56. Secrets and lies
SECRETS AND LIES
Tears, twice in a week. It was a record.
When she’d been young, there was always something to cry about.
In fact, throughout her life, there’d been much to turn any normal person into a sobbing wreck.
But Ursula wasn’t a normal person. She had been once, before Anton had groomed her into this cold, unfeeling thing.
But then again, she wasn’t being entirely fair on Anton.
She had to take some responsibility for the person she was now.
She was the one who vowed never to cry again.
It had been the only way to deal with the savage grief and anger that was crushing her.
She hadn’t realised it would take deep roots that clung to each new loss, making them harder to recover from.
If she had, she might never have vowed it.
She wiped her eyes. The tears had been few and quiet, not the kind that wrenched at your guts and left you exhausted. But they were enough to register an acceptance that changes were happening. They’d begun in Bala, these changes, but there’d be more to come.
At Samuel’s funeral, she’d been the anchor that Clyde, Marcie, and Gordon had held on to.
At the front of the congregation, Samuel’s children wept for him.
Priscilla sat in the middle of them, stern and stone-faced.
The only dry eyes in that church belonged to her and Ursula.
Afterwards, as she led the procession out, Priscilla had stopped and looked Ursula in the eye.
Getting the measure of her again. Letting her know that she knew Ursula would have stolen Samuel from under her nose, given the chance.
Ursula stayed away from the reception. Clyde and the others didn’t try to talk her into it. They must have known it too.
She rushed along the path towards the car park, She couldn’t face Clyde now that she’d admitted to herself just how bad and selfish a person she was.
No better than Pablo really. Perhaps he saw that in her and that was why he’d been so obsessed with her.
But she couldn’t escape that easily. Clyde was waiting by her car. ‘You okay, Ursula?’
She shook her head. Time to be brave again. Time to be truthful. ‘I wanted Samuel for myself. I was glad Priscilla threw him out because I thought at last I could show him how much I loved him.’
Clyde pushed his hat back and scratched his head. ‘He already knew that. You didn’t have to show him any more than you already did.’
‘But I wanted him. I wanted him so much and I shouldn’t have done. He wasn’t mine to have.’
‘Him and Priscilla lost their way a long time before you showed up. He was Priscilla’s husband and he would never stop being that. But he did love you, Ursula. I promise you that. Every day he saw you was another day worth living for Samuel, and I thank you for that.’
She was crying again, big, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. Clyde held on to her. ‘Hush now, honey. You got to stop beating yourself up over this. It would break Samuel’s heart. You got to be happy. For him. And for yourself.’
Anton was back in his usual place. He’d arrived home before she had, but then he hadn’t stopped off at the allotments and had a good cry on Clyde’s shoulder, had he?
Any lightness she’d felt after her tears was already slipping away.
She left her case in the car and climbed the stairs, her heart sinking a little bit more with each step.
Ursula stood in front of the office door. It had been closed on the day Pablo assaulted her and had stayed that way ever since. She swallowed down the dreadful taste that was coming up from her throat and turned the handle.
Anton was not at the window, or anywhere else in the room.
As she’d noted before, he liked to keep his distance.
Dust covered everything. Six years’ worth of cobwebs dangled from the ceiling, the corners and the shelves.
The spiders had set up home in the model that was now a discoloured, webby mess.
Anton would be appalled. No wonder he was haunting her.
She’d made a promise to herself on the way back. If she could clean this room up, she was going to call in on that estate agents by the allotments. It was a big ask but she was feeling stronger again after talking to Clyde.
She started on the cobwebs, setting the spiders free through the window as she went along sucking their webs away with the vacuum.
The dust went the same way, once she cleared the shelves of Anton’s awards.
Next, her eyes fell on the model. She felt surprisingly sorry for the old thing and despite her dislike of it, took it apart to clean it.
It didn’t look so bad once it had been restored to its almost former glory, although she wasn’t sure what to do with it now because she didn’t want it.
Perhaps she’d ask the estate agent if the buyers would like it.
The awards were cluttering up the desk. More things she didn’t know what to do with.
When it boiled down to it, they were all just lumps of plastic and glass.
Worthless symbols of a life spent chasing accolades above all else.
She wondered if these were the last things Anton saw before he’d collapsed and whether he’d looked at them and thought, yes, it had all been worth it.
Or had he realised, as he gasped for his dying breath, that his life had been wasted?
Tomorrow, she’d get some boxes and take them to the tip.
Today, she’d clear out the filing cabinets.
One by one, she emptied the cabinets. The papers she’d once so diligently filed were slung into the recycling bin, along with all the other meaningless papers.
She was nearly done now, just one cabinet to go.
The top two drawers of the final cabinet came open as easily as the others but the bottom was locked.
She searched the desk drawers for the key, methodically emptying them as she went along, until she came across a piece of paper with red diagonal lines slashing through Anton’s handwriting.
It was his last list. He must have put it in there before he collapsed.
Probably to use against her when she came back.
Instinctively, she glanced at the empty window, then slapped the list on the desk and carried on with her search.
The next drawer held nothing but a box of business cards, they went into the recycling too and she pushed the drawer shut.
A noise from inside made her open it again.
A small pot, the kind you kept trinkets in, had slid to the front.
The box must have been keeping it in place at the very back of the drawer.
The pot was bright blue with a picture of the Statue of Liberty on its lid and ‘New York, New York’ around the sides.
It was cheap, gaudy, and the most un-Anton like object you could imagine being in his possession.
Inside it was a key. She tried it in the cabinet drawer. It worked.
The drawer held three boxes. In the first, she was surprised to find the red scarf he’d once bought just because she’d said it would suit him.
She opened the second box and gasped. Their baby’s christening gown.
‘Oh, Anton.’ Ursula lifted it out of the tissue it was wrapped in.
The red dot of blood was still there but faded now.
She looked for the embroidered label on the inside: ‘Ursula Moller, 1983.’
She felt something on her shoulder and swivelled around.
There was nothing to see, but he was here.
She could feel the change in the atmosphere.
She put the gown away and turned her attention to the last box.
It was a collection of old photos. There were some of her, one standing outside this house when it was still unfinished.
She recalled he’d taken it the day he’d asked her to marry him.
One of her pregnant, the bump hardly showing but she recognised the dress she’d bought especially for her pregnancy.
An older photo was of a family. The boy, a teenager, was obviously Anton.
But there was another child. A girl, younger than him.
He’d never said anything about a sister.
In fact, when his father died, he’d said there was no one left.
Perhaps something had happened to her. Perhaps that was why Anton was the way he was.
All that was left in the box now was an envelope. Inside was a letter and more photos. The letter was more of a note really. Just a few words:
‘Anton, This has to stop.’
She’d seen that writing before, but she couldn’t think where.
And then she looked at the photos and she knew exactly who it belonged to.
Twelve photos. Six of Cass, smiling, laughing, blowing a kiss, pulling those funny faces she used to pull to make Ursula laugh when she was little.
The final six were of Cass and Anton together.
The first two were of them in some kind of beach bar, him with his arm around her, looking so relaxed and happy she almost didn’t recognise him.
The last four were taken in New York. She could tell that because of the backdrops.
In one they were dressed in evening wear.
He was standing behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist, his chin resting on the top of her head.
They were looking straight at the camera and they were so in love.
You could just tell. On the wall behind them was a banner that read: ‘A New York welcome to 1982.’ That would have made it New Year’s Eve 1981.
Ursula and Anton’s second as a married couple.
Except they hadn’t been together because Anton had told her he had to be in Germany, all through Christmas and the new year.
He’d made her feel bad for not dropping everything and going with him when all the time he’d planned to go to New York with Cass. Cass of all people. How could they?
Ursula looked at the photos again of the two of them at the beach bar.
Anton looked younger than when he was with her, and that wasn’t just because he was happy.
They’d been taken before she met him. He’d been with Cass before he’d been with her.
Their marriage had been a non-starter from the beginning because Anton had never loved her.
It was Cass he’d wanted. Not her. She staggered backwards and fell onto the desk.
Lies. All of it. Everything about her and Anton was secrets and lies.
Her rage was like a physical thing, bubbling to the surface, bursting to get out.
She let it out with a great roar. ‘Are you still with me, Anton? Are you watching me finding your dirty little secrets? I hope you are because I’ve got something for you.
’ She grabbed hold of the biggest and heaviest of his awards, a rock-shaped thing, and landed it right in the middle of his precious model.
The roof splintered and broke in two. She picked the rock up again and smashed it down again, again and again, until there was nothing left but yellowing rubble.
Ursula sank to her knees, screaming and wailing. All those lost and lonely years she’d endured had all been for nothing. ‘I hate you. Do you hear me? I never loved you. I only ever loved Samuel.’
Her heart was splintering into a hundred-thousand shards as all the lost opportunities and all the regrets raced through her mind.
What was it about her that was so bad, so very terrible, that she should deserve this?
And then she noticed Anton’s last list on the floor next to her.
It had fallen off the desk, the back of it facing upwards, her words in bold red capitals revealing just how bad she was and reminding her of the real reason why Anton was haunting her:
‘GO TO HELL AND TAKE YOUR LIST WITH YOU.’