by Lulu Taylor
‘You’re widowed, too, with children.’
‘But I’ve got all this.’ Tommy gestured to the house. ‘Barbara has nothing.’ She straightened his bedcover and said strictly, ‘Now, when you’ve eaten that, I’ll come to take the tray away. And I think you’ll have a visitor this afternoon. I can’t keep Roger out now he knows your fever has broken.’
‘I’d love to see him,’ Fred said sincerely, then gave her a conspiratorial smile. ‘But thank you for holding him off while I was ill. He’s a good fellow but . . .’
‘Say no more.’ Tommy winked at him. ‘Now eat up and get your strength back. We need you downstairs, it’s far too female down there.’
On the stairs, she met Roger, who was obviously on his way to see Fred. ‘Roger, dear, I don’t think you should disturb Fred, he’s eating. Why not go in later, when he’s finished?’
Her brother shot her a sour look. ‘You can’t keep him to yourself forever, Tommy. I won’t allow it. You’ve shut me out without a word!’
And he pushed roughly past her, leaving Tommy looking after him in surprise.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Caitlyn had not heard from Sara since the funeral, and that was an unusually long time to go without hearing anything. When Sara was away working, she could go silent for long stretches but that was not normally for more than a few weeks.
She thought about it as she began sorting through Max’s things, packing some away in preparation for the move to Kings Harcourt. In normal circumstances, Caitlyn would be aflutter with anxiety, wondering what she had done to offend Sara and how she could make amends; she’d be inviting her for lunch or dinner, or offering to meet in one of Sara’s favourite bars for cocktails. Sara would reject a few dates and then graciously accept, arriving with a hint of frostiness around her. But a few drinks, some well-placed questions about her work and social life, and Sara would begin to relent. By the end of the evening, things would be back to normal, Caitlyn’s sin forgotten. Never had she left it like this, waiting for a breach to be healed by Sara.
Now, though, she didn’t want to talk to her. Sara had said those awful things to her at the funeral. And according to Nicholas, even twenty years ago, Sara was trying to undermine her and sabotage her relationships.
So what were you really up to with Patrick, Sara? And what are you doing now?
On impulse, she went to her bedroom, picked up her phone from the bedside table and opened up her Instagram app. She didn’t post herself, but Sara had urged her to install it so she could look at all of her latest projects. For that reason, Caitlyn hadn’t bothered with Sara’s account very much, as it was mostly a shop window for her design business, mixed with a healthy dose of ‘my perfect life’ that infected so much of Caitlyn’s friends’ social media. Alongside pictures of her projects at various stages, Sara also had plenty of glamorous selfies, showing her looking beautiful in gorgeous locations, being served impossibly artful meals or sipping drinks in front of sunsets. Even the Oh God, I look rough! shots showed her tousled and still lovely. The Sara Caitlyn knew at the end of a hard night – bleary, slurring, red-eyed, shabby – naturally never appeared.
She clicked on Sara’s account and began to look through it. The latest batch of photographs were no different: shots of an amazing beach house in the Hamptons, Sara – neatly businesslike but stylish and slim in tight white trousers, ballet pumps and a blazer – pointing out work to builders, excitedly sharing the mood boards of colours and fabrics, or snapping the perfect chair – love, love, LOVE!! – confiding that my client’s favourite tweed is ideal for this wonderful sofa and tagging her stockists who then liked her pictures in a mutual love-in of joy at everyone’s genius. Then there were selfies of Sara looking great on a sun lounger in a bikini and a sun hat, with a self-deprecating excuse for showing it: Pity us poor redheads – hats and suncream needed! Or there was an innocent pleasure in her good fortune to conceal the showing off: Sundowners in the Hamptons by the pool – I’m just the luckiest girl in the world #lovemyjob. There were endless shots of cocktails, bead-dappled wineglasses, flutes of champagne, with warm little comments: End of a hard day. My reward! or Cold white wine, sunset – what could be more perfect?
It all left a bitter taste in the mouth, Caitlyn found. It was pretend. It wasn’t real, of course, even though it was strangely seductive to believe in it all. She knew what the reality of it would be, because more than once she’d been there, watching Sara being rude to some clients and sucking up appallingly to others, flirting with workmen or condescending to them, depending on their attractiveness. She’d seen Sara throw awful tantrums when things didn’t go the way she wanted. And she knew that at the end of any working day, Sara would be drinking. Whether it was billed as a reward, a treat or an adventure, it was all the same stuff in the end. The same that the alkie in the park was drinking. The same stuff the kid in the hospital bed with liver failure was on.
She manages to dress everything up and make it look pretty, no matter what a sordid mess it is underneath. And she’s the living embodiment of it. She’s peppermint sweet on the outside but the reality is something else altogether.
She closed the app and stared at her phone, unseeing for a moment. Then she dialled Nicholas’s number and waited for him to answer.
‘I’ve not got the paperwork for the tenancy agreement ready yet, I’m afraid. But it’s on its way, I promise,’ Nicholas said.
They had met at the gates of the college and gone for a stroll along the river, watching the tourists having a go at punting. They’d talked easily and he’d evidently been relieved that they hadn’t fallen out after the meeting in the Botanic Gardens. They didn’t refer to their previous conversation at all, but had gone back to Nicholas’s rooms high up in the quad. Caitlyn liked being tucked away from everything, invisible to the crowds on the streets outside and the visitors milling around the college.
‘That’s all right. But I’ve been thinking – I’d like to move sooner than I’d previously planned. Do you think your aunt would mind?’
‘I’m sure she’d be delighted. Do you mind if I ask why?’
‘I don’t know really. Max’s term ends in four weeks or so. We should go then, if not before. It’s not just that I’d like to get settled and enjoy the house during the summer.’ She sighed. ‘I feel as though I’d like to get out of here. Away from Oxford.’
‘Too many memories?’ Nicholas asked softly.
‘Something like that. I’ve been thinking so much about Sara after what you said.’ She saw the expression on Nicholas’s face and said quickly, ‘I completely believe your version, there’s no question about that. It’s just a shock, to realise that she could do something like that to me. And yet, it’s not exactly a surprise.’
He looked over at her with a questioning expression. ‘How do you feel about it?’
She sat back against the squashy cushions of the sofa. ‘I don’t know. Not good.’ She frowned. ‘Ever since Patrick died . . . well, I feel as though my life has shifted focus and I can see everything differently. And after you told me about what happened between you and her . . . it’s made me think about our friendship and why she wanted to thwart things for me.’
‘Caitlyn,’ Nicholas said solemnly, ‘the miracle to me was that you were ever her friend in the first place. The way she treated you depressed me.’
‘I don’t understand that. We had lots of fun together.’
‘Did you? Really?’
‘Yes!’ She thought back to the student days, with their parties and balls and nights out. ‘We went everywhere together.’
‘Yeah. Like a countess and her lady’s maid.’
‘What?’ Caitlyn laughed uncertainly.
‘You let her boss you around, and talk down to you. I heard her do it. She was always ramming home the message that she was the real deal and you, poor thing, weren’t quite it. She was the most appalling snob. Once in the bar she told me to imagine what it would be like if I took her home to meet my
family – what would they all think when they saw someone like me with someone like her?’ He laughed. ‘I think she assumed that I was brought up on some rough estate somewhere. And I bet she thought you were bloody lucky to be allowed to hang out with her.’
Caitlyn opened her mouth and shut it again. This was what she had begun to realise herself. But had it been so evident to everyone else?
Nicholas went on, ‘But you’re not innocent in this. You let it happen. You let her do it. You ran around after her, riding on her coattails, letting her believe she was amazing and you weren’t.’ He fixed her with a stern look. ‘Why did you do it?’
Caitlyn was indignant but embarrassed. ‘Come on, it wasn’t that bad. I was her friend! She didn’t have all that many friends. She needed me.’
‘Why do you think she didn’t have many friends?’
‘Other people were jealous of her.’
‘That’s what she wanted you to believe. But maybe she didn’t have any friends because she wasn’t particularly nice.’
Caitlyn stared at him.
Nicholas warmed to his theme. ‘I think you’ve fallen for a rather nasty lie. Remember Hattie Harris? She was a stunner.’
‘Of course I remember her.’
‘She had plenty of friends, male and female. Men adored her, and she had loads of girlfriends.’
‘That’s true, she did. But she wasn’t like Sara.’
‘No, she wasn’t – that’s just the point. You seem to think that Sara was the ultimate woman. There were plenty of gorgeous girls around. She wasn’t the only one.’
‘Everyone fancied her!’
‘No, they didn’t. I didn’t.’ Nicholas leaned towards her, his dark brown eyes intent. ‘Sure, she could be dazzling. She could turn heads. But she attracted people like her – cold, snobbish and vain, or else idiots who couldn’t see past a pair of beautiful eyes and a mane of red hair. You weren’t like that, but you were all over her like a rash. So what did you get out of it?’
‘I suppose . . .’ Caitlyn went quiet, thinking back, trying to be honest with herself. ‘I suppose I hoped that some of her sparkle might rub off on me. And I found her world a bit intoxicating too. I thought it was glamorous. It was glamorous.’ She felt suddenly ashamed, as if she’d revealed something ignoble. ‘I suppose I . . . used her too.’
‘But what a price for a few parties,’ Nicholas said. ‘I hoped you’d escaped her years ago. Maybe you need to tell Sara that you’ve moved on. Friendships can end, you know. Like love affairs. There’s no rule that says they can’t. And if your life is better without Sara in it, then maybe you should do the right thing and tell her it’s over.’
‘I think you’re right. That’s what I need to do,’ Caitlyn said slowly. ‘I can see that now. The miracle is that I never saw it earlier.’
Nicholas walked her back to the college gate through the bright morning sun.
‘Your son is back today, isn’t he?’
Caitlyn nodded. ‘My sister’s bringing him back after lunch.’
‘I’d like to meet him one day.’
Caitlyn turned to look at him. He was looking at her with warmth and a tiny amount of anxiety. ‘I don’t know . . .’ she said uncertainly.
‘As your friend. Nothing else.’
‘I know. But Max might not think that. It’s so very soon.’
‘I understand.’ Suddenly he took her hand. It felt startlingly warm and alive on hers, the smoothness of his skin almost shocking her. ‘It is soon. I don’t want anything from you, please believe me.’
Caitlyn was touched by the kindness in his voice. She felt almost choked. ‘I’d like us to be friends,’ she managed to say.
He smiled at her. ‘Me too. Goodbye, Caitlyn. I’ll be in touch. Let me know if you decide on a date to move into the house; it’s ready when you are. And don’t forget, you are in charge of your relationships. If you don’t want someone in your life, just tell them to go.’
Maura brought Max back that afternoon and they had a few hours together before she headed home, taking her excitable brood with her. Caitlyn felt better. It was good to see her sister, even if only for a short time, and Nicholas’s straight talking had helped too. She felt supported on both sides, and that soon she would be ready to start taking baby steps forward into the future on her own.
I think I’m beginning to accept that Patrick is really gone. And I’m working at discarding what isn’t good in my life. I must filter out what’s harmful and leave the positive behind. I know it’s just the start of the process.
She was serving Max his supper at the table in the tiny garden when she heard the rapping on the front door. Leaving Max to his baked potato, she went to answer it.
‘Surprise!’ Sara whipped off her sunglasses and stood there, beaming. ‘Glad to see me?’
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was two weeks since the great storm and there was no hope of post, and the telephone lines were still down.
‘I expect they have better things to do at the moment than fix the telephone,’ Tommy said, and they all gathered around the wireless to listen to the news. It was February now and there was no sign of the weather letting up. If anything, it was colder.
‘How long can it go on?’ Gerry said, looking pinched and tired.
The children were listless and stir crazy. They ran around screaming and shouting until Tommy shushed them, worried that they were disturbing Fred.
‘We’re bored, Mummy,’ Antonia said.
‘Can we have lessons again?’ asked Harry.
‘Aunt Gerry is still doing French with you, isn’t she?’
‘But we want Latin too,’ Harry said. ‘Molly wants to do it too, don’t you?’
Molly nodded. She seemed to be improving despite the bitter weather; her cheeks were pinker and her pale blue eyes sparkled. ‘I want to do what you’re doing,’ she said to Antonia, who she clearly admired.
‘When Mr Burton Brown is well again, perhaps he’ll start up the lessons. We’ll see. But keep quiet upstairs, can’t you? He still needs his sleep.’
But Fred was on the mend and with less to do in his sickroom, Tommy discovered that Barbara had, unobtrusively and unnoticed, made herself a part of the household. She was always beautifully turned out, in expensive clothes and neat shoes, her hair coiffed and her pale face brightened by makeup. Her scarlet lips were vivid in her paper-white complexion, her small pink mole the only other touch of colour. Occasionally Tommy would walk into a room to find Barbara already there, quietly examining things: pictures, photographs in their frames, a china dish or a silver tray. But most often she was to be found with Mrs Whitfield, sorting silks and separating threads for the old lady’s embroidery, keeping her company.
‘What do you think of Barbara?’ Tommy had asked Gerry idly as they went down to the kitchen for tea. She had said nothing of her own feelings about her before Barbara’s arrival in case she was being unfair.
‘Oh, I think she’s splendid. She takes all the burden off me. I don’t have to do all that boring silk sorting and needle hunting that Mother likes to inflict on me. More time to read in the bath.’
When Gerry wasn’t minding the children, she was in the warm bathroom, curled up with a book lying in the bath in her coat and beret, a stone hot water bottle under her toes.
‘So you like her?’
‘Not exactly like. She’s rather a cold fish, isn’t she? Though I’m rather obsessed with her face – that whiteness and that pink mole, she makes me think of a naked baby mouse.’
Tommy had laughed. ‘Well, she’s certainly being nice to Roger, and that’s good of her. It takes the heat off Fred.’
Barbara, away from Mrs Whitfield, was often with Roger, who had been lost and miserable during Fred’s illness. Now he seemed to be becoming as dependent on Barbara’s company as he had been on Fred’s. Tommy, while she was nursing Fred upstairs, would hear Roger’s voice floating up as he and Barbara meandered around the ground floor now that it was so di
fficult to walk outside.
‘You see, Barbara, what we have now is an opportunity. We were at loggerheads with Russia for so long but the war has brought us to a point where we can start to understand each other and perhaps our government will begin to see that there really is only one way to go if we are serious about improving society . . .’
Then Barbara would murmur a response and Roger would start again.
She’s being so kind to Roger. It’s helping him too. I do believe he seems happier. It was a blessing after all that she and Molly came to the house. What a crew we are, stuck up here in this great freezing place, nowhere to go, just concentrating on survival.
Only Ada did not seem won over by Barbara’s charms. She was prickly whenever Barbara went into the kitchen but Tommy didn’t ask what it was that riled her. Thornton had, over the last few days, dug a long tunnel through the snow to their cottage and it was with relief all round that the Thorntons went home to their own hearth and the cat.
When Tommy went up with Fred’s lunch and the last of the tablets from Barbara’s bottle, she found him restless after more than a week in bed.
‘I’m better,’ he said bluntly. ‘I need to do something. I have to get up.’
‘Let’s check your wound,’ she said, ‘and see if you’re up to it.’
The wound had calmed down and was healing, but it was far from better. Fred still winced when he moved. ‘I’m dying of boredom,’ he complained. ‘I’ve only been as far as the bathroom and back for days.’
‘Yes, but you’re lucky you can even do that.’
‘Please, Tommy. Be a brick and let me out. I’m itching to work on the painting. When I was ill and floating in and out of dreams, I had the most extraordinary visions of it. That sad beauty kept coming and talking to me about her tragedy. It was rather magnificent being in her presence. I must paint her now.’
‘Very well . . . but should you be in the freezing hall in your state?’
‘Then let’s move it. Put it somewhere warmer – it’ll be easier for me to see as well if I’m closer to it. I still doubt it will be terribly good, though, even with my fever-induced inspiration.’