Ursula's Secret (39 page)

She looked round for her bag, pulled out the small ceramic honeybird, so familiar, identical to her mother’s. She ran her finger over the white initials on the base. HBM.
Honey Bird Malawi
, perhaps? Or something else? Did her mother’s have that on the base too? She’d never looked, but that would prove it, wouldn’t it? That they were connected somehow. It wasn’t chance. Her mother and Ursula had got their birds from Helen. She was sure of it.

She strode over to the bed, snatched up the phone and pressed the contacts button.

No.
She couldn’t. It wasn’t fair. But she didn’t want to go all the way back to London. She couldn’t risk it. What if Helen took Ross away somewhere? If she was really rattled and thought Lexy was going to expose her, she might do something drastic. No. Lexy had to stay here. Had to go back to the cottage tomorrow to try again. With or without the bird. But better, so much better,
with
.

She tapped a contact, put the phone to her ear, paced up and down as it rang.

“Danny? Danny it’s me, Lexy.”

“As it says on my screen.”

“Danny, I want—”

“Fine, thanks for asking. How about you?”

It really irritated her when he did that, but she ignored it. He’d learnt it from her.

“Yes, sorry. Danny, hi, how— Oh, I haven’t got time for this. Danny, I need your help.”

“Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Danny, please. Look I know you don’t have to help me. That you’re probably still angry with me. And that I deserve it, but please, I really need you to help—”

“Stop it, Lexy. I can’t bear it when you beg. You know I’ll help. Boringly dependable, you always used to say, right? What is it?”

She sighed with relief. She wouldn’t have blamed him for hanging up on her. But was so glad he hadn’t.

“Remember my mother’s honeybird?”

“No.” He sounded puzzled.

“Yes, you do. The little ceramic bird that used to sit by her bedside. The one I took with me the day we … When we were there after the hospital … I think I left it in the car.”

“You did. I boxed it up with the other bits and pieces I had of yours. With your mother’s ashes.” The rebuke was clear. She ignored it.

“Good, so it’s with Mrs B then? Do you think you could get it and send it up to me?”

“Up? In Malawi? Where the heck are you now?”

“Scotland. It’s urgent, Danny. I wouldn’t ask, but it’s really important. Can you send it by overnight courier? Here – I’ll give you the hotel address. Got a pen?”

She picked up a tea-stained piece of hotel stationery and rattled off the address, which was little more than the name of the hotel and a postcode. She could imagine him frowning as he painstakingly wrote the details down.

“I’m scared to ask, Lexy, I really am, but what in God’s name are you doing?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Of course it is. And I thought running off to Malawi was weird. What do you want a ceramic bird so urgently for in the Highlands of Scotland? You weren’t that bothered about it before, just left it to roll under the seat of the car.”

“I need to know who made it. I want to see if it’s got any initials on its base.” Lexy thought she could hear scrabbling in the background.

“Well it does. HBM.”

“Really?” Suddenly it fell into place.
HBM.
Helen’s initials, just like on the other one. “That’s fantastic. I still need it though. Can you send …” Her voice trailed off as a thought occurred to her. “How do you know, Danny?”

“Because I’m look—” She heard Danny’s sharp intake of breath.

“Where are you, Danny?” She could hear nothing. She knew he was still holding his breath. “Danny, are you at Mrs B’s? What are you doing there?”

“I … she gave me the key … asked me to move the box … so I’ve put it in the hall …”

“Oh my God. You’re in my flat. What the hell—”

“Technically, it’s still
our
flat,” Danny interrupted. “You haven’t signed the papers. Just one of the many bureaucratic chores you left undone when you ran away to Malawi.”

“Danny, don’t be so bloody pedantic, and I didn’t run—” She registered she was swearing again but was too rattled to care. “What the hell are you doing in my flat?”

“Well, after the burglary, I said I’d clear—”

“That was days ago, Danny. How long does it take, for Christ’s sake?”

He sighed. She waited, her mind trying to make sense of this latest turn of events.

“I moved back in.”

“
What?
Oh, don’t tell me … not in my flat. I don’t want that woman anywhere near my—”

“On my own.”

“She chucked you out?” Lexy gave a snort of laughter although she was far from amused, then immediately regretted it. “Oh Danny, I’m so sorry. What happened? The baby … ?”

“There is no baby.”

“Danny, that’s awful, I’m—”

“Turns out there never was. She just wanted to make me make a commitment, she said. I’d no idea someone would make up a thing like that. It never occurred to me … anyway. When the associate professorship went to Paul Manders, she realised I wasn’t the love of her life after all. He is.”

“You didn’t get tenure? But I thought it was in the bag?”

“Apparently not. I’m as bad a judge of faculty politics as I am of women, it would seem.”

“Don’t say that, Danny. You’re not a bad—” Despite herself, Lexy found herself feeling a little sorry for him. She knew how much his work meant to him, and she also knew how hard he tried to do the right thing. But then he should never have slept with Fizz in the first place. Her anger came back with a vengeance. “Danny, you can’t just crawl back to
my
flat when you have a tiff with your adolescent girlfriend.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I just need a place to stay for a bit until I can find somewhere to rent. And Mrs B was really pleased the flat wouldn’t be empty. She’s still a bit shaken about what happened. That’s why she gave me the key. Well, that and I told her you were okay with it.”

“You
lied
?” Lexy’s shock was more to do with the fact she hadn’t thought him capable of subterfuge than outrage at him blagging his way into her home. She was almost impressed.

“Yeah. Sorry. I know I shouldn’t have.”

“I want you gone before I get back.”

“And when exactly will that be? When exactly are you going to stop running around the place like a … a … a … oh, I don’t know! But when are you going to face up to what’s going on here? Sort out your burgled flat, your mother’s ashes, the whole damned shooting match of responsibilities that entails, not to mention tying up the ends of our relationship. Hmm, Lexy? When exactly will that be?”

“I don’t know!” Lexy shouted, surprised by how much he’d wound her up. “You know what? Just go. Go now. I want you out of there—”

“Before or after I send up your precious little bird by overnight courier to the arse end of the country?” Danny shouted back. Danny
shouted
. But she hardly registered it in the maelstrom of her own emotion.

“Just send it and get out!” But it was too late. The line was dead.

It wasn’t quite eight o’clock, but the dining room was empty. Crumbs of black pudding and the deepening orange of drying egg yolk adorned the empty plates at the next table, turning Lexy’s stomach. She was too wound up to have much appetite, but breakfast had seemed a way of killing time until the courier arrived with her mother’s ceramic honeybird. She knew Danny wouldn’t let her down, no matter how angry he’d been with her. She helped herself to muesli from the Victorian sideboard that had been pressed into service as a breakfast bar, hesitated at the few remaining fragments of tinned grapefruit before moving on to pour herself a half glass of pale apple juice. Diluted, she was sure.

Not that it mattered. She pushed the muesli around with her spoon, sinking sultanas beneath the surface of too much milk and watching them pop up again, finally putting the spoon back down on the tacky place mat. Propping her chin on her hand, she gazed out of the window at another dreich day.
Dreich.
The only Scots word she knew, but one that Isobel had taught her, especially, she’d said, for their trips to Edinburgh. It had made the bad weather, the relentless damp of the haar in from the sea, more exciting, exotic somehow, something they were privileged to experience and never could at home in London. Lexy smiled. Nonsense, of course. Just another of the half-truths her mother had told her. The smile faded. Half-truths. Lies. What was the difference? Had her mother ever been totally honest with her?

The door to the kitchen swung open and for a few seconds the sound of the dishwasher burst into the silence as the only member of staff Lexy had so far encountered that morning came in with her tea.

“Has there been anything delivered for me?” Lexy asked anxiously as the teapot was dumped in front of her without a word from the waiter, or even a smile. Lexy didn’t care. She didn’t have time for small talk either.

“Like what?”

“I’ve arranged for a package to be couriered to me from London. Overnight.”

“Oh well, that won’t be here till tomorrow then.”

“No, no. I arranged for it yesterday, to come overnight
last
night,” Lexy explained impatiently.

“So it will be here tomorrow.” He finally smiled at her, no doubt amused by the consternation on her face. “We don’t have overnight services up here. It all goes to Inverness and the couriers all hand it over to Archie’s lot. They’re the only ones that come this far north – consolidate it, you see.”

“But … but that’s not overnight then … I mean …”

“It does fine for us and it’s the best you get up here. Nothing’s ever really that urgent anyway, is it?” He disappeared through the swinging door, his exit again accompanied by a fanfare of mechanical humming from the dishwasher.

Yes it is,
Lexy wanted to scream after him. She had to have that bird. She pushed back her chair, coffee spitting from the spout of the pot as she did so, and glared out of the window. At the nothingness of this godforsaken wilderness. No wonder the couriers wouldn’t come. Who would? What had seemed so beautiful and free when she’d arrived was now inhospitable, as confining as Alcatraz. She didn’t want to lose another day. She could go back to Helen’s today, but if she didn’t have the bird to show her, to prove—

“Hello, Lexy.” The voice was weary but still instantly recognisable. She spun round.

“Danny! Oh Danny, thank God. Did you bring it? They just told me the overnight couriers don’t—”

“They don’t.” He cut across her. “Why do you think I’m here?”

“Have you got it?”

“Yes.” He held up a backpack, dangling it by a single strap.

“Let me have—”

Danny threw the backpack down in front of him. It hit the carpet with a thud, but, Lexy noted thankfully, no crack of smashing ceramic.

“Jeez, Lexy. Aren’t you even going to ask me how I got here?”

“I … Sorry, Danny … I …” Her eyes were darting between his and the backpack at her feet. She was desperate to snatch it up and open it. She felt his hand close around her wrist and pull, forcing her to look at him, to connect.

“Lexy, you’re behaving like a … like a … You’re manic. What the heck is going on with you?”

She looked at his familiar face, shadowed with unfamiliar stubble, at his blond hair, rumpled and falling over his forehead. His clothes, too, were rumpled and he smelt a little stale. Yet, somehow, the overall effect was surprisingly good. Attractive, even. He looked like his own wilder, younger brother.

Lexy nodded, looked down, forced her racing pulse to slow. She put her hand over his on her wrist.

“I’m … I’m fine. Long story. But you, you look all in, Danny.”

“I am. Drove all night.”

She reached up and touched his face, fingertips feeling the bristles on his chin, the coolness of his skin. He hated driving. Especially at night. He leant slightly into her cupped palm. She could feel the warmer air of his breath brush her skin. It was too intimate. She stepped back, dropped her hand.

Danny made a sharp sound, more snort than laugh, nudged the backpack towards her with his toe. “Take it. I’ll get a room, sleep. Leave you to it, whatever it is.”

Lexy grabbed his arm as he started to turn. “No. No chance. Take mine.” For a moment something flickered in his eyes. “No, no.” She rushed on. “I mean there are none. Hotel’s full.” Danny looked around in obvious disbelief.

“German tourists. Serious about bagging Munros or whatever. Out at crack of dawn.”

“There must be something.”

“Just come up to mine. I’ll be going out and you can sleep all day.”

“And be gone before you get back, right? Yeah, I know the drill. Okay. I get it.”

Lexy was hugging the backpack to her. “Hmm? No, not at all. Come on, the other bird’s upstairs; we can compare them.”

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

Lexy considered him. He was exhausted, his eyes bloodshot and black-ringed. He was standing hunched, hands in the pockets of the Superman hoodie she’d bought him when they’d first started going out. She’d had no idea he still had it. But that was Danny for you. He clung on: to things, to people, to her. Refused to let go. It had driven her mad, this stubbornness, this resistance to change. But right now, she realised his steadiness, his groundedness were just what she needed.

“Yes,” she said and started up the stair, knowing he would follow.

An hour later and they were both sitting on her bed, Lexy leaning against the headboard, knees drawn up to her chest, arms circled around them, Danny sitting at the foot of the bed, shoulders slumped forward, hands clasped and dangling between his legs.

“So you’re saying this woman is your grandmother, and that you’re her heir? Lex, it just doesn’t make sense. Your mother … I knew her, Lex. She wouldn’t have kept something like this from you. She just wouldn’t.”

“Unless she didn’t know. Look, Danny, I know I’m right. And that little bird there is going to help me prove it.”

Danny turned and picked up the bird that was sitting on the bed between them.