by Mairi Wilson
“You sound as if you have reason to say that. Do you know him?” Perhaps this would be her way in to Richard Chakanaya after all, to finding out who he was acting for when he arranged the payments to Ursula.
“I know him. I wish I didn’t. But Blantyre’s a small place.”
Lexy decided to bide her time. She’d work out how to engineer an introduction later. For now, she needed to get Robert on side. Make a friend of him and ignore the fact he irritated the hell out of her.
“So,” she said, breezily changing the subject, “tell me a bit about yourself. I don’t really know much about you, or your gran, except that you used to write to Ursula and your gran was her friend. And, of course, she was my mother’s godmother.”
“Not much to tell, really. What do you want to know?” This was going to be hard work.
“What about your family, your parents? Are they in Blantyre?”
“No. Australia.”
“Brothers? Sisters?” she persevered.
“No.”
“Well, Ursula then. How well did you know her? What was she like when she was younger?”
That seemed safer ground, and by the time they’d reached the hospital Lexy had learnt that Robert had lodged with Ursula when he’d been studying in Edinburgh, had still visited her once or twice a year if he could manage it, and that Evie and Ursula were thick as thieves. They’d come out to Africa together and been part of the same close-knit circle of friends, as Lexy already knew. And all of which made her even more certain Evie would be able to help her trace Ursula’s son.
In return, Lexy had volunteered some of her own background, but none of it seemed to be news to him. He even knew of her father; he admired his work and hoped to do his own bit to further the research the esteemed Philip Shaw had begun. She wanted to know more, but they’d arrived.
‘Right,” he said as he pulled up to the hospital entrance. “Easier if I drop you off here. Ask at reception, they’ll direct you up to Gran.”
As Lexy waved to the disappearing car, she felt she’d made a reasonable start in getting Robert on her side. Now she just had to be sure she didn’t upset his gran.
“Mrs Campbell?”
Lexy pushed the door open and hesitated, not wanting to venture further into the room until she was sure the elderly woman sitting upright in the narrow hospital bed was ready to see her.
“Yes?” An immaculately coiffed head turned and surveyed her. “My dear. Do come in.”
The voice was crisp and clear, strong even, and quite at odds with the frailty of the body that housed it. Or the strength of the warning Robert had issued.
‘I’m Lexy—”
“I know dear. Alexis Shaw. I’ve been expecting you. Robert said he’d bring you. Where is my grandson?”
“He said there was an emergency at the clinic …” It felt awkward making Robert’s excuses for him.
“Isn’t there always? Well, no matter. I’d much rather have you all to myself anyway, if truth be known. Now come in and sit down, here, on this side of the bed, where I can see you properly. And draw over that curtain there if the sun’s in your eyes. I was so very sorry to hear about dear Ursula.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. It would have been unexpected news for you.”
“My dear, at my age, such news is never, sadly, completely unexpected. We are all in the waiting room, so to speak. Just look at me.”
“I … you look well … well … no, I don’t mean well … or you wouldn’t be in hospital. Obviously, but …” Oh, shut up, Lexy. Great start.
“Quite.” Evie laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, my dear. I’m sure I’ll last the afternoon. Dear Ursula, though. I thought she’d outlive us all, such a will of iron she developed in her later years. I thought Death himself would cower and bow to her authority. A fall, Robert said?” Lexy nodded. “Go on, my dear. Tell me all. I’m not about to faint or fade before your eyes, I assure you. I’m quite up to hearing the worst.”
So Lexy told her about her brief visit to Edinburgh, the little she knew of Ursula’s demise. Mrs Campbell, Evie, as she quickly became, listened attentively, prodding her with a question now and then, finally asking about Lexy’s own mother, clearly upset to learn that Izzie too was dead. Once again Lexy had broken bad news badly. She had forgotten Robert hadn’t known that so couldn’t have forewarned his grandmother.
“She was such a delight, your mother. Ursula adored her, as did we all. I am so very, very sorry, my dear. What a dreadful shock for you. So much to deal with on your own. I understand now why Robert said you had questions about your family, their time here. I can’t promise I’ll have the answers, but I did know them both, your mother and dear Philip, and I’ll help you if I can.”
“Thank you, Evie. I do have questions about my parents and their time here, but I also …” Lexy took a deep breath. “I also want to find Ursula’s son. I’m sure he’s still here in Malawi.”
“My dear girl, whatever do you mean? Ursula didn’t have a son. She was quite the career woman, no time for family, except your mother, of course. And once she had Izzie with her she had no need for anyone else, she used to say. A son? Nonsense.”
“No, Evie, it’s not. I know she had a son. He was making regular payments to her through solicitors here in Malawi. Through an intermediary, Richard Chakanaya. For some reason this son seems to want to be anonymous, but he’s the closest thing to an uncle, to family, I’ve got now, and I’m sure if he realised that, he’d want me to find him.”
Evie was silent, turned her head away to stare at the window, even though the curtains were drawn. The sun had moved on, though, and the curtains no longer glowed with light as they shielded the room from the searing rays.
“You could open those now, if you would, Lexy dear.”
The day flooded in, and Lexy remained where she was, letting the warmth wash over her, looking out over the hospital car park below, her back to the woman in the bed.
“Evie, I don’t know why Ursula and her son weren’t together, why she never mentioned him or why there was no trace of him in her flat. There’s nothing, you see. No record. Nothing. But I can guess, I think. She never married. And I understand that years ago, that mattered. But really it doesn’t now and I’m not judging anyone. I just want to find family, if I can, or near family. I just want to belong somewhere. I have no one else left.”
There was a long silence and Lexy had all but given up hope of an answer. Of a clue, a hint, anything from the old woman that would help her find Ursula’s son.
“What if you find something you don’t like, my dear? Be careful what you wish for, Ursula would say.”
“Yes, she would,” Lexy agreed, as a surge of nostalgia flooded her thoughts, “and my mother would have done too.”
“Poor child,” Evie whispered, her voice rich with compassion. “You must miss them so much.”
All Lexy could do was nod as she struggled to brush aside the sadness, stop it derailing her.
“He was an absolute cad, you know. A real bounder, as we used to say.”
Evie’s voice sounded distant, far away in the past, and Lexy froze in case any movement or sound would break the spell her memories seemed to have cast over the old woman.
“We met on the boat coming out to Africa, you know, all of us. That’s where it began. And he never loved her, I’m sure of that. Just played with her. Broke her heart. Then came back and broke it all over again. And then, as if he hadn’t done enough damage already, he married Helen. Tried to break her too, but she was not the innocent dear Ursula had been. But even she, in the end …”
“Cameron,” Lexy whispered.
Evie leant back against her pillow and turned her head to the window, the light like a stage lamp illuminating the strain on her features.
“Yes. Cameron. The only person I’ve ever truly wished dead. Now, at long last, he is.”
12
Blantyre Hospital, June 10th
Lexy had been evicted from Evie’s room by an off
icious doctor, resplendent in his starched white coat, trailing a posse of acolytes behind him. She shouldn’t have been surprised that Evie had agreed to her illness serving as a case study for the next generation of Malawi’s doctors, but much as she admired the older woman’s altruism, she’d been annoyed at the interruption. After a frustrating half-hour in the hospital canteen nursing a cup of tea she didn’t want, trying to imagine what Cameron could possibly have done to induce such clear loathing on the part of a woman Lexy could tell was by nature magnanimous and forgiving, she was informed by one of the acolytes that she could return.
Evie’s eyes were closed, but she seemed to sense Lexy’s presence and smiled her greeting. Encouraged, Lexy pulled her chair closer to the bed and took the frail hand in her own firm one. She waited. Evie sighed, turned her head away towards the window, eyes still shut, and then began to speak.
“Evie, darling? Be an absolute dear and help me with this, would you?”
Helen’s elegantly manicured hand held the two ends of the necklace behind her, unable quite to make the connection. Evie could hear the undertone of exasperation in Helen’s voice and was, as always, only too pleased to be asked to do this small task for her. Helen was like an exotic bird to Evie’s starling, and Evie was constantly amazed that she was her dearest, closest friend. “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” Ursula would have said, and how very true. All three of them had been able to see beneath each’s exterior to the person within and to find they were kindred spirits at their core.
Evie could never quite believe her luck. Evie, the doctor’s wife, taken up by this worldly, fashionable woman, and all because she happened to have booked passage on the same boat. Just think. A month earlier, or a month later, and she might never have met Helen Buchanan, even though there was a distant, very distant, family connection through their mothers. Nor would she have met Gregory Munro or his alarming brother Cameron, or even the slightly frightening but hugely capable Nurse Reid. Dear Ursula. All that professional proficiency and all that hopeless naivety. Sad, though. Brought up in an orphanage. Never knew what it was to be loved.
Evie could be in awe of them, if she let herself. She had been brought up in a remote Highland manse, been courted by her father’s godson and found herself married when she’d hardly turned nineteen. Then she was left behind for two long, long years while her new husband established his position before sending for her to join him.
They’d been in the country only a few days then, the evening of the necklace, the passage not long behind them, but shipboard romances done and dusted. Or so she’d thought.
“Of course, darling.” Evie reached in, took the ends of the rope of pearls and slipped the hook into its clasp. It clicked firmly into place, the hook sitting tightly in the diamond-crusted shell. Helen leant forward, starting to stand before Evie had removed her hands and that’s what made the dress gape away from her skin. Evie gasped. She prided herself on being unshockable, but there was a fading bruise the size of a saucer on Helen’s right shoulder, its greens and yellows mottling her perfect skin.
“Darling?” Helen asked. “What is it?” The dress fell back against her milk-white skin and the discoloration disappeared as she turned to face her friend.
“I … Your … There’s a … Nothing,” Evie stammered, turning away as Helen looked at her, one eyebrow cocked in that self-assured, amused way she had then. Evie felt her cheeks flush and her heart beat faster. What had happened? Such a bruise! How had she—
“Cameron,” Helen said, her voice flat, her shoulders rising in the slightest of shrugs.
“Cameron?”
“The bruise. Yes, Cameron.”
“Cameron?” Evie repeated like an idiot. “He did that? How on earth … Why?”
“I turned him down, again, you see.”
“I don’t understand.” And in truth, Evie didn’t. The very thought of a man hurting a woman, even touching a woman who wasn’t his wife, was so alien to her. Douglas hadn’t so much as held her hand before they were engaged, and certainly hadn’t ventured to kiss her until they were all but married.
“He declared himself again, as they say, that last night in Cape Town. Told me he loved me, wanted me and so forth. Couldn’t live without me. Said he’d tried with Gertie, but it was impossible. He couldn’t get over me. Nonsense, of course, and I told him so, just as I had on the voyage. I told him I’m in love with someone else and that in any case I’d made my feelings about him very plain that night on the ship and nothing had changed. We will continue to be thrown by circumstance into close proximity and I have no wish to make life awkward for any of us, so I will be civil but nothing more. I despise the man, if truth be known.”
Helen turned to the mirror, smoothed the powder-blue chiffon of her dress, leant in and puckered her lips. She looked divine. She always did, but tonight there was something ethereal about her. Perhaps it was the light, but she looked so fragile, so delicate. Perhaps it was knowing how badly she was bruised beneath such a sleek and stylish exterior that made Evie feel Helen could break, could be broken, despite the strength of her spirit. Evie was afraid for her.
“So … he hit you?”
“No, darling, of course not. I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt me. He was upset, embarrassed, I suppose. He pushed me. That’s all. And there was a hook on the wall behind me. For the fan cord, you see, and I stumbled and hit it rather hard when I stepped back from him.”
“But he had no right to push you! That bruise is dreadful, it must have been so … Did he threaten you?”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter, darling. It was nothing. Looks worse than— Oh, darling, look! I’ve a run in my stocking. I can’t possibly go out like this. Would you be a dear and pop down and distract the gang while I change? I’ll only be a few minutes, but I do so hate to keep them all waiting.”
“Oh right. Yes, of course. Absolutely.” Evie knew the subject had been closed, so she did as she was asked.
The men were waiting outside, laughing and smoking. A couple of the younger hospital doctors and the new dentist were clustered around Fredi, who was, of course, looking flamboyant and louche with his scarlet cravat and matching handkerchief. She was drawn to their laughter as he regaled his audience with a story that involved much hilarity and posturing.
“No Douglas this evening?” She turned, surprised. She hadn’t noticed Fredi’s new friend Jurgen Axelsen sitting in the shadows to her left.
“Oh. No. Douglas is upcountry again. The clinics.”
“Of course. Tireless, that husband of yours. We’re so lucky to have him.”
They both turned back to Fredi as another burst of laughter erupted from his small entourage.
“Dear Fredi,” Evie laughed. “He’s incorrigible. Don’t you just love him?” She turned back to the man at her side, surprised to see him blush, cough, look down quickly at his feet. “Jurgen? Are you—”
“Here I am, darlings!” Helen’s voice called all attention to the doorway behind Evie and Jurgen and they stepped quickly aside to allow her her entrance. “So dreadfully sorry to keep you all waiting. Were you awfully bored?”
Evie watched the men swarm towards her glamorous friend, saw their faces light up when she descended the steps to join them, laid a hand lightly on an arm, turned a smile to one or other, kissed a cheek in passing, accepted a cigarette.
As they made their way to the waiting cars, all in such high spirits, laughing and joking, excitement entwining them, binding them all together, tethering them to one another, the shadow that Evie’s fleeting glimpse of Helen’s bruise had cast on her spirits quickly dissolved. Gregory was first to the car, and as he held the door open for Helen to glide elegantly in, Evie saw the look they exchanged. Nothing had changed since the boat, that much was clear. Evie hadn’t asked who the “someone else” Helen had told Cameron she was in love with really was, because she already knew.
*
The room was in shadow now and Lexy’s face was hidden from Evie until th
e glare of sudden light and the crinkling popping of the fluorescent strip above the bed building to its full incandescence shook them both from their thoughts. An officious nurse Evie didn’t recognise was fussing around her, plugging something into the cannula that dug painfully into the back of her hand, then squeezing a bag that hung from the spindly frame beside her bed like an over-ripe mango drooping from its tree.
“Your grandson phoned to check on you,” the nurse was saying in a tone Evie found disagreeable. “He’ll be along later, but he got to do his clinic first. Busy man, that one. And you” – the nurse jabbed a finger in Lexy’s direction and nodded her head towards the door – “he said time you were gone.”
The nurse pulled the sheets taut and tucked them in like a girdle around Evie’s chest. Bandaged breasts on a pantomime star couldn’t have been strapped any tighter. Then she took Evie’s hands and straightened them too as she laid them down on top of the bedclothes. And like a fool, Evie let her, amused at how subservient she seemed to have become. How helpless.
“Water, please,” Evie croaked. She swallowed hard and her eyes smarted as the dryness cut her throat like glass. A sigh at the interruption, a clatter and splash, and a plastic beaker was thrust into Evie’s hand.
“Lexy,” Evie’s voice was clearer now. “Don’t go.”
“I won’t. I—”
“But Dr Campbell said—”
“I need to talk to her.”
“But you need to be strong for your operation and no talking—”
“Thank you, nurse. That will be all.”
The nurse’s disapproval was clear, even before she snapped the door shut behind her with brisk efficiency.
“Are you sure you’re able to go on, Evie? I could come back tomorrow.”
Evie could hear the reluctance in the younger woman’s voice, knew she was desperate for Evie to continue. Lexy was more inquisitive than her mother had been and Evie recognised tenacity when she saw it. She would have to tell her … some of it. Not everything, of course. Tell her enough to make her realise she wasn’t safe, to make her understand why she had to leave Malawi.