by Lulu Taylor
‘I see.’ She felt sorry for her brother suddenly, that he was not able to live openly the way he was. We’re all so boxed in. So confined. Who decided that we all had to live and love a certain way? ‘Well then, Barbara is on a hiding to nothing, isn’t she? If you’re right, then she’s wasted her time.’
‘That’s what I assumed.’ Fred looked thoughtful. ‘But perhaps what you’ve just heard from Roger means she’s making more progress than I suspected she might. You need to keep an eye on it. For Roger’s sake.’
Tommy said, ‘I don’t believe she loves him. Not for a moment.’
‘No. I don’t believe she does either.’
Chapter Thirty-One
Max was upstairs doing his homework that evening, and Caitlyn was tidying up the sitting room when there was a knock at the door. A nasty tremor went through her. Was it Sara, come to conduct an interrogation on the subject of Nicholas? She was surprised at how viscerally she felt that she did not want Sara in the house. She could hardly bear the thought of her anywhere near her or Max.
She went to the door and said loudly, ‘Yes? Who is it?’
‘Caitlyn, it’s me, Nicholas.’
‘Oh. Right. Hold on.’ Slowly she opened the door. Nicholas was standing on the doorstep, his expression repentant. ‘Hello,’ she said coolly.
‘Caitlyn, please,’ he said in an agonised tone. ‘Don’t punish me. It wasn’t my fault. Let me explain.’
She paused for a moment and then said, still cool, ‘All right then. Come in. But quickly. I don’t want Max disturbed.’
‘It was complete chance that I ran into Sara,’ Nicholas said, standing near her in the kitchen as she went about making tea for them both. ‘She was coming out of that stupidly expensive decorating shop, you know, the one with the tiles handcrafted by Moroccan princesses or something. I was on my way back from Somerville, and I almost ran right into her. I recognised her at once and as soon as she saw that, she got who I was too. I think she might not have noticed me if I hadn’t looked so damn guilty.’
‘I suppose she is rather unmistakable.’
‘And she’s got a sixth sense. She could tell I didn’t want to talk to her, and that set her juices flowing. She wasn’t going to leave me alone after that. You know what the born seductress is like – she can’t rest until she’s won over everyone in the room. She insisted on coming back to the college to see my rooms.’
‘That is what she’s like,’ Caitlyn agreed. ‘Within certain parameters.’ She sighed. ‘I just felt so invaded, to see her with you in college like that. After everything you’d said about her, and all the advice you’d given me to get her out of my life. There she was – right back there, with you.’ They went through to the sitting room and sat down, Caitlyn on the sofa where she curled her legs up under her as if for comfort. ‘I can’t understand why she’s turned up here. Taking over a project manager’s job just isn’t her usual thing – far too lowly.’
Nicholas fixed her with a keen look. ‘You don’t understand because you don’t think you’re important to her. You don’t know why she’d bother.’
‘You mean she came here because of me?’
‘Of course.’
Caitlyn thought about this. ‘I thought it was just coincidence.’
‘No! She still wants to go on the way things were.’ He leaned towards her, his dark brown eyes earnest. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. You’ve never understood that you are important to her. She needs you.’
Caitlyn shook her head. ‘She doesn’t need to cannibalise my life. Hers is more glamorous and exciting than mine any day.’
‘But that’s the point. She wants what you’ve got, like a vampire craves the warm blood of a mortal. She always has. My theory is that Patrick wasn’t really what she wanted, even if she was sleeping with him – and we don’t know that. It’s all about her relationship with you.’
She stared at him for a moment. ‘But she’s always trampled all over me. What does she get from it?’
‘Recognise your power,’ Nicholas said. ‘She wants your life force, of course.’
‘You do sound batty!’ she said, and burst out laughing. ‘Vampires, life forces. What next – possession? Stealing my spirit?’
‘I’m glad to see you laughing,’ Nicholas said, smiling at her. ‘I’m explaining it in dramatic terms, but it’s simple: she wants to control you because she’s jealous that you know the secrets of life and love, and she doesn’t. She’ll take away whatever you want, because if you want it, it must be worth having. But I’m not going to fall for her routines, you don’t need to worry about that. You’ve got my loyalty. I’ve proved it once already, remember?’
She stared back at him, unable to speak for a moment. ‘Thank you,’ she said quietly.
‘Friends again?’
‘Yes. Friends.’
*
Caitlyn did not answer Sara’s text about Nicholas even though she knew that would stir her into action, like laying a scent trail for a hound. A hint of anything being held back and Sara would be after it. She tried to imagine simply facing Sara down, demanding answers about the flowers and the hotel and just asking her straight out: Were you sleeping with my husband? Did the two of you betray me for all those years when we were supposed to be friends?
All the evidence seemed to point to the fact that they had, and yet there was not enough proof. She couldn’t be certain.
A few more texts followed from Sara, asking what Caitlyn was doing and why she hadn’t been in touch. Caitlyn stared at them, wondering if she should reply, but every draft she wrote, she deleted. Anything she wrote would open up the channels of communication and at the moment, she just wanted them closed. But she knew that Sara wouldn’t be satisfied with silence for long.
Caitlyn found that she couldn’t stop tapping on Sara’s Instagram account and looking at the photographs there. More were being added: pictures of the hotel renovations along with the usual gushing captions, and, Caitlyn saw with a jolt, one of Nicholas’s rooms high up in the college.
Wow, my friend is an actual real Oxford academic! Can’t believe I’m back at my old college like this – feels like a tutorial #nervous #wheresmyessay?
Or, Caitlyn thought cattily, How clever I am to have gone to Oxford and don’t I have interesting friends #admire me.
Seeing Nicholas’s rooms on the account made her feel discomforted. She scrolled down quickly but always stopped at the photograph of Patrick’s wrist on that table in some unknown restaurant. The shy client. She could just imagine him telling Sara firmly that he didn’t want his photograph taken while she giggled and cajoled, then took a sneaky snap anyway.
She was always telling me to look at her Instagram. It was entirely possible I would have seen this. Even if she didn’t have an affair with Patrick, she doesn’t mind making me afraid that she did. And that’s reason enough to cut off contact. A few weeks and her project will be done and then maybe she’ll leave me in peace. Perhaps she can find someone else to torment instead.
Caitlyn’s phone rang when she was in the chemist’s in town. It was Nicholas’s number and she answered it with a chirpy, ‘Hello, stranger! Have you got my paperwork for Kings Harcourt yet? I’m nearly packed up.’
‘Caitlyn, where are you?’
‘Shopping on Cornmarket.’
‘Okay. Will you go to that upstairs cafe in the covered market, the one where we used to get hot chocolate after tutorials? I’ll be there in about five minutes.’
‘Sure.’ He rang off before she could ask any more, so she paid for her purchases and wandered out to the covered market to find the old cafe. It was still there, much the same, but now with USB ports by every table, about ten types of coffee and a range of gluten-free cakes and pastries. Caitlyn ordered two cappuccinos and sat down to wait for Nicholas. When he came in, it was with an almost furtive air and as he sat down, he looked anxiously over at the stairway up into the cafe.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked
. ‘Here’s a coffee I ordered for you.’
‘Oh, thanks.’ He looked at her a little distracted. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’
‘I wondered when you’d get in touch. I want to sort a date for the move.’
‘What? Oh yes. I don’t think I told you, but Coco’s arriving today. Her holidays have already started. But that shouldn’t be a problem, we can both help you move. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about.’
‘Oh?’
Nicholas shook his head. He looked, she thought, absurdly young today, though his silver streaks gave away his age. His Italian looks had matured well and his dark brown eyes had kept their rich hue. He leaned towards her over the pine table. ‘I don’t want to sound crazy . . . but I think Sara might be stalking me.’
Caitlyn frowned. ‘What?’
‘Yes. I keep spotting her all over the place. She’s bumped into me accidentally several times since she came to my rooms. I mean, it’s weird. I was getting a sandwich in Gloucester Green – and there she was. That’s miles from where she would normally be, isn’t it? Where is this hotel of hers?’
‘Out on the Banbury Road, I think.’
‘Exactly! So why is she popping up in a sandwich bar near the bus station? If I thought it was because she has a thing for their pastrami and Swiss cheese rye bread sandwiches, I would rest easy – but I suspect it’s not that.’
Caitlyn shook her head in disbelief. ‘You think she’s up to her old tricks?’
‘It would be funny if it weren’t so creepy. Twenty years later, and she’s sneaking round the quad, keeping an eye on me just like she used to. I suppose I ought to be flattered.’
Caitlyn said flatly, ‘She thinks we might be involved.’
‘That did cross my mind.’
‘That’s it. It’s pure Sara. Don’t you see? It’s a rerun of what she did before – she’s probably laying the groundwork for a full seduction attempt just in case.’ Caitlyn laughed bitterly. ‘I can’t believe I never saw it at the time. It just makes it more likely that she was having an affair with Patrick.’
‘Hold on.’ Nicholas put a hand on her arm. ‘It’s a kind of proof – it suggests that she might have tried to have an affair with Patrick, not that she did.’
‘So she sent herself flowers and put herself up at the hotel? And somehow got the payments on Patrick’s bank statement?’
Nicholas frowned. ‘Okay, that would be hard. But you know what, she’s so creepy, I wouldn’t put it past her. I just actually sneaked out of college by the back gate and made a run for the alley. I still wasn’t sure she wasn’t on my tail.’
They looked at each other and the comical side of Nicholas, a middle-aged don, running out of the back of college in case Sara was chasing him, struck them both at the same time and they started to laugh, but Caitlyn’s quickly died away.
‘What shall I do?’ she asked. ‘I keep getting texts from her about meeting up for drinks and dinner, asking me why I’m not replying. I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to see her.’ Caitlyn stirred her coffee until the foam top had vanished into its milky depths. ‘I hate the way she’s changing how I think and feel about Patrick.’ A sudden wave of rage burned through her. ‘She’s destroying my marriage in retrospect, making me distrust my husband, suspect him now he’s dead, when she could have left me in peace! If Patrick did – if he did – well, that’s a whole other issue that I’ll have to come to terms with, but she wants to make sure that I suspect it.’ She lifted an agonised gaze to Nicholas. ‘Why would she do that to me?’
‘I don’t think you can expect normal standards of behaviour from her. She doesn’t work that way. That doesn’t mean you excuse her – it means you get her poison the hell out of your life, and you go on without her. She needs you, Caitlyn, that’s why she can’t leave you alone. But you don’t need her.’
‘You’re right. I have to be strong.’
‘Yes. Ignore her. She’ll get the message in the end. I’ll avoid her wherever I can, and we’ll just wait it out. She’ll get bored and then get lost.’
Nicholas smiled at her and she felt comforted. She had someone to help her this time, someone she could trust not to give in to Sara’s wiles.
Nicholas took his hand away and said more seriously, ‘Have you been through all of Patrick’s stuff then? That might give you the answers you need.’
Caitlyn shook her head. ‘There’s a lot of it. And it’s a very emotional process. I feel both close to him and so very far away. I’m always floored by the emotional impact after I’ve opened a box. He kept so much and I didn’t throw away any of his papers. One night I ended up reading through all his school reports from his nursery onwards. I was up nearly all night, and cried just about the whole time.’
‘It must be heartrending.’ Nicholas looked sympathetic. ‘But the more recent stuff – the electronics, the emails – you’ve been through all of that?’
‘Just the tablet so far. It’s got all his email accounts on it. Well, the ones I know about. There are some perfectly innocent emails between him and Sara, but nothing more as far as I can see, but I’m not an expert on that kind of thing. He could have a whole other hidden email life for all I know.’
‘Whatever he had, it will be there, frozen, ready for you to find. And he gave you all his passwords?’
She nodded. ‘He made a stipulation that in the event of his death, I was to get access to all of it. He told me’ – she frowned, remembering – ‘that I could access everything and use it as I thought fit.’
‘All of it,’ echoed Nicholas. He made a wry face. ‘Most men might think twice before they let their wives onto their electronic devices.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, you know . . . stashes of dirty pictures. Visits to porn sites. The odd video download.’
‘Oh. Of course.’ Caitlyn blinked at him, embarrassed. A slight flush crept over her cheeks. ‘I suppose so. Is that what most men have?’
‘A lot. I’m told. But you didn’t find any evidence of that with Patrick?’
Caitlyn shook her head. ‘I wasn’t looking for it, but no. I didn’t. He thought internet porn was incredibly vulgar. I think he was appalled by how cheap they all looked. I can just imagine him being horrified at the women’s nails and bad hair and fake breasts. Not his bag at all. He preferred the real thing.’ Her blush deepened to scarlet as she realised what she’d said. ‘I mean, real life! I mean . . . well . . . not that, not internet stuff!’
Nicholas looked away gallantly, and said, ‘I’m sure he had no need whatsoever to get stimulation elsewhere.’
They both started laughing again at the awkwardness of it all, then Nicholas said more seriously, ‘I think you should keep looking. Maybe he expected you to.’
‘Maybe.’ Caitlyn sighed. ‘I will, when I can face it. But I do want to move to Kings Harcourt sooner rather than later. The agents won’t care when I go as long as I pay the rent to the end of the contract. I’ve found some local movers who can pack me up and get me out as soon as I like. By the end of next week even. So I thought I might go over with Max tomorrow, and give him a tour of his new home, if you think that would be okay?’
Nicholas thought a moment, then said, ‘I don’t see why not. I’ll check with Aunt G. I’m collecting Coco this afternoon from her godmother, who brought her over from America. Why don’t we pick up you two tomorrow? I was thinking of taking her to a theme park but this would be much nicer. We can make a day trip of it.’
‘Okay. Yes. That’s sounds lovely, I’d like to meet Coco. And I’ll book the movers, if you’re sure that’s okay. I just have the strongest feeling that it’s best if Max and I leave Oxford as soon as we can.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Tommy couldn’t stop watching Barbara. She saw clearly what she had only half noticed before: Barbara concentrated her entire attention on Mrs Whitfield and Roger. She didn’t do it showily and draw attention to it, but Tommy now saw the intensity and dedication of Barbara’s actions
.
At every meal, Barbara was at the side of one or the other, most often Mrs Whitfield, with whom she talked easily, and who she made sure was supplied with anything she needed. Then there were the long afternoons she spent at the old lady’s side.
While Gerry or I look after Molly.
In the morning, Barbara took tea to Roger and walked with him around the house, Roger sometimes declaiming as he went, and Barbara murmuring, one slender arm tucked through one of Roger’s meatier ones. But what amazed her most was that Roger seemed to be so susceptible. Now that she was observing properly, she realised that Roger was eager to be given attention and listened to, and that Barbara was the only person in the house to give him that.
Tommy was writing letters in the morning room, though there was no hope of posting them. She looked up as Fred came in, his expression excited.
‘There’s a movement in the lane. It looks as though the men have been out digging the roads clear and they’re finally reaching us.’
‘What?’ Tommy dropped her pen and jumped up. They hurried upstairs to look out of the upper window over the landing. There, across the field of white, they could see the slowly moving dots of black and behind them a vehicle breaking through where they had cleared.
‘Oh my goodness,’ Tommy said, thrilled. ‘They’re coming towards us. That means we’ll be able to get out soon. Perhaps the thaw is coming!’ She turned to Fred and without thinking threw her arms around him. ‘This is marvellous!’ Tears of delight sprang into her eyes. Now that the end might be in sight, she realised what an awful strain this long period of isolation had been on them all. The constant darkness and the battle to stay warm and fed had depleted and depressed them all, but only now did Tommy realise how much it had been oppressing her.
Fred returned her hug and they almost jumped up and down with the childish glee of seeing escape.
‘I’m sorry – your side!’ Tommy said, pulling away.
‘It’s much better. It’s almost healed.’ He smiled gently. ‘I don’t mind you hugging me one bit.’