The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright (ARC)

by Beth Miller

‘It is cool,’ Bear said, turning back to me as Marla returned to the counter. ‘It’s cool, not to mention brave, to fly across the world. It’s not your usual style. So come on, then. What’s brought you here?’

  ‘You haven’t written for six months,’ I said. ‘I missed three letters in a row.’

  Bear nodded. ‘I’m sorry. It just, well, this sounds bad, I’m not going to sugar-coat it. I guess it stopped being a priority.’

  ‘I understand,’ I lied, hoping I didn’t show how much that hurt. Writing to Bear had always been an absolute priority to me. I’d written sitting up in a maternity unit bed after having Stella; behind the counter of Quiller Queen between customers; after Mum died; on holiday; on weekends; in so many precious free moments.

  She reached out and took my hand. ‘I’m so sorry my thoughtlessness cost you an expensive plane ticket, and no doubt a whole load of grief back home. How long are you here for?’

  ‘I fly back Tuesday. But look, don’t worry if you’re busy, I’m not expecting you to spend time with me, I'm going to see all the sights, maybe an opera, and…’

  ‘Don’t be daft, you dag! This is an unexpected but wonderful treat. Of course I want to spend time with you. It’ll be great. I’d invite you to stay, but things are a little tricky at home at the moment… but I definitely want to see you loads while you’re here.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I filed away the ‘tricky at home’ info for later interrogation, over a couple of drinks.

  ‘Absolutely!’ Bear gave me her biggest smile, her eyes crinkling. ‘I can’t think of anything nicer, now I’m over the shock! So look, how on earth have you swung this? How is Richard sparing you? You can’t usually manage a day trip to Bournemouth without having to bring in a logistics team.’

  Now it came to it, I didn’t know how to say it. ‘Oh, it’s all fine.’

  ‘Don’t come the raw prawn with me!’ Bear said, raising her voice. ‘You’ve got high drama written all over you. You never do anything bonkers. Not since you were at uni!’

  Fine. Tell her, for heaven’s sake. ‘I’ve left him.’

  ‘Say again?’

  ‘I’ve left Richard. I had enough of the marriage, and I left.’

  I sat back and sipped my coffee, aware of Bear’s eyes on me. I looked up defiantly.

  ‘Well, good for you, love.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’ She took my hand again. ‘Really. This is a great move for you.’

  ‘It is? Almost everyone else has told me what a terrible idea it is.’

  ‘Screw them. You’ve been pedalling the same bicycle for thirty years.’

  ‘Twenty-nine.’ I grinned. ‘Does that mean I need to buy a new bicycle?’

  ‘You can choose a more fancy form of transport if you like. Honestly, Kay. I know Richard’s been a good, solid husband. But life’s fucking short, you know. I always wondered if he’d clipped your wings. You got stuck in a groove with kids, work. Maybe it’s time to ditch good and solid for something else.’

  ‘I don’t want to meet anyone new.’

  ‘No, that’s not what I’m saying. Christ, I know that only too well! Last thing on my mind when Murray left. My overwhelming thought was, this split might be really painful, and it’s doubtless having a horrible impact on Charlie, but at least I never need have sex again.’

  I laughed. ‘Shit, that’s bad. I still quite like sex with Richard.’

  ‘Liked, my love, it’s past tense, if you’ve left him.’

  ‘That’s right. What I mean is, I don’t have any desire to be part of a couple again.’

  ‘That might change, though. It’s all still so new. I’ve been uncoupled for nearly six years, and I’m afraid to report that it has plenty of disadvantages.’

  ‘Yes, I’m a newbie at this. Maybe you can give me some tips.’

  Bear sipped her coffee. ‘The older I get, Kay, the more I realise that I know jack shit about what this crazy merry-go-round is meant to be about.’

  ‘So, tell me about you, Bear.’ I leaned forward. ‘What’s going on with you?’

  ‘Oh, not much. Charlie is a handful. But school keeps him out of my hair. My job’s fine.’

  Bear was a PE teacher – she’d always been very energetic and sporty. ‘Menopause not dragging you down yet?’

  ‘Least of my worries!’ She laughed. ‘So how’s the lag, talking of tiredness?’

  ‘I’m pretty wiped out now. I’m starting to see auras round everything. I was running on adrenaline till I saw you.’

  ‘Well, look.’ She put some money on the table, waving away my attempt to pay. ‘Why don’t you go back to your hotel for a sleep? I’ve got to get to work, but this evening I’ll take you to dinner at my favourite place, the Purple Kangaroo. 7 p.m. Don’t let the stupid name put you off, it’s the best Vietnamese in the city.’

  ‘That sounds amazing.’ I tried to stifle a yawn, but it was too large to be subdued. ‘Ah, sorry.’

  Bear grinned. ‘It’s creeping over you, I know the signs. Marla! Can we order this young lady a cab?’

  Marla nodded, already dialling a number. ‘Where to, Ursula?’

  ‘The Park Royal,’ I told her. Then, to Bear: ‘Ursula?’

  She’d hated that name as a teenager, had dead-eyed anyone who’d used it, so that even our teachers had got used to referring to her as Bear. The meaning of Ursula was ‘little bear’, a fact she’d latched onto when very young, even before Rose and I knew her.

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’ve come back to it recently. Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I still answer to Bear, too. But when Dad died a few years ago, I discovered he’d chosen the name. I never knew that, and I did a bit of genealogy digging, well, Charlie did it for me, these kids and their tech-wizardry, eh? I discovered Dad had a sister who died when she was tiny, before she was one – cot death – called Ursula.’

  ‘Ah, that’s so sad.’

  ‘I know, right? If he’d only have told me, I might have worn the name with pride.’

  ‘Your dad was a sweet man,’ I said.

  ‘He was, and your mum was a top lady. I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it to the funeral.’

  ‘Ah, Bear, Ursula I mean, I didn’t expect you to be there. It’s funny, isn’t it, how things work, because it’s sort of to do with Mum dying that I’m here.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘I cleared out her flat…’

  ‘That’s a grim job, isn’t it?’

  ‘Awful. But I found some of my old stuff. Including something interesting from when we were at school, that last year you were there, remember?’

  ‘Like it was yesterday.’

  ‘It was a list of all the things I wanted to do by the time I was thirty. And I’ve hardly done any of them, even though I am a tad past thirty. So, one thing led to another, and essentially, that list brought me here. I’ve updated it, and I’m going to do the things on it now. Better late than never.’

  ‘Wow,’ Bear said, smiling. ‘There’s something you’re not remembering.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bring the list tonight, and I’ll tell you.’

  A horn beeped outside, and Bear stood up. ‘Your taxi’s here.’

  I stood up too, aware now of how exhausted I was, the heaviness sweeping over me like stones. ‘It was great to see you, Ursula.’

  ‘You too, love. You crazy woman! Now I’ve got over the shock, I’m really happy you’re here. I’ll see you tonight.’

  She walked me to the door, and saw me into the cab. I waved until she was out of sight, then closed my eyes. I must have slept for the twenty-minute ride, because it seemed no time at all that we were outside my hotel. I managed to pay the cabbie, get into my room, take my shoes off, and set my alarm for 6 p.m., but that was all. I fell onto the bed, as if someone had turned off a switch.

  I slept right through the day, only surfacing when the alarm went off. I still felt weird, but after a shower and a tooth-brushing, better than before. I put on a clean dress, rang fo
r a cab, and at the last minute remembered to put the ‘things to do’ list in my bag.

  The Purple Kangaroo turned out to be embarrassingly near my hotel; I could have walked there in fifteen minutes. I was early, but Bear was already there, sitting at a table in the window. We kissed, and I got the giggles, as if we were still fifteen.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m really here, and it’s really you!’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re here either!’ Bear shook her head at me. ‘You look more rested.’

  ‘I was solidly out of it for hours. I won’t be able to sleep tonight. Mind you, I’ve been sleeping brilliantly since I left home, best sleeps I’ve had for years.’

  ‘That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’

  ‘I think so.’ I started looking through the menu. ‘I’ve never had Vietnamese before.’

  ‘Shall I order some nice things, and we can share them?’

  ‘Oh hell, yes.’ I shut the menu with relief, and Bear rattled off an order to the waitress.

  ‘Excellent choices,’ the young woman said, ‘you’re gonna love it!’

  After she’d gone, I started to say, ‘Everyone here is so—’

  But Bear interrupted me. ‘Friendly? Yeah, I know. It bloody kills me.’

  ‘Missing the old British service ethic, are you?’ I mimed a salt-of-the-earth Liverpudlian waitress slamming a plate down on the table. ‘“That’s yer lot!”’

  ‘I do kind of miss it, oddly. So. Show me your list.’

  I passed over the scrappy, much-folded piece of paper. Bear put on reading glasses, and examined it. ‘Haha, become a famous photographer. Your ambition was impressive. Yes, yes, I remember this so well.’

  ‘What do you mean? Do you remember me writing this?’

  ‘Course I do.’ She looked at me over the top of her glasses. ‘We both wrote a list at the same time.’ She rummaged in her bag and brought out her own folded piece of paper. ‘Have you forgotten?’

  ‘Completely! Jesus! When does early-onset Alzheimer’s start?’

  ‘We wrote these a few weeks before my family moved away. You and I were being all teenage and melancholy in your bedroom. You sat on your bed and I was on your blue beanbag.’

  ‘Wow, Bear, you have the most amazing memory. I haven’t thought of that beanbag in forever. It was so long ago.’

  ‘Thirty-five years ago. No, thirty-six.’

  ‘Where was Rose?’

  ‘I’m afraid my memory doesn’t extend that far. She wasn’t there that day, that’s all I know. We were sad about me going away. I think this was the same day we made the pledge to write every other month.’

  ‘Oh! Well, I do remember that.’

  ‘Then we each made a list of things we wanted to do by the time we were thirty. See?’ She pointed to the lists. ‘Your first one is to visit me every other year, and my first one is to visit you every other year!’

  ‘Jesus, Bear, you did so much better with that one than me.’

  The waitress brought over steaming bowls of food, and we stopped talking while she set them down, which unfortunately gave her the space to deliver an upbeat monologue about each one.

  ‘Thanks,’ Bear said firmly, in the middle of a eulogy about the pork pancakes, and the waitress took the hint.

  ‘I’ll leave you ladies to it!’

  ‘You do that,’ Bear said. Then, to me: ‘So, start with some rice, and then try a little of each one. You bringing any food shizzle to the table: veggie, gluten-intolerant, no-carb? Guess I should have asked before I ordered.’

  ‘No, I eat everything.’ The food smelled amazing, and I started to ladle some onto my plate.

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Are there any other things on the lists that we had in common?’

  ‘Yeah, we both wanted a baby. You obviously beat me to it by about thirteen years.’

  ‘I was so stupidly young. Younger than Stella is now. Talking of kids… God, this is good.’

  ‘It’s amazing, right? Yes, what about kids?’

  ‘You said things were awkward at home. Is that to do with Charlie?’

  ‘Oh… yeah, he’s at that difficult age. Not great around new people.’

  ‘Edward was the same.’

  As I ate another massive forkful of something delicious, I noticed that Bear was, in contrast, taking infrequent tiny mouthfuls. Her plate contained about a quarter of the food on mine. She’d often worried about her weight over the years – completely unnecessarily, she was always thin – and in her late teens had gone through periods of what I supposed we would now call bulimia. I realised with a jolt that must have been in the three or four years after she emigrated here. The move must have been a hell of an upheaval for her. A typical selfish teenager, I had only really thought about the impact of her departure on me.

  ‘Also,’ Bear went on, ‘we both wanted to go to Venice. You wanted to eat ice cream by the Grand Canal, and I wanted a gondola ride.’

  ‘Ha, yours is miles more touristy than mine.’

  ‘Let’s see… we both wanted to be famous in some way, me in athletics and you in photography. Ah well. How many of these did you do?’

  ‘None, apart from have a baby. That’s why I’ve updated it.’ I opened my diary and showed her my new list. ‘Visiting you is the first item. And look, Venice is still on here.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve never made it to Venice, you’re hardly a minute away from it.’

  ‘I always thought it was somewhere I’d go with Richard. It’s not the sort of place I’d want to go alone. How come you never went, Bear, in all your many European travels?’

  ‘I guess Murray wasn’t keen on the idea. “No trucks? Just boats? Fuck that shit.” You know,’ she said, pointing at my diary, ‘you haven’t got anything on this new list about what you’re going to do, work-wise I mean, now you’re not in the shop anymore.’

  ‘That’s because I don’t know yet,’ I said. ‘I’m a little bit worried about it. Fifty-one’s kind of late to be starting a new career. I guess I’ll have to wait and see where I end up living, then try and get a shop job.’

  ‘You sound thrilled by the prospect.’

  ‘Ah, I’m a bit over retail. But it’s all I know.’ I ripped a clean page out of my diary, and handed it to her, with a pen. ‘You should do an updated list, too.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be long, does it?’ Bear said. ‘I’m not sure I can think of many things.’

  ‘Long or short as you like.’ I ate while she made some notes, watching her covertly. She did look older than Rose and me. The granny haircut didn’t help. And perhaps the Australian sun had been tough on her skin.

  ‘There!’ she said, putting down the pen. ‘Four items. Go to Venice; drink tea on West Kirby beach; drink wine on the beach near my house here, which I have talked about doing for ten years; and make a photo album of my life for Charlie.’

  ‘Those are great,’ I said. ‘Completely do-able. I’ll come with you when you go back to Hoylake. I haven’t actually been to Kirby beach for ages. You know…’ And the ideas started coming so quickly, it was as if I had been thinking unconsciously of nothing else for days. ‘I might go from here to Venice.’

  ‘Wow, lucky you. No, not lucky.’ Bear took another tiny mouthful of food, then laid her fork down in a decisive manner, as though she’d finished. ‘You’re making your own luck. You’ve unshackled yourself, and you’re doing what you want for the first time in forever.’

  ‘So come with me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why don’t you come to Venice, Bear? We can both go from there to West Kirby, and then you’ve done half your list in one go.’

  Bear raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Wow, look at you, Miss “I’ve just discovered air travel”. Nice thought, but I can’t.’

  ‘Why not? Course you can! Is it work? Can’t you take time off?’

  ‘Exactly. “Sorry students and colleagues, I’m off to Europe now, catch you later.”’

  ‘You’ve w
orked there forever, I’m sure they’d give you a few days off. We don’t have to go for very long. And won’t Murray have Charlie?’

  ‘Yes, he could have him. He’s staying there now, in fact. But anyway, the thought of travelling is a bit hard going at the moment. All the logistics, think I’m getting stuck in my ways.’

  If Charlie was with Murray, why couldn’t I have stayed at her house? I decided to park that for now. ‘I can do the logistics, bookings, everything.’

  ‘Sorry, Kay, I can’t.’

  Now I’d had the idea, I felt disappointed she was shutting it down without even thinking about it. I could already picture the two of us strolling with ice creams by the Grand Canal, stopping for cappuccinos at an outside café, reclining on a gondola… now I’d imagined Bear there by my side, I couldn’t unsee it. Surely I could bring her round to it. I let a few moments pass, ate some more of the delicious food and thought about what would convince me to go, if I were in Bear’s shoes. In fact, what had convinced me to get off my butt, just ten days ago?

  ‘You know, Ursula,’ I said casually. ‘Who knows how long we have while we’re still healthy enough to travel? Not trying to be morbid, but we’ve got the opportunity now, and we don’t know how long that door will be open for.’

  I realised I was slurring slightly. The wine plus jet lag combo had gone to my head. I seemed to be the only one tackling the bottle; Bear’s first glass looked untouched, while I was ready for a third. I decided not to pour it yet, in the spirit of moderation.

  ‘None of us know how long we’ve got, Kay.’

  ‘Exactly!’ I banged my fork for emphasis. ‘That’s why I think we should go for it. I waited all these years for Richard to take me to Venice, but now I want to go with you, Bear.’

  ‘Is this one of those late in life lesbian things I’ve been reading about in That’s Life! magazine?’

  ‘Bear, I love you, but not like that.’

  ‘Talking of love, what about this one?’ Bear held up our old lists. ‘We both put “Fall in love with a beautiful man”. How’d that work out for us, huh?’

  ‘I did fall in love with a beautiful man,’ I said, the heat rushing to my face. ‘David Endevane. My first love. Maybe my only true love.’