nothing I said I hope.”

  “Not at all, Mr Pendleton.” Lexy saw a sudden scowl crumple his face.

  “Hugh.”

  “It’s just it’s been a very long day and I think I was a bit overambitious coming down for dinner. Please excuse me.”

  She smiled as best she could as she struggled to mask the irritation she was feeling. All she’d wanted was a quiet dinner, alone, looking through her notes and planning how she’d spend the next few days. Which, whatever else, would not be in the company of Mr Humongous Pain Pendleton.

  “Another time, then. Spot of supper perhaps. Could show you some of Blantyre’s—”

  “Thank you, but I’ve got quite a busy schedule ahead of me. Goodnight, Mr Pendleton.” Cheap shot, but she couldn’t resist. Lexy smiled sweetly as the scowl returned to his pink, fleshy face. She sincerely hoped that was the last she’d see of it.

  Lexy was relieved to return to the sanctuary of her room, even though she’d forgotten just how much of a mess she’d left behind her. It looked like a crime scene, as if she’d been burgled or a spook from MI5 had ransacked the room looking for that missing microchip or whatever. But no. She knew she was quite capable of creating this level of turmoil all by herself.

  Her backpack had fallen from the bed, where she’d flung it before going down for dinner, and Ursula’s unopened post was now scattered over the floor along with Dr Campbell’s l
etter and the other paraphernalia of travel. Her suitcase, too, seemed to have developed a will of its own, maliciously tangling clothes and papers and spewing them randomly from its open jaws. More haste less speed. Her mother’s voice again. Her mother had had an amazing repertoire of proverbs and sayings, something for every occasion. Even now.

  She flipped open the suitcase and started to shake out clothes. Her mother was right, of course. If she’d taken the time to unpack properly rather than just rummaging and yanking out what she’d needed, it wouldn’t be such a chore now. In fact, if she’d taken the time to pack properly in the first place … She wished she could tell her mother she’d always known she was right, but it was just that teenagers didn’t admit to stuff like that. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t be telling her mother anything ever again.

  She shoved the last of her underwear into a drawer and slammed it shut. She wouldn’t be sad. Not on her first night here in Malawi, the place her parents had met, where she’d been conceived. Happy thoughts, not sad ones, were more suited to memories like that.

  She ate her supper on her balcony, with cicadas and moths for company. Far more amenable than Pendleton. She left the tray outside her door, locked herself in for the night, then curled up on the chaise longue on the balcony with the first of the photograph albums. A trip down memory lane could be dangerous territory after she’d been drinking champagne, albeit not very much before that man knocked it over, but nonetheless she’d chosen carefully. This one was labelled Africa, so she was unlikely to be hijacked by any unexpected glimpses of herself growing up with her parents. She couldn’t face anything like that yet.

  The album had been painstakingly assembled, each photograph fixed in place with corner mounts, with a brief description inked beneath it or to one side in evenly spaced copperplate handwriting: Zomba, May 1st 1947, Danish Embassy Upper Shire River Orphanage Fundraising Event, Helen and Ursula seated, Frederik Stenberg (Cultural Attaché) and Jurgen Axelsen (Director) standing.

  Or later: Blantyre Hospital, March 22nd 1949, Outpatients’ Clinic Opening Ceremony, L to R: Dr Campbell and his wife Evelyn, Matron Proudfoot, Sister Reid, Padre McFee.

  Or later still: Lake Nyasa, August 1949, Helen’s Birthday Picnic. Standing L to R: Cameron, Fredi, Douglas, Gregory. Seated L to R: Evelyn, Helen, Ursula.

  Lexy smiled at Ursula’s sense of propriety. She never said “me” but always gave her name as if the album had been compiled by some absent hand, her own presence in any of the photos nothing more than a happy coincidence. Nor did she use diminutives unless the occasion allowed it. Fredi on a picnic became Frederik Stenberg (Cultural Attaché) if photographed in his formal capacity, and Douglas was most definitely Dr Campbell when he appeared professionally.

  As Lexy turned the heavy cartridge pages, she began to recognise the faces peering dimly back at her in the flickering light of the citronella candles she’d lit to keep the insects at bay. She began to understand the relationships between the names, the parts they’d played in Ursula’s life, to recognise the recurring faces of Ursula’s inner circle. Evelyn and Helen appeared more frequently than any of the others; Gregory and Cameron only a little less often; then, a little less prominently yet, Fredi and Douglas, Evelyn’s husband. Tennis games, croquet, picnics all featured regularly, as did cocktail parties, fundraisers, balls. But so too did the hospital. Ursula, it seemed, had been, even then, the dedicated professional of Lexy’s childhood, and only occasionally a young socialite Lexy barely recognised.

  Somewhere in this circle, this smart set of bright young things, lay the answer to the mystery of Ursula’s son. The frequent recurrence of the Campbell name alongside the photographs gave Lexy heart. The Dr Campbell of the letter she’d brought with her could not, of course, be the same Dr Campbell in the photographs, but he had to be related in some way. Grandson, perhaps, if Evelyn was “Gran”. But she’d find out more tomorrow when she visited the hospital. Returning the letter to Dr Campbell would be the first step towards the answers she was seeking.

  Lexy wandered back into the bedroom. She’d risk a look through Ursula’s folder, the one she’d found under the armchair cushion, intriguing simply because it had been in such an odd place. She’d piled most of the paperwork from her backpack on top of the chest of drawers. She couldn’t see the tea-stained folder at first, but before she started to search, her attention was caught by the other two photograph albums. One was clearly marked Edinburgh, which she was not up to just yet, sure it would contain pictures of her mother, maybe even of Lexy herself on one of their visits. But the other had no identifying label, so she decided to take it to bed with her. The diary could wait, her wilting brain more likely to make sense of pictures than words, anyway.

  As she lay back against the padded headrest swaddled in crisp linens, she opened the album, and immediately wished she hadn’t. Izzie in profile, laughing, her head tilted back in a pose so familiar Lexy’s stomach contracted and the picture blurred as tears sprang with raw suddenness to her eyes.

  She turned the page quickly and immediately realised her mistake as she recognised the faces staring out at the camera in the next photograph. Ursula and Helen, standing in front of a white wall, a house of some description. Lexy could just make out an edge of window to the right, and to the left, a thick bank of flowering bushes. Even though the print was only black and white, she knew it would be a blaze of colour, like the banks of azaleas and hibiscus around the hotel’s lawns. The women were looking straight at the camera, holding a baby between them, their hands clasped over the baby’s chest, their clothes and hair screaming 1940s.

  Lexy sighed. Perhaps young, happy women all look like each other and she’d seen her mother in someone else’s features because that’s what her subconscious was most afraid she would see. She turned her face up to the ceiling and let the whirring ceiling fan dry the moisture from her cheeks. She closed her eyes, but a different picture burned brightly on her eyelids now, like a slide from a projector casting its image on a plain wall in a darkened room. Izzie. It wouldn’t fade.

  The damage was done, and she wouldn’t sleep now. The shock had rippled through her and left her shaken and wide awake. She turned her attention back to the album open in her lap.

  Her breathing deepened and calmed as she studied the image, but then her heart thudded again. Whose baby was it? Hard to tell, the way they stood shoulder to shoulder, each embracing the child. Was it Ursula’s? Or Helen’s? Or someone else’s? Anyone’s. The person taking the picture, or perhaps they were visiting the orphanage and it was one of its babies. It didn’t have to be Ursula’s just because she was one of the women holding it. Lexy peered closely, but there was no way of telling if it was a boy or a girl. No telltale pink or blue in a black and white, now sepia-tinged photograph. No ribbon in the bonnet-covered hair. No frilly dress to be seen beneath the plain knitted baby blanket swathing the sleeping child.

  Her hand trembled slightly as she turned the page. More of the baby, but on its own this time. Surely it was the same one: it was hard to tell, but it had to be, didn’t it? And as she looked at the photos of the baby growing up, turning the pages as the child progressed from passive bundle to active toddler, it became clear it was indeed a boy, so it had to be. It had to be Ursula’s son.

  Impatiently, Lexy continued to flick through the pages, looking for more of the precise copperplate, a word, a name to give her a clue, to confirm her growing certainty that this was Ursula’s son, but there were no notes, nothing. Nor were there many adults in the pictures. In fact, there was hardly anyone else at all—

  There she was again. The ghost of her mother. Grief playing tricks on her as exhaustion tightened its hold on her crammed mind. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, refocused on the picture of a woman sitting in a high-backed rattan chair like the throne of an Indian maharajah, with the infant standing beside her and another baby held in her arms, woman and young boy both staring down at the unseen face adoringly. Helen. It was Helen, but that still didn’
t mean the children were hers. The boy could still be Ursula’s son.

  Clinging to hope, Lexy continued to turn the pages, saw both children, both boys, playing together as they grew up, more and more people appearing with them. Still there were no captions, no dates, places or names, but having recognised Helen, Lexy began to recognise most of the others populating these captured moments, remembering them from the other album she’d reviewed. Helen and Gregory, Cameron, sometimes Evelyn and occasionally Douglas, even Fredi once or twice. Other children came and went, as did birthday parties, Christmas celebrations, first school uniforms, sports days, school plays and so on through the years. All the usual childhood landmarks were recorded, the boys taller, clearer as time passed and traits of the men they would become began to be chiselled into their faces. Here a photo of Helen and Gregory either side of the boys seated on bicycles; there a photo of Cameron teaching the elder boy to hold a golf club; and yet another of Cameron buried in sand with both boys standing to attention either side of him, spades held like rifles against their shoulders as they laughed at the camera, the family resemblance strong.

  It was clear this was a close circle of friends, the boys as much a part of it as each of the adults. Ursula herself had only appeared in that first photo. Had she returned to Scotland by the time the rest of these were taken? Had someone sent them to her as a way of keeping her up to date with … what? The life she’d left behind? The children growing up? Her son? Lexy felt her disappointment bite as she accepted the two boys were clearly brothers, and given Helen’s regular appearance as the one tending to them, holding them, hugging them, she had to conclude they were Helen’s boys.

  The first of the colour photographs removed any lingering doubt, or hope, that she’d stumbled so easily on Ursula’s son. It was a formal family portrait, with Helen sitting in the centre, Gregory and Cameron standing side by side behind her chair, and her two sons, one on either side of her, like smaller, younger versions of the men, the elder boy of his uncle Cameron, the younger of his father Gregory. A matching pair of brothers in each generation. History waiting to repeat itself, Lexy thought, and wondered if it had. Gregory disappeared from the photos shortly after that, as did Evelyn and Douglas, and the last few were mainly of the two young brothers, Helen and Cameron appearing only once or twice, before the photos stopped altogether. The final photograph, again a formal portrait, showed the two boys, now almost teenagers, standing side by side, the elder of the two awkwardly holding a baby, which this time, judging by the profusion of crocheted lace tumbling from his arms, was a girl.