The Winter Secret

by Lulu Taylor

  ‘That reminds me – we had a visitor while you were away.’

  Charles’s gaze flicked up at her, instantly enquiring. ‘Who?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘A man who used to live here when he was a boy.’ She told him what Gawain Ashley had recounted of his time at the house. Charles listened, interested, while he picked at his yoghurt and fruit salad, and drank his coffee.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said when she’d finished. ‘That’s intriguing.’

  ‘I asked him to the party, if he’s still around.’

  ‘Good, I’d like to meet him. Anything that can shed light on the history of this place is of interest to me, as you know. I always wondered what went on during the years that old woman was here with her mother. Another piece in the jigsaw of Charcombe Park. Film stars, sea captains and now painters. Excellent.’ He took a sip of his coffee.

  ‘He’s thinking about writing a book about the house and Natalie Rowe, and he was very taken by the story of Captain Redmain. He’s going to Portsmouth to do a bit more research.’

  Charles frowned. ‘I’m not sure about that. I don’t think I want someone writing a book about my house.’

  Buttercup was surprised. ‘I thought you’d want a wider audience for Captain Redmain’s exploits.’

  ‘You don’t know everything,’ Charles said crisply. ‘It’s my damn business and my damn house. I’ll explain that to this Ashley person when I see him.’ He stood up. ‘Actually, I’m not feeling at all chipper. I’m going to go back to bed.’

  Buttercup watched him leave, feeling wrong-footed again. Somehow she’d angered him, but had no idea how.

  He’s not well. We’ll sort everything out when he’s better.

  Charles went to bed and immediately fell asleep. When he woke later, he was feverish and headachy, wanting only to sip water, take a pill and sleep again. Anxious, Buttercup looked in on him every few hours, until he was awake again, bleary-eyed and evidently ill.

  ‘You’d better keep your distance,’ he said in a tired voice, ‘just in case I’ve got something catching. Sorry, darling, this is very boring for you. Can you pop up to London, see some friends or something?’

  ‘I don’t want to leave you when you’re not well.’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do. Honestly, I just want to sleep this thing off. I’m good for nothing for at least a day or two.’

  Buttercup thought of Ingrid’s letter, upstairs in her bedside drawer. This was her opportunity to return it without being interrogated. ‘If you’re sure . . . I wouldn’t mind going up to do some Christmas shopping.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Charles smiled weakly. ‘I’ll feel better knowing you’re occupied. You go, and by the time you’re back, I’ll be back to my old self.’

  Buttercup got to London late in the afternoon, and asked Rose to come up to the flat.

  For once, Rose seemed faintly reluctant. Elaine glanced over and Rose immediately said she would be up there as soon as possible. Ten minutes later, she was knocking at the door. She was hardly inside before she said vehemently, ‘I’m not touching that cabinet again!’

  ‘No – you mustn’t,’ Buttercup said, leading her inside. ‘Did Elaine ask you about the padlock?’

  Rose nodded. ‘I was an idiot. It slipped off when I was relocking it and I put it on backwards without noticing. It just snaps shut, you see. But when Elaine asked if I touched it, I stayed calm, like you said, and denied it. She hasn’t said anything else about it.’

  ‘Okay. Good. Listen, a piece of paper fell out when I was putting the files back together, and because Rich was here, I couldn’t tell you. So I took it away and I’m going to put it back tonight, but I need the combination for the lock.’

  Rose looked agonised. ‘I told you, I don’t want to have any more to do with this!’

  ‘Just the code, Rose. Elaine and Charles are going to check the files next week. They mustn’t find the letter missing.’

  ‘This is the last thing,’ Rose said, gazing beseechingly from behind her spectacles.

  ‘The last thing. I promise.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll get it for you. I’ll send you a text later. But then I’m done.’

  To keep her story straight, Buttercup headed out dressed up and made up at six o’clock, saying a cheery goodnight to Elaine and Rose as she went. She considered actually seeing a friend, but decided against it. She needed the flexibility of being on her own. ‘Don’t stay too late,’ she called out.

  ‘Goodbye, Mrs R, have a nice time,’ Elaine said.

  ‘I will – thank you!’

  It was freezing cold outside and she was wearing heels, so she hailed a taxi and asked for Duke’s Hotel in Piccadilly. When she got there, she went to the bar and ordered a single martini, which she drank extremely slowly while reading a book. When it was finished, she went outside, hailed another cab and went back to the Westminster house. It was dark, except for the lights she’d left on in the flat upstairs, and she rode up to the penthouse floor in the lift. Inside the flat, she got changed, ditching her heels for sneakers and putting on a pair of jeans. Then she took Ingrid’s letter out of her suitcase, read it one more time and made her way quietly downstairs.

  There was no reason to be quiet – there was no one else in the building, she was sure of that. Nevertheless she moved as silently as possible as she went down to the office. Rose had told her there were no internal alarms, so she didn’t have to worry about setting anything off. Even so, she was nervous and on edge, and jumped at the slightest creak on the stair as she went down.

  The office was deserted, the desks left tidy and all the lights switched off. She put on the overhead light, then padded over to the filing cabinet. She took her phone and photographed the padlock so that she would be able to put it back exactly as it had been, then used Rose’s code to open the lock.

  She pulled out the hanging file and found the folder on Ingrid, which she assumed must have contained the letter. Taking the letter carefully from the top of the cabinet, she pushed it into the folder at random. There was no way of knowing exactly where it had come from, so she might as well trust that its presence there was the main thing. No one was likely to remember exactly where in the folder it had been, were they?

  She went to shut the drawer and then stopped. Here she was, at the repository of all Charles’s secrets. There was no one about. What was to stop her looking through everything?

  Fear. This is spooky, here in the office at night, where I shouldn’t be, looking at things I’m not supposed to see.

  But Charles was far away, asleep in Dorset. Elaine was at home. What was there to be afraid of?

  They are about to go through this cabinet to check no one has been here. If I start disturbing things, they are bound to notice.

  Yes, she needed to play it safe. She’d already sailed too close to the wind. She shouldn’t push her luck. Instead, she should close the drawer, go upstairs and watch some television with a nice cup of hot chocolate.

  That’s what I’ll do.

  But as she was pushing the drawer shut, her eye was caught by another file tab: ‘C. Redmain, Medical’. As soon as she saw it, she stopped and remembered Charles asking Elaine to check his medical files were intact. And he’d been saying he wanted to see his Harley Street doctor. She wondered if something had been wrong with him lately and whether he’d made some appointments with his doctor. She knew he wouldn’t tell her that. It was the kind of thing he kept strictly private.

  I could have a quick look, she thought. It won’t take a moment.

  She pulled the file out, carried it over to Rose’s desk, sat down and began to read.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  1959

  ‘It is too much,’ Papa said simply. ‘It’s too painful, Xenia. It’s intolerable.’

  Xenia gazed at him with scared eyes. ‘What do you mean, Papa?’

  She was almost twenty-one but there was no question of a party for her. There had been no parties at Charcombe Park for years, and
even visitors were no longer welcome unless they knew and understood the situation. If they were not frightened by Mama’s condition, if they loved her even when she was attacking them verbally or using foul language, looking a mess in a filthy dressing gown, then they could come. But not many were able to manage that.

  Papa got up and began pacing around the library. He was wearing his favourite velvet smoking jacket and tasselled slippers, warmth against the cold January weather outside. They seemed incongruous with the subject matter they were discussing. ‘Without money, we simply can’t continue as we are. Mama can’t work in her condition.’

  ‘But I thought we had enough money, once we sold the London house. You said the money would last for years.’

  Papa looked at her crossly. ‘Don’t be so foolish. The money realised by the sale ran out a long time ago. We are in a difficult position. The ECT hasn’t worked, that much is plain.’

  ‘It works in a way,’ Xenia said hopefully. ‘It stops the attacks.’

  ‘Only temporarily. They always come back. And with her memory shot to pieces, it’s all she can do to learn her own name, let alone a script. We need a permanent solution.’

  ‘But there isn’t one!’ she cried in despair. ‘That’s the whole point.’

  ‘Except . . . perhaps there is. We have one last chance. I’ve found another doctor. One who promises that he can bring Mama back to her old self. But it means an operation.’

  ‘She’ll never agree,’ Xenia said quickly, shaking her head. ‘She won’t go into a hospital.’

  Ever since her stay in the sanatorium that had doused her in ice baths, Mama had developed a pathological hatred of hospitals. The doctors and nurses who visited the house had to wear ordinary clothes before she would allow them near her. Xenia quailed at the thought of trying to force her inside a hospital or anywhere near a ward.

  Papa turned to stare into the crackling fire in the grate. ‘I know that. She won’t need to go into hospital. We will do the operation here. The doctor assures me that it’s quite possible as long as we take the proper hygiene precautions, and I agree with him.’

  Xenia stared at the flames as they flickered against the sooty back of the fireplace, dancing over the top of the logs. Could Papa be right? Perhaps we do have one last chance to cure Mama. It was his idea to try the ECT, and it most certainly helped. ‘What is this operation?’

  ‘It’s performed on the brain. It removes the rotten part, the part that’s driving her mad, and leaves the rest, which is healthy. Then, at last, she will be better – permanently.’

  Xenia stared at him, bewildered. ‘But isn’t an operation on the brain extremely dangerous?’

  Papa became instantly angry. ‘Obviously there are risks, which is why I’ve hired the finest surgeon I could find, one who’s properly qualified in this area, with a one hundred per cent success rate. He has cured dozens of cases like this.’

  Xenia frowned. ‘Then why haven’t we heard of him before?’

  Papa sighed, still irritated and defensive. He evidently wanted to be praised for his discovery, not questioned and doubted. ‘The procedure is a little controversial, it’s true. You know what the medical establishment can be like – resistant to change, unprepared for challenges to its accepted practice. But this is going to work, Xenia! We will get Mama back this time, I have every confidence.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure . . .’ Xenia said. An operation on the brain? Surely the risks were far too great. She felt uncertain, prepared for once to tell Papa that she didn’t agree with him, but he was such an unstoppable force. When had she ever managed to stand in his way?

  ‘I do know,’ he said firmly. ‘I’ve asked the surgeon to come here and perform the operation as soon as possible.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we ask Mama what she thinks before we operate on her brain?’

  Papa’s face changed completely in a moment, his expression fiercely angry. ‘Ask a lunatic?’ he yelled, throwing up his hands. ‘Ask a madwoman? You’re crazy yourself if we think we should listen to her. No, Xenia, she isn’t capable, you know that. We know best. She hates the way she is, we hate it too. This is her last chance. We are going to take it.’

  By the time the surgeon arrived for the operation, the weather had turned dark and relentlessly cold. The snow was falling hard and settling over the house and grounds like a blanket as the car carrying the surgeon and his ominous black bag, his anaesthetist and nurse, drove up to Charcombe Park.

  ‘This is the answer for Mama,’ Papa had insisted. The papers arrived in the post and he signed them. He told Xenia to sign them too because the surgeon required two signatures in order to operate. ‘She will be grateful to you forever,’ he declared.

  And so she had signed.

  ‘We will operate as soon as the room is prepared,’ the surgeon said.

  ‘Even though it’s dark?’ Xenia asked, shivering with cold in the hall.

  ‘We need electric light in any case, to see clearly. Night is better, in some respects.’

  Xenia watched, scared, as they set about preparing. The kitchen was chosen. It was warm from the range, and could easily be scrubbed down; water was close at hand, and the hanging lights over the kitchen table would provide the right illumination. The kitchen table itself was large enough to double as an operating table, with plenty of space around it.

  Upstairs, Mama was in her room, unaware of what awaited her until, when at last the room was ready, Xenia and Papa brought her downstairs, blinking in her white nightgown, bewildered until they went into the kitchen and she saw at once what was intended: the table was covered in a green cloth, a tray of obscene-looking instruments on a stand next to it. A huge gas canister with a mask attached by hoses was close by, and a machine to monitor the heart. Next to them stood the nurse in white and the doctors in their hospital coats and masks.

  ‘No, I won’t, I won’t!’ Mama turned terrified eyes to Xenia. ‘Please, darling, no, don’t let them touch me.’

  ‘But please, Mama, they want to make you better!’ Xenia said, struggling with her mother, her own eyes filling with tears.

  ‘Natalie!’ shouted Papa. ‘This is your cure, this is the answer!’

  ‘No!’ cried Mama, trying to shake them both off. ‘I won’t do it. Leave me alone, how can you do this to me?’ She started to weep.

  Xenia couldn’t take it any more. She dropped her mother’s arm. ‘I won’t make her, if she doesn’t want to. Can’t you see it’s wrong?’ She began to sob. ‘It’s all wrong.’

  Mama shrieked and tried to tear her other arm free of Papa’s grip. He held it tighter, and yelled over her:

  ‘Please, Natalie, for me! For Paul! Do it for me!’

  His voice seemed to reach her. Suddenly Mama quietened. She stopped struggling and turned to look at Papa, her eyes beseeching through her tears. ‘Paul . . . I want to make you happy, you know that. I dream of it. Will you . . . will you love me again if I do it?’

  ‘This is your cure,’ he said urgently. ‘It will make everything the way it used to be. You and me. Everything.’

  ‘Do you promise? You’ll stay with me, no matter what?’

  ‘I’ll always stay with you,’ Papa said firmly. ‘But you must do this. For me.’

  Mama took a deep breath. She glanced at Xenia and smiled a tiny smile, as though trying to convince them both of her courage. ‘Then . . . I’ll do it.’ She turned back to look at the doctors, and clutched Xenia’s hand so tightly it felt like a vice. ‘All right. I’m ready. I’ll do it.’

  She took a step towards the surgeon as the nurse advanced, only her eyes visible above her mask, and put out her hand.

  PART THREE

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  When Buttercup left London, she did not drive home as she had planned. Without informing anyone, she drove north, towards her mother’s nursing home outside Cambridge.

  When she reached there, though, she did not stop, but pressed on until she reached the icy windswept Norfolk co
ast. She drove on to Cromer and parked on the seafront. It was not long after lunch but the sky was already darkening, a reminder that the shortest day of the year was drawing near. The beach was deserted except for one or two hardy dog walkers, and she made her way across the sand, feeling the wind whip up her hair and coat it with sea salt. As she walked, the numbness that had possessed her for the last twelve hours began to wear off and at last the tears came, as she had hoped they would, if only to relieve the unbearable pressure within her.

  There was salt on her tongue, where her stream of tears seeped in at the edges of her mouth and left little briny drops inside. Her nose ran, and she mopped it with a tissue every now and then, turning her face away when she passed anyone so that they wouldn’t see her crying.

  This is why I can’t see Mum. All of this has to come out first.

  She wanted the ice-cold sea wind to lash her and hurt her, and the bitter cold to burn her fingertips and chill her feet. She thought of throwing herself into the frigid waves, or impaling herself on the spikes of the seafront railings. She wanted to pick up driftwood and beat her head with it, or strike herself with a rock. But why she had this urge to hurt herself, she had no idea. Perhaps it was because she longed to be free of the mental anguish that gripped her, and looked to physical pain as a distraction or release. It was as if her inner being had swollen and enlarged to become a giant receptacle for endless, bleak misery and towering frustration. Her small outer shell struggled to contain the massive void within her, dark emotions swirling like a black hole, drawing in misery and hurt.

  She walked to the edge of the water and when the wind was at its fiercest, battering her ears and face, she turned herself into it, leaned into its buffeting strength, and yelled at the top of her voice, a shout that became a scream that morphed into high, animal sobs. When she had nothing more to let out, she mopped her face with the screwed-up, sodden tissue and went back to the car.

  When she arrived in Cambridge it was early evening but there was still time to see her mother. She went into the brightly lit reception, hung for Christmas with garish tinsel and assorted decorations, while a blue and silver artificial tree flashed in the corner. Stacy was not on duty but the nurse on the desk told her that Mum’s new medication had completely cleared her recent infection, as far as they could tell.