she settled herself on the bed, cross-legged, leaning back against the pillows and preparing herself for more riddles.
The folder wasn’t unduly thick, but contained an assortment of documents and scraps culled from different sources, different times. Lexy flicked through. Torn pages from diaries, letters, handwritten notes and occasional newspaper or magazine clippings, all dated and with brief explanations in that precise writing she had first encountered in the photograph album. She glimpsed names she’d seen in that album too, as she’d suspected she would. With the exception of the first page, everything was dated, again in that same meticulous hand, so it was clear that Ursula had intended it to be read in a particular order. Resisting the temptation to jump ahead, pull out pieces here and there, Lexy tapped the papers together into a neat pile and started at the beginning. She would be patient and thorough in her research, working meticulously, just as she’d seen Danny at work so often in the past, marvelling at his ability to plod on steadily. She was the sort of person who flicked ahead to the last page of a novel, something Danny found incomprehensible. And infuriating when she’d share it with him if it were a book he hadn’t already read.
She steeled herself when she saw the first page was a handwritten note to Isobel, the penmanship neat, precise, with just the odd tremor evident in some of the longer strokes. Recent, then? The writing of an aging, failing woman, perhaps, but there was no date and no real way to tell when it had been composed. The smoothed sheen of the folder suggested it could have been under that cushion for years. Shuffling herself further back on the bed and rolling her shoulders back and down, she began.
For Isobel
I should have told you all this years ago, but couldn’t. Not wouldn’t, as you thought, but couldn’t because it wasn’t my story to tell. And he was still alive, then, Cameron, who, as you will see, had more than a hand in all of this. So much I didn’t tell you, even that awful night. I still don’t know what it was that made you question the truth we’d always lived by. What it was that made you so sure there were secrets. Made you doubt me.
What little you forced out of me was enough to drive you away. I can still hear the harsh slam of the door behind you, as final as a gunshot. What, I wonder now, would you have done if I’d told you all of it back then? Could it have been any worse than not having you and little Alexis in my life these last years? How you’ve punished me! But I couldn’t tell you then, even if I’d dared.
No more secrets, I promise. No more pretending it was right, what we did, no matter our reasons. It wasn’t just me, you see, although I was at the root of it, and the others only did what they did to help me, despite my stupidity. I haven’t tried to paint any of us in a better light than we deserve, but just to show you how it was. We do not appear at our best, me least of all. My diary will show you what a fool I was, so hopelessly gullible and naive; the letters will show you the true and trusting friends I was blessed to have and who helped me. They suffered too, immeasurably. Such a mess, all of it. My fault.
I left so much behind when I came back to Scotland. Thought I’d lost everything. Until you came to me. And then when you left, it felt as if it was happening all over again.
Oh Izzie, I’m so very sorry. How could I not be? I had the joy of you all those years, and yet you were right. There could have been, should have been, so much more for both of us, if I’d been stronger, braver. But I’ve always been a coward, worried about what people think. They say there’s no fool like an old fool, but believe me, there’s no hypocrite like an old hypocrite, either. And that’s worse: much, much worse.
I’m old now, but still frightened. I’ve been afraid all my life, of something or someone, of my own feelings,
The folder wasn’t unduly thick, but contained an assortment of documents and scraps culled from different sources, different times. Lexy flicked through. Torn pages from diaries, letters, handwritten notes and occasional newspaper or magazine clippings, all dated and with brief explanations in that precise writing she had first encountered in the photograph album. She glimpsed names she’d seen in that album too, as she’d suspected she would. With the exception of the first page, everything was dated, again in that same meticulous hand, so it was clear that Ursula had intended it to be read in a particular order. Resisting the temptation to jump ahead, pull out pieces here and there, Lexy tapped the papers together into a neat pile and started at the beginning. She would be patient and thorough in her research, working meticulously, just as she’d seen Danny at work so often in the past, marvelling at his ability to plod on steadily. She was the sort of person who flicked ahead to the last page of a novel, something Danny found incomprehensible. And infuriating when she’d share it with him if it were a book he hadn’t already read.
She steeled herself when she saw the first page was a handwritten note to Isobel, the penmanship neat, precise, with just the odd tremor evident in some of the longer strokes. Recent, then? The writing of an aging, failing woman, perhaps, but there was no date and no real way to tell when it had been composed. The smoothed sheen of the folder suggested it could have been under that cushion for years. Shuffling herself further back on the bed and rolling her shoulders back and down, she began.
For Isobel
I should have told you all this years ago, but couldn’t. Not wouldn’t, as you thought, but couldn’t because it wasn’t my story to tell. And he was still alive, then, Cameron, who, as you will see, had more than a hand in all of this. So much I didn’t tell you, even that awful night. I still don’t know what it was that made you question the truth we’d always lived by. What it was that made you so sure there were secrets. Made you doubt me.
What little you forced out of me was enough to drive you away. I can still hear the harsh slam of the door behind you, as final as a gunshot. What, I wonder now, would you have done if I’d told you all of it back then? Could it have been any worse than not having you and little Alexis in my life these last years? How you’ve punished me! But I couldn’t tell you then, even if I’d dared.
No more secrets, I promise. No more pretending it was right, what we did, no matter our reasons. It wasn’t just me, you see, although I was at the root of it, and the others only did what they did to help me, despite my stupidity. I haven’t tried to paint any of us in a better light than we deserve, but just to show you how it was. We do not appear at our best, me least of all. My diary will show you what a fool I was, so hopelessly gullible and naive; the letters will show you the true and trusting friends I was blessed to have and who helped me. They suffered too, immeasurably. Such a mess, all of it. My fault.
I left so much behind when I came back to Scotland. Thought I’d lost everything. Until you came to me. And then when you left, it felt as if it was happening all over again.
Oh Izzie, I’m so very sorry. How could I not be? I had the joy of you all those years, and yet you were right. There could have been, should have been, so much more for both of us, if I’d been stronger, braver. But I’ve always been a coward, worried about what people think. They say there’s no fool like an old fool, but believe me, there’s no hypocrite like an old hypocrite, either. And that’s worse: much, much worse.
I’m old now, but still frightened. I’ve been afraid all my life, of something or someone, of my own feelings,
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