Ursula's Secret (40 page)

“And, uh, this Robert guy. He fits into this all how, exactly?”

“He’s Evie’s grandson. He lived with Ursula when he was studying in Ed—”

“Not what I meant.”

Lexy felt colour spring to her face as she realised what he was asking. “Oh Danny, for Chrissakes! My mother’s just died, I’ve just found out I’m not who I thought I am—”

“You can say that again.”

“—and you think I have time to go falling at the feet of the first man I—”

“So you found him attractive?”

“Danny! That’s not what I said and anyway I don’t think you’ve got any … Oh, you know what? It’s none of your business. But for what it’s worth, no. Okay? No. No Robert and me, all right?”

Danny started to nod, then stopped and looked down at the small bird in his hand. He turned it over and up towards the grey light from the window.

“That’s odd.”

“What? What is?” Lexy scrabbled to her knees and crawled over towards him, bedsprings groaning as her weight rolled over them. She put her hand on his shoulder to pull it back a little so she could see. His finger was rubbing back and forth along the base.

“There’s a ridge here. It feels slightly … I don’t know. Almost as if it’s been mended. Must have been broken at some point, I guess.”

“Give me that!” Lexy snatched it from him and leapt to her feet in one fluid, feline move, as Ross’s words came back to her.

See-cret
, he’d said.
Secret inside.

She tapped the bird against the top of the old chest of drawers.

“Lexy what are you doing? You’ll break it!”

Danny tried to grab her arm as she raised it high above her head, ready to bring it crashing down.

“No, Lexy, don’t. It was your mother’s. You’ll— oh!”

Lexy yanked her wrist free, stumbled backwards and tripped as her ankle banged against the leg of the heavy winged chair next to the window. Twisting as she tried to stay upright, she clutched at the chair’s arm to break her fall but succeeded only in pulling it down on top of her as she landed hard on her stomach with a thud that set the bedside lamp shaking and the honeybird flying from her hand. She was sprawled on the floor like a chalked corpse in a police procedural.

“Lexy! Lexy, are you okay?” Danny was beside her in an instant and the chair was lifted away. She could feel him crouching over her, knew his forehead would be creased in a frown of alarm.

Lexy couldn’t speak, couldn’t open her eyes. All her energy was focused on the struggle to get air down into her lungs.

“Oh God, Lex.” Danny slapped lightly at her face. “Speak to me, say something, Lex.” She managed to lift a hand to stop his as she opened her eyes.

“Winded … Can’t …”

Danny gently rolled her over onto her back, then stood and righted the chair before stooping down, sliding his hands under her shoulders, scooping her up and settling her gently back in the armchair. He knelt on the floor beside her, stroking her hand, the worry dancing across his face as he fussed over her, undermining the Danny-as-Tarzan fantasy that had started to take shape in her mind.

“Easy now,” he was murmuring, over and over. “Just stay calm.” Lexy found herself wishing he’d take his own advice.

“W … w …” She tried to speak but the sound was less than a whisper.

“Shh, don’t try to talk.”

“W …” She tried again, more urgently.

“Water? Yes, yes, of course,” Danny stood looking around him. She caught the hem of his hoodie as he started toward the pink basin.

“Bird,” she finally croaked. “What …”

“Oh, the bird …” They were looking around them, scanning the room, couldn’t see it. Danny bobbed down onto all fours to check under the bed, the chair, the—

“Got it.” His hand disappeared beneath the bedside table, retrieved it from where it was nesting against the skirting board.

“Think it’s okay,” he said, handing it to Lexy. “Ah. Maybe not.” He handed her the beak, which had fallen off in his hand. “But a bit of glue and you’d never know.”

She wasn’t listening. She was peering into the hollow body of the bird through the tiny spyhole left by the broken beak.

Before he could stop her, she dropped it and stamped down on it hard. She looked at him, then slowly moved her foot. Together they looked down at the shattered bird, and saw the folded, yellowed paper that had been hidden in its shell.

Lexy’s colour was returning to normal now and her breathing was shallow but strengthening.

Danny picked up the paper, shook it to remove ceramic dust and handed it to her. She shook her head.

“You,” she whispered.

He sat back on his heels and slowly unfolded the paper, looking up at her for reassurance.

“Get
on
with it, Danny.” Her impatience was back, along with her breath.

“It’s … I think it’s … a birth certificate.”

“Whose?” she asked, although she thought she knew what the answer would be.

“Isobel Buchanan-Munro’s.”

Lexy nodded, pushed away Danny’s hand as he tried to give her the paper, pushed herself out of the chair and reached into the bag she’d left on top of the chest of drawers. She pulled out the other bird.

“So what about this one?” she mused as much to herself as to Danny. Running her fingers over its base, she felt the ridge. Smiled as she turned it towards Danny. “Same thing.”

She came over to the table, lifted her arm again to smash this bird too, but Danny stood.

“No, Lex. Don’t smash it. This one isn’t yours.”

“I hardly think that matters in the circumstances.”

But she let Danny take it nonetheless, her eyes widening as he pulled out a Swiss army knife from his jeans pocket. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Danny the Boy Scout. Always prepared. But a Swiss army knife wasn’t really something she’d expected him to possess. It was a bit too … rugged.

“Danny,” she laughed. “Where on earth did you get that?”

“Had it for years. Thought I better bring it in case … in case I needed … Well, you know.”

“Danny, this is Scotland, not the jungle,” Lexy said, choosing to ignore her own earlier broodings on the hostility of the environment as she succumbed to the temptation to tease him with familiar ease.

“Yeah well. Better safe—”

“—than sorry,” she finished for him, as she always had, and they both laughed briefly before an awkward silence descended.

Danny cleared his throat and sat on the bed, resting the bird on his lap as he opened a blade on the knife. Carefully, he began to scrape at the ridge, blowing the dust away from time to time and then scratching the blade a little deeper, a little deeper.

Lexy, fully recovered now, paced up and down in front of the window, dying to wrench the bird from his hands and just smash it as she’d originally intended to do. What did it matter? Helen wouldn’t care – not when Lexy confronted her with the truth. She’d have much more important things to care about.

“Oh, come
on
, Danny!”

He paused briefly, then returned to his painstakingly methodical scraping.
Good grief, he’s annoying,
Lexy thought. No wonder it hadn’t worked between them. Look at him, chip, chip, chipping away, when all she wanted to do was grab it, smash it, get to its heart at once. Chalk and cheese, they were, night and day, tortoise and hare—

“Gotcha.” Danny dropped the knife, twisted his hands in opposite directions and the bird fell neatly into two pieces, a folded yellow square falling down onto Danny’s lap.

Lexy snatched it up, no longer afraid of what it might contain, anxious to read the name on what she knew would be another birth certificate. David’s, it would be David’s, and then she’d have all the proof she needed.

She felt the colour drain from her face, sat down in the armchair as heavily as if she were winded again.

“Lex? Lex, what is it?”

“It’s not him. It’s not David.” She was speaking slowly, eyes running over and over the words on the page as she tried to understand them, tried to force them to spell out what she’d expected to see.

Danny came over and sat on the arm of the chair, took the paper from her.

“Sen … Senga? Who the hell is Senga? And what kind of a name is that anyway?”

“It’s another one.”

“What?”

“Another child. A fourth child. Helen had another child. Look.” She pointed to the mother’s name: Helen Munro. “That’s her. It has to be.”

“No Buchanan this time, though.”

“No, and no father’s name, either.”

Helen had had another sleepless night. She’d been in the workshop since the small hours, glazing pots, something she usually found soothing and therapeutic. But not today. Her hands hadn’t been steady and she was sure she’d spoilt at least three but wouldn’t know for sure until they’d been fired. They’d start the kiln later. Ross always liked to help with that. She wiped her hands with a damp cloth, dried them on her dusty apron. Breakfast. Ross would be hungry. She paused for a moment outside the workshop, looking at the islands in the distance, sun bouncing off the water all around them. She wished she were on one of them, sometimes. This island she’d tried to maroon herself on here on the mainland not enough to keep the world at bay. Alexis had found her. Lexy. She regretted sending her away. It was the shock. She’d been expecting Izzie and hadn’t known what to say to the vibrant young woman. Her granddaughter. Helen found she was hoping Lexy wouldn’t give up, would try again.

The door creaked its welcome as she pushed it open.

“Ross?” she called, craning her neck up the stairs behind her as she slung her jacket over its hook. “Ross, darling? Are you up? Breakfast.”

She was answered by a thump and scratch of a chair from the kitchen. “Ross? Everything all right?” She sighed. He’d be trying to make tea, to surprise her. Sometimes he managed, other times he struggled, dropped or smashed cups, spilt hot water on his hands, threw milk across the room in frustration. The metallic clatter of the kettle lid falling onto the kitchen flagstones told her which it would be today.

“Ross, I’m just coming, darl—” The kitchen door swung open and she saw Ross sitting at the table, panic on his face, and a young woman standing behind him, one hand on each of his shoulders pressing him down into the wooden chair, a smile of sorts on her face. A smile Helen felt she’d seen before.

“Ross, are you—”

“Oh, he’s fine. For now.” There was menace in the voice, a familiar undercurrent.

Ross whimpered. “Dropped kettle,” he said.

Helen saw the water pooling near the door as it trickled its way across the uneven floor.

“Not really a good idea to leave the kitchen door unlocked, even out here. Never know who might happen along. I gave you a bit of fright there, Ross, didn’t I?” The woman squeezed Ross’s shoulders as she leant forward and placed her head alongside his, her eyes never leaving Helen’s face. “But we’re all right now, aren’t we, Ross?”

Seeing the two faces side by side, one dark and puzzled, one light and smiling, Helen’s eyes widened. The resemblance was there and yet … she was young, this woman. Too young.

“You’re not … You can’t be …”

“Who? Who can’t I be?” The hand slid off Ross’s shoulder, cupped his upper arm and pulled him closer. “We’re going to be such friends, Ross, aren’t we? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, a friend?”

Something about her tone alarmed Helen, but Ross looked back at the smiling face and grinned, nodded vigorously. “Friend.”

“That’s right. Friend. Good, Ross. Very good.”

Helen took a step forward, picked up the kettle lid that lay upside down at her feet, held it in both hands in front of her like a miniature shield.

“Who are you?” she repeated, although a slow nausea was building in her stomach as she began to wonder if she might already know. “What are you doing in my house?”

“I’ve come to visit. Family should, after all.”

Helen kept her face still, her eyes steady, anything to fight the growing tide of realisation that was sweeping through her body, a physical pulse of disgust and horror. But she was too young … like the other one yesterday … Oh dear God.

“Nothing to say, Gran? Don’t you even want to know your granddaughter’s name?”

“You’re not my granddaughter.” This could not be. It wasn’t possible.

“Yes, I most certainly am.”

“You … you’re … Alexis is my granddaughter.”

“Lexy?” The woman laughed. “So she is. And I’m sure she’ll be along soon, too. She’s not one to give up, that cousin of mine. She’s been beavering away, dig, dig, digging to get to the bottom of the scam you and your friends put together all those years ago. All I had to do was follow on behind. I feel I’ve come to know her quite well already. Trust me, she’ll be back.”

Helen slid down into a chair across the table from her son and this … this stranger. The cold metal lip of the kettle lid was digging into Helen’s hands, the pain helping her keep her focus, take in what this familiar stranger was saying. Her mind was trying to fight what she was hearing, find a way of making it all lies … and yet … Helen knew.

“That’s better, take a load off. Don’t want that hip playing up, do we? Thought we could have a little family reunion later, when Cousin Lexy gets here. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Ross, a party? And Gran can tell us more about her adventures in Africa, won’t that be fun?” She leant in to the bewildered man, squeezed his arm, too tightly, smiled at his yelp of pain and surprise.

“Leave him alone.” Helen’s voice was steady, despite the adrenalin crackling through her veins. “Get out. I don’t know who you are or what you—”

“Oh Gran.” Even the pout was familiar, Helen realised with horror. “Don’t be mean. You know who I am. Think. Think back to Malawi, to a time I know you’ve a tendency to forget. But I’m sure it’s all still in there somewhere.” She leant over, flicked Helen’s forehead and laughed again as Helen gasped in shock. “Come on, Gran. You can do this.”

Helen’s mouth was dry, speech impossible. She shook her head slowly.

“I can see it’s all coming back now. Good, good. No point in denying it, Gran, now, is there? Blood will out and all that. But how rude. I haven’t told you my name. I’m Jenny, Jenny Kennedy, although that name won’t mean anything to you yet, I expect.”