by Mairi Wilson
“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.
30
Ross-shire, June 19th
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 i
mpatiently.
“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.
“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.